***CCNC 2005
By John Latta
Las Vegas, NV
January 4 – 5, 2005
This is the second year for this Consumer Communication &
Networking Conference (CCNC), which is held prior to CES. Its
value, as last year also, is the excellent insight into the
research efforts at the major CE companies. Sony dominates, but
there is participation by Panasonic and Samsung. Yes, there are
academic papers but these have value also in bringing a fresh
perspective. This year there were four parallel tracks and we
had to pick carefully. Our bias was on applications in the home,
new technologies and what the major CE companies are doing.
What Happens when Wireless Sensor and Consumer Multimedia
Networks Converge?
Jan Rabaey, of the Berkeley Research Center, Department of EECS,
UC Berkeley, gave the first keynote. This is one of the first
presentations we have seen in the US to acknowledge the role of
ambient intelligence. Professor Rabaey extended this notion with
the role of sensor networks as the second side of ambient
intelligence. One side is that of the Sensor and Actuator
Networks and the second of Multimedia Networks. It was important
when he stated that sensor networks alone have no meaning unless
they do something and this is reflected in the actuator
component of the networks. He cited the On World Emerging
Wireless Research study which predicts a market of $7b by 2010.
This convergence of the two networks, sensor and multimedia,
best comes together in the home. Applications cited include:
security, environment control, energy management, object
tracking, advanced user interfaces and a sense of presence and
space.
On the sensor side he stated that today’s devices which occupy
10’s of cm cubed and 10 to 100’s of mw of power are not
adequate. What is needed are devices which are only 10’s of mm
cubed and take only 10’s of microwatts of power. To accomplish
this, the Berkeley Wireless Research Center built a 100microWatt
self contained sensor module. This achieved its power by energy
scavenging, a very simple radio, ultra-low power processors with
the same in standby power and architecture which maximize
standby time. There is a down side to this – when electronics
disappear they have a tendency to become unreliable. The typical
response is to over-design the network and this is the wrong way
to go. The right answer is to exploit the nature of ambient
intelligence. One aspect of this is to gain reliability through
redundancy. In a sensor network this implies a multihop network
which uses opportunistic routing.
Professor Rabaey concluded that the design of these systems
needs to focus on a level of abstraction which is useful to the
users – in other words, embody ambient intelligence. An example
cited was “turn on the bedroom lights at dusk.” This implies a
location service, a time synchronization service and a concept
repository service.
Sony Looks at Media Recommendation Technology
Noriyuki Yamamoto, of the Intelligent Systems Research
Laboratory, Sony, Japan presented research on the development of
an algorithm focused on individual viewpoints for the selection
of television content. Using a vector space approach he sought
to do for television viewing what is being done online with
Amazon, CoCoon, eBay and others. The focus of the research is on
Content Based Filtering (CBF). The content representation is
based on a metadata scheme which profiles a TV program. This
includes fields that have channel, time, genre, title, review
and cast. From this a vector space is constructed. Then
techniques are used to match up vectors which are to form
measures of similarity.
The test results showed that an individually weighted vector
provided the best matching scores. One shortfall is that the
quality of the metadata is poor and this can be substantially
improved.
Sony Also Looks at Mood-based Navigation through a Large
Collection of Musical Data
The problem is simple. In the 1st generation of music systems we
had a stack of CDs now in the 2nd generation of musical systems
we have from 2,000 to 4,000 songs on a portable player. What is
missing is a logical and user based search methodology. What
Sony investigated was a classification scheme of the music based
on the mood of the music. The questions to ask are: Which moods
are useful for music selection, can these be automatically
extracted from the music and would individuals agree on a
selected musical piece? The research was based in part on, the
mood model of Thayer.
When the mood classification approach was used it was found that
there was little agreement between the listeners on what music
met what moods. In fact, there were large cultural differences.
The net result of this is the music mood assessment is best done
on an individual basis. Sony then implemented a automatic mood
classification system to rate music by mood. It was found that
there is a large variation between individuals on what
constitutes a mood and that in spite of this an automatic
classification of music mood was surprisingly good. They
concluded that:
With proper personalization of the mood models, mood
based navigation in large music collections seems
feasible and useful.
Sony’s View into the Future
Teruaki Aoki, Senior Executive VP Sony, announced an all CMOS
chip set with its solution for UWB in CE devices. This includes
3 CMOS devices, antenna and firmware. It is able to
automatically set up a network configuration, perform
registration and establish communications using Ad Hoc mesh
networking. The chip set will support data rates from 58 – 466
Mb/s in the band 3.1 – 5GHz. They use Direct Sequence Spread
Specturm to accomplish the WPAN.
The keynote by Mr. Aoki provided one view into the role of CE in
a broadband world. Yes, we have heard this before but there was
an interesting perspective. That is, the era from 1994 to 2004
was one that the Internet was dominated by the PC. In the
future, the Internet will be CE centric. In fact, the whole
presentation was devoid of the PC. Sony certainly sees the
future in its own context and marketplace.
Xu Jin of the Sony Electronics Singapore of the Research
Laboratory described a novel positioning scheme for pen like
input devices. The new Sony technology was positioned directly
next to Anoto. Triangulation techniques are used to locate the
position of the pen. No special paper is required but some type
of paper table holder is necessary. Although not stated directly
it was implied in the simulation that the ranging technology is
ultrasonic. Sony did state there is a blocking problem of the
hand on the writing surface.
Anoto Pen in the Home
Mario Kolberg, University of Stiriling, in conjunction with
Sysnet in Glasgow, Scotland presented a use of the Anoto pen and
paper for the control of networked home devices and appliances.
The key to the design was the home control pad (of paper). This
allows for the setting and control of many devices in the home.
Settings include numerical control and timing for on and off.
Shown as partners in this effort were: Sysnet, Nokia, and
Logitech. In side discussions Mario bemoaned the Anoto business
model of charging for everything and creating a high barrier to
entry for new applications. A developer is just discouraged from
using the technology because the cost of entry to evaluate an
application is too high.
Mario described his research on how to use the Anoto pen and
paper in a home control application. This research used:
OSGi Gateway
Appliance control protocols of HAVi and X10
Some appliances are controlled with UPnP
An Anoto pen which was linked to the home network over
the cellular network via Bluetooth to the phone.
This latter requirement meant that the Anoto space was global
and required the use of a service provider. In response to a
question it was stated that this has an advantage of enabling
home control remotely, i.e., from a cell phone.
Panasonic Uses SIP to Control Home Networks over WAN
Dennis Buschmitch of the Digital Networking Laboratory,
Princeton, NJ presented the Panasonic view of how home networks
should be remotely controlled. The premise of this work is that:
SIP should be used to access network appliance device
profiles from a WAN based remote client;
XML Schemas can be used to for device profiles and
All of this can be accomplished without any changes with
existing SIP protocol standards.
Samsung Presents Home Media Center Architecture
Samsung outlined its approach to a wireless HD media center.
This uses UPnP, MPEG-2 for HD and MPEG-4 for video transport to
a handheld PC. It is important to note that the Wireless Home
Media Center uses the Linux OS.
Columbia University Develops Prototype for Location Based
Internet Telephony
Xiaotao Wu of Columbia University presented a demo system for
determining and handling location information with a SIP phone
network. The system uses SIP and SIMPLE for location based
services and they use LESS as a programming language for the
service implementation. LESS has a graphical based interface for
program development. Examples were shown on how easy this is to
use. The example included call redirection and acceptance.
Examples of services enabled by this platform include: tracking,
making communications decisions, triggering actions, and to talk
to a location. In the latter case an example was cited of how
one could reach a conference room where a meeting is being held
and a message can be sent to all that are in the conference.
Beep – Using Audio to do Precise Positioning
Atri Mandai of UC Irvine presented an interesting paper on using
audio from a PDA to determine precise location of an individual.
The premise of the talk is that conventional retail
establishments are not keeping up with the services being
provided online. This includes: adjustment of the shopping
environment based on the individual, contextual shopping and
others. The intent of the research is to allow an individual in
the store, who is carrying a PDA, to have the same type of
shopping experience as with Amazon, for example.
To accomplish precise in-store location, the PDA would put out a
short sound pulse. This would be done via a small download
program and nothing special would have to be done to the PDA.
Using acoustic sensors at the same locations as the WiFi access
points it would be possible to accurately determine the position
of the shopper. The system requirement is that this location be
done within an aisle. The results showed it was possible to get
2D location to 2 feet 97% of the time and 3D location within 3
feet in 95% of the time. It was estimated that a store of 10,000
sq ft could be implemented for $5,000. There were many questions
following this presentation.
DRM and Digital Media
Leonardo Chiariglione, the father of the MPEG standards and the
associated process, critically evaluated DRM. It was one of the
most objective presentations on DRM we have seen. Even his
historical assessment went back 500 years. His solution to the
issues around DRM is his on-going Digital Media Project. By
every indication this is one of the least passionate of the
efforts on DRM but gaining advocates and support by many players
with interests in DRM is not clear.
Will DRM Save Digital Media?
In response to this question Leonardo stated maybe. This was
only a teaser as he went deeper into the issue of DRM. To
explain the role of property rights he divides the business
world into the creators, intermediaries and the end users. The
creators, as a group are conservative, with a belief that their
property is ethereal. In order to protect the value of their
property they have sought assistance of the law to defend their
assets. Leonardo cited one such an appeal which happened in
1515. Another characteristic of the content creators and their
proxies is that they hate technology. However, end users enjoy
content, will readily use technology to consume media and when
they pool their interests together have a powerful position in
the market. The result of all of this is to create an instable
market.
The ability of end users to exploit new technology and to
consume content outpaces the ability of creators to adapt to the
new technology. What is significant is that before the 20th
century the ability of the system to create content far outpaced
the ability of the users to consume it. In the 20th century this
dramatically changed. The result, as Leonardo described it, was
that the business went from being instable to unstable. One
result is that to achieve balance, is to create less content or
to seek a technology solution. With DRM the holders of the
rights to the license of the content can manage the flow and use
of the content in any way the like. Leonardo described the
situation as one which no one cares about the end users of the
content. However, the end users do not have to buy under these
conditions because they perceive this as a losing situation. One
of the reasons is that many of the “little liberties,” taken
with content, such as fair use, have been halted by DRM.
To address many of these issues Leonardo has formed the Digital
Media Project. It began in December 2003.
www.digital-media-project.org
The position of DMP is that:
Digital technologies are an asset of mankind;
Creators and their proxies and end users should all benefit
from the use of digital technologies; and
Standards can allow content and its value to be preserved.
One of the key issues surrounding DRM is the need for
interoperable standards. The DMP seeks to accomplish this by how
it defines the value chain, the components of asset protection
and the protocols which are used.
802.11s – Mesh Networking Comes to 802.11
It was only a matter of time before mesh networking standards
began under the IEEE. Steven Conner of Intel is the technical
editor of the 802.11s Task Group and he conducted the panel. The
PAR was approved by the 802.11 WG in January 2004 and in July
2004 the first meeting of the TG was held. It is expected that
calls for proposals will be issued in 2005 and that it will be
at least 2007 before a standard is completed. The purpose of the
group is to:
Support mesh networks of small to medium sizes – up to 32
nodes;
Provide a protocol for self-configuring and secure mesh
networks;
Integrate mesh networking with the 802.11 MAC layer; and
Be extensible to allow for diverse applications and future
innovation.
The panel discussion on the 802.11s standards efforts exposed
many issues. Cisco feels this is the most important addition to
the 802.11 suite of standards since Ethernet was made full
duplex. Since the PAR was approved in January 2004 important
momentum has been gained in the efforts to create a mesh
networking standard, which will likely not be ratified until
2007 and products later.
The panel came alive with the participation of Peter Ecclesine
of Cisco. Peter has spent years on various 802.11 working
groups. He is strongly opinioned and drove home is points during
the rest of the panel.
It is his assessment that 802.11s is one of the few major
changes to 802.11 that will greatly impact its value. The last
one was the change which allowed dull duplex operation. It is
Peter’s position that 802.11s has to take into account the
following:
802.1p – Multicast
802.1q – GVRP/VLANs
802.1S Multiple Instance STP
802.1w Rapid STP
802.1X Port-based Security
802.1ab Discovery Protocol
802.1ad Provider Bridges
802.3 Fast Ehternet
802.3ad Link Aggregation
802.3ah – EFM Operations Administration and Management
802.16h License-Exempt Operation
802.21 Rapid Handoff
The WAVE asked the question:
Why will IP holders in mesh networking be willing to give up
their rights for the sake of the standard? In 802.16e this
flowed from a failed LMDS and MMDS market. The standards process
was the only why in which the parties had a chance of making
money. That condition does not exist in mesh networking.
Peter Ecclestine drove the answer by stating that no one has a
clue what will emerge as the standard. Yes, there will be IP
issues but these surface all the time in the IEEE standards
process.
The response to the question remains unclear.
WAVE Comment
One’s initial impression was that 802.11s was another Intel
driven agenda, like 802.16. But after watching the panel
dynamics, and especially the impact of Peter’s experience in
both the 802 process and his experience in wireless, against the
Intel youth, we can only surmise that no one has a clue about
what will emerge from 802.11s. Yes, this standard may well be
very significant but this will take years to emerge.
UWB Panel – A Puff Panel awaiting both Execution and the
Discipline of the Market
Many of the important players were present: Microsoft, Staccato,
Intel, Sony and Nokia. One slight problem – Freescale was not to
be found. One advantage of this was that the panel could laud
Multi-Band UWB and ignore the competition. The tone was set by
Joyce Putscher of In-Stat with a glowing assessment of the
market prospects for UWB. These included:
The emergence of products with UWB as early as 2005
(Christmas) – Using Line power
Battery powered devices by 2006
Mobile phones with UWB is TBD
UWB device sales were conservatively estimated at 10m units by
the end of 2007. A more aggressive scenario showed about 14m
units.
The opportunity market is the combined high speed USB and 1394
market. This is forecast at 900m units by 2008.
Sony brought some reality to the discussion. Points made were:
The value of UWB as a cable replacement technology only happens
at the time of purchase. Since cable configuration is mostly
accomplished after purchase and during installation the value of
taking cables away from this part of the user experience is
limited but it does have some value. However, the cost must be
consistent with the pressures of the CE market – very low or
marginally zero.
The true potential of UWB comes when it is in portable devices
but this is some years away.
In the CE market it is essential that UWB be available
worldwide. A CE company cannot ship products which will not work
in a part of the world – such as no UWB in Europe, which is
likely to move slowly on the adoption of the UWB spectrum use.
The WAVE asked the question:
If we reset the clock back 3 years, 802.11a was in the same
position as UWB is seeking to be today. There were
demonstrations on the floor, such as Magis Networks showing
video transport over 802.11a. Yet, today there are virtually no
802.11a CE products, many companies are gone and wireless has
not caught on for transport in CE. Why is UWB different?
Especially given the lack of a standard and the many technical
challenges?
Intel did most of the response and they basically said it is
different now with UWB. We do not have the fractioning between
802.11b and a. The market conditions are more favorable to UWB.
WAVE Comments
We are stuck with the lack of credibility in UWB advocacy.
How can UWB be so complementary to 802.11 solutions when they
are competing to do virtually the same thing? Yes, 480Mb/s is
impressive but when the transport bandwidth requirement gets
beyond one HD stream, where is the compelling value proposition
that cannot be met by 802.11 technology in the 30 – 100Mb/s
range?
802.11 chips are at commodity status and one can hardly get any
UWB chips. How can it be possible for UWB to have such a
significant short term impact, next 2 – 3 years, when the supply
is so limited and costly?
Are customers really willing to pay extra to replace cables with
wireless when the cable replacement scenario does not include
power and speaker wiring? The proposition is quite limited and
it remains unclear that this technology will meet the Sony near
zero cost criteria.
Without an IEEE standard, will enough chip companies drive into
the market chips sufficient to commoditize the chip business.
The VC’s have already been badly burned by the 802.11 experience
and it not clear that the same level of large fabless
semiconductor investment will be tolerated.
Technical details on performance, interference and operation of
UWB systems in realistic environments are sorely lacking. For
example, Intel stated that they have run some mutual
interference tests but no details were provided.
Increasingly UWB is looking like a solution, or at least a hoped
solution, in search of a market. This does not align with the
current hype.
CCNC was the source of interesting pen information. First, Sony
is doing research on the pen. Based on the presentation, it
could be read that their pen implementation is to counter the
strong Anoto IP base.
The second was a presentation on a home pen application using
the Anoto pen. Admittedly early in a potential development
cycle, it did show how a pen could be used to control home
appliances. The implementation assumed a Bluetooth-based pen
that is linked to a cell phone and has the advantage of being
able to control the home from any location that has cell phone
connectivity. The other piece of information from this
implementation was complaints on how difficult and expensive it
is to deal with Anoto on a seed project.
Convergence or lack thereof
CCNC is from the research side of the CE industry. This includes
both industrial and academic. On the business side we hear the
talk of convergence as IT is integrated with CE devices. Yes, we
saw a little of this at CCNC 2005. This generates a point to
ponder:
In reality does the CE industry see less convergence on a
practical level than the marketing message?
Wave Issue 0505 2/4/05 Article 1-01