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AT THE CENTER
The electronic newsletter of the
Silicon Valley World Internet Center

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

 

The Silicon Valley World Internet Center thanks its Sponsors for their continuing support:

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS
• Amdocs, Inc. •• Cable & Wireless •• Deutsche Telekom •• Fujitsu •• IBM Corporation •• SAP •• Sun Microsystems •

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK PARTNERS
•• Halleck ••• IC Growth, Inc. ••• Market Wire ••• Incucomm ••• Xterprise ••

Past copies of Newsletters and Directions to the Center are available on the Web site.

All programs are held at the Center unless otherwise noted.

To join our community, click on this link: http://center.infopoint.com/join.php

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POWER PUB: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2003
"WORMS AND VIRUSES: HOW SHOULD THE INTERNET COMMUNITY FIGHT BACK?"
Pub Master: Mr. Ames Cornish, Managing Partner, Montebello Partners
5:00 p.m.: Networking
5:30 p.m.: Pub Exchange
6:30 p.m.: Networking
7:00 p.m.: Pub Closes!
Open to the Public. Fee: $15 (cash or check, payable at the door).
More information below.

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SMART ITEMS BUSINESS FORUM (SIBF) WORKING GROUP: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2003
"BATTERY-POWERED RADIO NETWORKS FOR INDUSTRIAL CONTROL: A TECHNOLOGICALLY VIABLE PATH…OR JUST HYPE?"
Invitation only. Further information below.

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SUMMARY: INFORMATION SESSION: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
"Okinawa Information Technology Development Project Confers with the World Internet Center and the Fiber Internet Center"
Summary below.

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SUMMARY: PUB TALK: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2003
"10 Things About J2EE and .NET That Drive Developers Nuts"

By Mr. Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest & Member, Technology Council, Silicon Valley World Internet Center
Summary and presentation link below.

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POWER PUB: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2003
"WORMS AND VIRUSES: HOW SHOULD THE INTERNET COMMUNITY FIGHT BACK?"

Pub Master: Mr. Ames Cornish, Managing Partner, Montebello Partners
5:00 p.m.: Networking
5:30 p.m.: Pub Exchange
6:30 p.m.: Networking
7:00 p.m.: Pub Closes!
Open to the Public. Fee: $15 (cash or check, payable at the door).

In recent weeks, millions of computers have been hijacked by malicious code. According to a recent survey, the MS Blaster worm alone infected over 30% of companies with average damage of $475,000. Why is malicious code causing more and more harm to our Internet? How bad will it get? Who is behind it? What can we do about it?

Ames Cornish is a security consultant, Board Director for the FBI-sponsored Infragard, and Founder and Co-chair of the Internet Security special interest group. Mr. Cornish will lead a discussion of the malicious code problem and several proposals for how to fix it: Is it the responsibility of OS vendors? Security companies? Law enforcement? Individual home users? ISP's? All of these groups have been suggested, but none has stepped forward and solved the problem. Come and discuss the technology, business dynamics, and public policy issues that can help us fight back.

ABOUT THE "POWER PUB"

The "Power Pub" is a new version of the World Internet Center's traditional Pub evening. In responding to requests to lengthen the presentation and discussion time, we have evolved the "Pub Talk" to an hour-long "Pub Exchange" which will be a highly interactive discussion led, this month, by our expert Pub Master, Mr. Ames Cornish.

The Power Pub begins at 5:00 p.m. with networking and refreshments (wine, beer, sushi, etc.) The Pub Exchange begins at 5:30 p.m. and will wrap up at 6:30 p.m., allowing for an additional 30 minutes of networking. There will be a $15 charge to attend.

ABOUT AMES CORNISH

Ames Cornish leads Montebello Partners (http://montebellopartners.com) which he founded in 1997 to provide business strategy, Internet security, and application development services to high-technology businesses. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurial start-up companies, and venture capital firms.

Mr. Cornish was the founder, Chief Technical Officer, and President of Vividus Corporation, which was funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1991, and acquired by Sunburst Communications in 1997. As the product visionary, he conceived, designed, and developed Vividus' award-winning multimedia authoring (Cinemation), web authoring (Web Workshop), and children's (Amazing Animation) products.

Prior to founding Vividus, Mr. Cornish's roles included managing the Desktop Presentations marketing group at Apple Computer and managing the product marketing team for Business Graphics Software at Hewlett-Packard. Previously, Mr. Cornish worked in corporate finance at Kidder, Peabody, where he assisted in initial public offerings for technology companies and invented a debt-for-debt swap, in which over $100,000,000 was invested.

Mr. Cornish has presented at numerous industry conferences and appeared on national TV and radio broadcasts. He has been elected to the board of directors for the Bay Area chapter of Infragard (http://www.sfbay-infragard.org), an FBI-sponsored cyber-security organization. He is a member of the executive council of the Software Development Forum (http://sdforum.org), Silicon Valley's leading developer organization and is the Founder and Co-chairman of SDForum's Internet Security and Privacy special interest group (http://sdforum.org/sigs/security).

Mr. Cornish holds bachelor's and master's degrees in theoretical physics from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University.

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SMART ITEMS BUSINESS FORUM (SIBF) WORKING GROUP: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2003
"BATTERY-POWERED RADIO NETWORKS FOR INDUSTRIAL CONTROL: A TECHNOLOGICALLY VIABLE PATH…OR JUST HYPE?"

Invitation only. Further information below.

In the second session in a three-part series on commercial usage of sensor nets, this Smart Items Business Forum Working Group will focus on the viability of battery-based, low-powered radios in supporting communication for industrial control applications within the petroleum industry.

The academic and industrial research area of Sensor Networks covers a wide range of technology issues. One outgrowth of this research is commercial short-range battery-powered radios that can provide low-bandwidth data streams across multiple nodes of an ad-hoc network. This technology approach has an obvious contribution when conventional communication structures are not possible, for example on battlefields and on the surface of Mars. Some proponents of this technology have argued that it can greatly reduce the cost of providing data connectivity in industrial control situations. If data connectivity is substantially cheaper, then it should open up more sensor and control applications that can lead to overall process savings, improved reliability, reduced emissions, and so forth. Around these new control and monitoring applications new business processes will be needed and new enterprise-scale applications.

Petroleum processing and distribution is an example of a high value industry that has processing plants and pipelines spread over large geographical areas in very harsh environments. The cost of providing data connectivity is considered very high. This Working Group session will focus on the technology requirements for out-door control and monitoring capabilities in the oil industry.

The Working Group will address three major areas:

1. What are the characteristics of modern, current data communication and industrial control technologies used in refineries and along pipelines?

  • What level of reliability is required and under what operating conditions?
  • What are the minimum and maximum temperature conditions? - What are the design parameters for electrical noise and lightening strikes?
  • What are the constraints on operating electronic devices in corrosive and combustible environments?
  • Which technologies (e.g. dedicated copper, fiber optic, data-over-power wiring, or radio) are successfully used for data communication in these environments?
  • What are the approximate costs and limitations of existing methods?
  • What are the regulatory requirements for electronic technology deployed in these environments?

2. If there were a dramatic cost reduction in providing safe, reliable data communication for petroleum industry environments, then how would it be deployed?

  • Would it simply replace existing methods in new construction or would there be new applications with significant economic value?
  • What are these potential new control and monitoring applications?

3. What developments of existing sensor net data communications technology would be needed for deployment in oil industry environments?

  • Are short range (~10M), battery-powered radios applicable for this environment?
  • What advantages and drawbacks would come from an ad hoc radio network approach?
  • What are the most promising radio technologies (e.g. Wi-Fi, BlueTooth, 802.15.4, other)?

We expect to have several contributors from the petroleum industry - experts in industrial controls - share their knowledge of what is used today and what the industry needs. Working Group participants will discuss the viability of current technologies, as well as the benefits to the petroleum industry resulting from the deployment of radio-based sensor nets.

Note: In order to keep the discussion focused on potential new applications and data sources, we will exclude certain relatively established applications and technologies. For example, applications of transponders and geographical location and tracking technology have been covered widely in the marketplace.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

To register for this SIBF Working Group, please submit your name, title, telephone number, and a short bio to:

Dr. Susan J. Duggan
Chief Executive Officer
Silicon Valley World Internet Center
T: 650.462.9800
E: duggan@worldinternetcenter.com

There is no fee to attend, however, as this in an invitation-only session limited to 18 participants, the commitment to participate is strongly requested.

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SUMMARY: INFORMATION SESSION: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
"Okinawa Information Technology Development Project Confers with the World Internet Center and the Fiber Internet Center"

Summary below.

On Monday, September 15, the World Internet Center welcomed a group from the "Okinawa Information Technology Development" project. Mr. Ryo Tengan, Chief of Business Support and IT Promotion Division of the Okinawa Industry Promotion Public Corporation, led the group which spent several hours with Dr. Susan Duggan, the Center's CEO, and with Mr. Les Laky, Co-founder of the Fiber Internet Center (http://www.fiberinternetcenter.com). They explored the potential of developing a high tech region, connecting up over 57 islands comprising Okinawa through business links, fiber and wireless connectivity. The interplay between strategic knowledge exchange throughout Okinawa and Japan complemented the bits and bytes discussion around the challenge of bringing broadband connectivity to the islands.

In a time when the Silicon Valley seems slowed by the burdens of economic inertia, the desires of other regions around the world wishing to develop their own business centers for innovation encouraged and impressed the team from the World Internet Center.

For further information on contact with the Okinawa Information Technology Development project, please contact:

Dr. Susan Duggan
Chief Executive Office
Silicon Valley World Internet Center
E: duggan@worldinternetcenter.com

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SUMMARY: PUB TALK: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2003
"10 Things About J2EE and .NET That Drive Developers Nuts"
By Mr. Frank Cohen, Founder, PushToTest & Member, Technology Council, Silicon Valley World Internet Center
Summary and Presentation Link below.

By now in the Internet revolution, businesses building and operating Web-enabled applications, especially Web Services, know that consistently delivering user satisfaction and reducing unnecessary costs requires the combined efforts of software developers, QA technicians, and IT managers.

On Thursday, September 4, Frank Cohen, a member of the Center's Technology Council and founder of PushToTest, regaled a full Pub with the top "10 Things about J2EE and .Net that Drive Developers Nuts." Mr. Cohen shared his insights from multiple interviews with software developers outside of the Silicon Valley who have a different perspective and patience level than those in the fray here in the Valley. In a fascinating review of key elements that bother software developers, Mr. Cohen called for more sensitivity from Silicon Valley in the handling of software patents, clarity around development platforms and guidelines, and the general "handling" of the non-Valley population.

His top 10 things that drive developers nuts were:

  • Software Patents
  • Licensing
  • Sun
  • Microsoft
  • Knowledge
  • Web Services
  • Deployment
  • Users
  • Federated Security
  • Other Developers

To view Frank Cohen's presentation, visit the Center's Here then scroll down and click onto "September 4, 2003" to view the program information and presentation link.

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For further information on the Center's Sponsors and Knowledge Network Partners, visit their Websites:

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS
• Amdocs, Inc. http://www.amdocs.com
• Cable & Wireless http://www.cw.com
• Deutsche Telekom http://www.dtag.de/english/index.htm
• Fujitsu http://www.fujitsu.com
• IBM Corporation http://www.ibm.com
• SAP http://www.mysap.com
• Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK PARTNERS
• Halleck http://www.halleck.com
• IC Growth, Inc. http://www.icgrowth.com
• Market Wire http://www.marketwire.com
• Incucomm http://www.incucomm.com

Xterprise http://www.xterprise.com

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To join our community, click on this link: http://center.infopoint.com/join.php

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