Professor Badri Nath, Rutgers University
Progress in technology has made it possible to envision large scale deployment of dense ad-hoc sensor networks. These networks can sense and convey instant information about all aspects of the physical surroundings thereby exacerbating the gap between power laws that govern resources (storage law, Moore's law, etc) and the user's limited bandwidth to absorb this information. Hence, users' expectation will play a key role in data reduction and design of databases for sensor networks. In the context of a networked physical world, we address some fundamental issues of supporting various database functions such as querying, aggregation, multi- resolution, and location management while considering user's input. Many of the research challenges that remain will be addressed.
Dr Ravi Jain,
NTT DoCoMo USA Labs
jain@docomolabs-usa.com
4G Services, Architectures and Networks: Speculation and Challenges
Barely have 3G wireless systems taken off the ground (or bitten the dust, depending upon your point of view) than the buzz about 4G has started brewing. This talk will indulge in speculation about questions such as: "Who needs 4G?", "What's wrong with 3G?", and "What is 4G anyway?" Based on an unscientific analysis a list of 4G challenges will be presented. The talk will then briefly mention issues that no one seems to be talking about, in the hope of garnering some attention for the speaker's pet peeves. Finally the talk will end with some conclusions, with the warning that they are probably all half-baked.
Dr Anatole Gershman
Accenture Technology Labs
Ubiquitous Commerce
The development of the infrastructure for ubiquitous and mobile computing is progressing rapidly, yet the applications that will be built on this new infrastructure remain largely ill defined. We believe that the new kinds of services will result from three primary capabilities of ubiquitous devices: (1) to provide a service channel for remote service providers through an "always on" connection, (2) to inform these services about the local context of the user through an array of sensors, and (3) to enable these services to affect things in the user environment through actuators and local communication links. The new services enabled by these capabilities will lead to a new era of ubiquitous commerce, and change all business functions from customer relationship management to enterprise and supply chain management