News Briefs

According to the Associated Press, momentum is building for a new standard protocol that will enable network operators to bridge the gaps between mobile provider\´s voice calls and data services. The current standard--Internet Protocol for Multimedia Subsystems (IMS)--will serve only as a springboard for convergence between future services, nearly all of which will need to be adapted or replaced over time. Despite the growth of phone and Internet services, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), most wireline and wireless calls aren\´t transmitted in IP from start-to-finish; calls get converted to traditional phone protocols on either or both ends. The new capabilities this new standard is expected to usher in--including using a cell phone to view live television broadcasts, check the program listings, program a digital video recorder, or even watch programs stored on that DVR--are forecast to arrive by mid-2006. A report released this past November on science and technology in the US entitled, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future," says that the future of IT in this country looks grim. Norman Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation and one of the main authors of the study, appeared before Congress to report on his findings. Among other factors contributing to what Augustine calls "a serious and intensifying challenge with regard to its future competitiveness and standard of living" in the US, he and his committee of 20 national science, technology, business, and policy experts said that the end of the Cold War, the expansion of aviation, and the development of technology have eliminated barriers and produced almost "three billion highly motivated, often well-educated, new capitalists" into the job market. According to technology research firm IDTechEx, postal and courier mail services are expected to become the second largest market for radio frequency identification (RFID) item-level tagging. The firm expects that by 2020 postal and carrier services will label one trillion packages and letters annually, making this the second largest application--following the retail sector--of RFID in the world.