Carr strengthens India research ties

AUSTRALIAN Innovation Minister Kim Carr has met with his Indian counterpart and says the two countries are working toward strengthening science and technology relationships.

Senator Carr met the Indian Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Kapil Sibal in Melbourne last week to discuss the bilateral relations between the two countries.

These include forthcoming jointly-funded workshops the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund.

“Australia and India share many common areas of research interest and there are many exciting and world leading projects currently taking place between the two countries that will provide benefits to both our nations,” Senator Carr said.

“As part of our commitment to mutually beneficial research the Australian Government will support two collaborative workshops in emerging fields of biotechnology where we have complementary strengths,” he said.

The Indian and Australian governments have already committed to supporting two collaborative workshops in emerging fields of biotechnology where we have complementary strengths.

These include a joint workshop next month sharing developments in the research fields of nutraceuticals and functional foods, and another workshop on commercialised transgenic crops as well as those under development.

"The Australian Government remains committed to the relationship with India, particularly through our largest bilateral research arrangement - the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund.”

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Carr reviews R&D support programs

LESS than three months into the job, the Rudd Government has moved to review its research and development support programs, opening the door to an increase in the R&D tax concession rate.

Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr yesterday announced a broad review of the Australian ‘national innovation system’, to be headed by consultant and CSIRO board member Terry Cutler.

Senator Carr said the review would look at ways to streamline government assistance, possibly reducing the number of different federal R&D support initiatives and eliminating duplication with State government programs.

Senator Carr is a long-time advocate of the Commonwealth’s 125 per cent R&D tax concession as a means of driving innovation and improved productivity in Australia, and the review presents the first opportunity to introduce such a change.

“This review represents a watershed opportunity for the development of ideas that will ensure Australia reaches its full potential as a dynamic, internationally competitive and prosperous nation,” Senator Carr said.

“In particular, we need to find ways to increase innovation performance across the economy, to ensure that business has better access to new ideas and new technologies and to bridge the divide between industry and research,” he said.

Senator Carr said that central to the review would be to examine the bewildering array of government innovation and industry assistance programs.

“At last count there were 169 programs in Australia, across all levels of government, aimed at supporting innovation,” Senator Carr said.

“The review will allow the Rudd Government to work with the States and Territories to streamline these programs, reducing fragmentation and improving effectiveness.

The committee conducting the reviews includes BHP Billiton technology vice-president Dr Megan Clark; Macquarie Bank and Telstra director Catherine Livingston; and Commonwealth Chief Scientist Dr Jim Peacock.

Senator Carr also announced a review of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program as part of a broader review of the national innovation system. The review will identify areas to further promote and encourage investment and collaboration between research and industry.

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Melb Uni cranks up ‘Super-Broadband’

THE University of Melbourne has participated in the construction of ground-breaking “super-broadband” research tool that is up to 250 times faster than today’s internet systems.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Victorian Premier John Brumby were among those who watched the first showing of the next generation ultra-resolution visualisation being carried over a super-broadband link between Melbourne Uni and the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

The demonstration was an initiative of the high-profile Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD).

The platform is set to revolutionise the way Australia interacts with the rest of the world, allowing real-time, interactive collaboration across the globe, and combining high-definition video and audio with the sharing of ultra-resolution visualisations.

In the last two months, the University of Melbourne has constructed a massive 96 million pixel ‘OptIPortal’ visualisation wall – known affectionately as the ‘OzIPortal’ – constructed from 24 x 30 inch LCD screens. (By comparison, a standard PC can show about 1-2 million pixels.)

Unique in Australia, the OptIPortal facility brings together two individual concepts – ultra-resolution visualisation walls and high definition video collaboration technologies creating a powerful new tool enabling collaborative research across great distances in real time with participants visually exploring massive data sets.

Bringing the OptIPortal and gigabit-per-second super-broadband networking together is the cutting-edge expertise of two of the world’s leading telecommunications research units – the University of Melbourne School of Engineering’s Centre for Ultra Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN) and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which is a partnership between UCSD/University of California Irvine.

“This technology is a powerful communication tool which will push new boundaries for higher education and research in Australia,” said Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis.

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IBM unveils supercomputer on a chip

IBM Research has announced a photonics breakthrough that it says will soon allow the power of a supercomputer to be packed onto a single chip.

The company said it had developed way to convert electrical signals into pulses of light. The breakthrough means a chip uses pulses of light through silicon instead of electrical signals on wires.

In addition to putting the extraordinary power of a supercomputer into a single, notebook sized machine, IBM said the breakthrough had obvious benefits of drastically lower power consumption and reduced heat.

He breakthrough would also mean dramatically lower cost, while increasing speed and performance between cores by more than 100 times.

“While today’s supercomputers can use the equivalent energy required to power hundreds of homes, these future tiny supercomputers-on-a-chip would expend the energy of a light bulb,” IBM said in a statement.

In a paper published in the journal Optics Express, the IBM researchers detailed a significant milestone in the quest to send information between multiple cores – or “brains” – on a chip using pulses of light through silicon.

The breakthrough – known in the industry as a silicon Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulator – performs the function of converting electrical signals into pulses of light.

The IBM modulator is 100 to 1,000 times smaller in size compared to previously demonstrated modulators of its kind, paving the way for complete optical routing networks to be integrated onto a single chip.

“Work is underway within IBM and in the industry to pack many more computing cores on a single chip, but today’s on-chip communications technology would overheat and be far too slow to handle that increase in workload,” said IBM Research vice-president for Science and Technology, Dr T.C. Chen.

“What we have done is a significant step toward building a vastly smaller and more power-efficient way to connect those cores, in a way that nobody has done before,” Dr Chen said.

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Moon 2.0 attracts first entrant

THE Google-sponsored Lunar X Prize competition – which aims to encourage private sector space exploration – has attracted its first official entrant.

Odyssey Moon Limited, a privately-held company based in the Isle of Man and boasting shareholders from many different countries, announced its plans to launch a robotic mission to the surface of the moon.

The Google Lunar X Prize offers US$30 million (A$34 million) prize to the first company that sends a robotic lander to the moon that is capable of carry out a series of exploration tasks.

Odyssey Moon is the brainchild of Dr Bob Richards, a founder of the International Space University

Richards said that the company’s goal is to lower the price of getting to the Moon by an order of magnitude. Exploration would encourage a “moonrush” to Earth’s sister world, which he describes as an eighth continent rich in energy and resources.

“Our business plans have been in development for a series of missions to the Moon during the International Lunar Decade in support of science, exploration and commerce,” Dr Richards said.

Odyssey Moon has pulled together a team with deep experience in space exploration, overseen by chairman Ramin Khadem, a well-known figure in the international satellite industry and a former chief financial officer of InMarSat.

Odyssey Moon has appointed as its prime contractor MDA of Canada, a company with vast space heritage in providing robotics on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, and more recently for satellite servicing and planetary exploration.

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NICTA secures additional funding

THE nation’s peak technology industry research body, National ICT Australia, has secured an extra to hire a group of Australian chip researchers recently made redundant when their lab was shut down.

The 16 researchers, considered world-class in their field, were recently made redundant from LSI Australia – formerly Agere Systems – following the closure of their North Ryde research facility.

The additional $4.8 million in funding over two years was set aside by Communications and IT Minister Helen Coonan just before the federal election was called.

The extra funding from the Australian Government means NICTA will be able to offer new employment to these researchers. They will be working on wireless-related research within NICTA’s Embedded Systems research theme. This research is developing next generation wireless networks.

“Through this team Australia has developed a core competency in silicon chip design which is leading edge and contributed to Australia’s ICT capability,” NICTA acting chief executive officer Professor Aruna Seneviratne said.

The addition of the researchers to the Millimetre Wave Gigabit Wireless Project team will allow NICTA to fast-track research on the technology. NICTA envisages that the increased effort afforded by the LSI team could mean that research from the project would be ready for commercialisation in two years.

“NICTA identified an opportunity to merge the LSI Australia-Agere team with an existing research effort to create state-of-the-art personal broadband wireless chips which will enable people to transfer large multi-media files, such as entire movies, a thousand times faster than currently possible,” NICTA Chief Technology Officer of Embedded Systems Dr Chris Nicol said.

The researchers will be based at NICTA’s New South Wales facilities and will be part of NICTA’s efforts in Embedded Systems.

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IBM Research chief retires

THE IBM Corporation’s most senior research executive Dr Paul Horn is retiring after 11 years in charge of the company’s world-leading research division.

As Senior Vice-President of IBM Research, Dr Horn oversaw the largest and most prolific research organisation dedicated to information technologies.

For the 11 years Dr Horn ran IBM Research, the organisation retained its title as the US’ biggest generator of patents. Spending US$6 billion annually and employing more than 3,000 world-class research scientists and technologists, IBM Research is among the best resourced facilities in the world.

Dr Horn, 60, is credited by IBM with transforming the company’s research organisation “into an engine room of innovation and growth”.

Among the high-profile projects completed through Dr Horn’s period at IBM Research included the development of the Deep Blue supercomputer that defeated chess grand master Gary Kasparov, and Blue Gene, the supercomputer used to better understand human proteins.

He also oversaw the first use of copper and self-assembly in chip manufacturing, as well as huge advances in autonomic computing.

Dr Horn will be replaced by Dr John Kelly, who was most recently IBM Senior Vice-President in charge of technology and intellectual property.

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NICTA appoints Canberra research chief

FORMER Sydney University senior information technology research academic Dr David Everitt has been appointed to head the Canberra Research Laboratory of National ICT Australia (NICTA).

Dr Everitt has more than two decades of extensive research and research management experience. He most recently held the position of Chair of Internetworking of the School of Information Technologies at Sydney Uni.

Dr Everitt has more than two decades of extensive research and research management experience. He recently held the position of Chair of Internetworking of the School of Information Technologies at the University of Sydney.

He will take up the position of Canberra Research Laboratory Director from 16 July 2007.
Current Canberra Laboratory head, Dr Terry Caelli, stepped down from the position at the end of June 2007. He will continue to work with NICTA in a research leadership role.

The new building the Canberra Laboratory will move into in September will bring together NICTA's three offices in Canberra, housing the current 165 staff and students and allowing expansion by up to 220 people.

The A-grade 4-star environmentally-friendly building on London Circuit, adjacent to the Australian National University (ANU), is set to become the hub of innovative ICT activity in the ACT. It will include a cluster of ICT companies centred on NICTA's research.

"NICTA's new laboratory in West Civic is an important piece of the West City knowledge precinct that is forming around ANU Exchange," NICTA chairman Neville Stevens said.

Mr Stevens said the ACT Government's announcement in its recent Budget to provide an extra $6 million over five years to NICTA to support the organisation's continued development, to build greater innovation capacity in the Territory, and to support Canberra's growing ICT sector, was a welcome sign of support.

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NICTA spin-off leaves Australia

THE first tech start-up to be spun our of the federally funded research agency NICTA has been a mixed success for the organisation – the company has good technology that attracted customers, but it has also left Australia for good.

Open Kernel Labs was established as a commercial entity in Australia just nine months ago, the result of research work at NICTA’s Embedded, Real-Time and Operating Systems Research Program.

OK Labs (as it is called) has now moved on, establishing its corporate offices – including business development and field application engineering functions in the US as it headquarters.

The company said research and development functions would remain in Australia.

OK Lab’s product, OKL4 is an advanced microkernel and “supports a structured approach to building trusted and secure systems, and is being successfully deployed in a number of commercial consumer mobile devices,” the company said.

In a statement, NICTA chief executive Dr David Skellern did not express disappointment at the company’s operations heading offshore.

“With the incorporation of OK, NICTA can claim another success of its program to commercialize technology developed at its resource-rich development labs,” Dr Skellern said.

“OK is the first spin-out of NICTA to be incorporated in the United States and the company begins its commercial life with a revenue stream as well as strong interest from large global companies.”

Secure, reliable and trustworthy embedded systems software for mobile and consumer electronics requires strong, hardware-enforced protection boundaries around system components, enforced by a trustworthy microkernel.

OKL4 was initially developed under the direction of Dr Gernot Heiser, the chief technology officer and co-founder of OK. Dr Heiser is also professor of operating systems at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and a program leader at NICTA

With additional input from early customers, the open source community and PhD candidates at UNSW, this team has produced the highest performing microkernel operating system available today, he said.

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Microsoft in China research joint venture

The world’s largest software company, Microsoft, has linked with Chinese PC maker Lenovo to set up research facility in Beijing, the first time the company has entered an R-D-based joint venture.

The investment, which is though to be worth several million US dollars annually to both companies, will involve about 40 engineering staff from Lenovo, with an expected similar number from Microsoft providing technical training and support.

The 50-50 joint-venture partners will share any intellectual property produced by the organizations.

It is thought the venture will focus on new consumer device technology, particularly in the mobile device market.

The companies will share a facility on the Lenovo campus in Beijing.

Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie said the two companies would target opportunities in the consumer and mobile markets like digital photography, digital media and the internet.

Unsurprisingly, the development will also centre on products that build on top of Microsoft platforms.

“Today's announcement signifies another step in Microsoft's continuing efforts to build stronger collaborations with local partners, and foster a flourishing innovation ecosystem in China,” Mr Mundie said.

The announcement comes on the eve of a Microsoft-hosted Government Leaders Forum in Beijing, which was due to start last Thursday and Friday.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will address the leaders forum, along with Mr Mundie and senior vice-president for emerging segments market development Orlando Ayala.

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IBM gives next-gen translators to war effort

IBM is to donate next-generation Arabic-English translation software and systems believed to be worth US$45 million (A$55.2 million) to the US military to support the Iraq war.

But the donation – which IBM officially announced as a “humanitarian donation” – is so strange it is not yet clear whether the military is allowed to accept it.

Government lawyers are studying the offer to see whether it would be legal to accept it. The offer was made directly by IBM’s top officer, chairman and chief executive Sam Palmisano, to US President George W. Bush.

The donation of 1,000 two-way, automatic translation devices and 10,0000 copies of the software for future use, is intended by IBM to “help augment human translators” to improve the safety of US and coalition troops.

“IBM employees returning from service with the US military in Iraq have consistently emphasized two points: the importance of communicating with the Iraqi people and the operational challenges posed by the need to do so,” Mr Palmisano said.

“Although in many instances human translators are essential, we also believe that there are technological solutions to help mitigate the problem.” he said.

The IBM systems are advanced, two-way "speech-to-speech" translators – code-named MASTOR (for Multilingual Automatic Speech Translator) – that improve communication between English and Iraqi Arabic speakers.

Development of MASTOR technology began in 2001 at IBM's TJ Watson Research Centre and gained development support as part of the spooky Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA’s) Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use (TRANSTAC) program.

The technology is said to let users to converse naturally, producing audible and text translations of the spoken words. It can run on a variety of devices, like PDAs, tablet PC or notebook computers.

But there are hurdles yet to jump. Reports in the US quote a spokesman for US vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying the donation is greatly appreciated was “under evaluation right now”, but that did “not constitute acceptance.

The issue is IBM’s existing business with the military. The company is a huge defence contractor, selling about US$3 billion worth of goods and services into the military annually.

The issue muddied by the fact that MASTOR technology being donated by IBM is currently undergoing testing – along with rival technology – by the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command.

A podcast conversation with IBM researcher and chief translation technologist David Nahamoo regarding the donation and the future of translation can be found here.

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Gates returns to Harvard

BILL Gates didn’t feel the need to finish undergraduate studies at Harvard University before plunging into the whole change-the-world, computer-on-every-desk thing.

Not that Harvard holds it against him. The university has invited the Microsoft chairman to be principal speaker at its 356th Commencement day in June, returning Gates to the halls where he met his friend and current Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

Gates had already founded for-profit businesses in software and consulting during his during his junior year, so by the time he had met and befriended Ballmer, his work at Harvard was probably done. (Harvard says Ballmer lived “down the hall at Currier House” when the two were undergrads.)

Well, that and forming a friendship – and a lot of computer code – with the other Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Gates is a member of the Harvard College Class of 1977, which is to celebrate its 30th reunion at the Commencement.

Having arrived as a freshman at Harvard in 1973, Gates was to have graduated in 1977, but famously dropped out in 1975 to focus with Allen on building the Microsoft into the US$44 billion (A$55 billion) revenue business it is today.

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CSIRO ICT chief scientist honoured

AUSTRALIA’S peak research body has named CSIRO ICT Centre chief scientist Dr Trevor Bird as a CSIRO Fellow, the first information and communications technology researcher to be given the honour.

Dr Bird was among seven scientists appointed as CSIRO Fellows by chief executive Dr Geoff Garrett at a ceremony at the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra yesterday.

Dr Bird, who was presented with a CSIRO-produced titanium ring as a token of his “dedication and eminence”, was appointed for his contribution to reflector antennas, multiple beam antennas, and arrays.

Also appointed were Dr Greg Constable from CSIRO Plant Industry; Dr Ron Ekers and Dr Dick Manchester from the Australian Telescope National Facility; Dr Trevor McDougall and Dr Steve Rintoul from Martine and Atmospheric Research; and Dr david trim from Petroleum Resources.

The seven new Fellows join the three existing CSIRO Fellows – Dr Jim Peacock and Liz Dennis, both renowned plant scientists from CSIRO Plant Industry, and Dr Ezio Rizzardo from CSIRO Molecular & Health Technologies.

The Fellows will be closely involved in a number of CSIRO initiatives planned to enhance the organisation’s science and attract more young scientists.

Dr Bird is known internationally known for his work on antennas and arrays. In addition to his work as CSIRO ICT Centre chief scientist – where his role is to provide leadership in developing and nurturing professional skills in the fields of science and engineering – he is also an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University.

He is also a Fellow at the IEEE, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and Engineers Australia.

Dr Bird has led projects including the design of operational antenna systems on the Optus-B, Galaxy IV and Orion satellites. He led the design of earth stations for the Australian Department of Defence and Telstra.

He has also guided the development of CSIRO’s MultiBeam earth station antenna, and designed innovative multibeam feed arrays for the Parkes radio telescope, as well as radio telescopes at Jodrell Bank in the United Kingdom, and Arecibo in the United States.

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CSIRO in tech transfer link with China

AUSTRALIA’S peak research outfit, the CSIRO, has signed an technology transfer agreement with one of China’s largest IT companies to commercialise its wireless technology.

The CSIRO ICT Centre said its landmark deal with the China Electronic Technology Corporation for technology transfer in the areas of wireless antennas would be the first in a long-term partnership.

“With its booming economy and large consumer base, China is fast becoming a significant early adopter of new technologies,” CSIRO Wireless technologies director Dr Jay Guo said.

“This is just the first success in a long term partnership between the two parties.”

He said the CSIRO was confident that the deal would allow the opportunity for “a closer collaboration between China and Australia to extend research cooperation and develop markets for CSIRO’s research.”

The CSIRO is a recognised world leader in wireless technology.

Last December, Dr Guo’s team demonstrated a more than six gigabits per second point to point wireless connection with the highest efficiency achieved for such a system anywhere in the world.

At the time, Dr Guo said the breakthrough was just a first stage towards direct connections of up to 12 gigabits per second.

“The system is suitable for situations where a high speed link is needed but it is too expensive or logistically difficult to lay fibre, such as in congested urban environments, and across valleys and rivers,” he said.

“The system is also ideal for creating networks to meet short term needs such as emergencies and large events.”

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Research priorities outlined at Future Parc

TECHNOLOGY that can assist the environment – in particular water resources – will be a key theme when the nation’s flagship information technology research organisations outline research priorities at CeBIT’s Future Parc showcase.

The CSIRO ICT Centre is expected to use Future Parc to highlight its ongoing work in one of the hottest topics in Australian politics – the way it monitors Australia’s scarce water resources.

The organisation has made impressive progress in developing wireless sensor networks for use in collecting geospatial data.

CSIRO ICT will showcase the sensors used in its $9 million-a-year Water Resources Observation Network (WRON), which is being developed to help better management Australia’s water and to protect river systems.
“Spatial data and sensor technology have a wide range of applications, particularly in the environmental field,” CSIRO researcher Gavin Walker.

“This technology will improve our scientific understanding of Australia’s scarce water resources and will revolutionise the way scientists gather data.”

The organisation has developed the technology in close collaboration with the Open Geospatial Consortium, developing a set of improved OGC specifications to provide access to multiple sources of geospatial information to assist in decision making.

With a keen eye on commercialisation opportunities in recent years, the CSIRO has point to the water monitoring application as a technology with broad potential across the globe.

More generally though, CSIRO ICT the geospatial technology that backs WRON can be applied to a vast range of different applications.

Both CSIRO and National ICT Australia (NICTA) – the country’s other flagship tech researcher – are both expected to use future parc to introduce specific commercial initiatives.

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