Winning App converts SMSs to sign language
ITU announced the winners of its ICT Innovation Application Challenge during the 2013 WSIS Forum on 15 May. The challenge is part of ITU’s efforts to tap the power and interoperability of ICTs in promoting sustainable prosperity and business in emerging economies. The winner of the $5000 prize for the best app from an individual was MMSSign from Prof Mohamed Jemni, University of Tunis. The corporate app category was awarded to Senmobile Ltd for the application Defarlou which is a mobile order management system for entrepreneurs. Prizes for the application challenge were sponsored by Nokia Siemens Networks.
Making mobile phones accessible is still a challenge particularly in developing countries. Videophones are the preferred method of communicating for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, but, they require significant bandwidth and computer processing power to compress and decompress video in real time. The MMSign application converts text messages to a video sequence in sign language. The animations are avatar-based animation obtained by automatic interpretation of text into sign language.
SenMobile Ltd is a technology startup that specializes in innovative mobile solutions targeting the general population. Défarlou is a simple and compact ordering management application designed for entrepreneurs in developing countries. It can record orders and due dates, search for a specific order, keep track of order status and client payments, and send an SMS directly to the client when the order is ready to be delivered or picked-up. Originally designed with business owners of emerging markets in mind and developed in Senegal, défarlou means “order” in Wolof. The app is developed in Java ME and works on Java ME feature phones and smartphones.
More information on the apps can be found here.
Workshop extends ITU-T work on human exposure to EMFs
ITU members have affirmed their commitment to the responsible consideration of health effects associated with the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) that underpin wireless communications. ITU’s standards-making arm (ITU-T) has long been engaged with the subject of human exposure to ICT-emitted EMFs and an ITU workshop in Turin, Italy, 9 May 2013, has concluded with a Call to Action giving further impetus to this work.
The Call to Action encourages ITU-T Study Group 5 (Environment and climate change) to lead cooperation among standards development organizations (SDOs) in the interests of harmonized international EMF standards. In particular it calls on ITU-T to extend its work on human exposure to EMFs by developing and promoting EMF information and education resources accessible to all communities; establishing specialised EMF assessment and accreditation training programs for developing countries; and promoting open online compliance and reporting systems as well as the development of a standardized online system to demonstrate compliance with international EMF standards. Read the full text of the Call to Action here.
World Standards Day poster competition launched
The 2013 World Standards Day poster competition will award a cash prize of 1,500 Swiss francs to the creator of the poster that best illustrates the theme: "International standards ensure positive change".
The winning poster will provide the visual identity to World Standards Day, 14 October 2013, an international day of observance recognized worldwide since 1970. In addition to the first prize of 1,500 Swiss francs, the poster competition’s three runners-up will each receive a cash prize of 500 Swiss francs.
Coordinated by IEC, ISO and ITU, World Standards Day celebrates the collaborative efforts of the thousands of public and private-sector experts that volunteer their time and expertise in the development of international technical standards.
International standards represent the consensus view of the world’s leading experts in industry sectors ranging from energy utilities and energy efficiency to transportation, management systems, climate change, healthcare, safety, and information and communication technology (ICT). Contributing their knowledge in service of the public interest, experts in these and many other subjects come together to create standards that share innovation with all the world’s countries and so provide business, government and society with a solid platform for positive change.
The deadline for submissions to the poster competition is 10 June 2013. Designers are welcome to submit more than one entry to the competition.
The competition’s Facebook page will provide interactive guidance to potential entrants throughout the course the competition. The winning poster will be decided by a public vote wherein all interested parties will vote for their favourite poster.
The competition’s Twitter account will announce key dates and point followers to relevant supporting information.
See the themes and winning posters of previous World Standards Days here and more on this year's competition here.
Smart sustainable cities need holistic approach, say global stakeholders
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have a crucial role to play in tackling the developmental challenges facing the cities that are becoming our primary choice of habitation in the 21st century, concluded participants attending the 8th ITU Symposium on ICT and Environment Change, held in Turin, 6-7 May.
An estimated 65% of the world’s population now lives in cities. With an additional 1.3 million people moving from rural to urban areas every week, by 2050 more than six billion people will be living in urban agglomerations. In addition, the size of conurbations continues to grow, with the number of mega-cities of over 10 million inhabitants growing from just two in 1950 to 22 by 2015, 17 of which will be located in the developing world.
The symposium highlighted the importance of a globally coordinated approach and internationally standardized technologies in the creation of new ‘smart sustainable cities’. Greater integration of ICTs into urban planning will greatly facilitate opportunities for economic growth and social well-being, from better access to education and healthcare through to improved prospects of employment and living standards. The symposium concluded by issuing a call for stronger advocacy at the international level and for ICT policies to be integrated into the ongoing dialogues on urban development within the UN and other organizations.
Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, Secretary-General, ITU, “Rapid urbanization and high-density populations foment innovation and economic growth but also give rise to social, economic and environmental challenges, as cities’ infrastructures develop slower than the influx of new inhabitants. ICTs can make our cities safer, cleaner, and more convenient places to live.”
Microsoft tops up the BSG Fund
Microsoft, a long-standing member of ITU, has put forward a voluntary contribution of $40,000 to the Bridging the Standardization Gap (BSG) Fund maintained by ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).
David A. Heiner, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation: “The participation of developing countries in ITU-T standardization work is crucial in harnessing the full potential of international standards to enhance cooperation, trade and economic development. Microsoft is pleased to support this initiative that seeks to enhance the inclusiveness of ITU-T's international standardization programs.”
· Facilitate the participation of developing countries in the ICT standards development process
· Allow developing countries to profit from access to new technology development
· Ensure that the requirements of developing countries are taken into account in the development of international standards (ITU-T Recommendations)
Fulfilling the objectives of Resolution 44 demands considerable commitments of ITU-T resources and contributions to the BSG Fund make an appreciable impact in this regard.
The use of contributions for specific purposes is undertaken only with the agreement of the sponsor. Parties interested in contributing to the BSG Fund are encouraged to contact the BSG secretariat at bsg@itu.int
More information on ITU-T activities to Bridge the Standardization Gap can be found here
Frugal Information Systems take 1st prize at Kaleidoscope 2013
The winning paper is titled “Sustaining life during the early stages of disaster relief with a Frugal Information System: Learning from the Great East Japan Earthquake”. It advocates for the use of cell phones and the mobile Internet as the standard platform in creating information systems which prioritize resilience over robustness. Greater resilience is said to be achieved by deploying resources as frugally as possible and thereby limiting the number of resources exposed to damage in the event of a disaster.
Hosted by Kyoto University, Japan, 22-24 April – and informed to a great extent by lessons learnt from the Great East Japan Earthquake – Kaleidoscope 2013 sought to identify emerging ICT developments able to effect the change needed for communities to meet challenges posed by the new millennium.
Additional support was provided by NICT, NTT, OKI, KDDI, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Huawei Japan, Telkom South Africa, Blackberry, TTC, Waseda University (Japan), the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan (IIEEJ), the ITU Association of Japan, and the European Academy for Standardization (EURAS).
ICTs, driver distraction and standardization: Technical reports published
The ITU-T Focus Group on Driver Distraction has presented its final deliverables in the form of five technical reports to form the basis for ITU-T’s accelerating standardization work in the driver distraction arena.
Established in February 2011, the Focus Group has been instrumental in raising awareness around ITU-T activity on driver distraction and the scale of this workload, as well as in providing clear direction to ITU-T’s driver-distraction work plan. The group has also been successful in opening lines of communication with key organizations and drawing new expertise into the ITU-T standardization process.
The Focus Group’s five technical reports describe user interface requirements for automotive applications; system capabilities for improving the safety of driver interaction with applications and services; and approaches being used to enable external applications to communicate with a vehicle. The reports are freely available here.
ITU’s engagement with driver distraction originated with Resolution 1318 - ITU's role in ICTs and improving Road Safety adopted in April 2010 by ITU’s governing body, ITU Council. The Resolution was made in response to the fact that, as stated in Resolution 1318, “driver distraction and road-user behavior, which includes among many examples ‘texting’, ‘text messaging’, interfacing with in-vehicle navigation or communication systems, are among the leading contributors to road traffic fatalities and injuries.”
An ITU-T Technology Watch report entitled "Decreasing Driver Distraction" was published in August 2010, playing a role in kick-starting the work of the Focus Group. The report is a succinct overview of the relationship between ICTs and driver distraction and also discusses the core issues at play when viewed from a standardization perspective.
ITU called on to enable “smart” water management
Participants in an ITU workshop held for the benefit of government and private-sector technology leaders in the Nile River Basin have agreed a Call to Action which charges ITU with mobilizing its global membership to enable ‘smart’ water management.
The ‘smart’ integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in water networks adds communication, monitoring, analysis and control capabilities, increasing efficiency and reliability in water supply, improving delivery of water to crucial sectors like agriculture and health, and reducing water consumption and waste.
The ITU workshop ‘ICT as an enabler for smart water management’, was held in Luxor, Egypt, from 14-15 April 2013, hosted by Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The event was the first of its kind, and reflects the growing importance and acceleration of smart-water standardization work in ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).
Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, Secretary-General, ITU: “The importance of sufficient supplies of good quality water is recognized in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one of which is to halve the number of people without safe access to water by 2015. One of the many ways in which ICT will be central to the post-2015 development agenda is through supporting greater agility and efficiency in water management frameworks.”
WSC Academic Day and ICES approaching
The 2013 World Standards Cooperation (WSC) Academic Day will be held in Sophia Antipolis, France, 14 June 2013. This year's theme is: Education in standardization for future managers – Needs and prospects.
The World Standards Cooperation (WSC) was established in 2001 by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in order to strengthen and advance the voluntary consensus-based international standards systems of IEC, ISO and ITU.
WSC Academic Day promotes dialogue between universities and the international standards community, raising awareness and fostering cooperation and joint initiatives. The event will trigger the launch of new initiatives including exchanges of material, new courses on standardization, contributions of industry experts to university courses, and new or strengthened partnerships between standards bodies and academia.
At the same venue and during the two days before the WSC event, the 8th conference of the International Cooperation on Education about Standardization (ICES) will take place. 12 April is the deadline for the submission of academic papers to be considered at the event.
The Call for Presentations welcomes theoretical or empirical papers as well as case studies on education about standardization, in particular those that address the theme of 2013’s conference: Industry needs standards. What does industry expect from standards education?
The 8th ICES conference is hosted by the European Telecommunication Standardization Institute (ETSI) and supported by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC).
Industry needs for standardization education is the core theme of 2013’s conference, addressing what more standards bodies and academia can do to aid industry’s engagement in the standardization process and thereby strengthen standards’ marketplace implementations.
For more information, visit the ICES and WSC Academic Day homepage here
New ITU-IEC metadata standard for cross-platform IPTV
Cooperation between ITU and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has produced a new metadata standard to enable rights information interoperability in IPTV services. The standard provides a framework for communicating data such as that accompanying material under copyright, to ensure that multimedia content can be shared legally across different platforms.
“Metadata” refers to data describing aspects of other data, or information about information presented in the form of “structured, encoded data that describe characteristics of information-bearing entities to aid in the identification, discovery, assessment and management of the described entities” (Recommendation ITU-T Y.1901).IPTV metadata is information on multimedia services and content which provides a descriptive and structural framework for managing IPTV services spanning television, audio, video, text, graphics and data. “Rights information metadata” in particular refers to information on the rights granted to end-users of multimedia content, stipulating pre-defined ‘utilization functions’ including permissions to view/hear, copy, modify, record, excerpt, sample, store or distribute content; restrictions on times or hours content can be played, viewed or heard; and obligations such as payment.
To date, a lack of interoperability in rights information metadata has meant that consumers are at risk of being locked into solutions offered by a single service provider. A user’s purchased rights to multimedia content are dependent on and bound to the rights held by the service provider. In addition, service providers employ different technologies and systems in the management of digital content and associated rights information.
ITU-T H.751 | IEC 62698 provides clear mechanisms or rules for flexible digital distribution that allows for simple exchanges of content, enabling service providers to implement common interpretation and integration of rights information. The standard targets interoperability to ensure that service providers and device manufacturers can easily exchange rights information across their current content management systems. It gives the high-level specification of the metadata for rights information interoperability (RII), defining the common semantics and core elements on RII. In other words, it finds the greatest common denominators in rights expressions (syntactic embodiments of rights) to encourage the mutual use of rights information.
Workshop to progress Software-Defined Networking standardization
An ITU workshop on software-defined networking (SDN) will gather a global selection of standardization experts to progress SDN standards-development with one aim to establish efficient coordination of future work.
SDN is a promising route towards the introduction and realization of network virtualization, a major shift in networking technology which will give network operators the ability to establish and manage new virtualized resources and networks without deploying new hardware technologies. ICT market players see SDN and network virtualization as critical to countering the increases in network complexity, management and operational costs traditionally associated with the introduction of new services or technologies.
SDN proposes to decouple the control and data planes by way of a centralized, programmable control-plane and data-plane abstraction. This abstraction will usher in greater speed and flexibility in routing instructions and the security and energy management of network equipment such as routers and switches.
The workshop will be co-chaired by Wei Feng, Huawei, China, Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 11 (Signalling requirements, protocols and test specifications); and Chae-Sub Lee, Kaist, Republic of Korea, Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks including cloud computing, mobile and NGN). Confirmed speakers include representatives of ITU-T Study Groups 11 and 13; the University of Tokyo, Japan; MIIT/CATR, China; Cisco Systems; the ETSI Industry Specification Group on Network Function Virtualization (ISG NFV); and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF).
