New standard for e-Health devices & the close of H.264 development cycle
In a move signifying an important milestone for global e-health standardization, ITU members have reached first-stage approval (‘consent’) on the transposition of Continua Health Alliance’s Design Guidelines into Recommendation ITU-T H.810 “Interoperability design guidelines for personal health systems”. Consent has also been reached on the final extensions to ITU’s Primetime Emmy award winning video codec, Recommendation ITU-T H.264, concluding 10 years of ongoing work since the standard was first approved in 2003.
These achievements come as part of the output of a meeting of ITU-T Study Group 16 (Multimedia) in Geneva, 28 October to 8 November 2013, at which 18 texts found consent and 5 were approved.
Continua Health Alliance is an international non-profit industry organization enabling end-to-end, plug-and-play connectivity of devices and services for personal health management and healthcare delivery. The Continua Design Guidelines (CDG) embodied by ITU-T H.810 have garnered strong industry support and their formalization as an ITU-T Recommendation will stimulate their global adoption, improving device interoperability and paving the way for complementary e-health standards.
Recommendation ITU-T H.810 contains specifications to ensure the interoperability of devices used for applications monitoring personal health. The guidelines focus on the following interfaces:
· TAN-IF: Interface between touch area network (TAN) health devices and application hosting devices (AHDs)
· PAN-IF: Interface between personal area network (PAN) health devices and AHDs
· LAN-IF: Interface between local area network (LAN) health devices and AHDs
· WAN-IF: Interface between AHDs and wide area network (WAN) health devices
· HRN-IF: Interface between WAN health devices and Health Record Network health devices
SG16 also reached consent on what are the final updates to Recommendation ITU-T H.264, marking the first occasion in 15 years that no active work items remain open on planned extensions to the standard.
Milestones reached in ITU Conformance & Interoperability Programme
A meeting of ITU-T Study Group 11 working party 4 “Conformance and Interoperability (C&I) testing”, in Geneva in November has agreed to start work on a “Testing Laboratories recognition procedure” to streamline the selection of laboratories that can test for conformance to ITU-T Recommendations.
To support this new development, a new correspondence group to guide ITU-T’s collaboration with testing laboratories has been created. It’s terms of reference can be accessed here. The new SG11 work item on a “Testing Laboratories recognition procedure” will develop a standardized procedure for the selection of testing laboratories competent in the testing and/or certification of ICT equipment against identified ITU-T Recommendations. The agreed text on the objectives and scope of the new SG11 work item is available to ITU members here.
In parallel a new pilot project on C&I testing for implementations of the ITU-T M.3170 series on “Multi-technology network management” has also been announced, and charges ITU-T Study Group 2 (Operational aspects) to develop the relevant test suites.
In other C&I news HomeGrid Forum – an industry alliance formed to support the development and deployment of the ITU-standardized G.hn home networking technology – presented a proposal that it join ITU-T’s C&I Programme to share insights gained from its experience accrediting testing laboratories for the C&I testing of equipment developed in accordance with ITU’s G.hn standards (ITU-T G.9960 and G.9970 series). HomeGrid Forum also encouraged that SG11 undertake a pilot project in collaboration with ITU-T Study Group 15 (Transport, Access and Home), in which equipment tested successfully against G.hn standards by HomeGrid Forum’s accredited Testing Laboratories will join the ITU Conformity Database.
In addition, Iometrix – which provides standards-based certification tests to a broad spectrum of telecom service providers and equipment manufacturers – presented to ITU-T SG11 experts on the need for a conformance-assessment test suite for Synchronous Ethernet technology (standardized by Recommendations ITU-T G.8261, G.8262 and G.8264). SG11 C&I experts will, in this respect, work towards the formation of a pilot project in collaboration with SG15.
Latest Technology Watch Report: Big Data
ITU-T’s latest Technology Watch report charts the rise of ‘big data’, a term describing emerging technological capabilities in leveraging monolithic datasets to solve complex problems in fields spanning physics, computer science, transport, medicine, genomics, finance, economics and beyond.
The report is titled “Big Data: Big today, normal tomorrow” and can be downloaded free of charge here.
Policymakers, business strategists and researchers on a wide array of subjects view big data as an opportunity of unmatched promise, still far from realizing its potential. Advancing technologies are enabling the development of new methods and algorithms capable of detecting useful patterns or correlations present in vast seas of data. Analyzing more data in shorter spaces of time will lead to better, faster decisions across all industry sectors that generate and analyze data to inform future innovation.
The new TechWatch report looks at various examples of big data and associated applications in areas including healthcare, science and transport; describing their characteristics to identify commonalities among them, and highlighting some of the technologies enabling the upsurge of big data.
As is the case for any emerging technology or technological capability, several challenges lie ahead for big data, and the report identifies hurdles still to be overcome in the adoption of big data solutions for a wider range of scenarios.A conclusion to the analysis of big data resources and applications is coupled with an overview of global standardization initiatives in the big data arena. Covering the ITU-T work programme as well as those of other standards developing organizations (SDOs), the report concludes by identifying standardization gaps and new opportunities for SDO collaboration.
More information on the Technology Watch series can be found here, and experts interested in authoring or contributing to future Technology Watch reports are encouraged to contact the TechWatch secretariat at tsbtechwatch@itu.int.
ITU Climate Events in Peru
ITU is organizing a series of events in Peru, in December, focusing on ICTs and Climate Change. The events will raise awareness of the importance of using ICTs to build a green economy and shape smart sustainable cities as well as the potential effects of human exposure to electromagnetic fields. They will be opened by H.E. Mr Raúl Peréz, Vice Minister of Communications, Peru.
A meeting of ITU-T Study Group 5 ‘environment and climate change’ will run between 2 and 13 December. The meeting will examine a broad range of topics but notably is expected to see progress in areas including the development of a standardised ‘green battery’, a methodology for measuring rare-metal content in ICTs and an eco-rating scheme for mobile handsets.
6 December will see the third meeting of the Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities. Participation in this group is free of charge and open to all. The group, which has strong participation from municipalities around the world is, among other things, conducting a study into the integration of ICTs in cities’ operations. Conclusions will be fed into SG5 to inform its smart-city standardization work.
In addition 10 December will see the first meeting of the Focus Group on Smart Water Management which seeks to find smart solutions to the distribution of this most basic commodity. Given that globally 783 million people do not have access to clean water this will become an increasingly taxing problem for the world’s utilities and governments.
Deadline extension for Kaleidoscope 2014 Academic papers
he submission deadline for Kaleidoscope academic papers has been extended to 9 December. Kaleidoscope 2014 will be held at Bonch-Bruevich Saint-Petersburg State University of Telecommunications (SPbSUT), Russian Federation, 3-5 June 2014. A prize fund totaling $10,000 will be awarded to the three best papers, which will also be submitted for inclusion in IEEE Xplore.
Kaleidoscope events are peer-reviewed academic conferences with the aim of increasing dialogue between academics and experts working on the standardization of ICTs. Kaleidoscope 2014, the 6th event in the Kaleidoscope series, is titled Living in a converged world – impossible without standards? and will discuss papers offering innovative approaches to research on the role of ICT standardization in today’s global economy characterized by accelerating convergence of industry sectors and technologies.
The conference will uncover ideas to leverage this convergence in service of the public interest. It will highlight areas where ICT standards will improve energy efficiency and ease the introduction of new services in fields spanning healthcare, education, transport, banking, energy and more. The event will also explore means to enhance the inclusivity of the Information Society; addressing the demands of people with disabilities, and the need for standards to be accessible to people of different countries and languages.
For sponsorship opportunities, please see here or contact the ITU-T Kaleidoscope secretariat at kaleidoscope@itu.int.
For additional information, please see Kaleidoscope 2014’s webpage here.
First meeting of RG for Arab States on Economic and Policy Issues
The meeting was hosted by Bahrain’s Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) and 15 countries were represented at this first meeting of the group, which had its formation agreed in line with a contribution from Egypt at the last meeting of SG3, 27-31 May 2013.
SG3 provides a unique global forum to improve understanding of the financial and economic aspects associated with the growth of ICT, particularly with respect to the shift to IP-based networks and the exponential rise in mobile wireless communications. The needs of developing countries are an important focus of the group and an Ad-Hoc Group on developing-country issues meets at every meeting of SG3.
SG3RG-ARB’s management team, agreed at its meeting in Manama, is as follows:
Chairman:
Mr Ahmed SAID – Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Egypt)
Vice-Chairmen:
Mr Adel DARWISH – Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Bahrain)
Ms Zeinab Mudathir HAGAZ – National Telecom Corporation (Sudan)
Mr Abdelkhalek BOUJNAH – Instance Nationale des Télécommunications (Tunisia)
More information on ITU-T Study Group 3 can be found here…
European decision supports move to Universal Mobile Charger
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have embraced an opportunity to mandate the use of universal charging solutions for mobile phones.
n amendment to the Radio Equipment Directive of the European Parliament will require radio equipment – and in particular, mobile phones – to be compatible with a universal charger. The decision builds on the European Commission’s 2009 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with fourteen major device manufacturers which sealed a commitment to common standards for smartphones.
Now, with a short window of opportunity to revise the amendment, ITU is issuing a call to include specific reference to ITU’s global Universal Charging Solution (UCS), embodied in Recommendation ITU-T L.1000. The standard is approved by 193 Member States and around 700 private-sector companies, and has already been widely adopted by many device manufacturers and supported by service providers around the world.
Other news:
Videos from our experts:
Malcolm Johnson, ITU-T Director, speaking at ITU Telecom World-13 on the importance of international standards in today’s increasingly complex and interconnected world here
Thomas Wiegand, one of the experts behind the award-winning video codec ITU-T H.264, on tactile Internet—a way to better connect moving objects here
ITU blog:
ASN.1: Driving innovation for 30 years, by Alessandro Triglia here
Considering the meaning of convergence, by Mostafa Hashem Sherif here
ITU-T in the News:
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