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CA World '99
Up to now, information technology has been a rather serious occupation, reserved for the scientific types who spend hours of each day staring at computer screens. But at a recent convention in New Orleans, In Touch found that tomorrow's technologists are cool. And so is the technology they are creating. It's so cool that it's evolving way beyond the desktop. Within a few short months, their technology is going to find its way into your car, your pager, your cell-phone, your toys and even your wallet! The city of New Orleans is entirely appropriate for such a paradigm shift, with the famous Bourbon Street, home of Jazz, Dixieland, Blues, Zydeco and plain rock n roll. Every nightspot has a different sound and every restaurant a different flavour, and the only business of the day is party, party, party. For the delegates at CA World 99, the fun was happening at a different level, but no less entertaining - for the first time in the digital revolution, technology finally seems to be playing a more informal, but increasingly essential role in our lives. Hosted by Computer Associates, a global company based in New York, CA World 99 explored a number of themes changing the face of technology for the new millennium. Although the theme was the fun of software' complete with a computer controlled go-cart course, behind the entertainment there were three predominating themes - convergence, intelligence and 3D.
Ed Markowitz from VP Marketing, CA explains, "We really do believe that if technology is not used to help mankind solve problems, technology for technology is not the way to go. For instance, if you come into town and you rent a car, and that car gets stuck 400 miles from where you rented it, with certain technology called the Global Positioning Services, we can tell where that car is and send someone to sort the problem out. Technology is really about visualisation and about managing not only IT devices, , but other appliances".
3D visualisation is also making the virtual shopping experience a lot closer to the real thing: on one website, we were able to click on each piece of merchandise, rotate it, open it, and generally do very much the kind of stuff you'd want to do to the product if you were in a real shop. At CA World 99, we found that technology is moving from a wired to a wireless domain.
Technology is also solving another problem in recovering abducted children - what if a child has been abducted at two years of age, and is now eight years old?
Carrie Tucker from Advanced Technologies, CA explains, "What we have here is a New Orleans police car, and we have instrumented it with Unicentre. We will show it to you in TNG, how we can fly into the vehicle and show you the electronic data coming from this vehicle live right now. What we are seeing here is, Unicentre TNG's, 3-D real world interface. We are going to go ahead now, and activating the siren life-arm". Take the same telemetry technology, make it a little more sophisticated, and it becomes an essential tool in the world of Formula One racing. Computer Associates is one of the sponsors of the McLaren team, with driver Mika Hakkinen in striking distance of becoming World Champion, the second year in a row.
"These cars are incredibly quick", explains Richard Carmichael from TAG McLaren Marketing Services, "with speeds of 0 - 200 km/hour in 4.5 seconds. The whole car is designed to last the distance of a race, between 2 hours or 300 kms. The car is then rebuilt at the end of each day. Between ten to fourteen engines are taken to each race. To change gears in the car, takes between 20 - 40 milii-seconds, and the steering controls now contain the change of gear so the car is semi-automatic".
Christopher Hunt from View point Digital explained how possible it is to map a 3D image of a person: "This is a 3-D scanner. It is a Laser that uses light to take a 3-D picture. By hitting the scan button, it takes a snapshot of the person. The computer brings up a 3-D wire frame with the textures over it, as well the shaded view of the wire frame, to show contrast and contours". At CA World 99, delegates were also allowed a glimpse into the future of PC's as Intel President, Craig Barrett demonstrated the kind of machine that will be on our desks around 2003. The shape of the computer will move away from the conventional rectangular box shape, to a futuristic pyramid style. Chris Wren took the audience through a dummy run of the Desktop 2003. Before gaining access to the computer, the user would go through a fingerprint and voice identification security check. The computer would also accept voice commands to bring forward certain information that is required, as well as play back voice messages for the user. Increasing user friendliness in computers is not just a futurist concept. Already children's toys are becoming increasingly intelligent.
The applications presented at CA World 99, represented the cutting edge in First World Technology. But just how long will it be before it becomes pervasive in countries like South Africa? Dan vd Westhuizen from Middle East& Africa - CA explains, "What we have seen this week in New Orleans is a realistic vision of the future. In the USA , we are approximately nine to eighteen months away from that type of technology being deployable in the commercially viable sense of the word. The rest of the world always lags behind by six months, so for Africa, Europe to a lesser degree, and Asia Pacific, we are probably 24 months away from that reality". What was on display at CA World 99 is the next wave of Technology. Computer Networks that are unfettered by cables and work in wireless domains; that are intelligent and govern themselves; and that work intuitively in 3-D domains. It also means that we are going to start interacting with increasingly intelligent machines that could one day, by all human standards, be self aware. Contacts
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At the convention, Mr Charles Wang, CEO of Computer Associates had this to say, "There is a revolution going on in the business today, and IT has the opportunity to play the dominant and starring role. We are truly the heavy artillery, but we need to open our eyes and think about IT in a totally new and different way. In this new millennium, there are going to be two types of companies - the quick and the dead. Our real world interface creates a realistic 3-D environment of your business that lets you basically blow away your competition".
This new three dimensional interface and managed network technology lets you take control of systems from anywhere in the world, at the click of a button. In one demonstration, a report was received that some machines on a network in Los Angeles were experiencing hardware problems. The interface allows you to virtually travel to the troublesome network, and even fly into the interior of a particular PC. Once you're there, the software automatically presents the defective part for analysis.
A new software system called "Nugence", goes one step further. It learns by experience and can act pro-actively, by predicting when a server, workstation or a client will experience problems.
In fact, virtually any device can become part of a managed network. In another demonstration we saw how a Filling Station owner can remotely manage his fuel pumps and check the amount of petrol in each tank, or monitor the activities of the cash registers in his shop, right down to the level of credit card transactions.
But the most exciting use for this of technology is the area of E-commerce. Imagine being able to book a seat at a baseball game, and actually experience your view of the pitch before you buy the ticket.
Jim Pollitt from Strategic Alliances Page Net said, "We are trying to manage everything that is important to you, in your world. Whether that is managing a vending machine, a vehicle, an ATM machine. I really think that everybody in future will carry some type of a wireless wallet, that will allow you to control anything, be it in your home, turning the heat or the air conditioning on".
Technology on the hip is already making its mark in the world of law enforcement. One of the most heartbreaking crimes is the abduction of children, but immediate and portable access to pictures of missing or abducted children, just minutes after the incident has been reported, is leading to a far greater percentage of recoveries.
Tina Schwartz from the Centre for Missing and Exploited Children explains, "Back in 1990, the National Centre had a recovery rate of 62%. Since the emergence of all the technology and our website, our recovery rate is about 90% now because of the increase of technology. The most important thing in finding missing kids is pictures, and access to wireless technology allows us to get the picture and text out, hopefully to law enforcement in the field, as soon as the child goes missing".
Rick Minicucci from the Centre for Missing and Exploited Children said, "If a child is three years old, and is abducted and we have not found that child in the next five to six years, the child is now eight or nine years old, and if I show you a three year old photo and ask you to look for that child, it is like a red herring - I'm sending you in the wrong direction, and I would be better off not showing you a photograph at all. With this technology, being able to accurately predict what the child would look like at nine years old, based on his photograph at three years old, we can give law enforcement an accurate and recent representational photograph of that child."
Another demonstration of wireless technology at CA World 99 was the ability to not only track various cars and busses roving the city of New Orleans, but to control the vehicle's functions. This was demonstrated on a New Orleans patrol car.
"We are presently demonstrating how Unicentre TNG integrates non IT devices and manages them like any IT device", explains Karsten Rosemplenter from TAG McLaren Marketing Services. " What we are doing is taking telemetry data from the McLaren racing cars and feeding it into the TNG infrastructure, like any other data and we are using the out of the box utilities to visualise that data. We have telemetry data from various racing circuits, taking Barcelona as an example, and from here on we can drill in and access all the telemetry information out of context, for example, the gear, G- force, speed, engine data and breaking data".
Increasingly intelligent software is also making its way into entertainment. Usually three dimensional models are labouriously mapped into the virtual world. Once they are there, it becomes a relatively easy to give them movement, colour and texture - but a new stereoscopic imaging system even takes the hard work out of the mapping process.
"It is important for Lego to provide kids with the tools they need to express themselves", explained Jeff Ingram from Lego Mindstorms, "to build whatever they can think up. Today's kids want to build things that can move and think. We worked with MIT Media Lab, to develop real Lego micro computer. It is an 8-bit microprocessor, powered by 6 AA batteries and can handle about 1000 commands per second. It has three in-put ports for Lego sensors and the main set includes two touch sensors and a light sensor, and there are three out-put ports for Lego motors. Kids and adult users can build their Lego robot around this micro computer using the motors and sensors as well as traditional Lego pieces. Building a programme is as simple as grabbing a block and dropping it into place. We are still able to maintain the metaphor of Lego - "blocks that snap together". It is very easy for the children to understand the logic behind creating a programme with Lego Mindstorms. We say the most important thing is for people is to create something that is personally meaningful and with Lego, you decide for yourself what it is you want to create - whether that is a robotic bug or a robotic car".
