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Welcome to ConsortiumInfo.org
Thursday, September 02 2010 @ 07:27 AM PDT
Thursday, August 26 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 282
  Father’s realize certain things as they get older: unless you are a fireman or a high school teacher, your grandparents may never really understand what you do for a living. Few children ever appreciate the degree of skill you bring to your trade or profession, and needless to say, your average spouse is likely to wonder whether anyone that speaks kindly of her husband is really talking about the same person that sometimes forgets to take out the garbage.
That was never a problem in my family, or at least perhaps less so than is often the case. One of my earliest memories is being asked one question over and over again: “whether I was going to be a doctor, just like my father and grandfather.” If the person asking the question was old enough, they might add, “and your great-grandfather, too. He delivered me, you know.”
Friday, August 13 2010 @ 10:11 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 7,312
Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
As most of the technology world knows by now, Oracle has brought a suit for patent infringement against Google, asserting that the Java elements incorporated into Google’s Android operating system infringe patents that Oracle acquired when it took over Sun Microsystems. The basic facts are here, and the complaint can be found here. What no one yet knows for sure yet is why?
My crystal ball isn’t any clearer than the next guy’s but here are a few thoughts to consider.
Wednesday, August 11 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,322
 Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
 Last summer, a new organization was announced with the goal of promoting the uptake of open source software by the U.S. federal government. It's mission was described as follows:
The mission of OSA is to educate decision makers in the U.S. Federal government about the advantages of using free and open source software; to encourage the Federal agencies to give equal priority to procuring free and open source software in all of their procurement decisions; and generally provide an effective voice to the U.S. Federal government on behalf of the open source software community, private industry, academia, and other non-profits.
Now that organization has completed its first quite successful year of operations, and it's decided to celebrate that event by announcing an awards program to recognize those that have been most influential in advancing its goals.
Monday, August 09 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,590
 New to The Alexandria Project? Find a plot synopsis and guide to the characters here, find the earlier chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter
 “Marla, if the FBI has spotted him, we’ve got to get him someplace safe – maybe somewhere in West Virginia if he’s already back east. Where is he now?”
“I don’t know for sure. I just know he’s headed into town.”
“Into Washington? Is he out of his mind?”
“He figures D.C. is the last place the FBI will look for him - they won’t believe he could get past them.”
Washington! If Frank carried that line of reasoning far enough, he’d probably head for his own apartment!
Tuesday, August 03 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,363
New to The Alexandria Project? Find a plot synopsis and guide to the characters here, find the earlier chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter
 “What do you mean that Web site doesn’t exist? I’m looking at its log-in screen right now.”
George Marchand was on the phone with the director of IT services at the U.S. Geological Survey.
“No it doesn’t George. You know what I’m saying.”
“I know you’re saying you know something you’re not telling me.”
“No, George. You know I’m saying I know something I can’t tell you. C’mon, be reasonable.”
“OK, have it your way. Then how about giving me a user ID and a password that don’t exist for this Web site that doesn’t exist?”
Monday, July 26 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,448
New to The Alexandria Project? Find a plot synopsis and guide to the characters here, find the earlier chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter
 Frank Sr. swung his ancient Land Rover back onto the highway, a server humming in the back and Frank Jr. tapping away in the front on his laptop. Power and connector cables passed between the two seats.
“I’ve only got an AirCard to work, but if we’re lucky I’ll have Foomjoy’s entire hard drive replicated by the time we cross the Mississippi. I’ve already got the CIA’s list of hacked sites from the CIA, so let’s see what that shows.”
Frank pored over the data as they drove eastward into the night. There seemed to be no order or pattern to the 492 sites that had been attacked to date. Every type of host had been hit - newspapers, universities, retailers, government sites, non-profits – you name it. After the first few high profile targets, the most obvious conclusion seemed to be that the hits had been chosen at random.
What to make of that?
Monday, July 19 2010 @ 12:03 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,632
New to The Alexandria Project? Find a plot synopsis and guide to the characters here, find the earlier chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter
 FBI Director Francis X. McInnerney pressed the intercom button on his speakerphone.
“Yes, Mary?”
“Mr. Baldwin for you, Sir.”
McInnerney gave a gasp that was half astonishment and half rage. Baldwin was calling him after nuking an FBI target that morning? He punched the phone ferociously with his index finger and cut loose.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing Baldwin, interfering with an FBI operation on American soil? You’re so far over the line I’m going to get your head handed to you if it’s the last thing I do!”
Wednesday, July 14 2010 @ 05:33 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,182
 Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
At any given time I'm helping to set up two or three new consortia and open source foundations, and it's always a pleasure to see one of announce their public launch. Yesterday it was the turn of Open AXIS Group, the latest in a seemingly endless string of initiatives formed to recruit the versatile magic of XML to address a global need.
In this case, that need is dealing intelligently and efficiently with the growing number of services that an airline can sell or assist with (e.g., exit row or aisle seating, extra bags, and so on) in addition to booking the seat that you rent for a few hours. That will all work more smoothly if not only every airline, but also every travel agent, travel site, and others all input information in the same, interoperable way.
That goal can, of course, best be accomplished through XML, and in this case, by using an already developed XML schema that will serve as the starting point for Open AXIS Group's ongoing development and promotional work.
Monday, July 12 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,567
New to The Alexandria Project? Find a plot synopsis and guide to the characters here, find the earlier chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter
 Two can play the same game, CIA Director John Foster Baldwin thought with a smile. Maybe this inter-agency database has something going for it after all.
“Do we have any equipment within range of Ely Nevada?” Baldwin asked into his speakerphone.
“Yes, Sir. We’ve got units at our New Mexico test facility. We can send them in above commercial air traffic and then give you about five hours over target.”
“That will be more than we’ll need. I want two ready to go as soon as you can, one for the mission, and the second as backup. Can you get me on target by first light tomorrow?”
There was a pause this time. Baldwin could hear computer keys clicking in the background.
Monday, July 05 2010 @ 12:01 AM PDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Views: 1,806
New to The Alexandria Project? Find a plot synopsis and guide to the characters here, find the earlier chapters here, and follow the Further Adventures of Frank on Twitter
 CIA Director John Foster Baldwin pressed a button on his intercom.
“Yes, Gwen?”
“Mr. McInnerney for you, Sir.”
The Director gave an inward groan. What the hell could Francis X. McInnerney want? Baldwin hadn’t spoken to the FBI Director since their grilling by Congressman Steele’s committee weeks ago. And why would he want to? McInnerney had done everything he could to deflect Steele’s wrath towards the CIA, and with some success, too. Whatever McInnerney might have to say, Baldwin doubted he’d like it.
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ABOUT THE
STANDARDS BLOG
There are over 1,000,000 supported standards, with more being developed all the time. The Standards Blog examines how standards are developed, and their impact on business, society, and the future. This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. GU is an internationally recognized leader in creating and representing the organizations that create and promote standards and open source software. The opinions expressed in The Standards Blog are those of Andy Updegrove alone, and not necessarily those of GU. Please see the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for this site, which appear here.
Quote of the Day“ ” -Sample tag in the W3C's Emotion Markup Language, now under development “ EmotionML combines the rigor of computer programming with the squishiness of human emotion” -Stephen Shankland, writing in CNET about EmotionML See all Quotes
Latest NewsW3C Launches HTML Speech Incubator GroupW3C.org September 2, 2010 - W3C is pleased to announce the creation of the HTML Speech
Incubator Group, whose mission is to determine the feasibility
of integrating speech technology in HTML5 in a way that
leverages the capabilities of both speech and HTML (e.g., DOM)
to provide a high-quality, browser-independent
speech/multimodal experience while avoiding unnecessary
standards fragmentation or overlap. The following W3C Members
have sponsored the charter for this group: Voxeo, Microsoft,
Openstream, Google, AT&T, Mozilla. Read more about the
Incubator Activity, an initiative to foster development of
emerging Web-related technologies. Incubator Activity work is
not on the W3C standards track but in many cases serves as a
starting point for a future Working Group. ...Full StoryEmotionML: Will computers tap into your feelings?
Stephen Shankland
CNET.com September 1, 2010 - For all those who believe the computing industry is populated by people who are out of touch with the world of emotion, it's time to think again.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which standardizes many Web technologies, is working on formalizing emotional states in a way that computers can handle. The name of the specification, which in July reached second-draft status, is Emotion Markup Language. EmotionML combines the rigor of computer programming with the squishiness of human emotion....The idea is called affective computing in academic circles, and if it catches on, computer interactions could be very different. Avatar faces could show their human master's expression during computer chats. ...Computers could respond to your expressions as people do. Computer help technology like Microsoft's Clippy or a robot waiter could discern when to make themselves scarce....But there could be a dark side, too, opening new class of worries for those online.
Might a company target you with particular advertising if it knows you're jubilant or despairing?... ...Full Story The Future of the Web Is a Matter of Semantics
Science Daily September 1, 2010 - ...Nikolaos Konstantinou of Athens Information Technology (AIT) and colleagues at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), in Greece, state that after almost a decade of research, the fundamental concepts that would underpin a semantic web have matured, yet the average web user cannot yet take advantage of their full potential. They suggest that there are three main issues to be overcome before Web 3.0 emerges and they present a roadmap in their paper to explain how these must be addressed:... a lack of simplicity, integration with existing technologies and practices, and adoption by the web industry.
They suggest that ways to automatically add meta data to digital objects are now needed to make it possible to publish semantically rich content without manual intervention regardless of whether the "publisher" is a large corporation or an individual content creator. They also say that semantic technologies do not offer a substitute for current practices, rather a complement to them and that web engineers need not abandon experience but should build on it. Finally, the driving forces of the web industry should adopt semantic web technologies since their adoption entails a series of benefits both for the companies themselves as well as to the end users.... ...Full Story You want WAPI with that? If you think rolling out a new cellphone is complicated in the West, try China, where cellphone vendors and carriers need to not only deal with the mainstream global standards, but with China's home-grown TD-SCDMA standard as well. Oh - and you better include WAPI security as well. Motorola Brings Android to the Ming Phones in China
MobileTechReview.com August 31, 2010 - Motorola today introduced three new devices in China including MT810 for China Mobile's TD-SCDMA network, XT806 for China Telecom's CDMA-2000 network and A1680 for China Unicom's WCDMA network. The devices combine the Android smartphone experience with updated MING features and designs. Here is more info on the new Ming models:... ...Full Story ANSI Launches Pilot ENERGY STAR® Accreditation Program
ANSI.org August 31, 2010 - The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), coordinator of the U.S. standards and conformity assessment system, today announced the launch of a new pilot accreditation program for certification bodies that seek recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to certify products under the ENERGY STAR® Program.
ENERGY STAR is a joint initiative of the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy-efficient products and practices. Because the ENERGY STAR products program has grown to encompass products in more than 60 categories and is relied upon by millions of Americans, EPA and DOE have put into place requirements for enhanced testing and verification....the EPA requires that third-party accreditation bodies operate in accordance with ISO/IEC 17011, Conformity assessment - General requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies. Accreditation bodies must also be signatories to the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) for Product Certification. ANSI is currently the only U.S. signatory to the IAF MLA for Product Certification.
The ANSI pilot program is designed to support the ENERGY STAR® Program through the independent, third-party accreditation of product certification bodies that evaluate and certify the activities of energy-efficient product manufacturers.... ...Full Story Royalty-free H.264 may clear way for HTML5 standard
Lex Friedman
ComputerWorld August 31, 2010 - MPEG LA, the firm that controls licensing for a number of video and other standards, announced on Thursday that it will never charge any royalties for Internet video encoded using the H.264 standard that Apple favors, as long as that video is free to end-users....Just as with popular audio formats like MP3 and AAC, video formats aim to find the sweet spot between video quality and file size--they want to get as high as they can on the former, and as low as they can on the latter.
Much of the video on the Web these days is presented via Adobe's Flash technology...many popular Websites have made the move to support HTML5 video alongside or, in some cases, instead of Flash. HTML5 is the latest and greatest version of the Web's core markup language. The new HTML5 standard makes it possible for Websites to embed video that your computer can play without requiring a third-party plugin (like Flash)....the big browser developers couldn't agree on which video format the new tag in HTML5 should use: some sided with H.264, others with a format called Ogg Theora....The MPEG LA group, which owns the H.264 video codec, had declared that it wouldn't charge any royalty fees until 2016, but Mozilla and Opera were worried about what those future costs might be. Should H.264 video become a de facto Web standard in the meantime, the MPEG LA group would be in a position to charge a healthy fee for browser developers to keep using the format.... ...Full Story Alliance Formed to Develop Electric Vehicles
CRIEnglish.com August 30, 2010 - China set up a new alliance on Wednesday to unify standards and speed up the research and development of home-made electric vehicles. China set up a new alliance on Wednesday to unify standards and speed up the research and development of home-made electric vehicles, the Beijing Times reported...The non-profit alliance is made up of 16 state-owned enterprises from relevant sectors, including China's top three oil companies, two top power grid operators, and three major automakers - China FAW Group Corp., Dongfeng Auto Corp., and Chang'an Auto Corp. ...Full Story With Information Sharing, Context Is As Important As Content
Michael Daconta
Government Computer News August 27, 2010 - ...Given that modern development platforms can automatically generate code
to process XML documents, a narrow perspective can affect the exchange
and any code that processes that exchange. The new approach being
spearheaded by forward-thinking elements of the Army and Air Force is
to create the semantics first, via a high-fidelity data model called
an ontology, and then generate the XML schemas from that model.
Although not based on the Web Ontology Language, the National Information
Exchange Model (NIEM) takes a similar approach, in which the XML schemas
are generated from a database-backed data model. The contextual nature
of this approach is that the ontology uses a more top-down, enterprise
perspective to guide the inclusion of bottom-up exchanges. The heightened
awareness and use of context were mirrored on the commercial front by
Google's purchase of Metaweb and the company's Freebase entity graph.... ...Full Story IETF Internet Draft: The Network Trouble Ticket Data Model
Dimitris Zisiadis, et al.
IETF.org August 27, 2010 - IETF has published an updated level -04 specification for the
Experimental Track "Network Trouble Ticket Data Model," which provides
an XML representation for conveying incident information across
administrative domains between parties that have an operational
responsibility of remediation or a watch-and-warning over a defined
constituency. The data model encodes information about hosts, networks,
and the services running on these systems; attack methodology and
associated forensic evidence; impact of the activity; and limited
approaches for documenting workflow.
Details: "The Network Trouble Ticket Data Model (NTTDM) aims to simplify
TT exchange within the boundaries of a Grid and to enhance the functional
cooperation of every Network operation Centre (NOC) and the Grid
Operation Centre (GOC). Community adoption of the NTTDM enhances trouble
resolution within the grid framework and imparts network status
cognisance by modelling collaboration and information exchange among
the operators.... ...Full Story Red Hat Submits Deltacloud APIs as Potential Industry Standard
Joab Jackson
InfoWorld August 27, 2010 - As the industry call for cloud interoperability grows more fervent,
open source enterprise software company Red Hat has submitted its cloud
platform, Deltacloud, to the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force)
as a potential standard for cloud interoperability....Red Hat launched Deltacloud in September 2009 as a set of open source
APIs that could be used to move cloud-based workloads among different
IaaS (infrastructure as a service) providers, such as Amazon and
Rackspace. To encourage external contributions to Deltacloud, Red Hat
relinquished the Deltacloud code base to the Apache Incubator, a
repository for programs that may eventually be overseen by the Apache
Foundation....DMTF oversees existing standards such as CDM (the
Common Diagnostic Model), DASH (the Desktop and Mobile Architecture
For System Hardware), and OVF (the Open Virtualization Format)... ...Full Story
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