News Update Tuesday January 10 2006

• 01/10/06

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News for Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006

* Google, Sun, Microsoft, Fund Berkeley Internet Research Center
* Universities Launch Latin American Grid Computing Initiative
* President of India Launches Indo-U.S. University Network
* Service Enables Digital Book, Music Downloads at Library
* Berklee College of Music Offers Online Trade Certificate
* IT Grants, Contracts, Awards in Higher Education

* Online Resources
http://www.campus-technology.com/resources/index.asp

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Google, Sun, Microsoft, Fund Berkeley Internet Research Center

The University of California, Berkeley will team up
with Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems to launch
an Internet research laboratory on the campus. The
three companies will provide $7.5 million over five
years to fund research at the Reliable, Adaptive and
Distributed systems laboratory, or RAD Lab, according
to U.C. Berkeley researchers.

RAD Lab researchers will focus on developing alternatives
to traditional software engineering, which follows a
"waterfall" approach where work is completed in orderly
stages. Critics say this model is often too slow and
therefore obsolete for the fast-paced Internet era.
Instead, code for Internet services is continually
being modified on the fly as the product is scaled
to accommodate millions of users. This enables speedier
deployment, but also requires a large technical support
staff to make sure operations are not disrupted as bugs
are resolved.

"Our goal is to create technology that will enable
individual inventors and entrepreneurs to provide
new services of value similar to large Internet
services people use every day," said David Patterson,
U.C. Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and
computer sciences and founding director of the RAD Lab.

For more information, visit: http://radlab.cs.berkeley.edu.

Universities Launch Latin American Grid Computing Initiative

Florida International University, the University of
Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, the University of Miami, the
Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Monterrey Tech are
teaming with IBM Corp. to develop a Latin American Grid
initiative. The LA Grid (pronounced "lah grid") program
will link faculty, students and researchers across Latin
America, Spain, and the U.S. to collaborate on applications
in health care, life sciences and nanotechnology; and in
regionally-specific concerns such as hurricane mitigation.

IBM's role involves funding research awards to establish
shared research and educational platform based on grid
computing technology. Hispanic students will have access
to grid technology as well as compete for internships
with the project. The founders say the program could
help reverse declines in the number of Hispanic students
concentrating on high tech. They pointed to a recent
Computing Research Association study showing Hispanics
currently represent only 3.9 percent computer science
graduates at the B.S. level, and 1.1 percent at both
the M.S. and Ph.D. levels, according to data from
research universities in the U.S.

Pete Martinez, vice president, IBM Business Consulting
Services, said the program "represents IBM's commitment
to building the next generation of technology talent
across the U.S. and Latin America."

President of India Launches Indo-U.S. University Network

The government of India and universities from the United
States and India inaugurated an e-learning collaboration
to enhance science and engineering education at Indian
universities. The program aims to boost the supply of
engineers available for corporate and academic research
in both countries. Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
participated in the network's launch this month by giving
an inaugural lecture via satellite from New Delhi to
students at a dozen far-flung Indian college campuses.

"If we start today it takes ten years to train a good
quality teacher, but we need to improve Indian education
now," said V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary of India's Department
of Science and Technology, which is co-sponsoring the
initiative with the Indian Space Research Organization
(ISRO).

Three U.S. companies have committed funding to the program.
QualComm, Microsoft, and Cadence Design Systems will pay for
U.S. professors who volunteer to spend sabbaticals teaching
at the e-learning facility at Amrita University, the founding
Indian university in the network. Their lectures will initially
be beamed to Amrita's three campuses (in Amritapuri, Bangalore,
and Kochi) over Edusat, India's first satellite system devoted
to educational programming. Organizers hope the lectures will
eventually reach 100 campuses across India, but the initial
rollout involves 15 universities, including the three Indian
Institutes of Technology (in Kanpur, Chennai and Mumbai) and
most of the second-tier National Institutes of Technology
located in each Indian state.

Service Enables MP3 Audiobook, Music Downloads at Library

A digital media company introduced Windows-based software
that enables library patrons to download copy-protected
audiobook and music titles directly to supported MP3/WMA
players. The software and service will be demonstrated
Jan. 20-21 at the American Library Association midwinter
meeting in San Antonio.

Claudia Weissman, director of business development for
the firm, OverDrive and Digital Library Reserve, said
the technology ushers in new era of library services.
"Now public libraries can offer download services for
patrons without Internet access at home," she said.
"Anyone with a library card can bring their player
to the library and use the free high-speed connection
to download (titles by popular authors)."

The software enables patrons to search the library
catalog, locate a title, and then connect a player
to the terminal using a USB port or cable. The
self-service software enables patrons to take
advantage of the library's broadband connection
to download and transfer audiobooks, educational
materials, or music directly to portable devices
that support protected WMA format.

Berklee College of Music to Offer Online Trade Certificate

Berkleemusic, an online extension school of the Berklee
College of Music in Boston, MA, launched a professional
music business certificate program. The program offers
lessons for people who aspire to work in or start
music-related companies. The curriculum focuses on
current changes in the music industry including
copyright law, music publishing, business
entrepreneurship, music management, and music
promotion. In this way, it aims to address
developments in the music industry as they happen.
Students will focus on core areas of the music
business such as setting up a music publishing company
and record label, creating a business plan, administration
of copyrights, marketing, promotion, distribution, product
merchandising, touring, recording and publishing legal
agreements, as well as peer-to-peer, MP3 and digital
rights management issues.

"We have to really think about what kind of new products
and services can be created in the 21st century for music,
musicians, and fans in the age of digital music, Napster,
iTunes, P2P and file sharing," said David Kusek, a Berklee
instructor and electronic music pioneer. "What will be the
new things that will lead to a further expansion to the
music and other media industries? We believe that the way
to discover these opportunities is not to worry about
protecting the past, but to think creatively and uncover
the future of music for yourself."

Information Technology Grants, Contracts, Awards in Higher Ed

-- Arizona State University signed a contract with broadband
service provider MobilePro Corp. under which 50,000 ASU
students can subscribe for broadband wireless data access
to at discounted rates. The company's WazTempe wireless
network is expected to be available to ASU beginning
Jan. 31, 2006, and be completed for citywide access in
February 2006. MobilePro plans to be able to accept
"Sun Dollars," a form of student credit, as payment
for wireless service.

-- Indiana University completed a telecommunications
upgrade to offer the university community unified messaging
services based on software provided by Interactive Intelligence
Inc., called Communite. Services will be offered to faculty,
staff and potentially students, at the Indiana University
Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis (IUPUI) campuses. Communite features include
unified messaging, voice mail, one-number find-me/follow-me,
call-screening and presence management. The services will be
used in conjunction with the university's existing voice mail
system, but is expected to replace that system by the end of
next year.

-- The University of California, Irvine Medical Center purchased
a suite of clinical healthcare information technology systems
from Eclipsys Corp., in advance of the opening of UCI's
state-of-the-art facility in late 2008. The clinical IT tools
include the firm's Sunrise series of clinical manager, medication
manager, knowledge-based charting, and ambulatory care manager.

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