Nokia announces an open smart home platform

Nokia announced an open smart home platform yesterday. What makes this move interesting to me is not so much the home automation stuff (although that is also interesting development), but the fact that the platform is basically an open Linux-based WiFi (801.11n) router platform.

If Nokia manages to keep this platform as open as the Maemo platform, it enables developers and third parties to participate very efficiently into innovating new services for home environment.

I also find the business aspects and opportunities of this move interesting. Although Nokia does not mention it anywhere, this kind of home gateway devices would extend the Nokia's possible service platforms straight to homes of the consumers and since the device already has WiFi capability, could this also be a move in the future to offload mobile Internet traffic to broadband connections instead of cellular networks? This remains to be seen, but it is interesting anyway.

Pervasive Networks and Connectivity research report now available

The seminar reports of Special Topics in Networking Spring 2008 seminar are now available as a research report from Tampere University of Technology Department of Communications Engineering. The research report can be found in digital form from: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~bilhanan/TLT2656_2008-Final.pdf

Presentation today (21st of May) in TERENA 2008 Networking Conference

As a part of my PhD studies and community networks related research I keep a presentation at Terena 2008 Networking Conference in 7B - Who is there? - eduroam session. The session is streamed to the network at 17:00-18:30 Finnish time (UTC+3) and can be watched in real time here. The topic of my presentation is: Utilising eduroam in building wireless community networks. The presentation will be archived and will be available also later in case you absolutely do not want to miss it. :)

The Importance of Social Networks in War and Peace

Found this Wired article about United States military experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq originally in Bruce Schneier's Blog. The original topic was How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not Electronic and the article concentrated on the importance of social networks as a strategical asset in wars or peacekeeping missions, which require extended presence.

One might argue also that the same kind of approach would be also very useful when building joint ventures and outsourcing globally. There has to be social networks and cultural understanding in the company to be able to fully utilise the advantages of going global.

Community Networks presentation on 14th of March 2008 at TUT

In the presentation for Special Topics in Networking course at TUT I tried to categorise the various community network models based on their business and development model and present the issues concerning them. The presentation is available here:

Karri Huhtanen: Community Networks

As a part of the course, I will also do a short study about community networks, but that report will be releases significantly later this year... perhaps in May.

Special Topics in Networking postgraduate course starting at TUT on Friday 8th February 2008

TLT-2656 Special Topics in Networking (3-4 cr)

Kickoff: Friday 8.2.2008 14:00 at TB216 at Tampere University of Technology

http://www.cs.tut.fi/kurssit/TLT-2656/

Course Content

With the emergence of environments rich with wireless networks, mobile users and portable but computationally powerful devices, this course addresses current issues in pervasive networking and connectivity. The aim of the course is to contain seminar topics discussing various aspects in this area with respect to the emerging technologies, standards, infrastructure, user interactions as well as business models.

Areas of interest lie in the following categories:

* Network Technologies for Metropolitan, Community and Home Wireless Networks
* Approaches to Reachability using Tunnelling and Overlay Networks
* Content Delivery and Peer-to-Peer Networks
* Seamless Handovers and Network Mobility Protocols
* Vehicular Communication Technologies
* Intermittent Connectivity and Delay-Tolerant Networks
* Naming and Service Discovery
* Positioning and Geolocation Protocols
* Aspects of Virtual Community and Social Networking
* Pervasive networks using Ad-hoc and Personal Area Networks
* Connectivity in Challenging Environments
* Security and Privacy
* User-centric Studies in Pervasive networks
* Roles and Revenue models for Businesses and Operators

Specific topics in the above areas would be provided when the course begins. Depending on popularity, students' interests and ability, some topics can be subdivided to address more specific issues.

Students are also encouraged to propose their own topics, especially if they are researching/working in a related area.