INDUSTRY

Internet2 today announced that Douglas Van Houweling, Internet2 president and CEO, will be a featured keynote speaker at the Broadband Summit 2004 at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center on April 20. He will speak about the future and potential of next generation broadband to transform work, education and entertainment. Highlighted activities will also include Internet2 members Microsoft and ResearchChannel demonstrations of next generation broadband Internet applications in the Broadband Summit exhibit area. The New World Symphony, an Internet2 member pioneering in research and experimentation for music education and interactive music collaboration via high performance network connections, will give a special musical performance from Miami, Fl. over Internet2's Abilene Network. "We are pleased to be a sponsor of the Broadband Summit 2004 as it will give us the opportunity to highlight the strength of the Internet2 community's engagement in developing current and future benefits of broadband," said Gary Bachula, vice president for Internet2 external relations. "We anticipate that our participation will help to drive the development of policies to further promote the reality and potential of broadband applications." The Conferencing Experience Project, ConferenceXP, is a research and development initiative of Microsoft Research's Learning Sciences and Technology group. It integrates recent advances in high-performance audio, video, and networking technologies to seamlessly connect multiple distant participants in a rich immersive environment for distance conferencing, instruction, and collaboration. Microsoft will demonstrate how the high-speed, multicast-enabled Internet2 Abilene Network is a key component in enabling high-end collaboration solutions that provide both high-quality and low-latency delivery of audio and video. The ResearchChannel consortium pushes the boundaries of extremely high-quality communication and interaction using advanced networks. The consortium's research members are building applications to better explore the world and to share and discuss that exploration with students, teachers and others across the network. The Broadband Summit demonstration will show how advanced networks deliver realism using three different technologies: an HD television desktop client, a mini-DV camera and DVTS software set-up for originating a 30 Mbps video stream, and an MPEG-2 broadcast-quality video over IP multicast stream. The New World Symphony (NWS) performance will demonstrate how broadband is currently being used to produce a realistic and enduring interactive music education environment and how it will be used in the future to provide an in-depth musical experience for audiences. Michael Tilson Thomas, artistic director for the NWS will demonstrate a conducting master class. Tilson Thomas will be in Miami at the NWS and will interact with a NWS conducting fellow and a 13-piece ensemble on stage at the Ronald Reagan amphitheater, as they work on Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring. Internet2 members participating in the Broadband Summit 2004 through an exhibition, demonstration or a performance include (alphabetically): * AT&T * Cisco Systems * Ciena * IBM * Level 3 Communications * MCI * Microsoft * New World Symphony * Polycom * ResearchChannel * University of Kentucky * VBrick Systems * Verizon