Commercial Multimedia Technologies for Twenty-First Century Army Battlefields A Technology Management Strategy (1995) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Review of Relevant Commercial Technologies
Review of Relevant Commercial Technologies
Pages 18-47
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 18... ...
is built on top of the lower level system software and provides capabilities such as information filtering, database management, and user-friendly multimedia user interfaces. Layer IV provides generic applications/enablers such as multimedia teleconferencing capabilities and groupware, iA fully fleshed-out technical architecture would not merely say that certain building block technologies lie in certain levels of the architecture.
|
From page 19... ...
The value of doing this will become more apparent in Chapter 4, where it will be shown that these technologies and layered architecture concepts can be used to clarify the recommendations for how the Army should proceed to acquire the technologies to meet its operational needs and functional requirements. 19 The building block technologies described range from physical technologies, such as hand-held multimedia appliances and physical storage subsystems, to technologies that are embodied in algorithms and software (e.g., speech recognition and distributed computing technologies)
|
From page 20... ...
, which are COMMERCIAL MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES FOR TWENI-Y-FlRST CENTURYARMYBA 1 IS lightweight, credit-card-sized devices that can be easily plugged into a laptop computer. Disk drives have mechanical parts and thus require sophisticated technology (such as liquid-bearing mot`>r.s~for~.se in laptops, where ruggedness is a concern.
|
From page 21... ...
Virtual reality glasses or goggles use small liquid crystal elements and combinations of lenses and mirrors to create a virtual image that appears to the wearer to be projected in front of the wearer as a large image at a distance of several feet. In some cases, these virtual reality glasses or goggles are used to immerse the viewer in a visual environment that fills the viewer's sensory visual field of view and thus creates the sensation that the viewer is part of the three-dimensional environment perceived.
|
From page 22... ...
It has been estimated that the annual sales of personal computers will surpass 100 million units worldwide by the end of this decade (see Juliessen, 1995~. Storage Systems for Multimedia Information Storage systems are used to store information that is needed for performing computational tasks, the results of which may be displayed or presented to end users or re-stored for subsequent use.
|
From page 23... ...
Communications Platforms That Support People on the Move "Wireless personal communications" is a commercial telecommunications industry term for networking services and associated applications that support people on the move (IEEE, 19951. Cordless telephones, cellular telephony, and paging systems are the most popular current manifestations of wireless personal communication systems.
|
From page 24... ...
Recently, there has been a great deal of commercial interest in the use of upgraded cable television systems to interconnect small cell sites in emerging personal communications networks. Since the cable systems carry combinations of frequency-division-multiplexed analog television, digitized television, and other digital information streams, and because of the characteristics of the existing cable facilities, the digital error rates on these systems are expected to be somewhat higher than in other commercial facilities.
|
From page 25... ...
BUILDING BLOCK TECHNOLOGIES (LAYER II - YSTEM SOFTWARE) Building block technologies discussed under Layer II System Software of the generic architecture 25 (Figure 3-2)
|
From page 26... ...
In principle, even the current Internet protocols can provide for teleconferencing services, as long as the network's traffic load remains low. Since there is increasing interest in extending the use of the Internet to applications that require guaranteed packet delivery within a specified range of delays, such as real-time interactive multimedia teleconferencing, it is anticipated that the next-generation Internet protocol (IP version 6)
|
From page 27... ...
Both views are likely to be correct, in that applications exist in which the solutions implied within both views are viable. The balance between the use of one approach over the other will be determined in the emerging commercial marketplace, more by the speed at which commercial products emerge that meet user needs than by any fundamental advantage of one approach over the other.
|
From page 28... ...
now incorporate these techniques. Smaller systems, such as personal computers, have been evolving in the same fashion; the popular Windows application support software is essentially a single-user multiprogramming system overlaid on an extremely simplistic devicemanagement core (MS-DOS~.
|
From page 29... ...
BUILDING BLOCK TECHNOLOGIES (LlYER 111 MIDDLEWARE) 29 base management systems; user-friendly multimedia user interfaces (e.g., speech, graphical user interfaces (GUISE; and multimedia information analysis and processing building blocks and middleware services.
|
From page 30... ...
more generally, the security impacts of executing processes or application software received over a network. Multimedia Database Management Systems The role of a database management system is to provide reliable and efficient data storage and reliable and efficient access (e.g., query, retrieval, update)
|
From page 31... ...
As the power of personal systems continued to improve, a desktop personal computer with a single additional feature card housed within the system unit could perform office-style speech recognition with a vocabulary of 20,000 words. Current Speech Recognition Systems Personal-computer speech-recognition packages have been available on the commercial market for about five years.
|
From page 32... ...
include multimedia information access capabilities; decision support tools, groupware, multimedia teleconferencing; and multimedia messaging capabilities. Multimedia Information Access Capabilities One large class of applications of multimedia information networks is in making stored multimedia information accessible to others.
|
From page 33... ...
and whether or not their terminal is configured as a bit-mapped display. The aggregation of appropriate building block technologies, the establishment of standards for interfaces, formats, and other aspects of protocols, and the integration of these into generic information application building blocks for widespread use across a wide range of application domains are currently being pursued by the emerging information networking industry to meet existing and anticipated market demand.
|
From page 34... ...
BUILDING BLOCK TECHNOLOGIES (LAYER V - PECIFIC APPLICATIONS) General Observations Specific Applications, which form the top layer (Layer V of Figure 3-2)
|
From page 35... ...
In recent years, there has also been an increased use of constructive simulation in medical applications, where powerful computers and associated application software can be used to create two- and three-dimensional renderings of human organs based on data obtained from X-ray and ultrasonic scanners. Many simulations are written in general purpose languages such as the C programming language for numerically based science and engineering problems and Common LISP@, a language designed for manipulation of lists of symbols and used for applications that operate on symbolic representations in ways functionally similar to human thinking (artificial intelligence)
|
From page 36... ...
The various kinds of support are illustrated in Table 3-2. Although none of the existing systems can satisfy all of the requirements implied by Table 3-2, ObjectOriented Knowledge-Based Simulation Environments TABLE 3-2 Simulation Support Various Kinds of Support for Simulations Software Development Support Enhanced model quality integral through development process Comfortable prototyping/devel op ment/reificat ion Stand-alone modules System composition from components Top-down design/bottom-up testability Configuration management Visual interface access to environment Output analysis, visualization, animation Integration with virtual reality immersion Model-Database Management Integrate with standard database management systems Support hierarchical synthesis process and model object hierarchies Exploit model components resident in a model object base Support organization and reuse of objects and models Model Specificatiorl/Execution Simulation Support continuous, discrete event and related dynamic system formalisms Support artificial-intelligence knowledge representation formalisms: goal planning, rules, frames Support multiple concurrent agents Support model evolution through hierarchical, modular construction Stable real-time simulation Model-to-Architecture Mapping Support Support mappings of models onto diverse computer architectures Facilitate upgrading to higher capability platforms through software compatibility Assure correct simulation process Generate alternative architectures and mappings Experiment with/select efficient (time/space)
|
From page 37... ...
BUILDING BLOCK TECHNOLOGIES (LAYER Vl MANAGEMENT~ECURITY) Building block technologies discussed under Layer VI- Management/Security of the generic architecture (Figure 3-2)
|
From page 38... ...
In summary, with network and information security as one of the pacing factors in the successful realization of the applications associated with a national information infrastructure, which represent a commercial market opportunity measured in hundreds of billions of dollars per year by most estimates, there is a very large commercial R&D effort under way to create, standardize, and deploy easy-to-use, powerful, and inexpensive security technologies and methodologies. Network Management Systems Network management systems are used to manage large, distributed, heterogeneous information systems.
|
From page 39... ...
SYSTEMS In this section the committee gives examples of system-level applications of multimedia information technology existing or emerging in the commercial domain. These examples will provide substantiation for the recommendations in Chapter 4 as to which building block technologies the Army should adopt or adapt from the commercial domain and which building blocks are candidates for Army-specific development to produce proprietary advantages over its adversaries.
|
From page 40... ...
Electronic commerce refers to the conduct of business using distributed information networks that connect geographically distributed locations of the same firm, firms and their suppliers, firms and their customers, and multiple firms jointly creating and marketing products. The banking industry is at the leading edge of electronic commerce in its use of information networks to conduct billions of dollars of transactions on a daily basis.
|
From page 41... ...
Residential Information Services In 1994 the sales of home-based personal computers equaled that of television sets ($8 billion) (Markoff, 19951.
|
From page 42... ...
Standards consist of sets of rules with which conformance to the standard can be evaluated. These rules can be applied at many layers in systems, ranging from physical connectors to the graphical user interfaces discussed elsewhere in this chapter.
|
From page 43... ...
in information-technology-intensive businesses, one should focus development efforts on areas where one intends to achieve a differentiating advantage and should outsource everything else. Leveraging Commercial Off-the Shelf Technology The commercial telecommunications industry is one of the largest consumers of multimedia information technologies.
|
From page 44... ...
However, they do spend considerable effort in understanding technology trends in order to anticipate both opportunities and competitive threats that might result from lower costs or new capabilities enabled by advances in underlying technologies in all of the layers of the generic technical architecture described earlier in this chapter. In the telecommunications marketplace, a specific example of this approach involves the introduction of new fiber optic systems based on Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)
|
From page 45... ...
It has the disadvantage that few legacy systems can be subsumed easily within a new system. An example of this approach is to make existing legacy system data accessible via modem graphical user interfaces, which can access multiple legacy systems and new 45 systems in an intuitive, easy-to-use manner.
|
From page 46... ...
SUMMARY This chapter has outlined commercial multimedia technologies to provide support for the analysis contained in Chapter 4. The principle was to examine building block technologies selected on the basis of a generic layered architecture, which was introduced at the beginning of this chapter.
|
From page 47... ...
1995. Special Issue on Wireless Personal Communications.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.