NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2001 "Bringing the Information and Communication Society to Every Citizen: MEDEA+'s role in R&D for integrated Information-Communication-Entertainment Terminals"
In the vision of MEDEA+ an Information and Communication Society in Europe will only come true if all of Europe's citizens can use it and benefit from it. This new society must not be created solely for the interest of computer specialists. Europe's citizens shall benefit from a vast variety of innovative terminals that perform interesting functions and that give access in a user friendly way to many different internet features. MEDEA+ has therefore classified this area as one of its five key working areas, and MEDEA+ partners in several projects have already started to research and develop technical foundations. "The Information Society in Europe will only be successful when it will have become accessible to all European citizens - easily and at a reasonable cost." This vision is expressed in many places, among others by by J?rg Wenzel, Head of ISAC, European Commission's Information Activity Centre. It is also guiding MEDEA+, the microelectronics industry initiative to accelerate Europe's transformation into an Information and communication Society User friendly terminals will continue to be the major tools of choice that give all of us access to machine- and network-based sources of information and entertainment; and, ever more important, that will allow us to communicate with one another everywhere and at any time. Simple terminals shall be available at virtually no cost; very powerful, feature-rich terminals must become available at very reasonable cost. Stimulating the interest of the consumers is particularly important during a downturn of the electronics industries as we experience it now. MEDEA+: Contributing to the foundations for the e-economy MEDEA+ defined its mission as helping "Europe to become a leader in System Innovation on Silicon for the e-economy". Cost effective, powerful microelectronics and systems technologies require heavy investments. The full potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) for all citizens can only be reached once those investments have become clearly profitable for the companies that have to make them. And once the consumers have been convinced of the ICT benefits. The complexities of interactive e-business purchasing and marketing systems have to be securely mastered in the business-to-business environment, before "e-government" solutions for accessing and returning information between the households and the city halls can become easier and cheaper to implement. Succeeding with the e-economy and driving down cost, is key if in the long run all parts of society are to benefit from innovative ICT systems, terminals and applications. More attractive, innovative and user-friendly terminals that are smaller, cheaper, more powerful, more reliable and consume less energy will become reality if semiconductor manufacturers, equipment and materials suppliers, design houses and private and public research institutes cooperate to bundle their creativity and financial resources. Fostering such cooperation is key for MEDEA+. New ingenious ICT applications and terminals
will attract and challenge end users, service providers, network operators and manufacturers of hard- and software as key actors in the markets. Such easy-to-use terminals will substantially enhance the users' awareness of comfort, security and efficiency, and reduce barriers for progress in business, education or entertainment. Fundamental for "ease-of-use" are speech recognition and synthesis. Even if there are presently no MEDEA+ projects in this R&D domain, this topic is covered in several nationally funded programmes. To provide new features and mobility in terminals, microelectronics play the key role - through ambitious innovative miniaturisation towards powerful low energy systems on silicon; in combination with equally ambitious easy-to-use hard-and software. It is evident that the two EUREKA-labeled programmes MEDEA+ and ITEA are intensively cooperating to explore this potential for microelectronics and software in the interest of Europe's competitiveness and economic and social well-being. MEDEA+: The benefits of standards Of course, every manager and engineer in the MEDEA+ projects has a vision: to contribute and become part of other historical global success stories like GSM, DVD or MPEG ! And the opportunities are there; the challenges of creating, developing and imposing new ICT standards on a global scale are huge. This is also because the role of standards in technology and markets is changing. Beyond securing quality and performance levels, standards and platforms in ICT take increasing responsibility for creating product interoperability across suppliers (e.g. DVD discs) and for providing customers with usage-related productivity and communication (e.g. MS Windows). The creation of de facto industrial standards for terminals is highly valued by customers. And even more so if these de facto standards become eventually approved by national and trans-national bodies. This is clearly also what MEDEA+ strives for. Companies that succeed in developing and impose new standards will prosper, provided they can maintain supporting coalitions around the new standard. But also standard-setting companies cannot relax. They will have to resort again to aggressive innovation to make sure that their competitive advantage is maintained. The creation of new standards is seldom achieved by single companies. Mostly consortia team up to develop standards proposals. They are aware that industrial momentum for a standard is key for mobilising acceptance. "Industry-driven", MEDEA+ offers an environment that is positive for creating standards through the climate of mutual confidence that has been cultivated over many years by trans-national cooperation between the key players in microelectronics and ICT systems. MEDEA+ will promote excellence in the integrated ICE terminals work area which is crucial for the Information and communication Society. | |||
