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What's Next

 

What's Next?

 

 The government has set new funding priorities and launched projects intended to consolidate the favorable position of German science in research institutes, higher education facilities and enterprises in the fields of optical networks, mobile communication, information technology, micro-electronics and multimedia applications. They aim to promote:

  • High-speed communication networks (funding priority MultiTeraNet) to transmit data via a single glass fiber at the rate of 50 terabits per second,

  • System concepts for mobile communications (funding priority UMTSplus, HyperNet, IP on Air, Mobil on Chip) to mobilize the internet further and provide cordless broadband internet access for everyone,

  • The VERNET competition – “secure and reliable transactions in open communication networks”, to boost the development and testing of new security technologies, the creation of standards and the reliability of internet transactions,

  • Virtual and extended reality systems (concept competition) to present complex processes in science, business, technology, education and other segments of society in virtual 3-D worlds, rendering them more comprehensible to users and eventually incorporating varied, novel ICT applications,

  • New internet technologies (funding priorities ad-hoc networks, middleware, mobile agents, internet protocols and standards) to improve internet search engines and service quality,

  • New, legislated security standards particularly for electronic monetary transactions (e.g. online banking) in the context of the FairPay flagship project,

  • Data processing according to biological principles, such as the BioTrusA total of 463,000 people in the Federal Republic of Germany have jobs connected with science and research. Well over 50 percent of them are scientists and engineersT project, which examines the extent to which biometric procedures can significantly increase security in monetary transactions and electronic trading and will facilitate foolproof identification of individuals, e.g. in the use of ATMs,

  • Utilizing and integrating human senses in information systems and improving user-friendliness, as in the Human-Technological Interaction flagship project, which has already engendered 36 patents and three new companies, and the joint VERBMOBIL automatic voice translation project, which has resulted in 20 spin-off products and seven new companies, and won the Deutscher Zukunftspreis in 2001,

  • New production techniques and technologies for components in the sub-100nm range, highly complex drafting methods and switching technologies to integrate entire systems on one chip (System On Chip) and innovative components for systems with situation-adapted features.