Meetings:

• May:  Extending the concept of Femtocells to the outdoor enterprise
• June:  Workshop: Mobile TV/Video
• June:  Workshop: Location based Technologies and Services

Francis daCosta founded MeshDynamics to develop high performance wireless mesh networks for wide area coverage of voice, video and data. Francis has been a research scientist for Northrop and MITRE. Francis has a Masters from Stanford University and a Bachelors from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is a member of IEEE.

Mesh nodes supporting SIP registries can provide VOIP communication infrastructure in scenarios where traditional forms of wireless communication either do not exist or provide inadequate coverage. Scenarios include underground mining, coverage in rural areas and active military deployments. This presentation describes core architecture and implementation specfics related to efficient transmission of latency sensitive packets e.g. Voice and Video over multiple hops.

Mr. Dow is responsible for software architecture for Consumer Electronics in Macrovision's Product Development organization. Prior to his current role, Mr. Dow was responsible for software development, support and architecture for Macrovision's connected products engineering organization. Mr. Dow has nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of computer graphics, multimedia and bioinformatics. Prior to Macrovision, Mr. Dow was director of software development at Mediabolic, which was acquired by Macrovision in January 2007. Prior to Mediabolic, Mr. Dow held management, engineering, and architecture roles at companies including Palm, SONICblue, Red Jade, Inc., 3dfx Interactive, da Vinci Time & Space, Kubota Graphics Corporation, Intelligenetics, Inc., and DNAStar, Inc. Mr. Dow has authored several patents on commercial skipping technology.

Colin Dixon is a well-known and respected industry analyst who manages TDG's efforts in broadband media. He has led numerous teams from Microsoft, Oracle, and Liberate. Currently, Colin is working with major companies in developing their market strategies in the emerging "Over the Top" markets and open broadband delivery.
Colin graduated from the University of Reading in England with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. He holds a Masters in Engineering from the University of Florida and has post-graduate business education experience from Stanford.
Colin was voted one of the Top 50 most influential people in IPTV by IPTV Evangelist. "Colin is among a few who truly understand how the surging video industry is likely to play out across the three screens and the implications as consumers connect up their TV's, mobile and PC's to watch quality IP delivered video." - Tom Burton, FierceIPTV

TBD

Location-based advertising, e-commerce and social networking are increasing the revenue opportunities for cellular carriers embedding Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and other tracking technologies into their offering. As the social media market picks up momentum, there is a huge opportunity for new services, based on a subscriber's location and time of day. What are the technologies and services that will make this possible?

This special IEEE ComSoc session examines some of the new and exciting possibilities using GPS-enabled mobile phones and social networking services. The two speakers did an excellent job of addressing these topics at the Spring VONx conference earlier this year. Each speaker will present for 30-35 minutes followed by a panel session and then an open mike/ Q and A.

To stimulate interest, here are a few questions to ponder:

• What are the relevant technologies- is GPS the only game in town?
• What's this about using broadcast video channels for tracking location?
• Why has the use of cell towers to pinpoint location in a cell not used more?
• Who are the new location based services targeted towards?
• What are the applications that are driving shared location services?
• When and where can we expect to see these new services to be rolled out?

Dave Reid joined SiRF in June 2007, and is in charge of global business development for the company's wireless segment. In this role, Reid is responsible for identifying and developing new business prospects for SiRF's wireless solutions, which include GPS chipsets and carrier-grade software for use in handsets, smartphones, personal locators, asset tracking devices, fleet management systems and carrier infrastructure globally for location-based services (LBS) and mobile resource management (MRM). Reid also develops new opportunities for the SiRFecosystem, a comprehensive suite of products and services designed to help the global LBS developer community more easily develop, test, and market their location applications.
Prior to SiRF, Reid worked at Qualcomm and its SnapTrack subsidiary, which focuses on hybrid A-GPS technology for E911, consumer and enterprise LBS applications. While at Qualcomm, he served in lead product management and business development roles in its SnapTrack, gpsOne, QPoint, BREW and QChat product lines, where he worked closely with operators, handset OEMs, infrastructure providers, systems integrators and application providers around the globe.

Jon Metzler is Strategic Initiatives and Government Affairs Director for Rosum Corporation. He is responsible for partnership development in mobile TV markets, standards development, and regulatory advocacy on public safety and broadcast TV issues. Prior to joining Rosum, Jon was Vice President at Performance Analysis Inc, a services firm specializing in business development in Asia for technology companies. Prior to joining PAI, Jon was part of multiple successful launches into the Japanese market, in the fields of technology, services and media. Jon is a graduate of the MBA/MA-Asian Studies program at UC-Berkeley. He is now an advisor to the UC-Berkeley Management of Technology program. Jon also has a B.A. from the University of Michigan . Jon publishes regularly on technology and policy issues and is a member of the E911 Institute.