In the world of telecommunications, more is never enough. Pursuing ever greater capacity and services, the long-time suppliers of voice-based services are transforming themselves into full-service providers of a galaxy of communication and IT options. The challenge now becomes how to manage all we have while still developing more solutions. As usual, we turn to […]
April 2001 - Vol. 44 No. 4
Features
Appearing before a congressional panel, the head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers defended the process ICANN used to select new suffixes to compete with the popular established generic top-level domain—.com. With the number of Web addresses dwindling, ICANN chose seven new domains last fall, along with the companies and groups authorized […]
Forum: Participatory Vs. Representative Democracy
Several of the articles in the January 2001 Communications are linked by the same implicit proposition: Direct (participatory, "quick") democracy is a better form of government than representative democracy. Information and communication technology (ICT) can facilitate direct democracy. Therefore ICT should be used to realize direct democracy. But before embarking on an ICT-enabled, direct-democracy implementation […]
Practical Programmer: Academics, and the Scarlet Letter ‘A’
The computing world desperately needs truth-seekers, and fewer Advocates.
The Profession of IT: Crossing the Chasm
The keys to a coherent profession are bridges between computing technologists and the multitude.
Viewpoint: On Bias, Science, Equal Protection, and Liability
The influence of social climate on judgement.
Agent-Oriented Technology For Telecommunications: Introduction
The vision of the telecommunications market today is “information at any time, at any place, in any form.” Within this open market of information services, the aspects of service customization and instant service provision are of fundamental importance. Moreover, the provision of telecommunications services will be a key component in future business successes. In this […]
An Agent-Based Approach For Building Complex Software Systems
Why agent-oriented approaches are well suited for developing complex, distributed systems.
Agent-Based Telematic Services and Telecom Applications
A toolkit for realizing rapid development, deployment, and management of agent-based systems and services.
Community-Based Service Location
How virtual communities and software agents can be used to provide and locate trustworthy services on the Internet.
Service Creation and Management in Active Telecom Networks
Establishing a framework allowing customers to run their own customized services over a provider's network.
Using a multiagent system to provide intermediation service in an e-commerce environment.
Agent-Oriented Technology in Support of E-Business
Enabling the development of "intelligent" business agents for adaptive, reusable software.
E-Commerce and the Information Market
Orchestrating online transactions between suppliers and customers, infomediaries walk a fine line creating services, controlling costs, and not winding up as order-takers for larger entities.
Blowing the Whistle on Troubled Software Projects
Despite inevitable personal risk, auditors owe their organizations accurate information about project status, especially bad news, in the interests of halting software project runaways. Management owes them the courtesy of listening.
Targeting Audiences on the Internet
How can researchers and communicators reach their desired audience on the Internet? Can Internet users be successfully and responsibly recruited as participants in studies and surveys? A recent exploration of these questions suggests some good practices.
Bottom-up Design of Active Object-Oriented Databases
Top-down design approaches give database designers little guidance with transforming a conceptual model into an active object-oriented database schema. A bottom-up design approach may provide a better perspective.
Thinking Objectively: Software Process Improvement in the Small
A small software development company's most difficult challenge: changing processes to match changing circumstances.
Inside Risks: Cyber Underwriters Lab
Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is an independent testing organization created in 1893, when William Henry Merrill was called in to find out why the Palace of Electricity at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago kept catching on fire (which is not the best way to tout the wonders of electricity). After making the exhibit safe, he realized […]
