Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

Ch i ne se search eng i ne w h i c h a l l ows user s t o retrieve audio and visual materials q u i c k ly and effectively f r om various data sources. A t present multimedia contents have to be produced by professionals before they are transmitted to users. However i f there are c on v en i ent t o o l k i ts l i k e P owe r P o i n t , ordinary users can also produce multimedia contents themselves for transmission through the Internet. This will speed up the delivery and exchange of data and save production costs. C U H K researchers ar e c u r r e n t ly au t ho r i ng this k i n d of t ool k i t. When it becomes available, teachers can use it to produce multimedi a teaching materials, and movie-buffs can cut out and transmit extracts f r om their favourit e flicks w i t h their own commentary. They can even produce their own films to share with other enthusiasts. (2) Internet 2 The Internet currently i n use was an experimental network produced two decades ago i n t he U n i t e d States. A f t e r i ts commercialization, researchers could no longer pe r f o rm experiments on it to improve its function. Several years ago, the US Na t i o n al Science Fo u n d a t i o n started Interne t 2, a project to develop a n o t h er high-spee d e x p e r i me n t a l Internet backbone. Participants in the project are connected t o the b a c k b o n e n e t w o r k using T3 links (with a p p r o x i ma t e l y 45 Mbps capacity). As Hong Kong's links are not up to par, it cannot yet participate in the project. In this respect, it still lags behind Taiwan and Singapore. I n Ma r ch 1999, the University signed a m e m o r a n d u m w i t h C a r n e g i e - M e l l o n University in the United States, South Ch i na Un i v e r s i t y of Technology i n Guangzhou, and Academia Sinic a in Taiwan, whereby the University will be connected t o the latter two institutions. This allows traffic from Hong Kon g to use the Taiwan-US link for transit. The Faculty of Engineering is actively upgrading its facilities so that it can establish a direct link to the high-speed experimental Internet backbone and participate i n global I T research. (3) Data Management I n the age of information explosion, a recurrent headache for many people is how to search among the voluminous data on the net and how to manage the i n f o r ma t i on obtained therefrom. Researchers at the University are wo r k i n g on a data-mining technology which allows users to retrieve useful material easily f r om the vast pool o f raw data. They are also developing bilingual and mu l t i l i ngual search engine s that can browse mutilingual webpages. Such da t a -mi n i n g and search engine technologies are also intended for application on WAP phones, or Wireless App l i c a t i on Protocol mobil e phones. Such phones made their debut early this year. While one of their main functions is Internet connectivity, they have a slower transmissio n speed and are unable to handle huge amounts of data. An d since most webpages are designed for the computer, WA P users can only link up to the specific webpages provided by their own Internet service providers. C U H K researchers recently developed a portal named Jawap. net, which provides i n n o v a t i ve services f r e e - o f - C h a r g e t o WAP phone users, IT: The Name of the Game 13