Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

including the world's first real-time HTML to WM L conversion, a Chinese search engine, and the sending/receiving of e-mail. Users can also access new s and f i n a n c i a l information and participate i none-click auctions. Currently most WAP phone users can only surf some 2,000 webpages authored with the WM L code. With Jawap.net, users can now surf millions of HTML webpages. (4) Networking and Multimedia Technologies A l l a p p l i c a t i o n s i n c l u d i ng data transmission, retrieval, delivery, and management, no matter how advanced, need the support of a matching infrastructure. University researchers are d e t e r m i n e d t o l a y a s o l i d f o u n d a t i o n f o r o v e r a l l advancement in IT by engaging in basic research into high- speed broadband networks, path switching technology, and multimedia technologies such as speech r e c o g n i t i o n , audio-visual imaging and encoding, and computer graphics. (5) Wifeless Communication Technologies Wireless communication technologies, consisting mainl y in signal processing and network protocols, have a broad range o f applications i n wa l k i e - t a l k i e s, mob i le phones, w i r e l e ss modems , the t h i r d generation of wireless phones, and Bluetooth which is under development. The third generation of mobile phones use a new mode of wireless communication which enables users to quickly link up to the Internet, and transmits data at the speed of 384k or 2Mb per second. The system is run on a universal broadband system. Bluetooth on the other hand is a short-distance wireless communication standard which is capable of l i n k i ng up wireless phones, computers, n o t e b o o k c omp u t e r s , and e l e c t r i c a l appliances, and using wireless phones to control electrical appliances. The potential of wireless commun i ca t i on technology is actually enormous, and the subject is a major focus of IT research on the CUHK campus. (6) E-Commerce E - c omme r c e is another i mp o r t a n t research area. Electronic shopping and auction are already very common while e l ec t r on ic brokerage and t r a d i ng are becoming widespread. Advancement in IT w i l l continue to fuel the development o f e-commerce, which in turn gives rise to the issue of security. CUHK researchers are working on the assurance of security and authenticity side by side research into e-commerce technology, so that consumers of the future w i l l be able to shop or engage in commercial activities on the net worry- free. ITas a Powerful Researc h Too l Here at The Chinese University, IT has been used in academic fields that are related to itself as well as fields that are traditionally considered quite irrelevant. I n both, it has significantly raised the efficiency of research, expanded the application s o f research findings, and sped up the dissemination of knowledge. Be l ow are some important examples: Chinese Culture and the Humanities A Computerized Database of Classical Chinese Texts A project for the establishment of a computerized database of the entire body of extant Han (206 BC - AD 220) and pre-Han traditional Chinese texts began in 1988. The aim is to re-record important classical Chinese Universit y Bulleti n Sprin g • Summer 2 0 0 0 14