CANARIE’s ARIM fund sees extension to explore grid computing and new media

CANARIE Inc.’s high profile AppliedResearch in Multimedia (ARIM) fund has received a $1-million extension over the next year from the Canadian Cultural Online Program that has been earmarked for a new research area, grid computing. CANARIE senior director of operations Susan Baldwin says the focus will help "kick the ends out of the sandbox for the new media community in terms of their imagination and the kinds of research they can do." Grid computing uses thousands of computers networked together to perform a common task. Well-known uses include the popular Seti@Home application, which distributes small pieces of data to hundreds of thousands of users for initial processing before analysis in a more manageable form by a research team searching for signs of extraterrestrial life in radio signals reaching Earth. That application is a very simple form of grid computing, says Baldwin, and she hopes to see projects that allow users to be more involved than just crunching numbers for upload back to a school or a research group. "What we’d like to see out of this program is a project that really allows for possibly computation, possibly analysis, possibly modeling, depending on how they set it up, that allows the users to interact. It could be collaborative rich media. We want to foster the collaboration. I think one of the unique things about this particular call is that we’re saying, ‘design it for users.’ It’s not just the research community, but let the users enjoy some of that rich interactive experience. Or, let them do some of the analysis and have it feed back to you." Baldwin acknowledges that grid computing can seem like a very technical pursuit, especially to new media content players working in softer disciplines. But, she says, important work on making the technology accessible will result from collaboration between technical and cultural teams. "Part of the collaboration that we’re hoping to see is that, yes, you may have that grid computing techie expertise in a university environment, but again it’s how do you develop that for content. How do you use that imagination to involve the audience or the people who want to experience different things out there? This starts to move from a lab experience to a common cultural experience – a shared experience… "It will move the research, I think, a long way in terms of the tools for grid computing, because you have to have the user interface tools, they’ve got to be simple. They have to be simple enough to use or you’re going to lose people. So, part of it is understanding the simplicity that will really work for an audience, or an experience, when you’re talking a broadband environment. "Grid computing, Baldwin tells CNM, is considered by CANARIE to be an important thrust in current computing research, and the organization already has a "grid-master" working for it, shared part-time with the National Research Council. To help build on that trend, CANARIE opted not to put out a more general call for proposals as it had in previous rounds. "We wanted to put out a very focused call that would really kick the ends out of the sandbox for the new media community in terms of their imagination and the kinds of research they can do. And to also lead into the areas that CANARIE is looking at for the future so that we both move forward together and they can take advantage of where CANARIE thinks the networking is going, and we start building that content and cultural capacity on that network." She adds: "The new media people are thinking way far out about what they can deliver. This is today? Well, they’re working on the day after tomorrow. This is to take advantage of where they’re probably already thinking, and then putting that in a framework that allows them to express it and share it and that allows others to do the same." Baldwin expects that three or four projects will be funded out of the $1-million extension, which is effectively doubled by the requirement that winning projects come to the table with matching resources. The ARIM program has seen its share of criticism since it was first announced as a $6-million program in December 2001, including that it was slow to cut cheques and conclude contracts. Baldwin acknowledges that there have been problems, but says the program has been streamlined as much as possible. One round of applications has been eliminated with the process moving straight to an RFP, and successful projects are required to have matching funds secured before being considered for the program. She notes that CANARIE has received about 10 to 12 inquiries per day since putting out its call on July 23. See http://www.canarie.ca/conferences/fall_series/index.html for further details

CANARIE’s ARIM fund sees extension to explore grid computing and new media

News | 08/06/2004 4:00 am EDT

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