News

Digital Agenda: European Commission announces €780 million boost for strategic ICT research

The European Commission has today announced one of the biggest calls ever for information and communications technology (ICT) research proposals under the EU's research framework programmes. The announcement was made at Europe's largest event for ICT research and innovation, ICT 2010-Digitally Driven. It will result in project funding of € 780 million in 2011. This funding will advance research on the future internet, robotics, smart and embedded systems, photonics, ICT for energy efficiency, health and well-being in an ageing society, and more. Under the Digital Agenda for Europe (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200), the Commission has committed to maintaining the pace of a 20% yearly increase of the annual ICT R&D budget at least until 2013.

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Evolutionary changes to manufacturing process will enable a route to volume production of cells with 20% conversion efficiency.

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In his semi-annual State of the FTTH Union update, RVA Market Research’s Michael Render told attendees at the FTTH Conference in Las Vegas that 6.45 million households in North America receive services via fiber to the home (FTTH) networks.

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LED-based SSL will deliver significant energy savings in new parking-garage installations, while more municipalities announce LED street-light projects, and companies take novel approaches to SSL-based outdoor light designs.

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Following on from the Accord project, the component exchange scheme will promote co-operation between European SMEs and researchers.

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Photonics21 to run a booth at the ICT Expo, 27 September – 29 September 2010 / Speech on the ICT Conference on “Green-Photonics”

Photonics21, the European Technology Platform for photonics, runs a booth at the ICT 2010 Expo in Brussels to inform about its research and innovation activities in the field of ICT and Europe’s Digital Agenda. We invite you to join us at the Photonics21 stand.

Photonics21 Member of the Stakeholder Board, Dr. Berit Wessler, was involved in the ICT 2010 Conference Section ”Components and systems for energy efficiency”, which took place on Tuesday, September 28, 2.00 pm – 3.30 pm in the Auditorium 500.

The presentation highlighted the potential of photonics technologies as key elements of a European green photonics strategy towards energy efficient lighting, solar power generation, and sustainable information and communication infrastructures.

You will find the presentation of Dr. Wessler here.

The content of the press folder you find here:

1. Facts and Figures

2. ICT

3. Light

4. Laser

5. OPV

        

An AC-driven OLED could open the door to a simplified system design without the need for a driver, which in turn could offer advantages for OLED luminaire makers.

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Executive Board member Alfredo Viglienzoni underlined the “Relevance of optical communications” and the role of photonics for the next generation network

“Make it faster, more transparent, more dynamic and more “green” thanks to the use of optical technology in future networks. This was the basic message Dr. Alfredo Viglienzoni, Member of the Executive Board of Photonics 21, gave at the Annual General Meeting of the European eMobility Platform in Venice in September 2010.

After lining out the changing shape in networks as well as the evolution of customer needs, Viglienzoni pointed to the value of optical communications for the next generation networks:  traffic will grow in capacity, number of connections, with an increased expected Quality of Services (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). It should meet the challenge of Convergence”: a single network to deliver all services; “Flexibility”: a network optimized for every situation and “Cost”: a network with low cost of ownership. Transmitted bit rates in all part of the networkneed toincreasein order to cope with traffic growth. Keeping information flow in the optical domain as long as possible (from the home to the backbone) and removing unnecessary optical-electronical-optical conversions will enable to reducepower consumption of active network elements. Another element future network will have to improve is the capability of quickly reconfiguring itself.  Energy efficiency will also be achieved by increased photonic integration, design and implementing of sleep modes and performing energy aware routing and resource assignment.

In his concluding remarks, Viglienzoni voted for a common large scale project “The Digital Village” as a test bed for both services and physical network solutions. This real test environment, worked out closely with the eMobility and Future Internet Platform and Initiative, will be essential for future product and solutions proving, collaboration between the various stakeholders and service development in an ever more virtualized network scenario. 

To see the full presentation, please click here.

With many countries phasing out the use of traditional incandescent light bulbs to save energy, the lighting business has taken on a new dimension and is now offering a broader range of products than the one perfected in 1879 by Thomas Edison. There are compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and some firms are developing quantum dots, which are lights made from tiny crystals of semiconducting material. Now another new source of lighting, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), is starting to take the spotlight.

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EPB Fiber Optics, Chattanooga’s municipally owned fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced the only 1-Gigabit broadband service in the United States for residential and business customers is now available citywide in Chattanooga, TN.

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