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Hi, Steve:

Have you touched base with the Internet 2 people out in Ann Arbor?
They are wrestling with some of the same issues.  They have a huge
amount of bandwidth connecting a limited group of partners, and from
what I have seen and heard, their applications have been more
evolutionary than revolutionary.

As far as I can tell, video over IP is the killer app of broadband,
video chat on the consumer side [where iChat seems to be best of breed]
and video conferencing on the business side.  Oh, and of course, P2P
downloading all the stuff you can get your hands on both legal and less
so.  Downloading movies is the cutting edge of that market so far.
There is an interesting technology in that world called Bittorrent
which you may know about.  If you don't, google it for a wealth of
information, or you can email me off list.

I have a feeling that you are looking for things more unthought of than
videoconferencing and downloading videos.  We are doing a haptic arm
wrestle that will allow people at 4 or 5 museums to pair off on arm
wrestling matches over the internet. Actually, though, it requires very
little bandwidth, just a stream of numbers.  However, it does use a
streaming video interface to connect to put the wrestlers f2f.  There
is the inevitably cited, but rarely done, remote surgery, which relies
less of big bandwidth than guaranteed bandwidth, basically you need to
create a point to point connection during the surgery, you can't trust
IP and packet switching and all that internet infrastructure in that
kind of critical application.

Hope that helps, and feel free to get in touch in you want more info on
any of this.

Eric Siegel
Director, Planning & Program Development
Connections Project Director
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11369
[log in to unmask]
www.nyscience.org

On May 2, 2004, at 10:29 AM, Stephen Brand wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
> ***********************************************************************
> ******
>
> I am doing some research for a group that I'm working with and would
> love some input.
>
> I am looking to find out the most effective, interesting, impressive,
> innovative, forward thinking or appropriate use of very broad band
> technology that you have seen being used or proprosed in the non profit
> world - it could be educational, experiential, adminstrative or even a
> business strategy.  When I say non profit, I include museums, cultural
> institutions, hospitals, educational organizations, universities,
> municipalities, social service, etc.  Also, does anyone have any ideas
> for what you would do if you had a huge bandwidth to send something out
> on or develop a program around-- for example, hospitals are starting to
> use broadband to send x-rays out on the internet for easy and quick
> physician access.  There is all of this talk about broadband, but
> besides having faster and more email, what is the vision out there.
>
> Thanks,
> Stephen Brand
> President and Chief Imagination Officer
> The New Enterprise Factory, Inc.
> 330-864-1518
>
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