Researching: Communications Alliance of Scientific Organizations Alliance of Scientific Organizations Researching: Communications Message of Greeting Message of Greeting In recent years the processes of innovation have gained Initiative and the Higher Education Pact. Together, these significant dynamic force. The “High-Tech Strategy for initiatives represent the biggest investment in research, Germany” has been a major factor in this. Introduced in science, innovation and education ever seen in Germany. the last legislative period, it constituted the first national all-embracing concept for the research sector and has led The scientific organizations are successfully addressing to a new quality of cooperation between the scientific, issues of the future and are advancing into new areas of business and political communities. In developing the research. The current series of brochures shows how well High-Tech Strategy further, proven measures will be con- German research is placed to deal with the major future tinued, but new points of emphasis are also being accentu- challenges. Each brochure is devoted to one of the main ated. The “High-Tech Strategy 2020” focuses on five major subjects identified in the High-Tech Strategy and uses areas: climate and energy, health and nutrition, mobility, engaging examples to illustrate the work conducted in security, and communication. The aim is to make Germany Germany’s research institutes. With their easy-to-under- a leader in the solution of urgent global problems by giving stand descriptions of advanced research, these publications impetus to new technologies and innovations and by pool- support the broad dialog with the public on the pressing ing the resources of science and industry. questions of our time. The members of the Alliance of Scientific Organizations have a key role to play in the successful implementation of the High-Tech Strategy. So that science can perform its central task in research and development, in technology transfer and in the innovation process, the federal and state governments have agreed to continue with the Pact for Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan, MdB Research and Innovation, and to support the Excellence German Federal Minister of Education and Research Preface Ladies and gentlemen, smoothly and, in certain areas, almost intuitively. The tools at their disposal include ever more efficient broadband Human beings are highly communicative creatures. In technologies and highly complex processor architectures, the course of our evolution and across our many cultures, peer-to-peer and overlay networks, and embedded systems. language and writing have always been two powerful in- They are developing new mobile communication and in- struments for entering into a dialog with others. And yet, formation management strategies as well as platforms for the enormous possibilities opened up to us today by digital e-government, e-learning, e-research and e-business; ways communication would probably have left us speechless to allow the digitization and long-term archiving of our with astonishment just twenty years ago. cultural heritage; and innovative solutions for the Semantic Web, cognitive systems or human-machine communica- Today, it is matter of course for us to use the Internet – tion. They are searching for answers to the many questions whether to mail, blog, twitter, or skype. Social networks concerning security, data protection, copyright or property enable us both to find new friends anywhere in the world raised by the risks inherent in digital communication – and to meet up with old friends around the corner using risks which, despite all the benefits, undeniably exist. our cell phone location function. Where before we had to go to the library or purchase expensive books to look up It goes without saying that science itself can make use of certain topics, we can now do it from home using free on- the advantages already offered by digital communication. line encyclopedias and downloading data from the “cloud.” Buzzwords such as open access, virtual research environ- In personal, economic and social terms, the effects of these ments or high throughput analysis are merely some nota- developments are immense, and it is often hard to predict ble examples of the broad spectrum of new possibilities. what twists and turns the journey will take next. In the global community’s virtual network, the digital revolution The high level of expertise, innovation and commitment is also making real-life revolutions possible, because even with which scientists at German universities and research citizens of dictatorships are able to exchange information institutes are tackling the many challenges posed by dig- and organize themselves democratically despite all at- ital communication is described in this brochure. It was tempts at censorship. put together by the Alliance of German Science Organiza- tions under the leadership of the Deutsche Forschungsge- The latest information and communication technologies meinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and uses have long since begun to change the world around us by selected examples to illustrate the topic at hand. It is avail- giving objects the capacity for language – to the benefit of able both in printed form – a medium that has an almost us all. Highly complex sensor networks and self-organizing nostalgic touch – and as a more modern PDF download systems operate unnoticed in the background, organizing from the Internet. Ideally, it will act as a basis for inter- traffic flows, monitoring power grids, controlling produc- esting discussions between you and your colleagues and tion facilities or functioning as ecological early-warning friends – which in turn will hopefully give rise to further systems. Soon, perhaps, autonomous interactive robots productive dialog. will be creating three-dimensional maps of other planets for us. Digital communication has made all aspects of our world more mobile, more interesting, more comfortable, Sincerely, richer, and faster, and it has expanded our knowledge of that world to an unimaginable extent. Scientists of all disciplines and from all parts of Germany are working intensively to ensure that the dialog between Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Kleiner human beings and the objects around them functions President of the DFG Contents 1 Dialog of computers Computer networks 6 2 Dialog of objects Intelligent objects 14 3 Networked users Mobility and digital platforms 26 4 Information and knowledge Presentation and processing of information 32 5 Digital cultures Opportunities and risks of digital communication 38 Contact 46 Editorial notes 48 1 Dialog of computers Computer networks Businesses wanting to remain competitive in the information and communication tech- nology sector have to be able to offer technologies and services that can be deployed across all different platforms. In technical terms, that calls for powerful databases and network architectures. Experts in communication-systems research are currently working flat out to deliver the required technologies and define the necessary standards. 6 Communications Complex network architectures are the backbone of digital communication. Users today take for granted the ability to call up and In addition to services that can be deployed across exchange files, information and documents using PCs different platforms, it is above all databases and net- and smartphones – irrespective of the manufacturer work architectures that enable individual parties to and operating system of their devices. work together in an interoperable, seamless manner. Innovative network architectures need to enable end- In future, this form of convergence will extend to in- user devices, computer systems and networks to link clude all types of devices: computers, smartphones, up in all possible combinations. Integrated hetero- TVs, sensors as well as onboard systems in motor ve- geneous environments of this type allow users and hicles will then be able to interact without media dis- devices to network flexibly as required and make it continuities and to access information made available possible to provide the necessary services. in virtual form via secure data lines. High-performance Computing Exascale Computing Supercomputer infrastructure for Europe A new dimension in computing Under the auspices of the Partnership for Advanced Under the leadership of the German Research Foun- Computing in Europe (PRACE), 20 European countries dation (DFG), the Heads of Research Councils of G8 are building a distributed supercomputer infrastructure. countries (G8-HORCs) have launched the Exascale This makes extremely high-performance computers Computing Initiative to focus on the mainframe com- available for top-class research work across the conti- puters of the coming decades. Compared with the fast- nent, in fields as diverse as climate change, sustainable est computers currently in operation, the new comput- energy supply and health care. These computers are ers will be able to execute up to one thousand times connected to each other via a high-performance opti- the number of mathematical operations in the same cal-fiber network built through the EU’s DEISA project. time. In order to achieve this, an entirely new scien- The UNICORE grid software, developed under the lead- tific approach needs to be taken to programming these ership of Forschungszentrum Jülich (Jülich Research mainframes. So the initiative is promoting multilateral Center), grants researchers – no matter where they are