Lunch, networking and demonstrations will be available from ~1pm.

Invited Guests are encouraged to take the opportunity to introduce themselves to Mobile VCE's industrial members and to learn how existing members participate and gain value from their membership.

Technology demonstrations from VCE research programmes will be available over lunch and during the afternoon coffee break. Handouts about the demos, to remind attendees of what they saw, are available for download from the relevant links below. [If you would like others in your company to see the demos, please contact Jerry Horton, jerry.horton@mobilevce.com]

Welcome to Members & Invited Guests
Purpose of the Annual Research Review

The Objectives & Remit of Mobile VCE
Industrial Steering, World Class Academic Research
Brief Overview of the Past Year's Activity

"Secure Autonomous Business Networking" - a new information service capability for corporate / enterprise customers of telecom operators - is the goal of the Instant Knowledge programme.

Bringing together advances in social network technology, machine learning and security & privacy, the research is harnessing employees' tacit knowledge and converting this into valuable information for the company. The programme is delivering research advances, as well establishing the practicality of how these can be combined to deliver a new genre of services.

With an orientation to service demonstration from the outset, a hardware/software demonstration thread is running throughout this programme. Potential end users - such as HSBC, Unilever et al - as well as operational staff from member telcos will shortly begin evaluating the concept demos. James Irvine from Strathclyde University, and others, will be on hand to present the latest demos at the research review.

Of all Mobile VCE's current programmes, Instant Knowledge has the highest short-term commercialisation potential. Ways to take the research forward to this next stage are actively being sought.

Advanced interactions – between the user and his devices, his personal electronic environment, his context and intelligence within the network – have the potential to enable completely new personal lifestyle support services, as well as a host of new business services.

'User Interactions for Breakthrough Services' is exploring a future where services will dynamically adapt and configure themselves according to the unique and changing needs of individual users. Such services will be accessible in new, intuitive ways using multiple personal and environment-based devices. All this will take place within a rapidly evolving social backdrop which the project is following closely, in order to ensure commercial relevance of the research.

To this end the programme is focussing upon two application themes - Nomadic & Collaborative Media, and Augmented Travel. A user-centred approach is being adopted, to ensure the user benefits of solutions can be clearly understood, considering two typical, but quite different, user types.

Jason Williams will describe this context for the work, as well as describing the new interaction modalities being explored and their emerging mapping onto application areas. Workshops to explore this mapping are imminent, to be followed in 2011 by a Business Models Workshop, to look as wider issues. Other plans for 2011 will also be presented.

Identifying a new Design Approach for Networks in a Future of Unpredictable Service Requirements was the key goal of the first phase of the Flexible Networks programme. This research has involved exploration of the potential to harness agile, dynamic and self-evolving networking technologies, to accommodate unforeseen and, at times, apparently conflicting demands of users and operators. Mechanisms to resolve such so-called 'tussle' is necessary if operators are to enable a range of different business models and at the same time deliver the right experience at the right cost point to the user. Mick Wilson will outline the key achievements of this programme, which completed end June 2010.

The use of Control Points as a way of mapping socio-economic service drivers onto network design will, in particular, be explained, a key aspect of this new methodology. Network Virtualisation has also emerged from this work as having important potential, especially given other industry drivers which are growing in importance. A workshop to explore these themes in more depth is planned for late November. Mick Wilson will preview this workshop, as well as presenting wider plans for the second, larger, phase of research.

Mobile VCE's Green Radio programme has catalysed activities throughout the industry, not just ling term, but also short term. This year's activities have moved forward the delivery of innovative research to achieve its ambitious targets of 100 times energy reduction, whilst maintaining QoS and recognising the constraints of emerging communications platforms.

This talk will present an overview of the programme and its key findings to date. Building upon the use of appropriate metrics to understand the true green benefits and using and end-to-end systems approach, Simon Fletcher will outline the key advances being secured within the programme.

2010 has seen significant research achievements within the Mobile VCE's ongoing core research programme, on all fronts. All Industry Steering Groups have been active in planning a range of future Workshops, many with invited external speakers, details of which will be presented. Mobile VCE has also participated in an extensive range of International activities over the past year, including the Shanghai Expo.

Reflecting both economic and industry changes, Mobile VCE has also been strengthening relationships with a range of Government and industry organisations, and exploring ways in which it can help develop the application of digital communications into other industries, to facilitate economic growth. An update on the status of these discussions and provisional plans will also be provided.