IPv6 Appli Contest Winners

On September 19, IPv6 Appli Contest Committee announced Award for Excellence (Second Stage) winners as well as Grand Prix winner, chosen from among all Award for Excellence winners. Below are the prize winning entries.


Implementation Award – Grand Prix

IPv6 Multicast Audio/Video Communication Tool
Noritaka Osawa (Media Education Development Center)

This software basically enables multipoint distribution of DV video/audio using MPEG4. It supports IPv4/IPv6 multicast, with some additional
ender can instantly change the resolution of video transmitted by a simple control of sender application. Another very unique feature is partial change in resolution/frame rate. A certain area around mouse position can be treated as “eye point”, and the sender can send the eye point area at original resolution and frame rate, with other area at lower video quality. The receiver application combines the two in overlay. In this way, the software allows sender to emphasize certain areas to the receivers, while efficiently using network bandwidth.


Only part of the video is shown at original resolution in this example

Another feature of the software is mouse pointer exchange. All participants of the video session can send their mouse pointers to others by multicast, and all the pointers can appear in the same video frame at the same time.

This software is intended for real-time remote lecture on Intranet or over satellite link, while mouse pointer exchange is designed to ease multipoint video conferencing. The application supports Windows XP. Prototype software can be downloaded at www.v6pc.jp/apc/en/invitation.html.


Implementation Award
Award for Excellence - First Stage

DVconf
Keel Networks

This is a Windows application for acquiring video from DV camera through IEEE1394 for real-time transmission in DV format. It minimizes bandwidth use by managing video by 8x8 pixel cells and withholding from sending those cells with little change in information based on frequency analysis. Frame rate of the entire video can be automatically reduced as necessary, in order to dynamically cope with the environment with insufficient bandwidth. It can be downloaded for use at www.v6pc.jp/apc/en/invitation.html.


You can instantly turn your home camcorder to video conferencing tool

CyberLink IPv6 for Java
Satoshi Konno

This is a developer kit for implementing UPnP on Java. UPnP is a useful technology for discovering and controlling networked devices, but it consists of many different protocols, making it difficult for developers to manage each of them. CyberLink for Java is a program component that abstracts these processes. By implementing it on controlled devices and control points, programmers can enable lumpsum control of UPnP technology. The software can be downloaded at www.cybergarage.org. The same author has also developed CyberLink for C++, a C++ implementation of CyberLink.


A control interface for TVs, lighting, and air conditioners is shown in the center


Award for Excellence - Second Stage

Conference over IP
Yutaro Ono

This is an IP voice conferencing application enabling participants to talk at once without speaker switching. It also comes with text chat capability.

Host of an IP voice conferencing starts a session first using CoIP Manager application without any user management. People who want to join the session then connect to the host PC by specifying its IP address or host name. The host sees the list of connected users. He/she allows some or all of them to speak by selecting them “voice users” and start the conference. This application eliminates the need to set up a dedicated server, making it suited for ad hoc communications. Bandwidth consumption can be as low as 10Kbps, enabling communication with low-latency and swift responses.


Users connect to session host PC to get permission to speak.

IPv6 Monitoring Tool (iNetMon)
Dr. Sureswaran Ramadass
Network Research Group, School of Computer Sciences, University of Science Malaysia

This is a Windows-based software sniffer for capturing and analyzing network traffic in real time. It has protocol decode function supporting IPv4 and IPv6. It can also show traffic data volume and consumed bandwidth in graphs.

HiMIPv6 (Hierarchical Mobile IPv6)
Prof. Yeali S. Sun
Information Management Department, National Taiwan University
Evaluator Comments:

This is a system for creating hierarchical Mobile IPv6 environment. It involves placing hierarchically connected servers called Foreign Mobility Agent on remote networks, for reducing handover latency reduction to prevent broken connections while enabling high-speed authentication.


Foreign Mobility Agents work as buffers to ease connectivity management


Special Judges Award

IPv6 Start-Up Kit
Wataru Yokota

It is a IPv6 experience support tool from the author who thinks IPv6 is not yet a familiar technology for general computer users. It operates on a dedicated scripting program on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It also has IPv6-enabled simple Web server component. Users are led by a familiar character and invited to do such things as IPv6 install, connectivity confirmation using ping6 and content publish using IPv6 Web. Available at www.v6pc.jp/apc/en/invitation.html for download for free (dialog is only in Japanese).


Users are lead from IPv6 install to utilization with ease.


Murai Award

3°(threedegrees)
Microsoft Corporation

It is an IPv6-enabled ad-hoc communication tool for young people which can be installed on MSN Messenger. Developed by a group of students gathered two years ago for this project, threedegrees went into beta testing in February 2003. It is not known if this software will ever be formally released.

This software enables users to do group chat, exchange photo image data, listen to the same music data together with others. A “wink” feature lets users show selected images on the desktop of another user for greeting. Music listening feature does not download the actual music files on the PCs of participating users, thereby avoiding copyright issue. The tool is downloadable at www.threedegrees.com.


The software lets users listen to the same music together as well as doing online chat.

IPv6 Powered Car
Renault, Cisco Systems

It is a research project launched two years ago by Renault and Cisco Systems. Renault vehicles are given Cisco’s Cisco 3200 Mobile Access Router (IPv6-enabled experimental implementation) for always-on Internet connection through automatic switching between wireless LAN and 3rd-gen mobile phone network. The experiment began with IPv4 components, but they were IPv6-enabled later. Currently, the trial uses Mobile IPv6 as the default protocol.

The research project allows passengers Internet access using PDAs and other devices with wireless LAN adapters. IP-enabled car diagnostics system enables remote monitoring of the vehicles. GPS system and IP applications are integrated to offer location-based information service. The two companies say they will continue researching related applications and business models.


Tunneling is applied for IPv4-only networks.

High Speed Access Network Technology by VLAN Technology and EAP Authentication
NTT Network Service System Laboratories

This is an access management system for provider edge network with EAP and RADIUS for user authentication. Integration with VLAN configurations at the access switches lets users connect to the right ISPs at the right service quality. At the moment, PPP over Ethernet is deployed widely as access management technology. But BAS with PPPoE support is costly. It is not suitable for wireless LAN access points, as it forces users to go through layer 2 authentication and PPP authentication for Internet connection.

The proposed technology uses EAP, currently becoming known as authentication protocol for wireless LAN. Users are authenticated against user database on RADIUS servers. RADIUS server software can be given simple enhancement to support EAP. The new authentication method enables integrated authentication, independent from layer 2 technology used. It is also suitable for IPv4/IPv6 dual stack services.

The concept of this system was devised about two years ago, but the first implementation came from Cisco Systems at the end of 2002.