Friday, August 15, 2008

Cache & Packets

Local firms go for gold in aiding Olympic coverage

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

A not-so-scientific look at the rosters of the U.S. Olympic team reveals almost 35 competitors from the six New England states. At the time of this writing, none has landed a medal, though the games are, admittedly, still in their earliest days.

Behind the scenes, a handful of local companies are also represented in Beijing, helping to bring the experience home through digital media and the games’ official outlets in the U.S., NBC and NBCOlympics.com.

In the “12,000 Mile Digital Media Distribution Management” event, Burlington-based Signiant Inc. is bringing home a gold for its management software. Through a long-standing relationship with NBC, the company’s software won responsibility for managing the worldwide movement of digital content for NBCOlympics.com, and the integration with content distribution network (CDN) provider Limelight Networks Inc. of California and Microsoft Corp., which is the main technology partner for NBCOlympics.

While at first glance Signiant’s existing relationship with NBC may have removed a few degrees of difficulty, the sheer volume of content — approximately 2,200 hours of live streaming broadband coverage and more than 3,000 hours of on-demand replays — negates that loss. (By comparison, according to NBC, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, the network streamed two hours of live footage.)

Limelight’s prominent role in the NBCOlympics digital package may have it in gold medal contention in the CDN space, but local provider and longtime Limelight rival Akamai Technologies Inc. was not left out, and should get a silver.

According to officials, Akamai is delivering static content on the NBCOlympics website, while parent NBC is using Akamai for dynamic site acceleration, event planning and support and syndication services. Akamai is also providing CDN services for websites outside of the U.S. that have rights to the games and are providing online video, including the European Broadcast Union, which includes Eurosport, TF1, Canal +, Y.L.E (Finland) and France Television.

In the “Wireless Delivery” event, Boston-based go2 Media Inc. has launched some simple WAP pages for getting updates on the games. The company is not linked with NBCOlympics, so go2 is providing its own original content for its mobile web pages. The site is based on its other specialized local content pages such as go2 Colleges, go2 Pets and go2Movies.


Gas Gathering

While attendees joked that the nine cars on display at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge earlier this week might represent a significant portion of all the hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road in the entire U.S., the rolling rally displayed one possible future of the passenger vehicle.

The rally in Cambridge was the second stop of the Hydrogen Road Tour, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the California Fuel Cell Partnership, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Hydrogen Association. The tour, which started in Portland, Maine, will visit 31 cities in 13 days, driving across the country to exhibit the potential for hydrogen power.

Included in the caravan are cars from BMW, Daimler, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen, all featuring their own version of hydrogen power. Some, like the two cars from BMW, use liquid hydrogen with one Beemer able to also run on gasoline. Others, like the Toyota, run on pure gaseous hydrogen used in a fuel cell to power electric motors.

The rally also included a stop at the Nuvera Fuel Cells Inc. facility in Billerica, where the company broke the seal on the first hydrogen refueling facility in the state. According to company officials, the facility can fill about 50 hydrogen vehicles per day — not exactly a full-service gas station, but a start.

Interestingly, Nuvera’s fuel cell powers the one car at the rally in Cambridge that is not making the trip across  the country — the Fiat — which was not allowed to participate because of certain safety measures (bumpers, I am told) that did not pass U.S. regulations. The Nuvera-powered Fiat, however, is in limited production and available (and drivable) in Europe.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles may face some challenges, but in the context of a rainy rally in Cambridge, they seemed far more realistic and ready for the road than solar-powered vehicles.