The power of ultra high-speed, high-capacity fibre optic connectivity comes to Stratford May 2-4 when CANARIE, Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network, demonstrates what broadband can enable at the Canada 3.0 2011 digital media forum.
CANARIE will showcase two projects that take advantage of the network’s high speed and capacity. Open Orchestra is an advanced simulation environment for musicians, similar to cockpit simulators that pilots use during their training. Delegates will also interact with the real-time data and images streamed from instruments located on the sea floor off the coast of Vancouver Island, home of the NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS underwater ocean networks.
“As we work to enable all Canadians to do anything on-line by 2017, the CANARIE demonstrations at Canada 3.0 will provide inspiration as to what high-speed broadband connectivity can bring to life,” said Kevin Tuer, Managing Director of the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN) staging Canada 3.0. “Ultimately Canada needs to strive for a solid commercial infrastructure that can support applications which aren’t even imagined today.”
The Open Orchestra demo uses sophisticated technologies and high bandwidth so student musicians and vocalists can perform as if they are part of an orchestra. Canada 3.0 attendees will use the technology to simulate conducting their own recorded orchestra. Visitors to the CANARIE booth will also interact with the sophisticated underwater instruments (e.g. video cameras) that monitor ocean parameters to help predict tsunamis and follow up climate change and its impact on marine life.
The CANARIE Network, funded by Industry Canada, provides vital digital infrastructure linking over 40,000 Canadian researchers and innovators across Canada to each other and to peers worldwide. CANARIE’s fibre optic network stretches 19,000 KM, enabling national and international research collaboration and ensuring Canada is at the forefront of digital research and innovation. Jim Roche, a CANARIE Board member and former President and CEO, will discuss how digital infrastructure has become the foundation for research in Canada and internationally when he speaks during the research stream at the forum.
As the host city for the Canada 3.0 forum annually, the City of Stratford is all about going digital. The city’s deployment of a high-speed wireless network and underlying fibre optic grid recently put Stratford on the ‘Top 7’ cities designation by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) based in New York. The City has enhanced its wireless connectivity including making the downtown core a wireless hot spot, and supported improvements in the Stratford Rotary Complex to enable better connectivity within the buildings.
“Stratford is setting an example for other municipalities in the country as to what’s feasible for enabling digital commerce,” said Tuer. “Ideally Canada would have high-speed commercial networks of the same caliber as the CANARIE research and innovation network, with local high-speed access enabled within municipalities such as what has been achieved in Stratford.”
