Synopsis
Colossal investments are being made in a wide variety of new computer technologies that share a revolutionary new paradigm: they are net-centric. In this book, award-winning editor Bernard Cole provides a desperately needed "birds-eye" view of this new phenomenon. Cole, who covers net-centric computing for Electrical Engineering Times, the industry's leading trade paper, reviews and compares each competing approach: connected PCs, NetPCs, NCs, Web-enabled set-top boxes, and net-centric "computing appliances." He reviews each key element of the infrastructure needed to support net-centric computing, including the Internet, Java, Windows and alternative operating systems, distributed objects, and the RISC and CISC processor alternatives available to system designers. He focuses on the key challenges facing suppliers, including improving reliability and I/O, delivering real-time networked multimedia across the Internet, and building Web-centric user interfaces that transcend today's 2D GUIs.
From 64-bit CPUs to MPEG4, CORBA to XML, For engineers and developers who want to build the next-generation of Web-centric computing devices - and the users who await them - Cole has done the "impossible": he has made sense of the net-centric computing revolution.
From the Back Cover
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- Experience the net-centric computing revolution from the inside!
- Covers every variety of network computing device.
- Clients, servers, and back-end infrastructure.
- Networked multimedia: the future of the Internet.
The traditional PC is history: net-centric computing is the future. But what form will it take? Computing appliances, "connected PCs," Web-enabled set-top boxes, Webphones, Internet-connected wireless communicators, or Java-based network computers? All of them or something else entirely? What challenges face professionals who want to build, plan for, or invest in these new systems? Now, award-winning editor Bernard Cole who covers net-centric computing for Electrical Engineering Times provides an up-to-the-minute birds-eye view of the entire field. He presents every leading approach and reviews all these crucial technology issues:
- Making the Internet scale to support net-centric computing.
- Pros, cons, and alternatives to Java in networked computing devices.
- The role of distributed objects, including CORBA and COM.
- Net-centric operating systems: OS-9000, DAVID, pSOS+, VxWorks, VRTX, PowerTV, Java OS, and Windows CE 2.0.
- RISC and CISC processors: x86, ARM, picoJava, Shaboom, and other alternatives.
- Supercharging I/O: RSVP, parallelism, I2O, and other key strategies.
Cole offers new insight into the make-or-break challenges facing the net-centric computing industry, including security, testing, maintenance, and reliability. He reviews the massive infrastructure and technology enhancements needed to support real-time networked multimedia, including MPEG4, RTSP, VRML, Java3D, MMX and its competitors, and 64-bit processors. Finally, he previews tomorrow's new Web-centric user interfaces, intended to keep users from getting "lost in the Web." With extraordinary breadth and depth, Cole has done what others thought impossible: He has made sense of the net-centric computing future.
