GBC/ACM Meeting Schedule for 2001-2002Project Mercury: Exploring the Future of Handheld ComputingJamey HicksCompaq Thursday, October 18, 2001 Note: Special Location: MIT, NE-43, LCS Technology Square, 8th floor playroom. Return to GBC/ACM Home Page.
Meeting DetailsOctober, 2001 MeetingSubjectProject Mercury: Exploring the Future of Handheld ComputingSpeakerJamey HicksCompaq DateThursday, October 18, 2001Time6:45 pm: Refreshments7:00 pm: Speaker LocationMIT, NE-43, LCS Technology Square, 8th floor playroomSee directions below. Meeting OverviewThe Mercury Project was created to extend the boundaries of pervasive access to information and wireless communication. The results of the project will facilitate the access to all personal data, of any type, from anywhere, any time, securely. The Mercury Project is creating both hardware --- the BackPAQ expansion pack, which is a platform for handheld research --- and software --- consisting of networking technology, middleware, and applications. The Mercury BackPAQ is a research prototype enabling experimentation not currently possible with off-the-shelf products. The Mercury Project leverages the expandability of Compaq's popular iPAQ H3600 design by adding a custom-designed expansion pack called the BackPAQ. The BackPAQ consists of a low power CMOS VGA imager, two PC Card slots, 32MB of flash, an accelerometer, and a cellphone headset jack and audio codec. The combination of these features enables applications such as voice or video conferencing, and roaming across multiple physical networks. The Mercury software is based on Linux on the iPAQ. Linux was ported to
the iPAQ by Compaq as part of the Open Handhelds Project
( In the talk, I will discuss the project, its foundations in Open Handhelds, and demonstrate some of the mobility features investigated by the project. For more information on Project Mercury, go to http://crl.research.compaq.com/projects/mercury/. Speaker BiographyJames Hicks has been with Compaq since February, 1996, when he joined the Cambridge Research Laboratory, working on performance modeling and architecture for simultaneous multithreading on Alpha (Arana). For the past couple of years, Jamey has been working on small, networked devices: the Personal Server and now the iPAQ Pocket PC. This work has led to the formation of a Mercury Project at CRL. Prior to working at CRL, Jamey worked at the Motorola Cambridge Research Center on dataflow parallel computing. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 1992.Optional Post-Meeting DinnerAn optional pay-your-own dinner will be held after the meeting.
Additional Information on MeetingsUnless noted otherwise, all GBC/ACM meetings are held in Room 4-231 (i.e., Bldg. 4, Room 231) at MIT in Cambridge, MA.The meeting is free and open to the public. No reservations are required. The formal part of the meeting will start at 7:00 PM. September 2001 Meeting: Directions to IBM Solution Partnership Center and The Green PapayaThe September 2001 meeting will be at the IBM SPC, 404 Wyman Street, Waltham MA. Maps and directions can be found on the Web at http://www.developer.ibm.com/spc/spceinfo.htm .To get to The Green Papaya from IBM SPC, go south (make a right turn) onto Wyman St. Then go about one mile to Totten Pond Rd. Turn right (west) onto Winter St. and cross I-95/Route 128. On the other side, look for the access road on the right. Turn sharp right, heading back toward I-95/Route 128. Green Papaya is the first business at the end of the group of restaurants and shops. Be careful not to park in the access road. Directions to MITMIT is at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, just on the north side of Memorial Drive (on the north shore of the Charles River), in Cambridge, MA.Our usual meeting room is 4-231. One way to find room 4-231, which is on the second floor of building 4, is to enter the main complex of MIT buildings by coming in the main entrance at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, then walk straight through "the infinite corridor" until you reach building 4. Directions to MIT by car and public transit. You should be able to park in the East Garage. Map showing the MIT campus. The red building just left of center is Bldg. 4 ; the red dot on the right is the Kendall T station. Another map showing MIT campus. The red building near the top is Bldg. NE43 (site of the October, 2001 meeting); the red dot on the right is the Kendall T station. Click here for another
map showing the meeting building, the parking garage, and the restaurant.
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