When you Google (yes, that's officially a verb now) the word "newt," you'll learn all about salamanders and the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
But, to the credit of a small but energetic staff, you'll also see the Network for Emerging Wireless Technologies (NEWT) right there in the first page of hits.
NEWT is a Calgary-based division of TRLabs, an industry- and government-supported organization that bills itself as "Canada's largest independent research laboratory."
Still, except to industry insiders, NEWT remains something of a mystery.
"We provide the expertise, tools and testing environments that new companies need to get started in wireless," says Eric Larson, NEWT's marketing director. "We give them access to things that are not available at Radio Shack."
An example? How about a $250,000 Agilent device that emulates either a GSM or a CDMA (wireless platforms) network. You don't need one of these babies every day, but when you do, you most definitely need it.
Without NEWT, companies would be forced to rent or buy expensive equipment such as this. You don't just fire up this type of gear the way you plug in a toaster. "You need a qualified engineer that's got about six weeks' training just to set up the test and run it," Larson says.
At NEWT, he adds, "Steve, who's our RF engineer, sets up the test for them, they come in for half a day, get half a dozen handsets through here, and they continue on their merry way."
He cites the example of Chartwell Technology, Inc., which makes devices for the gaming industry. That's gaming as in casinos, not chess or SuperMario. According to Larson, they don't even sell their products in North America, but need to verify that their wireless gaming technology will work in overseas markets such as the U.K.
This means testing it with GSM cellphone handsets that are not even approved in Canada. NEWT membership allows them to do this, right in Calgary "We've got 59 members, 45 of those are (small and medium-sized enterprises) and the only reason that companies sign up is because they either need some help developing a wireless product or they have specific need of some of the tools we have here in the CTI building," Larson notes.
CTI is Calgary Technologies Inc., and Larson says the two organizations refer people back and forth all the time. So a company that needs business expertise might be sent over to take a CTI course. NEWT has a free online course of its own, called Wireless Solutions Fast Start, and Larson says it's one of the main things that brings people to the website.
"We tend to work with companies that generally don't have a product to market yet," says Larson, "so after they get something in shrink wrap they might fall into one of the CTI programs. We're kind of a missing link in their overall programs, and we're much more specific to wireless."
NEWT is unique, he adds. "We don't know of another open lab like us in Western Canada.”
There is a Vancouver-based organization called Wireless Innovation Network British Columbia, but they don't have any infrastructure.
NEWT and WinBC recently collaborated to sponsor the Leapfrog Awards, honouring companies with terrific new wireless product ideas. "It was intended to get companies with experience in oil and gas, agricultural, and maybe SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) thinking about wireless products," says Larson.
The winning companies, from Toronto, Pasadena and Yonkers, N.Y., each carried away access to NEWT services valued at about $30,000.
However, one of NEWT's biggest government sponsors is Western Economic Development. Does it bother Larson that there were no Western Canadian winners? "Not at all," he says. "The nature of wireless technology is that it doesn't really have any geographical boundaries, and an idea from far away might wind up creating jobs in Calgary or Vancouver."
Entries were judged on financial and technical feasibility, as well as the company's business experience. Winner Mobile Reach Media Inc. of Toronto is developing a system that prompts a child or employee to check in with a secret code or fingerprint scan at regular intervals, and sends an alert by text, voice or e-mail if they miss a check-in.
New York-based Connect2car Inc. is developing a gizmo that allows you to control your car from a "smart" phone device. You can cut off the engine, trigger the alarm, even open and close the windows from your phone.
The third winner, Evolution Robotics, Inc. of Pasadena, is working on computer vision for mobile commerce. For example, you might soon be able to search the entire Amazon site for something you only have a picture of on your cell-phone. These projects are not pie-in-the-sky. All three are expected to be completed in 2005.
Back in Alberta, the much-touted Alberta SuperNet is supposed to bring not only high-speed Internet but also education, telehealth and business opportunities to communities across the province. It's been a bit slow getting off the ground, but NEWT is certainly doing its best to help SuperNet achieve its potential.
"We've got a live SuperNet POP (point of presence) in our lab" that is already helping companies test applications that are destined to run on SuperNet, says Duane Sniezek, NEWT's chief operating officer.
The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology is one of the first users of this gear, as it prototypes a course to be delivered over the SuperNet to rural high schools.
"About 80 per cent of companies have people or product that moves, and that makes them a candidate for wireless," says Larson. "We still see, on a weekly basis, five or six companies that are interested in doing something wireless. Literally on any day I could start at A in the Yellow Pages and ask companies if they're doing something in wireless - and about 30 per cent of the time they'll come back and say 'yes.'" Web watch: www.newt.trlabs.ca
www.calgarytechnologies.com (Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)
