The world’s largest social network today announced that it will launch OpenCellular, a mobile infrastructure platform designed to lower barriers to entry for would-be providers of internet service to the developing world.OpenCellular, in essence, is designed to be a customizable base chassis for a wireless access point, able to connect devices using 2G, LTE or even Wi-Fi. Facebook said that the emphasis in the design process was on keeping the design as modular and inexpensive as possible, as well as making it easy to deploy.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Boston is nation’s top tech-talent exporter + Antivirus merger: Avast offers $1.3 billion for AVGTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In possibly the coolest news for aviation geeks who cover the technology sector – so, you know, basically just the author of this article – a former University of Cincinnati doctoral candidate has created a Raspberry Pi-powered AI that can fly simulated fighter aircraft.ALPHA, according to retired Col. Gene Lee, is “the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible AI I’ve seen to date.” Lee, according to the University of Cincinnati magazine that originally publicized the research, has yet to defeat ALPHA in simulated aerial combat.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD:Ultimate guide to Raspberry Pi OSes +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The first quarter of 2016 has seen a 20% increase in wireless LAN equipment sales compared to the same period a year ago, according to a study released by IHS Technology, which credited the proliferation of 802.11ac wireless gear for the uptick.While the $1.2 billion in total sales represents a quarter-on-quarter downturn of 14%, that’s merely a seasonal demand issue, said IHS. Yet the year-on-year sales increase has been accomplished with equipment prices remaining relatively flat.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Top 5 storage vendors shows massive shift to the cloud + Resold hard drives on eBay, Craigslist are often still ripe with leftover dataTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The first quarter of 2016 has seen a 20% increase in wireless LAN equipment sales compared to the same period a year ago, according to a study released by IHS Technology, which credited the proliferation of 802.11ac wireless gear for the uptick.While the $1.2 billion in total sales represents a quarter-on-quarter downturn of 14%, that’s merely a seasonal demand issue, said IHS. Yet the year-on-year sales increase has been accomplished with equipment prices remaining relatively flat.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Top 5 storage vendors shows massive shift to the cloud + Resold hard drives on eBay, Craigslist are often still ripe with leftover dataTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. data centers have used about the same amount of energy annually over the past five years or so, despite substantial growth in the sector, according to a new report published by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.In the Berkeley Lab’s previous analysis, which was presented to Congress in 2008, it was found that energy usage by data centers was quadrupling every decade – an unsurprising figure given the explosive overall growth in the sector. Data centers in the U.S. consumed 70 billion kilowatt-hours in 2014, the researchers estimated.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Windows 10’s biggest controversies + HPE's CTO is leaving amid more change at the companyTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. data centers have used about the same amount of energy annually over the past five years or so, despite substantial growth in the sector, according to a new report published by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.In the Berkeley Lab’s previous analysis, which was presented to Congress in 2008, it was found that energy usage by data centers was quadrupling every decade – an unsurprising figure given the explosive overall growth in the sector. Data centers in the U.S. consumed 70 billion kilowatt-hours in 2014, the researchers estimated.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Windows 10’s biggest controversies + HPE's CTO is leaving amid more change at the companyTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Looking like the world’s most important and uncomfortable furniture…It’s the six-month anniversary of the last list, which means it’s time for a new one. Terrible shelf-life, these supercomputer lists, but that means there’s a whole new hierarchy of unfathomably powerful computing machines ranked by Top500.org for our ooh-ing and aah-ing pleasure. Here’s a look at the top 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Looking like the world’s most important and uncomfortable furniture…It’s the six-month anniversary of the last list, which means it’s time for a new one. Terrible shelf-life, these supercomputer lists, but that means there’s a whole new hierarchy of unfathomably powerful computing machines ranked by Top500.org for our ooh-ing and aah-ing pleasure. Here’s a look at the top 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Social dynamics and “culture fit” are a big reason that female engineers tend to stay in the profession at a lower rate than their male counterparts, according to a study released today by authors at MIT, University of California – Irvine, Michigan, and McGill.The research was conducted by having more than 40 undergraduate engineering students keep bi-monthly diaries, providing the study with more than 3,000 entries to analyze.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Chef’s open source tool lets applications automate infrastructure provisioning + This startup may have built the world's fastest networking switch chipTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
WWDC 2016 kicks offImage by AppleOver the course of 2-plus hours in an auditorium in San Francisco, Apple showed off a host of new and refreshed software. Lots and lots of things changed, but here are the initial highlights.watchOSImage by AppleTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You’d think that people would be squashing up against the limits of what you can do with a Raspberry Pi by now, but you’d be wrong. One enterprising Redditor has decided to play Pinocchio to a toy GameBoy – handed out by Burger King as part of a promotion – and turn it into a real one, using an emulator and a Raspberry Pi Zero.
It’s an impressive feat of electronic DIY by user Joe7Dust, publicized by fellow Redditor ChaseLambeth, who had been trying to do the same thing himself before he noticed that someone else had already had the finished article.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The second wave of wireless networking gear based on the 802.11ac standard – collectively, “wave 2” – is the current cutting edge of Wi-Fi technology.
Boasting multi-user MIMO (meaning that it can service multiple client devices using its multiple antennae), wider channels, and a number of other bells and whistles, wave 2 hardware offers more throughput and better handling of multiple connections.
But is it really necessary? Generally, connection speeds are limited by other parts of the infrastructure, not the wireless connection. Cutting-edge gear, obviously, comes at a premium price. If the improvements over 802.11ac wave 1 aren’t crucially important to you, some argue, you might be better off skipping wave 2 and waiting for the next wireless standard – 802.11ax – to make it onto shelves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the first time since LTE technology hit the mainstream in 2012, the worldwide market for carrier wireless equipment has declined, according to a report released today by IHS Technology.The decline, moreover, is a sharp one, the report said – the global market for macrocell infrastructure dropped by 18% in the first quarter of 2016, down to $10 billion overall. The mobile infrastructure sector in general was down 8% in the same time frame, and LTE equipment specifically dropped by 23% on a quarterly basis.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Human error biggest risk to health IT + Oracle employee says she was sacked for refusing to fiddle with cloud accountsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This week for our Raspberry Pi roundup, we check out a little bit of magic, check in on the competition and follow up on some exciting Android-related buzz.Magic mirror – from Microsoft?
Raspberry Pi Foundation official blog
The magic mirror is a popular Raspberry Pi project, combining relative ease of construction with a pretty eye-catching result – who wouldn’t want a mirror that shows you the weather, your appointments and maybe the news when you look into it in the morning?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An annual customer satisfaction survey says that T-Mobile is now the highest-rated of America’s big four wireless carriers, and that Comcast is no longer the least-popular ISP in the country, among other results.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: New JavaScript spam wave distributes Locky ransomware + Google cleared of infringement in Oracle lawsuit over JavaThe American Customer Satisfaction Index, released today, found that the percentage of users satisfied by T-Mobile’s service rose 6% in year-over-year terms to 74%, while the wireless service provider industry as a whole saw a 1.4% improvement, to 71%. The only named provider to lose ground was TracFone, which dropped to 75% from 77% in 2015, though that still makes it the highest-rated in the category.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An annual customer satisfaction survey says that T-Mobile is now the highest-rated of America’s big four wireless carriers, and that Comcast is no longer the least-popular ISP in the country, among other results.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: New JavaScript spam wave distributes Locky ransomware + Google cleared of infringement in Oracle lawsuit over JavaThe American Customer Satisfaction Index, released today, found that the percentage of users satisfied by T-Mobile’s service rose 6% in year-over-year terms to 74%, while the wireless service provider industry as a whole saw a 1.4% improvement, to 71%. The only named provider to lose ground was TracFone, which dropped to 75% from 77% in 2015, though that still makes it the highest-rated in the category.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s OK, you’re old enough to admit it – you stunk at Super Mario Bros. The vaunted “feel” of Mario’s movement had you skidding into Koopas and off of cliffs, and the game eventually made you so frustrated that you eventually just played outside instead.And hey, now there’s scientific proof that the game really is just that hard, despite what your friend Jesse – who beat the whole thing with sickening ease – told you. A new paper co-written by researchers at MIT, the University of Ottawa, and Bard College at Simon’s Rock says that Super Mario Bros. belongs to the complexity class PSPACE, meaning it’s more difficult to “solve” algorithmically than the famous traveling-salesman problem or factoring large numbers, which are referred to as NP-hard.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tech giant Apple could be readying itself for an uncharacteristic act of openness, as the company prepares to take the wraps off of the Siri SDK in a bid for a bigger piece of the growing digital voice assistant market.A report from The Information’s Amir Efrati said yesterday that Apple is getting ready to make development tools for Siri widely available for the first time, which will allow app developers to create products that integrate with the company’s popular voice assistant.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Not dead yet: 7 of the oldest federal IT systems still wheezing away + Software-Defined WANs: Viptela gets $75M in fundingTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google’s bringing its entire Android mobile app library to Chromebooks – the company announced today at its annual I/O developer conference, thanks to an innovative system of containerization.Every Android app on Google Play will run on Chrome OS devices – as long as their hardware is compatible. (For example, an app requiring a cellular modem might not work on most Chromebooks.) A list of compatible devices will be maintained here. The feature will be rolled out to the developer channel within the next couple of weeks, and will be in the hands of users “later this year.”+MORE FROM GOOGLE I/O 2016: Google declares war on copy and paste + Google dives into the future with a focus on A.I. +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google’s ready to kick Control+C and Control+V to the curb – the company on Thursday announced new APIs and new enterprise partnerships today at its annual I/O developer conference, designed to simplify common workflows and make its Google Apps product line more competitive.The new partners include big business software names like Sage, Salesforce, and ProsperWorks, among others, and the new APIs allow for impressively complete integration with Google Apps, providing the potential for broad new feature sets.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Google dives into the future with a focus on A.I. + Google I/O 2016: Android N hits beta, boasts VR and moreTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Jon Gold