We've all enjoyed a good moan about our cellular phone service over the years. Iffy coverage, bizarre billing practices, and infuriating customer service have all provided a source of jovial dinner table chat in my home. As the expression goes: you've got to laugh or you'd cry.But our trials are nothing compared to what some people experience. Many in rural areas have no service at all.Those unfortunate souls have, until now, had no redress. When powerful telco won't provide service, you simply don't have service.However, in Mexico, that's changing. Just as individual citizens in some Mexican communities have bandied together to create their own prisons (due to a lack of them), citizens are also creating their own local cellular systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Currently, millions of drivers are traveling around our cities collecting data on road traffic with their smartphones. The objective: crowd-sourced traffic conditions.Drivers simply install an app onto their smartphones. The device collects data, and then the system shares the nuances of traffic jams with other app users for the "common good," as Google's Waze, the app's developer, describes it.Waze and the GPS sensor
In that case, speed and location is calculated by the smartphone's GPS sensor. Waze has somewhere between 20 and 50 million users, depending on who you listen to.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Incumbent networking gear makers have often designed their own chips. It's what has created differentiation between products.That custom networking chip design, in some cases, was also behind growth in the technology bubble of the '90s. Some companies were considered better than others because of their silicon design.However, a new breed of manufacturers aren't doing this custom work. Those suppliers, like up-and-coming player Arista, are simply using off-the-shelf silicon.Their ASIC, or Application-Specific Integrated Circuits, are still designed for networking, but they are generic. They're called "merchant" chips, or merchant silicon. They're in switches, along with the included software to run them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The days of strolling down a street, smartphone connected to somewhat speedy mobile internet connection, only to have the connection thwarted when you enter a large building, may be numbered.Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) think that scalable "small cells" are the answer to a vexing building-penetration issue.For the end user, asking for a Wi-Fi password at every stop-and-call may become a thing of the past if these small cells take off and work as promised.What are they?
Small cells are distinct from an MNO's macrocells, which are mounted on rooftops and other structures, and are served by a cellular base station. Macrocell antennas are the ones you see dotted around your neighborhood.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As any data center operator will tell you, data centers use large amounts of power. In fact, one data center can use enough energy to power 180,000 homes.What with the costs and the eco-issues with fossil fuels, there's a race on to try to find better ways of powering these cathedrals to digital life.Many heavy data center users are looking to place their centers near sources of renewable power, for example. Facebook has opened one in Sweden that's near a hydro-electric plant.Solar is also pretty good, and wind-power turbines are another alternative power source attracting knee-jerk exuberance, despite their disadvantages, like uneven supply.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For years we've been obsessed with increasing chip processing power. Intel's i386, launched in 1985, followed by the i486 in 1989, introduced economical multitasking and number crunching to the enterprise.In the following years, the chips got more powerful still, culminating with today's hundred-dollar smartphone threatening the PC.It could be argued that we've reached an acceptable level of multitasking and personal computing power for cost. We've found it in small-form-factor smartphones, and it may be all we really need now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For years we've been obsessed with increasing chip processing power. Intel's i386, launched in 1985, followed by the i486 in 1989, introduced economical multitasking and number crunching to the enterprise.In the following years, the chips got more powerful still, culminating with today's hundred-dollar smartphone threatening the PC.It could be argued that we've reached an acceptable level of multitasking and personal computing power for cost. We've found it in small-form-factor smartphones, and it may be all we really need now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Looking for an Internet of Things (IoT) project to play around with? Chicago-originating Konekt's Dash is a mobile network development kit for building IoT devices for cellular networks, rather than what is says is restrictive Wi-Fi.The company is looking for funding right now at Kickstarter.The platformA global SIM card with a data plan plus a hardware kit is included in the package. The PCB-mounted hardware consists of a micro-controller, cellular modem, and battery management tools. It functions somewhat like an Arduino.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Looking for an Internet of Things (IoT) project to play around with? Chicago-originating Konekt's Dash is a mobile network development kit for building IoT devices for cellular networks, rather than what is says is restrictive Wi-Fi.The company is looking for funding right now at Kickstarter.The platformA global SIM card with a data plan plus a hardware kit is included in the package. The PCB-mounted hardware consists of a micro-controller, cellular modem, and battery management tools. It functions somewhat like an Arduino.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
News watchers might have noticed a bunch of hot air and chest pounding emanating from media nuts a few days ago.The reason: the end of civilization was nigh for traditionalists, because Facebook and the New York Times had made a deal for Times content to be wrapped into Facebook pages, rather than simply linked to.Big deal, you might say. Makes sense. Add venerable 1851-launched newspaper content to a 1.3 billion-user social network, and stir thoroughly.Well, it does make sense. However, intriguingly, there's more to it than a simple you-scratch-my-back media deal. What's most interesting about this move is the technical reason prompting it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
News watchers might have noticed a bunch of hot air and chest pounding emanating from media nuts a few days ago.The reason: the end of civilization was nigh for traditionalists, because Facebook and the New York Times had made a deal for Times content to be wrapped into Facebook pages, rather than simply linked to.Big deal, you might say. Makes sense. Add venerable 1851-launched newspaper content to a 1.3 billion-user social network, and stir thoroughly.Well, it does make sense. However, intriguingly, there's more to it than a simple you-scratch-my-back media deal. What's most interesting about this move is the technical reason prompting it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While those of us interested in obtaining the fastest download speeds possible closely watch, and then seize on, fiber and upgraded cable rollouts, salivating over speeds of 100 Mbps and up, it's easy to forget the many people still can't get cable and rely on lowly, twisted-pair DSL. DSL download speeds at common ISPs range from 14 to 43 Mbps, according to Ookla's Speedtest.net. Crosstalk between lines has restricted bandwidth, for one thing.However, things might be about to change, particularly in Europe.G.fast technologyG.fast is a fiber-to-the node (FTTN) DSL technology that has obtained accelerated speeds of 170 Mbps over a quarter mile in the lab, and 1 Gbps over a less-usable 100 yards in the same setting. It works best over short distances.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Data can be stored in DNA. In fact, organic DNA can hold massive amounts of data, and it can last a long time. However, one of the main problems with it as a storage medium is that it's been unreliable.But that might be about to change. Scientists are beginning to get a handle on error correction and longevity issues.DNA as network storageScientists think DNA might be a solution for the degrading data storage of the future. They think that magnetic storage, of the kind found in hard drives, microfilm, or flash memory, will not last forever, and possibly not as long even as yellowing bits of paper—the oldest known paper document in the West dates from the 11th century.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AT&T is one company that is planning on consumers being able to control elements of their home from the dashboard of connected cars.AT&T says that it is planning to link its connected car and smart home products via a voice recognition-enabled dashboard control. Home security will be the principal driver of the new tech in that case. But others are also in a race to bring functioning products to market and obtain consumer acceptance.Two existing AT&T products – AT&T Digital Life, a home management system, and AT&T Drive, its connected car platform – will be merged together to create its platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few years ago, I can remember the disbelief from friends of the rapidly appearing slew of free internet services being bandied around. Facebook was free. Google Maps was free. "How can that be?" We all though. "Why don't the sites cost anything?"The smart ones delved in a bit deeper and found the answer: analytics.We all know the answer now. It took a few years, but pretty much the entire world now knows that the answer is simply that free isn't free. There's no such thing as a free lunch. We are in fact selling our souls for free Facebook and its ilk.TradeThat unfettered gift bag of online collectanea is provided through a trade: you give the online service insight into your behavior, which it can sell, and it'll give you free stuff, to keep you performing more behavioral actions. In other words, analytics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We're seeing a surge in successful experiments with alternative, atom-thin materials that are going to speed up and reduce the size of computer chips. Black phosphorus is the latest super-material that promises efficiency in electronics. This one promises speed gains too.Adding the substance, commonly found in match heads and tracer bullets, to optical circuits made out of silicon increases data speeds, according to a University of Minnesota research team, and reported by Dexter Johnson in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' IEEE Spectrum publication.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We're seeing a surge in successful experiments with alternative, atom-thin materials that are going to speed up and reduce the size of computer chips. Black phosphorus is the latest super-material that promises efficiency in electronics. This one promises speed gains too.Adding the substance, commonly found in match heads and tracer bullets, to optical circuits made out of silicon increases data speeds, according to a University of Minnesota research team, and reported by Dexter Johnson in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' IEEE Spectrum publication.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While many of us have taken to the concept of video over mobile networks on smartphones, you could argue that it's been more of a "yeah, really cool, I like that idea" flirtation, rather than a "Hey, when's trash day?" and "Anyone know how to get a 55-inch TV in a garbage can?" kind of amour.Just how many people are happy with stuttering, low-definition images on a pokey smartphone screen, one could ask? I for one am not watching a smartphone screen on an expensive, spotty mobile network in lieu of Wi-Fi media delivery via a big screen when I can help it.And has there been any indication that the non-tech segment of the population thinks differently? Is it not all the same inquisitive dabbling?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An amateur-radio satellite called $50SAT/MO-76 marked its 15-month earth-orbiting anniversary last month.Now, you might not think that's a particularly big deal. Satellites stay up longer than that (or don't) all the time.Well, the big deal about $50SAT is that it's a self-built kit. And it's still up there—although possibly only just. Unfortunately, it is now experiencing some premature battery deteriorating caused orbit decay, says Michael Kirkart, a member of the team that built the bird.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An amateur-radio satellite called $50SAT/MO-76 marked its 15-month earth-orbiting anniversary last month.Now, you might not think that's a particularly big deal. Satellites stay up longer than that (or don't) all the time.Well, the big deal about $50SAT is that it's a self-built kit. And it's still up there—although possibly only just. Unfortunately, it is now experiencing some premature battery deteriorating caused orbit decay, says Michael Kirkart, a member of the team that built the bird.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Patrick Nelson