Stephen Lawson

Author Archives: Stephen Lawson

Drone software gives offline farmers real-time images

Cloud computing is all well and good for enterprises with big-data applications and consumers with virtual assistants, but it runs into some limits in an isolated cornfield.On farms and other places far from powerful computers and network connections, there's a trend away from centralized computing even while most of the IT world is embracing it. In remote places, the internet of things requires local processing as well as data-center analysis. So-called edge computing is coming to industries including manufacturing, utilities, shipping, and oil and gas. Agriculture is getting it, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T trials open switches for better future services

A coast-to-coast network trial by AT&T last month, using open-source "white box" switches, pointed toward an imagined future of more reliable services that may come quicker than some people think.The carrier ran a trial on its core network earlier this year using switches based on chips from Intel, Broadcom and startup Barefoot Networks. The latter only started shipping in sample quantities in December, making the trial deployment a remarkably quick turnaround.Like other carriers and cloud providers, AT&T is aggressively shifting its network toward SDN (software-defined networking). As these changes are carried out across more infrastructure, they should give both service providers and subscribers more flexibility and higher performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T trials open switches for better future services

A coast-to-coast network trial by AT&T last month, using open-source "white box" switches, pointed toward an imagined future of more reliable services that may come quicker than some people think.The carrier ran a trial on its core network earlier this year using switches based on chips from Intel, Broadcom and startup Barefoot Networks. The latter only started shipping in sample quantities in December, making the trial deployment a remarkably quick turnaround.Like other carriers and cloud providers, AT&T is aggressively shifting its network toward SDN (software-defined networking). As these changes are carried out across more infrastructure, they should give both service providers and subscribers more flexibility and higher performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wozniak discusses robots, design, and Apple’s origins

More than 40 years after founding Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak has a lot to say about the early days of the world's richest company -- and about technology, learning, and being a born engineer.On stage at the IEEE TechIgnite conference in Burlingame, California, on Wednesday, he gave a glimpse into how a tech legend thinks.On open source In the early Seventies, Wozniak read about phone phreaking, in which "phreakers" made free phone calls by using electronics to mimic the tones used for dialing each number. To learn how to do it, he went to the only place he knew that had books and magazines about computers: The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He went on a Sunday and walked right in. "The smartest people in the world don't lock doors," Wozniak said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Look before you leap: 4 hard truths about IoT

Most technologies go through a stage when everything seems possible. Personal computers in the early 1980s, the internet in the late 1990s and mobile apps around the beginning of this decade were like that.But so was the first unboxing of a Galaxy Note 7. In time, either suddenly or gradually, reality sets in.The internet of things still looks promising, with vendors and analysts forecasting billions of connected devices that will solve all sorts of problems in homes and enterprises. But the seams are starting to show on this one, too. As promising as the technology is, it has some shortcomings. Here are a few.BAD DATAIoT systems are only as good as the data they capture, and some of it is not great.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Look before you leap: 4 hard truths about IoT

Most technologies go through a stage when everything seems possible. Personal computers in the early 1980s, the internet in the late 1990s and mobile apps around the beginning of this decade were like that.But so was the first unboxing of a Galaxy Note 7. In time, either suddenly or gradually, reality sets in.The internet of things still looks promising, with vendors and analysts forecasting billions of connected devices that will solve all sorts of problems in homes and enterprises. But the seams are starting to show on this one, too. As promising as the technology is, it has some shortcomings. Here are a few.BAD DATAIoT systems are only as good as the data they capture, and some of it is not great.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How much can a fiber carry? Facebook and Nokia are pushing it

Facebook and Nokia have found a way to push a lot more data through a submarine cable across the Atlantic, which could help the social network keep up with the growth of video and virtual reality.On a 5,500-kilometer (3,400-mile) cable between Ireland and New York, the companies tested a new technique developed at Nokia Bell Labs for increasing the efficiency of fiber-optic cables. They say it comes close to the absolute limit for sending bits over a fiber.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said VR is the future of social media. If it is, then the networks that link consumers and data centers will have more data than ever to carry. Higher resolution video also is increasing the burden on networks. For example, Netflix recommends subscribers have at least a 5Mbps broadband connection to stream HD video and 25Mbps for Ultra HD (4K) streams.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How much can a fiber carry? Facebook and Nokia are pushing it

Facebook and Nokia have found a way to push a lot more data through a submarine cable across the Atlantic, which could help the social network keep up with the growth of video and virtual reality.On a 5,500-kilometer (3,400-mile) cable between Ireland and New York, the companies tested a new technique developed at Nokia Bell Labs for increasing the efficiency of fiber-optic cables. They say it comes close to the absolute limit for sending bits over a fiber.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said VR is the future of social media. If it is, then the networks that link consumers and data centers will have more data than ever to carry. Higher resolution video also is increasing the burden on networks. For example, Netflix recommends subscribers have at least a 5Mbps broadband connection to stream HD video and 25Mbps for Ultra HD (4K) streams.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The FCC chief’s call to action could push 5G along faster

U.S. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has pledged his agency will respond more quickly to new technology proposals, a move that might influence the direction of 5G development around the world.Pai was appointed by President Donald Trump in January. In his first major policy address on Wednesday, Pai directed Federal Communications Commission staff to follow a little-known section of U.S. communications law that says the agency should decide within a year whether a new technology or service is in the public interest."Going forward, if a petition or application is filed with the FCC proposing a new technology or service, we'll supply an answer within a year," Pai said in his speech at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wind River uses virtualization to turn M2M into IoT

Wind River, an IoT software division of Intel, wants to help industrial users bring their legacy machine-to-machine systems into the age of open source and cloud computing.On Tuesday, it introduced software to virtualize industrial applications at the edge of the network, letting enterprises gradually migrate from older M2M technology to modern systems that give them more flexibility.The platform, called Wind River Titanium Control, runs on commodity Xeon hardware and uses widely adopted cloud platforms such as OpenStack and KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine). The company has validated hardware systems from major manufacturers to run Titanium Control and pre-validated virtual network applications through its Titanium Cloud Ecosystem, begun in 2014. Titanium Control is targeted at industries like manufacturing, energy and health care.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Despite 5G, LTE will be even bigger five years from now

In 2022, even after 5G has officially launched, 4G will be bigger than ever.An ABI Research report released Monday reinforces what mobile operators and network builders have been saying about the move to 5G: It will be a gradual transition, not a wholesale replacement. Over the next decade or more, LTE will remain in use and and offer some of the same benefits as 5G. In some cases, it might be hard to tell the difference.LTE carries about 67 percent of all mobile traffic now, ABI says. By 2022, two years after 5G is expected to become commercially available, it will have an even bigger share, at 82 percent, ABI analyst Nick Marshall said in a press release about the report. Only about 13 percent of traffic will be on 5G.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5G plans just hit the accelerator

The international body crafting the 5G standard has approved an accelerated roadmap that could see large-scale trials and deployments in 2019 instead of 2020.At a meeting this week in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the 3GPP signed off on a 5G work plan that several top mobile operators and network vendors came out in favor of last week. It would create an interim 5G specification before the full-scale standard is completed.It’s important to get the next generation of mobile out into the world soon because users keep increasing their data consumption, said Lorenzo Casaccia, vice president of technical standards at Qualcomm, in a blog post on Thursday. That’s why his company is backing the in-between spec, which is now expected to be done by the end of this year and available in software about three months later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5G plans just hit the accelerator

The international body crafting the 5G standard has approved an accelerated roadmap that could see large-scale trials and deployments in 2019 instead of 2020.At a meeting this week in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the 3GPP signed off on a 5G work plan that several top mobile operators and network vendors came out in favor of last week. It would create an interim 5G specification before the full-scale standard is completed.It’s important to get the next generation of mobile out into the world soon because users keep increasing their data consumption, said Lorenzo Casaccia, vice president of technical standards at Qualcomm, in a blog post on Thursday. That’s why his company is backing the in-between spec, which is now expected to be done by the end of this year and available in software about three months later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM fits a bit on an atom, eyeing ever-smaller devices

While many IT departments grapple with big data, IBM says it has the smallest data in the world: one bit on one atom.Researchers at IBM’s Almaden lab in San Jose, California, have written and read a bit of data on a single atom using magnetism, a feat they say is a world first. It could lead to storage that’s hundreds of times denser than anything available now, able to hold the entire Apple iTunes library of 35 million songs on a device the size of a credit card, the company says.Much denser storage could mean smaller phones, PCs, and even data centers in the future.Current hard disk drives use about 100,000 atoms to store a bit. Other scientists have used single atoms for storage before, including in experimental devices that used the atoms’ location to store data. But magnetic storage, the technique already used in tapes, disk drives, and flash, has the advantage of being solid state, so it doesn’t require moving atoms around, said Christopher Lutz, the nanosciences researcher who led the IBM project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Consumers are wary of smart homes that know too much

Nearly two-thirds of consumers are worried about home IoT devices listening in on their conversations, according to a Gartner survey released Monday.Those jitters aren’t too surprising after recent news items about TV announcers inadvertently activating viewers’ Amazon Echos, or about data from digital assistants being used as evidence in criminal trials. But privacy concerns are just one hurdle smart homes still have to overcome, according to the survey.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Consumers are wary of smart homes that know too much

Nearly two-thirds of consumers are worried about home IoT devices listening in on their conversations, according to a Gartner survey released Monday.Those jitters aren’t too surprising after recent news items about TV announcers inadvertently activating viewers’ Amazon Echos, or about data from digital assistants being used as evidence in criminal trials. But privacy concerns are just one hurdle smart homes still have to overcome, according to the survey.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

India’s Reliance Jio is blazing a trail to all-IP mobile networks

Fast-growing Indian mobile operator Reliance Jio may offer a glimpse of where all mobile networks are going eventually, to packet-based Internet Protocol infrastructure.At Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest gathering of the mobile industry, Reliance Jio stands out by having none of the specialized 2G and 3G infrastructure that long distinguished cellular carriers.Almost all mobile operators still have circuit-switched network gear in addition to IP systems. It came along with the 2G and 3G networks the carriers used before adopting LTE. Most are likely to keep older networks running for years, though some are moving faster than others to clear the decks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

India’s Reliance Jio is blazing a trail to all-IP mobile networks

Fast-growing Indian mobile operator Reliance Jio may offer a glimpse of where all mobile networks are going eventually, to packet-based Internet Protocol infrastructure.At Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest gathering of the mobile industry, Reliance Jio stands out by having none of the specialized 2G and 3G infrastructure that long distinguished cellular carriers.Almost all mobile operators still have circuit-switched network gear in addition to IP systems. It came along with the 2G and 3G networks the carriers used before adopting LTE. Most are likely to keep older networks running for years, though some are moving faster than others to clear the decks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Enterprises enter the 5G spotlight at MWC

Mobile World Congress takes place this week, so it’s time again for carrier and vendors to serve up bold claims about what 5G cellular will do for users -- this time, with a dash of realism.“5G is not ready yet,” T-Mobile USA’s CTO Neville Ray said Monday morning. “It’s maturing quickly, but it’s not real today, and I can’t go and deploy a 5G radio to serve my customers with and give them a handset.”Like most other carriers, T-Mobile is testing pre-standard 5G technology, and Ray is enthusiastic about the next generation in the long term. But he reminded the audience that some parts of 5G, like using ultra-high frequencies to reach mobile devices, still face big technical challenges and 4G will still be around for years after the first big 5G rollouts happen around 2020.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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