Starbucks Offer Free AT&T WiFi
In an attempt to attract even more customers, Starbucks introduces their new free AT&T WiFi. The company finished their WiFi plans for AT&T registered Card users and reached an agreement with the phone carrier corporation. Read more
Google Wants the White Space
Google, Microsoft and other renowned companies united their forces trying to obtain permission to use the “white space”, an unused portion of the airwaves spectrum. Federal Communication Commission (FCC), the agency who is in charge with regulation of al non-Federal Government use of the radio spectrum, has already received a six page letter, containing the possible impact of using this part of the spectrum, such as cheaper and easier access to the Internet through small devices all over the US. It’s a pity, in Google specialists’ opinion, to let this piece of spectrum unused, without giving a chance to Internet based communications to expand.
Intel Develops Long-Distance Wi-Fi For Rural Areas
According to Intel, they had found a way to improve the Wi-Fi signal area and now they are able to connect antennas located 96 miles away from each other. Jeff Galinovsky, senior platform manager at Intel, called this new Wi-Fi tech Rural Connectivity Platform or RCP. The name cames from the fact that this wireless is destined to connect to the internet far away villages.
With the RCP the information is transmitted at about 6.5 Megabits per second and will be very useful for telemedicine and video conferences. The secret behind RCP was revealed by Galinovsky and consists of the software which seems to remake the rules behind wireless communication.
RCP was tested by Intel in countries like India, South Africa, Vietnam and Panama, and they will begin the commercialization in India as of this year for less than $500.
American Airlines To Add Two New Services For In-Flights
American Airlines is one of the largest airline companies in the world. It was founded in 1930 and at first was called American Airways. Now, they are preparing to improve their services by introducing in-flight WiFi and anti-missile system. The pricing of WiFi varies depending on the duration of the flight, $10 for less than three hours and $12.95 for more than three hours. The will begin offering these services this summer for the 767-200 aircraft and we are expecting to introduce these services to its entire fleet.
700Mhz Band to be Used for Inter-Vehicle Communications System in Japan
The wireless spectrum we have been talking about recently hasn’t yet been auctioned, but Japan already has plans for it. Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has stated they are going to use the 715-725Mhz for an inter-vehicle communications system, as Tech-On published. The new technology is designed to reduce accidents, by allowing vehicles to communicate with each other and help the driver.They were planning to use the technology with the 5.8Ghz band, but it’s too easily blockable by obstables, so they decided to better use the 700Mhz band.
Who Will Bid in the 700Mhz Auction
You all know about FCC’s auction that will take place on January 24th for the 700Mhz Wireless Spectrum, but we didn’t know exactly what companies are going to bid. And still we won’t know them all and who won until February or March, unfortunately, except the ones that announced their participations.Until know we know that the following companies will bid: AT&T, Cox Communications, Frontline, Google and Verizon.
Google Should Join the 700Mhz Auction Today
We are getting close to the deadline for declaring an intent to bid on the 700Mhz wireless spectrum in the US, that’s set on December 3rd. Wall Street Journal stated that Google will announce the intent to bid today. Unfortunately, it is possible that Google will bid low and might not win the spectrum.
EU Will Open GSM Radio Spectrum
The European Union proposed to “open radio frequencies allocated exclusively for GSM mobile phones services to other technologies, such as 3G mobile data.” GSM Association says that if the European Parliament approves, a 3G network in the 900MHz band will be able to provide a 40% grater coverage, with the same capital, than 3G network in the 2,100MHz band. If the 900MHz band could be use, by 2012 about 300 million more people from Europe, Africa and Asia will be able to use the mobile broadband. We don’t know when we’ll here the final decision of the abandoning of this EU legislation which lasts for 20 years.
High Speed 802.11n WiFi Made Possible by AirPatrol
AirPatrol corporation, an authority in wireless security and networking has announced a new WiFi security solution, that doesn’t require any expensive upgrade. The security solution will be available for the 802.11n and as they state, it should guarantee high speed WiFi, without any bottleneck of the current wireless architecture.
The WLAN switching infrastructure is the one that limits wireless bandwidth capacity and using their latest security software, the speed should increase to the WiFi’s full potential. Currently, the 802.11n WiFi can support speeds of up to six time more than we currently use and AirPatroll will help us reach them.
The 802.11n’s new capabilities are mostly desired by companies, that need to transfer high volume of data, voice and video traffic, for their online conferences and more. Nowadays, WiFi has become extremely popular and it’s very important to be able to support high speeds with no security issues.
Starbucks and Apple Team Up Together
Now here is something we do not see every day. Apple and Starbucks are teaming together. The popular coffee and more shops will be handing out iTunes download cards with the title “Song of the Day”. Starbucks thinks that they will hand out around 1.5 million songs per day, in a period between October 2 and November 7. This sums up to around 50 million downloads and the deal with Apple is aimed to promote the iTunes Wi-Fi store, to which Starbucks will give free access thanks to their T-Mobile Wi-Fi network.In order to redeem these cards you will need any computer that runs iTunes. Unfortunately, we did not find any Wi-Fi store that can make it possible to input an iTunes code. On the other hand Apple is probably working on it so we need to be on the look out. Unfortunately, you cannot pick the song you download but there will be good songs on the horizon including songs by KT Tunstall, Paul McCartney and the first “Song of the Day” is Bob Dylan’s “Jokerman”.
The LINDY Wireless VGA Projector Server
LINDY just launched a new wireless VGA projector server. By utilizing it a display monitor or projector can be connected without the use of cables to a local area network. This device is designed to meed meet business meeting requirements including seminars and various presentation needs. It can of course be used at home as well as lack of wires is alway a benefit in the modern home of today.
The LINDY wireless VGA projector supports MPEG 1, 2 and 4 and can display images up to a resolution of 1024X768, all in 32 bit color. The Wi-Fi standard of 802.11g is featured and the special wired Ethernet interface included is an added plus. We also have a Conference Control function that allows up to 20 simultaneous connections to the VGA projector. The LINDY wireless VGA projector server makes everything easier because it allows switching between presenters. You can thus have a perfect media presentation.
This gadget can be purchased for £299 but keep in mind that it will be useless without a projector or display monitor.
Internet Radio Can Be Easy
As you might have noticed already, ads have become a reality for every user. We can see them when we watch TV, read our mail, faxes and we can even get polluted by commercials when we listen to radio. Modern radio stations have started implementing more ads each year in order to acquire as much revenue as possible. Internet radio is what appeared to counter this trend. There are endless possibilities of listening to online radio stations, conveniently arranged by niche. In most cases these stations do not have ads or if they do, the amount is much lower than with a regular radio station.
In order to listen to Internet radio you usually end up spending all your day in front of the computer. As this does not really work a solution has appeared. Different companies like Revo, Terratec, Tivoli and Com One have started producing tabletop or bookshelf radios that can tune into radio shows that air on the Internet. They have built in Wi-Fi receivers that can connect to a wireless home network and this translates in the possibility of listening to any of the 10,000 plus radio stations across the world without worrying about static.
Such modern radios will come with hundreds of Internet stations already listed in their menus and you can even see them arranged by genre or geographic location on some devices. You can of course add your own favorite stations, thus enhancing listening experience. So far there is no real emphasis on design. The early models will put an accent on technology instead of design and this makes them uncomfortable in some cases. Although this might seem as a negative aspect, there is a need to understand that the general feeling of these gadgets must be searched in the possibilities it offers rather than in design. Next time you want to purchase a radio maybe you should check out modern Wi-Fi radio devices.
New Parking Meters Use Pay-By-Phone Option
The tickets drivers receive due to parking violations might decrease with the introduction of the new PhotoViolationMeter (PVM), a special type of parking meter that will alert the owner of the car when the meter is running low. This will be done through a mobile phone and also has the feature of paying the meter by phone. When the car is first parked the fee can be paid with spare change or credit/debit cards. A wireless network is behind the PVM and can also feature Internet hotspots for drivers that have their laptops with them or different electronic devices inside the car. Fred Mitschele, president and CEO of Photo Violation Technologies declared:
“We designed the meter so that you’re not slapped with a $30 fine simply because you ran out of change. The No-Fine feature offers you the option of automatically paying in timed increments with your credit card so you avoid the risk of a ticket. Or you can take advantage of the Grace Period option. The city gives you a grace period by pre-programming a certain amount of time that you can pay for extra minutes before it turns into a parking violation. No other meter can do that.”
The PVM can also photograph license plates. This provides prosecution evidence for cars that violate parking laws. Scofflaws will not be able to take advantage of the parking meter because of special sensors that will reset each time a new car is parked. Mitschele said:
“Many cities are trying to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid parking fines — in Washington, D.C. for example, unpaid tickets account for more than 1 million dollars. Because our meter makes it easier for people to pay for parking and avoid a ticket in the first place, it saves everybody time, money and an awful lot of aggravation. For people who do wind up receiving a ticket, the Pay Your Fine feature allows them to pay the fine right at the meter at a discounted rate.”
Google to bid on the 700Mhz wireless spectrum
We all know that the 700Mhz wireless spectrum is going to be opened by the FCC and the companies will have to bid on an auction, for it. Google has also announced that they will bid about $4.6 billion, if FCC meets their demands. They want FCC to allow the 700Mhz spectrum for “open applications, open devices, open networks, and open services“, demand that FCC’s Chairman Kevin Martin seems to agree with.
Two new Tivoli Wi-Fi radios
The Tivoli Audio firm has been known for the tabletops radios produced by them.But they were a little conservative with their features like the AM, FM, and CD, iPod dock and satellite radio.But the company is trying to make a big come-back to the 21st century with the new NetWorks Table Radio and NetWorksGo products.These gadgets are network-enabled updates of the Model One, the SongBook and the Table Radio.
The NetWorksGo has space for six rechargeable C batteries.Both the products (Model One and Songbook) have a FM tuner, no AM, but this isn’t such a big problem because you get the feature to stream WMA, MP3 and radio stations from Real Audio Internet with the help of their built-in Ethernet or with the Wi-Fi connections.You can also stream the digital audio files the your networked PC, using the USB line-in connector wich you can play music from different devices.
In the demo shown at the New York press conference provided by Tom DeVesto, the president of the company, the radio was able to tune in two different stations ( one in Seattle, and the second one in Ireland), that were requested from the attending journalists.You will be able to able to get firmware upgrade very soon, with just a touch of a button you can download and then install the software, without needing to connect the radio with the PC.You can also choose the radio stations from a list that Tivoli set before.The only problem is that you can’t add your favourite stations to their list.When the president was asked this questions, he answered that the user of the device needs only to send the company an e-mail and the station will be added.
The price hasn’t been fixed for the both radios.There is a lot of time because they will be shipping them in the late 2007.Tivoli is sticking to their all known retro style design.The NetWorksGo model is the only battery-powered Internet radio product with built-in speakers to this date.