Friday, April 1, 2005

Phling! connects your phone to your PC and your friends via P2P. Phling! is a new service for mobile phones that acts as the glue between your phone, your PC, and your IM contact list to enable sending multimedia between the three. It’s not an MMS protocol, so it avoids leaving you with any per-message charges, instead using peer-to-peer technology via the internet connection on your phone to relay the data. You can send pictures, voice and text messages to IM contacts, to your home PC, or to your mobile blog via your phone, all for free — at least, while the phling! service is still in beta. What’s the catch? For now, it only works on three phones, all Nokia: the 6600, the 6620, and the 7610, and you have to have one of the listed data plans from AT&T, Cingular, or T-Mobile. If that’s you, pal, phling! away and post up in the comments if it’s all that and a bucket of chicken. Or not. [Engadget] 3:38:57 AM   comments[]

Sunday, March 6, 2005

Dartmouth to roll out video over WiFi. Dartmouth College has already positioned itself as a leader in employing new wireless technologies on campus. They rolled out VoIP over WiFi last year, and now they’re looking to push video to classrooms over 802.11a. They chose the standard as opposed to going with 802.11g because their WLAN-based VoIP phones operate over 802.11b, which shares the same radio frequency as 802.11g. Reserving non-competitive bandwidth for video on 802.11a, which operates at its own radio frequency, is therefore an attractive option. They plan to triple the number of access points and move from Cisco to Aruba hardware because of the latter’s support for intelligent switching. They’ll also step up plans to convert more of their existing VoIP lines to WiFi. The long-term goal? Some pretty sci-fi scenarios in which students will be able to do things like speak queries to a worn Vocera VoIP badge seeking directions to library resources, and receive an automated voice response telling them the location in relation to where they’re standing. Man, do we feel gypped — back when we went to college, they were still working on digitizing the card catalogue. [Engadget] 1:54:44 PM   comments[]

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Airfoil: Stream Any Audio Over Airport Express. Rogue Amoeba software, the folks who produce the excellent Audio Hijack Pro, have just announced 'Airfoil,' software for the Apple Airport Express that allows you to stream any sound source over Wi-Fi, not just iTunes. While it still isn't a perfect solution for something like movie playback (where the audio will lag a couple of seconds behind the video, unless you tweak), it fixes an obvious oversight in the Airport Express. I didn't see anything about the audio stream being encrypted, either, so try to skip that WMV file that recites your credit card number over and over. Airfoil is $25, but on an introductory sale through March for $20. Windows versions might come out later, but right now it's OSX only. Product Page [RogueAmoeba via MacMerc] [Gizmodo] 1:35:55 PM   comments[]

Monday, November 15, 2004

Viagra (and other drugs) getting the RFID treatment. The FDA and a bunch of the big pharmaceutical companies are about to announce a plan today to cut back on drug counterfeiting by putting RFID tags on bottles for pills like Viagra and OxyContin (which for pretty obvious reasons are among the most abused, counterfeited, and stolen medications in the country). Pharmacists would be able to wave an RFID reader and instantly see whether the bottle has been and whether the medication is counterfeit or not. Privacy advocates are already up in arms, since conceivably you could have a situation where an employer could install an RFID scanner and know which medications their employees were carrying around without actually having to search their bags or whatever (though if you’re that worried about people knowing that you’re popping Viagra, you might want to either leave it at home or put it into a non-RFID tagged bottle. [Engadget] 1:19:09 PM   comments[]

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Bluetooth's three-year roadmap. With lots of competition from Ultrawideband (UWB) Zigbee, and even 802.11n on the horizon, the Bluetooth folks want to ensure their spec doesn’t go the way of the dodo, so they’re nearing completion of the Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) spec for 2005, which will boost speeds up to 3 Megabits-per-secon (up from the current maximum of 1 Megabit-per-sec of Bluetooth 1.2). Also scheduled for implementation within the next three years (i.e. sometime after we stop caring) are security updates, power optimization, greater range (have they not seen Extreme Bluetoothing?), and multicasting, which would allow a Bluetooth device to communicate to seven devices at once. They say they’ll be able to maintain backwards compatibility for all this, of course. [Engadget] 12:27:12 PM   comments[]   Xingtone 4 Gets Around Verizon. Xingtone has announced version 4.0 of their software that lets you use MP3s as ringtones. The biggest new feature: the ability to use Xingtone to load your own ringtones even on Verizon's 'closed' network. In addition to just MP3 formats, they now also support WMA and OGG Vorbis in their $20 software package. They're really riding this whole 'getting around Verizon' thing, too. They're even offering a promotional short-clip version to Verizon customers. From the press release: "We drive users and traffic to these expensive, advanced networks," said Jonathan Schreiber, CEO of Xingtone. "The market should be flooded with entrepreneurs like us who can transform wireless networks into independent economies.  With Xingtone as part of the equation, music labels sell more music, carriers adopt more subscribers and fill their pipes, and consumers have more freedom  everyone should love Xingtone." Product Page. [Xingtone] [Gizmodo] 12:12:23 PM   comments[]

Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Largest Free Network? Panera claims a great title: largest free Wi-Fi hotspot network: In a press release today, Panera says its network of 325 free Wi-Fi hotspots is the largest such free network. They plan to have 500 stores out of 637 current outlets unwired within 12 months. An additional 140 to 150 stores will open this year, and Wi-Fi is planned as part of their design. The press release has metrics on performance: ...the average total online time per bakery/cafe has increased three-fold over the last twelve months. Internal research indicates that of the hundreds of thousands of customer accesses over the last year, the average connect time is one hour. Interestingly, there's no dollars-to-time ratio: are folks spending 10 percent more who use Wi-Fi? 100 percent more? Less? We don't know, but we must expect that they do. Nominations welcome for other free hotspot networks that rival Panera's, but I think they may have the claim. [Wi-Fi Networking News] 11:27:20 AM   comments[]

Sunday, July 18, 2004

From A to RFID: Plumbing 101 In this commentary, IBM says that "Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), the next generation supply chain technology is all the rage -- for good reason. The technology is poised to save the distribution, manufacturing and consumer packaged goods industries billions of dollars." Source: Mark Ouellette, IBM Software Group, for ZDNet, June 12, 2004 [Smart Mobs] 3:46:45 PM   comments[]

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Wi-Fi's Function Starts to Infiltrate Homes. Wi-Fi isn't just for networking any more: devices hang off home networks for audio, video, voice: Julio Ojeda-Zapata files a round-up of the transformation of a home wireless network from an early adopter's geeky add-on to a mass-market offering with support from companies like Comcast and Qwest. Remember when cable firms threatened users who shared their network connections with their families? Ojeda-Zapata notes the increasing variety of devices that can use Wi-Fi networks as their Internet or local network feed, including Apple's new AirPort Express for beaming music to home stereos, Microsoft's Media Center Extender for their home entertainment hub, and Gateway's streaming DVD player.... [Wi-Fi Networking News] 2:05:27 PM   comments[]   Stealth Wallpaper. Silicon.com reports on BAE Systems's radio frequency blocking wallpaper: It's 50 to 100 microns thick and can adhere to most surfaces. It's a mesh of copper and a polymer created in a manner similar to how circuit boards are laid down. There's no timeline for commercial availability. Some versions can be switched on and off; others are permanent. [Wi-Fi Networking News] 2:02:31 PM   comments[]

Friday, April 23, 2004

BluePhoneMenu. BluePhoneMenu is a small application that adds Caller ID functionality to your menu bar and desktop using your Bluetooth enabled phone. [Backup Brain] 4:50:22 PM   comments[]   Best Wi-Fi Signal Finder Yet. Chrysalis previews their WiFi Seeker, a keychain sized device for instant Wi-Fi signal finding: Chrysalis sent me a demo unit of its just-unveiled WiFi Seeker, which they designed to differentiate 80211b/g networks from other devices. Two previous Wi-Fi signal finders fell short in ways the Seeker does not. The Kensington WiFi Finder is relatively large (credit card sized) and scans before displaying the results instead of a constant active scan--but it can tell Wi-Fi from junk. WFS-1 from SMart ID is much cooler offering a no-industrial-design-intended box with instant scanning--but which "hears" all 2.4 GHz signals the same. Push the button on the WiFi Seeker and it scans briefly, often under a second, before displaying a signal strength in zero to four LEDs. Keep the button held down and it's a Wi-Fi dowser, allowing you to move around and see immediate response to different signal strengths. It's more directionally sensitive than the WFS-1. Chrysalis will sell the device starting in June for $29.95. [Wi-Fi Networking News] 4:47:18 PM   comments[]

Friday, March 12, 2004

WiFi Phone Announced. Zyxel just announced its Prestige 2000W VoIP Wi-Fi Cordless Phone. It's designed to work with 802.11b networks, implements QoS and IP-to-IP call functionality and uses 128-bit WEP encryption. It also scans for 'available APs in [the] hand set's environment'. War driving just became a whole lot more interesting. [Slashdot] 11:58:52 AM   comments[]

Tuesday, March 9, 2004

MIMO: Coming Soon. Vendors say that access points and PC cards that use MIMO technology will be available by the end of this year: MIMO, which stands for multiple-input-multiple-output, is a smart antenna technology that promises to boost speed and throughput of wireless gear. Some say that MIMO will likely be part of the next Wi-Fi upgrade, 802.11n. This story quotes an unnamed vendor executive who says that in trials, gear using MIMO chips from Airgo produced a 200 percent to 400 percent increase in throughput over standard gear and 150 percent to 300 percent better range. Supporters say that MIMO shouldn't increase the price of gear dramatically. I'm not sure I believe that but I suppose I'll see. Atheros and Broadcom both declined to say if they're working on MIMO. Amusingly, they both pointed out that customers won't want to buy products that don't comply with the IEEE standard. Both companies have products that boost throughput in a proprietary fashion so that argument hasn't stopped them in the past.... [Wi-Fi Networking News] 8:41:09 AM   comments[]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Last update: 4/1/05; 3:39:14 AM.