Wireless Blog

On June 3, engineers from UK-based Perpetuum and Australia-based CAP-XX Limited will describe how Perpetuum's PMG17 vibration energy-harvesting micro-generator, together with a CAP-XX supercapacitor, allow ...

June has arrived and for Apple fans and investors that means just one thing -- a new iPhone.

There be whales here! - The Voyage Home

There it is. The Phoenix spacecraft has scooped its first sample of Martian soil.

Now for a taste test. Aboard the deck of the Phoenix spacecraft are a suite of science instruments:

• The Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA), built by JPL, is a miniature wet lab. It contains four single-use beakers, each of which can accept one sample of martian soil. The first contains an acid to tease out carbonates and other constituents that are better dissolved in an acidic solution. The other three crucibles contain a reagent to test for sulfate. Optical and atomic-force microscopes complement MECA’s wet chemisty experiments. With images from these microscopes, scientists will examine the fine detail structure of soil and water ice samples.
• The Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA), built by the University of Arizona and University of Texas. Eight tiny ovens, about the size of an ink cartridge in a ballpoint pen, will be used only once to analyze eight unique ice and soil samples. As the temperature of the furnace increases up to 1000°C (1800°F), the ice and other volatile materials in the sample are vaporized into a stream of gases. A mass spectrometer will then measure the molecules and atoms in a sample.
• The Meteorological Station (MET), built by the Canadian Space Agency, records daily weather of the martian northern plains using temperature and pressure sensors, as well as a LIDAR. Particles in the atmosphere reveal information about clouds, fog, and dust plumes, improving scientific understanding of Mars’ atmospheric processes.
• Robotic Arm Camera (RAC), built by the University of Arizona and Max Planck Institute, Germany. It provides close-ups of the martian surface, and prospective soil and water ice samples in the trench as well as fine-scale texturing and layering.
• Surface Stereo Imager (SSI), built by the University of Arizona, provides high-resolution, stereo, panoramic images from its 1024 x 1024 pixel sensor. Optical and infrared filters allow multispectral imaging at 12 wavelengths. Narrow-band imaging will estimate density of atmospheric dust, aerosols, and water vapor. SSI will also look at the lander itself and that ice beneath the spacecraft.

Communication will be primarily through a UHF relay on the Mars 2001 Odyssey orbiter, but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express can also be used as relays. Phoenix also has a steerable medium gain X-band antenna to provide communications directly with Earth.

Phoenix uses an X-band (8 gigahertz) radio throughout the cruise phase. For the mission, a UHF radio (pdf) is used, relayed through Mars orbiters during the entry, descent and landing phase and while operating on the surface of Mars. A UHF antenna on the lander deck will handle outgoing and incoming communications.

DailyWireless has more on the Mars Landing. Additional space news resources include; SpaceDaily, Space.com, Space News, SpaceFlightNow, SpaceRef, Florida Today, Arizona Public Media, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, Discovery: Mars Lander, MSNBC, Berkeley Space Physics, Johns Hopkins, Ball Aerospace, JPL, Upcoming Planetary Launches and Events, Blog Runner, TechMeme, Google News, Yahoo Space News, Yahoo Full Coverage and Nasa TV.

Wachovia 's board of directors has asked Chief Executive Ken Thompson to retire.

The Oregonian’s Steve Woodward has an great article on Twitter for newbies:

Here’s how it works: You register for free at Twitter.com. Then you find people to “follow” — those whose text messages you want to hear above the roar of the “twitterstream”: an estimated three million public messages exchanged daily among Twitter’s 1.3 million users.

Twitter is tiny compared to other online social networks; MySpace gets 72 million monthly unique visitors, Facebook 36 million. But Twitter’s recent explosive growth is a harbinger of an entirely new form of communication: citizens microblogging their thoughts and observations continually from home, work, coffee shops, airports, street corners — literally anywhere they can use a laptop or a cell phone.

More than 31,000 twitterers have signed up to follow Barack Obama, making the presidential hopeful one of the most-followed stars in the twitterverse.

Twitter

Even among hard-core users in metro Portland — we’re among Earth’s top 15 twittering cities — Rick Turoczy [of Silicon Florist] is one of the twitteringest. He follows more than 1,500 other twitterers, is followed by more than 1,100 and has sent out nearly 5,700 tweets.

Before Turoczy sends his final tweet this day, he will have traded more than 150 messages with 28 friends and followers.

Android, the open-source mobile platform spearheaded by Google, is gaining favor with developers and online media. At its Google I/O conference in San Francisco last week, Google showed off a variety of new Android tricks to the nearly 3,000 developers in attendance. According to news reports, the developers were favorably impressed, and media outlets are teeming with reports on the conference.

Movement-Sensitive Street View

A big hit was a demonstration of Google Maps Street View and a touchscreen interface with a unique navigational approach.

Android engineering director Steve Horowitz used hand gestures on the touchscreen to move from screen to screen. But then, with a view of San Francisco streets on the portable device's Web browser, he turned around and the Street View followed his movement, using the device's internal compass.

Other demonstrated features were notification of new e-mail, missed phone calls, or calendar appointments, as well as locking/unlocking security software that involved drawing a shape rather than using a password. While support for a touchscreen was shown, Android development is not yet up to multi-touch, where two fingers can be used, for instance to make a photo larger, as on Apple's iPhone. Reportedly, Android can support that technology for multi-touch screens.

There is also a magnifying tool for enlarging Web content, as well as reports that a centralized online store for Android applications might be in the works.

Google in Control

Some observers have been comparing Android and its Open Handset Alliance against the other open-source mobile platform offered by the LiMo Foundation, a consortium whose members include Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic and others.

But Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said a big difference is that, even though Android is open-source, Google is in control of that platform while LiMo is more of a group effort.

Greengart noted that the...

Amazon and Simon & Schuster have inked a deal to bring 5,000 new titles to the Kindle e-book reader this year. Amazon's Kindle is a portable e-book reader that wirelessly downloads books, blogs, magazines, newspapers and personal documents to a high-resolution electronic paper.

Simon & Schuster's latest e-book initiative will more than double the number of the publisher's titles currently available on Kindle. Kindle customers will be able to discover, buy and read popular books such as Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

When added to books already available on Kindle, including thousands of new releases and bestsellers, these Simon & Schuster titles represent the vast majority of the publisher's catalog.

"This announcement is significant because it just indicates this wave is gathering momentum. It's another step on the accelerator," said Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "Simon & Schuster is a major publishing house. So this indicates that mainstream publishers are increasingly taking e-books seriously."

Making the Digital Transition

Indeed, the initiative represents Simon & Schuster's most concentrated effort to date to provide quality content for the growing community of e-book readers who now want a broader and deeper assortment of titles to become available in the e-book format.

"At Simon & Schuster, we are excited by how many Kindle books we're selling and the feedback from readers who want to read our titles on their Kindles," said Carolyn Reidy, president and CEO of Simon & Schuster. "We have also learned that readers aren't just looking for new or best-selling books, but also books that are older or hard to find."

Reidy said the new titles made available for Amazon's Kindle include books that have proven themselves to be of enduring interest. The selection of titles for the initiative was based on statistical analysis of physical books that...

Pennsylvania's Cambria County has activated its county-wide, multi-service communications network designed by CONXX .

Brian McConnell, at GigOm, has an interesting take on How to Fix Muni Wi-Fi:

While the goal of providing free access to citizens is a noble one, muni W-Fi proponents have misunderstood how the Internet is used in public spaces, primarily by assuming that people who can afford laptops are somehow unable to afford Internet access.

Perhaps a better solution is to update the concept of lifeline coverage to make it universal and automatic. What might this wireless “lifeline” service look like?

• 24×7 access to emergency and social services (911, 311, local agencies)
• 15 minutes per day of voice calls
• Basic data service, downgraded when the network is in demand from paying users
• Ability to upgrade to paid plans
• Paid plans that go delinquent or to zero balance are automatically downgraded to “lifeline” phones with limited service
• Ability to re-use second-hand phones

In exchange for supporting the concept of universal service, the mobile operators would receive permission to build more cell towers, tax credits and other incentives to add incremental capacity.

Or the FCC could make 2155-2180 MHz truly free — like WiFi. That band could be dedicated to free municipal wireless using a simple permitting process — like 3650 MHz.

The FCC gets in trouble when it balances the public good vrs what’s good for AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Serving the public interest first, serves business and enhances global competitiveness.

Look at Taiwan. They enhanced competitiveness.

Taipei’s 2008 WiMAX Expo, June 2 - 6, has two shuttle bus routes linking different Exhibition Halls. All of the 20 shuttle buses are “WiMAX enabled” — simply by being there.

Intel is previewing their full size Asus Centrino 2 notebook with WiMax at the show. No PC card will be required when Intel’s Centrino 2 ships in July or August. The Echo Peak WiMAX card, hidden under the hood, is ready to roll (more or less).

Other announcements at the Taipei WiMAX Expo include:

• The WiMax-enabled Eee PC 901 will use WiMax chips from San Jose, Calif.-based GCT Semiconductor, but versions of the Eee PC may also come with the Intel WiMax chipset. Engadget gave one a test drive at the show.
• VIA’s new OpenBook WiMAX reference design includes supports screen resolutions of up to 1024×600, an HD video processor and 8-channel HD audio. GCT is also supplying Via’s WiMax chips.
• Sequans is showcasing its new WiMax chip, the SQN1170, which can fit in an SD card.
• Alcatel-Lucent showcased its turnkey WiMAX radio access networks, applications and CPE.
• Intel Capital boosted its investments in WiMAX with a stake in Green Packet, the parent company of Packet One Networks to deploy Malaysia’s first commercially available nationwide 802.16e WiMAX network by June 2008, said to be the first large-scale commercial deployment of mobile WiMAX in Southeast Asia, and the first large-scale deployment of an 802.16e 2.3GHz WiMAX network outside Korea.
• Five of Taiwan’s licensed WiMAX operators – Global Mobile, First International Telecom (Fitel), Vmax Telecom, Tatung Telecom and Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) – will also tout their forthcoming WiMAX services. Global Mobile, Vmax and FITEL won licenses for northern Taiwan, while Far EasTone, Tatung and Vastar Cable TV System won licenses for the south.

Taipai’s First International Telecom’s WiMAX network (FITEL) expects to have 52 Mobile WiMAX base stations operating in Taipei City by the beginning of June. FITEL has deployed Starent Networks’ solutions to enable high-bandwidth, multimedia services through its mobile WiMAX network.

The Fitel deployment is part of the M-Taiwan project. The M-Taiwan project is a government initiative to accelerate WiMAX ecosystem development and create a city-wide broadband network to support wireless broadband services.

M-Taiwan has been underway for 3 1/2 years and the government’s work, from issuing and deploying spectrum to assisting manufacturers to develop WiMAX equipment, is now largely done. The achievements will be showcased at the Taipei Show. By the year 2010, it is estimated that
wireless network subscribers will reach eight million.

Meanwhile, Asus is announcing its Atom-based 8.9-inch Eee PC 901 and 10-inch 1001 tomorrow at Computex. They’re based on a 1.6GHz Atom processor with 1GB of memory, Bluetooth, WiFi, memory card slot, and a 20GB SSD for Linux builds or 12GB SSD for Windows. It features a 4- or 6-hour battery life depending upon battery. ASUS’ CEO said they’ll be cutting prices on the older Celeron M 701 and 900 models.

Overhyping WiMAX can be dangerous, said Jan Nilsson, president of Far EasTone Telecom. At the WiMAX Forum Operator Summit, global carriers warned that creating unachievable expectations around the capabilities of WiMAX could create the same misconceptions over 3G in its first years of inception.

3G operators and vendors made unrealistic claims about the speeds of UMTS at the turn of the millennium, which were only met when high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) networks were introduced seven or eight years later, said Nilsson.