Wireless Blog

As you drive with Bluetooth connected to your smart phone, you might be putting your personal data in danger.

Alvarion Ltd. , the world's leading provider of WiMAX and wireless broadband solutions, announced today that it was chosen by AccessKenya Group, Kenya's leading ISP and major carrier, for a large scale WiMAX ...

Picture Phoning [via Engadget] says Walkers have swallowed RFID pills for science:

Researchers at Radboud University in The Netherlands were able to monitor the body temperature of participants at the world’s largest marching event using RFID technology. Volunteer participants in the annual Four Days Marches of Nijmegen swallowed an RFID-based temperature sensor that measured their internal temperature and helped researchers identify potential health issues.

The RFID-based temperature sensor was provided by Florida-based HQ Inc. The company’s 262 kHz CorTemp sensor has been used by a number of other organizations, including the National Football League (NFL), to track the core body temperature of athletes. reports.

“Based on their height, weight and age, the system was able to alert the volunteer if their core body temperature had reached a dangerous level,” says Martijn Bakkers, branch manager of healthcare at Progress Software.

The temperatures of ten volunteers were transmitted every ten seconds from the RFID “pill” to a receiving device in the volunteer’s backpack. That data was then transmitted via Bluetooth to a GPS-enabled mobile phone to the operations center at Radboud.

In related news, the “stress sensor vest” registers the electrical excitation of the wearer’s muscles at any given time and determines the level of physical stress. The vest has sensors woven into the fabric that register the electrical excitation of the muscle fibers.

The idea of the sensor vest originated with biomedical scientists at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, says Gizmag. Until then, they had affixed electrodes directly to their test subjects’ chests. But this itself induced stress, resulting in very little useful information. The new vest is designed to ensure a more relaxed test environment.

”The most important requirement for everyday use is a robust electronic system,” says Torsten Linz of the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration in Berlin, the partner responsible for the “packaging”.

Talk2myShirt has more smart clothing accessories.

Got this note yesterday from a Temple University student:

Please help me with my dissertation research!

My research focuses on the role wireless signal sharing, or mesh networking, can play in efforts to shrink the digital divide. I am exploring the issue from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including regulatory agencies, telecommunication companies, and community wireless networks.

I am interested in what motivates you, as a member of a WiFi signal sharing network, to participate in the WiFi signal sharing movement. I would also like to know how you use the technology and any concerns you may have about it. Please share your insights and let your voice be heard by participating in my research.

You’ll find the survey by following this link: templeuniversit.wirelesscommunities.sgizmo.com

I know your time is valuable, but completing this questionnaire will require just 15 minutes of your time. No personal information will be collected, and I plan to make the survey results freely available at the completion of my research.

If you are willing to be contacted later for an in depth interview, please provide your email address at the end of the survey form. Providing this information is entirely voluntary.

With much appreciation,

Gwen Shaffer
PhD Student, Temple University
gwen4@temple.edu

Ruckus Wireless announced this week their MediaFlex 7000 series, a commercial 802.11n system developed for operators wishing to wirelessly distribute multiple streams of high-definition (HD) IPTV content inside homes.

Ruckus says the MediaFlex 7000 line helps carriers eliminate costly and cumbersome cabling within subscriber homes, speeding installation times, and enabling remote management. The MediaFlex 7811 uses “standard” 802.11n in the 5 GHz Wi-Fi band. The access point constantly monitors the wireless environment, steering RF signals around interference and prioritizing different traffic types.

FlexMaster, their centralized management system, lets service providers control, monitor and upgrade Ruckus MediaFlex and ZoneFlex Wi-Fi systems anywhere in the world, whether over the Internet or a private IP network.

Ruckus says nearly a million MediaFlex 802.11a/g systems have been installed world-wide by over 140 broadband providers including Deutsche Telekom, Telekom Austria, Swisscom, TeliaSonera, Telenora, Fastweb, Telefonica Del Sur, PCCW, SingTel, Elion, Belgacom, and others.

Venture Beat notes that a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California near Los Angeles this morning. It choked phone calls, not Twitter, says C/Net.

Well before the information was anywhere on the major news outlets, tweets (Twitter messages) were flowing in at a rapid clip. I say again, events such as this showcase the power of the micro-messaging service Twitter.

When natural disasters strike, people want news ASAP. Twitter is simply very fast at disseminating information. We saw this when a large 7.8 earthquake struck China back in May and we’re seeing it again today. Today, it was especially true when used in conjunction with the social conversation and aggregation site FriendFeed. Minutes after the quake, I had various accounts of it and maps of its epicenter.

Twitter’s new search site (formerly Summize) is also an incredible tool for getting information. It used to take a little while for information on these events to trickle down depending on who you were following on Twitter. Now you can simply open Twitter Search and do a query for “earthquake” and get thousands of results. Within minutes of me opening the site up, I was alerted that there were already hundreds of updates on the earthquake — the information was coming in fast.

It takes reporters time to set up and get the story, but Twitter turns thousands of regular people into citizen journalists — all of whom are on the scene. Of course one has to worry about the spread of incorrect information, especially in the time of a disaster, but the sheer volume of tweets allows for the truth to come up.

Like most product from Dell these days, there's little surprise left in Dell's Studio Hybrid desktop lineup of eco-friendly little PCs.

The recently launched MobileMe subscription service boasted the ability to synchronize data between Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and Macs, and even PCs. E-mail, contacts and calendars are supposed to be updated wherever users check them on any of the devices.

Problems Persist

Just last week, Apple acknowledged that at least one percent of subscribers were unable to retrieve information and files, blaming the problem on MobileMe's mail servers. As of Tuesday, the problems persisted and even strong Apple backers are getting hot under the collar.

The blogosphere is turning blue with subscribers' complaints and laments, with many of them regretting signing up for the service. One subscriber said he transferred all his e-mails over from a Hotmail account, only to have them lost in cyberspace. Moreover, the MobileMe service sets subscribers back $99 a year whereas Hotmail, Google and Yahoo are just a few of the free e-mail services that have not had such serious issues. Users are also reporting problems with time stamps on e-mails and lost calendar entries.

On Monday, an updated status report seemed to have gone unnoticed by a majority of users on Apple's MobileMe support forums. One small thread criticized Apple for hiding its MobileMe e-mail support form.

Perhaps in an effort to save face, Apple is coming clean about the problems and even posting a status page online where users can receive updates on fixes. The company apologized to customers, calling the transition from the former .Mac service "a lot rockier than we had hoped." Apple is even picking up the tab for affected subscribers for 30 days.

Reputation at Stake

Apple is also backpedaling from its original description of the service as "pushing" e-mail and other data. Push e-mail is...

iProvo is the name of the Fiber to the Home service owned and operated by the city of Provo, Utah. It is the largest municipally-owned Fiber to the Home network in the United States. The iProvo RFP [pdf], was issued on April 18, 2007.

Meanwhile, the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA), a consortium of 16 Utah cities, deployed a fiber to the premises network to every business and household (about 140,000) within its footprint.

But all is not well on the fiber highway, according to Broadband Reports:

Last May, iProvo was sold to Broadweave for $40 million. The other, Utopia, has so-far underperformed, with fewer subscribers than expected despite carriers offering 50Mbps fiber (albeit with a 100GB cap) for $39.95. Here are current Utopia cities.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a new citizen-advisory board (U-CAN) has been formed to help get Utopia on track.

A costly lawsuit by Qwest aimed at preventing the project from using utility poles delayed Utopia’s launch by eighteen months. Network planners say incompetence at a federal loan program (RUS) also delayed promised funding. Local ISPs say Utopia officials hold some responsibilities too, by too tightly controlling the type of tiers that can be offered and not having a particularly effective business model geared toward staying competitive.

But the ISPs on iProvo competed with each other on a race to the bottom, and not with the phone companies. That’s because iProvo didn’t offer reliable telephone service. Phone and cable companies maintained their strong market share. There was a lot of finger pointing at iProvo over technical issues, said Steve Christensen, Broadweave CEO, chairman, and co-founder.

Municipal networks already have a tough road, given they’re up against private-sector companies with deep pockets who’ll go to any length to ensure these operations fail, says Broadband Reports. (see BR: Utopia Not So Picture Perfect)

According to Portland’s Willamette Week newspaper, Commissioner Dan Saltzman, the city of Portland is set to mount a city-sponsored “fiber-to-the-premises” initiative (staff report).

“People are being kicked off of [Internet] providers because they’re using up too much bandwidth,” says Saltzman’s chief of staff, Brendan Finn. “Until you have that [fiber] infrastructure, you’re not going to be competitive as a city.”

In early August, the city will start looking for a partner to conceive what techies call a “fiber-to-the-premises” network, but what local boosters call a “community fiber network,” or CFN.

MetroFi pulled its wi-fi project in May after 17 months of fits and starts (mostly fits). Its wi-fi cloud was built on the cheap, by plugging wireless nodes into existing networks, and at little direct cost to the city.

“We learned a lesson from that,” Finn says. “You can’t just trust a private company to come in and do something. We’re going to be really careful this time.”

The CFN would put Portland into the telecom business—stringing mile after mile of high-speed fiber-optic cables over the city’s utility poles and into every home and business.

“It’s not the same kind of project, but the lesson to learn from [MetroFi] is these things don’t always pan out as promised,” says Bob Gravely, an Oregon spokesman for Qwest. “It is a huge undertaking.”

Portland has an RFI for a Portland FIBER-TO-THE-PREMISES system. The fiber project will require the city to incur debt upward of $500 million—more than the city’s annual general fund budget—plus hiring 86 employees with annual salaries totaling $3.4 million. The plan calls for the debt to be repaid over 15 or 20 years through fees from companies that want to use the network.

“Nobody’s ever hid the ball about what it would take to do this,” says David Olson, who runs Portland’s cable and franchise office. As Olson sees it, the alternative—to do nothing—leads to doom. “Portland could become the technological bedroom suburb of Gresham and Beaverton,” says Olson.

Related Fiber Optic stories on DailyWireless include; Broadband 2.0, City Fiber Networks, Muni Fiber for Portland?, The Dallas: Wired, Free MAN in Hood River, Oregon MuniFiber: the Bad & the Good, GoogleNet?, Oregon Fiber for Google, DailyWireless Testifies for Muni Broadband, Universal Access to All Human Knowledge - at 100Mbps - Free, Bill to Free 2155-2180 Mhz, Free 2155-2175 MHz!, Seattle: Fiber For All,

iProvo is the name of the Fiber to the Home service owned and operated by the city of Provo, Utah. It is the largest municipally-owned Fiber to the Home network in the United States. The iProvo RFP [pdf], was issued on April 18, 2007.

Meanwhile, the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA), a consortium of 16 Utah cities, deployed a fiber to the premises network to every business and household (about 140,000) within its footprint.

But all is not well on the fiber highway, according to Broadband Reports:

Last May, iProvo was sold to Broadweave for $40 million. The other, Utopia, has so-far underperformed, with fewer subscribers than expected despite carriers offering 50Mbps fiber (albeit with a 100GB cap) for $39.95. Here are current Utopia cities.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a new citizen-advisory board (U-CAN) has been formed to help get Utopia on track.

A costly lawsuit by Qwest aimed at preventing the project from using utility poles delayed Utopia’s launch by eighteen months. Network planners say incompetence at a federal loan program (RUS) also delayed promised funding. Local ISPs say Utopia officials hold some responsibilities too, by too tightly controlling the type of tiers that can be offered and not having a particularly effective business model geared toward staying competitive.

But the ISPs on iProvo competed with each other on a race to the bottom, and not with the phone companies. That’s because iProvo didn’t offer reliable telephone service. Phone and cable companies maintained their strong market share. There was a lot of finger pointing at iProvo over technical issues, said Steve Christensen, Broadweave CEO, chairman, and co-founder.

Municipal networks already have a tough road, given they’re up against private-sector companies with deep pockets who’ll go to any length to ensure these operations fail, says Broadband Reports. (see BR: Utopia Not So Picture Perfect)