Wireless Blog

The HP Pavilion dv5t is the replacement for the ever-popular dv6000 series notebooks.

By Anupreeta Das

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is in the process of approving the appointments of former Viacom Inc CEO Frank Biondi and former Nextel Partners CEO John Chapple to its board and is expected to name the appointees by Friday, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The appointments are not yet final but likely, the source said.

Yahoo settled its proxy battle with Carl Icahn just days before its August 1 shareholder meeting, at which the activist investor had originally sought to replace the entire board with his nominees and oust Chief Executive Jerry Yang.

Meraki, a spin-off of the MIT RoofNet project, made a name for itself with simple, $50 (indoor) and $100 (outdoor) mesh nodes that self-configure, sharing broadband among neighbors. The inexpensive nodes utilized Meraki’s Hosted Services called the Dashboard, for centralized management. But the inexpensive $50 nodes later required ads and had some features removed.

Now the inexpensive “standard edition” lines (a $49 indoor node and $99 outdoor node) are gone, a victim of bottom line economics. Meraki now has just two lines; the “Business” and “Carrier” lines.

The Business line includes two units, a new Meraki Indoor unit ($150, right) and the same Outdoor unit ($199).

The new Meraki Indoor unit ($150) is a combination mesh access point, gateway, and repeater featuring a 60mW (18dBm) radio (802.11 b/g) with internal (2dBi) omni-directional antenna.

The Meraki Outdoor ($199) continues on, pretty much unchanged. The outdoor model is a weather-proof access point, gateway, and repeater. It has a more powerful 200 mW (23dBm) radio (802.11 b/g), with an external RP-SMA connector for its external 2db rubber ducky antenna.

These two models comprise The “Business” line which allows operators to control whether or not ads appear, enable operators to control user accounts, or charge for service, and utilize a centralized Dashboard control center. It might be the preferred choice for apartment managers, for example.

The “Carrier” line uses the same hardware but is designed for large scale systems with additional features such as Prepaid Card Billing and more custom control that allows different types of user accounts with multiple permission levels. Administrators get full access, and customer service representatives can get read-only access. Wireless ISPs or municipalities might go the “Carrier” route for more control, in-house.

While nobody likes the idea of paying more for essentially the same product (especially the $99 outdoor unit), the Meraki is easy to use and maintain. It has received high praise from users and operators as a rock-solid solution and remains a good deal when compared with most competitors.

Still, for those who insist on total control with open source software at the heart of it all, there is an alternative from Open-Mesh.

The small mini-routers ($49) come pre-flashed with ROBIN open-source mesh firmware. It is ready to plug in and use. No configuration necessary. Open-Mesh does basically everything the original Meraki did — and more:

• It’s inexpensive. Open-Mesh WiFi repeaters cost $49 each or $39.95 (qty 20)
• It’s Ad free. Open-Mesh promises they will never push ads into your networks. You decide what, if any, content you want to display.
• It’s 100% open source and deployed on top of OpenWRT. You can change anything.
• You can re-flash the firmware if you want.
• The Dashboard management system provides free administration, alerting and mapping. It allows you to configure the ESSID, splash page, passwords, and Bandwith allocation of your networks.
• The devices auto-configure. It’s simple to create a neighborhood or apartment network. You don’t need to use their management system if you don’t want to.

Unlike Meraki and FON, their architecture is 100% open source. You can re-flash the firmware if you want. Put up a new splash page. Use their free management software or not.

ROBIN (ROuting Batman Inside) is an Open Source mesh network project, deployed on top of OpenWRT. It uses the BATMAN routing algorithm (Better Approach to Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) for multi-hop ad-hoc mesh networks.

What’s the business plan for Open-Mesh?

“We’re not trying to get rich”, said Michael Burmeister-Brown, head of Open-Mesh, in a phone conversation with DailyWireless. “We hope other companies and manufacturers will pick up on the open source ROBIN sofware and include it in their hardware”, explained Burmeister-Brown.

A program that began in 2006 through the Institute for Personal Robots in Education using robots as the circuit breaker in introductory computer science courses is being expanded to 28 more high schools and ...

Among the innovations in Dell's latest family of Latitude laptops is at least one "game-changing" feature, according to a technology analyst. Latitude ON is a new technology -- expected to be available by the end of the year -- that provides super-fast access to e-mail and Web browsing. It will be available on Dell's new ultramobile models, the E4200 and E4300.

"They're looking to find a way to marry the benefits of laptop performance with the instant-on access and radically extended battery life people expect from smartphones," said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, in a telephone interview.

Latitude ON leverages a separate subprocessor and subsystem that allows the user to turn on the laptop without having to boot the entire system, King said. "You'll push a button and the system will be on in a second or two. You can't run the full range of applications and multimedia, but you will have Outlook and basic browser functionality. It's a way for employees to simply turn on the machine and work."

In addition, if the system is run exclusively in ON mode, the ultramobile's battery life will be extended substantially, King added.

Extensive Battery Life

Battery life is another area where Dell's E line is impressive, King said. In combination with an additional battery pack, the mainstream E6400, with a 14.1-inch screen, can run on battery power for 19 hours, Dell says. "That's impressive by any metric," King said.

The new machines show the increased importance of mobility in the enterprise, King said. "Mobility as an issue is moving throughout enterprise, it's not just road-warrior types," he said. "Mobility is increasingly important to businesses of every kind," from employees working at home to contractors who drop into satellite offices to salespeople who are constantly on the road.

A key to advancing mobility is Dell's new...

Yahoo's recently launched Fire Eagle has privacy advocates burning up about the new open platform that allows users to show their location on the Web and also allows developers access to users' locations.

Yahoo officials insisted control is in the hands of the users. Users may decide how much they want to expose about their location, including the country, state, city and even street address.

"Location presents some unique challenges, and people inherently feel creepy when content is targeted to where they are and your actual physical location is being tracked," said Alissa Cooper, chief computer scientist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "If people know this is being shared, then people will react more strongly and protect themselves."

Gray Privacy Policies

While Fire Eagle users control information about their location, privacy advocates say privacy policies for third-party developers may differ from Yahoo's, leaving users confused and open to privacy breeches.

Ted Morgan, founder and CEO of Skyhook Wireless and the brain behind Loki, one of the 50 third-party developers using Fire Eagle, agrees that there is room for user confusion. But he said companies are adopting a general approach to privacy and offer similar policies.

If users opt out of Fire Eagle, previously collected information can be kept by the developers offering the service through their applications.

Morgan said Loki offers users a delete-history option and Fire Eagle users also have the option to hide their location and delete all their data from the databases.

"It's great that application providers are informing people and have robust controls, but its important for people to realize if they turn it off for one application, they are not turning off their whole device," Cooper said.

Companies, especially those that have spent decades building their brand, are not going to risk losing the trust of customers and risk hurting...

While the iPhone 3G consumer base continues to suffer with dropped calls, abrupt network switches, poor reception and service interruptions, there are reports that Apple may be getting closer to fixing the issue.

The glitches are reportedly related to a chip inside Apple's music-playing cell phone. Apple reportedly plans to remedy the woes through a software upgrade. That would mean avoiding a product recall that could be costly for both Apple and AT&T.

The news aligns with one financial analyst's suggestion that the iPhone issues could be a problem with the communications chip. Richard Windsor, a financial analyst at Nomura, wrote in a research paper about similar complaints with 3G phones launched in Europe five years ago.

"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier," Windsor asserted. "This is not surprising, as the Infineon 3G chipset solution has never really been tested in the hands of users. Some people will not experience these problems, as it is only in areas where the radio signal weakens that the immaturity of the stack really shows."

Yet More iPhone 3G Speculation

Ny Teknik, a Swedish engineering magazine, claims it has a report on tests conducted by unnamed experts that proves some iPhone 3G handset sensitivity is below the 3G standard mandates.

According to the report, the most likely cause of the 3G problems is defective adjustments between the antenna and an amplifier to capture weak signals from that antenna. The result: poor 3G connectivity and slower data speeds.

Infineon could not immediately be reached for comment on the possibility that its chip could be the cause of 3G reception woes. Apple has not yet acknowledged any issues with its latest handset. AT&T issued a statement saying, "Overall, the new iPhone...

In a move to reduce consumer energy consumption, some high-tech companies are revealing plans to support a new capability Intel is adding to select versions of its motherboard products.

Dubbed Remote Wake, the technology does what it says -- it enables the home PC to "wake up" for incoming VoIP calls as well as remote-media access to photos, videos and music over the Internet.

"Businesses are increasingly utilizing VoIP," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Research. "If you are using an application like Skype, the Intel motherboard technology will allow your PC to be alerted to phone calls coming in, to essentially wake up and create some sort of digital ringtone to alert the owner a call is coming in or to fall over to voice-mail mode."

Waking Up Service Providers

JAJAH on Thursday unveiled a telephony application to utilize Intel's Remote Wake technology. With JAJAH's telephony support, the computer has direct access to JAJAH's IP-telephony network, enabling the PC to both make and receive low-cost phone calls.

"When the computer was first built, its inventors did not have telephony in mind, nor was it even on the horizon. As communications becomes more ubiquitous, JAJAH will continue to collaborate with Intel to improve how telecommunications software and hardware platforms can evolve to continue our leadership in the IP telephony market," said Trevor Healy, JAJAH CEO.

Pando Networks, a provider of commercial P2P content-delivery services, also announced a content-delivery service to make use of Intel's Remote Wake technology. The company said the combination of Pando Networks' content-delivery services and Intel's Remote Wake technology will offer content providers and consumers more choice in how they can access, purchase, and download digital media content to a home PC, even when they're not at home.

"The home computer is increasingly a media-delivery and playback device. We are very proud...

The world has its eyes on Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics — especially at work.

On Monday, the first full workday after the official opening of the games Friday, Nielsen Online reports more than 2 million people visited the video section of NBCOlympics.com, up nearly 140 percent from Sunday when the site had about 858,000 visitors. Overall visits to the site increased 40 percent to 4.6 million compared with Sunday’s 3.3 million.

Traffic to Yahoo’s Olympics site also skyrocketed, up 86 percent to 5.2 million visitors compared with Sunday’s 2.8 million.

Meanwhile, half a world away, Denver is preparing for an influx of some 50,000 people for the Democratic National Convention, August 25-28th.

Qwest, the Official Telecommunications Provider of the DNC, is providing an aggregate data capacity of about 50 Gbps. Qwest installed video equipment with capacity to handle 130 simultaneous video feeds at both the Pepsi Center and INVESCO Field at Mile High stadium using some 3,344 miles of single strands of fiber and 140 miles of single strands of copper and coaxial cable. Qwest added approximately 2,600 additional data lines and 3,400 voice grade circuits to serve both venues to more than 5,000 delegates and some 15,000 members of the media.

Verizon Wireless is beefing up its infrastructure in Denver. The company said on Wednesday that it has added three permanent cell sites to downtown Denver and also plans to install a mobile “cell-on-wheels.” Upgrades at specific cell sites have doubled voice capacity in the city and increased data-handling capacity four-fold.

In-building coverage has also been enhanced with signal boosters and repeaters in a number of hotels, parking garages, and other convention sites. Verizon will also be providing backup microwave facilities and a 24-hour emergency operations center during the convention.

Vertigo Software designed the interface for delivering live, gavel-to-gavel, high-definition (HD)-quality video through the official Convention Web site. Like the 2008 Summer Olympics, it will use Microsoft’s Silverlight.

Research In Motion (RIM) is the Official Smartphone Solutions Provider of the four-day event, providing BlackBerry smartphones with a Rapid Reach Directory, an application specially-designed for the Democratic National Convention that allows Convention planners to connect with one another.

DISH is the Official High Definition Satellite Television Service Provider and will carry coverage on available Channel 211. The DNC’s “Countdown to America’s Future,” is a series of daily webcasts about the 2008 Democratic Convention, to be broadcast on DemConvention.com, Comcast’s Video On-Demand (VOD) and via satellite.

Both Denver and St. Paul, where the Republican National Convention will be held Sept. 1-4, are enlisting thousands of additional police officers to help with security. Even so, their numbers will be only about a third of the 10,000 police officers that New York City fielded for the 2004 Republican convention, just three years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Wednesday, the Portland City Council approved a permit extension giving internet service provider Clearwire access to install wireless equipment on city streets. As Pete Springer reports, this puts the city one step closer to its first WiMAX service.

Unlike the city’s defunct attempt at free municipal WiFi, WiMAX will require a monthly fee. Clearwire won’t confirm monthy fees for WiMAX, but their current internet rates start at $38 a month.

Meanwhile, Portland officials have given the company that developed the city’s failed municipal WiFi until the end of the year to remove the equipment it installed on city utility poles.

Two neighborhood groups are challenging a Clearwire proposal to add wireless broadband equipment to a utility pole in front of a local grade school. To get the height required for the gear, the existing 30-foot pole must be replaced with a 55-foot pole. Clearwire and city staff argue that the pole wouldn’t fit the definition of a cellular tower because its primary purpose is as a utility pole.