Wireless Blog

RIM Blackberry Bold RIM's latest handset features Wi-Fi, QWERTY keyboard, Intel XScale 624 MHz processor, microSD external card slots, and can sync with Apple's iTunes.

Two companies are teaming up to make sure the Democratic National Convention stays connected.

The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved to terminate an agreement with a tech consortium that aimed to bring both free and paid wireless Internet coverage across the city.

Apple is receiving more than consumer backlash in support forums and negative press for the iPhone 3G issues -- the company is getting sued.

On Wednesday, an Alabama woman filed suit against Apple. Her claims sound similar to what's been reported widely in the media: receptivity issues, slow connections to AT&T's 3G network, and dropped calls.

The plaintiff, Jessica Smith, is seeking class-action status that could let thousands of others join the fight. Smith wants Apple to repair or replace the new phone. She is also seeking unspecified damages.

Misleading Marketing Claims

The Birmingham resident is charging Apple with breach of express and implied warranty for what she has labeled the "Defective iPhone 3G."

"Defendant intended for customers to believe its statements and representations about the Defective iPhone 3Gs, and to trust that the device was 'twice as fast at half the price,'" the lawsuit claims, suggesting that Apple's "Twice as Fast. Half the Price" slogan mislead consumer expectations.

"Immediately after purchase, Plaintiff soon noticed that her Internet connection, receipt and sending of e-mail, text messages and other data transfers were slower than expected and advertised," the lawsuit explained.

"The Defective iPhone 3G appeared to connect to the 3G standard and protocol less than 25 percent of the time. Additionally, Plaintiff experienced an inordinate amount of dropped calls," the lawsuit continued.

Apple Scrambles To Find a Fix

Apple released a software fix Monday that was reportedly related to a chip inside Apple's music-playing cell phone. But applications are still crashing. In fact, the update created new issues for some iPhone users even as others are wrestling with MobileMe foul-ups that make receiving e-mail on the handset sketchy.

It seems as though Smith isn't willing to wait for another promised fix in September.

"Defendant expressly warranted that the Defective iPhone 3G would be 'twice as fast' and would otherwise perform...

Road warriors may be a step closer to dumping the rat's nest of recharging wires in their laptop bags. According to reports, Intel was to demonstrate Thursday at the Intel Developers Forum a major breakthrough in charging devices such as laptops, cell phones, and MP3 players without wires.

But according to Dr. Izahr Matzkevich, cofounder of wireless developer WildCharge, the technology has a long way to go.

The technology is based on pioneering work done by Dr. Marin Soljacic at the MIT Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics. In details published in 2006, Soljacic demonstrated the transmission of electricity at a distance of seven feet using magnetic resonance. In a nutshell, transmitter and receiver must be on the same magnetic frequency for electrical current to travel from one point to the next.

Efficiency and Distance

The Intel technology focuses on two key factors in wirelessly recharging devices -- distance and efficiency. Up to this point wireless recharge technology has been mired by a 50 percent loss in energy. In other words, only about half the transmitted energy ever reaches the target device. Reports are that Intel has broken that barrier with yields as high as 60 to 75 percent.

Also a drawback, according to some analysts, is distance -- the present technology requires that wireless rechargers must be in contact with recharging bases or recharging mats. But Matzkevich said distance will be a problem for a long time to come.

"Resonance technology like the MIT demonstration requires a heavy infrastructure -- right now, with coils of at least two feet -- to accomplish even a small distance," he said. "Add to that a 35 percent loss in power, this is not insignificant."

He also noted that such resonant fields could cause interference problems with other wireless devices, and miniaturization of the transmitter coils from two...

Nth Air, a wireless ISP, and Fujitsu Network Communications, have launched WiMAX services across Denver which will be available for the 5,000 delegates and 15,000 members of the media expected to attend the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver next week.

The fixed point-to-multipoint network will provide broadband wireless Internet data, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video services for businesses and municipalities. WiMAX point-to-point connectivity is also available to connect users staying at different hotels. Up to 1 Gbps symmetrical, dedicated, scalable services are delivered to support subscriber needs.

“Reporters or city officials and their staff members may simply not have time to head back to their hotels to file stories or transmit important information to each other,” said Craig Niemeyer, chief executive officer and president of Nth Air. “By subscribing to our WiMAX service, they’ll receive high-speed wireless Internet access directly from the convention center with the same kind of connectivity they’d get with their own networks at the office,” added Niemeyer.

The Fujitsu WiMAX solution that Nth Air purchased operates in the “lightly licensed” 3.65 GHz spectrum. Fujitsu delivers fixed and mobile WiMAX equipment and the professional services that support wireless network design, installation and provisioning.

Sprint and Clearwire plan to jointly launch a Mobile WiMax service in Denver in the coming months.

For suburban Denver, a group called the Colorado Wireless Communities planned to build a massive WiFi network that spans 10 cities, 200 square miles and more than 600,000 people in the northwest metro area. But C-Com, the Boulder-based vendor picked to install the system, has not been able to raise enough money to fund the deployment of the network. The project is now on the back burner.

The major wireless carriers - AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile - all have boosted capacity at the major venues including the Pepsi Center, Invesco Field, the Colorado Convention Center and even some downtown hotels.

Meanwhile, Pipeline Wireless has awarded Redline Communications a contract to provide WiMAX products to support Pipeline’s first WiMAX network rollout. Redline will supply its RedMAX AN-100U base station for Pipeline’s deployment in downtown Boston. A commercial launch will take place within the next few months.

Pipeline holds a nationwide licence to offer wireless internet services using spectrum in the 3.5GHz band, and covers nearly 2,100 square miles of Eastern Massachusetts.

Light Reading has a list of some Current WiMax Operators & Service Deployments.

Amimon has been selected by Mitsubishi to offer a High-Definition LCD TV for the Japanese market with an integrated HD wireless link.

The Mitsubishi product will come embedded with Amimon’s wireless technology, capable of delivering uncompressed HD video streams wirelessly. The wireless HDTV is a two-piece system comprised of a slim and thin LCD panel and a separate HDTV receiver unit that connects to the LCD panel wirelessly.

Amimon explains why they use uncompressed wireless:

High-definition video streams have typical data rates of 15- 20 Mbps, using MPEG-2 in terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasts, with data rates as high as 30 Mbps in high-definition DVDs. The emerging UWB and 802.11n standards, can support raw data rates of up to 480Mbps, could handle several of these wireless streams.

The problem with this assumption is that while the video arrives at the home in compressed MPEG-2 form, it is not provided in compressed form at the output of most video devices. The reason is political. Content providers have been blocking compressed output because it is the blueprint of their valuable IP. Whoever gains access to the compressed content can generate perfect replicas of the content providers’ most valuable assets. These replicas can be distributed over the Internet or as pirate DVDs. So DVD players and set-top boxes typically output only uncompressed video using DVI and HDMI – all of which are uncompressed.

Amimon uses the WHDI standard. The Wireless High Definition Interface provides an uncompressed wireless link which supports delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including uncompressed 1080p) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band. How does it do this? WHDI takes the uncompressed HD video stream and breaks it into elements of importance, only transmitting the important bits. It doesn’t use 802.11n, because the actual transmission rates or “N” are around 200Mbps, still far from 1.5Gbps. The range is less (100 feet), but latency is reduced (under one millisecond).

Three wireless systems for connecting HDTVs are competing for the home, says EE Times. This “battle of technologies” is being fought between three contending systems, 5 GHz, 60 GHz, and ultra wideband (UWB), according to ABI Research. Most established wireless vendors are waiting to see how the market evolves, says the research firm.

• WirelessHD uses the unlicensed 60 GHz band. The bandwidth available at 60 GHz allows data transmissions as fast as 4 Gbits/s. Developed by SiBeam, Intel, LG, Matsushita Electric, NEC Corporation, Samsung, LTD, SiBEAM, Sony and Toshiba are supporters. WirelessHD delivers up to 4 Gbits/second at distances up to 10 meters. Separately, the IEEE 802.15.3c group is defining a basic physical layer standard for 60 GHz radios.
• Wireless High Definition Interface (WHDI), using 5 GHz. WHDI, developed by Israeli company Amimon, reportedly achieves a data rate as fast as 3 Gbits/s. WiFi 802.11n technology using MIMO can achieve up to 600 mbps, but cannot yield a 3-Gbit/s data rate. For that, Amimon tapped an existing signal-processing technology called joint-source channel coding.
• Sigma Designs and Fujitsu Microelectronics America are collaborating on a UWB variant called Wireless HDAV to carry high def video. Sigma supplies a video processor and WiMedia complaint UWB chip set, and Fujitsu provides an H.264 video codec chip. It’s the first technology solution to support both the H.264 format and UWB based on the WiMedia standard. WiMedia Alliance uses Ultrawideband (UWB) in a band of frequencies from 4.2 to 4.8 GHz or higher. Their Wireless USB standard claims a data rate of 480 Mbits/s and works by compressing and expanding HD video images.

There is no consensus among consumer manufacturers on a single standard or unified wireless HD format. But wireless connections are expected to simplify A/V installations and allow more flexibility in positioning TVs.

Combined company takes aim at Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. August 20, 2008 Ericsson and STMicroelectronics have agreed to join their wireless chip and software businesses to create a joint venture that will ...

When Barack Obama announces his choice for vice president, the real payoff may come during the next few months -- one text message at a time.

Obama's campaign plans to break the news of the Democratic candidate's vice presidential pick to people who have signed up to receive e-mails and text messages from the campaign. It should give Obama's team access to tens of thousands of cell phone numbers that could be used to mobilize voters under 30 on Election Day.

"What Obama is creating is this army of individuals, these grass-roots activists, who are out there trying to change the world in 160 characters or less," said David All, a Republican strategist who specializes in technology.

Obama's electronic outreach is the most prominent example of a larger movement by members of Congress and political campaigns to present their message and connect with voters through text messaging on cell phones, social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, and the microblogging site Twitter.

In Congress, some Republicans turned to Twitter in their protest of the Democrats' energy policies on the House floor. When the House recessed in August, microphones on the floor were turned off, the TV feeds to C-SPAN ceased and the lights dimmed, but the Blackberries worked.

"Our voices can't be shut down," Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., typed on his Twitter site during the GOP protest.

Hoekstra said using Twitter during the protest "really opened up my eyes" to the site's potential -- the number of people following his postings grew from 10 to nearly 500 by the end of the day. His Republican colleague, John Culberson of Texas, uses Twitter a lot and has more than 3,000 followers.

Obama's campaign has used the Internet to boost fundraising, building upon Howard Dean's Web strategy in 2004, but the campaign's use of text messaging has the potential...

Nokia's Services & Software unit today announced plans to refine parts of its global research and development activities.