A wireless combination chip unveiled Monday by Broadcom promises to pave the way to the creation of new mobile phones that will support additional media and data applications without the need for larger chip ...
Gears, BIS-B Push and SQlite coming to BlackBerry... With word of the BlackBerry Curve 8900 quietly shipping to corporate customers over the weekend, you knew it was only a matter of time before the official ...
Fire Eagle is a Yahoo!-owned service that acts as a ‘clearinghouse’ for a user’s geo location information. Other services and applications can update or access this information via the Fire Eagle API, having first obtained the user’s permission.
Fire Eagle is not a social network. It is designed to make it possible for any service online to respond to your location.
Now a new plugin for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser enables true semantic capabilities for the first time within any Web page. SemantiNet’s headup is considered by Yahoo! to be a leading example for Fire Eagle integration. Yahoo! has a video demonstrating headup’s support for the Fire Eagle Geolocation technology. Headup data can be opened unobtrusively via a displayed ‘+’ symbol next to the relevant content.
Headup’s semantic engine retrieves personalized, meaningful information in real-time about data that specifically interests the individual user. User privacy is fully maintained and headup is available for both the Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X Operating Systems.
“The Yahoo! APIs allow us seamless access to their most cutting-edge new technologies such as Fire Eagle and BOSS said Tal Keinan, CEO of SemantiNet. Headup is available immediately for beta test – interested users can register for the limited number of beta invitations.
WiMax vendor Alvarion will cut 11 percent of its 1,000 employees by the end of this year in an effort to stay profitable throughout 2009 and weather the global economic slowdown, the company said today.
The company will also cut management salaries and introduce other cost saving initiatives, which altogether, are expected to result in annual cost of goods and operating expense savings of around $15 million. The changes will cost $3 million in a one-time charge in the fourth quarter, reports Unstrung.
Alvarion is clearly preparing for a worsening economic situation that will force operators to rethink their plans for wireless broadband rollouts.
“We see lengthening sales cycles, and we remain cautious about the potential effect of the economic climate on WiMax-related spending decisions as we move through next year,” said president and CEO Tzvika Friedman, in a press statement. Uncertainty for 2009 stems from a combination of new projects being delayed, existing customers slowing down deployments, and longer sales cycles. Greenfield WiMax deployments are particularly challenging because of the difficulty in raising funds, he explained.
Other related economic moves include:
With some of the United States’ largest and most diversified companies ready to spell out their 2009 financial forecasts over the next two weeks, Wall Street is braced for bad news. But Wall Street extended its rally into a second session Monday as investors grew optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama’s plan for a huge infrastructure spending package will help boost the crippled economy. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 250 points.
Navigating all the "smart" phones out there and picking one for yourself can be tricky, and purchasing one for someone else can be even more daunting.
In his You Tube address on Saturday, President Elect Barack Obama stated that extending broadband access to all Americans is one of the pillars of his economic recovery plan.
As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m President – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives.
Wireless technologies can extend broadband access at one tenth the cost of wired technologies, says Proxim’s Robb Henshaw, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications. He thinks WiMAX can extend the reach of wireless networks, eliminating the high cost of fiber or copper, with 802.11n extending easily accessible Wi-Fi.
Broadcom, today announced the availability of a wireless combination chip that enables mobile phones to support FM radio reception as well as including a tiny transmitter for use with a car radio, for example. The company says their solution offers far more functionality than any other single-chip solution on the market, with cost, size, power and performance advantages, making it ideal for handheld electronics. It integrates Broadcom’s 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM technologies on a single silicon die.
A variety of products based on the Broadcom BCM4325, their “G”, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM chip, are already on store shelves, and devices based on the Broadcom BCM2049 Bluetooth/FM chip are currently nearing production. Now the BCM4329, adds the 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and FM transmit capabilities to enable even more powerful applications in smaller devices.
The BCM4329 chipset includes both FM transmit and receive capabilities. FM transmit enables consumers to stream music directly from a personal media players (PMPs) or mobile phone to car stereos or home theater systems without having to purchase special adapters or use bulky cables. FM receive is already a popular feature that enables consumers to obtain real-time traffic information as well as listen to music, news and sports broadcasts on their mobile phones.
The BCM4329 also integrates Bluetooth, which is already a ubiquitous feature in mobile phones and PMPs, enabling hands-free communications with wireless headsets, cordless data synchronization and stereo music streaming to headphones and speakers. Since Bluetooth and Wi-Fi operate in the same 2.4 GHz band, both the Broadcom BCM4325 and BCM4329 combination chips use innovative co-existence algorithms and a shared antenna system to minimize interference and provide even better performance than products that use separate Bluetooth and Wi-Fi solutions.
Since handheld devices lack the space, battery power and processing power to support 802.11n implementations with multiple antennas, the BCM4329 uses single-stream 802.11n to transmit and receive data. This significantly reduces the system’s footprint and power consumption when compared to multi-stream solutions. Despite the use of a single antenna, the BCM4329 provides faster and more reliable wireless connections than current 802.11g products.
Broadcoms says the BCM4329 is the industry’s smallest and lowest cost dual-band 802.11n solution. Dual-band capabilities allow Wi-Fi users to leverage the less crowded 5 GHz spectrum. To eliminate the cost and size barriers of adding dual-band functionality to mobile devices, the BCM4329 integrates 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz CMOS power amplifiers rather than using external power amplifiers.
The BCM4329 combination chip is now sampling to early access customers and is scheduled for significant production quantities in 2009. Pricing is available upon request.
UJet Holding, a privately held company based in the Netherlands, is planning the launch of low-cost WiMAX voice/data handsets for emerging markets next year. In volumes over 500,000, it projects prices of $40 per handset.
Working in partnership with a consortium of operators, as well as chipset manufacturers - the names of which are undisclosed - the company is projecting low prices for WiMAX-enabled handsets capable of voice and data speeds of up to 6Mbps on the downlink.
“We can start off with prices at $70 per unit, which then goes down to $40 once volumes pass 500,000,” Paul Coerkamp, CEO of UJet Holding, told WiMAX Vision at the WiMAX Congress event taking place in Rio lastweek.
Coerkamp would like to see convergence of WiMAX and LTE, which would presumably boost economies of scale for UJet. “Convergence is not that difficult to do at the baseband level,” claims Coerkamp. “The problem is how to accommodate different frequencies if LTE focuses on different spectrum to WiMAX.”
It is not clear what the business model for UJet is and how it intends to make its money. Visitors to its website are confronted with the following when clicking on the ’strategy’ section: ‘Access is available for selected investors after signing a mutual NDA.’
Telcos are gaining tv subs, cable companies are losing subs, and the satellite companies are slowing toward no sub growth, says RealMoney using figures from Kagan.
As of the third quarter of 2008, there were almost 100 million multichannel TV households. Cable has about a 66% share, satellite has 31%, and telcos just 2% to 3%. Satellite growth slowed sharply in the past two quarters and is expected to go toward zero in the next few quarters.
About 70 million U.S. households now have high-speed Internet. Cable has a 55% market share, which has grown slightly over the past year as its share of net adds has risen from the low 50s to the 70s. The telcos have fallen behind, because the competition has been about speed, and low-end DSL has become the new dial-up.
The U.S. now has over 102 million wireline access lines. Cable is also ascendant in wireline telephony. Over 6 million access lines have been lost in the past year, with the major telco losses rising from 6% year over year to 9%. The telcos have lost 11 million lines while cable has gained 5 million. Telcos still have an 82% market share, but cable telephony has become popular and accepted and now has north of 19 million subscribers.
So far the competition among cable and telcos has focused on features and bundles rather than price says RealMoney. Telcos do offer four-product bundles, but thus far wireless has largely remained outside the bundle.
This could change in 2010 if Clearwire is able to offer cable access to its network. With cable then offering a four-product bundle, the competitive dynamic could change. For example, cable is likely to offer a one-number solution whereby your wireless phone works on your home network when you are dialing from home.
The SNL Kagan study – “U.S. Multichannel Projections” – estimated that cable’s market share will drop from its current 64 percent to 59 percent by 2012 due to increased competition from telcos and satellite video providers.
The top five ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon (FiOS and DSL) and Road Runner/America Online), have a combined market share of 48.2 percent, says ISP Planet.
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Mobile data is starting to take off. The 102 million mobile Internet subscribers represent 39% of all wireless subscriptions, and a 32% increase in year over year growth since Q2 2007.
Text messaging is still the leading data function, accounting for about 65% of total data revenue, according to Informa. But Nielsen reports a steady rise in the number of mobile Internet subscribers, and a faster increase in revenue. Only one in five subscribers surf the mobile Web, but some 37% of US adults age 18 to 24 use their phones to access the web, according to the Mobile Marketing Association.
Google has announced a SIM- and hardware-unlocked version of the first Android smartphone, reports C/Net.
To get an Android Dev Phone 1, you’ll first need to register as an Android developer on the Android Market site, which entails a one-time setup fee of $25. Then the device will cost you $399 (free shipping in the States). To accommodate demand, Google says it’s one device per developer account.
The device will be available for purchase in 18 international markets, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, India, Canada, France, Taiwan, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Hungary. And more territories are on the way, Google says.
The G1 was first launched on the T-Mobile network on September 23. The G1, which is locked to the T-Mobile service, is still the significantly cheaper, available for only $179 with a T-Mobile contract. Google also warns that non-developers buying the unlocked Android phone for personal use may experience “issues”, and “end users operate these devices at their own risk.”
The G1 Android phone is expected to announce sales of over a million G1 phones by January 1. While short of the 74 days Apple needed to sell the first million iPhones, the G1 would come close, reaching the million mark at 99 days, if it hits it at exactly the year’s end.
In other mobile news:
Related Android and iPhone articles on Dailywireless include; Death Match: Storm vs Android vs iPhone, iPhone Apps May Cost $30K, T-Mobile + Yahoo OneSearch, Flash Coming to Android, and Open Street Map on iPhone.
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