Wireless Blog

Chipmaker Broadcom has introduced an integrated Bluetooth and GPS device which it said has the industry's lowest GPS power consumption.

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. : Something's amiss at the mall. The parking lots at the biggest shopping centers are still filling up on weekends, the food courts bustle with hungry customers and walkways are crowded with ...

The Senate today passed a scaled-backed economic stimulus bill by a 61-37 margin, clearing the way for what is expected to be a contentious conference to reconcile differences between House and Senate measures. The money available for broadband grants was reduced from $9 billion to $7 billion, reports RCR Wireless News. Fifty percent of the funds in the revised Senate bill are to be used for projects in rural areas.

Congressional leaders said they would immediately begin to work out the differences between the Senate measure and an $820 billion version passed by the House. President Obama also likely to have a strong voice in the talks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with President Obama early this morning and heard his views on what should be in the final bill. “His differences with the bill we have here are very, very minimal,” the Senate Democratic leader said.

Democrats are racing to get the legislation finalized so that it can be sent to Mr. Obama for his signature by Monday. Ms. Pelosi has said that Congress will not leave for the weeklong Presidents Day recess unless work on the bill is completed. And Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic leader, said he thought the talks could go into the middle of next week.

When the Android-powered T-Mobile G1 emerged last year, numerous reviewers took an obvious potshot at the hot new smartphone: No flicking, swiping, pinching, unpinching, or other fun finger movements popularized by Apple's iPhone. An explanation for that omission has been reported, but it leaves more questions than answers.

According to VentureBeat, Apple simply asked Google not to implement multi-touch capabilities in its Android mobile platform for the G1, even though the phone's touchscreen can support it. The information allegedly came from a member of the Android team, who said Google agreed to Apple's request.

Google's decision was apparently a huge relief for the Android team, which was concerned that a hard-headed approach would embroil Android in a messy patent fight that could have delayed the rollout of the G1 for months, if not years.

Avoiding a Patent Fight

Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis for Interpret LLC, said it made sense for Google to heed Apple's wishes, at least in the short term.

"Apple appears to have several patents for the concept of multi-touch as it relates to phones," Gartenberg said. "But it's also important to note that while Apple competes with Google to some extent in this space, Google is also an important partner for Apple on the iPhone and elsewhere."

Among other things, Google has made a concerted effort to format many of its services specifically for the iPhone, and just this week took the unprecedented step of licensing Microsoft's Exchange software so that it could provide real-time synchronization of contacts and calendars on the iPhone.

Google's approach is in stark contrast to Palm, which incorporated multi-touch capabilities in its newest smartphone, the Pre. The ability to swipe and pinch content on the Pre helped make it one of the hot items at last month's Consumer Electronics Show, but Palm (which, interestingly, is...

According to In-Stat, early growth in Mobile WiMAX market is not enough to satisfy WiMAX equipment vendors.

While demand for mobile WiMAX technology remains strong, for many vendors, success in WiMAX infrastructure markets will not be reflected in their overall earnings, the high-tech market research firm says. WiMAX revenues are still dwarfed by sales of traditional cellular infrastructure.

“While the market for 802.16e will continue to grow, it does not mean happy days are here for every vendor,” says Daryl Schoolar, In-Stat analyst. “In-Stat expects to see more infrastructure vendors pull back or leave the WiMAX market entirely.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• WiMAX base station revenues grew by 137.9% in 2008.
• Global WiMAX subscriptions will be over 85 million by the end of 2013.
• Deployments of 802.16e are contributing to the decline of sales in the fixed WiMAX standard, 802.16d.

The research, “Mobile WiMAX Global Review of Infrastructure and Services”, covers the worldwide market for mobile WiMAX.

Recently Alcatel Lucent and Nokia dropped or reduced their WiMAX development. On the other hand, Alvarion reports Q4 WiMAX shipments up 55% with WiMAX revenues up 21%. A total of 121,269 base station sectors were deployed as of Q3 2008, according to WiMAX Counts, a 37% increase from the previous quarter. Leading vendors for WiMAX carrier gear are Alvarion, Motorola and Samsung.

Maravedis does not expect the first LTE networks to go live until 2010 or 2011. The standard won’t be final until March and compatibility certifications will take their normal 18-24 month course to initial mass market availability.

Google wants to get into the “smart power” business with a home energy monitoring system, the company announced today. The Google PowerMeter iGoogle gadget, explains C/Net, gives consumers access to more detailed home energy data . Dozens of smart-grid trial programs now going on, offered through utilities.

Yesterday, Google filed comments with the California Public Utility Commission. Google’s comments included:

• Consumers should have direct access to real-time electricity usage information.
• Electricity usage information should be freely available to consumers.
• Electricity usage data should be made available in a standardized, open format, freely available to third-parties with permission from the consumer.

The Google PowerMeter widget will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time. Google PowerMeter is not yet available to the public. But they’re building partnerships with utilities and independent device manufacturers to gradually roll this out in pilot programs.

According to Google, PowerMeter will cut down electricity use by 5-15%. Treehugger.com says dashboards like this are popping up right and left - including Tendril Control4, Greenbox, Agilewaves and others.

If the utility could “talk” to the dishwasher, explains the NY Times, it might tell the machine to run at 2 a.m. and not 2 p.m., or it might tell the homeowner how much money would be saved by running the dishwasher at a different hour.

Automatic meter reading, or AMR, is the technology of automatically collecting data from water meter or energy metering devices (water, gas, electric) and transferring that data to a central database for billing and/or analyzing. The city of Corpus Christi became one of the first cities in the United States to implement city wide Wi Fi, mainly to facilitate AMR after a meter reader was attacked by a dog.

Machine-to-machine technology is gaining traction among businesses across all industries, reports RCR Wireless News. According to a recent survey conducted by Beecham Research, 82% of businesses responding consider M2M as “imperative” and “very important” for their future. KORE Telematics sponsored the survey along with Anywhere Technologies, Maingate, M2M Alliance, ORBCOMM, Sierra Wireless, Telefonica O2, Tridium, Wavecom and Wyless. RCR News has more on M2M telemetry.

Utilimetrics is a not-for-profit association of more than 1,200 individuals representing international utilities and corporations in gas, water and electric industries. Utilimetrics members develop and implement automated resource-management technologies as well as participate in standardization and regulatory activities.

Dailywireless has more on 900 Mhz Telemetry, Traffic Cameras and ITS and the Corpus Christi Cloud .

Nokia on Tuesday rolled out the Nokia 5630 XpressMusic. Billed as an ultra-slim S60-platform device, Nokia's latest music-phone model goes well beyond music to give consumers videos and games, allowing them to share content.

Nokia's XpressMusic line has built a reputation for being a solid entertainment phone. The 5630 XpressMusic model hopes to build on that foundation with a high-audio-quality music player, music and videos on the go through dedicated keys, and a 4GB memory card for storing up to 3,000 tracks, with the option to upgrade to a 16GB microSD memory card.

The phone doesn't let you do Google-powered voice search like the G1 and iPhone, but it does tout Nokia's voice-controlled "Say and Play" feature, so consumers can just say the name of an artist or song to automatically play it.

The Social-Media Twist

Capitalizing on today's social-networking trends, the phone comes equipped with a full-focus 3.2-megapixel camera with flash; images or videos can be captured and shared via a favorite online community, such as Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook.

The Nokia 5630 XpressMusic home screen is designed to put you closer to the people and media you consume the most. For example, the phone offers a Contacts Bar that allows direct access to up to 20 of your closest friends or business contacts straight from the home screen.

The Contacts Bar also provides a communication history with these contacts, including recent e-mails, messages, phone logs and photos shared. A Shortcuts bar at the bottom of the home screen offers access to the most frequently used applications, including music, radio, Web, N-Gage and photos.

Speaking of N-Gage, the 5630 XpressMusic comes with a complete N-Gage experience. N-Gage offers an entire catalog of games from leading publishers, a multiplayer feature, and the ability to track progress. You...

CAMBRIDGE, UK, Feb 10, 2009 -- This is an edited version of CSR's regulatory press release, which can be viewed here: http://www.csr.com/SiRF-0209 CSR and SiRF today entered into a conditional agreement under ...

Spectrum Bridge, the online marketplace for spectrum, says the deadline for South Carolina’s Educational Broadband Services (EBS) Commission request for proposals (RFP) has been extended to Friday, February 27, 2009.

South Carolina is seeking bids for more than 67 of South Carolina’s statewide EBS spectrum licenses. It is currently being promoted on Spectrum Bridge’s SpecEx online spectrum marketplace.

On January 2, 2009, the South Carolina EBS Commission revealed that the state has made 1596 MHz of EBS spectrum available for lease. The statewide spectrum covers about 5.6 million people, and can support a wide range of broadband communications.

All licenses available from the Commission can be researched via a dedicated page on the SpecEx.com website. SpecEx attracts a wide range of potential bidders including both traditional and non-traditional 2.5 GHz wireless users.

Intel Chief Paul Otellini said Tuesday that the chip maker will spend $7 billion over the next two years to upgrade its U.S. manufacturing facilities.

It represents Intel’s largest-ever investment for a new manufacturing process, said the company.

The investment funds deployment of Intel’s 32 nanometer (nm) manufacturing process. Intel’s investment will be made at existing manufacturing sites in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico and will support approximately 7,000 high-wage, high-skill jobs at those locations. Intel has a workforce of more than 45,000 in the U.S.

Over the past eight years, Intel has built six new fabs, and upgraded another. Since 2002 it has invested $50 billion in capital and R&D in the United States. It generates more than 75 percent of its sales overseas, although some 75 percent of its semiconductor manufacturing is conducted in the U.S. About 75 percent of the company’s R&D spending and capital investments are also made in the U.S., said the company in a press release.

Robert Scoble tours inside Intel’s 45 nanometer fab in Hillsboro, Oregon and talked to Intel Senior Fellow, Mark Bohr who gave Bob a rare look inside Intel’s fab. Bohr explains how High-K dielectrics are keeping Moore’s Law alive.

The NY Times has a profile on Mark Bohr, an Intel fellow who helped sheppard the new technology to fruition at Hillsboro’s D1D plant.