Even in the current market slump, having one of the world's top smart phone makers carry a valuation similar to that of a battered oil company or car manufacturer is -- shall we say -- unusual.
As promised earlier this month, giant coffee chain Starbucks will be offering free Wi-Fi in its U.S. and Canadian operated stores as a way to bring in customers bearing notebooks, netbooks, mobile devices, smartphones, and WiFi-enabled gaming units.
Lots of companies have been rumored to be working on Android tablets this spring in the the wake of the iPad launch, but Cisco became the first to announce an enterprise tablet on Tuesday.
Money? Check. Identification? Yep. Clean clothes? Uh huh. The necessities of travel haven't changed much over the years, but a number of high-tech toys can help make your upcoming trips more fun, productive and hassle-free. A good camera and/or camcorder is a given, sure, but also consider one or more of these following gadgets, ranging in price ...
The listing doesn't explicitly say "needs to be able to fix iPhone 4's reception problems," of course, but it does seek an engineer who can "define and implement antenna system architecture to optimize the radiation performance for wireless portable devices." It could be coincidental that the posting comes just as the reception issue gains prominence, although one would expect Apple already has a crew of antenna engineers.
'A Fact of Life'
Also on Tuesday, a memo purporting to be a leaked internal Apple customer-care document surfaced on industry web sites. The memo, advising AppleCare employees on how to deal with complaints relating to reception, emphasizes that "the iPhone 4's wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped."
But it also notes that "gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception," calling it "a fact of life in the wireless world." It advised employees to suggest that customers who are experiencing this on the iPhone 3GS "avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand," and, if it's happening with the iPhone 4, "avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band."
The memo also notes that "the use of a case or bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance" by keeping a hand from directly covering those areas.
iOS 4 Fix on the Way?
Apple has been insisting there is no antenna issue with the iPhone 4, which has sold more than 1.7 million units since its debut on June 24....
The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission reported on its web site Wednesday that it and Sony had launched the recall after Sony received "30 reports of units overheating, resulting in deformed keyboards and casings. No injuries have been reported."
The affected units are in the F11 and CW2 series notebooks launched in January. The Wall Street Journal, citing figures from Sony, said that of those series, 259,000 were sold in the U.S., 103,000 in Europe, 120,000 in Asia, and 52,000 in Japan.
'Don't Take It Back'
In a letter posted on a support page on Sony's web site, Mike Lucas, senior vice president of the VAIO product line, blamed the problem on "a potential malfunction of the internal temperature-management system, resulting in deformation of the product's keyboard or external casing, and a potential burn hazard to consumers."
In the frequently asked questions section, Sony listed the model numbers potentially affected and cautioned those users to "install the firmware update as soon as possible to prevent the small possibility of overheating."
While Lucas offered a toll-free number for technical support (866) 496-7669, the notice urges customers to fix the problem themselves. "Customers should download the firmware update available" is the answer to the FAQ "Can consumers return affected models to the stores where they purchased them?"
The CPSC on its web site also recommends the update as a remedy without suggesting returning the computers. A Sony spokesperson in Europe told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the company's action...
The rooms were expensive, and so when I opened my laptop and found out Wi-Fi would cost more than $20 a day extra, I was peeved.
Amazon announced in January that it would introduce a new 70 percent royalty option to allow authors to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell using the Amazon Digital Text Platform.
Well, it’s the middle of the year, and it has finally launched, notes TechCrunch.
An $8.99 book would make an author $3.15 using the standard (35%) option, but $6.25 with the new 70 percent option. The original royalty remains 35%, but the cost of delivery is free.
The delivery costs are based on file size ($0.15/MB). Amazon claims today’s median DTP file size to be 368KB, which means delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. For blogs and other daily periodicals with lots of photos and graphics, delivery costs could add up, making the standard 35% royalty a better choice.
Each book sold from the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and Android phones, authors and publishers now have the option to receive 70 percent of the list price (less delivery costs).
To qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:
In addition to the 70 percent royalty option, Amazon also announced improvements in DTP such as a more intuitive “Bookshelf” feature and a simplified two-step process for publishing.
The 70% royalty changes everything.
But who will ever be able to find your book in a sea of 1,000,000 titles? Without a publisher’s promotional help, won’t your book get lost?
The answer is an author’s social media app. It’s a free download and connects to:
Your free social media app promotes your book. Small Society has released WordPress for iPad. That’s everything you need.
Do the math – 5,000 times $7 is $35K.
Related e-book articles on Dailywireless include; Google: King of all Media?, WiFi Nook: $149, Free Download for iOS 4 Ready , Starbucks: Free WiFi + Free Content, Scribd Does HTML 5 Magazines, Kindle Announces 70% Royalty Option, Media’s Primordial Soup: Tablets, Scribd Does HTML 5 Magazines, Tablets, Tablets, Tablets, E-Magazines: Pay Once, Play Anywhere, The $99 Android Tablet, Barnes & Noble: Self Publishing this Summer, Apple Sells 1M iPads, Google Editions: World’s Largest Virtual Bookstore?, Google Tablet for Verizon?, Android Outsells Apple, Flash Support in Android 2.2, Battle of the eBooks, Dell Android Tablet for AT&T/T-Mobile?, Google Tablet: Android or What?, and Tablet Revolution!
The bottleneck for mobile wireless, is now the backhaul, says RCR Wireless. Currently most cell towers are fed by 4-6, T-1 lines at 1.5 Mbps each. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile plan on running much more fiber to their towers and are eyeing microwave solutions.
Cellular speed is limited by your distance from the tower, signal strength, the number of people using the tower — and its backhaul capacity. A tower capacity of 10 Mbps, shared by 100 people, just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Clearwire and Sprint use DragonWave microwave to deliver 100+ Mbps to their WiMAX towers. Clearwire accounted for more than 80% of Dragonwave’s sales last year.
Clearwire CTO John Saw estimates that 90 percent of the firm’s network uses radio backhaul. Mobile WiMAX and LTE will require 100-180 Mbps per sector, or close to 500 Mbps per tower, according to the Clearwire CTO. Clearwire may have picked off the best (lowest) microwave frequencies already.
What’s left?
Well, for a start, there’s Siklu’s Wireless backhaul, says RCR Wireless. Siklu uses the regulated 71-76 GHz E-band spectrum, which the firm believes is superior, both technically and economically, to the lower 6-38 GHz spectrum. Siklu claims to offer gigabit-per-second wireless connectivity at the lowest price point in the entire industry, with its 1Gb capacity millimeter radios going for less than $3000, some $2000 less than the cheapest comparable competitor.
Siklu says the advantage of the E-band frequencies is mainly due to a reduction of the licensing fee incurred because the nature of propagation in the frequencies and the standardized directional “pencil beams” that result in a better spatial separation of the wireless links which in turn result in better frequency re-use.
Millimeter-wave wireless links can be deployed with minimal interference, allowing more efficient spectrum re-use, reducing coordination requirements, and allowing regulators to adopt a “light licensing” scheme which cost a fraction of the “traditional” licenses and can be obtained within minutes using an on-line registration tool. For mobile operators with hundreds or even thousands of links in their networks the lower frequency licenses means dramatic annual savings, according to Siklu.
Exalt microwave systems use the 18 GHz, 23 GHz, and 5 GHz frequencies to deliver Ethernet traffic over distances exceeding 20 miles. Exalt’s unique capacity aggregation capability, are said to enable a full duplex, 1 gigabit per-second (Gbps) Ethernet transport. It drives Cruzio’s wireless Internet access business on both sides of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Proxim Wireless, Alvarion, and Trango provide a wide range of licensed and unlicensed microwave solutions in a variety of bands for cellular, 4G or industrial backhaul.
Other Gbps wireless gear is available from Bridgewave, Ceragon, E-Band Communications, Gigabeam, Loea, and Proxim’s GigaLink.
The wireless network for Washington State Ferries uses 60 different radios, including the 15 aboard the boats. Sunrise used Proxim WiMax gear that uses the outdoor routing protocol, which helps eliminate hidden radio nodes. The protocol involves a polling procedure` to find the nearest receiving radio, which helps eliminate hidden radio nodes said Milt Gregory, CEO of Cupertino, Calif.-based Sunrise Wireless.
Proxim’s Tsunami base stations provide the WiMax backhaul. It connects to on-board Wi-Fi networks that largely rely on radios from Cisco. The Wi-Fi network was originally built and operated by Parsons of Irvine Calif., which sold the operation to Boingo last year.
Verizon will begin rolling out its LTE network in 25 markets starting on November 15th. Verizon’s LTE network promises to be ten times faster than its 3G network.
Verizon Wireless will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s 7750 service router, 7705 service aggregation router and its 5620 service aware manager.
Verizon Global Wholesale, their fiber arm, will be providing fiber links between more than 3,500 Verizon Wireless cell sites and the company’s mobile telephone switching offices in 25 states and the District of Columbia. Verizon will start selling Apple’s iPhone in January, 2011, says Bloomberg. Perhaps an LTE iPhone will follow later.
Dailywireless has more on Millimeter Band including; Microwave for Highway Surveillance,DragonWave: Faster, Cheaper Backhaul, Spectrum Bridge: Largest Spectrum Aggregator, Hospital Builds 60 GHz Network, Canon’s Optical Link, MIMO 4×4 On a Chip, Exalt: GigE on 5 GHz, SF Bay Unwired with Proxim, Stephouse: Fast, Reliable 5 GHz Long Shots, Proxim Unwires Indiana’s Statewide ITS Network, T-Mobile: Now HSPA+ Coverage for 75M, Verizon: Spectrum Scarcity is Good, BridgeWave: 1Gbps Backhaul on 80GHz, 3.65 GHz Gets Real, Millimeter Gigabit Gets Competition and More 70GHz Radios
Until recently, the Calgary-based company has faced limited competition in the cable and Internet service business in Western Canada.
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