Anyone can fail, but to really fail big time there’s nothing quite like a major technology conference, a big product release, and a live audience of tens of thousands.
June 26, 2012
by sjvn01
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June 26, 2012
by sjvn01
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Vortex wireless: Terabytes of Wi-Fi is on its way
Wi-Fi networking has gotten to be remarkably fast. But even as 802.11n, with up to 600 Megabits per second (Mbps) speeds has become commonplace, and 802-11ac, with its gigabit speeds is finally showing up, we’ve seen nothing like the speeds that the still experimental twisted, vortex beams using orbital angular momentum (OAM) is going to deliver. In the lab, OAM technologies is already delivering a mind-bending 2.5 Terabits per second (Tbps).
Alan Willner and fellow researchers from the University of Southern California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Tel Aviv University, have just announced in a Nature article, Terabit free-space data transmission employing orbital angular momentum multiplexing that they can deliver 2.56Tbps speeds with by twisting beams of light together, multiplexing them, and then encoding data using OAM and current Wi-Fi technologies, such as spin angular momentum (SAM), which we’re already using in Wi-Fi and 4G.
How fast is that? 2.56Tbps is about the same as 320 Gigabytes (not bits, bytes) of data a second. Or, to put in more homey terms, as 25GBs for a typical single layer Blu-Ray HDTV movie, an OAM wireless connection could send almost 13 HDTV movies a second to your television.
June 26, 2012
by sjvn01
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Antennas: The Old School TV Networks
40-years ago I was on a tower in the middle of the West Virgina hills putting up an antenna for state of the art TV reception. That is, I was installing a TV antenna. In WV, with few TV stations and lots of low mountains the only way you got TV was by having someone like my dad and his assistant—aka me—install up to 100-foot tall towers and antennas on top of them. That was then. This is now.
Today, most people get their TV from cable or satellite. But, as their costs have sky-rocketed, a lot of people have been turning to the Internet for televisiom. That’s great, but over-the-air (OTA) TV never went away. In fact, since OTA TV shifted over to digital from analog in 2009, it’s gotten better than ever.
In 2012, instead of offering a single channel, most OTA TV stations actually offer two or three different “channels.” In addition, most stations broadcast their network programs in HDTV. And, unlike, your local cable or satellite company, they don’t charge you a thing for the extra “service.” Best of all OTA is still free.
June 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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Fixing the Facebook e-mail foul-up
Come on Facebook! Isn’t it enough that you make securing my Facebook account a game that’s even more annoying than the social games you’re constantly pushing on me? Did you really have to silently change my default e-mail address—along with your other 900-million plus members—to my never, ever used facebook.com address without any warning over the weekend?
I’m willing to bet that most of Facebook’s 900+ million members didn’t even know they had a Facebook.com e-mail address. Today, I suspect most of them still don’t know that, but over the weekend Facebook changed each and everyone’s default e-mail address on their Facebook profiles to their almost certainly never-ever used Facebook address.
June 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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Google appears to aims low with new 7-inch Android tablet
If the stories from Gizmodo Australia are true, Google and Asus will be releasing a new 7-inch Android-powered tablet, Nexus 7, at this week’s Google I/O Conference.
We knew Google was going to release a new tablet soon. What we haven’t known is any of the details.
According to sources, this new table will be built by Asus and will be powered by a 1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, with a NVIDIA GeForce 12-core graphics processor unit. It will also have 1GB of RAM and come in two models. The low-price model will retail for $199 and come with 8GBs of solid-state drive (SSD) storage and its high-priced brother will list for $249 and have a 16GB SSD.
Google appears to aims low with new 7-inch Android tablet. More >
June 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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Has Microsoft opened the door to the Linux desktop?
Microsoft has been going out of its way to tick off its partners.
First, Windows 8 has an interface, Metro, that only a mother could love. Metro will require Windows users to re-learn everything they know about how to use Windows. Then, Microsoft announced Surface, a vaporware tablet that leaves all its partners’ Windows 8 tablet plans in disarray. , Finally, adding insult to injury, Microsoft stabbed its smartphone partners in the back by announcing Windows Phone 8, which made all currently shipping Windows phones obsolete. So, if you’re in the PC business do you really want to work with Microsoft or is it finally time to look for a partner that really wants to work with you rather than use you?
I think it’s time for Dell, HP, Lenovo, and all the other big-time PC vendors to finally start taking the Linux desktop seriously. It’s clear that Microsoft’s agenda no longer is running in parallel with their plans.
Shifting to Linux won’t be easy. I’m sorry to say that in 2012 there are only two significant Linux desktop/tablet operating systems for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to consider for partnering: Canonical of Ubuntu fame, and Google with Android and Chrome OS.