The Matrix

mobile phones and the poor -- 2 stories

2005-03-14T20:14:00.000-08:00

Digital Divide and mobile phones

Technologies of Cooperation

Posted by Jean-Luc at 02:45 AM

A great article in The Economist this week about Digital Divide and using mobile phones in developing countries: The real digital divide.

"(...) And when it comes to mobile phones, there is no need for intervention or funding from the UN: even the world's poorest people are already rushing to embrace mobile phones, because their economic benefits are so apparent. Mobile phones do not rely on a permanent electricity supply and can be used by people who cannot read or write.

Phones are widely shared and rented out by the call, for example by the “telephone ladies” found in Bangladeshi villages. Farmers and fishermen use mobile phones to call several markets and work out where they can get the best price for their produce. Small businesses use them to shop around for supplies. Mobile phones are used to make cashless payments in Zambia and several other African countries. Even though the number of phones per 100 people in poor countries is much lower than in the developed world, they can have a dramatic impact: reducing transaction costs, broadening trade networks and reducing the need to travel, which is of particular value for people looking for work. Little wonder that people in poor countries spend a larger proportion of their income on telecommunications than those in rich ones (...)"

77% of the world's population lives within range of a mobile network

Technologies of Cooperation

Posted by Jim_Downing at 11:58 AM
This article in the Economist says that "encouraging the spread of mobile phones is the most sensible and effective response to the digital divide".Further "plenty of evidence suggests that the mobile phone is the technology with the greatest impact on development.A new paper finds that mobile phones raise long-term growth rates, that their impact is twice as big in developing nations as in developed ones, and that an extra ten phones per 100 people in a typical developing country increases GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points".Whatever the merits are for this view are,the article points to the fact that"phones are widely shared and rented out by the call, for example by the “telephone ladies” found in Bangladeshi villages. Farmers and fishermen use mobile phones to call several markets and work out where they can get the best price for their produce. Small businesses use them to shop around for supplies. Mobile phones are used to make cashless payments in Zambia and several other African countries".
The real digital divide

future of wimax

2005-03-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

WiMAX, good for the planet, not for USA?

Reuters has a well reported, if slightly off target story on WiMAX. Even though tons of phone companies including Sprint and Qwest are trialing the emerging fixed wireless technologies, it is clear that the high cost of deployment and entrenched duopoly of cable and DSL service providers is going to prevent WiMAX from becoming a mass market phenomenon in the US.

“The WiMax market in other geographies will dwarf that of North America,” Forrester analyst Charles Golvin, tells Reuters, pointing out that it is a technology that makes perfect sense for “some parts of Europe and developing countries where broadband is not very common.”

In-Stat estimates that it would cost about $3 billion to build a nationwide network. Paying off the cost of the network would take too long. “Increased broadband competition, price compression and high subscriber acquisition costs threaten to drive margins ever lower,” In-Stat analyst Keith Nissen added. He expects only 3 percent of broadband users around the world will use WiMax services by 2009.

broadband penetration

2005-02-27T19:22:00.000-08:00

Broadband Is Going to Go Boom

Published: February 24, 2005

eMarketer predicts that there will be nearly 70 million broadband households in the US in 2008.

"Convergence," once only a futuristic dream, is a growing reality in homes across the continent, and it is changing the character — product offerings and competitive alignment — of some of the most powerful corporations in North America.

eMarketer's new report, North America Broadband, explores the complex and evolving market dynamics that widespread broadband adoption is creating.

"The broadband market is no longer about only high-speed Internet access," says Ben Macklin, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the report. "A new market is being created, including voice and video — a market worth nearly ten times the value of the Internet access business alone."

eMarketer estimates that broadband households will grow at a compound annual rate between 2004 and 2008 of 19.4%. Broadband penetration of all households will grow from 23.1% in 2003 to 56.3% in 2008.

In terms of real numbers, eMarketer predicts there will be 76.9 million broadband households across North America in 2008.

As can be seen by comparative estimates in the chart below, eMarketer is more confident on broadband growth than other researchers.

The convergence in digital technology is already having a very real effect on the market.

"Telecom companies are offering video services, cable companies are offering voice services and the company that controls the broadband connection will largely control the future digital home," says Mr. Macklin. "The current scrambling for position is a precursor to the real battle about to begin between cable and telecom companies as they encroach on each other's traditional territory. 'You want a piece of me? I'll take a piece of you!' could well be the catch phrase of this new era."

Billions of dollars of revenue are in play. The business decisions that are made over the next 12 to 24 months will determine whether massive corporate entities — like dinosaurs or wooly mammoths — thrive, survive or disappear.

uncertainty chip

2005-02-20T14:50:00.000-08:00

Business Week Online
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FEBRUARY 4, 2005

NEWS ANALYSIS :TECH
By Otis Port

Chips That Thrive on Uncertainty
As transistors shrink, consistent performance diminishes. Big problem? Not if Krishna Palem is right about the benefits of unpredictability
In an ideal world, all the transistors on each computer chip would be identical. Moore's Law -- the edict that says silicon power will double every 18 months or so -- could then continue on its merry, exponential way for three or four more decades. Semiconductor engineers would just need to keep trimming the size of transistors by roughly 10% a year.

In the real world, though, things are a lot more complicated. In fact, transistors are like snowflakes: No two are exactly the same. This variation hasn't mattered much so far, but that will soon change.

"In a nutshell," says Shekhar Borkar, director of research for Intel's (INTC) Microprocessor Technology Laboratory, "what's happening is that as transistors get smaller and smaller, their variabilty is steadily increasing. In the future," he adds, "two transistors sitting side by side, which you intended to make the same size, could look different electrically."

Looking different electrically is much more serious than a cosmetic blemish. It means haphazard variations in performance. The upshot would be unreliable chips -- and untrustworthy computers, cell phones, navigation systems, and other products built around silicon circuits. But, Borkar says, research at Georgia Institute of Technology holds "great promise" for solving this problem of unpredictable variability.

"LIVE WITH IT." Ironically, the problem is part of the solution, says Krishna Palem, director of Georgia Tech's Center for Research in Embedded Systems & Technology. If making silicon transistors with predictable properties is going to be impossible in 10 years or so, he says, "let's sink into a morass of uncertainty. Let's learn to live with it and see what we can do with unpredictability."

Palem recently unwrapped his first "live with it" prototype chip, and so far tests have confirmed his hunch that uncertainty can be turned into an asset. One benefit is reduced energy consumption. Gulping less energy not only trims heat generation but it also could prolong the recharge cycle of cell phones, handheld computers, and other battery-powered gadgets.

With Palem's chips, cell phones might keep going for weeks, not days. Typical energy savings, he believes, will be around 20%, but it could be much higher if an application could sacrifice speed to gain longer battery life. "There's a trade-off," he explains.

FEWER DOUBLE CHECKS. Similarly, excessive heat is now a major obstacle for speed-demon chips. To avoid melting copper circuit lines, some new chips are fitted with speed limiters. They prevent the chip from crunching numbers as fast as it otherwise could. A lot of this heat stems from today's deterministic approach to chip design, Palem notes. The chip gobbles large amounts of energy to be absolutely certain that each data bit is either a 0 or 1 at every step of a calculation.

However, if a chip can get by without all the double checks to assure absolute certainty, then energy consumption could be slashed -- and speed would get a simultaneous boost. That's the notion behind Palem's concept of probabilistic bits, or Pbits. As he puts it: "Uncertainty, contrary to being an impediment, becomes a resource."

Palem figures that Pbit chips could find short-term uses even before they're needed to address manufacturing variability. "The initial applications won't be in general-purpose computing," he says. That's where Intel's chips reign. "Instead, they'll be special-purpose, embedded applications."

GOOGLE'S EXAMPLE. Embedded chips are essentially microprocessors sans keyboards. These chips are buried inside TVs and stereos, kitchen appliances, motors, and, these days, most products that run on electricity. They're far more common than typical microprocessors. Indeed, every personal computer has several so-called microcontrollers. They're in the keyboard, the hard-disk drive, and the display. Most cars have a couple dozen embedded processors, and luxury models can have 50 or more, controlling the fuel-injection and braking systems, power windows, and dashboard displays.

So what kind of jobs could tolerate a smidgen of uncertainty? Palem ticks off a rather surprising list: digital-signal processing, medical prosthetics, database searching, robotics, face and voice recognition, computer-aided product design, and even financial and risk analyses. In short, virtually any task for which a pat algorithm doesn't yet exist (face recognition, for example), or those that already involve statistical methods (digital-signal processing in cell phones), or where the so-called problem domain is itself riddled with uncertainty (financial analysis).

"Google (GOOG) is a great example of what you can achieve with probabilistic techniques," says Palem. "They have to deal with tons of information but still provide you with a quick answer. So they need a fast search engine to do a huge amount of analysis, using statistical models, pattern matching, and probability searching. And Google does give you an answer quickly. But it's not a 'hard' answer" -- the one specific thing you wanted. Instead, he notes, "you get back this list of possibilities, ranked probabilistically."

WALL STREET APPLICATIONS? Palem is especially optimistic about Pbit-chip prospects for artificial eyes and ears in both robots and people. Computers are notoriously inept at recognizing even simple objects such as chairs, let alone faces. "Probabilistic chips might be able to learn to do a better job," he asserts. "They could also help improve impaired human vision and hearing."

Might such chips bring new insights to Wall Street? "Financial analysis would be extremely well suited for this," Palem predicts. Then he clams up. Whether any Wall Street firms are getting regular briefs on Palem's research, as Intel and IBM (IBM ) are, he won't say. Wall Street doesn't like people blabbering about technology that promises a competitive advantage.

What is known is that it'll be a while before any of Palem's visions emerge into the light. He figures he needs at least a year to design and validate a more sophisticated chip. But if that chip checks out, it could kick-start a new silicon revolution.

Port is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York

Copyright 2000-2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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VoWiFi

2005-02-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

February 3, 2005

WHAT'S NEXT

Phones to Use Wi-Fi Instead of Cellular Systems, or Both

By ANNE EISENBERG

ODAY people take laptops to wireless hot spots in coffee bars and airports to check their e-mail messages and to explore the Internet. Soon they may pack a new type of telephone and take it along, too, to make inexpensive calls using those wireless connections.

The phones are called voice over Internet protocol over Wi-Fi (or, simply, voice over Wi-Fi) handsets. Like conventional voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, services, they digitize the voice and send it as data packets over the Internet. But they do it wirelessly, over an 802.11, or Wi-Fi, network.

And also like conventional VoIP, the technology may become popular with people who want to economize on their long-distance bills by using Wi-Fi connections when possible. "If you make a large number of calls, it could save money," said Philip Solis, a senior analyst at ABI Research in Oyster Bay, N.Y., and author of a report on prospects for the technology.

Wi-Fi handsets will soon be common on the consumer market, Mr. Solis said. "Probably we will see dual-use handsets that are cellphones as well as voice over Wi-Fi."

Vonage, a company that offers VoIP service, will soon sell portable Wi-Fi handsets that people can use at public access points or on wireless networks in their homes and offices as an alternative to cordless phones. Vonage, which is based in Edison, N.J., expects to offer the handsets by midyear, its chief executive, Jeffrey Citron, said.

The price for the phone is not yet set, he said, "but it will cost something comparable to a cordless phone, between $75 and $100."

Vonage has 400,000 customers who use its VoIP service, Mr. Citron said. Some programs offered by the company offer unlimited calling for a monthly fee of about $25. Customers with the service could use their wireless handsets to make additional calls at no cost at access points besides their homes. "Why not take your handset with you and make unlimited phone calls from other places?" he said.

Vonage is testing the handsets now, and will soon be conducting a larger trial, Mr. Citron said.

Dual mode handsets, which can use voice over Wi-Fi and cellular services, are also appearing, Mr. Solis of ABI said. These phones are designed to work as cellular handsets when, for example, people are driving, and then switch to a local area network as people enter a building and transfer from the cellular network to Wi-Fi.

Such dual mode phones have many advantages, said Martin Fichter, a vice president for product management and engineering at Siemens Communications, in San Diego. "We believe that voice over I.P. over Wi-Fi is a big growth field for the future," he said, in part because such calls would reduce traffic on cellular networks, saving money for carriers by delaying the need to build more cellular capacity. "The call is being connected through the Internet," he said, "so everyone wins."

Wi-Fi Internet telephony could also lower expenses for the office staff of a company. "If we set up a Wi-Fi connection in the office, our handsets could go through Wi-Fi and save money," he said.

The dual phones may also benefit consumers who have poor cellular reception where they live. "It's a way to leverage voice over I.P. to reach people in many homes in the U.S. where cellphone coverage is not optimal," Mr. Solis said. "If someone calls you on your cellular number, you can get connected by broadband inside the house." Then customers could move to cell coverage outside.

Motorola is developing a dual mode handset for business customers that will let users have one number for both cell and broadband handsets, said Bob Duerr, a director of product marketing for the company. "Call my extension and the phone will ring whether I'm at the desk or on the cell network," he said. The system should also be able to transfer calls seamlessly between the cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

Jane Glover, marketing manager for Motorola's development of the dual network system, said the company was in the final stages of testing and fine-tuning, and that the system was just about ready for business customers. The Motorola handset and supporting systems, developed with two other companies and offered for sale through one of them, Avaya, is not meant for public Wi-Fi access points, because of potential security issues.

Dan MacDonald, director of marketing for Nokia Enterprise Solutions in White Plains, N.Y., said the popularity of voice over Wi-Fi was just beginning.

And however awkward its name - Mr. MacDonald prefers voice over I.P. over wireless LAN - the technology will soon be widespread. "It's an absolute certainty in our minds that it will happen," he said. "In the future, literally every mobile device will have Wi-Fi capability in it."

E-mail: Eisenberg@nytimes.com

Current tech trends heading into 2005

2004-12-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

'05: Think hot zones, hybrids and VoIP

It's that time of year, folks. Time for the Mercury News technology reporters to cross our fingers, draw a deep breath and predict which technologies will be hot in the coming year -- which, given the pace of innovation, can be akin to correctly guessing the number of gum balls in a jar.

The good news is we'll be more accurate at predicting the future than, say, your horoscope.

The dominant theme of 2005 is cutting the cord. We expect millions of people will dispense with traditional copper-wire phone service and embrace the notion of making calls over the Internet. The technology is known as Voice over Internet Protocol. And it's going to be big.

Similarly, the ability to connect wirelessly to the Internet will expand beyond localized ``hotspots'' at the airport, Starbucks or Kinko's. This is the year high-speed wireless access will blanket whole city blocks, suburban neighborhoods and corporate campuses, as we move toward something called WiFi hot zones.

In the near term, expect cellular phones to begin capitalizing on high-speed wireless Internet access, or WiFi. Prepare for the emergence of China as a force in domestic computer sales, with the sale of IBM/'s PC business/ to that country's largest computer maker, Lenovo Group. And, on the home front, watch as cable subscribers embrace the digital video recording technology pioneered by TiVo and ReplayTV.

Here's our list for 2005.

1: Internet telephone calls

No longer just for gadget geeks, phone calling over the Internet -- known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP -- is going mainstream, driven by consumer market entry of such telecommunications giants as AT&T and entertainment heavyweights like Comcast.

The VoIP market could double over the next year from about 700,000 subscribers to more than 2 million as the required broadband connections become more commonplace in the United States.

The digital packet-switching technology behind VoIP delivers calls more efficiently than the traditional circuit-switched phone network. VoIP isn't subject to the regulations and taxes on traditional phone service. And it allows consumers call-anywhere plans for $20 to $30 a month plus features like automatically forwarding calls to a home or cell phone.

VoIP also will benefit from the continued growth of cell phones, as consumers consider them sufficient backup for a VoIP landline.

2: It's a wireless world

WiFi hotspots are everywhere. Get ready for WiFi hot zones.

WiFi -- short for wireless fidelity -- uses radio waves to allow people with laptops or handheld computers to get high-speed access to the Internet.

Last year, people began logging onto their computers over wireless Internet connections, called hotspots, in coffeehouses, airports, businesses, even at the ball park. They also untethered their computers in their homes, creating home networks that allow access from the couch or the backyard hammock.

In 2005, we'll see the rapid spread of Internet ``hot zones'' -- larger areas such as city blocks or even neighborhoods with wireless coverage.

The zones will give users more freedom to move without losing their connection and will also get around the bottlenecks of traditional WiFi by letting data move along several different pathways to get to the Net.

Of course, the technology won't do anything to address the etiquette issues of Internet everywhere. And you thought BlackBerries were annoying.

3: China sells PCs

If China has for many years been the world's low-cost factory for desktop PCs sold by big U.S. brand names like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, 2005 could be the year Chinese companies cut out the middlemen to sell PCs under its own brands.

China's largest computer maker, Lenovo Group, acquired IBM's PC division earlier this month. That opens the door to China selling its PCs directly to U.S. consumers.

Until now, the computers made in China by contractors and joint-venture partners have carried all the major U.S. brand names: HP, Dell and IBM. Components for rival brands are often produced on the same assembly line.

If Lenovo is successful in convincing U.S. consumers that China can make quality PCs -- first under the IBM brand and then under its own -- the floodgates could open for China's electronics industry.

But even the biggest China boosters have a hard time imagining Chinese doing what the Japanese, the Koreans and the Taiwanese have never been able to do -- beat the United States at innovation in microprocessors and software operating systems. The future seems secure for Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft.

4: DVR

Digital video recorders are much more than a way to record your TV football games and soap operas so you can view them at a convenient time -- they will reshape the way television programs are created and delivered.

Invented five years ago by two Silicon Valley companies, ReplayTV and TiVo, DVRs are poised to enter the mainstream in 2005 as cable companies finally catch up to their satellite TV rivals in offering set-top receivers with built-in hard drives.

Comcast shook up the Bay Area market earlier this month by announcing availability of its DVR box that can hold 60 hours of standard television programming or 15 hours of high-definition TV. Subscribers pay nothing up front for the Comcast box, unlike satellite TV and TiVo, and pay $10 a month for DVR service -- equivalent to what competitors now charge.

By the end of 2004, 6.5 million households in the United States will own a DVR, according to Forrester Research, about 6 percent of the 108 million U.S. households with a TV.

Expect a lot more people on board with DVR in 2005.

5: Cell phone appliances

Cell phones will converge with all kinds of technology appliances in 2005. They will combine with slicker digital cameras, personal digital assistants and even WiFi networking, to form almost-all-in-one communicators.

Already, sales of camera phones outnumber the worldwide sales of digital cameras. In addition, smart phones such as PalmOne's Treo enable users to load their address books into the phone and just click on a name in order to call the person. With brilliant color screens, cell phones are becoming entertainment devices, able to play games, videos and soon even digital television thanks to new chips from Texas Instruments.

With WiFi capability, phones will get true high-speed Internet access. Plus, WiFi will enable users to make calls over the Internet from inside their buildings, as long as they are within range of a WiFi antenna.

One day, users might roam from the cell phone network to a WiFi network on the same call as they move from outside to inside. But it will take many years to work out the kinks and to get all of these features into one device.

6: Hybrids go mainstream

Hybrid cars are poised in 2005 to expand beyond a niche audience, green-friendly geeks, to become a popular choice for the mainstream drivers of SUVs, sport wagons, pickup trucks and eventually even luxury sedans.

General Motors is selling two hybrid pickups, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. Ford will be selling its Escape compact SUV hybrid. Chrysler will sell Dodge Ram pickup hybrids to commercial fleet customers next year and follow with individual sales later.

In the meantime, the two hybrid pioneer manufacturers, Toyota and Honda, are still ahead of the pack in their hybrid sales. Toyota, Japan's top automaker, plans to sell more than 8 million hybrid vehicles worldwide next year. By 2006, Toyota will introduce a hybrid version of its luxury sedan Lexus GS.

Honda will be offering three hybrid models -- the original Insight, the Civic compact sedan and the Accord. To help mollify buyers peeved by the extra $3,000 the hybrid Accord costs over the gas-only model, the hybrid comes with heated leather seats, dual-zone automatic air conditioning and standard XM satellite radio.

7: File-swapping goes legit (so what?)

Two of the reformed bad boys of Internet file-swapping, Napster creator Shawn Fanning and former Grokster president Wayne Rosso, will launch a record-label-approved service early next year.

Rosso's new Mashboxx service will be powered by Fanning's Snocap technology, which distributes legally licensed versions of songs across peer-to-peer Internet networks and prevents the bootlegged music files from getting swapped.

The labels hope this will be the watershed event that turns file-swapping networks from pirate bazaars to legitimate retail channels.

But critics note that Snocap and Mashboxx face long odds for success. The technology would require the support of every major (and independent) label and every songwriter. Then it must face the formidable retail challenge that is Apple's market-dominating iTunes Music Store.

The even bigger hurdle is motivating millions of people to abandon free file-swapping networks, such as eDonkey, Kazaa or Morpheus, to adopt Snocap's filtering technology. That's unlikely.

The U.S. Supreme Court will have the final say on the matter this spring, when it considers whether file-swapping networks can be held liable for copyright infringement by others.

8: Satellite radio finds its frequency

Maybe it took the announced defection of Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed ``King of All Media,'' to give satellite radio some traction. Or perhaps it was something more mundane -- say, the growing number of automakers that offer satellite radio installed in cars, straight from the factory.

Whatever it was, satellite radio seems poised to hit orbit in 2005.

XM Satellite Radio surpassed 2.5 million subscribers this year, aided by its partnership with automaker General Motors. One in three GM vehicles sold comes equipped with satellite radio. And the automaker plans to offer it as an option on more than 50 car and truck models in 2005.

Sirius Satellite Radio, the network named for the brightest star in the nighttime sky, has played the underdog in the two-way satellite radio competition. But it gained a significant boost when it signed shock jock Stern in October, then snagged a respected figure in radio -- former Viacom president Mel Karmazin -- to serve as its chief executive. And it's lined up major auto partnerships with Toyota, Ford, BMW and DaimlerChrysler.

Stay tuned.

9: IPod, u2Pod, we all Pod together

If 2004 was the year of Web logs, those ubiquitous online personal essays that came to prominence during the presidential election, then 2005 is the year of Podcasting.

What's Podcasting, you ask?

It's a form of personal radio broadcasts that listeners grab from Web sites and download to their iPods (see, the name makes sense now) or other portable MP3 players.

Many Podcasts have the rambling, unfocused feel of blogs. And it's still an admittedly geeky pastime.

But you'll also find professionally produced shows, such as Boston public radio station WGBH's ``Morning Stories,'' five-minute human interest stories, or the Air America Radio's Al Franken Show.

MTV VJ Adam Curry explains its popularity on his Web site, iPodder.org.

``The reason for this overnight success is attributable to the millions of portable MP3 players currently being used, with gigabytes of empty storage space,'' Curry said.

10: Dual computer chips

Dual-core computer chips will command hype in 2005, but applications that use them will lag.

This kind of chip combines two processors in a single silicon chip, allowing a computer to focus on more than one task at the same time more easily. Intel says that more than 70 percent of its desktop microprocessors will be dual-core chips by the end of next year. Its rival, Advanced Micro Devices, is also launching its first dual-core chips for PCs, code-named Toledo, in the second half of 2005. Intel will go one step further by introducing dual-core chips for laptop computers as well.

These products should benefit consumers who do more than one thing at a time. Intel has demonstrated that a dual-core computer could complete a suite of video editing tasks in far shorter time. Users can set their computers to record a TV show at a particular time and still be able to perform other tasks -- such as instant messaging -- when the recording begins.

But software that truly exploits these chips will lag. Hence, the race to dual core is something like the competition to put a man on the moon. Once you get there, then what do you do? It all depends on how fast the software developers adapt.

Staff writers Dawn Chmielewski, Mike Langberg, Dan Lee, Karl Schoenberger and John Woolfolk contributed to this report.

James Fallows on IBM and the semantic web

2004-12-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

from the NY Times:

Last week I visited the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, 20 miles north of New York, to hear six I.B.M. researchers describe their company's concept of "the future of search." Concepts and demos are different from products being shipped and sold, so it is unfair to compare what I.B.M. is promising with what others are doing now. Still, the promise seems great.

Two weeks before our meeting, I.B.M. released OmniFind, the first program to take advantage of its new strategy for solving search problems. This approach, which it calls unstructured information management architecture, or UIMA, will, according to I.B.M., lead to a third generation in the ability to retrieve computerized data. The first generation, according to this scheme, is simple keyword match - finding all documents that contain a certain name or address. This is all most desktop search systems can do - or need to do, because you're mainly looking for an e-mail message or memorandum you already know is there. The next generation is the Web-based search now best performed by Google, which uses keywords and many other indicators to match a query to a list of sites.

I.B.M. says that its tools will make possible a further search approach, that of "discovery systems" that will extract the underlying meaning from stored material no matter how it is structured (databases, e-mail files, audio recordings, pictures or video files) or even what language it is in. The specific means for doing so involve steps that will raise suspicions among many computer veterans. These include "natural language processing," computerized translation of foreign languages and other efforts that have broken the hearts of artificial-intelligence researchers through the years. But the combination of ever-faster computers and ever-evolving programming allowed the systems I saw to succeed at tasks that have beaten their predecessors.

One example is question answering. Google-type search engines are fabulous at retrieving random data, but mediocre at handling subtler queries. Using Google or Ask Jeeves, you can eventually find out how many of the world's Web pages are in each of the major languages, but it's slow and frustrating compared with finding out, say, Mozart's birthplace. Jennifer Chu-Carroll of I.B.M. demonstrated a system called Piquant, which analyzed the semantic structure of a passage and therefore exposed "knowledge" that wasn't explicitly there. After scanning a news article about Canadian politics, the system responded correctly to the question, "Who is Canada's prime minister?" even though those exact words didn't appear in the article.

The Semantic Analysis Workbench, demonstrated by Eric Brown and Dave Ferrucci, showed another way of exposing latent meaning. The I.B.M. officials said the best use for this technology would be customer-support call centers: As representatives took notes on the problems people were having with their cars or computers or prescription drugs, automatic interpretation of the results would reveal useful patterns. Arthur Ciccolo, an I.B.M. strategist for its unstructured-information project, said that call centers would be the first place for new search systems to be applied. Genomic-research projects, where unexpected correlations can be crucial, might be the second. But the demonstration suggested another likely market, since every bit of sample text was a transcript of intercepted phone calls, apparently among people suspected of terrorism. ("He made two calls from Frankfurt on these dates ... ") Whether these were real, I still don't know.

Salim Roukos demonstrated a system I would like to have tomorrow: an assortment of news headlines, roughly comparable to Google News, but from non-English language sources. The system automatically - and comprehensibly - translated the headlines and leads of each article. If you wanted to read more, you pressed a button and in 15 or 20 seconds had a good-enough translation.

MR. CICCOLO, the search strategist, said that in a way his team was trying to match - and reverse - what Google has achieved. "As Google use became widespread, people began asking why it was so much easier to find material on the external Web than it was on their own computers or in their company's Web sites," he said. "Google sets a very high standard for that Web. We would like to set the next standard, so that people will find it so easy to do things at work that they'll wonder why they can't do them on the Internet." How soon might this happen? He said, with a chuckle, "Well, if I could freeze what everyone else is doing, it could be in two years." The great part is, the competition won't be frozen. At least this part of the future looks bright.

Short background piece on 3G

2004-12-23T18:09:00.000-08:00

3G Wireless Set to Cover U.S. in ’06

Dec. 23, 2004

By: Jane Weber
Ask Jane Direct
jweber@askjane.com

The Veg-O-Matic of wireless phones has taken Japan by storm, and it’s headed our way with exciting implications for marketers.

What is 3G wireless? 3G, or third generation, is a technology that enables high-speed, always-on (simultaneous voice and data) wireless connectivity for mobile phone subscribers. The capabilities are so far beyond voice that the term mobile phone has been replaced with the more inclusive mobile handset. The service was introduced to the Japanese market in 2001 by DoCoMo, the largest Japanese telecom, but the handsets were unappealing and the service unreliable.

Massive adoption did not occur until upstart KDDI, Japan’s second-largest telecom, leapfrogged DoCoMo by introducing its “au” wireless service in March 2002, along with a new, streamlined handset with a large display and long-lasting battery. KDDI then changed the game by introducing fixed packet pricing — think back to 1996 when AOL introduced flat-rate pricing for dial-up Internet access and you get the picture.

KDDI today boasts 16 million subscribers to the service, or 70 percent of the 3G market in Japan, says Mobile Media Japan.

What’s so special about 3G? High-speed connectivity, for one. KDDI recently launched 2.4 megabits per second wide band service, which is comparable in speed to cable and permits the same step-up to rich media content on your handset that high-speed access enables on your PC. The display is as much as 80 percent larger in one dimension than typical U.S. cell phones.

Another key feature is the “always-on” aspect, which lets you receive a call (voice) while you’re online (data). The latest 3G handsets have built-in digital cameras with up to 2.0 megapixels of resolution, and if you’re wondering how you would ever store pictures that large, the handsets have data folders with as much as 24 megabytes of capacity.

GPS capability is available, turning your display into a map and guiding you to your destination. The ability to download ring tones has been taken to the logical next step — downloading songs, and the latest handsets such as the Casio W21CA let you listen to them on stereo speakers.

Many of these handsets are equipped with infrared devices, similar to a Mobil Speedpass, that let customers buy items from vending machines, for example, and have them billed to their wireless account. Smart card technology also has been introduced to turn handsets into e-wallets, thus replacing credit cards and cash.

One of the more interesting e-commerce applications uses the handset’s digital camera and 2D barcode technology. KDDI recently launched a shopping service using this technology that radically increases its role in transaction processing. After incurring significant expenses to build its au wireless customer base, KDDI sought to recoup its investment by adopting an advertising model, charging advertisers for the right to put their products in front of customers. Again, think back to AOL cutting deals with advertisers to allow them access to its customers.

To manage this, KDDI partnered with top affiliate marketing service provider LinkShare. KDDI is now a LinkShare affiliate, and all advertisers that want to participate must become LinkShare merchants.

For example, a KDDI customer sees a print ad for an iPod in a magazine and decides to buy it. The print ad includes a 2D barcode in the lower-right corner provided to the advertiser by KDDI. The barcode contains all the relevant information — the advertiser, the price, the commission KDDI charges, transaction fees, etc. The customer snaps a picture of the barcode, LinkShare’s technology calls up an image of the product, the user confirms the purchase and it’s billed to the user’s wireless account. LinkShare’s technology calculates the purchase price, the sales commission paid to KDDI and the transaction fee paid to LinkShare.

3G wireless is far behind in the United States because of the hefty price tag attached to building the infrastructure, $60 billion by some estimates. 3G service is not expected to be widely deployed until the end of 2006. Verizon launched the service in San Diego and Washington, DC, in 2003. Cingular’s recent merger with AT&T Wireless will jump-start its foray into 3G. AT&T launched 3G this year in Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Detroit, San Diego and San Francisco.

In the United States, cell phones are largely still just phones, but this is changing as users — mostly young people — incorporate cell phones into their daily lives for various types of communication, including text messaging and sharing digital photos. Advertisers are following along, experimenting with how best to use this emerging channel.

Projecting two years hence, when 3G is up and running, it seems clear that it will be a huge opportunity for marketers. The issue of advertising fragmentation becomes less of a challenge when one device consolidates most online activities and is always on. Whoever owns the customers will rule the day.

2004 in Communications

2004-12-22T20:11:00.000-08:00

2004: Mergers,Convergence And Wi-Fi As Sewage

By David Haskin

In 2004, cities started treating wireless broadband like sewage and water, converged devices started flying off the shelves and the U.S. wireless industry got smaller.
Cities As Wireless ISPs

What does wireless broadband have in common with water and solid waste management? Like the first two items, wireless broadband is becoming a municipal utility as dozens of cities have started the process of creating public wireless networks.

The city of Cerritos, California started the trend early in the year and, by year-end, dozens of U.S. cities had jumped on the bandwagon. Their reasons varied widely. Cerritos, for example, had no DSL or cable coverage from private vendors. Other cities, such as Philadelphia, placed more emphasis on using wireless to project a progressive and business-friendly image.

Not surprisingly, this trend has drawn the wrath of private-sector broadband providers who claim government has no business getting into the wireless business. Verizon Communications successfully supported state legislation to give private broadband providers veto power over municipal network plans in Pennsylvania. That legislation was approved, however, only after Verizon agreed to give Philadelphia's municipal network the green light.

Perhaps the most important part of this trend, and the most subtle, is the growing recognition that fast access from virtually anywhere is becoming something close to a right in the U.S. That can only bode well for the future of information technology.

Convergence Happens

The chin scratchers and crystal ball gazers have long predicted the ascendance of converged devices and, in 2004, it finally started becoming true.

While sales of traditional PDAs flattened, sales of smartphones, which combine PDA and phone functionality, started soaring. In the U.S., the palmOne Treo was the best-selling smartphone according to market studies while, worldwide, smartphones based on the Symbian platform prevailed. Microsoft made some progress as a smartphone platform vendor but still hasn't become a major player. One potential major player, though, is Linux. PalmSource said it would port the Palm OS to that platform.

And more convergence is on the way. The first smartphones combined cellular voice, wireless data and personal information, but smartphones with built-in Wi-Fi started appearing toward the end of the year. Many observers expect these devices to be used for voice-over-IP as well as for cellular access. And several telecoms have banded together to develop technology that would enable both wireline and cellular access in a single phone.

Wireless World: Six Become Three

Consolidation swept through the U.S. wireless industry in 2004. At the start of the year, there were six nationwide wireless operators in the U.S. At the end of the year, there were five, two of which had agreed to merge.

The first bit of consolidation, between AT&T Wireless and Cingular, initially played out more like a soap opera than a business deal with various suitors wooing the staggering AT&T Wireless. In the end, Cingular tendered the winning proposal over England's Vodafone. That merger closed in the fall.

Then, just last week, Nextel and Sprint agreed to merge, a deal that could take as long as a year to complete. Unlike AT&T and Cingular, which both used the same voice and data technology, Nextel and Sprint use different technologies, leading some to wonder how much synergy there will be in their union.

There still are rumblings that, once Sprint and Nextel tie the knot, Verizon will take a run at the newly-named Sprint Nextel. Such a move would face far higher regulatory hurdles than the previous two mergers, however.

At year-end, only one national wireless player -- T-Mobile -- and a handful of smaller and regional carriers didn't participate in consolidation. Given the market power of the newer, big players, though, don't be surprised to see some of those smaller players gobbled up in the next year.

DNA Computing

2004-12-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

Artificial Ribosome, Key Component In DNA Computing, Developed

By rickyjames, Section News
Posted on Mon Dec 20th, 2004 at 10:58:31 PM PST

Face it, a true appreciation of just how significant this research could ultimately be requires at least a passing understanding of Turing Machines, which of course is all that a ribosome (and on a more philosophical level, each of us) really is. Chemists at New York University have developed a device that allows for the translation of DNA sequences, thereby serving as a factory for assembling the building blocks of new materials. The invention, described in the latest issue of Science magazine, has the potential to develop new synthetic fibers, advance the encryption of information, and improve DNA-based computation.

The device, developed by NYU Chemistry graduate student Shiping Liao and Professor Nadrian C. Seeman, emulates the process by which RNA replicas of DNA sequences are translated to create protein sequences. However, the signals that control the nanomechanical tool are DNA rather than RNA. The dimensions of the machine are approximately 110 x 30 x 2 nm. The device is a machine to make specific DNA sequences by imitating the ribosome's translational capabilities, said Seeman, who developed the machine with Liao over the last year.

The machine may be set to four different structural settings and allows researchers to determine which elements of a DNA strand are to be used to construct a product sequence. Liao and Seeman employed a pair of PX-JX2 devices—an existing DNA machine developed a few years ago in Seeman’s laboratory—in selecting the DNA molecules and used another DNA motif, known as DX molecules, as an adapter between the strands they carry and the device. The researchers tested the device experimentally by adding a complete set of DX molecules to a solution. The intended DX molecules, which included strands from the target product attached to the device, and the target strands were bonded together, thereby emulating the way RNA molecules code for proteins.

The researchers emphasized that their device does not transcribe the traditional genetic code, but rather, uses an arbitrary code that they made up. However, they noted, its encryption abilities have the potential to construct new types of polymers, which could be used in the production of new synthetic polymer materials. In addition, the machine operation may be used to advance DNA-based computational methods.

Text for this article comes from a NYU press release.

Wirless from blimps

2004-12-21T18:47:00.000-08:00

MONITOR

Not quite out of this world

Dec 2nd 2004
From The Economist print edition

Telecommunications: After years of hype, a new, cheaper way to blanket cities with wireless coverage may finally be about to get off the ground

It's hardly rocket science

THE recent success of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, the first private spacecraft, has brought commercial space travel a step closer. Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's new space-tourism company, which has licensed Mr Rutan's technology, already has £800m ($1.5 billion)-worth of ticket reservations, though flights will not begin until 2007. But as the fledgling space-tourism industry lifts off, another more mature space business could be heading for a fall. The communications-satellite industry, arguably the only space industry that actually makes any money, may find itself usurped by an unlikely technology that is a lot more down to earth.

Next month Sanswire Networks, a company based in Atlanta, Georgia, is planning to launch the first airship satellite, or “stratellite”. Floating in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 20km (13 miles), the airship will behave just like a geostationary satellite, hovering over a particular spot and relaying radio signals to and from the ground. Such airships will, however, be much cheaper to launch and maintain than satellites—and can do things that satellites cannot.

Each 75-metre-long airship will be controlled autonomously, and will contain nearly 37,000 cubic metres of helium to keep it and its 1.4-tonne payload aloft, says Michael Molen, Sanswire's chief executive. At such high altitude, above the jet stream, the reduced air density means that the wind will be about 20 times weaker than at ground level, enabling the airship's solar-powered electric motors to keep it stationary with very little effort. The craft's aerodynamic shape not only reduces drag but also generates lift when facing into the wind, says Mr Molen.

Like satellites, these airships will be able to provide wide-area mobile-telephone coverage, paging and other communications services. The company is most excited by the prospect of being able to provide wireless broadband coverage, akin to Wi-Fi, over large areas. A single airship could, says Mr Molen, potentially provide coverage over an area of nearly 800,000 square kilometres, or about the size of Texas. It should thus be possible to create “hotzones” of coverage encapsulating entire cities and their surrounding countryside, rather than the smaller “hotspots” of Wi-Fi coverage found in airports and coffee shops.

Standard Wi-Fi technology is, however, intended only for short-range communications. Beaming signals to and from an airship requires a special antenna. But the stratellite could be used to provide a high-speed connection to an access point for a home or office, which could then connect to nearby devices using Wi-Fi. The stratellite service would, in short, offer an alternative to cable and digital subscriber-line (DSL) broadband links. It would also be useful in countries with little or no network infrastructure, notes Ron Hochstetler, the chairman of the Airship Working Group at America's Federal Aviation Administration.

Airships are, he says, the only aviation technology that has not been fully exploited, which is why America's military is evaluating them for heavy-lifting and transport duties. They could have other military uses, too: in 2006, Lockheed Martin is due to position a prototype airship over the city of Akron, Ohio, once the centre of Goodyear's blimp operation, as part of an experimental missile-defence system. It will have communication and sensing capabilities, but no weaponry on board. It may seem low-tech compared with the armed satellites proposed in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan, but airships could do some of the work of satellites at much lower cost.

For even if you ignore the development costs of the rocket and the satellite itself, it still costs around $7,500 for every kilogram of satellite payload launched into low-earth orbit. For a typical satellite that means at least $40m. The satellite then typically has a lifetime of between five and seven years, after which it runs out of fuel and must be decommissioned and placed in a junk orbit, says James Northam, a senior engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology, a British satellite firm. Stratellites, on the other hand, will cost about $20m each, and can be reused, says Mr Molen: after hovering for 18 months they are recovered for servicing and then relaunched. It all sounds promising on paper—so the real question is whether Sanswire can make the idea fly.

BB over powerlines

2004-12-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

200Mbps shock for Broadband over powerlines

Howard Dahdah, PC World

20/12/2004 15:49:31

Internet downloads at over 100 times current speeds by plugging into a power socket may shock even the biggest Broadband buffs, but a trial using household powerlines has made it a reality.

A new 200Mbps technology called Broadband over Powerlines (BPL) has been tested successfully by Energy Australia in Newcastle. Initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive following the three-month trial, which finished last month.

An Energy Australia spokesperson said the trial was successful, but cautioned that it was still long way before anything would be commercialised, if at all.

However, telco industry analyst Paul Budde, CEO of Budde.com, was optimistic. Budde had been invited by the utility to see the Newcastle trial.

He said several large apartment/commercial buildings in a city block in Newcastle East had been BPL-enabled with the 200Mbps equipment, with ISP services provided by Ipera.

In a research note on the topic Budde said Ipera runs a fibre optic ring in Newcastle, while Energy Australia uses this network and "takes over with BPL where those fibre cables end in substations around the city".

"The general plan is to drive fibre optic as deeply as possible into the network and use BPL as a 'first mile' technology to connect to the users. Once in the building any power point can be used to connect the BPL modem."

Budde told PC World there were several reasons why BPL was a goer, and not just hype.

First of all, the BPL technology, known as DS2, "works". Secondly, it is a viable alternative to existing broadband delivery, and could bring prices down.

And most importantly, the utilities have made a commitment to support it: "Utilities are slow moving animals, so if they go public [about their BPL plans], they are serious."

But despite all the positives, Budde said there were some big "ifs". DS2 is still not 100 per cent standardised. This won't happen until early 2005.

According to Budde, "most, if not everybody, in the industry" has accepted the so-called DS2 standard - which he says secures operability and low-cost user equipment. "Technology always over-promises and under-delivers," he cautioned.

The other "if" is the Australian Communications Authority. It still needs to give approval for the powerlines to be used in such a way. One of the issues to consider is the potential interference with radio signals.

Broadband over powerlines, also known as Powerlines Communications (PLC), is a way for utilities to gain extra revenue.

"In general terms utilities will look for other telcos to work with," he said. There is no intention to be a competitor to telcos."

He said telcos which did not own wired infrastructure would be ideal partners to the utilities.

Repeated attempts to speak to an Energy Australia engineer for further details were not successful at the time of posting this article.

US and Broadband

2004-12-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

U.S. Lags In Broadband Adoption Despite Demand For VoIP, IP Video: Report

Survey finds 50% of U.S. households will subscribe to broadband access by 2006, with shift to much higher broadband rates.

By Preston Gralla

New IP services such as VoIP and IP video are driving the push to higher broadband adoption, and 50% of U.S. households will subscribe to broadband access by 2006, according to a report from Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI). Despite this, the U.S. lags a full generation behind countries such as Japan and Korea in broadband acceptance and use, it adds.

By 2006, the report says, there will be a shift toward much higher much higher broadband data rates, in the range of 24 Mbs to 100 Mbs. By 2010, it adds, U.S. broadband penetration of 75% is likely, and 10% to 20% of U.S. households will subscribe to very high-speed-broadband services. This shift to broadband will make most of the local exchange carriers current investment in copper cable obsolete, the report concludes.

The report claims that leading broadband countries, including Japan and Korea, are a full generation ahead of North America in broadband adoption and use. Japan and Korea are already rolling out the new generation of broadband services operating at 20 Mbs and above, and have plans to complete the transition by 2010, it says.

Driving broadband adoption in the U.S. are new services such as VoIP and IP video, as well as the growing use of large email attachments such as family photographs, and Web sites being increasingly designed for broadband.

"Our forecasts for higher bandwidths reflect the general tendency for bandwidth demand to increase along with computing power and memory," said TFI President Lawrence K. Vanston in a statement. "They also reflect the demand for specific services such as IP video that require more bandwidth."

Bacteria growing optical computers

2004-12-21T17:47:00.000-08:00

Buckets of bacteria may grow optical computers

*
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* Katharine Davis

THE innards of next-generation optical computers could be manufactured inside microbes, following the first-ever successful attempt to grow semiconductor nanocrystals inside bacteria.

Bacteria could eventually be used to make devices such as transistors or light-emitting diodes only a few nanometres across, say the researchers who achieved this feat.

Such tiny LEDs will be needed to generate light in the planned ultra-fast microchips that will use optical rather than electrical signals to process data. Controlling the shape, size and crystal structure of the LEDs is crucial because, at these scales, quantum-physical effects come into play. These effects can subtly alter the wavelength of the light emitted by nanocrystals, possibly even making it undetectable. So researchers have looked to biology for ways to control the physical properties of nanocrystals.

Brent Iverson and his colleagues at the University of Texas in Austin wondered if they could manufacture semiconductor crystals inside the bacterium Escherichia coli by encouraging it to ingest the necessary ingredients as separate ions, using its normal ion-transport systems. They placed a culture of E. coli in a solution of cadmium chloride and then added sodium sulphide. The bacteria did indeed take up cadmium and sulphide ions, which reacted inside the microbes to make nanocrystals of the semiconductor cadmium sulphide (Chemistry &amp;amp;amp; Biology, vol 11, p 1553).

A typical bacterium produced around 10,000 nanocrystals, each of which was 2 to 5 nanometres across - 25,000 times finer than a human hair.

But the researchers have yet to discover what controls crystal size and why they do not grow any larger. The determining factor will have to be identified and controlled before crystals of exactly the same size can be produced and then used in optical chips.

However, Dennis Winge from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City is sceptical about the Texan team's chances. He has carried out similar experiments growing crystals in plant and yeast cells and, even after identifying the substance responsible for limiting crystal size, he has found it very hard to control crystal formation.

Iverson is still looking for the substance that limits crystal size in bacteria. E. coli are very easy to grow and manipulate in the lab so he hopes that, once it is found, he will be able to make quicker progress than would be possible in yeast or plant cells. His aim is to genetically engineer bacteria to grow crystals of a particular size. "E. coli are nice little reactors," he says. "They're the bread and butter of the research world, so we should be able to cover ground quickly."

Mobile TV

2004-12-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

From NS:

Cellphones spell the end for pocket TVs

10:00 12 December 04

NewScientist.com news service

Snowy pictures and hissy sound have been the hallmark of pocket TVs since they were launched more than 15 years ago. But the quality of TV picture available to people on the move is in for a sea change.

From 2006, mobile phones will be offering crisp, clear TV pictures. But the pictures will not be coming over the cellphone network - they will be sent from transmitters already used for TV broadcasts. And this means a completely new breed of phones will be necessary to pick them up.

Today’s 2G phones can screen video using a technology called GPRS, which harnesses two or three cellphone channels in parallel and delivers video to the phone at up to 30 kilobits per second. Users can either download material for later viewing, or receive a live stream of compressed video. Picture quality is better if the programme is downloaded, but even then the result is jittery.


	Paid-for TV. CLICK to enlarge

The main problem with such services is the amount of bandwidth they eat up. To prevent the network becoming overloaded, operators keep demand down by pricing these services at about €4 for 10 minutes. “If it costs much less, too many people would use cellphone video channels and the network would explode,” says Marco Bernabe of Kelyan Lab in Rome, Italy.

So are high-bandwidth 3G phones the answer? Unfortunately not, even though they are capable of more than 300 kilobits per second and the quality of their pictures is better. But because each video stream uses as much bandwidth as 10 speech calls, these services are even more expensive to use than their GPRS equivalent, at about €10 for 10 minutes.

European standard

With cellphone bandwidth so expensive, operators need another way to transmit their pictures. Which is why the cellphone industry has been working on a number of ways to deliver live TV to phones via digital signals broadcast from existing TV transmitters.

The most promising scheme, called Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H), was last week chosen by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute as the standard for Europe. DVB-H is based on the successful digital terrestrial TV system that delivers the UK’s 30-channel Freeview digital TV service.

Its strength is its method of transmission, which is highly resistant to the kind of interference that has bedevilled analogue pocket TVs till now. The data is split into packets that are transmitted in thousands of parallel digital streams spread across a range of frequencies. When they reach the receiver, the packets are joined up to reconstruct the video stream.

Using MPEG-4, Windows Media or Real Video compression, watchable live TV can be squashed into a 240 kilobit-per-second data stream. In addition, DVB-H banishes the problem of on-screen ghosting caused by signals reflected from buildings, mountains and aircraft. The digital receiver’s software recognises the reflected packets as duplicates and discards them.

Amazing bargain

The emergence of DVB-H explains a puzzling purchase made last year by the transmission services company Crown Castle of Houston, Texas. The company, which runs the BBC’s transmitter network in the UK, paid $12 million for a 5-megahertz slice of coast-to-coast radio spectrum in the US.

At the time no one knew why. But used as a national cellphone broadcast frequency, Crown’s purchase may turn out to be an amazing bargain. Three Crown Castle transmitters near Pittsburgh are already broadcasting DVB-H to prototype Nokia mobile TV phones.

In the UK, the mobile network O2 will start using DVB-H next year, despite having paid £4 billion for a 3G licence in April 2000. Nine transmitters near Oxford operated by NTL, the Australian-owned company that runs the UK’s independent TV transmitters, will broadcast 16 channels on a spare TV frequency.

O2 plans to give prototype Nokia TV phones to 500 of its subscribers to test. Nokia spokesman Richard Sharp says the tests will help confirm if projected subscription prices of around €12 per month for a dozen news and entertainment channels are realistic. Premium content like sports and movies will be sold on a pay-per-view basis.

Unless severe problems emerge in the trials now under way in the US and Europe, the momentum behind DVB-H seems unstoppable. Motorola, NEC, Siemens, Sony-Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, O2 and NTL expect to kick off DVB-H services in 2006.

Barry Fox

Return to news story

Wal-Mart and Wimax

2004-12-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

From this Cringely article:

If you do the geometry and then do the subsequent conversion required because the rest of the world is metric (but for some reason we in the U.S. aren't), you'll see that a prototypical WiMax network can cover up to about 1,000 square miles or the equivalent of 10,000 WiFi hotspots. The area of the continental United States is approximately three million square miles, which suggests that 3,000 WiMax networks could cover the entire country. And it just so happens that between its discount stores, supercenters, Sam's Clubs, and distribution centers, Wal-Mart has 3,756 U.S. locations, all of which are presently served by a hearty network.

Wal-Mart is an ideal WiMax operator not just because it already has a national footprint of adequate size. With $256 billion in sales, Wal-Mart also has the financial resources to go toe-to-toe with any possible competitor. The company has an insatiable appetite for new profit centers that won't raise the ire of Federal regulators. It likes to leverage its existing assets. And best of all for we consumers, Wal-Mart likes to compete on price.

If Wal-Mart decided to get in the WiMax business, nothing could stop it from becoming almost overnight the equal any of the big telcos. Buy the licenses, install the equipment, light a few more fibers, start a marketing campaign on TV, in stores, and by direct mail, and before anyone would know it, $50 billion or so in shareholder equity would be drained from BellSouth, SBC, Verizon et al, and transferred straight to Wal-Mart intergalactic HQ in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Nothing could stop this behemoth. WiMax phones? Wal-Mart sells more phones than anyone.

But say the boys and girls in Bentonville aren't as smart as I think they are. That's no reason for the phone companies to relax because any national enterprise with 3,000 or more locations and money in the bank could take Wal-Mart's place. Look at the about-to-be-merged Sears and K-Mart, with a combined 3,450 locations. Adding that WiMax $50 billion to Sears Holdings' $20 billion market cap could be one of the greatest real estate plays of all time.

And if Sears doesn't bite, there is always America's largest single owner of real estate, MacDonalds, with 15,000 locations. While most McDonald's restaurants are owned by franchisees, the national organization owns all the land under the stores and imposing a WiMax business (and even making the local owner-operators pay to install and market it) is well within Ronald's power.

Internet II

2004-12-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

From the CSM:

Internet2, which today operates over the proprietary Abilene Network instead of the open Net, moves 1,000 times as fast as a typical broadband connection. It's being used by everyone from astronomers, who can remotely control telescopes with it, to master teachers who can see and hear distant students in high fidelity.

Douglas Van Houweling, the president and CEO of Internet2, says he once observed San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas coaching a young conductor via an Internet2 feed. Mr. Thomas told the student to take his watch off his wrist because it was weighing down his arm movement, a subtle observation.

"Music at the highest level is very nuanced, and you have to have [a] very high quality [connection] to make it work," Dr. Van Houweling says. The two-way interface is "very high fidelity. This is not your typical postage-stamp video conference."

In another example, Robert Ballard, who found the wreck of the Titanic, is using Internet2 to connect with high school students across the country, giving them a chance to join him on his undersea adventures.

Beyond these "real time" uses, Internet2 also transmits what Van Houweling calls "really large [digital] objects" - from scientific data to the latest Hollywood movie - in seconds. That's captured the interest of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which is using Internet2 to explore the advantages and threats that such a robust system represents.

Hijackers 2.0

Pirates have already "begun to hijack" Internet2, Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, told Congress in October. A student file-sharing system called i2hub.com, she said, has been using the Internet2 to move copyrighted material between students at different campuses.

An MPAA study last summer found that 58 percent of South Koreans, nearly all of whom have fast broadband connections to the Internet, had already downloaded a movie over the Net. Worldwide, the ratio of users doing so is about 1 in 4, it claims. Quick movement of video files could open up new business opportunities but also create massive piracy problems.

Both Internet2 and IPv6, a new addressing system that stands for Internet Protocol Version 6, offer better security and privacy than the current Net, which operates on the older IPv4 system.

"IPv6 has a higher bar for security," says Jim Bound, chairman of the North American IPv6 Task Force, a nonprofit group urging its adoption. "In IPv4, it's an afterthought."

With IPv6, for example, a phone call made over the Internet would be encrypted and very difficult to tap. The IPv6 standard is already embedded in many devices today, and the US Department of Defense has said it will switch to IPv6 by 2008.

Even so, adoption will be gradual, says Dr. Bound, and a "hybrid" of both systems will be around for a long time. An intellectual battle is going on now about "when and how and why" to deploy Ipv6, he says.

But IPv6 will emerge victorious as mobile Internet applications become more popular and more and more devices are connected to the Net, Bound says.

"We want pervasive computing," he says. "We want every kid in every ghetto and in every country [using the Net]. This technology is not just for the elite. This technology is for all. And that's not going to happen with IPv4."

Meanwhile, Zittrain sees the possibility of two Internets developing, one offering the Internet2 concept of "trusted communities" of users on a system that is closed and secure.

But outside, the wide-open Internet would remain, "a vibrant jungle containing undiscovered riches and poisonous snakes" that adventurous people could volunteer to explore, he says.

A far-reaching Net

• Worldwide, roughly 1 in 10 people has Internet access.

• Iceland boasts the highest share of Internet users in the world - 6.7 per 10 - followed by South Korea (6.1), Sweden (5.7), Australia (5.7), and the United States (5.5).

• Alaska was the most wired state in the US in 2000, with 64 percent of households online. Mississippi had the lowest Internet penetration with 37 percent.

• By 2003, a fifth of US households had speedy, high-bandwidth connections - double the share in 2001.

• Roughly half the world's Internet traffic passes through Virginia, home to many large online firms.

Sources: International Telecommunication Union; US Census, US Commerce Department; State of Virginia.

Will WiMax be the big winner?

2004-12-10T10:58:00.001-08:00

From this article:

TelecomView estimates that WiMAX will capture more than 40 per cent of the wireless broadband market, leaving 3G with less than 60 per cent in 2009. In addition to stealing market share from 3G, the report suggests that WiMax will also be a threat to fixed-line high-speed broadband services.

"Our forecasts show that WiMAX will be the clear winner amongst the new high-speed wireless technologies," said Ian Cox, co-author of the report. "WiMAX will pick up 70 per cent of this new market segment by 2009 due to its higher performance and flexibility compared to the alternatives. 3G will be important for its mobility, but WiMAX will directly compete with DSL."

"We believe that WiMAX will pose a threat to fixed and mobile broadband access technologies because it is a single global standard, like DSL, and will bring with it huge economies of scale, particularly as Intel and others are supporting its use in mobile computing devices."

WiMAX is now available in proprietary formats only but a common standard is set to be ratified. Although 3G and DSL technologies are already live in most of Europe and therefore have something of a head start on WiMAX, many local industry players agree that the new technology poses a threat.

"It's important to say that 3G is live now both in Ireland and in most of Europe while WiMAX in its full-format won't be available for between 24-36 months," said Charlie Ardagh, director of Leap Broadband, one of a handful of companies in Ireland expected to be early WiMAX service providers. Irish Broadband, Clearwire and Digiweb are also looking carefully at WiMAX.

"Once the common standard is introduced we'll likely see a situation similar to that which occurred with the introduction of a WiFi standard in that there will be wide adoption," said Ardagh. "The introduction of a standard will result in cheaper kit being produced and this together with the fact that WiMAX has a far wider reach than 3G will make it increasingly popular. We also think that it will compete with DSL as the existing copper network has a limited reach."

Will WiMax be the big winner?

2004-12-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't bet my life on this:

WiMAX and other new high-speed wireless technologies are likely to take market share from 3G as well as DSL. In a white paper research firm TelecomView says that WiMax will supplement and in some cases replace 3G, DSL and other wireline technologies to provide broadband services.

WiMAX offers high-speed wireless data connections over a range of around 30 miles. The technology features both increased range and download speeds compared to WiFi (802.11x), which is intended to provide coverage over small areas. Along with WiFi, other fixed-wireless broadband systems currently exist, including hardware that can deliver services over several miles. But many of these also require "line of sight" between a transmitter and receiver to function - WiMAX does not. estimates that WiMAX will capture more than 40 per cent of the wireless broadband market, leaving 3G with less than 60 per cent in 2009. In addition to stealing market share from 3G, the report suggests that WiMax will also be a threat to fixed-line high-speed broadband servic

"Our forecasts show that WiMAX will be the clear winner amongst the new high-speed wireless technologies," said Ian Cox, co-author of the report. "WiMAX will pick up 70 per cent of this new market segment by 2009 due to its higher performance and flexibility compared to the alternatives. 3G will be important for its mobility, but WiMAX will directly compete with DSL."

"We believe that WiMAX will pose a threat to fixed and mobile broadband access technologies because it is a single global standard, like DSL, and will bring with it huge economies of scale, particularly as Intel and others are supporting its use in mobile computing devices."

WiMAX is now available in proprietary formats only but a common standard is set to be ratified. Although 3G and DSL technologies are already live in most of Europe and therefore have something of a head start on WiMAX, many local industry players agree that the new technology poses a threat.

"It's important to say that 3G is live now both in Ireland and in most of Europe while WiMAX in its full-format won't be available for between 24-36 months," said Charlie Ardagh, director of Leap Broadband, one of a handful of companies in Ireland expected to be early WiMAX service providers. Irish Broadband, Clearwire and Digiweb are also looking carefully at WiMAX.

"Once the common standard is introduced we'll likely see a situation similar to that which occurred with the introduction of a WiFi standard in that there will be wide adoption," said Ardagh. "The introduction of a standard will result in cheaper kit being produced and this together with the fact that WiMAX has a far wider reach than 3G will make it increasingly popular. We also think that it will compete with DSL as the existing copper network has a limited reach."

Pervasive Computing in 2020, according to Ian Pearson

2004-12-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

From the BBC:

1) In 2020, whipping out your mobile phone to make a call will be quaintly passé. By then phones will be printed directly on to wrists, or other parts of the body, says Ian Pearson, BT's resident futurologist. Forget local area networks - these will be body area networks.

2) So MP3 players - the mass gadget of the moment - will disappear and instead become integrated into one's clothing, says Mr Pearson. <>

3) Wearable technology could exploit body heat to charge it up, while "video tattoos", or intelligent electronic contact lenses, might function as TV screens for those on the move.

4) These "smart fabrics" have come about through advances in nano- and micro-engineering - the ability to manipulate and exploit materials at micro or molecular scale.
5) "So we have to make sure we build security in this. If you are wearing smart make-up, where electronics are controlling the appearance, you don't want people hacking in and writing messages on your forehead."