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Volunteers asked to put anger into words
Volunteer mountain-rescue staff in Scotland are being asked to write to the UK regulator Ofcom to complain about increased spectrum prices that could drive them out of the life-saving business.…
But only in Baltimore
First Acer, now Lenovo. The ThinkPad company has rolled out a laptop with WiMax on board to cater for wireless broadband buffs in Baltimore.…
But only if you're living in Baltimore
Acer is the first company to announce a pair of WiMAX-touting notebooks so that residents of Baltimore, where Sprint has rolled out its WiMAX service, can enjoy speeds approaching 3G with 4G technology.…
You looking at my ID?
California governor Schwarzenegger has signed a law making the illegitimate reading of RFID tags illegal, but blocked a measure making the unauthorised tracking of kids equally so.…
Hardly Virgin territory
Virgin Media has added wireless broadband to its range of offerings, with a service bearing a remarkable resemblance to T-Mobile's deal, except without the Wi-Fi hotspot access thrown in.…
Like Comcast (without the lies)
Sprint has reserved the right to limit the bandwidth of P2P file sharers on its brand new broadband wireless network..…
Claims 4G is here
Sprint has officially launched its WiMAX broadband wireless network in Baltimore - the crab capital of America - marking the technology's big city debut. And the company still insists on calling it Xohm.…
Only through carriers?
Asus is to integrated HSUPA 3G as well as HSDPA into its Eee PC 901 next month, but it's not clear whether the mobile broadband technology will be available beyond the network operators, or with Linux.…
Closedzone
BT Openzone customers will next week be cut off from public Wi-Fi provided by The Cloud, and will lose coverage at thousands of hotspots as a result.…
Scoffs at PM's PC 'bribe'
London should become a "WiFi city," Mayor Boris Johnson told a local radio station Tuesday morning.…
Just follow the websigns
American researchers have developed a Bluetooth-based system which would allow blind people to hear information about their immediate surroundings in the same way that others read posters, signs or notices.…
Sadville gets RFID enabled
Students at the University of Arkansas have created a couple of full-sized hospitals inside Second Life to experiment with the use of RFID tagging in medical environments, and ride on flying cats.…
Hella lotta Gmail
Google has hooked up with Liberty Global and HSBC Principle Investments to start funding a satellite network aimed at connecting the three billion people who still can't get access to the internet, at least those living near the equator.…
Stick NFC tech into clothes, toys, children
If you're still wondering exactly what NFC technology is for, then Tikitag will sell you enough kit to try and find out for only $50 - a small investment if you can find a killer application for the technology.…
Secondhand spectrum swap
Spectrum trading - the ability for licence holders to sell on, or sub let, their frequencies - has been broadly endorsed by both the FCC and Ofcom, so now a US company has done the obvious thing and set up a market for the buying and selling of radio frequencies.…
Oblivious IEEE waves through standard for dead dream
The IEEE has formally approved 802.11r, the amendment to the Wi-Fi standard that allows devices to smoothly transition between Wi-Fi hotspots without breaking the flow of conversation.…
Get your stuff and get out before Feb
The Federal Communication Commission has voted unanimously to ban the use of low-power transmitters operating in the 700MHz band from February next year, but wireless microphone users aren't going to go down without a fight.…
Blackberry v iPhone v Windows Mobile
It used to be pretty simple. If you were a large organisation with a hard-core mobile email requirement, the only serious option from a security, robustness, manageability, usability and ease of deployment perspective was Blackberry. If you had a need to develop custom applications, then provided you were happy to construct your own middleware and management stack, then Windows Mobile was the accepted way forward.…
We don't know where you are
Mobile broadband over 3G may be able to offer speeds to compete with ADSL, but it can't offer access to the Olympics - at least not from the BBC, who are blocking mobile users from video streams of the event to comply with IOC rulings.…
Lush lawns latest victims of war on crime
The relaxed attitude to spectrum use in the USA has come under pressure as a new police radio system in Dallas is interfering with an automated sprinkler system 30 miles away, resulting in brown lawns and dead trees in Plano.…
A truly olympian task
IDF Craig Barrett banged the drum for WiMAX in the opening keynote of IDF today. But only quietly, and not for very long.…
But only for those topping 10GHz
UK regulator Ofcom has published a consultation on increasing the limits on broadcasting above 10GHz, claiming that at such high frequencies the range is so small it's not going to bother anyone anyway.…
A trace of humanity now?
Analysis The 1976 Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire which showed the a sympathetic and softer side of the vampire and which uncovered both the mind-numbing ennui of being immortal and the complete lack of a sense of belonging, and other disadvantages to being uniquely powerful and yet disliked, was the first image that struck us while listening to Qualcomm’s analyst relations conference the week before we took our summer break.…
Sprint-Clearwire tie-up 'defective'
True to form, AT&T is attempting to scuttle the Great American WiMAX Merger.…
Quick! Call a doct... oh damn.
The head of a leading US cancer research institute has sent out a warning to his staff to limit their cell phone use because of a risk of developing brain cancer.…
Rogers dodgers
Back in 2005, when he lost his three-day-old Motorola v 635, Pete Gillespie immediately phoned his cell provider, Canada's Rogers Wireless. Among other things, he urged the cellco giant to blacklist the phone's IMEI number so that miscreants couldn't reconnect his $600 purchase to the Canadian airwaves. But the company said it didn't do such things.…
Better security too?
BT has updated its hacker-vulnerable Home Hub wireless box, introducing support for 802.11n Wi-Fi and - perhaps more importantly - the WPA security technology enabled out of the box.…
But do we need another standard?
Sony intends to have 90 per cent of its products networked up by 2010, though how many of them will be using the company's proprietary TransferJet technology remains to be seen.…
Well, Jeeps and pickup trucks
Chrysler is to offer a Wi-Fi hotspot in next year's Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models, allowing passengers in the car to surf the information superhighway while struck in traffic on the real one.…
Report uncovers hospital menace
Researchers in the Netherlands have discovered that RFID systems, intended for tracking hospital kit, can fatally interfere with life-support systems from a distance of 30 centimetres.…
Rest of world now cited too
Serial litigant Wi-LAN is suing RIM, Motorola and UTStarCom for breaches of the company's various wireless networking patents, and is asking for triple damages for wilful infringement.…
Not so fast, says FCC
Supernova Microsoft wants you to know that when its white space prototypes malfunctioned during lab tests at the US Federal Communications Commission, the lab did not burn down.…
The Great White Space Hope
Innovation 08 Microsoft has a plan for sending high-speed net traffic over America's television white spaces. And it's sure the country will eat some serious foreign dust if this plan gets snuffed.…
Free love, free Wi-Fi
While municipal Wi-Fi systems are being switched off from Philadelphia to Cupertino, San Francisco is planning to have the whole city connected wirelessly by the end of the year.…
Slot machine
People rarely need coins to make a call these days, but don’t ditch your coppers just yet because manufacturer Handlink has designed a coin-operated Wi-Fi access point.…
You can believe them. They secretly tracked 100,000 cell phone users
According to researchers at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, most people rarely venture more than a few miles from home. And these researchers know what they're talking about. Two years ago, in some unnamed country outside the US, they acquired six months of cell phone records describing the daily movements of more than 100,000 people.…
But where are they all?
100,000 punters have signed up to BT's Wi-Fi love-in, sharing their home connectivity in exchange for having access to everyone else's, enabling the operator to call itself the world's largest Wi-Fi community.…
Ozmo's PAN tech pipes up at Computex
Intel isn't ready to give up on pushing Wi-Fi just yet, and is pitching the technology as a competitor to Bluetooth with demonstrations by Ozmo Devices scheduled for today at the Computex trade show in Taipei.…
'It says we're...in the airport'
German Wi-Fi specialist Spotigo has managed to compile a Wi-Fi radio map of London and other major European cities, enabling it to locate any Wi-Fi device within five metres - and it promises to have the rest of Europe mapped within a year.…
Ofcom stares into healthcare crystal ball
With an aging population there's going to be bundles more cash to splash on health care in years to come, if you believe UK regulator Ofcom and this year's edition of its future technology report, the Wireless World of Tomorrow.…
A mixed message
Innovation '08 Three years ago, Jason Devitt was speaking at an industry conference when he criticized a mobile application just released by a big-name wireless carrier. And the big-name wireless carrier wasn't happy.…
Once more unto the vote, dear friends
The HomePlug Alliance (HPA) has once again beaten rival powerline Ethernet organisation the Universal Powerline Association (UPA) to become the lead candidate for the IEEE's powerline networking standard. But it won't know it's won for sure until July.…
Something more stylish to go with your tinfoil hat
If you’re worried that mobile phone and Bluetooth signals could be doing you harm, then you can now block them out and still remain a dedicated follower of fashion.…
Intel buys up Swedish airwaves
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has started the approvals process for WiMAX to be officially recognised as a 2.6GHz technology, though Intel's bid for Swedish airwaves provides more substantial evidence of deployment plans.…
A closed door is not open
Google wants to make darn sure that when Verizon opens up its wireless network, it actually opens up its wireless network.…
And AT&T taketh away
For several days, AT&T was offering free WiFi to anyone with a Safari browser and a little common sense. But it seems the company has put a stop to such generosity.…
Is it art or a plot to spy on America's Wi-Fi networks?
Emery Martin is a man on a mission. The 23 year-old resident of Brooklyn has spearheaded the Neighborhood Network Watch, a grassroots group advocating the monitoring by volunteers of open Wi-Fi networks "to make sure that terrorists may not be using your own home network to plan the next attack on our nation or your very own community".…
Windows over the WLAN
Networking specialist D-Link today launched a gadget that lets you use your TV as your PC's display - remotely.…
Blind-spot radar comes to wing mirrors
Ford will offer blind-spot-checking radar using part of the 24GHz spectrum on US models starting early next year, though cheapskates might opt for the wing mirror with a bent corner instead.…
Motorola takes the lead
Much of the 4G picture remains cloudy, but one thing is clear – the next generation of wireless networks will be based on the OFDMA/MIMO/IP combination shared by the most prominent contenders, LTE and Mobile WiMAX.…