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Archive for January, 2007

WiFi Free Libraries

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 19th, 2007

A Library Director at a college in Santa Fe, NM quit due to health concerns over WiFi in the library.
Rebekah Zablud Azen, MLIS, resigned from her position at Quimby Memorial Library, Southwestern College, on December 16th, 2006 after administrators refused to discuss the issue. “I don’t feel that I should have to jeopardize my [...]

802.11n Achieves Milestone

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 19th, 2007

Matthew Gast has a blog posting direct from the IEEE 802.11n meeting in London where the 2.0 draft of the 802.11n standard has apparently achieved some success at the ballot box.
I am sitting in the 802.11 working group meeting in London right now, and we have just voted overwhelmingly to send the [...]

AT&T “Unifies” Wired & Wireless Service

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 19th, 2007

This Sunday, AT&T will introduce wireless “AT&T Unity”, the first new converged offer since the BellSouth/AT&Tmerger. AT&T’s Unity plan will combine its wireless and wireline networks covering more than 100 million phone numbers.

Instead of offering Cingular’s Rollover minutes, the plans include “Unity minutes” which can be used to call AT&T customers (wireless, wireline, residential or [...]

Chinese Destroy Satellite - Create Space Debris Field

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 18th, 2007

Our GPS satellites have become a national resource while providing the greatest free utility in the world and is intertwined throughout our global economy. An attack against this precious resource would be an attack against our way of life.
– GENERAL LANCE LORD, COMMANDER, AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND
China has destroyed a satellite in orbit, [...]

More WiFi Signal Analyzers

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 18th, 2007

VeriWave says it has the first traffic generator / analyzer to test network equipment using the IEEE 802.11n standard. Their new 802.11n WaveBlade is said to leverage their innovative stateful client generation technology.

It will enable developers of communications chips, Access Points, and WLAN controllers, to bring solutions to market faster and at a lower cost, [...]

Satellite Radio Merger — Not

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 18th, 2007

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters after an FCC meeting that the Commission would not approve a merger between satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM Radio, reports MediaWeek.
While no merger plan has been filed with the commission, Martin said the FCC would “look at anything that comes before us.” But he noted that there is [...]

School Bus Tracking

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 18th, 2007

Telematics Journal reports Sprint Nextel and the Inkster Public Schools in Michigan unveiled a new tool to track the district’s fleet of school buses in real time.

The district’s 25 buses have been outfitted with Motorola i355 GPS-enabled handsets. Each handset will be equipped with Comet Tracker from ActSoft, a GPS-tracking application, as well as [...]

Broadband over Power Line to Grow

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 18th, 2007

The number of U.S. households subscribing to Broadband over Power Line (BPL) will increase from 400,000 in 2007 to 2.5 million by 2011, according to a report from Parks Associates.
“Both consumer demand and business factors will drive this growth,” said Chris Roden, research analyst at Parks Associates. “On the consumer side, many rural residents [...]

NY State, Toledo & SF Wireless Plans

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 18th, 2007

New York Goveronor Eliot Spitzer, in his State of the State address this week (pdf), said he’s going to try to make broadband available across the whole state of New York.
“Here in New York, we face a digital divide,” he said. “If you’re a child growing up in South Korea, your Internet is 10 [...]

Bluetooth Security Holes

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 17th, 2007

Bluesnarfing is the unauthorized access of information from a wireless device through a Bluetooth connection, often between phones, desktops, laptops, and PDAs. This allows access to a calendar, contact list, emails and text messages. Recently there have been cases of people calling premium rate numbers, without the user knowing.
Here’s a YouTube video showing how easily [...]