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Archive for January, 2008

NSA@Home

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 30th, 2008

We ought to be careful about further encouraging NSA to expand its mission on the domestic Internet front, writes Loring Wirbel, Communications Editor of EE Times.
Even as George Bush in his State of the Union speech gave Congress until Friday (Feb. 1) to pass the type of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act update he wanted (Congress [...]

Street View 2.0

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 29th, 2008

Google Street View, the Beta version, is demoed in this video.

700MHz: $8.7B Today - $10B Tomorrow?

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 29th, 2008

The FCC’s 700 MHz spectrum auction has now completed a dozen rounds. The four rounds held on Tuesday added more than $2.5 billion to the pot. Bidders have now ponied up nearly $8.7 billion in potential winning 700 MHZ bids, reports RCR News.

At this pace, Auction 73 could well surpass the $10 billion mark [...]

Cellphone Reads to Blind

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 29th, 2008

The K-NFB, a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind, has introduced a text-to-speech program for the Nokia N82, explains Engadget.
Coupling Kurzweil’s image processing with the N82’s camera, a user only has to snap a pic of the document to be read. The software will speak it back and [...]

Clearwire + Sprint: On Again?

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 29th, 2008

Clearwire surged Tuesday on reports that the wireless company’s partnership with Sprint Nextel may be resurrected, reports Fortune.
According to the Wall Street Journal Sprint has resumed talking with Clearwire about a deal that would bring in outside players such as Intel to fund a high-speed network using WiMax technology.

Two months Sprint backed away from [...]

AT&T Jumps Shark with SMS Pricing

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 29th, 2008

AT&T just raised their price on SMS messaging. AT&T now says that unless you’re subscribed to a messaging plan, they’ll charge 5 cents more for both text messages and picture messages. Now text messages will cost 20 cents and picture messages will cost 30 cents. The change takes effect March 30.
But Broadband Reports points out [...]

Demo 2008

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 29th, 2008

DEMO 2008 features one-on-one demonstrations in Palm Desert each year. The three-day conference serves as a launching pad for young tech companies. This year, 76 companies are showcased.
Participating companies apply to be part of the conference months in advance and are allowed to be here only if they are launching a new product or [...]

700MHz: $6.1B & Counting

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 28th, 2008

The FCC’s 700 MHz spectrum auction saw a pair of bidding rounds that brought the total potential winning bids climb to just over $4.4 billion, after round six, and $6.1 billion after round eight.
Highlights included continued interest in the regional grouping of C-Block licenses, a lack of new bids for the floundering [...]

Top Seven Intelligent Communities

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 28th, 2008

The Intelligent Community Forum has announced its list of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year , each a model for economic development in the 21st Century.
The Top Seven were selected, based on analysis by academic experts, from among the Smart21 Communities, a group of semi-finalists named by ICF on October 25, 2007 in [...]

Nokia Buying Trolltech

Posted by Sam Churchill on January 28th, 2008

Nokia and Trolltech today announced that Nokia is planning to acquire Trolltech, a software provider of development platforms. In addition to the key software assets, the $150 aquisition will play an important role in accelerating the implementation of Nokia’s software strategy.
“Trolltech and Nokia share the goal of accelerating the adoption of Trolltech’s Qt based technology [...]