Liz Dubelman joins the NSA. The NY Times has more.

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Here’s Christmas on the 10th floor of Meier & Frank, a Multimedia Slide Show By Rob Finch of The Oregonian. The Amazon Web Services Blog (podcast) has the tools to construct your own mall.

Act One:

After he goes to Jerusalem and sleeps on what is supposedly the very spot where Jesus was crucified, Kevin Kelly has a revelation: that he should live the next six months as if he would die at the end of them.

We at DailyWireless (Sam Churchll and Don Park), want to take this opportunity to wish you all the best. Christmas in Paradise (mp3).

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Dear Santa,

Remember me? The kid you brought a red Schwinn bike in 1959? I’m back with a new Christmas list.

Hey, I know I’m a little old for this, but when you get to be my age it’s mostly ties and sweaters from everybody else, and I really, really need this stuff. Please help me out.

…Santa, could you bring me a new FCC? My old one’s on the blink.

The Federal Communications Commission, you know, is the government agency that regulates TV and radio stations. It’s run by a five-member board that, in recent years, hasn’t been as focused on the interests of ordinary citizens as much as the huge-and-getting-huger media companies.

That makes me sad, Santa.

The FCC should be operating in the public’s behalf, since the airwaves that carry broadcast programming are publicly owned. That’s right, Santa! The air you and your eight tiny reindeer will be flying through across the U.S. is a public resource, not private property.

So maybe Christmas Eve you could pack your sleigh with a few new commissioners eager to serve the public interest, rather than big business…

- By FRAZIER MOORE
AP Television Writer

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San Francisco’s RFP is now available for downloading here (pdf). The proposal seeks to provide a universal, affordable, wireless broadband network throughout the City and County of San Francisco. Responses are due Feb. 21, 2006.

San Francisco’s 49 square mile “cloud” is expected to cost $10 million to $18 million, similar to Philadelphia’s 135-square-mile cloud, projected to cost $15 million to $18 million. San Francisco’s hilly topography makes coverage more expensive.

The network would provide coverage outdoors across at least 95 percent of the city, with at least 1Mbps for each user and calls for indoor coverage in many locations. It would have to support the WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) security protocols.

BUSINESS MODEL

a. The Network shall be designed, deployed, operated, maintained and upgraded at no cost to the City. The Network may be municipally owned, privately owned or a hybrid. In connection with this specification, each Proposer shall identify any assumed ownership, branding, marketing and other roles of the City. b. The Network shall support a free level of service (Basic Access Service). Proposers shall include the characteristics (e.g., bandwidth, geographic coverage, features) being proposed for this Basic Access Service.

c. The Network shall support various Premium Services as defined in Section 2.6. Fees may be charged for these Premium Services.

d. The Network shall support Open Access for Premium Services. Open Access fees for these Premium Services shall be priced to encourage retail fees that are lower than existing service alternatives.

e. The Network Operator shall promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet by operating the Network in a neutral manner that ensures consumers are entitled to:

• Run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement
• Access the lawful Internet content of their choice
• Connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network
• Competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.




f. The Network Operator shall compensate the City for the use of its assets and shall state the forms and value of any such proposed Compensation in exchange for which, as permitted by law and any required authorizations or approvals, the City shall grant to the successful Proposer non-exclusive permission to use municipal assets, including City property and poles.

General information about TechConnect, is on the TechConnect webpage at sfgov.org/techconnect.

Feeva (formerly UnwireNow), built a hot spot in Union Square and attracted Google as a sponsor. The Union Square WiFi network was a joint partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services, the Recreation and Parks Department, Terabeam Wireless and UnwireNow(Feeva).

Starting with this pilot project, the Mayor’s Office directed DTIS to work with city departments to develop a citywide wireless broadband policy and explore other opportunities to use wireless broadband services throughout San Francisco.

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Jamdat now controls roughly 25 percent of the U.S. market, and it’s been consistently profitable: Driven by its flagship games, Bejeweled, Jamdat Bowling, and Tetris, the company has posted four straight profitable quarters since its initial public offering in October 2004, and revenues are expected to reach $80 million this year.

Rumors of a Jamdat acquisition have been swirling for months. During the summer both Electronic Arts and Microsoft (MSFT) were mentioned as possible suitors. The logic was simple: Founded in early 2000, Jamdat was one of the first companies to make mobile games. Since then, it has mastered the art of forging relationships with Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and other carriers, which control the distribution of mobile-phone games onto handsets. (All told, Jamdat has relationships with 90 carriers in 40 different countries.)

“We have learned the way in which consumers play with mobile titles, and that’s really where the Doom RPG idea was born,” Boatman said. “The mobile space is very different — someone might be playing on the street and be interrupted by hailing a cab or by getting a call. A fundamental of mobile game design is that the experience needs to be interruptible.”

“Mobile phones are by nature connected devices,” Boatman noted. “100% of users are connected to a network. This is an advantage that PC and console game makers don’t have.”

Boatman believes that this advantage is going to give rise to a wave of community and communication-oriented mobile titles, and offer an experience that is (in that way) superior to that of other mediums. Sega’s MMORPG Pocket Kingdom: Own the World for the N-Gage is one such title that foreshadows where the medium can take its communication advantage.

Boatman also pointed to the specific unique functionality of various mobile handsets as a major way the mobile gaming experience can be diversified.

“I believe the future of mobile gaming is titles taking advantage of the varying features of the phones. GPS and camera capabilities are an excellent example,” he said.

A Gizmondo title, Colors, illustrates how powerful something like GPS could be in a video game context. The game allows you and your gang to make real world “turf” your own, by playing the game at that location.

Play it all around your own city to own it all, and earn money from it. Digital “gang wars” can take place in your real-world neighborhood as you and other Colors players steal real world real estate from one another.

Your city could get ubiquitous WiFi soon.
Blow that closed prison wide open.

Google has made a mobile version of GMail’s web interface. Just hit up http://m.gmail.com on your mobile phone. Gmail Mobile works with many phones.

Yahoo’s Konfabulator (widgetgallery) lets developers create mini applications called widgets used to make customized desktop applications composed like traffic, weather, stock prices or news feeds.

Browser developer Opera has launched a software development kit designed to bring to mobile phones dynamic Web applications using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX)-based technologies — which are becoming increasingly popular on desktop PCs.

AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a framework that allows client side code to work with server side code. It’s exemplified by Google Maps and Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing site. Like LAMP, it’s is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies together. Server interactions are minimized — data is cached locally. Here’s why AJAX is cool and some free source code.

Macromedia’s FlashLite also runs on BREW phones. Flashforward and The Flashinsider have more.

Unlike the J2ME platform, where any developer can upload and execute software on any supported handset, BREW applications must be digitally signed. Java ME devices implement a profile. The most common is the Mobile Information Device Profile (Midlet), for cell phones and PDAs. Openwap.org has news on the latest open source Midlets for Java phones like Gmail mobile, Google Maps Mobile and MicroJabber.

Web 2.0 is shifting the Web from interlinked pages to an information ecosystem. In Web 2.0, thousands of services grab interesting bits and remix them in new ways. Many developers think Ruby on Rails is a super productive way to develop web applications with Ruby on Rails 1.0 introduced this month.

Om Malik and Niall Kennedy interview David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals, a 7-person hosted software shop in Chicago. Hansson developed Ruby on Rails. Street Easy is a mash-up of Google Maps that’s running Ruby on Rails showing New York realestate. HousingMaps.com is a similar arrangement, mapping housing on Craig’s List on top of Google Maps.TechCrunch, Web2.0 Show, Read/WriteWeb and Solution Watch link to The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005. The Mobilized Software Blog follows the field. Related articles include; True Crime, Cities as Game Grids, Mobile WiMax Strategies, Xbox HQ, Cellular Movies, Flu Bug, Phones Get 3D Graphics and The Vision Project.

Applications, Cellular News, Corporate News, Games | No Comments »

The Free Ride Data Acquisition Vehicle (Frida V) is a bicycle equipped for efficient exploration and mapping of public urban spaces.

It carries a small computer, GPS positioning device, 802.11 wireless network transciever and a basic audiovisual recording unit.

The consolidated software and hardware assembly enables automated mapping of stumbled wireless networks, easy creation of location-tagged media and opportunistic synchronization with a server resource on the internet.

The Hardware Software and Wireless components are detailed. Creator Luka Frelih is in residency at the Thing space in New York.

Free GIS Software suggestions by the site include:

• The most accomplished open-source GIS is GRASS.
• The most polished open-source GIS viewer is Thuban.
• For storing spatial data in a database look at PostGIS.
• The UMN Mapserver is a software for creating a web mapping service.
• JUMP is an open-source mapping application with a less scary user interface (yay!).
• An easy to use viewer is Quantum GIS.
• More free spatial software can be found at Free GIS.

Gadgets, Grass Roots Wireless | No Comments »

Low-Band VHF	30 MHz to 50 MHz
Mid-Band VHF	72 MHz to 76 MHz
High-Band VHF	138 MHz to 144 MHz
	148 MHz to 174 MHz
	220 MHz to 222 MHz
Low-Band UHF	406.1 MHz to 420 MHz
	450 MHz to 470 MHz
	470 MHz to 512 MHz
800 MHz Band	806 MHz to 824 MHz
	851 MHz to 869 MHz

• Part 22 (Cellular Service in the 824-849 and 869-894 MHz bands);
• Part 24 (Broadband Personal Communications Service in the 1850-1990 MHz bands);
• Part 27 (Lower 700 MHz Service in the 698-746 MHz bands, Advanced Wireless Service in the 1710-1755 and 2110-2155 MHz bands, Broadband Radio Service/ Educational Broadband Service in the 2495-2690 MHz bands, Wireless Communications Service in the 1390-1395, 1432-1435, 1670-1675, 2305-2320, and 2345-2360 MHz bands);
• Part 90 (Public Safety in the 4.9GHz band); and,
• Part 101 (Point-to-point Microwave in various bands; Multichannel Video Distribution and Data Service in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band, the 24 GHz Service in the 24 GHz band, Local Multipoint Distribution Service in the 27-29 and 31 GHz bands, the 39 GHz Service in the 39 GHz band, and the 70/80/90 GHz bands).22

Washington DC’s WARN network uses a 700 Mhz Flarion system to deliver an Uplink rate of 900 kbps (peak)/300 kbps (average) and a downlink rate of 3 Mbps (peak)/900 kbps (average) throughout the District. WARN consists of 12 radio sites and several hundred clients that facilitate wireless interconnection of Local and Federal public safety mobile devices.

Just what influence beltway lobbyists like Northrop, Lockheed-Martin, Motorola, DHS, Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO), and others may have on decisions by the FCC and members of Congress to contract out a proprietary public safety net remains unknown. The Spectrum Coalition would like to expand their 24 MHz of spectrum in the 700 Mhz band but are getting blowback.

Commentary, Public Service, Radio Policy News, Spectrum News | 1 Comment »

Computerworld says product certifications from the WiMax Forum will be a little late. The first WiMax certified products are now expected in mid-January, said Mo Shakouri, board member and vice president of the WiMax Forum and chairman of its marketing working group. Testing may be completed by year’s end or the early part of January, he said.

The certifications due next month are strictly for fixed WiMax products based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 specification, which isn’t intended for use while in motion. The standard that will bring mobility, IEEE 802.16e, was approved less than a month ago, and certified products aren’t expected until at least 2007.

All the products being considered now would use radio spectrum in the 3.5-GHz range, which can be licensed for commercial services in much of the world but not in the U.S., Shakouri said. Testing of products that use the 5.8-GHz band, which is available as unlicensed spectrum and is used for IEEE 802.11a wireless LANs, will come later, he said.

Product certification ensures interoperability. Mix-and-match products should fuel competition and drive down prices, in addition to allowing carriers to invest in WiMax knowing that they won’t be tied to one vendor’s products, they said.

The WiMax Forum expects to announce the certification of at least three products at the Wireless Communications Association’s International Symposium & Business Expo, which will run Jan. 17 to Jan. 20. Those results will come out of the first wave of testing, in which equipment will be certified to comply with the 802.16-2004 standard and interoperate at the level of the air interface, Shakouri said.

Organizing WiMax product testing, which will be divided into several waves and require interoperability of products from multiple vendors, played a role in the delay, Shakouri said. With the groundwork now in place, he expects subsequent waves of certification to go more quickly.

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Satellite internet provider WildBlue Communications announced today that it is entering the Enterprise Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) Market. The company will begin offering enterprise class high speed, two-way wireless satellite-delivered products and services at compelling price points to small and medium enterprises and specialized industries, such as retail, financial, telemedicine, energy, remote monitoring, federal, state and local government, disaster recovery, homeland security and other markets beginning the first quarter of 2006.

WildBlue has initially contracted with four nationwide Value Added Resellers (VARs) to offer WildBlue’s equipment and monthly high speed Internet service. The VARs will handle all sales, installation and service for their individual subscribers.

The four VARs that WildBlue has contracted with are:

• Ground Control , based in California, is a leading provider of mobile and fixed satellite Internet access and application solutions for business, small business, enterprise, government and educational clients;
• OptiStreams , based in California, is a leading provider of fixed and mobile satellite services for business, enterprise, government agencies and federal contractors;
• Broad Sky Networks , based in Oregon, offers aggregated broadband satellite services that allow their clients to receive and their channel partners the ability to deliver secure, cost effective business class broadband internet connectivity, anywhere in the United States;
• Amtech , based in Virginia, provides nationwide service, and is experienced in multi-site businesses such as oil & gas, financial, convenience stores, and restaurants.

WildBlue says it will offer its Internet service at download speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 256 Kbps at a price-to-performance ratio significantly better than currently available from other service providers in the Enterprise Market.

Related Dailywireless stories include Lousiana: Broadband Trial By Fire, Mobile Access Points, MotoSat Lowers Cost, Satellite Wi-Fi, Sharing a satellite van, College WiFi Van, Highspeed Mobile Roaming, WiFi on Trains, Wireless Ferries, Transit Wireless, Wi-LAN’s Transit Wireless, On The Bus, Cybercar, Internet Rickshaw, Transit Mapping, Transportation MESH, Mapping To Go, WiFi Caravan II, Inter-Op Wi-Fi, Intelligent Transportation, Oregon’s Statewide Wireless Net.

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Intel is investing in Wi-Fi positioning system Skyhook wireless, reports Telephony Magazine. Intel is joining the company’s first $6.5 million funding round adding to the $1.8 million seed funding the company received in 2003. Skyhook’s Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) is an indoor-outdoor positioning system that utilizes Wi-Fi rather than GPS or cell towers to accurately pinpoint location.

Skyhook Wireless uses the broadcasted media access controller (MAC) addresses of every Wi-Fi access point it can find. Instead of relying on cellular triangulation or GPS, Skyhook has created a nationwide map of Wi-Fi access points, which it compiles into a database on top of which location-based services can be built.

By pinpointing these locations on a map, Skyhook uses two or more Wi-Fi access points and the relative strength of their signals to extrapolate a devices location within 20-40 meters.

The management system is even self-healing. If someone moves an access point or shuts it off, the network can detect the change by comparing it to the signals of other nearby transceivers, updating the database on the fly. Skyhook has mapped out the Wi-Fi footprints of 70 cities in the U.S. so far.

Competitor Navizon hard-launched today after three months of testing with a network of 5,000 users. Navizon’s software is currently compatible with Windows mobile devices and cell phones using the Symbian operating system, and is free for non-commercial use.

“It’s like a software-only virtual GPS,” says the developer. “It’s also a little similar to peer-to-peer file sharing. One person buys a GPS [device], maps his city and creates a virtual GPS. Then everybody else can benefit from it.”

Wi-fi Planet explains how it works.

You load the software on a Pocket PC with built-in GPS and, ideally, both Wi-Fi and cellular phone functionality. Then, as Houri says, “you just live your normal life.”

As you walk around your city, the device receives broadcast signals from Wi-Fi access points – hotspots, home Wi-Fi networks, company WLANs (much like the competitive service built by Skyhook Wireless), but Navizon adds cell towers to the mix. The Navizon software takes signal strength measurements from the built-in Wi-Fi and/or cellular radios – at three different locations for each AP or tower detected. Since Navizon knows its own location from the Pocket PC’s GPS, the readings of signal strength are enough, using sophisticated algorithms, to triangulate the position of each AP or tower. The software then records those locations. The Navizon software does all of this automatically.

Once the software has built a database of local AP and tower locations, it can accurately calculate its position by triangulating from three or more of them – again by measuring signal strength and applying proprietary algorithms. It works even when GPS doesn’t, including inside.

Navizon complements and increases the accuracy of GPS in built-up areas where coverage is otherwise often poor. Navizon makes available the database of AP and tower locations built by GPS-equipped users – free – to users who don’t have GPS.

Asset and people tracking over Wi-Fi is also growing.

The Ekahau RTLS is a mission-critical location tracking solution that easily integrates with Wi-Fi networks that are already in use in many large public and private facilities, such as Nagoya Ekisaikai Hospital in Japan. The Ekahau RTLS gives hospital staff the real-time information. Ekahau and IBS Japan Co., an Ekahau-certified value added reseller and systems integrator in Japan, installed the Ekahau RTLS with T201 Wi-Fi tags at Nagoya Ekisaikai Hospital to support its emergency management operations.

Ekahau leverages standard Wi-Fi access points, so no proprietary infrastructure is needed.

GIOVE-A is the first (test) satellite of the Galileo project, due to launch next week. The multi-billion satellite navigation system is co-ordinated by the European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The Galileo constellation will comprise 30 satellites in 3 orbits to provide position accuracy of 1 metre or less. Galileo will operate globally in competition and conjunction with the U.S. run Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS).

Today’s GPS satellites seem likely to be piggybacking a variety of sensor packages their operators may not always talk about publicly. The GPS IIR-14 satellite, the most technologically advanced GPS satellite ever developed, was declared operational last week.

“If the Americans want to scramble GPS, they can do it whenever they want,” European Space Agency spokesman Franco Bonacina said. “Whereas our system is a civilian-based system run by a civilian authority and would be completely autonomous.”

Directions Magazine has a series of articles on mobile location-based services and content. Other magazines include Geospatial-Online, Geo World, GPS World and Wireless DevNet.

Related Dailywireless stories include; Skyhook Location-WiFi to 70 Cities , PlaceSite & Navizon Map Cloud Users, Skyhook Locates by WiFi, Tracking Transit, Pango WiFi Tracking Updated, Mapping Cloud Users, Google’s Location-Based Ads, SF Tries Free, Ad-driven WiFi, FreeSpot Guides, Kentucky Parks Get WiFi, Ad Supported Wireless Net, Revenue for the “Free” Cloud, Rebuilding Media, Cellular Ads, Gizmondo’s Handheld Ads, Free Mesh Clouds, Iowa’s Highway Free Spots, Washington State Unwires Parks (& History), Skyhook Locates by WiFi, Ad Supported FreeFi, Directional Advertising Grows, Wireless Advertising on Buses, Dayton’s Ad-Supported Cloud, Neighbornode, 360-degree Messaging, McDonald’s + Sony Music, Demographic Mapping, Streetcar Ads, Adware, FreeFi, AMD’s FreeSpots, DotSpot Ad Server,

GPS, Location Services, Wi-Fi News | No Comments »