BBC tracks a container

BBC Tracks a Container

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 18th, 2008

The Box is an ambitious and unique year-long project for BBC News to tell the story of international trade and globalisation by tracking a standard shipping container around the world (video).

The Box will criss-cross the world

It is a project which plans to deliver content for television, radio and online audiences - telling the individual stories behind what makes the global economy tick.

We have painted and branded a BBC container and bolted on a GPS transmitter so you can follow its progress all year round as it criss-crosses the globe. The Box will hopefully reach the US, Asia, the Middle East , Europe and Africa and when it does BBC correspondents will be there to report on who’s producing goods and who’s consuming them.

The Container Shipping Information Service (CSIS) is an organisation, formed in 2007, comprising 23 of the largest container shipping companies across the world (see About Us for members list).

Two providers of RFID-based asset tracking have added GPS tracking. WhereNet has introduced GPS capabilities to version 4.0 of its Marine Terminal Solution, and Identec Solutions, based in Lustenau, Austria, has added GPS to its I-Q RFID tag.

Savi Networks operates a global wireless data-capture network and provides a real-time information service called SaviTrak that automatically tracks the location, security and condition of inventory as it’s transported throughout the global supply chain.

The Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, uses SaviTrak to enhance efficiency and security for shippers and port terminal operators. Lani Fritts, chief operating officer of Savi Networks, says, “Europe, which also includes the Port of Felixstowe in the United Kingdom, is a critical link in our growing network because so much world trade flows into and out of this region.”

Above is my Gigapixel panorama of Port of Portland’s Terminal 6, Oregon’s only deep draft container terminal. Their CargoTracker is a free service. Portland Oregon’s marine operations at its four terminals generated 11,724 jobs, nearly $871 million in personal income and close to $89 million in state and local taxes.

source : dailywireless.org

Nokia Music handset

Nokia's first Comes with Music handset on sale 10/17 in UK

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 19th 2008 at 12:45PM

A recent Reuters article doesn't mention a specific model (although we have our hunches), but one thing's for sure: some kind of Comes with Music handset is launching on October 17th. We had previously assumed that October 2nd would be the go-live date for the intriguing music bundle, but retailer Carphone Warehouse has now made clear that Britain won't be able to buy in until a few weeks later. As predicted, a Nokia spokesman declined to comment, so we'd go ahead and pencil (key word: pencil) this one into your increasingly crowded datebook.

source : engadget.com

G1 appears on T-Mobile site

G1 appears on T-Mobile's site

by Nilay Patel, posted Sep 19th 2008 at 2:55PM

Snap -- looks like the Android-powered T-Mobile G1 is peeking out a little early in the form of a non-working pre-registration link on the my.t-mobile.com customer portal. No specs or info, but if you had any doubt this thing was coming on Tuesday we'd say it just got cleared up. Get ready for the Googlephone, kids.

source : engadget.com

Switched On

Switched On: The Mo' hardware Experiment

by Ross Rubin, posted Sep 19th 2008 at 3:45PM

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.

What do people think of Windows Vista when they learn more about some of its features? To find out, we located three people who had been living in a cave around the time of the massive advertising campaign at Vista's launch and started out by asking them what they thought of Windows Vista.

Subject 1: "My niece was looking up something for her nutritional science class and went to this Web site called apple.com. There were a lot of videos there that said Vista was bad."

Subject 2: "I've heard that Windows Vista gives you scabies."

Subject 3: "Four of my friends on the American Online forwarded me an email that said Bill Gates would give me $10 million if I would tell my friends to buy Windows Vista and he didn't. It must stink."

Then we told them about some of the great hardware that Windows Vista supports.

source : engadget.com

Verizon promises increased interactivity for FiOS TV

Verizon promises increased interactivity for FiOS TV customers

by Donald Melanson, posted Sep 19th 2008 at 8:33PM

With all this talk of interactive TV from the likes of Sony, Yahoo! and Intel these days, it's starting to seem like the early 90s all over again -- only this time it looks like things are actually panning out. Now Verizon seems to be upping its interactive game as well, with it boasting about a whole host of improvements that FiOS TV customers can look forward to this fall. The new features were apparently demoed during an "informal party" held by Verizon Communications CIO Shaygan Kheradpir, and include various applications that are tied to live programming, some Facebook and YouTube integration, and the ability to control the DVR from your cellphone, to name a few things. FiOS customers can apparently expect some improvements to the program guide as well, including the ability to browse by what's popular in their area, or by what was most popular in the same time slot last week. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any pictures made their way out of the party, but Yahoo! and company have certainly raised the bar pretty high with their own widgets, and we can only hope that Verizon at least meets it.

source : engadget.com

E-Cigarettes banned

E-cigarettes banned in WHO-ville

by Stephanie Patterson, posted Sep 20th 2008 at 4:04PM

As it turns out, the World Health Organization (WHO) isn't condoning e-cigarette products -- shockingly -- as some manufacturers might like you to believe. In fact, the lawsuit flag is being waved at a few companies who brazenly plastered the organization's name and logo across promotional material, suggesting an endorsement of the product. The WHO's Douglas Bettcher asserts that the product is untested as a nicotine replacement therapy, stating, "If the marketers of the electronic cigarette want to help smokers quit, then they need to conduct clinical studies and toxicity analyses." So while e-cigs might not carry the same carcinogenic risks as traditional smoking, there are still plenty of health issues surrounding liquid nicotine and all the nasty additives it's served in... and the WHO isn't about to let you forget it.

source : engadget.com

Apple prepping a 32GB iPhone update

Apple prepping a 32GB iPhone update; bringing back at-home activation?

by Nilay Patel, posted Sep 20th 2008 at 6:10PM

We're not particularly inclined to believe them, but the whispers that Apple is about to bump the top-end iPhone capacity to 32GB are getting harder to ignore -- especially since 8GB inventory is drying up, leading to speculation that's it's going to be dropped as soon as next week. We think the timing's a little odd on the heels of the Let's Rock iPod refresh, but considering the rampant speculation that Apple was forced to bump the nano to 16GB and drop the "limited edition" 4GB model entirely at the last minute in response to the new Zune lineup we suppose it makes competitive sense. AppleInsider also says customers will once again get the option to activate in-home, but we haven't heard anything about that -- we'll see what happens in the next few days.

source : engadget.com

Japanese Phone Features

Features

Most cellular phones sold in the last three years have integrated cameras; some more up to date models have high quality digital cameras. Many of the cameras are capable of taking both still and video images. Images can usually be sent to other mobile phones and embedded in messages.

Many cellular phones have a range of additional capabilities, such as:

• E-mail
• configurable databases
• phone and address books
• alarm clocks and stopwatches
• Live Video feed via Piconet
• Mobile games, such as role-playing games like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy series
• Daytimers
• Varying degrees of image enhancement capabilities, such as the option to create borders, to create animations, and more.
• Instant messengers
• Calculator, calendar, schedule note and memo pad
• Playback of downloaded music
• Recording and playback of voices, music, images and pictures
• Portable music player (MP3 player etc.)
• Portable video player (MP4 player etc.)
• Viewing online Flash video (YouTube, Nico Nico Douga etc.)
• Video calling
• Navigation by GPS
• Viewing and listening to TV (1seg) and radio (FM/AM)
• TV phone
• Crime prevention buzzer (with the automatic reporting system to the police)
• Pedometer
• 'Read aloud' system
• Touch-pad system
• A fingerprint/face certification system for the protection of personal data
• Mobile centrex service with wireless LAN

In recent years, some cellular phones even have the capability of being used as debit or credit cards and can be swiped through most checkout lines to buy everything from mascara to jet planes, as more and more companies offer catalogs for cell phones. These functionalities include:

• E-money service and various certification functions through Untouched IC card (FeliCa etc.)
• Various services with NTT DoCoMo’s ‘Osaifu-Keitai (mobile phone with wallet function)’
• E-money service e.g. ‘Edy’
• Function as ‘Mobile Suica,’ which can be used for a season ticket and a train ticket
• Cmode: vending machines which can be used with QR Code and ‘Osaifu-Keitai’ of a mobile phone

Some newer models allow the user to watch movies and/or television. Most phones can be connected to the Internet through services such as i-mode. Japan was also the first to launch 3G services on a large scale. Users can browse text-only Internet sites, and many Japanese sites have sub-sites designed especially for cellular phone users. One of the most popular services allows users to check train schedules and plan trips on public transit.

source : wiki

Russia HAARP

Russia’s HAARP

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 16th, 2008

Depending on who you believe, Alaska’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) installation is designed to learn more about the electrically-conductive layer of the atmosphere. Or HAARP is designed to spy on unwitting foes, control the weather, and spew out death rays, explains Wired.

But HAARP wasn’t the first installation of its kind. The Soviets had their own, high frequency ionospheric research center in the Middle of Ukrainian Forest. It’s now abandoned, mostly. But the pictures of the place are very much worth a few clicks.

Continuing the theme of our “Creepy High Voltage Installations” article, this research station (though not completely abandoned) is just as big, full of rust and bizarre “post-apocalyptic” atmosphere.

During the 80s this place had the functioning antenna complex the size of a soccer field, plus the “Ural” super-computer presiding over it all. The Ionospheric Research Station is located near Zmiev, close to Kharkov and is still used from time to time by (no doubt desperate) scientists - the area was declassified recently.

The biggest antenna is capable of producing 25 MW impulse power (compare it to the HAARP station’s 12.5 MW) and is 25 meters in diameter. The IS (incoherent scatter) radar is quite unique (there are only 9 in the world) and covers 100 meter x 100 meter area.

This marvel of Soviet technology seems to be no match for HAARP Research Station in Alaska, but looks can be deceiving - and in the meantime it serves as a good “stomping ground” for all sorts of explorers of creepy and abandoned places.

source : dailywireless.org

5GHz!?

Exalt: GigE on 5 GHz

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 17th, 2008

Wireless backhaul vendor Exalt Communications, this week introduced the industry’s highest-capacity wireless Gigabit Ethernet, covering all three 5 GHz bands in a single carrier-class system.

The EX-r GigE series backhaul radios enables wireless operators, enterprises and broadcasters to have the bandwidth they need for campus connectivity, camera backhaul, 3G or 4G backhaul, WiMAX backhaul, and high-definition video broadcast.

Delivering the highest throughput in the industry, Exalt’s GigE tri-band 5 GHz all-outdoor radios provide the capacity that could only be served previously using short-range radios such as 60GHz and E-band radios, or optical fiber.

Exalt says their high capacity radios outperform the nearest 5 GHz band competitors by more than 50%. In addition, the GigE series delivers 440 Mbps aggregate throughput at link ranges of up to fifteen (15) miles with guaranteed five 9s (99.999%) availability.

By contrast, weather sensitive radios operating in the 60 to 80 GHz bands are typically limited to a range of 1 to 3 miles.

Amir Zoufounoun, president and CEO of Exalt Communications, said, “As network capacity demands continue to accelerate, operators need scalable lower-cost alternatives to leased lines. They also need a flexible platform that includes license-exempt products so that they can deploy these services quickly, reliably and easily. The EX-r GigE series is the only platform that meets all of these requirements.” He explained to Dailywireless editor Sam Churchill that they use software defined radios to provide enhanced flexiblity.

The EX-r GigE series was specifically designed to deliver the ultra-high capacity. It features the same innovations that are included across all Exalt radio platforms, including the ability to remotely upgrade and manage the radios, user-selectable bandwidth and modulation, low latency, and advanced interference avoidance with industry leading spectral efficiency, tuning resolution, spectrum management, and system collocation using ExaltSync.

ExaltSync and ExaltSync GPS, provide internal and GPS synchronization capability for EX-i and EX-r Series radios. With synchronization, systems can be densely collocated with close proximity and minimum antenna separation while reusing scarce spectrum across all collocated systems.

Exalt says that until now, the Motorola PTP600 was the highest capacity radio on the market, with a claimed 300Mbps aggregate capacity requiring 256QAM to deliver best effort throughput. Exalt’s EX-r Series 5 GHz radios now deliver a guaranteed 440Mbps aggregate throughput at 16QAM, with 99.999% availability.

The EX-r GigE radios are available in two versions. The EX-5r GigE features a high performance integrated antenna, while the EX-5r-c GigE includes type-N female connectors for external antenna mounting. To ensure the highest level of security, Exalt provides proprietary link security and integrated AES 128- and 256-bit encryption. Both models are available for immediate delivery through Exalt authorized channel partners.

In related news, Trango Systems (formerly known as Trango Broadband Wireless), will feature its versatile arsenal of high-capacity wireless backhaul equipment at WiMAX World, September 30 through October 2.

Trango microwave systems are designed to deliver large amounts of wireless IP (Internet Protocol) bandwidth, for WiMAX backhaul, 2G/3G/4G mobile/cellular backhaul and enterprise wireless network extensions.

Among the products highlighted will be the licensed all-outdoor Ethernet-native RF microwave radio, TrangoLINK Apex; the licensed split-architecture Ethernet/TDM native RF microwave link system, TrangoLINK Giga; and the unlicensed 5 GHz multi-band OFDM wireless Ethernet bridge, TrangoLINK-45.

The TrangoLINK Giga is currently shipping in frequencies 6, 11, 18, and 23 GHz, and will soon also be available in ETSI standard versions, including 15 GHz. TrangoLINK Apex will be available in the same licensed frequencies and is now shipping the 18 GHz model. Beginning this fall, both TrangoLINK Giga and TrangoLINK Apex will be available in ETSI European standard versions, starting with 23 GHz and 11 GHz models.

TrangoLINK-45 provides up to 45 Mbps of sustained throughput in the 5.2 GHz 5.3

source : dailywireless.org

Global Telecom

Global Telecom Revenue: $2 Trillion

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 17th, 2008

Global telecom revenue will reach $2 trillion by the end of 2008, an increase of 7.6% over telecom revenue in 2007, research firm Gartner projects.

• One of the biggest drivers for telecom growth in 2008 has been the expansion of the Asian telecom market, which Gartner says will surpass the North American market in total revenues for the first time in 2008.
• In total, the Asian telecom revenues will grow by 8% to $513 billion this year, just barely surpassing North American telecom revenues, which are projected to grow by 4.5% and to total $511.6 billion.
• Gartner expects the Middle East and Africa to be the fastest-growing regions for telecom revenues over the next four years, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.6% projected between 2007 and 2012.

Gartner projects that mobile services will continue to eclipse fixed-line services and that a strong increase in mobile data services and fixed-mobile convergence services will increase customers’ need to invest in new telecom equipment. Specifically, Gartner says that the ratio of mobile connections to fixed connections will exceed 4-to-1 by 2012 and that revenue from mobile telecom services will top $1 trillion by 2010.

source : dailywireless.org

Google Streetview

Google Streetview on Cell Phones

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 17th, 2008

Google has announced a new version of its Google Maps for Mobile software that includes support for Street View, as well as walking directions and reviews of businesses. Google said the new version is faster too.

Street View provides a ground-level, driver’s-eye view of the world. Now pedestrians can use it, too — at least on their BlackBerrys with color screens and on mobile devices with Java abilities.

Sorry, no iPhones. iPhones don’t do Java.

Google demonstrated Street View on the Android operating system in May. The view was able to change according to which way the user oriented the phone. The Android phones are due to be announced Sept. 23 and may arrive in stores on October 17.

I’m hoping for a GigaPan viewer to see my Gigapixel panoramas (above) on a handheld.

Here’s the full-screen viewer and Google Earth view of Portland’s Amtrak station shot from my apartment.

source : dailywireless.org

DRM Future

Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, the DRM of the future?

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Sep 13th 2008 at 6:11PM

We've heard this about this dream so many times before, DRM that will make digital media as easy to use and as consumer friendly as a physical medium like DVD. We'd normally be quick to disregard this as yet another DRM "ecosystem" for digital media, but the list of players backing the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (or DECE) has us taking notice. As impossible as this seems, if anyone could make it happen, it'd be a group composed of: Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Fox, HP, Intel, Lions Gate, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, VeriSign, and Warner Bros -- yes, we also find it hard to believe that all these companies are working together. We'll have to wait until January at CES for the ins and outs of how this would actually work, but we do know it'll be based around a "rights locker" which will amount to a website where digital purchases will be stored -- we assume this is where VeriSign fits in. Oh, and Apple is noticeably absent from the list

source : engadget.com

Toyota MR-2 Custom

Custom Toyota MR2 carputer presents the ultimate distraction for drivers

by Joseph L. Flatley, posted Sep 14th 2008 at 4:03PM

This insanely kitted out Toyota MR2 is being put up for sale by its owner somewhere in Germany -- he's a highly motivated seller, provided you have the prerequisite electronics and programming (especially Visual Basic) skills. The standard gauges and indicators in the car have been removed, replaced with touch screens and a console mounted iDrive knob, offering the pilot of this machine control over almost every aspect of its operation: climate control, GPS, fuel consumption, mirrors, radar/laser, wireless transfer of music from a home computer, lights, fog lights... and the all-important VCD playback. Also listed on the original posting is something called the "police button" which "virtually controls the police." This might have been something that Google mistranslated, but we prefer to think otherwise

source : engadget.com

Clearwire

Clearwire Demoed in SF

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 11th, 2008

At the CTIA show in San Francisco this week, Clearwire installed four three-sector WiMax cell sites around the Moscone convention center for a 15-minute driving demo and pulled up Portland’s live traffic cameras.

Clearwire chairman Craig McCaw said that upstart WiMax operators can take on much larger rivals such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless due to their 2.6 GHz, reports Unstrung.

“The repurposing of 2.5GHz spectrum has given that opportunity to us, Don Quixote, to tilt at another set of windmills.”

Clearwire’s time division duplex (TDD) technology will allow “rich data” for users and spectral efficiency for the operator, McCaw says, as it uses one channel for broadcast, compared to two channel frequency division duplex (FDD) networks that are used today and will be carried over to long-term evolution (LTE) deployments.

“Why take up half your spectrum when you’re downloading a movie?” says he.

Sprint’s Dan Hesse also said open access will help Sprint cut the subsidies it pays on users’ devices. This has always been a big part of the reasoning behind Sprint’s XOHM WiMax network: Subsidies can get cut while prices fall as more device makers go broadband.

The show started with a well-attended keynote session, a discussion among cellular CEOs from Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprintas, as shown in this RCR News video.

source : dailywireless.org

Phones as Mobile Hotspots

Phones as Mobile Hotspots

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 11th, 2008

Taproot Systems has launched WalkingHotSpot that transforms a smartphone with built-in WiFi to a mobile hotspot (FAQ). It can support up to five devices.

According to Sean O’Leary, Taproot’s vice president of business development and marketing, the company opted to go direct to consumer after determining it would take too long to get its product included in operators’ lineups.

WalkingHotSpot is currently available for Wi-Fi-enabled devices that use Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile operating systems. The company expects to have support for other major operating systems soon but provided no specific date.

Subscribers can obtain a free 7-day trial and then can purchase a subscription for $6.99 per month. The company also is offering an introductory annual subscription for $24.99.

Competitor Morose Media also announced the availability of WMWifiRouter 1.20 - the new Windows Mobile application that turns Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones into wireless Internet sharing connection hubs. The new version introduces an option for sharing via Wi-Fi, USB or Bluetooth.The software costs $30 and requires Internet Connection Sharing, which some phones and carriers don’t allow.

Unlike Taproot’s WalkingHotSpot, the WMWifiRouter only requires a one-time fee for a lifetime of service, with no additional monthly or annual charges. It’s compatible with phones that features Windows Mobile 5 AKU 3.3 or newer, or Windows Mobile 6.

In addition to Wi-Fi, users can also share cellular data and an Internet connection over Bluetooth and via USB, using less battery power from the phone than a Wi-Fi connection. To further save power, WMWifiRouter users can enter low-power mode without disturbing their connection simply by pressing the power button. Should the phone battery reach a specified level of depletion, the application will automatically shut down so that users have enough power remaining for calls.

Sprint announced Wednesday it would be offering the HTC Touch Pro and the Touch Diamond. Both handsets sport a high-resolution 2.8-inch touch screen that’s navigated with HTC’s TouchFLO interface, along with Windows Mobile 6.1, and built-in Wi-Fi.

The Pro packs a five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard and features like expandable memory, and a business card reader. The handsets will come with a preloaded Opera browser, are capable of push e-mail, and can view and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

The Touch Pro will go for $299.99 with a two-year contract and after rebates. It features 3.2-megapixel camera, support for Sprint TV and the Sprint Music Store, and an HTC-developed YouTube application. There’s 512MB of ROM and 288MB of RAM and a 1GB microSD card. Both smartphones will be able to connect to the mobile Web via an integrated Wi-Fi, or over Sprint’s 3G network.

Smartphones running Symbian software, like the Nokia E71 and the Samsung Omnia, can visit Joiku.com, where the software costs about $21. JoikuSpot Light is FREE and supports only HTTP & HTTPS protocols.

If you have a new smartphone, you are likely to have an unlimited data plan already. But, as the NY Times warns, if you do not, and you use these new applications for a few hours of video chatting, have the defibrillator handy before opening next month’s bill.

source : dailywireless.org

NBC

NBC Not Dumping Silverlight

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 11th, 2008

NBC raised eyebrows when it live-streamed its first NFL game last week using Adobe’s Flash, notes New TeeVee. There was speculation that the peacock had unceremoniously dumped Microsoft Silverlight after the technology’s debut during the Olympics.

Not true, according to both Microsoft and NBC. The network had a separate deal with the NFL that was in place before the Olympics, and the two had nothing to do with each other.

The live, online webcast of the Democratic National Convention was the first large demonstration of the integration of Move Networks and Silverlight. Move Networks supplies the encoding/player/streaming technology, while companies like Limelight Networks, Akamai and Level3 provide the content delivery network.

Nielsen Media Research reported estimate that 4.7 billion people world-wide tuned in to the Olympics at some point, a new record. But that was an extrapolation, says the Wall Street Journal. Nielsen had data for only 37 countries. These include many large countries, so their combined population is four billion — 60% of the world’s population. So Nielsen extrapolated to the other 150 or more countries.

The Olympics, with its 20,000 journalists, has left town, but the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, September 6-17, 2008, is going strong, if spottily covered by news organizations.

There are a total of 20 competition venues and six independent training venues serving the entire Paralympic Games. Of the 440,000 Paralympics volunteers, 90% were Beijing Olympic volunteers.

Through the Summer Games’ first 11 days, NBC averaged 29.6 million viewers a night for its prime-time show, up from a 26.2 million average during the same period for the Athens Games four years ago.

“More than 6 million people accessed NBCOlympics.com using their cell phone,” said Rebecca Tong, product line manager for Sun’s x64 systems used by NBC. “They weren’t doing that four years ago at the last Olympics.” NBC used a total of 160 Intel Xeon-based Sunfire x4450 x4150 servers to support its Web site coverage of the games.

The Chinese share was record breaking — a full 94% of the world’s most populous country tuned in. It was also the most-viewed show in U.S. TV history, with 211 million watching some portion of the Games and an average daily audience of 27 million, Nielsen said.

source : dailywireless.org

RFID!?

RFID: Feared and Praised

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 12th, 2008

As of this past April, more than 35,000 Washington State motorists have signed up for RFID-embedded driver’s licenses, reports Scientific American, and other border states, including Arizona, Michigan and Vermont, have agreed to participate in the program. New York State will begin making the new licenses available to its residents after Labor Day.

The Washington State Department of Licensing reassures citizens that their personal information is safe because the RFID tag in an enhanced driver’s license “doesn’t have a power source” and “doesn’t contain any personal identifying information”.

Detractors say those facts have no bearing on whether the card can be used for tracking.

Gigi Zenk, a spokesperson at Washington’s licensing agency, recently confirmed that there are 10,000 enhanced licenses “on the street now—that people are actually carrying.”

Homeland Security’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requires all travelers to present a passport or other document that denotes identity and citizenship when entering the U.S. To facilitate the frequent travel of U.S. citizens living in border communities, passport cards contain a vicinity-read RFID chip.

But the possibility that the security of such cards could be compromised is just one reason for concern. Even if tighter data-protection measures could someday prevent unauthorized access to RFID-card data, many privacy advocates worry that remotely readable identity documents could be abused by governments that wish to tightly monitor and control their citizens.

China’s national ID cards, for instance, are encoded with what most people would consider a shocking amount of personal information, including health and reproductive history, employment status, religion, ethnicity and even the name and phone number of each cardholder’s landlord. More ominous still, the cards are part of a larger project to blanket Chinese cities with state-of-the-art surveillance technologies.

Michael Lin, a vice president for China Public Security Technology, a private company providing the RFID cards for the program, unflinchingly described them to the New York Times as “a way for the government to control the population in the future.” And even if other governments do not take advantage of the surveillance potential inherent in the new ID cards, ample evidence suggests that data-hungry corporations will.

If the idea that corporations might want to use RFID tags to spy on individuals sounds far-fetched, it is worth considering an IBM patent filed in 2001 and granted in 2006. The patent describes exactly how the cards can be used for tracking and profiling even if access to official databases is unavailable or strictly limited.

Entitled “Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items in Store Environments,” it chillingly details RFID’s potential for surveillance in a world where networked RFID readers called “person tracking units” would be incorporated virtually everywhere people go—in “shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, restrooms, sports arenas, libraries, theaters, [and] mu­­se­­ums”—to closely monitor people’s movements.

In January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the “final rule” on REAL ID Act, describing the requirements and procedures for transforming state ID cards into REAL IDs with embedded RFID chips (realnightmare.org).

Many states and their representatives are starting to question whether they want to be a part of this whole Real ID thing after all.

Destron Fearing, a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions, initially developed the technology for the VeriChip, the first FDA - approved human-implantable RFID microchip. About twice the length of a grain of rice, the device is typically implanted above the triceps area of an individual’s right arm. Once scanned at the proper frequency, the VeriChip responds with a unique 16 digit number which could be then linked with information about the user held on a database for identity verification, medical records access and other uses.

MythBusters co-host Adam Savage said a planned episode on RFID hackability was killed because lawyers for the credit cards companies had put the hammer down on the show.

But Texas Instruments spokeswoman Cindy Huff told CNET News that things had gone a bit different than Savage had said. Now Savage is backpedaling…”the decision not to continue on with the RFID story was made by our production company, Beyond Productions, and had nothing to do with Discovery, or their ad sales department.”

Contactless smart cards communicate with card readers through RFID induction. These cards require only close proximity to an antenna to complete a transaction. They are often used on mass transit systems, where smart cards can be used without even removing them from a wallet.

As far back as 2003, CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) — along with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and 40 other leading privacy and civil liberties advocates and organizations have condemned the tracking of human beings with RFID as inappropriate. Industry trades include: RFID News, RFID Journal and RFID.org.

source : dailywireless.org

Living in Possibility - ONE

Living In Possibility- ONE

Here's a simple 6 step process to use the possibility approach in any
endeavor (write these on paper or in your journal):

Step 1 - Declare your intention for the endeavor. What's the reason
you're doing it? Perhaps you're doing it as an expression of service.
Maybe you're doing it to earn money. Perhaps the intention is to learn
something new. You may have more than one intention, which is fine, but
decide at the outset what you intend to personally gain and/or give to
others.

Step 2 - Determine what would be the worst possible outcome.

If nothing went your way and your endeavor failed miserably, what would
it look like. Write out a description of the failure in as much detail
as possible.

Step 3 - Determine the potential gift in your worst possible outcome.
What might you learn or how might you grow if your endeavor is a
complete bust?

Step 4 - Determine what would be the best possible outcome. If
everything worked out perfectly and your endeavor was totally
successful, what would that look like? Again, write out a detailed
description.

Step 5 - Release your attachment to any outcome whatsoever. This is the
crucial step. Simply accept that anything can happen. In the words of
A.L. Williams, "All you can do is all you can do." The rest is out of
your hands.

Step 6 - Take the first step and have fun. Now that you got all that
failure and success stuff out of the way, just go play the game 100%,
like when you were a kid. Have fun with it and don't take life so
seriously.

The next time you feel yourself getting caught up in predicting your
future or setting high expectations for yourself, try using this six
step possibility process. It should you keep moving forward in a
consistent and enjoyable manner.

It's your life. Make it great!

Text Author: Michael Pollock

source : ekbtv.blogspot.com

Mind Over Matter

Mind Over Matter

Bush to control the Mortage Giants

Bush Administration Seizes Control of Mortgage Giants

The Bush administration seized control Sunday of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, aiming to stabilize the housing market turmoil that is threatening financial markets and the overall economy.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is betting that providing fresh capital to the two firms will eventually lead to lower mortgage rates, spur homebuying demand and slow the plunge in home prices that has ravaged many areas of the country.

The huge potential liabilities facing each company, as a result of soaring mortgage defaults, could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, but Paulson stressed that the financial impacts if the two companies had been allowed to fail would be far more serious.

"A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance," Paulson said.

But more importantly, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe," he added in a televised announcement.

The companies, which together own or guarantee about $5 trillion in home loans, about half the nation's total, have lost $14 billion in the last year and are likely to pile up billions more in losses until the housing market begins to recover.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama issued a statement agreeing that some form of intervention was necessary, and promised, "I will be reviewing the details of the Treasury plan and monitoring its impact to determine whether it achieves the key benchmarks I believe are necessary to address this crisis."

On Saturday, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Fannie and Freddie "have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."

Both companies were placed into a government conservatorship that will be run by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the new agency created by Congress this summer to regulate Fannie and Freddie.

The executives and board of directors of both institutions are being replaced. Herb Allison, a former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch, was selected to head Fannie Mae, and David Moffett, a former vice chairman of US Bancorp, was picked to head Freddie Mac.

Paulson was careful not to blame Daniel Mudd, the outgoing CEO of Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac's departing CEO Richard Syron for the companies' current problems. While both men are being removed as the top executives, they have been asked to remain for an unspecified period to help with the transition.



The Treasury Department said it will immediately inject $1 billion in each of the companies through the purchase of senior preferred stock, paying 10 percent interest, and could boost its investment to as much as $100 billion each over time if the funds are needed to keep the companies afloat as losses mount. In exchange, the government will receive warrants entitling it to purchase ownership stakes of 79.9 percent in each.

Officials defended this approach by saying it underscores the importance of the trillions in mortgage debt that each company either holds or guarantees and the need to make sure that investors in this country and overseas keep buying this debt.

In addition, officials said the Treasury Department plans to purchase $5 billion in mortgage-backed debt from the two companies later this month.

The impact on existing common and preferred shares, which have slumped in value in the last year, will depend on how investors react to Paulson's assertion that they must absorb the cost of further losses first.

The Federal Reserve and other federal banking regulators said in a joint statement Sunday that "a limited number of smaller institutions" have significant holdings of common or preferred stock shares in Fannie and Freddie, and that regulators were "prepared to work with these institutions to develop capital-restoration plans."

The two companies had nearly $36 billion in preferred shares outstanding as of June 30, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under government control, the companies will be allowed to expand their support for the mortgage market over the next year by boosting their holdings of mortgage securities they hold on their books from a combined $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion.

Starting in 2010, though, they are required to drop their holdings by 10 percent annually until they reach a combined $500 billion.

Paulson said that it would be up to Congress and the next president to figure out the two companies' ultimate structure and the conflicting goals they operated under -- maximizing returns for shareholders while also being required to encourage home buying for low- and moderate-income Americans.

"There is a consensus today ... that they cannot continue in their current form," he said.

Paulson and James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, stressed that their actions were designed to strengthen the role of the two mortgage giants in supporting the nation's housing market. Both companies do that by buying mortgage loans from banks and packaging those loans into securities that they either hold or sell to U.S. and foreign investors.

Lockhart said dividends on both common and preferred stock would be eliminated, saving about $2 billion a year. He said that all lobbying activities of both companies would stop immediately. Both companies over the years made extensive efforts to lobby members of Congress in an effort to keep the benefits they enjoyed as government-sponsored enterprises.

source : ekbtv.blogspot.com

Notebook with 3G?

Dell Netbook: Bundled with 3G

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008

Dell’s new netbook, the Inspiron Mini 9 ($399), will be sold with built-in mobile broadband by Vodafone for HSPA access in the UK, the companies announced on Thursday.

For now its “in key European markets”. Vodafone is a part owner in Verizon. No announcement of a partnership with U.S. carriers has been announced (yet), but speculation is that cellular carriers may subsidize a Dell netbook, much like they subsidize fancy smartphones (with a two-year service contract).

Dell’s netbook has an Atom processor, 8.9-inch LED display, and an SSD (solid state disk) for storage, holding up to 16G bytes.

Vodafone will start selling the Mini 9 later this month, but has not yet said in which countries it will offer the netbook.

Laptop Magazine has an interview with Dell’s Product Manager John New

Are there plans for adding mobile broadband and do you think the monthly fees need to come down?
We think the mobile broadband capability speaks perfectly for this category so we defined the device with internal capabilities because to have an external dongle on a highly mobile device didn’t make much sense. The carriers are working on options. Right now the industry norm is $55 a month and that is a bit expensive for a low cost device. I think at some point we will see day passes, like you see with hotspot day passes. It is going to be a premium option for this category, however. As adoption continues to grow, hopefully we will see those prices come down.

Do you see carriers subsiding the cost of the hardware? What flavor of mobile broadband options are you exploring?
I can’t really speak to that, but it is our job at Dell to get the technology into our customers hands and speak to the benefits of the technology. We will announce the flavors when we announce the partners.

Will it be WiMax capable?
We aren’t talking to WiMax right now.

Why the decision to only offer solid state drive options?
We are really focusing on high mobility and we are trying to lead here with the solid state disks. Because of there are no moving parts and quiet performance they are really ideal for this type of device. We have a 4, 8 and 16 GB option, but we also have partnered with Box.Net for Internet storage.

The Atom processor is due to upgrading next year. Today’s Atom-branded Diamondville-class processors are based on a Silverthorne architecture. The new 45-nm Pineview processors are expected to arrive in Q3 of 2009. They will be based on a new Lincroft micro-architecture boasting an integrated graphics core and memory manager that connects to memory via DMI, not a FSB.

source : dailywirless.org

Japan launching WiMax Rival

Japan Launching WiMAX Rival

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008

Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications auctioned two blocks of broadband wireless spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band last December. Cellular carrier KDDI, with a WiMAX strategy, was the winner of one nationwide license. Willcom was awarded the other.

Japan’s Wireless Broadband Planning, KDDI’s WiMax joint venture, has committed to spending 145 billion Japanese yen ($1.3 billion) through March 2014. UQ Communication is a consortium consisting of 6 companies such as Kyocera and Intel Capital, led by KDDI. A trial in Tokyo and Yokohama from February of 2009 will be followed by nation-wide commercial Mobile WiMAX service in the summer of 2009.

The other license winner in Japan is personal handyphone system (PHS) operator Willcom. They plan to invest $1.7 billion over six years on a broadband wireless network at 2.5 GHz.

But Willcom is not planning a WiMAX implementation.

Willcom plans to use the Japanese Personal Handyphone System (PHS), with a new standard called XGP that will offer mobile broadband speeds that rival WiMAX and LTE, reports Telecom TV.

The Willcom trial begins next April and will cover Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka and offer 20Mbps of symmetrical data speeds using a 10MHz spectrum block. A full commercial service is scheduled for August 2009.

PHS was an early digital cellular offshoot with roots in cordless phone technology. It has low power, low range characteristics and was adopted there mostly because it was deemed suitable for Japan’s high urban densities back in the 1990s. It’s cheaper to deploy than GSM, but isn’t so good at high-speed handover and is now losing ground in its home market to GSM.

But a cost-effective next gen platform for data may be possible with the eXtended Global Platform (XGP) . According to Nobuaki Takamatsu from the engineering department of Kyocera, a trial XGP service will go live in three Japanese cities as early as next April.

On display at the XGP booth at the ITU Asia show was a base station that was the size of small hand luggage as well as prototype data cards and USB dongles. At this point, the system is designed for data only services, but handsets are expected at a later stage.

The technology behind is based on the PHS architecture of numerous microcells offering limited coverage, but will incorporate a new air radio interface based on OFDMA/TDMA/TDD methodologies. Kyocera and UTStarcom will manufacture the radio access equipment for XGP while NEC Infrontia and NetIndex are developing the data card modules for the service. Canada’s Wavesat and Israel’s Altair is supplying the baseband chips for XGP. Like LTE and WiMAX, XGP will support viable spectrum blocks.

Japan has some 52 million landline telephones and 105 million mobile and PHS users (as of 2007) with a mobile penetration rate over 80%. NTT Docomo has more than 50 million customers, which is more than half of Japan’s cellular market. The rest is largely split between CDMA cellular provider KDDI (which spun off their PHS business as Willcom), and Softbank.

The United States has more than 250 million cellular subscribers but they’re spread over some 3.8 million square miles, while Japan’s land mass is only 146,000 sq miles.

source : dailywireless.org

WiMax Forum

Forum Maps WiMAX

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008

The WiMAX Forum has announced the launch of their Interactive Deployment Database, which has information on more than 300 WiMAX deployments around the world.

The new Interactive Deployment Database relies upon the WCIS database offered by Informa Telecoms, and focuses upon various WiMAX operators, providing the readers with the latest data regarding the WiMAX deployments that have been made worldwide. A link to the database has been provided at the homepage of the WiMAX forum, and can be accessed at www.wimaxmaps.org.

WiMAX operator case studies are being added to the Forum’s website including commercial WiMAX networks by KT (Korea), DBD Deutsche Breitband Dienste (Germany), Iberbanda (Spain), WiMAX Telecom (Austria, Slovakia and Croatia), Liberty Technologies (Panama), DigitalBridge Communications (U.S.A.) and Max Telecom (Bulgaria). Additional case studies will be added to the collection later this year.

Sprint’s Xohm WiMax service is set to launch this month in Baltimore. More cities are planned for the fourth quarter, including Chicago and Washington, D.C. Sprint has also begun installing equipment in Boston, Philadelphia and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Meanwhile, Clearwire service may be available in Portland, Oregon in a month or so. By the end of the year, Clearwire may also launch service in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Ben Wolff, Clearwire CEO (right), expects that the joint venture will get a boost from a $3.2 billion investment from Google, Intel and three cable companies, soon, to “fuel our nationwide mobile WiMax network deployment.

source : dailywireless.org

T-Mobiles first HSDPA

Sony Ericsson TM506, T-Mobile's first HSDPA handset, goes live

by Chris Ziegler, posted Sep 5th 2008 at 2:00PM

The well-scooped TM506 from Sony Ericsson is now on sale, marking the first time that T-Mobile has openly and proudly admitted that a handset in its lineup can actually support 3G -- despite the fact that they've had such gear for over a year now. Why the big secret? Until now, T-Mobile's 3G network has been undergoing pretty much the softest soft launch in mobile history, and only now are enough markets starting to come on board to make the whole thing worthwhile. For what it's worth, every previous 3G handset on the carrier has merely rocked UMTS, so the TM506 becomes its first HSDPA-equipped piece while also offering up a 2-megapixel cam, TeleNav navigation, and stereo Bluetooth. As of this writing it's still showing "Coming Soon" on the site, but we're hearing that it'll be available today for $79.99 after rebate on contract.

source : engadget.com

Dell looking to Sell

Dell looking to sell factories to increase profitability

by Donald Melanson, posted Sep 5th 2008 at 5:57PM

It looks like Dell is taking a rather drastic step to attempt to cut some of the costs that have been dragging it down in recent years, with The Wall Street Journal now reporting that the company plans to sell "most -- and possibly all -- of its factories" within the next 18 months -- if it can find some buyers, that is. As the paper notes, the factories were originally built to serve a PC market driven by corporate customers ordering large volumes of desktop PCs, but they've fast become a drag on the company as growth has shifted towards laptops sold at retail stores. While nothing is anywhere near official yet, the Journal pegs big contract manufacturers angling for a bigger piece of Dell's business as the most likely buyers, although there's a number of obstacles that could block such a sale, particularly when it comes to Dell's factories in the US. Dell is also said to be considering simply closing down some of the factories, and instead rely on those aforementioned contract manufacturers to build its PCs. Hit up the link below for the full saga and backstory.

source : engadget.com