China says Android can stay, misses Google’s point

A Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesperson has today delivered a statement affirming China’s willingness to allow Android devices to operate within the country without restriction so long as they adhere to the nation’s laws. This means that whatever China’s response to Google no longer obeying its censorship edicts may be, it won’t be to disallow Android — which kind of makes sense considering the growing roster of OPhones out there, all running a remixed version of the dessert-loving mobile OS. Then again, Google’s latest power play was to hold back Android handsets from entering China, so we’re not entirely sure how much the Mountain View outfit cares about the Middle Kingdom’s apparent benevolence.

China says Android can stay, misses Google’s point originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cisco successfully tests orbital IP router, Pirate Bay ‘very interested’

It’s been almost three years since Cisco and the DoD announced the IRIS project. Short for Internet Routing in Space, the idea is to route IP traffic between satellites instead of bouncing it on and off ground stations. The whole thing has moved forward steadily since we first caught wind of it, culminating with the launch of the first Cisco Space Router aboard an Atlas V rocket last November. According to The Register, the company has just finished its first in-orbit test of the thing, and — lo’ and behold — it’s a success! After some more testing by the DoD (which will go down between now and April), Cisco plans on running yet more trials. And after that? With any luck, IRIS will extend “constant and pervasive” Internet access to areas not served by traditional ground or 3G networks. And never again will a single person have to live their life without having seen the Bill O’Reilly “F**k It, We’ll Do It Live!” rant.

Cisco successfully tests orbital IP router, Pirate Bay ‘very interested’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OnLive Beta gets a preview, lukewarm approval

We’ve now pretty much reached saturation point with OnLive demos, so it’s good to finally see an independent set of eyes poring over the service and giving us the lowdown on the actual user experience. Whether you call it on demand, streamed, or cloud gaming, the concept is remarkably simple — OnLive pumps games via a web browser onto your machine and gives you the full gaming experience without the need for all that pretty, but expensive hardware. PC Perspective‘s Ryan Shrout “found” a login to the Beta program and has put together a very thorough comparison between OnLive and playing the games locally on the same computer. His conclusion is that latency issues at present make an FPS like Unreal Tournament unplayable, but slower input games like Burnout Paradise or Mass Effect give pleasingly close renditions of the real thing. We encourage you to hit the source link to see side-by-side video comparisons and more in-depth analysis.

OnLive Beta gets a preview, lukewarm approval originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Siemens gurus hit 500Mbps with white LED lights, dare you to blink

You know what’s better than wireless power? Nothing, frankly. You know what comes darn close? Wicked fast transmissions through thin air. Researchers from Siemens have just shattered their own record for wireless data transfer using white LED light, hitting a whopping 500Mbps while working in collaboration with the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin. The old record sat at “just” 200Mbps, but the new speeds are helping to take Visible Light Communication from a hopeful technology to a serious contender in the space. These same researchers were also able to show that a system using up to five LEDs is capable of beaming out data over long distances at up to 100Mbps. We’re told that the IEEE has been toiling tirelessly since 2007 to standardize activities in this field, and while a late 2010 completion date is currently being penciled in, we’re not holding our breath. Anyone remember how long it took 802.11n to escape “draft?”

[Thanks, Mademoiselle Y]

Continue reading Siemens gurus hit 500Mbps with white LED lights, dare you to blink

Siemens gurus hit 500Mbps with white LED lights, dare you to blink originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ENUM: it’s the new telephone number, but it’s going nowhere fast

We’ve heard (ever-so-briefly) about ENUM before, which is generally described as an IETF-sanctioned standard for converting traditional phone numbers into IP addresses. But for the most part, even techies would say that they aren’t exactly up to speed on what the protocol offers and / or promises. ArsTechnica has spent a good while underneath the mire, and it has arisen with an in-depth article that spells out how the standard can neatly collate a variety of contact options (email address, mobile number, home line, Facebook account, ICQ name, etc.) into a single address that’s recognizable by the internet that we so dearly love. In fact, user ENUM even has the capability to rank contact options by priority, so you could hit someone up via the mobile first and their Twitter account second should they not answer. The issue, however, is that the ‘”ENUM standard (RFC 3761) demands that ENUM is a public service and that the control of the telephone number lies in the hands of the end-user,” and it doesn’t take an economist to understand why ISPs and carriers wouldn’t be fond of this. Indeed, just nine nations have an ENUM registry in production, and the future isn’t looking too bright for the rest of us. Don’t fret, though — chances are Google will have this whole “multiple contact” thing ironed out before the next decade rolls around.

ENUM: it’s the new telephone number, but it’s going nowhere fast originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Should We Prefer Metered Bandwidth Over “Unlimited”?

This article was written on November 10, 2009 by CyberNet.

bandwidth monitor.png

We love unlimited. Everything is better when it’s not limited, right? Then what’s not to love about unlimited bandwidth? Actually it’s bad for us consumers. Here’s why.

ISPs currently give you unlimited internet access… as long as you don’t use it too much
Did you look into your contract when you signed up for your ISP? If you’re on an unlimited plan, in most cases you’ll find the term ‘fair use policy’ buried somewhere between five hundred paragraphs of Legalese. This term generally has two possible definitions.

  1. There’s a hidden limit. If you want to know much you can use, beg our customer service representatives to tell you what it is.
  2. We can cut off your connection or throttle it whenever we feel like it.

In my book, ‘unlimited’ doesn’t mean ‘limited in a secretive way’.

With metered bandwidth, you know what you’re gonna get
You know what you’ve paid for when you’re on a metered bandwidth plan. Consumers with metered plans have a legally binding agreement with their ISP where they have to let them send and receive a set amount of data through their pipes. This is more transparent than vague fair use policies that impose a hidden limit. With a little collaboration between ISPs and tools such as ISP Monitor (pictured above), the customer always knows what he’s up against.

There’s only so much traffic our pipes can handle anyway
The only reason why ISPs lie about the bandwidth limit of their plans, is marketing. You could compare the internet to a highway: you can only fit so much cars on a highway at the same time. Similarly, internet resources are limited too so it is only fair that we have to pay for what we use. Otherwise, your grandparents are overpaying for their internet connection because some kid is constantly torrenting movies.

In conclusion

ISPs need to be upfront about their limits and provide an easy way for their users to check their bandwidth usage. As long as these limits are fair compared to what you pay for it, I for one think we’re better off banning unlimited plans.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

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Free laptops and broadband promised for 270,000 poor UK families

This isn’t quite on par with Finland’s contention that 1Mb broadband is a “right,” but UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged £300 million ($484 million) for the provision of laptops and broadband connections to low income families. The idea is for parents to be connected to their children’s school, so that they may access reports and track progress online. We don’t know if broadband is going to be quite the panacea that it’s being promoted as, but at least an effort is being made to make internet access truly universal. The new initiative is part of an education bill being debated in the House of Commons right now, but given the PM’s low popular and parliamentary approval, there’s no certainty that this pledge will come to pass. Let’s just hope it does.

Free laptops and broadband promised for 270,000 poor UK families originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aircell to start in-flight video download service later this year

Aircell may have skipped out on having a presence at CES this year, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is going on in the wide, wacky world of in-flight internet. The company confirmed to us via email that it’s planning a new video download service for 2010, a little something that’ll go by the name Gogo Video. PC World was able to sit down with Eric Lemond, director of product management for the company, and they found that the service will be a lot like the iTunes Video Store in function. Users will be able to tap into their onboard WiFi in order to suck down TV shows and film rentals, which will be available for viewing up to 24 hours from the time of purchase. The files themselves will remain on the laptop (as in, this isn’t just a streaming service), and while the exact launch date has yet to be nailed down, we are told that it will only be available for Windows laptops initially. Prices should range from $2 to $4 based on the programming, though we’re still waiting to hear what kind content partners will be signing on. Fret not, jetsetters — the unfriendly skies are about to get a bit more bearable.

Aircell to start in-flight video download service later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel Infoscape HD wall brings real-time web visualization (hands-on)

We hate to dampen your excitement right from the get-go, but Intel confessed that it has absolutely no plans of commercializing something like this itself — but that’s not to say someone else couldn’t grab a Core i7 and run with the idea themselves. The Infoscape was generating quite a bit of attention at the chip giant’s CES booth, boasting twin 7-foot touch panels (each with a 1,920 x 1,920 resolution). The entire installation was powered by a single Core i7-based machine with Intel’s own graphics, and it was seen rendering 576 links of live information. Users could touch any individual panel in order to dig deeper and bring up more information on each link, and it had absolutely no trouble pulling up dozens of boxes at once when legions of onlookers decided to touch boxes simultaneously. Hop on past the break to check out a video, and feel free to drop your wildest ideas of where this could be used (like, your den) in comments below.

Continue reading Intel Infoscape HD wall brings real-time web visualization (hands-on)

Intel Infoscape HD wall brings real-time web visualization (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba Crams Supercomputer Guts Into 3-D, Web TV

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LAS VEGAS — The future of television isn’t just 3-D. It’s getting content from the web, too, says Toshiba, who introduced its internet-connected Cell TV on Wednesday.


CES 2010
Powered by LED (KIRA2) backlighting, the 55- or 65-inch Cell TV features multiple eight-core 3.2-GHz processors. What does that mean? It’s 10 times faster than standard desktop computers and will have 143 times the processing power of today’s televisions, claims Toshiba.

“The possibilities of what we can do are really endless,” said Scott Ramirez, vice president of marketing for Toshiba’s TV group, during a press conference.

From @wired on Twitter
Mash-up of your reactions to Toshiba’s new 3D TV: “WHAT????” “OMG!”
“this is some telly” “I WANT IT” “I bet it will cost a lot” “owwww!!!”

Indeed, Toshiba is promising the Cell TV will deliver exciting new features. The Cell TV includes a converter to make everything that’s normally 2-D on your screen — football games, videogames, Blu-ray movies and so on — pop out in 3-D when viewed through active shutter glasses. That’s where the processing power comes into play — frame-rate conversions and rendering.

The Cell TV gets even more intense. It also features a video camera, microphone and software for video conferencing over an internet connection. (Hello, George Jetson.) To get on the web, there’s an ethernet port and 802.11N Wi-Fi connectivity. Also, the Cell TV will have a software menu called Net TV Channels to download streaming content from Netflix, Vudu and other web-based video services. On top of that, the TV uses a technology called Net Super Resolution+ to reduce compression artifacts seen in web video content.

A number of manufacturers are claiming 2010 will be the year of the 3-D TV, but Toshiba is the first we’ve seen announce a full-blown internet TV. The Cell TV underscores a trend we highlighted prior to CES — it’s not just a device; it’s also a platform that can be increasingly expanded with the power of the internet and downloaded applications. Other gadgets that operate with a similar idea include the Xbox 360, the iPhone and the PlayStation 3, which each also have online stores that enable consumers to add to the capabilities of the respective devices.

Sounds insane, right? Interestingly, Toshiba has not announced a price, though the company did say the Cell TV would debut “later this year.” (Don’t expect this to be anywhere near affordable to the average consumer.) We’ll post more details as we receive them.

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Photo: Toshiba