Hasta La Gadget!

Just in case Microsoft hadn’t locked down enough support for Windows Mobile at MWC last week, the company also managed to shake hands with a slew of PC makers in order to extend support for Mobile Broadband enhancements within Windows 7. It’s still quite unclear what all this means, but we’re guessing that the likes of Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP and Fujitsu will happily support WWAN modules from Huawei, Option, Qualcomm, Sierra Wireless and ZTE. The writeup also gives us reason to believe that WWAN connections will be more tightly integrated than before, possibly even showing up alongside potential WiFi hotspots when looking for a wireless connection. At any rate, we’re all about getting a signal regardless of location, so we’ll take this as a definite positive despite the glaring dearth of details.

[Thanks, Jacob]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Microsoft gets big support for Mobile Broadband enhancements in Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

As we’ve seen in the decidedly botched digital TV transition, nothing involving government and technology is ever straightforward. With that in mind, let us present to you the most germane portion of the recently passed economic stimulus package with respect to gadgets and the overall nerd kingdom: $7.2 billion. That amount is what President Obama has set aside for “broadband grant and loan programs,” though things get confusing right from the start. $4.7 billion will be distributed through a program run by the Commerce Department, while $2.5 billion is handed out by the Agriculture Department. In theory, at least, that latter chunk would go specifically to rural and underserved areas, but having one goal with two masters just seems like trouble waiting to happen. Oh, and then there’s the mandate to the FCC that instructs it to create (within one year, mind you) a “national broadband plan to ensure that everyone in the US has broadband access.” Granted, these aren’t entirely unheard of — Britain just did the same sort of thing a few weeks ago, and South Korea’s already aiming at 1Gbps for all. We appreciate that the money’s there, but only time will tell if leads to anything meaningful.

Filed under: Networking

Stimulus bill seeks plan to ensure all Americans have broadband access originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Leave Ericsson alone for five seconds, and it goes and makes the technology it was just bragging about seem archaic. Just in case Telstra’s 21Mbps Next G network seemed a bit — how do you say, sluggish? — Ericsson will be showcasing a new approach that enables peak downlink data rates of 42Mbps at Mobile World Congress. In order to achieve such tremendous speeds, it will rely on its so-called multi-carrier technology, which is the next (or is that next-next?) generation of HSPA. The secret? It allows users to “receive data simultaneously on two frequency channels,” which doubles the data rate in the coverage area of an HSPA network and on the cell edge. The best part of all this isn’t that you can one day look forward to crushing your cable modem with a wireless USB stick, it’s that “one day” will be ready to happen before the dawn of 2010. Huzzah!

[Via phonescoop, image courtesy of TornadoChaser]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Ericsson promises 42Mbps HSPA demo using multi-carrier technology originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

When you spend all of your workday bloggin’ it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that some folks don’t have access to basic utilities, or HDTV, or — the horror! — the Internet itself. In the time-honored tradition of Hippies and earnest seekers alike, Google has headed to rural India, where it will be focusing its philanthropic endeavors (or perhaps its shrewd marketing endeavors) for the next month and a half. The company’s Internet bus will roll through towns in the state of Tamil Nadu, providing connectivity via satellite, and content and instruction in both English and Tamil to people whose only previous exposure to the online world (if any) has been via cell phone or cyber cafe. This is all part of a broader scheme to expand into the Indian countryside, and if the trip is a success more are sure to follow. The company’s services already include transliteration, news, bidirectional machine translation, and soft keyboards for a number of Indian languages, and a host of kick-ass Ravi Shankar tunes now available on Google Video.

Filed under: Networking

Google’s Internet-equipped magic bus lights across India originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Nearly a year to the day after we heard that WiFi trials were beginning on some of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit trains, WiFi Rail has announced a deal that’ll last a score and provide high-speed WiFi “throughout the BART transit system and on all BART commuter trains.” Reportedly, the network has successfully been tested to handle loads and provide speeds in excess of 15Mbps on trains moving 81 miles-per-hour. As it stands, four downtown San Francisco stations and some segments of the tunnels are already fully functional, but it’ll take until the end of 2010 before the entire network is complete. There’s no mention of what the price table will end up looking like, though we are told that subscriptions will be available by day, month or year. Now, if only this would filter out to every other mass transit entity in America, we’d be just jolly.

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

WiFi Rail finalizes 20 year deal to bring internet to BART trains originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments