Earlier this year NVIDIA announced their all-new quad-core Tegra 4 mobile processor, then followed that up with the Tegra 4i with integrated 4G LTE thanks to their Icera i500 LTE modem. And now today in Las Vegas for CTIA they’re showing its potential by doing a live demo testing Cat 4 LTE-Advanced pulling 150 Mbps
We are surrounded by tiny, intelligent devices that capture data about how we live and what we do. Soon we’ll be able to choreograph them to respond to our needs, solve our problems, and even save our lives.
Creating a mobile ad hoc network is tricky when rounding people up for a game or two, let alone when linking thousands of soldiers whose lives are at stake. DARPA has had enough trouble getting such large-scale networks off the ground that it just put out an official request for solutions. The agency wants ad hoc technology that grows both elegantly and automatically, and it’s prepared to ditch legacies like internet-based networking to get there — in fact, it would rather not rely on IP technology when 20 years of research in that area hasn’t panned out. Anyone sitting on a brilliant solution has until May 24th to submit an abstract for consideration ahead of an August 7th symposium. We hope at least a few people answer the call, if just for the possibilities that breakthroughs spill over to civilian life — DARPA helped build the networking we’re using right now, after all.
Filed under: Networking, Alt
Via: DARPA
Source: Federal Business Opportunities
Qualcomm’s been doing very well lately, and most of those chips it builds are for mobile devices that demand a lot of data to serve their owners’ needs — and as more and more folks jump on the smartphone bandwagon, the demand for data will continue to grow exponentially. Today at Qualcomm’s What’s Next in Mobile event in Santa Clara, California, the company told us more about its plan to help build a network that’ll be able to serve up the data all its SoC’s need. The goal is to give us 1000 times the capacity of what we currently have. One of the key parts, as Qualcomm sees it, is small cell base stations in homes, offices and retail spaces working in tandem with the large cell towers that currently adorn so many roofs and mountain tops — the same thing ex-FCC head honcho Julian Genachowski talked about last year.
You see, macrocells (read: towers) can blanket wide areas in signal, but they struggle to penetrate the innards of buildings, which is where small cells come in handy. For those who aren’t familiar, small cell base stations like femtocells and picocells have been around for years, helping to boost cell signal in small areas by hooking into a local wired network. Until now, these small cells have served as a small-scale supplement to macro networks, but Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob sees them comprising a much bigger chunk of the network of the future. According to him, there are a few issues with using them in an expanded role, however.
Filed under: Mobile
Provo, Utah’s plan to sell its cost-plagued fiber network to Google has been approved by the municipal council, meaning it’ll soon become the third Google Fiber city. However, while still not receiving any money upfront as earlier reported, it’ll now have to advance $1.7 million in equipment and engineering costs not part of the deal before, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. In exchange, each Provo resident will get a free 5-megabit internet connection for seven years and Google will have to upgrade the network to connect all the city’s homes. It’s not quite free, however, as the city’s 120,000 residents must still pay a $39 million bond for building the network — meaning they’ll shell out $3.3 million for each of the next 12 years.
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
There are free firmware for routers that extend the functionality of certain models – DD-WRT, Tomato and Hyper-WRT come to mind – but if you want a user-friendly interface, the Skydog system might be better for you. Made by PowerCloud Systems, it lets you monitor and manage home networks using a convenient mobile app.
The Skydog router looks like a typical router. It has four Ethernet ports and offers dual band wireless N at up to 300mbps per band. But where it really shines is in its mobile app. The app is based on HTML5, so it will work with practically all mobile devices and desktop computers. It lets you see and label connected devices and restrict or put a time limit to their access, down to specific websites. This is great for parents who want to control their kids’ internet access without having to look over their shoulders all the time.
It also lets you save and switch templates so you can give more bandwidth to certain devices, like when someone wants to play online games or stream high definition videos. Best of all, you can manage a network wherever you are as long as you have an Internet connection. You can even manage multiple Skydog routers. That’s a godsend for people who are designated IT guys in their families.
Pledge at least $99 (USD) on Kickstarter to qualify for an early unit of the Skydog. Better start a fundraiser among your friends and family.
While select outfits race to make satellite broadband an acceptable solution for those who need ping times south of three digits, there’s another game in town looking to quietly revolutionize rural access. As LTE slowly rolls out to major metropolitan areas in the United States, vacated spectrum is allowing companies like Carlson Wireless to offer up another option. TV white spaces — unused TV channels freed up after the analog-to-digital transition of 2009 — have long since been eyed as the answer for distributing high-speed internet to areas that aren’t economical to reach via wireline, or are otherwise shunned by conventional wireless operators.
Armed with an FCC-granted Special Temporary Authority to validate the efficacy of the product in real-world scenarios, Carlson has partnered with Cal.net in order to bring internet to sections of California’s Gold Country; the project comprises multiple transmission sites delivering broadband to several hundred heretofore un-serviceable subscribers in El Dorado County. There’s no word on pricing, but we’re sure hoping it’s a runaway hit — we can think of plenty of gorgeous locales in this country that could stand a pinch of internet. (Yellowstone National Park, we’re looking at you.)
Filed under: Networking, Internet
Source: Carlson Wireless, Cal.net
The first city in the country to get the incredibly fast Google Fiber Internet service was Kansas City. Earlier this month, Google announced the second city to get access to its incredibly fast Internet service would be Austin, Texas. I continue to be insanely jealous that people in these cities will be able to get gigabit Internet speeds while my “broadband” at home is measured in Kbps on a good day.
Google has now announced that the next city to get Google Fiber Internet will be Provo, Utah. Google says that the city of Provo currently has an existing fiber-optic network that it has agreed to purchase and upgrade. That network is called iProvo and all that stands between Google and the city of Provo on the quest to bring incredibly fast Internet speeds is a city council vote scheduled for next week.
Google will offer every home along the path of the existing fiber-optic network free access to Internet service at up to 5 Mbps speeds for seven years with the only out-of-pocket cost being a $30(USD) activation fee. I currently pay more than twice that per month. 25 public institutions including schools, hospitals, and libraries will get free gigabit access. Google also plans on offering its faster Gigabit service and Google Fiber TV service in Provo as well.
If you happen to live in Provo, you can sign up to register your interest in Google Fiber service here.
Your American Airlines flight is definitely not taking off on time. The airline is facing some major computer troubles which have forced it to ground all flights. AA requested the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all of its aircraft. The airline says that its flights are likely to remain grounded until 5:00pm E.T. The computer troubles don’t end here, they have also affected regional American Eagle flights.
According to the statement on American Airline’s website, their network system is experiencing intermittent outages which is why they are currently in system wide ground delay. AA ensures that they are working to resolve this issue as quickly as they can. As of now it is estimated that American Airlines has cancelled 389 flights and American Eagle 291. This situation could lead to further delays as pilots will have to move their planes from gates in order to make room for scheduled flights. AA says that due to the network outage it is unable to modify today’s reservations, however they’ll offer refunds or update travel at no extra cost to passengers when they’re able to do so.
[Image via Mike Fuentes]
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Fiat 500e Arriving In California This Summer, FAA Dismisses Claims An Android App’s Ability To Takeover A Plane, 
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AT&T has announced that it’ll fire up LTE coverage in 16 77 new cities this this summer and that it has expanded or turned on the signal in four 12 other centers. Residents of Kalamazoo, MI and Wilson, NC and four others will now see the much sought-after 4G symbol, while previously neglected Bay Area centers like San Rafael and Brentwood, along with parts of Greensboro, NC will also get coverage, among others. Meanwhile, the famously-named centers mentioned earlier will get 4G later this summer, along with other notables like Rio Grande Valley, TX, Columbus, IN and yes, Athens TX. It makes us wonder if Ma Bell’s getting a little playful with its rollout decisions — check the PR after the break for more info.
Update: AT&T contacted us to say that they’ve now launched LTE in six new markets, expanded in another six regions and pre-announced 77 areas that’ll receive 4G by the end of this summer. The PR has been updated with a comprehensive list.
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