Hasta La Gadget!

Over the years of idle channel surfing and menu browsing you’ve surely developed some finely-honed IR shootin’ skills, knowing which surfaces will and will not reflect the signals from your under-powered universal remote control as you try to bounce that beam around a pile of magazines and soda cans on the coffee table. Those skills are on a fast-track to obsolescence thanks to the new ZigBee Input Device standard, which finally could bring all TV remote controls to the world of RF wholesale. Well, it could, if it finds more success than the already existing ZigBee Remote Control spec has managed. The new Input Device standard builds on that, said to require less juice than IR so those tired and mismatched AAs could last even longer. It’ll also work with mice and keyboards and the like, but naturally we’re most optimistic for remotes, even though this comes a little too late to let us turn off our PS3s with our Harmonys.

Continue reading ZigBee finalizes low-power, RF standard for input devices, could finally kill off IR for good

ZigBee finalizes low-power, RF standard for input devices, could finally kill off IR for good originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Qualcomm and AT&T are no longer talking about a deal, they’ve agreed to one: pending regulatory checks and other closing conditions, the wireless spectrum that was once dedicated to FLO TV will now be transferred into AT&T’s ownership in a $1.925 billion deal. Located in the lower 700MHz range, this bit of wireless space is said to cover more than 300 million people nationwide and AT&T expects it to play an important role in its future 4G network rollout and development. All that due diligence housekeeping will take the two companies a little while, with the deal expected to be finalized in the latter half of 2011, but at least we can rest assured that AT&T’s serious about not being left behind.

Continue reading AT&T buys Qualcomm’s FLO TV spectrum for a cool $1.9b, promises 4G awesomeness

AT&T buys Qualcomm’s FLO TV spectrum for a cool $1.9b, promises 4G awesomeness originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Last week, my next-door neighbor rang my bell and asked if he could use my Wi-Fi for the night. Sure! No problem! But he’s still poking around on my network right now. Why are you still on my network, neighbor? More »

This article was written on February 12, 2008 by CyberNet.

BlackBerry’s email service decided to go out for lunch yesterday and didn’t come back. By that we mean there was a major BlackBerry outage yesterday and thousands upon thousands of people were without access to their wireless email.  Given the crowd of people who typically use it (e.g., businessmen and other professionals), there were a lot of unhappy campers (especially given that this is the 2nd major outage in a years time).

So about that BlackBerry outage…  Remember the nickname that has been given to the Blackberry? It’s called the Crackberry because so many people become addicted do the device. What happens to addicts when they’re deprived of what they’re addicted to? They go through withdrawals and that’s exactly what happened to BlackBerry users yesterday. The Associated Press quoted one person saying that everyone was in crisis.  They said:

Everyone’s in crisis because they’re all picking away at their BlackBerrys and nothing’s happening. It’s almost like cutting the phone cables or a total collapse in telegraph lines a century ago. It just isolates people in a way that’s quite phenomenal.

Another person, a businessman named Stuart Gold was one of many that was mad about another major outage. He was quoted as saying:

I don’t know what happened, I don’t care what happened. They need to save their excuses for someone who cares.

It’s actually quite amazing what an impact one device can have on the World. This critical outage also had the opposite effect.  Besides the upset and angry customers, there were those who took the outage as a welcome break. One man who was quoted by Reuters said his life was easier without it because he didn’t have to worry about replying.

While I’m sure it did most everybody some good to step away from the BlackBerry for just a few hours, the underlying thought here is that RIM needs to make sure a major outage like this does not happen again. People want reliability and in a competitive market, people can leave BlackBerry behind for something that might be more reliable than what they’re currently getting like an iPhone or a Palm device. Oh wait, the iPhone experienced an outage not that long ago too back on January 31st! Is any service reliable these days or are we just expecting too much?

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

The New BlackBerry 9000MobileMe and Gmail Outage YesterdayA Glimpse at the BlackBerry ThunderGoogle Shows BlackBerry Love with Calendar Sync ToolGoogle Maps with Voice (Experimental) on Your BlackBerry

Though Twitter has become a greater professional tool than we’d imagine anyone ever intended it’s still hard to take the service too seriously. We like silly twitterers, whether they be offering pretend writing advice, charting the reclusive tendencies of Hollywood’s leading men, or just threatening to force choke any troll who gets in their way. Wouldn’t it be fun if your pooch could get in on those antics? No, as it turns out, it isn’t all that fun at all.

Continue reading Mattel Puppy Tweets review

Mattel Puppy Tweets review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments