Consumers in the United Kingdom will have the opportunity to enjoy 5G speeds of up to 200Mbps by 2013, reports TechWeekEurope.
The 5G trial will occur in the area from the University of Surrey to Guildford. The total area is about five square kilometers.
“We have developed many technologies that are suitable for 5G using computer simulation and mathematical analysis and what this test bed allows us is to integrate all these technologies together and optimize them end-to-end and take them to standards afterwards,” explains Professor Rahim Tafazolli.
Tafazolli’s team at Surrey believes it can achieve speeds four times as fast as 4G speeds. But such high speeds require a lot of energy, so Tafazoli also stresses energy efficiency as paramount to the project.
“Every 10 to 20 years a new generation of mobile cellular standards will come up,” suggests Tafazolli. “Our proposal is about preparing the research development and standardization for the fifth generation, which is supposed to be deployed by 2030… Research and standardization needs to happen now.”
In a related CNN Moneyarticle last month, head of wireless research at Bell Labs Tod Sizer suggested the still-budding new 4G wireless standard will be inadequate in just five years.
“By 2020, industry analysts say the amount of cellular traffic created by smartphones and tablets will be dwarfed by the data generated from the world of connected ‘things.’ Shoes, watches, appliances, cars, thermostats and door locks will all be on the network,” CNN reports.
The improvements are expected to be incremental. “5G won’t be about more speed, necessarily,” says Sizer. “It may be faster, but it will be more about meeting the expectation of service quality.” The 5G network technology will help prioritize all the things we’re attempting to communicate.
More than a third of Verizon’s data traffic travels on its fastest LTE network. The company says that within the next few months, more than half of its user data will travel on this network.
It took 3G eight years to account for half of Verizon data, but 4G will supplant Verizon’s slower networks in just about two years.
Eleven of Verizon’s 89 million customers had access to 4G LTE coverage as of last quarter. “In a move to get more devices onto the network, Verizon announced in June a shift to new shared data plans,” reports AllThingsD. “Such plans, also offered by AT&T, allow customers to share a pool of gigabytes across multiple devices.”
After Verizon reaches its yearly goal of 400 4G LTE markets on October 18, the company will focus on using LTE Advanced to bolster its capacity to match its growth in coverage area. The company’s LTE network covers 75 percent of the American population, according to Verizon.
Verizon projects that its LTE network will cover voice as well as data by the end of 2013, according to CTO Nicola Palmer, who notes that the company’s network is currently the largest LTE network in the world.
The bipartisan Internet Radio Fairness Act aims to change Internet radio royalty laws. Currently, some digital radio services, like Sirius XM, pay 80 percent lower royalties than others, like Pandora. The law seeks to change this discrepancy.
The new model proposes that Internet royalty rates be measured similarly to those for other forms of radio. Some estimate that if the law passes, Pandora’s stock could rise from its current $11 to over $28.
“Even terrestrial broadcasters support the measure,” notes Slate. “Powerhouses like Clear Channel stream their stations over the Internet these days, so pay higher fees to musicians and other copyright holders for distribution over the Web than over the airwaves.”
But the bill’s passing is not a foregone conclusion, and Slate cautions that entertainers and their powerful lobbyists will fight the legislation.
“MusicFirst, a coalition of labels and artists, also wants to level the playing field, but by raising royalty rates for other services, not shrinking them for the likes of Pandora,” explains the post. “Nevertheless, with a plan now on the congressional playlist, there’s greater option value to Pandora’s income streaming.”
University of Edinburgh researchers have developed a wireless networking system capable of transmitting 130 megabits per second using light waves.
The researchers call their project “Li-Fi” and use “LEDs to transmit data to photo-sensor receivers by making changes in the intensity of light that researchers claim are so fast they are imperceptible to the human eye,” reports Ars Technica.
The goal of the system is to use existing light sources to transfer data. This would greatly impact the mobile industry, where the technology could be integrated into the phone’s camera. This would allow for fast download speeds using natural light sources.
Li-Fi has advantages “including its broader potential spectrum for transmissions — over 10,000 times more spectrum than radio — allowing for thousands of signal channels in the same space, as well as its greater transmission speed as a result,” notes the article.
The system also has the advantage of only working within a particular line of sight. This would allow for secure networking within a closed room environment.
The post includes a 13-minute TED video featuring a Li-Fi demo from Harald Haas, University of Edinburgh’s professor of mobile communications.
Traditional e-reader E Ink models were great for reading in sunlight, and for nostalgic readers who preferred the book-like look of the text, but were ineffective for reading in bed because they lacked their own light source.
But Barnes & Noble changed this with its Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, which allows readers to read an E Ink tablet in dark settings.
Now Amazon has countered with the Kindle Paperwhite, a self-lit E Ink e-reader that reportedly has more even lighting than the Nook.
The Simple Touch with GlowLight’s largest drawback was that the lighting system created hotspots, where some text was unevenly lit. The Kindle Paperwhite has hotspots, but only at the bottom of the screen where its bulbs sit. The rest of the screen is lit evenly through a fiber optic cable.
Overall, the Kindle provides a more comfortable reading experience, but the Nook may provide better value.
The Nook comes with a wall charger, whereas Kindle owners must either pay $10 for a charger or just charge the device from a USB port. Also, the Kindle displays advertisements on its screen saver and on the bottom of the home screen, while the Nook never displays advertisements.
Since Steve Jobs passed away, CEO Tim Cook has approached Apple with less creativity, but also with more maturity, suggests Businessweek.
Cook has increased the value of Apple, improved working conditions at Chinese manufacturing partner Foxconn and diplomatically worked with investors to provide the dividend that Jobs notoriously refused to offer.
Cook has also improved Apple’s operational capacity, “lining up the company’s suppliers to support the unprecedented scale of the iPhone 5 launch,” according to the article.
Apple stock has risen 75 percent under Cook and has become the world’s most valuable company. “Tim has seemingly pulled off what many people doubted he could, which is to sustain and add to Apple’s incredible momentum,” says Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School.
While Apple has seen initial success under new leadership, it remains a question whether Cook can successfully launch products not yet imagined (arguably Jobs’s greatest asset).
For now, Apple is spending much of its resources on developing laser cutting technologies to create even thinner products, and on the development of its own customized chips. If Apple could develop its own line of chips, it could distinguish itself further from other products that run on Intel chips.
Police raided Swedish hosting company PRQ, and as a result many file sharing and streaming sites have been affected. The Pirate Bay co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij founded PRQ.
Although The Pirate Bay was also down recently, this was an unrelated incident, reports TorrentFreak. The Pirate Bay says a power outage caused the problem, and not the PRQ raid.
PRQ owner Mikael Viborg says that police targeted specific hardware, but he is not sure which sites or services they were after. He also notes that “he believes the investigation is related to intellectual property violations,” explains the post.
“Torrenthound.com, linkomanija.net and tankafetast.nu, release blog RLSLOG.net, and the sports streaming sites atdhenet.tv, hahasport.com, sportlemon.tv and stopstream.tv” were all down after the raid. The raid also affected private sites that use PRQ as a host.
Although the PRQ website has returned online, many file-sharing sites remain offline.
The idea of a “data center in a box” has taken hold as demand for Internet data storage rises.
The technology — pioneered by the U.S. military and later adopted by companies like Google and Microsoft — allows companies to store data by stuffing containers full of data centers, and then hooking up the containers to a power and water supply.
Research firm IMS reports the demand for these types of data centers doubled in 2012 and is expected to increase by another 40 percent by next year.
“Data storage and processing is being driven by the growth in mobile computing devices, higher performance computing requirements, increased Internet communication, streaming entertainment, digitization of healthcare and government records, and a migration towards online business models,” explains Liz Cruz, author of the IMS report.
In the short term, this type of data storage is cheaper than building a traditional data center because companies can buy storage as they need it.
In the long run, however, it may prove more costly. But it is also possible that as more companies move into the business of selling this type of storage, the price will drop and the system will become a reasonable long term data storage solution.
Samsung can begin selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablet after a federal judge lifted the sales ban that had been in effect since June.
Judge Lucy Koh originally issued the injunction “based on the likelihood that a jury would find that a specific Apple design patent had been infringed,” reports AllThingsD. But the jury has since found that the tablet did not infringe a specific patent design, so Koh lifted the injunction.
“We are pleased with the court’s action today, which vindicates our position that there was no infringement of Apple’s design patent and that an injunction was not called for,” said Samsung.
Koh originally did not lift the ban, as the issue remained before an appeals court. She can choose to reinstate the ban after a December hearing if she sees fit.
In a separate case, Samsung filed court papers to include the iPhone 5 in another lawsuit between the two tech giants. Samsung claims it prefers to allow the market to dictate success, but says it cannot do so because “Apple continues to take aggressive legal measures that will limit market competition.”
Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett predicts shifts in the satellite television model, “as increases in the cost of programming are also outpacing cable or satellite providers’ ability to support them,” reports TechCrunch.
As the satellite television subscriber rate remains relatively static, programming costs have risen 32 percent over the last five years, and continue to rise at a rate of 10 percent per year.
“According to Moffett, part of the reason that per-subscriber programming costs are rising at DirecTV is that subscriber growth is flat to down,” notes the post. “Meanwhile, programmers continue to ask more for their content, with no signs of letting up.”
Moffett says this combination is “a train wreck in the making” and suggests “something’s gotta give.” He believes the change could come either as a rise in price for subscribers, or a cutback in offerings.
Some providers have already begun offering bundles of channels that do not include higher-priced networks like ESPN. This allows customers who are not interested in these channels to pay less while allowing the provider to remain profitable.
Fewer than 115,000 American households watch 3D TV channels at any given time, reports Businessweek.
After “Avatar” became the highest grossing film of all time, many expected 3D to make a successful transition into homes. But disappointing content, uncomfortable glasses, and increased costs have led to a lack of 3D TV penetration.
Currently only 2 percent of American televisions can show 3D content. IHS Screen Digest expects this number to increase to 6 percent during the holiday season, but only because newer televisions come with the technology.
“While operators like DirecTV and Comcast Corp. don’t charge specifically for channels like ESPN 3D, they are generally bundled in packages that require other spending,” notes the article. Packages that include 3D channels can cost an additional $10 in some cases, and include upfront costs of up to $200.
IHS analyst Tom Morrod says that because 3D technology is typically bundled with other technologies, like motion-smoothing and better color contrast, some people buy 3D capable televisions and never even buy 3D glasses. “There’s very little direct consumer demand,” he says.
From a business standpoint, it is difficult to justify shooting in 3D with such low demand. 3D shoots require extra cameras and about double the labor.
ESPN 3D’s business leader Bryan Burns suggests 3D adoption will eventually take hold, just as HD made it into homes. “It took five years before reporting systems caught up and we knew who actually had the service,” Burns says of HD. “It’s not unfamiliar territory to us. We’ve been down this road before.”
Microsoft plans to release its Windows 8 operating system by the end of October, but the system may not be fully ready by then, according to Intel CEO Paul Otellini.
Bloomberg reports that Otellini shared his thoughts with employees at a company event in Taiwan, suggesting that although the software will need post-release improvements, the release is the right move since it will allow Microsoft to establish a market before the holiday season.
Microsoft hopes the new operating system will allow it to carve out a segment of the crowded tablet space. Apple and Amazon dominate the market, and Google recently experienced some success with its Nexus 7 tablet.
Microsoft is expected to roll out its own tablet — the Surface — by the end of October.
“With over 16 million active preview participants, Windows 8 is the most tested, reviewed and ready operating system in Microsoft’s history. We’re looking forward to making Windows 8 available to the world on October 26th,” Microsoft said in a statement to CNBC.
Hitachi has demonstrated a technology that allows the company to encode data on “quartz glass.” The technique can reportedly store data for 100 million years.
Although the quartz glass formula is proprietary, TechSpot suggests it could be fused quartz. When quartz is subjected to high temperatures for long periods of time it “loses its crystalline structure and can be made into a glass-like substance known as fused quartz.”
Lasers create microscopic pits in four layers of quartz glass that represent binary data. Although the new technology boasts impressive longevity, it can only store about 40MB per square inch. This is about equal to compact disc density, but is much less dense than magnetic storage devices.
The claims that the material could last 100 million years come from accelerated age tests that exposed the material to 1,000 degrees Celsius for two hours. The glass reportedly showed no signs of degradation during the test.
Most consumers that “Like” brand pages on Facebook save money, according to research from Lab42. The market research company surveyed 1,000 social media users on their Facebook brand interaction habits.
The report indicates that about half of consumers value a brand’s Facebook page more than the company’s own website. Overall, 87 percent of surveyed individuals report they liked at least one brand on Facebook.
The largest motivation for liking brands is to save money, according to the report, as 34 percent like the pages for “Promotions/discounts” and 21 percent like the brands for “Free giveaways.”
But while consumers love printing coupons and saving money, brands need not overdo their Facebook activity; 73 percent of people have unliked a brand, and the largest reason to do so is because a brand posts too frequently.
Brands can gain more Facebook fans by posting more giveaways and coupons, posting less often overall, and letting Facebook users hide that they like the brand. The last item is the trickiest for the brands, as companies want information to be public. But many people are embarrassed to like certain brands, and privacy can help increase the total number of fans.
Time Warner has redesigned Flixster to focus less on its native UltraViolet digital locker and more on helping users find the films they want on any movie rental service.
Flixster’s redesign “now highlights purchase and rental options from Vudu, Amazon, and iTunes. And it even shows users when movies are available through subscription services like Netflix,” explains TechCrunch. “That means that pretty much any movie available online can be found on the app — which is big news for movie lovers.”
Since Time Warner also owns Rotten Tomatoes, the new Flixster site allows people to filter search results based on Tomatometer rankings. Users can also filter based on year, popularity, genre and other factors.
The site redesign also allows one-click UltraViolet registration with Facebook connectivity. Users can earn rewards for tasks like creating a “want-to-see” list or downloading related apps.
“Of course, Flixster isn’t the only video discovery engine out there focused on premium content,” notes the post. “There’s Fanhattan, which also hooks into multiple video services, and is available for the iPhone and iPad. In addition to getting the website redesign out of beta, Flixster is working on a relaunch of its mobile apps, which will bring a lot of the same functionality to those devices.”
