Canadian phone providers go cooperative (unlike US phone providers):
Canada’s cellphone providers have agreed to create a common standard for their subscribers to connect to the Internet via public “hot-spots.” The 12-million people who own cellphones, personal digital assistants or any wireless device and subscribe to Bell Mobility (with Aliant Mobility), Microcell Solutions (Fido), Rogers AT&T Wireless or Telus Mobility will be able to use all Wi-Fi hot-spots operated by any one of those companies.
The plan is to create “a common identity” in which Wi-Fi subscribers would be recognized by the other companies’ hot spots and would have to pay for on-line time only to their own carriers. …
The agreement became necessary because Canada’s cellphone providers offer four different and incompatible connection technologies.
“Roaming” has a new meaning in Canada.
Network carriers, cell phone, commons, cooperation, hot spots, mobile phone, mobileTech, PDA, roaming, wi-fi, wireless
It happened in Amsterdam:
The incident, which occurred Tuesday, happened after the woman dropped her phone in a music store in central Amsterdam. It caught fire when she picked it up and switched it back on, a police spokesman said.
She used a replacement battery, from an independent electronics manufacturer, which was “not a Nokia accessory.”
Devices battery, cell phone, electronics, fire, mobileTech
Consumer backlash takes the fore:
Data protection and privacy concerns are forcing retailers to rethink plans for the use of controversial product tracking tags.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags have been seen by many retailers as an ideal way of stepping up in-store security and preventing shoplifting.The tags, which emit radio frequencies capable of being picked up 90 feet away, are currently being trialled by supermarket Tesco.
One Cambridge store has been using the tags to photograph shoppers when they remove packets of Gillette razor blades from the shelf.
But now Gillette, an early user of RFID technology, has backtracked from using the tags on its commercial products. Instead it now plans to use the tags only on palettes, enabling it to track products through its supply chain.
Gillette’s trial, which started in January, was due to continue throughout 2004. It wanted to evaluate RFID technology for monitoring products from manufacturer to retailer. Many of its products disappear before ever being stacked on shop shelves.
Devices mobileTech, privacy, retail, RFID, supply chain, surveillance, tracking
Hollywood thinks it knows why 2003 is “rapidly becoming known as the year of the failed blockbuster.” It’s teenagers. They’re IM’ing their friends with instant reviews, and that’s killing the opening weekend sales. Nevermind instant customer feedback to both the movie content and to the “carefully crafted marketing campaigns” that don’t work.
Five years ago, when summer movies were arguably just as bad as they are now, the average audience drop-off between a film’s opening weekend and its second weekend was 40 per cent. This summer, it has been 51 per cent. In some cases, the drop-off has started between the film’s opening on a Friday night and the main screenings on Saturday. The upshot: unsuccessful films disappearing from cinemas so fast that there is no time for second opinions.
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Running XP? Be warned: Microsoft is considering mandatory and automatic patch installs.
“The company is ‘looking very seriously’ at requiring future versions of Windows to accept automatic software fixes unless the user specifically refuses to receive them, said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s security business unit.
‘The feedback we got when we did XP a few years ago was ‘I don’t want Microsoft automatically putting things onto my machine,’ ‘ Nash said. ‘What we’re finding now is that through a combination of the availability of broadband and customers wanting to stay up to date with security patches, and, most importantly, considering the kinds of threats out there now, that customers want us to keep them up to date automatically — not just by downloading the patches for them but installing them as well.’”
Nevermind the instability that this may introduce. I don’t think they’re suggesting that they’d install a patch to fix unbootable systems or come to our homes/offices and reinstall the system.
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Google just announced a mathematical calculator as part of its services– trained to recognize words and numbers.
But this calculator doesn’t just do simple multiplication. It also handles conversions. Cooks may like being able to type in “quarter cup in teaspoons” and see Google reply “1 quarter US cup = 12 US teaspoons.” Does a mechanic want to know the size of a replacement part for a clock in inches, but you only know it in millimeters? Enter ” .715 mm in inches” and Google will inform you it equals 0.0281496063 inches.
Google’s calculator goes beyond basic arithmetic to do complex math and crunch physical constants, too. It will process such queries as “G * mass of earth.” or “speed of light * two.” Type “What is the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight” and you’ll get this reply: “the speed of light = 1.8026175 x 10{+1}{+2} furlongs per fortnight.”
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The next incarnation in wireless networking?
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. expects a single-chip 2.4-GHz radio it’s announcing this week to leapfrog a batch of existing wireless technologies for such low-cost applications as keyboards, game pads, mice and remote controls. By stripping out the higher-layer networking support and complexity of Bluetooth, ZigBee, 27-MHz and 900-MHz wireless technologies, Cypress keeps the current draw of its WirelessUSB LS radio in sleep mode below 1 microamp and its price at about $2, with plans to cut it to $1 quickly, the company said.
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Agent Smith, last June in Japan:
then worshipping the dinosaur and other activities in NY earlier this month. Now Dublin and the slightly more far-flung parts are getting into the act.
One anonymous person noted that this activity could be the functional equivalent of a social denial of service attack on a recipient location, albeit a short-lived one.
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Device that picks up 0.495-2450MHz radio stations, also receives regular television signals, amateur television, and wireless security camera signals and more. Gives new meaning to “see what’s out there!”
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Wired article on why wireless Internet access is “such a dud business,” and why free access rules.
Starbucks charges up to $6 an hour for in-store T-Mobile access – not much more than a double venti Frappuccino with a raspberry shot. Though its wildly successful overpricing works for coffee, it’s failing with Wi-Fi. Demand for the service averages fewer than two customers a day per store.
Starbucks is just trying to cover its costs. Sure, leasing a broadband connection with a Wi-Fi base is cheap. But add a billing system – secure login server, transactional database, credit card processing, tech staff, customer service operators standing by – and the outlay skyrockets to $30, $50, even $70 a day, particularly if there are lots of support calls. (Ironically, most of those calls will be about problems with the billing system itself.) …
With business districts from Long Beach, California, to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, falling over one another to promote Bryant Park-style networks, not having hot spots will soon be like not having drinking fountains. By year’s end, when McDonald’s makes good on its plan to roll out in-store networks and bundles free access with every Combo Meal, any lingering doubts will be erased. Wi-Fi isn’t a luxury or even a commodity. It’s a condiment.
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