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One phone charger for all? There can be only one! According to Reuters, telecom firms have backed standard phone charger in Europe. No, hell hasn't frozen over. Yes, you will finally be able to use a single charger that works with any future mobile phone you purchase - at least in Europe anyway. That's one less charger to pack when traveling and one less charger to throw away when you upgrade your mobile phone. The top mobile telephone suppliers, including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and others have agreed to back an EU-wide standard for phone chargers. New mobile phones will use a standard micro-USB socket to ensure compatibility.

Motorola, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments have also signed the agreement. Interestingly, Apple has also signed on. You mean Apple which charges licensing rights for their proprietary docking cable is on board too? Well, well... Isn't Apple fighting Palm over the Pre emulating an Apple iPod to enable iTunes support? Seems against Apple's nature to support a connection standard that has enabled such a huge third-party cottage industry for Apple's iPod and iPhone products. For example, Apple licenses their connector to FM transmitters, iPod external speakers, and more.

So one charger for any mobile phone - surely there's a catch...

Smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) while very similar feature-wise, each has their own distinct advantages. Smartphones such as the iPhone have been widely successful, while the MID market has been a bit slow to take off. Elektrobit Corporation (EB), based in Oulu, Finland aims to change that with their new MID reference design that combines the "pocketability" of smartphones with the power of PCs/netbooks since it can run desktop Linux applications. Picture an iPhone that can actually run full version Linux applications such as Firefox, Opera, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, SSH client, and more. That's exactly what you'll get with Elektrobit's (EB) new MID reference design. EB's sleek, media-centric MID reference device takes the power of the PC and makes it pocket-able so you don't have to compromise on mobile capabilities.

I spoke with EB's Vesa Kiviranta Vice President, Mobile Internet Device Solutions, Wireless Solutions BU about their new reference design. Vesa explained that it's based on Intel's next generation Moores­town platform. The reference design includes touch-screen support with multi-touch (cool!) support. It uses the latest 3D and high resolution capacitive sensing touch screen (3.97") powered by EB Touch & Feel technology. Because the screen measures nearly 4 inches (3.97"), it fits into the MID category, while smartphones have screens smaller than 3.9 inches and netbooks have screens larger than 5 inches.The reference design relies on a Linux-based OS with EB's MID UI & Application framework based on QT. It also features EB Navigation Suite with integrated GPS.

It supports two cameras (front & back of phone) so not only can you snap photos, it can also easily support videoconferencing/videochat. I asked EB about support for Skype video chat  and they told me it will indeed be supported in their MID design. In fact, they tested it using the Linux Skype application in their labs. As far as I know, this marks the first time a pocketable mobile phone can perform Skype videoconferencing! Cool stuff! I know many iPhone fans were very disappointed the new iPhone 3GS didn't add a front-facing camera (myself included), which would allow for videochat capabilities. Of course, the current Skype for iPhone client doesn't support video, but my sources tell me it's in the works. It will be very hard to have a videoconference if you have to turn the iPhone around so the camera is facing you, but not the iPhone screen. Basically, they'll be able to see you, but you won't be able to see them - unless you spin the iPhone back around.

Father's Day is just around the corner, so no doubt you'll be wanting to get your dad some cool gadgets for his "man cave". Well, Walmart has some sick deals going on this Father's Day, including a $128 Magnavox Blu-ray Disc player (NB500MGX)! Wow, no reason to not have a Blu-ray player now. Man that's cheap! I remember when they were over $300. Other deals include select Blu-ray movies two for $20, inexpensive HDTVs, and more. Walmart explains, "Every dad has a man cave at home - the place you most likely will find him when he wants to relax. Starting June 14, Walmart is helping families find savings that add something more to man caves in his game room, garage and backyard." They break down the various cave types, including The Game Room/Living Room Cave, The Home Office Cave, Mobile Man Cave, The Deck Cave, and The Garage Cave. What, no Parlor Room Cave, Bathroom Cave, Kitchen Cave, Laundry Room Cave? Oh, those are for Mother's Day, you say?

Check out the full release after the jump...

              Fiber? You didn't see any fiber down there.

There's dark fiber, and then there's really dark fiber, or what we'll call "black" fiber. Construction crews inevitably will accidentally cut a fiber line when doing underground construction. It's par for the course. However,what it isn't par for the course is cutting into a fiber line and then within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drive up, a half-dozen men in [black] suits jump out and one says, "You just hit our line."

According to the The Washington Post, a fiber cut in Tysons Corner brought a visit from men in suits driving black SUVs. When the construction crew asked "Whose line?" the black suits didn't answer. The article states, "The construction manager was shocked," Georgelas recalled. "He had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually you've got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response that quickly was amazing."

Must be those nanites embedded into the fiber with GPS sensors that can even receive GPS signals through 100 feet of rock and soil which can immediately detect a fiber cut and transmit GPS coordinates back to HQ.

According to the article, "the cable in question was "black" wire -- a secure communications line used for some of the nation's most secretive intelligence-gathering operations." Think NSA or even deeper - Men In Black, responsible for tracking those pesky illegal alien immigrants and keeping them out of trouble. Relatedly, rumor has it President Obama is an alien - a Vulcan I might add.

I'm skeptical the MIB showed up so quickly because it's their critical secure line. I'm thinking they were playing World of Warcraft across government buildings and were mighty peeved when they lost their private data connection causing the game to freeze up. "Dude, I so had you PWNed! Now go and find out who the heck cut our line!"

Gartner, a respected research firm located just a stone's throw from TMC said today, "mobile VoIP poses a huge challenge for traditional mobile voice providers." You don't say? Hmm, I would have never guessed such a thing. Ok, other than stating the obvious, the research does have some fascinating points, including claiming that ore than 50% of mobile voice traffic will be carried using end-to-end VoIP by 2019 - or basically 10 years from now.

"Mobile portal voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offered by third-party application-based providers poses a huge and direct challenge to the $692.6 billion global mobile voice market", according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that over time traditional network-based mobile carriers face the real prospect of losing a major slice of their voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP.

But Gartner doesn't paint an entirely rosy picture for VoIP. Gartner said "that despite this significant potential, conditions for the rapid expansion in the use of mobile VoIP are not yet right and are not likely to become right for at least five years and perhaps as long as eight years."

Yeah, well when carriers like AT&T pull crap like forcing Apple to only allow VoIP over WiFi and not over a 3G data connection, it's no wonder why mobile VoIP growth will be stunted by anti-competitive tactics. Then you have countries like Canada which outright block Skype on the iPhone. Fortunately, avid mobile phone users aren't taking this lying down. For instance, you can jailbreak your iPhone and run VoIP over 3G no problem.

Why do we have to put up with this crippleware? I get that AT&T is a business and needs to make money. If they're worried that flat-rate data plans that run VoIP over it will drastically hurt their voice revenue, then change your business model! Keep the flat-rate data plan, but install packet-inspection technology that detects voice packets and charge a few cents for VoIP calls. If the flat-rate data plan's business model is outdated, which it seems to be, then change it.

Yeah, sure customers may not like the idea and certainly it seems that our culture today expects "something for nothing", but hey, it's business folks. I'd rather have the capability of making VoIP calls using a SIP provider or make Skype calls and pay a few pennies than not be able to use VoIP over 3G/4G at all. I'm sure if AT&T did try and charge money for VoIP calls running over a data connection that customer advocate groups, the ACLU, and people who think they should get something for nothing will run to the government and complain that AT&T is charging them money for using VoIP. Perish the thought that a business is charging you money for using their services!

Maybe we should just nationalize all the carriers like most countries have and then petition Congress to pass a law that will force the nationalized carriers to give us free mobile VoIP. Heck, with trillions of dollars being spent on the bailout package, why not free mobile VoIP at the expense of the big bad carriers? Free healthcare for everyone, free mobile VoIP for everyone, it's all free baby! Socialism here we come!

Ok end rant. Back to Gartner...

"Mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017," said Tole Hart, research director at Gartner. "Once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings. In 10 years time we expect that 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub."

A number of third parties, such as Skype, Truphone and fring, which carry VoIP traffic using a mobile phone, have cropped up in the past couple of years, offering access to voice services via Wi-Fi and/or the carriers' wireless voice networks. This has been the most efficient way to offer the service to date because of the inconsistencies of voice services over third-generation (3G) data networks. However, with the advent of 4G networks (WiMAX and Long Term Evolution [LTE]), and increased use of smartphones with open operating systems, it is conceivable, perhaps even inevitable, that wireless voice services will be run completely over VoIP.

"Ten years from now, more than half of mobile voice traffic will be carried end-to-end using VoIP," said Akshay Sharma, research director at Gartner. "Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks. Third parties will adopt a voice option for their communications hub."

Gartner analysts warned that there will also be a number of factors that will inhibit the adoption of third-party, end-to-end VoIP services, including the delay in rolling out 4G networks because of current economic conditions and also the general plan to put 4G only in the main cities and build out from there. Nevertheless, in five to 10 years time, as 4G networks become common, mobile VoIP services will have a strong impact on the communications market.

Competing with mobile portal VoIP will be wireless carriers that offer circuit and VoIP voice and data services, and resellers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that also offer services off the carrier networks. Gartner expects this opening of the VoIP channels to spawn a number of voice services from companies that offer voice services to communities using voice as a communications link. This means that the biggest competitors to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and e-mail, as people may prefer to use these types of communication because of their non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming nature.

Although the impact of the technology shift will be gradual as 4G networks roll out, Gartner advises carriers to start thinking now about how the transition will occur and how they might cooperate and partner with other types of service providers. Third-party providers, such as Google and Yahoo, should look to offer voice services today using the carriers' networks and Wi-Fi to leverage their portfolio of services. Mobile social communities, such as Facebook and MySpace, which benefit from messaging traffic as it keeps eyeballs on their sites, should also have a voice option.

Hold the phone! Global warming has been canceled! A new study by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could cause President Obama to re-think Cap and Trade legislation that aims to reduce carbon emissions through a new "carbon" tax.

The article about the global warming study states:

The climate is known to be variable and, in recent years, more scientific thought and research has been focused on the global temperature and how humanity might be influencing it.

However, a new study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could turn the climate change world upside down.

Scientists at the university used a math application known as synchronized chaos and applied it to climate data taken over the past 100 years...

"In climate, when this happens, the climate state changes. You go from a cooling regime to a warming regime or a warming regime to a cooling regime. This way we were able to explain all the fluctuations in the global temperature trend in the past century," Tsonis said. "The research team has found the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have leveled off since 2001."

More...

Synchronized chaos? Now that's some funky science. Sounds like something from Star Trek if you ask me. Scientists are going to examine the study to see if there is indeed some validity. If proven accurate, then maybe all that talk about humans causing Global Warming is wrong? We can all agree that Global Warming exists, as does Global Cooling. The question is whether it's a natural cycle or if human activity is having an adverse effect on the climate.

As for me, I'm all for less carbon pollution, including less carbon dioxide, a by-product of human breathing. Not sure I agree that a cap and trade tax is the way to do it though. Seems like just another government scam to come up with a new tax. The U.S. electric companies, which burn coal to produce 57% of U.S.'s electricity, will be hammered hard with this tax. But guess who pays for it? You the consumer. The cap and trade "sin" tax might work if it forced the electric companies to build "clean" power from nuclear power, but the U.S. hasn't built a nuclear plant since Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar 1 reactor was built in 1973. The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality and political wrangling has forestalled any nuclear power plants being built. So we stuck between a rock (cap and trade) and a hard place (no new nuclear plans) for America's future electricity needs. With more people using electricity-guzzling large screen TVs, multiple home PCs/laptops, gadgets, and mobile phones, America's insatiable demand for electricity is only going to get worse.

So for me, this cap and trade is just a smokescreen for the government to raise billions of dollars. Also, when I we start to get taxed for breathing carbon dioxide, then by golly, you will see revolts and protests that will make the Boston Tea Party look like a slumber party. Ok, no political party would be that dumb to "tax" breathing - certainly not if they value their political future. Still, the cap and trade legislation may not target human breathing, but once precedent is set for taxing carbon dioxide, we're one step closer to that end. Just imagine a future 1040 IRS tax form where you have to fill out the number of TVs, PCs, mobile phones, DVD players, gaming consoles so they can calculate your "carbon footprint"? Even George Orwell himself couldn't have imagined such a government intrusion.

This is the greatest Linux command ever! Definitely my favorite.
find ./ -name \*.html -printf '%CD\t%p\n' | grep "03/10/08" | awk '{print $2}' | xargs -t -i mv {} temp/

What it does is look (find) for files that end in .html uses the printf option to format the 'find' output, then passes it to grep for searching for a certain date, then awk for printing a certain field, and finally xargs for executing a certain command.

Let's break it down...

The printf part within the find command has the format '%CD\t%p\n'.

%Cx = File's last status change time in the format specified by x. x=D. D=date in the format mm/dd/yy
\t = Horizontal tab
%p = file's name
\n = newline

So basically it outputs the file's last status change followed by a horizontal tab, then the filename, and then a new line. But before it outputs it, it sends it to 'grep' which searches the output and only outputs lines with "03/10/09".

Example so far: (minus the awk, xargs and mv commands)
find ./ -name \*.html -printf '%CD\t%p\n' | grep "03/10/09"
Outputs this: (notice the tab to separate the 2 fields)
03/10/09        ./2005/05/index.html
03/10/09        ./2005/03/index.html
03/10/09        ./2005/04/index.html
03/10/09        ./linked-in.html
03/10/09        ./consumer-electronics/samsung-bribery-news.html
03/10/09        ./technology/iptv/index.html

Now send this output into the awk command (awk '{print $2}') which parses it and pulls out the 2nd column/field (hence the tab character), which is the filename, including the path.

Here's the output you now have after adding awk '{print $2}' in:
./2005/05/index.html
./2005/03/index.html
./2005/04/index.html
./linked-in.html
./consumer-electronics/samsung-bribery-news.html
./technology/iptv/index.html

Next, send this output of "exact path + filename" to xargs for execution in the Linux shell.

The "xargs -t -i mv {} temp/" part basically takes the input from the previous commands (files named .html modified on 3/10/09) and moves (mv) them to the temp/ folder.

The xargs command can do anything. So instead of moving the files, I could delete them, run chmod on them, or something else.

It took me awhile to write this command. I've used various methods of finding files on Linux servers over the years, but this one is one of the most powerful.

Definitely a command you should have in your Linux arsenal!

p.s. Here's another tip. If you want to search ALL files (not just .html) then use the following command. Notice the \* and not * for the search. That part got me since I didn't think the * (wildcard) had to be backslashed. Usually when you backslash a character that means you want the 'literal' character specified after the \ (backslash) character. I didn't want filenames with a '*' in it. I wanted the wildcard. That threw me for a minute before I figured it out. Anyway, here's the command:
find ./ -name \* -printf '%CD\t%p\n' | grep "03/10/08" | awk '{print $2}' | xargs -t -i mv {} temp/

What happens when you string together 24 256GB Samsung MLC SSDs - you get 6TB of storage and 2GB/sec throughput. Sweet mother of ---!

Discovered the news on Lucas Mearian's Computer World blog who writes:

When you've got millions of dollars at your disposal, and access to some of the industry's best hardware engineers, what do you do? Well, if you're Samsung you make a YouTube video showing the speed, capacity and reliability you can get by stringing together 24 solid state disk drives behind a RAID controller to create "the world's most powerful consumer computer". The result: 6TB of storage and 2GB/sec throughput that is able to load 53 programs 18 seconds. Whoa.

The video below shows the 24 SSDs setup along with some interesting benchmarks. For instance, in the video they rip a 700MB DVD in 0.8s, open all of Microsoft Office apps in 0.5s, and launch 53 programs in 18.09s! At $500 a pop per SSD, it'll cost you $12,000 for ludicrously fast hard drive speeds! Of course, I remember writing about Samsung's Super Fast SATA hard drive in 2004, which featured 3Gb/s speed using traditional HDD technology, which is cheaper than SSDs. Of course, it's 3Gb/s (3 Gigabits per second) not 3GB/s (3 Gigabytes per second), so you'd have to divide that by 8 bits per byte or 0.375 GB/s or 375MB/s. That's odd - that's faster than the 220MB/s random access speed of each individual SSD (aggregate is 24 x 220MB/s). I thought SSDs were generally faster than hard drives? Something must be off in my math. Actually, just read that the 3GB/s is the speed of the I/O channel. The read speed is 1.5GB/s or 0.156 GB/s, which is 156MB/s . Now that sounds more accurate!

And then of course, there's perpendicular hard drive technology, which is a new way of "squeezing" more bits onto a hard drive by changing the orientation of the way the bits are recorded. Normally magnetic bits are written parallel to the drive's surface, but not with perpendicularity - its 90 degrees perpendicular to the normal parallel orientation. Because the bits are recorded upright and "into" the surface of the drive platter, you can squeeze a lot more bits together without the bits polarity causing the bits to flip their magnetic orientation. Check out my blog post where a classic School House Rock video makes an appearance along with a hilarious Hitachi video on perpendicular HDD technology.

Anyway, here's the 24 SSD RAID video:

Om Malik sent a note saying Cisco CEO John Chambers posted a guest blog entry so I went to check it out.

John begins:

Now that President Obama has signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law, the real hard work begins: using that money to create jobs. If spent wisely, this package has a chance at fundamentally reforming the U.S. health-care system, making our economy energy efficient and providing Americans with the training and skills required to succeed in a 21st century global marketplace.

But the country can't accomplish these goals unless it has the infrastructure to support them. That's why the funding for broadband was so vital. Broadband is the ticket for entry to participate in the world economy. It is a fundamental technology upon which other things are built. It enables collaboration, innovation and operational excellence, and positions the U.S. to compete on a global basis.

Well, you probably already know my thoughts on Obama's broadband stimulus. I hate it! It's not that I wouldn't like 100% of Americans to all have high-speed broadband. I just don't think broadband is that vital that we need to spend billions of tax payer dollars when we are a fiscal crisis, the stock market is imploding, and the deficit is shooting through the roof. The "pie in the sky" idea that the government can just magically produce more money (and spend it) to do just about anything is partly what got us into this economic mess. What happened to fiscal responsibility? What happened to only spending what you have? Why are we mortgaging our children's future by throwing money around?

I support an economic stimulus to help spark the economy, but spending billions on broadband today when we won't actually reap the rewards for years... it just seems to me like the money could be better spent elsewhere for a more immediate economic impact. Believe me, I love my broadband and feel sorry for those that can't get it, but those billions of dollars could be better spent to help the economy in the near future.

And don't forget to factor in 'compound interest' and government waste. The government has never been good at investing money wisely, because it isn't their money. It's your money. It's so much easier to spend other people's money foolishly. So if it's a $40 billion broadband package, then expect it to cost the tax payer more like $120 billion.

I can see why John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco supports the broadband stimulus. It gives Cisco a HUGE windfall of revenue to help build out this high-speed broadband network. Cisco is obviously a huge benficiary of this broadband stimulus.

John ends his guest blog post with this:

As our policymakers work on maintaining U.S. competitiveness, they should keep in mind that broadband is the vehicle by which our citizens can be more productive, health care can be modernized, our economy can become more efficient and innovation can flourish. To continue our nation's growth, add jobs and drive innovation, we must invest in broadband.

I agree investments must be made in broadband. My beef is with who the "we" is. Is it the "we" tax payer or is it "we" the employees at Verizon, AT&T, Level3, and other ISPs that should 'invest' in building broadband networks. The web has only existing for about 14 years and in that time, U.S. companies themselves have brought high-speed broadband to 80-90% of Americans without a government (aka tax payer) handout.

We Americans complain about the banks needing billions of dollars in government bailout money to stay afloat, yet we're willing to hand over billions to corporations to "help" them build high-speed broadband without complaint? It doesn't make any sense. I guess because we all love our broadband so much and we want to "share the broadband love", we're willing to look the other way when the government gives OUR money to broadband providers.

If we had a budget surplus, I'd me more apt to say go ahead and give the ISPs money to build out their networks. But to me with all this spending on programs that won't stimulate the economy today, President Obama is being penny-wise, pound-foolish. Make that penny-foolish, pound foolish.

Rich met with ooma recently to see their latest wares and hear about their current business model. Recently, ooma ditched the 'P2P voice network' idea where users actually "share" their home landline with others and instead became a traditional VoIP broadband provider. Apparently, the privacy issues were too much to overcome, since users were concerns about fraudulent activity happening on their home landline by outside ooma users. I had my own reservations about the business model as well, since they claimed it would take 2,000 strategicly placed ooma boxes in all the various local exchanges to get good local call coverage for free P2P calls.

Besides becoming a traditional VoIP broadband provider, ooma is now going to start offering high-end media phones, that according to Rich Tehrani will in the future feature a picture frame, in-house sensors and cameras. As for what they offer today, in early January, ooma launched Telo, which offers unlimited, free VoIP-to-PSTN (U.S.) calls over the Internet along with a DECT 6.0 cordless phone that supports call screening, MP3 ringtones, 12-hour talk time, HD voice, speakerphone, two-line support, mobile transfer, and intercom. It supports up to eight phone numbers and six phones


                   ooma's Telo phone system with DECT 6.0 handset.

The Telo phone system is expected to be available in the first half of 2009. The next question you're probably thinking is "If it's free unlimited U.S. VoIP-to-PSTN calls, how does ooma make any money?" The answer to that is ooma offers ooma Premier, with advanced features that they hope people will opt & pay for. (See: http://www.ooma.com/company/how_we_make_money.php)

Some of the Premiere features include:

• Instant Second Line allows you to make or take two simultaneous calls from a single phone number
• Blacklists helps you protect your privacy and block telemarketers
• Multiring lets you answer calls from your home phone or cell phone
• Message Screening allows you to listen in as the caller is leaving their message
• Send to Voicemail allows you to transfer a call to your voicemail
• Voicemail Forwarding lets you forward voicemail so that you can listen to it from your favorite email program
• Do Not Disturb allows you to roll your calls into voicemail without ringing your phone
• Personal Numbers allows you to select additional phone numbers in any calling area in the US

The "free" unlimited calling puts them on par with magicJack, but the magicJack is much less expensive (magicJack costs $39.99 1st year, and $19.99/yr in subsequent years). Pricing for Telo has not been announced, but I'm sure it will be much more expensive since the hardware costs so much more. One advantage for Telo is that magicjack requires your PC to be on all the time to make/receive calls over its USB-based dongle. The Telo phone system is a standalone phone that has no such restriction. It's also a multi-line and multi-handset phone platform, so it's more suitable to busy households that require multiple lines or phone handsets.

Check out Rich's post for more on Telo and how the FCC is actually an investor in ooma.