Technology and Science

Verizon Inflight Wireless Broadband

December 12, 2005

According to PRNewswire, "Verizon Airfone has made significant progress toward providing wireless broadband services for U.S. air travel. The announcement follows the FCC's establishment of rules for auctioning spectrum in the 800 MHz band dedicated to commercial air-to-ground telecommunication services. The FCC's action will enable the agency to auction spectrum licenses early in 2006 and puts Verizon Airfone one step closer to providing its customers with broadband services.

Posted in News, Technology and Science, Wireless

Ludicrous speed! 150 gigabits per second!

December 8, 2005

According to Fermilab, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center recently joined an international team in shattering the world network speed record. To capture first place in the SC|05 Bandwidth Challenge, the team of high energy physicists, computer scientists and network engineers led by the California Institute of Technology transferred physics data at a rate of over 150 gigabits per second--equivalent to downloading over 130 DVD movies in one minute. Poor MPAA (& RIAA)... Wont be long now before we can download the entire Hollywood library of thousands of movies in just minutes. I'm hearing a Homer Simpson, "Woohoo!" in my head. Ludicrous speed ahead!

Posted in News, Technology and Science

Intel new ultra-fast low power transistor

December 7, 2005

According to TMCnet, Intel Corporation today announced development of a new, ultra-fast, yet very low power prototype transistor using new materials "that could form the basis of its microprocessors and other logic products beginning in the second half of the next decade."

Intel and QinetiQ researchers have jointly demonstrated an enhancement-mode transistor using indium antimonide (chemical symbol: InSb) to conduct electrical current. Transistors control the flow of information/electrical current inside a chip. The prototype transistor is much faster and consumes less power than previously announced transistors. Intel anticipates using this new material to complement silicon, further extending Moore's Law.

Posted in Microsoft, News, Technology and Science

300GB DVD to challenge Blue-Ray?

November 29, 2005

With the ongoing nasty war between the Blue-Ray and HD-DVD camps, it looks like their is a new entrant entering the ring and joining the fight.

In the Blue-Ray corner we have Blue-Ray founders, Sony Corporation and Royal Philips Electronics along with corner-men 20th Century Fox, Apple,
Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Dell, Electronic Arts, MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, Vivendi Universal Games, and Warner Bros. Sony aims to make Blue-ray the standard of choice by including a Blue-ray disc drive in their forthcoming Playstation 3.

And entering into the HD-DVD corner we have founders Toshiba and Hitachi with corner-men Buena Vista Home Entertainment, New Line Cinema, NEC, Microsoft, Paramount Pictures, Sanyo, The Walt Disney Company, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros (in both corners).

And now entering the ring making this a battle royale of Andre the Giant WWE proportions, we have InPhase Technologies, a Lucent spinoff with a 300GB DVD standard that is able to read and write data at 10 times the speed of a normal DVD. It utilizes so-called Tapestry holographic memory technology to store data by interference of light. InPhase's corner-men include Hitachi and Maxell which will manufacture the discs.

InPhase body slams Sony's Blue-Ray technology before it even gets out of the gate. Ut oh, Microsoft, a HD-DVD proponent attacks InPhase from behind knocking InPhase to the ground.

Posted in Technology and Science

FCC wants ala carte TV channels

November 29, 2005

I heard on WABC talk radio this morning that the FCC wants cable companies to offer TV channels "a la carte" to give consumers more choice. Considering how harsh I was on the FCC's e911 requirements this morning, I have to commend the FCC on this one. I planned on blogging my thoughts on the FCC helping to bring more choice to the consumer, but Rich Tehrani beat me to it. Go check out Rich's blog post on TV channel ala carte.

Posted in Technology and Science

Hologram technology with 1.6 TB storage space & 120 MBPs transfer speed

November 21, 2005

Wow, Maxell and InPhase Technologies have developed holographic optical media that features uncompressed storage capacities achieving 1.6 TeraBytes per disk and data rates as high as 120 MBPs. Optical media also is advantageous due to its long archival (50+ year) life.

The media is expected to have the lowest cost per gigabyte of any commercial quality removable storage. Of course, I've been hearing about large storage technology, including holograms for over 10 years it seems, so I hope this product isn't simply vaporware. When I can get my hands on it from CDW or Amazon I'll believe it.

"Holographic media makes it possible for millions of pages of information and high definition images to be held on one small, relatively inexpensive disc," said Steven Pofcher, senior marketing manager at Maxell. "Imagine having a person's entire medical history, complete with MRI images, or storing a broadcast network's entire HD Library on a single disc.

Posted in Technology and Science

AOL Pictures launches

November 17, 2005

America Online announces the launch of AOL Pictures, a comprehensive digital photo solution for consumers who want an easy way to view, share, store, print and protect all of their favorite images. The free photo sharing website offers consumers unlimited online digital photo storage in original resolution, tools that make it easier to create photo albums, and much more. According to a new AOL survey, Americans expect to take more than 137,000 photos in their lifetime with three-quarters sending photos to friends and family over the holidays. So as a special holiday promotion, AOL Pictures is offering consumers 100, FREE 4x6 glossy or matte prints.

Posted in Technology and Science

RealNetworks Helix streaming server

November 16, 2005

I don't hear too much from RealNetworks these days, so I was surprised to read that RealNetworks today unveiled its next generation enterprise solution, the Helix Server Unlimited, for wired and now wireless devices. This latest version of the Helix server provides Real's enterprise customers the ability to deliver 3GPP content to a wide variety of multi-media enabled mobile handsets. According to RealNetworks, "Mobile content on the handset have traditionally been focused on entertainment, but for the enterprise market such as corporations, higher education institutions and local governments it is also a valuable informational and educational tool."

I give it 6 months before Microsoft comes out with a similar solution. Perhaps Windows Media Services 10 Series?

Posted in Microsoft, Mobile Phones, Technology and Science, Wireless

U.S. ICANN and U.N. CAN'T

November 16, 2005

The highly anticipate battle between the U.S. and the U.N. was over before the bell even rung. The U.N. threw in the towel and the U.S.

Posted in Technology and Science

FCC amends Emergency Alert System rules

November 10, 2005

In addition to FCC requirements for e911 for supposedly "protecting the consumer", the FCC today also moved to amend the Emergency Alert System (EAS) rules to include Digital Media Technologies and seeks further comments on EAS System. You know the drill - "<tone><tone>This is test... This is only a test. If this were a real emergency you would..."

Essentially, with digital IPTV, satellite radio, satellite TV, etc.

Posted in Technology and Science

Previous 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 ... 35 Next

VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Technology and Science