As class action lawsuits are handed out for invasion of privacy in the Carrier IQ scandal http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/05/apple-samsung-others-sued-over-carrier-iq-scandal/) and highly invasive shopping tools such as Shopkick, Aisle411, and Foursquare see an early lift in impact on what people buy, it raises the fundamental question: are all these interactions making our life better? Every user must make their own privacy vs. benefit tradeoff, but the minute these interventions are perceived to be non-value-added (like SMS spam or irrelevant offers), then users will start to shut them off. Now Locaid http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39275/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-12-09) offers to find the location of any mobile device just buy putting in the number.
Continue Reading...
December 2011 Archives
This week, the FCC begins a 45-day public trial of the Telcordia Whitespace Database (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fcc-announces-public-trial-of-telcordia-television-white-space-database-135037253.html) Whitespace represents the unused TV bands from 54-862MHz, usually available in 6MHz increments. The spectrum must be used on a non-intereference basis which requires a dynamic database look-up based on the user's location. The first 45-day trial used Spectrum Bridge's database and this new trial will use Telcrodia's. The propagation characteristics of whitespace spectrum are very good (can support up to 800Mbps up to 10km) which is why some refer to communications in these bands as "Super WiFi".
Continue Reading...
