Google shows off the graphical power of Android 3.0 Honeycomb
At a special event in Mountain View, California Wednesday, search leader Google gave the first in-depth look at "Honeycomb," the tablet-specific version of the Android operating system. This is the biggest overhaul the platform has gotten since it debuted in 2008.
The arrival of Honeycomb is important because it means the Android-based tablets that were announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January can finally be shown off in full working order.
Government picks another 95 MHz of wireless spectrum for broadband use
This week, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it will analyze the 1755-1850 MHz band for commercial broadband licensing. This would be part of the 500 MHz of additional spectrum planned to be re-claimed over the next ten years for mobile broadband, as detailed in the National Broadband Plan.
"NTIA is conducting this evaluation as directed by President Obama to reach his goal of nearly doubling the amount of commercial spectrum available over the next decade, an initiative that will spur investment, economic growth, and job creation while supporting the growing demand by consumers and businesses for wireless broadband services. We look forward to our continued work with the FCC and other federal agencies as we work to free up additional spectrum while protecting vital government spectrum uses," said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling on Monday.
How to get Al Jazeera on your TV by going 'over the top'
For United States citizens interested in getting continuous news coverage of the Egyptian revolution, the options are limited to one: the live Al Jazeera feed on its website. Even though United States cable companies don't carry the station, it is easy to pipe that streaming news feed to your HDTV with a variety of Web-connected devices.
Set-top box maker Roku today announced that users of its popular set-top streamer can now push Al Jazeera's live and on-demand streams to their HDTVs with just a few steps.
Microsoft pitches 'PACT' for managing family gaming
With its combined efforts in PC, console, and mobile gaming, as well as video and television, Microsoft has a serious presence in the entertainment business. And as Peter Parker's Uncle Ben said, with great power also comes great responsibility. So, Monday evening, Microsoft released a document called PACT that seeks to help parents and kids work out guidelines for entertainment consumption.
PACT is an acronym that stands for Parental Involvement, Access, Content, and Time, and parents and kids are supposed to go through the PACT document and sign off the family guidelines for conduct online and on gaming consoles. The document is meant to be a companion to Microsoft's Get Game Smart initiative for 2011, which encourages parents and kids to work together and have an open dialogue about the family's media choices.
Network operators eye HTML5 for getting into the app store business
Smartphone operating systems and their related app stores effectively cut the mobile network operator out of the value chain, but mobile browsers are giving carriers a foot in the door.
Mobile carriers continue to attempt their own branded app stores to break into the app store goldrush. Just today, Japanese network operator NEC Biglobe launched Andronavi in the United States, saying that it's a better app store than Google's Android Market because it provides reviews and detailed information specifically from the Japanese audience.
Apple's server biz relegated to 'prosumer' status with Xserve's end
Today is the last day for Xserve, Apple's nine-year old line of rackmount servers designed for enterprise use.
As the company announced last November, no orders for the server hardware will be accepted beyond January 31.
Ericsson sets MC-HSPA speed record with prototype device
Swedish telecommunications hardware maker Ericsson on Monday announced it had set the world record for multi-carrier HSPA downlink speeds using a prototype consumer device and standard commercial network equipment. The record-setting rig achieved 168 Mbps on the downlink and 24 Mbps on the uplink.
Multi-Carrier HSPA is a technology still quite a long way from being available to consumers. It is not yet included in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specification for High Speed Packet Access, and only a select few carriers worldwide even offer support for its precursor, dual-carrier HSPA, the evolution of the wireless technology included in 3GPP release 8 (standardized in 2008.)
Intel allies with ARM in new Mobile Communications business
On Monday, Intel Corp announced it had completed the $1.4 Billion acquisition of Infineon AG's Wireless Solution business (WLS), to finally tie baseband processors into the company's CPU solutions. The WLS unit will be part of the new Intel Mobile Communications group, a standalone business unit within Intel's Architecture Group.
With the new portfolio of 2G, 3G and LTE baseband products acquired from WLS, Intel is going to move forward with a business to "serve a broader array of customers and market segments."
Egypt's telecommunications blackout crushes citizen journalism
Responding to widespread civil unrest, the government of Egypt on Thursday evening ordered all private network operators to shut down their services, both wired and wireless.
At around 12:30am local time, Egypt's outbound connections to the Internet hit a brick wall, and fell approximately 80%. Both BGP Mon and Renesys observed similar withdrawals of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routes in Egypt.
[UPDATE] Netflix ranks Charter as best, Clearwire worst for data throughput
In the company blog Thursday, Netflix Director of Content Delivery Ken Florence presented a ranking of the best and worst network operators for Netflix streaming, a ranking that the company plans to maintain and publish as a monthly report.
Florence says the top HD streams from Netflix are about 4,800 Kbps, and because the service adapts to the available bandwidth a provider may have, no one carrier would hit that maximum and maintain it. However, it serves as a good reference point for the average overall throughput a network can provide. Charter, the leading US network in overall throughput, averaged 2,667 Kbps between October 1, 2010 and January 15, 2011.
Opera releases 11.01 final version
After pushing out two release candidates in as many days, Opera Software on Thursday released the final version (build 1190) of its Opera 11.01 Web browser.
This latest version adds some tweaks to mouse gestures, and some stability improvements. The only real new feature of this particular version is the inclusion of the DOM object window.DOMStringList, but it is still an extremely important download for security purposes.
Sony announces PlayStation gaming suite for Android
At a press conference in Japan on Thursday, Sony Computer Entertainment announced it will be launching PlayStation Suite, which will make PlayStation content available on Android handsets and tablets.
"The world of portable [gaming] has undergone a huge change since the release of the PSP," said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. "When we released PSP, cell phone providers were unable to deliver PlayStation-quality content. After six years, these multi-function handheld devices are ready for the PlayStation-like experience."
Google releases Honeycomb platform preview: Android's biggest redesign yet
Today, Google rolled out the first platform preview of the Android 3.0 software development kit, giving the public its first look at Android for tablets and its "holographic" user interface.
This is easily the most dramatic design shift Android has yet experienced, but all of the operating system's key features have been retained.
FCC clears LightSquared for LTE wholesaling
LightSquared, the company building the first hybrid LTE/Mobile Satellite network in the U.S. announced Wednesday that it can now vend its services as either dual-mode satellite/cellular or just as cellular, according to the demands of its wholesale partners.
This announcement is significant because LightSquared is building a wholesale network that will end up being sold to consumers under more familiar networks' brand names.
Amazon rolls out the first 'Kindle Singles,' short form e-books
Wednesday, Web retailer Amazon launched its Kindle Singles line of literature designed specifically for consumption on e-readers. The works, priced between $1.00 and $3.00, include original works of prose, essays and theses, and the the first TEDBooks.
Last October, Amazon introduced Kindle Singles as a format ideally suited for the reading habits of e-reader users. They are longer than a magazine article and shorter than a novel (around 20,000 words or 60 pages,) and specifically tailored to deliver well-developed content in a very direct manner, sort of like Reader's Digest condensed literature.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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