Closing the digital divide: 10Gbps fiber network begins in DC's poorest ward
Tuesday morning, Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray broke ground for the DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN), a fiber optic network geared toward bringing high speed broadband to underserved areas of the nation's capitol.
Though Washington DC is one of the most well-connected cities in the United States, there are few cities where the "digital divide" is more obvious. The infrastructure is robust, but at times it seems the beneficiaries of it are only on one side of the Anacostia river. A large proportion of the city's lower income residents remain woefully underconnected.
Hands On with Amazon Cloud Player
Sign me up, baby. Today, Amazon started offering my music (yours, too) from the cloud -- in a web browser or through an Android app. Sorry iPhone users. There is no app for you. The service chokes in Mobile Safari on iPhone, so that's no option.
The concept is simple: Amazon stores your music on its servers -- and you can listen anytime, anywhere and on anything. There are two conjoined services -- Cloud Drive for storage, which also can be used for documents and other files, and Cloud Player for listening to music. Setup is seamless. Amazon customers click links while signed into their accounts, and that's it (Ease of use stops there; see next couple of paragraphs). Amazon offers 5GB storage for free. Additional storage ranges from 20GB to 1TB and from $20 to $1,000 a year, respectively. However, Amazon is running a promotion through the end of the year. Buy one album and get upgraded to 20GB of storage for free.
Nokia sues Apple again, claiming patent infringement
Nokia has filed new patent infringement clams with the US International Trade Commission against Apple, the company disclosed on Tuesday. At issue are seven additional patents which Apple is accused by the Finnish phone maker of infringing in "virtually all products."
This latest move comes after the ITC ruled in Apple's favor on Friday, saying the Cupertino company was not committing infringement on five Nokia patents. Those patents were part of an earlier suit filed in October 2009. Nokia said it did not agree with the judge's decision, and has yet to decide its next steps.
Intel refreshes consumer line of SSDs, drops price
Intel debuted the third generation of its consumer solid state drives on Monday, promising increased reliability while at the same time lowering the price by as much as $100 or more in some capacities. The 320 series drives replace the X25-M drives which the company began to push in earnest last year.
Prices on average dropped about 30 percent, which came as a result of advancements in the manufacturing process. Overall drives are expensive, however -- about $1.80 per gigabyte -- which some analysts believe is still higher than most consumers would be willing to pay.
Apple shouldn't rush iPhone 5, and neither should you
Today, the air is flush with rumors -- now from three credible journalists -- that iPhone 5 won't debut during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2011, in June. Rumors like these are great for generating pageviews and for sending some Wall Street analysts or Apple shareholders into cardiac arrest. But other than a few 911 calls for emergency services, does it really matter?
Technically, there is no iPhone 5 delay, contrary to reports about one. Apple hasn't announced a release date, so there can't be a delay. Now there is, based on four previous releases, reasonable expectation iPhone 5 would debut at WWDC and ship in June or July. That has been Apple's pattern for the four previous models, but it's not beholden. The rumors also put iOS 5's delivery later, too. That certainly makes sense. Why not have one but the other?
Microsoft launches public preview of Windows Thin PC
Microsoft on Monday launched the public community technology preview (CTP) of Windows Thin PC (WinTPC), the locked down version of Windows 7 designed to turn legacy PCs into thin clients that can run Windows 7 applications.
The Public CTP of WinTPC includes some new features not available in the limited preview that was released earlier in March, such as support for RemoteFX and System Configuration Manager (the two major improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1,) and write filter support, which helps limit writes to disk and improves security on the client side.
Google to embrace NFC in Android with new payment service
Google is said to be working on a mobile payments solution with Citigroup and MasterCard which would bring so-called near-field communication (NFC) technology to Android smartphones, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The announcement would only be the latest announcement in what seems to be growing momentum for the technology.
NFC support was enabled in December as part of the Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" update. Currently the only widely available Android phone with support built in is the Samsung Nexus S, although several NFC-equipped devices are expected this year.
AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile USA will cause 'Ma Bell duopoly', says Sprint
Sprint Nextel, the United States' third largest wireless network operator on Monday officially took a stance against wireless network operator AT&T's proposed acquisition of number four network operator T-Mobile USA.
Sprint's opposition should be anything but surprising, as the company says AT&T and T-Mobile combined would be three times bigger than Sprint, and would "entrench AT&T's and Verizon's duopoly control over the wireless market."
Make Firefox 4 work for you
Firefox 4 is finally here, and while those familiar with how web browsers have evolved won't be surprised to see the streamlined new interface, it can come as a culture shock to those used to plodding along with Firefox 3 for the past few years. With that in mind, we've compiled 10 tips showcasing the best new features in Firefox 4.
Better still, we don't just explain what's new in Firefox 4, we'll reveal how the functionality works, so you can start using and benefiting from it too. Except where specifically stated, the tips should work on all platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux.
Can't read this story because your Net connection is busted? There's a fix for that
There are many reasons why your Internet connection or web-related Windows components might start misbehaving, and diagnosing the problem for yourself can be difficult. So it's often easier not to try: just resetting a few key Windows settings could be enough to get your system working again.
Doing this manually isn't always straightforward, either, but fortunately Complete Internet Repair offers a simpler alternative. Just choose the fix you'd like to try, click the "Go!" button and it'll make the necessary tweaks for you.
Parents can set up 'E-Allowance' with American Express' new system Serve
Credit card company American Express on Monday launched Serve, a payment system that allows customers to make person-to-person payments online, via mobile phones, or at merchants who accept American Express credit cards. Serve launched just two weeks after Visa Inc. announced a similar person-to-person service powered by Popmoney and ZashPay.
Users set up an account on Serve.com or through the Android or iOS apps, and then link their bank accounts, debit or credit cards, or other Serve accounts to add funds. At its most basic, Serve works like a prepaid credit card that can receive funds from any linked bank account or registered Serve user. Without adding any information other than name, age, address, and phone number, a Serve account can receive up to $500 per month.
Get what Apple won't give: TRIM support for 3rd-party SSDs
There's little doubt that solid-state drives (SSDs) are the future for hard disk-based storage. They're quicker, quieter and cooler than the drives we've come to rely on over the past few decades. But with SSDs now entering the mainstream as prices fall within the reach of consumers, there's one potential performance hurdle to overcome.
TRIM is a command designed to fix a problem whereby over time the write performance of a SSD starts to degrade to as little as 50 per cent of its original speed. Unfortunately, TRIM isn't supported on a lot of operating systems, and while newer drives boast their own technologies to combat this problem with relying on the OS, older drives rely on TRIM being supported. Apple plans to rectify this with the upcoming release of Mac OS X Lion (and possibly in the next update for Snow Leopard too), but there's still no guarantee it'll support TRIM on non-Apple SSDs. But now there's a possible solution that's small, free and quick. It's called TRIM Support Enabler.
Apple's annual developer conference coming in June
This morning, Apple announced that Worldwide Developer Conference 2011 will be June 6-10 in San Francisco. "Join us for a preview of the future of iOS and Mac OS X" Apple's WWDC 2011 info page proclaims. Which has me scratching my head. What about all those rumors that Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" is near golden master. Isn't the future coming sooner?
Apple is known for being indirect -- and, yes, secretive -- where the subtlest information in an announcement can convey other meaning, or rumormongers make subtleties to mean more than they should. So I'll watch with interest to see how the Mac fan club of bloggers and journalists interprets Apple's press release quoting Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, and not CEO Steve Jobs. Remember, Jobs is on medical leave. Surely someone will ask if this means he won't give the keynore. Relax the interpretations. WWDC 2011 is months way, I say.
Firefox 4 usage share is twice Internet Explorer 9 in half the time
In the early battle for users, Firefox 4 handedly beats Internet Explorer 9, according to NetApplications. As of March 26, IE 9 usage share was 1.78 percent (in 12 days), according to NetApplications. By comparison, Firefox 4 had 3.64 percent usage share (in just 5 days) -- or twice as much in less than half the time.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 at Midnight ET on March 15, but Net Applications is on Pacific Time, so its measurement of usage share is from the 14th. Mozilla released Firefox on March 22nd. Firefox 4 outpaced Microsoft's browser in first-day downloads. IE9: 2.35 million. Firefox 4: 6 million -- 15.7 million in first 48 hours. Last week, Mozilla also issued the Firefox 4 Mobile Release Candidate for Android and Maemo.
Is Firefox doomed?
Ed Bott's March 22nd ZDNET post "Why Internet Explorer will survive and Firefox won't" answers the question yes. "So long, Firefox. It was nice to know you," he writes about the browser's future. Well, I don't agree with that. But Bott makes another prediction that rings right. If so, the new browser wars will make the 1990s skirmish between Microsoft and Netscape look like kids fighting with sticks.
Bott puts Firefox's future in context of a new platform war, as the computing market transitions from the PC era to the cloud connected device era. I riled some Betanews readers regading this transition with February 9th post: "The PC era is over."
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