“Tablet adoption is increasing among corporate tech buyers. ChangeWave Research recently polled a group of 1,604 business IT buyers and found that 22 percent of them planned to purchase tablets for their employees sometime in the second quarter of 2012. Of those, 84 percent say they’re likely to buy Apple iPads — an increase of 7 percentage points from ChangeWave’s November 2011 survey.”
Record-Speed Wireless Data Bridge Demonstrated: Takes High-Speed Communications the Last Mile
A team of researchers in Germany has created a new way to overcome many of the issues associated with bringing high-speed digital communications across challenging terrain and into remote areas, commonly referred to as the “last mile” problem. The researchers developed a record-speed wireless data bridge that transmits digital information much faster than today’s state-of-the-art systems.
These unprecedented speeds, up to 20 billion bits of data per second, were achieved by using higher frequencies than those typically used in mobile communications—the wireless bridge operates at 200 gigahertz (GHz) (two orders of magnitude greater than cell phone frequencies).
via singularitarian:
(via jackmason)
With New Standard, Wi-Fi Could Become As Widespread As Cellular
In late 2010, Verizon rolled out its 4G LTE network, which offers data speeds 10 times as fast as 3G networks. But as mobile data traffic continues to grow—experts anticipate that it will increase 26-fold in the next three years—it’s unlikely that any network will be able to keep up. Fortunately, something else is set to happen over the next three years: Wi-Fi could become as ubiquitous and easy to access as cellular is now.
Wi-Fi is up to 15 times as fast as LTE, but at this point it’s an unrealistic substitute for cell service. Connecting is not a standard process. Users need to log into access points individually, enter passwords, and go through other credentialing rigmarole. And range is limited; once logged in, a user can’t wander more than a few hundred feet from an indoor router. But such limitations will soon be gone.
Later this year, the Wi-Fi Alliance, a consortium that oversees Wi-Fi certification and testing, will release the Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint standard to automate logins. Based on the IEEE 802.11u protocol, Passpoint will allow devices to identify preferred hotspots, connect to them, enter passwords, and authenticate security credentials—all automatically. Users may be able to add Passpoint access to their cellphone plans or sign up for standalone service through another provider, such as Boingo, a company that serves 400,000 hotspots at locations like malls and restaurants. When users with Passpoint walk into a coffee shop or arrive at an airport, their phones will automatically connect with the network.
» via infoneer-pulse: Popular Science
Pachube opens the Internet of things to end users | Information Age
IN sensor networks of old, the data produced by, for example, heat or humidity sensors would remain in closed networks, accessible only by the organisation that runs the network. The basic principle of the ‘Internet of things’ is that sensor data should in fact be openly available for integration with other data sets and for independent application developers to use to build new, innovative systems. Pachube is a UK-based company that provides real-time data infrastructure for the Internet of things. “We make it very easy for devices to publish to the web in a format that’s easy for people to understand,” explains founder Usman Haque. “We also make it very easy for application developers to build things on top of all that data.” “Essentially, Pachube is bit like Twitter for machines,” he says. The pitch to sensor manufacturers is as follows: “If you’re a manufacturer, all you have to do is write a little bit of firmware which goes on your device, and we’ll take care of the rest. On the input end, we’ve got a standard interface for handling data in a variety of formats, and at the other end, we can convert that data into formats such as JSON, which is very popular among web developers.”Sensor data integration platform’s new service allows its customers’ customers to access information collected about them
IBM Makes Revolutionary Racetrack Memory Using Existing Tools - Technology Review
Racetrack memory could someday supersede flash in terms of density and cost.
IBM has shown that a revolutionary new type of computer memory—one that combines the large capacity of traditional hard disks with the speed and robustness of flash memory—can be made with standard chip-making tools.
The work is important because the cost and complexity of manufacturing fundamentally new computer components can often derail their development.
IBM researchers first described their vision for“racetrack” computer memory in 2008. Today, at the International Electronic Devices Meeting in Washington, D.C., they unveiled the first prototype that combines on one chip all the components racetrack memory needs to read, store, and write data. The chip was fabricated using standard semiconductor manufacturing tools.
Racetrack memory stores data on nanoscale metal wires. Bits of information—digital 1s and 0s—are represented by magnetic stripes in those nanowires, which are created by controlling the magnetic orientation of different parts of the wire.
HTML5: The Technology Changing the Web - WSJ.com
A year and a half after Steve Jobs endorsed it in an unusual essay, a set of programming techniques called HTML5 is rapidly winning over the Web.
That promise—and the lure of Apple Inc. devices in particular—is sweeping aside alternative technologies. In the latest development, Adobe Systems Inc. said Wednesday it will pull back on pushing the rival Flash format opposed by Mr. Jobs for mobile devices.
“HTML5 is a major step forward,” declares venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who helped invent the first successful browser, Netscape, in the 1990s.
The technology allows Internet browsers to display jazzed-up images and effects that react to users’ actions, delivering game-like interactivity without installing additional software. Developers can use HTML5 to get their creations on a variety of smartphones, tablets and PCs without tailoring apps for specific hardware or the online stores that have become gatekeepers to mobile commerce.
Broadcom pushes WiFi to connect Internet of things | GigaOm
Chip giant Broadcom has launched a new WiFi chip module for manufacturers to use to add connectivity to devices, appliances, energy management gadgets and other things that less commonly have Internet connections. The WiFi module, which the company is calling Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED), contains a processor, a WiFi radio, a connectivity API, and a software stack.
Broadcom’s move is an effort to use WiFi to tap into the “Internet of Things,” movement, where every device will one day be able to talk to each other, beyond just computers and cell phones — think everything from your car, to sensors throughout your home and office, to your electricity meter, and even down to tiny objects like the cap of your prescription pills, which could text you and tell you “hey, it’s time to take me now.”
IBM brings solar power to data centers | Green Tech - CNET News
A solar technician at IBM’s Bangalore, India research facility.
(Credit: IBM)
IBM is bringing electric power—in the form of solar panels—to data centers with trouble getting power in the first place.
The company tomorrow will detail a pilot project which couples solar power with water-cooled servers that run on high-voltage direct-current. The method results in about a ten percent energy savings by reducing the losses that normally happen in converting from alternating power from the grid to the direct current servers run on, according to Murali Kota, the chief scientist of nanotechnology at IBM India who developed the pilot as a side project.
That level of energy reduction is significant for large data centers with many servers, but the implications of solar and servers are potentially profound for places that don’t have access to reliable power, Kota said.
A bank, for example, that wanted to set up a remote branch and operate a data center could use solar power as a way to supplement power from the grid and on-site generators. IBM plans to offer the system in custom engagements next year. Clients in developing countries have already shown an interest.
“Everybody is talking about getting connectivity from the grid. The cities are already overloaded so they need ways to generate local power,” Kota said. “You can start connecting unconnected parts of the world using this kind of system.”
Facebook’s Push toward the Semantic Web | semanticweb.com
When asked about the single biggest change that Facebook is making, Fernando replied, “The biggest change is Facebook driving toward becoming the semantic web. The semantic web is making sure that the Internet has a dictionary and a grammar that can be understood by consumers, yes, but also by advertisers and brands. It’s also understanding how people behave on the Web rather than just clicking on stuff: what are they actually doing? You read, watch things, you get instant feedback, your friends can read and watch with you, but then the brand knows what you and 13 others are reading, watching, listening to as well, and you can target advertising based around that. It’s a beautiful feedback loop both for the consumer and the brand.”
“Of all the announcements from Amazon today, the most audacious one is the one that involves Silk, a hybrid browser that essentially pre-fetches the web, caches it and then serves it up to Fire owners. I was pretty intrigued by it the moment I read about it. It reminded me of Skyfire. However, it was later when reading this post by Chris Espinosa, I realized the implications of it:”
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People Are Spending More Time In Mobile Apps Than On The Web | Social Media Today
People are spending more time inside mobile applications on average than they are on the web, according to an analysis from Flurry, a mobile analytics firm.
Flurry measures the time people spend in apps through its own direct analytics. It got numbers for the web using public data from comScore and Alexa. The analysis is somewhat imperfect, but even if you judge it solely on a directional basis you can see mobile apps are consuming more and more time.
So what are people doing in those apps? Gaming and social networking, which absorb 79% of people’s time, according to Flurry. The rest is news, entertainment, and other apps.
Mobile Internet Usage to Top Wireline Surfing by 2015: IDC Report | eWeek.com
People are using mobile devices and notebooks to access the mobile Web more than ever before, according to an IDC report.
More U.S. Internet users will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs or other wireline devices by 2015, according to a report from IT analytics firm International Data Corporation. The company’s Worldwide New Media Market Model (NMMM) forecast that as smartphones begin to outsell simpler feature phones, and as media tablet sales explode, the number of mobile Internet users would grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6 percent between 2010 and 2015.
The report noted that the impact of smartphone and, especially, media tablet adoption will be so great that the number of users accessing the Internet through PCs will first stagnate and then slowly decline. Western Europe and Japan will not be far behind the United States in following this trend, the report noted.
Worldwide, the total number of Internet user will grow from 2 billion in 2010 to 2.7 billion in 2015, when 40 percent of the world’s population will have access to its resources.
How to Add Semantic Markup to your Site or Application?
Recently, a new resource appeared on the Web to help developers navigate the waters around various approaches to adding semantic markup to websites and applications. We caught up with the creators of the newly launched structured-data.org, to learn more about this project.
Q: What is “Structured Data on the Web” (the site and the concept)?
GK: We wanted to provide a place for people to learn about the different ways in which publishers can add semantic information to their web sites and applications. There is confusion in the marketplace, partly due to the introduction of schema.org, which has raised the awareness of structured data with web developers. structured-data.org is a one-stop-shop to learn about the different mechanisms available to developers to take advantage of this.
MS: As Gregg mentioned, Web Developers don’t have one Website that they can go to and review their options when it comes to Structured Data on the Web. This was leading to developer frustration – “Which one should I pick!?” has been a common question since the schema.org launch. We wanted to have a one-stop-shop for expressing data on the Web where Web developers can learn, play around with each technology, and then implement and debug using the tools listed on the website. We are trying to build bridges between the Microformats, RDFa and Microdata communities and this is a first step on that journey.
“More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.”
