The Internet’s Perilous New Year’s Resolution
Internet legislation that is scheduled for a vote in the U.S. Senate next month would aim to stop the unlicensed downloading of billions of dollars’ worth of movies and music—as well as the trade in counterfeit drugs and other goods—by blocking access to certain websites, many of them registered abroad. But its basic strategies could […]
World travelers beware: 4G LTE phones won’t work abroad
LTE may be the global standard for next-generation wireless networks, but that doesn’t mean you can take your 4G Verizon Wireless phone abroad and expect to roam on other 4G networks. In this edition of Ask Maggie, I explain the sad reality of why you can’t take a U.S. 4G LTE phone and expect to […]
The joy of Microsoft’s ‘avoid ghetto’ GPS patent
Indeed, not so long ago, one lady sued Google because the directions its map offered led her (she believed) to be struck by a car. Now Microsoft has been granted a patent that is designed to make its maps more pedestrian-friendly. Somehow, this patent has immediately been dubbed the avoid ghetto feature. The gist of […]
Trendnet unveils 1.3Gbps wireless router using 802.11ac spec
Until last week the fastest wireless routers on the market conformed to the 802.11n specification, and offered speeds anywhere up to 300Mbps. But over the coming months even that is going to start to look slow as routers appear that conform to the brand new 802.11ac specification. Trendnet seems to be to be the primary […]
Vint Cerf: Internet access isn’t a human right
Although some countries around the world argue that Internet access is a fundamental right, one of the “fathers of the Internet,” Vint Cerf, doesn’t see it that way. “Technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself,” Cerf, who is also a Google’s chief Internet evangelist, wrote yesterday in an editorial in The New […]
Broadband over the last year
With another year over, we look back at the events and revelations within broadband over the last year, and look to 2012 to see what we might be looking forward to in the industry. In rural areas, the announcement of broadband funding to provide a basic level of broadband in some areas, as well as […]
New CEO: Yahoo will reclaim its tech leadership
Yahoo will develop into a generation massive once more, serving to to shape how people use the internet within the next decade, incoming chief govt Scott Thompson promised these days. The web has changed so much within the remaining twenty years, nevertheless it’s actually still in its infancy, he mentioned in his first public feedback […]
LTE’s Immaturity in the US
Don’t be expecting a constant experience across fledgling long term Evolution (LTE) networks in the U.S., judging from the findings of a latest benchmark examine via signals analysis group. The study, called “The Mother of all Network Benchmark Tests” — which tested mobile broadband networks across the U.S., including 3G, LTE and mobile WiMax — […]
Will the next iPhone have LTE?
It’s with great trepidation that we risk waking the slumbering iRumor giant, and suggest what the next iPhone could bring. One of the biggest questions is whether Apple will add LTE to its next hardware update. Will they bother? What are the pros and cons? Are they hurting by not having LTE in the 4S? […]
Mobile carriers: Five predictions for 2012
The biggest news for 2011 in this sector was AT&T’s $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile. And when the deal was announced in March, AT&T seemed confident it could make it happen. So confident in fact, that it agreed to one of the biggest break-up fees ever. But as we all now know, regulators didn’t […]
Wi-Fi ‘protected set-up’ not so protected after all
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned this week of a security flaw in a popular tool intended to make it easier to add additional devices to a secure Wi-Fi network. US-CERT, cited findings from security researcher Stefan Viehbock, who uncovered the security hole in the so-called Wi-Fi Protected Set-up, or WPS, protocol, which is […]
Carvalho Plan Could Make All Schools Wireless
Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho wants his schools to have wireless Internet and announced a plan Wednesday that could secure the funding needed to make his wish a reality. The plan Carvalho announced will be for the Miami-Dade community to raise $7 million. If the community can lift the cash, the federal government will fit the […]
Samsung still dominates mobile phone market, but Apple is gaining
Samsung is still the biggest maker of mobile phones, but Apple is gaining ground, according to data released today by market researcher ComScore. Samsung accounted for 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers for the three months ending November 11, a slight increase of 0.3 percent over the previous three months. While Apple came in fourth […]
Verizon fixes latest network outage
Verizon has had a busy month repairing network glitches. The carrier confirmed early this morning via Twitter that it has resolved the latest outage, which hit many of its cellular data customers yesterday. In tweeting the news, Verizon Wireless said that the 4G LTE issue was resolved overnight. 3G connectivity, as well as calling and […]
Facebook Launches ‘Timeline’ Globally
Long-discussed Timeline, a digital scrapbook feature on Facebook, is launching globally. More pictures, more information and more chronology — and your archived stuff will automatically populate the new feature. Timeline is similar to having an auto-generated personal website, replete with everything — that’s everything — you’ve ever posted to Facebook. So, if you have a […]
Florida works to kill potential VoIP tax
Internet telephony supporters won a big victory in Florida last week when legislators voted in favor of repealing part of a communications tax on businesses that run their own networks. The State House of Representatives voted unanimously on House Bill 49, which removes the tax from Florida’s tax code. Bill sponsor John Stargel, a Republican […]
How mobile affected the datacenter in 2011
While the topic of green datacenters tends to hold the attention of myself and other datacenter folks and the various changes in the datacenter facility model have captured the majority of the ink on datacenter issues in 2011, a look back really does show that other topics have actually had more impact on the everyday […]
GPS Could Send You On Long Strange Trip
These days when you get into your car, you probably take an extra step that maybe a few years ago you didn’t: typing your destination in your GPS system. Many of us in South Florida would be lost without the step-by-step directions, but sometimes our GPS’s can send us the wrong way. It happened to […]
Google to Battle Siri with Majel
Google is reportedly working on a rival to Apple’s virtual assistant Siri, codenamed Majel, and will likely launch the service next year. Majel is called after actress Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, and when you have geek cred you could additionally recognize that she was once the voice of the Federation computer (and Nurse Chapel) on “famous person […]
Smartphones and tablets to drive 350% increase in Wi-Fi hotspots by 2015
The Wireless Broadband Alliance has published a report on the state of the global public Wi-Fi hotspot market compiled by analyst firm Informa. It includes a comprehensive survey of 259 service providers and Wi-Fi vendors. The report reveals that global public Wi-Fi hotspot numbers are set to grow from 1.3 million in 2011, to 5.8 […]