Computer Information - myOddPc
AT&T says B Block and Aloha spectrum will go to LTE
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless
The FCC has just lifted its gag order on the gory details of the 700MHz
Auction 73, and AT&T wasted absolutely no time setting up a press conference to discuss how it was planning to utilize its win in the so-called B Block. Bottom line: AT&T's moving to LTE for its 4G infrastructure -- no surprise there, since it's the natural evolution for GSM carriers -- and the purchase is designed to support that build-out. As they've
said before, they're tooting their horn over the fact that the B Block action combined with the Aloha spectrum purchase gives the carrier 100 percent coverage in the 700MHz arena in the top 200 US markets, while also noting that the frequency range is stellar at breaking through walls for hot in-building coverage.
As for Verizon's C Block win -- the block touted for its open access clause -- AT&T's convinced that the B Block made more sense for the very reason that it lacked those regulatory restrictions. The lack of FCC oversight is cause for some concern, yes, but AT&T
continues to stress that it was "open" long before the whole C Block hullaballoo came along by virtue of the fact that any GSM device with the right bands can hop on its network.
In terms of timing, the company's not really in any hurry; it wants to continue to milk HSPA for everything it's worth, promising a 7.2Mbps downlink rollout through 2009, and realistically, we'll be well into the next decade before we see wide-scale use of 700MHz LTE around these parts. A little scary for the impatient among us, we've gotta say.
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Motorola to cut another 2,600 jobs
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
The tough times just don't seem to end at Motorola -- the company announced today that it's laying off another 2,600 workers, for a total of 10,000 positions eliminated since the start of 2007. That's on top of the
various high-level executive departures that have been taken place lately, not to mention the company's plan to
split off its mobile phone business, which will undoubtedly lead to more cuts down the line. The goal is to reduce costs by some $500M by the end of the year, and some of the jobs being lost come as Moto closes a factory in Singapore and a WiMAX development lab in Florida. There's no word on when the cuts are going to come, but here's hoping all these aggressive steps lead to a little vacation for Sad Moto here.
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Ericsson unveils M700 LTE platform for mobile devices
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless
The same week that Nokia Siemens Networks unveiled its
LTE solution for North America comes a little nugget from Ericsson: the M700. Hailed as the "world's first commercially available LTE-capable platform," it promises peak data transmissions of 100Mbps down and 50Mbps up, which will undoubtedly be the next best thing since sliced bread. Reportedly, initial devices based on the unit will be ExpressCards, USB modems, etc., and of course, it supports bandwidths between 1.4 and 20MHz and the oh-so-exciting 700MHz bands. Unfortunately, a commercial release isn't set to happen until 2009 -- with products "based on the platform" not scheduled until 2010 -- but to its credit, samples of ASICs will be ready to roll sometime this year.
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Splashpower can't wirelessly recharge bank account, declares bankruptcy
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
We're never going to give up the dream of wireless charging, but it looks like the high costs of developing the technology plus the battle to build it into portable devices has claimed early wireless pioneer Splashpower. We've been
following the company
since 2004, but we never really saw any commercial-ready products emerge from its labs, while companies like
WildCharge and
eCoupled have managed to at least produce demo-quality gear. Here's hoping an interested investor picks up what's left of the R&D and runs with it.
[Thanks, John]
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AOC intros format-lovin' X600 portable media player
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
To say it's been awhile since we've seen
anything noteworthy from AOC would be a gross understatement, but the Chinese firm is hitting back with a sleek new PMP that just dares you to feed it off-the-wall formats. Besides boasting an expansive 3-inch 400 x 240 resolution display, this bugger handles RM, RMVB, FLV, AVI, MOV, ASF, MP4, WMV, MPG, WMA, MP3, APE and FLAC files (among others) and offers up an FM tuner, text / photo viewer, 4GB of storage space and TV-out functionality. Fairly potent for 599 yuan ($85), huh?
[Via
PMPToday]
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Dell to cut even more jobs as it reduces costs
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Looks like Dell's plan to trim
$3B in costs from its budget is going to involve even more job cuts than the 8,800 already announced -- speaking to analysts today, Michael Dell said that his company's management had "identified a very significant opportunity" to cut costs, and that it was "aggressively going after it." That means even more jobs will be slashed, apparently -- a further 1,000 this quarter at least, but Dell wouldn't say what the total would be in the end, just that it would be more then 8,800. Dell went on to say that no part of the company would be considered sacred as cuts are considered, and that Dell's brass thinks that it's "begun the journey to transform the company." Cutting jobs is one way to do it, sure -- but might we suggest focusing on delivering great products would also help?
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Screen grabs: Matt Saracen has iPhone trouble, is still really cute
Filed under: Cellphones
Screen grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.
Poor Matt, this guy has it so hard. If he isn't having relational trouble with Julie Taylor, he's disappointing his dad, his coach (Julie's dad, conveniently enough), his team, or the entire town of Dillon, Texas. Last thing the guy needs is an iPhone telling him he's wrong, so we're going to pin this Friday Night Lights upside-down incident on Zach Gilford, the man behind the cute-shy quarterback legend that is Matt Saracen. You disappoint us, Zach.
[Thanks,
EJ]
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Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Found In Omega Centauri
esocid sends us to the European Space Agency's site for news of a new discovery that appears to resolve the long-standing mystery surrounding Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. The object is 17,000 light-years distant and is located just above the plane of the Milky Way. Seen from a dark rural area in the southern hemisphere, Omega Centauri appears almost as large as the full moon. What the researchers discovered is a black hole of 40,000 solar masses in the cluster's center. From the press release: "Images obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and data obtained by the GMOS spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope in Chile show that Omega Centauri appears to harbor an elusive intermediate-mass black hole in its center... Exactly how Omega Centauri should be classified has always been a contentious topic. It was first listed in Ptolemy's catalog nearly two thousand years ago as a single star. Edmond Halley reported it as a nebula in 1677. In the 1830s the English astronomer John Herschel was the first to recognize it as a globular cluster. Now, more than a century later, this new result suggests Omega Centauri is not a globular cluster at all, but a dwarf galaxy stripped of its outer stars. According to scientists, these intermediate-mass black holes could turn out to be baby supermassive black holes."
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IBM Using Complex Math To Manage Natural Disasters
coondoggie brings us a NetworkWorld story about IBM's efforts to use complex algorithms to manage responses to natural disasters. Researchers are making use of recent increases in processor speed and algorithm efficiency to develop a scalable, flexible model capable of handling the complicated planning involved in reacting to a crisis. Quoting: "'We are creating a set of intellectual properties and software assets that can be employed to gauge and improve levels of preparedness to tackle unforeseen natural disasters,' says Dr. Gyana Parija. 'Most real-world problems involve uncertainty, and this has been the inspiration for us to tackle challenges in natural disaster management.' In the case of flooding, for example, the stochastic programming model would use various flood scenarios, resource supply capabilities at different dispatch locations, and fixed and variable costs associated with deployment of various flood-management resources to manage various risk measures. By assigning probabilities to the factors driving outcomes, the model outlines how limited resources can meet tomorrow's unknown demands or liabilities. In this way, the risks and rewards of various tradeoffs can be explored, IBM said."
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Why Microsoft Surface Took So Long To Deploy
An anonymous reader writes "Nearly a year after all the fanfare unveiling a new touchscreen tabletop interface, Microsoft's Surface computer will finally appear in select AT&T stores later this month. Popular Mechanics tech editor Glenn Derene, who first introduced us to Surface in May, seems to have done a complete 180 in this rant, blasting Microsoft for being more obsessed with Surface's novelty as a magnet for image-conscious partners while messing up a rare hardware device — and, surprisingly, the simple software he was told came with it. From Microsoft's official excuse in the article: 'It's actually been a good thing for us,' Pete Thompson, Microsoft's general manager for Surface, told me. 'We were anticipating that the initial deployments were going to be showcase pilots using our own software applications on units to drive traffic. What our partners have decided is that they want to skip that stage and go to an integrated experience where they build their own applications. That's pulled the timeline until this spring.'"
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