Showing posts with label Wi-Fi. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Mozilla Firefox for OS Deus lures with bright new toys

It seems unlikely that an upstart mobile OS open source could make any waves in a market dominated by Android and iOS. Windows Phone and BlackBerry may find many followers, but OS Firefox? Not likely - at least not in the developed world. Firefox may be able to sink their teeth into emerging markets, however, they are hungry for more low-cost devices.

The Mozilla Foundation announced Tuesday that its Firefox OS smartphones will be available to developers in February.

Preview phones are being produced in collaboration with Geeksphone and Telefónica.

The idea is to attract developers to create applications for OS Firefox.

"These devices are not designed for consumers," said spokeswoman Diane Zuniga LinuxInsider Mozilla. Are preliminary versions of Firefox OS development.

"Today's announcement is not a commercial release for Firefox OS," he said Zuniga. That is expected to take place later this year.

Dev Phone SpecificationsTwo smartphones are aligned to the dev preview.The Keon, who is touted as a developing device light, has a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU S1. It sports a 3.5-inch mid-size VGA (HVGA) multitouch display and a 3 MP camera.The peak is the heavyweight. IT has a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.2 GHz CPU.It features a 4.3-inch qHD display. With a screen resolution of 960 x 540 pixels, QHD screen frame offer an en HD 1080p in a 16:9 aspect ratio. HTC Sensation and Evo 3D, like the Motorola Droid Razr and PlayStation Vita around the use of qHD screens.In addition, the peak has a 8 MP camera with flash.Both phones include a MicroSD slot, light and proximity sensors, GPS, and a microUSB slot. 802.11n WiFi support. Both operate high-speed packet access (HSPA) 3G and GSM communications for communications 2G EDGE.Pricing will be announced in early February.Mozilla StrategyFirefox operating system, called "Boot to Gecko", or B2G, was designed to allow applications to integrate HTML5 with hardware devices "using JavaScript.B2G has been demonstrated in different smart phones, including the Nexus S smartphone Samsung and ZTE, and the Pi on raspberry.GeeksPhone devices "allow developers to test the capabilities of Firefox OS in a real environment beyond the facilities provided by existing emulators," Zuniga said Mozilla. "It will be possible to test some features as actual performance and interaction with the mobile network."The first commercial versions of mobile dev will focus on "best performance smartphones at affordable prices in Latin America and Telefónica Europe," he said. Other plans will be announced later.Analyzing Mozilla plans"What Mozilla is doing is good for the ecosystem Web Web pushing the platform as a development environment first-class," said Al Hilwa, program director at IDC research, LinuxInsider."Aside from the maturity of tools and tests, the key issue in the birth of a new hardware platform is the number of devices that a developer can achieve a unity of effort," he said.The attractive write-once-run-on-many of HTML5 that Mozilla seems to be counting on that success could not be quite the way it is expected that because "the exploitation of advanced device features in web applications requires of a single work and extensive testing platform for a critical application, "said Hilwa. "The challenge facing Mozilla is if he can break into the mass market with its platform."Android and iOS mobile phone OS market sewn, and even a competitor with deep pockets like Microsoft faces an uphill climb.As for the potential of the brand new Firefox OS ', "given the diversity of the participants, it is difficult not to be skeptical," said Hilwa.Room for one more?On the other hand, mobile operators "seem tired of the domination of Apple and Android," said Carl Howe, research vice president at Yankee Group."Although we have not seen a successful Internet-only mobile operating system, however, we could see these platforms play an important role in low-cost smartphones for emerging markets," said Howe LinuxInsider."No need to pay for operating system licenses and cheap mobile Web applications that take the place of a more expensive native application development," said he, "a web-based mobile operating system could reduce costs and shorten the time marketing for smart phone makers is focused on low-(U.S.) market of $ 150

Monday, January 14, 2013

Audi debuts self-driving car at CES 2013

English: Audi A7 Deutsch: Audi A7 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Self-driving cars have proved a hit at this year's CES and Audi has been one of the manufacturers showing off the next gen tech.

Audi's autonomous A7 successfully negotiated a multi-story car park and managed to park itself, all without a human touching the wheel.

The A7 doesn't have the same sensors and cameras strapped to it that Toyotya's Lexus AASRV has but instead relies on a laser grid map of the car park relayed to it over Wi-Fi from sensors placed around the structure.

This does mean that in order to make like Knight Rider, you'll need to be in a place that has already been fitted with these sensors. According to Audi, we're still a decade or so away from this being an everyday feature. But the idea of pulling up to the car park and letting the car find a spot itself while you head off to the shops has its appeal.

Unsurprisngly the Audi A7 doesn't bolt around the multi-story like the opening of Driver but instead keeps things to a sedate five miles per hour.

“At Audi you’d be hard pushed to find an innovation that isn’t related to electronics nowadays,” said Ricky Hudi, head of Audi electrics/electronics development.

“These enable us to implement full networking. A defining feature of the last decade was that we integrated all the functions in the car. This decade will see us network the car seamlessly with the environment, under the Audi connect banner – with the driver, the Internet, the infrastructure, and with other vehicles.”

All sounds very promising in our opinion. And while a car that parks itself is an exciting prospect, we're waiting for the one that'll safely deliver us home from the pub after a few too many.

source

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

English: A photograph of a metro Wi-Fi antenna in Minneapolis, MN. Antennas like these are placed across a metro area to create a wireless mesh network. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Google to bring free Wi-Fi to New York City

Google's ambitions to wire the world are expanding. The company announced on Tuesday that it will provide free Wi-Fi service to Chelsea, a New York City neighborhood where Google has its local headquarters.

In a joint press conference with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Senator Charles Schumer, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) said it hoped to keep the tens of thousands of residents, and millions of tourists, in the area connected at all times when they're outdoors. Google also will be providing indoor coverage for public housing units in the area.
The announcement comes at a time when Google's broadband offerings are being closely tracked by both citizens and politicians eager for tech infrastructure upgrades. The company recently brought high-speed fiber-optic Internet coverage to the Kansas City area, capable of download speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second. That's about 200 times faster than your average home broadband connection.
Tired of slow Internet speeds, high costs and few choices in providers, Americans have been eagerly watching for any hints that Google would expand its fiber offering to their hometowns.
Google's Wi-Fi has impressive speeds of its own -- about 5 to 10 Megabits per second, or around the same as a typical home Internet connection. But Ben Fried, Google's chief information officer, said in unequivocal terms that the Wi-Fi offering is not a harbinger of bigger things to come for New Yorkers.
"This has no relation to Google Fiber," Fried said. "We're citzens of this community, and we felt that it was important to contribute."

Still, here's a tantalizing tidbit that makes the project of interest outside Chelsea: Google said it cost just $115,000 to get all the technology installed for the venture, which carries a $45,000 annual maintenance cost. The company covered two-thirds of the expense, and the Chelsea Improvement Company, a local public advocacy group, paid for the other third.
That low price tag excited the public officials participating in the press conference.
"It's not very expensive at all -- just a smidgeon of what Sandy cost," said Schumer. "The mayor and I said maybe we could get this done for all of New York. We look forward to the day when all of New York has free Wi-Fi."
Bloomberg noted that even as the cost of wireless communications goes down, its usage is soaring, which adds to the overall cost of maintaining the networks. New York currently has free Wi-Fi in 20 parks across its five boroughs, but this is the first time such a large-scale, public Wi-Fi project has been attempted in a densely populated urban area. Google said it faced geographic and technological challenges in building the network, including the problem of sending signals across a wide area with very tall buildings in the way.
Google has offered Wi-Fi to certain areas before. It has been providing Mountain View, Calif., with free Wi-Fi for several years, as part of what it calls "ongoing efforts to reach out to our hometown." (Google is headquartered in Mountain View.) It also teamed up with Wi-Fi providers like Boingo Wireless (WIFI) on a temporary basis to provide service to some New York subway stations, airports and other areas.
Building infrastructure is challenging and expensive, but it's a problem Google is financially motivated to tackle. It makes money when people are connected and searching the Web, giving the company an incentive to provide fast and ubiquitous connectivity.
The 13-block coverage zone in Chelsea includes certain areas between Gansevoort St. and West 19th Street, from 8th Avenue to 10th Avenue.