Matter Yoga at CES 2023

Over the past few years, we've seen screens that could be foldable, rollable, stretchable, pivotable, slidable, wearable, or even laughable. By CES 2024, I bet screens will be chewable and inflatable until that bubble pops*.

It's not just us who exercise with the help of our new gizmos, like our smart watches or this laptop-powering exercise bike (Acer's eKinekt BD3)...

... Our gizmos themselves are doing some serious stretching now, from the basic figures of Lenovo's aptly named Yoga Book 9i to the epic contorsions of the foldable and slidable Samsung Flex Hybrid (in one or two directions - Flex Slidable Solo or Flex Slidable Duet):

No wonder our screens look slender and fitter - not even a bikini string attached for the elegant, 97-inch LG Signature OLED M3 (still needs to be plugged to the electricity grid, but Zero Connect otherwise... goodbye meshrooms!):

Of course, as our mobile and home hubs get smarter, new devices keep popping up to feed them and our screens with even more vital data. CES 2023 even proposed to health monitoring nerds a weird game of thrones between Aetrex Albert 3DFit (get your health scanned by stepping into some kind of toilet bowl) and Whithings U-Scan (get your urine scanned as it flows)**:

How to keep this ever expanding and ever more complex ecosystem as simple and sustainable as possible? Even the most pervasive manufacturers gave up their dreams of growing their own proprietary Internet of Things a long time ago, and to cover all bases, they all need a minimum of stability and interoperability. 

 

For that (not necessarily fecal) matter, the industry's new standard changed its name from a very 1990s 'Connected Home over IP' to a more Millenials-friendly 'Matter' behind which all the big guys join forces, starting with Apple (HomeKit), Google (Weave), and Samsung (SmartThings). Since no significant anti-Matter emerged at CES,if an explosion shall occur, it should be a positive one (except of course regarding our most intimate data).

mot-bile 2023

* I guess 'screenable' now means 'that can be turned into a screen' 

to get their health checked (TTcare by AI FOR PET)

IoT as in the 'Internet of Turds'?

If LG U+ got, as expected, the smaller chunk of 5G spectrum in this week's auctions, they sure made a splash with their connected bidet-toilets. 

* 

Let's start with these 5G auctions, where Korea raised 3.6183 trillion won from the 3 bidders, not even 10% more than the starting point of KRW 3.3 tn; just enough to show an illusion of fight. All 3 MNOs claimed 800MHz in the 2.8GHz spectrum, and in the 3.5GHz spectrum, #3 LG U+ got 80MHz compared to 100 for #1 SK Telecom and #2 Korea Telecom. 

Note that SKT just announced successful tests with Nokia on 3GPP-approved 5G SA (StandAlone), a national first following last December's world first on 5G NSA (Non-StandAlone). You can expect SKT and KT to launch on December 1st (the date the regulator set to allow service) to continue their battle over 5G leadership. They'll probably start on 3.5GHz, at least in the capital Seoul, and key entry points such as Incheon. 

* 

Now about that bidet-toilet thing. 

You first have to understand that many people in East Asia already enjoy electronic systems, complete with water noozles and seat warmers. Here, LG U+ teams up with Inus Bath to add connectivity to the Novita model:

This most essential innovation brings IoT to new territories (the 'Internet of Turds'?). From your smartphone, you can pre-warm your seats, or post-flush in case you forgot to do it. Each member of the family can instantly enjoy their preferred water temperature, pressure, or nozzle position, and you will receive alerts if you stay too long, because no one should be above the loo eternally. 

Mercifully, no cameras are connected so far, but in this over-connected country where last week, 20,000 victims of peeping toms demonstrated on the street, there were already cases of perverts installing spycams in public rest rooms...

In any case, paranoids should worry: LG U+ announced that A.I. will john later. Not Amazon's Echo (who wants more echo in this room, or Alexa sending your personal records by email?), but Naver's Clova: when it's (paper) rolled out, you can voice control this new sentient environment.

* 

The good thing with not being the highest bidder in an auction is that you're flush with enough money to become the highest bidet. 

Will LG U+ rivals enter this fascinating Game of Thrones? 

mot-bile 2018

South Cow-rea already cow-nected to 5G

Lazy MNOs usually settle for milking the cow, but SK Telecom is neither lazy, not your usual MNO. And in its latest presentation, the Korean leader suggested to IoT-ize the cow in order to generate new applications and revenues:

LiveCare: "oral implant of bio capsule in cow, extract real-time information through LoRa, provide analysis through Web/app, alert and message to farmer" - that was Korea's version of the classic 'you have two cows' parable.

Of course, LiveCare was only a niche app illustrating the way the MNO intends to leverage its core techno and infra (network, A.I., cloud, data) to boost new business (e.g. IoT, commerce, media).  

A couple of days ago, BT CEO Gavin Patterson called all players to 'build a strong business case for 5G', and measuring bovine farts doesn't exactly sound like the next killer app... unless you replace cows with humans, and alerts with A.I.-picked medical or culinary recommandations customized for your microbiome (expect more A.I. news from SKT, already present with NUGU or Aibril - the latter with IBM Watson -, and recently joined by Hyundai Motor Company, Hanwha Asset Management, and the Canadian Element AI in a USD 45M fund to invest in A.I. and smart mobility).


SK Telecom is already 'building a strong case for 5G', particularly with its rival KT about to showcase its own flavor during the Pyeongchang 2018 olympics. And SKT are not just into testing earlier than others (e.g. recently 4G LTE-5G internetworking, or VR 360 over 5G with Samsung tablet-size device), or even into going commercial earlier than others, but also into building a stronger 5G standard (e.g. recently pushed for 200 Gbps packet swiching), and a stronger technological environment around 5G (e.g. recently 4.8 Gbps WiFi with 802.11ax in Bundang, or 5G-PON / Passive Optical Network distribution).


'Building a strong business case for 5G' will be more fun for marketers. Even if it starts, as usual, like with 3G or 4G, with existing services that will saturate the previous generation anyway, like HD video these days, a booming category if we ever saw one. 

'Building a strong business case for 5G' will also demand a touch of emotion, so I'll finish this focus on SK with their latest ad for 5G. It features an endangered species, Jeju-do's haenyeo (female diver):




mot-bile 2017

Now MAP me: Facebook testing OpenCellular

A promising start-up is "Introducing OpenCellular: An open source wireless access platform", "an open source and cost-effective, software-defined wireless access platform aimed to improve connectivity in remote areas of the world", "supporting everything from 2G to LTE".

This Mobile Access Platform prolongs the equally open Telecom Infra Project, and sports the same green-white-blue colors.

Green white blue? Is this humanitarian NGO from Sierra Leone?

Well that's tree hugger green, open source white, and Facebook blue. Spot the oddball. 

Facebook, the control freak of your personal data, wants to be a driving force in next gen wireless through the whole value chain, and Zuck doesn't want to miss a beat (see "Networks: the TIP of Facebook's iceberg"). If Facebook failed at the handset level, they want to be in the loop for future standards.

So their PR provided another picture, less appealing to the great( outdoor)er audience, but more relevant for the core target of developers, who must hop in, chime in, and make this platform the winning proposition for MNOs across the world...

... particularly the ones in developping nations with booming consumer bases and huge coverage issues.

mot-bile 2016

Networks: the TIP of Facebook's iceberg

Earlier this year, Facebook gave us a TIP (Telecom Infra Project*) about what could come next for them at the infrastructure level. Most members of the project, starting with Intel, Nokia, SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, are also on board of Facebook's much wider Open Compute Project, which also claims top coopetitor Google.

Naturally, Menlo Park wants a front seat for next gen network premieres - typically, early bird SKT is expected to be the first on 5G. But recent announcements*** at the F8 days confirm that the company intends to reach deeper into the value chain to secure and strenghten its leadership, particularly where innovation in network performance can prevent bottlenecks in these pervasive big data / heavy content times.

Terragraph (WiGig WiFi on 60 GHz) proposes ultra efficient W-LAN coverage for dense urban areas. You only need a station every 200 to 250 m. Of course it doesn't provide seamless handover, but a 200 m radius allows you more mobility than your typical hotspot.

Project ARIES (Antenna Radio Integration for Efficiency in Spectrum - MIMO) is more into W-WAN for rural areas. It combines 96 antennas to manage 24 simultaneous data streams, and aims at over 100 bps / Hz compared to 71 in early trials.

Here too, for a fraction of the price of a standard infra...
 
Could Facebook become a non-2-to-5G MNO, or a player in the game of standards? Not so fast. But an even more competitive value aggregator, certainly.

mot-bile 2016

* telecominfraproject.com
** opencompute.org 
*** "Introducing Facebook's new terrestrial connectivity systems — Terragraph and Project ARIES" (Facebook 20160414) 

Do Seamless 5G Communications Start With Flawless 5G PR?

Last March, NTT DoCoMo, KT, and China Mobile announced technical collaboration on 5G, each one with an Olympic event in mind: Pyeongchang 2018 for Korea, Tokyo 2020 for Japan, Beijing 2022 for China.

China Mobile, who started 5G development 5 years after DoCoMo, is clearly the laggard here. But by its sole presence, the World's biggest operator already brings considerable leverage for the standardization as well as for the ramp up phases, securing the full involvement of an ever progressing Huawei*.

NTT DoCoMo just presented at the Yokosuka Research Park the results of its recent trials**:
- on October 13 with Nokia Networks (2 Gbps transmission on 70 GHz, in Roppongi Hills, with the help of "two new technologies: beamforming, which focuses radio waves in a specific direction, and beam tracking to control beam direction according to the mobile device's location" - beamform me up, Scottie!),
- on October 26 with Fujitsu (multi-BS, multi-device 11 Gbps on 4.6GHz),
- on November 12 with Samsung (2.5 Gbps reception on 28 GHz, in a moving vehicle in Suwon),
- on November 18 with Huawei (MU-MIMO transmission of 43.9bps/Hz/cell, outdoor in Beijing), and
- on November 19 with Ericsson (MIMO 10 Gbps reception on 15 GHz).

A concise and impressive display, and a nice PR operation for a leader willing to show it covers all the bases. I'm curious to see how KT follows. In a nation already 70% converted to 4G LTE, Korea's #2 mobile operator has been the most vocal about 5G, and even about 4.5G following the launch of GiGA LTE last June. The names of Samsung, Ericsson-LG, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei have been announced for collaborations at the new 5G Research and Development Center (in Umyeon-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul), and such technos as MIMO, Millimeter Wave, 3D beamforming have already been tested, like multipoint transmission in a moving car (with Ericsson last May, Distributed MIMO, 2 Gbps).

KT also demonstrated 'core technologies' for 5G (5G drone, 5G hyper-virtual reality, 3D hologram), which got a few Korean media confused between 5G-friendly services and 5G 'networks'***.

GiGA LTE or 5G? "Drone Ski Jumping with 5G Network" feeds the confusion

That's one of the differences between DoCoMo's 'engineer/product/provider' PR and KT's 'marketer/service/user' PR. 

We already saw how the pedagogy of 2.5G, 3G, or 4G worked, and we already know that quantum leaps at the operator's level can seem mere upgrades at the user's level. Let's not fret over hair-splitting debates between 'post-4G', 4.5G and 'pre-5G'.

mot-bile2015

* ZTE focuses on 4.5G ("pre-5G" deal with SoftBank)
** "DOCOMO Successfully Conducts 5G Trials in Actual-use Environments - Trials carried out with Nokia Networks, Samsung, Ericsson, Fujitsu and Huawei" (NTT DoCoMo 20151126) - see also "DOCOMO 5G White Paper" (NTT DoCoMo 201407)
*** e.g. "KT demonstrates 5G network at National Assembly" (Korea Times 20150902)

Tomorrow won't be about Samsung v. Apple any more than the present is about Microsoft v. Nokia

Over the past weeks, Samsung buried the hatchet with Ericsson, before signing cross-license agreements with Google, and then Cisco, days after a similar deal between the last two (note that Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in almost the same breath, but this is not about hardware - Big G keeps the bulk of the patent portfolio).

Samsung and Google concluded in their press release ("Samsung and Google Sign Global Patent License Agreement" - 20140127) that "there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes". A clear memo to Apple, and food for thought - and juries - ahead of the next bouts in court between Suwon and Cupertino.

"Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes". Follow my eyes...

Again*, I'm not taking sides here. It's just that I'm interested in innovation dynamics, and that I don't like to see lawyers or finance people set the agenda in that field. Such partnerships don't put them out of the equation, but allow innovators to keep their eyes on the ball.

And key players to prepare for what comes next. 5G standardization, for instance, or the still open internet of things, domains where Google and Samsung don't want to become the Microsoft and Nokia of yesterday, leaders who were supposedly the best positioned for convergence and pervasive internet...

Samsung outqualcommed the Americans for 4G but now, the Korean needs to build a common platform with them and what's left of Europe before China Inc or other players try to claim their own time slot.

Tomorrow won't be about Samsung v. Apple any more than the present is about Microsoft v. Nokia

mot-bile 2014

* see "Apple - the end of the affair" or "Omnipatent v. Impatent"

Supercharging Whom ? Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies." That's how Larry Page explains the twelve billion purchase in the official Google blog.

The blog is titled "Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility"*, but one could wonder who will be supercharged in the end. Third parties and endusers may start asking themselves what will come out of a landscape where former archrivals Microsoft and Nokia tie the knot, or where the mother of all netcos swallows a former giant manufacturer. SonyEricsson theoretically went even further on the value chain, but the union was celebrated in completely different times, when networks were not precisely clogged with mobile internet traffic.

More moves are expected. Apple has been rumored to be in a mega purchasing mood for quite awhile, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Samsung making something big. Lee Kun-hee just pointed out the necessity for the company to evolve, an evidence we recently repeated (see "Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud"). This should go beyond such acquisition as Grandis, a specialist in memory wolfed down earlier this month by the South Korean chaebol.

Anyway, the Motorola episode reassesses the importance of patents in the legal war raging worldwide. Apple claimed a few significant victories : a big chunk of Nortel patents, plus a suspension of Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in key markets.

The problem is Apple is not John Grisham, an entity that makes money with legal stuff. Being the next NTP is not exactly "cool".

And the consumer is not likely to beg "supercharge me".

mot-bile 2011

* where the king of the 80s is kindly put at the same level as bankrupt Nortel : an empty shell with a collection of patents

Mobile TV for WIMAX, lingo-free

What's in a name... From IPWireless to NextWave Wireless* and from TDtv to MXtv, the TDD champion abandons the techno lingo for a vocabulary fitter for this meshy / cloudy / blurred world.

Let's forget about the recent controversy about WiMAX, TDD (now), and FDD (soon according to Bill Gateses, someday according to Steve Jobses, maybe according to Arun Sarins, never according to WiMAX haters) ; let's forget about that fabled path towards 4G**: this is about next gen "waves", about giving you the "MAX", about TV on the go.

If you enjoy techno lingo and old style hardware, you can also try Huawei's E510 HSUPA datacard. If your device still has the slot for it next June the 5th.

* see "Social networking for social networks" (20080214)

** see "3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU" (20070303)

Aloha's long goodbye, Standards Wars Episode 4G and the phantom menace

Here's AT&T's farewell gift for Aloha Partner, a phantom company full of spectrum, meant from the start* as an empty shell for sale : $2.5bn.

Here's the ITU's gift for WiMAX promoters : OFDMA / 802.16 joins FDMA, TDMA and CDMA in the IMT-2000 3G family just on time for the IMT-advanced kick-off. The 3GSM crew already knew this promising rival would be casted for Standards Wars Episode 4G, but this means intel & Co are here to stay beyond a phantom menace.

Here's 3's gift for Qualcomm : the Skypephone uses the Brew platform. San Diego joins Cupertino in the hype zone. Up North, Redmond is just starting to scratch the surface - a third Halo and a phantomatic 1.6% of Facebook**.


* see "Hiwire - Aloha Partners, Goodbye Stranger" (20060502)
** see "Microsoft outpervasived by Facebook and RIM" (20071025)

iPhone, you Zune - soon on Apple TV

Apple reached an agreement with Cisco on iPhone trademark issues on time for MacWorld and the CES.
Apple reached an agreement with Yahoo! on mobile searches and Google on mobile mapping.
Apple reached an agreement with Microsoft on the compatibility between iPhones and Mac / Windows.
Microsoft warned Apple : phones are a tricky business and even Redmond eggheads are struggling. Adding a keypad to your iPod won't solve everything. If it were the case, we would be launching our own Zune phone. And if we knew how to solve anything, we would even have launched a good Zune in the first place !
Apple TV is not so HD (720p instead of 1080p), not so high storage either (only 40G), not so multimedia (games ?), and definitely not so innovative... but anyway, the iPod itself is far from being the best Portable Multimedia Player around. And Apple is Apple.
Is it ?
Apple is no more about innovation but about hype. Apple is no more "Apple Computer" but "Apple Inc". Apple doesn't make computers anymore ; Apple sells Apple.
Sony also used to enjoy the sometimes too comfortable position of the "cool" brand.
Actually, Sony should be leading the multimedia convergence, being into computers, TVs, handsets, game consoles, and even entertainment. It unfortunately tackled convergence with hardware solutions (Memory Stick) while Apple focused on software (iTunes, iPhoto...).
Neither will dominate because either way, the industry doesn't like standards owned by only one of them.
Apple TV will certainly contribute to the democratization of enhanced home entertainment. And iPhones will sell, even at such a high price. But the more they do, the sooner iTunes will be forced to open up, and Apple itself to change business models.

T Login for HSDPA, EV-DO, WiBro and YouNameIt

SK Telecom having a knack for new brands and new technos, customers must be struggling to keep the pace with the operator's launching machine.
T Login isn't Deutsche Telekom's latest Business Unit but a key to all SKT wireless data accesses (3G EV-DO, HSDPA, WiBro... or why not TD-SCDMA tomorrow* ?) for all devices (laptops, PMPs, digital cameras, car navigators...).
And which common denominator connectivity do you think they picked up before embedded solutions - T Login inside - are available ? Neither Bluetooth nor a vulgar 802.1x wannabe, but Korea's ultimate entry point : the USB.
Yet another proof of SKT's priorities, the first T Login modems will start with HSDPA and add WiBro on time for Xmas and at full throttle 3 months later**. Thanks to KRW 190,000 subsidies, retail prices are slashed to KRW 50,000 or about $ 50, which reflects the importance of this new entry point. SKT decided to boost the buzz by recruiting 30 "quality reviewers" on the web besides the usual pilot testers. Service rates range from KRW 29,900 per month for 2GB (+ KRW 184 per additional MB) to KRW 45,000 for 3GB (+ KRW 123). To be compared to, say, a basic fee of KRW 33,000 for Hanaro Telecom's unlimited Fiber LAN access for cyber apartments.
Overall market is estimated at 2 million people, with the usual suspects mobile office workers and road warriors among core targets, but also students because the group intends to embed its major entertainment brands MelOn, cyworld & Co. too - hell, they even offer dodoris as prelaunch incentives ! In a country where PC cards failed, HSDPA does stand a chance and SKT can leverage on security advantages as well as roaming perspectives for business users.



* since the techno is about to enter Korea (see "TD-SCDMA in Korea" - 20060901)

** No S-DMB in sight and anyway TU media didn't communicate much after the launch of free T-DMB services while KTF claimed 164,000 customers end of May.

Apple - something rotten beyond the Kingdom of France

Proprietary digital media players are now illegal in France : consumers should be able to play the tunes they purchase on any given platform.
RealNetworks, Microsoft and Sony have less to lose than Cupertino's darling : Apple is even more iTunes dependant than iPod dependant.
If abandoning the French market won't kill the group, clinging to a non-durable business model certainly will. Steve Jobs can't say he wasn't warned : his company has a knack for narcissist autism.

DoCoMo 4G The Wizard of Hz - Orange Landline Landmines - BT's FRED for free - Swisscom's 5in1 for 99

Bubbles start popping again. Vodafone concede their assets were overevaluated, Florentino Perez concedes the wealthiest club on earth may not the healthiest, and BT concede their disruptive "broadband dialtone" concept won't be free.
Following an interview in "Mail on Sunday", some believed BT would invest big sums in their 21st Century Network (21CN), plus £12M just for VoIP, just to offer broadband to anyone who wants to plug in. Make that "unlimited" instead of "free". Cardiff will go live by the end of the year and the rest of the 21CN (some 30 countries) in 2008, one year ahead of schedule. The aim of the game is for people to meet with FRED (BT's Fantastically Really Easy to use Device concept). Just like in your mid-90s slides, FRED sells convergence, optimized consumer experience, or seamless multidevice environments.
The difference is FRED does sell : BT Movio (to Virgin Mobile), BT Fusion handsets (BT Broadband at home, your MNO on the go - 13,000 units sold to date), BT Equinox (fixed-line SMS), internet radio (PC based and soon an enhanced TV based version with teleshopping, televoting and telewhatevering thanks to a new red button)... FRED will even launch - this spring - the already cult Bluephone (see "Bluephone : a 2,005 pound gorilla or a GNOME ?" 20050316).

Another former PTT keeps talking convergence and furthermore, acting accordingly. Swisscom's HSDPA coverage will reach 20% of the population mid-2006 and about 40% by the end of the year. That's the equivalent of Switzerland's main cities : it will cover more surface on the industry's newspapers than on the local maps but far enough for the operator's new devices to make sense. Less glamour than FRED, but truly "ready to use" : there is a Swisscom Unlimited PC Card 5in1 (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and WLAN) with a CHFR 99 / month plan, but also an Unlimited Laptops solution developped with Fujitsu Siemens and Acer (embedded SIM, one touch connection, various plans including a CHFR 5 / hour concept, TTM June 2006).

Orange are a former PTT too, through France Telecom's DNA. As expected, they now claim to be "an integrated communications provider" and intend to become "the total communications provider". Orange Landline for Business means fixed line service for SMEs with one stop shopping and billing, simplified supply chain and service support models, convergent packages and bundles, discounted rates between Orange fixed and Orange mobile number ranges or to 'Business Circle' numbers (top 10 landline contacts), Orange Business customer service with a Landline Performance Promise...
But Orange Landline for Business also means Orange Landmine for Partners : the F/MNO controls the whole chain and intends to lock the customer's entry points as fully as it does in France.

How about the mother of all PTTs ? NTT DoCoMo have been talking 4G even before releasing 3G. We knew from the start they meant business because of their capacity problems : even HSDPA / HSUPA cannot solve them and DoC is bound to lead once more in commercial TTM. From time to time, the Alchemist skillfully displays a few glimpses of his witchcraft : "by increasing the number of MIMO transmission antennas from four to six and by using 64-QAM (NB : Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), data volume per transmission was increased from four bits to six bits. As a result, DoCoMo achieved a maximum speed of 2.5Gbps, which is faster than the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R)'s proposed standard". The Wizard of Hz also pushed frequency spectrum efficiency to 25 bps per Hertz, the limit as defined by WINNER (the EU's Wireless world INitiative NEw Radio). In other words : I've been working on 4G on my own according to the rules and the guidelines of standardization bodies, but I've already beaten their expectations. So you'd better follow me if you want to go further and quicklier.
Technology's always been the MNO's main hobby, but they have some 50 million consumers to please and a few technologies to sell before they get obsolete (i-mode, V-Live, i-motion, FOMA...). So the DoCoMo - Nippon Television Network Corporation JV (each partner injecting 5 bn Yens) will start on April 3 under the D.N. dream partners LLP name. What's in a name... the Master Of DYI finally understanding what kind of partnerships he really needs to succeed ?

IEEE 802.11number and number - I'm waiting for the LAN

Five year ago, IT players would seize the opportunity and boost 802.11b as telecom players were all popping 3G bubbles. Now that 3.5G & 4G are under way under a tighter control by their rivals (soon embedded in a Dell near you), wintel & co want to repeat their gig. Cisco & intel, Toshiba & Gateway... the newly formed EWC (Enhanced Wireless Consortium*) sounds like another boring alumni banquet. Sony & apple bring some color but they don't look very motivated. They just didn't want to miss the broadbandwagon...
Especially since it's about providing a more performant version of WiFi to satisFi more demanding needs (ie handling multiple HDTV streams). IEEE 802.11n means 600 Mbps, Space Time Block Coding (STBC), beamforming, a truly next gen LAN. Whoa.
And we were just getting used to 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11b-Cor1, 802.11d, 802.11e, 802.11F, 802.11g, 802.11h, 802.11i, 802.11j, 802.11k, 802.11m, 802.11REV-ma, 802.11p, 802.11r, 802.11s, 802.11T, 802.11v, 802.11u, 802.11w, 802.11.1 and 802.11.2... not to mention 802.15 and PANs, 802.16 and MANs, WiMAX and WiBro (eight oh too)...
The success of WiFi was based on a quite simple scenario and quick decisions. Now IEEE's 802 Project could fuel a few X-Files seasons. Anyway, long life to Enhanced Wireless Complexity.

* The 27 initial EWC members : Airoha, Apple, Atheros, Azimuth, Broadcom, Buffalo, Cisco Systems, Conexant, D-Link, Gateway, Intel Corporation, Lenovo, Linksys, LitePoint, Marvell, Metalink, NETGEAR, Ralink, Realtek, SANYO, Sony, Symbol Technologies, Toshiba, USRobotics, WildPackets, Winbond, ZyDAS.

Galileo Positioning System

In order to compete with America's GPS, Europe gave its satellite navigation system the name of a famous victim to Christian fundamentalism, Galileo Galilei. Despite the infiltration of endless meetings by Uncle Sam's experts in standard gasfactorization, Galileo seems back on tracks (sed movet). It will leverage on Europe's EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service), Russia's GLONASS (Glown Ass ?) and even China's PATHOS. The promoters of the technology consider themselves joint undertakers*, which gives you an idea of how much they believe in what they do.
To find the EU's home page for the Galileo program, you have to go down to http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/index_en.htm. The path to the NASA's Galileo space program looks much shorter : http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/. So short indeed the Americans crashed Galileo on Jupiter. Acte manqué ?
Galileo.org leads to the Galileo Centre in Calgary, AB. They are into networking, but of the educational kind. The program locked the URL back in 1997.
Galileo.com has been preempted since 1994. The owner is no other than Cendant Corporation, the owner of Avis and Budget Rent a Car, not to mention Century 21, Sotheby's International Realty, Days Inn, HoJo, Ramada Inn, Travelodge & co... Location based services if any, but located in Englewood, CO.
On the other hand, GPS.org leads to the homepage of a gay couple. Locating your mate as the killer app ?
But guess to whom belongs GPS.com ? A certain Microsoft Corporation - 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 US...
How to square the circle or from triangulation to quadrature...

* For the Galileo Joint Undertaking, type http://www.galileoju.com. Sounds like a Korean alcohol to me.

At the edges of the middle

NTT DoCoMo know 4G will take off in Asia but they also know they can't do it on their own. They failed last time but for the next gen they decided to invest massively where size matters. China. Putting $2.5 bn a year on 3G+ / 4G R&D in Beijing will not solve the diplomatic quagmire caused by the surge of nippon revisionism but it may help DoCoMo take a lead in standardization.
On the other hand, investing massively in AT&T Wireless didn't prove to be the best way of reaching the US market. Chinese developpers can as well take the money and run, rock, roll and roll out without caring much for their once powerful neighbors.

Friend or Foe (debate on Microsoft in the mobile world)

FRIEND : when they succeed in setting a standard in a confused landscape
FOE : how they do it (me-tooing before purchasing or crushing, destroying competitive and innovative ecosystems - save the penguin before it's too late ! -, running business the ugly mobster way...)
Stephane MOT on a forum

The times they are a-changin'

Microsoft will have to replace their connecting cables for millions of X-Boxes but a big wireless victory makes for these minor cable losses as Nokia accepts to provide a bridge between OMA and Windows through a key entry point (DRM) and around a key solution (Windows Media Player)*. The common targets of the former archrivals : music majors today, movie majors tomorrow (anyway they are often the same players). All major content providers should follow and sooner or later, and operators will get real and get rid of Real. That's what Microserves are wishing very hard from their King county campus.
Are the telecom-IT wars over or does this Yalta mean we're heading for a cold war ?
Since vendors can never agree on universal standards by themselves and are not eager to reproduce the WiFi scenario anytime soon (ie IT players creating the market in unison without waiting for customers to ask for it), the show belongs to those who can actually show the money, and this means either the few big clients with big bucks (ie MNOs) or the multitude of small clients who decide which direction the big rivers will flow (ie WMA endusers).
And handset manufacturers don't like the way MNOs are trying to get a grip on them, the way they consider giving up handset subsidies to the enduser and instead kind of financing / patronizing vendors, be it for speeding up the evolutions of 3G or the avaibility of handsets and even laptops.
Setting new standards used to be about long processes of discussions and negociations entertained by florentine attacks and betrayals, with a celebration feast among survivors to wrap it up. Now the war is a neverending race involving all fields and players, coopetition making sure anyone is an ally and a foe at the same time.
The good news is MNOs are getting smarter and watching the game will be much more fun. Stephane MOT
* see Nokia's and Microsoft's press releases

Report bad link - Meshed Potatoes.org

The good thing about updating your favorites is you check every now and then how a techno is doing. Take Near Field Communication for example : the NFC Forum website's last press release is dated march 2004 and working groups remain to be seen (anyway, who would buy a technology labeled with such approximation ?). Elsewhere, the rebranding around the UWB (Ultra Wide Band) family obviously brought some confusion : launching the WiMedia Alliance sounded like surfing on the WiFi-WiMAX wave but in the meanwhile the tsunami took the UWB WG's url away. uwb.org now leads to a commercial site for radar products which would be very much needed in the war of standards between MB-OFDM (supported by the Multiband OFDM Alliance, about the same players as for WiMedia) and DS-UWB (Direct Sequence UWB), supported by the UWB Forum. Judging by how that forum allows a chinese spin-off, I wouldn't be surprised if China decided to build their own standard. Motorola seems to bet on it. For all I now, the rest of the UWB Forum can turn into meshed potatoes, squeezed between this MBOA and the WUSB initiative, a.k.a. wireless USB, a likely Bluetooth-killer if the Viking keeps wasting time and opportunities. You can watch the one year old WUSB toddling somewhere on USB.org, under the nose of mighty naughty fairy godmothers : some board members of the USB Implementation Forum (intel, Microsoft, HP, NEC, Philips) plus Samsung... who decided to bet on all horses (also a UWB Forum member).
As a matter of fact, WUSB is already working. And focusing on a major and demanding application : broadcasting live music. That's on WUSB.org. That's also on 90.1 fm, live from the University of Sonny Brook, NY. And guess what, WUSB's sister station is none other than the WPKN I used to tune to back in '86.