There’s an abundance of wireless and location news from the past week. A new frontier for Google Maps: mapping the indoors | Google Blog Google maps adds indoor navigation | Engadget Google, Nokia, Ericsson And Navigation’s Next Frontier: The Great Indoors | Fast Company Malls tracked shopper’s cell phones on […]
Yearly Archives: 2011
59 posts
Entrepreneur Steven Gary Blank delivers an outstanding lecture on “The Secret History of Silicon Valley.” The story is in large part how Frederick Terman invented the culture of entrepreneurship at Stanford and Silicon Valley in the aftermath of World War II. Blank’s lecture is peppered with fascinating details. For instance, I […]
When Bob Cringely produced Triumph of the Nerds in 1995, he interviewed Steve Jobs. This was back when Jobs was with NeXT Computing and before he’d retaken the helm at Apple. Cringely used only a small portion of the interview and the rest was feared lost when the master tapes […]
I’m passing on another press release from my company, Q-Track. The Q-Track team at I/ITSEC is having a great show and wanted to share this video, filmed yesterday, of their live demonstration. ORLANDO, FL – December 1, 2011. Q-Track’s NFER Real-Time Location System (RTLS) demonstration wowed attendees during the first […]
[iframe:src=”http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=uwbantennacom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B0068URL6M” frameborder=”0″ width=”120px” height=”240px” scrolling=”no”] Next-RF’s Model 310C UWB Planar Horn Antenna is now available from Amazon. This ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna approximates a constant aperture. Thus, the time domain voltage signal closely approximates the time domain behavior of the incident fields themselves. In addition to use as a UWB impulse […]
Today, I’m passing along a press release from my company, Q-Track. Swing by Booth 2737 at I/ITSEC in Orlando this week to see a demonstration of NFER RTLS. ORLANDO, FL – November 28, 2011. Q-Track Corporation, the pioneer in Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging, will be demonstrating NFER Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) […]
Enter “baby bowl” into your favorite search engine. For the last couple of years, the top link has usually been The Baby Dipper Bowl. Why is this Mom-invented product the buzz of the blogosphere? Because Baby Dipper is simply a better baby bowl. And now, for this weekend only, you […]
I came across the following by Vannevar Bush, and thought I’d pass it along. This is one of the clearer descriptions of how electromagnetic energy works that I’ve run across. In fact, the very definition of the radiation during a transient is a matter of some concern. Radiation in the […]
DecaWave has joined the ranks of companies offering UWB-based real-time locating systems. Here’s a video showing a demonstration of their system. DecaWave RTLS and ranging demo – YouTube.
Time Domain has released a compact (3″ x 4″) UWB radar module with 1.4GHz bandwidth at a 4.3GHz center frequency. From their website: Time Domain’s PulsON® 400 (P400) Monostatic Radar Module (MRM) is a fully coherent, short-range radar that packs 1.4 GHz of RF bandwidth in a small, low cost, […]
Last week, Huntsville, AL-based Q-Track Corporation promoted Stephen A. Werner to Chief Executive Officer. Werner previously served as Chief Operating Officer. He brings over twenty-five years of executive experience to Q-Track, including previous service as VP and General Manager for AAR Summa Technology. Werner also held senior positions with Sanmina-SCI […]
This video explains laser sintering. Laser sintering has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling low-volume manufacturing of plastic parts at a reasonable cost. My company, Q-Track, is shipping products in enclosures made by this process while we work out minor mechanical issues before going to injection molding for high-volume manufacturing. Hat tip: […]
This afternoon, I’ll be presenting at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference on the subject, “RTLS Enhancing Nuclear Safety.” Radiation exposure of workers in the nuclear industry poses a significant health hazard to the workers, and imposes substantial costs to the utilities that employ them. Q-Track has developed two Real-Time Location […]
The story seems an improbable fiction: a famous Hollywood actress invents a secret technology so far ahead of its time that it takes decades for the full potential of her idea to be recognized. Yet in 1941, actress Hedy Lamarr, collaborating with pianist George Anthiel, invented frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum technology. The […]
Reginald Victor Jones (or R. V. Jones) was born one hundred years ago today, on September 29, 1911. Jones was a British physicist who pioneered scientific intelligence, the art of applying scientific analysis to military intelligence. Part Richard Feynman, part Sherlock Holmes, Jones’ job was to anticipate German technical advances […]
Harvard’s Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations team produced a remarkable video showing fifteen uncoupled pendulums. The pendulums were designed so as to have frequencies of 51 – 65 swings per minute. Over the course of a minute they go in and out of phase with each other. You’ll see them at […]
Times have changed since Cyrus Field laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable. Now, Greg Mahlknecht has compiled a comprehensive list of current underseas cables plotted on a handy Google Map interface. Here’s Greg’s Cable Map (via Gizmodo, Boing Boing):
Last month, I spoke at the 2011 International Microwave Symposium in Baltimore in a workshop on innovative and highly accurate local location systems. My slides are now available online. This workshop presentation explains basics of near-field physics and near-field RF links. Then, this presentation explains the implementation and performance of […]
As usual, Steven J. Crowley summarizes the latest Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC. Here are a few highlights: LightSquared filed an application and exhibits for special temporary authority to conduct testing to determine the effects of L-band LTE signals on GPS devices in a live field-test environment. The testing […]
This just in from Information Week (via Dwayne Hendricks, WA8DZP on Twitter): Ultrawideband Takes Us Closer To Star Trek Tricorders. Is it a miraculous UWB radar that monitors your heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol? Alas, no. It’s a UWB body area network. Ultra-wideband works great when you have lots […]
Saturday July 9 marks the centennial of John Archibald Wheeler’s birth. Wheeler pioneered the theory of nuclear fission along with Niels Bohr. He contributed to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Afterward, he led a revival of general relativity theory including coining such memorable terms as “wormholes” and […]
“Standard” gain horns are the customary way to make precision measurements, but they tend to make a poor reference against which to compare antenna performance, particularly for ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas. The ideal reference antenna for use with UWB systems is a linear phase antenna with increasing gain to approximate an […]
Today’s post is on an obscure side note in antenna history. Henry Jasik is perhaps best known in antenna engineering circles as the Editor of the indispensable Antenna Engineering Handbook. However, he also played a minor role as a witness in the McCarthy Hearings. Transcripts of the McCarthy Hearings (1953-54 […]
Trade shows are always tricky places for live demos, particularly for Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS). With multiple vendors densely packed in adjacent booths, the RF noise levels make demonstrations risky if they are possible at all. That’s why my Q-Track colleagues were particularly pleased with the ability of NFER® RTLS […]