Some of the latest happenings in wireless, just in time for Wireless Wednesday: Steven J. Crowley’s always interesting Experimental License Updates. Why broadcasters need FM on cell phones – it’s all about the money. Hat Tip: Steven J. Crowley. Wireless guru Shayan Sanyal has a new blog. Check out the […]
Technology
168 posts
Inertial tracking systems have an unfortunate tendency to slowly drift over time. University of Michigan Professor Johann Borenstein has developed a very effective solution to that problem. First, he places a MEMS sensor in a boot. With every step, the sensor is momentarily stationary, allowing drift to be completely reset. […]
Springwise reports on “Parksense,” an application created by Paris-based SmartGrains. The system uses networked in-ground sensors to alert drivers to open parking spots.
Who needs cell phone towers? The largest communications antenna ever placed into orbit, a 22m (72ft) reflector, was launched from Kazahkstan a couple of weeks ago. It will relay signals for a new 4G-LTE mobile phone and data system for North America run by Lightsquared. (BBC News; RedOrbit)
Here are a few RTLS and wireless updates: UWB RTLS vendor Ubisense raised £5M to fund expansion. And 50 Ubisense tags are available on eBay with a starting bid of $9.99. Another UWB RTLS vendor, decaWave, was honored for “best technology development” at a tradeshow. It’s Nearly Time for Near-Field […]
A couple of days ago when I explained How Full-Body Scanners Work – and Fail, I didn’t mention any potential health risks because millimeter wave signals are inherently non-ionizing and the power levels associated with the potentially ionizing backscatter X-ray scanners seemed at first glance to be negligibly small. However, […]
John Brandon, writing at Digital Trends, features my company, The Q-Track Corporation, as one of “Six tech start-ups that could change the way we live.” Q-Track’s Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging technology provides the “indoor GPS” to bring location awareness to the most difficult industrial RF propagation environments. The piece is a […]
An American engineer must overcome the objections of environmentalists as well as the machinations of terrorists to complete a tunnel under the English Channel on time and under budget. Robert Byrne’s The Tunnel (1977) is an action-thriller in an engineering setting. This was Byrne’s first engineering novel. Writing in Behold […]
Last week, Joshua Brustein reported at the New York Times that “Location-Based Services Have Not Caught On,” citing a Pew Center report that shows use of such services has declined from 5% to 4% over the last six months. The most current survey had a +/-3% margin of error. I […]
AeroScout announced yesterday that it has secured $16 million in venture financing to capitalize on the strong demand for its Real-Time Location System (RTLS) and to continue to accelerate the adoption of its Wi-Fi RFID solutions. New investor Evergreen Venture Partners led the round, and all of AeroScout’s existing investors […]
Time for more wireless updates: Here’s a great article about the British precursor to LORAN: “GEE.” GEE was one of the first implementations of the “Time-Difference-of-Arrival (TDOA)” concept used in some modern RTLS implementations. A simple explanation of Ekahau RTLS: “The Perfect Pairing of RF and IR.” Whatever happened to […]
ÆtherCzar briefly mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating in further detail. When you log in to Facebook, Twitter, or other such sites over an unsecured WiFi network, you are broadcasting your identity and login information in a way that anyone else on the network can detect and exploit. […]
Time once again to clear out the update queue: Steven J. Crowley explains the many facets of what’s called “4G” technology. MatthewLasar writing at ArsTechnica explains how smartphone makers are ready to wage war over the FM chip mandate pushed by broadcasters. From TechCrunch: Experimental Real-Time Location Tracking Comes To […]
Ultra-wideband (UWB) data products are coming to market at last. Last month, Alereon (Facebook, Twitter) announced that their UWB “NoWire(TM)” technology will be used in Imation’s Wireless Video/Audio Extender providing an up to 220Mbps link. Here’s a review. Alereon chips will also power Toshiba’s Wireless Dynadock W20. Now, Alereon’s competitors […]
With the launch and tracking of Sputnik in 1957, it soon became obvious that the location of the satellite could be tracked by monitoring its Doppler shift. Frank McClure persuaded fellow researchers at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to devise a satellite navigation and positioning system based on the Doppler […]
A few updates: The FCC has granted Garmin’s request for an extension of the waiver allowing transmission of digital GPS coordinate data on GMRS. Hat Tip: Steven J. Crowley Trimble acquired RFID vendor ThingMagic. Hat Tip: VeryFields RFID GS1 Hong Kong announced the winners of the Hong Kong RFID Awards […]
Back in April, ÆtherCzar told the story of how the Dallas Office of the FCC discovered a 5W cell phone jammer in operation at the Cosmetology Career Center in Carrollton, TX. The FCC could have imposed fines of as much as $11,000 per day. Judging by the enforcement letter, there […]
Xirrus (Twitter) provides a wonderful series of posters describing the details of 802.11a/b/g wireless networks. Other posters in the same series describe Bluetooth, ZigBee and UWB data networks. Hat Tip: Johnny Wireless
A round-up of recent links on banning cell phones in prisons: Debate Rages Over Cell Phone Jamming International Business Times Prisons and mobile phones: Bricking the intruders The Economist Cell Phone Crackdown in Tennessee Prisons Points to Larger Problem Press Release Countermeasures to Contraband Cell Phone Use in Prisons FCC […]
An engineering consultant (who specializes in failure analysis) must remain true to his independent judgment when his client and his employer both seek to cover up evidence of dangerous problems in a mid-town Manhattan skyscraper. In his 1984 novel, Skyscraper, Byrne describes an intricate confluence of corruption, corner-cutting, and poor […]
Convergence Systems Limited offers a $3,000 RTLS starter kit including: One (1) CS5113LP Master reader/anchor with Ethernet Five (5) CS5111LP slave reader/anchor Ten (10) CS3151 asset tags Mounting tripods & hardware Location engine software Samples applications, Documentation, SDK, and source code available via download here. Additional support via ticketing system […]
Wired’s Threat Level blog has the story of California student Yasir Afifi. His mechanic found an unusual electronic gadget in Afifi’s car, that turns out to be a tracking device. Then he posted pictures to Reddit. Interestingly, the crowd-sourced analysis pegged the exact make and model of the tracking device, […]
It was a busy week to have been out on vacation. Here are some RTLS and Location-Based Services links to help get caught up: My employer, NFER® RTLS vendor Q-Track, unveiled an updated website, took second place in the Global Security Challenge, West Coast Final, and was featured in RFID […]