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Posts Tagged ‘Internet Access’

feature: How Amsterdam was wired for open access fiber

The city of Amsterdam has been involved for several years in building Citynet, a partnership between the city and two private investors to wire 40,000 Amsterdam buildings with fiber. And it’s not just fiber, it’s open access fiber—any ISP can sign up to use the infrastructure and deliver ultra-fast Internet access.

In 2008, the European Union ruled that the city’s involvement in the project was in fact legal, and that it was not improperly interfering in the market.

We asked Herman Wagter, CEO of the company that built Citynet fiber project, to talk about how he got the job done, and to explain the challenges of rolling out fiber in a densely crowded European city.

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80% say ‘Net access fundamental right, split on regulation

Access to the Internet is a fundamental right to nearly four out of five adults across the globe, and those in South Korea, Mexico, and China seem to have the strongest feelings on the topic. This is according to a report (PDF) by the BBC World Service, which polled 27,973 adults on their feelings about, usage of, and concerns about the Internet. Although users are somewhat divided on whether the Internet should be regulated, they are in agreement on its usefulness for learning and information discovery.

Across all 26 countries, 79 percent of Internet and non-Internet users said that they felt that Internet access should be “the fundamental right of all people.” When isolated for people who already use the Internet, that number went up to 87 percent. Almost universally (90 percent), respondents said that the Internet was a good place to learn and almost 80 percent said the Internet brought them greater freedom.

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Rogers rolls out fixes for 911 problems with Dream and Magic, cuts off data for non-upgraders
So Rogers and HTC have worked with the kind of hustle you don’t normally see from carriers or manufacturers to fix a rather dangerous glitch in their branded versions of the Dream and Magic causing calls to 911 to fail with GPS enabled — and needless to say, you’re going to want to apply the upgrade on the double. Why? Well, the problem’s so dangerous that Rogers has taken the unusual step of vowing to disable internet access altogether for anyone failing to apply the “mandatory” patch by 6AM today (but don’t worry, you should get it back as soon as you’ve upgraded). For their troubles, affected customers will be credited one month’s worth of data — and Magic owners will be delighted to discover that their phones have magically received HTC’s Sense UI as a result of this whole ordeal. All’s well that ends well, right?

Rogers rolls out fixes for 911 problems with Dream and Magic, cuts off data for non-upgraders originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 06:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone App Launches: Lots of Power, But Too Expensive

Quite a bit ahead of schedule, Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone app appeared in the iTunes App Store today. The app, which costs $49.99, gives users full access to Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities and greatly improves on the speed and ergonomics of Wolfram Alpha’s mobile site. The company is targeting this app at students and professionals and marketing it as a replacement for stand-alone graphing calculators, which is clearly reflected in the price.

Sponsor

Dual Keyboards

One of the most interesting feature of the app, besides the ability to quickly access all of the power that Wolfram Alpha now offers, is the fact that the company has found a way to make inputing queries very easy. Instead of a single keyboard at the bottom of the screen, the app actually displays two keyboards – one for numbers and symbols, and a regular QWERTY keyboard at the bottom of the screen. Given the nature of a typical query for Alpha, this makes perfect sense and we hope that others will follow Alpha’s lead here.

A Web-Connected Graphing Calculator, But With Some Limitations

It’s important to note that the app only works when a user is connected to the Internet. This could be a deal-breaker for some, but then, the app store already offers plenty of basic graphing calculators for those times when you don’t have Internet access. Thanks to its vast database of chemical compounds, nutritional data, geographical information, financial data, and its ability to solve pretty much any math problem that a high school or college student will ever encounter, the app can do a lot more than any current graphing calculator can offer.

For some students, though, the problem could be that some teachers won’t allow them to bring a full-blown Internet-capable device like the iPhone or an iPod touch into an exam. In addition, it’s also important to note that the Wolfram Alpha doesn’t offer the ability to write programs inside the app, though maybe somebody else will build an app that can do this based on Alpha’s newly released API.

It’s also important to remember that Alpha isn’t as easy to use as Google. Alpha, and, by extension, the app, can be rather strict about how you structure a query, for example. If you don’t capitalize a chemical formula, the app won’t know what to do with these symbols. While Google has virtually no learning curve, Alpha works best if you invest some time into exploring the intricacies of how to structure queries. To help you along the way, the app features a demo video, lots of example queries, and an FAQ section.

Native App Offers a Bit More Than the Web Service, But Is That Enough to Justify the High Price?

In its press materials, the Wolfram Alpha team stresses that the app offers a number of features that the web app can’t currently offer. The app can now make assumptions based on your location, for example. Wolfram also has added quite a few features that make using the app easier than using the web service. You can easily bookmark queries and the app keeps a running list of recent searches available as well. In addition, you can easily email queries or share them on Twitter.

Is $50 Too Much?

At $49.99, there can be no doubt that Wolfram Research is pricing the app at the higher end of the spectrum. A spokesperson for Wolfram Alpha told us that the company wants to target the app at “serious users, and is priced as such.” The team is clearly aware that this price could be controversial, especially given that the mobile web site offers a similar interface, though without the ergonomic benefits of the native app. In addition, Wolfram tells us that the team wants to use this price to make a statement about the “non-trivial nature” of Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities.

While the company plans to offer regular discounts and sales, we can’t help but wonder if the price isn’t a bit too high. At $9.99 or even $19.99, the app would be more of an impulse buy, while now, even though it obviously offers more features than a user would ever expect from a high-priced hardware graphing calculator which would generally retail for more than $100.

Verdict

Wolfram Alpha launched to so much hype that a backlash was inevitable when it finally launched. As Schoeller Porter, the product manager for the iPhone app, notes, the company is also launching this app “as an opportunity to highlight how far the system has come since launch.” Indeed, the Wolfram Alpha team continues to add new data sources and new ways to query them, making the service more useful with every new dataset it adds.

The high price will probably keep quite a few potential users from downloading the app, however. While we understand the company’s rational behind this high price, users generally consider a $10 app to be a ‘premium’ product. $49.99 is a hefty price for this app, especially considering that the majority of features is available through the web service. If you are a student or engineer who really needs these features, though, the app is worth a look, but we recommend you try the web service and see how it works for the kinds of queries you would enter before you spend $50, especially given that the company will surely offer discounts or bring the base price down at some point.

Discuss

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Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone App Launches: Lots of Power, But at a High Price

Quite a bit ahead of schedule, Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone app appeared in the iTunes App Store today. The app, which costs $49.99, gives users full access to Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities and greatly improves on the speed and ergonomics of Wolfram Alpha’s mobile site. The company is targeting this app at students and professionals, which is clearly reflected in the price.

Sponsor

Dual Keyboards

One of the most interesting feature of the app, besides the ability to quickly access all of the power that Wolfram Alpha now offers, is the fact that the company has found a way to make inputing queries very easy. Instead of a single keyboard at the bottom of the screen, the app actually displays two keyboards – one for numbers and symbols, and a regular QWERTY keyboard at the bottom of the screen. Given the nature of a typical query for Alpha, this makes perfect sense and we hope that others will follow Alpha’s lead here.

A Web-Connected Graphing Calculator on Steroids

It’s important to note that the app only works when a user is connected to the Internet. This could be a deal-breaker for some, but then, the app store already offers plenty of basic graphing calculators for those times when you don’t have Internet access. Thanks to its vast database of chemical compounds, nutritional data, geographical information, financial data, and its ability to solve pretty much any math problem that a high school or college student will ever encounter, the app can do a lot more than any current graphing calculator can offer.

For some students, though, the problem could be that some teachers won’t allow them to bring a full-blown Internet-capable device like the iPhone or an iPod touch into an exam. In addition, it is also important to note that the Wolfram Alpha doesn’t offer the ability to write programs inside the app, though maybe somebody else will build an app that can do this based on Alpha’s newly released API.

It’s also important to remember that Alpha isn’t as easy to use as Google. Alpha, and, by extension, the app, can be rather strict about how you structure a query, for example. If you don’t capitalize a chemical formula, the app won’t know what to do with these symbols. While Google has virtually no learning curve, Alpha works best if you invest some time into exploring the intricacies of how to structure queries. To help you along the way, the app features a demo video, lots of example queries, and an FAQ section.

Native App Offers a Bit More Than the Web Service, But Is That Enough to Justify the High Price?

In its press materials, the Wolfram Alpha team stresses that the app offers a number of features that the web app can’t currently offer. The app can now make assumptions based on your location, for example. Wolfram also has added quite a few features that make using the app easier than using the web service. You can easily bookmark queries and the app keeps a running list of recent searches available as well. In addition, you can easily email queries or share them on Twitter.

Is $50 Too Much?

At $49.99, there can be no doubt that Wolfram Research is pricing the app at the higher end of the spectrum. A spokesperson for Wolfram Alpha told us that the company wants to target the app at “serious users, and is priced as such.” The team is clearly aware that this price could be controversial, especially given that the mobile web site offers a similar interface, though without the ergonomic benefits of the native app. In addition, Wolfram tells us that the team wants to use this price to make a statement about the “non-trivial nature” of Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities.

While the company plans to offer regular discounts and sales, we can’t help but wonder if the price isn’t a bit too high. At $9.99 or even $19.99, the app would be more of an impulse buy, while now, even though it obviously offers more features than a user would ever expect from a high-priced hardware graphing calculator which would generally retail for more than $100.

Verdict

Wolfram Alpha launched to so much hype that a backlash was inevitable when it finally launched. As Schoeller Porter, the product manager for the iPhone app, notes, the company is also launching this app “as an opportunity to highlight how far the system has come since launch.” Indeed, the Wolfram Alpha team continues to add new data sources and new ways to query them, making the service more useful with every new dataset it adds.

The high price will probably keep quite a few potential users from downloading the app, however. While we understand the company’s rational behind this high price, users generally consider a $10 app to be a ‘premium’ product. $49.99 is a hefty price for this app, especially considering that the majority of features is available through the web service. If you are a student or engineer who really needs these features, though, the app is worth a look, but we recommend you try the web service and see how it works for the kinds of queries you would enter before you spend $50, especially given that the company will surely offer discounts or bring the base price down at some point.

Discuss

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$10 billion takes fiber to every school, hospital in the US

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation knows how to get things done.

On October 5, the Foundation met with FCC broadband coordinator Blair Levin. The purpose of that meeting was to provide a cost estimate for one of the Foundation’s ideas: running fiber optic cables to every “anchor institution” in the US—libraries, hospitals, community colleges, public schools. By October 8, the FCC was asking for public comment (PDF) on the plan and the viability of its cost estimates, which say the entire project could be completed for $5-$10 billion.

The Gates Foundation has identified 123,000 “anchor institutions” in local communities that could make good use of fiber Internet connections. In addition to serving the community that comes to each institution, the idea is also to run fiber into the center of every community in the country, with the goal of making it easier to then expand Internet access to homes and businesses in the community.

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Uber-nano nanolasers could lead to faster computers, reliable internet, neverending list of awesome things

Filed under: Science

Uber-nano nanolasers could lead to faster computers, reliable internet, neverending list of awesome things originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monkeys and scientists develop persistent "plug and play" control over brain-to-computer interface

While we’ve seen some pretty amazing things so far with computers jacked into human and monkey brains, systems so far have had to be re-learned each session by their subjects. In a new development, researchers at Berkeley have managed to get their monkeys to develop a “memory” for the controls, and recall them instantly each day. To do this, the scientists kept track of specific neurons from day to day — a little tough to do, but obviously worth the hassle. It’s good news for future brain-to-computer interfaces that will enable the disabled and the truly lazy to perform tasks and kick ass through the mere power of thought, but we’re a little afraid of giving these monkeys too much in the way of internet access: the world doesn’t need another 4chan.

Filed under: Robots, Wearables

Monkeys and scientists develop persistent “plug and play” control over brain-to-computer interface originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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