Using public Wi-Fi is a hit-and-miss endeavor: sometime’s its perfect, at others it’s bogged down so much as to be worthless. Fortunately a team of researchers has hit on a solution that can improve throughput by 700 percent —and because it’s software-based, it won’t even need any new hardware to have us all contentedly online. More »
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Simple Router Software Could Boost Public Wi-Fi Throughput By 700 Percent
Oh gosh, we haven’t been so panicked since our phones were hypothetically possessed by demons . And come to think of it, this is theoretically far, far worse. A research group at Virginia Tech is claiming that, due to the particular way 4G data is transmitted, an LTE base station can be sabotaged using lightweight equipment that costs as little as $650. Such a thing is possible because, unlike 2G and 3G, LTE depends on control instructions that occupy only a tiny fraction of the total signal — and details of those specific frequencies have been openly published. According to the research group’s director, Jeff Reed, a single malicious operative with a hot briefcase and a bit of know-how could take down “miles of LTE signals.” If the attacker splashed out on an amplifier, they could cut off reception for thousands of people across a whole city or region. Reed stresses that there are no known instances of this happening yet, but also warns that he can see no “mitigation strategies” that can “cover it all.” Let us pray that humanity’s characteristic inability to agree on anything — including a universal LTE standard — will be our salvation. Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Science , Mobile LTE: fast, global, silenced by a $650 radio jammer originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 07:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Technology Review | Email this | Comments
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LTE: fast, global, silenced by a $650 radio jammer
Making good on its dividend program plans, the tech giant chips away at a $45 billion pile of cash and hands out some legal tender to its shareholders. [Read more]
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Apple to dole out $2.5 billion to shareholders
Who says scientific breakthroughs never amount to anything? Everspin has followed up on research developed by IBM, TDK and German researchers years back and released the first commercial spin-torque magnotoresistive RAM (ST-MRAM) onto the market. The technology works by taking advantage of electron “spin” to store data in a magnetic, rather than electronic state, providing non-volatile memory that doesn’t wear out. The company said the first chips were about 50 times the cost of flash memory by size, but where a typical NAND module can perform about 800 iOPS, ST-MRAM is capable of 400,000 — making it ideal for SSD caching and other demanding applications. Everspin has started shipping working samples of the 64MB DIMMS in a DDR3 form factor, saying that future versions will scale to gigabyte capacities and faster speeds — keeping Moore’s Law hurtling inexorably forward. Check the PR after the break for the company’s spin on it. Continue reading Everspin throws first ST-MRAM chips down, launches commercial spin-torque memory era Filed under: Peripherals , Storage Everspin throws first ST-MRAM chips down, launches commercial spin-torque memory era originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink Computerworld | | Email this | Comments
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Everspin throws first ST-MRAM chips down, launches commercial spin-torque memory era
Stents have long been used in medicine for keeping blocked arteries open, along with various other tubes of the body that are prone to blockage and collapse. Now, this same concept has been shrunk down to a minute size, and might soon be finding a home in your eyeballs. More »
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How a tiny eye implant could save your vision from glaucoma
You, the consumer, probably don’t care too much about Windows Embedded 8 and Windows Embedded Compact 2013. But businesses and OEMs, they’re pretty psyched. The next generation of Microsoft’s light-weight OS offerings will bring the improved touch and gesture support of Windows 8 to low power platforms like car computers and kiosks. In all five versions of Windows Embedded 8 will be available: Standard , Pro, Industry, Automotive and Handheld. The latter of which is built around Windows Phone 8 as opposed to the desktop system. The Industry and Handheld editions are expected to land in January, with Pro and Standard to follow in March. Compact 2013 doesn’t have a solid release window yet beyond Q2 of 2013. If you’re an impatient builder of connected devices you can download a release preview of Windows Embedded 8 Standard at the more coverage link. Continue reading Microsoft reveals Windows Embedded 8 and Windows Embedded Compact 2013 road map Filed under: Software , Microsoft Microsoft reveals Windows Embedded 8 and Windows Embedded Compact 2013 road map originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Microsoft | Email this | Comments
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Microsoft reveals Windows Embedded 8 and Windows Embedded Compact 2013 road map
In an effort to streamline the process of scanning hundreds of millions of titles, Google Books engineer Dany Qumsiyeh has designed a $1,500 automated scanner from sheet metal, dissected electronics, and a household vacuum. It can chew through a 1,000 page odyssey in about 90 minutes, and you’re welcome to build your own since Qumsiyeh has made his Linear Book Scanner open source . More »
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Open Source Book Scanner Uses a Household Vacuum To Turn the Page
It feels like we’ve been hearing about Google Fiber in Kansas City forever. Though a few people have gotten to use the blazing-fast service, Google has only been accepting applications for the service for most of the city. Well today, the Google Fiber installations begin in earnest . More »
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Google Is Finally Installing Gigabit Fiber In Kansas City Homes
The tenth major version of Internet Explorer has been available to users of Windows 8 for months , in both the operating system’s pre-release days and since it hit retail on October 26. But while Microsoft declared IE10 ready to go for Windows 8, users of Windows 7 could not download the browser—until today. Even now, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is only available in a ” Release Preview .” It’s the first preview of IE10 to be usable on Windows 7 since last year’s Platform Preview . But what’s available today is a version of IE10 that is presumably ready for daily use, as installing it replaces the user’s previous version of Internet Explorer. IE10 is only for Windows 7 and Windows 8. The reason for the staggered releases hasn’t been confirmed, but as we noted in an article last month , “The extra time required for Windows 7 may be due to underlying platform differences—Windows 8 supports Direct3D 11.1, compared to 11.0 on Windows 7, for example. So if Internet Explorer 10 depends on Direct3D 11.1 features, either that dependence has to be removed, or Direct3D 11.1 has to be ported to Windows 7.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Following a similar service from Dominoe’s Pizza, GrubHub has a new feature called “Track Your Grub.” As the name implies, you’ll now be able to track your order every step of the way. More »
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Impatient Lazy People Can Now Track the Progress of Their GrubHub Orders