Google Launches Cell Phone Map Location Application

Yesterday Google launched a new beta application called Google Maps with My Location (My Location). According to Google, the downloaded application runs on most web-enabled mobile phones. Once installed, My Location determines exactly where you are located using GPS if you have a GPS enabled phone. If you don't have a GPS enabled phone, My Location uses cell tower triangulation to indicate your location with 1000 meters.

Here's a bit of a bonus - remember - GPS services are not available indoors but cell phone services are. This means, using cell phone signal triangulation, My Location can find your location when you are indoors!

My Location is still in Beta and, according to the Google My Location site, "is available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices."

Here's a YouTube video demonstrating how the service works:



It will be interesting to see if Apple incorporates My Location into the iPhone Google Map application.

AT&T Wireless Upgrades and the Second Generation iPhone

A small article in the Springfield, MA Saturday Republican paper caught my eye. AT&T has been quietly updating their cell phone towers to 3G in Massachusetts along with 220 other metropolitan areas in other parts of the country. Just last week the company updated 30 towers in the Western part of the state with plans to do the New Bedford area next. Both Boston and the Worcester area have also been upgraded.

3G technologies provide approximately 144 Kilo-bits per second (Kbps) to around 2.4 Mega-bits per second (Mbps) to mobile devices like cell phones and non-mobile devices like computers. For AT&T, 3G is a significant upgrade from the current EDGE network which, according to PCWorld, averages around 109 Kbps.

EDGE is commonly referred to as "2.75G" (between 2nd and 3rd generation) and has been the source of a lot of discussion with regards to the iPhone. Many questioned Apple's decision to go with AT&T/EDGE and have debated why Apple did not go with a 3G option for the iPhone. Steve Jobs has always said the decision to go with EDGE instead of 3G was based on battery life. Here's a quote from Steve jobs in a piece from MacNN:

"The 3G chipsets that are available to semiconductors work reasonably well except for power. They are real power hogs," .... "So as you know, the handset battery life used to be 5-6 hours for GSM, but when we got to 3G they got cut in half. Most 3G phones have battery lives of 2-3 hours [of talk time]."

There have been rumors (see Mathew Millers post at The Mobile Gadgeteer here ) going around since the current iPhone was announced in January that the next generation iPhone would be 3G capable. People have also been questioning whether the current iPhone has both an EDGE radio and a 3G radio built in, which would allow current iPhones to software update to the faster 3G network as the network becomes available.These rumors have pretty much died out after people have taken iPhones apart and have not been able to find an upgradeable radio.

Some complain about EDGE network performance with the iPhone but this has not been an issue with me personally. Perhaps it is because of the places I find myself at - I may be unique - I find myself on a WiFi network probably 90% of the time with the iPhone. The 10% of the time I'm not on a WiFi connection I'm usually checking email, looking up directions on a map or searching for a phone number on the web. On these occasions the EDGE network performance/bandwidth has been fine for me.

Is this 3G build-out by AT&T in (at least partial) preparation for a 3G enabled second generation iPhone? Partial is the key word here but i would say yes - it's time to move to 3G. I'm excited to see what Apple comes out with for the second generation iPhone and it will be interesting to see (if it is 3G enabled) how the battery life issue is dealt with. My bet right now would be on a multi-mode EDGE/3G/WiFi second generation iPhone that would operate on all three types of wireless networks. Time will tell!

Wireless Everywhere - Wireless Grids

A startup in Syracuse, NY called Wireless Grids is close to a trial on a very interesting project on the campus of Syracuse University. Here's a description of the project from Wireless Grid's website:

The project is researching issues associated with nomadic ad-hoc resource sharing, which is a effort to bind together developments in Grid, P2P Computing and Webservices along with ad-hoc and wireless networking. The ultimate vision of the grid is that of an adaptive network offering secure, inexpensive, and coordinated real-time access to dynamic, heterogeneous resources, potentially trversing geographc, politica and cultural boundaries but still able to maintain the desirable characteristics of a simple distributed system such as stability, transparency, scalability and flexibility.

Academic partners include Boston University, ETH Zurich, MIT, Northeastern University, Syracuse University and Tufts University. Business partners include Nokia, Cisco Systems, Fractal Antennas and Novell. The project has also been partially funded by the National Science Foundation.

The project concept is extremely appealing - here's a couple of quotes from an excellent article in the November 19 issue of Business Week:

The concept is that everyone should easily be able to access all of their own content, whether it is stored on a phone, a computer, or a personal video recorder. And users should be able to swap content among devices regardless of where those devices are located in the world. Even more radically, Wireless Grids says users should have the power to specify individuals with whom they'd like to share—and to decide who gets access to what. For this purpose, Wireless Grids says it has built in security measures that are all but hacker-proof.

Any device that can link to the Internet can download Wireless Grids' software, which will work across all types of networks or computer operating systems. Once the software is loaded, a menu pops up asking which things you'd like to share. The initial version allows users to share software files as well as computers, speakers, printers, cameras, and screens. Users click on an icon and select which files and devices they want to make available. The other parties can be located anywhere, as long as their devices also have the software loaded.

Cell phones, laptops, TiVo, televisions....... any device that can connect to the Internet will be able to share content with other attached devices after Wireless Grids software is installed on the device. The trial is scheduled to be launched in January with 40 students in a dorm on the Syracuse campus. It's pretty much a given these students will be posting on places like YouTube - it will be fun to watch the progress and see the kinds of creative applications these students come up with for this technology.

I can imagine all kinds of applications - sharing video with a student in one of my classes cell phone to cell phone, my daughter's cell phone communicating with my TV while I'm watching a football game telling me where she is with the car, my kids looking in real-time at video on a big screen TV in Massachusetts that I'm shooting using a WiFi video camera in California .....

Security and privacy certainly will be a challenge..... watch the Wireless Grids Project Blog and Wiki linked from the project website for trial progress and updates.

U.S. Presidential Candidates on Innovation, Science and Engineering Education

The November 15, 2007 issue of Business Week published an interesting special report titled Proposed Presidential Innovation. Here's a quote from the report:

Where do the leading Presidential candidates stand on the issue of innovation? The creation of new things that have value in the marketplace has always been a major force for generating wealth and power. But the rise of Asia is changing the geography of innovation, shifting it East, away from the U.S. and Europe.

Business Week asked selected candidates to define the word innovation and then asked them what their plans were to stimulate innovation in four areas (science and engineering education, green energy, the military and research and development) and asked for details on how the candidates would develop better methods to measure innovation. I've included the interviewed candidates responses to their definition of innovation and views on science and engineering education below, as quoted in the Business Week report. I've listed the interviewed candidates in alphabetical order and have left off their political party affiliations.

Hillary Clinton

Innovation: “Innovation...will be key to creating new jobs and rebuilding middle class prosperity.”

Science and Engineering Education: "Triple the number of National Science Foundation fellowships and increase the size of each by 33%; provide government financial support to encourage women and minorities to study math, science, and engineering."

John Edwards

Innovation: “Innovation means taking impossible tasks and turning them into reality.”

Science and Engineering Education: "Invest more in teacher pay and training; expand math and science education; strengthen high school curricula; expand the number and size of National Science Foundation fellowships."

Rudy Giuliani

Innovation: “America can meet its challenges through innovation...low taxes stimulate growth [and] spark innovation...”

Science and Engineering Education: "Establish federal school voucher programs; provide choice within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; give educational opportunities to military families; expand charter schools."

John McCain

Innovation: “Innovation is fueled by risk capital, skilled workers, incentives for entrepreneurs, a light regulatory framework, and open access to markets”

Science and Engineering Education: "Provide incentives for summer mentoring programs for high school and college math, science, technology, and engineering students; train science and math teachers."

Barack Obama

Innovation: “Innovation is the creation of something that improves the way we live our lives.”

Science and Engineering Education: "Increase science and engineering grads and minorities and women in science and technology; expand public school offerings in science, technology, engineering, and math."

Bill Richardson

Innovation: “The American Dream is a belief that we can make tomorrow better. Innovation powers that dream.”

Science and Engineering Education: "Create 250 math, science, and innovation academies countrywide for grades 7-12; fund 100,000 new math and science teachers."

Mitt Romney

Innovation: “Innovation and transformation have been at the heart of America’s success from the very beginning.”

Science and Engineering Education: "Focus on fields such as math and science so the workers of the future can remain competitive in the new global marketplace."

Fred Thompson

Innovation: “What we need is another spike in American creativity and innovation.”

Science and Engineering Education: "Review federal programs for cost-effectiveness, reduce federal mandates, and return education money to states; encourage students and teachers to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math."

Note: Other candidates, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee who is moving in the Iowa Caucus polls, were not included in the report.

To read the entire excellent report including the candidates views on green energy, the military and research and development, follow this link.

FCC Awards First Piece of 700 MHz Spectrum

On November 19, theFederal Communications Commission awarded a 10 MHz piece of the 700 MHz spectrum to the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST). PSST is a non-profit that was setup, according to PRNewswire, by the "national public safety leadership to oversee the creation of a nationwide wireless broadband network for public safety."

More 700 MHz spectrum will go up for auction starting on January 28th next year. Here's more from PRNewswire:

According to the FCC's Second Report & Order on the 700 MHz band, 10 MHz of the spectrum now held by the PSST will be combined with an adjacent 10 MHz of spectrum to be licensed to the commercial winner of the upper 700 MHz D Block auction. The 700 MHz auction is set to begin on January 24, 2008. Together, these spectrum assets will be used to create one shared nationwide wireless broadband network, which will provide commercial service for consumers, while maintaining a nationwide network for public safety, including priority access during emergencies.

GovernmentExecutive.com also had some good information on how this public safety piece of the spectrum will be used:

The new broadband network will herald a new era for public safety communications, supporting applications not readily available to first responders today, such as live, streaming video from the scene of a fire, said Alan Caldwell, senior adviser for government relations for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. He added that the broadband network also will allow first responders in a remote command post to access building drawings and diagrams and augment radio channels with VoIP phone calls over the network.

The network also could support telemetry channels, which monitor firefighters' vital signs and allow ambulance crews to transmit ultrasound images to clinicians at a remote hospital, where doctors can use the technology to determine whether a patient should be taken to a trauma center. "This could make mobile tele-medicine a reality," said Kevin McGinnis, PSST vice chairman and a program adviser to the National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Officials, which is part of the consortium of public safety organizations that make up the PSST.

It will be interesting to see who wins auctioned spectrum next year. We'll know more about who will be bidding in a couple of weeks - the FCC has set an application filing deadline of 6 PM on December 3, 2007.

You can download the PSST License (FCC-07-199) pdf here and watch FCC auction news here.

Tera-bits Per Second Over Fiber

Tech.co.uk has reported that Tohoku University researchers in Japan have enabled Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) over fiber to move information at rates of hundreds of tera-bits per second. Here's a few quotes from the Tech.co.uk press release:

At the heart of the development is a technique already used in some digital TV tuners and wireless data connections called quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). One glance at the Wikipedia explanation shows that it's no easy science, but the basics of QAM in this scenario require a stable wavelength for data transmission.

As the radio spectrum provides this, QAM-based methods work fine for some wireless protocols, however the nature of the optical spectrum means this has not been the case for fibre-optic cables ... until now.

The university team has solved the stability problem using a special laser that makes it feasible to pipe data down a glass fibre using the QAM method at blistering speeds. Although we shouldn't expect to be choosing from internet connections rated in Tbit/s anytime soon, the development could one day make us look back on ADSL as fondly as we now do our 56K modems.

Analog modems have used a form of QAM for years to move information from device to device across the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or voice network. QAM is also used by cable modems and ADSL modems to modulate (convert digital signals to analog) and demodulate (convert analog signals back to digital) communications signals.

Let's try to get a basic understanding of how QAM works - without any math! Computing devices (computers, PDA's, laptops, etc) use digital signals (1's and 0's) to process, store and manipulate information. Sending this information over long distances though typically involves a conversion or modulation of digital signals to analog signals on the sending device and a conversion or demodulation of analog signals to digital signals on the receiving device. QAM has been the method of choice for transmitting signals this way for years.

QAM combines amplitude modulation (think height of a sine wave) and phase shift (think of a sine wave moving along the x-axis relative to a zero degree reference) and allows multiple bits (combinations of binary 1's and 0's) to be transmitted for each cycle of a sine wave. I like to use the term multiple bits per cycle when I describe QAM.

QAM is categorized by the number of bits that can be transmitted in one sine wave cycle. To get a simple understanding let's take a look at 16-QAM. 16-QAM is considered rectangular QAM - the square root of 16 is 4 and this indicates that each cycle of a 16-QAM waveform can represent a 4 bit binary (1 and 0) pattern. Using the same method we can calculate 64-QAM represents an 8 bit binary (1 and 0) pattern because the square root of 64 is 8. 256-QAM can represent a 16 bit binary (1 and 0) pattern because the square root of 256 is 16, etc.

QAM signals are susceptible to instability and noise but it appears the Tohoku University researchers have figured out a way to stabilize optical signals and use QAM methods for tera-bit level data transmission. I have not been able to find any detail on the stabilization methods being used at this time.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Email Interoperability: IMAP

If you have not switched from Post Offfice Protocol (POP) to Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) - you should! What's IMAP? According to IMAP.org, it's "a method of accessing electronic mail or bulletin board messages that are kept on a (possibly shared) mail server. In other words, it permits a "client" email program to access remote message stores as if they were local. For example, email stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, and a notebook computer while traveling, without the need to transfer messages or files back and forth between these computers."

How am I using it? I find myself relying on my gmail account as my primary account and, in a typical day, I'm accessing the account from multiple devices. Let's look at a typical day - last Friday (Nov 16), I decided I'd log access to my gmail account. Here's my list:

6:00 AM - Up early at home, check gmail account using home computer and Firefox web browser.

7:00 AM - Eating breakfast (Cheerios), get email notification on iPhone, read and reply to message from student using iPhone.

8:30 AM - In meeting with Regional Technology Enterprise Council, monitoring (reading, replying and moving email to separate folders) using MacBook running Entourage.

10:30 AM - Using desktop computer in office, monitoring (reading, replying and moving email to separate folders) using gmail in Firefox web browser.

11:30 AM - Using a Verizon NextStep notebook computer running XP to prepare for a class. While preparing I access gmail on the notebook using Internet Explorer 7.

Rest of day - a combination of email monitoring, replying, etc using multiple devices. I do find myself using the iPhone more and more.

So let's count - last Friday I accessed my gmail account using 5 different devices in numerous locations running 3 different operating systems...... Does this sound familiar?

Let's get back to IMAP - late last month Google added IMAP support to gmail and it has made my life a lot easier. As we all move from device to device answering email, deleting and moving messages around it can get very confusing if you are not using IMAP. How is IMAP different than POP? Here's more from IMAP.org:

IMAP's ability to access messages (both new and saved) from more than one computer has become extremely important as reliance on electronic messaging and use of multiple computers increase, but this functionality cannot be taken for granted: the widely used Post Office Protocol (POP) works best when one has only a single computer, since it was designed to support "offline" message access, wherein messages are downloaded and then deleted from the mail server. This mode of access is not compatible with access from multiple computers since it tends to sprinkle messages across all of the computers used for mail access. Thus, unless all of those machines share a common file system, the offline mode of access that POP was designed to support effectively ties the user to one computer for message storage and manipulation.

Post Office Protocol (POP) was great when I was using primarily one computer but got very confusing as I moved from device to device as I do now. With IMAP I can do things like create, delete, and rename mailboxes, reply to, move and delete individual messages on one device and automatically see the results of those changes on all devices and applications I use to access my gmail account.

Setup for various email clients is simple and well documented - just search on your particular application. For example, if using Outlook do a search on "Outlook IMAP Configuration" and you'll find the procedure. To give you an idea of how easy it is - here's a PC Mechanic video titled How-to: Set up IMAP Gmail with Outlook Express / Thunderbird:



If you give IMAP a try - you won't go back to POP.