geek stuff

Wireless expertise is built on solid math and science

13 July 2013 by Steve Blum

Passion only gets you so far in the jungle.

I was recently asked for advice on who to send to a wireless Internet technology training course and whether it would be worth the money. My answer was if you send the right people, it’s very valuable, but the wrong people could easily make things worse.

The right people are those with a professional engineering background (including a college degree) or at least accredited information technology (IT) and radio frequency (RF) training and experience coupled with good math skills.… More

Air travellers might soon get a reading break

12 July 2013 by Steve Blum
, ,

Something to read for the rest of us.

The Federal Aviation Administration might finally update fifty year old rules on electronic devices – tablets, computers, smart phones, ebook readers.

The current rules, some dating from the 1960s, are there purely out of momentum. Personal electronics pose zero danger to airplanes. There’s never been an incident where a passenger device has interfered with an airplane’s operation and no one has ever come up with a plausible theory about how one might, given modern technology.… More

Boldly spend with PayPal Galactic

29 June 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

What fun would moon golf be without a friendly wager?

There’s more than a whiff of publicity stunt about it, but even so, the launch by PayPal and the SETI Institute of a project to create a payment system that can be used in outer space is a fascinating idea. The initial problem they want to address is creating a medium of exchange for the space tourism industry.

Elon Musk, one of PayPal’s founders, is also behind SpaceX, which makes real rockets that are already sending cargo into orbit and should soon be capable of transporting people too.… More

Fossils don't fit in the new mobile world

28 June 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

Blackberry and Windows are the bedrock of the mobile world.

A year from now, this past week will be looked upon as the point when we shifted from one mobile operating system epoch to another. Two dinosaurs – Blackberry and Windows – appear irrecoverably stuck in a tar pit of tumbling market share and industry confidence, while two warm-blooded open source upstarts – Ubuntu Linux and Firefox – are walking tall.

Blackberry’s latest results show widening financial and subscriber losses.… More

Santa Cruz's innovative Open Counter platform going national with Knight grant


Cowell’s Beach is a great place to start.

Santa Cruz is proving itself to be a leading center for twenty-first century e-government. The latest endorsement came from the Knight Foundation today, which announced it was giving a $450,000 award to the Open Counter project. It was one of only eight winners, out of 860 applicants, of the Knight News Challenge on Open Gov.

Led by Peter Koht, an economic development staffer with the City of Santa Cruz, the Open Counter initiative was originally backed by Code for America, a private foundation that bills itself as a Peace Corps for geeks.… More

Telegrams are not completely tapped out

21 June 2013 by Steve Blum

Key to a sustainable telecoms platform.

The telegram, the original electronic messaging medium, is 175 years old and still carrying traffic, at least in some parts of the world. But the end might finally be in sight. India’s state owned telecoms company, BSNL, is shutting down telegram service next month, citing smartphones and text messaging as the cause.

The one thing that telegrams do as a matter of course, and competing media do not, is provide third-party authentication of an electronic message.… More

The only loony thing about Google's Project Loon might be the name

17 June 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

Driven by computing power, not Newton or newtons.

New Zealand’s Canterbury Plain is hosting Google’s latest idea-that’s-so-goofy-it-might-work, appropriately named Project Loon. Thirty high altitude balloons carrying data relay equipment were released to drift over Christchurch, generally heading east towards the telecoms starved Chatham Islands. The concept Google is testing is to put enough balloons into the air to create a fleet of atmospheric satellites that can talk to each other and to the ground, and relay Internet service to hard to reach places.… More

Toys are serious fun

9 June 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Boys prefer helicopters?

What might be the most revolutionary technology poking its nose into the market right now is just a toy. NeuroSky makes a headset that controls devices by reading your brainwaves. Their first shot at a product was a tiara with cat ears that reacted to the wearer’s mood. A big hit with girls. A helicopter for the boys followed.

There’s a long and proud tradition of breakthrough technology getting its first consumer foothold in toy stores.… More

Android becomes the Windows of opportunity


It goes both ways. But maybe not much longer.

Microsoft continues to slide toward the back of the mass computing market pack. Three more signs it’s losing its grip on consumer-grade devices:

… More

Based on Linux and orphaned by Nokia, Sailfish OS debuting on Jolla handset

24 May 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

The first mobile phone based on the Sailfish operating system has been unveiled by Jolla, a company that splintered off of Nokia when it gave up on the MeeGo OS. It’s feature packed and is trying to differentiate itself by offering customizable backs for the fashion conscious.

So far, it fails to impress. I don’t see a killer sales proposition for the Jolla phone. Swappable backs are fine, but I doubt many people will cough up $500 because a phone is easy to accessorize.… More