A Vivato spokesperson confirms the ceasing of operations with Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Net News. Vivato is best known for the switched access point that was designed using phased-array technology and beam-steering to communicate intelligently with outdoor clients over 1 kilometer. There was also an indoor switch that would theorectically light up an entire office floor with a single access point panel. Although the technology and early demonstrations were very promising, the company could not meet performance and price demands in the fast-changing Wi-Fi market. Competitors quickly adopted 802.11g and MIMO to meet the increasing wireless bandwidth demands of enterprise users.

Vivato engineered an awesome technology for the private sector (phased-array is most often used in military radar systems) but it just never quite took off.

NTT DoCoMo will become Japan's first cellular carrier to offer Push-to-Talk, walkie-talkie like service in that country. The new 902i series phone will allow single-button access amongst up to 20 people at a time. Nextel dominates PTT service in the U.S. with a small showing by PTT upstarts Verizon and Cingular. But this is the first of its kind in Japan.

Qualcomm and Macromedia announced an agreement to incorporate Macromedia Flash Lite into the BREW platform for cellphones. This will  allow BREW developers to create rich graphical environments while Flash developers have been delivered a new outlet for delivering and monetizing their work. The combined platform will be available next year.

(via socaltech)

Treo 700w pictures are over at Engadget. They've had it only a few hours and are posting pictures with comparisons between the Treo 650 and this new model. We've been waiting for the Palm Treo 670 but it looks like it will be called the Verizon Palm Treo 700w. It is running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 (not PalmOS!) and includes a 1 megapixel camera. EV-DO, Bluetooth, 64MB of memory, and possibly a 240x240 screen resolution (but Engadget isn't sure about that until further testing.)

"Why not build the next generation now?" asks Alvarion. According to the LA Times, wireless industry experts believe that now may be the best time to build the next generation wireless network that will eventually replace antiquated copper landlines. But telecom execs and analysts say that, while helpful in disaster situations, it's not a perfect replacement. Tropos VP Chris Rittler states that wireless broadband is not mainstream yet, but it will play a role in communications in the aftermath of Katrina. No matter what gets built (or rebuilt) next, the up-and-running Wi-Fi hotspots and pervasive nature of wireless coverage will "expose thousands of people to uses beyond trolling the internet in a coffee shop."

Xeni Jardin posted this notice on the tech blog, BoingBoing:

Some quick notes from a conference call that just took place, hosted by the FCC about how to coordinate resources and personnel from internet/wireless private industry to help get communications networks up and running in in gulf states. Lack of communications systems has been identified as a critical issue holding back aid, missing persons, law enforcement, etc. in crisis areas.

FCC personnel are working throughout the weekend to coordinate these efforts with private industry, with wireless technology groups, FEMA, and state governments in Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.

One of the challenges they face in this effort is fact that the coordination effort involves multiple layers of bureaucracies — also, that there has been no central point for directing available assets offered by private industry. Participants on the call included folks from Cisco, Intel, and wireless organizations.

Another challenge: working with FEMA and local governments to ascertain whether it is more immediately effective to get old systems up and running, or create new temporary ones. Depends on tech behind communications system in question. COMPANIES WITH TECH ASSETS AND/OR HUMAN RESOURCES TO DONATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS AID IN KATRINA-IMPACTED AREAS SHOULD DO THE FOLLOWING

FCC Chief of Staff Dan Gonzales (dan dot gonzales at fcc dot org) says FCC needs the following information from would be tech donors BY NOON EASTERN ON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3.

1) identify the provider (name of your company or group)
2) identify assets you are willing to commit
3) state clearly what assets you are technologically capable of providing (IP? data? voice?)
4) what your logistical requirements are to bring that to the affected area.
5) can you bring generators? if so what size? capacity? power levels?

SUBMIT THIS INFORMATION TO

PART-15.ORG (they have an online submission form to collect this data)
or wireless@part-15.org

contacts: Michael Anderson (wireless@part-15.org) 630-466-9090, and Claudia Crowley (ccrowley at gmail dot com), 817-292-0230.

Wireless vendors Trango and Microserv created a 137.2 mile ground-to-ground wireless link using "off-the-shelf" equipment from Trango. This distance bests the Defcon Wifi Shootout winners by 12.3 miles. People are crying foul, however, because (1) there were no independant observers to verify the distance and setup and (2) the equipment used is not 802.11b Wi-Fi - though it does use the unlicensed 2.5 and 5 Ghz spectrum. Still, that distance is impressive.

In this Business 2.0 article, Om Malik suggests that Google is planning a large-scale Wi-Fi network to enable its larger goal "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." The basis for this speculation, called "GoogleNet" by Malik, is  the news that Google is buying up bandwidth and dark fiber lines that cross the U.S. The article shows some of the reasons that Google would want to build out their own network. Saving money one bandwidth charges is one. Tying together some of their high bandwidth projects like Maps, Video, and possibly TV is another. but Google is also sponsoring a free wireless hotspot provider called Feeva. Feeva's proprietary location-based technology could enable customized Google local search and advertising to every Wi-Fi user. Is this just a coincidence or is Google going nationwide with a free, advertising sponsored wireless network?

As many of you know, I co-founded and run the Southern California Wireless Users Group along with Frank Keeney. We have been running these meetings since early 2002.

Our meetings are held on Thursday's at the end of the month and tonight's the night!.

Mike and Frank are both out of town tonight, so your humble hosts have decided to launch the first informal SOCALWUG/IHOP meeting. This meeting will be a free-for-all, run-what-you-brung, informal meetup of SOCALWUG members. Bring your wireless cards, Linux laptops, digital picture frames, whatever, and ask a wireless geek for help. Or show off your hotrod of a notebook, access point, handheld wireless device, or any other neato gadget. If you are representing a company, feel free to get up and take the floor and show us your wares. For news hounds, catch everyone up on recent wireless events. (For starters, IHOP is installing wireless nationwide!)

SOCALWUG is going open source tonight. Participatory and open ended. Share and enjoy!

For meeting times and directions: Visit SOCALWUG Pasadena.

If you can't be there in person, participate online through email, IM, or IRC chat.

Tomorrow marks the last ConQwest "Big Game" of 2005 taking place in Portland, Oregon. Big Games mark the confluence of the real and virtual. In this orchestrated event, people congregate in one general location, say Downtown Portland, and start playing a big game on city streets. An early big game was a simulation of PacMan using real people running around the streets of Manhattan. The controller used cellular communications to tell PacMan which way to run, and the ghosts tried to find him.

ConQwest is a sort of treasure hunt where players roam the city to find cellphone-readable Semacode pictures for points. The winning team gets $5000 donated to their school. Details on this and other Big Games are on PlayAreaCode. And watch the live event unfold Saturday, May 28th, 11:00AM PST.

I am a fan of big games and the convergence of social and virtual interaction really intrigues me, especially when it comes to gaming!

(via the Unwired list)

I just finished watching the third installment (Box 3.0) of From The Shadows, an internet "TV" show about underground technology hacking. It's made by my pals at Flexilis and some of the visionaries from, now defunct, TechTV. This is worth watching!

This episode is jammed with hardcore Wi-Fi exploration. The guys go warviewing (and warviewflying?) using high power antennas and end up finding unencrypted wireless cameras in a bank building. Yoshi mods a Sony PSP with a pigtail connector and attaches a panel antenna to increase the gaming distance to over 600 feet. And Humphrey Cheung shows step-by-step WEP cracking and explains what it's all about.

They mentioned that my book Wi-Fi Toys might be a good place to start your 2.4 GHz project. (I tend to agree.) - Thanks guys!

Trying to force wireless connectivity out of the Sony PSP has resulted in some interesting tweaks and hacks by devoted fans of the new handheld gaming/multimedia platform. In this tradition, I worked at getting the PSP onto the internet using a cellular connection, which was happily provided by a JunxionBox Wi-Fi to cellular gateway appliance. The JBox provides a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot where cellular data service is available. As you know, hotspots are (usually) short range affairs, while cellular covers wide areas. The JunxionBox essentially "converts" 802.11b Wi-Fi device connections over to a 3G cell network either for multiple users with Wi-Fi devices or for devices that only support Wi-Fi, like the Sony PSP.

In this experiment, I tried two applications. One was connecting the PSP to play Twisted Metal. The PSP was able to download stats and server info, but I was unsuccesful in joining and playing an actual multiplayer game. It's unclear what the problem might have been. Verizon support said they play World of Warcraft over EVDO during breaks in the lunchroom, so it's unlikely an ISP filtering issue. In any case, I then tried out the Wipeout Pure web browser hack which was a total success! I connected to the internet and surfed a few different websites.

I am reaching for new ways to interconnect mainstream devices. The Sony PSP is one such device with a semi-locked down infrastructure, supporting only minor connectivity options. For example, you cannot connect to the PSP using Wi-Fi for file transfers. And, of course, it does not directly support cellular. By exploring integration options like this, we can expand the options for a connected highly mobile society.

As a bonus in this video, get a peek at the new "WiFi Toy" wireless research vehicle, a 2005 Toyota 4Runner. (Thanks for helping me decide, Autoblog!) This vehicle has a lot in store as I test out new techniques for on- and off-road mobile internet.

UPDATE: I am able to Create a game of Twisted Metal for others to join in. While I couldn't connect to other games for some reason, I could start my own. Four of us played for about 30 minutes last night with no apparant lag and ping times of just under 300ms. w00t!

Watch (wmv link)

I spent a few minutes today with one component of the Cognio Intelligent Spectrum Management System. Built for a laptop computer and PC-card slot, this software/hardware combination works to turn your laptop into a professional wireless reconnaissance platform. Known to RF engineers as a "spectrum analyzer" this product is so much more. It not only tracks and displays radio signals in the area, it also provides clues as to what might be causing interference from a built-in knowledge base. And used as part of the larger enterprise system, it can work with remote devices over the Internet, potentially analyzing the airwaves from across the globe.

Complete Spectrum Analyzer system running on a Windows XP laptop

Click the link to continue reading and for more photos.

Mark Frauenfelder brings us an overview of some of the benefits software-defined radio, or cognizant radio, can bring to wireless applications. Software-defined radio (SDR) promises to become, basically, a radio-on-a-chip that can be modified "on the fly" to operate on differing radio networks automatically, merely by running different lines of code on an intelligent wireless platform. Cellphones, PDAs, and wireless laptops could benefit from SDR.

Imagine a radio that can tune in to any frequency and run any wireless protocol adjusted by the function being performed. You could have a cellphone that makes cell calls then cuts over to Wi-Fi then to WiMax then to Bluetooth then to who-knows-what? - All in ONE chip built in to a device! The power savings and increased functionality of an all-in-one solution like this is mind-blowing.

In a wrap-up of the happenings at the Networld+Interop conference held this week, this eWeek article concludes that wireless is here to stay. Customers are demanding more wireless networks, more ubiquity, higher speeds, voice over wireless, video, etc. Bruce Van Nice of Trapeze Networks equates it to the early days of wired Ethernet, "There was a groundswell of deployments," as companies adopted the technology expecting some, sometimes unclear, benefits. This upswing is spawning new companies and business models that challenge existing thoughts about connectivity.