| Insurance for your cell phone? If you're careful, forget about it | | Posted Sunday, December 24, 2006 2:48:34 PM by Blog57 Team | | Today's last-minute Christmas shoppers with cell phones on their gift lists should be prepared to make a critical decision before leaving the store -- invest in phone insurance or take your chances. Cell phones, slick and razor thin, often conceal digital cameras, MP3 players and FM radios behind their shiny facades. They boast colors ranging from shocking shades of pink to gold, dripping with sparkling beads. So, paying a mere $5 or so a month for insurance just in case you damage or -- gasp -- lose the phone is worth it, right? Not according to Jim Hood with Consumer Affairs, an independent consumer publication -- unless, of course, you are "extremely accident-prone." "Generally speaking, I think people are better without" cell phone insurance, Hood wrote in an e-mail.... | |
| |
| | | Savannah's "Eyes" on Crime Set to Go Wireless | | Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 2:50:43 AM by Blog57 Team | | Savannah has had downtown surveillance cameras online since the G-8 Summit in 2004. But, soon police will begin monitoring an even wider area, in an attempt to stop crime. Cameras like the ones already in place downtown in areas like Forsyth Park, will now have the help of a wireless network, broadening the coverage area. The Savannah City Council approved the funds to pay for the network on Thursday. It will cover the area between Liberty and DeRenne and Abercorn to Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, transmitting images to at least some police officers through internet access in their cars. "It will create in about a three-square-mile area the wireless network whereby a camera sees something it moves through wirelessly to our network and eventually to the screens," said Sean Brandon with the City of Savannah.... | |
| |
| | | TechPlus aims at retail with Swann | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 10:50:00 AM by Blog57 Team | | Victorian distributor, TechPlus, has secured a distributor's spot with local security hardware vendor, Swann Communications. Its product range includes monitoring kits and recording devices, high-resolution security cameras, wireless surveillance devices, modems, and webcams. "We are looking to deal more heavily with retailers, Wi-Fi providers and companies that are into the cabling and electrical markets," TechPlus managing director, Paul Kern, said. "These products offer a new revenue stream for our resellers, especially the small retailers that are struggling. They can provide services and add another string to their bow." Kern said retailers would benefit most from the Swann range because many of the products could be bought on impulse. Training and volume discounts would be available for partners.... | |
| |
| | | Woes hamper camera site on Texas border | | Posted Saturday, November 04, 2006 6:52:08 PM by Blog57 Team | | AUSTIN, Texas Texas launched its ambitious effort to have Internet users watch the border for illegal immigrants. But the network of surveillance cameras Friday was plagued by technical problems, the images were grainy and the cameras were placed so high that it was hard to distinguish a person from, say, a bush. Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who announced plans over the summer to spend $5 million on the virtual posse, asked for "forgiveness on the front end of this," but dismissed the problems as routine computer glitches. .... | |
| |
| | | Nortel Powers Broadband Wireless Services, Enables New Municipal Services In Israel | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 2:49:23 AM by Blog57 Team | | Nortel has launched a municipal wireless mesh network trial in the city of Ariel, Israel, to deliver high-speed broadband wireless access and advanced wireless services to Ariel residents and municipal employees. For the year-long trial, which forms part of Ariel's "Smart City" program, Nortel has deployed wireless mesh access points for high-speed wireless coverage in two key areas, along the city's pedestrian mall and at the campus of the College of Judea and Samaria. Nortel's wireless mesh solution will deliver new municipal and college services to help fuel Ariel's economic development, lower operational costs, and improve public safety. Applications include wireless municipal surveillance cameras, remote water meter readings, wireless parking and traffic inspection, and wireless video and voice communications for municipal and college employees.... | |
| |
| | | Case points to value of cameras | | Posted Tuesday, October 31, 2006 12:50:57 PM by Blog57 Team | | For years, video captured from cameras mounted in police cars have been entertaining television viewers as criminals attempt to break the laws of man, physics and common sense. But as Sacramento County Sheriff's Department investigators scramble for new leads in the slaying of Deputy Jeffrey V. Mitchell, officials say the equipment could have given them valuable clues -- if only there had been one in his cruiser. "It wouldn't have saved the officer's life, but it would have been a good investigator's tool," said Sheriff John McGinness. .... | |
| |
| | | AT&T Launches Remote Home Monitoring Video Service Nationwide | | Posted Saturday, October 28, 2006 10:49:31 AM by Blog57 Team | | Imagine being on the road and receiving real-time video on your wireless phone when your children arrive safely home from school. Or checking in on a live video feed of your weekend getaway property while you're in the office. AT&T Inc. today launched an innovative new home monitoring service that will help customers stay more connected to their homes and families while they are away. The new service, which is available nationwide, enables customers to use both personal computers and Cingular wireless devices to access high-quality, streaming digital video and other real-time data and information from their homes -- at virtually any time and from anywhere. The new service is an example of AT&T's continuing commitment to innovation, and its strategy for delivering converged, IP-based services that enable customers to access content, critical applications and information virtually anytime, anywhere, and using any device.... | |
| |
| | | WiMax brings promise of Net revolution | | Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2006 10:49:21 PM by Blog57 Team | | Wi-Fi "hot spots" continue to proliferate. Carriers such as Sprint and Verizon Wireless have launched Internet services on cell phones and laptops for people on the go. But Internet speeds for the mobile user are still slow compared with what is available at home through a cable modem or DSL connection. The wireless experience often translates into choppy video, waiting a long time to receive large data files and the like. That may change as early as 2008, thanks to a technology platform called WiMax, often referred to as Wi-Fi on steroids. WiMax offers the possibility of an alternative high-speed Internet service - anywhere, anytime, on almost any device. WiMax actually is a distinctly different technology platform from Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), with its own set of standards known as IEEE 802.16 that have developed over 45 working sessions involving hundreds of engineers around the world since 1999.... | |
| |
| | | Aftermarket Movers: SanDisk Sinks | | Posted Saturday, October 21, 2006 6:48:32 AM by Blog57 Team | | Shares of SanDisk Corp., which makes flash memory products used in digital cameras and other gadgets, sank in late trading Thursday after the company said its third-quarter profit fell 4 percent as operating expenses ballooned, even though adjusted earnings and revenue beat analysts' expectations. Research and development costs increased 78 percent year-over-year, and sales, marketing and other costs also rose, SanDisk said. The Milpitas, Calif.-based company's stock plunged $8.87, or 14.4 percent, to $52.86 in after-hours electronic trading, after closing up $1.59, or 2.6 percent, at $61.73 on the Nasdaq. Synaptics Inc., which makes touchpads and scroll wheels used in computers and consumer electronics, gained ground in the extended session. The company said its fiscal first-quarter net income dropped 25 percent, but adjusted earnings and revenue beat analysts' average forecast.... | |
| |
| | | A giant hop for robot-kind | | Posted Tuesday, October 17, 2006 6:48:16 PM by Blog57 Team | | As Nasa's Martian robot, Opportunity, wheels its way around the edge of the Victoria crater, a new breed of automaton is being developed that could provide a great leap forward, literally, in robotic exploration. Mircobots, small spherical robots able to hop over a planet's rugged terrain could become the front line in planetary exploration in ten years time, according to Professor Steven Dubowsky and his team at the Field and Space Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institutes of Technology. The main advantage of these microbots, each slightly larger than the size of tennis ball, would be their ability to venture into the cracks and crevices of a planet such as Mars or the moon, where other robots cannot reach. "We don't see these microbots as a replacement for rovers, but as complementary explorers that could be used to serve a number of purposes," Dubowsky told CNN.... | |
| |
| |
|
|
