Word: wirelessed
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Smart Dust These computerized motes are still a bit bigger than dust--about the size of a matchbox--but the concept holds: scatter a bunch of these radio-equipped wireless sensors across a battlefield, and they could track troop movements; embed them in a road, and they could deliver a traffic report. They're already detecting climate conditions at a California vineyard and monitoring energy use in supermarkets...
Since our May cover story on wireless Internet access, also called wireless fidelity or Wi-Fi, the technology has rapidly gained momentum. In June it got a boost when the group that makes rules for Wi-Fi agreed on a standard that increases access speed nearly fivefold, to 54 megabits per second. That means the systems' base stations, known as hot spots, will be able to handle more traffic and more complicated applications such as multimedia video transmission. Later that month, Marriott International finished rolling out Wi-Fi access in 400 of its hotels in the U.S., Canada, Britain...
Reaching out and touching someone, whether over a terrestrial telephone network or a wireless one, is easier than ever before. The flip side is that buying phone service has never been more complex--a fact borne out by the rising number of billing complaints, which jumped 65% in the first quarter of 2003 compared with the same quarter last year, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Samuel A. Simon, chairman of the Telecommunications Research and Action Center, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, believes many consumers are irate because they fall for marketing hype and wind up buying more...
...regulatory environment fuzzier than his facial hair. UTStarcom's Xiao Lingtong (Little Smart) handsets may look and act like cell phones, but in China, where the government allows only two firms to provide cellular service, Wu has had to convince telecom mandarins that cell phones are actually just a wireless extension of fixed-line phones--like household cordless phones on steroids. UTStarcom doesn't provide the actual telephony service, but the handsets, base stations and switching equipment it makes allow China's citizens to receive cell phone-like service at rates as much as 75% cheaper than those of traditional...
...like to use cell phones but can't afford them. "The highest-earning 20% of Chinese are going to buy mobile phones, and the poorest 30% wouldn't know who to call if you handed them a phone. It's that middle 50%--650 million people--who would want wireless service if it could be made affordable," says Wu. Little Smart is set to launch in Beijing, and UTStarcom is selling phones with such fancy extras as full-color screens, built-in MP3 players and digital-camera ports. Still, the perception persists that UTStarcom operates in a gray area--even...