communicate

The Federal Communications Commission officially opened an inquiry today into whether U.S. standards need to be updated to protect people from cell phone radiation.

Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a notice of inquiry last June that looked at a series of questions surrounding whether the current standards need to be updated or whether the agency's testing practices should be altered. But it took nine months for the notice of inquiry to become an official part of the FCC docket.

Now that the notice of inquiry is officially registered, the FCC can begin its review and receive comments from the … Read more

While departing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has talked a lot about pushing for high-speed broadband to more Americans and has championed the cause for getting more wireless spectrum on the market, critics say his record on these issues is spotty at best.

Genachowski today announced he would be stepping down from his post as FCC chairman. He has been chairman of the agency for four years. In a speech to colleagues announcing his resignation, he pointed out the FCC's many accomplishments including the drafting of the National Broadband Plan and its focus on promoting both traditional and … Read more

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said Friday that he is stepping down from his post as head of the agency.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday about the chairman's plans. Genachowski was nominated by President Obama to the chairmanship in March of 2009. In a speech to to his colleagues at the FCC, Genachowski pointed out accomplishments of the FCC over the past four years.

This included advancements in wireless, broadband and reforming outdated policies to reflect more modern needs.

"Over the past four years, we've focused the FCC on broadband, wired and wireless, working to … Read more

The FBI and other police agencies would be required to obtain search warrants before reading Americans' e-mail or tracking their mobile devices under a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives today.

It's not a new proposal: Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley, announced almost exactly the same measure last fall. But because the clock ran out without Congress acting, she's trying a second time.

"Fourth Amendment protections don't stop at the Internet," Lofgren said in a statement today. "Americans expect Constitutional protections to extend … Read more

Tapping your phone on a console to pay for fries and a Coke is cool. Yet until the stars align, it's not how you'll be using NFC, the Near Field Communications standard that gets devices talking to one another quickly and in a very short range.

Instead of using NFC to replace your credit card, it will increasingly become your passcode, your key. Best of all, it can be used to program one tag with a certain set of instructions that can launch specific actions when read by another NFC-enabled device.

In other words, just one tap of … Read more

Vint Cerf has a vision of the Internet one day being used as a medium for communicating with other species and even those from other planets.

The man widely regarded as the father of the Internet has teamed up with musician Peter Gabriel, MIT physicist Neil Gershenfeld, and cognitive psychologist Diana Reiss to propose an "Interspecies Internet," a new platform that would facilitate communication between humans and animals.

Cerf and his partners took to the stage at the TED conference today to describe exactly what they are envisioning.

"All kinds of possible sentient beings may be interconnected,&… Read more

Do you really have enough camera angles when you watch a football game? Come on, you want more.

Feed your desire to be omnipresent with the wacky BallCam. It puts a camera inside the spinning football.

You'd think that would make you toss that mix of pizza, hotdogs, and beer in your stomach, but boffins at Carnegie Mellon University and Japan's University of Electro-Communications have made it a rather pleasant viewing experience.

CMU researcher Kris Kitani and UEM's Kodai Horita co-authored a paper on how algorithms in their prototype football can recognize footage of the ground as … Read more

The Federal Communications Commission took the first steps today toward freeing up more wireless spectrum to boost Wi-Fi data speeds and ease congestion on Wi-Fi networks in hotels, airports, and homes.

During its meeting today, the five-member commission approved a proposal that will allow 195 megahertz of additional wireless spectrum in the 5GHz band to be used for unlicensed Wi-Fi use. This will increase the amount of available unlicensed spectrum by 35 percent. This is the largest block of wireless spectrum the FCC has freed up for unlicensed use in 10 years.

The commission also agreed to create rules that … Read more

The International Space Station (ISS) lost ground communications capabilities for around three hours this morning during a software upgrade, according to NASA.

As flight controllers on the ground in Houston were updating flight computers, the data relay systems malfunctioned, cutting off all communications with the ground. The Communication and Tracking System provides communications between the crew and Mission Control via Ku-band, S-band, and UHF frequencies.

During the upgrade, an anomaly resulted in the primary computer that controls critical station functions defaulting to a backup computer, but the system was not allowing the station to communicate with NASA's Tracking and … Read more