http://www.speedguide.net/ SpeedGuide.net - Everything Broadband. en-us Copyright 1998-2008 Speed Guide, Inc. All rights reserved. webmaster@speedguide.net http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2695 ­Boston University's College of Engineering is launching a program, under a National Science Foundation grant, to develop the next generation of wireless communications technology based on visible light instead of radio waves. Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power light emitting diodes, or LEDs, to create "Smart Lighting" that would be faster and more secure than current network technology. This initiative aims to develop an optical ... News Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:16:53 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2694 Microsoft has caved in to OEMs again.You probably know that the "Downgrade Rights" policy available to OEMs allows them to supply a Windows XP system image CD along with the computer, if you buy either Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate. Some, such as Dell, will even "pre-downgrade" your system before shipping, saving you the manual labor. This was scheduled to disappear as of January 31st, 2009. But Microsoft has bowed to pressure, and now says the policy will ... News Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:56:01 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2693 Pandora's Tim Westergren says he's "more optimistic than ever before" that his webcasting service won't be yanked offstage, as the House passed a bill letting net radio stations extend royalty rate negotiations with labels and artists.The Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 would give Congressional blessing for SoundExchange, the music industry's collection service, to work directly with the Digital Media Association, which represents online services such as Pandora, as worked out by an ... News Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:09:14 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2692 Sprint has launched its WiMAX mobile network, called XOHM, in Baltimore. Sprint expects the 4G XOHM network to let wireless consumers experience new forms of interactive communications at average downlink speeds of two to four Mbps. Sprint will not require long-term contracts and XOHM customers can buy access by the day or month. XOHM extends home and office Internet connections and mobile multimedia applications in two ways. First, it lets wireless users log onto the Internet outside their four ... News Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:49:46 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2691 September 29, 2008 - China has now overtaken the US as the largest national broadband market in the world, according to new findings from research firm Point Topic, with both markets on around 78mn broadband lines at the end of last August, but with China growing twice as fast. "This is a major milestone for China," says Oliver Johnson, Chief Executive of Point Topic. "Launching people into space is spectacular, but having the biggest broadband market down here on earth means a lot ... News Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:45:02 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2690 Japanese telecommunications carrier KDDI will start offering from October 1G bps (bits per second) fiber-optic Internet hook-ups for less than the current price of a connection one tenth the speed, it said this week. The Hikari One Home Gigabit service will cost ¥5,460 (US$$51.40) per month and provide an upstream and downstream connection at 1G bps. Internet-based telephone service and cable TV service can be added to the connection for an additional fee. It will be available to single-dwelling homes ... News Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:43:35 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2689 Jammie Thomas, who was ordered to pay $$222,000 to a group of music labels for allegedly pirating songs using the Kazza peer-to-peer service, has been granted a new trial. Michael J. Davis, the chief judge presiding over the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, ordered the mistrial after concluding that an instruction the court gave to the jury was erroneous, and that the instruction had prejudiced the jury against Thomas. In the ruling, however, the court also asked Congress for legislation better defining ... News Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:08:54 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2688 Last month, the FCC officially ruled that Comcast acted unlawfully and dishonestly when they decided to throttle peer-to-peer traffic from applications such as BitTorrent. The giant Internet provider was then ordered to amend its network management and disclose any future plans on this matter.While Comcast is currently appealing that ruling, they sill decided to come clean over the weekend, detailing how it targeted peer-to-peer traffic (despite repeatedly denying it) and unveiling their new “fair share” ... News Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:41:19 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2687 NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) - In an age when consumers are buying more and more songs by downloading to their portable music player, SanDisk is betting that people still want to actually grasp their tunes in the palms of their hands. That wager might be a long-shot. SanDisk Corp, the world's No. 1 supplier of flash memory-based data storage cards, on Monday unveiled a new music format called "slotMusic" -- a memory card smaller than a postage stamp, preloaded with MP3-format music. Read more ... News Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:42:26 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2685 BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Mobile operator T-Mobile and Nortel Networks have successfully tested a new high-speed wireless technology designed to make mobile connections as fast as fixed fiber links, T-Mobile said. According to T-Mobile, a connection was maintained while driving in a car in range of three cell sites on a highway in Bonn, Germany at an average speed of 67 kph. The experiment achieved data rates of up to 170 Mbit/s for downloads and up to 50 Mbit/s for uploads, the operator said, about ... News Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:33:19 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2684 Can a city stop people from posting a link to its Web site?Thats the question at the center of a federal lawsuit brought by a Sheboygan woman against the mayor and other officials there, in what appears to be a first-of-its-kind case, according to an Internet law expert.Jennifer Reisinger says the Sheboygan city attorney ordered her to remove from her Web site a link to the citys police department, in what she believes was retaliation for her support of recalling Mayor Juan Perez, according to the suit ... News Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:03:15 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2679 In a move meant to shake Apple to its core, Best Buy has snapped up digital music service Napster in a surprise challenge to Itunes. The electronics giant will shell out $$121 million for the privilege of pulling Napster - the ex bad boy of digital downloading - to its bosom, working out at $$2.65 a share, almost double Napsters $$1.36 closing share price on Friday. Napster, of course, is but a shadow of its former self, after being closed down by a damaging music industry lawsuit several years ago. ... News Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:32:10 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2677 "There is nobody in the market providing wireless broadband to a low-income customer with no contract," said Cricket VP of product marketing Jeff Toig. "These are people under $$50k household income, with no broadband Internet in their homes. This becomes their alternative to DSL or cable." While Cricket's $$40/month rate is lower than other cell phone carriers' wireless Internet charges, the key isn't just price. It's that Cricket is the only carrier offering wireless PC ... News Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:23:33 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2676 Google's new Chrome browser is vulnerable to a remote-control attack, Vietnam researcher Bach Khoa Internetwork Security says. Bach Khoa said a total of four Chrome vulnerabilities were discovered, and Google reportedly has issued a patch. An analyst said the vulnerability in Google's Chrome isn't surprising since its a beta product. Bach Khoa Internetwork Security, a security-research firm in Vietnam, claims to be the first to discover a critical vulnerability in Google's Chrome browser. "This ... News Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:36:21 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2675 Internet assaults are playing a larger role in military strategy and political struggles. Even before Russia invaded Georgia last month, Citizen Lab's researchers noticed sporadic attacks aimed at several Georgian Web sites. Such attacks are especially threatening to countries increasingly linking critical activities to the Internet. In the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new breed of hackers is conducting digital espionage. They are among a growing number of investigators monitoring ... News Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:14:28 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2674 Nearly 20 percent of American households are tuning into TV over the Internet. That's twice the number from 2006, according to new research from The Conference Board Consumer Research Center and market-research firm TNS. The most popular destinations for online broadcasts? The official TV channel home page and YouTube.com. The growing movement toward watching TV online is attributable, in part, to schedule-bucking viewers who want to watch the shows they want to watch when they want to watch them. Other ... News Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:09:09 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2673 Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Maags MacLoch wanted to prepare for the coming transition to digital television. Using a $$40 federal subsidy, the Web site designer bought a converter box and hooked it up at her home in the Ozark Mountains. ``It just wouldn't work,'' says MacLoch, 55, who lives in rural northwest Arkansas. The paperback-size RCA box wasn't able to find a digital signal strong enough to produce a picture on her analog TV. ``I'm hoping they'll do something to fix that,'' she said in a ... News Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:24:17 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2671 No doubt, Googles forthcoming open source browser — known as Chrome — is going to challenge other open source browsers, most notably Firefox. It could be a devastating blow to Firefox, which has amassed and taken roughly 18 percent of browser market share away from Internet Explorer in a short time. Or is this a prelude to Google acquiring Mozilla? Google, after all, recently extended funding to Mozilla and someone must have been notified that Chome was imminent. In a recent blog reflecing on Mozillas 10 ... News Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:40:09 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2670 Comment In March, Microsoft announced that their upcoming Internet Explorer 8 would: "use its most standards compliant mode, IE8 Standards, as the default." Note the last word: default. Microsoft argued that, in light of their newly published interoperability principles, it was the right thing to do. This declaration heralded an about-face and was widely praised by the web standards community; people were stunned and delighted by Microsoft's promise. This week, the promise was broken. It ... News Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:35:39 EST http://www.speedguide.net/read_news.php?id=2668 A second plaintiff has joined the lawsuit against Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) regarding problems with its iPhone 3G, giving the company until Sept. 10 to respond to charges that it sold a defective device under false marketing promises. Wilton Lee Triggs II is now the second complainant on the lawsuit initially filed Aug. 19 by Jessica Alena Smith, regarding the purchase of 3G iPhones from a Birmingham, Ala. Apple store this summer. The suit, filed by the Birmingham-based Trimmier Law Firm, states the ... News Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:42:08 EST