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Guide to Buying HDTV

The ExtremeTech Guide to Buying HDTV

DARPA looks to peer-to-peer networking as the future

Ars Technica: DARPA looks to peer-to-peer networking as the future While WiFi is all the rage these days, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking elsewhere for the wave of the future: peer-to-peer networks. Advanced Technology Office program manager Preston Marshall argued last week at the Wireless Ventures conference that end-to-end topologies, including our current IP "theocracy," need to give way to more efficient modes of networking. They key is to think about a world of meshed devices working together, and what they're own data communication needs are.

Google-like technologies could revolutionize TV, other media

Google-like technologies could revolutionize TV, other media The same joke has been around the ad industry for decades: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half." ¶ But that line, as old as Madison Avenue itself, may be headed toward obsolescence, as the dawning era of digital advertising helps identify those two halves. ¶ After years of failed promises for ads that can pinpoint targeted consumers, traditional media are finally taking interactive advertising seriously, on the Web and beyond. Companies that have advertised for years on platforms ranging from television to billboards are rethinking their marketing strategies, as Internet advertisers work through the technology glitches and privacy issues that have challenged the first wave of the technology. [c|net news.com]

Wireless Broadband Said To Use Wrong Spectrum

Wireless Broadband Said To Use Wrong Spectrum Wireless broadband is currently allocated to the wrong spectrum and the result is hampering the growth of the technology, according to former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Reed Hundt. ¶ Hundt, who presided over a major overhaul of U.S. telecommunications policy in 1996, said wireless broadband should be put in the same spectrum swath used by analog UHF stations, which is being vacated by broadcasters converting to digital television signals. [internetnews.com]

Click here for a pdf of Hundt's testimony. --Dennis

DSL Prime: Better, Faster DSL

DSL Prime: Better, Faster DSL In this issue of DSL Prime, we talk about all that's working to encourage DSL deployment—and the one thing that isn't: the U.S. government. [isp-planet.com] Read on for lots of broadband predictions. --Dennis

Online Music Alters Industry Sales Tempo

Online Music Alters Industry Sales Tempo The labels could gain if they persuade people to spend more, but some worry that 99-cent singles will beat out more-lucrative albums. A year after Apple Computer Inc. launched its iTunes Music Service, the online music industry is selling songs by the millions — and that may not bode well for the major record labels. ¶ Online services account for just a small fraction of overall music sales, but they're growing rapidly. And the new choices they give consumers threaten to remix the recording industry's traditional revenue streams, pumping up the volume of singles and subscriptions and turning down album sales. [Los Angeles Times]

Push to tap radio wave technology

BBC | Push to tap radio wave technology Healthcare, communication and security could be revolutionised by plans to exploit new technologies in the UK. Using radio waves, microwaves, infra-red and x-rays - collectively known as the electromagnetic spectrum - in innovative ways could bring in £8 billion of new business, says a report.

Hurtling Onto Your Hard Drive, Short Films on Demand

New York Times > Hurtling Onto Your Hard Drive, Short Films on Demand it back, relax and enjoy. That's how AtomFilms Hi-Def, a new free online film service seeking to be so easy to use that instructions will be superfluous, introduces itself. Blending the services of AtomFilms, a Web-based film-on-demand pioneer, and Marven Networks, a broadband media software company, AtomFilms Hi-Def automatically downloads film to Windows-based computers with high-speed Internet access.

Hundt To Senate: Clear 700-800 MHz Spectrum

Hundt To Senate: Clear 700-800 MHz Spectrum
Congress could advance broadband acceptance and use in the United States dramatically and immediately through wireless technology without completely re-writing telecom rules, a former FCC chairman told a Senate panel today. ¶ Reed Hundt, former commission chairman, told members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that the commission could vastly facilitate implementation and acceptance of high-speed wireless broadband by simply writing a letter to the FCC asking that the agency re-examine the digital television signal threshold figures that enables television stations to hang onto spectrum in the UHF spectrum for analog broadcast. He also said Congress should ask the FCC to look at secondary use of broadcast spectrum in areas where it is underused and to issue an order asking that unlicensed devices be allowed to operate in television broadcast spectrum at locations and times when the spectrum isn't being used. The commission currently has an inquiry into secondary use in 700 MHz. [Wireless Week][emphasis added -- Dennis]

Cash call to fund UKs move to digital television

Times Business|Cash call to fund UKs move to digital television TESSA JOWELL, the Culture Secretary, has asked the Treasury to provide £300 million to help to fund the proposed switch from analogue broadcasting to digital. ¶ The request, made as part of the annual spending round, is the clearest sign yet that the Government is serious about forcing the country’s entire television viewing population to move to the new technology between 2006 and 2010.