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Thursday, November 26, 2015

This technology is 100 times faster than Wi-Fi

By Donald Armbrecht

A new technology, known as Li-Fi, could one day offer internet speeds one hundred times faster than the Wi-Fi we use today. Scientists have achieved speeds in the lab of up to 224 GB per second. That’s the equivalent of downloading 18 movies in the blink of an eye. Li-Fi, or light fidelity, is now moving to trials in the real world, with office tests in Tallin, Estonia achieving speeds of 1 GB per second, 100 times the speed of traditional Wi-Fi.

The limits of Wi-Fi
For those who remember 56k modems, Wi-Fi feels like a rapid and liberating way to access the internet. Continuing to use Wi-Fi as a means to transmit data, however, has a number of challenges. As explained the world’s ever-growing desire for more data at faster rates is pushing Wi-Fi’s capacity to its limits. Wi-Fi is achieved by transmitting data through radio waves, but can only transfer so much at a time. By 2019, it is estimated that the world will be exchanging roughly 35 quintillion bytes of information each month. Because radio frequencies are already in use and heavily regulated, that data is going to struggle to find a spot in line. Wi-Fi is simply running out of space.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

How To Sync Your Smartphone or Tablet on Your TV

It’s a pretty fantastic world we live in these days, especially when it comes to mobile technology. Hours upon hours of entertainment lay at our fingertips, available virtually any place, anytime, all from a sleek little device that fits in your pocket. However, as convenient and wondrous as smartphones are, there’s still something to be said for watching your favorite content on a big, flat-screen TV. And for those who access more content from their tablet or smartphone than anywhere else, that big screen in the living room can create some serious size envy.
So why can’t you have your cake andsee it too? You can, thanks to the magic of mirroring. A rapidly growing arsenal of devices now exists to allow anything on your phone or tablet to be mirrored on your TV. For those looking to marry the second screen with the screen that started it all, we’ve put together this list of the best, most convenient, and most affordable ways to do so. We’ve done all the research for you, so dive right in and pick your poison.

Set-top boxes

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Business Opportunity - Microsoft Launches Fund to Improve Affordable Internet in Underserved Markets

Microsoft Corp. has launched a new fund to cultivate companies with solutions that bring affordable Internet access to underserved markets.

The fund is part of Microsoft’s Affordable Access Initiative, which invests in new last-mile access technologies, cloud-based services and applications, and business models that can reduce the cost of Internet access and help more people affordably get online.

Started on Monday, eligible companies can submit their application online at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/affordable-access-initiative/home.

White Space Spectrum Will Connect The Internet of Things

WHITE spaces in the radio spectrum can now be used for anything from wireless flood defences to city-wide Wifi. Services using white space technology could appear before the end of the year with surplus spectrum filling in gaps where Wifi and Bluetooth fail. The spare spectrum comes from bands currently shared by digital TV and wireless microphones. UK industry regulator Ofcom, which will oversee the use of the spectrum, said that companies could now also use the spectrum for certain low-powered networks.

Broadly the technology will allow internet of things devices to communicate with one another and the Internet. White space spectrum could also improve broadband coverage in rural areas and boost Wifi signals in crowded cities.

Africa strategy is imperative for IoT companies

From a global perspective, some of the companies that are active in the IoT space have already established a presence in Africa, while others are keeping their Africa strategies close to their chests.

WITH many companies underlining the critical place of IoT to their businesses, analysts believe what is currently happening is that these firms are using the African market to sell their products and services instead of having a real presence as IoT original equipment manufacturers.

Lions go digital: The Internet’s transformative potential in Africa, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute (2013) on Private-sector opportunities states: “The growth of the internet in Africa opens the door for established companies to expand their reach and add new business lines. But the competitive dynamics are intensifying. The internet gives start-ups the ability to scale up rapidly, and some may be sources of low-cost innovation that can disrupt entire industries.

“In addition, multinationals increasingly realise that Africa’s growing Internet penetration presents an opportunity to reach untapped markets. If local companies do not innovate quickly, they could lose out to multinationals that import solutions,” the report goes on.

Is Africa shaping up to Internet of Things (IoT)?

The Internet of Things is opening up a world of real opportunities and rapidly transforming communities, cities and the daily lives of people worldwide. Today, the IoT encompasses more than 14 billion things connected to the internet, providing the technology foundation for the Internet of Everything (IoE), which it is believed improves business outcomes through the intelligent networked connections among people, processes, data, and things. The question arises: is Africa ready to take advantage of the opportunities that lie in connecting things, extracting information, connecting people and enhancing systems – and, ultimately, society?

AFRICA has bright prospects in the Internet of Things (IoT) space, according to a new report by the Internet Society. The report wants to position African countries to help them reap the full benefits of the internet. Released at the Africa Internet Summit 2015 in Tunis, it provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the internet in Africa and highlights the importance of the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance as an essential part of Africa’s internet ecosystem.

USB inventor Ajay Bhatt did not make a dime from it - but here's the reasons...

Intel’s calling November 15, 1995, the 20th birthday of USB. But it’s not enough to have a birthday anymore; you need an origin story, too. And for USB, one of most popular technology standards of the PC era, that story is a humble one: printer problems at home. That’s what drove Intel Fellow Ajay Bhatt’s multi-year obsession to make the Universal Serial Bus a reality. 





The USB, short for Universal Serial Bus, turned 20 on Sunday and apparently, the man who invented it hasn’t made a single penny from it! Ajay Bhatt, Intel’s Chief Systems Technologist, who is said to be largely responsible for inventing the USB technology believes that he did it to bring about change.

“Anytime (my family) wanted to do something simple like print a letter for my daughter’s school, I would get a phone call from my wife that she just can’t print it,” Bhatt said. “She does something, but nothing happens to the printer.”

Monday, November 16, 2015

Affordable House! Built in a day!

This House Can Be Built In A Day, At An Affordable Price. A recipe for very quick, modular construction could help solve housing needs in the developing world.

Need to build a house quickly? Or build a lot of houses quickly to shelter a growing population? This plastic mold framework is filled with cement and sand, with plumbing, electricity, window, and door frames placed "between the formwork." The shell of the house is ready overnight.
Moladi, from South Africa, is aimed at the huge need for affordable housing in that country. It's featured in the Cube, a recently opened design museum in the Netherlands, that promises "design for human needs" in its first show this month.


The main idea: very quick construction. "The question is whether conventional building methods are able to cope with the ever-increasing demand for quality homes," says Moladi founder Hennie Botes, in an email.