Obama touts plan to get wireless Internet to 98 percent of U.S.

MARQUETTE, MICH. - In this remote snow-swept college town rejuvenated in part by Internet commerce, President Obama outlined a plan Thursday to create similar economic stories through the expansion of super-fast wireless Internet connections.

Speaking at Northern Michigan University, Obama said he would use $18 billion in federal funds to get 98 percent of the nation connected to the Internet on smartphones and tablet computers in five years.

To get there, the federal government will try to bring more radio waves into the hands of wireless carriers to bolster the nation's networks and prevent a jam of Internet traffic. He said he hoped to raise about $27.8 billion by auctioning airwaves now in the hands of television stations and government agencies.

And with that auction money, the government would fund new rural 4G wireless networks and a mobile communications system for fire, police and emergency responders. The remaining funds raised - about $10 billion - would go toward lowering the federal deficit over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office has said the deficit will climb to $1.5 trillion this year.

First outlined in Obama's State of the Union speech, the plan is part of a push to reshape the nation's infrastructure of deteriorating roadways and manufacturing plants into one with high-speed railways and high-speed Internet networks that the president said are essential for the United States to compete in the global economy.

"To attract the best jobs and newest industries, we've got to out-innovate, out-educate, out-build and out-hustle the rest of the world," Obama said in his speech.

The president chose to visit Marquette because of the town's success in attracting commercial partners such as Intel to build a mobile broadband network based on WiMax technology on the university campus. Northern Michigan University partnered with towns nearby to expand cell towers so elementary schools, police and residents could also access wireless networks fast enough to access streaming videos without a wired connection.
Experts say Obama's plan is ambitious and complicated and relies heavily on the participation of cautious television broadcasters, who are loath to give up their greatest asset: spectrum.

Specifically, $10.7 billion would fund a new public-safety network so first responders from various emergency services can communicate on one system, sending video files and e-mails during disasters and national security threats.

The administration also plans a one-time allotment of $5 billion from a federal phone subsidy to expand wireless broadband in rural areas. About $3 billion would go to a government research program that would develop methods for using mobile Internet access for emerging technologies and for health, education and energy applications.

The plan does not detail how much money it would return to broadcasters who give up airwaves in voluntary "incentive auctions." The administration has promised that those television broadcasters would get a cut of the proceeds but hasn't offered more details.

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iPhone 4 owner sues Apple over cracked glass case

iPhone 4 owner Donald LeBuhn filed a class action lawsuit against Apple early this week, claiming the company is misleading customers about the strength of the glass casing on the iPhone 4. LeBuhn is asking that Apple reimburse the plaintiffs in the case for the cost of the phone and any repairs.

LeBuhn said that his main problem with Apple is that it markets the glass as being super-durable and scratch-resistant -- a claim he says his personal experience disproves.

Apple has not yet commented on the lawsuit; we'll let you know if it does.

The lawsuit, reported by the LAWeekly, focuses on how the iPhone's glass housing handles when the phone is dropped without a case. LeBuhn said his iPhone shattered when his daughter dropped it from a height of about three feet while sending a text message.

"Months after selling millions of iPhone 4s, Apple has failed to warn and continues to sell this product with no warning to customers that the glass housing is defective," LeBuhn wrote in the lawsuit.

This is the second big stink raised about shattered glass on the iPhone 4. In October, complaints surfaced that small pieces of matter that got trapped in iPhone 4 sliding cases made the iPhone 4 more prone to cracking. Reports of the problem became so widespread that the tech press dubbed it "Glassgate," and a research firm called SquareTech released figures that the latest model of the iPhone broke 82 percent more often than the iPhone 3GS.

Apple reporter Johnny Evans called those claims into question when they surfaced in October, saying that the numbers were reported in a way that made them seem more significant than they were.

"Described as '82 percent' of course this sounds like a big deal, but in reality it means 3.9 percent of 20,000 iPhone 4 owners reported a cracked screen rather than 2.1 percent of 20,000 iPhone 3GS owners," he wrote.

Glassgate, unlike its predecessor Antennagate, never came to very much, as the problem was not nearly as widespread. With this lawsuit, however, more people may come forward with casing issues.

Sound off: Have you had trouble with the casing on your iPhone 4?

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$20 a month for Verizon iPhone hotspot

Those who want to use their iPhone as a hotspot will have to pay $20 a month, according to Verizon.

In an interview with Macworld, Brenda Raney, executive director of corporate communications, said that the hotspot feature will come with a $20-a-month-fee, the same as current Verizon smartphone owners pay for tethering.

The iPhone will be able to connect to up to five devices and the hotspot will have its own monthly allotment of 2GB of data.

For every addition gigabyte over the limit, Raney said the company will charge an additional $20.

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'Talking' cars may someday warn of crashes and save lives

A new crash warning system that allows vehicles to "talk" to each other more than 900 feet away was demonstrated for federal officials Tuesday, marking a significant step in efforts by the government and automakers to put advanced communications technology in cars.

Using specialized WiFi signals that are emitted 10 times every second, the technology senses when a collision is imminent and alerts a driver through flashing red lights and beeps.

In the demonstration in the parking lot near RFK Stadium, the system notified a driver when it detected another car speeding through a red light in an upcoming intersection, of several cars blocking the highway ahead, and of a car zooming up from behind.

A report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in October reported that such "vehicle-to-vehicle" warning systems could address nearly 80 percent of reported crashes that do not involve drunk drivers.

"This technology has the potential to save a lot of lives," said Peter Appel, administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration at the Department of Transportation, after riding along for the demo.

The technology, if successfully developed, could become mandatory in 2013 when federal officials are scheduled to decide whether to require such systems.

In the absence of such a requirement, the first challenge may be overcoming a basic chicken-and-egg problem. If other people don't buy the systems, they will be nearly useless. In that case, persuading the first consumers to purchase the technology may be difficult.

Implementation of the system would require the nation's automakers, normally competitive, to agree on how such systems should work and what kind of information they should share. So far, nearly all the major automakers have joined a consortium to set standards.

Ford, which conducted Tuesday's demonstration for federal officials and the media, is expected to announce during this week's Washington Auto Show that it will invest more in the technology. The Department of Transportation has already spent more than $40 million on the technology, with an additional $36 million slated for more research, officials said. Research by the government and automakers is supposed to be finished within two years.

The warning systems, however, face technical challenges.
The WiFi signals between cars are sent via a channel allocated by the Federal Communications Commission. Engineers are trying to cope with "channel loading" when there are more than 100 cars within the 300-meter radius, officials said.

Moreover, there is some fear that hackers could fool the systems into thinking that others cars are in the area - setting off alarms and snarling traffic. The automakers must ensure that the signals vehicles are receiving are actually from other cars. Setting up electronic certifications also has to be done in a way that addresses the concerns of privacy advocates and does not identify specific drivers.

"We don't want people to feel there is some tracking device on the car," said Michael Shulman, a technical leader for the project at Ford. "But we have to make sure the other car you're sensing is not some guy on an overpass with a laptop. So there are obstacles, but we think we have ways of overcoming them."

Some cars already have limited radar devices that can detect obstacles in the front, as well as those in the blind spots missed by mirrors. Such systems can cost $1,000 or more.

The advantage of the WiFi technology is not only that it is far cheaper - possibly adding as little as $100 to the cost of the car - but also that it can detect other vehicles much farther away and in all directions, officials said.

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Understanding of Computer Networking Fundamentals

A computer network is a collection of two or more computers with communication between them through a medium. The communication medium can be through radio waves, wires, infrared, optical fibers etc.

Computer network is an integral part of our daily lives, with the most important reason being that of communication. The use of computer networking is to share resources like fax machines, printers, modems, files etc., and its other uses are database server, computer server, email, chat, internet etc. The computer to which the resources are attached is called the server and the other computers that access the resource are called clients. In peer-to-peer computer networks there are no servers.

The sharing of fax machines, printers, and modems amongst many computers and users reduce the operational cost. A database on a computer network is a very important application as it stores and runs many important data and jobs. Emails and chats can be used for instantaneous communication and sending of files on a computer network.

The computer networks are classified, depending upon the size, as Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN), Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) and Personal Area Networks (PAN). The topology (topology is the way the computer networks and network resources are connected) of the networking can be classified as Bus Network, Ring Network and Star Network.

The networking hardware basically consists of wiring, network cards and a hub. Computer network cards are required so that one computer can understand what the other computer is “talking”. Network cards have a unique MAC address to identify computers on a computer network. Hubs connect all the computers in the network. Hubs can also be used to connect to other hubs to increase the size of the computer network. Two computers can be connected using Ethernet cards or phone lines or power lines for communication, with hardware kits available at roughly a cost of $100.

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