A new “Wi-Fi Plus Cellular” feature appears in the latest beta build of iOS 6. This should allow background synchronization for certain native applications but appears to include FaceTime as well, indicating that iOS 6 will support seamless FaceTime calls moving from Wi-Fi to mobile broadband. Read more »
The Kindle Fire gains a free new mobile music app in Spotify, but it’s only mobile if you have a Wi-Fi connection; offline support requires a Spotify Premium subscription. However, the app supports high-quality music streaming and full access to Spotify’s millions of digital tracks. Read more »
Despite its current decline, RIM is a different firm today than it was in 2007, with new management, a full awareness of its shaky position, an upcoming OS release and a number of lingering advantages that can still be leveraged. Here’s how it just might survive. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Our reporter visited a vegan bakery in Kansas City that was one of the first places to get Google Fiber. He offers speed tests via wired, Wi-Fi and a sense of the problems that Google Fiber will have to overcome to sign up customers. Read more »
The Defcon security and hacker conference in Las Vegas is home to a unique cell network built using GSM and Wi-Fi. The private network was built for fun, but it could have a serious purpose when governments try to lock down cellular communications. Read more »
Once everyone has a smartphone, it’s clear that if you want to know where someone is, you just have to find their phone. GM is counting on that, testing a wireless pedestrian system in vehicles that uses Wi-Fi Direct to detect and avoid walkers and bicyclists. Read more »
Streaming video, pictures or even games from your tablet or smartphone to an HDTV without wires is about to get easier thanks to the new Miracast standard. Nvidia is ready to support it with the Tegra 3, turning mobile devices into set-top boxes and gaming machines. Read more »
Relying on a wireless home network is typically far cheaper than using mobile broadband for smartphones and tablets. Even with today’s new Wi-Fi products, however, coverage can still be an issue and thus use up precious cellular data. Netgear’s $39 Wi-Fi extender aims to solve that. Read more »
DeviceScape’s app for Android gains a new name and additional features: What used to be called DataBooster is now DataSaver. The free software helps users manage their 3G and 4G data usage while making it easier to connect to DeviceScape’s more than 8 million Wi-Fi hotspots. Read more »
Payphones, those relics of the pre-cellphone era, may just get a new lease on life in New York. The city is testing a new pilot program in which it installs free Wi-Fi on select payphone kiosks. It is starting with ten kiosks in three boroughs. Read more »
The Wi-Fi Alliance is now inviting vendors to submit their handsets and access points for Hotspot 2.0 certification. If they pass muster, they will receive the Alliance’s Passpoint stamp of approval, meaning they should be able to connect automatically to other Passpoint gear. Read more »
France’s Bouygues Telecom is working with virtual hotspot network Devicescape to give its smartphone customers seamless access to 8 million open Wi-Fi access points globally, replicating – at least fractionally – one of the key differentiators Iliad’s Free Mobile has on the competition: a 4 million-node offload network. Read more »
Looking for a little safety and mobile privacy at that public hotspot? AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield app might be worth the look for your Android device: The new software is a multi-purpose mobile utility, combining VPN web browsing with anti-malware and broadband data compression. Read more »
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Intel is adding a feature to its Ultrabooks and tablets that will make them stand out from its competitors’ netbooks and slates: automatic access to a global Wi-Fi network. The silicon vendor is using DeviceScape’s connection manager technology to link to millions of open hotspots. Read more »
A wireless network comprised of 50,000 free hotspots will appear in the coming months, but there’s a small catch: To use the free Wi-Fi service, you’ll need to be a subscriber to one of five cable television providers. The Wi-Fi roaming revolution is finally here. Read more »
Buffalo Technology has wasted no time using the newly approved 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard: The company is now shipping its AirStation router that is capable of pushing wireless bits and bytes at 1.3 Gbps. The $179.99 device is also backwards compatible with older Wi-Fi standards. Read more »
The Wi-Fi Alliance won’t accept its first devices for Passpoint certification until late June, but once the doors to its labs swing wide there may not be much of a lag time before our smartphones start automatically connecting to carriers’ Wi-Fi hotspots. Read more »
The ubiquitous Wi-Fi standard officially improved on Monday, with the IEEE publishing its fourth revision to 802.11. The updates include faster throughput, improved cellular hand-offs, and communication between vehicles in addition to other improvements. One marketable standard could help with consumer education and purchase decisions. Read more »
While there has been much outrage about Google “snooping” user data over Wi-Fi, even the FCC says this behavior wasn’t illegal, since the networks in question were public. Is this a sign that the laws around privacy are broken, or is the Streetview furor an overreaction? Read more »
France’s mobile market has been upset by the innovative approach of Xavier Niel’s low-cost operator, Free. But after an initial boost of customers, rivals say the company’s growth is slowing. Is its momentum in danger of draining away before it’s even really started? Read more »
The heterogeneous network, or HetNet, will turn today’s big-tower cellular systems into dense, multi-layered and tremendously high capacity networks. Given the complexity of such systems, it’s easy to imagine HetNet as a technology of the future, but Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg says you would be wrong. Read more »
The havoc that OpenFlow is wreaking in the data center may also change the way we think of ISPs, and solve the spectrum crisis. OpenRadio is a project that hopes to use OpenFlow to create pools of broadband from Wi-Fi, cellular and other networks. Read more »
Smartphone sales surged both in the U.S. and worldwide, carriers struggled to cope with the ever-increasing consumption of mobile data, and the fight for spectrum remained front and center in the first quarter. Our latest quarterly wrap-up analyzes these trends and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
AT&T’s networks are getting an upgrade that will transform them from static cellular grids into a kind of network organism whose cells will grow and shrink as customers move through them. Ultimately these self-optimizing networks will be a critical component in providing cheap and ubiquitous mobile data. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Eye-Fi’s new $79 Mobile X2 memory card for digital cameras can be used to get images from a point-and-shoot or DLSR to a iOS or Android device, making it easy to share pics on Instagram, Facebook, TwitPic or any number of other photo sharing sites. Read more »
Hyperlocal mobile advertising is at a critical juncture: Leading analysts predict that mobile ad spending will increase by more than five times between 2011 and 2015. But what are the forces at play, and how effective are HyLoMo ads? Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A recent ComScore survey of smartphone owners in the U.S. and U.K. shows that iPhone users are far more likely than their Android-toting counterparts to take advantage of Wi-Fi networks when available. But the same thing is true for iPad users. What accounts for the difference? Read more »
Kindle Fire owners wanting to include locations in their tweets can do so with the updated version of TweetCaster. Nearby tweets are available too, even though Amazon’s tablet doesn’t include a GPS radio. Instead the slate uses a Wi-Fi location solution from Boston-based Skyhook Wireless. Read more »
Go ahead, add Wi-Fi to your toaster. Or Bluetooth to your shoes, because the FCC has relaxed some rules that make using unlicensed airwaves in the PCS band a little easier. And that makes it cheaper to add that frequency band to our wireless gear. Read more »
Five key technology sectors are enabling the smart city: smart grids, smart transport, smart water and waste management, smart building systems, and the enabling ICT platforms for the smart city. Key players like IT companies, telcos and utilities must learn how to harness those technologies, and quickly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Approximately 90 percent of all tablets in the U.S. relied on Wi-Fi over 3G mobile broadband last year, according to industry analyst Chetan Sharma. The data suggests that carriers aren’t a needed distribution chain for slates for several reasons: long-term contracts and redundant data plans. Read more »
Soon your smartphone will be able to connect seamlessly to your mobile operator’s Wi-Fi hotspots. But what about hotspots that your carrier doesn’t manage? It turns out the world of Wi-Fi roaming is a whole new bag of problems, but the industry has a fix in mind. Read more »
Ericsson having successfully bagged BelAir Networks, Ruckus Wireless now has a big target painted on its flank. As Ericsson’s competitors look to integrate Wi-Fi much more deeply into their mobile network portfolios, buying Ruckus would be the easiest way for them get there. Read more »
The industry has moved beyond starry-eyed soothsaying about a world of 50 billion connected devices to start talking about how these mammoth networks of objects and appliances would actually work and how they would be managed. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It has become increasingly clear to corporations that their networks can’t handle the many devices that employees are bringing into their offices. And this iPad has more elements that could make it a hit in the enterprise, such as a higher-resolution screen for video. Read more »
Thanks to better sensors and integrated connectivity, the iPhone 4S has become the top camera on the Flickr photography site, beating out more expensive DSLRs. With its new Smart Cameras, Samsung is offering to solid shooters the ability to share pictures and videos over Wi-Fi. Read more »
Shooting and sharing movie footage all over New Zealand makes for connectivity challenges, but the crew of The Hobbit is making do. But not with magic; heck, even a powerful wizard such as Gandalf has limitations. Portable satellites and six kilometers of cable bring them broadband. Read more »
This week AT&T floated a plan to enable app developers to pay for the data that subscribers use in their apps. The model might resonate with some developers and subscribers, but it is likely to create more problems than it ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
What will 2012 bring to our mobile world where tablets are trying to take the place of PCs and we’re carrying small computers in our pockets? ComScore helps predict 2012 by looking at 2011 in its Mobile Future in Focus report, published on Thursday. Read more »
