Google Goggles Solves Sudoku

http://gizmodo.com/5729821/google-googles-now-solves-sudoku-for-you

What is 4G really?

T-Mobile claims the largest "4G" network in the country. Verizon's launching its "4G" LTE network later this year. And Sprint loves talking about "4G" WiMax. Thing is, none of these networks are actually 4G. Not by a long shot.

Who decides what's 4G?

There's like a bajillion massive, international organizations that jockey for position to dictate a lot of what technology standards look like. When it comes to 3G/4G, there are a few major groups at play:

• The International Telecommunication Union is a United Nations agency that, among other things, sets international standards for telecommunications. This group ultimately decides if a wireless technology is 3G or 4G or, like, 9000G. To be considered 4G, a network technology has to meet a set of specs known as IMT-Advanced.

• 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) is a group of telecom standards bodies that originally got together to develop the technical specs for a 3G network. This group developed the standard for UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications), which GSM carriers use for 3G data transmission. They're also the cats behind LTE, the next-gen wireless network that GSM carriers like AT&T will migrate to. (I highly recommend reading our CDMA vs. GSM primer now if you haven't, BTW.)

• If you've ever bought a router, you're probably familiar with the number 802.11. What that weird string of digits refers to is IEEE 802.11, the set of standards for wireless local area networking, and the working group that defines them. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers does a lot of things, and one of them is set technical standards. What's relevant here is that a subset of these governing geeks, the IEEE 802.16 working group, standardizes Wireless Metropolitan Area networks—what you know better as WiMax.

None of these "4G" networks is really 4G

Right now, every major carrier in the US is touting a "4G" network that's either available or being rolled out. Sprint is pushing WiMax. AT&T and Verizon are pushing LTE (Long-Term Evolution). T-Mobile is pushing HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access Evolved). They're all faster than the "3G" speeds than we're used to, with WiMax and HSPA+ delivering consistent, real-world speeds of anywhere from 3Mbps-12Mbps today. But a rep for the ITU told me flatly, "The fact is that there are no IMT-Advanced—or 4G—systems available or deployed at this stage." Calling their newer, faster networks "4G" is "completely marketing" by the carriers, says Gartner analyst Phil Hartman.

The ITU has actually just decided which technologies are officially designated as IMT-Advanced—"true 4G technologies" in its eyes—after looking at six candidates. The winners:LTE-Advanced (LTE Release 10)and WirelessMAN-Advanced (aka 802.16m aka WiMax Release 2). In other words, the next versions of today's LTE and WiMax. Despite sharing the names, and being developed by the same groups as their predecessors, the for-serious 4G networks will be "pretty different" at a technical level, says Hartman.

If you think top speeds of 300Mbps for LTE and 72Mbps for WiMax are impressive, true 4G makes them look downright pokey. Today's 4G is "not anywhere near what the 4G experience will be in 10-15 years," says Hartman. You're talking about speeds of "up to a gigabit a second" in a wireless LAN, and 100Mbps for fully mobile applications. In other words, true 4G is a massive leap, not a dainty skip forward. There's also little things, like full capability for voice in LTE-Advanced, which there's no standard for in the current LTE spec.

The goal of true 4G is to create a superfast, incredibly interoperable, basically ubiquitous global networks. What we've got now and in the very near future is pretty good, and definitely better than what we've had. But they're no 4G.

Mobile Phones from 1964

By 1964 there were 1.5 million mobile phone users in the US.

No, really. That's not a joke. It comes directly from a report by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. (And got to me via Atlantic magazine technology guru Alexis Madrigal.) In fact, the first landline-to-mobile service was offered in St. Louis in 1946! Now, granted, we're talking about a radio-based system of car phones which were such energy hogs that headlights noticeably dimmed when people used them. But still. Mobile phones.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones/Introduction/Introduction.aspx

http://gizmodo.com/5661414/this-is-what-a-mobile-phone-looked-like-in-1964and-there-were-over-a-million-of-them

What Is Google Buzz?

So what exactly is Google Buzz? Used on a PC or mobile, Buzz reminds us of an RSS combined with all of your social networking—all within the existing Gmail and Google.com infrastructure.

Buzz's five key features include:

• Automatic friends lists (friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail)

• "Rich fast sharing" combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing

• Public and private sharing (swap between family and friends)

• Inbox integration (instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook might, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content, like the photo viewer we mentioned above)

• "Recommended Buzz" puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you're not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback

Google Buzz is available today, and it should creep up as a new tab in Gmail any minute.

But What About My Cellphone?

Of course, Buzz also works on mobiles right from Google.com on Android and iPhone browsers, and it locates your position from a one button press. From here, Buzz can tailor your feed to their information on things like businesses and restaurants. More on mobile Buzz here. [Google Buzz]

T-Mobile offers Unlimited Voice Plan for $49.99 to Loyal Customers

According to some legit-looking documents, T-Mobile will soon be offering users who've been with the company for 22+ months (and have solid payment history) a variety of new unlimited access plans.

The most promising plan is probably the $50 unlimited talk plan that, when paired with another family member's subscription, drops to $45 per line (or $90 total). If you talk a lot and don't use data, that's a pretty interesting deal. Otherwise, T-Mobile will also have a loyalty voice+data deal starting at $85.

Read More

RIM opens the BlackBerry Application storefront "Music 2.0"

Better late than never, we suppose -- joining Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Palm, RIM's officially opened the BlackBerry Application Storefront to submissions, just a hair after the December launch we'd originally heard. It sounds like RIM's going to be doing more an Apple-style closed market than an Android-style free-for-all.

read more | digg story

Firefox Mobile to be Released in a Few Weeks

In an interview that started with Mozilla CEO John Lilly explaining how he runs the company to San Jose Mercury News reporter Pete Carey, it was revealed that the first Firefox Mobile alphas could be released in “a few weeks.”

We know that it’s definitely coming, despite debunked rumors of it being released in 2010, but with the imminent release of the first alpha we’ll all finally be able to see it “for real.”

read more | digg story