FCC Plan to Boost Inflight WiFi Takes Off With Turbulence

Business travelers know that getting decent WiFi on long flights can be a roll of the broadband dice. The FCC may have an answer with a plan to boost bandwidth for inflight wireless that could mean faster, cheaper service. However, questions about a chip company's involvement in the original proposal is fueling objections from some key players, and that could stall the plan worse than a large file being uploaded over slow WiFi.

As more airlines begin to offer WiFi, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is proposing to increase the bandwidth available for inflight wireless broadband.

The FCC is essentially basing its proposal on Qualcomm's submission to the government from July 2011.

This raises the question of whether the FCC is perhaps too closely tied to one company in this area, and whether it should wait for proposals from other entities before proceeding.

That has caused division among potential players. The Satellite Industry Association and Row44, which offers inflight WiFi, oppose the FCC's proposal while American Airlines and Delta Airlines support it.

However, "This is just a proposal and the FCC is getting the ball rolling with the Qualcomm proposal," Jagdish Rebello, a research director at IHS iSuppli, told TechNewsWorld. "It gets people to think about the issue."

An FCC spokesperson was not immediately available to provide further details. 

What The FCC and Qualcomm Propose 

 The number of aircraft offering broadband service will quintuple from about 3,000 in 2012 to 15,000 by 2021, according to the FCC. The Commission is forwarding Qualcomm's suggestion of tapping into the 14.0 to 14.5 GHz band to provide a secondary service that would not interfere with fixed satellite service (FSS) Earth-to-space communications.

FSS satellites provide broadcast feeds to radio and TV stations and broadcast network and satellite TV, and handle telephony, telecommunications and data communications. The FSS uplink in the U.S. is in the 14.0 to 14.5 GHz band.

To facilitate bandwidth sharing, the FCC proposes spatial diversity, in which antennas used for different services within a given bandwidth are pointed in different directions. This is a technique that is already being used successfully.

The proposed service will provide multigigabit broadband connectivity to aircraft flying within the contiguous U.S., meaning that it won't be available over Hawaii, Puerto Rico and foreign countries. Qualcomm's proposal will see a total of 300 Gbps shared among planes in the air over any one area.

Licensees will be able to use the spectrum for air-ground mobile broadband only. The spectrum will be licensed on a nationwide basis, and the licensee will get a 10-year license. A substantial service performance requirement must be met the end of that period. Licensees must be able to construct and operate base stations that provide robust, uninterrupted service on routes serving at least 50 airports classified as large or medium hubs.

"There is a great need for this service," Philip Solis, a research director at ABI Research, told TechNewsWorld. "The connection on planes is fairly slow, and it can get really slow when more people use WiFi on planes."  

Speak Up Now 

 The FCC's proposal "would use ground stations using spectrum that is meant for satellites, but would be used between the planes and ground stations directly," Solis said.

Perhaps this is why the SIA's objection to the FCC's proposal contends that the proposed service will cause interference to the FSS services using the 14.0-14.5 GHz band.

The FCC is seeking comment on various issues related to its proposal. Interested parties have 45 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register to file their comments. Reply comments must be filed 75 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register.  

Gotta Get Connected 

Consumers "are demanding ubiquitous connectivity, and with more and more content stored in the cloud, consumers will have less access to content in their devices, and it makes sense to have a better connection for that reason," iSuppli's Rebello said.
Over time, the cost of inflight WiFi will go down, he added.
That might help adoption. Dissatisfied customers recently filed an antitrust suit against Gogo, the dominant inflight WiFi services provider, for charging up to nearly $18 for its services. The suit was dismissed without prejudice, which means the complainants can refile their suit with new facts

A Changing Earth Is on Display in Google Timelapse

A glacier shrinkage, a forest disappears and a major U.S. city spread before your eyes in the new Google timelapse project. The partnership blends 28 years of satellite imagery and Google Earth engine technology to reduce the impact of human activity on the planet to show. A new Landsat satellite was launched earlier this year leading cameras will contribute to the project.

 

Time, Inc., along with Google, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Carnegie Mellon University's Create Lab, a website with timelapse animation depicting changes in the earth's surface from 1984 to 2012.

 The timelapse project website hosts 25th planet images, one for each year

Landsat images "contain many layers of data collected at different points along the visible and invisible light spectra," said USGS spokesman Jon Campbell Tech News World. "As a result, [they] can show where vegetation thrives and where it is emphasized, where droughts occur, where wildland fire is a hazard, and shoreline erosion or river courses changed."

"We think it's important for people free access to this type of information that gives us all a real clear picture of how the world changed as a result of human impact," Google spokesman Nathan Tyler Tech News World.

Details of the Timelapse Project 

  Google, which has been digitizing Landsat images and putting them online with the USGS since 2009, sifted through nearly 2.1 million images - more than 900 terabytes of data. The project found that the highest quality pixels for each year since 1984 for every place on earth with the help of Google Earth engine technology.

It is then compiled the images in annualized planet images. Each image of the planet for one year 1.8 size terapixels.

Carnegie Mellon University's Create Lab with Google this annual images into a slick, searchable HTML5 animation.

The laboratory did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

Statements of the timelapse site includes the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil, the retreat of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska and the drying of the Aral Sea.

"Landsat satellites give us a view as wide as 12,000 square kilometers per scene while describing land cover units of the size of a baseball diamond" USGS's Campbell said. "From a distance of more than 400 miles above the earth's surface, a single Landsat scene the condition of hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland, agricultural crops or forest logging."

All Landsat data is freely available to everyone, said NASA spokesman Stephen Cole Tech News World. USGS Landsat data archive management and distribution. The data can be obtained here.

Time, Inc. did not respond to our request for further details.

What Landsat Offers 

Landsat images "reveal subtle, gradual changes, such as Wyoming pasture greening after a drought and massive landscape changes that occur in rapidly growing urban areas," said Campbell. "Landsat broad evaluation of sudden natural or man-made ​​disasters, such as the number of hectares burnt by a forest fire or the extent of the tsunami flooded."

Uses Landsat data include monitoring of water quality, the recession of the glaciers, the movement of the sea ice, deforestation rates, and population growth.

In February, NASA eighth satellite in the Landsat program, which is a gap in the program's ability to monitor the planet. Landsat 5 decommissioned earlier in the year, and Landsat 7 suffered a serious mechanical failure on a subsystem in 2003, produces about two-thirds of each image unusable.

Landsat 8 technical progress in the sensors project scientist Jim Irons told Tech News World in time will lead "to the best data yet our ears."

Releasing the timelapse data animations on Google Earth's engine help this information to the public in an engaging new way, NASA said on Thursday.

 

Risk and Compliance: The Yin and Yang of Security

Regulations and mandates - whether they're from the government and industry are important aspects of security within organizations. But there is more to the battle to include information in a Big Data world. Compliance should play a supporting role within a framework driven by risk assessment, ongoing monitoring and closed-loop remediation.

 

 when work output make headlines. So what role should compliance and risk management Play Cf. for example, an organization's overall security equation?

The Downside of Compliance 

Organizations that follow a box mentality as part of a compliance-driven approach to security only achieve point-in-time performance rather than improving the company's security posture, which is dynamic and changes over time. This has been proven time and again.

Recently, progressive businesses to become more proactive, risk-based approach to seek safety. The goal in a risk-based model to assess the effectiveness of an organization's IT security operations to maximize visibility into risk and compliance posture. The Holy Grail is to be in compliance, reduce risk and encourage security on an ongoing basis.

A number of factors that cause businesses the box approach to security and move to a risk-based model to reconsider. These include:

    1) Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002.

     2)Federal Risk and authority Management Program (FedRAMP).

     3)Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Cyber ​​lead.

     4)Emerging Cyber ​​legislation (eg, Cyber ​​Intelligence sharing and Protection Act).

     5)Presidential Executive Order on Cyber ​​Security.

     6)The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

The Role of IT Security 

  It is generally believed that vulnerability management will reduce the risk of a data breach. But without problems in the context of the risk associated with them, organizations can misalign their remediation resources. Often they forget the most critical risks, while only a low-hanging fruit "to address.

It is not just a waste of money, but more importantly, it creates a longer window of opportunity for hackers critical vulnerability exploit. The ultimate goal is to shorten the window attackers to exploit a software bug. Therefore, vulnerability management complemented by a holistic, risk-based approach to security, which considers factors such as threats, reach the organization's compliance posture, and business impact.

If the threat can not reach the vulnerability, or the associated risk is reduced or eliminated.

Risk and Compliance: Security Bedfellows 

An organization's compliance posture can play an important role to play IT security by identifying compensate controls that can be used to prevent threats from reaching their target.

According to the Verizon 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report, 97 percent of the 855 incidents in 2011 were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls. However, business impact is a critical factor in determining the actual risk. For example, problems that threaten critical business assets represent a much higher risk than that associated with less critical goals.

Since compliance posture is typically not tied to business critics of assets, it does not enable an organization to prioritize remediation efforts. A risk approach, focusing on security posture / compliance and business impact to increase operational efficiency, improve assessment accuracy, reduce attack surfaces, and improve investment decision-making.

There are three main components to the implementation of a risk-based approach to security.

Continuous Compliance 

Continuous compliance include the reconciliation of the assets and automating data classification, adaptation of technical control, automation of compliance testing, deployment of assessment surveys, and automation of data consolidation.

Continued compliance, organizations can reduce overlap by using a common control framework to increase accuracy in data collection and data analysis, and reducing redundant and manual, labor-intensive effort by up to 75 percent.

Continuous Monitoring 

Continuous monitoring implies an increased frequency of data assessments and required security data automation together and normalize data from a variety of sources such as security information and event management (SIEM), asset management, threat feeds, and vulnerability scanners.

In turn, organizations can reduce costs by unifying solutions, streamlining processes, creating situational awareness exploits and threats to expose in a timely manner, and the collection of historical trend data, which can help with the predictable security....

 

BlackBerry's Heins Gives Tablets Five Years to Live

It may seem odd to think that pellets can be passes in five years, as BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins suggested, but five years is a long time in the tech world - especially when it comes to mobile technology. On the other hand, it could be that Heins is derogatory to the category because BlackBerry's tablet effort, the Playbook was such a complete failure.

 BlackBerry CEO Thorstein Heins made ​​some bold claims in an interview at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles on Monday.For one, he predicted a big turnaround for the company, suggesting In dat BlackBerry could once again BlackBerry, Thor CEO Heins has some bold claims in an interview at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles on Monday. For one, he predicted a big turnaround for the company, suggesting that BlackBerry is the absolute leader in mobile computing.

 More eyebrows, though, was Heins's prediction that in five years, tablets.

Tablets are not a good business model, he maintained.

That concerns a lot of skepticism - and some fun - but given that the market contstantly developed, Heins on something?

"Technology is moving very fast and it goes through a bow," said Rhoda Alexander, senior manager for monitors and tablets at IHS iSuppli, "but with that in mind, our predictions indicate a large tablet market in five years."

BlackBerry's official line is that all the chief said on Monday was nothing new.

"Comments Thorsten yesterday in line with previous comments he made ​​about the future of mobile computing overall, and the possibilities that come with a platform as BlackBerry 10," Public Relations Manager Kim Geiger Tech News World.

"We continue to evaluate our tablet strategy, but we are not making any changes in strategy in the short term," she added. "When we have information on our Playbook strategy, we will share it.

Off the Cuff or Visionary?

 

   Of course, Heins has previously suggested that the company would not be in the market again, unless there was the potential for success. Or the tablet form factor is a game or a passing fad has little influence on BlackBerry's own tablet fate - the PlayBook was a flop.

On the surface, Heins' statement seems to qualify as a classic case of spilled milk to cry by a man whose company can not seem his way to fight out of a paper bag, "said Charles King, principal analystat Pund-IT.

"But look at the subject, tablets, from a slightly unusual angle than devices, as much as a new form of numerical interaction," he suggested.

"In that sense, the success of the tablets is not about a specific vendor or product, such as Apple's iPad ', as much as it is about the end users develop and get ready for more mobile and unrestricted access to information," King added.

Market in Motion..

Heins' statement could end up being prophetic in that the market will certainly change. Just five years ago, few could probably provide that the table would be as popular as it is today. Evolution will not stand still for the next five years.

"Remember the little laptops from a few years ago?" asked telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan.

"They were a flash in the pan," he said.

"Tablets really - but they are still brand new," Kagan Tech News World.

"The market tomorrow tablets and laptops and smartphones, they will all grow. They will be bound to the same service plan, and they will all have access to your data stored in the cloud," he noted.

"So tablets will be gone No. But? They will stop eating to laptop market share at some point," Kagan maintained.

 

IBM Builds traffic for Internet of things

This is the latest theme to ricochet through the technology industry - the internet of things, smart, connected machines large and small to diagnose monitor each other and themselves. IBM says his MessageSight device will capture, analyze and manage the millions of pieces of data networks flooded soon. IBM is recruiting a software protocol for MessageSight as the best way to lay the foundation for the Internet of things to standardize.

IBM on Monday launched MessageSight, a device designed machine-to-machine communication of the future to deal with. Such communication will develop exponentially to create what is known as the "Internet of things."

In announcing MessageSight, IBM cited a 2010 report from IMS Research predicts there will be more than 22 billion Web-connected devices in 2020, which will generate more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data daily.

further about massagesight...

MessageSight is a device designed to help manage data and communicate with the billions of mobile devices and sensors found in automobiles, traffic control systems, smart buildings and, eventually, home appliances.

It uses the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, which IBM and Cirrus Link Solutions engineers coinvented.

MessageSight will be able to produce 1 million to support simultaneous sensors or smart devices, and will be able to scale to handle 13 million messages a second. This will enable to process large amounts of events in near real time.

For example, when a problem develops in a car, that information can be sent immediately to a dealer who can then notify the vehicle's owner, IBM said. Most late-model vehicles as sensors connected to lights on their dashboards that comes when there is a problem, however, so the owner will know immediately when a problem arises.

The MessageSight device was developed as part of IBM's Smarter Planet initiative, which was launched in 2008 based on the world all the more measured, mutually and intelligent.

Smarter buildings, which have sensors that feed data back to the central computer, which is part of the Smarter Planet initiative.

Haswell CPU pricing leaks, suggests Intel is shifting focus to low- and mid-range

haswell CPU pricing leaks

The prices for the upcoming Intel Haswell CPUs due  in June, has leaked and that's good news! Chip is based on Intel's fourth-generation Core architecture almost exactly the same as Ivy Bridge equivalent - maybe even a little lower.

The leak came from a source in China who have gotten their hands on the Haswell prices for retail, for quantities of five or more CPUs. Look at the table should be noted that the actual price for a box CPU Haswell will probably be a bit higher, depending on how much of a discount, the dealer goes to you.

For comparison, the core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge) has an MSRP of $ 332 - $ 5 more than 4770K, but the price shelf is likely to be the same, and likewise 0.3770 (multiplier is locked) is $ 294, compared to292 dollars for Hsol of 0.4770 S (low-energy) seems to be a bit cheaper than the 3770S (284 $ compared to 294 $).

Things get more interesting little is still on the table, though: I5-4570 is only $ 189, while the i5-3570 is the predecessor of 213 $. While it may seem like Intel cuts prices in the mid-term, it's not that simple. Take another look at the table - Do you notice any unusual model numbers? With Hsol, Intel is working to re-submit '6 'Model, that Ivy Bridge skipped. Compared with 4670-3570, and they are the same price - are also the same clock speed (3.4/3.8GHz). Basically, the combination of Intel SKU Hsol in a little bit, to make room for more chips at low cost and medium term...

t makes a lot of sense if you remember that Haswell was planned by Intel as a one-size-fits-all chip right at home in desktops, laptops, ultra books and tablets (but not smartphones). Not only is Haswell is expected to be around 10-15% faster than Ivy Bridge, but its integrated GPU is expected to improve the performance of Ivy Bridge HD 4000 iGPU doubled. If that was not enough, Haswell deliberately designed to optimize the power cuts is Intel's early Jump to 22nm FinFET process node - in short, to Haswell be the most efficient, high-power chip on the market, with some items reach TDPs as low than 7W, barely more than the ARM Cortex-A15. Intel ARM / mobile space coincides with the Bay Trail, this year will be very exciting for Intel actually - and a horrible year for AMD and its marginalized APUs...

ET deals: $494 for Dell UltraSharp U2913WM 29-inch IPS monitor

  $494  for dell ultra shop

If you have followed our deal posts for just about any length of time, you have probably noticed that we have a huge love for monitor deals. Monitors can completely change your computing experience and even the most basic user can benefit from a better display.

For a very limited time you can snag Dell’s Ultra Sharp U2913WM for $494.99 with free shipping. The U2913WM is a unique piece of kit, built around a 29-inch “panoramic” display that has a 21:9 aspect ratio. This makes the U2913WM nearly 30% wider than a standard 16:9 1080p display, resulting in a spacious 2560×1080 resolution. While most people would prefer a full WQHD monitor that features 2560×1440 pixels, this model costs hundreds less than most 27-inch WQHD displays. It is also not much more than a quality 1920×1200 display, but offers significantly more horizontal resolution.

While most vertical resolution is usually more beneficial than horizontal pixels, you can still massively improved multi-tasking capabilities with 2560 pixels horizontally, perfect two windows side-by-side or beams to compare in a program like Photoshop arranged accordingto your liking.

This screen has advantages over dual 1080p setup, which is more space in the office twice a cable management and two video outputs. For less than the cost of two monitors 1080p premium, you U2913WM office. Of course, not only for the pixel with the Ultra monitor Dell? The U2913WM using a beautiful IPS LCD screen that offers extremely wide viewing angles and richer colors.

The U2913WM get the trademark of the occupation Ultra is fully adjustable stand, good for shaft height, rotation and tilt and 3-year warranty exchange beforehand. This is lower than the best price for U2913WM with almost $ 40, which is a rare discount itself. You have to hurry, we do not know when it expires!

All Things Appy: 5 Best Windows 8 Sports Apps

5 best window 8 apps..

There is literally never a dull moment in a game they see on TV, if you have a second screen lit. When there is a break in the action, you can access a range of programs smart to keep things interesting. Best Windows 8 category in many sports, ESPN,  Bing  Sports, Buzz tap, Play UP and Yahoo Sports.

CISPA plan to let feds receive confidential data wins big House vote

The odds of a Democrat-controlled Senate approving legislation opposed by President Obama are slim, but today's vote could increase pressure for some sort of legislation this year.

CISPA author Rep. Mike Rogers (left), who successfully navigated his legislation through the House of Representatives despite ongoing privacy concerns.

(Credit: Getty Images)

The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a controversial data-sharing bill that would authorize e-mail and Internet providers to share confidential information with the federal government.

By a 288-127 vote today, the House adopted the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, better known as CISPA, which supporters say is necessary to protect American networks from electronic attacks and intrusions. The vote signals more support for the bill than it enjoyed last year, when it cleared the House by a narrower margin but died in the Senate. (See CNET'sCISPA FAQ.)

CISPA is "so important to our national security" that it must be adopted, said Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who authored CISPA and heads the House Intelligence Committee.

"This is not a surveillance bill," Rogers said during the floor debate. "It does not allow the national security agencies or the Department of Defense or our military ... to monitor our domestic networks."

The discussion now shifts to the Democrat-controlled Senate, which appears unlikely to act on the legislation in the wake of a presidential veto threat earlier this week, and anexecutive order in January that may reduce the need for new legislation. Today's House vote, on the other hand, could increase pressure on the Senate to enact some sort of legislation.

Sen. John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who was involved in last year's cybersecurity debate, said after today's vote that "CISPA's privacy protections are insufficient." Still, Rockefeller said, "I believe we can gain bipartisan agreement on bills that we can report out of our committees and allow [Majority Leader Harry Reid] to bring them to the Senate floor as early as possible."

Today's vote left opponents deeply unsatisfied, in large part because privacy-protective amendments were rejected or not permitted to be offered. One unsuccessful amendment (PDF) would have ensured companies' privacy promises -- including their terms of use and privacy policies -- remained valid and legally enforceable in the future. Another would have curbed police ability to conduct warrantless searches of CISPA-shared data.

CISPA is controversial because it overrules all existing federal and state laws by saying "notwithstanding any other provision of law," including privacy policies and wiretap laws, companies may share cybersecurity-related information "with any other entity, including the federal government." It would not, however, require them to do so.

That language has alarmed dozens of advocacy groups, including the American Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Reporters Without Borders, which sent a letter (PDF) to Congress last month opposing CISPA. It says: "CISPA's information sharing regime allows the transfer of vast amounts of data, including sensitive information like Internet records or the content of e-mails, to any agency in the government." President Barack Obama this week threatened to veto CISPA.

Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said CISPA remained problematic because there was no requirement that private sector firms remove personal information before sharing it with the federal government, and a civilian agency -- not the military or the National Security Agency -- should be in charge of receiving voluntarily shared data.

"The NSA could share data with law enforcement to investigate computer crimes -- which is so broad it includes lying about your age on your Facebook page," said Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat. That's a reference to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was used to prosecute the late Aaron Swartz and a Missouri woman accused of lying on her MySpace profile.

CISPA's advocates say it's needed to encourage companies to share more information with the federal government, especially in the wake of an increasing number of successful and attempted intrusions, and to a lesser extent among themselves. A "Myth v. Fact" paper (PDF) prepared by the House Intelligence Committee says any claim that "this legislation creates a wide-ranging government surveillance program" is a myth.