Carmen Nobel

Ever-optimistic backers of Bluetooth are pinning their hopes on advances they claim will help make the nascent wireless protocol cheaper and easier to combine with other, more popular wireless platforms. Five years into its development, the much-hyped Bluetooth still struggles for acceptance. But the latest improvements, due at the Bluetooth Developers Conference in San Jose, […]

On a recent August afternoon, 30 adolescent girls sat captivated in a conference room at IBMs Watson Research Center in Cambridge, Mass. Wide-eyed, they watched a scientist from M.I.T. (Massachusettes Institute of Technology) dip a pink carnation into a vat of liquid nitrogen, and then shatter the frozen flower against the side of a tank. […]

In March 2005, when Mark Bercow returned to an executive position at handheld computing vendor Palm after a four-year hiatus, he found his employer was now sleeping with the enemy. The company that launched Palm OS was getting ready to launch a device based on Microsofts Windows Mobile operating system. “You could imagine my shock […]

Cellular network infrastructure provider Airvana is set to launch a new gateway that will let wireless carriers extend their services beyond a cellular network. The Universal Access Gateway supports both cellular networks and IP-based networks such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and WiMax, said officials at the Chelmsford, Mass., company. “The point of the UAG is to […]

Newbury Networks on March 20 will unveil a couple of new products designed to help customers keep track of their assets and their employees via a Wi-Fi network. The Newbury Presence Platform is a platform for developers to build location-based applications that run on top of an existing wireless LAN infrastructure. “The Ciscos, the Nortels […]

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion on March 10 announced that it has acquired Ascendent Systems, a small company that makes voice software for mobile devices. Ascendent, based in San Jose, Calif., makes the Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite, software that “pushes” phone calls from a corporate PBX to extend desk phone functions to wireless devices. RIM […]

With a set of Wi-Fi modules for “application-specific devices,” an Ohio startup is set to step into a business that Cisco Systems is about to exit. By the middle of 2006, Summit Data Communications will ship two modules designed to bring wireless connectivity to machines such as bar-code scanners, portable data terminals, and various medical […]

As IT administrators celebrate a settlement in the years-long patent dispute that threatened BlackBerry service in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court is getting ready to evaluate a similar patent case involving auction giant eBay. That case dates back to 2001, when an auction software company called MercExchange sued eBay for patent infringement related […]

Its settled, and your BlackBerry is safe. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion and patent-holding company NTP on March 3 announced that both parties have entered into a settlement agreement and a license that will end the patent litigation that had been threatening to shut down BlackBerry service in the United States. Under the terms of […]

Highwall Technologies on March 6 will launch a software package designed to prevent wireless LAN security breaches without a network overlay of hardware sensors. Highwall Enterprise 4.0 focuses on the end points in a network, detecting rogue access points and unauthorized clients. “We basically treat wireless devices like a virus,” said Rich Swier, CEO of […]