Smartphone Startups Handle Calls With Wi-Fi to Push Service Pricing to $5 per Month

As reported by Slashdot: two companies, Republic Wireless and FreedomPop, that reduce cellphone costs by relying on strategically placed Wi-Fi routers are at the forefront of a tantalizing communications concept that has proved hard to produce on a big scale. 

The concept championed by the two little companies in their nationwide services is surprisingly simple. They offer services that rely primarily on Wi-Fi networks, and in areas without Wi-Fi, customers can pull a signal from regular cell towers. 

"Wi-Fi first is a massive disrupter to the current cost structure of the industry," says Stephen Stokols. "That's going to be a big shock to the carriers." For $5 a month, customers of Republic Wireless can make calls or connect to the Internet solely over Wi-Fi. 

For $10 a month, they can use both Wi-Fi and a cellular connection from Sprint in Republic's most popular option. Republic Wireless's parent company, Bandwidth.com, a telecommunications provider with about 400 employees, developed a technique to move calls seamlessly between different Wi-Fi networks and cell towers. 

"You can't pretend these companies are major players by any stretch. But I think their real importance is proof of concept," says Craig Moffett. "They demonstrate just how disruptive a Wi-Fi-first operator can be, and just how much cost they can take out."

In major cities, the Wi-Fi-first network makes sense. People use smartphones frequently while sitting around their offices and apartments, and Wi-Fi can handle the job just fine. But once people start moving around, it is not so simple. 

The benefit of a cell service is that your phone can switch among multiple towers while you are on the go which wi-fi is not designed to handle. Google may be experimenting with a hybrid approach similar to the small companies'. 

A person briefed on Google's plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conversations were private, says the company wants to make use of the fiber network it has installed in various cities to create an enormous network of Wi-Fi connections that phones could use to place calls and use apps over the Internet. 

In areas out of reach, Google's network would switch over to cell towers leased by T-Mobile USA and Sprint. Still many wonder if even the biggest companies could make a Wi-Fi-based phone network work. "There are just so many places where Wi-Fi doesn't reach," says Jan Dawson "and the quality of Wi-Fi that you can find is often subpar."

Clever Vehicles

The way we go online in our cars makes no sense.

As reported by MIT Technology Review: Most of us are now used to having the Internet and the cloud with us as we drive. The problem is that we’re doing it the wrong way. We “import” the Internet into the car via our smartphones, which is not just inefficient but dangerous: it takes our focus off the road and overloads us with distracting information.

Instead, we should be building sensors and networking technology right into the car—essentially making the vehicle itself our way of interacting with the online world (see “Car-to-Car Communication”). This kind of in-car system is becoming more and more common. It gathers data about the environment around the car, allowing vehicles to sense, know, and predict.

The safety implications of such systems are massive. Our cell phones are a distraction when we should be concentrating on the road. Yes, we all want to be connected all the time, and the time we spend in the car shouldn't be any exception—we just have to be smart about it. You don’t want to be taking a sales call when you’re making a left-hand turn at an intersection. An intelligent system would enable the car to prioritize data about the car itself and about the environment around the car, delivering only the information the driver needs at the exact moment it’s needed.

A car equipped with such technology could initiate the appropriate communication when, say, a driver is returning home and wishes to turn up the thermostat there. The human driver would not have to think about it. The car would be able to fuse real-time data from a controller area network with mapping and timing data to “predict” that the driver was heading home.

A smart system wouldn't just remove distractions—it could help us avoid dangerous conditions that we can’t see. This will be increasingly true as more vehicles are equipped with longer-range sensors and the ability to communicate with each other. Cars on the street will form networks—thanks to other cars on the road, your car can tell you about the road conditions you’re about to encounter, accidents that you can avoid or just can’t see, or congestion that’s just in the process of developing.

We already live in an online world. It’s only natural that our cars will become part of that world. A vehicle should be no different from an office, a home, or an airport. The technology to establish this consistent data flow in, around, and beyond the car is ready, and it’s about time we started taking advantage of it.

New Map Shows America's Quietest Places

As reported by ScienceMag: Craving some silence? Head (quietly) toward the blue regions on the map above. Based on 1.5 million hours of acoustical monitoring from places as remote as Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and as urban as New York City, scientists have created a map of noise levels across the country on an average summer day. 

After feeding acoustic data into a computer algorithm, the researchers modeled sound levels across the country including variables such as air and street traffic. Deep blue regions, such as Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, have background noise levels lower than 20 decibels—a silence likely as deep as before European colonization, researchers say.

That's orders of magnitude quieter than most cities, where noise levels average 50 to 60 decibels, scientists reported here today at the annual meeting of AAAS (which publishes Science). The National Park Service is using the map to identify places where human-made noise is affecting wildlife—animals such bats and owls, whose ears are up to 20 decibels more sensitive than human ears, for example, are affected by human-made noise because it drowns out the faint rustles of insects and rodents they need to hunt, they say.

This also seems to match up well with States that have a significant percentage of Federally owned land:

Proposed FAA Rules Would Limit Commercial Drone Use

As reported by the New York Times:In an attempt to bring order to increasingly chaotic skies, the Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday proposed long-awaited rules on the commercial use of small drones, requiring operators to be certified, fly only during daylight and keep their aircraft in sight.

The rules, though less restrictive than the current ones, appear to prohibit for now the kind of drone delivery services being explored by Amazon, Google and other companies, since the operator or assigned observers must be able to see the drone at all times without binoculars. But company officials believe the line-of-sight requirement could be relaxed in the future to accommodate delivery services.

The proposed regulations would cover only nonrecreational unmanned aircraft weighing up to 55 pounds, and would not apply to the recreational use of drones, which have become hugely popular with hobbyists and are covered by other rules. However, the F.A.A. said it was considering additional rules to cover some uses of the smallest drones, so-called microdrones, weighing less than 4.4 pounds.

Some drone evangelists believe that in the next few decades, robotic aircraft will prove as useful and transformative to government, commerce and home life as the personal computer. But the exploding number of domestic drones has been accompanied by increasing safety problems, including reports of near misses involving passenger airliners and the crash of a small drone on the White House grounds last month.

The F.A.A. has worked on the rules for several years, and their release only begins a period of public comment and possible revision that could take as long as two years before they take effect.

“We have tried to be flexible in writing these rules,” Michael P. Huerta, the F.A.A. administrator, said in a statement. “We want to maintain today’s outstanding level of aviation safety without placing an undue regulatory burden on an emerging industry.”

Also on Sunday, President Obama signed a memorandum requiring government agencies to report publicly each year a “general summary” on their drone use, though the order includes a loophole allowing secrecy for operations involving national security or law enforcement.

The memorandum addresses worries that drone surveillance could invade privacy. It requires agencies to adopt rules governing “the collection, use, retention, and dissemination of information obtained by UAS,” or unmanned aerial systems, and making sure their drone use complies with the law and the Constitution.

The draft rules and the presidential order reflect growing official concern about the dangers posed by the unregulated proliferation of drones in many industries. After a decade in which unmanned aircraft were mainly associated with spying and killing terrorists, small drones in the last few years have been adopted by real estate agents to photograph properties, farmers to survey crops and electric utilities to inspect power lines. Hobbyists, who can buy a microdrone for less than $1,000, now use them to film everything from fireworks displays to football games.

Amazon, the Seattle-based online retailer, complained that the proposed rules might slow the development of its proposed delivery service, Prime Air.

Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy, said the proposed rules could take one or two years for final adoption and would not permit Prime Air to operate in the United States. “The F.A.A. needs to begin and expeditiously complete the formal process to address the needs of our business, and ultimately our customers,” he said.

Mr. Misener suggested that the company might launch its delivery service first in other countries with more accommodating rules. “We are committed to realizing our vision for Prime Air and are prepared to deploy where we have the regulatory support we need,” he said.

Ryan Calo, an assistant professor of law at the University of Washington, said the rules would allow many of the uses of drones that people in the commercial sector wanted, including for agriculture, which is thought to be one of the biggest markets. Farmers have shown interest in using drones for crop disease detection from the air and more targeted spraying of pesticides.

Mr. Calo said the rules might be revised to allow the development of delivery businesses. “They could change, especially if someone shows autonomous flight modes can be safe,” he said.

The draft F.A.A. rules were received with relief by some commercial users who had been alarmed by earlier news reports that the agency might require commercial drone operators to have a pilot’s license. Instead, operators would have to pass a test to get a permit, and renew it every two years. The agency estimates that it would cost $300 to become certified, including fees and preparation costs.

Commercial drones would be allowed to fly no faster than 100 miles an hour and no higher than 500 feet. In most cases, they could not fly over people other than the operators.

The Aerospace Industries Association welcomed the proposed rules. The trade group’s president, Marion C. Blakey, said the rules would “pave the way for additional service organizations and industries to explore expanded operations” using drones.

OpenStreetMap Gets Routing

As reported by OpenStreetMap Blog: Good news for OpenStreetMap: the main website now has A-to-B routing (directions) built in to the homepage! This will be huge for the OSM project. Kudos to Richard Fairhurst and everyone who helped get this up and running.

You might be thinking, “Why would this be huge? Isn’t it just a feature that other map websites have had for years now?” Well, the first thing to note is that the philosophy of OpenStreetMap is not to offer a one-stop-shop on our main website, but to create truly open data to empower others to do great things with it. So there has already been fantastic OSM-based travel routing for many years, on excellent websites such as OSRM, Mapquest, Graphhopper, Cyclestreets, Komoot, cycle.travel… the list goes on and on.

But all of those things are on other websites and apps, so people don’t always realise that OpenStreetMap has this power. What this latest development has done is really neat: the OSM website offers directions which are actually provided by third-party systems, but they are included in the main site via some crafty JavaScript coding. So as well as being really handy in itself to have directions available, it helps “first glancers” to see all the things they can do with OSM.

But that’s not what makes it huge.

What makes it huge is the difference it will make to OpenStreetMap’s data by creating a virtuous feedback loop.

One of the main reasons we show a “slippy map” on the OpenStreetMap homepage is because people can look at it, see a bridge that needs naming or a building to add, click “Edit” and fix it straight away. That feedback loop is what allowed OpenStreetMap to build up what is now the most complete map of many regions around the world.

But we have a saying: “what gets rendered, gets mapped” – meaning that often you don’t notice a bit of data that needs tweaking unless it actually shows up on the map image. Lots of things aren’t shown on our default rendering, so the feedback loop offers less incentive for people to get them correct. And that goes doubly for things that you never “see” on the map – subtle things like “no left turn” at a particular junction, or “busses only” access on a tiny bit of road, or tricky data issues like when a footpath doesn’t quite join a road that it should join on to. Now that people can see a recommended route directly on the OSM homepage, they have an incentive to quickly pop in and fix little issues like that. The end effect will be OSM’s data going up one more level in terms of its quality for routing. This will empower everyone to do great things with geographic data and getting from A to B.

NoFlyZone.org Puts a Drone Geofence Around Your Home

As reported by Geek.com: The sky is increasingly filled with drone aircraft, but what about your personal airspace? Are you doomed to have remote controlled flying machines buzzing around above your house all day, watching your every move? NoFlyZone.org aims to provide an alternative by creating a database of places drones ought not to venture.

You can add your home to the database in just a few minutes. Go to the website and input your address along with your contact info. NoFlyZone.org will send you a confirmation email with a link to complete the registration of your own personal no-fly zone.

The operators of NoFlyZone.org seem to be mindful of the privacy-conscious people who will be taking advantage of the service. All you need to enter is the publicly available address and an email (it can even be a throwaway). However, that will also make it rather easy for someone else to register your address.

So what happens when you sign up? Ideally, drone aircraft will refuse to enter areas that have been geo-fenced as no-fly zones in the NoFlyZone.org database. This requires that the makers of drones sign on to support the NoFlyZone.org platform, though. These companies would need to include a setting in the firmware that prevents the drones from impinging on any no-fly zones.

Any drone that lacks GPS or simply doesn’t support NoFlyZone.org would still be able to zip through these areas without trouble.

NoFlyZone.org will only succeed if drone makers get on-board with it. So far HEXO+, Yuneec, and a few others have decided to honor the geo-fences deployed by NoFlyZone.org, but big players like Parrot and JDI haven’t made any moves yet. It’s not going to be an easy problem to solve, even if companies want to play nice with privacy. For example, how can a drone gracefully alert you to a no-fly zone? Should it stop dead no matter what it’s doing? JDI recently tried to update its drones to avoid parts of Washington DC, but bugs resulted in a rollback.

You can sign up for NoFlyZone.org now, even though the skies are not yet teeming with drones. Maybe it’ll catch on.

Starting this Week, Wireless Carriers Must Unlock Your Phone

As reported by C/NET: The days of carriers locking down devices to keep customers in place are officially dead.

Starting now, all US carriers must comply with requests from postpaid and prepaid customers to unlock their devices, as long as certain parameters are met. The industry group CTIA had committed last year to have all wireless carriers adhering to the regulation by February 11, 2015.

The move follows from President Obama last year signing into law the "Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act," which overruled a controversial 2012 decision by the Library of Congress.

The debate over phone unlocking has come a long way in just a few short years. Unlocking a phone allows owners to put the device on whatever carrier network they choose. For years, carriers have locked down devices, allowing them only to connect to their own networks. The move was designed to keep customers close and not see them stray to other carriers.

"We are pleased the FCC acknowledged the participating wireless carriers met the deadlines to unlock their customers' devices per the Consumer Code for Wireless Service," said Scott Bergmann, the CTIA's vice president for regulatory affairs, in a statement. "We also remind consumers that an unlocked device does not necessarily mean an interoperable one since different carriers use different technologies and spectrum bands."

For customers, the inability to unlock handsets had been a nuisance. Many consumers, seeking better network coverage or data plan pricing, have wanted to be able to move to a different network without having to buy a new device. An unlocked handset would allow that interchange between, say, AT&T and T-Mobile networks. Locked devices force customers to stick with their carrier networks and if they decide to switch, to buy a new device on the other carrier.

In 2013, the issue of unlocking hitting a tipping point when the Library of Congress held that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) banned American consumers from unlocking their devices without the consent of their carriers. Critics took issue with the ruling, which actually came down in 2012 but went into effect in 2013. Then in August 2014 came the "Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act," which effectively made unlocking legal again.

Under the CTIA's Consumer Code for Wireless Service that went into effect Wednesday, carriers will have no choice but to remove locks on devices owned by both postpaid and prepaid wireless users.

On the postpaid side, carriers must unlock devices after a customer in good standing has fulfilled "postpaid service contract, device financing plan, or payment of applicable early termination fee." In other words, those subscribers who get smartphones for less by paying a subsidy at the beginning and paying in full over the life of a contract, must have satisfied that payment covenant before they can be allowed to unlock their device.

On the prepaid side, things are bit simpler: carriers must, upon request, unlock a handset "no later than one year after initial activation."

All unlocking, regardless of the type of customer, must be completed within two days of a request, and carriers are now required to inform consumers of their policies.

"Carriers that lock devices will clearly notify customers that their devices are eligible for unlocking at the time when their devices are eligible for unlocking or automatically unlock devices remotely when devices are eligible for unlocking, without additional fee," the code reads. "Carriers reserve the right to charge non-customers/non-former-customers with a reasonable fee for unlocking requests. Notice to prepaid customers may occur at point of sale, at the time of eligibility, or through a clear and concise statement of policy on the carrier's website."