Tag: Wi-Fi

Logicalis buys into wi-fi outfit

Posted on September 2, 2014 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeIT firm Logicalis said it has taken a 51 percent stake in a German company.

ITUMA, which is privaly owned, offers wi-fi services including 3D in location navigation, product promotions and retail ordering.

Why is Logicalis interested in this kind of stuff?  President and COO Mark Rogers said because it can get exclusive rights to the wi-fi products and services.  He said: “[It] is expected to achieve significant market penetration, driven off the back of customers’ investment in wireless or in pre-packaged managed and cloud services.”

He also said that will complement its existing partnership with Cisco and Logicalis will offer services across all the countries it operates in.

The software ITUMA has allows indoor navigation, product information and location.

ITUMA CEO Simon Marg said that the deal will allow it to spread its wings to Logicalis’ customers and companies across the world.

Intel talks up wi-fi cunning plans

Posted on August 22, 2014 by - News

cunning-planChipzilla is telling the world about its cunning plans to move to “wire-free” computing by 2016.

Writing in the company bog, Intel is apparently developing a smart dock through which laptops can wirelessly connect to monitors and external peripherals.

Intel said that this will remove the need to plug HDMI or DisplayPort display connectors directly into laptops. The wireless dock will provide USB 3.0-like speeds to transfer data to external peripherals.

“When you walk in the office with your laptop, it will automatically link with your wireless-enabled monitor or projector to deliver an HD streaming experience without the hassle of plugging into your HDMI or DisplayPort,” Intel said.

Intel is developing technology so wireless monitors automatically start and link up when laptops are within a specific distance. Intel calls this “proximity-based peripheral syncing” technology.

People could also log on with face recognition, without the need to touch the keyboard.

Most of Intel’s wire-free computing is based on WiGig, which is faster than the latest Wi-Fi technology. Intel is also considering WiGig to connect wireless keyboards and mice to laptops.

Power adapters will also become outdated in Intel’s wireless world. It is developing wireless charging technologies for laptops. So far we have already seen charging pads based on A4WP’s Rezence magnetic resonance technology.

Intel is expected to explain its wire-free computing for business PCs plans at the Intel Developer Forum next month in San Francisco.

But it will have to move fast. Rivals bought Wilocity, which develops WiGig technology, last month and will put WiGig in its Snapdragon mobile chipsets so smartphones and tablets can wirelessly stream 4K video to external displays.

 

For all wif-fi needs — ask the cat

Posted on August 11, 2014 by - News

cat-at-laptop-275A US bloke has catapulted into five minutes of fame in the silly season by wiring his grannie’s cat up to sniff out wi-fi networks in his neighbourhood.

Security researcher Gene Bransfield seized his nan’s moggie Coco and stuffed his collar loaded with a Spark chip, a Wi-Fi module, a GPS module, and a battery. Bransfield reasoned that Coco would visit most places in the area and he could use the moggie to sniff out networking catastrophes such as unsecured, or at least poorly secured, wireless access points. These were then categorised by Bransfield as good, bad or cataclysmic.

Coco sniffed out dozens of wi-fi networks, with four of them using easily broken WEP security, and another four that had no security at all.

Bransfield dubbed the whole method as “WarKitteh” which is sort of a mixture of wardriving and lolcat and apparently, you can convert your moggie to something more useful for only a $100.

Of course, everyone knows that cats are evil and only get away with it because they purr and are so so soft and any network work is bound to be part of some devilish plot. “WarKitteh” allows a hacker to send their moggie out with the same collar, identify open Wi-Fi connections, hack them and use them to do evil hacker sorts of things.

Cats are a notoriously unreliable network tool. They may spend 23 hours catatonic and then, when they finally move, will go nowhere near anyone’s wi-fi for days.

Spanish wi-fi outfit goes under

Posted on July 15, 2014 by - News

Spanish flagSpanish wireless networks provider Gowex has filed for bankruptcy a week after an accounting fraud at the firm was revealed.

The Spanish High Court said its founder could face a jail sentence of more than 10 years.

Gowex has apparently decided to file for bankruptcy because it was in a state of “imminent insolvency” and faced a “financial standstill” after a high number of contracts were ended and new projects were cancelled.

Former Chief Executive and Chairman Jenaro Garcia Martin’s head is on the bloc after admitting that he had misresented the financial accounts for at least the last four years.

He has been charged with false accounting, distortion of economic and financial information, and insider trading.

Garcia Martin made the admission before the High Court on Monday and had his passport seized and was banned from leaving Spain. He was also ordered to report to a court every week and was given 15 days to pay a 600,000-euro ($818,400) bail or face jail.

High Court examining judge Santiago Pedraz was worried that Garcia Martin might attempt to flee as he faced a jail sentence of more than 10 years. He also had  3 million euros in a Luxembourg-based bank account.

Gowex started insolvency proceedings last week and had a maximum of four months to reach a deal with creditors or enter into administration.

A judge now has to rule on whether Gowex was correct to file for bankruptcy.

Gowex hired PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to carry out a forensic audit of its accounts, but the accountants said that it could not carry out the audit because it could not find authorised representatives of Gowex and get access to the information.

 

 

 

 

 

Intel fined for illegal wi-fi use

Posted on July 3, 2014 by - News

intel_log_reversedChipmaker Intel has written a $144,000 cheque to make the US Federal Communications Commission watchdog stop snapping at its heels.

An FCC investigation found the chip maker operated prototype wireless devices without FCC clearance.

It can’t have been much of an investigation given that Intel itself reported its non-compliance to the regulator.

Apparently Intel was worried in 2012 that it might have violated the agency’s rules when it tested prototype digital device models in residential areas without the FCC’s blessing.

The company also showed off  a prototype device at a trade show without proper labelling.

An Intel spokesman characterised the incident as a terrible mistake and not something it would do normally.

He said that the company had created a programme that gives the FCC confidence that it is doing its best to help ensure future compliance with the rules.

Aer Lingus joins wi-fi flying club

Posted on October 7, 2013 by - News

Aer LingusOne of the last bastions of the life less connected is now under attack from the Irish, writes Sean Fleming.

Aer Lingus is about to make wifi access available on its flights to and from the US. Well, on some of them at least – seven of its A330 planes, to be precise, will be fitted with satellite comms kit from Panasonic.

Following in the wake of Germany’s Lufthansa, Aer Lingus is now the second major European airline offering in-flight wifi, at a cost of course – €10.95 per hour, unless you turned left when you boarded, then you’ll be getting it gratis.

Quoted in the Irish Independent, Aer Lingus’s Chief Commercial Officer, Stephen Kavanagh, said, “Aer Lingus is at the forefront of in-cabin internet access, being just the second European airline to introduce internet access on transatlantic flights. This is another choice we are offering our customers to enhance their Aer Lingus experience. Having direct internet access on flights of up to ten hours in duration, will be of huge benefit to our customers, in particular to business customers.”

There are, seemingly, no plans to enable voice calls. But it surely can only be a matter of time before “hello, hello, you’ll have to speak up, I’m on the plane” becomes an all-too-familiar part of the in-flight experience.

Dell’Oro predicts further growth in WLAN

Posted on July 25, 2013 by - News

onedollarNetworking and telco analyst house the Dell’Oro Group believes Wireless LAN market revenues could be worth as much as $12 billion in 2017.

The figure is 50 percent larger than revenues for 2012. Key drivers will be deployment of Service Provider Wi-Fi, 802.11ac, cloud managed WLAN, plus additional growth in consumer video using wi-fi and Bring Your Own Device.

Companies such as Cisco, understanding that new LTE networks may be under a great deal of strain in the near future, are also strongly pushing wi-fi to ease the burden.

Dell’Oro group veep Chris DePuy noted that enterprises understand wireless LAN access is critical, however, in the past they have been installing wireless as an overly network, separate from the ethernet network.

When faster 802.11ac wireless systems are installed, DePuy expects there will be an increased understanding that the interaction between ethernet edge switches and enterprise WLAN is worth looking at. So there’s cash to be made for enterprise edge vendors.

The claims are from a recent Dell’Oro report, which also looks specifically at future revenues for cloud managed equipment and services.

Posh hotels gouge guests for Wi-Fi

Posted on February 26, 2013 by - News, Opinions

hotel-roomIt is no secret that free Wi-Fi is good for business, so it is available practically everywhere, from pubs and service stations, to public institutions.

However, it is still not available in most hotels and according to a survey carried out by travel site Gogobot, posh hotels are still charging an arm and a leg for a bit of Wi-Fi.

On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with charging a few pounds for unlimited Wi-Fi, but the survey also confirms another angle – the pricier the hotel, the pricier the Wi-Fi. It is cheeky, to say the least.

Gogobot’s survey of UK hotels revealed that some establishments, such as the Hilton, charge as much as £15 per day. Smaller boutique or independent hotels are cheaper and some offer free Wi-Fi, while others charge up to £5 and £8 per day. It doesn’t sound like too much, but the cost can quickly add up in a matter of days and it is obvious that frequent travellers (or their employers) could end up wasting hundreds of pounds on overpriced Wi-Fi over the course of a single year.

What’s more, the survey found that Wi-Fi access was at times spotty and unreliable, reports Mashable. Quality remains a problem, no matter how much you pay.

“There is no correlation between the amount you pay and the quality you get,” Kelly Lees, general manager in Europe said. She argued that tetherless travel is here to stay and the days of connecting to the internet using Ethernet in hotels are “long gone”.

However, things could be about to change. Lees says Wi-Fi prices are starting to affect hotel ratings. Travellers who believe they were ripped off on Wi-Fi will not give hotels a five-star rating. In addition, the availability of low cost 3G/4G services could make hotel Wi-Fi as obsolete as Ethernet, unless hotels finally realize that they stand to gain more by offering free Wi-Fi rather than making their guests pay through the nose for every byte consumed on business trips.