Article

Philips Launches Two Smart All-In-One Displays | TechPowerUp

Philips Smart All-in-One Android-Displays mit Touchsteuerung | Gizmodo.de (German language / Deutschesprache)

From the horse’s mouth

Philips

Product Page

S221C4AFD 21” variant

S231C4AFD 23” variant

My Comments

After the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 had passed, it was for sure that Android was to step up to the plate as a desktop operating system and the classes of personal computing equipment were to be blurred. One class of equipment that was being premiered was a monitor that was an Android-driven “all-in-one” computer that that was being showcased running one of the Angry Birds games.

Philips was no further from the truth when they launched a pair of Android-powered Full-HD “smart monitors”. These monitors are able to work as primary or secondary displays for Windows computers but also work in their own right as the equivalent of a recent Android 4.2-powered tablet.

They are available as a 21” (S221C4AFD) or 23” (S231C4AFD) variant with full access to the Google Play store (and such goodies as Instagram, Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga and the like). Here they run this software using NVIDIA Tegra 1.6GHz horsepower and work with 2Gb RAM and 8Gb flash storage. They also can mount an SDHC card for your digital camera’s photos or other “offloading” storage requirements and connect to your home network using 802.11g/n Wi-Fi.

Some of us could see these as “toys” but they could be purposed not just as secondary monitors for your propped-up laptop. There is the ability to use these as task-focused computers like digital signage / electronic picture frames, kiosks, POS terminals and the like when it comes to work use or they could be used in the same vein as the Sony VAIO Tap 20 and its ilk where they end up on that ottoman so that two kids play air-hockey or similar multiplayer games.

At the moment. they are being sold in Europe for €440 (21” model) or €470 (23” model). This is a symptom of what will be happening with Windows and Android being the mainstream operating systems for both regular and mobile computing needs.

Could the value of a house be affected by its access to decent broadband?

Article

Rightmove adds Point Topic broadband speed data to property listings | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

Rightmove

Broadband Speed Map page

My Comments

When one is considering property, an issue that may come up is whether there is access to broadband Internet with a decent bandwidth at that property. This is due to the Internet being considered a commodity especially in those countries like the UK and France where there is competitive Internet service overseen by pro-competition government telecommunications authorities that have teeth.

Now an online property-listings service operating in the UK is listing the Internet bandwidth available at that property alongside factors like number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms and existence of a garage. The data is being based on a snapshot of what is available at June 2013 but would be considered dynamic due to various broadband-improvement projects taking place around the country.

Personally I see this kind of listing as being able to vary a house’s price not just on location, view or kind of house but also the kind of Internet service available to the prospective householder. Even factors like a property being wired for Ethernet, recent AC rewiring (conducive for proper HomePlug AV operation) and/or the vendor showing a Wi-Fi “heatmap” that is strong for the whole house may also be seen as important to the prospective buyer / tenant.

This trend may also extend to other estate agents and property-listing services where a property’s suitability to “online life” may be seen as a selling point. It is more so as people start to work from home such as through telecommuting or running a small business; or want more out of an online-driven personal life.

As for local government (who are dependent on their local property taxes), they could see these resources as a way to encourage the deployment of high-speed broadband to all of the properties. It is more so in Europe where local and regional government is able to plough public money that is under their remit towards broadband-improvement  projects in a similar manner to other local infrastructure.

Of course, maps offered by ThinkBroadband (UK), DegroupNews (France) and similar comprehensive Web resources will earn their keep when you assess a target area for broadband availability.

Article

App-Connected Slot Cars Give You Mario Kart-Like Power-Ups and Damage | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Scalextric

Press Release

Product Page

New Scalextric RCS system

Digital RCS Pro Power Base

Digital RCS Air Power Base

My Comments

The smartphone is about to be married with the slot-car race set by providing a way to help you improve how you race with these sets. The functionality allows for simulation of various motor-racing conditions like fuel-supply. tyre-wear and vehicle damage, yellow-card conditions and the like. It also allows for one to engage in a variety of different motor-race competitions like Grand Prix races, “qualifying” races, drag races and endurance races.

This is achieved through the use of an iOS/Android smartphone or tablet that links to the power-base via Bluetooth 4.0 LE a.k.a. Bluetooth Smart technology. This is facilitated with an app that provides the advanced control abilities. They also use a wireless link to the handheld controllers which are still used by the competitors to control their vehicle’s speed on the track.

This unit is able to work with any standard 1:32-scale slot car track by allowing a user to replace a power base used in the existing layout with this power base. Here, the user just has to swap in a “full-straight” part of the track for this device. The Digital RCS Pro system, which offers more control, uses a special chip to be installed in the actual cars themselves, with most of the recent cars having “plug-and-play” installation.

What this has been highlighting is that today’s smartphones are being able to work with some of the “old-school” hobbies by offering extra functionality and capabilities.

Article

Honeywell’s evohome puts a smart heating system in every room, is now available in the UK | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Honeywell Evohome

Product Page

My Comments

Honeywell are pitching to the UK market a zoned central-heating control system that works with the kind of central-heating setups that exist there. Here, these typically have a gas boiler which heats up water which is passed on to radiators installed in each of the rooms, with this heat source also being for the household’s domestic hot water needs.

This system, known as the Evohome, implements wireless control using a proprietary 800MHz radio system. The main control surface is a temperature controller that is equipped with a colour LCD touchscreen but a householder can also purchase a “remote network gateway” that links to the home network to allow control from their smartphone or tablet. It doesn’t matter whether that are at home or away with this control.

There are various “wireless relay boxes” and “wireless controllers” that pass the control signals from the controller on to each other to manage the heating system for comfort and efficiency. Honeywell also even supply special thermostatic radiator valves that are part of this system to provide for room-based zoning so that this system can cater for local comfort needs in an efficient manner. The zoning ability also allows for management of the domestic-hot-water temperature to suit safe efficient provision of this service.

It is also able to work in a “learning” manner that adapts the central heating system’ behaviour to follow the household’s daily routine and lifestyle rather than the household revolving around the system’s requirements. As well, there is support for OpenTherm functionality for compatible boilers so as to support simplified installation and monitoring of that appliance from the controller.

But there are questions that can be easily raised about this system such as whether this system implements Zigbee or Z-Wave for inter-device communication especially if other devices do the job better than the Evohome devices. Similarly, the use of other common standards for network-based HVAC control could open paths for hardware, software and service providers to allow for a heterogenous approach for building-automation applications.

What I see of this is an attempt to provide “per-room / per-radiator” heating control for a UK-style hydronic central-heating system at an affordable cost with the ability to know what’s going on in each room and providing the ability to manage it from your home network.

Article – French language

Bientôt des licences 4G pour la France d’outre-mer | 01Net.com (France)

My Comments

France is even working on the overseas territories to raise the broadband capacity there

France has established a highly-competitive mobile broadband market in the main territory, especially with Free.fr offering mobile telecommunications at very low prices in that area. But the government in Paris want to see its “DOM-TOM” outlying territories such as La Réunion, French Guyana, Martinique and co have proper Internet service.

Now they are working on opening up cellular-telephony spectrum in the “DOM-TOM” territories over the first half of this year to make sure these territories are on the same mobile broadband level. They have found that the spectrum in use in these territories isn’t enough to satisfy the real needs for people living there. There is proper coverage for 2G and 3G technology in those areas but not for 4G where they are needing to open up all of the cellular bands there.

As well. they need to do work to make sure there is affordable fixed and mobile Internet service in those territories. This could be achieved by ARCEP encouraging Free, Orange and co to set up shop and make sure there is competitive service on the same level as the mainland. The amount of bandwidth that passes through the territories could be increased whether as making them become “axis territories” for telecommunications backbone projects so they can serve themselves and any neighbouring countries with strong bandwidth.

Article

SanDisk unleashes world’s first 128GB microSD card – storage, sandisk, Personal storage peripherals – Computerworld

From the horse’s mouth

SanDisk

Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

SanDisk has raised the bar with flash-memory storage by releasing the ultra-small 128Gb microSD card at the Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. This is seen as providing increased removable secondary-storage for Android or Windows phones and tablets due to its small footprint and is something I would see as important if we carry high-grade music and video files or complicated games on these devices and value the ability to “swap them out” as we see fit.

Tablets and Ultrabooks could also benefit from increased solid-state storage capacity

But I also see this as being suitable for more than the smartphone or tablet. This capacity is very much equivalent to what is available as a baseline all-SSD storage capacity for Ultrabooks and similar low-profile ultraportable notebook computers which typically run a full Windows deployment. Here, I could see this capacity appeal for smaller Wi-Fi portable NAS devices or it could be an encouragement to increase storage capacity in most dedicated-function devices like printers due to its small size and high capacity. This factor will be underscored for anyone who is working towards an extremely-low-profile design for a device rich in functionality such as the idea of a desktop multifunction printer having the same level of document control as a freestanding enterprise-grade multifunction printer.

Could raise the capacity of these low-profile NAS units very significantly

It also shows that the storage density for flash-based storage applications is increasing which could be a benefit for both fixed and removeable solid-state storage applications. For example, an Ultrabook or tablet could be ending up with 512Gb storage capacity furnished by flash memory rather than the mechanical hard disk as a product option. Or the low-profile Wi-Fi portable “media server” NAS that you take with you could carry your media library with you and serve it to your tablet, Ultrabook or car stereo from a 512Gb solid-state storage.

I would expect a lot more for high-capacity ultra-quick solid-state storage to become the norm for “there-and-then” data storage applications.

The home network to eventually be part of the car

Article

How To Network-Enable A Bus | Lifehacker Australia

My Comments

This article talked about implementing a 3G / Wi-Fi network in a Sydney transit bus to facilitate the Opal “touch-on touch-off” smartcard ticketing system in these buses. But it may also apply to other realities such as Internet access in the car or the car being part of the home network. This is being taken further with the desire for access to online or hard-disk-based infotainment systems that are likely to become the norm for today’s vehicles whether as a factory-supplied option or something installed after the fact.

Moving between different areas

Even pleasure-boats will be considered as part of the networked world

One major issue is that the vehicle will be required to move between its primary network which could be your Wi-Fi network in your home or a marina’s Wi-Fi network to an Internet service provided by a mobile-broadband service. Here, this will require effectively a smooth switchover between these different services in order to provide a smooth Internet connection to network-connected devices such as an online-capable infotainment system and / or a small Wi-Fi network within the vehicle or boat.

The uneven power situation in vehicles

Another challenge is the power issue. Here, if the vehicle’s or boat’s engine isn’t running, the car battery is supplying the power from a finite resource and there also has to be a sufficient amount of current left in the battery to start the vehicle. But when you are starting the vehicle, there is a significant current dip that occurs while the starter motor is in operation. This is something you may notice where your car’s interior light will dim as you are starting the engine and you have one of the vehicle’s doors open. Once the engine has just started to run, there will be a surge of current which is typically limited by various regulator circuits in all of the vehicle’s equipment.

How was this worked around?

The installation was based around a customised Netcomm router that worked between a particular Wi-Fi network at the depot or Telstra’s 3G mobile broadband when on the road. This router was shoehorned to cope with the abovementioned power issue encountered in vehicles and boats most likely with a significant amount of extra circuitry so that it draws the minimum amount of current when the ignition is off but draws its normal amount while the engine is running. This extra circuitry also is about the provision of a regulator to allow it to cope with the current dip / surge that occurs when the bus driver turns the key to start the engine.

Vehicle builders like BMW, Chrysler, Ford and GM who have worked on the “online vehicle” have developed in-vehicle network equipment from the ground up when developing prototype or production in-vehicle routers for these projects. Typically these would have a mobile broadband setup as the primary setup and have perhaps a WI-Fi LAN for use with tablets and similar devices as well as a specialised Ethernet setup for the online infotainment setups.

In the context of the online personal vehicle or boat, it will mean that if the vehicle is at home, it can connect to the home network and do an update process for maps, AV content and similar material. Then when you are on the road, you could gain access to Internet-hosted content like traffic information, current “open/shut” status reports of nearby businesses, the location of cheapest fuel prices, and audio content from online services like Spotify or Internet radio.

This issue will be faced further as the in-vehicle network becomes as much a must have for vehicle enthusiasts as the souped-up car sound system. It will mean the availability of aftermarket routers that are designed for in-vehicle use along with connection standards for aftermarket infotainment setups that work online whether with a smartphone or their own network / Internet access.

.