Article

At last, broadband in the boonies, but at a price | Crave – CNET

My comments

I have run regular coverage about the provision of real broadband Internet service in to rural areas and is something that I stand for as the author and owner of this site. Just lately, I have come across this CNET article about how Crave writer, Eric Mack had succeeded in bringing real broadband to his mountain home in New Mexico, USA.

He was detailing how the WildBlue satellite broadband service was treated as a costly rare premium service compared to the wider availability of satellite pay-TV service in that neighbourhood. Then he talked about the inconsistent provision of ADSL broadband in that neighbourhood by the local telephone company which works in a similar manner to Telstra in Australia or British Telecom in the UK.

Later on, he pointed out the arrival of an “open fibre” network that was laid by a local co-operative who was addressing the need of “real broadband in the bush”. The concept of this “open fibre” network was to allow any and all ISPs and telcos to make use of the fibre-optic infrastructure rather than it being for the exclusive use of a particular company. It is in contrast to the typical cable-TV infrastructure that is for the use of the company that owns it.

Then, in the last article, Eric talked of the possibility of mobile-telephony providers rolling out 3G or 4G mobile-broadband service to these areas. He summed it up very well in the fact that it takes a lot of work to get communications infrastructure providers to establish infrastructure to provide a decent standard of broadband Internet in to these areas.

I see this as a “chicken-in-egg” scenario that if you don’t provide the infrastructure, you won’t get “serious money” in to the neighbourhood in the form of industry, commerce or similar high-value activity whereas you wait upon the arrival of a significant population set and economy before you deploy the infrastructure. This can be more so with neighbourhoods that are outside the commuting distance of a major metropolitan area or don’t have a very significant core economy about them.

Article

Engineers rebuild HTTP as a faster Web foundation | Deep Tech – CNET News

My Comments

HTTP has been the standard transport protocol since the dawn of the World Wide Web and effectively became the backbone for most file transfer and streaming activities of the modern Internet.

But there is a desire in the Internet industry to bring this standard to 2.0 and bring some major improvements to this standard to cater for today’s Internet reality.

Data multiplexing between client and server

One key capability is to implement the SPDY protocol which supports multiplexing of data between the Web server and the Web browser. This is to provide for faster and efficient data throughput by shifting the data using one “channel”; as well as providing support for managing quality-of-service.

This may involve the deployment of audio and video material under a high quality-of-service while text data and software downloads can pass through on an “as-needed” basis.

Inherent end-to-end encryption support

The SPDY protocol that is to underpin HTTP 2.0 also provides support for end-to-end transport-layer encryption. But Microsoft wanted this feature to be optional so it is implemented according to the needs, such as a blog not needing encryption whereas an Internet banking or device management Web page would need this level of encryption.

But I would also like to support in this feature the ability not just to encrypt data but to authenticate the same data using a digital signature. Here, it could permit users to be sure that the Web site they are visiting or the file they are downloading is authentic and would be especially of importance with field-updated BIOS and firmware deployments, as I raised in my commentary about a lawsuit involving HP concerning this practice and its security ramifications.

Caching support at network level

Another feature that is being proposed is to provide for network-level caching of HTTP data. This is intended to provide for environments like mobile networks where it could be desirable to cache data in the service network rather than on the user’s mobile device; rather than introducing proxy servers to provide this kind of caching.

It will also allow mobile and embedded devices to avoid the requirement to have Web caches for quick loading of Web pages. Of course this will not be needed for those Web pages that have regularly-updated data such as Web dashboards, Web mail or similar applications.

Other issues

It also is worth investigating whether the HTTP 2.0 standard could support applications like client-server email delivery or advanced document authoring such as version control.

Of course this development will take a long time to achieve and will require some form of HTTP 1.x backward compatibility so there isn’t the loss of continuity through an upgrade cycle.

During the recent media hype surrounding the release of the new Apple iPad, one feature that was mentioned but played second fiddle was the tablet’s support for Bluetooth 4.0 “Smart Ready” connectivity.

This technology, which I covered in a previous article, is where the Bluetooth infrastructure can implement sensor / control devices that work on low-power-drain requirements by reducing the need to transmit frequently. They are typically pitched at the health-care and fitness market in the form of heart-rate monitors, blood glucose meters, personnel scales and the like as well as “smart watches”; and would typically be expected to work with the “Bluetooth Smart-Ready” smartphones rather than a tablet device.

But I would still view the Bluetooth Smart Ready integration for the iPad as very relevant to its form factor. In the health context, the larger screen would benefit a “spot-measuring” device like a sphygmomanometer (blood-pressure meter), thermometer or scales when used with an app that keeps records of the measurements. Here, it could be feasible to see a table or chart  of previous measurements alongside the current measurement so you can make a comparative assessment against the previous observations.

The automotive application class would also benefit from Bluetooth 4.0 implemented on a tablet, especially in the context of people engaging in DIY car maintenance and tuning (read “petrolheads” / “gearheads” / “boy-racers”). Here, Bluetooth 4.0 could interlink devices like a tachometer / dwell meter to a tablet that acts as a large-screen display for these devices when you are tuning that car for performance.

It may also benefit the so-called “app-cessory” concept market where the tablets become control surfaces for appliances, but this would not really need to specifically use Bluetooth 4.0 if the appliance needs constant power to work, because of it benefiting from that constant power.

But there are some applications that need power to provide local needs on a spontaneous basis. These exist primarily in the security / safety product class and represent devices like electromechanical locks or safe locking systems. They can benefit from a Bluetooth 4.0 tablet being a service / programming terminal or even utilising the notification functions in the tablets to signal events and situations.

What really needs to happen is that the next Apple iPad with its Bluetooth 4.0 subsystem and the next generation of Bluetooth 4.0-equipped tablets be a chance to exploit the large screen of the tablets to take the abilities of Bluetooth Smart Devices further.

Similarly, if an idea does not justify the software existing in the iTunes App Store or similar app stores, I would support the ability to “sideload” the app This is where the software is delivered to the customer by physical media or the manufacturer’s own Website then the customer uploads it using a program like iTunes. There could be an authenticated-software measure to verify the authenticity of the code and protect against malware distribution, but this concept of “sideloading” under the developer’s and consumer’s control may not wash with Apple and their fanbois.

Introduction

The CEBit 2012 IT show in Hannover, Germany is one of may technology trade shows covering the European area where there is a strong crossover between product classes. It was positioned at work-based computing but is competing with Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (smartphones), Internationaler Funkaustellung in Berlin, Gernamy (consumer electronics) and Photokina in Cologne, Germany (digital imaging) as a European showcase platform for consumer and small-business information technology.

It has carried through the overall key trend of work-home computing and the always-mobile business life. This is more so with the emphasis on portable computing equipment and equipment to service the data cloud.

Key issues and trends in computing

Privacy and security in the online age

A key issue that has been raised through this year’s CEBIT show in Hannover is how US-based companies are limiting data privacy in the eyes of Europeans. Regular readers of HomeNetworking01.info may have seen articles being published about this issue, especially an industry interview that I did with Alastair MacGibbon and Brahman Thyagalingham, concerning the responsibility of service providers if something goes awry with the data in their care.

This was brought about through the recent privacy and security changes at Google as well as an increase of data being held “in the cloud”. There was also an underscoring of the improtance of trust concerning data in the Internet Age.

Technological trends

PCs and laptops

These “regular” computers have not been forgotten about even though there is a lot of interest in the tablets and smartphones. It has been led about through the imminent release by Microsoft of Windows 8 which is available as a consumer-preview version at the time of writing. One feature pitched about this operating system is that it was intended to bridge home and work computing lifestyles with mechanisms like Windows To Go “boot-from-USB” setups.

As well, there was the imminent release of the Ivy Bridge chipset and processor families by Intel with these offing graphics that are just close to “gaming quality” but with economical power consumption. There was a “Super SSD” drive also being premiered which had 512Gb of solid-state storage in a 2.5” housing for the current generation of portable computers.

This year has seen more of the Ultrabooks being released by the various manufacturers and in different variants.

An example of this was Acer showing their new range of equipment with the Timeline Ultra M3. This was a so-called “15-inch Ultrabook” which had an optical drive and NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics, with variants available with a hard disk or solid-state-drive only for their secondary storage.

Acer had also premiered their V3 lineup of 14”, 15” and 17” budget-friendly laptops with the 17” variant having a Blu-Ray optical drive. They also premiered the V5 11”, 14” and 15” slim mainstream laptops with the 14” and 15” varieties being equipped with discrete graphics as an option.

Toshiba also fielded a variant of the Portege Z830-120 Ultrabook with WiDi Wi-Fi-driven display link technology and was promising a “brown-goods” LCD TV with WiDi display functionality. I would say that this function may appear in a higher-end LCD chassis which serves a particular run of high-end lounge-room sets.

Of course, there would be some computers that are positioned as “bridge” units between the regular laptop and the tablet, typically being equipped with a touchscreen and a keyboard at least. Examples of these would include ASUS “Transformer” variants with detachable keyboards or “swivel-head” convertible laptops. These could be based on either an ARM RISC microarchitecture or the classic Intel microarchitecture with them running Windows or Android. They would be pitched at those of us who like the touchscreen tablet experience but also want to use a proper keyboard to create content.

Smartphones and Tablets

The smartphone and tablet scene at this fair has been affected by two issues. One is Apple releasing their third-generation iPad with the higher-resolution “Retina” display and A5x graphics subsystem concurrently with this show, setting the cat among the pigeons. Of course, the patent fights are still on with Apple over tablet-computer design with some of the lawsuits still not resolved.

The other is that a lot of the smartphones and tablets destined for Europe were premiered at the previous Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. But there were a lot of the tablets being exhibited in Hannover.

Key features that were being put up included near-field communications which enabled “tap-and-go” payment and data transfer for these devices, larger screens for this device class, LTE wireless-broadband and DLNA implementation. As well, the Android devices are being released with quad-core processors, keyboard docks, glasses-free 3D, full HD graphics and other more attractive features.

As for LTE 4G wireless broadband, an increasing number of European mobile carriers are rolling out LTE networks through their market areas and are launching phones, tablets and modems that work with this technology.

Conclusion

What it sounds like is that the CEBit show is underpinning a mobile cloud-driven computing environment which is to support “regular” and mobile usage classes.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Sony VAIO S Series ultraportable notebook which is Sony’s entry in to the 13” mainstream subnotebook / ultraportable computer. In a lot of ways it is similar to and positioned squarely at the same market as the Toshiba Satellite L730 ultraportable which,  like this unit, has an integrated optical drive.

The computer itself

Aesthetics and Build quality

Lid view

The Sony VAIO S Series is finished in a red aluminium shell with the back of the lid finished in black.It is thick like the Toshiba Satellite L730 ultraportable and is well-built and runs cool, thus being suitable for long-term use.

User interface

The Sony VAIO S’s illuminated chiclet keyboard is something that you can still touch-type on but feels very plasticky and slippery. Personally, I would go for a keyboard that uses a rubberised feel.

The trackpad is easy to locate and operate by touch and feel and is augmented by a fingerprint sensor.This is part of the login setup for password-protected logins but could also work with a password vault program that is independent of the login setup.

Audio and Video

Dual graphics with an easy-to-use operating-mode switch

Like most recent laptops, the Sony VAIO S Series uses a dual-GPU setup but this is implemented differently from the norm. Here, the user can change modes by flicking a switch located above the keyboard between “Stamina” which is the battery-saving mode and “Speed” which is the performance mode. This method makes it easier to know which mode you want the computer in to suit the situation at hand and reminds me of the overdrive switch or “sport-mode” switch found in a lot of European cars, where you can engage this mode for performance or disengage it for economy.

As for the display, it isn’t too glossy and reflective, thus allowing the VAIO to be used in many different lighting scenarios, even outdoors.

The sound subsystem is typical to most laptops, with the tinny speakers and the integrated sound card. The VAIO would be best used with a pair of headphones or external speakers if you want more mileage out of the sound.

Connectivity and Expansion

Right-hand side – SD card and Memory-Stick slots, locking slot under SD card slot, VGA, HDMI, USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, Ethernet

The expansion options that the Sony VAIO S Series has are plentiful, with 3 USB sockets, one of them being a USB 3.0 socket. You can also connect the VAIO to external displays through a VGA or HDMI connector.

This laptop has what I would expect of a standard ultraportable, with dual-band 802.11a/g/n wireless and Gigabit Ethernet network interfaces.

The SD card slot’s location is very disappointing in my view due to its close proximity to the locking slot. Here, you wouldn’t be able to remove or insert an SD card in this slot if you use a locking device to stop the laptop from being stolen. Some users may see it as a bonus if they want to stop copying of data from the computer while it is unsupervised but this setup may limit use with Kensington’s ClickSafe two-part key-based locks or similar devices.

Battery life

Left had side with audio socket and DVD burner

The VAIO S’s STAMINA / SPEED switch allows you to make sure you are running the laptop on a battery-conserving mode when you are running it on batteries and this does pay off with the long run time.

This has really shown a difference with the computer taking very little power to do the basic tasks and running for times in order of five hours consecutively.

Limitations and Points of improvement

I haven’t seen many limitations for the VAIO S Series but Sony could move the locking slot from next to the SD card reader. This could make it suitable for those environments where you require the laptop to be tethered down at all times

Conclusion

Still very suitable for hotspot surfing

I would position the Sony VAIO S Series as a fully-fledged ultraportable notebook for those of us who want the integrated optical drive. This is more so as an alternative to the Toshiba Satellite L730 and could be considered as a “journalist’s friend” computer or a machine to give that student who is heading out on that long trip. It can even also work well as a hotspot-surfing laptop when you use that cafe as a second office.

Articles

Apple’s new iPad: Hands-on | CNet

Apple’s next-gen iPad: New battlefields emerge | ZDNet

Apple unveils new iPad, Apple TV | Digital Life – The Age (Australia)

Apple unveils new iPad with high-definition screen | BBC Technology (UK)

My Comments

Over these last few days, Apple had warmed up the hype machine over their just-released iteration of the iPad. It is to implement a 9.5” very-high-definition “retina” display which allows it to show more detail; as well as the use of the A5X quad-core RISC processor, allowing, for example, the Angry Birds to throw those stones faster and harder at the pigs. This iPad will also be the first Apple iOS product to work with the 4G LTE wireless-broadband networks.

Similarly, Apple had driven down the price of their current-generation iPad 2 range in order to snap at the low-cost tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire. But this price attack is unrealistic due to the Kindle Fire and others offering the 7” screens and pocketable size whereas the iPad is more the larger 10” “satchel-size” variety.

But I see it more as being part of a highly-competitive touchscreen tablet computer marketplace with some powerful Android tablets on the marketplace such as the Asus Transformer Prime; as well as the upcoming appearance of Windows 8 this year with its support for tablet computers.

It will be like the late 80s where there have been three or more GUI-equipped computer platforms appearing on the consumer and business marketplace, offering their different capabilities. In some cases, this included implementing technologies that were considered “cutting edge” for that time. It is also like the way the smartphone market has become with two major competitors appealing to consumers and a few more competitors appealing to business users.

I would see the rest of this year as being a keen-edged time period for tablets and tablet-based apps as the competition heats up and the value factor for these products increases. It would also include whether these tablets will displace the regular computer from its place as one’s primary personal or business computing device as Steve Jobs wished for the Apple iPad platform or simply work as an auxiliary computing device. This includes the ability for these tablets to please the “core” gamers as a gaming system or a screen-equipped controller; or just be useful for casual ad-hoc gaming sessions.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother DCP-J925DW multifunction printer which is part of Brother’s newest run of A4 inkjet all-in-one printers that are destined for the home and home office. There are variants of this model that have integrated fax functionality.

Prices

Printer

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$179

Inks and Toners

There is a pack of the high-capacity ink cartridges available for AUD$109.95.

The printer itself

The Brother DCP-J925DW is housed a a relatively shallow chassis with a shallow automatic-document-feeder lid that has a swirl-type pattern. This has been made possible through the use of Brother’s “capillary” system with the ink cartridges mounted up front rather than on the printhead.

Front-loading ink cartridges

The printer has a single tray but there is a mezzanine tray that is used for 4×6” snapshot paper so you can print out photos as snapshots, a different method to what HP has done for some of their high-end Photosmart printers where these have totally separate paper trays. It also has a DVD/CD printing mechanism so you can print on to inkjet-printable optical discs.

Setup

This printer can connect to your network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet and the Wi-Fi setup experience was surprisingly easy. It needs the time to be set in order to work with the Web-connected printer functionality, but Brother could implement an NTP-based clock setup option rather than requiring the user to set the time, just asking the user for their time zone and whether their time zone observes daylight-saving time.

You have to lift the lid to plug the printer in to the Ethernet network or USB-connected computer

Like other Brother inkjet printers, this printer has the the inks loaded in the front and obviates the need to lift a heavy lid to replace the cartridges. But, like the MFC-J6910DW that I previously reviewed, it requires you to open the lid to find the USB and Ethernet sockets if you need to connect it directly to the host or to an Ethernet network.

Touchscreen control panel

The control panel for this printer is primarily a touchscreen LCD but there are two start buttons and a cancel button as well as an on-off button. Compared to the HP touchscreen printers, this provides for surefire “start” and “stop” controls on the printer for those of us used to the traditional buttons. The screen may be found to be too small for some activities like choosing pictures to print and may be hard to read for those of us with limited sight.

Walk-up functions

The automatic document feeder is one of those types that draws the document under and ejects it out the top. This can be confusing to operate because most of these printers require you to feed the document in on a top shelf and they will eject the document underneath.

The Brother DCP-J925DW can copy as expected with one-touch ease but also has an option for improved book copying which may please those of us who copy a lot of material out of books and other bound documents. Think of copying those recipes that friends need out of those cookbooks as you “cook up a storm”.

Printer loaded with input and output documents

There is also the ability to print from directly-connected digital cameras or camera memory cards with the functionality that is expected of that feature.

The printer also works properly with the Brother iPrint&Scan mobile app so can print images and PDFs held on your smartphone. It can also scan to your smartphone with the phone saving the images as JPEGs.

The WebConnect online services that Brother provided allows for “hot-seat” use by multiple people and work with the popular social networks and photo-sharing services. As far as Facebook is concerned, it only offers uploading of images to the user’s Photo Albums from the scanner or camera card.

Computer functions

The Brother DCP-925DW’s software installed properly but couldn’t determine by itself which network adaptor it is connected. You had to determine whether you were using a wired or wireless connection which can be confusing if your printer was connected via Ethernet and the computer was connected via Wi-Fi or vice versa.

In, use, the driver showed the same level of useability as the software supplied with other Brother printers that I reviewed. This included highlighting the options that are in force and even using the “pages” graphics to show the kind of duplex or booklet printing that was in force when you used these features.

Useability and Print Quality

The Brother DCP-J925DW printer is quick at turning out documents but takes a very long time at turning out A4 photos on the glossy paper. This may be helped with an increase in memory and processor speed.

As well, it can print on both sides of the page very accurately with a minimum time penalty, which can be of a bonus if you rely on auto-duplex printing as a desktop-publishing tool, not just to be “green”. This was exemplified by my printing out a “download-to-print” door-hanger flyer from the Stop The Traffik anti-human-trafficking website that was pitched at hotels as a guest-awareness measure about this problem.

There is a high-pitch tone from the printhead when the Brother printer is pausing during a job and this may annoy some people, but would be expected of piezo inkjets because of the way they work.

When the Brother DCP—J925DW prints out photos, the pictures turn out darker and more defined compared to its HP and Canon home-use peers that I have reviewed. There is also a strong yellow component in these photos compared to the Brother A3 printers that I reviewed but this yellow is similar also to the same HP inkjets.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

As I have said before, the Brother DCP-J925DW could benefit from a faster processor and more memory so it can handle larger or more detailed print jobs more effectively.

The touchscreen control panel could be made larger so it is easier to read, in a similar vein to the touchscreen control panels on the recent HP multifunction printers. This would make the printer easier to use for older people or those of us with poor eyesight.

The automatic document feeder could be improved in its useability by indicating where the original document should sit under and preferably in a contrasted colour. This can help with newer users who have upgraded from other multi-function printers that use the orthodox automatic-document feeder.

The Web-connected functionality could support a few more features like email-to-print or the ability to print from Facebook image collections. It, like the other Brother printers, could also benefit from UPnP Printer functionality so as to support network printing from digital cameras and interactive-TV applications.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

I would position the Brother DCP-J925DW as a cost-effective general-purpose home-use printer for the connected home as an alternative to the HP Photosmart 7510 if you don’t worry about fax or ePrint capabilities. It can also work as a secondary printer that could do supplementary work to the main laser or inkjet multifunction printer, such as in a study or rumpus room.