Telecommunications

Hackers equipped with inexpensive radio hardware and open source software can compromise your mobile phone, listen to your conversations, intercept your data, or rack up huge bills on premium services, all without you knowing. Ralf-Philipp Weinmann, a cryptologist at the University of Luxembourg Laboratory of Cryptology and Security, has discovered a new type of over-the-air attack on mobile phones, and at the 2010 DeepSec conference in Vienna demonstrated how the exploit could be used against nearly any mobile phone. Read More

An off-the-shelf camera from Axis Communications has set the world record for the highest wireless network camera delivering high quality images to Earth. The PTZ (pan/tilt/zoom) dome network camera was sent into the atmosphere to a height of 35 km (21. 7 miles) from the Esrange Space Center, north of Sweden, as part of the BEXUS 11 program. Read More

With two thirds of the world population now carrying a mobile phone, we are in the position for the first time to enable a new form of broadcasting. Alcatel-Lucent has announced a new Broadcast Message Center (BMC) which enables targeted government text alerts to be sent to mobile users based on their location – from a city block to nationwide. The flexibility and scalability of the BMC will save lives in the event of a gas leak, chemical spillage or natural disaster, as it leverages cell broadcast technology to bypass the network congestion that invariably hampers emergencies. The BMC will also be deployed as a commercial broadcast solution, enabling enterprises to communicate with a mobile workforce, or service providers to offer opt-in subscriber services that generate new sources of revenue. Read More

Fujitsu has announced a transmission power amplifier that is set to extend the transmission range of wireless communications networks by six times. The company's newly development gallium nitride (GaN) High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) has achieved the world's highest output for wireless communications in the millimeter-wave W band. Read More

We may still not have light sabers or faster-than-light spacecraft, but one other piece of Star Wars technology now looks like it may be on the horizon: 3D holographic videoconferencing. This week researchers from the University of Arizona, Tucson, unveiled a holographic system capable of transmitting a series of three-dimensional images in near-real-time – a significant step towards the live transmission of life-size, full color, holographic video of people or other objects. Read More

Cream brought the country blues classic Sittin' on top of the world to an international audience in the late 1960s... and now you can watch it on YouTube while you're sitting there. Through its subsidiary Ncell, the Swedish telecommunications group TeliaSonera has launched 3G services in the Mount Everest area of Nepal – which makes the company the providers of the world's highest mobile data service. Read More

Just when the future of broadband appears to be tipped towards the mass roll-out of optics, Nokia Siemens Networks proves that there's still life in the old copper wires yet. Using a virtual channel to supplement physical copper wire, data transmission speeds of 825 Mbps were recorded. Okay, so it was only over a distance of 400 meters (just over 1,312 feet) but the circuit managed to sustain 750 Mbps when the distance was increased to 500 meters (about 1,640 feet), with the technology promising broadband speed increases of between 50 and 75 per cent over existing bonded copper lines. Read More

There was a time not so very long ago when people who wanted satellite TV or radio required dishes several feet across. Those have since been replaced by today’s compact dishes, but now it looks like even those might be on the road to obsolescence. A recent PhD graduate from The Netherlands’ University of Twente has designed a microchip that allows for a grid array of almost-flat antennae to receive satellite signals. Read More

Imagine if you were watching television coverage of a football game, where none of the cameras could zoom in. It would be pretty frustrating, just having to go from one wide shot to another, never being able to get a close look at any of the players. That’s pretty much how things are with audio, however. Unless someone has their own microphone, or is within line of sight of a parabolic mic, you’re not going to be hearing them very well. In the near future, however, that may not be the case. Norway’s Squarehead Technology has developed AudioScope, a system that allows users to acoustically “zoom in” on individual people in a large area, and follow them as they move around. Read More