Boeing has dropped its plans to provide in-flight entertainment on its 787 "Dreamliner", citing network weight and spectrum issues. According to company spokeswoman Lori Gunter, installation of the wireless network means additional 200 pounds per plane, or four times heavier than a wired network. Boeing also failed to get authorization to tap certain wireless bands...

Cingular Wireless reported that its profits trebled in the fourth quarter of 2006. Profits for the said period amounted to $782 million or $578 million more than the previous year. Revenues also went up by 10 percent, from $8.85 billion to $9.76 billion. The company, the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., said its subscribers...

Seagate Technology has rolled out a pocket-sized 10GB to 20GB hard drive that can store and trade digital files between mobile phones, PCs and other mobile platforms through Bluetooth or WiFi connection. The company expects to make the Digital Audio Video Experience (DAVE) available to telecommunications carriers and mobile phone manufacturers in the second quarter...

Juniper Research expects wireless telemetry (or AMR - Automated Meter Reading) to become the leading sector in the M2M markets in three years. It said that revenues would go from $11.6 billion in 2006 to $25.3 billion by 2009 as companies would realize the operational benefits and efficiency savings from real-time data monitoring. The figure...

Texas Instruments sees rapid adoption of its ZigBee products in 2008. According to the company, its Z-Stack, whose CC2420 transceiver and CC2430 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) have obtained certification, gained Golden Unit status, indicating that it is the first platform to implement the newest ZigBee version and get clearance from one of two ZigBee qualified testing labs....

Skype's chief security officer assured that the popular Internet telephony application has robust protection. Kurt Sauer credited this to better organization for developing actual codes. Today, he is requiring more peer review of software ahead of the final release. He said Skype hopes to collaborate with companies such as antivirus vendors to ensure protection of...

A new book entitled "Hacking Exposed VoIP" warned that VoIP, which is becoming more and more popular, is the likely next target for hackers. Co-author David Endler, director of security at 3Com Corp.'s TippingPoint division in Austin, said that VoIP has been used for phishing. SecureLogix chief technology officer Mark Collier, who co-wrote the book,...

Apple cited generally accepted accounting principles as reason for imposing a fee of $1.99 to customers who want to download software that would switch on the 802.11n Wi-Fi technology in MacBooks and MacBook Pros with Intel's Core 2 Duo processor. The Macs, according to the company, were released prior to the approval of draft 2.0...

At a gathering in London, the IEEE 802.11n working group has unanimously approved the second draft of the much-awaited next generation Wi-Fi standard. This development, along with the likely approval by the IEEE membersehip, would allow the Wi-Fi Alliance to begin certification of Draft N products by March. Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Net News expects...

High carrier fees are preventing the massive adoption of Skype's Internet telephone service via cellphone, according to Eric Lagier, who heads Skype's hardware and software business development division. Skype users can call each other for free via broadband Internet connection and only pay a small amount for calls to normal phones. But most telecommunications network...

Intel is upgrading its Centrino Duo laptops' wireless component to enable connection based on the recently approved draft 802.11n specification. The company plans to offer an 802.11 a/b/g/Draft-N PCIe Minicard network adapter card that can work on both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz spectra. It claimed that the new device can improve performance five-fold...

Skype revised its pricing structure to allow U.S. and Canadian customers to make calls for free. The changes apply to the Skype Unlimited Calling plan, which costs $29.95 per year. Those who would subscribe to the plan before January 31 will only pay half the said price or only $14.95. In addition, users calling a...

In a new study commissioned by VoIP software company Shortel, some 70 percent of companies cited cost reduction as the biggest reason for adopting VoIP. They also mentioned 'managing calls more effectively' and 'enabling home and mobile working' as other benefits. But a third believed VoIP is too expensive to deploy and operate. Quocirca principal...

BT boasted that sign-ups for its Broadband Talk and Softphone Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services have reached one million. The figure includes subscribers to the Broadband Talk service and those who have secured a dedicated VoIP number. The company also said many of its 500,000 Business Broadband customers are also VoIP users though it declined to say...

VeriWave is mounting a new blade in its WaveTest 90 chassis for testing 802.11n devices. According to VeriWave vice president of marketing Eran Karoly, the company has received requests for 802.11n device tests from infrastructure equipment makers like Cisco. The new WaveBlade houses a channel emulator for multipath signal simulation. It can perform tests on...