Random Accesses

For more than 500 years the book has been a remarkably stable entity: a coherent string of connected words, printed on paper and bound between covers.

But in the age of the iPhone, Kindle and YouTube, the notion of the book is becoming increasingly elastic as publishers mash together text, video and Web features in a scramble to keep readers interested in an archaic form of entertainment.

Recently, for instance, Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King, is working with a multimedia partner to release four “vooks,” which intersperse videos throughout electronic text that can be read — and viewed — online or on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

And in early September Anthony E. Zuiker, creator of the television series “CSI,” released “Level 26: Dark Origins,” a novel — published on paper, as an e-book and in an audio version — in which readers are invited to log on to a Web site to watch brief videos that flesh out the plot.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/books/01book.html?_r=1

Augmented reality (AR), which involves superimposing virtual objects and information on top of the real world, may be coming to a phone near you. As mobile phones become packed with more sensors, better video capabilities, and faster processing power, many experts predict that AR will become increasingly common. But in a panel discussion today at EmTech@MIT in Cambridge, MA, panelists will admit that several obstacles still remain and that the "killer app" for augmented reality has yet to emerge.

Several AR apps have already been released for cell phones with positioning sensors. For example, PresseLite's Metro Paris app and Acrossair's Nearest Tube both provide iPhone users with augmented directions to nearby subway stops. AR apps are also available for phones powered by Google's Android platform. Layar, developed by SPRXmobile, based in the Netherlands, overlays information from Twitter, Flickr, and Wikipedia on real-world locations, while Wikitude, from Austria-based Mobilizy, displays tourist information collected from Wikipedia.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23515/

Some developers are leveraging undocumented APIs in iPhone OS 3.0 to create "augemented reality" apps for the iPhone. However, Apple has told at least one developer to wait until the 3.1 update, already in beta, before submitting such apps for App Store approval.

The idea behind augmented reality is that a live video view—in this case, taken from the iPhone's camera—can be overlaid with useful additional information. Sometimes these types of augmented reality apps use direction and GPS coordinates, or they might recognize 2D barcodes within view of the camera. One concept demonstrated below uses facial recognition to display links to someone's social networking profiles.
Augmented ID demonstration video

Another such augmented reality app is Nearest Subway from developer Acrossair. Using the iPhone 3GS's GPS and compass hardware, the app can overly information about nearby subway stops. Merely by pointing an iPhone in the intended direction, Nearest Subway overlays small signs indicating the next subway stop in that direction, and what lines pass through.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/07/augmented-reality-coming-to-iphone-with-iphone-os-31.ars

Call it the "one number to rule them all" service. Google Voice, which goes live in a few weeks, is supposed to let friends, relatives, and business contacts find you whether you're at your desk, on a business trip, or vacationing in Peru. Tests carried out over the past few days suggest that, despite a few glitches, it could well live up to this promise.

Users will soon be able to register, sign up for a phone number in a local area code, and add multiple landline and cell-phone numbers to an account. When someone calls a Google Voice phone number, all the registered phones ring at the same time.

The service takes several telephony technologies--voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), voice transcription, and call routing--and connects them to the Web. Other Internet phone services let you play voice-mail messages on a computer or record calls, but Google Voice is a step towards unified communication. It's the voice equivalent of an e-mail address. Once you register a number, the idea is that you never have to worry about which phone you are using, even if you switch offices, homes, or cell phones.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22380/?a=f

Mobile equipment maker Ericsson was able to reach real-world speeds of 100 Mbps in the latest tests of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular data gear, engineers write in the company's house journal, Ericsson Review. On the street using 2.6 GHz base stations and commercial antennas, engineers pulled in 170 Mbps in raw throughput with the optimum antenna and channel configuration, and they also tested a method that delivered 130 Mbps but could use double the bandwidth with no alterations for 260 Mbps. Actual net throughput was far less, but still 20 to 100 times current typical 3G network rates.

LTE is the next generation of cellular data networking for GSM networks. In the U.S., AT&T has already committed to it, while Verizon Wireless will switch from its traditional use of Qualcomm's CDMA standard to deploy LTE as it develops more advanced networks. LTE is part of a set of loosely defined fourth-generation (4G) standards that will carriers hope will leapfrog today's 3G networks, and offer real competition to wired services, including today's fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-node deployments. Sprint opted for WiMax, which currently delivers far lower speeds than are projected for LTE, but it works today and has a roadmap for improvements.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081024-latest-cell-data-standard-tops-100-mbps-in-ericsson-test.html