mesh

Images from a pre-beta version of Windows 8 reveal that Microsoft is apparently expanding its use of the ribbon interface to replace traditional pull-down menus and toolbars.

Following Microsoft's release of the latest pre-beta build of Windows 8 to select partners recently, screenshots of certain features in the upcoming OS were allegedly posted online. In particular, images displayed on enthusiast site Within Windows by "Windows 8 Secrets" co-authors Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott show the ribbon interface reaching Windows Explorer.

Introduced with Office 2007, the ribbon interface has been loved by some and reviled by others. But … Read more

Microsoft has issued a progress report on its Live Mesh sync tool since it was wrapped up with the Live Sync tool last year, saying that it's now being used by 3 million people who have connected 5 million devices. Collectively that amounts to 2.2 petabytes of data, the company said in a blog post today.

Microsoft first launched Live Mesh at the Web 2.0 Expo in 2008 as an ambitious sync service aimed at ferrying data across a number of devices, be it PCs or Macs. It's since gone on to become a part of … Read more

LAS VEGAS--At CES, the start-up Peep Wireless Technology is trying to find partners to adopt its mobile phone mesh networking technology. It looks like the company has a long road ahead of it.

The mesh concept, which is not new, is that instead of phone voice or data moving as it does now, from low-powered mobile devices to high-powered, fixed towers, phones (and possibly other radio-equipped devices) would act as a miniature cell towers and repeaters on their own, handling data transmission for nearby devices. So if you're calling someone across the street, chances are you might be able to connect to their device directly, or maybe in just one or two "hops," using other people's devices as the towers and repeaters of your ad-hoc network.

Without cell towers, of course, there's no need for cellular carriers, no expensive private infrastructure to support, and no need for big recurring bills. A peer-to-peer mesh network is, in some cases, more robust than the traditional cellular infrastructure. It's certainly faster and cheaper to build. Mesh networks are in use today. Dust Networks, for example, provides technologies for sensors that are used in industrial and military applications for which there is no infrastructure. In a mesh network, the devices are the infrastructure.

On the other hand, building a mesh network of smartphones presents serious challenges that I don't think Peep has solved. The battery hit is a big one; many modern smartphones can barely make it through a day of use right now. Turning them into mini data repeaters would take even more power. And once a mesh network gets big, route-finding for data packets becomes a nontrivial computational task, and that introduces delay or lag into communications. Security, at least, should not be a big issue, since Peep's data is broken up and AES-encrypted end-to-end.

But the real challenge is getting the chiefs of the smartphone universe--the carriers--to play ball and invest in this technology. Peep President Scott Redmond is here at CES meeting with the carriers, he says.

I hope those meetings go better than his talk with me did.

… Read more

Microsoft has decided to make a series of changes to its Live Sync service including changing the name to the Windows Live Mesh before it is released in final form this fall.

Live Sync, as the product being tested is currently known, is actually a combination of two existing sync services, Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh. Though both services were aimed at making files and settings available across multiple devices, each took a somewhat different approach.

In merging the two services, Microsoft is hoping to make things simpler, though naming has been a challenge. With either name, Microsoft has … Read more

The Australian Outback isn't generally a place you go expecting cell phone reception. But a group of researchers has managed to get phones working in the remote wilderness Down Under using a new system that lets ordinary phones communicate without phone towers or satellites.

The three-person team, led by Flinders University's Paul Gardner-Stephen--he of the working Maxwell Smart-style shoe phone--headed into the remote, sparsely populated Arkaroola Sanctuary over the weekend to test their Serval Project with hacked Android phones. Results were promising, with Gardner-Stephen chatting with a colleague on another mobile phone several hundred meters (about … Read more

Microsoft said on Friday that it plans next month to end support for a test version of its Live Framework, which was essentially the developer side of its Live Mesh service.

The idea of Live Framework is to give developers of Web-based applications the ability to add desktop components, while those writing traditional applications could use the Live Framework to add synchronizing and other online capabilities.

In a blog posting, Microsoft said it plans to integrate many of the concepts behind the Live Framework into the next version of Windows Live. In the mean time, though, developers will lose access … Read more

What would Google look like if you took it offline and forced it to set up in physical space?

Google's tens of thousands of commodity Linux servers would need to be scattered around the globe so as to collect and then aggregate consumer interest. A lot like Path Intelligence, in other words.

Tim O'Reilly invested in Path Intelligence back in 2007. After lunching with Path Intelligence CEO Toby Oliver Friday in London, I can see why. The idea is to set up receivers in shopping malls and other retail areas to collect mobile data and analyze consumer behavior … Read more

If you haven't heard of North American Eagle, it's a program to break the existing land-based speed record of 763 miles per hour by reaching 800 mph, which is slightly faster than Mach 1 (768 mph).

There are a range of technologies incorporated into the NAE vehicle to make this crazy land speed possible, including those that provide communication between car and control center. This is where Tropos Networks comes into play.

The company announced Tuesday that its routers are being used in the latest NAE trial runs in the desert at Black Rock, Nevada, this week, where vehicle speeds exceed 500 miles per hour. Onboard the NAE vehicle during its high-speed test runs is a Tropos 4210 mobile mesh router that provides real-time communication and data monitoring.

While network connection at high speeds is not new, as Internet access on airplanes has been available for some time now, the main issue here is latency. The NAE vehicle is a very-fast-moving land-based testing object, and it's necessary that it has the capacity for true real-time communication.

To resolve this, Tropos system uses direct Wi-Fi links between the vehicle and ground stations to provide access to vehicle data with a delay of only one to three milliseconds.… Read more

You know the scene: A hot summer day, friends and family gathered in the back yard, perhaps a football being tossed around, laughter and good times in the air. Of course, this scene would not be complete without the grill fired up, permeating the air with the scent of delicious foods cooking. Survey the grill-top, and we find hotdogs, hamburgers, steaks, and chicken. But where are the vegetables?

No longer must vegetables be relegated to "after-the-meat-is-done" status. The Mesh Grill-Top Chef's Pan is perfect for cooking up a batch of healthy vegetables on the grill. The heavy-gauge … Read more