I am not blogging!

Thank God, I never claimed to myself that I was blogging again. I have kind of gone again through that bout of absence I always go through. My focus has shifted to other things that need attention which speaks for my absence on this site. I wonder if anyone is reading it, but for once, I have told myself to stay away from that temptation driving the writing. I have to keep telling myself that i do it because i do it. Till I get back on track again awaiting that stimulus to jump right in, I shall keep reminding myself that I am not blogging. Yeah, denial it is!

Near-Field communications (NFC)

I recently came across DoCoMo introducing phones in Japan that doubled up as wallets or smart cards. This allowed people using transit systems to simply wave at the bus/train and get in, or someone waving their phone at the check-out counter of a grocery store to complete their purchase.

Today, I came across an article on InformationWeek talking about Near-Field communications (NFC) as the next big thing. NFC is a short-range wireless technology operating in the unregulated RF band of 13.56 MHz. I probed further and thought I had share what I found. Below are excerpts and pointers to some references.

Dated back from 2003, here is an excerpt from Sony's press release:

NFC IP-1 is a Near Field Communication technology, which utilizes the 13.56 MHz wavelength, and is composed of a physical layer and data link layer. When devices with an NFCIP-1 compatible chip are brought into proximity, they will be able to recognize each other within a certain range*1, and can exchange information. NFC IP-1 provides a new, highly intuitive method where simply bringing devices into proximity allows them to directly recognize each other and communicate. This is in contrast to previous methods where devices have identified by screen icons on computer screens or selected within wireless networks like Bluetooth and Wireless LAN. Data exchange will take place at speeds of 106kbps, 212kbps or 424kbps. It is also possible to transfer to other communications protocols with higher speeds, once devices have been connected by NFC.

While Bluetooth, IR and the upcoming UWB are sure contenders for the PAN space, NFC is being seen as complementing rather than stepping on these technologies. An interesting read here.

Also, here is a white-paper (PDF) from ECMA International detailing NFC and show-casing its utility.

NFC forum has more details on the technology, working groups and news.

What is also hot is the NFC RFID marriage. Below is an excerpt:

The goal of NFC RFID is to provide a low-cost short-range form of wireless communications to enable consumers to use the NFC chip built in to their mobile phones and other devices to make electronics payments for various purchases or to use devices with built-in NFC readers to read information stored in NFC-tagged objects. Nokia, for example, already sells an NFC-enabled mobile phone, and other phone and electronics vendors are expected to follow suit with their own NFC-enabled products (see Developing RFID-Enabled Phones).

For additional reference, here are some articles talking about NFC

* Wi-fiplanet.com
* ABI Research
* Nokia's piece of the NFC pie

UMA & IMS - Overview

I have been wanting to blog about 3GPP UMA (Unlicensed mobile access) for quite some time, but have been postponing it for the want of a clear definition. Today I found one, thanks to this article in Unstrung. Here it is:

UMA is the 3GPP global standard for Mobile/Wi-Fi convergence that enables mobile subscribers to roam and handover between cellular networks and WLANs using multi-mode mobile handsets.

The article talks about Infineon (IMS) and Kineto (UMA) joining hands to provide IMS services seamlessly across mobile and Wi-Fi networks. While UMA is the 3GPP standard for Mobile/Wi-Fi convergence, IMS is a network specification for delivering IP services across fixed and mobile networks. From the same article, a definition for IMS:

IMS is the open, standardized IP multimedia and telephony core network specification for mobile and fixed operators that is defined by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).

As a part of the IMS specification, IMS uses SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) as one of its underlying protocols. More on IMS and SIP here.

Infineon and Kineto come together to provide services enabled through IMS, seamlessly across your Mobile and Wi-Fi network. To expand a bit on that, imagine watching MobileTV (or a VoIP call) over your GPRS connection outside the home. As you step in the Wi-Fi network in your home, the same IP services are available to you on the phone through your Wi-Fi network instead of the GPRS network - and the beauty of this is that it happens seamlessly.

To make this happen, UMA treats your Wi-Fi network as mini-cell base station which makes for the easy hand-off between your cellular and Wi-Fi networks. Here is some stuff from Kineto on how UMA enables broadband IMS (by Director of Mktg, Kineto).

Delayed roundup

Here is a quick roundup I wanted to post a couple weeks back, but my time-management skills ditched me completely.

Cheers for Yahoo on their earnings - quite a rev up in the past year. Yahoo Podcast has been a welcome addition. I am a fan of Podcasts and Yahoo is good stuff, definitely for starters. This also will help Podcasts become pretty much mainstream. Also, Yahoo teaming up with Verizon to introduce the $14.95 DSL (update: until I recently learn that it is a 6 month only promotion and prices are being jacked up), Yahoo announcing its $5/month unlimited music download service. As I look forward to Yahoo Mail's Beta, Yahoo and MS teaming up for their IM presence, Yahoo and Alibaba deal.

Good news from Cingular on several counts:

HSDPA - I look forward to seeing how things stack up against the EV-DO camp at Verizon and Sprint-Nextel.

56% rise in 3Q profits

going the IMS way - Good news for Lucent too as SBC follows Cingular. Speculations on BellSouth being next.

And yes, this makes me so on-top-of-the-world. The first commercial Flash-OFDM deal - T-Mobile Europe introduces Flash-OFDM for Slovakia. Siemens built the network. "... mobile data speeds up to 1M bps for downloading data and 256K bps for uploading." Can see Qualcomm smiling!

Also, T-Mobile International launching high speed wireless service dubbed "Internet-4G" in Czech - 1MBps on UMTS TD-CDMA

Cisco to invest $1.1 Billion in India. From the article, $750 million are going toward R&D. The balance - "The company also plans to invest $150 million in India through Cisco Systems Capital, a division of Cisco Systems, to provide leasing and other financial services to Cisco's customers and partners. The company also plans to invest $100 million in venture capital for Indian startup companies, besides spending $100 million in its customer support operations in the country. "

Note the $100 million for venture capital. Thats the kind of trend-setting thing that Indian entrepreneurs need - I sincerely hope that this could kick-start a lot of fun and also be the seed for seeing more venture capital in India.

E Ink now in color

Microsoft VirtualWiFi technology - sounds interesting and brings about speculations.