AllThingsD » airports

Google Maps the Indoors, So Navigating Ikea Is No Longer a Nightmare

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:35:04 +0000

Even though GPS does not work reliably indoors, Google has found a tricky way around that limitation to map the insides of buildings, starting today with a handful of malls, airports and retailers in the U.S. and Japan.

Google Maps 6.0, available to Android users, will provide access to indoor layouts for a few dozen locations, so shoppers and travelers can find their way around without having to ask for directions.

Google’s Product Management Director Steve Lee told All Things D that — just as with outdoor Google maps — a person’s location will be highlighted by a flashing blue dot surrounded by points of interest.

In an airport, that means you’ll be able to find a particular gate or ATM, or if you are in a mall, you’ll be able to find the Gap or the kids’ play area. For Ikea, the home furnishings store known for its sprawling layout and chaotic atmosphere, it means finding the bathroom or the smorgasbord before a state of emergency is reached. Better yet, it could even mean figuring out where to park, based on which mall entrance is closest to the store you want to visit.

The announcement was made today on Google’s blog.

To make it all work, Lee says, they’ve been able to fine tune the location-based services Google uses for the outdoor locations, including cellphone towers, Wi-Fi hotspots and GPS — without requiring the retailer to install any new hardware. He claims it’s so accurate that the phone can pick up on the fact that a shopper is taking the escalator up or down and automatically changes the display of the store’s floor layout accordingly.

Bellevue, Wash.-based Point Inside has been working on this very problem for the past few years and has teamed up with several malls, retailers and other app developers to provide the indoor-mapping technology. Its technology works across iPhone and Android devices, but of course, Google’s advantage is that it will be able to leverage its install base of millions of Google Maps users, who will likely start using the new feature without having to change behavior or download a separate application.

Google said all the technology was built in-house by its own engineers.

For Google, the key will be accuracy. Getting location information even with the help of GPS can be challenging, even outdoors. Adding multiple floors, thick cement walls and getting up-to-date data from the retailer, mall or airport, adds to the complexity.

Starting today, there will be indoor maps for several hundred million square feet, including 17 airports, several department stores, including Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s; big-box retailers like Home Depot and Ikea; and major malls, such as the Mall of America in Minneapolis.

Lee said that for now the team’s focus is on adding more locations, not on monetizing the feature, but it’s easy to see how Google could present an advertisement to someone as they walk by a merchant in the mall. With the search provider already dabbling in daily deals and mobile payments, it’s not a stretch at all.

Here’s Google demonstrating how it works:

(Restroom photo credit: Pictonym.)

Led by Apple's iPhone and iPad, Mobile Devices Now Dominate Airport Wi-Fi

Ina Fried — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 06:20:49 +0000

Not long ago, airport Wi-Fi connections were dominated by laptops, with only a small number of mobile phones hopping onto such networks.

These days, though, smartphones and tablets make up more than half of such connections, according to new data released on Tuesday by Boingo Wireless. February was the first month that mobile devices outnumbered laptops; by May, such devices amounted to 59 percent of Wi-Fi connections.

A year ago, laptops represented two-thirds of Boingo’s connections, and two years ago, just a quarter of machines accessing the airport Wi-Fi networks were mobile devices.

“Since the launch of the iPhone in June 2007, we’ve seen a marked growth trend for non-laptop devices, but the exponential growth in iPhones and iPads in the last year pushed mobile devices past laptops, showcasing just how disruptive the trend is,” Boingo VP Dawn Callahan said in a statement.

Boingo notes that laptops aren’t going away — mobile devices are just proliferating much faster. There are twice as many laptops, for example, than there were in 2007. However the smartphone has taken off, fueled by the launch of the iPhone in June of 2007.

Apple’s iOS continues to dominate the mobile space, accounting for 83 percent of the mobile total. Combined, all Android devices are still a distant fourth place behind the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch when it comes to popularity on Boingo’s network.

The findings mirror a rise in mobile devices using inflight Wi-Fi, such as that offered by Gogo. In the air, iPads account for more than a third of big-screen connections, compared to about 20 percent for Macs and 41 percent for Windows PCs. Android devices trail Apple’s mobile products on Gogo’s networks as well.

Mobile devices are also gobbling up a lot more data than they did just two years earlier, Boingo said. On a monthly basis, the average mobile device consumed 211 megabytes of data in June, compared with 114 megabytes in May 2009. And the devices are also consuming that data in less time, gulping an average of 8.9 megabytes in every 10 minutes of use, compared with 3.7 megabytes in the same period two years earlier.

Japan Quake Rattles Chip Industry

Don Clark — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:51:35 +0000

Japan’s massive earthquake affected operations at dozens of semiconductor factories, raising fears of shortages or price increases for a number of widely used components—particularly the chips known as flash memory that store data in hit products like smartphones and tablet PCs.

The quake struck hundreds of miles from many key chip plants, including most of the factories that account for the bulk of Japan’s flash-memory production. Most such factories are designed to withstand big quakes, and analysts expect little damage to structures or the costly machines that fabricate chips on silicon wafers.

But some manufacturers are likely to be affected by other issues, particularly disruptions in transportation of finished goods to airports or ports as well as the movement of employees and supplies to production plants. In addition, some of the biggest makers of consumer-electronics products that use chips are based in Japan, potentially affecting demand for chips.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

In 4G Race, Verizon Pulls Ahead With Pricey Speed

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:03:48 +0000

One of the biggest technology trends in 2011 will be the expansion of new, faster cellular networks called 4G, or fourth generation. These networks promise a big increase in speed and capacity to handle the surge in streaming video, audio and Web surfing from hot-selling devices like super-smart phones and tablets, as well as from laptops. But you’ll have to buy new phones, modems and other connected consumer devices to get the higher speed they offer.

[ See post to watch video ]

Wireless carriers and handset makers will be touting their 4G plans and compatible devices at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it will be a couple of years before 4G networks in the U.S. achieve the same coverage as the current standard, called 3G.

The move to 4G from 3G began last year, with Sprint leading the way and Verizon Wireless joining in the last few weeks of 2010 with a limited deployment. But 2011 will see the service spreading to more and more cities, and is also expected to see the entry of AT&T. T-Mobile hasn’t announced an actual 4G network rollout, but is instead relying on a souped-up version of 3G that it is marketing as 4G because it claims it can deliver similar data speeds with its approach.

I’ve been testing the 4G network of the latest entrant, Verizon, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which is one of 38 metro areas (plus 60 airports) where the company turned on its 4G network in December. My verdict is that it’s wicked fast—the fastest 4G network I’ve tried—but also potentially costly. In my tests, with a laptop modem, it proved dramatically faster than Verizon’s 3G network, and recorded speeds on a par with some land-line Internet connections.

But 4G from Verizon won’t be cheap. For laptop modem users, at least, Verizon is charging $50 a month for up to 5 gigabytes of data use and $80 monthly for 10 gigabytes. If you run over, the company will bill you $10 for every extra gigabyte. Such data limits aren’t new, but, with 4G’s much higher speeds, users may find themselves sending and receiving more data more often, and thus breaching the limits more regularly. For instance, in my tests, I was easily able to download a nearly 600 megabyte TV show, something I wouldn’t even try with a 3G modem. That one download would have eaten up more than 10% of my monthly cap under the $50 plan.

Verizon’s first LTE laptop modem, the LG VL600, has a flip top that reveals the USB connector.

Verizon’s variant of 4G uses a different underlying technology than Sprint’s. It’s called LTE, for Long Term Evolution, and is also the 4G system being adopted by many other cellular operators around the world, including AT&T. (Technically, this first version of LTE isn’t considered true 4G by the engineering standards body that rules on such matters, but that makes little difference to consumers looking for faster connections.)

The company says it chose LTE because it is not only fast, but is less prone to interference, can provide better battery life, has less latency, or lag, and can better handle multiple users simultaneously. The LTE system doesn’t affect voice calls on Verizon’s network—it’s only for data, and operates in tandem with the current voice network.

Verizon claims its new network is up to 10 times faster than its 3G network and says consumers will see speeds of between 5 and 12 megabits per second for downloads and between 2 and 5 mbps for uploads, in “real-world, loaded network environments.”

As of this writing, Verizon doesn’t offer an actual LTE-capable smart phone, only LTE USB modems that plug into laptops. But the company is expected to offer a sneak peek at CES this week of several LTE phones that will roll out in the coming months, as well other planned LTE devices, from a variety of manufacturers. Again, I want to stress that your current Verizon phone or laptop modem can’t be upgraded to work with LTE. You’ll need a new one.

For my tests, I used Verizon’s first LTE laptop modem, the VL600 made by LG of Korea. It sells for $100 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year service contract. This modem can handle data over slower 3G networks, if you happen to stray out of one of Verizon’s 4G service areas. For now, it works only on computers running Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. But the company says it should have Mac-compatible LTE modems in a month or so.

To use it, you have to first install, from an included CD, a new version of Verizon’s cellular modem software, VZAccess Manager. Older versions won’t work. My test machine was a Lenovo ThinkPad X301, which worked fine with a Verizon 3G modem. Installation was relatively quick and smooth, though I was immediately instructed to download an updated version of the software, so I had to go through it twice.

I disabled Wi-Fi on the ThinkPad, plugged in the LTE modem and ran 10 tests using the popular Speedtest.net website. The results were impressive. Verizon’s 4G network averaged just a shade under 16 megabits per second for downloads and 6.6 mbps for uploads. That was 15 times the download speed, and 13 times the upload speed, of a Verizon 3G modem I tested immediately afterward using the same method in the same location.

To relate these speeds to real-world scenarios, I downloaded from iTunes a standard-definition episode of the TV show “The Good Wife”—a 588 megabyte file—in just seven minutes, instead of the two hours or so iTunes predicted it would take when I was using the 3G modem. I streamed several long videos, including two in HD, from the Web, and they played smooth as silk.

But there are caveats. For one thing, hardly anyone is using this new Verizon network yet, and it’s likely to slow down as it gets crowded, especially with smart-phone users. Secondly, laptop cellular modems typically deliver faster speeds than phones, so my results don’t necessarily predict phone or tablet performance.

Also, speeds can vary by city and distance. My tests were mainly conducted against a server in my local D.C. area. But I also tried a few tests against a server in San Francisco and only got about 6 mbps download—within Verizon’s claims, but much slower.

Still, if you can afford it, and if it works well in phones and tablets, Verizon’s new LTE network could be a great boon to your digital lifestyle.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, allthingsd.com.

Verizon Gets Ready to Launch 4G

Ina Fried — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:27:42 +0000

Verizon Wireless is about to move from talking about 4G to actually launching its service. The company announced that it will hold a press event on Wednesday to officially spill the beans.

A lot of those beans, though, are already out there. The company has said it will launch the 4G network (using the Long Term Evolution, or LTE, protocol) in 38 cities before the end of the year. It’s also bringing 4G to more than 60 airports across the country.

Although Verizon’s network will launch in December, it will be only for laptops for a while, with 4G consumer phones expected by the middle of next year. As with past leaps, the big plus of the 4G network is faster connections.

For those still getting up to speed on 4G (including yours truly), here’s a recap. Sprint has already launched its 4G network using a different technology, WiMax, in a number of cities. AT&T is planning to use LTE for its 4G network, with its rollout slated for next year. And, just to further confuse things, T-Mobile has recently started billing its faster-speed 3G network using the term 4G and launching devices like the myTouch 4G.

The big question now is just what Verizon will want users to fork over for its speedy network and how it approaches the question of tiered pricing and unlimited versus capped pricing at the high end.

In any case, Mobilized will be covering the Verizon event tomorrow, which is set for noon Eastern Time and will feature Verizon Wireless CTO Tony Melone.

Merry Christmas! You Get Wi-Fi.

Andrew LaVallee — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:25:45 +0000

Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) are all offering some form of courtesy Wi-Fi through the holiday season, at venues such as airports, hotels and Times Square.

Each has a relatively new service it’s hoping to attract consumers to, whether it’s Google’s Chrome browser, Microsoft’s Bing search engine or Yahoo’s revamped home page and customization features.

Google is working with Wi-Fi providers Boingo Wireless and Advanced Wireless Group to provide connectivity at 47 airports, including Boston, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami and Seattle from today until Jan. 15 (sorry New Yorkers, JFK, LGA and EWR are not on the list).

“We know that this is a very hectic travel season for people, and we hope that free Wi-Fi will make both traveling and connecting with friends and family a little bit easier,” Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search, said in a statement.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

AT&T: We Crippled SlingPlayer TV App

Peter Kafka — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:55:48 +0000

Mystery solved, sort of: AT&T is taking the blame for crippling the SlingPlayer iPhone app.

The program, created by Echostar’s (SATS) Sling group, is designed to let users watch TV shows, beamed from their own sets, on the iPhone. It goes on sale for $29.99 today via Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store–but without the ability to work over AT&T’s 3G network.

That’s our decision, says AT&T (T). The company’s rationale: The iPhone’s too powerful, and our network isn’t powerful enough.

That’s the gist of its argument, which both makes sense and confuses. AT&T says the Sling app could consume lots of network capacity, which is straightforward enough. But you can already use Sling apps for other handsets, like the BlackBerry, on AT&T.

The difference, AT&T says, is that the iPhone really isn’t a phone at all, but a PC that happens to make phone calls. “We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs.”

No argument there, either. But again, given that you can use the SlingPlayer over AT&T’s spectrum using different devices, it seems as if AT&T is really making a different argument: Just because you can watch TV on other devices doesn’t mean you will. But if we give people the chance to watch TV on iPhone, they’ll flock to it–and our network can’t handle that.

See for yourself. Here’s AT&T’s full statement, via Engadget:

Slingbox, which would use large amounts of wireless network capacity, could create congestion and potentially prevent other customers from using the network. The application does not run on our 3G wireless network. Applications like this, which redirect a TV signal to a personal computer, are specifically prohibited under our terms of service. We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs.

That said, we don’t restrict users from going to a Web site that lets them view videos. But what our terms and conditions prohibit is the transferring, or slinging, of a TV signal to their personal computer or smartphone.

The Slingbox application for the iPhone runs on WiFi. That’s good news for AT&T’s iPhone 3G customers, who get free WiFi access at our 20,000 owned and operated hot spots in the U.S., including Starbucks, McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, hotels, and airports. AT&T is the industry leader in WiFi.

[Image credit: Markhillary]