Category: broadband
GREENBELT, Md. - NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is starting to come together. A major component of the telescope, the Integrated Science Instrument Module structure, recently arrived at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. for testing in the Spacecraft Systems Development and Integration Facility.
SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 17, 2009 -- University of Utah mathematicians developed a new cloaking method, and it's unlikely to lead to invisibility cloaks like those used by Harry Potter or Romulan spaceships in "Star Trek." Instead, the new method someday might shield submarines from sonar, planes from radar, buildings from earthquakes, and oil rigs and coastal structures from tsunamis.
Laws aimed at tackling illegal use of wireless internet connections are restricting attempts to increase broadband access, according to research published today.
Even Albert Einstein might have been impressed. His theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of a massive object, such as a star, can curve space and time, has been successfully used to predict such astronomical observations as the bending of starlight by the sun, small shifts in the orbit of the planet Mercury and the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.
Ecological and economic factors are prompting telecommunications companies to deploy energy-saving systems. The broadband DSL access network consumes about 20 billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year worldwide -- equivalent to four percent of Germany's annual energy consumption.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--MIT engineers have built a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip, modeled on the human inner ear, that could enable wireless devices capable of receiving cell phone, Internet, radio and television signals.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have created a new type of invisibility cloak that is simpler than previous designs and works for all colors of the visible spectrum, making it possible to cloak larger objects than before and possibly leading to practical applications in "transformation optics."
To cut the cost of bringing high-speed Internet to rural areas, Dr. Ka Lun Lee and colleagues at the University of Melbourne and NEC Australia in the state of Victoria are experimenting with a way to boost the reach of existing technology.
WASHINGTON, March 16-- To cut the cost of bringing high-speed Internet to rural areas, Dr. Ka Lun Lee and colleagues at the University of Melbourne and NEC Australia in the state of Victoria are experimenting with a way to boost the reach of existing technology.
Penn State engineers have developed a new model for high-speed broadband transmissions over U.S. overhead electric power lines and estimate that, at full data rate handling capacity, the lines can provide bit rates that far exceed DSL or cable over similar spans. Dr. Mohsen Kavehrad, the W. L. Weiss professor of electrical engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research, led the investigation. He says, "Although broadband power line (BPL) service trials are now underway on a limited basis in some locations in the U.S., these trials run at DSL- comparable rates of 2 or 3 megabits per second.
Scientists have developed a theory describing light pulse dynamics in optical fibers that explains how an interplay of noise, line imperfections and pulse collisions lead to the deterioration of information in optical fiber lines. The theory will help to enhance the performance necessary for high-speed optical communication systems like video on demand and ultra-broadband Internet, and the research has helped establish a new field of inquiry -- the statistical physics of optical communications.
While small, independent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) drove the innovations in the Internet access market, telecommunications companies have since regained control, effectively shutting down the upstarts, say Penn State researchers. Now fixed-line operators are using their infrastructure to corner broadband services as well, said Carleen Maitland, assistant professor of information sciences and technology. To compete, ISPs are offering broadband services whether or not that makes financial sense. The result: A continued consolidation of the broadband Internet access market as ISPs are bought up, go bankrupt or affiliate with larger companies.
The more than 70 percent of Americans who use the Internet now consider online technology to be their most important source of information, ranking the Internet higher as an information source than all other media including television and newspapers, according to findings in Year Three of the UCLA Internet Report. "Incredible as it may seem, for the vast majority of America that uses online technology, the Internet has surpassed all other major information sources in importance after only about eight years as a generally available communications tool," said Jeffrey Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, a unit in the Anderson School of Management and affiliated with the university's College of Letters and Science.
