6:40 PM
Lockheed showed off a test version of their Orion spacecraft, which was initially designed to bring humans to the moon but now may be used for the Space Station or to take astronauts beyond Earth orbit:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2011/03/Aerospace-Engineering-Lockheed-Martin-shows-test-spaceship-trial-site/
New Jersey police department found that the automatic license plate reader they recently installed on one of its squad cars paid immediate significant dividends. In one month they scanned 69,000 plates, returned 1,400 alerts of interest including several unregistered cars that led to large drug busts. They found they can be more effective even though their budgets are smaller via this technology:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/device-pays-immediate-dividends/article_28d8750d-9ba6-5640-b680-035811c986ea.html
The Ford Crown Victoria has been the standard police car around the country, but it is being discontinued this year. Ford has a replacement police car that is at least 20% more fuel efficient and performed better, Chevy has a competitor with a powerful engine, and a small Indiana company has a police car that comes with built-in license plate readers, infrared cameras, and biological threat detectors:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/sophisticated-new-police-interceptors-unveiled-replace-crown-vic
3D nanostructures for battery cathodes have been developed by Illinois researchers to enable significantly faster charging of batteries without sacrificing battery storage capacity. An electric car could be charged in minures and a cell phone could be charged in seconds with this technology:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/new-batteries-for-electric-cars-could.html
IT managers around the world freaked out yesterday when statements released on Microsoft's own twitter account and Microsoft's Windows Update repository site seemed to indicate that Microsoft was going to push IE 9 to all computers via a Windows Update even though no system administrators are ready to support IE 9 and it isn't exactly bug-free right now. Microsoft clarified (at 5pm!) that they weren't actually sending IE 9 out via a Windows Update to all users:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/web-browsers/false-alarm-windows-update-not-pushing-out-ie9-290
Antitrust experts say that the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile will eventually be approved, but it could take 18 months and AT&T will likely be forced to sell major assets and pledge to expand their service to poor and rural areas:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-tmobile-att-idUSTRE72J3JE20110322
Article about how in order to get approval for their T-Mobile deal, AT&T will need to spend more than the $100 mil in lobbying costs that Comcast spent on its NBC Universal acquisition. $100 mil for lobbyists...wish that could go towards technology development or other things that could make the US more competitive:
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ica37f8e7f292621229207da6edd2e8a2
Verizon's CEO says that they are not interested in buying Sprint:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-verizonwireless-interview-idUSTRE72L0K820110322
Verizon currently has 39 markets with LTE, but they announced that they will have 145 markets by the end of the year. Here is the list of the 49 cities mentioned before and 59 others announced today. It looks like Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island will have LTE soon:
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/03/22/verizon-announces-additional-4g-lte-cities-for-2011/
Entertaining and informational recap of the CTIA roundtable today with the CEOs of Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/metered-billing-attt-mobile-hot-topics-during-ctia-carrier-keynote/2011-03-22
LightSquared signed a long-term LTE roaming deal with Leap Wireless, its first major wireless operator partnership:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/lightsquared-inks-wholesale-lte-deal-leap-wireless/2011-03-22
RIM's PlayBook tablet will be released through Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint at the same price points as the iPad:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/rim-partners-verizon-att-puts-playbook-sale-499/2011-03-22
Microsoft filed lawsuits for patent infringement over the Nook ereader, another in its series of lawsuits over Android devices--Microsoft says that Android infringes on its patents so Android device manufacturers need to pay them royalties. Note that Microsoft is *not* suing Android device manufacturers who are also making Windows Phone 7 smartphones::
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/us-microsoft-idUSTRE72K6HE20110321
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2011/03/Aerospace-Engineering-Lockheed-Martin-shows-test-spaceship-trial-site/
New Jersey police department found that the automatic license plate reader they recently installed on one of its squad cars paid immediate significant dividends. In one month they scanned 69,000 plates, returned 1,400 alerts of interest including several unregistered cars that led to large drug busts. They found they can be more effective even though their budgets are smaller via this technology:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/device-pays-immediate-dividends/article_28d8750d-9ba6-5640-b680-035811c986ea.html
The Ford Crown Victoria has been the standard police car around the country, but it is being discontinued this year. Ford has a replacement police car that is at least 20% more fuel efficient and performed better, Chevy has a competitor with a powerful engine, and a small Indiana company has a police car that comes with built-in license plate readers, infrared cameras, and biological threat detectors:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/sophisticated-new-police-interceptors-unveiled-replace-crown-vic
3D nanostructures for battery cathodes have been developed by Illinois researchers to enable significantly faster charging of batteries without sacrificing battery storage capacity. An electric car could be charged in minures and a cell phone could be charged in seconds with this technology:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/new-batteries-for-electric-cars-could.html
IT managers around the world freaked out yesterday when statements released on Microsoft's own twitter account and Microsoft's Windows Update repository site seemed to indicate that Microsoft was going to push IE 9 to all computers via a Windows Update even though no system administrators are ready to support IE 9 and it isn't exactly bug-free right now. Microsoft clarified (at 5pm!) that they weren't actually sending IE 9 out via a Windows Update to all users:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/web-browsers/false-alarm-windows-update-not-pushing-out-ie9-290
Antitrust experts say that the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile will eventually be approved, but it could take 18 months and AT&T will likely be forced to sell major assets and pledge to expand their service to poor and rural areas:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-tmobile-att-idUSTRE72J3JE20110322
Article about how in order to get approval for their T-Mobile deal, AT&T will need to spend more than the $100 mil in lobbying costs that Comcast spent on its NBC Universal acquisition. $100 mil for lobbyists...wish that could go towards technology development or other things that could make the US more competitive:
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ica37f8e7f292621229207da6edd2e8a2
Verizon's CEO says that they are not interested in buying Sprint:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-verizonwireless-interview-idUSTRE72L0K820110322
Verizon currently has 39 markets with LTE, but they announced that they will have 145 markets by the end of the year. Here is the list of the 49 cities mentioned before and 59 others announced today. It looks like Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island will have LTE soon:
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/03/22/verizon-announces-additional-4g-lte-cities-for-2011/
Entertaining and informational recap of the CTIA roundtable today with the CEOs of Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/metered-billing-attt-mobile-hot-topics-during-ctia-carrier-keynote/2011-03-22
LightSquared signed a long-term LTE roaming deal with Leap Wireless, its first major wireless operator partnership:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/lightsquared-inks-wholesale-lte-deal-leap-wireless/2011-03-22
RIM's PlayBook tablet will be released through Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint at the same price points as the iPad:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/rim-partners-verizon-att-puts-playbook-sale-499/2011-03-22
Microsoft filed lawsuits for patent infringement over the Nook ereader, another in its series of lawsuits over Android devices--Microsoft says that Android infringes on its patents so Android device manufacturers need to pay them royalties. Note that Microsoft is *not* suing Android device manufacturers who are also making Windows Phone 7 smartphones::
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/us-microsoft-idUSTRE72K6HE20110321