4:59 PM
The government of China responded to public pressure by releasing measurements of the air quality in Beijing. It might not be a shock to note that the data they have been releasing may be skewed...they reported 7 hourly figures at the "very low level" of 0.003 mg per cubic meter within the 24-hour period from noon Friday to noon Saturday...but measurements at the US Embassy in Beijing has been measuring the air quality where they are and in the past 2 years, the air quality has only been that good 18 times over 15,000 hours, or about 0.1% of the time:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2012/01/Environment-Atmospheric-Sciences-Beijing-releases-pollution-data-US-figures-higher/
Rising CO2 levels have been found to disrupt a key brain receptor in fish, causing major changes in their behavior and sensory ability. The CO2 rise is "driving fish crazy" and the disruption to their central nervous system has been documented. If CO2 concentrations rise as predicted by the end of this century, it will interfere with the ability of fish to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, which would have serious consequences for the survival of fish:
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/braindamage.html
The "Asia 10" increased their share of R&D expenditures from 24% of the world's R&D spending in 1999 to 35% in 2009 while the R&D spending in the US went from 38% of the world's R&D spending in 1999 to 31% in 2009...it might not be a coincidence that the US's share of tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive service industries (business, financial, and communications) has been dropping quickly while the Asia 10's share has been increasing quickly. 40% of science and engineering employees in the US with Master's degrees and 50% of those with PhDs were born outside the US. Last year more than half of the PhDs working in the US were born in other countries...
http://www.infoworld.com/t/outsourcing/nsf-study-raises-serious-concerns-about-us-investment-in-technology-184749
The number of startups in the US started declining in 2005 and continued to decline through 2010, reflecting the state of the economy. However, startup activity jumped around the world in 2011, jumping nearly 60% in the US. More than 12% of US adults reported starting a business or running new businesses in 2011, where that number was below 8% in 2010. 400 million individuals around the world are currently engaged in entrepreneurship:
http://www.businessweek.com/small-business/startup-rates-surge-in-the-us-and-abroad-01202012.html
Scientists have developed a new way to create Terahertz waves that could be used to make better scanning devices, including devices similar to the Star Trek "tricorder" scanner:
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_20-1-2012-15-50-15
During the 3-week period between mid-December to early January the number of adults in the US who own a tablet nearly *doubled*, going from 10% to 19%, with the same near-doubling also applying to e-readers also going from 10% to 19% during those 3 weeks:
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/E-readers-and-tablets.aspx
Apple is expected to release 802.11ac devices to their numerous platforms this year, where the "Gigabit WiFI" will achieve much faster throughput than existing 802.11n products. It should be noted that Broadcom has been among the chip companies most aggressively supporting this "5G WiFi" and Broadcom is a major chip supplier to Apple:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/21/apple_working_to_adopt_80211ac_5g_gigabit_wifi_this_year_.html
Column on what RIM's new CEO needs to do to get BlackBerry smartphones to succeed in the market. RIM replaced their co-CEOs with their COO due to their struggles:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/3-things-rims-new-ceo-needs-execute-devices-carriers-messaging/2012-01-23
LightSquared's wholesale customer Simplexity announced that they will become a wholesale customer on Clearwire's mobile WiMAX nework and offer private-branded mobile broadband services to other MVNOs. Their deal with Clearwire is similar to the one they signed with LightSquared 4 months ago. LightSquared signed a lot of customers last year and I expect most or all of them to switch to Clearwire due to the difficulties that LightSquared is having getting their network approved:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/clearwire-nabs-lightsquared-customer-simplexity-mvne-partner/2012-01-23
Verizon spent more than $69 mil to upgrade its LTE network in Indianapolis to handle the massive crowd that will be attending the Super Bowl. They added 9 new antennas to the outside of the stadium along with a huge internal 3G/4G network and a WiFi infrastructure that allows for 28,000 simultaneous users. The nice thing for the people in Indianapolis is that Verizon is leaving behind just about all of that equipment after the Super Bowl is over...so the LTE speed for Verizon users in Indianapolis should be amazing:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/01/19/verizon-first-4g-lte-super-bowl-46/
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2012/01/Environment-Atmospheric-Sciences-Beijing-releases-pollution-data-US-figures-higher/
Rising CO2 levels have been found to disrupt a key brain receptor in fish, causing major changes in their behavior and sensory ability. The CO2 rise is "driving fish crazy" and the disruption to their central nervous system has been documented. If CO2 concentrations rise as predicted by the end of this century, it will interfere with the ability of fish to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, which would have serious consequences for the survival of fish:
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/braindamage.html
The "Asia 10" increased their share of R&D expenditures from 24% of the world's R&D spending in 1999 to 35% in 2009 while the R&D spending in the US went from 38% of the world's R&D spending in 1999 to 31% in 2009...it might not be a coincidence that the US's share of tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive service industries (business, financial, and communications) has been dropping quickly while the Asia 10's share has been increasing quickly. 40% of science and engineering employees in the US with Master's degrees and 50% of those with PhDs were born outside the US. Last year more than half of the PhDs working in the US were born in other countries...
http://www.infoworld.com/t/outsourcing/nsf-study-raises-serious-concerns-about-us-investment-in-technology-184749
The number of startups in the US started declining in 2005 and continued to decline through 2010, reflecting the state of the economy. However, startup activity jumped around the world in 2011, jumping nearly 60% in the US. More than 12% of US adults reported starting a business or running new businesses in 2011, where that number was below 8% in 2010. 400 million individuals around the world are currently engaged in entrepreneurship:
http://www.businessweek.com/small-business/startup-rates-surge-in-the-us-and-abroad-01202012.html
Scientists have developed a new way to create Terahertz waves that could be used to make better scanning devices, including devices similar to the Star Trek "tricorder" scanner:
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_20-1-2012-15-50-15
During the 3-week period between mid-December to early January the number of adults in the US who own a tablet nearly *doubled*, going from 10% to 19%, with the same near-doubling also applying to e-readers also going from 10% to 19% during those 3 weeks:
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/E-readers-and-tablets.aspx
Apple is expected to release 802.11ac devices to their numerous platforms this year, where the "Gigabit WiFI" will achieve much faster throughput than existing 802.11n products. It should be noted that Broadcom has been among the chip companies most aggressively supporting this "5G WiFi" and Broadcom is a major chip supplier to Apple:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/21/apple_working_to_adopt_80211ac_5g_gigabit_wifi_this_year_.html
Column on what RIM's new CEO needs to do to get BlackBerry smartphones to succeed in the market. RIM replaced their co-CEOs with their COO due to their struggles:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/3-things-rims-new-ceo-needs-execute-devices-carriers-messaging/2012-01-23
LightSquared's wholesale customer Simplexity announced that they will become a wholesale customer on Clearwire's mobile WiMAX nework and offer private-branded mobile broadband services to other MVNOs. Their deal with Clearwire is similar to the one they signed with LightSquared 4 months ago. LightSquared signed a lot of customers last year and I expect most or all of them to switch to Clearwire due to the difficulties that LightSquared is having getting their network approved:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/clearwire-nabs-lightsquared-customer-simplexity-mvne-partner/2012-01-23
Verizon spent more than $69 mil to upgrade its LTE network in Indianapolis to handle the massive crowd that will be attending the Super Bowl. They added 9 new antennas to the outside of the stadium along with a huge internal 3G/4G network and a WiFi infrastructure that allows for 28,000 simultaneous users. The nice thing for the people in Indianapolis is that Verizon is leaving behind just about all of that equipment after the Super Bowl is over...so the LTE speed for Verizon users in Indianapolis should be amazing:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/01/19/verizon-first-4g-lte-super-bowl-46/