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In traditional short-haul microwave transmission (that is, line-of-sight microwave transmissions operating in the 18 GHz and 23 GHz radio bands),RF design engineers typically are concerned with signal aspects such as fade margins, signal reflections, multipath signals, and so forth. Like an accountant seeking to balance a financial spreadsheet, an RF design engineer normally creates an RF budget table, expressed in decibels (dB), in order to establish a wireless design. Aspects like transmit power and antenna gain are registered in the assets (or plus) column, and free space attenuation, antenna alignment, and atmospheric losses are noted in the liabilities (or minus) column. The goal is to achieve a positive net signal strength adequate to support the wireless path(s) called for in the design.

In addition to voice connectivity, digital cellular wireless networks such as GSM and its enhancement, GSM-EDGE, can now provide increased data speeds up to a (theoretical) limit of 384ﾠKbps. Third generation mobile networks, such as CDMA2000 and WCDMA or UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Standards) and TD-SCDMA (China only) are currently being deployed worldwide. These systems offer services such as video streaming, Internet browsing and, by using a technique called High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), they can in theory deliver downlink speeds up to 14,4 Mbps.

At three separate industry events last week, engineers said they are gearing up to deliver in 2011 chips that can handle serial data streams running at 25 Gbits/second to drive next-generation 100 and 400 Gbit/second networks. But they say it's still a mystery how—or if—they can deliver follow-on components for the terabit networks today's Internet data centers are already demanding. The kinds of jobs required to run today's Web 2.0 services such as Google and Facebook can completely overwhelm current 10 Gbit/s Ethernet links in the warehouse-sized data centers those companies use. Such data centers could use hundreds of 100 Gbit/s Ethernet links today, although standards for such networks are still being completed.

Related to the strong demands for virtualization technology, network I/O virtualization has recently become a hot topic and is one of the key topics being discussed at the upcoming Multicore Expo @ ESC. In fact, analyst firm IDC, in a recent white paper titled "Optimizing I/O Virtualization: Preparing the Data Center for Next-Generation Applications", stated that "If I/O is not sufficient, then it could limit all the gains brought about by the virtualization process."

Synopsys, Inc., has unveiled the DesignWare Ethernet Quality-of-Service (QoS) Controller IP which implements the new IEEE specifications for audio video bridging (AVB) features. The DesignWare Ethernet IP solution supports the new IEEE 802.1AS and 802.1-Qav version D6.0 specifications. These specifications enable efficient networking of streaming audio video (AV) applications through IEEE 802.1 networks found in consumer electronics, automotive AV and professional sound system products. Synopsys' DesignWare Ethernet QoS Controller, which supports 10/100/1G data transfer speeds, allows designers to develop system-on-chips (SoCs) that deliver time-synchronized, low-latency audio and video over Ethernet networks with exceptional quality-of-service while retaining compatibility with legacy networks.

CPU clock speeds have remained essentially constant over the last several years, resulting in the number of CPU's used in high-end systems rapidly increasing to keep up with the performance boosts expected by Moore's law. System size on the Top500 list has changed rapidly, and, in November 2009, the top ten systems averaged 134,893 cores, with five systems larger than 100,000 cores. This rapid increase of system size and the associated increase in the number of compute elements used in a single user job increase the urgency of dealing with system characteristics that impede application scalability.

Experimental microbial fuel cells could turn bacteria into batteries that generate electricity from biomass. The key to this technology is the ability of bacteria to transfer electrons to their surroundings—for example, to the anode of a microbial fuel cell. But if the organisms have to be in direct contact with the anode, such devices would have to have extremely large surface areas. Researchers from Aarhus University, in Denmark, report today in the journal Nature that bacteria appear to conduct electricity while separated by several millimeters, at least a thousand times as far apart than previously demonstrated. The naturally occurring electric currents, if confirmed, would allow bacteria spaced at least 12 millimeters apart to communicate electrically. The discovery might lead to new paths to treating infection and a better understanding of microbial ecosystems.

In this project we want to analyze and test the idea of incorporating a network of robots (robots, intelligent sensors, devices and communications) in order to improve life quality in urban areas. The URUS project is focused in designing a network of robots that in a cooperative way interact with human beings and the environment for tasks of assistance, transportation of goods, and surveillance in urban areas. Specifically, our objective is to design and develop a cognitive network robot architecture that integrates cooperating urban robots, intelligent sensors, intelligent devices and communications.

May 13, 2011: Okay, try to keep up! The Transporter Team! Dark Matter Ship Designs! Movement on the Anime Front! Stargate: SG-1 Season 6 Memories! Notes on Network Notes! And I Answer Your Stargate Questions!

In separate keynote addresses in Silicon Valley, two Internet pioneers gave different takes on the future of the network of networks Monday (May 24). Vint Cerf, co-developer of the Net's TCP/IP protocol, shared his thoughts with developers of the smart electric grid, seen as a massive embedded extension to the Internet. Larry Roberts, who helped launch the forerunner of the Internet, explained his ideas for remedying the growing congestion that plagues the Web today. Smart grid developers can learn from the lessons of the Internet, Cerf told attendees at Connectivity Week here. They should follow the model of the Net in creating a layered architecture with plenty of room for flexibility in areas that cannot be anticipated today, he said in a keynote at Connectivity Week.

It’s hard enough to set up a reliable wireless network at home on Earth, let alone space. I harbor a personal grudge against my two-foot-thick 19th century brick/plaster wifi-killing walls and don’t get me started with my router or my ISP. So how does NASA connect with the ISS 300 to 400 kilometers above the Earth travelling at nearly 28000 km/h? In this case, engineers took advantage of the station’s existing communication link, which relies on the Ku radio band. The Ku band is the most common portion of the frequency spectrum used for satellite communication and is not reserved for restricted use. Among the companies that use the Ku band for commercial purposes are satellite internet providers and news networks broadcasting on satellite from remote locations.

The MAX13171E along with the MAX13173E/ MAX13175E, form a complete pin-selectable data terminal equipment (DTE) or data communication equipment (DCE) interface port that support the V.28 (RS-232), V.10/V.11 (RS-449/V.36, RS-530, RS-530A, X.21), and V.35 protocols. The MAX13171E transceivers carry the high-speed clock and data signals, while the MAX13173E transceivers carry the control signals. The MAX13171E can be terminated by the MAX13175E pin-selectable resistor termination network. The MAX13175E contains six pin-selectable, multiprotocol cable termination networks.

aims at developing swarms of flying robots that can be deployed in disaster areas to rapidly create communication networks for rescuers. Flying robots are interesting for such applications because they are fast, can easily overcome difficult terrain, and benefit from line-of-sight communication.

When the Arduino Duemilanove microcontroller appeared in 2005, it featured a set of female pin headers exposing most of the pins of the ATmega168 for easy hacking and for connecting accessory boards known as 'Shields'. The purpose of a shield is to provide new plug-and-play functionality to the host microcontroller, such as circuit prototyping, motion control, sensor integration, network and radio communication, or gaming interfaces, without worrying too much about the hardware implementation details. Seven years after the birth of the original Arduino, new shields keep coming out and are being cataloged on http://shieldlist.org/, a testament to the versatility of the design. It is also simple to build a DIY shield when nothing out there will meet your needs or when you want to understand how the shield concept works from the ground up.

Engineers aim to deliver within a year a broad suite of standards needed to build smart electric grids. They reported on their stepwise progress at the end of Connectivity Week here. Beyond the standards, the industry needs to create new regulations and business models and show consumers the benefits of a smart grid to make the transition to a digital, networked grid happen, said attendees and presenters at the event. The good news is the standards are underway.

A new network design that avoids the need to convert optical signals into electrical ones could boost capacity while reducing power consumption.

Cellphone carriers are racing this year to implement 4G wireless networks so that future smartphones will have access to a fire hose of data. But the towers and infrastructure the carriers are putting in place may ultimately facilitate as many connections with appliances and electric meters as they do downloads of movies and music. The electricity grid, in other words, may be jumping from no G to 4G—and rather soon, according to analysts.

Pico Computing has developed a signal processing library which is made up of a set of FPGA firmware components and related tools that speed the development and deployment of advanced video and network analytics for security, defense and aerospace applications.The library, which includes flexible components for signal analysis, feature detection, scale-space generation, correlation and filtering, has been validated and optimized for Pico Computing platforms based on the latest-generation Xilinx Virtex-5 and Virtex-6 FPGA devices.

Getting oil out of water isn’t that hard, on principle. What is hard is getting a huge amount of oil out of an even huger amount of water. If you think about it, this is really a perfect task for a swarm of robots, since it’s simple and repeatable and just needs to be done over and over (and over and over and over) again. With this in mind, MIT’s Senseable City Lab has created Seaswarm, a swarm of networked oil spill cleanup robots: