Very nice party last tuesday at the "Espace SFR", SFR’s flagship store on the Champs Elysées. SFR was lauching its 3G+ offer this week. Many people as usual when Fanny is inviting geeks & bloggers ! Olivier, Mry, Stéphanie with her new MP4 player were all there, check on the video !
Ikivo, the swedish mobile SVG company (I’ve talked a lot about TSVG & Ikivo, chek my 3GSM posts I have a few videos of their technologie), announced today via a press release the next version
of their Ikivo Animator authoring tool. The new version 2.0 will usher in support for new features from the emerging SVG Tiny 1.2 standard, such as audio and video, but also JSR 226 integration with NetBeans. Ikivo Animator 2.0 is expected to ship by the end of July and Ikivo are committed to update the tool further as the popularity of SVG Tiny 1.2 content develops. This is a great breakthrough as if the previous authoring tool was nice with the design thing, it completely lacked a nice IDE integration.
By integrating with NetBeans, this issue is now solved !
They are demonstrating it right now at CommunicAsia… I knew I had to go there…
Got to try it !
The new version of Mindstorm Lego called “NXT” will be officially sold in next August. Some lucky beta-testerd had the opportunity to test drive it already. The new bricks now include a set of sensors and even feature Bluetooth connectivity. This is a communicatin object, Matin Varsavsky would call that a Web2.0 gadget 
.The firmware is announced to be open sourced… I guess this will be more than exciting! it is an imagination challenge for most hackers (remember what happened with Linkys WRT: great hardware, opensource software : huge commercial success !) !
Check the unofficial blog for all the applications some have already started building !
The goal of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is to supply a software platform for the robotics community that can be used across a wide variety of hardware, applicable to a wide audience of users, and development of a wide variety of applications. As a platform, our intent is also to enable a third parties to supply support for new hardware, technologies, and tools, just as Microsoft Windows provides a platform for others to bring their products and technologies to the community of PC users.
check the video of the CEO of the Robotics Studio along with their blog. On the video you can see a demonstration of the integration of the robotics studio with the latest Lego Mindstorm NXT.
The new version of Mindstorm Lego called “NXT” will be officially sold in next August. Some lucky beta-testerd had the opportunity to test drive it already. The new bricks now include a set of sensors and even feature Bluetooth connectivity. This is a communicatin object, Matin Varsavsky would call that a Web2.0 gadget .The firmware is announced to be open sourced… I guess this will be more than exciting! it is an imagination challenge for most hackers (remember what happened with Linkys WRT: great hardware, opensource software : huge commercial success !) !
Check the unofficial blog for all the applications some have already started building !
The goal of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is to supply a software platform for the robotics community that can be used across a wide variety of hardware, applicable to a wide audience of users, and development of a wide variety of applications. As a platform, our intent is also to enable a third parties to supply support for new hardware, technologies, and tools, just as Microsoft Windows provides a platform for others to bring their products and technologies to the community of PC users.
check the video of the CEO of the Robotics Studio along with their blog. On the video you can see a demonstration of the integration of the robotics studio with the latest Lego Mindstorm NXT.
Portland, Oregon and Houston, Texas, are planning to cut costs by using city-wide WiFi “clouds” instead of cellular networks to connect “electronic parking meters”, reports GovTech Magazine.
One especially promising area is parking, where the wireless network movement is joining a new generation of high-tech meters to improve data gathering and increase revenue.
“We see parking as an important part of the public-service tier of services a Wi-Fi network could improve, along with traffic, maintenance and field inspectors,” said Houston CIO Richard Lewis, adding that this summer, Houston will become the first major U.S. city to manage its parking meters over a wireless network.
During the past decade, Lewis said, the city’s parking-meter systems had not kept pace with growth in the downtown area, which included new sports arenas and a convention center hotel.
“We had all these major investments in downtown, but we didn’t have enough parking, and we didn’t have parking meters that could take credit cards,” he said. “So we began to look at systems that took credit cards and had pay-and-display technology.”
Seven vendors responded to the RFP, which was issued in 2004, said Liliana Rambo, assistant director of the city’s Department of Parking Management, describing the parking system as a turnkey system the city will be solely responsible for operating. The software will do instant credit card approval online, and the city’s back-office operations will handle all credit card processing.
The City Council approved a $15 million deal with Affiliated Computer Services in early April 2006 for a network of 1,500 multiple-space meters — 750 of which will be installed this summer — to handle 2,300 downtown parking spaces.
The other 750 will be deployed over the next five years. The meters will be attached to a 60-node mesh network built by the city, said Rambo.
The city’s wireless network promises several benefits. First, she said, the city will save money by spending $300,000 to build its own network rather than paying a private vendor $125,000 per year for access to its network.
“Within three years we will have paid less, and we will own the network,” she said.
Houston wants to replace their 800,000 meters with some 1500 “smart meters”. Seven vendors, ACS, Cale Systems, Clancy Services, Parkeon, Rhino and SGR Controls competed for the contract.
Portland has some 1,000 Electronic Parking Meters and also plan to save money using WiFi (at $12/month). Currently they pay some $35/mo in fees. That includes the wireless CPDP connection (updated several times daily), along with additional fees from Visa for non real-time service. So real-time WiFi connections might save $20/month per meter or $20,000/month or about $240,000/year reports dailywireless.org.
Moreover, there’s been a lot of buzz recelntly about services that would allow you to pre-book your parking place anywhere in the city, this kind of projects would require thousands of sensors and greatly benefit from this kind of infrastructures.
Technorati Tags: wifi, municipality, parking
In Los Angeles, a test of 5 pounds-heavy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV aka drones) is under process. Equipped with a GPS & a camere, they can fly at speeds up to 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour for 70 minutes and cost between 25,000 and 30,000 dollars. AFP summarizes that :
Police say the drone, called the SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions. “This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone,” said Commander Sid Heal, head of the Technology Exploration Project of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “The ideal outcome for us is when this technology becomes instrumental in saving lives.”The SkySeer would also be a helpful tool to nab burglary suspects on rooftops and to chase down suspects fleeing on foot. The plane collapses and can fit into a shoulder pack smaller than a golf bag. Its portability and ease of assembly could be a big advantage for law enforcement. “It’s basically a high-tech kite that field officers could set up in a matter of minutes,” said Heal.
Read the charateristics of the product and the press kit from skyseer’s website, it’s impressive! I’m curious about which RF technology it’s using for being radio-commanded.
Portland, Oregon and Houston, Texas, are planning to cut costs by using city-wide WiFi “clouds” instead of cellular networks to connect “electronic parking meters”, reports GovTech Magazine.
One especially promising area is parking, where the wireless network movement is joining a new generation of high-tech meters to improve data gathering and increase revenue.
“We see parking as an important part of the public-service tier of services a Wi-Fi network could improve, along with traffic, maintenance and field inspectors,” said Houston CIO Richard Lewis, adding that this summer, Houston will become the first major U.S. city to manage its parking meters over a wireless network.
During the past decade, Lewis said, the city’s parking-meter systems had not kept pace with growth in the downtown area, which included new sports arenas and a convention center hotel.
“We had all these major investments in downtown, but we didn’t have enough parking, and we didn’t have parking meters that could take credit cards,” he said. “So we began to look at systems that took credit cards and had pay-and-display technology.”
Seven vendors responded to the RFP, which was issued in 2004, said Liliana Rambo, assistant director of the city’s Department of Parking Management, describing the parking system as a turnkey system the city will be solely responsible for operating. The software will do instant credit card approval online, and the city’s back-office operations will handle all credit card processing.
The City Council approved a $15 million deal with Affiliated Computer Services in early April 2006 for a network of 1,500 multiple-space meters — 750 of which will be installed this summer — to handle 2,300 downtown parking spaces.
The other 750 will be deployed over the next five years. The meters will be attached to a 60-node mesh network built by the city, said Rambo.
The city’s wireless network promises several benefits. First, she said, the city will save money by spending $300,000 to build its own network rather than paying a private vendor $125,000 per year for access to its network.
“Within three years we will have paid less, and we will own the network,” she said.
Houston wants to replace their 800,000 meters with some 1500 “smart meters”. Seven vendors, ACS, Cale Systems, Clancy Services, Parkeon, Rhino and SGR Controls competed for the contract.
Portland has some 1,000 Electronic Parking Meters and also plan to save money using WiFi (at $12/month). Currently they pay some $35/mo in fees. That includes the wireless CPDP connection (updated several times daily), along with additional fees from Visa for non real-time service. So real-time WiFi connections might save $20/month per meter or $20,000/month or about $240,000/year reports dailywireless.org.
Moreover, there’s been a lot of buzz recelntly about services that would allow you to pre-book your parking place anywhere in the city, this kind of projects would require thousands of sensors and greatly benefit from this kind of infrastructures.
Technorati Tags: wifi, municipality, parking
Mobitrends is my personal blog-note about stuff that either matter or just catch my attention.
I'm Alexander Casassovici, a serial entrepreneur with a strong focus on the mobile and connected devices industry and a passion for gadgets and virtual worlds.
