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Sprint lights up WiMAX in NC, Chicago and Dallas, launches subsidized Mini 10

by Darren Murph posted Nov 2nd 2009 at 9:44AM

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Or better yet, when a leaked roadmap doesn't get delayed in the slightest? After months upon months of waiting, broadband-lovin' citizens in the North Carolina Triangle and Triad will be celebrating alongside DFW residents and Chicago natives as Sprint's 4G WiMAX service rolls into town. As of right now (that's today, junior), consumers in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point and Charlotte, NC; Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas and Chicago, Illinois can roll into a Sprint store and snag a U300 3G / 4G WWAN modem on a $69.99 monthly data plan. We're told that San Antonio and Austin will get lit up later this month, while Honolulu and Maui, Hawaii; Salem, Oregon and Seattle, Washington will join the fray before 2010. Oh, and did we mention that Palm's favorite carrier finally snagged itself a WWAN-equipped netbook? 'Cause the Dell Mini 10 is available starting today for $199.99 at select Sprint stores in the metropolitan Baltimore area.

Update: Looks like Sprint changed "Baltimore" to "Bay Area." Odd.

Read - Sprint WiMAX in the Triangle
Read - Sprint WiMAX in the Triad
Read - Sprint WiMAX in Charlotte, NC
Read - Sprint WiMAX in Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
Read - Sprint WiMAX in Chicago, IL
Read - Sprint's first netbook is Dell Mini 10

Clearwire and Sprint slinging WiMAX to NC, HI and TX in November / December

by Darren Murph posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 4:27PM

We knew Clearwire would be snaking its 4G services to select markets in North Carolina, Hawaii and Texas before the year's end, but it's always reassuring to hear a corporation come right out and affirm that those leaked dates are still solid. What's interesting about the latest announcement is that both Clearwire and Sprint will be offering 4G in these same cities under their own brands, even though the signals and towers used will be the same. Starting next month, WiMAX will officially land in Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina (Charlotte is already lit up, despite these companies' claims) and Austin; Dallas/Fort Worth; San Antonio, Texas. In December, the companies will get things fired up in Honolulu and Maui, two areas where we're certain techs from Sprint / Clearwire are more than eager to go "test things out." So, now that this has all panned out, how's about another leak sheet for 2010 rollouts?

Clearwire goes live with WiMAX service in ten new markets

by Darren Murph posted Sep 2nd 2009 at 7:24AM

Just as we expected, Clearwire has lit up its CLEAR WiMAX services in ten new markets. Beginning today, those with a thirst for ultra-speedy mobile broadband can sink their teeth into those delicious 4G airwaves so long as you call one of the following locales home: Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Waco and Wichita Falls, Texas; Bellingham, Wash; or Boise, Idaho. We fully expect a smattering of other markets to see similar launches as the Fall progresses, but if you just can't wait, well -- there's always vacation.

Sprint officially announces 17 more WiMAX markets, mostly in Texas

by Nilay Patel posted Aug 11th 2009 at 5:26PM

What's that old saying? "Where Clearwire goes, Sprint is sure to follow (and resell)?" Something like that. Anyway, we'd gotten confirmation of Clearwire's next planned expansion last week, and Sprint just followed up with word that it'll also offer service in most of those same cities. As you'd expect, Sprint's list is just as Texas-heavy as Clearwire's -- San Antonio and Midland-Odessa, get ready to party -- but there's a couple cities on there that were just rumored or we hadn't heard about, like Raleigh, N.C. and Maui. As for New York, Boston, D.C., Houston, and San Francisco, well, Sprint says WiMAX is coming in 2010, but won't commit to a date -- so we guess we'll see all of you down in Lubbock this winter. Full list after the break.

[Via PhoneScoop]

Continue reading Sprint officially announces 17 more WiMAX markets, mostly in Texas

Leaked Sprint WiMAX roadmap names new cities for 2009 rollout

by Ross Miller posted Aug 1st 2009 at 5:35PM

Well, what do we have here? One of our readers sent us a screenshot from Sprint's Sales Portal that included the above roadmap for its WiMAX rollout this year. A number of the yet-to-be-launched cities we've already heard about -- Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Charlotte -- but to the best of our knowledge, the rest of them are brand new entries. Additionally, Baltimore residents can look forward to some sort of coverage update in the fourth quarter. We'd be lying if we said we weren't jealous that Salem (population 3,000) and Milledgeville (population 19,000) are getting the wireless network before most of us on staff, but the service has to start somewhere, right? No indication here of 2010 plans, but last we heard that included Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Update: As tipster Carlos points out, Clearwire's website already has some coverage maps for some of the cities listed in the third quarter, as well as some markets not listed here.

Time Warner Cable reselling WiMAX later this year in Charlotte, Dallas, and two mystery markets

by Ross Miller posted Jul 30th 2009 at 7:27PM

It's not really that surprising given its investment in Clearwire, but Time Warner Cable is now ready to join in on the WiMAX fun. The company plans to resell the mobile broadband in four US cities by the end of the year, but so far it's only revealed two of them: Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dallas, Texas. Meanwhile, cable competitor Comcast has already opened up its WiMAX shop in Portland, Oregon, and plans to hit Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia by the end of this year. No word on prices, but we don't expect it to stray far from the current $20 to $50 monthly fees. We're also a bit in the dark as to when we can expect the rollout this year, so if you're in one of those two markets and have a strong itch for 4G wireless, better start filling up that piggy bank now, just to be safe.

Baryonyx to build largest offshore wind farms in the US, power massive data centers

by Darren Murph posted Jul 23rd 2009 at 8:27AM

Uh oh Mr. Pickens -- looks like you've got some competition down in Texas. With the aforesaid energy baron scraping plans to plant 687 massive wind turbines in Texas' panhandle, Baryonyx has stepped in to do the honors via a slightly different project. Just this past week, Baryonyx won a bid to create a pair of sizable offshore wind farms that Jerry Patterson -- Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office -- says "could be the biggest offshore wind farms in the nation." Additionally, another lease was granted for a prospective wind energy development in the panhandle, and now the company is eager to get going on the green energy gigs. The best part of this whole plan involves that actual purpose of the turbines; aside from providing juice for grids, they'll also be used to energize forthcoming Tier 4 server farms, with a minimum of 750 megawatts of power being pumped to two coastal areas all the while. Ma Earth would be proud.

[Via CNET]

Read - Baryonyx announcement [PDF]
Read - Patterson announcement [PDF]

Tsera thinks it owns the touchpad, sues pretty much everyone to prove it

by Darren Murph posted Jul 19th 2009 at 10:20AM

Do you have any idea where you head when you'd like to sue everyone on the face of the planet, make yourself look like a Class-A fool and get a mention right here? The Eastern District of Texas (Tyler) District court, that's where. The freshest meshuggeneh to head on down there and start trouble is Tsera, who's claiming that Apple, Microsoft, LG, Philips, Bang & Olufsen, iriver, Coby, Cowon and even Meizu are violating a patent that it owns. Said patent is titled "Methods and apparatus for controlling a portable electronic device using a touchpad," and evidently each of the aforesaid outfits have failed to pay Tsera for using its technology. Before you get all bent out of shape, you should realize that this case -- in all likelihood -- will simply be tossed out or settled away from the courtroom, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Tsera's never gonna be satisfied. Or taken seriously.

[Via The Register]

T. Boone Pickens scouting new home for $2 billion wind farm

by Darren Murph posted Jul 8th 2009 at 3:04PM

It's true that everything really is more colossal in Texas, but unfortunately, it seems as if the planet's largest wind farm won't be adding to the collection. Just over a year after energy baron T. Boone Pickens announced plans to plant 687 gigantic wind turbines in Texas' panhandle, he's now scraping those intentions and actively looking for a new location to energize. The problem lies in the difficulty of getting 4,000 megawatts of power from Texas to the power distribution system, and now he's being forced to find a massive plot of land that's closer to said channels. There's no word yet on where Mr. Pickens is looking, but considering that even his garage isn't large enough to house the turbines (which have already been ordered, mind you), we'd guess that he'll settle on a new tract in short order.

Sharp adds cyan and yellow to its RGB displays, laughs scornfully at magenta

by Tim Stevens posted May 29th 2009 at 9:21AM

Sharp is taking some cues from the nearly dearly departed print publishing world for its next line of LCDs, adding two colors to the typical RGB gamut. Cyan and yellow, half of the CMYK spread that makes your Sunday Garfield sketch pop, are going to be added to the company's displays to make up what it's dubbing "Multi-Primary-Color Technology." The tech is said to be able to reproduce 99 percent of all colors able to be perceived by the human eye -- because apparently 1.7 billion colors from a traditional LCD wasn't enough. The displays will be on display at the Society for Information Display Symposium in San Antonio starting next week. So, lucky Texans, prepare to get your cone cells massaged.

UT Austin creates world's highest resolution tiled display: Stallion

by Darren Murph posted Nov 23rd 2008 at 10:59AM

If you thought 220 million pixels was a lot, well, you'd be right. But given how things are in Texas relative to everything else, we'd say there's no denying that 307 million pixels is indeed a lot more. Dubbed the world's highest resolution tiled display, Stallion has just been unveiled by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin. Designed for studying diminutive cells and checking out old game footage, the system boasts 75 Dell 30-inch LCDs, each of which has a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600. It also packs 36GB of graphics memory, 108GB of system memory and 100 processing cores. And just think -- if the Longhorns could get that one game back against the Red Raiders, every fan within a 10-mile radius of Austin could see their team in the championship game on this thing.

[Via KanYeWest Blog]

Plano, TX gripes to FCC after police radio signals disrupt sprinklers

by Darren Murph posted Aug 20th 2008 at 11:41PM

We've seen the boys and girls in blue disturb the peace on occasion, but this is just downright bizarre. It's bruited that the city of Plano, Texas has complained to the FCC about a powerful new police communications system that's being testing in Cedar Hill, DeSoto and Duncanville. The signals have the ability to reach some 30 miles away, and they're driving the radio-controlled sprinklers that Plano uses at parks and road medians absolutely crazy. The whole ordeal has made for some pretty interesting conversation amongst those involved, with one Tim Smith, managing director of the Southwest Regional Communications Center, asserting: "Which comes first: watering plants or protecting police and fire?" If anyone catches grown men fighting about this, do us a favor and send in the video.

[Thanks, Travis]

Texas wind power initiative to blow other states away

by Darren Murph posted Jul 18th 2008 at 6:16AM

Oh sure, Rock Port, Missouri managed to snag the title of being "100% wind powered," but Texas' new plan will make the Show Me state's gusty initiatives look awfully weak. Officials at the Public Utility Commission recently okayed a plan to "build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to bring pollution-free energy from West Texas to urban areas." The ginormous Lone Star state is already the nation's leader in wind power, but when said plan is fully implemented (pending final approval), it'll produce more wind energy than the next closest 14 states combined. Granted, customers will be paying a touch more ($4 per month is the current estimate) for all this clean energy, but pundits assert that the cost is minor when looking at just how much this will help out Mother Earth. Look for everything to go live in four to five years, barring any unforeseen setbacks.

[Thanks, Adam]

AT&T moves HQ to Dallas from San Antonio

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 27th 2008 at 8:54PM

What's that, you didn't know AT&T was based in Texas? Yeah, ever since all those mergers (re-)created AT&T, its HQ has been in the former SBC offices in San Antonio, which is why certain services tend to roll out there first. It looks like the Alamo City isn't quite big enough for Ma Bell, though -- it's just announced that it's moving its corporate headquarters to Dallas in order to be closer to the airport. Yes, the airport. Dallas-Fort Worth Internation is country's third-largest airport, and AT&T wants travel to and from HQ to be more convenient and cost-effective. AT&T also has about 1,300 different suppliers and vendors in the Dallas area who employ some 45,000 people, so moving closer to them seems like a no-brainer. The company's Telecom Operations unit is staying put, however, so only about 700 of the 6,000 workers currently in San Antonio will be schlepping across the state. The transition should be completed within the year -- here's hoping some of those cost savings make their way down to us.

Nintendo ordered to pay $21 million to patent troll

by Thomas Ricker posted May 15th 2008 at 6:02AM

Remember Anascape Ltd, the little "gaming company" that sued Microsoft and Nintendo back in 2006 for controller patent infringement? Well, it's payday to the tune of $21 million after a jury found Nintendo's Wii Classic, WaveBird, and Gamecube controller designs all guilty of violating Anascape's patents. Nintendo will appeal naturally while Microsoft settled the case before the matter ever went to trial. Now go ahead and Google Anascape with the challenge of finding a single service or product offering. Oh, did we mention that they are based in the patent-lawsuit friendly state of Tejas? Patent Trolls? Oh, you betcha.

Anascape... there is none.