January 2, 2004
The Economist: How the radio changed its spots.
Ultimately, smart radios could do away with the standards wars that bedevil the wireless industry and so irritate users. The technology would promote innovation by allowing all kinds of new standards to flourish, while concealing the underlying complexity from users who are currently mired in an alphabet soup of incompatible standards.
NY Times: Over and Out, by Cellphone.
This old-fashioned idea, called Direct Connect, helped Nextel become a major cellular player, and accounts for its preposterously low customer-turnover rate (less than 2 percent a year, Nextel says). All that success couldn't help but attract the attention of bigger players...
EE Times: Sensor nets top R&D list for Homeland Security agency.
As the pieces of its R&D agenda fall into place, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security expects to play a significant role in such areas as sensor networks. But a top R&D manager described his fledgling agency's mission as more “demand-pull” than “tech-push,” saying the department will not look to be a driver of technology or markets.
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