Recent US Patent Publications as co-inventor

Link: Details are available here.

Mobile Phone Chargers will become Universal

Bowing to a request from the European Commission, 10 major device manufacturers have agreed to adopt a universal battery-charging design for their mobile handsets. Though the agreement only applies to mobile-device sales within the member states of the European Union, the standard is expected to have a far wider impact since the mobile-device market is essentially global.
Phone-charger compatibility will make life much simpler for consumers, noted EU Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen. "They will be able to charge mobile phones anywhere from the new common charger," Verheugen said. "This also means considerably less electronic waste, because people will no longer have to throw away chargers when buying new phones."

Eliminating Waste

Today's plethora of external power supplies for mobile phones means there are many chargers that can only interface with a particular handset. Any user buying a replacement handset today must get a new charger -- even though the charger for the previous phone may be in perfect condition.

According to the EC, the disposal of old chargers generates several thousand tons of waste each year. Moreover, consumers are paying for an accessory they shouldn't have to replace.

Beginning in 2010, consumers will be able to charge mobile phones from any external power supply compatible with the new common charger specs. Additionally, the agreement will protect consumers from unsafe operations, which can occur if an incompatible external power supply is used to charge a phone.

A new memorandum of understanding governing the changes has been signed by representatives of Apple, LG Electronics, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Texas Instruments. Verheugen said he was very pleased with the self-regulation agreement. "As a result, the commission does not consider it necessary to introduce legislation," he said.

Bing - New Search Engine

Bing is out....try using it!! Images look cool.

First commercial 4G base station being tested in Sweden

The world's first radio base station in a commercial 4G network has been deployed in Stockholm, Sweden. Or at least that's what the Swedish national incumbent telecommunications operator Telia has announced.

Telia is among a handful of mobile operators worldwide building next-generation networks for mobile broadband with 4G or LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology. The largest is Verizon, identified as a world leader by Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg.

"The U.S. is back in the driver's seat and Verizon has taken the lead in rolling out LTE," 

Though Telia says it has connected the 4G base station to its IP network and to a test network belonging to Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson, commercial launch of the network is not expected until 2010, when modems will be available.

Expected speeds are "10 times faster than the speeds customers enjoy today with mobile broadband in 3G networks," according to Telia.

That would mean between 60 megabits and 100 megabits per second, given that today's 3G networks with HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology can attain 6Mbps to 10Mbps, depending on the version deployed.

One reason why Verizon is aggressively planning for a 4G network is that its 3G network, based on EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology, doesn't match the speeds possible in HSPA networks belonging to the GSM/WCDMA family, used by operators such as Telia and AT&T. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications, while WCDMA is short for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access.

Ericsson: Next-gen base station ready for deployments

BOSTON—Ericsson's (NasdaqGS: ERIC) long-awaited universal base station is out of the lab and in the field. Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) will be among the first to receive the new multi-standard platform, deploying it in its forthcoming long-term evolution (LTE) network, but Ericsson executives revealed that the kit is already deployed in an existing operator's high-speed packet access (HSPA) deployment, though they did not reveal whose.

Unveiled at Mobile World Congress in 2008, the RBS 6000 is Ericsson's first software-upgradable base station, supporting GSM, GPRS/EDGE, Wideband CDMA and eventually LTE. The platform consists of a single cabinet, sporting common components to all of the radio standards. The selected radio baseband technology is loaded into the box as a software module, either running on its own as a dedicated GSM or UMTS base station or concurrently with other radio standards.

Boston Dynamics-designed RiSE V3 robot climbs poles

The folks at Boston Dynamics have already made quite a name for themselves in the world of creepy robotics, but it looks like they're not ones to keep all their know-how to themselves, and they've now lent the University of Pennsylvania's Kod*lab a hand with this new RiSE V3 pole-climbing robot. That, as you've no doubt surmised, is a followup to RiSE V1 and V2, which were developed without the help of Boston Dynamics and were more suited to climbing flat surfaces than poles. In addition to a vastly different leg mechanism, this latest model also makes use of some brushless DC motors that increase the power density to let it climb poles at rates up to 22cm per second, which the researchers say make it well-suited for a wide range of tasks. As you can see for yourself in the video after the break, the bot mostly seems to work remarkably well, although it's obviously not quite ready to tackle critical jobs all by itself just yet.

Google Founder and EECS Alumnus Larry Page Delivers Commencement Speech

Larry Page received his undergraduate degree in computer engineering in 1995. Watch the video, view some photos and read the highlights of his speech. Read article.  [Video ]