Pervasive networking

No, not perverse. Pervasive. The Internet is available wherever phones are available. Increasingly, wireless networks are becoming available. Cellular telephone technology reaches something like 90% of the population, although that still leaves large land areas without coverage. Wireless Internet access is available in businesses and, in a few cases, throughout towns. I spoke with the CEO of Phantom Fiber, Jeff Halloran to ask where this technology is going.

Our discussion ranged from wireless technology in urban centers and the promise of wireless technology in small towns and rural areas to privacy and security concerns. We also talked about the challenge of providing content for handheld devices and the additional challenge of entering data on these small devices.

The interview is more than 15 minutes long and this illustrates an advantage of podcasting. I could never have used an interview this long on radio. At most, we would have been able to use 3 minutes of the interview.

Phantom Fiber Corporation is a developer of wireless platform software that enables its customers to deliver high-performance applications across global communications networks to mobile users who use a wide array of wireless devices, including PDAs and programmable cell phones.

The interview is part of the podcast (see information near the top of the page to obtain the podcast, which will be available starting on Sunday morning, July 23.)

Nerdly News

The MPod? Microsoft makes it official

Microsoft announced last Friday that it will release a music and entertainment player before the end of the year. No, it won't be called the MPod or the mPod. It's as far from Apple as it can get in the alphabet -- "Zune", which presumably rhymes with "dune" as in "sand dune". Microsoft is a few years late to the party that has been dominated by Apple, although other companies have micro shares of the market segment.

Apple has more than 50% of the market, but when Microsoft released its first version of the word processor, Wordperfect had more than 50% of that market.

Microsoft has been shopping the idea to record companies for several months and record company executives say that the company is talking about a device that will allow wireless music and video downloads. The company also plans to create a music store, which is where the profits will be.

Good news and bad for Advanced Micro Devices

AMD, the #2 maker of personal computer processors says profits were up in the 2nd quarter, but sales declined. AMD, in competing with Intel cut prices.

Net income was up more than $77 million to nearly $89 million, but revenue was off by 3.5%.

Things aren't any better at Intel, though. Intel reported its biggest profit drop in more than 4 years, in part because Intel cut prices to meet AMD's challenge.

Annoying legal disclaimer

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