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Mobile Computing

Stanford Laptop Orchestra Performs Virtually with Beijing Musicians

5/1/2008

This week, Stanford University's Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) gave its first public concerts at the school. Founded this year by Department of Music assistant professor Ge Wang, the orchestra has 20 laptops played by human performers, as well as controllers and custom multi-channel speaker arrays.

Conference Focuses on 'The Mobile Future'

4/23/2008

Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast Campus and UC Berkeley's Fisher IT Center at the Haas School of Business partnered to hold a conference Tuesday of this week in Santa Clara, CA, on "The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives." CT talked with James H. Morris, dean of CMU West and a professor of computer science, about the unique conference that brings together both academics and industry leaders.

Johns Hopkins Goes Mobile on uPortal

4/23/2008

Johns Hopkins University has chosen Unicon to develop and deploy the school's new mobility theme based on uPortal, the open source enterprise portal for higher education. The mobility theme is designed to enhance the functionality and content of Johns Hopkins' campus portal to make it accessible by mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and PDAs.

Mobile Learning in Higher Education

4/23/2008

The term "Nomadic" has been used to describe current college students' culture of wireless and mobile connectedness in the sense that they are not "rooted" but incredibility flexible and fluid when it comes to their social connections and their virtual life culture. This refers not only to their uses of social networking tools but also to the reality that they are connected wirelessly in any situation and for any reason. They are essentially nomads when it comes to their life "space."

Conference Focuses on 'The Mobile Future'

4/22/2008

Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast Campus and UC Berkeley's Fisher IT Center at the Haas School of Business partnered to hold a conference Tuesday of this week in Santa Clara, CA, on "The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives." CT talked with James H. Morris, dean of CMU West and a professor of computer science, about the unique conference that brings together both academics and industry leaders.

BizTalk RFID Mobile Unveiled

4/18/2008

Microsoft Thursday described its new platform to help developers more easily create mobile applications that make use of radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology. The company unveiled BizTalk RFID Mobile, a solution designed to work with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and other Microsoft products.

Will the CafeScribe Acquisition Give a Boost to Electronic Textbooks?

4/16/2008

The digital textbook is one of those technologies that seem obvious but can take a long time to gain traction. In March, the concept got a boost when long-time textbook distributor and retailer Follet Corp. acquired Salt Lake City-based Fourteen40, and, along with it, CafeScribe, a Web site in its beta phase of offering electronic textbooks.

AT&T Calls on Higher Ed To Develop Mobile Apps

4/2/2008

AT&T this week kicked off its first-ever Big Mobile On Campus Challenge, a competition that calls on college and university faculty and students to develop apps for mobile devices (yes, including the iPhone). The top prize includes $10,000 and a trip to Educause 2008 for the winning individual or team.

Microsoft Unveils Mobile Solutions at CTIA

4/2/2008

Microsoft unveiled three additions to its mobile product lines at the CTIA Wireless 2008 event Tuesday, with much of the emphasis being placed on enabling custom mobile solutions for the enterprise.

Solano CC Implementing Trapeze Wireless Network

4/1/2008

Solano Community College in Northern California has selected products from Trapeze Networks for its wireless LAN infrastructure. The network serves 12,000 students and 700 faculty and staff in 20 buildings across three locations.

Utah State University Blankets Campus with Wireless Coverage

3/27/2008

Utah State University has blanketed its 400-acre campus with wireless coverage for 25,000 students, faculty and staff using wireless LAN equipment from Meru Networks. The Logan, UT school has installed 700 Meru wireless access points in 150 of 200 buildings on campus, including all academic facilities and residences. It has also installed the access points at a number of remote sites across the state.

Mesh Devices Get Smaller To Increase Wireless Reach

3/20/2008

An associate professor and a team of researchers at the Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering at Kyushu University in Japan have developed a prototype of a "micromini" wireless mesh station, under the MIMO-Mesh project. The technology, which is small enough to fit on a person's palm, acts as an access point to increase the reach of wireless networks without the need for additional infrastructure.

Microsoft and Adobe Agree on Mobile Flash Licensing

3/19/2008

Microsoft licensed two of Adobe's software products for use with smartphones that run Microsoft Windows Mobile operating systems, according to an announcement issued by Adobe Monday.

Microsoft and Aspect Team on Unified Communications

3/19/2008

Microsoft and Aspect Software Inc. this week initiated a global strategic alliance focused on better enhancing communications between contact centers and the broader enterprise. Under the agreement, Chelmsford, Mass.-based Aspect will integrate its contact center software into Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, a unified communications platform that supports instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP) and Web conferencing for the enterprise.

Vanderbilt Optimizes Web Site for iPhone

3/17/2008

Vanderbilt University has released a version of its homepage designed for the Apple iPhone. The site was created by the Vanderbilt News Service's Office of Web Communications, which is working to optimize the university Web site for other mobile devices.

Research Has Chilling Effect on Hard Drive Encryption

3/14/2008

Since you've encrypted the data on your laptop, it's safe even if your laptop is stolen, right? Wrong. Researchers at Princeton have demonstrated ways to hack your encrypted data using your own DRAMs against you.

Engineering Collaboration at Virginia Tech

3/12/2008

What does it take to convert a soon-to-retire engineering professor enamored of the chalkboard into someone who loves a technology tool? For Virginia Tech Alumni Distinguished Professor Charles Bostian, it took a collaborative teaching tool that he is using in engineering classes as large as 180 students.

Mobile Broadband Internet Use Growing Dramatically

3/11/2008

The number of computers using mobile broadband technology to access the Internet grew by 154 percent in the 4th quarter of 2007 versus the same period in 2006, according to comScore, a research firm. comScore, which measures online behavior, said the total number of computers going online through mobile broadband technology grew to 2.1 million from 854,000.

Apple To Add Exchange Support to iPhones

3/7/2008

Is Apple acknowledging the power and ubiquity of Microsoft's messaging platform? That might be a stretch, but the company has announced a forthcoming update to its iPhone 2.0 software, which will include built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync.

Wimba Unveils New Collaborative Messaging Tool

3/4/2008

At the inaugural Wimba Connect 2008 user conference Tuesday, Wimba unveiled its new Wimba Pronto, a collaborative instant messaging tool geared specifically toward education.

Sybase Updates Encryption Software for Windows Mobile Data

3/4/2008

One of the biggest risks enterprises face in rolling out PDAs and smart phones is data getting into the wrong hands if a device is lost or stolen. Sybase Inc.'s iAnywhere business unit today is rolling out software it said will help developers address that threat.

Apple Notebooks Get Faster Processors, Expanded Storage

2/27/2008

Apple Tuesday rolled out updated versions of its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook systems. The new models sport faster processors and expanded memory. The MacBook Pro models also add Apple's multi-touch trackpad technology.

Rave Upgrades Guardian Mobile Campus Safety System

2/22/2008

Rave Wireless this week introduced an upgraded version of Rave Guardian, a personal safety system designed for college and university students. The forthcoming update, due this spring, expands cell phone and carrier options at participating universities.

BSU Standardizes on Apple Hardware for Dual-Boot Initiative

12/11/2007

In the mixed computing environments common on university campuses, supporting multiple operating systems and myriad hardware configurations can be a nightmare for IT. In the past, one solution has been to go with a single platform. Great for IT. Not so great for users. But at Bemidji State University in Minnesota, they've come up with another solution....

Coming to Terms with a Crash-Proof Laptop

12/6/2007

I've got a problem. My new laptop doesn't crash or freeze up. I've been using it now for nearly three months, and it just doesn't crash. "How," you might ask, "does this present a problem?" Well, it's a seemingly small thing that has cascading ramifications on my behavior and expectations in ways you might not anticipate. I know that I didn't.