Mobifun’s Weblog

We all know that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a major impact on the Earth climate. But now, chemists at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have developed “a device that can capture energy from the sun, convert it to electrical energy and split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen.” As carbon monoxide can easily be converted to liquid fuel, this prototype device kills two birds with one stone: it helps saving fuel while reducing the concentration of a greenhouse gas.

If you live in Rapid City, South Dakota, and if you bring one of your old rings to a jewelry shop for cleaning, it’s highly possible that the job might be done by a robotic jeweler. An engineer at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) has built and brought to market a robotic system which can pick up a ring, polish and grind the ring, and replace the ring in its original tray before picking up the next ring. And of course, it’s able to do this faster than a human being: it can function about three times faster than a human operator when configured as a grinder and about four times faster when configured as a pre-polisher.

Debate grows over 700MHz auction
A group of 21 small and medium sized wireless and wireline carriers as well as state agencies are concerned that the FCC plan to favor large geographic wireless licenses over small ones during the 700 MHz auction in the fall. Alltel, Aloha Partners, Dobson, Leap Wireless, MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular and the Rural Cellular Association are among the concerned parties. The coalition descended on Washington this week to air their grievances with the House Telecom subcommittee. 

Cellular South’s president, Victor Meena said, “”If the FCC does not have multiple small and medium blocks with paired spectrum, all small and regional carriers will be forced to compete against each other in one or two blocks of spectrum, while the large carriers will have the very large spectrum blocks to themselves because smaller carriers cannot compete in the auction for those licenses.”

The larger carriers have mixed reactions to the group’s concerns: T-Mobile USA and Sprint’s cable MSO JV, Spectrum Co., embrace the group’s call for a variety of spectrum blocks. Verizon Wireless, however, sent the FCC an economic study that proclaims large wireless service areas lead to efficiencies whereby cost and delays associated with organizing the smaller licenses disappear.

During an open meeting on April 25, the FCC plans to vote on the plan for the 700 MHz auction as well as petitions from companies like Frontline regarding public safety usage of the spectrum.

For the first quarter, AT&T’s wireless unit, formerly known as Cingular, posted revenue of $10 billion, up 11 percent from last year thanks to data services that buoyed the average revenue per user. Some analysts expected about $9.9 billion in revenue. AT&T’s wireless unit also added 1.2 million subscribers during the quarter, which was just half the amount it added during the fourth quarter of 2006. Churn fell to 1.7 percent, which is 10 basis points better than the previous quarter. At the end of the quarter the carrier’s subscriber base boasted 62.2 million customers.