Wireless

It's taken awhile, but Monster's "iSoniCast Wireless Audio Bridge" is finally shipping. The device serves as a dock that connects the iPod to a home stereo but also turns the media player into a remote control with a snap-on dongle. It first appeared on Crave after our esteemed colleague John Falcone wrote about it last summer, apparently even before it had been christened as the "iSoniCast" or had any pricing. (It will sell for $99.95, according to the Monster's press release.) Though it looks slightly different from the photos released last year, … Read more

Are Wi-Fi hot spots going the way of public telephone booths?

Johan Bergendahl, chief marketing officer for wireless-equipment maker Ericsson, thinks they are. During his keynote address on Monday at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm, Bergendahl told an audience that as more people use wireless broadband fewer people will use Wi-Fi hot spots in public places.

"Hot spots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era," Bergendahl was quoted as saying in a post by the IDG News Service.

Bergendahl argued that wireless broadband is growing faster than … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--If you are like me your eyes probably glaze over a bit when people start talking about wireless spectrum.

Well, maybe consumers should start paying more attention because the debate over how spectrum is managed will determine how we'll be able to use all types of devices in the future, Tim Wu, Columbia Law School professor, said at a Legal Futures Conference at Stanford University on Saturday.

Specifically, there is a "battle for platform supremacy between two different types of devices"--mobile versus computer, he said. The mobile platform has a centralized, monopoly legacy … Read more

Rumors are swirling today over the future of Sprint. First off, Seeking Alpha is reporting that Sprint has hired Morgan Stanley for a possible spin-off of its Nextel brand. Sprint's ongoing troubles have been widely reported over the last few months and many analysts have named the 2006 merger between Sprint and Nextel as a key cause of the carrier's ongoing troubles. With that in mind, a spin-off of Nextel may be surprising, but it wouldn't be so shocking.

But that's not the only Sprint dish going around today. The Kansas City Star said that Merrill … Read more

For all the advances made in Internet telephony over the last decade, the hardware end of the business has lagged woefully behind. All too often we've seen things like retro corded handsets or other bizarre devices that would seem to keep a caller hopelessly tethered to the desktop.

Headset makers are coming up with some solutions that problem, however, with wireless headsets. First we saw a pair by Creative Labs at CES in January, and now Logitech has debuted a similar product, a 2.4GHz wireless stereo headset developed specifically for VoIP calls.

Not only does the "ClearChat PC Wireless&… Read more

With spring just around the corner, it's time to clean up your workspace. To help you clean up your clutter, Brother is releasing two multifunction printers: the MFC-7440N ($249) and the MFC-7840W ($299). Both are significant upgrades to their predecessors, with the MFC-7840W living up to its prefix multifunction name.

The MFC-7840W is the standout product here, it includes all the features you would expect from a high end all-in-one printer, such as a speedy 23 page per minute output, 2400x600 dots per inch resolution, and a 35 sheet auto feeder. We're excited to take a look at … Read more

Wireless operators hope all-you-can-eat pricing will prove appetizing to consumers still using their landlines.

The new pricing model could also help them in the protracted battle for customers with the cable industry.

Two weeks ago, Verizon Wireless was the first major U.S. wireless operator to announce a $99.99 unlimited voice plan. Within days, AT&T and T-Mobile followed with their own plans. And last week, Sprint Nextel announced its plan, which also includes unlimited data and a slew of premium wireless services.

These new plans naturally appeal to today's heaviest cell phone users. Road warriors who … Read more

It's a new week and a new month, and that means a new streaming audio solution for the home. We've seen plenty such as this, that, and the other, but this system's price tag falls only a little over 230 pounds (around $455) if you shop carefully, and quite taken we are with it too.

This is the Philips WAC3500D and it's aimed at the budget-conscious among you, or those of you with purse strings tighter than a duck's backside. It's got an 80GB internal hard disk, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, a CD player and it'… Read more

Speeches by FCC bigwigs usually are pretty boring. Most of the time they involve a lot of policy minutiae, grandiose plans to improve rural broadband access, or some hand-wringing over the amount of sex and violence on television. Even when the speech concerns something that has a lot of implications, like the ongoing 700MHz auction, you tend to zone out after the first few minutes.

But after an FCC chief leaves office, it can be a different story. Yesterday, the FCC chairman who served under President Clinton gave an interview to Telephony Online. In the interview, Reed Hundt talked about … Read more