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Technology Stocks : IATV-ACTV Digital Convergence Software-HyperTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: dwight martin who wrote (7882)11/19/1999 1:12:00 AM
From: Jon Khymn  Respond to of 13157
 
IATV looks great, love that chart.
Will we finally see it breaking through 25?



To: dwight martin who wrote (7882)11/19/1999 1:44:00 AM
From: heartstreet.com  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 13157
 
dwight

Mathematicians proved that optimized planning is a NP-complete problem.

Basically, it means that it is impossible to implement.

Consequently, Time Domain's claim is misleading.



To: dwight martin who wrote (7882)11/19/1999 8:17:00 AM
From: SBerglowe  Respond to of 13157
 
OT OT: Like the chart on EGGS and WPNE right now. Susan



To: dwight martin who wrote (7882)11/21/1999 2:57:00 PM
From: dwight martin  Respond to of 13157
 
OT: \\\\\ WARNING ///// \\\\\ SOAPBOX AHEAD /////

I may post a lot about Time Domain here because those who have been long on this thread for more than a year or two have demonstrated their appreciation of breakthrough technology. A good intro of the technology can be found at time-domain.com. You will need Acrobat Reader.

The following is from Bob A Louie on the Time Domain thread:

The technology is called ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications. The driving company of UWB - the industry's Intel - is Time Domain of Huntsville, Ala.

UWB is still something of a laboratory science project, but it seems to be a breakthrough in wireless. Instead of using continuous radio waves, UWB sends information on tiny wave pulses. The technology should mean that ever-smaller devices will be able to do vastly more powerful wireless communications and, in fact, do things today's wireless can't do. UWB is to today's cell phones and radar what the microprocessor was to yesterday's mainframes. It could launch another revolution.

At the Ultra-Wideband Conference here last week, Bjoerne Eske Christenson of Germany's Siemens said that if UWB fulfills its promise, "it would penetrate every product in Siemens, as the laser and transistor do now." Others talked of being able to make untethered cable television, which would allow you to move a TV anywhere in the house, regardless of where the cables run. One company is working on UWB underground radar for finding gold. Another talks of using UWB to create motion sensors so cheap and accurate, you could put one in your elderly parent's house, monitor it via the Internet and tell whether Mom or Dad fell.

But the UWB market is stalled. The reason became apparent as the conference turned toward government and regulatory speakers.

Wireless communication is regulated. It has to be. There is only so much radio spectrum available for communications. If the federal government - in most cases, the Federal Communications Commission - didn't parcel out spectrum to TV and radio stations, cell phones and so on, the signals would trample each other.

But the regulations and the process for changing them has grown so many layers and so much bureaucracy, it's stultifying. So the panelists fretted over potential problems with UWB interfering with other radio signals - problems that don't seem to exist. They laid out timetables that would unfold slower than a soap opera plot. Julius Knapp of the FCC said the next steps are to analyze information, do more testing and then make a proposed rulemaking, which is not to be confused with an actual rulemaking.

It's about like saying to your wife, "I'm going to make a proposed lawnmowing" - then going in the garage and gazing at the lawnmower before going inside and turning on the football game.

Panelist Bill Hatch, from the FCC, said: "We have to make sure we have the proper regulations blah blah blah to approve or accommodate new technologies blah blah blah when it doesn't fit into the regulatory processes we already have blah blah blah." At least that's what I wrote in my notebook.

To her credit, FCC Commissioner Susan Ness got up and criticized government sluggishness, saying it has to learn to move at "Internet speed." But then, when she specifically addressed UWB, she said she'd push for "an initiative within the next few months with the hope of completing a study next year." Next year? For just a study? That's Internet speed? By next year, any Silicon Valley venture capitalist worth his salt will have found, funded and taken public four companies.

Fact is, we don't really know what UWB can do or whether it could mess up existing wireless communication because regulations have prevented much testing and development.

"They should let it rip," said Irv Rappaport of Aurigin Systems. "Then if there's a problem, regulate it."

That would be the Silicon Valley way. If we're going to see microprocessor-style breakthroughs in communication, something's got to change. Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt often said that true success for the FCC would be if it found an effective way to eliminate itself. A whole lot of people at the UWB conference would've given that idea a lusty cheer.