If you have a mortise-type door latch, you can increase the security of your business or home while letting visitors in easily with the Mortise-Type Electric Door Strike from Lee Electric. Unlike other electric door strikes, which require either AC or DC voltage at a specific rate, the Mortise-Type Electric Door Strike will accept either AC or DC voltage at variable rates.
Gimmie!
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Posted Mar 21st 2008 12:18AM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: Features, Wireless
Win or lose, all the bidders wrapped up in the so-called Auction 73 for precious spectrum in the 700MHz band are still under tight FCC-imposed gag orders in an effort to stem any funny business, but it looks like they’re at least ready to come out and dip their toes into the PR waters. Verizon, the biggest winner having claimed the big, wide Block C prize, says that it’s “pleased with [its] auction results” (we should certainly hope so), that the new airwaves will help it maintain its “reputation as the nation’s most reliable wireless network,” and that they’re now better positioned to lead the way with new services and devices. The megacarrier goes on to boast about the fact that its winning bids score it massive 298 million person footprint, plus another 171 million worth of licenses in different Blocks.
Meanwhile, AT&T seems happy with its purchase, too — but then again, it’s not like any of these companies would be issuing immediate statements expressing buyer’s remorse, we guess. The number one US carrier by subscribers reports that its newly acquired licenses, in combination with spectrum snatched from Aloha Partners earlier this year, now gives it 100 percent coverage in the 700MHz arena in the nation’s top 200 markets, with “quality spectrum” (whatever that means) covering 95 percent of the American populace. For what it’s worth, AT&T’s Auction 73 purchases were in Block B, which has moderately less bandwidth than Verizon’s Block C win — but as they say, it’s not the bandwidth of the spectrum, it’s the motion of the frequencies, so we’ll have to wait to see how these guys actually use these licenses before we rush to any conclusions.
Finally, from its brief statement, Google appears to have gotten exactly what it wanted: nothing at all. The company says that Auction 73 “produced a major victory for American consumers” because Block C’s reserve price was met — thanks largely to Google’s early bidding, it’s believed — which means that Verizon will be obligated to allow devices of all shapes, sizes, colors, and brands to participate when it flips the switch on its 700MHz network.
All three companies sound like they’re itching to say more as soon as the FCC allows it, so stay tuned as we try to figure out exactly what’s next for the auction, the carriers, and the people who actually want to benefit from this action (read: us).
Read - AT&T’s statement
Read - Verizon Wireless’ statement
Read - Google’s statement
We have been on the edge of our seats waiting for the winners announcement and the FCC has finally released the details. With little surprise the top two US carriers Verizon and AT&T have taken top honors.
Verizon had scooped the top position, but AT&T also has some pretty decent winnings. Verizon, who was actually partnered up with Vodafone has taken the biggest nationwide block of the spectrum, also known as the “C” block with a $4.74 billion bid, which overtook Google’s bid of $4.71 billion by just a little bit. In addition to the nationwide block of the spectrum, Verizon has also taken 25 regional licenses. AT&T, who is currently the number 1 carrier in the US managed to win 227 “B” block regional licenses across the US. Overall about $6.64 billion was spent by AT&T and a total of about $9.63 billion from Verizon.
This means that between Verizon and AT&T they have won a combined total of just about $16 billion of licenses, which means that the two biggest US carriers now have plenty of room to get even bigger.
Read [Reuters]
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In efforts to protect the environment these days, many companies have begun designing energy efficient products. Tesla, is a major car manufacturer that plans to deliver energy efficient vehicles soon. You may or may not remember one of their main green cars, the Roadster, anyway, after many delays, company problems, and price increases, the car is finally ready for production. In fact, it is being produced right this very second.
Tesla touts that this is “the only zero emission electric vehicle in production today,” which is actually not true, because there are a lot of cars and companies making cars that are more energy efficient. However, it is the only energy efficient car that is able to hit 125 mph. One of the things that will turn people off from buying the Roadster is the hefty price tag that comes with it. Even though, in the end it will be worth it from all the gas it will save, but 100 grand is still a 100 grand.
Another bad thing about this car is that in the beginning they will only be able to pump out one to two cars per week. So far, around 900 people have shelled out the cash to reserve a Roadster. Most of which, as you can imagine have some money they can easily part with, ranging from Dustin Hoffman to George Clooney to Arnold Schwarzenegger and even Mahalo’s CEO Jason Calacanis.
I think that if only Tesla managed to lower the price of their car, many more people would buy it. However, it is a good effort by them to produce a car that will greatly help out the environment, not too mention I think the Roaster falls into a ‘slightly’ different category than most eco-friendly cars and could be worth the ‘premium’.
Read [Yahoo! Green]
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The Nokia 6210 Navigator offers a 3.2 megapixel camera as well as the following features:
* S60 3rd Edition
* 2.4 inch QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) display
* Full multimedia computer capabilities
* 2.4″inch TFT QVGA color display
* Web browser
* Instant messaging
* Push Email
* Music player
* Visual Radio
* FM radio
* 120 MB internal memory
* support for up to 8GB memory
* 1GB microSD card
* Bluetooth 2.0
* GPS and support for A-GPS
* WCDMA900/2100 HSDPA, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 (Europe/Asia)
* WCDMA 850/1900 HSDPA, GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 (North America)
Via MobileTechReview.
Posted Mar 20th 2008 8:09PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: cellphones, Transportation
It’s been two years since we first heard that Qantas was bringing in-flight email and SMS to its fleet, and after a lengthy testing period, it looks like it’s finally happening. The last set of test flights wrapped up in January, and allowing people to check in on the status of their Nigerian money transfers and send R U HERE texts apparently didn’t cause any major problems, so the airline is moving to bring the tech to all Boeing 767 and Airbus A330 flights in Australia. Voice service still isn’t in the cards, but considering how long it’s taking to get any of this tech off the ground in the States, we’ll take what we can get.
[Thanks, Chris]
Posted Mar 20th 2008 7:04PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Gaming
Given how clumsy some of Nyko’s other Wii accessories are, we didn’t exactly have high hopes when we heard that the company was shipping the first third-party Wii Guitar Hero controller — so imagine our surprise when we found out it’s in the shape of a Telecaster, our fave axe and one thus far criminally ignored in the Guitar Hero pantheon. Just like the official controller, the Wiimote slips into the chassis to do most of the heavy lifting, but you won’t have spend quite as much to get your multiplayer on — $50, about $10 cheaper than the Activision Les Paul. The white version includes black and pink pickguards, while the blonde edition comes with black and white — anyone have a spare IGNORE ALIEN ORDERS sticker handy?
While it’s often true that the best ideas are the simplest ones, the reverse is a bit of a crap-shoot. Case in point: this ridiculous iPod shuffle holder. It’s a piece of wall-mounted black acrylic designed to hold both the tiny shuffle and those stock earbuds that, contrary to popular thinking, really only prove that your ears are undiscerning (and that you want everyone to know you have an ipod).
Although I kind of like the idea of having dedicated holes to stick a decent pair of headphones in, it’s insane to pay $30 for something that does nothing that a belt, cardstock, box edge, magazine, purse strap, hanger, jacket can’t already do for free. The shuffle’s built-in clip can clip onto just about anything; that’s part of its marketing (you know, that whole “most wearable iPod ever” thing).
The holder could be nice as an artsy DIY project, but that’s about it.
Via The Uber-Review.
