Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor

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ABI Research has new M2M report out showing how the market grew rapidly from 2003-2007 but collapsed in 2008. They began tracking the cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) module market in 2003, and for five years shipments increased on average more than 25% per year. In 2007 module shipment growth peaked at a phenomenal 45%. The economic collapse of 2008 put an end to such double-digit growth rates, but the M2M market was still up 4%. Feedback from vendors indicates that most feel the market bottomed out in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. Starting in...

Last year around this time there was some renewed concern that cell phone radiation could be dangerous, especially to kids. The Environmental Working Group has brought up the subject again with their release of the best and worst phones for radiation emissions and bringing up their concerns of the possible dangers. But there still does not seem to be any scientific evidence that they are dangerous and non-ionizing radiation is not known to be dangerous to the human body at the levels one would experience in everyday use of cell phones. It is interesting that Samsung dominated the top 10...

Strategy Analytics states that vendors will ship $4 billion in Wi - Fi radio chips in 2013, most of these for cellphones, notebooks, netbooks , infrastructure, home entertainment systems and wireless gaming consoles. At the same time, adoption of 802.11n MIMO with multiple transmit streams will help boost the market for Wi - Fi power amplifier modules to twice its 2008 size, despite continued pricing pressure. They have determined that Broadcom will probably remain on top, but the firm faces increasing competition from cellular chip vendors bundling connectivity with their platforms, and from chip specialists targeting emerging applications, such as...

Over the next year NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will scout and collect more information about the moon's surface and environment than any previous mission. It takes a powerful system to send all of this information more than 238,800 miles back to Earth so equipped with a new type of TWT amplifier, LRO can transmit 461 GB of data per day. It transmits this information at a rate of up to 100 MB per second. The 13-inch-long TWT is the first high data rate Ka-band transmitter to fly on a NASA spacecraft. L-3 Communications Electron Technologies built the amplifier under...

There have been 40 deaths (30 high school players) to football players due to over heating since 1995. Now wireless transmitter systems are being tested that are embedded into football helmets with temperature sensors to monitor player's body temperature. The cost is about $100 per player - pretty cool stuff. See the video below from CBS:...

Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health automatically over the Internet. The wireless home monitoring system collects the data through a WiFi connection and transmits it over the Internet to her doctor. The server and the remote monitor communicate at least once a day to download all the relevant information and alert the doctor and patient if there is anything unusual. Now when she visits the doctor, about 90% of the tests are already completed from the data collected. She has suffered from a severe heart condition...

Euroconsult states that growth in the fixed satellite market has remained strong despite the adverse economic environment. According to their latest forecast, the fixed satellite sector grew in terms of both transponder demand (+9%) and overall revenues (+10.7%) representing a peak in the current decade. Digital entertainment and emerging digital markets remain the primary growth drivers, with corporate networks, military communications and broadband access uptake also contributing to growth. Our August Satellite and mmWave themed issue is live online today with the cover feature focusing on the Mil SatCom Capacity Crunch. It includes survey responses from companies in the...

Researchers at GA Tech Research Institute ( GTRI ) are developing a novel heat-transfer material for powerful radar systems with a goal of removing heat up to 100 times more effectively than present materials. The novel material is a composite of diamond and copper that is trying to achieve thermal conductivity of up to 20,000 watts per meter K compared to 200-300 watts per meter K for copper. This would be achieved by using a materials systems approach that would also include liquid cooling. The project is funded by DARPA targeting high power T/R module packages. For more details,...

Euroconsult recently announced that growth in the fixed satellite market has remained strong despite the adverse economic environment. According to Euroconsult’s soon-to-be-released report, the fixed satellite sector grew in terms of both transponder demand (+9%) and overall revenues (+10.7%) representing a peak in the current decade. Digital entertainment and emerging digital markets remain the primary growth drivers, with corporate networks, military communications and broadband access uptake also contributing to growth. According to the report growth in transponder demand remained particularly strong in emerging satellite markets, which include Latin America, Africa, Central Europe and large parts of Asia. These regional markets...

After the 9/11 disaster, the government allocated significant funding for homeland security with a large amount allocated toward interoperable communications. It seemed like it took a a year or two but a good amount of the money eventually became available. Most critical communications companies offer interoperable solutions from simple patches to full IP -based systems. But I have not heard of any significant progress in deploying these systems especially at the federal level where solutions could offer interoperability nation wide. What ever happened to our priorities here? New York was suppose to roll out a state wide system being supplied...