Are We Getting Ripped of by Today’s Data Packages?

The Big Data Switch Campaign

As mobile users we were charged to send text and to make calls and the cost to the Telco service provider for each text or call was quite less and individuals comprehended the relationship. Those were the initial days of mobile phones which were very simple and users learned how to use predictive text. However with the arrival of the internet-cabled smartphone, it has completely overhauled the relationship the customers tend to have with their devices and their Telco provider. Presently it is all related to data.

Australia’s biggest consumer network, will be partnering with news.com.au to launch The Big Data Switch Campaign, which is a people powered campaign that will be reducing the cost of mobile and broadband data. This would result in companies moving to reasonably economical voice as well as text messaging packages besides adding more expensive pricing schemes around data.For instance, in 2010, the use of second gigabyte of data on a Virgin mobile plan would have cost the user 140 times more than the first gig; and the user would not have realised it for days. Overpriced excess data rates had been a main money spinner for Australian telcos but are now a thing of the past.

The Legacy Cost

Some of the companies like Telstra, Optus and Vodafone had all brought in processes of reducing cases of bill shock and most of the plans tend to now add an extra GB of data for $10. This has brought about a radical change in the overall cost which customers tend to pay for data. For instance, less than three years back, Optus would charge 25c per megabyte for excess data usage that amounted to $250 for an extra GB. Though most of the customers presently can have an automatic top up for $10, those who are not on a plan may encounter a bit expensive price.

 Telstra, for instance tends to charge three cents per MB for additional mobile data without a data pack that works out to $30 per GB. Paul Budde, telecommunication expert, had informed news.com.au, that `there is no direct correlation between the cost of data and what we pay’. Customers on the contrary, are paying for the infrastructure and administrative costs of companies like Telstra when they branch out of data which Mr Budde refers as `the legacy cost’.

Category 11 4G – Introduced by Telstra

He adds that regarding paying for mobile data, it is determined by marketing as well as industry competition. In September, Mike Wright, Telstra’s Group Managing Director of Networks, had informed news.com.au that telcos base their data additions in the plans around how much they consider their networks can handle without slowing down. Upgrades to infrastructures like Category 11 4G had been introduced by Telstra last year. Mr Wright had said that `letting more phones on the network to download at high speed than ever before, allows data costs to go down’.

He added that updates and developments related to the proficiency and ability of the network are a way for telco companies in bringing down their cost though will not have any impact on what customers pay for mobile packages. Presently if all have unlimited mobile data and constantly streaming high-definition Netflix, the network would come to a halt.

But the recent free data days put by the company portrays that their network has the potential of handing huge jump in data use. He further adds that competition and not technology tends to dictate the price more than anything.

Kepler Spacecraft in Emergency Mode

Kepler Entered Mode on April 6

According to an update of April 8 from Charlie Sobeck, mission manager at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California, Kepler seemingly entered the mode on April 6. Kepler had burnt more of its dropping supplyof fuel in an emergency mode, which is essential to ignite its thrusters and position the spacecraft in communicating with Earth.

The turning manoeuvre which would have begun the new planet hunt had not yet been executed by the spacecraft. Kepler, till now had discovered planets by observing the slight dimming of starlight triggered by an orbiting planet that passed in front of a star. The investigation has been enthusiastically successful, discovering over 1,040 confirmed planets as well as more than 4,700 planet candidates since the launch of 2009.

The new campaign is said to have run from April 7 to July 1 and it would have looked out for the temporary brightening of star due to a different effect known as gravitational microlensing. The gravity of an intervening object, in microlensing, like in the case of planet, tends to focus and intensify the light from a background star, causing it to brighten.

Microlensing Targets Big Planets at Great Distances

Contrasting to Kepler’s other discoveries that seem to be smaller planets comparatively close to their host stars, microlensing tends to target big planets at great distances from their stars or even lonely planets seem to bewandering on their own through the depth of space. Ground-based telescopes have revealed 46 planets through microlensing and the astronomers expect that Kepler would discover 10 or more during the campaign.

 These kinds of discoveries would be helpful in narrowing the statistics on how common free-floating planets could be throughout the Galaxy. Astronomers have synchronized an intricate plan wherein around two dozen ground-based telescopes that have been spread across six continents, would be gazing at the same area of the sky at the same time as Kepler.

 They comprise the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment – OGLE survey that tends to hunt for microlensing events from the Las Campanas Observatory, in Chile. OGLE intended to shift its observing strategy slightly to overlap with the same fields which Kepler had been looking at. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was to have joined in the hunt too, in late June.

Kepler’s Microlensing Campaign Presently on Hold

It could have been the first microlensing survey directed at the same time from the ground as well as from space. The different vantage points could have enabled astronomers to research the potential microlensing planets much more easily than just utilising one or two ground-based telescopes. Andrew Cole, astronomer at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia had stated that `there is a strong feeling like it’s Christmas morning and we were all set to unwrap a shiny new toy and then we had to put everything on hold owing to power outage or something’.

His team had scheduled to use a 1.3-metre telescope in Tasmania in order to track on microlensing alerts from Kepler. The start of Kepler’s microlensing campaign presently is on hold till engineers tend to get the telescope working again. It is presently about 120 million kilometres from Earth, which means that each message tends to take 13 minutes to reach Kepler and back. Days that are lost from the microlensing campaign would be difficult to make up later.

 NASA’s director of astrophysics, Paul Hertz, had touted that the Kepler microlensing survey is a step towards the next big space telescope of the agency, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, that is intended to do microlensing searches after it launches in 2020.

MIT's new Chronos System Promises Precise Wi-Fi Tracking

Chronos – Wireless Localization Technology

Several users tend to use Wi-Fi to browse social media, check emails and watch videos. However according to Dan Misener, Radio technology columnist, researchers at MIT have invented something known as Chronos which is the latest way of using Wi-Fi in tracking the exact position down to the centimetre. Chronos is a `wireless localization’ technology or a Wi-Fi positioning system and is essentially a method of utilising Wi-Fi in figuring out where you are.

There are various means of doing this though Chronos tends to work by measuring the time it may take for a signal to travel from one wireless device to another device. For instance, if you have a smartphone and it is connected to a wireless router, the router tends to send information to the phone. The phone receives the same and then sends back a signal.

On measuring the time taken and by applying some calculation to the signal, one can determine where the smartphone is with regards to the router, the distance and the angle. In many ways, it tends to be the same way how radar or sonar systems seem to work. Chronos could be considered as a way to turn a regular Wi-Fi router into a kind of radar system which can distinguish objects and where they could be in the world.

Difference is Accuracy

The big difference is the accuracy. Customers-grade GPS tend to pinpoint you within a few metres distance but Chronos system tends to locate you within tens of centimetres. Moreover there are instances where GPS sometimes does not function at all like in underground or when one is indoors. Chronos tends to work anywhere within a Wi-Fi router range.

There are various other Wi-Fi based location system and are often utilised in airports, hotels and shopping mall to track foot traffic. U.S. malls tend to use shopper’s cell phones to track them, but those systems need several access point and many routers to cover a large area and triangulate the location of someone.

The distinctive thing regarding Chronos is that it only needs a single access point, a single router and one can set this up at home or a small business without incurring much expense.

Utilised in Locating Lost Device within the Home

The researchers have also informed that Chronos tends to be 20 times more accurate than the prevailing systems. One reason for using it in home is `home automation’ wherein there is a rise of the smart homes which tends to respond to who is in them.

Hence knowing who is at home and where people are within a home could be useful information. In a demonstration, the researchers had shown how Chronos tends to accurately identify which room a person was in 94% of the time. This device could also be utilised in locating a lost device within the home which could be helpful whenever a phone or a tablet would be misplaced.

Chronos can be used in controlling who gets to access the Wi-Fi, which could be useful for small businesses. Deepak Vasisht, one of the MIT researchers had informed at last month’s symposium, that if one walks into a Starbucks, they tend to get free Wi-Fi, but if one talks to them, they inform that they are very much keen in restricting free Wi-Fi access only to their customers and do not want to give free Wi-Fi to their neighbours which could end up causing congestion for their own customers. Hence a coffee shop could use Chronos to cut off Wi-Fi freeloaders.

Why You Need To Go With Good Server Hosting Services For Your Business

When it comes to your business effectiveness, you want to make sure you go with good server hosting services in order to beat the competition. If you don't choose the optimal host server, you could end up with delays and other frustrations which can add a lot of stress to your workday. Spend some time looking for the right company so you don't run into a lot of issues. With the right company, you can have a great server that doesn't break down on a regular basis.

What A Reliable Server Hosting Services Company Should Have

A good company will have people who respond to issues right away, will be able to fix any problems that come up and will have good customer service. Look for a good server hosting services company that can provide you all of these things.

Having to wait on a company to come fix something you need to work is frustrating. Try to think of things you can do when your computers are offline. Hopefully, you won't have too much time where you can't go online because of your host server but if it happens then you will be prepared.

You want a company that will respond when you call them. You don't want to be put on hold for a long time or have to call back because the number is busy. If you have a problem you want a quick response. Having your server go down can make it hard to work so you want it to be back up and running as soon as possible.

When you call the server hosting services company for help you want to be treated with good customer service. You don't want to feel like you are bothering them. If that is the case it will be awkward to ask them for help and it would be better to go with a better company that you enjoy talking with. A good company will hire kind people for customer service that can help connect you to the right person and help you fix your problem.

The Importance Of Having A Reliable Host Server

It is also important that the company you go with offers a host server service that works. Sometimes you can't plan for every situation but if your server is always going down it is probably time to switch to a new company. That would let you know that something isn't working right with your current company and you need to spend your money somewhere else.

Spend some time looking into the different companies in your area. Ask other people who they use and find out who has a good reputation. Then decide who would be best for your business. You want to spend the time to do this so your business can run smoothly. Once you find the right server hosting services company, make sure you go over what you are expecting from them. They will let you know what they can offer you and then you will agree on a price for the host server. Make sure you know who to call if you have an issue and make plans for the day they come to get everything set up in your office.

Ford's Autonomous Fusion can see in the Dark Without Headlights

Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle – No Headlight On

There are a lot of talks going on regarding the present status of self-driving cars. Ford is aware that its systems are not perfect yet; however its self-driving Fusion research vehicle seems to be getting better and is capable of navigating in the dark. Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle with no headlights on, had recently navigated along lonely desert roads to perform task which would be dangerous for a human driver. Driving in pitch black at Ford Arizona Proving Grounds symbolises the next step on the journey of the company in delivering fully autonomous vehicles to consumers all over the world.

Its car have the potential of tackling the dark of night owing to two technologies namely 3D mapping and LiDar which tends to stand for Light Detection And Ranging, uses lasers for measuring the distance to objects. The 3D maps tend to provide extra information regarding the road, comprising of markings as well as the geography. The LiDar also helps the car to recognize where on the map it is at that point of time. Utilising infrared improving goggles, the engineers of Ford were able to observe the car work its magic as it casts infrared laser beams around the vehicle.

Adequately Strong to Steer Impeccably

Presently, the night-time, lights-off testing has been limited to its Arizona proving grounds, since it is quite illegal in operating vehicle on public roads at night minus the traditional illumination. Though autonomous night vision could be helpful for vehicles to continue to move towards a destination if infrastructure or the own lighting of the vehicle tends to goes dark, dashing forward in pitch black could be a bit scary to an average driver or passenger.

Moreover, it would also put a dent in the light pollution which covers most of the sky in areas with great population density.It is an important progress which shows that even without cameras that depends on light; Ford LiDar tends to work with the virtual driver software of the car and is adequately strong to steer impeccably around winding roads. Though it is idyllic to have all the three modes of sensors namely radar, cameras and LiDar, the last can operate independently on roads without stoplights.

No Driver to Intervene/Control Vehicle

Jim McBride, technical leader for autonomous cars says that due to LiDar, the test cars are not dependent on the sun shining, or cameras detecting painted white lines on the tarmac. In fact LiDar enables autonomous cars to drive well in the dark as they do in the light of day’. After over a decade of Ford autonomous vehicle research, the company has been dedicated to achieving fully autonomous driving possibility that as defined by SAE International Level 4 does not need the driver to intervene and control the vehicle.

Ford, this year will be increasing its autonomous vehicle test fleet bringing the number to around 30 self-driving Fusion Hybrid sedans for the purpose of testing on roads in California, Arizona and Michigan. These elements seems to be the main elements of Fort Smart Mobility, the plan in taking Ford to the next level with regards to connectivity, mobility, customer experience, autonomous vehicles, together with data and analytics.