Asus has done the unthinkable with its RT-N56U Dual Band Wireless-N router, it’s made it look beautiful.

As a dual-band 802.11n Wireless-N router the RT-N56U is designed to provide a complete Wireless-N networking extension to your existing wired network for both the standard 2.4GHz and newer 5GHz wireless ranges.

Asus has spared nothing in the design both technically and aesthetically, and you should be struck by both the shiny exterior case design and the shiny specification lurking below it.

Of key importance to the RT-N56U is the 5GHz 802.11n; AKA Wireless-N networking.

The theory being that using twice the frequency should boost speeds by two times too. The practical outcome however is far from that simple.

Despite the 5GHz range being far less crowded, along with the the availability of more free channels, the 5GHz frequency is hampered by being absorbed far more readily by objects.

Back it up with MIMO to compensate for that though and perhaps you’d hope for a 50 per cent increase in throughput over 2.4GHz.

Couple these abilities with its Gigabit LAN, cable-ready WAN port and full complement of security, management and easy-to-use web interface, this should be a winning combination.

So, is it?

We tested the wireless performance in various scenarios to see how the Asus RT-N56U performed in typical real-world situations for both its 2.4GHz and 5GHz modes.

The first was a same-room configuration transferring a large file from the router to the laptop. The second involved the laptop being placed one brick-wall and a standard wooden floor away.

Finally we ran a distance test at 30m with a direct line of sight, to see how it coped with distance.

Same room transfer speed

One-room, one-floor away transfer speed

30m line-of-sight transfer speed

At the heart of the Asus RT-N56U are two sets of 802.11n wireless antennas. These create the distinct spatial streams for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio frequencies.

Typically better 2.4GHz will offer three or four distinct antenna, as more spatial streams increase the MIMO effect, so increasing speed and workable distance.

The RT-N56U comes with two internal antennas for the 2.4GHz range and three for the 5GHz range.

Two antennas is something we’d expect to see on more modest Wireless-N-class routers, though we can understand the need to concentrate on the 5GHz performance.

Even so, same-room and medium-distance tests were excellent.

In some respects besting wired 100BaseT Ethernet speeds, with an average of 12MB/s and peaks just over 13MB/s. One room and floor away and speeds were maintained at 10MB/s.

It wasn’t until we tried at distance that things tailed off to 1.1MB/s, which was our only disappointment with the RT-N56U, but at 5GHz its three antenna maintained a decent 3.8MB/s transfer speed.

Unusually for a router it manages to pull off the twin design goal of looking aesthetically pleasing and offering an aesthetically pleasing web interface.

In fact its interface feels more like a standalone app than a web-based interface. It’s slick, well presented, easy to navigate and speedy to use.

This makes setting up what in effect are two routers in one an easy and quick job. It also includes a WPS fast-setup button that ties into Windows 7 which can eliminate entering WPA keys. If you trust that sort of thing.

A barrage of status LEDs is tastefully implemented, while the USB ports can handle storage, printers and compatible 3G adaptors. That USB storage ties in beautifully with the UPnP capabilities so it doubles as a media streamer, bittorrent, FTP and HTTP download server too.

We liked:

There’s an awful lot to like about the ASUS RT-N56U from the aesthetic design of both the chassis to the slick web-based interface to its actual performance.

There’s a confident air about every aspect of it and you really feel the engineers have the designed knowhow to squeeze every drop of performance from their hardware.

The Ai Radar technology certainly overcome any limitations of the 2.4GHz twin antenna to provide leading-class performance and 5GHz speed are equally impressive.

We disliked:

With only a question mark over its long-range performance, at this price it’s certainly full-steam ahead for this ASUS router.

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A European Ka-band internet satellite was successfully launched on Sunday. The Eutelsat-operated spacecraft, Ka-Sat, will concentrate its services on the estimated tens of millions of European homes in so-called “not-spots”, where consumers cannot get a decent terrestrial connection.

The spacecraft follows the Hylas-1 platform into orbit. That satellite, operated by Avanti Communications of London, was launched just last month.

Ka-Sat, however, is considerably bigger, and has a notional capacity to serve up to two million households compared with Hylas’s 300,000, reports the BBC.

“As many as 30 million households in Europe are not served at all or get high mediocrity of service,” said Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen. “These could be people in the countryside or in the mountains, sometimes not very far from large cities. Ka-Sat is an answer to that problem,” he told BBC News.

Paris-based Eutelsat is one of the world’s big three Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) companies, along with SES and Intelsat, and transmits thousands of TV channels across its fleet of spacecraft.

Ka-Sat is its first broadband-dedicated satellite. Each spotbeam delivers a total capacity of 900 Mbps, shared between the forward and return paths. It will be positioned at nine degrees east and has a total throughput of some 70Gbps. Some 82 spot beams will deliver internet service to different market areas stretching from North Africa to southern Scandinavia. A very small segment of the Middle East will also be reached.

Eutelsat has signed about 70 deals with distributors across the satellite’s “footprint”, and more would be signed over the next year. Ka-Sat is expected to be operational in the second half of the second quarter of 2011. It will join three large HOT BIRD Kuband broadcasting satellites that form the world’s leading video neighbourhood.

The ground network will use ViaSat’s SurfBeam technology, similar to the solution already powering broadband connectivity for almost 450,000 satellite homes in North America.

In the United States, WildBlue currently delivers satellite internet access to nearly 400,000 customers. It is accessible to virtually every home and small business in the contiguous U.S., including the estimated 20-25 million homes and small offices that are not wired for terrestrial (DSL or cable modem) service. Wildblue was acquired by ViaSat last year.

ViaSat-1, a sister satellite to KaSat, is expected to have more capacity than the combination of all other satellites in operation over the United States, providing 2-10 Mbps download speeds at retail prices competitive with terrestrial services, says the company. ViaSat-1 is scheduled for launch in the first half of 2011.

There are at least 3 billion people on the planet who have no affordable way to connect to the Internet–a problem Google aims to solve by helping foot the bill for the launch of 16 satellites in the O3B constellation.

The O3B satellite network (“O3B” stands for “the other 3 billion”) is set for launch in 2011. An ISP would install a pair of high-tech antennas capable of tracking multiple satellites and establish a 155-megabit per-second connection to the global Web. ISPs could use 3G cellular and WiMax towers for local connections. Each satellite in the network will have 10 spot beams, each delivering in excess of 1Gbit/s.

In other space news, Google recently sent seven payloads into near space on balloons, each equipped with a Nexus S phones. Sending the balloons up also allowed them to capture some stunning imagery and videos of Earth. Take a look at unaltered footage of an Android at over 100,000 ft above the Earth’s surface.

The payloads collected a lot of data, and many reached high altitudes, with the highest topping out at 107,375 ft., over 20 miles high, or over three times the height of an average commercial jet. In tracking the sensors on each of the phones, we observed that the GPS in Nexus S could function up to altitudes of about 60,000 ft. and would actually start working again on the balloon’s descent.

Related DailyWireless Space and Satellite News includes; O3B: Funded for Launch, SkyTerra 1 Launched, Broadband Satellites: Black Hole?, LightSquared: Phase 1, LightSquared: 5K Basestations by 2011, LightSquared Announces LTE Network, FCC Okays Terrestrial LTE for SkyTerra, TerreStar Successfully Launched,Broadband Satellites: Looking Up, WiMAX and/or Satellite, HughesNet’s Spaceway 3 Now Available, Hughes Launches Switchboard in the Sky, HughesNet & Broadband Corporation, Spot Beam Sats Multiply, Clearwire & SatTV Do a Deal, Sprint Beams Up with MSV, TerreStar: I-HSPA for Satphones, Satphones: Merger Ahead?, Inmarsat + SkyTerra = Spectrum Sharing, Mobile Satellite on the Move, TerreStar Gets a Slot, Satellite Repeaters – Grounded In Reality?, WildBlue Partners with DirecTV & Echostar, John Malone in Space, TerreStar Gets a Slot, BSkyB + Google, SkyNet Satellite Hacked?, Lockheed CEO: Space is Broken, MSS: AWS Alternative?, WildBlue: AT&T’s DeathStar?

View full post on dailywireless.org

The FCC’s public safety and homeland security bureau recently adopted an order that establishes a technical framework designed to ensure interoperability between the myriad 700 MHz LTE networks that are expected to be established for first responders by state, local and regional entities in the future.

The FCC argues that auctioning off the D Block, in a joint public/private use agreement, would lower costs while providing better coverage for everyone.

Meanwhile, public service agencies have a dedicated (LTE) channel they can use now, in addition to their narrowband voice channels in the 700 MHz band. The FCC wants first responder radios to interoperate on that band.

The FCC has adopted an order that establishes a technical framework to ensure interoperability among the public-safety mobile broadband networks.

“Our goal is to make sure that nationwide interoperability is built into these networks from the beginning,” said James Barnett Jr., chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

“There are many forces that pull against interoperability, this is why it is critical that we have an iron rule of interoperability for America’s public safety mobile broadband networks,” said Barnett. “Our goal is to make sure that nationwide interoperability is built into these networks from the beginning, and we will continue to work with public safety to make sure their immediate and long-term communications needs are met.”

Based on recommendations made by the FCC’s Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC), the order calls for recipients of 700 MHz waivers to build their networks in accordance with a baseline technical framework, including the following specific guidelines, reports UrgentComm.com:

• Construct networks that support Long Term Evolution (LTE) interfaces that support roaming and interoperability.
• Construct networks that provide outdoor coverage at minimum data rates of 256 kbps uplink and 768 kbps downlink for all types of devices throughout the cell coverage area.
• Provide 95% reliability of signal coverage for all services and applications throughout the network.
• Conduct conformance testing on devices to ensure compliance with technical requirements associated with 3GPP Release 8 (LTE) and higher release standards.
• Perare form interoperability testing of the LTE interfaces to determine their roaming capabilities and make sure that these capabilities sufficient.
• Build security and encryption features into their networks based on certain optional features of the 3GPP security features for LTE Network Access Domain.
• Allow to use permanent fixed point-to-point and point-to-multipoint stations only on an ancillary basis and on a non-interference basis to the primary mobile operations.
• Coordinate with one another when their networks overlap or operate adjacent to one another to avoid signal/spectral interference or disruption to communications.

FCC spokesman Rob Kenny said agency officials have worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to help develop the technical framework. A copy of the order is available here (pdf).

Oregon lawmakers misled about cost, progress of emergency radio network, blared the headlines on a front page story by Brent Walth in the Sunday Oregonian, with a follow on faulty maps used to sell Oregon radio network to lawmakers and a third article on possible alternatives to fix the troubled the Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network (OWIN).

The Oregonian reports that OWIN is about two years behind schedule, and the price has soared from $414 million to nearly $600 million.

Lawmakers in 2005 called for merging the states Land Mobile Radio (LMR) radio systems of four state agencies: Oregon State Police and the departments of Corrections, Transportation and Forestry. Two years later, the governor’s office floated its plan for new radio equipment and a sprawling web of about 300 microwave towers and radio relays on mountaintops across Oregon.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Oregon’s Radio Network Under Fire , Oregon’s Public Service Network: $100M Over Budget, Bay Area 700 MHz Net in Altercation , Battle for Oregon’s State-wide Radio Net, Oregon’s $500 Million Statewide Wireless Network, Riot in D Block, AT&T: 80% Upgraded to HSPA+ , SkyTerra 1 Launched , Why Cops Don’t Just Use Cell Phones, SF Announces LTE First Responder Net, LightSquared + SK Telecom, The 700MHz Network: Who Pays?, Public Safety Spectrum Grab, Public Safety: Show Us The Money, SF Announces LTE First Responder Net, Clearwire to Test LTE, Apps for the City, LightSquared: 5K Basestations by 2011, Phoney Spectrum Scarcity, D-Block: It’s Done; Congress Pays, The 700MHz Network: Who Pays?, Big Bucks for 700 MHz Public Safety, FCC: Stop Complaining about Interoperability, Police & Fire: No Broadband for You, Commentary: Future of Public Safety Communications, New York Cancels Statewide Wireless Network, New York’s $2B Statewide Network Close to Canceling, M/A-COM to NY: We’re Good, NY Gives Tyco 45 days to Fix Network, Battle for Oregon’s State-wide Radio Net, Twitter 911, FCC Okays 21 Public Service Nets, FCC: Stop Complaining about Interoperability, Police & Fire: No Broadband for You, The 700MHz Network: Who Pays?, The National Broadband Plan, National Broadband Plan Previewed, D-Block: It’s Done; Congress Pays, AT&T/TerreStar Ready Satphone Service, TerreStar Phones Home, Motorola + SkyTerra Team for 700 MHz/Sat Radios, Alvarion, Open Range To Build 17 State Net, San Diego State: Wildfire GIS to Go, Emergency Mapping, Cascadia Peril, Commentary: Future of Public Safety Communications, New York Cancels Statewide Wireless Network, New York’s $2B Statewide Network Close to Canceling, M/A-COM to NY: We’re Good, NY Gives Tyco 45 days to Fix Network, .

View full post on dailywireless.org

Paul and Storm Photo by: Glenn Peters

They are the opening band. I have yet to throw my panties on the stage – but when I do, they will be unique and geeky. My husband introduced me to the The Captain’s Wife’s Lament and Nun Fight a couple of years ago. When I heard these songs, by two guys who have obvious musical talent, I was an instant minion.

I am of course talking about Paul and Storm. The comedy music duo has performed with Jonathan Coulton, and most recently, their own project with Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage: W00tStock.

Recently, I had the opportunity to have an e-mail dialog with the musical duo. We discussed their musical roots and how they balance a hectic tour schedule with family life.

[Read more of Cathe Posts's interview with Paul and Storm over at GeekMom.]

View full post on GeekDad

Rhythm games get a lot of guff from naysayers. If you’re a fan, you’ve surely heard the catty complaints: “That’s just a toy. It’s not a real guitar.”

And it’s true. The typical Rock Band or Guitar Hero controller is fun, but it’s a bit of a joke compared to the real thing. It may look guitarlike, but the primary-color buttons up top and the plastic flipper at the bottom don’t exactly impress the ladies. You can be the best guitar “hero” in the world and you’re really still just a loser with a plastic ax.

Well, the time is here to silence the naysayers — if you can handle it. For Rock Band 3, Mad Catz is seriously upping the ante with a whole new approach to guitar gaming. Put simply, the Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar Controller is not really a game controller at all, but a full-on guitar simulator. Seventeen frets split up a total of 102 buttons which correspond to a traditional six-string guitar fingerboard. Below that, you are now tasked with actually strumming the proper string — a real wire string — instead of moving a little plastic nubbin up and down. You can play with a pick or with your thumb and fingers. Callous lotion is not included.

The PRO-Guitar completely changes the Rock Band experience from top to bottom. No longer are you simply relying on muscle memory and blind luck to power through an Expert-level song, now you’re actually learning how to play it for real.

Is this difficult? Yes, it is difficult. If you’ve never picked up a guitar before, the learning curve is extremely steep. This is night and day vs. the standard rhythm game ax, and you’ll need to slave through the Rock Band 3 pro lessons — learning chords, arpeggios, muting strings and more — to have any hope of success. But as with a real guitar, practice and you’ll get there. I (a guitar novice) was at last breezing through Medium songs on day three, though completing tunes on Hard was still out of reach when my deadline arrived and the controller had to be returned to Mad Catz. The controller can also be used to play authentic bass guitar tracks, which are easier, and standard five-lane Rock Band guitar parts, which are surprisingly not.

What’s lacking? Despite the new approach, the Mustang still looks like a toy. It’s the same size as a standard guitar controller and is completely made of plastic. If you do want to eventually switch to a real guitar, you’re going to have to get used to everything being farther apart.

And sadly, this controller’s authenticity will do nothing to head off that other standby quip of the naysayers: “Why don’t you just play a real guitar?” Well, really, why don’t you?

WIRED You’re not playing a game any more, you’re learning how to play guitar. Totally revolutionizes Rock Band gameplay (and makes you the weakest member of the band).

TIRED No whammy bar — but, trust us, your hands will be full. Lacks weight. Big investment.

View full post on Product Reviews | Wired.com

It can take lots of time, patience and determination in order to produce a listenable song with this app, which transmogrifies your voice into the sound of various musical instruments. But Voice Band definitely puts a unique spin on mobile music creation.

View full post on Macworld

Minnesota-based electronic artist Patrick Flanagan leads the band Jazari, but to call it a “band” would be generous. Flanagan is Jazari’s only member, and he uses two Wii remotes that he’s programmed to play all the instruments around him.

“The computer basically keeps the beat for me and leaves more interesting decisions to me,” Flanagan says. “I can hold down a button and a note will just repeat.”

View full post on dailywireless.org

Last week I posted about Pixelh8’s newest music education project, the Super Chip Tune Samba Band. Upon recognizing that children were far more interested in experimenting with electronic music on Nintendo DS handheld gaming devices as opposed to more conventional instruments like keyboards, Pixelh8 constructed a system by which multiple burgeoning chip musicians can perform simple group percussion using the DS stylus and touch screen.

Sadly, his efforts were hampered by a lack of resources, or, more specifically, a lack of systems. Without an adequate number of DSes to share with participants, the Super Chip Tune Samba Band simply can’t perform. Thankfully, none other than Nintendo itself has stepped up to support the project.

Following the example of Marshall, a company that donated 25 MS4 Mini Micro Amplifiers to the cause, Nintendo has agreed to provide Pixelh8 with the necessary DS units.

Heartfelt thanks to Nintendo for its generosity and foresight, and congratulations to Pixelh8 on this recent technological windfall!

On a related note, fans of Pixelh8’s unique take on electronic music are encouraged to attend his performance this Sunday, June 27 at the Aldeburgh Festival as mentioned this week by the BBC.

Super Chip Tune Samba Band Research from Pixelh8 on Vimeo.

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Matthew C. Applegate, AKA: Pixelh8, is a groundbreaking chip tune artist, music educator and member of the extended GeekDad family who has just unveiled a project that takes his work in an interesting new direction. On a recent school visit, Matthew noticed that while students were very excited to experiment with making music on the Nintendo DS he had brought into the class none were willing perform on his circuit bent keyboard.

When he asked the students why no one wished to explore the more traditional instrument, a young girl responded that she simply didn’t know how to play piano. Pixelh8 elaborated on this point in a recent blog post at Game People saying:

There was a cultural issue – embarrassment – about not being able to perform as a “proper” musician especially not in front of others. Paradoxically they were quite happy to make sounds and draw attention to themselves by playing on the Nintendo DS through a very loud PA system, because the Nintendo DS had no set cultural rules in terms of musical performance.

These students at the age of eight were making a cultural distinction that keyboards are for formal traditional music and only trained performers should play in front of others whereas the Nintendo DS was for fun with none of these set musical performance rules.

Building on this concept, he designed a brand new piece of software that stripped music making on the DS down to its most simplistic form. Using the stylus and touch screen like a mallet and single drum head, Pixelh8 chose to emulate the percussive style of samba to facilitate group performance and the visual aspects of music sims like Rock Band to help ease novice musicians into the experience.

His Super Chip Tune Samba Band made its debut at FACT, a multimedia arts facility in Liverpool, with ten children and their accompanying adults taking part in the performance. Despite being a rousing success overall, this event helped Pixelh8 discover two flaws in the system. The first, samba bands are supposed to be mobile. Thankfully, Marshall Amplifiers has come to the rescue by donating twenty-five MS4 Microamps to the project. The second issue, however, requires your intervention.

Currently Matthew only has a pair of DS handhelds at his disposal. This means that, in the event that participants don’t have the luxury of bringing their own systems, the Super Chip Tune Samba Band can’t happen. As such, Pixelh8 needs your neglected Nintendo DSes. Whether original systems, DS Lites or the newer DSi iteration in new or used condition, your contribution could make its mark both on education and geeky music. These units don’t need cases or power supplies. They can even look like hell as long as they work, or even mostly work.

Anyone willing to donate is encouraged to contact Pixelh8 via his site. Help him change the face of modern music one beat at a time.

Super Chip Tune Samba Band Research from Pixelh8 on Vimeo.

View full post on GeekDad