Intel Home Dashboard Concept to help monitor energy usage at home.

With all the potential seen in smart meters to save them and their customers money, utility companies all across the country are in an arms race for their implementation. One of the majors attractions of the smart meters is the fact that they can tell homeowners the cost of the energy they are using at any given time of the day. Armed with that information, homeowners are given the option to defere their heavy energy use untill off-peak hours, therefore saving them money.
But the process is in its very earlier stages with only a very few homes equipped with the devices. To remedied to that, there are some companies offering alternative products, some readily available, some not. Intel the computer chip maker, is one of them with a prototype product called Home Dashboard Concept, part of its new Home Energy Management Concept.
The product looks like the interface in most smart phones with a sleek touchscreen and can be hang on a wall or left sitting on a counter which add convenience since you can move it around the house.
Like the same suggests, the product does more than just monitoring energy use, it serve multiple purposes. Just like a smartphone, the Home Dashboard Concept is equipped of a camera that allow family members to leave video messages to another. It also allow dozens of applications to be run like you would on a smart phone for different purposes like mapping out an itinerary, looking for a telephone number in the phone book, tracking packages, looking for the weather or traffic conditions etc. Watch a video demonstration of the product here.
As cool and exiting as the new product may sound, Intel does not have a plan to commercialize it for now, instead it is looking to work with others manufactures to have them use its designs and processors with their own devices, the New York Times said.

For more, see NYTimes.com

Skype internet calling is coming to Verizon Wireless soon.

Verizon Wireless has announced last week that beginning in March, it will offer free Internet -calling service on some of its smart phones. But the offer comes with a catch as the users will need to subscribe to a Verizon data and voice plan. If users decide to settle with Verizon cheapest data and voice plan, it will cost them a minimum of $70 a month ($40 for 450 voice minutes and $30 for a data plan.)
The Skype app will made available in late March to nine smart phones on the Verizon network, including Blackberry models and Google's Android models, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For more, see WSJ.com

Using WI-FI as an alternative to cellular networks congestion.

With the popularity of samart phones these days, come a drawback in the form of clogged cellular network connections who more often than not, got more than they can handle.
So to help remedie the situation, some of the nation biggest wireless carriers are offering a temporary relief in the form of WI-FI connection from hot spots. With WI-FI, customers can bypass the carriers wireless networks and make or receive phone calls and deliver or access fast data in areas where they normally wouldn't.
In that regard, AT&T, the carrier with the most isssues with network coongestion, is leading the way with close eely to 20,000 company's accessible hot spots. Those hot spots are freely accessible as part of their monthly data plan to AT&T customers with Windows Mobile phones as well as AT&T customers owners of an iPhone or a Blackberry even though, many of them are not aware of that option.
To find those free hot spots, iPhone owners can download WI-FI locator apps like the free hot spots finder, WI-FI Finder from JiWire which will offer users a list of nearby hot spots based on their locations. Blackberry or Windows Mobile phones owners on the AT&T network, don't have access to such free applications, but for a certain fee, can download apps from either the Blackberry's App World or the Android Market.
T.Mobile, another big wireless carrier, also offers free WI-FI connections to its subscribers as part of their monthly data plan but for only about 10,000 hot spots locations.
But for an additional $10 a month, T.Mobile customers are able to place unlimited calls from any hot spot without exceding their plan limits. Unfortonatly, among T.Mobile 30 WI-FI capable phones, only 18 of them can make such calls and to make it even more restrictive, the Android powered phones are not among them.
Another big wireless carrier, Sprint does not offer WI-FI connections but instead is taking another route in the form of WiMax technology, in conjonction with its partner, Clearwire Communications.
With that technology, Sprint is trying to cover entire cities in an Internet cloud and not just some hot spots. That's why the project is slow going and is rolled out in only a few cities (Baltimore, Las Vegas, Boise Idaho, Bellingham Washington and Portland Oregon) with a few more on the work.
In cities where its WiMax is present, Sprint's actual subscribers would have to pay an additional fee to acces the network and they have the option to pay a $ 60 monthly fee for unlimited connection, or pay by the day to the tune of $10 for a full 24 hours.
Verizon Wireless, the nation biggest wireless carrier doesn't offer a WI-FI cellphone connection even though it is promoting a device commonly called MI-FI that for $100 a month, will enable up to five devices to connect to the Internet. But the catch there is , you have to be near a cellular covered area for the device to work.



For more, see NYTimes.com