Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2008 - (Page 4)

4 NEWS By JP Joosting, Microwave Engineering Europe IN BRIEF Mobile phone shipments head for 1.2 bn in ‘08 Mobile phone shipments for the last quarter of 2007 reached 332 million units, 13 percent up on the number shipped in the corresponding quarter of 2006, and Nokia has reached 40 percent of global market share, according to Strategy Analytics (London). The market research group forecasts 1.24 billion units will be sold globally in 2008, up 10 percent from 1.12 billion during 2007. Emerging regions, particularly Africa, will continue to drive shipments. Meanwhile, saturated western markets — many of them likely to see weak GDP growth — will remain sluggish in 2008. Strategy Analytics suggests some suppliers had “mild component shortages” during the quarter, but expects these to be less pronounced by the middle of the ﬁrst quarter of this year. www.mwee.com/205918593 Reader-free card provides secure authentication Startup Beepcard (Tel-Aviv, Israel) has developed a reader-free card and solution for secure authentication in previously “card-not-present” environments. By communicating its digital cryptogram via sound waves, the ComDot technology enables a credit card to perform wireless communication with a PC, telephone or mobile phone without using any specialized card reader. The user simply holds the card in front of his PC’s microphone or his telephone and squeezes the ComDot logo - a ﬂat button on the card. The reader-free card transmits a one-time 3DES security code through sound to any telephone or microphone equipped device. With the ability to enable the deployment of smart cards without the need for readers, the ComDot can make card-not-present transactions become card-present. Cards based on ComDot technology target industries such as banking, network security, healthcare, telecommunications, and online services. The cards are used for e-shopping, phonebased purchasing, and Internet services log-in, as well as for phone card calling and cash withdrawal from ATMs. Beepcard claims the ComDot card system is currently the only self powered card that meets the ISO 7810 credit card standard. www.mwee.com/205900238 CSR to show enhanced GPS system for mobile phones Wireless chip specialist CSR plc (Cambridge, England) will demonstrate at next month’s Mobile World Congress the ﬁrst concrete fruits of its push into mobile location, an enhanced-GPS technology that integrates software-based GPS with cellular measurements. The e-GPS system provides real-time GPS navigation embedded in a mobile handset. According to Stuart Strickland, VP of CSR’s Location Business Unit, the technology signiﬁcantly improves the responsiveness and availability of accurate position information compared with assisted GPS (A-GPS) in a live cellular network. The technology incorporates capabilities CSR acquired following the purchase 12 months ago of Nordnav Technologies and Cambridge Positioning Systems. At the time of the deal, CSR said the aim was the development and integration of a software-based enhanced GPS on a Bluetooth chip at a cost add of about $1. www.mwee.com/205918600 Germany gives go-ahead for UWB The German Federal Network Agency has granted a general permission for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) applications. With the move, the agency implements an EU decision. Within the limits of the permission, the usage of radio frequencies between 30 MHz and 10.6 GHz is permitted to anybody free of charge. The move opens the door for a general introduction of UWB-based RF devices covering a wide range of short-range broadband services and applications. For instance, UWB technology could widely replace wiring between consumer electronics devices including Hi-Fi equipment, computers and peripherals. It also can be used for industrial and medical data acquisition and novel applications hitherto impossible due to lack of bandwidth. The agency announced it will monitor closely the impact UWB usage will have on existing TF services and modify the usage parameters if necessary. www.mwee.com/205900229 NXP, Qualcomm, Vodafone prepare for German LTE ﬁeld trials Leading chip, equipment and test companies are participating in a long-term evolution (LTE) ﬁeld trial being conducted in Germany. Participants include NXP, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Alcatel Lucent. Signalion GmbH (Dresden, Germany) has provided MIMO-capable test equipment for the test. The ﬁeld trials are labeled as the Easy-C project, ﬁnanced by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and led by Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone and coordinated by Professor Gerhard Fettweis at the Technical University of Dresden, as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Communications, Heinrich-Herz Institute (HHI). Easy-C includes 11 industrial partners and three academic institutes. The trials are planned to start in Q1 2008 on up to 10 sites with a total of 33 sectors in the Dresden City area and in Berlin, where the project partners will have the opportunity to deploy and test prototypes of LTE equipment under reallife conditions, perform ﬁeld measurements and verify theoretically obtained results. Signalion added enhanced MIMO (multipleinput, multiple-output) capability to its Sorbas LTE test product in December 2007. This supports enhanced data rates and features in line with the developing standard. www.mwee.com/205905979 Microwave Engineering Europe ● January/February 2008 ● www.mwee.com 004_MWEE.indd 4 25/01/08 15:59:39 http://www.mwee.com/205900238 http://www.mwee.com/205918593 http://www.mwee.com/205918600 http://www.mwee.com/205900229 http://www.mwee.com/205905979 http://www.mwee.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2008

Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2008 Contents News Comment Radio: Raising the Bar for the Radio: Making 802.11n Work Cover Feature: The RF-System-In-Package Trend - Efficient Design with Advanced Design System 2008 Wireless Sensor Networks: The Zigbee PRO Feature Set: More of a Good Thing Very Fast Measurements of Wireless Devices with Small Antennas in Reverberation Chambers WiMAX Update 2008 Bridging the Gap from the CMOS DSP to the Antenna in OFDM Systems Products Calendar

Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2008

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