Verizon will have the first handset running on its Long-Term Evolution 4G network by the middle of next year — about six months ahead of schedule — according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The development of LTE means faster cellular data transfers than the 3G networks now in widespread use by U.S. carriers, though exactly when LTE will become common has long been a source of uncertainty. “Reports have had LTE available by 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and nobody was quite sure when,” Chris Nicoll, a research fellow at the Yankee Group, told TechNewsWorld.

As the Obama administration grapples with the thorny issue of beefing up the United States’ cybersecurity infrastructure, and as security experts warn of impending cyberwarfare, a debate is raging over how much surveillance is enough. One of the biggest problems about implementing cybersecurity is that it involves a measure of surveillance, and the line between surveillance and snooping is razor thin. Thin enough, in fact, that Einstein 3 has aroused privacy concerns because it can examine the content of email.

The United States needs the help of both the private sector and individual Americans to tackle cybersecurity, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said at the RSA Conference 2010 in San Francisco on Wednesday. “We need to have an ongoing two-way conversation and effort between the private and public sectors, and we need to have an ongoing multifaceted effort with the public at large,” she said. The department is working on various technological projects to improve U.S. cybersecurity while respecting civil liberties and privacy.

The United States needs the help of both the private sector and individual Americans to tackle cybersecurity, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said at the RSA Conference 2010 in San Francisco on Wednesday. “We need to have an ongoing two-way conversation and effort between the private and public sectors, and we need to have an ongoing multifaceted effort with the public at large,” she said. The department is working on various technological projects to improve U.S. cybersecurity while respecting civil liberties and privacy.

In the wake of repeated warnings by former top-level government cybersecurity experts that the United States is ill-prepared for a cyberwar, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt disclosed Tuesday the Obama administration’s plans to prepare for the cybersecurity needs of the future. The administration is taking a multifaceted approach to cybersecurity, Schmidt said at the RSA 2010 conference in San Francisco. “Our cybersecurity policies have to be well aligned, so we’re looking at digital networks to make sure they’re resilient and robust,” he said.

Gaming companies like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft ask a lot of their customers. Every few years, they are encouraged by the companies to spend a few hundred bucks to upgrade to a fancy new console. But as far as I can recall, only Sony has ever asked its fans to not play those consoles. It happened Monday, thanks to a bug that kept those with older PlayStation 3s from accessing the PlayStation Network. An item on a company blog described the glitch as a problem with the console’s internal clock, which apparently thought it was a leap year.

The European Union has requested that Google make some changes to its Street View service. It wants Google to delete the images that it captures after six months, according to a letter sent to Google from the head of the EU Article 29 Data Protection Group, which is comprised of data protection officials from EU countries.
It also wants Google to alert residents when its Google Street View cars will be in their area. Google takes the photos for this service using cars that drive up and down streets and roads.

Austin, Texas, is the home of the annual South by Southwest Festival, which in 23 years has grown from a music-only celebration featuring a few Sixth Street bars, a handful of bands and lots of Shiner Bock beer, into a two-week, multi-media extravaganza featuring hundreds of Next New Thing musicians, filmmakers and technology movers/shakers — and lots of Shiner Bock beer. I was living and working in Austin in 1988, the festival’s second year, and remember having a great time sweating up a storm while dancing to some great live music at Antone’s.

After years of keeping everyone in the dark about its solid oxide fuel cell technology, Bloom Energy officially brought its first product out into the sunlight Wednesday with a media event launching its Bloom Energy Server, a cleantech refrigerator-sized power plant for homes and businesses. Bloom used the San Jose, Calif., headquarters of one of its first customers, eBay, as the backdrop for announcing the availability of what it’s calling a greener and cheaper way to wean consumers and businesses off power grids and fossil fuels.

Clearly, exponentially growing technologies are set to change social communications, bringing up a number of touchy privacy and control questions. This year’s TED conference showcased a wide variety of gadgets and ideas, one of the most interesting being Microsoft’s new “augmented reality” mapping technology. Demonstrating the ability not only to see photo representations of streets but also to go inside a building, see three-dimensional graphics all around, Microsoft’s Bing maps architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas wowed the crowd.

On top of all the other demographic categories that segment the United States, the FCC on Tuesday introduced some new ones that its chairman says serve as reasons for adopting a new national broadband strategy, which the agency will present to the public March 17. “Near converts,” “digital hopefuls,” “digitally uncomfortable” and “digitally distant” all describe the various high-speed Web access non-adoption levels found in an FCC phone survey of 5,000 Americans conducted in October-November 2009.

On top of all the other demographic categories that segment the United States, the FCC on Tuesday introduced some new ones that its chairman says serve as reasons for adopting a new national broadband strategy, which the agency will present to the public March 17. “Near converts,” “digital hopefuls,” “digitally uncomfortable” and “digitally distant” all describe the various high-speed Web access non-adoption levels found in an FCC phone survey of 5,000 Americans conducted in October-November 2009.

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