'CubeSats' Arrival Heralded
Sen.com writer Ben Gilliland has a nice review of miniature satellites in his article CubeSats: good things come in small packages. Gilliland writes, "In 1999, two American scientists--Bob Twiggs at Stanford University and Jordi Puig-Suari at California Polytechnic State University--started developing a new sort of satellite that, rather than dwarfing your Ford Focus, would fit in palm of your hand; instead of tipping the scales at thousands of kilograms, would weigh the same as a bag of sugar; and, rather than costing hundreds of millions, would cost just tens of thousands to build. The CubeSat was born."
If you are thinking CubeSats are too small to be of much practical use, Ben Gilliland's article may change your mind. He describes what has been packed in such a small package and the range of tasks they can perform, concluding, "CubeSats might be small and cheap, but they have the potential to do for space science what the PC did for computing, or what the mobile phone did for communications--making it cheap and accessible to all."
Qualcomm Inks Intellectual Property Deal With Imagination Technologies
Electronicsweekly.com reports Qualcomm licenses mobile TV IP from Imagination. Richard Wilson writes that the intellectual property (IP) is from Imagination's Enigma UCC (Universal Communications Core) broadcast, communications and connectivity family. The article says, "It provides multistandard, multistream low-power broadcast receiver design supporting WiFi, as well as analogue and digital TV, mobile TV, and digital and FM radio reception standards, on a single device." Note that the IP includes technology that could make it easier for Qualcomm to include broadcast reception capability in its devices.
Dell, HP, Others Face CDMA Technology Lawsuit
An article on TomsHardware.com, Patent Troll Sues Dell, HP, 10 Others Over 3G, 4G CDMA Tech, says "Golden Bridge Technologies (GBT), an intellectual property company focused on CDMA technologies, has launched a lawsuit claiming rights to an CDMA enhancement technology that's used in 3G and 4G networks." Douglas Perry writes, "GBT is targeting Samsung, ZTE, Sony, HP, RIM, LG, HTC, Pantech, Dell, Huawei, Sierra Wireless, as well as Motorola, alleging infringement of its 6,574,267 and 7,359,427 patents, both entitled 'Rach ramp-up acknowledgement.' The patents, which have gone through an extensive revision period during the past few years, were filed in 1999 and 2003, respectively, and granted in 2003 and 2008, respectively. The documents describe a CDMA system using spread-spectrum modulation that achieves 'reliable high data throughput and low delay.' Perry has more details on the patented technology and the suit in his article.
