Communications

Protected Satellite Communications (SatComs) exhibit specific characteristics such as security, intelligence, anti-jamming, and nuclear disaster survivability. They constitute one of the key research topics in modern communications. Currently, the United States is using the latest Advanced Extremely High-Frequency (AEHF) system to provide protected communications. Other countries are also employing their... Read more

The astonishing rise of smartphones in everyday life has created many solutions (GPS maps, internet browsing and messaging, to name just a few). But they have also brought new moral dilemmas. One issue in particular stands out in the wake of the pandemic—the fine line between care and surveillance.... Read more

Have you ever chatted with a friend about buying a certain item and been targeted with an ad for that same item the next day? If so, you may have wondered whether your smartphone was "listening" to you.... Read more

In the Biden Administration's proposal to invest in the country's infrastructure, $100 billion is carved out to address gaps in broadband access. According to the Federal Communications Commission, at least 19 million Americans remain without any access to broadband, and many more either can't afford it or have speeds below... Read more

I have a cellphone built into my watch. People now take this type of technology for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of science fiction. The transition from fantasy to reality was far from the flip of a switch. The amount of time, money,... Read more

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been much flaunted as the future of sensors and controllers allowing remote access to environmental and other information and facilitating feedback systems that would otherwise require human intervention. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote sensing and remote control of equipment has become... Read more

The encryption algorithm GEA-1 was implemented in mobile phones in the 1990s to encrypt data connections. Since then, it has been kept secret. Now, a research team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), together with colleagues from France and Norway, has analyzed the algorithm and has come to the following conclusion: GEA-1... Read more

Imagine you're a fisherman living by a lake with a rowboat. Every day, you row out on the calm waters and life is good. But then your family grows, and you need more fish, so you go to the nearby river. Then, you realize you go farther and faster on... Read more

When your Netflix stream drops out in the middle of a rainstorm, can you blame the wild weather?... Read more

High-speed internet access has gone from an amenity to a necessity for working and learning from home, and the COVID-19 pandemic has more clearly revealed the disadvantages for American households that lack a broadband connection.... Read more

After the massive internet outage Tuesday that shut down websites and apps across the world, Virginia Tech computer scientist Ali Butt says the incident points to the weakness of the cloud infrastructure upon which many prominent websites are built.... Read more

On a spring day in 2020, residents of El Paso, Texas, saw their phones light up with a text message: "Avoid parks/family gatherings this Easter. Stay home, stay safe. Do it for your loved ones."... Read more

Fastly, the company hit by a major outage that caused many of the world's top websites to go offline briefly this week, blamed the problem on a software bug that was triggered when a customer changed a setting.... Read more

The Biden administration is making available $1 billion in federal grants to expand the availability of high-speed internet on tribal lands.... Read more

The vast majority of US adults now use a smartphone and have high-speed internet at home, following modest growth over the past two years, a survey showed Thursday.... Read more

A new "fraud wave" has been reported in the UK, targeting mobile phone users with texts that, at first glance, appear to be from delivery companies or government institutions.... Read more

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have developed a wirelessly powered relay network for 5G systems. The proposed battery-free communication addresses the challenges of flexible deployment of relay networks. This design is both economical and energy-efficient. Such advances in 5G communications will create tremendous opportunities for a wide... Read more

Scientists from Heriot-Watt University have secured six-figure funding from Innovate-UK on a project led by BT to develop practical quantum key distribution (QKD) transmitter and receiver modules for short range terrestrial applications.... Read more

Current wireless networks such as Wi-Fi, LTE-Advanced, etc., work in the lower radio spectrum, below 6 GHz. Experts warn that soon this band will become congested due to mushrooming data traffic. It is calculated that by 2024, 17,722 million devices will be connected.... Read more

Within seconds after reaching a city, earthquakes can cause immense destruction: Houses crumble, high-rises turn to rubble, people and animals are buried in the debris.... Read more

Ayear ago, the Gazette spoke with Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Professor Jim Waldo about the technological side of the pandemic-forced shift to work from home. Waldo said then that the world was experiencing a real-time experiment that would stress test the internet in ways... Read more

Apple recently launched the latest version of its operating system, iOS 14.5, which features the much-anticipated app tracking transparency function, bolstering the tech giant's privacy credentials.... Read more

An intelligent antenna developed by researchers at Waterloo Engineering has been successfully tested, a major milestone in a multi-year, multi-million-dollar project.... Read more

Launching this summer, NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) will showcase the dynamic powers of laser communications technologies. With NASA's ever-increasing human and robotic presence in space, missions can benefit from a new way of "talking" with Earth.... Read more

Americans can begin applying for $50 off their monthly internet bill on Wednesday as part of an emergency government program to keep people connected during the pandemic.... Read more

A UCL study across nine countries shows smartphones are more than devices we use, they're 'the place where we live' and swap for close contact with others.... Read more

Free-space optical (FSO) communications has the potential for wide use in the license-free, interference-free transmission of data in unenclosed areas. By using laser beams to propagate through an open-air medium, FSO transmission eliminates the need for wire links.... Read more

The Office of the New York Attorney General said in a new report that a campaign funded by the broadband industry submitted millions of fake comments supporting the 2017 repeal of net neutrality.... Read more

You may be eligible for a $50 monthly coronavirus pandemic discount on your home broadband bill starting next week.... Read more

Boris Johnson's personal phone number has been publicly available on the internet for 15 years, it has been revealed. Listed at the bottom of a 2006 press release, the number has reportedly been accessible online from the time the prime minister was shadow higher education minister through to his rise... Read more

The Dutch privacy watchdog said Thursday it has fined the eastern city of Enschede for tracking people using mobile phone Wi-Fi signals in a system used to measure crowds. The city's municipality said it is appealing the ruling and 600,000-euro ($730,000) fine.... Read more

Extremely low transmission latency is one of the key features promised by 5G communication networks. Additionally, smart networking requires technologies that monitor and anticipate failures to facilitate rapid network repair.... Read more

Dating apps have been under increased scrutiny for their role in facilitating harassment and abuse.... Read more

A team of computer science researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have created and tested a new, Bluetooth-based system for disseminating emergency messages in an urban environment.... Read more

For the second straight year, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers are featured in a special edition of the Journal of Information Warfare. This issue explores the topic of macro cyber resiliency.... Read more

Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a low-cost computer system that connects older public safety radios with the latest wireless communications networks, showing how first responders might easily take advantage of broadband technology offering voice, text, instant messages, video and data capabilities.... Read more

At the height of his career, the pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla became obsessed with an idea. He theorized that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly through the air at long distances—either via a series of strategically positioned towers, or hopping across a system of suspended balloons.... Read more

Verizon is recalling 2.5 million mobile hotspots after some reports of overheating and two reports of minor burns.... Read more

A laser communications terminal prototype to demonstrate this vision is currently being developed by satellite manufacturer Airbus, working in partnership with the Netherlands organization for applied scientific research (TNO). The project is co-financed by Airbus, TNO and the Netherlands Space Office.... Read more

Driven by ubiquitous usage of mobile devices and the explosive growth and diversification of the Internet of Things (IoT), sixth-generation (6G) wireless systems will need to offer unprecedented high data rate and system throughput, which can be achieved in part by deploying systems transmitting and receiving at millimeter-wave (mmWave) and... Read more

New research reveals while mainstream media remains the main go-to news source for Gen Z and Millennials, young people worldwide are relying on multiple platforms, such as social media, for information on the coronavirus (COVD-19) pandemic.... Read more

The ESAIL microsatellite for making the seas safer has picked up more than two million messages from 70 000 ships in a single day.... Read more

Even a low phone battery can mean the difference between life and death during disasters. With the help of TU Delft researcher Indushree Banerjee, the opportunity to communicate and be rescued is no longer dependent on owning an expensive phone with a long-life battery. She has designed a novel energy-efficient... Read more

Comcast Corp. plans to spend $1 billion over the next decade to help low-income Americans connect to the internet, company officials said Wednesday.... Read more

Google and Facebook have unveiled plans for two new undersea data cables linking North America and the Asia-Pacific region, weeks after halting one destined for Hong Kong.... Read more

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have uncovered an innovative way to tap into the over-capacity of 5G networks, turning them into "a wireless power grid" for powering Internet of Things (IoT) devices that today need batteries to operate.... Read more

More than three years ago, Trump-era regulators killed federal net neutrality regulations designed to prevent AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and other major internet providers from exploiting their dominance to favor certain services or apps over others. In response, seven states and Puerto Rico enacted their own net neutrality policies. The most... Read more

Keeping up with wireless demand is a never-ending endeavor for data providers, who often contend with temporary high-usage hotspots that might be underserviced by the fixed-base station network. Tethered drones could provide a flexible and low-cost solution for temporarily increasing wireless capacity when and where it's needed.... Read more

A plume of smoke hung over the Houston area for days in March 2019 after storage tanks containing hazardous chemicals ignited at a Deer Park facility.... Read more

Google's new Wi-Fi Aware functionality, also known as Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN), allows devices running on Android 8.0 (API level 26) and higher to detect and directly connect to each other without any secondary connectivity, such as Bluetooth.... Read more