wireless network

Last year, Palm thought it had all the pieces for a turnaround in the market it pioneered: A new CEO known for making the iPod a household name, a sleek new smart phone called the Pre and fresh, intuitive operating software.

Instead, the company is in danger of going the way of its 1990s Palm Pilot, making it the latest innovator to learn that great technology and an accomplished leader don't guarantee success.

Stung by complaints about dropped calls and slow wireless downloads, AT&T Inc. is going to spend an additional $2 billion to improve its network this year.

The country's largest telecommunications company has faced an aggressive ad campaign from Verizon Wireless that attacks the quality and range of AT&T's network.

On Thursday, AT&T executives spent an unprecedented amount of time on their fourth-quarter earnings conference call to defend the wireless network and detail how they plan to make it better.

For consumers concerned about wireless network congestion, hope may be at hand. That's the message from a group of tech companies backing wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, a way to get online without having to go through a traditional mobile-phone network.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group that includes Intel, Marvell Technology Group, and dozens of other electronics companies, was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to tout a new technology called Wi-Fi Direct as a way to relieve bottlenecks in wireless networks caused by increased use of mobile devices to access the Internet.

The federal government will soon start handing out the first $4 billion from a pot of stimulus funds intended to spread high-speed Internet connections to more rural communities, poor neighborhoods and other pockets of the country clamoring for better access. The challenge is that the government has received $28 billion in requests.

On the heels of Amazon.com taking its Kindle to international markets, Barnes & Noble is venturing into the increasingly popular e-reader market. The Wall Street Journal reported the giant book retailer could roll out an e-reader as early as next month in the U.S.

In what the Journal described as setting the stage for a showdown between Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Sony, the retail chain may launch an e-reader with a six-inch screen from E Ink, which also supplies displays to Amazon and Sony. The device is said to have touch input and a virtual keyboard.

"Hi! This is your aspirin bottle calling. I haven't seen you in a while. Why don't you come see me soon? I'm good for the heart, you know."

That's the spirit, if not the wording, of the calls that will come from new pill bottle caps that connect to AT&T Inc.'s wireless network.

A Cambridge, Mass.-based startup called Vitality Inc. was set to announce the pill-bottle system Thursday, saying it helps solve one of the biggest problems in medicine: that people don't consistently take the drugs they're prescribed.

Once the exclusive purview of enterprises, terabyte storage drives with advanced capabilities are fast becoming an affordable option for consumers in need of massive amounts of memory to preserve and transport multimedia content.

This week, Apple rolled out a new two-terabyte Time Capsule for $499 that doubles the capacity of its consumer storage lineup. Moreover, the company slashed the cost of its older 1TB model from $499 to just $299.

Sprint Nextel Corp. is intensifying its focus on the fast-growing market for prepaid cell phone service with a $483 million deal to buy Virgin Mobile USA Inc.

The acquisition announced Tuesday calls for Sprint to pay $5.50 in stock for each Virgin Mobile share. Sprint already owned 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, which uses Sprint's network to offer service.

The offer is a 31 percent premium to Virgin Mobile's closing share price Monday of $4.21. In early trading Tuesday, the shares rose $1.05, or 25 percent, to $5.26.

Tracfone Wireless, the country's largest provider of "prepaid" cell phones, is quietly testing a new service that appears to be a response to the fierce price competition in the prepaid market.

Since June, Tracfone has been selling unlimited calling and texting for $45 per month under the "Straight Talk" brand, and 1,000 minutes and 1,000 text messages per month for $30. The service uses Verizon Wireless' network.

At the University of British Columbia (UBC), the wireless network spans 100 hectares with multiple campuses -- and it continues to grow to support more than 55,000 students, professors and staff for learning and research.

Like most major universities, UBC relies on technology to help it deliver educational services to its students and keep its faculty on the cutting edge of research and development. When UBC needed a solution that would scale with its growth and allow mobile workspaces anywhere on campus, it turned to Cisco.