#GigabitWireless. At last?…

Over the last few weeks, the first round of 802.11ac WiFi devices have started to emerge. In essence, 802.11ac is a supercharged version of 802.11n (the current WiFi standard that your smartphone and laptop probably use), offering link speeds ranging from 433 megabits-per-second (Mbps), all the way through to multiple gigabits per second. To achieve speeds that are dozens of times faster than 802.11n, 802.11ac works exclusively in the 5GHz band, uses a huge wad of bandwidth (80 or 160MHz), operates in up to eight spatial streams (MIMO), and a utilizes very fancy technology called beamforming. For more details on what 802.11ac is, and how it will eventually replace wired gigabit ethernet networking at home and in the office, read on.

#Windows finally cleans itself

Windows: Microsoft has released a Windows 7 update that adds a new option in the Disk Cleanup tool called Windows Update Cleanup. With it, you can free up several gigabytes of hard drive space from the bloated Windows Updates folder.

It’s a shame this only applies to the latest products; but no doubt someone will find another way for Vista (he writes crossing his fingers).

Related articles

• Recover Tons of Wasted Disk Space with the New Windows Update Cleanup (lifehacker.com)
• Microsoft releases Windows 7 patch made to help delete old Windows Updates (neowin.net)
• Microsoft Launches Windows 7 SP1 Feature to Clean Up Old Windows Updates (news.softpedia.com)
• Important Update that Adds Windows Update Cleanup (KB2852386) (modem7.wordpress.com)

 

Facebook ejects itself

So! Facebook’s finally done a proper wrong’n, and I’ve hoofed it from me HTC.

This was bound to happen eventually; it seems all app-creators with I.P. to protect seem to stuff their code with so much (potential) cruft, the first users to eject the app’ are people at the lower end of the spec’ spectrum (if you will).

Firefox OS yes Firefox OS

Turns out the Mozilla massive have finally launched their own mobile operating system after announcing it getting on for two years ago.

Why?…

Surely there’s space for some more license-free phone software; particularly since Google own Motorola and thereby own Symbian (in theory Android’s nearest competitor); specially since carriers (e.g. Orange- sorry, EE; O2; etc) theoretically don’t have to pay anything to fill their phones with this latest stuff?!

BlackBerry Androids?!

It turns out, while releasing BBM to other platforms, BlackBerry are expanding the scope of required skills for software-development on their flagship range: http://developer.blackberry.com/android.

As long as your code is written for the Android SDK v2.3.3, and you use BB’s own encapsulation tool, your code should run directly on BB OS10!