Intucell’s technology uses idle cell phones to provide information about a network’s configuration and then automatically and in real-time helps adjust the network’s parameters to deliver a better user experience for customers. It doesn’t require a client installed on each cell phone, but instead senses the RF disruptions caused by idle handsets to map out where demand is likely to come from and how the network will react to it. Then its software installed in the core network can tell the equipment to take action; for example, shrinking the coverage area of a tower if it’s particularly overwhelmed. Such technology radically changes the game for operators, who generally perform network tweaks and adaptations in days as opposed to minutes. They also use network engineers as opposed to algorithms.

In short, Intucell helps make cellular networks scalable, a feat that becomes more and more important as mobile data demand skyrockets. It’s no longer enough to have some spectrum and a pipe to the web. Now, that pipe back to the web, or backhaul, has to be fiber and even then networks are still becoming overwhelmed. Soon operators will not only have Wi-Fi offload, but will marry that Wi-Fi closer to their networks to provide easier handoffs. They will also add small base stations in metro areas in the form of picocells or femtocells.

But multiple networks and more base stations, as well as more demand, are forcing operators to undergo a shift similar to what the data center saw as the demand for computing began to overwhelm the profits and abilities of systems administrators to handle it. For example, when it took one person to manage 10 servers, owning 500 was an investment, but now with corporations owning tens of thousands, such a ratio would constrain demand. So places that required a lot of computing adapted and came up with new architectures and software that helped become the redundant, autonomic and cloud-based computing centers familiar today.

That same shift will have to happen in the mobile networks, and Intucell is just one company that will help make this shift a reality. Its technology allows for a self-optimized network that can adapt to user demand in real-time, a feature that Daniel Deeney, a partner at New Venture Partners had called for when speaking with me last year about Verizon’s .3 billion fund for startups that will help the operator advance its Long Term Evolution network. Intucell has already convinced a few undisclosed mobile operators to use its software.

“The traditional way of managing networks are not effective anymore, said Rani Wellinstein, CEO of Intucell. “Operators now have this data crunch and need to develop new operational models to run the network. Traffic is more dynamic, the growth in data requires more capacity and much faster response times, and revenue aren’t going to increase. Operators must add automation to the way they manage the network.”

This area is ripe for startup activity, from deeply technical solutions that enable operators to manage more complicated networks without increasing spending — or cram more bits into a megahertz of spectrum to boost capacity — to logistical solutions such as improving billing, so that operators can introduce congestion pricing or upsell subscribers in real-time. Mobile networks are changing, and in the next few years, we’ll see the startups emerge that hope to take advantage of that. At least I hope so. Because otherwise mobile innovation is headed toward a wall.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Mobile 2011: Data Consumption Will Explode
• Metered Mobile Data is Coming and Here’s How
• For Operators Who Bet on WiMAX, There’s an LTE Plan B

GigaOMTech

Overview and demonstration of my SSTC Setup playing the Monkey Island theme. The RF is generated with a Class-E MOSFET stage with controllable Frequency. The sound is modulated on the gate signal of the MOSFET via PWM. The sound is then emitted by the arc itself. Excitation and PWM Frequencies are set with DDS generators controlled via a Microcontroller board with USB interface. The sound comes directly from the soundcard of the PC. All the Hardware and the Software is (c) by me 73 de Florian, DB1LOL
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Let’s take a look at the key differences of both models. For one, you can be able to tell them apart by just a glance, since the UN55B7000 has a distinct amber border on its panel, while the only touch of color on the UN55B8000 is its blue power indicator, which can even be turned off. Both are among Samsung’s thinnest HDTVs, measuring a maximum of 1.2 inches deep, although the UN55B7000 is a few inches taller. Both also come with matching swivelling stands – charcoal grey for the UN55B8000 and red for the UN55B7000.

Their clickers are different, too, with the one that comes with the UN55B7000 being more user-friendly, with backlit buttons that are easy to press and differentiate instead of the less-than-responsive scroll wheel. Its design has been slightly modified, too, so that it remains stable on flat surfaces, although it won’t work unless pointed to the screen – something the UN55B8000′s clicker, with its RF capability, can do. Both have secondary remotes for power, channel and volume controls.

When it comes to picture quality, both offer relatively deep blacks due to their LED lighting, although those of the UN55B8000 are slightly deeper since it sports a dynamic contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1 whereas the UN55B7000 has 3,000,000;1. The UN55B8000 also comes with a Wide Color Enhancer Pro that maximizes each pixel for more vibrant colors, although the colors displayed by the UN55B7000 are no less vivid and the images no less crisp.

The last major difference is that of the refresh rate. In particular, the UN55B8000 prides itself on its high refresh rate – 240Hz – which is two times better than the UN55B7000. Still, both effectively prevent blurring even with the dejudder processing turned off – a mechanism scarce on Sony HDTVs.

With these, you should be able to tell the Samsung UN55B7000 and the UN55B8000 apart, and better decide which one you should get. After all, they are alike in all the rest, like their interactive features, for example. Both carry the same Yahoo widgets that make it easy to access the latest news, weather and stock market updates, and both are also enhanced with DLNA capability that makes it possible to access videos, photos and music files stored on networked computers.

As mentioned earlier, both models are incredibly energy efficient. This is because they employ not just LCD technology, but LED-based technology, and furthermore, edge-lit LED lighting. This means they use fewer LEDs than most LED-based HDTVs, which use less power than the fluorescent lamp used by most LCD televisions. Connectivity is not an issue either – both have four HDMI inputs, a VGA PC input, two USB slots and a few more.

Indeed, the Samsung UN55B7000 and the Samsung UN55B8000 are both excellent choices, which means you should be happy, no matter which one you get. The UN55B8000 clearly offers better images, though, which you can enjoy for a few more hundred bucks.

About the author – Edward McKellen is an HDTV expert who writes HDTV reviews for HDTVreviewlab.com. To read more about the Samsung UN55B7000  or check out the latest HDTV reviews visit HDTVreviewlab.com

Brad Nelson, aka my hero for the day, created this amazing homebrew HUD system that provides pretty much all the functionality you’d find in a first-person shooter video game, but for real-life games of capture the flag or paintball. Thanks to a GPS and XBee RF module, as well as a small LCD display, each ZephyrEye unit allows a player to not only see the boundaries of the game field including base stations and flag locations, but also the other players, the direction each one is headed and whether they’re friend or foe. It even includes a microphone which is used to keep track of your ammo count in real-time. Most impressive!

Like in a video game, different gameplay scenarios and settings can be chosen via a basic menu system, like whether to show or hide enemy players, or to facilitate ‘re-spawn’ zones for players who’ve been ‘killed’, and a basic menu-based messaging system allows team leaders to direct their players or send general instructions. I’m not sure if Brad plans to mass produce or sell these units, but so far he’s posted a pretty detailed build history on his blog, including links to the source code if you’re interested in building your own.

[ Brad's Projects Blog - ZephyrEye: Assembly and Testing ] VIA [ Tom's Guide ]

So this is how the other half lives, huh? It must be nice to have a house full of $1200 remotes customized with user profiles and home automation controls. Yes, this remote costs $1200 and that doesn’t include installation and yes, you need it to be installed professionally. This isn’t a Harmony remote that can be set up in 10 minutes. But once it’s installed, holy cow, it’s effen amazing. I would call it the perfect remote, but I had two demo units die on me.

Features:

• Haptic feedback touchscreen
• IR, RF, and Wi-Fi controls
• Windows Media Center compatible
• Rechargeable battery
• MSRP of $1,199.99

Pros:

• Amazing build quality
• No limits on customization
• Touchscreen is perfect in size and function

Cons:

• It’s $1,200
• Most people cannot program it
• I had two units stop working on me

Review:

The first thing you’ll notice about the MX-3000 is the build quality. It feels like a million bucks. The buttons are smooth and hard with just the right amount of pressure needed to press them down. The screen is bright, sharp and very high-res. Even the charger screams high-end. It’s easily the best-feeling remote I have ever used.

But then I tried to set it up. The company offered to pre-program the remote before they sent it to me, but that insulted my inner nerd. I thought, “How hard could it be?” Well, after watching four online instructional videos from URC and spending about eight hours, I finally got the remote to communicate with my devices. But after that first, huge learning curve, I feel like I can do almost everything with the remote. I’m sure there are some super-macros that I don’t know about, but I managed to program the remote to control three AV systems (one via RF). I feel like all the CrunchGear writers could program the remote, along with a few of my nerdy friends. However, there is no way that the average Best Buy shopper could. Maybe the average MicroCenter customer.

The issue is that the setup program isn’t meant for the general public or the DIY crowd. It involves using IF THEN statements for macros and manually adding devices’ RF profiles. However, this type of programming allows installers complete control over how the remote controls each system. Anything is possible and installers are not tied down to a wizard.

Everything is customizable. You use pre-programmed themes or make your own in Photoshop. It’s totally up to the installer to create a pleasant user experience. I’m personally happy with how my UI turned out.

I found that backgrounds for the BlackBerry Storm are the perfect resolution, and this one looks great with the brushed look of the remote. My setup allows me to control three different AV systems in my house – not that I really need that ability. I added a dedicated TiVo button to one of the default layouts and it works great.

The remote also features a Wi-Fi chipset, which enables simple RSS feeds like sports scores, news, and weather to be displayed on the remote. And it can easily control a Windows Media Center PC. The info screens are nifty, but almost a novelty. However, the Windows Media Center control is the coolest function of the remote.

All you need to do is tell the remote the Windows Media Center computer’s IP address in the PC programming software and it works. The remote’s touchscreen displays common functions and the navigational pad controls the on-screen GUI. It works flawlessly and is the easiest way to control Windows Media Center with a remote that I have ever used.

But not everyone has the ability to hook up a Media Center PC to their TV. The remote can still access a PC’s music library and provide two-way communication. This means that as long as the PC is hooked up to an audio receiver, the remote can control and play back music and even display album art.

I would love to slap a large, “highly-recommended” sticker on the remote but I can’t because of the issues I had with the first two demo units. The first one just stopped working about two weeks after I got it and the other one stopped waking up when I picked up the remote. After disabling the motion sensor in the second demo unit, it worked fine for a while but eventually it started to freeze daily, which was resolved only by pulling the battery. But most of the review samples we get are first-run units so bugs can be expected. The third remote seems to be fine.

The only real downside to the remote besides the price is that most people will probably need a pro to install it. If URC can come up with a complete, but also easy to use wizard, there is a market for such a remote – even at the high price. It’s the complete package: candy bar form factor, totally customizable, Wi-Fi- and RF-enabled, and it feels amazing. There is a huge difference in quality and ability between this remote and the $400 Harmony 900, but unless you have cash to burn or a complicated A/V setup, there really isn’t any reason to spend the extra cash. Unless you want the best remote on the planet, that is.

Product Page

Amazon has a pretty aggressive deal on a refurbished Logitech Harmony 890 universal remote control. It’s priced at $99.99, today only, down from just under $250 normally.

The remote controls up to 15 devices and includes both RF and infrared signals. Setup is handled via PC or Mac and the list of compatible devices is up over 175,000 currently. There’s a built-in color LCD screen and lithium-ion rechargeable battery as well. Again, this deal is good today only. The remote carries a 90-day warranty direct from Logitech.

Logitech Harmony 890 Remote Control – Refurbished [Amazon]

The Price:

$100

The Verdict:

Actually a good deal.

There are two components of the remote that, depending on your habits, you may use more or less of. There’s the “universal remote” part of the iconRemote RF, which acts similar to the Logitech Harmony remotes in that it controls all your electronics, but it doesn’t have the fancy software programming suite to back it up. And there’s the X10 part of the remote, which acts as a wireless control—via the included wireless receiver and appliance/lamp modules—to various appliances around your house.

The Remote:

The iconRemote RF is a so-so universal remote, and you program it like you do the old style ones you buy at Radio Shack; you point it at your TV and you stop cycling when the TV turns on. Repeat as many times as you have A/V equipment you want to control.

This method makes initial setup actually easier than the Logitech Harmony remotes, but limits you to how much fine-grained control you have. The remote may “know” how to turn on and off your receiver, but it doesn’t understand how many HDMI inputs there are or how to switch between them. So it’s a universal remote only for more simple systems with just a TV and maybe a DVD player.

One nice feature the iconRemote introduces is the semi-hard coded favorites, which has network logos on screen that you can click to jump to. And, as the name of the remote implies, it has an RF to IR blaster included, so you can eschew line-of-sight and put your equipment in a cabinet and still be able to change channels.

Package includes an RF to IR blaster


It’s only a rudimentary universal remote


Also, it’s kind of gigantic

The X10 Wireless Control:

X10 has dialed down their popup ads in recent years, but their product is the same: home automation via light, appliance and electronics controls. The package includes one wireless transceiver, one lamp module and one appliance module. The transceiver takes the wireless signals and shoots them over your powerline, which them gets interpreted by your lamp or appliance module to turn on/off whatever’s plugged in.

Its major flaw is the fact that the whole transceiver + module has to be on the same circuit. A transceiver upstairs wouldn’t control a lamp downstairs, for example, because they weren’t able to talk to each other over the electrical system. You’ll have to go and buy more transceivers to control every room of your house this way.

But, once you do have everything set up, being able to dim lights, turn on and off appliances, and otherwise interact with other X10 home automation devices, is a pretty valuable thing to have in your universal remote.

Controls X10′s home automation modules


Comes with one transceiver and two control modules


You’ll have to buy a lot more to control your entire house

At $100, the iconRemote RF is a pretty interesting package. It’s not great enough of a remote to replace a Logitech Harmony for hardcore users, but it is decent enough to be a step up from those cheaper universal remotes you may have. Coupled with the fact that it’s an X10 remote, it’s a very handy thing to have at all times.

To get the package, add both the iconRemote RF and the Remote-Controlled Dimmable Theater Lighting to your cart before checkout. [X10]

Last Christmas I got my 14-year old sister-in-law a Zune 80 over an iPod touch or classic. She got the Zune because it offered more storage than the flash-based touch, but had a bigger screen than the iPod classic. Plus I’ve never had a Zune act funky or die on me, which is something I can’t say that about an iPod. But then her birthday rolled around and we wanted to get her a speaker dock. Yeah, there are five speaker docks on the market and either they sound like poo, or they are made by Kicker and therefore out of our price range. She ended up getting a 2.1 computer speaker set with a y-cable.

The issue I have is that I like all the extras you can do with these devices. I have an Onkyo iPod dock along with a Belkin RF car dock that I used to use all the time with the iPod Mini. I expect to have the same capabilities with my new purchase, but I don’t think I can get that with the Zune HD.

Right now the Zune HD has a $90 docking kit that includes a remote, cables, and of course a dock. That’s cool, but will A/V companies produce their own dock that utilize digital transport for the audio and controlled by the receiver’s remote? Or will car audio companies make head-units that can control the Zune HD? Or even when will the first speaker dock be available because the five for the older Zunes aren’t 100% compatible. All these unknowns and are holding back my Zune HD purchase.

But really the same concern about 3rd party accessories for the device can be translated into the App world as well. Right now there isn’t a clear-cut way for developers to release applications for the Zune Marketplace. But there are billions of apps waiting for me Apple’s App Store. To be honest I don’t care that much about this facade, but it’s still on my mind.

If I lived a headphone life, I would have already purchased the Zune HD. I’m sure of that. But I sit at my desk where I have wonderful Polk Audio RTi150 speakers hooked up to an Onkyo receiver. I only breakout headphones during my kid’s naptime and even then, they are used via the receiver. I want the new portable device primarily for around the house with my various A/V setups (I’m an audio nerd), for in-the-car music listening, to entertain my 2 year-old son with classic Donald Duck shorts, and for the occasional plane ride.

I still don’t know which one I’m going to purchase. Available accessories are an important feature in my mind and the iPod wins that point by a mile, but the Zune HD is just so eff’n cool. IDK.

(Credit: Logitech)

It looks a lot like the Harmony One or the new Harmony 900 and the freshly announced Logitech Harmony 700 Remote only appears to be missing the touch screen found on its bigger brothers.

As we expected, the Harmony 700 retains most of the great features found in the One and 900 like a rechargeable battery, color screen (though smaller), and software-based setup for use with a PC or Mac.

Judging on looks alone, the 700 seems to be cut from the same cloth as the One and 900 but lacks a certain glossy finish found on the other two remotes. Also, the buttons seem a bit smaller as there’s more space in between them.

The Harmony 700 is set to go on sale this month for $150. While we can’t give our final take until we properly review the remote, it seems the extra cash you’d spend to upgrade to the Harmony One would be worth it–especially since the One can be found online for $180. Of course if it’s RF you’re looking for, the 900 is the way to go.

Full product shot after the jump: …