I am a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and get a daily digest of news items. Many of these are also of interest to amateur radio operators. Here are som from the last couple of weeks….Dan
NIST Awards $38.5 Million to Accelerate Public Safety Communications Technologies
CCC Blog
Helen Wright
June 20, 2017
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded grants totaling $38.5 million to 33 research and development (R&D) projects committed to advancing broadband communications technologies for first responders. The goal of the NIST grants is to modernize public safety communications and operations by supporting the transfer of data, video, and voice communications from mobile radio to a nationwide public safety broadband network, as well as expediting critical indoor location-tracking and public safety analytics technologies. The awardees encompass five technology areas with the potential to significantly augment public safety communications and operations, including mission-critical voice, location-based services, public safety analytics, research and prototyping platforms, and resilient systems. Among the winning projects are the University of Michigan’s Body-Worn Camera Analytics in Public Safety initiative, the University of Virginia’s Towards Cognitive Assistant Systems for Emergency Response effort, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Real-Time Video Analytics for Situation Awareness project. Full Article
How AI Helped the FCC Auction Off $19-Billion Worth of Radio Spectrum
UBC Science
Chris Balma
June 26, 2017
Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada and Stanford University in March organized a $19-billion auction of 84 megahertz of radio spectrum using artificial intelligence (AI). The team of computer scientists and economists designed and developed a reverse auction solution in which the price was set by how low TV broadcasters were willing to go to turn over their unused airwaves. The implication was that in densely populated areas, broadcasters made more money for their sales, while those in less populous regions were paid less for their spectrum. The system also factored in other variables, including the number of trades occurring at once and property rights. The AI-based system may be helpful as countries prepare to sell bandwidth for the future 5G mobile network, while UBC professor Kevin Leyton-Brown says the design could serve as a model for similar auctions even on a much smaller scale. Full Article
This Cellphone Can Make Calls Even Without a Battery Wired
Mark Harris
June 28, 2017
Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle (UW) have developed a prototype cellphone that functions without a battery, drawing power from the surrounding environment. The researchers created the handset by developing a new technique called backscatter, which enables a device to communicate by reflecting incoming radio waves. The cellphone uses digital signals to dial numbers, while the backscatter process for voice calls is analog. To develop the phone commercially, the new circuitry could be built into a home Wi-Fi router or a traditional cell tower. “Real cell towers have a hundred times as much power, and would increase the range to perhaps a kilometer,” says UW researcher Vamsi Talla. However, the system can only run on very low power. For example, the large touchscreens that are common on modern smartphones require about 400 milliwatts of power, more than 100,000 times as much power as the new device needs. Full Article