4G WiMAX in the NYC Area: 10 Things You Need to Know - PC Magazine

Clearwire and Sprint just launched their "4G" WiMAX network in the New York metro area, along with Hartford and New Haven, CT and Tampa, FL. I've been testing WiMAX for more than two years now since its first launch in Baltimore, and I've been following Sprint and Clearwire as they cover the country. Here are 10 things you might not know about their launch.

Sprint, Clear, Time Warner, and Comcast 4G are all the same thing, so shop around. You'll see ads for Sprint, Clear, and Time Warner around New York City. They're all partners in one network, and you're getting the exact same 4G service from each company. They have different prices and contract terms. So shop around for the best deal if you're interested.

Expect speeds from 3-8 Mbits/sec down in good conditions. That's as fast as a middling home DSL or cable connection, and faster than many of Verizon's home DSL packages. Latency is longer than on DSL, so WiMAX isn't as good for gaming as wired Internet. But WiMAX is great for watching Web video, as long as you have a strong connection.

This is for home Internet, too. The 4G partners will also be selling home PC modems: big units that sit in your window, mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, and little USB sticks that attach to laptops. They're especially good for college students, subletters, and other people who move a lot. "But Time Warner already sells home Internet," you say. Yes, and this lets Time Warner sell home Internet into Cablevision's territories around New York.

There are no limits. Unlike other wireless Internet systems, the WiMAX carriers don't put a limit on how much data you can download a month. It's all you can eat. Go crazy.

Sprint 4G phones are ready to go. If you own an HTC EVO 4G or Samsung Epic 4G from Sprint, you've already been paying for 4G service. Now just pop down the "windowshade" on your phone's screen and turn on 4G. It'll work fine. Don't keep it on all the time, though, as it will kill your phone's battery. Use it when you need extra speed.

Clearwire and cable companies may start selling mobile phones, too. All of the WiMAX partners have said they want to sell mobile phones and Internet tablets in the future. So there may be even more shopping around to do.

Phone calls? That's complicated. There's no official way to make mobile phone calls over 4G, and 4G mobile phones just drop back to 3G to make calls. But Clearwire sells home voice-over-IP phone bundles that work on 4G in other cities.

Watch out for coverage holes. Clearwire is known for swiss-cheese coverage, and if you look at its official coverage map, it's much less than the entire New York metro area. And in our experience, even in some areas with coverage, weak connections mean slow speeds inside many buildings. Coverage will grow with time, of course, but make sure this works where you want it.

This isn't really 4G, but then again nothing is. Last week the ITU, the international body that decides which G is which, declared that no "4G" service being sold this or next year will actually be 4G. So 4G as we know it right now is a meaningless marketing term that anyone can apply to anything - it doesn't really mean anything.

T-Mobile's 3G can be as fast as Sprint's 4G. T-Mobile's HSPA+ system may be 3G, but in our tests last April, it was often as fast as Sprint's 4G. So if you're looking for the fastest mobile Internet connection, consider T-Mobile's G2 and myTouch 4G phones as well as the Sprint devices.

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Biodiversity study sounds an extinction alert (for things with spines) - Christian Science Monitor

If a creature has a spine and walks, flies, swims, or crawls, it may be in serious trouble.

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Some 20 percent of all vertebrate species on Earth are threatened by extinction, according to a newly published survey – a study the research team involved says is the most exhaustive to date on biodiversity among vertebrates.

The losses are due largely to human encroachment on habitat, over-fishing and over-hunting, as well as the arrival of invasive species in habitats whose natural inhabitants have no defenses against the invaders, the study says.

But within an admittedly bleak global picture, the researchers add, conservation efforts have halted the decline in some species and brought others a significant step closer to recovery.

"The bad news can be extremely disheartening," says Ana Rodrigues, a scientist with the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in Paris and one of a team of 174 scientists from 38 countries who co-authored the study.

"But our results show that conservation efforts are not wasted," she adds.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of plant and animal species in an ecosystem. Generally the greater the diversity, the more resilient the ecosystem is to disturbances, either natural or man-made.

Using an internationally recognized "red list" index that tries to capture changes in a species' population size, structure, and geographic range, among other factors, the team found that without conservation programs, biodiversity among birds and mammals would have declined an additional 18 percent over the past 30 years. The programs range from efforts to establish safe havens such as marine protected areas or wildlife reserves to campaigns to battle invasive species.

The report draws on research conducted by some 3,000 scientists worldwide. It was published Tuesday on the journal Science’s website as delegates from 194 countries were meeting in Nagoya, Japan, to try to set conservation targets for the next decade under the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, which is scheduled to end Oct. 29.

Eight years ago, parties to the convention agreed to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. But in April, a study published online in Science showed that the rate of decline in biodiversity across a broad range of plants and animals was not slowing. Countries had failed to meet the 2010 goal.

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Faster Forward: Things I know about the 'Verizon iPhone' story - Washington Post

Because so many of you have asked, here is the total of what I know about the odds of a Verizon iPhone. That perpetual rumor subject is once again in the news, courtesy of a Wall Street Journal story that declares upfront: "Apple Inc. is making a version of its iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year, according to people familiar with the matter."

* The WSJ's piece is more specific than others -- after an overnight revision that changed it from referring to an iPhone running on Verizon's CDMA wireless technology to naming Verizon upfront. And the WSJ's reporters are no slouches.

* I have no direct evidence proving or disproving the WSJ's story. (If you do, you know how to reach me.)

* I don't put much value in anything Verizon Wireless might say today. If the company is really getting the thing, of course it will say nothing or offer deliberately vague, possibly misleading answers. Apple, meanwhile, will maintain its customary, sphinx-like silence.

* I suspect that Apple has had test CDMA versions of the iPhone for years, just as it had test versions of Mac OS X running on Intel processors for years before it announced it would switch from PowerPC chips to Intel's.

* Strictly as a business proposition, it's unwise for Apple to keep the iPhone chained to one carrier in the U.S. market when many potential customers don't want to use that carrier's services. That's not how it offers the iPhone elsewhere, as per the long-standing business maxim that "if somebody wants to give you their money for a product, you should let them." But there could be complicating factors: Maybe somebody at AT&T has naked pictures of Steve Jobs.

* Don't forget that every single story predicting the arrival of a Verizon iPhone on a date preceding today has been wrong. That is a nearly unmatched record of forecasting futility.

* I would also find it inconceivable for Apple to let Verizon give an iPhone the usual Verizon treatment -- prominent Verizon branding, a suite of non-removable Verizon apps, maybe even a separate app store -- much less the outright disfigurement of somebody else's software I saw in its new Samsung Fascinate.

* If you want to hold on to an antique phone in the hope that Verizon will pull an iPhone out of its hat sometime early next year, you might as well go ahead now. But I reserve the right to point and laugh at you if your optimism proves unwarranted. I might not even wait to mock you: Sitting around and hoping for a Verizon iPhone to descend from the skies, year after year, starts to resemble cargo-cult behavior. Seriously, aren't you tired of carrying around your Windows Mobile 6 device or your Palm Treo already?

* I believe I speak for every tech reporter in America when I write this: Very few things would make me happier than not to have to answer "when is the iPhone coming to Verizon" questions anymore. Seriously -- I hate this story. So, please, companies involved: Make it go away, one way or another.

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