The WiMax Difference

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Along the same lines, WiMAX may actually begin to replace cell phone service. Or at least that's what NextWeb has in mind. They announced last week that they're going to start a WiMAX phone service in a couple of months.

So after the big deployment, what's next? Well, there is the eventual deployment of the 802.20 standards, which will be a souped-up cellular service that can provide one megabits per second (Mbps) of data transmission. At issue: this will likely draw too much away from the 3G infrastructure for smart phones, in which phone companies have made tremendous investment.

Further down the line, Sanswire may have the winning idea. Last week, they unveiled the first stratellite, a blimpish looking craft that positions itself at a fixed location in the stratosphere to provide wireless service to an area the size of Texas.

That's Some Tasty DNA

The Washington Post reported last week on MetaMorphix Inc., which uses a genotyping machine to analyze blood samples drawn from cattle. The idea is that certain genes indicate whether a cow can produce that tender, thickly marbled beef ranchers want. Ranchers in Kansas and Texas are using this data to decide which of their cows get expensive diets and which just get to eat hay.  The practice will also probably spread to chickens and pigs in no time.

Doubling Up

PCs with Intel's dual-core processors began shipping last Monday, but analysts expect the big prices that come along with the extra power to keep the computers from being the huge sellers Intel predicted. The profitable application, they say, is in the $4 billion server market -- the main target of AMD, which unveiled its own dual-core chip last Thursday.

The New Mobile Music

When you think of music, do you think of Motorola? The phone maker is trying to push its way to the front of the pack with its new music service. First, there was the iTunes deal with Apple, and now it has announced an iRadio service. Customers download 10 hours of preprogrammed content, and pretend that it's a live feed. The inspiration for this comes from the success of satellite radio, but the question remains: Can pre-programmed compete with live broadcasts?