Here’s why automakers want 4G technology in cars

4g tech

Automakers are counting on the connected car.

Today’s cars are trying to replicate the smartphone experience. Touchscreen interfaces are common. Dashboard designers take UI tips from iPhones, and automakers want to build apps for cars. Large automakers like General Motors are taking the next obvious step and integrating 4G LTE service into their cars starting this year. Drivers pay a monthly service fee for in-car 4G that’s separate from their smartphones, and use it for an array of services from movies for kids in the backseat to sophisticated GPS-on-steroids solutions. It’s a win-win for automakers, the dealers who sell the 4G add-ons, and carriers like AT&T. But is it a win for consumers?

 

 

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5 Ways 4G Will Change the Way We Use Cell Phones

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Sprint Evo 4G cell phone

Evo’s drool-icious pool of future tech makes it a groundbreaking device — not quite the shock the original iPhone was, but close. Evo’s 4G connectivity, front-facing camera, HD camcorder, and especially its multi-user mobile hotspot capabilities, are all features future high-end cellphones will emulate.

 

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The Apple Engineer Who Lost the Top Secret 4G iPhone Prototype After Celebrating His 27th Birthday

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Apple employee Gray Powell, believed to have left a prototype of the new iPhone in a bar

It has happened to most of us at some point: you arrive home after a night out and can’t remember what on earth you did with your phone.  But  – unluckily for this man – a mobile left behind on a bar stool at a German beer garden in Redwood City, California, has set alarm bells ringing with an intrigue worthy of the Cold War.

 

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Your Own Personal Cell Phone Tower

airvana

Airvana’s HubBub is a femtocell that boosts a wireless signal indoors.

To accommodate explosive growth in demand for wireless data, many mobile carriers have begun touting next-generation “4G” networks. But to consistently reach good speeds, especially indoors in densely populated areas, so some carriers are starting to offer small, low-power indoor cellular access points called “femtocells.”

 

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Next Generation Cell Networks Could Improve Service For Old and New Smartphones

SierraWirelessOverdrive

The Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot lets multiple Wi-Fi devices share a connection to Sprint’s 4G network.

As cell phones take on more and more features, wireless carriers are struggling to keep up with data demands.

Whether wireless customers are watching videos on YouTube or uploading puppy pictures to Facebook, they want reliable speed. Upgrading the network is essential to meeting the needs of these customers, and each wireless carrier has its own plan of attack. Some are upgrading their existing third generation (3G) networks with better software before moving on to next generation networks. Others already have fourth generation (4G) networks up and running. In addition to transmitting high-definition video, these networks could alleviate traffic problems on existing networks, making service better for everyone–even folks who don’t plan on buying a new 4G-enabled device.

 

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iPhones Overload AT&T, Angering Customers

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AT&T monitors its network from its operations center

Slim and sleek as it is, the iPhone is really the Hummer of cellphones.

It’s a data guzzler. Owners use them like minicomputers, which they are, and use them a lot. Not only do iPhone owners download applications, stream music and videos and browse the Web at higher rates than the average smartphone user, but the average iPhone owner can also use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user.

 

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Top 5 Tech Toys Of 2009 And 5 More On The Way

Top 5 Tech Toys Of 2009 And 5 More On The Way 

2008 was a good year for gadgets, and we’re hoping that ’09 will be just as impressive. We’re only a month in so far, but Palm, Dell, Sony and even Amazon have all dropped hints about what the companies have in store. We’ve collected the five big announcements that have us drooling, as well as five more that we’d like to see happen before 2010.

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