The first commercial, which I saw air for the first time during the New England Patriots game this afternoon, is called Verizon Blue Christmas (above). As Elvis croons, a man depressingly makes his way home with no cell coverage. He's utterly sad until he sees that a wrapped, red present might just contain the phone he's really looking for.

The second commercial, below, shows us that the "naughty" people won't be getting coal in their stockings this year. Nope, they'll be getting spotty AT&T 3G service instead! Ho ho ho.

The last commercial places an iPhone-esque phone on the Island of Misfit Toys.

The phone seems out of place, at least until the toys get a glimpse of its 3G network. "You'll fit right in!" they scream. And then we all just laugh and laugh. [Verizon's YouTube Account]

When you transmit information through turbulence—motion in the atmosphere caused by turbulent cells or "wind"—it's distorted just like the information coming from the light reflected off a distant, twinkling star to your eye. It's fuzzy. You have to overcome that by using adaptive optics to rectify the distortion and get a better quality signal.

That's what Dr David Hughes, from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, says. He claims that the technology has been tested successfully with both stationary and flying situations, which means that they can easily implement it in the battlefield, with not too much effort. [The Register]

The technique, called variance-based radio tomographic imaging, processes signals from a 34-node IEEE 802.15.4 wireless network. It's the protocol for personal area networks used by home automation systems such as ZigBee.

The basic idea is straightforward. The signal strength at any point in a network is the sum of all the paths the radio waves can take to get to the receiver. Any change in the volume of space through which the signals pass, for example caused by the movement of a person, makes the signal strength vary. So by "interrogating" this volume of space with many signals, picked up by multiple receivers, it is possible to build up a picture of the movement within it.

They were able to detect movement in a room to within a meter or so, which is pretty good. They won't be able to see what you look like in the shower, however, so I'm going to call this a good advancement. But be careful, researchers. Don't try anything sketchy. [Technology Review via Slashdot]

I mean, Sprint will gift you an Airave femtocell if you're thinking about leaving (normally $5 a month). Though we don't yet know if AT&T is planning a similar monthly fee—or a one-off charge like Verizon's Network Extender—I'd like to see users in known dead zones get the hardware free.

Even if you don't want to pay the possible $20 a month for unlimited calls, at least you'd get actual network coverage at home. Think about it: they could make everything right with these things, and make up for the last few years of shitiness.

To be fair, AT&T says it's working to not only speed up its network, but boost reliability in iPhone heavy areas like New York and San Francisco. Carriers also face opposition from local officials and home owner associations when it comes to building new towers. And you can likely get out of your contract if you get your shiny iPhone home and find you live in an AT&T black hole.

But here's the thing: AT&T users have heard about promised upgrades for years, and many still have no joy. They're angry. A complimentary MicroCell 3G would be a great apology, and help AT&T turn around its falling public perception. What do you think?

Also see: Full AT&T MicroCell 3G Details

You can register up to 10 phones (3G models with AT&T accounts) to work with the device, but it only supports four simultaneous calls or data sessions. It has a roughly 5000 square foot range, and calls originated from it are automatically handed over to AT&T towers once you leave the house/office.

The MicroCell page also confirms an unlimited calling option where domestic U.S calls made using it won't deduct from your regular minutes. Problem is, AT&T hasn't coughed up what the pricing will be. An apparent leak over the weekend suggested it could be $20 per month ($10 if you have an AT&T Internet or landline service; free if you have both). No word yet on how much the device itself might cost.

Travelers will be sorry to hear that, as with Sprint and Verizon did with their femtocell units, AT&T's device has a GPS chip, so it can't be used out of the country. For that reason it's recommended to be placed near a window.

You'll need to have a net connection of at least 1.5Mbps down/256kbps up, and find your ZIP code in the availability checker at the site. Please let us know if you find your area is listed.

Also See: Should Users in Known Dead Spots Get the MicroCell 3G Free? [AT&T 3G MicroCell Site | 3G MicroCell Manual (PDF) | via @bugdave]

[Copyranter]

UPDATE: This video was actually done by an aspiring director without Cisco's involvement. So, he can pretty much strike them off his list of potential employers. Actual Cisco ads can be seen here.

Since it's MIT, there's data behind the beauty. Over 138 countries came together, more than half the countries in the world. The biggest international callers were Canada, Great Britain, France, and Puerto Rico. In the US, California, Florida, New York, Texas and Georgia topped the list—all but GA are in the top 5 most populous states. Georgia cracking the top 5 is interesting since it's only the 9th most populous. It and other Southern states saw the biggest increases in call activity overall—over 12x the norm.

This might be my favorite visualization though, a bonus version that shows the "emotional flow" of inauguration across the country, with spikes in calls represented by states pulsing toward you:

And below that is what it looked like in Washington, D.C. during the inauguration:

Whoever thought data could be so alive? Be sure to check out the whole project at senseable: [MIT senseable city lab via 10000words]

Here's the chronology: Cox, the cable and internet provider, announced plans to start a wireless network; Cox then clarified, stating that they actually meant that they were, at least for the time being, partnering with Comcast and Time Warner to piggyback off of Sprint in a venture called Pivot; this dissolved. Now, Cox is going it alone.

The announcement spares us the useful details, like when the network will go live, or what the flagship handsets or handset manufacturers might be. They are promising some kind of mobile TV, a carrier-wide app store, and mobile broadband, but none of these things are revolutionary, or even particularly exciting. But we really shouldn't be sour about this. New competition, even if it's from a stodgy old cable company like Cox, is more than welcome in the lumbering wireless industry. [WSJ]

Even though they've been providing the same great service for ten years, I had never used DynDNS before (ah, the joys of working from home and having a dynamic IP that stays fairly stable), but I just signed up and it's sweet. Just register a subdomain at DynDNS.com for free, which will then map itself to your dynamic external IP address automatically in one of two ways: by logging into your DynDNS account on a router that supports it (many do) or downloading a free update client for your computer that can also keep everything synced.

Then you don't have to remember a nasty number when you want to access your network from an external computer. Nice!

Please keep the constructive comments coming in our Saturday How To guides—they're a great resource for everyone involved. Also thanks to twonjosh for sharing his method of dealing with dynamic IPs. [DynDNS]

Having cell troubles at large public events is something we've all experienced, but the inauguration crowd, which could top out at around two million iGeneration texters and tweeters, will likely bring every DC-area network to its knees. That's why all of the major carriers are spending millions for this one day, bringing in extra COWs and COLTs (cell on wheels, cell on light truck) to beef up bandwidth. The NYTimes talked to most major carriers, and it's interesting to hear all that goes on behind the scenes for a big event like this. Sprint claims they've been planning for the inauguration since April.

Despite the networks' best efforts, Grandpa Gene Kimmelman of the Conusmer's Union (publishers of Consumer Reports) says it's not enough:

“It’s like paying for an all-you-can-eat buffet and discovering there are only scraps left,” Mr. Kimmelman said. He suggested another way the carriers might spend their millions of dollars: “Maybe they should offer a rebate if they cut usage on Inauguration Day.”

Funnily enough, the NYTimes, is one of many news outlets is one of many with open calls for citizen reports filed via smartphone from the field. Oh the paradox of media in our connected age! [NYTimes]

Yes, even though North Korea's roads are empty, its people tragically impoverished, its Internet connectivity practically nil, the country will soon be getting a brand new mobile phone network. After a train explosion in 2004—thought to be an attempt on the dear leader's life—cellphones have been banned in North Korea with stiff punishments (some even say execution) for those caught with a phone.

But now, the Egyptian telecom giant Orascom will build an all-new network covering Pyongyang and other major cities. The contract is rumored to be worth around $400 million for Orascom, who has a lock on the rogue and semi-rogue state network business having also built Zimbabwe's network for Robert Mugabe. [The Inquirer]

Google and their partners threw in $60 million out of the required $150-$180m into the kitty of O3b Networks (the other 3 billion, get it?), the firm established to launch the satellites and manage the initiative. A satellite downlink is of course only the first step in setting up a fresh broadband network, but the company also has plans to convert mobile phone towers into multipurpose high-speed network nodes, which when complete is estimated to cost $750m all told. Google says it will help drop the price of broadband by up to 95% in some places where it's a rare commodity. When the satellites are launched in 2010, that's one step closer to 3 billion more new Googlers, looking at AdSense ads all the way, of course. [Financial Times via /.]

The reason was simple: distance. At the beginning of the construction they used walkie-talkies—which are light, durable, and have a long battery life—across the site. However, these stopped working after some time, as the tower kept raising over the desert. With unreliable communications, Samsung Corporation—the main contractor—had to turn to a different kind of link between workers to avoid misunderstandings that may have jeopardized the safety of workers (even more, because plenty of people have had fatal accidents in the tower) and delayed the project.

Fortunately for them, they turned to mesh networks, which are similar to the ones used in mobiles, but local. For that they used a company called Firetide, using several Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP phones over a HotPort wireless mesh, which also serves as the transport for the security video in the site.

A Cisco fiber switch (top) handles all of the traffic on the 20 megabit internet link, and the whole thing runs behind an OpenBSD firewall. Around 40 Aruba AP-70 access points distribute the network, which are basically only radios hooked to AC power; they receive all configuration info from the main network system to prevent WAP takeovers:

The whole thing sits behind this padlocked chain fence, which is manned by a 24/7 armed security guard.

Hit up Threat Level for the full set, including a portrait of Tomoe the German Shepherd, the Goons' last line of defense. [Threat Level photos by Dave Bullock via /.]