CNET.com has come up with a short, but helpful handbook on teaching about the telecommunication industry jargon you tend to hear. IF you ever wnated to know what “throttling” was you have come to the right place. The Beginner’s Guide to Telecom Jargon

The U.S. Air Force has offerd a pair of grants to Shay Curran, associate professor of physics at the University of Houston, where his research team have demonstrated ultra-high electrical conductive properties in plastics, called polycarbonates, by mixing them with just the right amount and type of carbon nanotubes.

“While its mechanical and optical properties are very good, polycarbonate is a non-conductive plastic. That means its ability to carry an electrical charge is as good as a tree, which is pretty awful,” Curran said. “Imagine that this remarkable plastic can now not only have good optical and mechanical properties, but also good electrical characteristics. By being able to tailor the amount of nanotubes we can add to the composite, we also can change it from the conductivity of silicon to a few orders below that achieved by metals.”

For us this just means less cost for manufacturing what we want, and possibly lasting longer, which will also save us electronics money that we can use at Las Vegas hotels.

Driving with out a phone in your hand? Preposterous. Although most like the idea of a law in California that disallows the use of a cell phone while driving, retailers are finding out that they are reaping the rewards on gadget sales. Bluetooth gadgets have increased as of late in many of the technology stores such as Radio Shack.

“We have definitely seen increased interest in all things hands-free these weeks leading up to the law,” said Charles Hodges, RadioShack’s national director of media relations. “Based on the number of people that drive in California, we made sure stores are well-stocked for customers.”

With the availability of smaller chips to store computer memory, even car manufacturers are taking to making communication in cars “hands free” such as Ford’s new SYNC voice-activated in-dash system.

“Some people say they already have one, and others say tell me more about Bluetooth,” said Alex Bashiri, store manager at a RadioShack on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. He said that after he gives information and demonstrations of Bluetooth headsets, most people are sold.

“When they buy it, I tell them, ‘Now you are legal,’” Bashiri said.

How clever, Alex.

Photographs have been time stamped for ages, but now they can be stamped with the exact location in the world where they were taken? Interesting concept. Stephen Shankland, at CNET wrote an article about it today which I found pretty interesting because I had not yet heard of this technology. Apparently it is being called “Geotagging”. Cute name. Whoever came up with it is certainly going to get a gold star on their next employee performance evaluations.

What value does geotagging actually have? Well for starters on the personal side it allows you to find digital photos in a different way on your computer. Instead of when you took them, or just a random name, you can search them based on a vacation destination. Also, it can be used as more of a historical reference years into the future when a certain landmark is no longer there.

“I think PMA next year is going to be when a number of companies unveil cameras with geotagging built in,” said Graham, who flew in from the company’s Swindon, U.K., headquarters to meet with camera companies at the photo show (Pro Marketing Association Trade Show).

So…what exactly will you need when this becomes available? Apparently the cost and bulk of creating a camera with a GPS navigation system built in is too bulky. Sounds like you will have to carry the camera as well as a GPS utility with you to make this function properly.

“At this time we feel there are too many glitchy things–dropouts of communication with the satellites, power consumption,” said Richard Pelkowski, digital SLR (single-lens reflex) product manager for Olympus America. “We just have to overcome some limitations.”

Nikon and Canon have taken baby steps toward tighter integration. High-end Nikon SLRs such as the D300 and D3 have a port that lets a GPS unit be attached directly, communicating with the camera so the location information can be recorded. A wireless transmitter can augment Canon’s higher-end SLRs, including the 40D and 1D Mark III, to provide a GPS port, too.

General Electric’s 10-megapixel E1050, which licensee General Imaging discussed at PMA, is a bigger step.

The company’s current plans are to sell two versions of the E1050, a $249 model in May and another with a built-in GPS receiver by about September that’s expected to cost about $50 to $75 more, a GE representative said.

All this is moving in the right direction, but as of now these technologies will not work immediately as the photo is taken. Photos must be uploaded to the computer, or the camera connected and the information will process once it does to geotag the photo. Not a huge deal really since you likely will connect to a PC anyways to store the phots, print them, or e-mail them anyways.

The report is done by video so you’ll have to run over there and check it out. Sound is a bit poor so a captioning option would be useful. The premise of the whole thing is that they want to see how well they will function all grouped in the same area.

Gary is an apple fanboy so I just figured I’d throw that in there for fun. This isn’t really something to cry about…lol

As of the end of December, Apple has stated that they have sold 3.7 Million iPhones, and over 4 Million by mid-January. The only problem is that AT&T has only activated approximately 2 Million of those phones. Half of the total sold!

So a few places have been throwing theories out there as to where all the iPhones have gone. Have they just been unlocked at a massive rate and spread around the globe by many a travelpro? Did they just miss the last quarter and not register yet? It was Christmas after all. Many of the phones could have been purchased before the end of the year, but not activated until January.

Another theory is this one from CNET:

Apparently, they’re on a shelf somewhere. “Excluding Apple’s own stores, there are about 4,400 total iPhone distribution points worldwide, suggesting each had more than 150 units of channel inventory at the beginning of this year. We believe channel inventory likely built even more in the first few weeks of 2008, given Apple continued to ship iPhones at a high run rate,” Sacconaghi wrote.

Fears that Americans aren’t as pumped about the iPhone as they once were? Possibly. Maybe people are just getting sick of being BETA TESTERS for every new piece of technology that gets released now. I know I am. Every major product that I have wanted in the past few years from the tech standpoint has been crap upon its initial release. Video Game consoles, cell phones, and other portable media products. Not to mention the long history of the computer operating systems that are always in Beta.

I don’t care where you look now, but everything on the internet is in Beta. Products are released as if they were still in Beta because many people end up having to ship them back for replacements after they have purchased them due to the original product not functioning properly. Why am I rambling about this? Well..I used to be one of those guys that bought everything I wanted the day it came out. I learned my lesson several…dozen times. Now I just don;t bother trying to be on the cutting edge. Screw it. When your product actually works correctly then I will buy it.

If you are one of those that looks for anything cheap like discount hotels in Vegas, a computer with out all the bells and whistles, etc. then you probably aren’t going to run out and buy an iPod just because of the name. I have the 60 GB iPod Video and have for a couple of years now, but I can’t exactly recommend it highly. The only reason I am probably still using it is because all their accessories are so expensive that I have no other choice but to keep with it. Especially after buying the Bose Speaker system for it last year.

/mp3 players aren’t all that different really. In the case of the Zune and the iPod you are really just paying an extra $100 for the name. If you are like me you probably don’t even watch video at all on your .mp3 player. I’ve never had a strong desire to watch video on a 3 inch screen myself, and would make a guess that many others do not either. Most people don’t really need space for 15,000+ songs on their .mp3 player either. So why spend $3-400 on an .mp3 player unless you want to be cool?

If you don’t care about looking cool and just want your music then check out these MP3 Players for $50 or Less.

The global market for satellite navigation hardware continued its scorching pace in 2007, resulting in big profits for the major hardware manufacturers, and analysts predict sales will grow more than $20 billion by early next decade.

Finding your way to your Condo Hotels has never been easier. Satellite Navigation has become less of a luxury and more of a standard with more affordable GPS systems like Tom Tom. Those Tom Tom’s are pretty kick ass. A couple people I know go them for Christmas so I had some time to play with them a bit and think I will buy one. I can’t find my way around my own town, much less another one so it is probably a good investment for me. I’m terrible with directions. It makes no sense because I am a guy. I’m one of those guys that actually stops at a gas station to ask for directions. Can you believe that?

With the big money being made in the GPS markets, other countires are trying to jump on the bandwagon by getting their own Independent Satellite Navigation Systems.

“There is a symbolic reason to deploy these systems. That is the idea that they would like to be independent of any dependencies on U.S. controlled assets,” said Brad Parkinson, a retired U.S. Air Force officer and one of the original architect’s of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), corresponding by email.

ABI Research, a market research firm in Oyster Bay, N.Y., estimates last year’s market for satellite navigation hardware was $33 billion, a $6 billion increase from 2006. The company attributed the growth to falling prices for all types of hardware and dramatic volume increases in the sales of Portable Navigation Devices (PND) and satellite navigation-equipped mobile phones in Europe and North America.

Magellan GPS of Santa Clara, Calif., the world’s third largest maker of satellite navigation devices, does not release financial data, but marketing director Robert Snow said sales last year far exceeded the company’s expectations.

“Our consumer satellite navigation products saw the biggest growth in North America, but Magellan also made substantial inroads in Europe,” Snow said.

Spcae.com has an article with more numbers on the Satellite Navigation Industry that is expected to grow global sales to more than 100 million PNDs, 62 million satellite navigation-equipped phones, 14 million manufacturer-installed car systems and 4 million after-market car systems by 2011.

1. Nintendo Wii
2. iPhone
3. ipod
4. XBox 360
5. Playstation 3

Prove me wrong.

Back in October, Apple put a limit of 2 on the maximum amount of iPhones one could purchase at any time. Recently it has been noticed that the limit has been raised back up to five.

So, either they’ve ramped up production, which would make sense following the European launches, or demand has waned. Finding one an a Mobile phone comparison site UK isn’t easy since they aren’t available, but many other solid options still are. There haven’t been any indications that demand has fallen off with the $399 purchase price so this has to be ruled out.

Apple is apparently still worried about the resale market, however, since it’s sticking with its policy of only accepting credit cards for iPhone purchases. That was the reason given for the decision to stop accepting cash: that the company wanted to discourage unlocking and unauthorized resales of the iPhone. Regardless of this Apple has been moving towards getting more apps available for purchase for the iPhone that will allow peopel to do virtually anything on it like playing with game emulators to simulating a popcorn machine.

I’m still not there with the iPhone yet. I am more than happy with the old Blackberry, and I have never been a fan of touch technology for various reasons. Mainly that I don’t feel like wiping the damn thing down every 5 minutes.