For 17 years, I've been writing about the possibilities of "cognitive radio", in which radios sense which spectrum is available from moment to moment and collaborate to frequency-hop (and perform other tricks) to maximize the efficiency of wireless communications.

I've just turned in EFF's comments to the FCC's "Cognitive Radio" docket, which asked (among other things) whether the Commission should regulate Americans' access to digital-to-analog converters and whether Trusted Computing should be mandated for software defined radios (we didn't much like these ideas). — Read the rest

The FCC is hosting a workshop on Cognitive Radio — frequency-agile radio systems that cooperate to reduce interference and allow more communication in the same band — tomorrow from 9AM to 5PM, EDT. There's a webcast of the event (see link below) and a 112K PDF release announcing the details. — Read the rest

In Airshark: Detecting Non-WiFi RF Devices using Commodity WiFi Hardware (PDF), researchers from U Wisconsin (Madison) document a firmware for WiFi access points that can detect and dynamically adjust to interference from vacuum cleaners, baby monitors, and other non-WiFi devices that operate in WiFi's radio spectrum. — Read the rest

Alex Steffen from WorldChanging sez, "We need lots of innovation, quickly, to solve the big problems we face. Right now, regulation, liability and social norms make certain kinds of innovation (in architecture, urban design, energy and water systems, gardening, product design and so on) extremely difficult. — Read the rest

MIT researchers built a radio chip inspired by the inner ear. The "RF cochlea chip" could be a key component in a "cognitive radio," a device that can determine the appropriate frequency and power consumption required and adjust itself accordingly. Such a universal radio architecture could efficiently handle a wide range of signals, from cellular to WiFi to television. — Read the rest

Technology Review magazine has posted a special report on ten emerging technologies they think are poised to have a big impact. The technologies they cover include:

Epigentics: Alexander Olek has developed tests to detect cancer early by measuring its subtle DNA changes.

In the March issue of Lab Notes, my research digest from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering:

* Pinhead petri dishes on chips

* Ethanol stirs eco-debate

* Cognitive radios

Link

There's an upcoming mesh wireless conference in Boulder that's looking for papers on subject like Software Defined/Cognitive Radios, GPS, Galileo, Glonass Interoperability and standards, Effective Spectrum Management and Propagation Modeling in Urban Environment.

The ISART technical program committee is soliciting papers for the 7th annual International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) to be held in Boulder, Colorado March 1-3, 2005.

Here are my running notes from Eric Blossom and Matt Ettus's talk on GNU Radio at ETCON.

GNU Radio is a free software toolkit for realtime signal processing things —
radio included. Works for sonar, medical imaging, etc.

Get as much stuff as we can into software, out of hardware.

Michael "Director of the New America Foundation Spectrum Policy Program" Calabrese. Although easements offer some compromise, this converts common ownership of the airwaves by the American public to one where the spectrum is owned by a few. If there is any property interest in spectrum, it's the right to freely use the airwaves in your home, business and community. — Read the rest

Gerry "Former Chief Economist of the FCC" Faulhaber is presenting a paper he and Dave "Former CTO of the FCC" Farber wrote. Starting with Coase's problem: FCC allocated Spectrum by administrative fiat, in exclusive use blocks. This created massive inefficiencies. — Read the rest

Reed's Talk. Reed is the radical mad scientist of open spectrum, who maintains that spectrum is not scarce, except due to a policy framework that is obsolete in the current technological reality. He's the appropriate opening keynoter for this conference.

Does spectrum have a "capacity?" — Read the rest

Linksys has introduced a new WiFi amplifier — of dubious legality, I fear — that boosts the signal of your access point to get it through walls and over great distances. I am of mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, there are times when turning up the gain makes a lot of sense and does no harm (for example, if you live on a farm and want to get the signal in the main house to radiate through the barns and so on, and are confident that this won't interfere with anyone else's activity due to your remoteness). — Read the rest

Howard Rheingold is being interviewed in the WELL's public conference about his book SmartMobs. Nice stuff.

The FCC was set up to regulate the spectrum on behalf of its owners — the
citizens. It happened in the wake of the Titanic disaster, where
"interference" was an issue.

Seattle Times has run a great story on the group of "lawyers, engineers and telecommunications analysts" who are lobbying the FCC for cognitive radio and open spectrum.

In an ideal world, the FCC would treat the airwaves like a highway system nobody owns and enforce rules governing how people use its lanes without crashing into each other, the group says.

David "Cognitive Radio" Reed takes USA Today's coverage of Powell's promise to open more spectrum apart:

From the article: "Academics have long argued that more bands should be set aside for
unlicensed services and that they could even share certain frequencies with
licensed services without interfering."

Chairman Michael "Colin's Son" Powell of the FCC today called for the opening up more spectrum for unlicensed activity. The last time the FCC opened up some spectrum, we got WiFi. Now, open spectrum advocates say that further opening of the airwaves could deliver Cognitive Radio, a technology and philosophy that will allow nearly infinite communications through the airwaves and knock the long-haul wire-carriers on their asses. — Read the rest

Kevin Werbach has just posted a fantastic, lucid whitepaper on open spectrum, covering radical ideas like cognitive radio, ultrawideband, and software-defined radio in ways that are accessible to the laiety. Kevin's paper paints a compelling picture of a world of non-scarce spectrum where high-speed wireless data networks drive community activism, economic recovery and unparalleled innovation. — Read the rest

David "Cognitive Radio" Reed has posted his comments on spectrum allocation to the FCC on his website. Reed is part of a group of sharp technologists who are advocating that the FCC needs to radically reconsider the way that the RF spectrum is divided up for uses like TV, radio, cellular etc. — Read the rest