Much faster Wi-Fi coming soon — from CNN by David Goldman
A new, faster version of Wi-Fi was officially rubber-stamped Wednesday.

Excerpt:

The latest Wi-Fi technology, called “802.11ac,” offers speeds of up to 1.3 Gigabits per second. That’s fast enough to transfer an entire high-definition movie to a tablet in under 4 minutes, share photo albums with friends in a matter of seconds or stream three HD videos at the same time. It’s more than double the top speed of the previous standard, known as 802.11n.

Those speeds are theoretical maximums — very few people have anything close to 1 Gigabit speeds from their home broadband connection. Average speeds are less than 1% of that. But the faster speeds mean the new Wi-Fi standard will offer a much bigger pipeline for all those videos, songs and games that a growing number of people are streaming on multiple devices simultaneously.

 

Also see:

  • Apple adopts 802.11ac wireless standard quickly as new study forecasts the next standard to follow in 2015 — from patentlyapple.com
    Excerpt:
    According to a new report that was just released, the growth of 802.11ac and 802.11ad will occur in very different ways over the next few years. The adoption of 802.11ac is expected to explode into devices including smartphones right out of the gate this year while 802.11ad will see a more modest and staggered growth pace. 802.11ac is being pushed into smartphones by key carriers’ device requirements that are in sync with 802.11ac hotspot plans for more robust Wi-Fi offloading.
  • Wireless witch: Should you buy an 802.11ac router? — from pcmag.com by Samara Lynn
    802.11ac is all the rage among networking vendors, with all their 802.11ac routers touting incredible speeds. But is 802.11ac worth the investment?
    To Buy or not to Buy?
    So, what’s the short answer on upgrading to an 802.11ac router right now? If you’re an early tech adopter and Wi-Fi enthusiast, definitely check out 11ac. Everyone else is better off waiting until the technology matures. What if your old router dies and you’re not upgrading so much as replacing hardware? The same applies: if you’re comfortable with tweaking settings to get the most out of your router, by all means check out the 802.11ac routers on the market. At the the very least, you shouldn’t lose performance; in certain cases, you might see improvements. If you’re more of a plug and play user, however, stick with 802.11n, for now.

Interactive whiteboards are front and center in college classrooms — from edtechmagazine.com
A look at whiteboards at New York’s Touro College.

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From DSC:
We currently have 3 types of Interactive WhiteBoards (IWB’s) on our campus:  Epson BrightLinks, SMART Boards, and/or an Eno Board from PolyVision.

However, the idea of using mobile interactive whiteboards is becoming increasingly popular — i.e. being able to annotate on an iPad, for example, and having everyone in the class see these annotations.  I’ve seen some K-12 folks use Apple TV for this type of thing, but Apple’s multi-cast wireless protocol doesn’t work as well for us in a campus environment.  I’ve also seen/heard of people using one of the following solutions listed below as well. (I wish I had more time to check each of them out, but I’ll simply list them for you here.)

 

 

IT does not love iPads — from by Michelle Fredette
Students and faculty may love them, but IT personnel get a major headache when they try to integrate Apple tablets–and the company’s TV technology–in an enterprise setting.

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From DSC:
The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) train has arrived.   As such, this is a huge issue and as you can tell from reading Michelle’s article, there is no silver bullet out there (at least not as of 5/9/13).  I sure wish all of the relevant vendors could get behind a secure, efficient, reliable standard here…or at least have Apple come up with something that would get past the multi-cast issues for wireless networks (i.e. what works great for the consumer at home doesn’t work well on a campus or throughout an enterprise). It also adds to the already difficult job we in IT have when the targets are constantly moving — and moving faster than ever.  Add to that the need to consider entire ecosystems/platforms these days.

 

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From DSC:
The worlds of K-12, higher education, and corporate training/development are all seeking solid solutions to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) solution.  (The way I see it, it would sure be helpful it Apple worked with the other relevant vendors to establish better wireless networking protocols.)  Anyway, below are some items on this topic:


 

How to BYOT for Learning? – from shift2future.com by Brian Kuhn

Responding to the “Shift to the Future” — from seanrtech.blogspot.com by Sean Robinson

BYOD: 7 reasons to leave them to their own devices — from Donald Clark Plan B

Ten reasons the iPad is an awesome tool for classrooms and education — from isource.com with thanks to Krista Spahr, Senior Instructional Designer at Calvin College, for this resource

The 4 easiest ways to mirror the iPad (comparison chart) — from edudemic.com by Seth Hansen; working off of a similar posting from Tony Vincent 

Strategies for taking flight with BYOT  — from byotnetwork.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills identified 4 critical areas of learning for students that include creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.  In Forsyth County Schools, we’ve been working hard with parents, teachers and students to embrace learning with student-owned technologies; something we call Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT).  What we know for sure is that BYOT is really more like Bring Your Own Learning because we’ve discovered that it is NOT about the technology – it IS about the learning.

 


From DSC:
This aligns well with Alan November’s replacing “one-to-one” with “one-to-world.”

But whether we use the acronomyns BYOD, BYOT or BYOL (or whatever), it’s all about students being able to contribute content (hopefully that they created) and participate in the discussions.

 

A piece of the Next Generation Smart Classroom -- Daniel Christian -- June 2012

From June 2012

 

Vision of a Next Gen Smart Classroom from March 2010

 From October 2009:
Building off of Steelcase’s media:scape product line


From DSC:

I’ve been trying to figure out the best ways to incorporate a BYOD/BYOT into the Smart Classroom.  That is, how can students’ devices seamlessly communicate with the main displays around the classroom? How can they quickly display a blog posting or a Google doc for example…or play a song they wrote, etc.  So I was excited to wake up this morning with the following concept/idea:


 

The Internet of Things Ceiling -- A concept for our future Smart Classrooms by Daniel Christian in December 2012

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The Internet of Things Ceiling -- concept by Daniel Christian -  December 2012

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Other features/thoughts:

  • Line of sight communications — students must be in the room to display something up on the main displays
  • Information travels many ways:  From large multitouch displays/walls to students’ devices and vice versa; so a professor could hit “Save” in order to send his/her annotations to all of the students’ devices (allowing them to be more cognitively present — vs madly writing down what the professor is writing)
  • The Smart Classroom’s infrastructure becomes like a multi-thredded processor — instantaneously and simultaneously handling a far greater amount of data — going in multiple directions
  • What’s an interesting idea here is for discipline-specific, cloud-based storage mechanisms for students who want to contribute their pieces of content to their schools repositories of content
  • This topic reminds me of a graphic I created a while back, re: The “Chalkboard” of the Future:

 

 

 

So…what if the 4 screen’s on Julong’s Ultra-IPBOARD were coming from 4 different sources? Perhaps:

  1. One from a publisher’s cloud-based content repository
  2. Another from a stream of content originating from a student’s iPad
  3. Another from a stream of content originating from the Smart Classroom’s PC or Mac
  4. …and the last source originating from a student’s smartphone?

 

Demo for Ultra-IPBOARD

 

Also see:

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Aerohive enables every enterprise to support Apple AirPrint and AirPlay with free Bonjour Gateway software
Innovation that changed the BYOD market is now free           

Excerpt:       

Sunnyvale, Calif. —September 17, 2012 — Aerohive Networks™, the pioneer in cloud-enabled enterprise networking infrastructure, today announced they are giving away a free, downloadable version of Aerohive’s Bonjour Gateway solution. Bonjour®, (or Zero-Configuration Networking,) is used to configure services like AirPrint™, AirPlay®, and file sharing. Aerohive’s Bonjour Gateway was released in July as a standard feature in Aerohive APs, but with today’s announcement the Bonjour Gateway is now available as a free VMware virtual appliance.  This enables Bonjour services across large enterprise wired and wireless networks even in networks without any other Aerohive equipment.

 

Also see:

Aerohive’s Free Bonjour Gateway | The Techvangelist
Aerohive’s Bonjour Gateway was released in July as a standard feature in Aerohive APs, but with today’s announcement the Bonjour Gateway is now available
techvangelist.net/aerohive-bonjour-gateway
Aerohive’s Free Bonjour Gateway
Aerohive’s free Bonjour Gateway is software that runs on the customer’s installed VMWare infrastructure. It enables management and control of Apple’s
info.aerohive.com/Free-Bonjour-Gateway-Info.html?source…
Aerohive: Free Version Of Bonjour Gateway For Apple Environments
Aerohive launched the Bonjour Gateway as a way to enable Apple wireless functions such as AirPlay and AirPrint to run easily across those networks.
www.techinvestornews.com/…/aerohive-free-version-of-bonjo…
Aerohive: Free Version Of Bonjour Gateway For Apple – CRN
Wireless LAN specialist Aerohive is making available a free version of its Bonjour Gateway for solving Apple-related BYOD challenges.
www.crn.com/…/aerohive-free-version-of-bonjour-gateway-fo…
aerohive bonjour gateway | EDUCAUSE.edu
http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-networking- management/aerohive-does-an-end-run-around-apples-b/240007438. Trent Hurt CWNA
www.educause.edu/discuss/…/aerohive-bonjour-gateway
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Aerohive ships Bonjour Gateway, an Apple mobile device management enrollment solution and 2 new 802.11n Access Points — from marketwatch.com

Excerpt:

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jul 23, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Aerohive Networks, the pioneer in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-enabled enterprise networking, today announced the general availability of its HiveOS 5.1 and HiveManager 5.1. These new upgraded systems provide several significant enhancements including Bonjour Gateway and recently announced JAMF Software Mobile Device Management (MDM) integration for more granular control and management of customers’ BYOD dilemma and advanced reporting dashboards to help reduce troubleshooting.
In addition to the release of 5.1, Aerohive is delivering two new 802.11n access points (APs): AP121 and AP141. Designed to provide greater throughput and coverage, these two new APs are offered at a cost-effective price point ideal for education, healthcare, retail and distributed enterprise environments.

Cisco to unveil Apple Bonjour gateway for enterprise WiFi networks — from techworld.com by John Cox
Cisco joins rivals in giving Apple’s discovery protocol enterprise behaviours

Excerpt:

[July 24] Cisco plans to add code to its wireless LAN controllers to make Apple’s Bonjour-based technologies like AirPlay and AirPrint better behaved on enterprise networks. The code will turn the controller into a Bonjour gateway, and couple this with policy-based end user privileges. For users, this will mean that Apple clients will be able to find and access network-attached AirPrint printers, Apple TVs and the like on different subnets, so everything will just work as it does on their own home networks. A second expected result will be a big decrease in the amount of Bonjour-based discovery traffic that today is putting a heavy load on enterprise nets teeming with Apples MacBook laptops, iPhones, iPads and more.

ARUBA AIRGROUP™: Get your Wi-FI ready for AirPrint and AirPlay

Making AirPlay, AirPrint work in large scale WLANs — from community.arubanetworks.com by genieki
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Screen Shot 2012-03-22 at 5.13.34 AM.png

 

 

From DSC:
I hope to use these sorts of tools to enable students to seamless contribute content to the classroom-based discussions. However, this IT-related item is not just relevant to the K-12 and higher ed worlds, but also to the corporate world as well.
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A piece of the Next Generation Smart Classroom -- Daniel Christian -- June 2012


 

Magic Quadrant 2012 for E-Discovery Software — from Gartner.com

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Excerpt:

The e-discovery market landscape has shifted dramatically as end users have begun to demand more complete e-discovery functionality. Many vendors are responding with broader end-to-end functionality. New products, acquisitions and shifts in buying patterns have led to a radically altered picture.

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Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure — from Gartner.com

Connectivity at the edge of an enterprise network is more than just a wired or wireless LAN infrastructure. Enterprises must chose infrastructure vendors that support network services, including security and management, and can integrate wired and wireless networking products.

 

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(PDF) Connected Device, iPad Impressions Continue to Rise — from Trendbird.biz

 


 

 

…and several more informative graphics.

 

Powermat and Bretford -- wireless charging for learning spaces

 

Bretford -- Edu 2.0 announcements - June 2011

 

 

 

From DSC:
I hesitated in posting this because I don’t know what the future will tell us re: the use of wireless technologies. But for now, the majority of the tests/research that I’ve seen assert that we are not in much danger from using wireless technologies. (I just hope this arena doesn’t turn out to be another Philip Morris type of move from the manufactures/companies selling these items.)

 

Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010-2015

 

Executive Summary

  • Annual global IP traffic will reach the zettabyte threshold (966 exabytes or nearly 1 zettabyte) by the end of 2015. In 2015, global IP traffic will reach 966 exabytes per year or 80.5 exabytes per month.
  • Global IP traffic has increased eightfold over the past 5 years, and will increase fourfold over the next 5 years. Overall, IP traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 percent from 2010 to 2015.
  • In 2015, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross global IP networks every 5 minutes. Global IP networks will deliver 7.3 petabytes every 5 minutes in 2015.
  • The “terabyte club” will reach 6 million by 2015. In 2015, there will be 6 million Internet households worldwide generating over a terabyte per month in Internet traffic, up from just a few hundred thousand in 2010. There will be over 20 million households generating half a terabyte per month in 2015.
  • The number of devices connected to IP networks will be twice as high as the global population in 2015. There will be two networked devices per capita in 2015, up from one networked device per capita in 2010. Driven in part by the increase in devices and the capabilities of those devices, IP traffic per capita will reach 11 gigabytes per capita in 2015, up from 3 gigabytes per capita in 2010.
  • A growing amount of Internet traffic is originating with non-PC devices. In 2010, only 3 percent of Internet traffic originated with non-PC devices, but by 2015 the non-PC share of Internet traffic will grow to 15 percent. PC-originated traffic will grow at a CAGR of 33 percent, while TVs, tablets, smartphones, and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules will have growth rates of 101 percent, 216 percent, 144 percent, and 258 percent, respectively.
  • Traffic from wireless devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2015. In 2015, wired devices will account for 46 percent of IP traffic, while Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for 54 percent of IP traffic. In 2010, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic at 63 percent.
  • Busy-hour traffic is growing more rapidly than average traffic. Busy-hour traffic will increase fivefold by 2015, while average traffic will increase fourfold. During an average hour in 2015, the traffic will be equivalent to 200 million people streaming high-definition video continuously. During the busy hour in 2015, the traffic will be equivalent to 500 million people streaming high-definition video continuously.

WHO declares cellphones “possibly carcinogenic” — ars technica by John Timmer

Excerpt:

Those who are worried about the possible health risks of cellphones just received some backing from a significant source: the World Health Organization. A group within the organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, has announced it is listing the electromagnetic radiation produced by cell phones as “possibly carcinogenic.” The IARC’s use of the term “possibly” is key to the decision, as its expert panel determined that the information available is too limited to say anything with a greater degree of certainty, but is sufficient to warrant careful monitoring.

The designation is the result of a meeting held last week that brought 31 health researchers together to evaluate the conclusions that can be drawn from current research, including unpublished information from the Interphone study. The conclusions will eventually appear in The Lancet Oncology, but the IARC has issued a press release ahead of publication.

As we recently discussed, the wavelengths used for cellular communications are only known to influence human tissue via heating, and the researchers involved with the designation do not propose anything new here. The panel also recognizes that most of the epidemiological research involving human exposure to radio frequencies is ambiguous; for all but two types of cancer, the current state of information is officially deemed “inadequate.”

From DSC:
Though the evidence doesn’t seem to be very threatening, I’d rather be safe than sorry here. For me, a practical application that I take from this is to not use the cell phone if I can use a land line close by.

 

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Explore the Connected Living Room -- per Amazon.com -- May 2011

From DSC:
Apple, Sonos, Cisco, and Crestron are also relevant companies that come to my mind in this arena.

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