Do you dream of developing mobile apps and letting those little puppies quietly top up your bank account while you keep your day job? If you have $174 to spare, this could be your time.

TI has just introduced the PandaBoard, a low-cost, open OMAP 4 processor-based mobile software development platform. If you’re used to TI’s BeagleBoard, you’ll be right at home with the PandaBoard, which is considerably more powerful. The OMAP 4 processor contains two ARM Cortex-A9 cores each running at 1 GHz, giving you the SMP processing power of most desktops in a small form factor, mobile package; the board contains more I/O connections and wireless protocols than you’re ever likely to need–but you never know.

You can read all about it here or sit back, drink your coffee and let TI’s engineers walk you through the PandaBoard’s features and specs in the following video. I’ve already ordered mine.

The FCC’s recent decision to open the white spaces freed up by TV’s going all digital to unlicensed public access reflected considerable confidence that such devices could detect and not interfere with other users. The key to dynamic spectrum adaption is cognitive radio, which while proven in field tests is still a work in progress.

Cognitive radio will also play a key role in enabling interoperable radios produced by different vendors and using different modes of communication. That’s critical to police, firefighters and other first responders who show up at a disaster scene only to find that they can’t communicate with each other. APCO-25 is a step in the right direction but not a complete solution. Cognitive radio techniques and architectures, if standardized in next-generation communications equipment, could solve that problem. With today’s announcement, such standardization is now well under way.

The Wireless Innovation Forum (www.WirelessInnovation.org) today announced the approval of a specification, “Description of Cognitive Radio Ontology,” as well as new projects that support Software Communications Architecture (SCA), in conjunction with its 67^th Working Meeting in Schaumburg, Illinois, Sept. 13-17. New projects include an SCA Next project on Asynchronous Messaging, the creation of a Test and Certification Guide, and a project on Security Requirements and Profile Case Studies.

The Cognitive Radio Ontology is an important part of the Modeling Language for Mobility (MLM) project undertaken by the MLM Working Group of Wireless Innovation Forum (WINNF). The Ontology specification (WINNF-10-S-0007, available here: http://groups.winnforum.org/d/do/3370) includes:

• Core Ontology (covering basic terms of wireless communications from the PHY and MAC layers)
• Concepts needed to express the use cases; only the use cases that relate to the PHY and MAC layers are included
• Partial expression of the FM3TR waveform (structure and subcomponents, FSM)
• Partial expression of the Transceiver Facility APIs

It is expected that the Cognitive Radio Ontology and the MLM Language developed in this project will provide opportunities for development of interoperable radios by independent vendors and lead to additional specifications/standards for data exchange to support the next generation capabilities including vertical and horizontal mobility, spectrum awareness and dynamic spectrum adaption, waveform optimization, feature exchanges, and advanced applications.

A new project proposal on Asynchronous Messaging was approved by the Steering Group for the Coordinating Committee on International SCA Standards at this meeting, and work on this project began by the SCA Evolution Work Group. This specification is being developed for SCA platform and application developers who need higher performance for inter-component messaging, and will suggest CORBA-based solutions using asynchronous messaging that reduce message latency and allow parallel processing.

The SCA Test, Evaluation and Certification Model Realization was also approved by the Steering Group for the Coordinating Committee on International SCA Standards. This project will result in a recommendation aiming to define the realization aspects (including business models) of the role based, generic certification process of SCA based SDRs, as defined in “Test and Certification Guide for SDRs based on SCA, Part 1: SCA” (SDRF-08-P-0007-V1.0.0). It is being prepared for procurement authorities as well as producers of radios, radio components and tools, who are active in markets where the standardized SCA is relevant and compliance is required. It will give them guidance to establish test and certification capabilities for “category 1″ standards to ensure that compliance is met in an efficient way including time to market and cost.

The Forum’s Project Approval Committee has also approved a project defining Security Requirements and Profile Case Studies supporting the public safety community, giving guidance and a set of requirements that communications system designers, developers and manufacturers could follow in developing security solutions for their products. The resulting report will include a comprehensive set of security requirements that cover all aspects of SDR and software defined radio devices (SDRD) security for the underlying SDRD platform and its software operating environment and a requirements profile identifying a subset of the security requirements applicable to Public Safety SDRDs. Future activities will create additional profiles for other classes of SDRDs as time permits.

For more information on the Forum’s current projects, visit: http://www.wirelessinnovation.org/page/Current_Projects.

Work on these projects will be advanced through weekly committee teleconferences. The groups will then convene to discuss these and other projects and topics at SDR’10, the Forum’s annual Technical Conference and Product Exposition. SDR’10 represents the latest in an annual conference that has become a highlight on the wireless industry event calendar. The event brings together world class business and technical leaders from around the world across commercial and civil organizations including service providers, operators, manufacturers, developers, regulatory agencies, and academia. This year’s event will include more than 100 paper presentations, workshops on issues including tactical radio, space, military and public safety, in addition to the product exposition. Additional information on the SDR’10 program, workshops and tutorials can be found at http://conference.WirelessInnovation.org. To register, visit their registration page.

Are smart meters spies? They don’t have to be

Back in 2007, when the Dutch government announced that all 7 million homes in the Netherlands would be equipped with smart meters by 2013, it anticipated little resistance. After all, who wouldn’t welcome a device that could save both energy and money? But consumers worried that such intelligent monitoring devices, which transmit power-usage information to the utility as frequently as every 15 minutes, would make them vulnerable to thieves, annoying marketers, and police investigations. They spoke out so strongly against these ”espionage meters” that the government made them optional. Read

Cambridge Consultants has highlighted three applications ripe for innovation and market growth due to the newly freed whitespace spectrum: rural broadband provisioning; municipal wireless networks; and in-home media distribution. The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released the final rules for whitespace radio devices, freeing up unlicensed bands to the public. Those highly desirable “super Wi-Fi” whitespace connections can travel through walls and transmit at a distance ten times today’s Wi-Fi signals. Experts suggest the rest of the world will not be far behind in legalizing unlicensed use of those unused TV channels freed up by the digital switchover, creating the potential for a $100B market. Read