Anandtech has studied apple’s new 4.01 OS update, and found that the new formula for displaying bars covers a much greater dynamic range. That is, it will show lower and higher signals than before, assigning those more extreme values as 1 and 5 bars. This means it’ll require more signal to show higher bars, with the result of the iPhone showing five bars less often, but also showing “no service” less often, too. [anandtech]
Researchers at the Queen’s University Belfast have developed a hockey puck-like transmitter that can connect to gadgets on your body and allow them to transmit waves along the surface of your skin. What’s the upside to this? Devices on one part of your person that need to talk to gadgets on another part of your person (medical devices, for example) can do so for twice as long because more waves are transmitting over your skin and and not lost into the air. One application we can think of is for Bluetooth stereo headsets to connect to that mobile phone in your pocket. [NewScientist via Textually]
Five years in the making, Pharad’s wearable antenna is aimed at troops in covert operations, and, I guess, undercover cops and agents. Waterproof and flexible, the wearable antenna, which is made out of dielectric material, supports and is aimed to be integrated into body armour vests and helmets, and there’s even a snug-fitting undershirt that wouldn’t look out of place on one of Bouncy’s backing dancers, which you can see below, alongside more information.
What a pain in the arse it is to have to plug in headphones to your mobile phone in order to catch sappy dedications on FM radio. No more! This FM Aerial (antenna), which you can easily find on eBay, lets you bypass using a set of headphones as an antenna and lets you use an antenna as an antenna. Clever, yes, but it also makes it necessary to unplug it whenever you want to take a call, unless you’re making a one way call—the antenna has no microphone built in. [eBay via Symbian Freak via Into Mobile]
Getting an antenna into prime position is often a little challenging. Well, not anymore; checkout this awesome antenna launcher mod. Powered like a regular air pistol, it depends on pressurized gas to generate force, which then enables it to shoot a light line over a tree.
NEC has developed a wideband antenna prototype that’s made of fabric, allowing it to be attached to or stitched into clothes. This’ll allow people to increase their cell connectivity by wearing gigantic antennas on their backs. Apparently, “one of the difficulties encountered in the past when using conductive fabrics was that soldering was not possible. In the case of this new antenna, power is supplied to a small flexible print substrate by a soldered coaxial cable, so that power supply is possible through capacity coupling with the substrate.” Well, I’m glad they worked all that out. Look for supremely-dorky antenna pants in the not-too-distant future. [Akihabara News] More »
