Thirsty Rock

Recent developments in technology has seen the cost of distributed energy, otherwise known as off-grid electricity services , drop significantly. This is good news for the rural poor who often live in areas where grid supply is either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. Except for solar PV systems, other forms of renewable energy supply were expensive options. This is no longer the case. Small single wing wind turbines, vortex hydro power generators and solar thermal panels are gradually challenging PV for the top RE slot - in terms of cost / watt. This should be music to the ears for energy consumers looking for 24/7 power supply in far flung areas.

On 14 May 2018 the Energy and Environment Partnership Trust Fund opened two funding windows i.e EEP Innovation and EEP Catalyst. An application guide in available here .

Traditional telephone networks rely on a central switch to route calls. When this switch fails, all else fails. VoIP networks are no different from plain old telephone systems in that they too require servers to connect calls. Attacks on these servers can bring an entire network down.Government snooping, as Edward Snowden has shown, is trivial for security organisations and cyber-criminals. Enter Ring . Developed by Savoire-fair Linux, Ring has the advantage of not relying on central system, incorporates strong point-to-point encryption, requires neither registration nor a password (think SIP) and it is self-healing. A 40 character ID allows room for massive network nodes.

Folks at Cambridge Consultants have built a small radio transmitter without using any analogue parts. This is a world first and has enormous implications. Analogue components such as Gallium Arsenide chips are expensive in terms of cost, power consumption and the real estate they occupy on printed circuit boards. By contrast, regular digital logic is low cost and mostly off the shelf. According to Monty Barlow at CC: New mathematical tricks mean we can compute multi-Gigabit/second, digital waveforms in real time without a supercomputer. Software can shape and control this waveform, making almost any signal imaginable at any frequency. All this at a fraction of the cost of an equivalent regular radio. Stay tuned.

Traditionally, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services have relied on two pieces of software: an application installed on the phone (client) and a server application running somewhere on the internet. Installing VoIP software such as Linphone or CSIPSimple is not a simple matter. The extra effort required to download and configure VoIP apps puts off many users and therefore slows universal adoption of voice over data services. Some software such as Zoiper automate client configuration. The much touted Over-The-Top (OTT) revolution where we all avoid classic phone services in favour of VoIP relies on a large installed base of client application e.g Viber, Skype. A compelling solution is WebRTC (Web Reat Time Communication), a standard defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Since every smart phone comes preloaded with a browser of some sort, there is future potential to connect and talk to anyone surfing the net using any device.

Mobile phone carriers have every reason to be afraid. Very afraid. WhatsApp announced its intention to enter the voice segment. With almost half a billion active users, WhatsApp boasts a subscription that is within spitting distance of Airtel, the second largest mobile network in the world. The prospect of cheap international voice calls will not go unnoticed by chat users. Operators have seen a sharp drop in text (SMS) revenues as users have shifted in droves to mobile chat applications. A similar migration to VoIP will be a deadly blow to many networks. Mobile terminated revenues will shrink. Lucrative international calls will all but disappear. WiFi originated calls will be difficult to block. Unlike skype, WhatsApp takes advantage of existing phone numbers and subscriber recruitment is almost automatic. New, affordable smart phones such as the one showcased by Firefox at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will allow emerging markets to skip traditional voice in favo...

Back in September 2009, I wrote about the challenge posed by Google's new operating system Android to incumbents Apple, Nokia, Blackberry and LG. Since then Android has dominated the mobile phone platform. Based on Linux, the OS benefits from code contributed by a legion of programmers across the globe and available royalty-free to hardware manufacturers and software developers. A formidable response is on the horizon. An association of some of the largest players in the electronic industry is backing Tizen , a new mobile OS platform. Tizen, like Android, is based on the Linux kernel and should benefit from the combined strengths of members such as NTT DocoMo, Huawei, Samsung and Intel. It should be interesting to see how Google responds especially given that two of the main contributors to the rapid rise of Android (Samsung and Huawei) appear to have changed camp.

Fabrice Bellard , best known as the author of FFmeg and QEMU software, is back in the news. His company Amarisoft has released a 4G LTE base station running entirely in software on a stock PC. The result is a 4G platform priced at least ten times less than a traditional box. This is good news for small network operators and private companies e.g. off-shore oil rigs, remote mining operations and adhoc network providers. Amisoft has not released the cost of the software but the price for the radio front end (based on the Ettus N210 and SBX daughter board) is around $2,000.

Trouble is brewing within and around the microfinance industry. Some industry watchers have been particularly scathing of the impact (or lack thereof) of microfinance on alleviating poverty. For forty odd years microfinance was touted as the  vehicle for delivery of low cost capital to the poor leading and thereby creating opportunities for local enterprise. Today the microfinance industry is accused of not only delivering neat profits for some but of also gifting influential organisations such as the World Bank a formidable political tool. Microfinance is premised on the belief that providing the poor with access to affordable capital stimulates entrepreneurship, creates jobs and helps to drive poverty out of their communities. That is all very well as long as there is a market for the said entrepreneurial goods and services within the community. In other words, while microfinance may tackle the supply side there is scant empirical evidence that it simultaneously boost...

Any amateur dabbling in radio technology knows the high cost of hardware. Peripherals designed to work with software defined radios (SDR) can cost anywhere between $150 (Funcube) to $4,500 ( Matchstiq ). While the Funcube operates between 64 MHz and 1,700 MHz, the Matchstiq transceiver covers signals from 300 MHz to 3,800 MHZ with channel bandwidth up to 28 MHz. The two devices have established niche markets, not every radio hobbyist is willing or able to fork out the sums involved, less so newbies. Enter the Realtek   DVB-T  dongle. Antti Palosaari , a DVB kernel developer, discovered that the  RTL2832U chip found in Realtek DVB-T dongles can be reprogrammed to transfer raw radio signals (I/Q samples) to a host computer. This presents hobbyists with a low cost ($20) software defined radio which can be used to receive raw signals between 52 and 1700 MHz. An obvious digital signal processing candidate is FM radio. Unfortunately, because of the inordinately high ...

Last week Samsung was hit with a billion dollar fine for willfully lifting smartphone technology off arch rival Apple Inc . At the heart of the legal spat is a software technique that appears to make icons bounce at the edge of a phone and another that allows a user to 'pinch' and zoom in or out of a section on the phone screen. Apple's i-devices are powered by iOS , an operating system based on a system developed by the  Darwin Foundation . Android , an OS released by Google, drives Samsung smartphones. The ancestry of both operating systems can be traced back to open source software based on UNIX; FreeBSD in the case of iOS and Linux for Android. The software features in contention all rely on UNIX internals. No UNIX means no pinching and no bouncing. Both Apple and Samsung should be eternally grateful to the University of California at Berkeley for releasing patent-free BSD Unix into the wild.

Troubled by a distinct decline in the computer skills of A level students applying for a seat in the Computer Science department at Cambridge University, Eden Upton and colleagues set out to build a low cost, bare-bones computer in the hope of stimulating interest in programming. In January 2012 the Raspberry Pi will be on sale for as little at $20. Based on a 700 MHz ARM processor, this little Linux computer sports a USB port, 128 MB of RAM and HDMI interface. Targeted at teenagers the computer can play Blu-ray-quality videos and a host of other multimedia content. Only the imagination limits the possibilities gifted to programmers by the Raspberry. Developing countries should take advantage of the low cost of procurement and ownership. Rural internet cafes are financially feasible as most of the expensive components (e.g. workstations, routers, back-haul radios) can be replaced with the computing power of the Raspberry and other open source hardware devices such as software ...

In mid February 2011 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) published a new standard for data transmission using electricity lines. This technology has potential to convert the electricity grid into one large high speed IP network. Networking products that fully comply with IEEE 1901 will deliver data rates in excess of 500 Mbps in LAN applications. In first-mile/last-mile applications, IEEE 1901-compliant devices will achieve ranges of up to 1,500 meters. The technology specified by IEEE 1901 uses sophisticated modulation techniques to transmit data over standard AC power lines of any voltage at transmission frequencies of less than 100 MHz. In the transportation sector, for example, the standard’s data rates and range make it possible to deliver A/V entertainment to the seats of airplanes, trains and other mass transit vehicles. Electric vehicles can download a new entertainment playlist to the A/V system while the car is charging overnight. In the home,...

There are zillions of theories out there as to what constitutes a mobile payment. IMHO the infographic below is the best attempt (so far) to tell it as it is. The most important mobile payment infographic. Ever. Compliments of MobilePaymentsToday.com

At the end of July 2011 MTN Mobile Money announced the launch of payD, an on-line payment service. Using encrypted channels, payD allows bank customers to effect electronic payments with PIN-protected cards. A rogue IMSI catcher , masquerading as a GSM base station, can entice mobile phones in the vicinity to camp to its stronger signal and exposing the phone to packet sniffing. Sensitive information could be harvested from the communication session. It is worth noting that plain old SMS messages are not encrypted.

In response to a global epidemic of card skimming and cloning scams, the banking industry replaced magnetic strip cards with Pin and Chip cards. These payment cards host embedded microprocessors which are difficult to clone except by the most determined of criminals. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard strongly recommends switching to these PIN-based cards because of Fort Knox-type security. At the last Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Karsten Nohl and hardware hacker Christopher Tarnovsky unlocked a heavily fortified chip card similar to those that support the EMV (Europay Mastercard and VISA) standard. Circuitry on the chip was microscopically analysed in conjunction with optical recognition software. A proprietary algorithm on the chip was uncovered allowing hackers to break or clone the card. Degate , a publicly available tool developed to analyse small silicon structures, makes it possible for amateur hackers to dissect smart card chips. It is time for the b...

At the end of 2010 44 mobile money initiatives were operational in twenty two (22) countries in Africa. English-speaking countries accounted for 75% of total deployments with East and Southern Africa contributing twenty six (26) installations. Only ten countries (almost entirely from East and Southern Africa) were host to two or more MM operators implying limited competition on the continent. Fundamo , working with MTN , is a significant technology provider powering at least ten sites in 9 countries. Adoption of mobile money services is high in English speaking countries in Africa. Why?

Stuck with your JPOS-EE database installation? Beanshell dies at launch or fails to resolve class names? The small Java utility below (written in the Eclipse environment) may just be the answer to your woes. Before you dive into Java code you may want to complete the following steps: i. Download EasyPHP (WAMP server) and create a database called jposee . ii. Start mysql and apache servers Start Eclipse. Create a new Java Project: File->New->Project . Select " Java " in the category list. Select " Java Project " in the project list. Click " Next ". Enter a project name into the Project name field, for example, " JPOS-dbmaker ". Click " Finish "--It will ask you if you want the Java perspective to open. (You do.) Create a new Java class: Click the " Create a Java Class " button in the toolbar. (This is the icon below ...

One in very five humans has a phone in their pocket. Yet only five companies in the world account for the GSM chipsets found in all GSM phones around the globe. Of these, more than half are powered by technologies developed by one company: ST/Ericsson. Such is the death grip on the mobile handset market by a handful of companies that there is little incentive to innovate around the GSM chip, the baseband processor. Any innovation would meet with some steep challenges. For starters, programming information (API) for the chip is a very closely guarded secret . This secrecy guarantees licensing fees to the G5 for the GSM protocol stack software. Hardly surprising that smart phones, which boast a second (more 'open') application processor, enjoy more creativity than their drab cousins the feature phones. Closed proprietary GSM hardware implementations could also be responsible for the rapid loss in market share to the new kids on the block - Android and the iPhone.

Nam Yong, CEO of the third largest mobile phone manufacturer LG Electronics, offered his resignation 17 Sept 2010 barely a week after the exit of Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. The two executives are victims of a combined onslaught from Apple and Google. The latter grew its market share by 1500% selling almost 11 million handsets by Q2 2010 from only 0.8 million in Q2 2009. Android is on target to unseat the Blackberry (Research in Motion) from the #2 slot by the close of 2010.