The Network: Contributed Articles by Steve Wildstrom

The Future of Connected Cars: What to do With All That Data?

2013-02-17T23:00:00Z

The modern automobile has become a data collection machine. As you drive down the road, sensors in the car’s various systems report your speed, engine RPM, steering angle, brake pressure, and myriad other bits of information to the computers, perhaps several dozen of them, that control the vehicle’s functions.

But there ...

Healthcare Sensors: Data Science Meets Medical Science

2013-01-15T01:00:00Z

Devices that collect personal medical information are growing both prolific and inexpensive. As part of the burgeoning “internet of everything,” more and more of them come with wireless capability that lets them transmit data over either Wi-Fi or cellular network.

At the recent mHealth Summit in Washington, there was even ...

Network Trailblazer: A Conversation With Martin Cooper, Father of the Mobile Phone

2012-12-05T00:00:00Z

On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper made history when he made a phone call standing in front of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue to the head of research at Bell Labs at a press conference inside the hotel. That first cell phone call set off a mobile communications revolution and earned Cooper the title of father of the mobile ...

Smart Services: Spotting Problems Before They Happen

2012-10-15T23:00:00Z

Not long ago, a network outage of one sort or another was an annoying but relatively minor problem at many businesses. If you lost your connection to the net, you just worked locally until the IT folks got it fixed.

This doesn't work anymore. The network fails and the point-of-sale terminal, formerly known as a cash register, is ...

Network Trailblazer: A Conversation With Larry Irving

2012-09-24T23:00:00Z

When Larry Irving joined the Commerce Dept. in early 1993, most Americans were considering dial-up Internet access. Broadband access wasn't widely available. By the time he left his post as head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration six years later, Americans were replacing dial up with broadband and the World ...

Better Living Through Big Data

2012-04-09T14:57:00Z

You're on the hunt for a parking space in San Francisco's south of Market neighborhood. Instead of aimlessly driving from block to block looking for a free space, you take out your smartphone, fire up the SFpark app, and see a detailed map of available spaces.

Once you ease your car into a space, you use the same app to pay ...

Network Trailblazers "A Conversation with Vint Cerf," Part 1

2011-07-05T12:00:00Z

Far too many people were involved in the creation and nurturing of the Internet for any one individual to claim credit for inventing it. But Vinton G. Cerf probably comes closest. He was involved in just about every major development in the Internet's history, from its earliest roots more than 40 years ago as an experiment at the Defense ...