Microwaves Could Enable Solar Energy Harvesting in Space

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has announced they're expanding their solar interest far beyond California and into outer space. The San Francisco based utility plans on purchasing 200 MW of electricity from Solaren Corp., a start-up that is trying to produce solar power in space. Solaren plans to deploy solar panels in space that would collect the sun's energy and transfer it via microwaves back to a collecting station on Earth. Then the energy would be converted to electricity and feed into the grid.

The microwave frequency would be one that is least absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere. People have expressed concern that the beam might damage anything that gets in its path but they claim it would be 1/6 the intensity of noon sunlight. I am not sure how they are comparing light energy to microwave energy. The plan would have the system operating in 2016.

Solaren says that unlike ground-based solar arrays, space satellites could generate power 24 hours a day, unaffected by cloudy weather or Earth's day-night cycle. The capacity factor for a ground-based solar is typically less than 25 percent. In contrast, the capacity factor for a power-generating satellite is expected to be 97 percent.

The agreement calls for 800 gigawatt-hours of electricity to be provided during the first year of operation, and 1,700 gigawatt-hours for subsequent years. The larger figure is roughly equal to the annual consumption of 250,000 average homes.

Very interesting stuff and this year there is really a big emphasis on the "Greening of Wireless" to reduce our dependence on fossil based fuels. Microwave Journal is hosting a webinar and featuring a technical article by Mesuro and Tektronix to introduce a new open loop active load pull technique for the design of complex, highly efficient power amplifiers, necessary for reducing the power consumption of tomorrow�s mobile infrastructure. The method utilizing microwave sampling scope technology to simultaneously capture waveform data ranging from DC to several tens of GHz is demonstrated.

The Iterative Webapp - Gmail for mobile Gets Mute

On April 7th, we announced a new version of Gmail for mobile for iPhone and Android-powered devices. Among the improvements was a complete redesign of the web application's underlying code which allows us to more rapidly develop and release new features that users have been asking for, as explained in our first post. We'd like to introduce The Iterative Webapp, a series where we will continue to release features for Gmail for mobile. Today: Mute. --Shyam Sheth, Product Manager, Google Mobile.

One of my favorite inbox triage techniques is Gmail's 'mute' feature. Once I've muted a message, follow-up emails to the conversation bypass the inbox, keeping it clutter free. With mute now available in Gmail for mobile on the iPhone and Android-powered devices, you can quickly manage your inbox while you're on the go. To access mute - select a message and from the drop-down options on the Floaty Bar, tap 'Mute'.



To try mute in Gmail for mobile, just go to gmail.com in your iPhone or Android-powered device's browser. To make it easy to access your account, we recommend adding a home screen link. In the spirit of 'launch early and iterate', stay tuned for more announcements from the Gmail for mobile team.

Please note: The new Gmail for mobile supports iPhone/iPod Touch OS 2.2.1 or above as well as Android-powered devices. The new Gmail for mobile is available for English only.

Update 4/30/09, 11:19am - This feature is available for US English only.

Posted by Deng-Kai Chen, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile

Touchy Cellphone Users Spur Sales

According to Wirefly, sales of touchscreen devices have grown 56% from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009 and currently account for 38% of its cell phone sales. Two factors are driving the sharp increase in popularity of touchscreen phones: The increased choice of touchscreen devices from virtually every wireless manufacturer and its affordability for even the most budget-conscious consumer.

�The mobile industry has embraced the touchscreen,� said Andy Zeinfeld, CEO of Simplexity, parent company of Wirefly. �Consumers are in love with the fluid interface. Many find the touchscreen cell phone easier to learn and easier to navigate than its push-button counterpart. With a simple flick, tap or swipe of a finger, users can quickly glide, zoom and flip through web pages, documents, emails and photo albums.�

Grim Week for Agilent Employees

This past Wednesday, Agilent Technologies laid off 300 employees at its Santa Rosa division or more than 20 percent of its work force. Agilent employees had been awaiting the grim news for the past three weeks. In March, the Santa Clara-based company announced plans to eliminate 14 percent of its global work force. The layoffs at the high-tech test & measurement equipment manufacturer occurred over the full range of Agilent jobs in Santa Rosa, including managers, engineers, marketing, human resources, finance, manufacturing and support, said Ron Nersesian, who heads Agilent�s Santa Rosa-based Electronic Measurement Group.

Wednesday�s layoffs were the largest at Agilent in Santa Rosa since 2005, when more than 300 employees were let go. Over the past eight years, the company has eliminated 5 out of 6 jobs at its Sonoma County operations as it slashed costs and moved manufacturing jobs to cheaper facilities overseas. The layoffs will leave Agilent with 1,050 employees in Sonoma County, down from a peak of 6,000 regular and temporary workers in 2001.

Unlike past layoffs that involved the shifting of manufacturing jobs overseas, these recent job cuts were not for the sake of offshoring, Nersesian said. The company�s Asian manufacturing facilities also face �significant� cut-backs because of falling orders for Agilent�s products, he said.

Agilent and other technology companies are losing business as consumers cut back on spending for the latest electronic devices. This year�s revenue for the test and measurement business will be down 30 percent from 2008, the company said in March.
Overall, the company is cutting 2,700 jobs worldwide under the restructuring plan implemented Wednesday. The staffing cuts and other cost-cutting measures are expected to save the company $300 million over the next four quarters.

Handset Market Not Hit As Hard As Expected

According to ABI Research, consumers did not cut back too much in purchasing handsets during the first quarter of 2009 which is good news. Handset vendors shipped 258 million handsets by the end of the quarter which represents an 11% year-over-year decline. This significantly exceeded the previous forecast of 253.5 million.

ABI has introduced a note of mild optimism in its handset forecasts for YE-2009, revising them from -8.4% to -8%. Samsung and LG demonstrated healthy gains to take their market shares to 17.8% and 8.8%, respectively. Another star performer was RIM which raised its share to 3.0% due largely to the success of its Blackberry Bold. It is a little curious that Apple�s market share is just 1.5% given the success of its AppStore. As popular as the iPhone3G has been, increased competition in the touchscreen segment and a lack of product differentiation may be dampening demand. ABI Research expects that by 2H-2009 the iPhone3G will have one or more siblings. That will allow Apple to accelerate growth.

Nokia was beaten out by SonyEricsson for showing the largest contractions (their shares now stand at 36.2% and 5.6%). Nokia will breathe a sigh of relief once its latest smartphone, the N97, enters the market. Nokia has had a fair amount of success with the E71 but needs to beef up its touchscreen product lines. While Sony-Ericsson has the Experia smartphone line-up, the firm�s exposure to the feature phone segment was squeezed more than other handset sectors. While feature phones serve many needs in the market, operators have been especially keen to snap up smartphone stock and were cooler on the Ultra-Low Cost and feature phone orders.

ABI says that despite the positive signs, the industry should be cautious. The IMF has issued another sharp downgrade to its global outlook. Unemployment figures are also likely to continue creeping up. Buyers in the developed world are still concerned about debt and job security. Developing economies are expected to take a hit on the credit side which could have knock-on consequences on credit lines for purchases and stock levels.

Skyworks Revenue Down for Q2

RF/microwave integrated device manufacturer, Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS) announced their second fiscal quarter 2009 results on Thursday. Revenue for the quarter was $173.0 million, a 14 percent decrease from $201.7 million in the year-ago period and versus guidance of $168.0 million.

Non-GAAP operating income was $21.2 million in the second fiscal quarter with diluted earnings per share of $0.12, $0.02 better than consensus estimates. On a GAAP basis, operating loss for the second fiscal quarter was $3.7 million and diluted loss per share was $0.03, including $19.4 million of previously disclosed charges relating to the Company�s operating expense reduction initiatives.

�Despite the challenging economic backdrop, Skyworks delivered solid financial results in the second fiscal quarter of 2009 driven by our diversification, scale advantages, fab-lite strategy and improved cost structure,� said David J. Aldrich, president and chief executive officer of Skyworks. �Offsetting general market weakness, our performance was highlighted by strength in energy management and smart grid technologies, China 3G base stations, smart phones and push-to-talk applications. At a higher level, we believe our results demonstrate that Skyworks is gaining share in the broader analog semiconductor market and is creating a highly differentiated business model.�

Business Highlights

* Maintained non-GAAP gross margin of 40 percent (38 percent on a GAAP basis)
* Reduced operating expenses by more than $25 million on an annualized basis
* Partnered with Itron, a leading energy technology provider, to meet increasing demand for smart meter technology
* Captured key design wins at Huawei and ZTE for 3G and 4G base station solutions
* Unveiled a suite of low noise amplifiers targeting ultra-high performance infrastructure, GPS and satellite radio applications
* Supported an increasingly popular e-book reading platform developed by one of the world�s largest online retailers
* Expanded Qualcomm baseband partnership leveraging higher value front-end modules and encompassing a growing number of 2G, 3G and HSDPA reference designs
* Named Supplier of the Year for the second consecutive time by LG Electronics

Third Fiscal Quarter 2009 Outlook

�Although we remain cautious on the macro-economy, Skyworks intends to resume top and bottom line growth in the current quarter through share gains and participation in new markets,� said Donald W. Palette, vice president and chief financial officer of Skyworks. �Specifically, we expect June quarterly revenue to be up 5 percent sequentially with expanding margins driving non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.14 - - - a 15 percent sequential improvement in profitability.�

My Location now in Google Toolbar

Since its launch in Nov 2007, My Location has helped millions of people know where they are and get better local results on their mobile devices. We thought, wouldn't it be great if laptop and desktop users could also take advantage of My Location?

Today we're pleased to announce the launch of Google Toolbar with My Location, part of a new initiative called Toolbar Labs.

Imagine searching for pizza from your computer and seeing the closest pizza places without having to enter your location. No more entering zip codes or city names in your queries -- isn't that magical? Of course, you can already do this with your phone, and searches on the computer can sometimes use an IP address to determine the city that you're in. But now your location can be determined much more precisely on your computer (as long as you opt in) and you can get better search results.

How does this work? Google Toolbar with My Location uses information about surrounding Wi-Fi access points to estimate your location. Naturally, this means it won't work if you're on a computer that doesn't have Wi-Fi (or has Wi-Fi turned off).

Along with getting more locally relevant Google search results, we also have additional goodies. Entering "maps.google.com" in your browser takes you to Google Maps automatically centered around your current location. You are one step closer to finding what you want. There is also a Google Maps gadget that uses My Location, installed in the Toolbar by default.

We take user privacy very seriously, so we make it easy for you to disable or enable the "My Location" functionality in Toolbar with just the click of a button. If you would like to know more about our privacy policy, please refer to this link.

We are really excited about this launch and hope to hear from you what you think. Let us know!

Google Toolbar with My Location is currently available only for Internet Explorer and works only within the US. You can download it from here.

Written by Venkat Malladi and Tsuwei Chen, Software Engineers, Google Mobile

Google Product Search for Android and iPhone

In my spare time, I like to build computer systems at home. So I often use Google Product Search on a desktop computer to look for video cards, memory, and peripherals. Google Product Search gives me information like prices, ratings, reviews, and product details from all over the web. I'm also able to sort my results in a number of different ways, like by price or seller rating. I use Product Search so much that I wanted to make it more accessible on my phone, as well. Today, I'm happy to introduce you to Google Product Search for mobile.

Say you're in a store and having a hard time deciding between two products. Instead of waiting to go home to check the internet for ratings and reviews, you can now get all of this information right there on the spot. Just take out your phone, go to Google.com in your browser, and try out Google Product Search for mobile. From Google.com, type in a query and then tap on the "shopping" link that appears in the search results. Or, tap on the "more" tab and then "shopping" to get to Product Search directly.

Google Product Search for mobile gives you the same product information that you would get at your computer. And when you click on products like electronics and video games, you'll see dedicated product pages that include ratings charts and technical specifications. Watch this video for a demo and to see how I can use Product Search for mobile while shopping at our company store and one of our "Hardware Depots."



The new Product Search results pages for mobile are available in the US and UK, and for iPhone and Android-powered devices. Learn more in our help center.

Posted by Rob Stacey, software engineer, Google mobile team

TriQuint Reports Q1 2009 earnings

As expected, Q1 2009 revenue was seasonally down, compared to Q4, in a challenging economic environment of inventory correction and reduced short term demand. Still, total revenue was up 7% as compared to Q1 2008. These results were led by Handset growth of 24% and Defense / Aerospace growth of 23%. The reduction of both channel and TriQuint inventory drove Oregon fab�s utilization to 35% and pushed gross margin down, resulting in a Non-GAAP net loss of ($0.07) per share on revenue of $118.9 million, both on the favorable end of our expectations. Fortunately, an inflection point of increasing demand occurred late in the quarter as Handset inventory normalized.

Highlights from the quarter included:

* Revenue for the first quarter was $118.9 million, up 7% from Q1�08
* Inventory was reduced $19.8 million from the fourth quarter of 2008
* Book to bill ratio for the quarter was 1.14
* Honored by Intel Corporation with its 2008 Preferred Quality Supplier award
* Achieved cumulative shipments of more than a half billion total RF modules
* Introduced the market�s first SMT device for 40Gb/s optical communications
* Unveiled TRIUMF�, 3G/4G converged mobile solution
* First design win for TriPower� � Next generation infrastructure RF power solution
* Fulfilled initial production orders of GaAs and BAW devices for multi-nation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Commenting on the results for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, Ralph Quinsey, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated �The global economic downturn prompted lower inventory at our customers and very low factory utilization in Q1. We are now seeing signs of inventory normalization in some of our markets which should translate into stronger demand in the coming months."

Quinsey also commented that, "Market strength in smart-phones, the acquisition of WJ Communications and positive momentum in major military programs contributed to our year over year growth.�

SDK version 1.2.1 released

We've released version 1.2.1 of the SDK for the Python runtime. Here are some highlights from the release notes:

• Stable, unique IDs for
  User objects. The Users service now provides a unique user_id for each
  user that stays the same even if a user changes her email address.


• The Images API now supports compositing images and calculating a color histogram for an image.


• New allowed mail attachment types: ics, vcf


• Urlfetch requests can now set the User-Agent header.


• An App Engine-specific version of the Python PyCrypto cryptography library is now available. Learn more at http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/libraries.html


• The bulk loader configuration format has changed to allow non-CSV input.
  This change is not backwards compatible, so if you've written code for the bulk loader, it will need to be updated.


• An early release of the bulk downloader is also now
  available in bulkloader.py. Learn more about these changes at: http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/uploadingdata.html

For a full list see the SdkReleaseNotes wiki page.

Downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux are available on the Downloads page. This SDK update was for the Python runtime, so please post your feedback in the Python runtime discussion group.

Posted by Jeff Scudder, App Engine Team

AWR Reports Good Results

On Monday (April 20th) high-frequency EDA supplier AWR� announced record annual revenues for its 2009 fiscal year that ended March 31, as well as for the year�s fourth quarter, and record backlog as it enters the 2010 fiscal year. This achievement marks the twelfth consecutive year of revenue growth for the company and was broad-based, with strong bookings throughout Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific region from both new and existing customers. It is an impressive streak for the software innovator - especially in light of the worldwide recession.

AWR executives attribute the performance to several factors. The company acknowledged that it had received two of its largest orders in company history, both from top-tier manufacturers of third-generation (3G) wireless transceiver modules for smart phones. The company also claimed to have experienced strong growth within existing aerospace and defense accounts as well as from new customers that switched to AWR products from competing tools.

I�ve always believed that tough times calls for digging in and doubling your efforts to do what has made one successful in the past. This effort needs to also be balanced with flexibility in order to change to changing times. Based on this latest fiscal report, AWR seems to being doing both of these quite well. How is your company weathering the storm? Is the performance of your company better than expected? Are we turning a corner in this recession? Tell us about your success.

Oracle to Acquire Sun Microsystems

Back in the mid-80s, do you remember sign-up sheets for workstations, which were extremely expensive and in short supply. Design software such as MDS (HP), Libra (EEsof) and Harmonica (Compact Software) required the high performance computing only available on these machines and EM simulation software such as HFSS was not yet widely available. Many of us (junior) engineers had to work later in the evening waiting for a workstation to became available. Do you remember the Unix wars between the proponents of BSD from Univerity of California, Berkeley and System V from AT&T? BSD Unix vendor Sun Microsytems and AT&T would start working together on a unified system in 1987. Eventually a workstation for every design engineer would become a reality. Workstations and PCs have certainly come a long way since then, and today's simulators often utilize compute farms to address ever-larger problems, broad parameteric sweeps and optimization, yet hearing that Oracle Corp. plans to acquire Sun Microsystems Inc. for $7.4billion, brought back memories of those days many years ago.

In the deal, Oracle trumped IBM by picking up what might prove to be a software treasure trove that includes the popular MySQL open-source database as well as Java.
Oracle said it will pay $9.50 per share in cash for Sun, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. The move follows Oracle's purchases of a raft of companies in the past few years, including Siebel Systems, PeopleSoft and BEA Systems.

Sun shares rose by $2.41 to $9.10 in trading about an hour after the market opened, while Oracle shares declined by $1.03 to $18.03. Shares of the buying company in big mergers and acquisitions often sink at first as investors debate the relative merits of laying out large amounts of cash for the acquisition.

On a conference call Monday, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said Java and Solaris were the two main reasons Oracle purchased Sun, a move that is in line with Oracle's acquisition strategy to buy companies with "market-leading products."

Calling Java "the single most important software asset we have ever acquired," he said Oracle's Java-based middleware business, bolstered first by the BEA acquisition and now by the purchase of Sun, is on track to become as large as Oracle's flagship database business. Oracle's Fusion middleware is based on Java.

Oracle also considers Solaris "by far the best Unix technology available in the market," which is why more Oracle databases run on that OS than any other, Ellison said. He said Oracle's enterprise customers running both products will be able to experience new benefits by technical integration of the products.

Anyone else care to share some old Sun Solaris SPARC memories?

Which mobile ads are right for me?

In December, we launched ads for iPhone and Android devices. This feature allows advertisers to target their standard AdWords text and image ads to the iPhone, Android devices, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers. Before that, advertisers who wanted to reach mobile users had to create mobile-specific text and image ads that would only show on phones with mobile Internet (WAP) browsers. Now that mobile ads can be targeted for both full HTML and WAP browsers, some of you advertisers may be wondering, "which mobile ads are right for me?"



Standard mobile ads show on mobile devices with WAP browsers and usually direct users to a mobile website -- most likely written in a mobile markup language such as XHTML, WML, or CHTML. Standard mobile ads also offer a click-to-call feature, which lets you direct users to a business phone number instead of a mobile website. If you have a mobile website or want to collect leads via phone, standard mobile ads may be right for you. You can learn how to create standard mobile ads here.

High-end mobile ads show on iPhone and Android devices and don’t require a mobile website. High-end mobile ads don't have a click-to-call option, but they do allow advertisers to direct users to various other properties such Google Maps, the iPhone App Store or Android Market, or YouTube. If you specifically want your ads to show on iPhone or Android devices, these ads might be right for you. They are also a good choice for new mobile advertisers because they are easy to enable through your campaign settings.

Of course, depending on your needs, you can also use both types of mobile ads. To summarize, here's a table with information on standard and high-end mobile ads.

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, mobile ads

WCAI Wireless Policy Summit is Approaching

It was announced this week that Sean Maloney, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer at Intel Corporation will give the opening keynote address at the WCAI�s Wireless Policy Summit on May 5 in Washington, DC. The Summit, being held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, will gather key officials from government and industry in an open forum for the exchange of ideas between attendees. This event is an ideal opportunity to meet face-to-face with top decision-makers who are shaping the future of the industry in 2009 and beyond. As the new Administration is acting on its commitment to bring broadband access to all Americans, the Summit will examine the role of wireless in the broadband stimulus package, universal service, open access, net neutrality, and more. WCAI web site

In light of the current economy, the summit seems well timed. On April 8th, the FCC adopted a notice of inquiry seeking public comment on the national broadband plan that the Commission is required to prepare under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Fred Campbell of the WCAI commmented on his blog stating - "Wireless broadband platforms should play a leading role in the Commission�s plan to ensure that every American has access to broadband capability. Wireless technology is the most cost-effective way to provide affordable broadband both to sparsely populated rural areas and urban centers. Moreover, as the only broadband platform that is capable of providing access everywhere, all the time, wireless broadband offers mobility � a connection to every person whether at home or on the go. These capabilities make wireless broadband essential to achieving the FCC�s goal of universal broadband connectivity.�

Microwave Journal and its sister publication Telecommunications will be keeping a close eye on the lobbying efforts to develop wireless broadband platforms to address the ARRA of 2009. Stay tuned as we will be working with all parties with a stake in this area. Meanwhile - are you heading to this forum? We'd love to hear from you.

MWJ April Issue is Out - Let the Battle Begin

Our April issue themed "Amplifiers and Oscillators" just came out with the lead story about the advantages and disadvantages of Si versus GaAs based semiconductor technologies for power amplifier applications (the discussion is contained to lower power levels, <1 W where they both have good performance). It discusses how Si has made many strides in this arena and could be the preferred technology for many applications.

There is no doubt that GaAs is usually better suited for higher power applications but in the high power realm, LDMOS (at lower frequencies) and GaN have made significant inroads into the market. So it seems GaAs is always getting squeezed in the market with competition on both ends. We will address this high power market in our June issue lead story as LDMOS and GaN face off. Please read the article and let us know your feedback - I am sure the GaAs proponents will have something to say!

GaAs Downturn Predicted to Not Be as Severe as 2001

Strategy Analytics issued a report �GaAs Industry Downturns 2001 vs. 2009," where the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Technologies service reiterated previous projections of a 5% - 6% drop in GaAs industry revenues for 2009, and explains why the current downturn will not be as extreme for the GaAs industry as in 2001.

As SA said previously, the GaAs industry hit a wall in the last quarter of 2008. The effects of a global economic slowdown finally caught up with the handset market�and other end markets�in which GaAs technology is used. However, Strategy Analytics believes that the expanding demand for bandwidth coupled with better managed inventory corrections will save the industry from seeing the precipitous 25% drop suffered in 2001.

Early Look at Java language support expanded to 25,000 developers

Have you signed up to try Google App Engine for Java yet? We were so overwhelmed with the response to our early look at Java support on App Engine that we decided to let more developers in now, without waiting. Thus, we're expanding the early look signups to 25,000 developers, in order to give more of you a chance to try it out. So please sign up, give it a try, and let us know what you think. We've already seen a number of interesting apps built and deployed. Stay tuned for us to point some of the cooler ones out in the coming weeks.

On another note, if you haven't delved down into the SDK and taken a look around, you may have missed the demo directory. Inside this directory you'll find a number of projects which demonstrate various features of Google App Engine for Java. These demos are a great place to start if you want to learn more about App Engine by example, or if you just want to get hacking on something quickly. Last but not least, we hope these demos are of practical value too, as we included example Ant build scripts and organized the code with standard directory layouts and naming conventions.

Looking to create an end-to-end Java AJAX application? Try out Sticky, the sticky note app written using Google Web Toolkit and App Engine. You'll find useful patterns you can use in your own code, the sample source itself is Apache licensed so feel free to use it directly.

Are your eyes set on a mobile app? Check out the source for Task Engine . Also built with GWT, this simple task app is written with the iPhone and Android in mind.

If scaling your infrastructure is more your cup of tea, you can check out the shardedcounter example. It demonstrates how to implement distributed incrementing counters, which are useful for understanding how to scale larger applications on App Engine.

Note: If you installed the App Engine SDK with the Google Plugin for Eclipse, the SDK and accompanying demos can be found in your Eclipse installation directory, under plugins/com.google.appengine.eclipse.sdkbundle_1.2.0.vXXX.

Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Many languages, and in the runtime bind them

While working on App Engine's new Java runtime, we realized that we were missing something important. Something the Python runtime already had. Something sleek, yet powerful ... and approximately 80 characters wide and 25 characters tall. Yes, we're talking about the Python runtime's nifty shell demo app.

Naturally, we wanted to take the existing shell demo and extend its functionality for our new Java environment. Our idea was that we'd create one REPL to rule them all: a shell demo that supports several different JVM-based languages simultaneously. It was an easy decision to use GWT to build the user-interface, making the terminal interface a cinch. Once we had the basic shell framework, we then added some languages: Beanshell, Clojure, Groovy, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Scala, and Scheme.

This helps us underscore two important compatibility features of Java App Engine:

1. 
   Google App Engine for Java accepts Java bytecode, not Java source code. It even supports loading bytecode generated at run time. That means that our new Java runtime can support any language with a compiler that targets the JVM. In fact, many advanced scenarios work as well - such as libraries that rely on runtime bytecode generation (such as dependency injection frameworks, AOP libraries, and expression-language runtimes).
   


2. 
   The security sandbox in Google App Engine for Java is flexible. Other techniques for sandboxing Java can be restrictive about the permissions they grant to untrusted code, limiting the types of constructs you can use. For example, many secure Java environments don't allow you to create custom ClassLoaders or use tricks for reflection like setAccessible. Java App Engine attempts to provide this type of functionality in a secure fashion, making it possible to run more types of code (and more languages).
   

Now, it must be said: please note that this is a demonstration app we developed to show off the power and flexibility of our new Java runtime; it's not a production service, and you shouldn't rely on it for anything important. Further, since this is a single shared instance of this application, running server code code from many users at once, you should exercise caution in entering any sensitive data like passwords into this demo. Finally, though we've worked to ensure rich functionality for as many languages as possible, this is still a proof of concept, and there is surely some language functionality missing from our environment.

But, without further ado, may we present to you, the Lord of the REPLS.

-- Google Software Engineers, Toby Reyelts and James Robinson.

Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Broadband Stimulus Funds

One hot topic at CTIA and certainly in the broadband market is the pending stimulus money that will become available from the federal government by Sept 2010. The amount to be allocated to broadband projects is $7.2 billion which is a large sum but after it is broken down in projects, it might not look so large. There has to be at least one grant per state (plus DC and some territories) and 75% must go to rural projects so that is where the emphasis will be for providers. They are encouraging people to team up to take a more holistic view of projects but there will certainly be barriers to doing this. There are also incentives for providing services to unserved and underserved areas.

The legislation is still being worked and public inputs are still being taken but it could be very good for the wireless market providing the funds make it into the hands of the manufacturers. Does anyone has any insights or additional information about the stimulus funding?

Google Latitude FTW

Since the launch of Google Latitude in February, many of you have come up with fun and creative ways to use it. We'd like to highlight some of your bright ideas, then share our own idea for creating a message using the icons on the map.

First up, we were totally revved by the story of Garage 419's do-it-yourself race from Manhattan, NY, to Washington D.C., using a plane, a train, an automobile, and various mobile devices. These guys took advantage of Latitude to keep tabs on the race in progress and make adjustments in their strategy and speed. We won't spoil the results, since you can watch the video for yourself. We didn't have racing in mind when we built the app, but who are we to argue with high-tech games?

Next we stumbled on a safari hunt in Glasgow and London. Following clues from Twitter and Latitude, pub crawlers were invited to track down two red lions (the mascots of the Whyte and Mackay brand) that were roaming between various bars and pubs in the two cities.

The Blogger grapevine also brought us this tale of a San Francisco resident who accidentally left his Nokia E71 behind in a cab one night. After remembering that Latitude was switched on, he rushed to his computer, only to find that his phone had already made it to Boston. "Maybe this post will get picked up," he blogged, "go viral and find it's way to the person who has my phone." So far as we know that hasn't happened yet, but we'll echo Nick's plea: "[I]f you do read this, Mister Whoever-found-my-phone, do the right thing."

So what have we done lately? Well, if you need a creatively geeky way to send someone a message, we've got just the ticket. Spell it out with Google Latitude!



We've also made it easy for you to customize your own video, so try writing your own message and pass the video along to a friend. We're very excited by these creative ways of using Latitude, and we look forward to seeing more. If you come up with one yourself, be sure to let us know!

Posted by Robin Norvell, Consumer Operations

Seriously this time, the new language on App Engine: Java™

Today, we're very excited to announce the availability of a new programming language for Google App Engine. Please welcome the Java runtime!

When the two of us first heard the promise of Google App Engine, we realized that the chance to bring this kind of simplicity to Java developers was too good of an opportunity to pass up. When App Engine launched publicly, we were excited to see that Java language support was both the first and the most popular request filed in the Issue Tracker. We were also thrilled to see that this enthusiasm extended beyond the Java language to all of the various programming languages that have been implemented on top of the Java virtual machine -- not to mention all of the popular web frameworks and libraries.

But we also knew that Java developers are choosy:

• They live by their powerful tools (Eclipse, Intellij, NetBeans, Ant, etc.).
• They try to avoid lock-in and strive for re-use. Standards-based development (defacto or otherwise) is key.
• They harness sophisticated libraries to perform language feats which are nearly magical (GWT, Guice, CGLIB, AspectJ, etc...).
• They even use alternate languages on the JVM, like Groovy, Scala, and JRuby.

We wanted to give developers something that they could be ecstatic about, but we knew we would have to marry the simplicity of Google App Engine with the power and flexibility of the Java platform. We also wanted to leverage the App Engine infrastructure -- and by extension Google's infrastructure -- as much as possible, without giving up compatibility with existing Java standards and tools.

And so that's what we did. App Engine now supports the standards that make Java tooling great. (We're working on the tooling too, with Google Plugin for Eclipse). It provides the current App Engine API's and wraps them with standards where relevant, like the Java Servlet API, JDO and JPA, javax.cache, and javax.mail. It also provides a secure sandbox that's powerful enough to run your code safely on Google's servers, while being flexible enough for you to break abstractions at will.

There is a vast amount of Java code out there, much of it written without consideration of sandboxing, and we can't test it all. We know that there will be some rough edges when it comes to compatibility, but we're looking forward to working with you to smooth those out. To that end, we're giving the first 10,000 interested developers an early look at Java language support, so please sign up, give it a whirl, and give us lots of feedback.

The team has also been working on many other improvements to App Engine, which we're really excited to launch to you as well:

• Access to firewalled data: grant policy-controlled access to your data behind the firewall.
• Cron support: schedule tasks like report generation or DB clean-up at an interval of your choosing.
• Database import: move GBs of data easily into your App Engine app. Matching export capabilities are coming soon, hopefully within a month.

Last but not least, the App Engine team will be at the upcoming Google I/O developer event on May 27-28 in San Francisco, so please come meet us in person.

We look forward to seeing your applications. Get coding!

Posted by Don Schwarz and Toby Reyelts, Software Engineers, Google App Engine Team

Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Mobile Web Calendar for iPhone and Android, now with event management

It's probably no news to all you parents out there, but as a new dad I only recently found out just how busy life gets with kids. So I was thrilled when I was able to view my Google Calendar on my phone. Being able to check the week's schedule is great. However, I've been missing a way to respond to invitations and change my attendance status on the go. And I haven't been the only one. The number one idea on Google Product Ideas was the ability to edit Google Calendar on mobile devices.

That just became possible with the new mobile web version of Google Calendar, available on iPhone and Android-powered devices. If you're like me, you'll quickly find just how useful it is to edit events from your phone. Just go to google.com/calendar/gp from your mobile browser to see your schedule. Select an event to change your attendance status, edit the details, and add or remove guests. One more bit of news - even if you're on a flaky network and your phone can't establish a connection, the new Calendar will still start up and show your last viewed events.

To make the web-based Calendar as easy to access as any other app on your Android-powered device or iPhone, I recommend adding it to your home screen shortcuts. The new Google Calendar for mobile supports iPhone OS 2.2.1 and up and all Android-powered phones. It's available in English only for now, but more languages will be supported soon. For Apps users please go to google.com/m/a/yourdomain and click on Calendar.

Posted by Jyri Engestrom, Product Manager, Google Mobile

Gmail gets a new engine for iPhone and Android-powered devices

Today, we're thrilled to tell you about the improvements we've made to Gmail for mobile, running in the iPhone and Android web browser. First, you'll notice that it's a lot faster when performing actions like opening an email, navigating, or searching. And if the data network drops out on you, rest assured that Gmail won't. You'll still be able to open recently read messages and to compose over a flaky, or non-existent, network connection.

All this is achieved with aggressive caching and by leveraging new browser technologies, like HTML5 and Gears. The full impact of this new architecture isn't visible yet, but it will enable us to significantly improve performance and quickly roll out new features in the near future. We're really excited about the potential impact this change can bring - so excited, in fact, that our VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, shared the news and demoed these new capabilities at the February 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona and last week at Web 2.0 in San Francisco.

The new Gmail for mobile will also help you tackle your inbox faster. Gone are the days when you had to archive multiple messages by selecting each one, then scrolling all the way up (or down) to reach the archive button. Our fingers were getting sore with all the scrolling and we're willing to bet yours were too. Now when you select a message, a floaty bar appears near the top of the screen with options to archive, delete, and more. In fact, the floaty bar stays with you as you scroll through your inbox, so you can easily archive, delete, or view more options no matter where you are.



Lastly, we improved the look and feel of messages. Labels are easier to read and are more in-line with the familiar Gmail labels you see on your desktop. We also moved the search menu up into the top header, making it more accessible.

Go to gmail.com from your mobile browser to give it a try, and stay tuned for feature additions and improvements. For easy access to your Gmail, create a homescreen link. If you have any feedback or ideas, please let us know.

*Please note: The new Gmail for mobile only supports iPhone/iPod Touch OS 2.2.1 or above. If you have an older firmware version, you'll be directed to the previous Gmail for mobile. All Android-powered phones are supported. New Gmail for mobile is available for English only. The roll out will occur over the course of a day, so please check back later if you don't see the updated user interface right away

Check out the video below to see new Gmail for mobile in action:



If you are a Google Apps user, go to mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.

Joanne McKinley, Engineer, Google Mobile

CTIA Keynote Close Out

Steve Largent kicked off the final keynote with some highlights of the show such as Blackberry launching their apps store, the merging of wireless and medical applications and a few new product launches from the big carriers. He showed a video of how the industry is recycling and leading in "green" efforts. Largent then introduced the final speaker, the honorable Al Gore.

Gore reviewed the history of information distribution and how it has affected the balance of power from the few to the many. He stated there were only 50 web sites online about the time Clinton and he took office compared to today where there are billions. He drove the concept that we have a climate change, security and economic crisis. The common thread in these is our reliance on carbon based energy so we must act quickly to move away from that situation. He stated that wireless is a key tool to solving these problems and challenged everyone to contribute and lead the effort. He said we should have more than a financial incentive as it will improve mankind!

Many people at the show enjoyed the previous day's keynote on how advanced wireless medical applications were being developed. They showed how you could monitor your vital signs on your smart phone and send them to your doctor.

The other subject that was discussed on the floor was the government incentives for the expansion of broadband services around the country. It seems like the funding is still not completely defined but everyone is looking forward to them being released. However, if it is like most government programs, it could be some time before we see any release of those funds.

Did you see anything interesting at the show or have any comments?

Having Some Fun at CTIA

The PowerWave booth is always huge stretching across the middle of the main exhibition hall. This year they have a formula one race car simulator that is very realistic. You provide them with a little information and then get your ride. I have not come across any other interactive displays yet other than presentations and music.

After a long day at the show, we decided to stay in the Mirage and have a "little" sandwich at Carnegie's. Then came the turkey club that was about a foot high and the pastrami that has a full 2 pounds of meat. We did our best to finish them but we were not very successful. Our publisher, Carl, always poses for the food pictures.

A-GPS Big at CTIA

GPS is being commonly added to smart phones for location based information and services. However, GPS in these phones is not always that accurate and can have slow response times. Assisted GPS (A-GPS) will solve these problems with help from the cell towers to complement the internal GPS information being gathered by the phone. It is a hot topic at CTIA and companies are releasing test solutions to meet the needs of deploying them.


Agilent Technologies Inc. introduced GS-9000 A-GPS Design Verification Test systems designed around the 8960 wireless communications test set's new A-GPS assistance data messaging test capabilities. The capabilities support A-GPS validation, Total Isotropic Sensitivity testing and A-GPS pre-conformance testing for mobile devices. With this introduction, Agilent's 8960 test set offers the industry's best price/performance one-box tester for use in A-GPS base station emulation applications across the entire R&D lifecycle.


Spirent Communications, a mobile device, application, and wireless network testing company, has partnered with ETS-Lindgen, a provider of RF chambers and antenna measurement solutions, to integrate Spirent's UMTS Location Test System (ULTS) with ETS-Lindgren's EMQuest Antenna Measurement Software. This will enable the ability to test product in compliance with the upcoming 3.0 release of the CTIA's Test Plan for Mobile Station Over the Air Performance, which will become mandatory on all CTIA authorized test labs.

CTIA Central Hall

So each year I like to give out my own best booth award to the glamorous handset companies that go all out for CTIA. I think it usually comes down to LG and Samsung. Last year I liked the LG booth the best and although it was great this year, Samsung gets the award for the intriguing display pictured here. It is made up of individual cell phone images which constantly change.

The central hall was very busy in the afternoon and I enjoy going to the Asian country pavilions which each have several microwave component companies. They typically make some very good isolators, diplexers, duplexers and integrated assemblies. One that stood out was Admotech which makes components and was featuring their integrated front end WiMAX assembly.

I will be spending more time in this hall later since it is so large.

RF/Microwave Pavilion Opens at CTIA

The RF and Microwave Pavilion opened at CTIA today and the reception was strong. The Pavilion is located in the South hall toward the front on the main isle so traffic was good.

I visited all of the booths today in the pavilion and will have a complete wrap up in a few days after I return. But the most interesting product so far is the Peregrine UltraCMOS products. They are making products that are solving many of the high power, high linearity and fast switching times needed for multi-throw switches, digital attenuators and tunable circuits. Included is a photo of one of their patterned Si on Sapphire wafers. See the previous entry describing their release of new digital step attenuators and they have more products coming.

Another very interesting meeting I had was with Spirent who I was not very familiar with until today. They make testing solutions for real world testing of more types of wireless systems and announced that ETS-Lindgren now supports Spirent's UMTS Location Test System. This will allow wireless device manufacturers to quickly and easily add Spirent's A-GPS instrumentation to ETS-Lindgren's over the air wireless test solutions.

The Testing Solutions Pavilion is right beside the RF and microwave Pavilion so I was able to visit Anritsu and others there. Anritsu has some new USB power meters available that I will also describe in the wrap up after the show. The central hall has all of the large booths and country pavilions. I will have follow up on details about my visits to central hall next.

A Brand New Language on Google App Engine!

Posted by Alon Levi, App Engine Team

It's been almost a year since we've launched App Engine with support for Python, and what a year it's been! We've gotten fantastic feedback from developers, and we've released loads of new features! When we launched, we promised support for another runtime language, and indeed this has been among the most requested features from our developers since day one.

Well, we fed Google's new CADIE Strategic Decision Maker the App Engine issue tracker, our groups, and various blog posts around the internet to help select a new runtime language for App Engine. Today we're excited to officially announce support for FORTRAN 77!

If you're an enterprise customer and want to take advantage of Google App Engine, but have a large and cumbersome legacy system, we want to make it easy for you to port to the cloud. By providing a Fortran 77 runtime, along with a familiar, easy-to-use deployment mechanism, we hope to make this process efficient and straightforward.

Want to give it a try? Download our SDK and deploy your application by mailing punch cards to:

Google App Engine, C/O APPCFG

1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy

Mountain View, CA 94043

and we'll take care of the rest! We welcome your feedback on our newest addition to the App Engine family--you can discuss it on our Google Group!

CTIA Kicks Off

I got in last night and Vegas seems as busy as ever - there are several trade shows in town besides CTIA which by itself is very large. I will be going over to the exhibition soon as it opens at 11 but the news is already pouring in. It looks like femtocells are hot while high capacity microwave backhaul and LTE continue to get a lot of attention.

Peregrine Semiconductor Corporation released three new UltraCMOS(TM) Digital Step Attenuators (DSAs) in the expansion of its popular 50 Ohm DSA line. Building on their high-performance predecessors, along with flexible serial and parallel interface logic these new HaRP(TM)- enhanced devices also offer highly flexible attenuation options by covering a 31.5dB attenuation range in 0.5 dB or 1.0 dB steps. They have really expanded their portfolio from basic switches a while back.

Agilent Technologies introduced its Signaling Analyzer Real Time (SART) for Femto. This first-to-market technology extends the test industry's most complete, end-to-end wireless analysis and troubleshooting solution to femtocells, which access wireless networks via consumer broadband connections. The platform supports both standards-based and proprietary femtocell implementations.

ETS-Lindgren announced an integrated solution that lets wireless device manufacturers test their products for compliance with the CTIA � The Wireless Association��s new requirement for over the air performance testing of Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) enabled mobile devices. With the upcoming release of the Version 3.0 of the CTIA�s Test Plan for Mobile Station Over the Air Performance, this requirement will become mandatory for certification testing at all CTIA authorized test laboratories (CATLs).

Rogers Corporation is featuring a variety of its high-performance materials and is participating for the first time as part of the RF Zone. Visitors can discuss their design challenges with Rogers' applications engineers, and learn more about Rogers' state-of-the-art circuit-board materials.

Cobham sells M/A-COM Technology Solutions

It must have been very difficult in this market but Cobham pulled it off and sold the commercial components portion of M/A-COM, M/A-COM Technology Solutions (MTS), to John Ocampo for $30 million in cash, $30 million in senior loan notes secured on the MTS assets and $30 million dependent on future revenue in the period 2010 to 2012. John is a very experienced RF/microwave person in the industry having been on the board at Sirenza and started Vari-L many years ago. MTS is exhibiting in the RF/microwave Pavilion at CTIA.

At the time of the acquisition of M/A-COM on May 13, 2008, Cobham said it planned to divest the commercial business segment MTS, as it was not core to the Group's strategy (Excluded from the sale are cash and the freehold of the Walker Building in Lowell, Massachusetts valued at $10 million). MTS recorded revenue of some $275 million and operating profit of less than $10 million.

I think this is a good transaction for MTS and its employees to be purchased by an experienced entrepreneur and leader like John Ocampo. This leaves the original M/A-COM in 5 places (see if you can get all of the correct). Tyco Electronics maintains the private radio group, Cobham has the defense products, Micronetics has the RFID products, John Ocampo has the commercial products and Autoliv has the automotive products!

Introducing Google Brain Search for mobile

Ever had a word on the tip of your tongue but just couldn't remember it? Or perhaps blanked on a person's name in a socially awkward situation? Or even suffered memory deterioration due to ordinary aging or questionable life choices? If so, Brain Search for mobile may be for you. Using our new CADIE technology, we can now index the content of your brain to make it searchable, thus bringing you aided retrieval of memories. Check out this video to see how it works:



Your phone already has an antenna, which can pick up wireless signals. CADIE technology modifies the input wavelengths so it can read brain waves. Go to the Brain Search App (here on a computer or here on a phone.) If you bring your phone to your forehead, your phone can index your brain, making it searchable. 

Since your phone is now modified to read brainwaves, you don't even have to type your search. Put your phone to your forehead and think your query, then click on "Search me". This is helpful in situations where you don't want onlookers to know what you're searching for, so you can feel comfortable asking personal things such as "What did I eat that's making me so gassy?" or "Did I ever go out with that girl? She looks vaguely familiar." And, since CADIE's artificial neural networks run faster than those of a human being, it is faster for her to search through your thoughts and memories than for you to do it yourself.

Brain Search is available for the US, UK, France, Germany, and Italy, and on a number of different devices.

• On Android and iPhone devices, Brain Search runs in the browser, taking advantage of HTML5 and Gears technologies.
  
• On Windows Mobile devices, make sure you download and install the latest version of Google Mobile App. Click the Panda icon (CADIE's choice, don't ask us) to get to Brain Search.  
• On Blackberry devices (US and UK only), make sure you download and install the latest version of Google Mobile App. Type "Brain Search" in the search box. You'll get a link to Brain Search in the search suggestions below. 
  

To get started on any of these, go to google.com on your mobile device, and click the Brain Search link.

Don't forget. Brain Search.


Posted by Effie Seiberg, CADIE team

R&S Demos Femtocell Design Verification

At CTIA Wireless 2009, Rohde & Schwarz is demonstrating their LTE frequency division duplexing (FDD) testing capabilities based on the newest femtocell design from mimoOn. The compact test setup features the R&S� SMBV100A vector signal generator and the R&S� FSV signal analyzer to generate and analyze LTE signals that meet the newest specification.

The test setup on display at Rohde & Schwarz booth 6033 verifies that the femtocell reference design from mimoOn correctly operates according to the LTE specification that is about to be finalized. Accurate validation of the generated downlink signal of the mimoOn reference design is carried out with the R&S� FSV signal analyzer and the R&S� FSV-K100 downlink analysis option. The R&S� FSV�s innovative touch screen interface simplifies testing from the reference design to the final application of enhanced Node B (eNB) and Home eNB infrastructure.