GigaOM

A Nokia executive said today that the company has committed to LTE as its preferred network for devices, and plans to launch devices for those networks in 2010. James Harper, senior manager of technology marketing at Nokia, speaking at a PCCA meeting held in Grapevine, Texas, declined to detail what type of devices the handset maker would launch, but said they would be data intensive.

Perhaps we should expect that Nokia laptop, or something similar to the tablet Nokia pulled for the Clear WiMAX network this year. Harper also declined to say which carrier would carry such devices, which makes sense, given that it’s still early days for deployments of LTE networks. Just one or two carriers are planning network deployments by next year.

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Bindu Reddy and Arvind Sundararajan, both ex-Googlers, today announced the launch of their startup, Likaholix, which lets you curate things you like on the web. You sign up, create a profile and bookmark your likes — books, movies, things, places, hotels and anything you fancy. Sounds simple enough, right? But since these are both Googlers, they are using search under the hood to make relevant recommendations based on the people, topics and items you like.

What I find interesting is that another startup that centers on personalized web has been started by former Googlers. FriendFeed is another that comes to mind. With digital content exploding on the web, sooner or later Google’s approach to content is going to have problems. This concept of “liking,” or effortless recommendation, is one way of dealing with data deluge. It is part of the ambient intimacy trend I have written about in the past. Continue »

I am sitting in Dallas Grapevine, Texas, at a meeting discussing LTE and HSPA technical standards, and I thought I’d share some of the compelling statistics tied to the use of mobile broadband and the need for fat mobile pipes. How fat? HSPA offers speeds of up to 42 Mbps downlink and LTE has theoretical speeds of up to 150 Mbps down.

Chris Pearson, president of 3G Americas, offered up some more realistic throughputs at the meeting, hosted by the Portable Computer and Communications Association. Pearson cited data from Rysavy Research offering 5 Mbps down as a realistic HSPA speed and 10 Mbps down for LTE. And people will need such speed and capacity. Continue »

• Indepth looks at Amazon Kindle on iPhone. (theAppleBlog)
• Veranda, Apple of Solar? (Earth2Tech)
• Hulu shuts down another re-aggregator. (NewTeeVee)
• Open source media center apps are all growing up. (OStatic)
• Change routines, boost productivity. (WebWorkerDaily)
• Netbooks are injurious to your health. Almost. (jkOnTheRun)

Telsima Networks, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based WiMAX hardware maker that had raised close to $70 million in venture capital (and $25 million in debt) was sold to Harris Stratex, a Research Park Triangle, N.C., company for $12 million, which will be paid out over next 12 months. Investors in Telsima include NewPath Ventures, CMEA Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Intel Capital and JAFCO Asia. Telsima and Harris had a partnership prior to this acquisition.

The precipitous decline of Telsima from the status of WiMAX darling reflects the harsh realities of a startup chasing a market fraught with competition. Telsima was not only battling its own peculiar set of problems, but it also mirrors the mixed results for WiMAX in the race for 4G Wireless Broadband. Continue »

As expected, President Obama has nominated Julius Genachowski as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission — a much needed and much awaited replacement for Kevin Martin, arguably one of the more biased-towards-phone-companies commissioner. Genachowski was a co-founder of LaunchBox Digital, a Washington, D.C.-based startup accelerator, and in the past he has worked for Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive Corp. His appointment was met with approval from all kinds of lobbying and industry groups — Public Knowledge, NCTA, Free Press and American Cable Association. We had put together a laundry list of things he must do. I am personally going to judge him on what he gets done, not what he talks about. As Cisco CEO John Chambers argues, we need a broadband strategy befitting a country that has long been a technology leader and innovator