20摄氏度 2006-11-13 11:13 AM
Midday Business Report: Sprint expands faster wireless network
While Americans focused on political races this morning, America’s high-tech companies focused on mobility.d7Q?(Z9u j
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A day after formally kicking off sales of four new Motorola mobiles phones, Sprint today rolled out its faster wireless network in two more cities — Milwaukee and Las Vegas.
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The company began offering the service, called EV-DO Revision A, in San Diego last week. Sprint said it will roll out the service in Kansas City and 17 other cities by the end of the year.LLq I p%A6iO
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EV-DO Revision A offers substantially faster upload speeds, allowing subscribers to send e-mail or upload files more quickly to corporate networks or social network sites like MySpace. Download speeds increase slightly from the company’s current high-speed wireless network, to 400-800 kilobits per second.
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Currently, the service isn’t available on handsets, but can be used on laptops with special wireless cards.
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Cingular Wireless, the nation’s top mobile phone company, is launching the first PDA-phone that works on that company’s high-speed network.$gz)B Feb4O3Cr
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The Cingular 8525 Pocket PC works on the company’s BroadbandConnect network, offering download speeds of 400-700 kilobits per second.
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The phone costs $400 or more, depending on service plan.!d NCsau de
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In Olathe, Garmin today said it will offer its navigation technology to companies that build location based services for business.
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The Garmin LBS Toolkit initially will be used by two companies — Xora and Agilis.U$JzQf ye
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Location-based services allow businesses to pinpoint where their mobile workers are working, dispatching them more efficiently.
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“Adding Garmin’s LBS Toolkit to mobile applications can enhance the value and utility of virtually any location aware mobile application, from enterprise and fleet management, real estate, medical, family tracking, pedestrian, automotive, local search, and many others,” Charles Morse, Garmin’s director of mobile and PND marketing, said in a statement.
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In yet another mobile development, news leaked today that Sprint and Verizon Wireless, and potentially other mobile phone companies, are negotiating with YouTube to let mobile phone customer download videos from the popular movie sharing site to their cell phones.
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The companies declined to confirm the reports, and no timetable for the service was set.
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To reach David Hayes, call (816) 234-4904 or send e-mail to [email]dhayes@kcstar.com[/email].
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British biotech firm bringing jobs to Lenexa
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A British biotechnology company specializing in breast cancer detection will create 120 jobs and invest $30 million in laboratories when it opens offices in Lenexa.
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OncImmune, which is based in Nottingham, England, also will collaborate with researchers at the University of Kansas.*w#L&{ iU7\
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Executives of the nearly four-year-old company said they selected the Kansas City area for their North American headquarters and commercial lab after considering numerous other potential U.S. sites.
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Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and other area leaders said the successful recruitment of OncImmune will further the region’s efforts to expand its research base and bolster the life sciences segment of the economy.
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OncImmune is to share space with IBT Reference Laboratory, a Lenexa lab that provides research and testing services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
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The Kansas Bioscience Authority, the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp., the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas City Area Development Council were among the organizations involved in bringing OncImmune to the region.hOF0j
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“OncImmune will grow IBT, increase research in the state and locate its world-class company here,” Clay Blair, chairman of the state’s bioscience authority, said in a statement.