GeekWire Radio: Microsoft + Nokia, new Kindle Paperwhite, and the future of satellite broadband
There’s rather a lot to speak about on this week’s GeekWire radio present, together with Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s smartphone business, our hands-on impressions of Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite, and the inspiring entrepreneurial story of a 13-year-old from Spokane, Wash., who invented an Internet-enabled dog treat dispenser.
Our visitor in the studio is Vern Fotheringham, the wi-fi and telecom trade veteran who’s now the CEO of Kymeta Corp. The Redmond-based firm, backed by buyers together with Invoice Gates, is creating beam-steering antennas, managed by software program (not transferring components), that may keep a persistent connection to satellites for broadband entry round the world.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” says Fotheringham of his position at the helm of Kymeta. “I’ve a job that enables me to leverage all the pieces I’ve discovered over the whole arc of my profession.”
Describing the alternatives for Kymeta, he factors to elements together with the “languishing” state of the satellite communications trade, with pricey phased-array antennas that use huge quantities of energy.
“That sort of cumbersome answer … will now get replaced by a skinny, flat antenna,” he says. “We drive the prototypes utilizing USB ports. Lower than perhaps 3 or 4 watts of energy for a large-scale aperture. So these are dramatic breakthroughs. I’ve by no means loved a 99 p.c benefit over the man who was in first place beforehand.”
Right here’s an image of a Kymeta antenna, about the dimension of a laptop computer when folded.
Fotheringham additionally talks about what it’s prefer to be the CEO of an organization with Invoice Gates as an investor and member of the board.
It’s a enjoyable and very geeky dialog, beginning at the 12:00 mark in the audio participant above. It’s additionally a preview of Fotheringham’s look as one of the audio system at the GeekWire Summit next week.
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Hearken to the present above or through this MP3 file.