The Federal Communications Commission moved cautiously Tuesday toward creating a more open national wireless broadband network, handing a partial victory to Google, which was pushing for more competition in cellphone services.

The agency approved rules for an auction of broadcast spectrum that its chairman, Kevin J. Martin, said would promote new consumer services. The rules will let customers use any phone and software they want on networks using about one-third of the spectrum to be auctioned.

The F.C.C. did not approve a provision that would have required the winner of the auction to sell access to its network on a wholesale basis to other companies. Google favored the rule as a way to hasten competition and innovation in the cellphone industry, a market it is considering.

While the language of the ruling has not been made public, it appears that any company that buys the new spectrum will have to leave it open to devices it does not approve or control. If, for instance, Verizon were to buy spectrum, consumers would have to pay Verizon for access to its network but they could use devices of their own choosing on it.

At present, the carriers decide what devices are used on their networks and therefore control many of the services and software available to consumers. The carriers contend this lets them control the quality of the customer’s experience.

The ruling does not affect the existing spectrum, controlled by major companies like Verizon Wireless. But it appears to signal a shift in how policy makers and, in turn, companies, will approach access to and control of future wireless networks.

The ruling did not go far enough for some consumer activist groups, but even those groups applauded parts of it.

In recent weeks, Google and other technology interests pressed the commission to create an open-access wireless network — in contrast to today’s closed cellular networks — and to permit owners of the spectrum to sell portions of it wholesale to other companies. That would loosen the carriers’ grip on service offerings and might also open the door to new entrants like Google.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

IBM ratcheted the world of supercomputing up a few notches in June with the Blue Gene/P, a system nearly three times as fast as its predecessor at a cost of US$1.3 million per rack.

But in anticipation of the Blue Gene/P, IBM dropped the price of the Blue Gene/L, to about $800,000 late last year, prompting sales of the older supercomputer to more than double during the first half of this year compared to the second half of 2006, says Herb Schultz, IBM’s deep-computing marketing manager.

At its highest price, the Blue Gene/Lcost $1.3 million per rack, same as the P’s current price.

“It’s still a very viable platform,” Schultz says. Among universities, “we’ve had some really big sales.” He named Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY and the State University of New York at Stony Brook as two new L-model customers.

Another buyer was the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), which begun using a Blue Gene/L a month or two ago to design drugs that could treat clogged arteries, neurological diseases and certain types of cancer.

UAB conducts more than $225 million worth of research for the National Institutes of Health each year. But it was reluctant to splurge on a supercomputer until the recent price drop.

“We knew the L was a model near the end of its production, and we were able to secure a much better price on that than we would on the newer model,” says Richard Marchase, vice president for research and economic development at UAB. “For our purposes, the L had plenty of capacity.”

UAB tripled its computing power in computational biology and molecular simulations with the purchase. The supercomputer will shorten the years-long process of developing drugs targeted at specific protein structures, Marchase explains.

Click here to read the rest of the story…