Matt Hamblen

Sprint Nextel unveils a new brand, Xohm, for its coming iMax service. 'The X-factor makes it cool,' says a company spokesman.

New York is known for its yellow taxis that seem to be everywhere in the city that never sleeps. Yet if GPS technology is installed as planned, those taxis may be hard to find. New York taxi drivers have promised to strike sometime in September if GPS technology is implemented in 13,000 cabs.

The city of Madera, Calif., has spent the last year successfully running an open-source-based network as a replacement for one based on Cisco Systems Inc. gear.

Nortel Networks is spending 10 times as much on mobile wireless WiMax technology research today as it did a year ago, part of an initiative by Nortel Chief Technology Officer John Roese's first year in his post.

At Interop in Las Vegas last month, Cisco Systems Inc. launched three separate groups of integrated mobility technologies and services targeted primarily at retail, health care and oil and gas businesses.

Last month's Virginia Tech shootings have become a call to action for many university IT managers, who are being asked to find new methods of communicating quickly with students and workers during emergencies. Among the new initiatives is a pilot program in which cell phones are equipped with applications useful for classes and campus life.

The Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 have become a lightning rod for campus IT managers nationwide who are being asked to find new ways, some wirelessly, to communicate quickly with large and dispersed student bodies in an emergency.

Research in Motion Ltd. reported last month that software that was designed to optimize caching capability on its network triggered the widespread BlackBerry wireless e-mail service interruption on the night of April 23.