Wireless LANs not only provide an effective means of communication,
but also allow to detect movement and immobility
of a mobile node. This information can, for example,
be employed by Wireless LAN positioning systems to reduce
the lag of location estimates due to sample filtering. In addition,
motion detection has many applications in context-aware
computing. This paper proposes a simple scheme to reliably
detect node movement based on received signal strength samples
from one or more access points. The scheme is evaluated
through extensive experiments in an office environment.
Reuters (Business Wire): REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sep 02, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., the group purchasing unit of the Premier healthcare alliance has selected AeroScout's healthcare visibility solutions as the exclusive Wi-Fi-based RFID solutions for Premier's member hospitals. Premier, a quality and cost improvement alliance of more than 2,200 U.S. hospitals and 63,000 other healthcare sites, awarded a three-year contract to AeroScout as a preferred provider for RFID Asset Tracking and Management Solutions. AeroScout solutions provide visibility into the location, status and condition of assets, patients and staff throughout all hospital departments. AeroScout is already the chosen solution for hundreds of hospitals and is exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association.
"Premier is proud to offer RFID solutions that drive key benefits for hospital organizations, such as ensuring regulatory compliance, improving patient safety, reducing capital and operational expenditures, increasing staff efficiency and enhancing patient care," said Mike Alkire, President of Premier Purchasing Partners.
AeroScout's healthcare solutions include real-time Asset Management, Equipment Maintenance, Humidity & Temperature Monitoring, Workflow & Resource Management and Patient & Staff Safety. These applications all employ AeroScout's industry-leading technology that leverages clients' existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and integrates with most healthcare IT software systems. AeroScout solutions serve the needs of clinical staff, IT management, clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, materials management, laboratory staff, pharmacy personnel and many other hospital users.
ZDNet: Computer scientists in Japan have developed a way to break the WPA encryption system used in wireless routers in just one minute.
The attack, which reads encrypted traffic sent between computers and certain types of routers that use the WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) encryption system, was devised by Toshihiro Ohigashi of Hiroshima University and Masakatu Morii of Kobe University.
The scientists plan to discuss further details at a technical conference on Sept. 25 in Hiroshima.
Security researchers first showed how WPA could be broken last November, but the researchers have accelerated theory into practice, taking the proven 15-minute “Becks-Tews method” developed by researchers Martin Beck and Erik Tews and speeding it up to just 60 seconds.
Both attacks work only on WPA systems that use the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) algorithm, and do not work on newer WPA 2 devices or on WPA systems that use the stronger Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, algorithm.
Wi-Fi Planet: Skyhook Wireless, known for its Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) and its hybrid positioning system (XPS), continues to quietly expand its user base. The company announced Tuesday a partnership with Geodelic, developer of the new Android mobile application, Sherpa.
Sherpa, which allows users to locate relevant information based on behavior recognition, a recommendation engine, and location-relevant information, was developed specifically for T-Mobile's myTouch 3G with Google. The app teaches itself what its owner likes based on behavior and user feedback, so it can prioritize the retailers, restaurants, and attractions it recommends. Geodelic also allows businesses (or brands) to create customized mobile content, such as promotions tied to their locations.
“Skyhook offers a major enhancement to the application’s location awareness,” said Rahul Sonnad, CEO and founder at Geodelic in a Skyhook press release Tuesday. “This allows Geodelic to more accurately target content for a user, whether they are in a mall or walking down the street. We developed Sherpa to give users a customized experience based on their location and interests. Skyhook provides the location performance that our application demands.”
Mind Commerce LLC: With research beginning in 2008, this unique report addresses core technology and business aspects of real-time location services (RTLS) and guides the reader through the most important aspects of enabling technologies including RFID. It covers the critical factors and gives the user the views about the different kinds of RFIDs. The report also addresses the advantages and the bottlenecks for deployment of RTLS applications, evaluating available solutions and the methodologies. The report includes an exhaustive study of leading RTLS companies.
Different types of RTLS are evaluated and the standards and protocols related to them. The report has a great focus on the applications and the key areas that can be addressed by RTLS giving special attention to Vehicle Tracking, Port/Yard Management, Inventory Management and Real Time Tracking solutions. The report also provides an analysis of the most widely used RTLS applications today and provides a vision for anticipated future applications
the RTLS blog: GRAIL was designed to localize using any wireless network that supports physical layer measurements of packet data. Some properties we have used include the received signal strength indicator (RSSI), Angle-of-Arrival (AoA), and time-of-arrival (TOA).
http://grailrtls.sourceforge.net/
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Market Wire: XIAMEN, CHINA--(Marketwire - August 11, 2009) - Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN), a global leader in wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions, today announced that the Xiamen Women and Children Hospital (XWCH) has deployed Aruba's wireless solutions for mobile EMR, patient registration applications, RTLS, and video surveillance. Located in China's Fujian province, with a population 3.5 million, the 250-bed XWCH serves two-thirds of the province's women and children with a staff of more than 500. XWCH is the only local hospital to provide a combination of healthcare, disease prevention, medication, scientific research, family planning, and reproductive health services in one unit. The new wireless network was deployed to enhance staff mobility and productivity while improving overall patient care.
"Our hospital is focused on continuous quality improvement with respect to both services that affect patient care and our internal operations," said Yang Guangcai, Director of the Information Technology Department. "Aruba's mobility solutions have allowed us to integrate all patient-related information into one system that is accessible to authorized staff from anywhere within or outside of our facility. Physicians can now securely retrieve and view patient data at bedside or from off-site, enhancing both patient care and community outreach without compromising the integrity of patient records."
Hospital admission was previously a time-consuming task for both staff and patients. Now patients can register electronically using self-service kiosks, and avail themselves of free wireless guest network while waiting for service. To increase the volume of patient services, RTLS is used to locate essential medical equipment by continuously tracking high-value assets. "RTLS has largely eliminated manual searches for misplaced equipment, allowing us to expedite service and minimize patient waiting time," continued Yang. "Combined with our wireless surveillance system, RTLS had also reduced the volume of lost and stolen equipment."
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Apple Insider: A new patent application from Apple suggests the company could be working on proprietary global positioning system software that would calculate road trip times and recommend routes, based on real-time data collected from numerous users, and uploaded to a centralized server.
In the recently revealed U.S. patent filing, Apple describes a system for obtaining drivers' personal travel data and using it to estimate driving times. Such a system could take into account speed, time of day, location, driving patterns, season, route type and features, traffic information, road conditions and location data.
EE Times Asia: Noting that the healthcare industry has always been an early adopter of Wi-Fi, a new study from ABI Research stated that revenue from sales of Wi-Fi-enabled healthcare products worldwide will total $4.9 billion in 2014. This represents an increase of nearly 70 percent over the current figure.
