AT&T plans to expand into Mexico by snapping up local carrier for $2.5 billion

AT&T has just revealed a new expansion plan — one that involves crossing the border into Mexico. Apparently, the company’s in the process of acquiring Mexican carrier Iusacell for $2.5 billion, which includes the amount needed to pay off the latter’s debts. By snapping up this carrier, AT&T’s gaining its network infrastructure, licenses, retail stores, 8.6 million subscribers and its potential to grow further. Iusacell’s network covers 70 percent of the country’s 120 million residents, and Ma Bell hopes it can take advantage of that fact by getting more people to sign up for smartphone plans, now that more and more affordable models are hitting the market. Subscribers will have to make do with 3G connections, though… at least until AT&T decides to expand its LTE service, as well.

While this move is huge for AT&T, as it’ll bring a whole carrier under its control, this isn’t its first foray into the Mexican telecom industry. It once owned a stake in America Movil (another provider in Mexico that’s much, much larger than Iusacell), which it sold to business magnate Carlos Slim for almost $6 billion earlier this year. As for the Iusacell deal, it still has to be approved by Mexico’s telecom regulator (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones) and National Foreign Investments Commission, before it can push through. Plus, Grupo Salinas (the company in talks with AT&T) can’t sell the carrier until it’s done buying the half that it doesn’t own. If all goes according to plan, though, AT&T can close the deal as early as Q1 2015 and boast roughly 400 million subscribers overall from the US and Mexico.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, AT&T

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Source: AT&T

WiTricity’s CEO paints a picture of a wirelessly powered future

If WiTricity CEO Alex Gruzen gets his way, the company’s tech will soon wind up in your phone, your car and even inside your body. That’s because the Massachusetts-based company deals in magnetic resonance technology, and if those words don’t mean anything to you now, they probably will before long. You see, WiTricity has been working for the past five years on a way to wirelessly transfer power between devices, and Gruzen told our audience at Engadget Expand NY that the wireless future is basically right around the corner.

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“The last burden we have is the power cord,” Gruzen said. Not up on your magnetic resonance breakthroughs? Here’s a quick primer: unlike the inductive form of power transfer (which Gruzen says is meant to go from “one plug in the wall to one wire to one source to one device”), power transfers using magnetic resonance don’t need physical contact between the transmitter and the receiver. You’d be able to throw your phone within range of a power source, for instance, instead of gingerly it laying down on top of it. Naturally, the tech has been refined over the years, and it’s gearing up to hit the mainstream within just a few months.

“The certification process has been defined, everyone is out there pushing products, and CES will be the coming out party,” he mentioned to Engadget senior editor Richard Lai. And the attendees at that party? Just about every product class you can think of. Intel has adopted WiTricity’s Rezence standard for a batch of laptops that’ll hit some time in 2015, and Toyota is planning a next-generation Prius that uses that charging tech, too — instead of plugging in the hybrid, you’d just park it on top of a special pad. And you’d better believe the medical community is interested — after all, it’d provide a remarkable way to power a heart pump that doesn’t require infection-prone wires exiting the chest cavity. It’s possible that power beaming technology winds up in more than just discrete, individual gadgets too. WiTricity has a showroom in its Watertown headquarters that Gruzen refers to as the “room of the future” — a power source is nestled in one corner of the space and propagates out along a network of passive power repeaters nestled under carpet tiles. The end results? A floor that essentially doubles as a source of electricity. Now we’re really playing with power.

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Check out how designers are fusing fashion and tech

Some of fashion’s most innovative designers showed off their high-tech collections at the Make: Wearables on the Runway fashion show at Engadget Expand in New York. Make: Magazine Contributing Editor Matt Richardson introduced each designer’s work, along with Adafruit’s Becky Stern and Associate Professor Kate Hartman. Check out some of their cutting-edge creations in the gallery below.

Filed under: Misc, Wearables

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60 seconds with the team that wants to make every car smart

Wouldn’t it be great if you could change your car’s head unit as frequently as you do your smartphone? Enter Onics, a startup that’s crafted a dashboard-mounted module that lets you turn your phone into your car’s nerve center. Essentially, the hardware’s just a double-din unit with a locking clip up front, that’ll accept any Android or iOS smartphone that’s up to six inches in size. Rather than trailing a power wire from the 12V socket, there’s a built-in microUSB or Lightning port, and if your vehicle supports it, you’ll even be able to start the car with your mobile.

Even better, is that the unit connects to your car’s on-board diagnostics port, enabling it to tell you if there’s a problem – for instance, if you’re running low on fuel, it’ll offer directions to the nearest gas station and even tell you the price. For now, we’re looking at prototype hardware that’s been 3D printed, but Aaron Speach, the former Best Buy employee behind the company, is leveraging in-car audio technology from Texas Instruments to ensure that audiophiles are pleased with the sound quality. It’s certainly an idea that deserves more attention, and if we can save money on the price of our next car by ditching the expensive HUD for our phone, then it’s certainly something we’d consider. As for right now, Onics is asking for patronage as part of our Insert Coin: New Challengers competition at Engadget Expand 2014. If you’re curious to learn more, check out the video below and take part in the poll afterward.

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ONICS is something I would…

Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

Filed under: Transportation

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60 seconds with a robotic pour-over coffee machine

Coffee enthusiasts know that one of the best ways to brew the caffeinated beverage is via the pour-over method, a meticulous technique that requires a steady hand and precise timing. At coffee shops, baristas have traditionally brewed this style of coffee the old-fashioned way, carefully pouring hot water in a steady spiral stream over multiple filter setups. Not only can it be tiresome, it can also distract them from giving better customer service. Poursteady, however, is a potential solution to that.

Designed by a group of designers and engineers in Brooklyn, New York, Poursteady is essentially a robotic pour-over coffee machine that handles the tedious task of timing and pour control so your friendly neighborhood barista won’t have to. It operates via two motors on two different axes – a shuttle axis that moves the spout back and forth the five-filter rig, and a tilting axis that moves the nozzle forward and backward. The combination of the two moving together results in that spiral pour technique that the pour-over method requires. The water is piped from a hot water heater cleverly concealed underneath the counter.

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When you press the button, the machine starts out by rinsing the filter, which also warms the cone and the cup underneath. The light will then blink, indicating that you should load it with the coffee grounds. Press the button again, and it’ll wet the grounds for the initial “bloom,” wait for a pre-set time period and then go ahead with the pour. And no worries if you’re brewing five different cups: the robot is smart enough to not get ahead of itself. Everything, from the amount of water to brew time, is controlled via a smartphone app. Poursteady CEO Stephan von Muehlen tells me that it’s only a HTML5 app for now, but the team hopes to release a native app soon. It works over WiFi for now, but a Bluetooth implementation is possible later on.

So, does it work? Well, the team recently showed off their product at Maker Faire in New York, where they apparently made over 950 cups of coffee in a single day using the machine. They’re also here at Expand New York, partaking in Engadget’s Insert Coin competition. Indeed, Poursteady actually launched its Kickstarter campaign on the Friday of the show, with a goal of $15,000. If you want to get one right now, however, you’ll have to cough up a considerable amount: the Kickstarter introductory offer is $10,000 while the actual final cost will likely be much higher as it has to account for the machine’s industrial-level components. But, hey, if you’re a commercial coffee shop owner, it could be well worth it for a machine that’ll make brewing pour-over coffee that much easier.

PourSteady is something I would…

Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

Filed under: Misc

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