A major new US consortium comprising some of the best known telecom and technology companies will shortly announce a $12Bn deal to create a US nationwide next generation wireless network. The impressive consortium includes the likes of Intel and Google, with investments of $1Bn and $500M respectively.

Although no fixed timetable has been announced the network could be up and running in two years and is expected to provide for cellphone users and others speeds equivalent to cable.

Somewhat surprisingly the US has lagged behind some other countries in the roll out of NGN (Next Generation Networks). This initiative could allow the US to leapfrog back up among the front runners.

Whilst e-paper (i.e. electronic notepaper) is not yet commonplace the technology is moving ahead. A new chip from Seiko Epson incorporated into an electronic paper display could allow users to annotate pages in electronic books and edit documents as easily as using a real pen and paper. The key is the new chip that can drive a resolution four times higher than current e-paper and refresh the screen at up to 50 times a second, eliminating the normal lag so that drawing a line would look like it would on real paper.