Traffic Payout

Cisco has added recently two new models to its standalone Service Control Engine (SCE) product family - a new, 60Gbps hardware and a virtual version.

Originally, the SCE product line came to Cisco with the acquisition of P-Cube, 10 years ago (here). The product is no longer developed in Israel (home for P-Cube R&D center), and since the acquisition till now, Cisco has not added new h/w models,

   
A new report by Sabir Rafiq [pictured], research analyst, ABI Research finds that ".. as the first wave of LTE deployments achieve coverage, VoLTE is the next big thing. VoLTE runs on IMS, and the market will total over $US30 billion through 2019 as it becomes widespread. 




Leading infrastructure vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia are fully committed to VoLTE and IMS space and equip

 
Orange Business Services announced it is "extending its core Business VPN service with Business VPN Internet. 




It is designed to meet the growing demand from multinational corporations (MNCs) for high-performance, secure access to Internet-based cloud and Web services ..  It provides secure business-class Internet, which improves performance for the entire network by eliminating congestion

GSA reports that ".. 116 mobile operators in 75 countries have commercially launched HD voice services .. more than 30% higher than a year ago. Mobile HD voice uses Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband (W-AMR) technology, enabling high-quality voice calls in supporting mobile networks and an improved user experience for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature"







"The majority of operators

Spoiler alert! Those of you not caught up with Scandal might want to skim this one. -Ed.

This week, searchers learned how to get away with murder—and how not to get away with public criticism of prominent figures with important business relationships with your employer.

Shonda, Shonda, Shonda
TV fans, rejoice! This week brought premiere episodes for old favorite shows as well as hotly anticipated new ones. Top returning shows on search include CBS’s The Big Bang Theory (natch), and NBC’s The Blacklist and Chicago Fire. New shows that shot up the search ratings include Batman prequel Gotham and new family comedy black-ish.

But premieres week really came to a head on Thursday night, which we prefer to call the Night of Shonda. Producer Shonda Rimes has got ABC’s lineup locked up with Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy (in its final season this year) and the new How To Get Away With Murder, starring Academy Award-nominee Viola Davis. All three shows were in the top 10 hot searches the day of their premiere. True to form, Scandal’s season 4 debut left people with more questions than answers. Here's a sampling (spoiler alert!) of what searchers were asking during the show:

The end of an era
Derek Jeter first took the field as a New York Yankee in May 1995. Five World Series, more than 3,000 hits and nearly 20 years later, this weekend he will take to the diamond for a final game at Fenway against his archrivals, the Boston Red Sox. Though neither the Yankees nor the Sox made this season’s playoffs, anticipation for Jeter’s farewell at-bat was already high. But last night, after giving baseball fans so many memorable moments over the years, he gave us one more. In his final game at Yankee Stadium, Jeter’s ninth-inning walk-off single gave the Yankees a win over the Orioles, provided the world another excuse to search for the star shortstop, and was a fitting ending to Jeter’s fairy-tale career.

Over on the political field, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Thursday that he is stepping down. Holder will leave behind a large and sometimes complicated legacy on issues including same-sex marriage, voting rights, criminal justice, national security and government secrecy. He’ll go down in history as the fourth longest-serving and first black AG.
NFL in the news
The NFL continues to be in the news for more than just its games. First, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gave a press conference on Friday addressing the league’s issues with domestic violence. Then, on Monday, prominent sportswriter Bill Simmons was suspended for three weeks by ESPN after he called Goodell a liar in his podcast “The B.S. Report.” Simmons is prohibited from tweeting or other public communications until October 15, but Sports Guy supporters took to the web on his behalf, fighting to #FreeSimmons. Finally, this week’s season premiere of South Park featured a malfunctioning “GoodellBot” and a plotline about the controversy over Washington’s team name.

Happy 5775
Shana Tova! That’s what a lot of people were saying (and searching) as people worldwide dipped apples in honey and celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The holiday was the fourth hottest search trend on Wednesday.

Tip of the week
Google can help you get a good deal on your next airplane ticket. When the price drops on a flight you’ve been researching on Flight Search, you may see a Now card letting you know. Just tap the card to quickly and easily book your trip. This works on the latest version of the Google app on Android in the U.S.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [where do kiwis grow] and [reign season 2]

Older driver licensing is a perennially hot topic in traffic safety, with senior-involved crashes often generating significant media coverage and public calls to re-examine license renewal procedures. At the AAA Foundation, however, our objective is to promote twin goals: safety and mobility for Americans as they age. And, in reality, little is actually known about the effectiveness of various older driver licensing and renewal policies, which makes having an informed discussion in the wake of tragedy quite difficult.

In an effort to learn more about this issue, we've recently completed one of the first studies of the relationship between various older driver license renewal policies and fatal crash rates. By examining 26 years of data from 46 states, we've been able to make several observations that may surprise you.

The most significant finding pertains to state requirements for in-person license renewal (rather than by mail or online). For drivers ages 55 and older, in-person renewal policies are associated with a 9 percent reduction in fatal crash involvement rates. For drivers 85 and up, the decline is 25 percent.

Several policies, however, were not associated with a reduction in fatal crash rates. These included increasing renewal frequency, requiring drivers to pass an on-road or knowledge test, and mandating physician reporting of patients whose driving they have reason to be concerned about. 

One of the more complicated patterns that emerged pertained to vision testing requirements. Older drivers had lower fatal crash rates in states that mandated vision testing than in those that did not, but changes in policy status (i.e., when policies were enacted or repealed in a state) didn't change fatal crash rates. This suggests that other factors besides the vision test requirement itself are at play, and we clearly have much more to learn. 

Among the key questions the research raises is why mandatory in-person renewal is so effective. Is it because the screening process successfully identifies at-risk drivers? Or does the burden of having to appear in person preemptively dissuade or even frighten older drivers from going to the DMV in the first place? Of course, it is likely some combination of additional factors is at play. 

Regardless of the specifics, it's useful to remember (especially when talk of older driver licensing reaches a fevered pitch) that older drivers are not the nation's most crash-prone motorists, nor are they the most likely to cause injury or death to other road users. Both of those distinctions are unique to teenagers, an age group about which licensing policies and procedures have been much more thoroughly studied. 

As always, we'll continue to study issues related to teen and older drivers, and will keep you posted each step of the way at traffic-payout.org.  

F5 Networks announced that ".. BASE Company [formally KPN Belgium] —best known for its consumer-orientated mobile services brand, BASE, and one of Belgium’s largest telecom providers—has selected the F5® Traffix® Signaling Delivery Controller™ (SDC™) to meet subscribers' increasing demand for data. 

Last year, BASE Company became the second operator in Belgium to launch 4G for its customers,

Radisys introduced an ".. innovative family of T-100 Series (T-100) Platforms with new FlowEngine™ data plane software technology. The T-100 Platforms, based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) silicon technology, are designed and optimized to support high performance Software Defined Networking (SDN) and data plane Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) processing requirements. Integrated with

By Cara Mitchell

Many drivers took our warning and stayed away from I-5 in Olympia during the expansion joint replacement work.

We would like to sincerely thank drivers for heeding warnings about potential backups and responding accordingly by staying off Interstate 5 and US 101 in Olympia while contractor crews completed work over two high-impact weekends replacing a 28-year-old bridge expansion joint.

Your response to our request is the reason our flow maps on the Olympia Traffic Camera page stayed green, meaning free-flowing traffic, the majority of time over both weekends. Just how light was traffic? On Saturday, Sept. 14, between noon and 6 p.m., traffic on southbound I-5 in Olympia was 51 percent less than it was the previous Saturday. This trend continued into the following weekend, where we saw over a 60 percent reduction in traffic.  The light traffic allowed us to accelerate construction plans by closing lanes early, with the end result that northbound I-5 lanes and ramps opened a full day early on both weekends, and southbound I-5 lanes and ramps opened several hours early on both weekends. That’s what you call a win/win!

We asked the public to alter their plans, take the not-so-convenient scenic routes, and try Amtrak Cascades. You responded overwhelmingly, and for that we are full of gratitude.

As a reminder, whenever you see the orange cones for construction, bridge work or maintenance activities, please “give our crews a brake.” Together we can preserve and maintain your highway infrastructure in a safe manner.

By Tom Pearce

Replacing an 81-year-old bridge deck full of ruts, cracks and holes is hard enough. Add to that the bridge being on a heavily-used highway, and you've got some serious challenges. But in the case of the I-5 Stillaguamish River Bridge, our contractor crews are rising to the occasion.

I-5 Stillaguamish River Bridge size 18 pothole.

While the steel superstructure of the bridge is holding up well, the old deck was worn out. We've repaired it a number of times, but with exposed rebar and potholes that dwarf a size 13 boot, it was time for a full replacement.

The $8.7 million project is scheduled for completion in mid-November. Since we reduced traffic to two lanes in each direction and shifted southbound I-5 to half of the northbound I-5 bridge, the contractor, Mowat Construction, has made good progress.

I-5 Stillaguamish River Bridge removed 6-foot by 8-foot deck section.

When YouTube launched their video upload app for iOS, between 5 and 10 percent of videos uploaded by users were upside-down. Were people shooting videos incorrectly? No. Our early design was the problem. It was designed for right-handed users, but phones are usually rotated 180 degrees when held in left hands. Without realizing it, we’d created an app that worked best for our almost exclusively right-handed developer team.

This is just one example of how unconscious biases influence our actions every day, even when—by definition—we don’t notice them. These biases are shaped by our experiences and by cultural norms, and allow us to filter information and make quick decisions. We’ve evolved to trust our guts. But sometimes these mental shortcuts can lead us astray, especially when they cause us to misjudge people. In the workplace, for example, the halo effect can cause us to inflate performance ratings or in-group bias can lead us to overlook great talent.

Combatting our unconscious biases is hard, because they don’t feel wrong; they feel right. But it’s necessary to fight against bias in order to create a work environment that supports and encourages diverse perspectives and people. Not only is that the right thing to do, but without a diverse workforce, there’s a pretty good chance that our products—just like that early YouTube app—won’t work for everyone. That means we need to make the unconscious, conscious.

The first step is education; we need to help people identify and understand their biases so that they can start to combat them. So we developed a workshop, Unconscious Bias @ Work, in which more than 26,000 Googlers have taken part. And it’s made an impact: Participants were significantly more aware, had greater understanding, and were more motivated to overcome bias.

In addition to our workshop, we’re partnering with organizations like the Clayman Institute and the Ada Initiative to further research and awareness. We’re also taking action to ensure that the decisions we make at work—from promoting employees to marketing products—are objective and fair. Here are four ways we're working to reduce the influence of bias:

• Gather facts. It’s hard to know you’re improving if you’re not measuring. We collect data on things like gender representation in our doodles and at our conferences.
• Create a structure for making decisions. Define clear criteria to evaluate the merits of each option, and use them consistently. Using the same standards to evaluate all options can reduce bias. This is why we use structured interviews in hiring, applying the same selection and evaluation methods for all.
• Be mindful of subtle cues. Who’s included and who’s excluded? In 2013, Googlers pointed out that of the dozens of conference rooms named after famous scientists, only a few were female. Was this our vision for the future? No. So we changed Ferdinand von Zeppelin to Florence Nightingale—along with many others—to create more balanced representation. Seemingly small changes can have big effects.
• Foster awareness. Hold yourself—and your colleagues—accountable. We’re encouraging Googlers to call out bias. For example, we share a “bias busting checklist” at performance reviews, encouraging managers to examine their own biases and call out those of others.

As we shared back in May, we’re not where we should be when it comes to diversity. But in order to get there, we need to have this conversation. We have to figure out where our biases lie, and we have to combat them. Tackling unconscious bias at work is just one piece of making Google a diverse workplace, but it’s absolutely essential if we’re going to live up to our promise to build technology that makes life better for as many people as possible.

Posted by Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations, and Brian Welle, Ph.D., Director of People Analytics

Some traffic management aspects of the recent iOS8 release:


Procera Networks' blog explains that ".. the latest IOS 8 update has hit some networks pretty hard. Several of our customers had such severe traffic spikes that they initially thought that they were under a DDOS attack ..  because the DDOS protection mechanisms implemented in the Procera solution kicked in, and customers were

 


SharpStreamer™ PCIE-7207

Artesyn Embedded Technologies announced the "SharpStreamer™ add-on acceleration card that enables content owners, broadcasters and service provider networks to speed the deployment of high density video transcoding and multiscreen delivery.

..Artesyn is targeting the highest H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC transcoding density in the smallest footprint. An Artesyn

Openet announced that "INWI, a leading Moroccan operator, has deployed Openet’s Policy Manager to successfully provide convergent policy control and advanced allowance management .. INWI has integrated Openet’s Policy Manager with its advanced Balance Manager and Offer Catalog solution to monetize and shorten time-to-market for innovative new use cases. 




These will include: 


the offer of ‘

Teclo Networks announced the "launch of the B-Series, a simple to deploy solution that speeds up business networks. Based on its mobile data acceleration technology and expertise [see "Free [France] Uses Teclo's TCP/IP Optimization" - here] - delivering lightning-fast Internet for wireless operators- Teclo Networks now brings outstanding network performance and reliability to the enterprise.

Ciara Judge, Émer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow became interested in addressing the global food crisis after learning about the Horn of Africa famine in 2011. When a gardening project went awry, they discovered a naturally occurring bacteria in soil called Diazotroph. The girls determined that the bacteria could be used to speed up the the germination process of certain crops, like barley and oats, by 50 percent, potentially helping fulfill the rising demand for food worldwide. Oh—and they’re 16 years old.

Today, Ciara, Émer and Sophie were named the Grand Prize Winner and the 15-16 age category winners of our fourth annual Google Science Fair. They are some of thousands of students ages 13-18 who dared to ask tough questions like: How can we stop cyberbullying? How can I help my grandfather who has Alzheimer's from wandering out of bed at night? How can we protect the environment? And then they actually went out and answered them.

From thousands of submissions from 90+ countries, our panel of esteemed judges selected 18 finalists representing nine countries—Australia, Canada, France, India, Russia, U.K., Ukraine and the U.S.—who spent today impressing Googlers and local school students at our Mountain View, Calif. headquarters. In addition to our Grand Prize Winners, the winners of the 2014 Google Science Fair are:

• 13-14 age category: Mihir Garimella (Pennsylvania, USA) for his project FlyBot: Mimicking Fruit Fly Response Patterns for Threat Evasion. Like many boys his age, Mihir is fascinated with robots. But he took it to the next level and actually built a flying robot, much like the ones used in search and rescue missions, that was inspired by the way fruit flies detect and respond to threats. Mihir is also the winner of the very first Computer Science award, sponsored by Google.
• 17-18 age category: Hayley Todesco (Alberta, Canada) for her project Waste to Water: Biodegrading Naphthenic Acids using Novel Sand Bioreactors. Hayley became deeply interested in the environment after watching Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Her project uses a sustainable and efficient method to break down pollutant substances and toxins found in tailing ponds water in her hometown, a hub of the oil sands industry.
• The Scientific American Science in Action award: Kenneth Shinozuka (Brooklyn, New York) for his wearable sensors project. Kenneth was inspired by his grandfather and hopes to help others around the world dealing with Alzheimer's. The Scientific American award is given to a project that addresses a health, resource or environmental challenge.
• Voter’s Choice award: Arsh Dilbagi (India) for his project Talk, which enables people with speech difficulties to communicate by simply exhaling.

As the Grand Prize winners, Ciara, Émer and Sophie receive a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands provided by National Geographic, a $50,000 scholarship from Google, a personalized LEGO prize provided by LEGO Education and the chance to participate in astronaut training at the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in the Mojave desert.

Thanks to all of our young finalists and to everyone who participated in this year’s Google Science Fair. We started the Science Fair to inspire scientific exploration among young people and celebrate the next generation of scientist and engineers. And every year we end up amazed by how much you inspire us. So, keep dreaming, creating and asking questions. We look forward to hearing the answers.

Posted by Clare Conway, on behalf of the Google Science Fair team

Allot Communications announced "orders from three separate major data center and cloud providers around the globe:


..an order from a U.S.-based, multinational cloud provider. The Allot solution will be used to monitor and guarantee service level agreements (SLAs) for its cloud-based services to enterprises across the customer’s multiple data centers worldwide. 

One of Latin America’s largest

In just two weeks, Redknee [see "[Vendor Review]: Redknee Policy Management Strategy" - here] announced 4 multi-million deals:

[Sep. 17] "a leading communications service provider (CSP) in the Americas region, has signed orders worth more than $8 million dollars. These new service agreements will enable the CSP to launch innovative data services and increase its competitive position in the

Yet again analysts are expecting mobile access technology to be an alternative to residential broadband access and replace cable or DSL.

Already 4 years ago, 8.5% of UK households said they are using mobile service at home, as their only access service (here). Other expected it to fail - see "Analysys Mason: Mobile Broadband will Fail as an Alternative to Fixed Broadband" - here) but shortly

Opera Software announced that "Opera Max, a data-savings app for Android phones, will be embedded into MediaTek’s LTE System on a Chip (SoC). The first two MediaTek SoCs to be shipped with Opera Max are the high-performing 64-bit LTE SoCs MT6752 and MT6732 chips. Opera Max will enable smartphones with these chips to consume half as much the data within the same monthly plan at no extra cost"

-Welcome to this week’s search trends. May I take your order?
-Can I have a referendum on independence, a totally inappropriate flight passenger with a Hollywood baby on the side?
-Coming right up!

Flag and country
“They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!” That was Sir William Wallace battlecry for Scottish independence in the film Braveheart. While this week’s events in Scotland weren’t quite as cinematic, the results could have been revolutionary. On Thursday the world watched and searched as an unprecedented numbers of Scots went to the polls to answer the question, "Should Scotland be independent from the United Kingdom?" Turns out the majority of people don’t think it should, and voted to stay a member of the U.K. Party leaders have now promised significant constitutional changes for the entire kingdom. What would Wallace have made of that?

The comeback kings
Everybody loves a comeback and search had its fair share this week. First up, nostalgia for the 90’s brought Surge soda back from the dead. Thanks to a Facebook campaign called "The SURGE Movement," Coca-Cola will now sell its "fully-loaded citrus” soft drink for a limited time on Amazon. And the Chicago Bears denied the 49ers a win in their brand-spanking-new stadium when they rallied to overturn a 13-point deficit in the last quarter to beat San Francisco 28-20.

Airing dirty laundry
Hard plastic-y seats, broken recliner adjusters, zero leg room—flying economy isn’t always the most pleasant experience. And depending on who you’re sitting next to, your easy two-hour flight could turn into a nightmare before you even take off. But the passengers of the world aren’t having it, not anymore. This week, “passenger shaming” went viral on social media as traumatized travelers shared photos of the most absurdly obnoxious unconscientious things some passenger do on flights—we’re talking bare feet, bare skin... well, you should just see for yourself.

But at least those offending fliers were shielded in anonymity. Singer Robin Thicke wasn’t afforded the same luxury, revealing in a court deposition this week that he had little to do with the creation of last year’s song of the summer “Blurred Lines.” As part of his defense against a copyright infringement lawsuit, Thicke admitted that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol for most of 2013—bringing a whole new meaning to the song’s title.

And the winner is ...
The hipster revolution has finally taken over the United States! Need proof? Searchers don’t. When New Yorker Kira Kazantsev won the the title of Miss America, the Internet discovered that the U.S.A’s new leading lady is a former food blogger. She’s even reported on her state’s crown foodie jewel, the cronut. Miss America wasn’t the only who got to bask in the limelight; boxing world champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. won his rematch with contender Marcos Maidana by an unanimous decision. The victory brings his undefeated tally to 47… somehow the title world champion is starting to sound like an understatement.

Love on the set!
For Orange is the New Black screenwriter Lauren Morelli, life imitated art a bit more than she probably expected. While writing the hit program, Morelli decided to divorce her husband and start a relationship with Samira Wiley, an actress from the show. Meanwhile, searchers learned that Mindy Kaling considers former The Office castmate and on-screen boyfriend B.J. Novak “the love that got away.” But while not all on-set relationships last, some couples not only make it work but also take their relationship to the next level. That’s the route taken by Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes, who met while making the movie The Place Beyond the Pines. The power couple welcomed baby girl Gosling earlier this week.

Tip of the week
The NFL season’s just getting started so it’s time to hunker down and plan your football viewing schedule. Just say, “OK Google, show me the NFL schedule” to coordinate your life for the next four months. We’ll see you back in the spring.

Posted by Jenise Araujo, Communications Associate, who searched this week for [hey girl] and [no shirt, no shoes, no service].

In its filling to the SEC (here), Procera Networks states:

"On September 15, 2014, Procera Networks, Inc. (“Procera” or the “Company”) concluded that it will be required to record an impairment charge to write-down the carrying value of its goodwill and intangible assets recorded as part of the Company’s 2013 acquisition of Vineyard Networks, Inc. (“Vineyard”)"

See "DPI Merge: Procera

Vedicis and 6WIND announced they have launched  "virtual Policy Control Enforcement (vPCEF) and virtual Traffic Detection Function (vTDF) appliances to support mobile operators in their move towards Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) architecture. 

The Vedicis solution runs on a standard Intel server and includes:


Red Hat OS with KVM hypervisor
Open vSwitch
6WINDGate NFV Infrastructure (

By Ann Briggs

You've probably heard about our four “mega projects:” Alaskan Way Viaduct, State Route 520 Bridge, Interstate 405 Corridor and the North Spokane Corridor, but did you hear about the newest one? It's called “Fish Passage” and it's currently unfunded.

Statewide, there are about 6,500 culverts on the state highway system. Of those, about 3,200 are in fish-bearing streams. We're required by law to maintain culverts, fish ways and bridges so that fish have unrestricted passage to upstream and downstream habitat.

SR 530 Moose Creek culvert before correction.

A recent federal court injunction requires the state to step up its fish barrier corrections in the northwest part of the state. About 989 culverts are affected by this court action, with 825 of them having significant habitat. To comply with the injunction, we'll need to fix about 30 to 40 barriers each year for the next 15 years.

The amount available for this work in the current biennium is $36 million. Right now we estimate approximately $300 million is needed each two-year budget cycle through 2029-31. The initial estimated cost to comply with the injunction is $2.4 billion at the low end, and likely to go up. As we do more detailed design work on a first round of 34 projects, we are finding that costs are higher than initial estimates for those projects. That's mostly due to limited site-specific information when the initial cost estimates were developed. We anticipate cost estimates for the entire program will stabilize as we learn more about individual site characteristics.

We've been working to improve access to habitat for fish since the 1990s. About 280 fish-barrier correction projects have opened access to more than 975 miles of potential fish habitat.

SR 530 Moose Creek culvert after correction.

Why do we do this? It's part of our agency's goals to protect natural habitat and water quality. It also supports the Governor's goals for the environment and salmon recovery.

So how did we get here? You have to remember that much of our state's infrastructure was built decades ago. Many of these culverts were installed simply for the purpose of conveying water, before we had the science and understanding of the needs of fish.

In some areas, like Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass, projects that improve fish passage have improved conditions for other species, allowing deer, bear and other wildlife to cross safely under or over the busy freeway lanes – that's safer for drivers too!

Visit our Fish Passage project website for an interactive map of all barrier locations and project details.

A new report by Justin van der Lande [pictured], Principal Analyst, and Atul Arora, Analyst, Analysys Mason finds that "The worldwide analytics software market for telecoms service providers is forecast to grow from USD2.1 billion in 2013 to USD3.8 billion in 2018, at a 12.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). 

Communications service providers (CSPs) need to increase average revenue per user (

By Doug Adamson

Our crews have knocked out one of two high-traffic-impact weekends on I-5 at the US 101 interchange in Olympia. They return during the weekend of Sept. 19 to complete the effort to replace a troubled bridge joint that’s been hammered by heavy traffic since Ronald Reagan was President of the United States.

Because of the location of the work zone – a key interchange with limited alternate routes – we asked drivers to stay away. Drivers did just that.

We offer immense gratitude for drivers who avoided I-5 in Olympia during the weekend of Sept 12.

We thank drivers for:

• Avoiding the area.
• Traveling earlier or later in the day.
• Using inconvenient alternative routes.
• Staying focused while driving through the work zone.

We warned of possible 14-mile backups
We saw virtually no backups in either direction of I-5, and minimal backups on US 101 approaching I-5. Why didn’t those lengthy backups develop? It’s because drivers took our advice to heart. Drivers who avoided the area did their part. The substantial reduction in traffic even allowed crews to finish and reopen the northbound lanes 25 hours earlier than scheduled. It also helped keep the roadway open for first responders, police, and medics. 

Green = good! This traffic map image shows that on Saturday, Sept. 13, at 3:03 p.m., traffic in both directions of I-5 was free-flowing. WSDOT thanks drivers for responding to our request to avoid the area!

Crews used last weekend to create two separate work zones on northbound and southbound I-5.

The concentration of vehicles in the photo are where crews were excavating old concrete, removing the old expansion joint and pouring new concrete in the northbound lanes of I-5. They created a twin work zone in southbound I-5 and repeated the process.

Crews complete finishing touches after replacing a failing I-5 expansion joint in Olympia. After the concrete cured and traffic control was removed, the roadway was reopened to traffic.

The bridge joint spans 171 feet of northbound and southbound I-5 lanes and US 101 ramps. Crews completed half of the project during the weekend of Sept. 12. They will return to complete the job during the weekend of Sept. 19.

So you have one more weekend?
Half of the expansion joint concrete work was completed over the weekend of Sept. 12. Crews will return again over the weekend of Sept. 19 to finish the job. Because of the pinch point, we’re again asking drivers to avoid I-5 in Olympia.  Unless drivers change their travel plans, those mega-backups could quickly develop. This second time around, an additional restriction will be in place - from late Thursday, Sept. 18, to Monday morning, Sept. 22, the speed limit on northbound I-5 will be reduced to 35 mph through the work zone. Drivers on Friday can expect backups on northbound I-5 as well as on the southbound US 101 on-ramp to northbound I-5. During the weekend, there could be backups in both directions since I-5 will have reduced lanes in each direction both day and night.

During the upcoming weekend, you can see with this over-simplified graphic that drivers will encounter closed lanes.

Northbound I-5 traffic will be shifted to the right. Vehicles will travel in an area – called a gore point – that’s generally closed to traffic. Southbound I-5 won’t have a traffic shift, but the lanes will also be reduced. The southbound I-5 exit to northbound US 101 will remain open. Note: both nearby on-ramps to I-5 (Henderson/14th Ave SE on-ramp to southbound I-5 and Deschutes Way to northbound I-5) will be closed through the weekend.

Traffic wasn’t bad at all last weekend
We ask drivers to not become complacent about the upcoming weekend given the light traffic volumes last weekend.  Our advice for the weekend of Sept. 19 remains the same: Avoid I-5 in Olympia. If you must go, travel early in the morning or late at night.

Know before you go
Check Olympia area travel cameras before you leave. Give yourself information about whether you need to avoid the area or take an alternate route.

See the project page for more information: I-5 - Vicinity Tumwater Blvd to Gravelly Lake Dr - Paving

by Jeremy Bertrand

You asked, and we listened. Using your feedback, we’ve made some upgrades to our text messaging service. Instead of getting a text message from a different number every time you receive one of our alerts, each text will come from one number: 468311. No more getting texts from a different number every time, which will allow you to add that number to your address book and keep those texts more organized on your device. But wait, there’s more.

We’ve also added the ability for you to subscribe and unsubscribe to our two most popular text topics, Hood Canal and 520 bridge openings, by sending a simple text to start and stop the service.

Remember, because the east navigation channel of the 520 bridge is temporarily blocked by construction equipment, we have to open the bridge for marine traffic more often. To make sure you know about those openings, we send two text messages to 520 bridge alert subscribers, the first two hours before the opening and the second thirty minutes before the opening, so that you know when it’s ok to travel across the bridge.

We’ve also made it much easier to manage your 520 bridge alert subscription. To subscribe to texts about 520 bridge openings, send a text with the words “WSDOT 520” to 468311 and you’ll start receiving those updates. To stop, send a text with the words “WSDOT stop” and you will no longer receive them.

The Hood Canal bridge also opens for marine traffic. To be notified about those openings, just send a text with the words “WSDOT hood” to 468311 and you’ll start receiving text updates. To stop getting those updates, send a text to 468311 with the words “WSDOT stop” and you’ll immediately be unsubscribed.

Thanks for letting us know what you wanted from the service, hope you like these improvements!

A blog post by Gadi Tamari, [pictured] the recently appointed PeerApp CEO (here) describes the company as " .. market leaders, with 450 deployments globally managing an aggregate of 3 Terabits capacity .. We’ve also gained a lot new customers in 2014 – 50 to be exact. It is great to see global Tier One operators embracing PeerApp solutions to help turn challenges into the opportunity of

Knowledge is a game changer. I’ve long been inspired by the Internet and how it opens the doors to opportunity. It provides access to knowledge, no matter who you are or where you are. For instance, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Nobel Laureate at a world-class research center or a young student at a rural school in Indonesia, with Google Search, you have the same information at your fingertips as anyone else.

If we look at how people are getting online and accessing information today, increasingly it’s through a smartphone. While 1.75 billion people around the world already have a smartphone, the vast majority of the world’s population—over five billion more—do not. That means most people are only able to make simple voice calls, rather than connect with family through a live video chat, use mapping apps to find the closest hospital, or simply search the web. We want to bring these experiences to more people.

That’s where Android One comes in. At I/O, we first talked about this initiative to make high-quality smartphones accessible to as many people as possible. And today we’re introducing the first family of Android One phones in India.

Addressing key barriers—hardware, software and connectivity
There are three big reasons why it’s hard for people in countries such as India, Indonesia or the Philippines to get their hands on a high-quality smartphone. First, is the hardware itself. Even entry-level smartphones still remain out of reach for many (bear in mind that in some of these countries the average monthly income is around $250). Second, many people in these markets do not have access to the latest Android software and popular applications. Finally, even where 3G and 4G networks are available, not enough people have phones that can support data and the plans can be expensive.

Android One aims to help tackle these challenges. By working closely with phone and silicon chip makers to share reference designs and select components, we’re making it easier for our partners to build phones that are not just great to use, but also affordable. They have lots of processing power, so you can get information quickly. They have high-quality front- and rear-facing cameras. And for all those pictures, along with your apps and videos, Android One phones will have expandable storage. We also added features that people in India will find particularly useful, like dual SIM cards, a replaceable battery and built-in FM radio.
To help ensure a consistent experience, Android One devices will receive the latest versions of Android directly from Google. So you’ll get all the latest features, up-to-date security patches, and peace of mind knowing your stuff is always backed up. It also means Android One devices will be some of the first to be updated to the Android L release later this year. For our hardware partners, they’ll be able to create customized experiences and differentiate their devices without having to change the core software.

In an effort to reduce data costs, if you have an Airtel SIM card, you’ll get these software updates for free for the first six months. As part of this same Airtel offer, you’ll also be able to download up to 200MB per month worth of your favorite apps (that’s about 50 apps overall) from Google Play—all without counting toward your mobile data usage.

More to come
This is just the beginning of the Android One journey. The first phones, from our hardware partners Micromax, Karbonn, Spice and chipmaker MediaTek, are available starting today in India from leading retailers starting at Rs 6,399. We’re also excited to welcome more partners to the program, including phone manufacturers Acer, Alcatel Onetouch, ASUS, HTC, Intex, Lava, Lenovo, Panasonic, Xolo, and chipmaker Qualcomm. We expect to see even more high-quality, affordable devices with different screen sizes, colors, hardware configurations and customized software experiences. Finally, we plan to expand the Android One program to Indonesia, the Philippines and South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) by the end of the year, with more countries to follow in 2015.

Access for access’s sake is not enough. With Android One, we not only want to help people get online, we want to make sure that when they get there, they can tap into the wealth of information and knowledge the web holds for everyone.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Android, Chrome & Apps

A new report by Lian Jye Su, Research Associate, and Jake Saunders [pictured], VP and Practice Director for Forecasting, ABI Research, finds that "The aggressive deployment of LTE networks has encouraged higher data consumption .. countries that have a monthly data quota in the range of 8 to 10 GB have increased from 21% in 1Q 2014 to 83% of the total in 2Q 2014.

Facing a downward trend in ARPU

ipoque announced the "release of its enhanced Net Reporter, a comprehensive and feature-rich traffic and subscriber analytics solution for operators with near-100% detection of all network traffic. 

Net Reporter delivers information such as application usage, device, location, ARPU and QoE/QoS statistics that are valuable to various departments within network operator, for example, Customer

Comptel announced that they have entered into a Reseller Agreement with Hitachi Ltd " .. for Hitachi to resell Comptel Policy Control Solution (PCRF) to Hitachi’s customers worldwide. This strategic partnership with Hitachi enables Comptel to enter the Japanese market and boost its presence in the US.

Going forward, Comptel Policy Control Solution will play an important role as a part of

New phones, new games, new looks. Let’s take a peek at all the happenings this week in search:

All you can eat? 
The Olive Garden learned this week that it’s risky to get between people and their food. The restaurant chain’s new “Never Ending Pasta Pass” offered up to 1,000 people seven weeks of unlimited pasta, salad and those sneaky-good breadsticks for just $100. The rush of pasta lovers eager for a deal crashed the Olive Garden website before the pass was even for sale—and thousands more turned to search to learn more about the debacle.

The latest edition
It was a big week for our neighbors from Cupertino. Apple’s latest announcement this week flooded the search trends, with more than 10 million searches for the new iPhone 6, along with its release date and price. People were also curious about the new Apple Watch, the band U2—whose latest album Apple gave away for free to all iTunes users—and how the announcement was affecting AAPL stock.

And baby makes four for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, who announced this week that they’re expecting a little brother or sister for one-year-old Prince George. People turned to the web to learn more about the news. Start your office naming pools now! 

Football frenzy 
A full 15 out of 20 top searches on Sunday were related to the first Sunday of football season, with the Cowboys, Steelers and Broncos topping the pack—on search, at least. But unfortunately, it was events off the field that had many people turning to the web this week. Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was suspended indefinitely from the league on Monday, after TMZ released a video that appears to show him assaulting his then-fiancee in an elevator. More than 2 million searches for Rice followed—the highest spike ever. People were also looking for more information on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in an effort to understand whether the league’s leadership had knowledge of the incident earlier in the year.

POTUS and ISIS
Just a day earlier, President Obama announced that the U.S. military would expand its air strikes in Iraq and now Syria, against the extremist group ISIS. Searches for ISIL, the term the President used for the group, climbed the day of his speech as people looked for more information on the news. 

Transformations 
The latest season of “The Biggest Loser” premiered yesterday with new trainers and a new concept—“Glory Days,” in which former athletes compete to regain their former fitness—leading people to the web to learn more. And “The Sixth Sense” star Haley Joel Osment was in the news this week—but we won’t blame you if you missed it, since he was nearly unrecognizable from his former self. Osment is filming a new Kevin Smith movie “Yoga Hosers,” in which he plays Canadian fascist journalist Adrien Arcand.

Tip of the week 
September is National Emergency Preparedness Month. With the Google Search App, you can get warnings from Google Public Alerts when bad weather is on its way. Take a few minutes to get prepared by learning more about Alerts, which are available on Google Now, Search and Maps.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [ducktales intro] and [adichie city arts]

Openwave Mobility announced it has "successfully implemented the industry’s first public cloud-based mobile data optimization solution for a prominent North American service provider. 


.. Operators utilizing optimization via a public cloud can in some cases dramatically simplify their infrastructure planning and utilize economies of scale and “pay per use” on-demand elasticity. The public cloud

Imagine trying to keep track of another person’s real-time edits in a document—using only your ears. Or trying to create a table from spreadsheet data—without being able to clearly see the cells. Whether you’re backing up a file in Drive or crunching some numbers in Sheets, it should be easy to bring your ideas to life using Google’s tools. But if you’re blind or have low vision, you may need to rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays—and that can make working in the cloud challenging. While screen readers can parse static webpages (like this blog) relatively easily, it’s much harder for them to know what to say in interactive applications like Google Docs because the actions they need to describe are much more complex.

With these reasons in mind, today we’re announcing some improvements to Drive and all our editors—Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, and Forms—specifically designed with blind and low-vision users in mind.
Improved screen reader support in Drive and Docs 
In June, we introduced a new version of Drive that’s sleeker, easier to navigate and much faster. But just as importantly, the new Drive also includes better keyboard accessibility, support for zoom and high-contrast mode and improved usability with screen readers.

Across Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings and Forms, you’ll find that it’s now much easier to use a screen reader, with nicer text-to-voice verbalization and improvements to keyboard navigation. You’ll also notice other updates, including:

• Support for alt text on images in Docs, so you can tell a screen reader what they should say to describe an image 
• Better support for using a keyboard to edit charts and pivot tables in Sheets 
• Additional screen reader improvements specifically for Docs, Sheets and Slides, including support for spelling suggestions, comments and revision history 
• The ability to quickly search the menus and perform actions in Docs, Slides and Drawings (and soon Sheets and Forms)—even if you don’t know the action’s key sequence 
  

Collaborating with others is easier too: in Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drawings, screen readers announce when people enter or leave the document, and you’ll now also hear when others are editing alongside you.

Refreshable Braille display support 
If you use a Braille display, you can now use it to read and enter text in Docs, Slides and Drawings. Even if you don't use a Braille display, with Braille support, your screen reader’s settings for character echoing are automatically followed. Enabling Braille also dramatically reduces the lag between when you press a key and when it’s announced by your screen reader, and improves the announcements of punctuation and whitespace. Learn how to enable Braille support in our Help Center.

Get up and going faster
The first time you use a screen reader or a Braille display, getting up to speed can be a daunting task. But it’s simpler with new step-by-step guides for Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms and Drawings.
You can also access the in-product “Help” menu at any time without interrupting your work, or use the updated shortcut help dialog to easily search through keyboard shortcuts if you don’t remember them.

Finally, we’re offering phone support for Google Drive accessibility questions. If you get stuck, visit support.google.com/drive to request a phone call and someone from our team will reach out to you.

What’s next
Referring to recent updates to Google Drive, Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said at this year’s National Convention: “The progress...during the last few months has just been positively extraordinary.” We’re pleased the community has welcomed these improvements, and will continue to work with organizations like the NFB to make even more progress.

Everyone, regardless of ability, should be able to experience all that the web has to offer. To find out more about our commitment to a fully accessible web, visit the new Google Accessibility site at www.google.com/accessibility.

Posted by Alan Warren, Vice President, Engineering

Cellwize announced that it has "expanded its existing agreement with Cellcom Israel to deploy, through a dedicated innovation center, the unique capabilities of its elastic-SON™ functions .. Cellcom Israel, the nation’s largest operator [3M subscribers as of June 30, 2014], is a long term partner of SON specialist Cellwize 

After the launch of its LTE network [here; see also "LTE Services

We know how important it is to keep in touch with friends and family, especially when they’re spread around the world. Hangouts already makes it easy to send a quick message, or start a group video chat. But sometimes it’s best to just call to say “I love you,” and with the new version of Hangouts you can.

Starting today you can make voice calls from Hangouts on Android, iOS and the web. It’s free to call other Hangouts users, it’s free to call numbers in the U.S. and Canada, and the international rates are really low. So keeping in touch is easier and more affordable than ever.

To get started on Android, just grab the new version of Hangouts (v2.3, rolling out over the next few days), then install the accompanying dialer to turn on voice calls. On iOS and the web, voice calls will be available the next time you open the app.

Whether it’s your sister in Paris, your best friend in Boston or Jenny at 867-5309, Hangouts lets you call the people you care about at little or no cost. So download the app and dial your loved ones today!

Posted by Amit Fulay, Product Manager

We recently finalized an investment that will put a 82MW solar power plant on top of an old oil and gas field in Kern County, Calif. The new deal with SunEdison will generate enough energy to power 10,000 homes.

Our investment in the Regulus solar project will give new life to a long-valued piece of land, and there's something a little poetic about creating a renewable resource on land that once creaked with oil wells. Over the years, this particular site in California has gone from 30 oil wells to five as it was exhausted of profitable fossil fuel reserves. The land sat for some time and today we’re ready to spiff things up. With the help of our $145 million equity commitment, SunEdison is draping it in high-tech, sleek panels that collect energy from the sun, while bringing 650 jobs to the Kern County area and 82MW of clean energy to the grid.

Like many states, California has a goal of increasing the amount of energy procured from renewable sources. This project helps support that quest and marks 17 renewable energy investments for Google since 2010, including five here in the Golden State.

We’re continually looking for newer, bigger and better projects that help us create a clean energy future. The more than $1.5 billion we’ve brought to these projects to date not only helps provide renewable energy to the grid and to the public, but as they perform, they allow us to invest in more renewable energy projects. This cycle makes financial sense for Google and our partners while supporting construction jobs in local communities and clean energy for the planet we share.

Posted by Nick Coons, Renewable Energy Principal

Candlelight flickering on a stone wall covered in hieroglyphs. A proud queen brought low by the bite of a snake. Reeds rustling along a river, waiting to be turned into papyrus, or maybe a basket. The civilization of ancient Egypt stood for thousands of years and left behind a rich legacy of architecture, art, medicine, politics, culture and more. Today, it looms large in our imagination as the home of Cleopatra, Ptolemy, Tutankhamun, people who worshipped cats as gods and buried their embalmed dead in tombs filled with treasures and sustenance for the afterlife.

Now the Egypt of your imagination can be brought to life with new Street View imagery in Google Maps, and you can take a virtual walk among the stunning monuments and rich history of this ancient civilization.

Start where most tourists do: at the Pyramids of Giza, which rise from the vast expanse of the Sahara like man-made mountains. Just kilometers from the bustling, modern city of Cairo, the Pyramids have stood for nearly 5,000 years, a testament to the ingenuity and ambition of the ancient Egyptian people.

The Giza Necropolis is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, and is home to the last standing wonder of the ancient world: the Great Pyramid. Built as a tomb and a symbol of eternity for the Pharoah Khufu, it stands 139 meters high (the height of the world’s highest roller coaster!) and was the tallest man-made structure on Earth for 3,800 years. Look beyond it to the west, and you’ll see the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, built by Khufu's son and grandson.

Now turn east to the Great Sphinx, the oldest and largest known monumental sculpture in the world. With the body of a lion and the head of a human, it measures a grand 73 meters long and 20 meters high. Literally translating to “Father of Dread,” this mythical creature is believed to resemble Pharaoh Khafre, who was the ruler at the time of construction.

In addition to the Giza Necropolis, you can explore The Pyramid of Djoser, the ancient site of the world’s very first Pyramid designed by the great Egyptian Architect Imhotep in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara.

Other sites you can check out on your virtual tour include: Abu Mena, one of the oldest sites of Christianity in Egypt—the church, baptistry, basilicas and monasteries; the Hanging Church, one of the oldest Coptic Churches in the world; the Cairo Citadel, a medieval Islamic fortification and historic site; and the Citadel of Qaitbay, a 15th-century defensive fortress on the Mediterranean coast.

If wandering through the imagery of these historical sites has piqued your interest in Egyptology, head over to the Google Cultural Institute, where you can explore the treasures of ancient Egypt through a series of drawings, historic photographs and artifacts from the famed sites.

The Pyramids of Giza have survived nearly five millennia and are the planet’s oldest man-made wonder. Now their legacy—and the legacy of many other sites of ancient Egyptian culture—are preserved in a new way with panoramic and immersive Street View imagery. We hope you’ll take a moment to step back in time and explore what was once known as the Gift of the Nile.

Posted by Tarek Abdalla, Head of Marketing - Middle East and North Africa

After Allot's overwhelming $15M order (here) there were good and bad news from Sandvine.


The company announced that it "expects revenue for its third quarter to be between $27.5 and $28.0 million ... Our results this quarter highlight the challenges related to the timing of closing larger opportunities. There were a couple opportunities that we expected to close in the quarter that did not

PeerApp announced it will "demonstrate the industry's first virtualized content caching solution in cooperation with intelligent broadband solutions provider Sandvine and Dell at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) .. PeerApp and Sandvine's solutions are already integrated at dozens of operators globally using traditional deployment models [see "Sandvine: 40 Joint Deployments with PeerApp, Mobixell

Allot ServcieGateway
 Tera

Allot Communications announced it has "..received an expansion order of $15 Million from a major tier-1 operator for the Allot Service Gateway Tera .. Allot received this order during the third quarter of 2014. 

Leveraging Allot's intelligent traffic steering and load balancing capabilities, the solution will provide various value-added services. Among the services

A new report by Phil Kendall [pictured], Executive Director, Wireless Operator Strategies, Strategy Analytics finds that:

Global mobile service revenue growth will accelerate in 2014, though after passing the $1 trillion mark in 2015, will struggle to grow any further 
Europe remains a drag on global mobile service revenue growth, with 2014 revenue forecast at 17% below its 2008 peak. The jump

Ericsson's reports that its ConsumerLab found (based on interviews with over 23,000 people in 23 different countries) that:

streaming video is now almost level with traditional TV watching, 75 percent of consumers watching streamed content several times a week, compared to 77 percent who watch scheduled broadcast TV programming several times a week






Almost one in five viewers (19 percent)

A new consortium, led by the Lixia Zhang, Jonathan B. Postel Chair in Computer Science, and Van Jacobson, a UCLA adjunct professor and member of the Internet Hall of Fame from UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, was launched "to promote the development and adoption of Named Data Networking. NDN [technical report - here] is an emerging Internet architecture that