AT&T today bought into the 700 Mhz market by purchasing Aloha Partners, a move that gives AT&T potential broadband wireless coverage of 196 million people in 281 markets, according to the news release. The spectrum covers 72 of the top 100 and all of the top ten markets in the U.S.

As Om Malik noted today, the purchase appears to steer the price of the 700 Mhz auction scheduled for January 24, 2008, when the A and B spectrum blocks will be auctioned off by the FCC. Verizon, Google, eBay and other companies are considered likely bidders. (The FCC moved the auction date from January 16th to January 24th yesterday, October 8.)

Aloha Partners has been the country’s largest owner of the lower band of the UHF-TV spectrum, channels 52-59. Aloha had planned on using channels 54 and 59 to broadcast television to mobile phones, via its HiWire subsidiary. But so far it’s not clear what AT&T will do with this spectrum. Some of it is occupied by television broadcasters in specific markets, but they are supposed to give it up by February 2009. If and when AT&T clears out the spectrum, it can support up to 50,000 watts of power, meaning AT&T could quickly have a national broadband wireless network.

UPDATE: One wonders if this was part of Apple’s consideration for signing up with AT&T for the iPhone. Did Apple know something in advance?

ThinkGeek is now selling ($30) a T-shirt with a visible wireless network detector on the front of the shirt. A patch on the shirt (removable for washing) glows when it is in the presence of a WiFi signal, and shows the signal strength too. The patch runs on three AAA batteries that are stored in a small pouch inside the shirt.

Anne Zelenka has posted an interesting article on GigaOm, with the title “From the Information Age to the Connected Age.“

“Today’s version of the web, whatever you want to call it,“ she writes, “is notable because people and hardware and information and software and conversation are all mixed together into a hyperconnected network. Maybe instead of getting tangled up in discussions of what’s web 1.0 vs. web 2.0 vs. web 3.0, we might look instead at another shift: how the web enables us to move from one era into another, from the Information Age to the Connected Age. You can see this shift both in the practices of individual workers and in the strategies of technology companies.“

Zelenka speculates that the old paradigm of the Information Age was one of the “knowledge worker,“ and the new paradigm of the Connected Age is ruled by the “web worker,“ yet another sort of Microsoft-Google comparison represented in this chart:

Zelenka acknowledges that most web workers will pursue a “hybrid” model, and that these categories are not meant to be descriptive but suggestive of new ways of thinking about trends.

Dell, the Round Rock, Texas computer company, announced today that it is moving up its scheduled date for the company to be carbon neutral, which means that Dell will offset all greenhouse gas-producing activities with other activities that help reduce greenhouse gases. Dell has been a leader in the PC industry for environmental initiatives, with an aggressive and free “take-back” policy for its computers and other equipment.

“In terms of producer takeback, they have the best policy of any global electronics company, period,“ Robin Schneider, of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, told CNN last March. “They went from being a laggard to being a leader.“

Jayne Cravens, the globe-trotting maven of online volunteerism, has updated her list of volunteer management software, with some additional useful links for nonprofit managers who want to learn about databases and “specialized software,“ meaning software for very specific, nonprofit-relevant tasks. The list is at this link.

NYC TV, the official television station of the City of New York, has gone online, with an “on demand” video channel. Clips can be e-mailed to others, or users can grab a link that calls up a video clip, like YouTube.

NYC TV is mostly a channel for promoting New York City, and features interviews, performances, short documentary clips and other features about New York City’s attractions, entertainment, food and cultural events.

The City of Austin has relaunched its Grants for Technology Opportunities (GTOPs) program, which provides small grants to Austin nonrofit organizations working on “digital divide” issues, such as education, serving senior citizens, technology access to low-income residents, workforce development, etc. Applications for the grants, and more information on the program, are available on the City’s GTOPs Web site.

The City’s Office of Telecommunications & Regulatory Affairs (TARA) is also looking for reviewers for the GTOPs program, people to be part of the selection committee that awards the grants. There is an application for that volunteer position on the same Web site, under “Application.“

Communications Day, an Australian telecom news publication, is reporting that Google may be one of the partners in a proposed multi-terabit undersea cable that will cross the Pacific Ocean in 2009. Google refused to confirm the report.

The article says, “Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways - considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific.“

The new cable, which has already been confirmed by telecom firm Level 3, will be called Unity.

This is yet more suggestive evidence that Google is buying its way into telecom infrastructure, and probably to bypass the top-level Internet Service Provider backbones, such as AT&T’s.

Intel has been promoting a Web site about using Linux to save power, LessWatts.org.

The Web site says, “LessWatts is about creating a community around saving power on Linux, bringing developers, users, and sysadmins together to share software, optimizations, and tips and tricks.“

There are downloads available for Linux power management programs, tips for different kinds of platforms—servers, laptops and desktops—and ways to get involved in the Open Source power-saving community.