Pages

29 Eylül 2006 Cuma

Auntie Beeb in dicussion with Microsoft

The BBC has been holding discussions with Microsoft to ensure their iPlayer (based on the Real Networks Helix player) will work on Vista.

Maybe Microsoft is attempting to get the beeb to to move to Windows Media.

28 Eylül 2006 Perşembe

Tiscali UK to dump 40% of staff

It's not actually as bad as it sounds as they are getting rid of 40% of the combined Tiscali and Video Networks staff (who they acquired last month - known as HomeChoice) but it's bound not to be good.

Tiscali are also borrowing money (at 11%) from SilverPoint.

The tie-up with HomeChoice should give Tiscali the edge by allowing them to offer video over broadband, but margins are ever decreasing as is pressure from other UK competitors.

The word is that Tiscali UK is up for sale and BSkyB and BT are the top bidders.

Another broadband provider falls into the consildation mess.

ViaMichelin X-980T

Yesterday ViaMichelin announced the X-980T SatNav unit. It's got maps of Western Europe, uses the Sirf Star III GPS unit and has built-in TMC (traffic info). They also give you UK speed cameras (sorry safety cameras) with unlimited updates.

The unit isn't particularly pretty (it's about 6" by 4" by 3/4"), but it will fit in your pocket (well a big pocket).

It does have a nice feature of showing a 3D map as well as a 2D close-up side to side.

It also has info on 51,000 hotels and restaurants from the Michelin Guide and also 19,000 tourist and cultural sites from the Michelin Green Guide (both across Europe). More useful to a business user or when planning a holiday. The information has ratings from the Guides and also telephone numbers which can be automatically dial via your Bluetooth phone.

Full'ish review here

26 Eylül 2006 Salı

Ofcom announces qualified applicants for 412-414 MHz paired with 422-424 MHz

Ofcom today announced the list of qualified applicants for the use of the spectrum bands 412-414 MHz paired with 422-424 MHz.

The applicants who can go through to the single round auction are: -

AirRadio Ltd

Arqiva Limited

Motorola Ltd

The Joint Radio Company Limited

T-Mobile (UK) Ltd

Ventura Team Spectrum One Ltd

The license is for 2 x 2MHz channels and is a national license (the licensee must coordinate with radar establishments such as Flyingdales).

Increasing the supply of mobile numbers

Ofcom held a consultation that closed in July 2006 about opening new mobile number ranges (071-075). They have now published a statement on what they intend to do.

The 075 range will become available immediately, with the rest to follow so mobile operators can request numbers in this range (i.e. they are available on the number order form).

Nothing really exciting here, just shows mobile use is still growing.

25 Eylül 2006 Pazartesi

iTunes v7

Though Apple have added lots of new (nice) features, on Windows XP it's definately buggy and very slow doing certain things.

It's a shame as otherwise it's a very polished product.

Hopefully they'll fix things with a dot release.

Low-end PS3 to have HDMI

Sony's PS3 will come in two versions one with a 60GB disk and one with 20GB. Both have Blu-Ray disk support. Initially Sony decided the lower end version shouldn't have HDMI, but now it will like its bigger brother.

The HDMI port is v1.3 which support 1080p video as well as multi-channel audio. Most HD systems are only HDMI v1.2 which supports stereo sound.

New Canon Wideformat printer

Canon's imagePrograf iPF8000 supports 44inch printing using it's Lucia 12-colour pigment ink system.

There are two high density printheads with 32,000 nozzles which increase print speed.

Canon also supply a Photoshop plugging for direct printing of 16bit images with no change of colour gamut.

It will ship in November, though pricing has not yet been announced.

Lightroom Beta4 now available

As well as announcing the 4th beta of Lightroom, Adobe's photographic package, it also has a new name Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Available for both Mac and Windows this is a professional system for taking digital photographs and working with them in a consistant workflow approach, it competes with Apple's Apperture.

22 Eylül 2006 Cuma

The fight for AOL UK continues and now Tiscali UK comes into the foray

AOL's UK business is up for sale, rumours have been flying round (including Vodafone being in the bidding), but now it seems the battle is between BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse.

Tiscali UK also seems up for grabs (having recently purchased Home Choice/Video Networks) and BSkyB and BT may be in the battle for them.

The consolidation wars continue and the big broadband players seem to be: -

BT Retail (2m+ broadband customers)
NTL:Telewest (2m broadband customers)
Carphone Warehouse (600-700K+)
BSkyB (Easynet) (?)
Orange (?, peaking at 12,000 per day sign-up)
Pipex (570K)

Vodafone will be interesting to watch as they have just done a deal with BT.
T-Mobile - who knows.
O2 bought Be, but they are tiny (only 40,000 customers - but now they have the resources to grow the company and infrastructure).

21 Eylül 2006 Perşembe

Google Analytics

WOW, they are very impressive. Easy to set-up (if you've already got a Google Mail account, just add it to your services). Then Google give you some code and you paste it into your web page, Google does all the rest.

It's all graphically represented, nice pie charts/graphs/etc. The overlay piece is very cool. It shows where people are coming from, how they got there, what they're looking at and more.

If you want to be anal about your site statistics, Google Analytics is the way to go. Really WOW.

18 Eylül 2006 Pazartesi

Canon's new Ixii (Ixuses)

Canon has announced some new cameras in their Ixus range.

The Ti900 has an all titanium body, 10MP sensor and the new DIGIC III processor which supports noise reduction and face-detection technology for £315 +VAT.

The i7 replaces the tiny iZoom, it also uses the DIGIC III processor and has a 7.1MP sensor. It costs £210.

Apple updates Bootcamp

Bootcamp 1.1.1 is available for download. It now supports the new Core 2 Duo processors in Apple's new iMac and MacPro's.

Download here

Adobe update Creative Suite

Adobe are updating Creative Suite Premium to version 2.3, however it's a cost upgrade (around $159).

It will contain Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX as well as Acrobat v8 which now has shared authoring capability (but at a cost to subscribe to the service).

It should be available in October.

CSR develops WiFi VoIP chip

CSR the chipset designers have developed a reference Wireless VoIP phone (UniVox) which has a bill of materials of about £11.

The phone supports 802.11b and g and 802.11i, WEP and WPA security.

As well as supporting SIP it also supports IAX2 (Inter Asterisk Protocol) which traverses NAT in a friendly manner.

It will allow the production of cheap WiFi phones.

14 Eylül 2006 Perşembe

Ofcom forces BT to connect to everyone

Anyone can offer a communication service offering voice and other services, this is known as a PECN (public electronic communications network). Many new entrants, such as VoIP players, have found it difficult to get interconnection directly with BT who make it as difficult possible.

Ofcom have now ruled that BT must interconnect with any PECN and in a reasonable manner including paying call termination charges to them.

The statement is here.

This should allow VoIP players to directly connect to BT (it can currently take over 6 months to get a BT wholesale connection) without going through intermediaries.

Ofcom reviewing wholesale SMS termination

Wholesale SMS termination is when an SMS terminates on a mobile network from another network. This affects all operators as they exchange SMS traffic between networks.

However this also affects fixed networks (it's possible to send and receive SMSs through BT phone lines) and also companies that offer SMS applications (ringtones, advertising, alerts and such like). Currently operators (in the UK) are highly resistive to non-operators utilising telecoms links such as SS7 to send SMS traffic, and even if one operator agrees there is no guarantee that another will. Ofcom has been pushed heavily to allow this kind of service so operators are forced to act in a neutral manner to both operators and fixed line operators and application services.

The review is expected to take 12 to 18 months and there may be several consultations.

Ofcom consulting on extending mobile termination price controls

Ofcom is Consulting on proposals to maintain mobile termination price controls when the current ones expire on March 2007.

Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange termination charges should reduce to 5.3ppm for 2G and 3G networks by 2010/11, while 3 get to charge 6.0ppm also by the same time. These controls will expire in 2011.

Ofcom wants views on how quickly the pricing should be implemented and how the controls should be put in place.

The mobile operators will want current pricing to remain as high as possible for as long as possible with minimal controls, while fixed line operators and others will want termination reduced as quickly as possible with maximum controls.

12 Eylül 2006 Salı

Satellite Broadband on Trains

Ofcom has issued a statement on new licensing for the use of broadband on trains using satellite.

This covers the 14 – 14.25 GHz band (already used in ships and planes), the systems must have at least a 0.6m aerial and a max 2 degree beam.

This will hopefully encourage more UK train operators to offer WiFi in trains.

11 Eylül 2006 Pazartesi

Fring, free calls on your mobile

Well OK Fring isn't free, but uses VoIP and P2P technologies utilising the data aspects of a mobile to transport voice i.e. free with a sensible data plan.

The client currently works on various Nokia handsets, but support for others is planned. Register your number and you get an SMS with an embedded link to download the software which then installs once the link is clicked.

On "3" it took several attempts for the software to register with the Fring service, but it eventually got there.

Fring can be used just with other Fring users using VoIP, but also supports GoogleTalk and Skype, they also took a few attempts at registering.

Trying Skype wasn't too pleasant, there were long delays and the user (in the US) heard echo - though it did work. The clarity on the phone seemed much better. Didn't manage to test GoogleTalk.

Running this on a network with an unlimited data plan could save a lot of money, but would it be considered "fair use" and will they start blocking it? If the operators don't want to lose voice revenue (which is the mainstay of their business) then they'll have to do something, but for now it does seem a pretty good service.

Wii hits Broadway

IBM has started shipping the new Broadway chip (the CPU for the Wii) to Nintendo in volume. It's based on the Gekko chip used in the GameCube, but uses a 90nm process rather than 180nm. It's also faster and uses 20% less power, coming from IBM it's
Power Architechture - but not much else has been released.

IBM now owns the cores for all the major gaming platforms (XBox360, Cell for PS3 and now the Wii), Apple must be counting their blessings that they moved away from IBM as they would be such a small market for them and IBM would be able to deliver little effort into making the G5 (and successors) doing what Apple wanted them to.

The Cell is a complicated chip and optimising games will be a challenge for some time to come to make use of the multi-core design. Microsoft and Nintendo's cores are much simpler so should produce much more optimised games more quickly.

Since IBM are shipping now, Nintendo should have volume units available by the end of the year, Sony have already said there will only be 100,000 PS3 available at launch in Japan, 400,000 in the US and Europe has been delayed until at least March.

HD, HD-DVD disk developed

Toshiba and Memory-Tech have developed a 3 layer hybrid disk that can be read by both traditional DVD players and new HD-DVD players. The movie is stored in each format on different layers to that they are read by their respective players in native format.

Currently it's a prototype and not approved by the DVD forum, but this may give the HD-DVD group a jump over Blu-Ray who are currently winning the format battle.

TIM for the clock

Telecom Italia Mobile may lose the Telecom Italia monica as they seem to want to sell the mobile business.

Telecom Italia already have triple play solutions and were seen to be one of the front-runners in the fixed-mobile convergence game. Now they want to concentrate on delivering content over traditional broadband.

Rupert Murdoch may be in talks about acquisition.

Vodafone to offer broadband package

It seems Vodafone has stuck a deal with BT Group to offer a broadband package to its 16m UK subscribers. This follows earlier moves by Orange (with their Wanadoo, now branded Orange, service) and O2 who bought Be a while back.

Vodafone have aggressively denied they were moving into the fixed space, though it was inevitable with broadband being seen as the hook to triple, quad or even more plays.

Vodafone are also rumoured to be front runners for buying AOL UK.

7 Eylül 2006 Perşembe

Skype Free the French

Skype have announced that French Skype users can call any French landline for free (until the end of December).

Skype requires broadband and many broadband providers in France already offer a bundle of free national calls so though it's a nice gesture it's not really a big thing.

Pipex buy Bulldog and Tucan

Another 2 broadband providers fall to the consolidation in the telecoms/ISP markets with Tucan and Bulldog being acquired by Pipex who now claim around 570,000 broadband customers.

Tucan's purchase isn't really suprising as margins for consumer broadband are diminishing, more so now with broadband being given away free as part of other offerings.

C&W have also being looking for a way to dispose of their Bulldog retail customers as they have been unable to compete in this business (especially since the launch of Carphone Warehouse's TalkTalk3 package). Pipex also gain the use of the Bulldog name.

It makes a lot of sense for C&W to do this as they can now concentrate on a wholesale offering (which is a turn-around as they stopped offering one when they acquired Bulldog), and gain Pipex as a wholesale customer.

Consumer broadband and local loop unbundling is all about economies of scale. There are several LLU operators all competing for the customers in near enough the same (expected) 1,000 local exchanges that are being unbundled. If a wholesale provider could gain enough market traction the unbundler's could utilise them instead of unbundling themselves. This would potentially allow a greater number of exchanges to be unbundled with a greater number of users per exchange which would mean the economics become much more favourable. Unfortunately this requires companies in a highly competetive market working with each other, which is the stumbling block which rapidly degrades into telco politics.

Apple iMacs go Core 2 and 24 inch

Apple has announced that all iMac models will have an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. CPU speeds come in 1.8, 2.0, 2.16 and 2.3GHz with up to 3GB of RAM.

The new 24" model supports up to 1920 x 1200 pixels supports the higher end CPU (2.3GHz) and an option of a nVidia GeForce 7600GT instead of the 7300GT which is on the other models, a 250GB is standard though that can be upgraded to 500GB at order time. There's also a Firewire 800 port (in addition to the Firewire 400 ports). As with all new Macs they come with Tiger (10.4.7), iLife and Frontrow.

As the Core 2 Duo CPU is 64bit MacOS 10 really operates in 64bit mode (on the MacBooks and old Intel iMacs it's only working in 32bit).

The iMac is still one of the prettier PC's out there and for an all in one unit the new 24" system will be hard to beat - though there are probably cheaper systems out there. Macs just work

4 Eylül 2006 Pazartesi

Blu-Ray HDDVD battle hots up

TDK have announced a prototype for a Blu-Ray disk supporting 200GB. The current disks support 25GB per layer i.e. 50GB per disk.

HDDVD also has the capability for higher capacities, but they are currently lower than Blu-Ray.

This will make a huge difference for storing HD (high definition) movies which require huge capacities.

Samsung updates Q1

The new machine called the Q1P adds HSPDA (high speed download packet access), a new battery giving the system 5 hours of use and a processor from VIA rather than Intel. There are other new features, but Samsung haven't gone into details yet.

Another IT Week mention

IT Week mentioned me on the front page of this week's edition re Open Source routers and their limitations.

Maybe I should do this professionally?

1 Eylül 2006 Cuma

VoIP players already failing

It's seems Freetalk the VoIP service provided by Dixons is shutting shop a year after having started the service, users can migrate to Vonage though pricing stays the same they will require new Vonage equipment. Gossiptel seem to have disappeared into the mists too - even their website is gone.

VoIP isn't the panacea everyone hoped for, especially since normal telephony tariffs are plummeting and bundle deals are becoming normal (BT Retail has now had price restrictions lifted).

Unless a VoIP player has significant volume their future is limited.

Megalaser 120mW laser

Megalaser are now selling 120mW green lasers mounted in a handy laserpointer.

Of course they aren't laser pointers, they are just industrial lasers mounted for convenient transport.

Green lasers are very bright anyway and 120mW will carry the beam visibly for 10's of miles, but they are dangerous (they'll burn holes in plastic bags) and shouldn't be pointed directly (or reflected) into people's eyes.

They probably shouldn't be used near airports or such like too.

Canon announces EOD400D

This is the successor to the hugely popular EOS350D. It has got a 10.1MP sensor with cleaning technology that shakes the dust off it.

It has a 2.5 inch LCD display supporting 230,000 pixels and a viewing angle of 160 degrees.

In burst mode it can shoot 3fps and store up to 10 RAW or 27 JPEGs.

All EF and EF-S (over 60) lenses are supported as well as Speedlite EX flash units.

Pricing is expected to be competetive to the Sony Alpha but seems to be about £649 for the body only or around £719 with an EF-S 18-55mm lens.

Star Letter in T3

T3 published my letter re HD TV.

I get another Slim Devices Squeezebox3, oh what fun.