Sony Ericsson drops Ericsson for €1.05

Sony Ericsson is departing ways with Ericsson and Ericsson is being paid €1.05bn for the privilege. Sony will incorporate the phone division into it's networking and connected devices devision and will retain IP rights.

The partnership was formed 10 years ago with Sony and Ericsson owning an equal 50% stake, both had declining phone divisions. In the 10 years the market has progressed to smartphones and Sony has incorporated technologies from other divisions into the phones themselves such as their Cybershot cameras and Playstation Portable.

Ericsson were a world leader in cellular radio systems, but much of the handset radio technology is now available from established chip vendors so Ericsson's value to SE is less.

Sony will now continue to drive the smartphone market but as part of Sony Corporation directly.

Microsoft completes acquisition of Skype

Yesterday (13/10/11) Microsoft completed the acquisition of Skype which now can operate as a business devision of the Redmond Corporation.

The official Microsoft press release is here.

The sale went through for $8.5bn which is a considerable sum for a service which is basically free, though Skype is generating revenues.

Lady Gaga goes Goo Goo about a Moshi Cartoon

Moshi Monsters the brain child of Michael Acton Smith and parent company Mind Candy has been slapped with an injunction by world famous pop star Lady Gaga to prevent them promoting or launching any music based on the fictional Moshi character Lady Goo Goo.

The single "The Moshi Dance" was due to be released on iTunes after the phenomenal success of the YouTube video which received over 1m millions views a month over the summer. This has also put a stop to the planned release of "Pepper Razzi"

Lady Gaga's lawyers said that children might be "confused" by the similarity of the characters, but even a 6 year old can differentiate between a real life person and a Moshi Monster cartoon character.

Michael Acton Smith commented “This court ruling is a huge disappointment. It’s pretty obvious that kids will be able to tell the difference between the two characters. The shame is that millions of kids fell in love with Lady Goo Goo’s debut single on YouTube and now won’t be able to enjoy her musical exploits. It was all done in the name of fun and we would have thought that Lady Gaga could have seen the humour behind this parody.”

This could have implications for tribute bands and other parody acts, though allegedly changes to the UK law may stop this kind of block happening in future.

In the meantime it's only upsetting who now can't get Lady Goo Goo's music legally (50m of them worldwide), though maybe it will please parents who now won't have to fork out buying the singles.

RIM plays a game of TAG

RIM the company behind Blackerry has introduced Blackberry TAG an application for Blackberry v7 devices with NFC (near field communications) that allows Blackberry users to touch each other's phones together and they can transfer information (such as Blackberry messenger IDs) to each other.

Users can also share contact information, URLs, photos and other multimedia info, simply by touching phones.

Though a standalone application it will incorporated into the next version of Blackberry's v7 operating system (OS) and an API made available so other applications can use the technology. NFC is an important technology (though most see it's use in wallet type apps), though various iPhone and Android apps allow transferring info between devices using Bluetooth etc and these apps are popular.

SOme say it might be too little too late for RIM, but it should encourage more of the youth market where they are already popular.

Snapdragon S4 powered by bugs

This is either the cruelest video ever (there's no "no harm to insects was involved in the making of this video") or quite funny. It's to show how little energy is required to power a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 powered phone.



Sometime you have to be cruel to be funny, but it does make a point (whether insects are powering the device or not) at the low power requirements of the new chipset.

BT and EE launch LTE trial (in Cornwall)

BT Wholesale and Everything Everywhere have launched a trial of LTE (long term evolution or 4G) services running in Cornwall.

The trial will support 200 users split between mobile and fixed users in an area where fixed broadband is currently unavailable.

The trial uses equipment form the Chinese vendor Huawei and will run until next year.

Cornwall is a convenient area to run these kinds of trial as there is poor fixed line coverage, the conversion from analogue to digital TV has already taken place (so the 800MHz spectrum is available) and even if they get a few things wrong, there's no one to interfere with anyway.

As a shared trial, BT and EE will be ensuring the equipment can share access to the two seperate networks.

Plessey introduces EPIC sensors

Plessey Semiconductor has introduced a new sensor based on their Electric Potential Integrated Circuit (EPIC) that be used for ECG (electrocardiogram) applications.

The sensors don't work in the same way as existing ECG systems in that they measure the electric field instead of the actual voltages, so the sensor can detect an ECG from 2 conductive sensors (say in each hand) rather than having multiple sensors attached to the body in various places to get a good signal (the current sensor pads are covered with gel and are not re-usable and cost about $2 a set). The EPIC system can use cleanable sensors so can be used continually.

The detection of electric fields is similar to magnetic field detection.

The sensor can detect as low as 1mV p-p.

Voltage in the atmosphere is around 100V per (vertical) metre and the human body being made up mainly of water can distort this field, therefore the sensor has other uses as it can detect people (moving or entering an area) even through walls.

If the system really works, it could have huge benefits for the health system and sensors could be incorporated into lots of devices like stretchers or even hospital beds.

The people detection applications would fall more into security and other services.

Ofcom delays auction of 800MHz and 2.6GHz (again)

Ofcom, the regulator that deals with broadcast, media, telecoms, radio and now the postal service has once again delayed the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum auctions which now won't happen until at least the Q4 2012.

The 800MHz band will become available after the digital dividend (i.e. when the analogue television services are turned off in 2012), while the 2.6GHz band was reserved as an IMT-2000 (3G) band for future 3G services (or if the new 3G entrant i.e. 3UK failed and another network was set-up).

Both 800MHz and 2.6GHz are suitable for 3G services as existing phones should be able to use them (multiple band phones), they are also suitable for future mobile services such as LTE (Long Term Evolution) which is better known as 4G.

There is as more spectrum available in the 2.6GHz band than all existing 3G networks have already, however 2.6GHz has poor propogation characteristics as it is easily absorbed by buildings etc. 800MHz on the other hand has extremely good propogation characteristics (analogue TV signals work all over the UK) but can't transmit so much data. Thus 2.6GHz is suited to urban areas where there are large amounts of users and high data rates are required, while 800MHz is suited to rural areas as single sites can cover large areas.

This is also why all the legal wrangles have hindered the auction. All the 2G networks (O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile) got new 3G spectrum when the 3G licenses were awarded, while 3UK just got 3G spectrum. Recently Ofcom allowed the 2G networks to refarm their 2G spectrum for 3G use, giving existing 2G networks extra 3G spectrum.

Meanwhile Orange and T-Mobile combined (and had to give up some 2G spectrum in order to meet competition rules) to become Everything Everywhere.

3UK also felt aggrieved that it had a lack of spectrum as it didn't have any 2G spectrum in the first place.

Initially O2 and Vodafone had complained as they felt the 2.6GHz spectrum should have been given to existing 3G networks as it was a 3G band and threatened to take Ofcom to Judicial Review.

3UK also felt that existing operators should have their sub 1GHz spectrum capped (both O2 and Vodafone have spectrum in 900MHz for their 2G networks).

Court threats came and went and Ofcom held consultations and the spectrum auctions (that were originally meant to take place in 2007) got delayed and delayed again.

Then the Olympics were won by UK and by now broadcasters were using HD TV and even 3D TV and that meant remote broadcasting camera systems required much more spectrum than Ofcom had originally planned so they just allocated the unused 2.6GHz band and the (what would be now freed) 800MHz band for the broadcasters so neither could be made available at least until after the Olympics.

Ofcom is now planning a further consultation in late 2011 which will take at least 2 months which will then allow Ofcom to publish a statement in Summer 2012 and then an auction can follow later (i.e. not practically until Q4 2012). Ofcom actually released this information on Fri 7th Oct at 5pm (oddly when most news desks had closed for the day - Government departments tend to release bad news late on a Friday or just before public holidays - though Ofcom of course isn't a Government department but a Quango).

Various groups have seen this as hugely damaging to the UK economy as it will eave the UK well behind the rest of Europe (and the US) in terms of rolling out next generation 4G networks (LTE), though it's also a bit of a red herring as the UK networks haven't actually published plans to to rollout 4G networks any time soon (refarming 2G bands should provide considerable spectrum and greater 3G coverage). Though groups have claimed the economic loss to the UK could be around £730m.

As Ofcom have now reserved these bands for the Olympics they wouldn't realistically be available until 2013 anyway, so the new consultation and further auction delay won't materially affect actual rollouts based on these bands.

Things are not yet settled, there could still be legal battles and it's not going to be plain sailing. It's unfortunate that Ofcom (and thus the UK) was going to be one of the first countries to auction the 2.6GHz and 800MHz bands and now it's likely the UK will be one of the last to.

Nuance takes over voice, text and screen input

Nuance the company that pretty well dominates the text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-to-text (STT) market is now taking over the whole device input market too. It previously acquired Tegic (who produced the T9 text input system from AOL for $265m in 2007.

T9 was developed by Cliff Kushler while at Tegic, who then left to found Swype who produce a device input system for Android phone (users swipe their finders across the touch-sensitive screen to write words), it has been installed on around 50m Android phones.

Nuance has now purchased Swype directly for $102.5m ($77.5 now and a further $22.5m after 18 months).

Nuance's STT technology is already used in Google's Android, Apple's iOS, RIM's Blackberry and allegedly in the Siri service which is used by Apple's iOS v5 (and the iPhone 4S).

RIP Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has died at the young age of 56 after years of fighting cancer.

He has affected many people in many ways, mainly good though in the early years at Apple he was thought of as a bully but mellowed after being kicked out and then brought back in.

He revolutionised the home computer market with the Apple I and then the Apple II (with Steve Wozniac) - after which it went slightly pear shaped and he got fired and went to start Next Computers.

The Next Cube was a design classic (and later Apple designs kept hankering back to it) and NextOS was way beyond its time (and computing capabilities).

After Microsoft had bailed Apple out with a $250m cash injection and saving them from bankruptcy (and MS being a monopoly in the desktop OS space), Apple purchased Next (which was a commercial failure) and took on NextOS which later evolved into MacOS X.

In the meantime Steve Jobs had purchased a small computer generated image (CGI) start-up (spun out of LucasFilm) called PIXAR which he eventually sold to Disney ...

Steve Jobs also took on board an unknown British Product designer (Jonathan Ives) who made technology fit what were to become iconic designs such as the iMac, iPod etc. Changing the face of computing to what it is now.

Apple's iPod dominated the music player market since it's inception (over 70% of all music players sold) which has continued with the iPhone and iPad.

Apple made a bold decision to move from IBM/Motorola with the PowerPC to Intel's x86 CPU, but IBM was concentrating efforts on consoles such as Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PS3. Though Intel's CPU's weren't that special, Intel had the resources to support Apple and allowed them to produce the Macbook AIR which used the same silicon as normal Intel CPUs but on a new substrate allowing a much more compact design of the physical hardware.

The iPhone was also a radical move from the traditional smart-phone which was a phone that could sort of do apps. Apple changed that and made a small computer that could sort of make phone calls. When the iPad came out - they dropped the phone call bit altogether (well apps could make calls, but using data not voice circuitry).

Whether people are Apple 'fan boys' or not, Steve Jobs made a huge impact on the computing industry as we know it now and fundamentally changed the way music could be obtained and played, put design first and made the technology fit and made a computer into a phone.

He made some mistakes along the way like the Apple Lisa. The Newton was revolutionary but never had the software or hardware for it be useful. Apple also dallied in expensive printers (one of the first laser printers) and digital cameras.

He will be missed even by Windows die-hards.

There's currently a tribute on the Apple home page and a page dedicated to the man himself, which is simple yet poignant ...

Worldwatch Report Assesses US Sustainability Record and Calls for Renewed Innovation and Leadership

Per a new report from the Worldwatch Institute: Creating Sustainable Prosperity in the United States: The Need for Innovation and Leadership, "Entire sets of assumptions, beliefs, and practices will need to be overturned if the United States is to build a sustainable economy in the decades ahead". The report assesses the US' environmental record and calls for a broad range of policy innovations in the areas of renewable and non-renewable resource use, waste and pollution, and population that would help boost the sustainability of the U.S. economy while maintaining people's overall well-being and quality of life.

Here is more information from the Report:

"Creating a sustainable U.S. economy will require a thoughtful and strategic set of national, state, and local policies that would remake the economic playing field under a new set of principles," said Worldwatch Senior Fellow Gary Gardner, the report's author. "Unfortunately, the window for shifting to a sustainable economy relatively painlessly is closing, and each year of inaction makes the eventual shift potentially more jarring and costly for a growing number of Americans."

  

The concept of "sustainable development"- the idea that we can generate clean prosperity today while preserving resources and ecological functions for use by future generations - entered the mainstream more than 25 years ago. Yet U.S. leaders have failed to embrace the full measure of the needed changes, according to the report. Although the technological and policy tools needed to create sustainable economic activity have advanced rapidly around the world,U.S. output continues to be bolstered by unsustainable practices such as linear flows of materials, heavy dependence on fossil fuels, disregard for renewable resources, and resource use that is strongly connected to economic growth.

As a result, the United States ranks poorly in many environmental indicators, including:

• The United States is an ecological debtor, consuming some 207 percent of its ecological capacity, according to the Global Footprint Network. It ranks as the 46th greatest ecological debtor worldwide out of 151 countries evaluated.
• Studies show that the average U.S. citizen uses 11 times as many resources as the average Chinese, and 32 times as much as the average Kenyan.
• In 2010, the United States was a net importer of 67 non-fuel minerals and metals out of the 92 tracked by the U.S. Geological Survey.
• Over the past three decades, average temperatures in the continental U.S. rose five times more than for the century-long period since 1901.
• The United States scores a 38 out of 100 in "global stewardship" and a 27 out of 100 in "reducing stresses," reflecting its minimal support for global environmental institutions and treaties and its poor performance in mitigating air pollution and water and ecosystem stresses, according to Columbia University's Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI).
• In a 2010 survey of consumers in 17 developed and developing countries undertaken by National Geographic, Americans ranked last in green consumption habits. 

Historically, the United States has risen to meet new challenges with innovation. The report notes that the country has a long tradition of environmental leadership, dating back to Teddy Roosevelt, and became a world leader in environmental policy in the 1960s and 1970s when it established a series of progressive laws and institutions. Yet the United States has lagged behind many other countries, including in Europe and Asia, in developing more sustainable economic processes and energy infrastructure.

"The United States once set the world standard in confronting its environmental problems --protecting wild lands, establishing an environmental protection agency, and acting assertively to limit pollution of all types," noted Robert Engelman, Executive Director of Worldwatch. "Americans benefited economically and in many other ways from these efforts. Yet today the country's government plays at best a very limited role in domestic or global efforts to create sustainable societies. We need a powerful citizens' movement to help policymakers see that any efforts to make the United States enduringly prosperous are doomed to fail so long as we forget that we are living on a finite planet and cannot change the laws of physics and biology to suit our ambitions."

The report outlines a series of cogent and practicable policy measures that can be instituted today to put the United States on a more sustainable path. These include shifting from an income tax to a progressive consumption tax, creating more standard eco-labeling for products, encouraging more producer "take-back" opportunities, and promoting a more feasible renewable energy market. A deceleration of population growth will also make the creation of a sustainable economy far easier, the report notes.
    Key Policy Principles in the Report Include:

• Make sure the true ecological cost of environmental degradation is felt in the market
• Promote efficiency and reduce waste by creating a circular economy
• Decouple economic growth and reliance on material use, and emphasize services over goods
• Shift from an income tax to a progressive consumption tax
• Implement targeted fiscal tools to shape sustainable consumption
• Focus development less on ever-higher levels of consumption and more on increased quality of life
• Create more standardized eco-labeling to encourage smart purchases of efficient goods
• Encourage producer responsibility laws and "take-back" opportunities
• Promote a renewable energy market 

"America's long 'maybe' in response to history's invitation to sustainable prosperity is no longer viable," said Gardner. "The choice is not between the status quo and sustainability. A sustainable America is inevitable. The question is whether the United States builds sustainable prosperity through prudent choices now, or declines into sustained impoverishment because it failed to steward its assets when it had the choice."

Droidcon takes place on the 6th and 7th of Oct

Droidcon is the London Android conference and it's taking place at the Business Design Centre in Islington over 2 days (6th and 7th Oct 2011).

There's a great selection of speakers (including myself - I'll be talking about enterprise solutions - or not) and there's a lot of actual good speakers. There'll be a mix of techie and other talks.

Ofcom now looks after your post too

Ofcom the 'super' regulator that looks after the broadcast, media, radio and telecoms industries also now regulates the Post Office having officially taken over the role of Postcomm from Oct 1st 2011.

The Postcomm website will remain live until October 31st at which point it will be archived on the National Archives website.

Any Postal matters will be located on the Ofcom Website.