2010 February

February 26, 2010

ConnectinPrivate.com launched

by Janet Harris
The world’s most comprehensive internet privacy and security product, ConnectinPrivate.com, has launched in the UK. The company, which can provide UK surfers with completely anonymous and non-traceable offshore browsing and email accounts, has packages offering complete privacy from £4.99/month. ConnectinPrivate.com works by creating a VPN (Virtual Private Network) between computers and smartphones in the UK and ConnectinPrivate.com’s completely secure and anonymous ...

2X Software discovers Windows crash vulnerability

by Janet Harris
Virtual computing expert 2X Software has identified one of the biggest security vulnerabilities in the Windows OS for many years. Any PCs and servers running anything from the latest Windows 7/Server 2008 versions down to Windows 2000/Server 2003 are affected – they can be crashed just by running some simple code giving major implications for Denial of Service attacks. Microsoft has ...

xG talks to FCC & Congress about spectrum improvement options

by Jan Harris
Last week, representatives from xG® Technology presented well-received suggestions to the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet on improving spectrum usage. Both the FCC and Congress have expressed concern lately about spectrum availability. The xMax® mobile VoIP network developed by xG has the ability to significantly increase both usage and availability because it operates ...

Cloud Net Appoints New Sales and Marketing Director

by Jan Harris
UK VoIP provider Cloud Net today announced the appointment of Tom McKinney who will work within Cloud Net to develop the company’s sales initiative – Cloud Net Direct - which is concentrating on the development of a targeted sales force whilst playing a strategic role in the overall brand development and marketing. He is focused on delivering the ambitious growth targets ...

Phorm in BT’s side

by David Allen

Phorm is an issue that simply will not leave BT alone. It has been three or four years since BT and Phorm conducted trials on the internet service provider’s customers' internet surfing habits, but without their knowledge. Despite there being a huge anti Phorm campaign by customers and other concerned internet users, investigations by the City of London Police ...

Virgin Media returns a strong quarter

by David Allen

The cable, broadband and phone provider Virgin Media has announced that it added 34,200 new cable TV subscribers during the last quarter, taking the provider's total market share to over 3.7 million. As a content provider Virgin Media Television, which includes Bravo, Challenge, Living and Virgin 1 and owns half of the UKTV group of channels with the BBC, ...

STV’s profits fall

by David Allen

The Scottish based broadcaster STV is reporting a fall in revenues for the last year and the company has put these results down to challenging market conditions. The revenues posted by STV for the year were £110.2 million, which is down 23.7 per cent from the £144.5 million posted in 2008. The drop in revenues means that the broadcaster’s ...

Sky Deutschland feeling the strain

by David Allen

The German pay TV satellite provider Sky Deutschland, which of course is controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is expecting to report a loss for 2010, but for the following year the broadcaster is expecting to see a profit. Sky Deutschland, which is the country’s largest pay TV operator, will be posting a loss of between 130 million and ...

Orange TV improves

by David Allen

Orange TV, part of the huge France Telecom organisation, has announced that its total European digital TV subscriber base has grown by a massive fifty three per cent to 3.217 million during the past year. In France, which is of course the key area for France Telecom, Orange TV performed well, showing an incredible forty seven per cent increase ...

CBS VoD deal for Five

by David Allen

The terrestrial TV channel Five has announced that is has signed an agreement with the US based TV network CBS. The deal will mean that the channel's video on demand service, TV.com, will be able to provide Five’s content such as Neighbours, Home and Away and the UK’s own The Gadget Show. TV.com users will be able to access the ...

STV launches smartphone apps

by David Allen

Having seen its pre tax profits cut by more than half, the broadcaster STV has been looking at different ways of getting its content in front of viewers and one way of being successful is to follow the leaders. To this end, STV will be launching a series of applications that will allows users of netbooks, smartphones and other ...

Legal action brews between ITV and STV

by David Allen

It all seemed to start when ITV decided to change its schedules by moving popular shows such as The Bill to 9.00pm. STV did not want this content at that time and so stopped showing the programmes in favour of home grown content. However, the bad feelings between ITV and STV grew and it looks as if legal action is ...

Sky News wins at RTS Awards

by David Allen

The team behind Sky News are celebrating after being named the News Channel of the Year at the Royal Television Society award ceremony. In fact Sky News come away with four major prizes, including Alex Crawford being named TV Journalist of the Year and the chief correspondent for Sky News, Stuart Ramsay, and his news team winning an award ...

Infosecurity Europe highlights security headache of mobile workforce

by Janet Harris
A report just published that highlights the rising numbers of workers are moving to a truly mobile working environment confirms what many in the IT security industry have suspected for some time, says Claire Sellick, Event Director for Infosecurity Europe. The iPass report, which took in responses from 1,000 enterprises, found that large swathes of enterprise staffers are using their smartphones ...

Ofcom to measure next-gen broadband speeds

by Darren Allan

Ofcom is to work with website SamKnows to measure the speed of next-gen broadband lines in the UK. It's a partnership which has worked in the past, with SamKnows clocking the speed of the average “this-gen” broadband technology at 4.3Mbps in 2008. Next-gen developments, which are already happening in many parts of the country, are delivering fibre-to-the-cabinet ADSL lines, offering ...

February 25, 2010

Prysmian to expand in China and India

by Jan Harris
Global cables giant Prysmian has revealed that it has ambitious plans to grow its market presence in both China and India as part of a global expansion programme. Speaking at the FTTH Council conference in Lisbon today, the group’s telecoms business director Hakan Ozmen said that although Prysmian already had facilities in China and major customers including China Unicom, China Telecom ...

Virgin rolling out 100Mbps broadband this year

by Darren Allan

Virgin Media has announced its plans to roll out 100Mbps high-speed broadband later in 2010. Virgin already offers fast 20Mbps and 50Mbps packages, but this will be some really serious speed when it comes to bandwidth intensive tasks such as HD video. The service will be widely available, targeted at some 12.6 million homes across the UK, although the company ...

LINX connection helps Bhutan Telecom to grow

by Jan Harris
Bhutan Telecom, the first network to join the London Internet Exchange from the country of Bhutan, has had such success in peering at LINX since joining in 2008, it has had to significantly upgrade its capacity. As one of the 350 members connected at LINX from 50 countries, Bhutan Telecom is able to peer with the wide range of international networks ...

GENBAND Selected to Acquire Nortel’s CVAS Assets

by Janet Harris
GENBAND, Inc., a leading developer of next-generation media, session and security gateway solutions, today announced that it will acquire substantially all assets of the Nortel Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions Business (CVAS). The acquisition is subject to court and certain regulatory approvals in Canada, the United States and other jurisdictions, as well as other closing conditions. The acquisition will combine GENBAND’s next-generation ...

Flumotion to provide live streaming of a speech on copyright

by Janet Harris
Flumotion and the Open Video Alliance will be streaming a live event on Thursday, February 25th featuring Lawrence Lessig, the foundational voice of the free culture movement. The 45-minute speech will be delivered live from Harvard Law School via Flumotion’s Streaming Platform, and will explore the relationship between copyright, fair use, politics and online video. The speech takes place at 6:00 PM ...

NDS helps to secure Telekom Austria's IPTV service

by Janet Harris
NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, and Telekom Austria, the fixed net subsidiary of Telekom Austria Group, one of the most innovative IPTV providers in Europe, today announced that they have extended their relationship to secure the operator’s IPTV service. Building on their existing relationship, the agreement will see NDS integrate its VideoGuard™ encryption technology with the ...

Credant Encryption Security Solutions Now Available On Dell Systems

by Janet Harris
Credant Technologies, the market leader in endpoint data protection solutions, will provide Dell with encryption and data protection for its commercial client systems. Beginning today, Dell customers may select the Credant Mobile Guardian Dell Edition security encryption solution factory installed on Dell Precision™ workstations, Latitude™ laptops and OptiPlex™ desktops, along with other Credant solutions through Dell’s Software and Peripheral (S&P) store ...

Timico to participate in Convergence Summit Hosted Telephony Shoot Out

by Jan Harris
Timico is delighted to announce its attendance at the Convergence Summit North Hosted Telephony Shoot Out at Manchester Central Convention Complex on 17 March, underlining Timico’s confidence in the business strength hosted VoIP solution it delivers to customers. This will be the second consecutive year Timico will be taking part in the shoot-out, which will involve three hosted telephony suppliers challenging ...

Zeemote JS1 Bluetooth Controller works with Nokia

by Janet Harris

Zeemote® LLC, an Aplix Corporation (TSE: 3727) affiliate, today announced that the Zeemote JS1 Bluetooth Controller has been accepted into Nokia’s new Accessory Developer Program – ‘Works with Nokia’. Under this program the Zeemote JS1 Controller will be sold in a retail pack featuring the Works with Nokia logo through retail ...

DeviceLock and SentryBay announce partnership

by Janet Harris
DeviceLock, Inc., a worldwide leader in endpoint data leak prevention software solutions, today announced a partnership with Security software specialist SentryBay. The partnership is set to provide one of the most comprehensive solutions available for companies wanting to secure their data and end-user devices. SentryBay’s Personal Data Protection Suite comprises the market-leading EntryProtect and PhishLock solutions. These solutions neutralise the two greatest threats ...

Elgato releases HD TV tuner

by David Allen

For many consumers Freeview can be obtained from a digital TV tuner that is either built into the TV or comes as a set top box, but the launch of the Elgato EyeTV Netstream dual digital TV tuner will offer the consumer another choice of how they receive digital TV. The device is simply plugged into the TV aerial ...

Canal Plus to go 3D

by David Allen

The pay TV satellite operator, Canal Plus, has plans to launch a full 3D Channel in France and it hopes to have this up and running by the end of the year. The broadcaster has been experiencing technical issues recently and there are many subscribers who would prefer to see the company iron out some of these issues before ...

BBC Worldwide signs deal with Universal

by David Allen

Following on from BBC Worldwide's announcement yesterday that it would be looking to increase the amount of music related content it provides, it seems that signing to distribute the Glastonbury Festival was not the only deal in the pipeline. BBC Worldwide has also signed a log term agreement that will allow it to distribute Universal Music Group's TV content. ...

Apple TV a part time gig

by David Allen

It would seem that the prospect of iTelevsion turning up as the Apple Store anytime soon has been kicked into touch by Apple's chief operating officer, Tim Cook. In fact, according to the COO of Apple, the television project Apple TV is nothing more than just a hobby for the company while it concentrates on maximising the potential from ...

Wal-Mart buys online TV business

by David Allen

The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has been looking for a way into the online TV sector and it seems that it may have found it in the shape of VUDU, a Silicon Valley based provider of online TV services and equipment. VUDU does not supply set top boxes as such, but provides the makers of televisions and other equipment ...

Oxford digital TV signal gets a lift by helicopter

by David Allen

The other day it emerged that the digital television signal was so poor in some parts of the Oxfordshire region that some households were experiencing a worse picture quality than that provided by analogue. Digital UK has had to take some rather unusual steps in order to make sure that the viewers receive the quality of service that they ...

Vodafone UK appoints new Consumer Director

by Jan Harris
Srini Gopalan will join Vodafone UK as Consumer Director responsible for the UK’s Consumer Business Unit and its P&L. Srini joins from T Mobile UK where he was Chief Marketing Officer for the last eight months. Prior to this, he was UK Managing Director of Capital One, part of Capital One Group, one of the top ten credit card issuers in the ...

aql brings high-speed Internet to northern businesses

by Jan Harris
It was announced today that the northern city of Leeds is set to become one of UK’s most advanced business and financial institutions by installing a high speed fibre network. The project is linked with local telecommunications firm:- aql, who plan to roll out connectivity throughout the city’s business district. aql’s resources offer neighbouring businesses internet speeds of up to ...

British Library struggles to archive UK websites

by Darren Allan

These days, we dig up old bones, coins or bits of pottery to give us clues about how people lived in the past. The future, however, should bring a far richer source of historical records – the million and one websites in existence today, for starters, which have commented on everything that's happened. And quite a few things that ...

Shoretel partners with BSTechnologies in Abu Dhabi

by Jan Harris
ShoreTelÒ, Inc. today announced it has signed a reseller agreement with BSTechnologies, an Abu Dhabi-based company that develops innovative solutions in the mobile and telematics sector using cutting-edge mobile and nanotechnologies. Under the agreement, BSTechnologies will offer the ShoreTel UC system and ShoreTel Contact Centre solutions with a special focus on the hospitality, enterprise, government and small to midsize business markets. “BSTechnologies ...

Hulu announces 'If I Can Dream' premiere

by Janet Harris
Hulu and Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment, creator of globally recognized hit shows like Pop Idol, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, today announced Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 as the premiere date of If I Can Dream, a groundbreaking weekly show that will launch exclusively on Hulu, with live streams available at ificandream.com. If I Can Dream serves as ...

T-Mobile Pulse Mini announced

by Darren Allan

Remember the T-Mobile Pulse, launched in October of last year, which was the UK's first ever PAYG Android phone? Well there's a new and more compact version of the handset on the way, with an even more budget friendly price tag. The Pulse Mini will retail at just £100 on PAYG, two-thirds of the price of its big brother ...

US Users Favour Google For Mobile Web Search

by Janet Harris
O2 and Telmap make navigation available to all

Google enjoys a commanding lead in mobile Web search in the United States, according to Opera's State of the Mobile Web Report. Accounting for more than 9% of all page views on the mobile Web in the United States, Google easily outpaces rivals Yahoo! and Bing, with 4.3% and 0.03% ...

Microsoft browser ballot is readied

by Darren Allan

Testing has begun on Microsoft's browser ballot feature, which allows Windows users to choose the web browser they would like to use, for those less web-savvy types who aren't sure about the alternatives to Internet Explorer. For existing systems, the browser choice screen will be made available as a Windows update. If you download and install the update, and Internet ...

ASA raps Virgin Media over advert

by David Allen

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been giving cable TV and broadband provider Virgin Media a hard time over one of its direct mail marketing campaigns. The campaign claimed: "Delivering TV, broadband and phone down the same fibre optic cable is better value and keeps everything in one simple bill." But BSkyB claimed that Virgin Media was saying that ...

Conservatives back ECB Ashes claims

by David Allen

While the “Crown Jewels” of sport have been decided upon, the way that sport is televised in the UK is still uncertain and with the media regulator Ofcom still deciding on how much BSkyB can sell its wholesale content for, the whole area of televised sport is up in the air. To make matters worse the shadow sports minister, ...

Sky Player gets more Virgin Media channels

by David Allen

According to Broadcastnow.co.uk the satellite broadcaster BSkyB has been busy signing up more channels for its online TV service known as Sky Player. The latest additions to the Sky Player will be the Virgin Media channels, Living and Bravo, which open up a whole new world for viewers of BSkyB content, although not necessarily through subscribing to the full ...

Bournemouth and Leeds get super-fast broadband

by Darren Allan

Two cities in the UK can look forward to next-gen broadband soon. Bournemouth citizens can rub their hands together with the most glee, however, as a 1Gbps next-gen network is ready to launch courtesy of FibreCity. Yes, speeds of 1000Mbps will be facilitated by the fibre-to-the-home scheme, which will be brought to around 1000 households. That won't be a constant speed, ...

LG Unveils Thin Plasma TVs

by Franz Bicar
LG, South Korea's third largest conglomerate that produces electronics, chemicals, and telecommunications products and the world's second largest LCD maker unveiled two new HDTVs that boasts a very thin outer frame. Based on the picture shown below, these sets may be one of the thinnest out in the market today. lg_thin_plasma

The plasma sets, ...

Install Android OS on Windows Mobile Phones

by Franz Bicar
win_mo

Fed up with Windows Mobile? Try Android. How to that, visit XDA-developers, a forum where developers post hacks, tips, and software. In there, a developer has released a beta ROM of Android 2.1 for four Windows Mobile phones, all by HTC: the Tilt for AT&T (AKA the HTC Kaiser), Vogue, Niki, ...

Google Nexus One AMOLED Screen Issues

by Franz Bicar
Google's Nexus One has its ups and downs. One of its advantages (compared with other smartphones) is its gorgeous 800X400 pixel AMOLED screen. When compared to its main competitor, the iPhone 3GS with its 480X320 pixel LCD screen, the Nexus One stands out. But don't be too quick to judge, DisplaMate, a video diagnostics testing company, has done an in-depth ...

Studies Show Android and iPhone OS, Fastest Growing Smartphone OS

by Franz Bicar
Android and Apple's iPhone OS are now officially the fastest growing smartphone OS in 2009. These two newcomers into the smartphone market is expected to outpace old-timers like RIM's Blackberry and Nokia's Symbian OS. However, Symbian and Research In Motion's BlackBerry still lead the market - but not for long. Worldwide sales of smartphones running Symbian totaled 80.9 million in 2009, ...

Apple Adds “Explicit” Category to the App Store

by Franz Bicar
Apple has come under fire from developers with the way they are screening apps posted on Apple's App Store. There is a guideline but developers are getting confused on how these guidelines and rules are being interpreted. One issue is, of course, adult-themed applications. While some might find these apps acceptable, others see it as too vulgar or to explicit. Apple's ...

February 24, 2010

Shigeru Miyamoto awarded Bafta fellowship

by Darren Allan

Shigeru Miyamoto, the Nintendo games boffin behind the legendary Mario Bros, will be given a Bafta fellowship at the upcoming awards. The move recognises his contribution to the entertainment industry, and his creativity in producing the likes of Donkey Kong, Zelda and Mario. Miyamoto was typically humble when he heard the news, saying: “Our video games cannot be created by ...

We7 premium service live on iPhone next week

by Darren Allan

We7's premium music streaming service is set to launch on the iPhone next week, on March 1st. The app has been approved by Apple, and it means We7 will have subscription revenues coming in, alongside its already existing free ad-supported service. Two pricing structures are being implemented – if you pay up £4.99 per month, you'll get a service with ...

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