2010 February

February 26, 2010

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Global smartphone sales up, mobiles down slightly

by Darren Allan

Figures from IT research specialists Gartner have painted a picture of the state of the phone market at the close of 2009. The data shows that total sales of mobile phones are down a touch. 1.211 billion phones were shifted in 2009, which is down 0.9% on the previous year. Although the fourth quarter results were actually up, with ...

Music format copyright laws need reform

by Darren Allan

Do you know that it's illegal to rip a CD from your music collection onto your laptop or MP3 player for listening on the move? This is what's known as format shifting, and it is technically illegal to do so under current UK copyright law. Of course, no one has ever been prosecuted for this infringement, and it wouldn't be ...

Google execs found guilty over bullying video

by Darren Allan

Three Google executives have been found guilty of invasion of privacy in an Italian law court. The case was brought about by an incident in 2006, whereby video footage was recorded of a youth, who suffered from Down's syndrome, being physically abused and bullied at school. Those responsible uploaded the video clip to YouTube, where it reportedly made it to ...

Google under scrutiny by EU

by Darren Allan

The European Commission is investigating complaints against Google, made by firms who feel their growth has been constrained by the search giant. UK price comparison site, Foundem, and a French legal search engine, ejustice.fr, have reportedly put forward a case that Google's search algorithms have ranked their sites downwards, due to them being competition. On Google's public policy blog, the ...

Sunderland crowned king of Facebook

by Darren Allan

Apparently Sunderland is the Facebook capital of the UK, according to recent research. Statistics compiled by Experian Hitwise for the BBC2 documentary, The Virtual Revolution, indicate that Sunderland folks log on to the social networking site more than anywhere else in the country. They are 24% more likely than the average city's inhabitants to visit Facebook. Apparently, local band The Futureheads ...

Toshiba Freeview HD TVs on sale in April

by David Allen

In order to keep up with the HD Ready revolution, the TV manufacturer Toshiba will be introducing a new range of HD televisions with Freeview tuners during April and May. With 3D televisions being the talk of the town, it seems that some equipment makers are overlooking the present when HD television is the cutting edge and, for most ...

Samsung 3D Ready TVs launch next month

by David Allen

It seems that the first 3D Ready televisions will be appearing in the stores during March, with Samsung aiming to be the first manufacturer to get its product in front of the UK consumer before any of the others. The Samsung 3D LED TV will come in three models, the C7000, C8000 and the C9000. The screen sizes ...

BBC Worldwide to show Glastonbury

by David Allen

As the commercial division of the BBC attempts to open up more avenues of revenue, it seems that a niche market needs to be offered a headline product and what could be better for BBC Worldwide than to offer live coverage of one of the more established music festivals in the UK, Glastonbury. This is part of a push ...

Government appears to u-turn on cutting off file-sharers

by Darren Allan

The government has spoken out about its plans to forcibly disconnect illegal file-sharers. The move comes in response to an online petition which asked the government to scrap Lord Mandelson's scheme, whereby individuals could be banned from the net due to using peer-to-peer file-sharing applications. The petition cited privacy issues, and the innocent-until-proven-guilty attitude the proposed legislation would take. As ...

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