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  • Motorola to Feature Blockbuster Movie Download Service in Next Generation Handsets

    Blockbuster, a provider of in-home movie and game entertainment, announced plans to feature the BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand movie download service in select Motorola phones. Through the agreement next generation Motorola phones will feature the OnDemand application, providing on-the-go download access to Blockbuster’s digital library of current movies.

    Earlier this year, Motorola announced it is to unveil Android powered handsets in the fourth quarter.

    Blockbuster launched a movie rental service via set-top boxes last year. It offered a STB made by 2Wire that plays downloaded movies. Renting a movie for online playback at Blockbuster generally costs between $1.99 and $3.99.

    In March this year, Blockbuster and TiVo announced that they are working to make Blockbuster’s service available on all TiVo Series2 and Series3 DVRs (including the HD and HD XL models) in the second half of 2009.

    The agreement with Motorola it’s a part of the company’s new digital strategy to provide its library of digital entertainment to mobile devices.

    "Motorola is a recognized global communications leader and extending the BLOCKBUSTER brand and our OnDemand service into their portfolio of innovative new phones is a natural extension of our digital strategy," said Kevin Lewis, Senior Vice President of Digital Entertainment for Blockbuster.

    "Mobile video entertainment is exploding, as consumers are demanding the widest selection of content: the movies they love in their living room and on their PC, now also available on their mobile phone, while on the go," added Christy Wyatt, Vice President of Software Platforms, Applications and Ecosystem of Motorola Mobile Devices.

    According to Blockbuster the agreement will also further the company’s multi-channel vision of eventually Blockbuster enabling customers to use OnDemand application with multiple consumer electronics and portable devices, such as PCs, PMPs, Blu-ray Disc players, PVRs, set-top boxes, mobile phones and Web-connected TVs, to search Blockbuster’s entire catalog of entertainment content and download available titles for rent or purchase, schedule movies for mail delivery through, or reserve titles for in-store pick-up.

  • Samsung to Incorporate Rovi’s IPG Technology into Its HDTVs

    Rovi and Samsung announced a multi-year, multi-country technology and patent licensing agreement that allows Samsung to incorporate Rovi’s interactive program guide (IPG) technologies into its next-generation TVs and other consumer electronics devices.

    Rovi’s IPG technologies enable CE manufacturers to integrate interactive, on-screen listings into their products to help viewers navigate, sort, select, and schedule television programming.

    According to the company, Rovi’s guide technologies are designed to provide consumers with “simple and intuitive” access to digital media content of all types as well as a personalized home entertainment experience “that makes it easy for consumers to find what they want, when they want it”.

    Third party guide developers can license Rovi interactive program guide products and technologies. Rovi IPGs are incorporated into consumer electronics products, including plasma, DLP, and LCD televisions as well as DVD recorder-based products. Patent licensing is also available to online and mobile providers.

    “As the choices in content, channels and viewing platforms increase exponentially, consumers need advanced guidance technologies that will help them find out ‘what’s on’,” said Tom Carson, executive vice president, sales and services of Rovi Corporation.

    Kyung Shik Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics added: “by working with Rovi, we are dedicated to bringing an advanced digital home entertainment experience that empowers consumers to find their favorite content on the television while also enabling them to discover new programming quickly and easily.”

    Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

    Rovi holds over 4,000 issued or pending patents and patent applications worldwide and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with numerous offices across the United States and around the world including Japan, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom.

  • Huawei to Deploy First Solar-Powered Base Transceiver Stations in Bangladesh

    Huawei, a provider of next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators, has been selected by Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Telenor, to deploy Bangladesh’s first solar-powered base transceiver stations.

    To provide mobile connectivity in rural areas, Huawei will install its fourth-generation base stations, using a solar and diesel generator hybrid power solution. The base stations will primarily be powered by harnessing solar energy without having to be linked to an electricity grid. The diesel generator will be used as a backup.

    Once deployed, the new system will improve GP’ s network performance by preventing service interruption, a previously persistent challenge in Bangladesh due to power instability. It will also lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, and reduce the cost of refueling and site visits, thereby lowering GP’ s total cost of ownership. The company claims these savings will offset GP’ s capital investment in just two-to-three years.

    "Huawei’ s competitive green power solution helps us utilize renewable energy and reduce our CO2 emissions while providing even better broadband services to our customers," said Oddvar Hesjedal, Chief Executive Officer of GP.

    According to Tony Zhang, President of Huawei Bangladesh, green technology is one of the company’s most important strategies and they will continue to pursue “cutting-edge, cost-lowering” green solutions for all of their operator customers in Bangladesh and around the world.

    Oddvar Hesjedal and Tony Zhang at the signing ceremony
     

    Huawei’s green solutions for wireless broadband networks use a combination of solar energy, wind power and diesel fuel and, to date, have been adopted by some telecom operators around the world, e.g. Vodafone, Warid and China Mobile.

    Grameenphone, a joint venture between Telenor of Norway (62%) and Grameen Telecom of Bangladesh (38%), is the largest telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh with more than 21 million subscribers as of March 2009. It has a nationwide EDGE-enabled network, covering nearly the entire population.

  • West & Central African Com: Infrastructure Sharing on the Sub-Saharan Market

    VIDEO INTERVIEW: Fazal Hussein, CEO of Helios Towers, was interviewed at the West & Central African Com conference held in Abuja, Nigeria.

    He talks about the Sub-Saharian market and he thinks the only way for the operators to go forward is to develop a lean architecture.

  • Core Logic to Deliver HD Graphics for Next-Generation Portable Media

    ARM announced that Core Logic, a Korea-based fabless semiconductor manufacturer, has licensed the ARM Mali-400 MP multicore graphics processing unit (GPU) to enable enhanced, high-definition entertainment and browsing experiences on smartphones, fully-featured multimedia phones, portable media players and personal navigation devices without compromising battery life.

    Four-core Mali-400 MP supports complex 2D and 3D multimedia applications at up to 1080p resolution and offers pixel processing rates from 300 million to more than 1G pixels per second. This enables manufacturers of mobile phones, PMPs and PNDs to deliver console-quality gaming, high-quality navigation, spectacular user interfaces and web-browsing to their end users, while benefiting from the lowest memory bandwidth usage of any embedded GPU, leading to very low power consumption.

    The new Mali-400 also supports Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG standards, further enhancing user experiences on a wide range of digital devices.

    Kwang Pyuk Suh, CEO of Core Logic, said that the company is seeing massive demand for ever higher specification graphics on all multimedia mobile devices, PMPs and PNDs.

    “Device manufacturers are continually looking for technologies that enable them to develop the next high-end, must-have gadget to set them apart from the competition. Additionally, users are becoming increasingly discerning about getting the best out of their chosen applications at home and on the go,” he added.

    Core Logic, whose customers include several major Korean manufacturers, will also become part of the ARM Mali Graphics Ecosystem that brings together a community of developers, technology partners, software vendors and content companies to collaborate and reduce the cost of graphics ownership.

    According to Lance Howarth, general manager of ARM Media Processing Division, the new GPU will enable Core Logic to develop the highest quality multimedia system-on-a-chip technology “that will lie at the heart of next generation digital entertainment and communication devices”.

    “Mali-400 MP and other Mali GPUs are fully compatible with the ARM CPUs that power billions of digital devices around the world. This, combined with the complete Mali graphics stack and the ARM Mali Ecosystem, brings lowered development costs and reduced time to market,” said Howarth.

  • Fixed-Line VoIP Service as a Mainstay of IMS Deployments

    Communications market research firm Infonetics Research released results from its IMS Plans: Global Service Provider Survey, published last week as part of its Service Provider VoIP and IMS Continuous Research Service.

    The survey provides a strategic overview of service provider IMS network plans, service offerings, core product features and capabilities, drivers and barriers to deploying IMS, and ratings of 10 IMS vendors: Acme Packet, Alcatel-Lucent, BroadSoft, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, Sonus, and ZTE.

    The research shows that the IMS market is advancing from early-stage services to the next phase. According to Diane Mayers, Infonetics’ Directing Analyst for Service Provider VoIP and IMS, the two most important indicators are:
    • the higher number of service providers planning to offer services beyond fixed-line voice—such as video and mobile services—by 2011;
    • the shift in IMS deployment drivers, which include the opportunity to offer converged services, deploy new applications and services, and consolidate networks.

    80% of Infonetics’ service provider respondents run fixed voice over IMS today or will by 2011, making fixed-line VoIP service the current mainstay of IMS deployments.

    More than half of the service provider respondents plan to deploy video telephony and converged mobile/fixed-line services over the next 12–18 months.

    The report also unveils that the top three IMS applications operators expect to offer over the next two years are mobile-related: FMC, mobile presence, and mobile messaging.

    "On the vendor front, Ericsson continues to be the leading IMS vendor, but Huawei has made the most progress in terms of deployments and vendor perceptions. Huawei poses a credible and serious threat to Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia Siemens based on the number of providers with Huawei IMS products under evaluation, and overall perception of Huawei across a broad set of criteria," said Myers.

  • O2 Germany Clears the Way for VoIP on the Mobile Phone

    Telefónica O2 Germany opens mobile telecommunications network for Voice-over-IP services. From today, all O2 customers in Germany can use mobile internet telephony services like Skype or Fring with the current internet packs from O2. Using VoIP services will not be extra charged.

    By opening its HSPA network for VoIP use, O2 Germany becomes one of the first traditional telecom operators worldwide which allows its customers using voip-based services and the first that doesn’t charge any further fees for doing this.

    "We operate one of the most modern and most rapid mobile data networks in Europe and our customers are to experience it without limitations, no matter whether they surf, email, use instant messaging or make phone calls", says Lutz Schüler, Managing Director Marketing & Sales of Telefónica O2 Germany.

    Earlier this summer T-Mobile announced that it is to end its ban on mobile VoIP applications within its German network – but will charge customers upwards of € 9.95 per month for the service. Vodafone Germany is also to introduce VoIP tariffs later this year.

    O2 offers the customers two mobile internet flat rates: Internet Pack M that allows surfing the internet at a volume of up to 200 MB and up to HSDPA speed for € 10/month and Internet Pack L with the full speed to 5GB for € 25/month.

    "By opening our mobile high-speed network for VoIP services, we set new standards in the area of the mobile internet," added Schüler.

    In Germany, the mobile data network of O2 reaches almost 100 percent of the population. Large parts of Germany are supplied with HSDPA at speeds of up to 7.2 MBit/s and the rapid upload technology HSUPA.

  • Xyratex First to Announce Support for Hitachi’s 2TB HD

    Xyratex, a provider of enterprise-class data storage subsystems and storage process technology, announced support for Hitachi GST’s enterprise-class 7,200 RPM 2TB offering, the Ultrastar A7K2000 hard disk drive.

    Xyratex claims new Hitachi’s drive have been fully integrated into Xyratex’s family of storage systems “making it the industry’s first, fully integrated external storage subsystem to deliver the highest-capacity, most energy efficient drives per capacity available for enterprise storage systems”.

    The Ultrastar A7K2000 will be available for Xyratex products over the next quarter.

    Hitachi announced its first enterprise version of 2TB drive – the Ultrastar A7K2000, earlier this month. It is now possible to achieve 1.2 petabytes (PB) in the footprint of a standard 19-inch enterprise storage rack by deploying the 2TB A7K2000 in a stack of ten 4U, 60-bay enclosures. It has a 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time before failure) rating, a bulk data encryption option and SATA 3Gb/s interface.

    “Xyratex and Hitachi are committed to meeting the explosive capacity growth in enterprise data centers while advancing reduced power consumption and improved system performance,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing, Hitachi GST.

    UK-based Xyratex designs and manufactures enabling technology that provides OEM and disk drive manufacturer customers with data storage products to support high-performance storage and data communication networks.

    Xyratex OEMs are able to customize the system to meet a diverse set of application workloads and environments ranging from data centers to distributed operations. Xyratex also delivers a storage server platform that allows the convergence of servers and storage in a single, highly available system.

  • InterAct First to Validate Next Generation 9-1-1 Architecture

    InterAct, a provider of software for enterprises and government agencies, announced the successful integration with proposed Next Generation 9-1-1 architecture.

    The company is one of the first two nationwide U.S. vendors to achieve this integration. It is also the only provider to completely process end-to-end NG9-1-1 calls from the caller to the Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Geographic Information mapping systems (GIS) using nothing but IP connections.

    At NENA’s 2009 conference, InterAct showcased its ability to route wireless 9-1-1 calls into the DOT public safety test system and instantly deliver all data associated with the call to a full dispatch position without the use of legacy tone-based caller identification or serial subscriber lookup.

    A wireless 9-1-1 call placed from the NENA 2009 Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas was immediately routed through InterAct’s Next Generation IP-enabled 9-1-1 controller in Ottawa, Canada back to a call-taker position in Ft. Worth. Simultaneously, the automatic location information (ALI) was sent from the controller to an InterActCADtng server in Winston-Salem, NC and transmitted over a low bandwidth wireless network using an air card to a dispatch position in Ft. Worth where the caller location was plotted on the InterActGIS map display, and a call created in the InterActCADtng workstation. With this accomplishment, InterAct demonstrated that it is possible to dispatch incident response personnel from anywhere in the world.

    “9-1-1 centers have a dire need for Next Generation capabilities,” said Brian Fontes, CEO of NENA. “Regardless of whether a caller dials 9-1-1 from a wired, voice-over-IP or wireless phone, the location information should be instantly transmitted to the correct public safety answering point. Next Generation 9-1-1 makes this possible and enables the PSAP to receive and react to multimedia messages that cannot be handled by the current system”.

    Using NG 9-1-1 technology not only will agencies be able to communicate with citizens via text and video messages, but they can also choose to centralize all public safety equipment to drive down costs and collaborate with other agencies, while keeping dispatchers in the local communities they know best.

  • Low-Cost Handsets to Account for over Half of all Mobile Phones by 2014

    According to Juniper Research, low-cost handsets and Smartphones will together account for almost 79% of all new mobile phones by 2014, or just over 1 billion units in all.

    New research, which results have been contained in the latest Jupiter’s report ‘Low Cost Handsets: Markets, Opportunities & Forecasts 2009-2014’, has shown how the mobile handset market is becoming increasingly polarised between low cost handsets for emerging markets and high-end smartphones for developed regions – with the mid-range handset market being squeezed.

    Operators and vendors are preparing to deal with a massive influx of new users from low-income socio-economic groups in developing markets and a rising demand for complex ‘smart’ devices from affluent users in developed markets.

    Vendors such as Nokia, Apple and RIM (makers of Blackberry) are well positioned to benefit from these trends whilst players operating more in the mid range market such as Sony Ericsson and Motorola are having to rethink their strategy.

    According to the report author Andrew Kitson: “Low-cost handset shipments will number more than 700 million in 2014, up by 31% from levels seen in 2008, albeit down slightly from a peak of 716 million in 2012 as some users begin to upgrade to costlier devices. At the same time, smartphone shipment volumes will grow continuously across the forecast period, reaching almost 360 million by the end of the period. We therefore expect that mid-range device sales volumes will fall by more than 41% over the period”.

    In 2008, the Indian Sub Continent region accounted for the majority (23%) of low-cost handset sales, due to efforts by operators such as Vodafone to meet low-income users’ needs in markets such as India. By 2014, the region will account for 22% of sales.

    The report says also that take-up in emerging markets will be boosted by the availability of low-cost, highly targeted localised information services, such as Nokia’s Life Tools offering.