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  • xMax Offers Alternative Path for VoIP Across Mobile Networks

    Resistance by wireless carriers to allowing customers access to VoIP services across their mobile networks has attracted the attention of the regulators, with the US Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission and the European Union all looking into the practice.

    xG Technology claims they had developed an alternative path that allows consumers to benefit from much lower cost mobile calls via the internet, avoiding the incumbent carriers’ networks all together.

    The company developed xMax, which is similar to Vonage or Skype, but in the form of a fully mobile handset that doesn’t require the use and extra cost of a computer or broadband internet connection.

    xG Technology claims they can offer consumers the prospect of lower phone bills because xMax transmits over unlicensed spectrum – the same as baby monitors and cordless phones and because xMax was built as a totally internet-based digital system from top to bottom in a extremely cost efficient way.

    The firm recently reported that they had completed more than 20,000 successful wireless pilot network calls using a new approach to mobile telecommunications.

    “There was understandable skepticism when we first announced that we were taking an entirely new approach to launching a mobile, broadband VoIP network,” said Joe Bobier, CTO and president of operations. “Our successful call completion experience proves that we are on the right track and that, with xMax, the future holds the prospect of lower costs for wireless voice and broadband”.

    According to the company, xMax networks can enable communication providers to aggressively compete with national carriers by offering customers unlimited voice and data plans both locally and long distance, extremely low-cost international calling, no contracts, as well as home phone and high-speed internet service.

    xG Technology is a US based company, but development of xMax is an international effort that involves companies in Europe and Asia. They currently have 50 US and 101 international patents.

  • Microsoft Unveils Zune HD Details

    Microsoft announced today that the Zune HD, its long-awaited media player, is available now for pre-order and is set to hit store shelves on Sept. 15.

    The black 16 GB version will sell for $219.99, and the 32 GB "platinum" device for $289.99. Both 16GB and 32GB capacities will be available in five different colors with the option to customize the player with one of 10 new engravings designed by guest artists.

    Pre-order starting Thursday, Aug. 13 at https://www.zune.net/zunehd and purchase in stores on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

    Those who want a sneak peek, can visit select stores in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., areas on Aug. 22 and 23.

    Zune HD features 3.3-inch glass screen and 16:9 widescreen format display (480 x 272 resolution) and have HD video output to allow video to be played on an HDTV.

    It comes also with built-in HD Radio receiver, an OLED touch screen interface, wi-fi, a multi-touch UI for Internet Explorer and has access to TV, movies and games through the Xbox Live Video Marketplace.

  • West & Central African Com: Rolling Strategies on the African Telecom Market

    VIDEO INTERVIEW: Christian De Faria, Regional Vice President – WECA region of MTN Nigeria, was interviewed at the recent West & Central African Com conference held in Abuja, Nigeria.

    He unveils what areas MTN Nigeria will be focusing on over the next few years. He also discusses the evolution of the Nigerian telecom market.

  • Harris Stratex to Supply India’s First Urban Mobile WiMAX Network

    Harris Stratex Networks, a provider of wireless solutions, has signed a contract with ICOMM, one of India’s leading groups in the field of telecom, to supply, install, commission and maintain an IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX network for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

    Under the multi-year contract, Harris Stratex will supply its StarMAX WiMAX solution to extend BSNL’s public wireless access network to provide high-speed wireless mobility in urban areas across the southern Indian state of Kerala.

    Harris Stratex will supply StarMAX IEEE 802.16e-2005 base stations, along with solutions for access services network (ASN) gateway; home agent; authentication, authorization and accounting; and network management system.

    “We greatly appreciate BSNL’s strategic leadership in India and its efforts to help the government reach its target of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010, and are extremely proud to be a part of this very important undertaking,” said Harald Braun, president and CEO of Harris Stratex.

    BSNL is the world’s seventh-largest telecommunications company and provides a telecom services to 7,330 cities and towns, and 550,000 villages across India.

    The contract award to ICOMM and Harris Stratex will enable broadband services to be deployed throughout the state of Kerala, India’s fourth largest telecom market by revenue with a population of more than 35 million people in an area of 38,000 square kilometers.

    “This mobile WiMAX rollout by BSNL will represent one of the largest deployments of this technology in the world,” the companies announced.

    The StarMAX platform is the result of the March 2, 2009 acquisition of Telsima Corporation by Harris Stratex Networks and includes a portfolio of IEEE 802.16d-2004 and 16e-2005 compatible base stations, fixed and mobile subscriber devices, ASN gateway solutions, home agent and network management tools.

  • Toshiba Enters Blu-ray Group

    Toshiba announced that the company has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and plans to introduce products that support the Blu-ray format.

    Almost seven-year format war is over. Toshiba, the primary backer of the HD DVD format, which has been defeated after a number the largest movie studios (e.g. Warner Brothers) and U.S. rental services and retailers announced the exclusive support for Sony backed Blu-ray products, finally decided to join Blu-ray group.

    “In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA,” says the company’s brief statement.

    Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format, including BD players and notebook PCs integrating BD drives, in the course of this year.

    The first rumors of the company’s new HD strategy appeared in June this year, when the Toshiba’s president, Atsutoshi Nishida, told shareholders at the annual shareholder meeting in Tokio, that the company is considering making Blu-ray products.

    Later, at the end of July, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun raported that Toshiba would introduce a Blu-ray player called BD-18 before the end of the year. Thus the latest company’s announcement didn’t surprise anyone at the HD market. The decision to support Blu-ray format is considered a good (and the only logical) business move.
     

  • Nexsan and FalconStor to Deliver New Nexsan DeDupe SG Family

    Nexsan Technologies, the provider of disk-based storage and FalconStor Software, the provider of data protection solutions, announced a strategic venture to deliver a joint solution, which has resulted in the delivery of an integrated deduplication product family for high-performance, power-efficient data storage.

    Based on Nexsan’s storage systems and the FalconStor File-interface Deduplication System (FDS) software, the new, Nexsan DeDupe SG ("Speed with Green") product family will be delivered by Nexsan through its worldwide network of channel partners.

    "The new self-optimizing capability of this product will help companies realize benefits in both power and data efficiency while automating critical storage management processes," said Lauren Whitehouse, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.

    Storage deduplication systems are primarily used as backup targets, operating only during the backup window. Even though the typical backup window is less than eight hours a day, the deduplication systems spin drives and burn energy for the remaining 16 hours, even while not in use. With Nexsan DeDupe SG, customers are supposed to get higher capacity and better performance during their backups and to save energy and reduce costs every hour that the system is not in use.

    Nexsan DeDupe SG leverages the green efficiencies inherent to its technology components: data reduction through high-speed deduplication, footprint reduction by utilizing space-efficient storage arrays, and substantial energy savings through AutoMAID technology.

    It also maximizes interoperability with all data sources, including disk-to-disk backup and archiving applications. It can be deployed in any physical or virtual infrastructure environment, offering file-level access to a central block-level deduplication repository. The product supports all major backup software, directly accepts Oracle RMAN, Microsoft SQL and other database dumps, and provides integrated data replication and deduplication.

    FalconStor FDS, the deduplication engine for the Nexsan DeDupe SG family, is a block-level deduplication software solution that presents a network share interface as a backup repository, offering space-saving option for writing data to disk.

  • West & Central African Com: The Complexity of African Markets

    VIDEO INTERVIEW: Osondu Nwokoro, Director of Regulatory Affairs of Zain Nigeria, was interviewed at the recent West & Central African Com conference held in Abuja, Nigeria.

    He explains the complexity of Nigerian and other African markets.

  • Sky to Launch 3D TV in 2010

    Sky has announced that it will launch the UK’s first 3D channel next year. The channel will offer a broad selection of the available 3D programming, which is expected to include movies, entertainment and sport.

    The service will be broadcast across Sky’s existing HD infrastructure and be available via the current generation of Sky+HD set-top boxes. To watch 3D, customers will also require a new ‘3D Ready’ TV, which are expected to be on sale in the UK next year.

    “3D is a genuinely ‘seeing is believing’ experience, making TV come to life as never before. Just like the launch of digital, Sky+ and HD, this is latest step in our commitment to innovating for customers,” said Brian Sullivan, Managing Director of Sky’s Customer Group.

    Sky became the first TV company in Europe that has successfully broadcasted a live event in 3D TV. On 2nd April 2009 they broadcast a performance by Keane live from Abbey Road Studios via the company’s satellite network to a Sky+HD set-top box and domestic 3D Ready TV.

    Sky has also confirmed the launch of a comprehensive ‘pull’ video-on-demand (VOD) service next year, to provide Sky+HD customers with additional choice and control to complement Sky+ and the current Sky Anytime ‘push’ VOD service. This new service will use the broadband capability of existing Sky+HD boxes.

    The jump from 2D to 3D

    TV has traditionally only been able to deliver a single image to a television screen. For all the innovation that we’ve seen in TV (including the move to colour, the migration to digital, and more recently, the launch of high definition services), all of these developments have only been able to work within the parameters of a single incoming TV feed – a 2D experience.
    So even though HD delivers an intensity and richness which results in exceptional clarity and detail, it is still based on the same underlying picture delivery mechanism as previous TV formats.

    3D TV is possible because of a series of major breakthroughs (principally in camera, post-production, encoding, set-top box and TV set technology) which means that domestic TVs are now capable of processing an image in a way that can deliver the depth information to the brain – much like the human eye – and hence add a further dimension to HD.

    For the first time, two images can now be merged and played out simultaneously on the same domestic TV display. Polarising glasses are currently used to help direct the correct left or right full colour on-screen image to the corresponding eye. The brain then processes each feed to create a single image, providing a level of depth and focus which means that the content is able to move to and from the foreground and therefore becomes three-dimensional.

  • Atlona Announces New AT-HD530 Down-Converter

    Atlona Technologies, solutions based manufacturer of Audio Video connectivity accessories, announced their soon to be released HDMI/DVI to Composite and S-Video Down-Converter, the AT-HD530.

    The device down-converts HDMI or DVI digital signal from PC, Mac, GPS System, Apple TV, Camcorder or Video Game to Analog S-Video or Composite Video with Audio. It is featured with HDMI/DVI loop-out.

    The converter has the ability to support resolutions of up to 1080p for HDTVs and up to UXGA (1600×1200@60Hz) with PC or Mac Computers. It is also able to automatically detect and down convert resolutions to those of to PAL or NTSC formats.

    It comes with HDMI video input and Digital Coaxial audio input ports. Output video format is selectable between Composite Video and S-Video.

    Unfortunately AT-HD530 is NOT-HDCP compatible and will not work with HDCP devices such as Cable/Sat Boxes and DVD players.

    New Atlona’s down-converter will be in stock late August with an MSRP of $299.00.

  • HDTVs in More than Half of All U.S. Homes

    A recent Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) report shows strong growth over the past year in HDTV ownership.

    In 2009, 53 percent of total U.S. households report owning a high definition television, an 18 percentage point increase in ownership over 2008, when 35 percent of households reported owning an HDTV (23 percent in 2007). Among HDTV set owners, 69 percent now subscribe to high definition service, compared to 56 percent a year ago.

    Ownership of large screen televisions –32 inches and larger – has also seen solid growth. In 2009, 59 percent of households owned one, up from 52 percent in 2008 (44 percent in 2007).

    The CTAM tracking study also took a look at recent movers and which technologies they are likely to purchase and services they’re likely to subscribe to over the next year. Movers are more likely than non-movers to buy an HDTV set (26 percent vs. 15 percent), a laptop (24 percent vs. 16 percent), and a video game system (23 percent vs. 7 percent); as well as subscribe to HD programming service (15 percent vs. 8 percent) and DVR service (17 percent vs. 7 percent).

    In 2009, digital cable market penetration was 34 percent, satellite was 28 percent, and telephone company penetration was 6 percent. Overall, cable has 53 percent of the market.

    “Cable continues to be the preferred provider for television services. Cable launched the digital tier well after satellite started selling an all-digital service, yet its customer numbers surpass those of the combined DBS companies,” said CTAM President and CEO Char Beales.