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  • Apple Devices Dominate Mobile Wi-Fi Use


    iPhone owners are the single largest source of mobile WiFi data traffic worldwide, particularly in the US and UK, according to AdMob.

    In the US, the Apple handset represents 50.6 per cent of all requests from handhelds of any kind, followed by the iPod touch, which accounts for 28 per cent of the requests.

    The best non-Apple device, Sony’s PSP, only manages 13.1 per cent of this traffic.

    Even further down the scale come the T-Mobile Dash, G1 and various BlackBerries, which each have less than one per cent of WiFi use.

    UK figures are similarly weighted and give the iPhone the lead at 46.1 per cent, followed by the iPod touch at 21.8 per cent and Nokia’s N95 at 16.7 per cent.

    The Apple device is also more than twice as likely to be used on Wi-Fi than other devices and is used 42 per cent of the time on these hotspots in the US rather than EDGE or 3G compared to no more than 10 to 20 per cent for competitors.

    In the UK, this reaches 56 per cent.

    The phone’s presence helped roughly double the use of mobile WiFi to 8 per cent in both countries between October and November.

    Increasing numbers of smartphone users are taking advantage of WiFi to make voice calls over IP networks.

  • Movial Launches HD Video Calling for PCs


    Movial has announced a new software application that offers PC-to-PC, and PC-to-Mobile HD video.

    Victor Donselaar, president of Movial, said the Communicator PC 7.2 HD video calling technology significantly reduces the CPU and bandwidth utilization compared to other technologies.

    He said this enables users to run multiple applications at the same time.

    The video technology comes complete with high-quality, high-resolution, real-time, two-way video communications and advanced voice processing technology.

    It allows tight lip-synching of video and voice, which Donselaar said allows for much more natural conversation.

    “With Movial Communicator PC 7.2, subscribers can see and talk to a person as if they were sitting in front of them,” he said.

    “With high-speed Internet connectivity more readily available and video capture and display costs decreasing, users can finally enjoy a much richer multimedia face-to-face encounter."

    Movial also announced that it has signed a deal with Cyta, the leading telecommunications company in Cyprus, which has launched an IMS PC play with its broadband telephony service bundle, powered by Communicator PC 7.2.

  • XStreamHD Beams "Blu-ray" Quality Video Direct-to-Home


    XStreamHD has successfully tested a transport system that delivers Full HD movies, music, and games directly to subscriber homes via satellite.

    The system, tested on the AMC-16 satellite at 85 degrees west ongitude, will be able to provide content throughout North America.

    XStreamHD, which first announced its plans for the innovative new satellite delivery system in January at CES 2008, had expected to launch the service in October.

    George Gonzalez, founder and CEO of XStreamHD, said today that the service will be able to deliver Full HD (1080p) content to homes, independent of Internet or cable congestion, by unlocking existing FSS (Fixed Satellite Service) capacity.

    He said the XStreamHD test had shown that the network’s could deliver Blu-ray quality video with up to 7.1 lossless channels of DTS Master Audio.

    The company is to offer its customers access to movies, HDTV, music and electronic games.

    There’s no word yet about partnerships for movies or HDTV content but as XStreamHD will be showcasing its transport system next month at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, more might be revealed then.

  • VUDU Brings The Web To TV


    VUDU has launched a new platform that brings Web-hosted applications and services to consumer appliances, including its own Internet movie player.

    The VUDU RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform will deliver TV shows as well as Web apps which enable users to share their photos and watch the tens of millions of YouTube videos on their HDTVs.

    The company plans to open VUDU RIA up to third party developers in the first half of 2009.

    Prasanna Ganesan, VUDU’s Chief Technical Officer, said the goal in creating the new platform was to allow anyone with Web development skills to easily author Internet-driven applications for the TV.

    "We are very pleased with the results and look forward to opening up VUDU RIA to the developer community," he said.

    VUDU says it plans to add more applications and services throughout 2009.

    Edward Lichty, executive Vice President of Strategy and Content, said VUDU RIA enabled customers to quickly open up huge libraries of web based content to TVs in living rooms around America.

    The company has created an initial set of applications and services in a new area of the VUDU home page, called VUDU Labs. It is available to all VUDU owners in the US amd has applications that include casual games, implementations of Flickr, Picasa and the entire YouTube library, as well as a new "On Demand TV" area with more than 120 channels.

    These include free on-demand shows provided by major network television and on-line specialty sites spanning news, food, music and sports.

  • Growth Strong In HD Videoconferencing and Telepresence


    A third of videoconferencing managers report that the economic crisis is likely to lead to an accelerated deployment of equipment rather than a slowdown.

    A survey from Wainhouse Research reports that customers are continuing to invest in "visual collaboration solutions", even in the current economic climate.

    It says the two largest drivers for this are travel reduction and improved decision making.

    Nearly a quarter of respondents have either deployed telepresence suites or are planning on deploying within one year.

    It’s not just full-room telepresence systems that are experiencing growth but videoconferencing solutions generally, including desktop videoconferencing applications.

    Wainhouse’s annual survey of videoconferencing end users indicates that in the past year, both interest in and purchases of more advanced visual solutions have increased dramatically.

    The results shows that 32 per cent of respondents have systems that can now support 720p HD videoconferencing.

    To support these and other unified communications applications, customers are continuing their migration to IP, with users reporting that 76 per cent of video calls now take place on an IP network – up from 66 per cent one year earlier.

    In addition, interest in integrating videoconferencing to unified communications platforms has grown significantly, according to the report.

  • Seadragon App Is Microsoft's First For iPhone


    Microsoft’s Live Labs has released its first application for the iPhone.

    Seadragon Mobile is an experimental image viewer that aims to make high-resolution images easier to handle on a small screen.

    It allows users to view enormous photo collections and high-resolution imagery using the iPhone’s multi-touch intuitive interface.

    The application provides a Deep Zoom feature to enable smooth image browsing of lots of images as well as simple manipulation of massive, gigapixel images.

    Alex Daley, group product manager for Microsoft Live Labs, said the iPhone had been chosen to launch the app because it is the most widely distributed phone with a graphics processing unit.

    "Most phones out today don’t have accelerated graphics in them," he said. "The iPhone does and so it enabled us to do something that has been previously difficult to do.

    "I couldn’t just pick up a Blackberry or a Nokia off the shelf and build Seadragon for it without GPU support."

    Microsoft’s goal for Seadragon is nothing if not ambitious – essentially it wants to change the way screens are used, be they wall-sized displays or smartphone screens, so that graphics and photos are smoothly browsed, regardless of the amount of data or the bandwidth of the network.

    Seadragon Mobile is available immediately on the iTunes App Store as a free download.

  • Palm Announces Successor To CFO Andy Brown


    Palm has announced that Douglas C. Jeffries has been appointed as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

    Previously chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries will join Palm in January as replacement for Andy Brown.

    In addition to his role as chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries has held financial and information technology leadership roles at GenCorp, Red Herring Communications and Cardinal Health. Jeffries began his career at Price Waterhouse, is a CPA and holds an MBA from the University of Southern California.

    The executive changes come as Palm is about to launch what is being widely seen as the key to its future – a smartphone platform called Nova.

    It is also releasing an App Store for its Palm OS and Windows Mobile-based smartphones along the lines of Apple and Google’s software ventures.

    The beleaguered handset maker is beset by falling sales as it struggles in the smartphone market.

    In mid-2007, Palm hired Jon Rubenstein, formerly an Apple product development specialist who led development on the iMac and iPod, to help revive its fortunes.

    Rubenstein has said that Nova will bridge the market between enterprise-oriented BlackBerry devices from Research In Motion and more consumer-centric ones like Apple’s iPhone 3G.

  • iPhone As A Netbook?


    Predictions about Apple’s intentions for the upcoming Macworld Expo are ripe – with the latest being the launch of a netbook that works like an iPhone.

    Technology Business Research analyst Ezra Gottheil believes that as with the iPhone, users will download mobile applications for the netbook from Apple’s App Store.

    According to the analysts, Apple would benefit from allowing such a device access to its App Store, through which Apple reports iPhone users have downloaded more than 300 million apps since its launch in July.

    Gottheil claims Apple will announce its a netbook-like device at next month’s Macworld conference in San Francisco and will launch it in the middle of 2009.

    While Apple as always is giving nothing away, one thing is certain: this Macworld Expo will be Apple’s last appearance at the event.

    The company has announced that chief executive Steve Jobs will not be giving the keynote at the event that is traditionally Apple’s largest of the year.

    Instead, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of product marketing, is to give the keynote on Tuesday January 6, 2009.

    While the move will undoubtedly reignite speculation about Jobs’ health, successor and a myriad of other issues, the only explanation from Apple came in a statement saying: "Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris."

  • Tried PC Videoconferencing – Well How About On An HDTV?


    With webcams now commonplace on PCs and laptops it seems natural that they should take the next step – to HDTVs.

    Videoconferencing expert Emblaze VCON says it has developed technology that allows up to six different users to interact through home TV screens.

    Linor Shachar, VP sales and marketing for the Israeli company, told hdtv.biz-news that it hoped to have found a partner "within months" to develop its TV videoconferencing solution.

    Emblaze is best known for its desktop videoconferencing applications.

    She said having the ability to videoconference from your home HDTV set was the logical "next stage" with the advent of internet-connected televisions.

    "It’s very interesting and we are very confident that it will be everywhere," she said.

    "We have the technology, now we are looking for a partner."

    Shachar said the preferred partnership was with a TV manufacturer and the intention was to have the technology embedded rather than as a set-top box.

    She said companies such as LG were already working on HDTVs with built-in cameras.

    The Emblaze technology will allow a user to open up to six windows on the screen and videotalk with others.

    "So, for instance, you might be watching a football match on TV and want to speak to a friend," said Shachar.

    "You can do that through a window within the main TV screen."

  • VoIP Business Phone Systems Made Simple


    As VoIP increasingly shifts into the mainstream more businesses are going through the process of selecting the best phone systems for their needs.


    VoIP.biz-news asked Terry Martin, CEO of Coms PLC, to explain some of the options surrounding business VoIP and offer some basic guidelines for SMEs.

    Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony uses the internet to make and receive phone calls using a broadband connection instead of standard phone lines.

    As broadband bandwidth increases, call quality and reliability has also greatly improved, making VoIP a realistic option for every business.

    However, as with all technologies, the options and choices can be just as confusing as the technology itself. There are four primary types of internet telephone system:

    • Free IP-PBX: Download free software and setup your own VoIP IP-PBX server
    • Managed IP-PBX: A vendor will install and manage an IP-PBX server on your premises
    • Hosted IP-PBX: A supplier delivers a VoIP service without a server on your premises
    • Add a VoIP Gateway or Card to your existing, traditional PBX.

    By far, the simplest, and most flexible options is the Hosted IP-PBX service which is centrally monitored, updated and managed.

    This means that the customer pays a monthly bill and the day to day management of the service is taken care of by the service provider.

    A hosted service provides all the benefits that might be expected in a VoIP solution but takes away the stress and confusion.

    Terry Martin, CEO ComsPLC

    But how can small and medium sized businesses benefit from a hosted VoIP service?

    Firstly, customers are immediately updated when new features are available. This means there is no expensive equipment upgrade a few years down the road.

    Scalability is an important point for ambitious, growing companies as customers only pay for the seats they need on a monthly basis. With a hosted service, extra network members can be added to a system at the click of a button without the cost of a new line.

    With a hosted VoIP service, the customer can integrate teleworkers and customer service lines through their own broadband connections. In addition, features such as an automated switchboard, voicemail to email, and conference calling for example, come as standard with most business packages.

    A hosted VoIP service is very mobile and lends itself well to remote working. Using a dual mode mobile, such as the new Nokia e Series range, the customer can access their network via a Wi-Fi connection and continue to make VoIP calls at the same minimal cost as they would in the office.

    Companies can choose which number they want to use wherever they are in the world. Businesses can take an ‘020’ number and adopt a virtual London presence. This means that companies have the freedom to move premises or even countries and keep the same contact number.

    The most notable advantage, however, is the dramatic financial savings available. Calls to other network members, for instance other regional offices, teleworkers, stockists or special clients, are free of charge. Also customers save substantial amounts on maintenance, line rental and upgrades as it is all centrally managed.

    What should SMEs consider when implementing a VoIP service?

    There are a number of questions that companies should consider before implementing a service:

    • Does the provider offer the whole range of geographic, non-geographic and International numbers?
    • Does the provider have any technology to compress more calls down a standard DSL line? Most SMEs use a standard ADSL broadband line and VoIP calls take up a lot of bandwidth. If the service uses technology to cut down the amount of bandwidth used on each call, then more calls can be made at the same time.
    • What are the disaster recovery systems in place if your IP connection is down? Should disaster strike and the broadband connection fail, what emergency processes are in place as back up.
    • What does the service provider offer in terms of quality, reliability and scalability?
    • Does the provider offer number portability to ensure you keep your existing numbers?
    • What support services are offered?
    • How competitive are the rates?
    • Can the provider support mobile devices and provision them over the air?

    About Coms Plc

    Coms Plc was founded by Jason Drummond in 2000. Coms.Net is the core service of Coms Plc, which provides a VoIP business telephony service.
    The Coms.Net solution is based upon the industry standard SIP protocol, which enables the widest possible connection of customers, devices and integrated Web 2.0 applications.
    Coms Plc is an OFCOM authorised Public Electronic Communications Network (PECN) and a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA). Coms Plc is also listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM market (LSE:COMS).