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  • Global Mobile Web Usage Exploding


    Mobile Web and application usage is growing rapidly, according to mobile advertising agency AdMob.

    In its latest Mobile Metrics Report, the expansion is shown to be widely spread, with 34 countries sending more than 10 million ad requests to AdMob’s network in September 2008, compared to only 16 countries in September 2007.

    Celebrating its first anniversary, the reports states that since its launch the number of monthly ad requests in the AdMob network tripled from 1.6 billion in September 2007 to 5.1 billion in September 2008.

    The increase is attributed to a combination of organic growth from AdMob’s legacy publishers and the addition of thousands of new mobile sites and applications to the company’s publisher network.

    The number of mobile sites and applications in AdMob’s network increased to more than 6,000, with 4,308 publishers requesting ads in September 2008.

    Other highlights from the September 2008 report:

    Worldwide, the Apple iPhone is now the number 4 handset after the Motorola RAZR, Nokia N70, and Motorola KRZR. There were 103 million ad requests from iPhones worldwide in September 2008.

    In the US, 16 of the current Top 20 devices are new from September 2007, including the Samsung Instinct and Apple iPhone.

    In the UK, the Nokia N95 gained share steadily throughout the year and is now the leading handset with 9.7 per cent share of requests. The SonyEricsson K800i and W810i, the number 1 and number 5 handsets respectively in September 2007, both remain in the Top 5 a year later.

  • Virtualization Heads Gartner's Strategic Technology List


    Virtualization     is the technology with the potential for having the most “significant impact” on enterprises over the next three years, according to Gartner.

    Every year the analyst firm highlights the top 10 technologies and trends it predicts will be strategic for most organizations.

    Virtualization, which ranked fifth on Gartner’s list last year, has moved to the top slot for 2009.

    Gartner defines "significant impact" as including factors such as high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

    David Cearley, vice president at Gartner, said strategic technologies affect, run, grow and transform the business initiatives of an organization.

    "Companies should look at these 10 opportunities and evaluate where these technologies can add value to their business services and solutions, as well as develop a process for detecting and evaluating the business value of new technologies as they enter the market," he said.

    Cloud computing ranked second in the list, while servers came third.

  • Hitachi Unveils Midrange Storage Platform


    Hitachi Data Systems has unveiled its next-generation line-up of midrange storage systems, the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Series.

    The company says the ground-breaking new systems introduce a wide range of pioneering technologies previously unavailable on a midrange storage platform.

    It says they deliver improved performance, connectivity, scalability, reliability and ease-of-use to midrange customers.

    Customers benefit by implementing a sophisticated, cost-effective midrange storage platform that can scale to better address their growing storage environments and diverse application requirements.

    Mark Peters, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group, said that mid-sized businesses and operations have precisely the same challenges as larger ones.

    But he said the storage industry often met their needs for reduced scale and increased affordability with a significantly compromised feature set.

    "The new AMS products from Hitachi turn such old-fashioned notions on their head, providing mid-sized storage systems that blend advanced functionality and affordability with flexibility and ease of use,” he said.

    “Hitachi’s innovative combination of a SAS backend with an advanced active-active controller is what underpins the systems’ extensive capabilities, which users can access via a straightforward GUI.”

    The Hitachi AMS Series 2000 delivers up to 4x the performance compared to prior generations, and also offers storage consolidation for iSCSI, NAS, and Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) connections.

    The AMS Series 2000 is comprised of three models: the Hitachi AMS 2100, the Hitachi AMS 2300, and the Hitachi AMS 2500.

    The entire portfolio of midrange storage systems meets the benchmarking standard "Five 9’s" of availability, 99.999 per cent uptime.

    The new Hitachi AMS Series 2000 delivers the following:

    • The industry’s Hitachi Dynamic Load Balancing Controller turbocharges the storage system to peak levels of performance with virtually no-touch.
    • Unlike asymmetrical controller designs of traditional midrange storage systems, the breakthrough Hitachi Dynamic Load Balancing Controller eliminates typical bottlenecks and “hot spots” that can decrease I/O response times by monitoring utilization rates of each controller and dynamically enables workload balancing.
    • The industry’s first 3Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Backplane in a midrange storage platform, providing the fastest, most cost-effective way to process and transfer data through a storage controller engine.
    • This breakthrough technology curbs the architectural limitations of arbitrated loop designs with support for up to 32 3Gb/s high-performance point-to-point links that deliver a blistering 9600 MB/sec of bandwidth and dramatically speed data transfer.

  • Smartphone Users Offered Software To Scrub Data


    Smartphone users worried about what would happen to confidential info in old handsets can sleep a little easier.

    Aiko Solutions has come up with what it claims is an industry-first – software that really does erase all data from a smartphone, according to smartphone.biz-news.com.

    The solution could be good news for many people as a nearly a quarter of re-sold smartphones contain sensitive data, according to recent research.

    BlackBerry owners were the worst offenders for discarding their handsets with sensitive company and personal information.

    Aiko Solutions says SecuWipe is an advanced software utility to securely sanitize data on Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Windows CE handhelds.

  • SecuWipe Software Erases Smartphone Data


    Aiko Solutions has announced the public release of SecuWipe, a data erasure utility for PDAs and smartphones.

    Concerns over smartphone security have been rising steadily, not least because of the handsets’ great capacity for storing large amounts of corporate and personal information.

    Standard “deletion” and even a “hard reset” do not completely wipe data off the device, with the result that sensitive information can still be easily retrieved by using special recovery software.

    Aiko is claiming an industry first by offering software that overwrites data with US DoD (Department of Defense) compliant methods and makes data truly erased and unrecoverable.

    The security software developer says SecuWipe is an advanced software utility to securely sanitize data on Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Windows CE handhelds.

    It says the solution can be used to clean the Smartphone before recycling or to remove traces of online activity, SMS and calls records.

    “SecuWipe is the best choice for those who want to avoid security breaches and protect customer privacy,” according to a statement from the company.

    The program employs different data sanitizing algorithms, including zero-filling, U.S. DoD 5220.22-M method, Bruce Schneier’s algorithm, and Peter Gutman’s algorithm.

    SecuWipe will securely erase:

    • Contacts
    • Email, SMS, MMS messages
    • Calls
    • Appointments, Tasks
    • Notes, Recordings
    • Internet Cache, Cookies and History
    • Free Space
    • SD card(s)
    • Files and Folders

    SecuWipe is available as a demo version at no cost, and it can be downloaded. A single-user license can be securely purchased online for USD $39.95. Volume and academic pricing is available upon request.

  • SingleHop Offers 2 Gigs RAM Free


    Managed dedicated hosting provider, SingleHop, has announced that it has completed a free of charge, memory upgrade program.

    Over 900 SingleHop customers had less than 2 GB of RAM in their servers when the program commenced in July 2008.

    The company says now almost every customer has a minimum 2 GB of RAM.

    All new customers will receive a minimum of 2 GB of RAM in their servers, also free of charge.

    SingleHop allowed customers to schedule the time and date when their upgrade would be performed during the process.

    The entire program, valued at over USD $100,000, was aimed at increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction, as well as improving SingleHop’s competitiveness in the marketplace.

    Zak Boca, president of SingleHop, said two very important goals were accomplished through the upgrade program.

    “First we increased the satisfaction and loyalty of our existing clients by giving them an upgrade for free,” he said. “Second, we made our server offerings more competitive with the overall marketplace.”

    Boca said many hosting providers like to upgrade their packages for new clients, but don’t touch the packages for existing customers. He said this was counter-productive.

    “We’re just as concerned with keeping current customers happy as we are with attracting new ones,” he said.

    The third quarter of 2008 has seen a huge surge in SingleHop product offerings including:

    • the IPCast Pay-As-You-Go Content Delivery Network
    • the announcement of LEAP, the server manager webtop client portal
    • the company’s free 2GB RAM upgrade for existing clients
    • the release of Advanced Automatic Server Provisioning (AASP), a technology exclusive to SingleHop and LEAP, which drastically increases server installation time as well as reduces human error. Additionally LEAP features SingleHop’s exclusive IP ensure technology, which guarantees that clients will only receive clean IP addresses.

  • IBM Expands Storage Virtualization for SMBs


    IBM is to introduce a cheaper and less powerful version of it storage virtualization software for use by small and medium sized (SMB) businesses.

    The System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC) software is designed to help improve storage utilization rates, energy efficiency, administrator productivity, availability, and scalability of critical applications.

    It is intended to significantly improve the flexibility and responsiveness of IT infrastructures by creating consolidated, virtual pools of information.

    This is seen as a key issue for SMBs with exploding volumes of data that are looking to control costs while also responding to the changing business environment.

    Barry Rudolph, vice president, IBM System Storage, said the company had been the leader in storage virtualization since SVC was introduced five years ago.

    “By incorporating a more accessible and affordable product through our IBM Business Partners we are giving clients what they have been asking for – a way to incorporate green and efficient technologies into their information infrastructures to manage the data center crisis of today."

    SVC Entry Edition is planned to be generally available on November 21.

  • LifeSize Launches Full-HD Telepresence System


    LifeSize Communications has unveiled what it describes as the next generation in video communications – a full HD telepresence solution.

    The system provides life-size images and HD audio for as many as six participants at one time.

    Equipped with multiple camera inputs and dual monitors, it offers standards-based 1080p at 30 frames per second and 720p at 60 frames per second.

    LifeSize Room 200 also supports 720p30 dual streams enabling full-motion, high definition data sharing.

    The company claims that with twice the frame rate and half the latency of other HD systems, its new system delivers a communications experience rivaled only by being there in person.

    Craig Malloy, CEO and founder, LifeSize Communications, said Room 200 unlocked the power of telepresence for knowledge workers everywhere.

    The system is already being used by companies such as Reliance Industries Limited and The Blackstone Group.

    “Now more than ever in today’s economic climate customers are viewing high definition video as a critical lever to help them stay competitive, bridge their globally dispersed work groups, and reduce expenses, “ he said.

    Roopam Jain, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said LifeSize Room 200 was the industry’s first shipping 1080p30/720p60 Full HD offering.

    LifeSize Room 200 is now available for order with volume availability in early November 2008.

    Prices are expected to be around USD $17,000.

    For companies looking to cut their travel expenses, the idea of HD teleconferencing must look increasingly attractive.

  • Smartphones Will Remain Dominant Mobile Video Platform


    Smartphones will continue to be the device most used for watching mobile video, according to research firm In-Stat.

    The high-end handsets will not have it all their own way though.

    Over the next five years, they will be joined by over 160 million other devices that provide mobile video over networks now in exclusive use by cellphones.

    David Chamberlain, In-Stat analyst, said the entry of this broad range of new mobile devices able to display video will have a profound effect on the mobile video market

    He said the reach of new device choices will provide more markets for mobile operators, mobile broadcasters, advertisers and other content owners.

    "Even though cellphones and smartphones will remain the predominant method of viewing mobile video, over 160 million other devices that provide mobile video over networks now in exclusive use by cellphones will be sold in the next five years," said Chamberlain.

    Other findings in In-Stat’s report Global Cellular Video Devices: Internet Video Expands the Market include:

    • Shipments of 3G video-capable cellphones will increase at 11.2 per cent annual growth, reaching over 641 million by 2013.
    • The number and types of devices using digital mobile broadcast networks such as ISDB-T, DVB-H, MediaFLO, and DMB-T will expand to nearly 127 million in five years. China’s CMMB will make up over 12 per cent of those devices.
    • More than a half-billion devices capable of viewing Internet video over 3G networks will be sold in 2013. Cumulative sales will approach 2 billion units.

  • No Blu-ray For Macs – For Now


    Steve Jobs quashed suggestions that Apple would upgrade its Mac OS X Leopard to allow Blu-ray because of the cost of licensing and drives.

    Speaking at today’s notebook keynote, Jobs said: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. I don’t mean from the consumer point of view.

    “It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives."

    Apple was an early backer of Blu-ray, but has been silent about adding Blu-ray drives to its notebooks or desktop computers.

    Other manufactuers, such as Acer and HP , have already been shipping Blu-ray drives with their systems.

    Responding to a question about HDMI, Jobs said the connector interface was "limited in resolution".

    Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president, went on to say that "for typical computer use, DisplayPort is the connector of the future".

    Among the announcements at the special event were a redesigned MacBook Pro built using a new construction process similar to the one for the MacBook Air.