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  • iTunes "Closure" Threat Passes as Royalties Unchanged


    Whether Apple would have carried out it’s threat to close down its iTunes Store rather than operate at a loss will never be known.

    Apple had raised the possibility of shutting iTunes if the US Copyright Royalty Board decided to increase the royalty fees paid to publishers and songwriters.

    But the CRB opted to keep rates the same for digital music stores late last week, so removing any need for Apple to make good its closure threat.

    The three-member CRB kept the royalty rate at 9.1 cents, and mandated a 24-cent rate for ringtones.

    The board has never before established mechanical rates for digital files.

    With that little problem behind them Apple can now focus on other threats to iTunes’ dominance of the music download scene – like the launch of Nokia’s Comes With Music program.

  • Nokia Unveils Music-loving Touchscreen Phone


    Nokia finally unveiled its touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic.

    Dubbed the “Tube” during its development the 5800 is the first device to run the Symbian S60 5th Edition platform – S60 Touch.

    Aimed at a mainstream market, the Finnish phone giant is hoping to attract users put off by the price of Apple’s iPhone.

    To coincide with the announcement of its the mid-range music-focussed phone Nokia launched its’ free music package Comes with Music.

    This is being seen as a challenge to Apple’s dominance of the digital music market.

    The 5800 comes with a 3.2-inch, 640 x 360 touchscreen to go along with its 3.2-megapixel autofocus cam, Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash, GPS, WiFi, 3.5mm jack, and a microSD slot with support for 16GB cards.

    Nokia said it will be available in three versions – European HSDPA, North American HSDPA, and GSM only.

    The first version will be priced at just under €279 (around USD $400) and it will be followed early next year by a slightly more expensive version bundled with Comes with Music.

    The battle for mobile music is increasingly crowded, with Sony Ericsson launching its music package this month in Sweden, while South Korea’s LG Electronics plans a service similar to Nokia’s.

    Nokia’s package differs from others on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during a 12- month subscription period.

    There are no charges for tracks downloaded, since the cost is bundled to the phone price.

    The music package is being heralded as a genuine tool for fighting file-sharing as research has shown most consumers would be willing to pay for a service like Comes with Music.

    It is the prospect of users accessing millions of tracks for free that poses the biggest threat to Apple.

  • Hitachi Camcorder Wirelessly Streams HD


    Hitachi have been showing off a prototype digital camcorder that can stream HD video on a TV via a wireless LAN, according to Tech-On.

    The camcorder, which was being exhibited at CEATEC JAPAN 2008, can output video recorded on its HDD or video being shot live to a Hitachi HDTV.

    Video selection, playback, stop and other operations can be done using the TV’s remote control.

    Tech-On reported that the prototyped camcorder transmits the HD video compressed in the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format through an SDIO standard IEEE802.11g module and delivers it to a TV via an access point.

    DLNA is used to deliver already recorded video.

    Video being shot live is transmitted using the camcorder’s IPTV server capability.

    No details about when the camcorder is likely to be available commercially.

  • IT Managers Pushed To Cut Carbon Emissions


    Almost two-thirds of IT managers are being pressured to reduce their carbon footprints, according to a survey.

    The results show that 61 per cent are being directed to cut down on their energy usage and 60 per cent plan to reduce their carbon footprint within the next 18 months.

    The poll, commissioned by VAR Zycko among IT managers in the UK, also found that 70 per cent already have some green measures in place.

    These range from measures such as remote working and video conferencing facilities to reducing the need for employees to travel.

    The survey into green IT issues currently faced by medium to large UK businesses also identified major hurdles on the way to reducing carbon emissions.

    Almost two thirds (67%) of IT managers are unaware of how much power their data centre draws and less than half (45%) currently enforce shutting down of computers at night and on weekends.

    Six per cent have no policies in place at all.

    Lack of IT resources and cost were cited as the biggest barriers to becoming green (52%), with 23 per cent claiming they simply do not know what their options are. When asked where they get their information on environmental issues, 39 per cent claimed they rely on their suppliers.

  • DeFi Offers Worldwide Wifi VoIP


    DeFi Mobile has launched a new service that aims to reduce international mobile roaming charges by substituting wifi VoIP for cellular calls whenever possible.

    DeFi Global Access lets customers use their dual-mode cellular/wifi handsets to make calls through international wifi hotspots.

    It costs USD $40 per month and gives users a phone number in the country of their choice – currently from a list of 40.

    This allows them to make and receive unlimited global wifi calls.

    For an extra USD $10 per month customers can have two more numbers in any of the listed countries, so that friends and relatives in those locations can phone them for the price of a local call.

    The flat monthly fee lets customers connect through the hotspots of a longlist of operators, including AT&T Wireless, FON, free-hotspot.com, Orange France SA, T-Mobile International AG and VEX.

    DeFi says it has arranged more than 50 partnerships that provide wifi access in upward of 75 countries, 15,000 hotels and 120 airports.

    Jeff Rice, CEO of DeFi, said to ensure call quality customers would have direct connections with hundreds of telecom carriers through a colocation center in a major undersea cable landing station.

    Users download client software to their handset – currently it’s available for Nokia Symbian handsets, with other versions coming.

    The software automaticaly makes a connection when the handset is in range of an accessible hotspot, and routes calls over the DeFi network rather than the cellular network.

  • VUDU Offers HD Rentals That Rival Blu-ray


    VUDU has launched a new video format that rivals Blu-ray.

    Called HDX, it delivers full 1080p at 24 fps to screens 40 inches and up via web distribution using VUDU’s TruFilm compression technology.

    Just to put the icing on the cake, the company says it won’t be charging extra for HDX titles.

    While VUDU made no reference to Blu-ray in making its announcement, comments from Mark Jung, CEO of VUDU, can be taken as a challenge to the HD disc format.

    He said HDX raised the bar on picture quality for HD movies delivered on-demand, over the air, satellite or Internet and across the entire video landscape.

    “Accelerating consumer adoption of large screen HDTVs has fueled strong demand for the kind of viewing experience and picture quality only HDX can deliver,” he said.

    In August, the BDA reacted swiftly to the DISH Network’s claims that its “full” HDTV 1080p/25Hz image matched Blu-ray quality.

    But David Mercer, principal analyst at Strategy Analytics, suggested satellite providers are competing primarily with cable and IPTV companies, and not with the Blu-ray Disc format itself.

    Delivery times are the big snag to HDX with most broadband connections taking 3-4 hours per title.

    But as there are currently only 65 movies available in the HDX format, it’s maybe just as well.

    While the HDX films are only for rental it is hoped that a purchase option will be offered in the future.

  • Copyright Ruling To Close iTunes?


    The future of Apple’s iTunes music store could be decided today if the Copyright Royalty Board backs a proposal to raise royalties.

    At least that’s what iTunes’ vice president, Eddy Cue, told the CRB.

    He has warned that Apple would close iTunes if the board agrees to the increased rates proposed by the National Music Publishers’ Association.

    The NMPA wants to raise the royalties paid to its members on songs purchased from digital music stores like iTunes.

    The NMPA wants to levy a 66 per cent increase – raising the charge from nine cents a track to 15 cents.

    Apple, the US’s largest music retailer, postures that it would rather shut iTunes than pay the higher rate.

    “If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss–which is no alternative at all,” Cue wrote in a statement submitted to the CRB last year.

    “Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

    With revenues estimated at USD $1.9 billion in revenue last year there would seem to be some slack for absorbing the 6-cents-a-track royalty increase.

    Or maybe they could just pass it on to consumers and blame the NMPA!

  • HP Boosts Virtualization Options With Purchase Of LeftHand Networks


    Hewlett-Packard is to spend USD $360 million in cash to buy storage virtualization company LeftHand Networks.

    The company covers two areas currently receiving a lot of attention – allocating storage for virtualized servers and the using Ethernet for storage networks.

    LeftHand Networks’ solutions enable midsize companies and remote offices or branches of large corporations to easily and cost-effectively protect critical business data.

    The company’s software allows a user to create a storage “cloud” connected via iSCSI, an Ethernet standard rather than the proprietary Fibre Channel networking that dominates the storage industry.

    The software could run on IBM and HP servers.

    Founded in 1999, LeftHand Networks is privately held and headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

    It has 215 employees and more than 500 resellers and distributors worldwide. The company has more than 11,000 installations across 3,000 different customers.

    Dave Roberson, senior vice president and general manager, StorageWorks Division, HP, said the acquisition of LeftHand Networks significantly expanded HP’s storage portfolio.

    "Customers need a faster, less complex and more economical route to storage networking to better protect their critical business data,” he said.

    The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed in HP’s first fiscal quarter of 2009.

    Following completion, the business will be integrated into the HP StorageWorks division within the Technology Solutions Group at HP.

  • Cicero delivers Mobile Video over IP


    Cicero Networks has announced the release of CiceroPhone V2oIP (Voice and Video) for Nokia E series and N series handsets.

    In what it claims is the world’s first real-time, two-way IP video application for Nokia phones, the software enables high quality video telephony over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networks.

    CiceroV2oIP provides video streaming using either the front or back camera on phones and simultaneously displays both the outgoing and incoming video streams to both parties on a call.

    The application also supports a range of half-duplex video applications, including “see-what-I-see” video sharing on any Series 60 Nokia device.

    Ross Brennan, CEO of Cicero Networks, said there was a demand from operators and service providers for services that made the most of both their fixed and mobile assets.

    CiceroPhone is SIP and 3GPP standards compliant, allowing it to be used in conjunction with an operator’s existing IP infrastructure.

    Cicero said that interoperability had already been proven with the IP and IMS communication platforms of the world’s leading network equipment providers.

  • Business World May Be Rocked By IP PBX – But Not Yet


    Industry hype surrounding unified communications (UC) may cause seismic shifts across the business world – but the changes could take up to a generation to impact.

    That’s the findings of a study by In-Stat into UC such as IP PBX and how they will make fundamental differences to how people work.

    David Lemelin, an analyst at the company, said: "Real transformational changes will take more time, perhaps even a generation, to accomplish.

    "But it’s possible that a new generation, dubbed ‘Millennials’, bringing to the workplace communications habits formed in their early years, portends more rapid adoption."

    The sorts of changes likely to be adopted at work include personal habits, like text messaging and social networking.

    The study also dealt with suggestions that around 50 per cent of enterprises are either evaluating, installing or already running UC applications.

    In-Stat said the claims about UC uptake could prove accurate because definitions of UC are so wide-ranging, including both instant messaging and IP PBX.

    A survey in June by Interactive Intelligence found that 87 per cent of businesses were planning on investing in UC, with VoIP and SIP driving the move.