Business News Holding

Blog

  • Micron First To Deliver Native SATA 6Gb/s SSD

    Micron claims it has raised the performance bar for SSDs with the launch of its RealSSD C300 SSD, the industry’s fastest for notebook and desktop PCs.

    While benchmark tests have shown that the C300 SSD is the fastest PC SSD leveraging the industry standard SATA 3Gb/s interface, the SSD performance is further boosted by natively supporting the next generation high-speed interface – SATA 6Gb/s, according to Micron.

    “While some drive architectures require a trade-off between throughput-sensitive and IOPS-sensitive data streams, Micron’s core design and higher speed interface provides advantages for both,” the company says.

    The C300 SSD leverages the SATA 6Gb/s interface to achieve a read throughput speed of up to 355MB/s and a write throughput speed of up to 215MB/s. Using the common PC Mark Vantage scoring system, the C300 SSD turns in a score of 45,000 from the HDD Suite.

    “Hard drives gain little performance advantage when using SATA 6Gb/s because of mechanical limitations,” said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron.

    “As a developer of leading-edge NAND technology, along with our sophisticated controller and firmware innovations, Micron is well positioned to tune our drives to take full advantage of the faster speeds achieved using the SATA 6Gb/s interface. The combination of these technology advancements has enabled the RealSSD C300 drive to far outshine the competition,” he added.

    The RealSSD C300 drive was designed using micron’s established 34nm MLC NAND flash memory. Bringing another first to SSDs, Micron’s 34nm MLC NAND supports the high-speed ONFI 2.1 standard and it’s expected to ensure the NAND performance keeps pace with the faster SATA 6Gb/s interface.

    The drives will be available in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, with both drives supporting 128GB and 256GB capacities. The company informed they are currently sampling the C300 SSD in limited quantities and expects to enter production in the first quarter of 2010.

  • LG Rolls Out 3D LCDs with Full HD Resolution

    LG announced the world’s first commercial launch of 3D LCD panel boasting full HD resolution.

    Although full HD 3D images have been developed for contents such as video games, movies and animations, 3D display products with full HD resolution were unavailable in the market.

    According to LG, the commercial launch of its full HD 3D LCD panel is expected to “help to boost development of high resolution 3D contents while allowing users to view true-to-life 3D images.”

    The new product is a 23-inch 3D monitor LCD panel for use with shutter glasses that delivers full HD resolution. LG syas it offers picture quality that is almost twice as crisp as HD 3D displays currently available in the market.

    The panel adopts the company’s proprietary technologies such as “high performance 3D exclusive controller” capable of processing more than twice as much image data as other HD 3D LCDs and “copper bus line” to improve on the resolution and picture quality, as LG claims.

    In addition, the panel is able to reproduce both 2D and 3D images, meaning that users can switch back and forth from 2D and 3D modes.

    The 3D display market is expected to grow at rapid pace as the industry players are shifting their focus from two-dimensional to three-dimensional technologies.

    The Korea Communications Commission recently announced plans to start a trial service for the world’s first full HD 3D terrestrial broadcasting from the second half of 2010. A launch of trial services for 3D satellite broadcasts had been also announced earlier in Japan and the UK.

  • Mobile Business Advertising Made Easy with Peperoni Mobile

    Doing business on the web is vital, the next major step is doing business on the go, and that requires mobility.

    Mobile content is catapulting companies into an entirely new market of individuals consuming content as they move from place to place. Companies making their content mobile are seeing huge results compared to those that have not taken that step.

    Peperoni Mobile & Internet Software is a company that is offering a complete mobile solution for businesses. Their site states that “Peperoni develops and operates solutions for mobile communities, online shops and individual software solutions.”

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com recently had the pleasure of interviewing Marcus Ladwig, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Peperoni and discussing the use of mobility services, how businesses are expanding, and what the future has in store for businesses and Peperoni alike.

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com: Share with us a little about Peperoni Mobile & Internet Software and what mobile platforms you support.

    Marcus Ladwig: Peperoni is a Wireless Application Service Provider focused on Mobile Web 2.0 applications. Our mobile social networking and site building platform peperonity.com works browser-based and is supported by a number of small clients. This means that anyone with a mobile internet-enabled handset can use our services via the built-in WAP or WWW browser. It does not matter what make and model the handset is – our platform automatically selects the optimum display available for that device to make best use of its capabilities. peperonity.com is available both in WAP and Web and supports 11 languages right now. It’s really a worldwide service.

    Marcus Ladwig

    What type of business can be done via your platform and when a company would consider using your services?

    peperonity.com offers advertisement slots all over the platform. Companies can reach their target audience easily by advertising to our mobile social services and tap into formerly unaddressed target audiences. We offer attractive CPM and CPC advertisement models and we are open for sponsorships, whether for particular devices or in certain sections of the platform.

    Share with us your thoughts on the explosion of the mobile market.

    With more and more web services offering mobile extensions and more web-centric people becoming aware of the mobile world, the market is growing at a rapid pace. What’s also important is that all participants in the mobile market make clear what their USP is in mobile and what kind of audience they are addressing. But it’s good to be finally taken serious as an industry sector.

    Do you see the future of business being handled more on mobile devices, as opposed to computers and laptops, or do you see mobile devices only remaining as a supplementary tool to existing platforms?

    I don’t think it’s a question of either this or that – mobile and PC are two different worlds and like with TV and PC business, there are and will be brands that are successful on TV, others are on PC’s and there are those that make use of both media. But there will always be a particular medium firstly associated with it. For example, CNN is a TV station but also has a sophisticated website. EBAY is a website but has a mobile extension. peperonity is a mobile platform with a web interface and so on. Mobile is the 4th screen besides Print, TV and Online and therefore, cross-media brands will need to include mobile into their portfolio in order to be taken seriously …

    How do you compare business done via mobile devices between Europe, Asia, and the United States?

    To me it seems as if European customers are the most willing to pay for extra services, while Asian customers make up for the most usage. US customers seem quite over-fed with advertising bringing click rates and ad prices down. Plus, European and US markets face the problem of lower conversion rates as customers still associate mobile with being ripped-off by some strange subscription-based ring tone services.

    You’ll be speaking on Dec. 7th at the Mobile Monday event in Switzerland, share with us the topic you’ll be speaking about, and will you be showcasing anything at that event?

    The topic of my presentation will be "Keys to successful community growth with mobile" and I will be talking about success factors in mobile social networks, how platforms converge and what challenges and opportunities social services are facing in a changing environment with spoiled customers. One of the highlights I will be showing will be our new and completely refurbished web interface which we hope to be launching in the beginning of 2010.

  • Samsung Begins Volume Production of 30-nm-class, 3-bit MLC NAND Flash Chips

    Samsung announced that it commenced the industry’s first volume production of 3-bit, multi-level-cell NAND flash chips using 30-nm-class process technology at the end of November.

    The chips will be used in NAND flash modules accompanied by Samsung 3-bit NAND controllers to initially produce 8 GB microSD cards.

    According to Samsung, three-bit MLC NAND increases the efficiency of NAND data storage by 50 percent over today’s pervasive 2-bit MLC NAND chips and provides consumers with effective NAND-based storage that can be applied to USB flash drives in addition to a range of micro SD cards.

    The company claims mass production of 30nm 3-bit NAND will significantly raise the portion of NAND flash memory production devoted to high densities (32Gb and above), designed to accommodate increased video usage.

    Samsung also announced other NAND advancements – the industry’s first mass production of its 30-nm-class, 32 Gb, MLC NAND memory with an asynchronous DDR interface.

    The company said it began shipping initial production of its DDR NAND to major OEMs at the end of November.

    DDR NAND is expected to raise the read performance of mobile devices requiring high-speeds and large amounts of storage space. Samsung’s new DDR MLC NAND chip, which reads at 133 Mbps would replace single data rate MLC NAND, which has an overall read performance of 40Mbps.

    Use of 30nm-class DDR NAND enables premium memory cards to register 60Mbps read speeds, at least a 300 percent performance gain compared to SDR NAND-based memory cards with an average 17Mbps read speed.

    According to market research firm Gartner Dataquest, the global NAND flash memory market is forecast to be worth US$13.8 billion in 2009 and reach US$23.6 billion by 2012.

  • XO Unveils New Enterprise SIP

    BroadSoft and XO Communications announced a new enterprise-class, multi-site SIP trunking solution offered by XO.

    XO Enterprise SIP is an enhanced SIP trunking service offering for large enterprises, that enables them to transform their distributed PBX/PSTN interconnection to a “more centralized and cost-effective” VoIP solution.

    According to the companies, enterprises can deploy a centralized IP-PBX in one or several primary locations and deliver VoIP services to other sites across their network. Businesses can also configure trunk capacity across their network, providing each site with on-demand access to unused call capacity.

    “This will greatly reduce capital expenses and operating costs of managing voice services and equipment at each location,” says BroadSoft.

    Based on the latest release of BroadWorks, XO Enterprise SIP uses Enterprise Trunking feature set of the BroadWorks VoIP application platform to “simplify management of VoIP services” and ensure business continuity across an enterprise’s network.

    It provides support for multiple, redundant SIP trunk groups per PBX/IP PBX, enterprise-level call capacity and "bursting" in support of multi-site enterprise environments, new caller ID screening features for enterprise least-cost-routing and improved interoperability with non-SIPconnect compliant IP PBXs.

    XO Communications currently uses BroadWorks to support its flagship XO IP Flex and XO SIP integrated access service offerings targeted at the small and mid-sized business market.

    The companies say large enterprises with multi-site locations such as banks, international financial institutions, retail stores and professional services firms, have unique requirements when it comes to SIP trunking deployments.

    “It is often the case where a single, large IP PBX provides for an entire 50,000 person organization; therefore, loss of PSTN connectivity can have a major impact on business operations,” they claim.

    "SIP trunking is a strategic decision for large enterprises today. Supporting more than half of the Fortune 500, XO Communications required a solution that could not only meet the stringent reliability and diverse topology requirements of their large enterprise customers, but also provide cost certainty and dynamic, on-demand scalability," said David Bukovsky, vice president of products at BroadSoft

    Vince Margiotta, vice president of product marketing at XO Communications assures that XO Enterprise SIP eliminates the inefficiencies of legacy voice services in a managed IP network environment.

  • Boeing Ships HD Broadcasting Satellite DIRECTV 12 to Launch Site

    Boeing, who has provided advanced satellite systems to DIRECTV for more than 16 years, announced that DIRECTV 12 was shipped Nov. 25 from Boeing’s satellite manufacturing facility in El Segundo to the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facility in Kazakhstan.

    Upon arrival, the satellite will undergo final preparations for a December launch aboard an International Launch Services Proton/Breeze M rocket.

    DIRECTV 12 is the 11th satellite Boeing has built for DIRECTV. According to the company, the new satellite will increase DIRECTV’s high-definition capacity by 50 percent, and when combined with the DIRECTV 10 and 11 satellites that launched in 2007 and 2008, will enable DIRECTV to deliver 200 national and 1,500 local HDTV channels to “millions of U.S. households”.

    DIRECTV 12’s national and spot-beam Ka-band payloads are designed to receive and transmit programming throughout the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii.

    "The successful launch and deployment of DIRECTV 12 will bring the best in digital television programming to DIRECTV’s more than 18.4 million customers across the United States," assured Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems.

    Forbes.com has recently named the DIRECTV iPhone app one of the Best Branded Mobile Applications of 2009.

    A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world’s largest manufacturer of military aircraft.

  • Canalys Mobility Forum: Interview with Patrick Remy, VP Devices for Orange Group

    The Canalys Mobility Forum EMEA 2009 took place in London on the 17th of November.

    A highly informative event which gave industry experts insights into the evolution of the pc and phone industries for the coming years, it specifically developed a discussion around the dynamics of the netbook and smartphone sectors.

    Biz-News.com was with Patrick Remy, VP Devices for Orange Group a young French industry professional that is based in London. Patrick gave us some insights into the work of Orange Group and how it is managing to keep on top in a market that is continuously changing and where customers are growingly more demanding with the devices and services operators offer.

    At the event, great relevance was given to the smartphone sector, focusing on the various existing operating platforms and making special emphasis on Andriod as the platform to watch out for. As a special note attendants were told to look towards Asia, this is where most of the innovation is coming from.

    The event also covered the evolution of the netbook market, questioning its margins which are very low when compared to Notebooks and specially when compared to the smartpone sector. The recent introduction into the market of the Google Navigator and the effect it has had in the PND market was also discussed, something to keep an eye on as Google expands its service to more cities.

  • fring Brings World’s First Video Calls to the iPhone

    Just a week after fring brought world’s first video calls over IP to mobile, the company announced “the first ever” mobile video calls over internet for the iPhone.

    fring video enables users to conduct video calls with other users as well as with Skype contacts over their device’s Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection, with support for mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-desktop calls.

    The company says this is the first video over internet service on the iPhone or iPod touch.

    The new fring version with video calls support is currently available to users with iPhone/ iPod touch OS 3.0 and selected Nokia Symbian S60 devices (Nokia X6, N97 mini, N97, 5800, N95 8G and N95).

    For the iPhone only incoming video-stream is available (due to the location of the camera). 2-way video streaming is available for Symbian devices.

    “We were the first to bring mobile voice over internet to mobile devices, the first to bring iPhone/ iPod touch users the choice to make free Internet calls, the first to enable cost-saving mobile twitter over internet, and now we’re proud to continue leading the field of rich mobile-internet communication by bringing users the world’s first fring video calls over internet for the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring.

    “As the mobile VoIP trail-blazers since this industry’s inception, we have a responsibility to continue breaking the mobile-internet barriers, and bringing users all the choices, richness and always-on connectivity that internet communications on mobile can deliver,” he added.

    The new video feature is embedded within the popular fring application that enables free voice calls to other fring, Skype and GTalk users as well as friends on regular phone lines via Skype-Out and SIP services.

  • A New Vision of Mobile Social Networking: Interview with Olivier Chouraki, Mobiluck

    Mobiluck is another company that has rapidly realized the need for mobile information and mobile geo-locating people and places.

    Many companies are moving to the mobile space for a variety of reasons, but businesses that make the jump sooner tend to see the benefits much earlier and the relationships between users and companies tends to be stronger.

    Companies providing mobile web content, mobile media, mobile conversation tools, and mobile entertainment are finding themselves ahead of the curve and supplying their audiences with exactly what they need.

    Specifically, Mobiluck is a mobile service that allows users to find friends, places, and even people nearby with their smartphone. If you’ve got an account on Skype, AIM, or MSN for example, those friends can be included on the Mobiluck system, and their locations relative to yours will be shared and if they are nearby, what a great way to notify them.

    When asked if importing of contacts is remainst strictly to chat clients, Oliver Chouraki, CEO of Mobiluck says, “Yes at the moment you can import your MSN and other chat client contacts and we are working on Facebook and Twitter.”

    The service offered by Mobiluck is a location based service that is a more real life social network, allowing users to connect no matter where they are. Many will relate it to the online site, FriendFinder, but Mobiluck specializes in using the contacts you have on your programs and sharing just how far they are away from you.

    Oliver Chouraki

    Currently the service has 1.2 million people worldwide. “Our first place country is India, followed by the United States with rising numbers in Europe and the Middle East,” states Olivier on the rising popularity of the service.

    The Importance of Location Technology

    The concept of location technology is nothing new, we’ve been using these types of services on our GPS systems and on our cell phones with apps like FourSquare. Mobiluck is a social system that goes beyond connecting people with businesses, they look to connect people with people.

    If you look at the homepage on Mobiluck you will see simple text boxes where you can enter a keyword and you have ready buttons to search for places, friends, or people.

    “It’s not just tied to people you know, you can also search for people you don’t know so that you can meet new people who are at the same conference or in the same restaurant or at the same show and so on,” details Olivier.

    “We think that mobile social networks are extremely popular but today it is difficult to monetize and to create a profitable social network. On the other hand, the business model for yellow pages services, business directories, restaurant directories is very clear and can be very profitable. So what we are trying to do is combine the volumes of power of social networking with the profitability of yellow pages,” he continues sharing the business model for the company.

    It’s an interesting model considering that many social networks out there are still struggling with ways to monetize their efforts. Twitter for example has struggled with how to turn the millions and millions of users into a profitable community. Mobiluck offers up a business model that future social networks may emulate.

    Relationships with Businesses

    The vision of many mobile companies is that the mobile will be used for finding and being found. Many companies have an online presence, whether they own their website or just listed in directories, but due to the lack of understanding, very few of these sites are accessible on personal mobile devices. It’s not an uncommon thing since development for the mobile web is significantly different then general web site design.

    More often than not a company may not even be aware of their online presence, and if they do now they don’t know the difference between a standard website and a mobile site.

    As more and more people turn to mobile devices for information and interaction, companies that fail to realize the difference will be on the losing end of this turn in culture trends.

    “With Mobiluck companies can create their webpage in one minute for free. If you have a shop or a restaurant for example, you add a new place by filling out a form, and in a minute you have your own mobile page with a static web address that will be indexed by mobile search engines that not only Mobiluck users will be able to find your page, but anyone searching Google mobile or yellowpages mobile can still find your page and it will show what a lot of mobile users want to know: a shop description, name, the address of your place with a map, your phone number with a click to call, a price range and operation hours,” Olivier states.

    This type of return on information is what users are looking for when they are looking for informaiton on their mobile. Data consistently shows that users become frustrated and move on if there are barriers to getting this information. But aside from just receiving the information, users want to engage with that information and interact with others.

    Next Generation Search

    The next generation of search is more than just finding information, but what do people do with it? Mobiluck has seen the light, and many others in the mobile market are seeing the light too.

    Users feel more comfortable when they can interact with the information they are given by being able to rate something, comment on something, and share other people’s ratin gand coments. Favoriting and bookmarking are hot items right now and this type of information sharing is what has made the Web 2.0 era so dynamic.

    Businesses will not have a direct way to communicate with users, and users will have a new way to connect with their friends. With Mobiluck specifically, companies will be able to manage an internal mobile newsletter that keeps visitors and searchers informed on specials, events, and other important information related to the business. This information can be shared and responded to creating a two way street for information.

    Mobiluck will be speaking at Mobile Monday in Zurich, Switzerland on December 7, 2009. Be sure to pay special attention to the companies in the mobile space as they will collectively define the future of how we interact with data, businesses, and with one another.

  • It’s Our Year, Says Solar Power Mobile Phone Giants Intivation

    Intivation has declared 2009 a breakthrough year and the solar power mobile phone technology giant is not about to rest on its laurels.

    Paul Naastepad, chief executive officer of Intivation, says GSM Association award the Netherlands based company won early this year is clear testimony that they are moving in the right direction in technology advancement.

    “Intivation today is the biggest supplier of solar power conversion chip technology used in mobile phones in the world.

    “What we believe is more important though – that since we won the GSM Association’s Major Innovation Award in early 2009, the whole industry seems to be more and more interested in the idea of using solar powered phones to enable people living in electricity grid deprived areas make telephone calls now!

    “The year 2009 is definitely the breakthrough for our SunBoost technology, as it is currently deployed in solar phones made by ZTE and Commtiva,” said Naastepad.

    He believes the world has wasted no time in embracing their products, born out of proprietary technology which enables the development of highly efficient and reliable solar powered handsets, chargers and battery packs.

    Paul Naastepad

    “In less than six months after we launched, solar phones ‘with Intivation inside’ are now sold in eight countries by 10 operators already, both in Africa and Latin America.

    “The Commtiva phone is aimed largely at the more data intensive users as it operates in GPRS, while the ZTE phone caters for the buyers seeking the lowest price,” he said.

    Naastepad was clear about the advantages of the solar powered phones in a world with millions of people without access to electricity, especially in rural areas.

    “Intivation’s SunBoost technology ensures that phone batteries are charged much faster than with any other solar technology.

    “Phones with our technology also charge the battery in fully cloudy conditions, in which case others would not charge at all.

    “In the future, many more devices will be brought to the market in Africa and beyond, some of which are high performance universal chargers that can be used with any existing phone,” he said.

    Intivations’ target market, says Naastepad, is easy to identify.

    “First of all it’s people living in areas without electricity, unreliable electricity or who cannot afford the electricity charges.

    “And when you know that there are 1.6 billion people in the world who do not have electricity, 640 million of whom do have GSM coverage, that is quite a lot.

    “Secondly, environmentally conscious people who want to take their responsibility for CO2 emission reduction.

    “And thirdly, all those people who simply enjoy the comfort of a phone that never runs out of power,” he said.

    Naastepad said the solar phones had made a huge impact on people.

    “It brings communication to them, enabling both better trade and social welfare,” he noted.

    Environmentalists, says Naastepad, have warmly received the new technology.

    “Even in places where we did not expect the ‘green’ feature of solar phones to matter that much, we are surprised by how much attention the environmentalists are giving this issue.

    “Of course, with a solar phone you never produce any CO2 anymore since you are using the sun to charge your phone. And the sun is even free of charge,” he said.

    The Intivation CEO said they were looking forward to 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, which he said would be a perfect platform to market their products where around 500 000 visitors from all over the world are expected to converge.

    “We will continue to develop our technology to enable solar phones charge yet faster, become smaller and cheaper so that more people can benefit from our invention,” promised Naastepad.

    Intivation was founded in 2003 as True Solar Autonomy, after inventor Anne Osinga found a new way to boost output voltages.