Business News Holding

Tag: hardware-and-technology

  • Xbox LIVE Video Kinect Brings Video Chat to Your Living Room

    Along with the announcement of Kinect for Xbox 360 (formally known as ‘Project Natal’), Microsoft yesterday unveiled Xbox LIVE Video Kinect that lets you chat with other Xbox 360 users.

    But the next year, Microsoft is going to link Video Kinect with Windows Live Messenger, allowing the Xbox LIVE community to have real-time video conversations with hundreds of millions of PC users around the world. The new service will also integrate custom news feeds, weather and videos from Bing.

    The Natal camera’s "Autozoom Focus" instantly finds and follows you when you move so you always stay in frame; no headset is required.

    No more details have been given except those given by Piero Sierra, Group Program Manager, Windows Live Messenger & Mail at Microsoft in his blog post: “When we told you earlier about what’s coming in the next version of Messenger, one of the things we discussed was how we’re improving the core instant messaging experience, and making big improvements to video chat and media sharing with built-in features like HD support, full-screen video chat, and more engaging ways to share photos and videos,” he wrote.

    And added: “If you’ve been following the E3 conference, you know that today Microsoft unveiled new details about the controller-free Kinect for Xbox 360, including how it enables Xbox LIVE users to have real-time video conversations with Windows Live Messenger users.

    This functionality will release in the next year, and we’re excited about how it helps make your communication experience even richer by bringing Messenger and your friends directly into your living room.”

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  • Rubberduck Launches Support for Touch Phones

    Rubberduck, a provider of streaming mobile TV services, announced support for a wide range of new touch phones, through an in-house developed Java application.

    Rubberduck already supports smartphones such as the iPhone and Android-based devices through downloadable apps and offers various services through its recently announced HTTP-streaming architecture.

    According to Rubberduck, the Java app is a natural extension of this product portfolio, and supports touch phones from a wide range of manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, Nokia and SonyEricsson. The app is fully compatible with the company’s content management system and streaming infrastructure.

    “Our new Java app extends support for our mobile-TV services to a wide range of touch phones, which are wide spread in the market. This will extend our reach and make it more attractive to watch TV on your mobile also for those who don’t have the most expensive high-end phones,” said Managing Director of Rubberduck, Erling Paulsen.

    The company also said that they had experienced a brisk upturn in traffic in 2009, where streaming numbers increased by some 75 percent, much due to the launch of a new iPhone client.

    The Java client also runs on Symbian devices from Nokia and Sony Ericsson ahead of a dedicated app, expected with the launch of Symbian^4 in 2011.

    Rubberduck claims that the combination of touch interface and large screen has been a catalyst for mobile-TV adoption, “and with ever more competing platforms, ensuring a base level of touch support via Java is a crucial step to delivering a premium experience to the widest possible audience.”

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  • Cisco Introduces New Enterprise Collaboration Software Solutions

    Cisco announced that Cisco Quad, an enterprise collaboration platform, will be available later this year via native iPad and iPhone applications.

    Cisco also unveiled a new Cisco Prosumer Video solution which integrates Cisco FocalPoint, an online video workspace, with a business-class Cisco Flip MinoPRO camcorder.

    Finally, Cisco announced that Cisco WebEx Connect IM is now available on any supported browser.

    Cisco Quad is an immersive platform for enterprise collaboration that integrates voice, video and social networking into one workspace. It enables workers to search across all content within their organization, as well as locate people and expertise, accelerating the time it takes to connect, interact and find information.

    Quad integrates with content management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint and Documentum, as well as with voice and video business communications solutions including Cisco Unified Communications,Cisco WebEx conferencing, Cisco Unified Presence and Cisco Show and Share.

    According to Cisco, Mobile Quad applications optimized for the Apple iPad and iPhone, will enable "deskless" employees to remain connected and engaged in interactions with their colleagues “around the globe.”

    Quad will be available on a limited basis, beginning in Cisco’s first quarter of fiscal year 2011, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia/New Zealand.
    The Cisco Prosumer Video solution provides organizations with a private and highly secure end-to-end solution for video capture and management. The solution uses a new online video workspace, FocalPoint, and a new business-class four-hour Flip MinoPRO camcorder.

    FocalPoint delivers cloud-based management, sharing and editing capabilities and provides an easy way for organizational teams to interact with their video content. Cisco FlipShare software, preloaded on the camcorder, allows users to easily edit, store and manage video content locally on their workstation before sharing it with the organizational team via FocalPoint.

    The software client uses an encrypted upload protocol to enable confidential content delivery, while FocalPoint adopts SSL (Secure Socket Layer) for secure Web sessions and data protection.

    The newest version of Cisco WebEx Connect IM lets users access their contact lists and send instant messages via a browser-based IM client, making the solution accessible from any computer, with any operating system, without the need for a client download.

    The Windows client for Cisco WebEx Connect IM is now localized for French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, further expanding its ease of use for global organizations.

    Server-side IM logging allows organizations to capture logs of all IM traffic for more efficient regulatory compliance. Customers who are already archiving email can use their existing infrastructure.

    Building on Cisco’s acquisition of Jabber, customers looking to add presence and chat capabilities to their Web applications can do so much more easily with Cisco’s AJAX XMPP library, which gives developers a quick start to creating XMPP-enabled Web applications and portal integrations through source code, detailed documentation and code samples. These tools were used in building presence and chat capabilities into Cisco Quad.

    Cisco will showcase these software and hardware offerings during a keynote presentation and demonstration at 9:30 am on June 15th at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston.

  • SPB TV for Windows Mobile Smartphones Gets a Major Update

    SPB Software has updated the Windows Mobile version of its flagship application SPB TV to version 2.0. Due to support from advertising revenues the program is now free-of-charge and subscription-free. Ads featured in SPB TV only last as long as channel buffering takes.

    According to SPB, in addition to existing features that include quick channel previews, a TV guide for more than 150 channels in over 20 languages, picture-in-picture mode, fast channel launching and switching, the new version offers also a video on demand option.

    Another enhancement is the Advanced Video Codec (H.264) support which improves video quality. “As a result even with substantial lower bitrates the resolution is strongly improved,” as the company claims. SPB TV 2.0 also allows users with low speed mobile network connections to watch TV.

    SPB TV also works on iPhone, Symbian, Android, BlackBerry and WebOS smartphones. The company has informed that last month SPB TV reached the one million users milestone.

    SPB says that mobile TV watching behaviour differs across countries. For example 71% of US users use SPB TV via 3G while in Greece and Poland only 10% of users use 3G and others use WiFi.

    "Taking all the statistics and feedback collected from our users into consideration, we created the new version of SPB TV, which not only offers our users better video quality but is also available to all Windows Mobile users absolutely free," said Sebastian-Justus Schmidt, CEO of SPB Software.

    SPB TV is also available as a solution for mobile operators. SPB TV Mobile Operator’s Solution allows carriers to couple SPB’s proven solution with their own infrastructure and various subscription models. Three mobile operators worldwide have already deployed SPB TV based mobile TV solutions.

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  • IPsmarx Partners with snom to Deliver VoIP Services for SMBs and Global Enterprises

    snom announced that IPsmarx, maker of the IPsmarx’s Multi-Tenant IP-PBX Platform, has joined snom’s partner program as an Advanced Technology Partner.

    According to snom, after rigorous testing and evaluation in both companies’ respective labs, IPsmarx’s platform achieved full certification as tested and is interoperable with snom’s full line of SIP-based desktop IP phones.

    The company claims thet the combination of snom’s advanced desktop phones with IPsmarx’s IP-PBX provides service providers who cater to small and medium sized businesses, as well as larger global enterprise businesses, “a complete and affordable advanced IP telephony system.”

    Becoming an advanced interoperability technology partner gives IPsmarx customers the ability to use snom’s portfolio of advanced SIP-based desktop phones with the international company’s multi-tenant IP-PBX, which includes integrated billing, call routing, and e-commerce functionality in one unified solution.

     

    “A core philosophy of snom is to achieve broad interoperability with best of breed technology partners and this new relationship with IPsmarx continues the tradition,” said Dr. Michael Knieling, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales for snom.

    IPsmarx uniquely packages service applications, softswitch, billing, account management, and marketing capabilities for VoIP-based telephony services in a single integrated solution that supports both direct and indirect sales channels. This integrated applications server, softswitch and billing offers “reliable and scalable” delivery of VoIP business lines, SIP trunks and hosted IP-PBX services with low cost of ownership.

    In conjunction with snom endpoints, such as the snom 370, the integrated platform also includes VoIP telephony features such as line sharing, barge-in, listen-in, whisper mode, paging and automatic configuration, to name a few.

    Arash Vahidnia, CEO of IPsmarx, said: “As an affordable and interoperable end-to-end telephony system, the combination of snom and IPsmarx provides a very attractive unified communications solution to both SMBs and enterprise customers looking for an advanced telephony system.”

  • Acrobits Launches New Free Service for SIP Providers

    Acrobits has launched a new free service which allows SIP providers to appear on the list of pre-configured providers in Acrobits Softphone.

    Customers of pre-configured providers won’t have to go through the complexities of SIP account configuration, they only need to enter their username & password and they are ready to make calls.

    The company also informed that it has released the new 3.2.3 version of its Softphone.

    The latest update to Acrobits Softphone features some minor bug fixes and configurable packet size for codecs.

    Acrobits Softphone 3.2.3 is already available on the App Store.

    Acrobits Softphone, the SIP VoIP phone for the iPhone and iPod Touch, is the flagship product of our company, which is also planning to support Symbian and Windows Mobile phones in the near future.

    Acrobits is already working on Softphone clients for other VoIP operators, including Gizmo5.

    “VoIP service is a highly competitive industry and VoIP usage on mobile devices, especially the iPhone, will play a large part in deciding who tomorrow’s leading VoIP providers are,” says Acrobits.

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  • iPhone 4 is Here

    The iPhone 4 has been finally announced at the WWDC 2010. Steve Jobs himself revealed the new smartphone by Apple: the next iPhone is a 9.3mm thick (a quarter thinner than the iPhone 3GS; “the thinnest smartphone on the planet”, as Jobs said), has glass on front and back (“for better optical quality and scratch resistance”), and stainless steel around. It uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system.

    “It’s the most precise thing we’ve ever made,” Apple CEO said.

    iPhone 4 is powered by the A4 chip (designed ”in house”) and comes with two built-in cameras (one on the front and one on the back with an LED flash), two mics (one for a noise cancellation), micro-SIM (“we needed the space!"), 802.11n WiFi, GPS, compass, accelerometer, Quadband HSDPA/HSUPA, 7.2Mbps and up to 32GB of storage.

    The display is a huge innovation: based on new IPS technology ("quite a bit better than OLED"), the 3.5 inch, 960 x 640 Retina Display displays 326 pixels per inch (four times as many pixels as in any standard display) giving us really sharp text and pictures. The contrast ratio is 800:1 (4x better than the 3GS).

    Since the battery is now a bit bigger, its life has been improved. Apple says there is 7 hours of 3G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music and 300 hours of standby.

    Another new piece of hardware is a gyroscope with pitch, roll, and yaw. It provides 6-axis motion sensing and features new CoreMotion APIs for extremely precise positioning. "We’re adding a 3 axis gyro, and we tied the gyro and accelerometer, compass, and gyro together for six axis. It’s perfect for gaming," Jobs said.

    Back camera has gone from 3 to 5 MP. Apple is using something that’s new to smarpthones — a back side illuminated sensor (giving more light to the camera). There’s a 5X digital zoom, tap to focus, and LED flash built in.

    Camera also does HD 720p (at 30 frames per second) video recording. It supports tap to focus and allows us to edit videos right on the phone. It also has 1-click sharing and the LED flash will stay on for the HD video recording. There is also iMovie coming to the iPhone for $4.99 (“if we approve it,” Jobs joked).

    iPhone 4 will also feature "FaceTime" video calling. It works between iPhone 4 devices, doesn’t require any setting-up and works anywhere there is WiFi. “It’s WIFI only in 2010. We need to work a little bit with our providers,” Jobs said. He added that Apple is going to make FaceTime and open industry standard.

    Apple has renamed the iPhone OS. Now it’s just iOS 4." Becuase it’s on iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone,” Apple CEO said. He also said that 100 millionth iOS device will be sold this month. "There is definitely a market for your applications," Jobs added.

    As announced earlier this year, new iOS 4 features include Multitasking for third party apps; Folders to better organize and access apps; improved Mail with a unified inbox, fast inbox switching and threaded messages; enhanced Enterprise support with better data protection, mobile device management and wireless app distribution.

    Apple has also added Bing to the iPhone for search (“Microsoft has done a great job on this,” Jobs said). Google will still be the default, but now we’ll have choice of Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

    Developers will get a Golden Master Candidate release of iOS4 today.

    Apple is also bringing iBooks to the iPhone with the iPhone 4. It has the same bookshelf as on the iPad, the same ability to read a PDF and comes with the same controls, highlighting, notes, and bookmarking. We can download the same book to all our devices at no extra charge (“Buy it on your iPad, download to your iPhone”)! In addition, iBooks will automatically and wirelessly sync our current place, bookmarks, and notes across all our devices.

    On July 1st Apple will also start providing iAds to all iOS 4 devices. “Why are we doing this? To help our developers earn money to continue to create free and low-cost apps for users,” Jobs said. According to him, they are trying to combine “the emotion of video with the interactivity of the Web."

    Apple sells and hosts the ads, so developers just have to tell them where to put the ads. And devs get paid 60 percent of the revenue. The company started selling ads eight weeks ago to: Nissan, Citi, Unilever, AT&T, Chanel, GE, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Geico, Campbells, Sears, JCPenney, Target, Best Buy, DirecTV, TBS Network and Disney. "We’ve got advertisers committing to $60m," Jobs said.

    Price and availability
    iPhone 4 comes in two colors: black and white. 16GB model is for $199, and 32GB model for $299. Old 3GS is now $99

    Jobs said that AT&T is going to make an “incredibly generous upgrade offer: if your contract expires at any time in 2010, you can upgrade to the iPhone 4. You can get it up to six months early."

    The new iPhone will be on sale June 24th. Pre orders begin June 15th. Apple will ship iPhone 4 in US and four other countries on the first day (U.K., Germany, France, Japan). In July they’re shipping in 18 countries more. By September it will ship in 88 countries. "Our fastest roll out ever," Jobs said.

    iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and iPod touch users can upgrade to iOS 4 for free starting June 21.

    Reed Hastings from Netflix, Mark Pincus from Zygna and Karthik Bala from Activision were also on stage announcing that Netflix, Farmville and new Guitar Hero will be coming to the iPhone.

  • Motorola Milestone XT720 Announced

    Motorola has announced MILESTONE XT720, one of the world’s slimmest 8 Megapixel Android smartphones and the first to have a Xenon Flash. This sleek (10.9mm), capacitive touch Android 2.1 phone also features a high definition video experience and enhanced media and mobile internet capabilities.

    It offers 3.7 inch, WVGA (480X854) display, 10x digital zoom, 720p HD camcorder and comes with 8GB microSD card (included inbox; expandable up to 32GB) as well as with a smart image capture (includes easy panorama, face detection, multi-shot (six shots in a row), face filter, red eye reduction and camera shake prevention).

    According to Motorola, MILESTONE XT720 is designed to deliver high speed web-browsing and it has the capacity to support up to eight open browser windows.

    A suite of Google mobile applications including Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube are also integrated onto the device, as well as Motorola’s MOTONAV turn by turn navigation.

    The new Motorola also supports management of multiple accounts and document editing.

    Ralf Gerbershagen, vice president and general manager for Motorola’s Mobile Devices business in Western Europe said, "MILESTONE XT720 is one of the most powerful phones in Motorola’s current smartphone range. Slim, sophisticated and technically savvy, MILESTONE XT720 is a high performance device designed for those who are actively engaged in both their work and social lives.

    "With MILESTONE XT720, Motorola has taken yet another step towards eliminating the barriers for consumers to creating and consuming media on the go."

  • Verizon to Build 4G LTE Network in Rural America

    Verizon Wireless is aggressively building its 4G LTE network across the same footprint that is currently covered by its nationwide 3G network, which – according to the company — covers more than 90% of the U.S. population.

    The company has just informed that, “in order to provide access to this 4G LTE network to more of the U.S. population living in rural areas,” they plan to work with rural companies to collaboratively build and operate a 4G network in those areas using the tower and backhaul assets of the rural company and Verizon Wireless’ core LTE equipment and 700MHz spectrum.

    Verizon is seeking companies that can assist in bringing 4G LTE service to rural areas that currently lack Verizon Wireless coverage. According to the company, they may work with rural companies that have towers and backhaul capabilities, even if those companies are not currently wireless operators.

    Verizon plans to launch their 4G LTE network in 25 to 30 markets late in 2010, covering approximately 100 million people. They say they’ll double that in 2012. They also plan to cover their entire existing 3G footprint with 4G LTE by the end of 2013.

    Verizon’s 4G LTE network will be backward-compatible with their existing 3G network. That means the two networks will co-exist and services will be integrated between LTE and our 3G Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Rev. network.

    The company claims that with Verizon Wireless’ 10 + 10 MHz implementation, LTE will be supporting average data rates per user of 5-12 Mbps in the forward link, and 2-5 Mbps in the reverse link. LTE will enable video application on the downlink as well as uplink – including, but not limited to video-sharing, surveillance, conferencing and streaming in higher definition than is possible with existing 3G technology today.

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  • BlackBerry Bold 9650 Coming to Verizon

    Verizon announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9650 will be available for online ordering from Verizon beginning June 3 and in Verizon stores beginning June 10.

    The new BlackBerry Bold is the first global phone from Verizon to support GlobalAccess Connect, allowing customers to tether their BlackBerry Bold to a notebook or netbook and use it as a modem for wireless internet access.

    Key features:

    • Optical trackpad for easy and fluid navigation
    • Built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
    • Push to Talk feature – allows customers to leverage Verizon’s 3G network for instant two-way communication with up to 50 people
    • VZ Navigator version 6 – gives customers access to free mapping and integration with Bing to sort searches by relevance and a new option to choose day, week or monthly subscriptions
    • VZ Navigator Global capabilities – Provides turn-by-turn directions and maps in English while navigating through more than 20 destinations

    Additional specifications:

    • Mobile e-mail and messaging capabilities
    • 2.45" high-resolution display (480 x 360 resolution at 245 ppi)
    • 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, variable zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording
    • support for the Bluetooth Stereo Audio Profile (A2DP/AVCRP)
    • BlackBerry Media Sync
    • Support for BlackBerry App World
    • 512 MB Flash memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB microSD HC cards (a 2 GB card is pre-installed)
    • Full HTML Web browser, streaming audio and video via RTSP
    • Built-in GPS with support for location-based applications and services as well as geotagging
    • Support for high-speed EV-DO Rev. A networks in North America as well as single band UMTS/HSPA (2100 MHz) and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks abroad
    • 1400 mAhr battery

    The BlackBerry Bold 9650 will be available for order for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. A non-camera version of the phone will also be available for order online beginning June 3.

    GlobalAccess Connect plans are available for $65 monthly access for 5 GB allowance in the US and Canada ($0.05/MB overage) and 100 MB allowance in select countries ($5.12/MB overage). There is also a $155 monthly access option that offers 5 GB allowance in the United States and Canada and 200 MB allowance in select countries, with the same overage rates as the $65 monthly option.