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EW-700 WiFiFone Announced By Samsung
Currently causing something of a stir on the floor of the Korea Electronics Show is the WiFiFone EW-700, a Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP smartphone running Windows Mobile.
The all-black phone is a collaboration between Samsung and Korean, big-name cordless phone maker Eidicom, and sports a slightly unusual keypad layout, with navigation controls sat in the left hand corner of the handset and the phone keys shunted to the right.
This leaves the ‘call’ and ‘answer’ buttons in the bottom left hand corner of the handset which seems far from ideal to us.
The EW-700, looks a fairly plain, clunky beast too – in fact the photos we’ve seen have something of a pre-production air to them – but it’s not short of features.
The phone offers Samsung’s latest “Post-PC mobile multimedia processor”, an “embedded OS/Device driver,” web browser, Instant Messaging and an MP3 and video player keeping customers entertained. We figure there must be some kind of memory card expansion available, but seeing as all the pics released so far only show the front of the camera, we can’t be sure.
We’re yet to get full specs either, but the screen looks like a 320 x 240 pixels jobbie to us, and there’s also a 2-megapixel camera with camcorder function onboard, a voice recorder, hardware MPEG engine offering full frame video and Wi-Fi and infrared connectivity.
As for pricing and availability, we haven’t the foggiest right now.
[From Aving USA]
23 October, 2006
Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7): Microsoft Releases
Microsoft have made their latest version of their Web browser, Internet Explorer 7, available for download.
The build-up to the release has been considerable, as the product has been available as a beta download for the last 14 months.
To many, Microsoft’s browser has become less relevant as alternative browsers have become more stable and accepted – primarily the open source Firefox and to a lesser extent Opera.
Feature Catchup
The other browsers have been innovating features that their users couldn’t imaging living without, such as Tabbed browsing, where new browsing sessions are opened in a tab across the top of the screen rather than littering the desktop with new windows. With ie7, Microsoft has finally caught up and has built it in.
Other features included to match the same level of functionality, are reading RSS feeds and building in a search box to the browser that they call Live Search. There has been some controversy over the search, as it defaults to searching on Microsoft’s own service. It is understood that this was the only option right up to just before the final release, when other search options were added.
Phishing warning
Built into ie7 is the knowledge of sites that are known for phishing – sites that lure the innocent user into providing personal information, often banking details, that are then used for criminal purposes. When an ie7 user goes to one of these sites by mistake, the Web address bar is turned red and a message is displayed.
Beware! spoof versions
Some naughty Trojan writers have used the release of ie7 to attempt to spread their evil seed to the world. They sent out a spam email using the [email protected] email address, pointing people to a link that launched a Web site made to look like Microsoft’s own download site.
Microsoft ie7
20 October, 2006
Mobile J/Speedy: NFC Payments Hits Amsterdam
An NFC payment system is on trial in Amsterdam allowing people taking part to make purchases using their mobile phone.
We’re massive fans of NFC (Near Field Communications) and have been for close to two years. We see it as a significant way to enhance the function of your mobile phone (primarily), as well as a new way of getting content to your phone.
Eight companies are getting together for the latest trial, this time lead by Japanese credit card giant JCB and marks Europe’s first contactless international credit payment scheme using a Nokia 3220 with an NFC chip.
Selected JCB cardholders are provided with a mobile phone by Nokia, which are equipped with an NFC chip, developed by NXP and loaded with the JCB payment application developed by Gemalto.
The first transaction of the pilot was conducted at Sushi Time, the Japanese sushi restaurant in the World Trade Center in Amsterdam.
At selected PaySquare merchants, cardholders can securely purchase items by just holding their mobile phone close to ViVOtech’s contactless NFC reader/writer, which is attached to the payment terminal of CCV.
Approximately 100 selected JCB cardholders are now enjoying fast, easy, and convenient payments with Mobile J/Speedy at selected merchants, where they used to pay by cash.
Although it has only been one month since the trial was launched, the increasing number of repeat usage indicates a strong acceptance of the technology and a very successful pilot.
“Feedback from the first users of Mobile J/Speedy has been very encouraging and we are pleased to now be able to involve a wider group of customers,” said Hajime Matsuura, branch manager of JCB International’s Amsterdam branch.
The first European NFC-based public transport ticketing trials took place within the local bus network in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany in 2005.
Expect plenty more news on NFC trials.
20 October, 2006
Google Goes Solar Powered
Google is converting its Californian headquarters to run partly on solar power, creating the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States.
The Internet search giant has said that its jumbo-sized solar project will eventually deliver nearly a third of the power at its 1-million-square-foot campus in Mountain View, near San Francisco.
Kitting out the campus will require the installation of more than 9,200 solar panels on high-tech offices known as the “Googleplex.”
Expected to be up and running by next Spring, the panels should be able to generate about 1.6 megawatts of electricity – enough power to supply about 1,000 homes.
Google haven’t disclosed the costs of the project, but it’s unlikely to cause much of a dent in the pockets of a company reputed to have nearly $10 billion in the corporate coffers.
With about a trillion hard drives purring away and Borg-like billions of PCs busily indexing this interweb thing, we imagine Google’s energy costs must be sky high, but David Radcliffe, Google’s vice president of real estate, reckoned that anticipated savings from future energy bills should pay back the solar project’s costs in five to 10 years.
“We hope corporate America is paying attention. We want to see a lot of copycats” of this project, he commented.
Nice one, Google.
Googleplex
19 October, 2006
Apple Grows iPod Sales
Apple has continued to increase the number of iPods they’re selling. Their latest quarterly results show that they grown the 8.11m iPods they sold in the previous quarter to 8.73m this quarter, beyond market expectations. The quarter that is reporting didn’t change or introduce any new iPods.
The number of computers they sold has also increased 30 percent from the same quarter in the previous year to 1.61m. We’re slightly surprised that this figure wasn’t higher, given that the latest quarter included the switch to the Intel processor, which has given a considerable increase in the speed.
Jobs enthused, “Selling more than 39 million iPods and 5.3 million Macs while performing an incredibly complex architecture transition is something we are all very proud of.”
Overall, the company posted revenues of $4.84Bn, and a net quarterly profit of $546m.
19 October, 2006
Sony Paint Ad: First HD Advert In UK
Sony and Sky are tying up to show the UK’s first HD advert tonight.
You may well have seen a lot of the build-up for Sony’s latest advert – the one with the paint. It’s the follow-up to their coloured balls advert shot in San Francisco.
Appropriately the advert is for Sony’s Bravia range of HD TVs. Shot in the somewhat less-glamorous location of a disused tower block in Glasgow, Scotland, it shows 70, 000 litres of coloured paint exploding up the side of the block of flats.
Shot over 10 days and with a crew of 250 people, the paint was mixed on site by 20 people. The clear up took 5 days and 60 people.
Behind the scenes footage of the shoot has been circulating on the online video services for about two months now. The wobbly camcorder shot material lends itself to looking like it’s been shot by your ‘man in the street,’ but given the size of the campaign, it’s more likely to be seeded by Sony or their advertising agency, to try and create a build up of interest.
Here’s the finished results.
It makes total sense for Sony to shoot this ad in HD given they’ve been pushing HD for nearly 3 years in Europe – initially through their professional arm that sells the cameras. Given their zeal in this area it makes you wonder why it took so long for an HD advert to come out from them.
The launch of this first HD ad follows a major marketing agreement between Sky and Sony to promote HD.
The HD advert will shown on Sky Sports HD 2 tonight during the Chelsea vs Barcelona football coverage.
18 October, 2006
Jawed Karim: The Third YouTube Founder
There’s bound to be lots of these stories floating around the Valley, as companies started getting bought for large sums of money. It’s going to be the equivalent of being/claiming to be the fifth Beatle.
We feel it’s more likely that this one is true as it’s covered by the New York Times.
Jawed Karim was the third founder of YouTube beyond Chen and Hurley we’re told. He was with them at PayPal, before it was sold to eBay, then at the very start of YouTube, throwing in
“They would often meet late at night for brainstorming sessions,” he continues, “Mr. Karim said he pitched the idea of a video-sharing Web site to the group.”
Beyond the early stages, Karim decided to not take a full time role there but returned to studying instead, for this he reduced his equity holding. After the sale, he’s still a very rich man.
Living what he was building, “Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life.”
If you’re a struggling entrepreneur reading this, there’s a very interesting section that Karim filmed in April 2005. Fellow founder Chen talked about “getting pretty depressed” because there were only 50 or 60 videos on the YouTube site. Clearly there are fallow times before growth.
It’s also amusing to see his own site where he’s listed his latest programs – “YouTube, My new company.”
The first piece of video ever put on YouTube.
via NYT
16 October, 2006
Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge Winners Announced
Nokia has announced the winning entries in the Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge global developer competition, dishing out a cool €100,000 in prizes to winning mobile applications developers.
Co-sponsored by Forum Nokia and software monoliths Adobe, the winners in four categories were selected from 117 entries after a 10-month selection process.
The categories were enterprise, music, Macromedia Flash Lite and location-aware applications, with each winner pocketing a €25,000 top prize and a one-year free membership in Forum Nokia PRO developer support program, which is apparently worth €4,000.
Selected by a jury made up of Macromedia and Nokia Business unit reps, the winners were selected from the 20 finalists announced in September this year.
Quickoffice Premier 4 scooped up Best Enterprise Application, with the product allowing users to open, view and edit Microsoft Office documents on the move.
www.quickoffice.com
The best Macromedia Flash application was Foreca – Flash Weather, a natty program that can not only advise you whether that brolly is really necessary, but can offer comprehensive weather forecasts, weather radar, temperature and precipitation forecasts.
www.foreca.com.
InfoTalk Corporation’s Music Finder grabbed the honours for Best Mobile Music Application. The program provides a speedy way to use search for music files using voice commands, with users able to speak a song title, artist’s name or playlist in response to an audio prompt instead of scrolling through zillions of MP3s.
www.infotalkcorp.com.
Finally, the Best Location-Aware Service/Application prize went to Augmentra, whose smarty-pants ViewRanger application offers a unique mapping, navigation and information tool for mobile phones, providing information about immediate surroundings through an intuitive display.
www.viewranger.com.
Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge
16 October, 2006
Five Download VoD Launches With CSI
UK Broadcaster Channel Five have launched their Five Download, Video on Demand (VoD), service with US series CSI. They’ve previously offered downloads of the car show, Fifth Gear.
The new service is offering straight CSI: Crime Scene Investigation; CSI: NY and CSI: Miami.
This isn’t Just-Another-VoD-Service (JAVS), as there’s some innovation in here. CSI fans are mad keen on the programme (so we understand) and understanding this, Five is offering the episodes seven days ahead of the TV broadcast date. Fans will pay a premium price for this £2.49 vs the usual £1.49 per episode. We suspect that once hooked on receiving the content early, fans using the service will have to continue paying to stay ahead.
Engaging in some mutual back slapping Jane Lighting, Five’s Chief Executive, said: “I’m delighted that we are launching the service with CSI enabling us to offer the highest quality content to viewers with a viewing window which exceeds anything currently in the marketplace,” to which Ted Riley, Executive Managing Director, International Content Distribution, Alliance Atlantis whooped “The first-ever CSI Franchise VoD service outside the U.S., is both a thrilling proposition for U.K. fans,” adding that it “heralds the roll-out of other new media opportunities for this fantastic franchise internationally.”
One of the challenges for this service, as it is with all others – they’re competing against the same content being available on file sharing networks near-instantly available after they’ve been shown in the US – yonks before they hits the UK. Fanatical fan’s will more than likely not wait for the legitimate source and go the file-sharing route. The fact that the programmes won’t cost them anything will be incidental.
Five will be charging either £1.49 or £2.49 per download which we think it pretty steep given the episodes are only available for 14 days and is restricted to one computer. If you’re impudent enough to try the content that you’ve paid for on another machine, you’ll be completely locked out of that content.
To use the service you’ll need to download and install the Five Download Manager and Player which has been provided to them by BT Media & Broadcast, but the base level technology is from Entriq. Entriq’s MediaSphere is used by other companies such as BT Vision and with download services.
As Five are using Microsoft’s DRM, the service is only available to those in the UK who run Windows XP or 2000 and browse through Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and enable ActiveX. Users of Windows XP must use Windows Media Player 10 and 2K users must use Windows Media Player 9.
Microsoft has steadfastly not introduced their latest DRM on the Macintosh, so they’re excluded.
Those of you lucky/unlucky enough to not have the above, can still view the trailers (well we could on a Mac anyway).
Five download
13 October, 2006
Carphone Warehouse Shares Drop On Vodafone News
The Herald is reporting that the shares in Carphone Warehouse took a bashing on the news that Vodafone is switching away from them, to sell their mobile phone contracts through Phones 4U instead.
The shares dropped 13.9%
Vodafone cited that Phones 4U charging Vodafone a lower commission was the reason for the change. We suspect that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
Carphone (as those in the industry call it) is becoming a major threat to Vodafone as they both move into other areas of communication – in the big communications convergence rush.
Carphone has been building up its bought AOL UK two days ago.
Vodafone themselves have recently moved into broadband, in a deal with BT. With Carphone effectively becoming a competitor, we assume that Vodafone don’t want to carry on giving them money.
If Vodafone’s choice to dump Carphone hurts them more will be revealed in the future. As Roger Taylor, FD for Carphone points out, “Every Vodafone customer that walks into our stores now will not walk out on a Vodafone contract.”
13 October, 2006