Distribution

The new digital ways content was becoming distributed

BLINK: Bluetooth Simplicity From Broadcom?
If you’ve ever spent hours shouting at the little blinking blue light on your laptop screaming, “what do you mean you can’t find my phone? IT’S THERE!!”, then you may find Broadcom’s new BLINK Bluetooth software (Bluetooth-Link = BLINK, getit?) bringing your blood pressure down.
Claiming to “radically simplify Bluetooth connectivity between cell phones and PCs”, the software is the result of a collaboration between Broadcom and BVRP Software International (now Avanquest Software), and has already adopted by networking retailers such as Anycom and IO GEAR, as well as a ton of Bluetooth dongle manufacturers.
Although Bluetooth-enabled phones continue to grow in popularity, many people are put off using the functionality because of problems getting some devices to talk to each other.
BLINK software claims to soothe the troubled brows of baffled Bluetooth uses with an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that makes complex Bluetooth-related tasks “as simple as browsing the Internet.”
“This software simplifies the use of Bluetooth technology to such an extent that we anticipate ‘BLINK’ to become synonymous with Bluetooth when connecting phones and PCs using products based on our technology,” said Scott Bibaud, Senior Director of Marketing for Broadcom’s Bluetooth products.
Beaming with confidence, Scott continued, “Once users discover the convenience of ‘BLINKing’ files and data between their phones and PCs, the true power of Bluetooth will become clearer to the millions of consumers that already have the technology built into their phones.”
Once fired up, the BLINK software serves up a graphical representation of the user’s mobile phone on their desktop or notebook PC screens.
Once connected, users can operate all the main phone functions directly from the computer, and drag and drop items from their PCs directly to their cell phones.
Via the BLINK interface, users can update and synchronise phone numbers, contact information and calendars as well as transfer pictures, music and data.
The Internet can also be accessed on the desktop via any GPRS/EDGE/CDMA cellular data links and SMS messages can be sent and received.
“Digital photos, phone numbers and calendar appointments are literally trapped inside users’ cell phones because of the complexity involved in transferring this information to PCs and other devices,” said Brian O’Rourke, Senior Analyst at In-Stat.
“Broadcom’s leading work in Bluetooth software will not only lead to greater penetration of Bluetooth hardware in a number of applications, it will also make it easier to use for these advanced tasks,” he added.
Broadcom will be shoving a copy of the software into our grubby hands shortly so check back soon.
Broadcom
27 September, 2005
FiOS TV: Verizon US Launched IPTV Over Fibre
Verizon has launched an IPTV service in Keller, Texas delivered over their fiber-to-the-premises network.
The service will carry High Def (HDTV) as well as the expected Standard Def. The initial offering will include 330 TV channels, over 20 HD channels, close to 600 video-on-demand with 1,800 planned by the end of the year.
The quote from Bob Ingalls, president of Verizon’s Retail Markets Group won’t exactly be getting the customers running for the phone to place orders. Strapping on his biggest, boldest PR engine, he revved “This is not cable TV. This is not satellite. This is FiOS TV. Customers who liked what FiOS did for their Internet connection will love what it does for their TV. We’ve harnessed the speed and capacity of broadband with the power of broadcast to create a revolutionary, new entertainment experience.” We really hope the offering and services FiOS TV customers contain more content than this empty drivel. (Ed: If you’re not adding anything, why bother saying it?)
FiOS Internet connections, or FiOS for Home as Verizon call it, have been available in a number of areas of the US since June last year, including Keller. It provided 15Mb connections from $45/month and 5Mb from $35. At the very expensive end, they’ve also got a 30Mb offering, but at around $200/month.
With the currently level of video compression combined with connections of that size, there will be no problem delivering multiple TV services (different programmes) to different rooms – even at HD.
Verizon are offers three set-top boxes: standard definition for $3.95/month; HD for $9.95/month; and a digital video recorder set-top box with HD channels for $12.95 permonth. Content packages between $13/month – $40/month are layer on top of this.
Later this year Verizon expects to roll-out the service to Wylie, Sachseand Westlake, Texas. Following this they plan to head to Florida, Virginia and California.
FiOS for Home
Verizon FiOS TV (confusingly saying available soon)
23 September, 2005
Oxford Mobile TV (DVB-H) Pilot Starts
UK operator O2 has announced a mobile TV pilot letting 400 customers in Oxford to choose from 16 channels, featuring popular shows such as Lost, EastEnders, Coronation Street
Having originally trailed this story over a year ago when it was announced that O2 were to trial DVB-H video to mobile phones, then again four months ago when the DVB-H trial content partners were announced, we were pleased to see that it’s scheduled to commence next week.
The pilot is a collaboration between Nokia and Arqiva (formerly NTL Broadcast) and is expected to last for six months, tasked with measuring user reactions to the new technology.
Participants in the trial will be dished out Nokia 7710 smartphones, which are compatible with the Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds (DVB-H) technology used for the TV transmissions.
Arqiva will be providing a DVB-H transmitter network that will cover an area of 120 sq km centered around the dreaming spires of Oxford, and will also be responsible for aggregating the content and operating the trial service.
During the trial, users will receive free BBC and BskyB TV streams to their mobile phones, but voice and data calls will be charged under their existing tariff plan.
Favourite programmes can be selected from an on-screen service guide, which also lets users search for specific items and set alarms on their handset to remind them a specific show is starting.
O2’s chief technology officer, Dave Williams, feels that the trial will help in establishing a model for more projects in the future, commenting. “By establishing relationships through activities such as this, we hope that potential challenges will be minimised and mobile TV becomes a commercial reality sooner than is currently possible.”
Although some video content has previously been made available to mobile phone customers, so far they’ve taken the form of short clips and previews, rather than true television broadcasts.
With time-rich punters spending an estimated £250,000 on downloading clips of this summer’s season of Big Brother, there’s clearly a growing demand for video content on mobiles.
o2
Arqiva
23 September, 2005
Humax PVR-9200T: Freeview Duovisio PVR Launched
Humax have dished out detailed information about their new dual-tuner, Freeview-enabled PVR, the PVR-9200T.
Like the Sony RDR-GXD500 we reviewed in April 2005, Humax’s PVR lets users watch and record digital terrestrial Freeview TV shows, with lucky UK consumers able to feast on over 30 channels of freebie programming.
With two tuners onboard, Humax’s PVR-9200T (or “Duovisio” as it likes to be called), lets you record one channel while watching another or you can really push the boat out and simultaneously record two channels while playing back a previous recording.
Receiving and recording of pay TV channels is possible through a special CA module.
There’s no DVD recorder on board, so storage is taken care of by a fairly generous 160GB hard drive, supporting up to 100 hours recording.
The unit comes with preloaded software, allowing for picture-in-a-picture and “assorted trick play, diverse formats of recording and recording services playback, all through the time shift recording function.” We’re not quite sure what that last bit means.
Folks baffled by the complexities of traditional video programming will enjoy the 7 day Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) with the Duovisio providing support for subtitles, digital teletext and interactive features.
There’s also a handy USB2.0 port provided for MPEG A/V file transfers between the Duovisio and a PC, letting users play back their digital photos or listen to MP3 files downloaded from a PC.
Humax
22 September, 2005
Google WiFi In Testing. Free Service To Launch?
Are Google about to launch a free wireless Internet service?
The rumours are running at fever pitch as pundits scour around for clues and hints about a forthcoming Wi-Fi service by the Internet search engine giant.
What’s really excited us is a set of pages on Google describing a new test service called Google Wi-Fi, containing instructions on how to use its wireless desktop software, Google Secure Access, which sits on their subdomain wifi.google.com.
Listed as a set of answers to questions, the pages include a list of features and terms of the new service, with examples including:
Q. “Is there a fee for using Google Secure Access? A. No, Google Secure Access is free.”
Q. “Where can I go to download Google Secure Access? A. The program can currently be downloaded at certain Google Wi-Fi locations in the San Francisco Bay area.”
Reuters picked up on the story and first ran an article saying that Google was preparing to introduce its own wireless Internet service, but this was later amended to say that they’d only begun a limited test of the wireless service.
So far, Google have only introduced two wireless access points in Silicon Valley, at a pizzeria and a gymnastics centre, but it has been reported that the company were in talks with San Francisco officials about setting up public wireless networks in the city (Google currently share a single access point in Union Square in partnership with Feeva.)
Typically, the company are keeping tight lipped about their plans, but with Business 2.0 reporting that Google had “quietly been shopping for miles and miles of ‘dark,’ or unused, fibre optic cable across the country” last year, the Wi-Fi service is looking increasingly probable.
A free Google Wi-Fi service would make sound business sense, providing another way for Google to sell targeted advertising, big up the brand, maintain their popular reputation for dishing out free stuff and importantly adding location-based information to their adverts.
Although rolling out a nationwide Wi-Fi service would be a formidable task, with Google’s energy, enthusiasm (and zillions of $$$), it’s entirely possible and would no doubt be supremely popular.
Investment site Motley Fool.com are voicing doubts about Google claiming an even bigger chunk of our online life, with their article, Why I Fear Google WiFi, investigating Google’s “big and potentially scary news.”
wifi.google.com/faq.html
21 September, 2005
European In-flight Mobile Calls Next Year
British airline bmi and TAP Air Portugal have announced that they will be allowing passengers to use their own cellphones on commercial flights within western Europe from late next year.
The two European airlines will be introducing OnAir’s voice and text service for mobile phones in separate three-month trial runs.
The trials will give OnAir, a Geneva-based joint venture of Airbus and Netherlands-based technology company Sita Information Networking Computing, the chance to assess its service before a general release slated for 2007.
“With both airlines, initially there will be a couple of airplanes – two or three airplanes – equipped with this system,” OnAir’s chief executive George Cooper told The Associated Press.
“During that three months, we’ll all be evaluating how it’s going, what the usage is, how we handle the crew issues and so on,” he added.
The system will be used by TAP on its Airbus 321 model and by bmi on its Airbus 320s, with passengers able to make and receive calls using a base station within the airplane once it reaches 3,000m
“This trial will guide us on usage patterns and some of the social issues in using mobile phones on aircraft,” said bmi chief executive Nigel Turner. “It will also help us to confirm the business case for rolling the service out across the remainder of the fleet.”
There have been concerns that cellphones trying to connect to terrestrial networks might interfere with a plane’s navigation, but OnAir’s plane-based system ensures that cellphones and other devices operate at lower transmission power and thus avoid affecting avionics.
The company is also looking to sell its services to other airlines and hopes to clear regulatory hurdles for air traffic within Europe some time next year.
Cooper said the surcharge for cellphone use would be competitive with international roaming rates, costing around $2,30-$2,50 (€1,88-€2,04) per minute, with text messages charged at 50 US cents (41 € cents) to send or receive.
BMI chief executive Nigel Turner was enthusiastic about the new service, “Our research tells us that our premium passengers have two key concerns: getting quickly through the airport, and the ability to carry on working during their journey.”
“This trial will guide us on usage patterns and some of the social issues in using mobile phones on aircraft, and will help us to confirm the business case for rolling the service out across the remainder of the fleet,” he added.
Much as we love the idea of firing off texts while we’re quaffing champagne at 20,000 feet and chatting to earthbound chums, it’s worth pointing out that the demand for in-flight mobile calls hasn’t matched expectations.
In a recent poll by IDC, only 11 percent of its 50,000 survey respondents wanted the ban on using mobile phones on planes lifted.
20 September, 2005
UK Is Top Of The Bots
Once again, the UK has grabbed the number one slot on Top Of The Bots, possessing the world’s highest proportion of known bot-infected computers.
The figures from Symantec’s Global Internet Threat Report covers the first half of 2005 and reveals that almost a third (32 per cent) of virus-infected, zombie PCs- were located in the UK – substantially up on last year’s 26 per cent ranking.
Bots (short for ‘robots’) are software programs that sneakily install themselves on hapless users’ computers, allowing dastardly hackers to do beastly things remotely.
Infected computers can be used for malicious purposes such as phishing, spam, denial of service (DoS) attacks and other security risks such as spyware and adware.
Bot network activity is increasing faster than Wayne Rooney’s Yellow Card collection, with activity doubling from under 5,000 bots per day in December 2004 to an average of 10,352 in the report period.
Symantec puts this down to the huge rise in broadband subscriptions coupled with the delays in software patches for operating systems and software being made available.
Phishing continues to be a growth industry, with the daily average of phishing messages leaping from an average of 2.99 million messages a day to 5.70 million over the six month period covered by the report.
One out of every 125 e-mail messages scanned by Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam was a dodgy phishing attempt, up a thumping great 100 percent from the last half of 2004.
Dean Turner, senior manager of the Symantec Security Response team, commented: “Bot networks are valuable for a couple of reasons: One, because they allow for extremely rapid propagation, and two, because they provide a relatively high level of anonymity for providing attacks.”
Symantec’s biennial Internet Security Threat report revealed that London and Winsford (where?!), England, were the big cheeses of the bot-infected world, registering a shameful 8 percent and 5 percent of the world’s infected computers, respectively.
Seoul came in at third place with 4 percent, with the U.S. and China being the second and third largest providers of bot-infected systems, notching up 19 percent and 7 percent, respectively.
Symantec
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19 September, 2005
BSkyB Get Into Mobile TV and VOD later
The Times have covered Richard Freudenstein, COO of BSkyB, speech at the RTS Cambridge Convention
Sky will be delivering video to mobile phones, as we’d predicted when we reported that NDS had signed a deal with Frontier Silicon.
We understand that it will include Sky Movies, Sky News and Sky Sports (which is bound to get some excited).
They also plan to let their Sky+ subscribers programme their PVR using their mobile phones.
The other biggy in Freudenstein talk was him confirming that that Sky will be offering VOD (Video On Demand) which will run over Ethernet – ie delivered over broadband. They’re not confirming dates.
Sky has been muttering about this behind closed doors to those who would listen for at least 18 months, but it’s the first time they’ve said it publicly.
Expected Sky and BT to strengthen their current cuddling relation, to a full on snog, as BT’s 21CN comes more into reality. this will provide additional bandwidth and an Ethernet port into every home in the UK, as they’re trailing in Cardiff, Wales.
The poor things at The Times have got a little bit confused between memory and storage of Sky’s PVR, Sky+, ‘newest Sky+ boxes have extra memory that is currently not used.’ Ah, isn’t it sweet. You’d have thought that two companies within the News International group would be able to understand each other business.
BSkyB
16 September, 2005
UK Analog Switch-Off For Digital TV By 2012: Confirmed
In her speech to the Royal Television Society in Cambridge this evening, Rt. Hon. Tessa Jowell confirmed digital switchover and outlined the timetable for switching by region.
Digital switchover will happen between 2008 and 2012 by ITV region in the following order:
2008 – Border
2009 – West Country, HTV Wales, Granada
2010 – HTV West, Grampian, Scottish Television
2011 – Yorkshire, Anglia, Central
2012 – Meridian, Carlton/LWT (London), Tyne Tees, Ulster
This regional order has been determined by a technical criteria determined by the broadcasters and Ofcom. The regional order will follow ITV regions. This ensures that the impact on ITV regional advertising markets is minimised.
Jowell also reiterated the Government’s pledge that digital switchover will be platform neutral. As reported earlier on OW, SwitchCo, which will be renamed ‘DigitalUK’ will launch tomorrow, and will oversee the switchover process, marketing and neutrality.
Jowell also outlined a programme to help vulnerable consumers. Households with one person over 75 and those with one person receiving disability allowances will be eligible for help and subsidy. The assistance scheme will be funded by the BBC through the licence fee (which is therefore obviously secure despite not Bill yet being in place).
It remains to be seen whether the BBC will be limited in how it promotes technologies in which it has a vested interest like DTT (Freeview) to these households.
Comment – It is interesting that London will be switched in 2012. Same year as we host the Olympics.
It is also worth noting the name change of SwitchCo to DigitalUK. This suggests a role beyond digital television, with the organisation being ambitious in its aims and looking to embed the most sophisicated digital technologies at the core of the home. Only by taking this approach will switchover be genuinely enabling for citizens, narrowing rather than extending the digital divide.
Tessa Jowell
15 September, 2005
SwitchCo: UK Unveiling This Week?
There’s been quite a lot of talk in the UK media about SwitchCo, the organisation tasked with switching from Analogue to Digital TV in the UK. Luke Gibbs of OfcomWatch wonders if it will come to life this week?
It seems as though digital switchover has been going on for ages. And yet it hasn’t even begun – it’s just been a load of people talking about it!
Despite the Government announcing the creation of SwitchCo earlier in the year no-one has heard anything since. The only things we know for sure are that Barry Cox is the Chairman and some bloke called Ford Ennals is the Chief Executive. No website, no contact details, nothing – the proverbial blank screen. Perhaps it’s a precursor for what’s to come in 2012!
[ed. – an extremely limited site does seem to have emerged today!]
We also know that the Government remains committed to switchover. How? Because, the Labour Party election manifesto outlined the switchover process and thereby made both the process and timeframe an election pledge. So if you voted for Labour you voted for switchover. And if you didn’t vote for them or didn’t vote – well – tough luck they won the election.
Now, it’s possible that Labour will renege on its pledge. It’s certainly been known before for political parties to come into Government and do a spot of backtracking. Could this happen with switchover?
Well, later this week we may get some answers. On Thursday evening Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Rt Hon Tessa Jowell, MP, will make the keynote to the Royal Television Society’s bi-annual conference in Cambridge. As if Jowell hasn’t got enough high profile issues on her plate – licensing, Olympics, gambling – she also has digital switchover.
It is likely that in her keynote will offer a clearer vision of how switchover will take place and what SwitchCo’s role will be in making it happen.
After outlining the process it makes sense for SwitchCo to launch in earnest, publishing the technical and marketing plans for switchover. Will they be what the world has been waiting for?
From a technical perspective switchover it is not going to be a walk in the park. A phased switchover to digital by geographical area between 2008 and 2012. And we’ll only know how many people might be unable to get digital television once the analogue signal has been turned off and the digital signal boosted.
The technicalities of switchover will be critical to acheiving it. However, the marketing plan will also be essential to its success. Bringing the two strands together will be no easy task.
A successful switch to digital will release swathes of spectrum for re-allocation. But switchover also provides an opportunity to embed digital technology in the core of people’s homes – digital television is fundamental to acheiving the long envisaged, much touted Digital Britain.
So SwitchCo needs to be more ambitious in its aims than just pushing people to takeup digtial television. Digital television is just the beginning of digital enablement not the end of it.
There may be temptation to promote Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) services such as Freeview over other digital services such as cable (D-Cab) or satellite (D-Sat) because it provides a low cost, convenient method of switching to digital television. However, it is also limiting as a digital technology, providing a few extra television channels and a low level of interactivity. Freeview might allow us to meet the proposed 2012 target but by then it will be out-moded.
It has already been stated that when SwitchCo does launch that it will take a platform neutral approach. So maybe we shouldn’t worry. However, switchover has the potential to become a political nightmare – and if it does there maybe a temptation to take the easiest possible route.
I am certainly not the first person to have pointed these things out. But I thought it was worth re-iterating ahead of various announcements this week, when potentially we will see an important new organisation emerge.
SwitchCo
13 September, 2005