Wireless

Wireless connections

Hauppauge Nova-s PC Card Offers Freesat TV Via Sky
Hauppauge Digital have whipped out a new add-on card to convert a boring old PC into a multimedia-tastic satellite TV receiver.
Their new WinTV Nova-s card receives free satellite channels (the -s is for satellite), and will work with Sky’s Freesat, that give free access to the unencrypted channels on Sky, which are currently all of the BBC offering and soon ITV (hopefully). Sky normally charge you £150 for the privilege.
Once they’ve shelled out for the £59.99 (~$103, ~€87) decoding device, punters won’t need a viewing card or subscription fees to enjoy free satellite transmissions on their desktop.
The card is aimed at consumers who already have a satellite dish stuck on their roof/wall, with Hauppauge suggesting that the WinTV Nova-s would be ideal for a PC “in the kitchen, study or bedroom as an additional digital TV.”
Owners can watch full screen satellite TV on their desktop, or have a smaller window open whilst trying to work on something else (yeah, right: who’s going to carry on working on their VAT return when there’s some top notch footie onscreen?!)
The Nova-s is compatible with Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition, and also offers the option to record shows to the PC’s hard disk. It will also work with all-round media handlers like ShowShifter.
At the moment, the Hauppauge’s WinTV Nova-s can receive all the BBC TV channels (including One, Two, Three, Four, CBBC, Cbeebies and BBC News24 and Radios 1 to 7.)
ITV currently encrypts, or scrambles, its satellite transmissions using the service provided by Sky, but will soon be following BBC’s lead and broadcasting its channels without encryption, so they can be viewed any satellite receiver.
This means that ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and the ever-fascinating Men&Motors will become available soon, with more channels to be added in 2006 when Freesat officially launches.
Freesat will be the satellite equivalent of Freeview,” said Yehia Oweiss, Managing Director of Hauppauge Digital. “Already broadcasting BBC, the service will be available to all UK households and bring free digital TV to the 25 per cent who are outside Freeview’s area. Consumers can buy our Freesat tuner now and enjoy many digital channels now, with more being added all the time.”
The WinTV Nova-s looks reasonably future proofed too, offering HDTV (High Definition TV) compatibility, with HDTV broadcasts expected to be delivered by satellite in 2006/7
Freesat’s EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) will be made available on the Hauppauge card, but for now the information can be downloaded through the Internet.
The Hauppauge WinTV Nova-s also provides a video input socket for slapping in a camcorder and digitising the content into MPEG format for editing and burning to DVD.
Hauppauge
Showshifter
21 November, 2005
Mesh Networks Discovered By The Mainstream
Mesh Networks are going to grow enormously by the end of the decade, according to ABI research. This ‘revalation’ is following years technical-types raving on about them.
While predicting “stellar growth rate”, they don’t think it will eat into current providers of current infrastructure, but instead new markets will emerge such as alternative service providers, municipalities and college campus’s. Oh and buy happy co-incidence, ABI have a report that you can buy about the subject, “Wireless Mesh Networking: Technologies and Deployment Strategies for Metropolitan and Campus Networks.”
Indeed, at the launch of the One Laptop Per Child event earlier in the week, Nicholas Negroponte explained that Mesh Networking was intrinsic to the success of the project, as many countries it would be used in do not have communication infrastructures.
Mesh Networks explained
Mesh Networks, have been spoken about, and set up by some, for many years. The idea behind it is simple. Each user of the network expands the reach of the network, by letting information pass through their machine to its eventual destination, be that another user of the network, or an external connection.
Using this a small community of people could share a single network connection. The network is ‘organic’ – everyone who uses it, contributes to it.
There are technical challenges. As each person on the network could disappear at any time, the routing of the information needs to be highly dynamic.
At the start of this week, Cisco announced their first Mesh network products, following their purchase of Airespace for $450 million in December of 2004.
ABI Research
18 November, 2005
Satellite Operators Consolidation To Continue
It’s not cheap to launch a satellite and, as commercial satellite operators have become prey to acquisition over the last 2 years, this has been followed by the operators consolidating. The economics of satellite distribution have fundamentally changed in the USA and Western Europe. Expect competition to be fierce in what was until recently a comfortable cartel carved out the International Telecoms Union (ITU) with constituent members many years ago.
Long term, there may be question marks over the future of satellite. While it’s currently the main method of transmitting digital pay-TV platforms to much of Europe, the threats increase. The combination of the continued increases in the efficiencies of encoding technology and additional service distribution reduce the need to rely on satellite.
Satellite does still have an important role to play as an intermediate solution, that is, providing connectivity and services ahead of the arrival of more sophisticated solutions. It will also continue as a ‘in fill’ for those places where the population is dispersed and delivery of data by other means would be uneconomic.
Increasingly telecommunications traffic is being carried by fibre – an example being sports games, that used to be delivered to the broadcasters by satellite, now routinely use fibre that is available at most major venues. This has led to many Telco’s divesting their interest in the satellite companies.
Telecommunications companies like France Telecom are increasingly selling off underused teleport facilities – they’re those places with loads of big satellite dishes pointing towards the heavens. These are being bought by satellite operators so they can offer an integrated end-to-end solution to their customers.
So expect the merged Intelsat/PanAmSat who bought PanAmSat for $3.2 billion at end of August to take satellite uplink business from Globecast (owned by France Telecom) and other European Telco’s who have traditionally up-linked their satellite services.
The metamorphosis will continue with an IPO by Eutelsat and a beefed up Inmarsat. Despite a good year for satellite companies, focus will shift to the growing markets of Asia and Africa with tighter control of costs and careful management of capacity in the mature markets.
Anyone say all change?
17 November, 2005
One Laptop per Child: The Machine, The Impact
The $100 laptop project launched by MIT Media Lab, gained a big boost yesterday when the labs Nicholas Negroponte met with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.
Kofi Annan opening address summed up the project and its hopes succinctly, “The true meaning of one laptop per child, is not a matter of just giving a laptop to a child, as if bestowing on them some magic charm. The magic lies within. Within each child there is a scientist, scholar, or just plain citizen in the making. This initiative is design to bring it forth into the light of day.”
No right thinking individual could possibly doubt the value of this project. There may be a lot of commercial concerns, but we’ll get to that later on.
The Specs
It will be Linux-based, full-colour laptop that uses a wind-up handle as a power source. Run at 500MHz, with 1GB of memory and a built in 1 Megapixel camera it should run most applications that could be required (remember Linux doesn’t suck up a lot of the processors power). Just the laptop screen alone is expected to cost around $35, pretty good when a screen on a laptop is normally $150 alone.
“USB ports galore” will be provided as will built-in WiFi. The only thing it will be missing is a hard drive. We’d imagine that this will be down to the additional power drain they have, and to try and maintain the necessary ruggedness. The networking will be via a wireless mesh.
The driving theory of the project is that Learning is seamless – not just something that you do at school. This has lead to the need for an adaptable design, enabling it to be used as an electronic book (with the fingers at the back controlling the cursor), a games machine, TV set and, of course, laptop.
All software will be open source as in Negroponte view “open source software is the key to innovation in software and learning technology.”
It’s been reported that Steve Jobs had offered Apple OSX for nothing for use in the project, but it was turned down as it wasn’t open source.
Availability and impact
The laptops will be financed though domestic resources (ie the countries government), donors, and what was rather mysteriously described as “other arrangements.” It will be at no cost to the recipients themselves.
The current plans call for producing five to ten million units near the start of late 2006 or early 2007, launching in six countries. Not bad considering that Negroponte first publicly announced it in January 2005. The promise is to bring the price down at each technical advance.
Negroponte spoke about “the same laptop being commercially available, at say $200” for small businesses. They hope to announce the construction partners soon.
The impact of this project could be huge on many fronts – if it comes into being – and we’ve no reason to imagine that it won’t. Giving any and every child access to a computer, and teaching them to use it and inspiring them will be the start of a revolution bring free communication and equal learning to all citizens.
We don’t think that the impact will stop there. If the world is aware that there are laptops, perfectly able to carry out most daily required computing functions, that only cost $100, why would anyone want to pay for other ‘full price’ machines? The impact on the supply of hardware in the part of the world that already has computers will be huge.
All power to this project. Let’s help technology change the world for the better.
MIT Media Lab One Laptop Per Child
Watch the Launch video(Real video)
17 November, 2005
Digital Dividend Review: Ofcom Look At Spectrum Use After Analog TV Switch Off
Now that the Government has hit the ‘go’ button for switchover there are plenty of people anxious to know how the released spectrum will be used – and thereby how we will realise the value of it for UK plc.
In an attempt to address this issue Ofcom announced today the beginning of the Digital Dividend Review (DDR) – the project which will examine the options arising from the release of spectrum afforded by the digital switchover programme.
Ofcom estimates that the digital switchover programme will release up to 112 MHz of spectrum in the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) band for new uses. The UHF band is prime spectrum, because it offers a technically valuable combination of capacity (bandwidth) and range.
Ofcom say,
“The cleared spectrum – the Digital Dividend – offers real opportunities for wireless innovation.”
The Digital Dividend could enable the launch of a wide range of different services. Ofcom’s examples include:
- New mobile services, with high quality video and interactive media delivered to handheld devices
- Wireless broadband services, with high-speed data and voice services
- Wider coverage for advanced services in remote and rural areas. This spectrum is particularly suitable for low cost, wider-area coverage
- Advanced business and broadcasting services, such as those used to support major sporting events
- Additional television channels including possible High Definition (HD) channels carried on Freeview
Ofcom point out that this is not an exhaustive list – which will please HM Treasury since the greater the potential uses and users the higher the value likely to be realised from auctioning it.
On this point, Ofcom have a tricky job since they will have to ensure that there is enough incentive to investing the development of a particular wireless technology with no guarantee of it actually securing an allocation of the spectrum required – however it should be noted that Ofcom have stated that they will also begin work on a new auction design, with a view to ensuring that the spectrum is acquired by users who are likely to make best use of it – (i.e. best use = greatest value) – not sure how HMT will view this.
This approach means Ofcom will:
- Consider the potential uses for the available spectrum
- Set out the technical limits on spectrum use to prevent potential interference
- Draw up packages of frequencies that give flexibility to the market
- Design an efficient auction/allocation process
The proposed timetable for DDR is:
- Digital Dividend Review (DDR) begins – November 2005
- Programme team and consultants in place – end 2005
- Stakeholder meetings begin – Jan-Feb 2006
- Outcome of RRC – June 2006
- Digital Dividend Review completed – Q3 2006
- Ofcom publishes final proposals – Q4 2006
- Digital switchover programme begins – 2008
- Digital switchover programme completed – 2012
Luke Gibbs writes regularly for Ofcomwatch.
Ofcom Digital Dividend Review
17 November, 2005
BBC ‘FreeSat’, Looking Even Less Likely
As reported here at the beginning of the week there seems to be a real danger of the BBC’s non-subscription card free alternative to Sky’s Freesat offering falling at the first fence.
While the BBC cosies up to Sky to help make everyone covet a shiny new High Definition display and the services that go with it, it’s reported in Broadcast that the companies who will manufacture the receivers have no specification to work too.
If a specification isn’t nailed down in the next few months, it’ll be 2007 before the boxes hit the shops. By then there could be considerable consumer resistance, with buyers prefering to wait to see what happens with any new high-quality domestic standard, and the makers of the boxes moving to newer higher tech, bigger margin products.
In short, there’s a danger that the boat may be missed.
A raft of HD services across Europe is likely to eat up scarce capacity on the high-power satellites that beam the programmes down to earth, making any system that duplicates services across platforms more expensive.
Add to all of the above the challenge of creating a clear marketing and installation message, and I can see that there could well be people in the BBC who would rather that their careers didn’t get blighted by a potential fiasco.
The BBC could be minded too by OFCOM’s view that the burdens of switching to digital delivery should not fall disproportionately on the dear old ‘beeb’. Unless priorities change, James Murdoch can relax on the BSkyb extra terrestrial UK monopoly for a bit longer.
But will the public gain too?
11 November, 2005
Google Local For Mobile: Not Just The USA
For those who have better thing to do with their lives than fanatically watch every twist and turn of online technology, or if you’re living outside the US of A, you may well not have been using Google’s recently launched Google Local For Mobile (GLM)- or even have heard of it.
Here’s the heads-up – it’s a service that runs through a downloaded Java application on a number of mobile phones, giving on-the-move mapping, route planning and local information.
As with their browser-based mapping services, you can view either a map, satellite view or a overlaid combination of the two.
Superimposed on this is local business information, currently, but we can see that with Google’s penchant for adding advertising to everything, this may be soon added to.
Yesterday we revealed how GLM has GPS hidden inside, but isn’t currently enabled and it was while playing around with this, we discovered another interesting undocumented feature.
Google are telling everyone that it just covers the US. Quoting from their FAQ
Does Google Local for mobile work everywhere?
Not yet. Local for mobile is currently available in the US only. We’re working to increase its availability as soon as possible.
We found that with a little playing around, you can investigate around Europe and plot routes using the click to select mapping.
So, how do you explore Europe?
Here’s how we discovered it, there may be other ways.
- Download the app to your mobile using the ‘Other’ mobile provider option
- Select a handset close to your own (we’ve found that it doesn’t need to be your exact handset)
- Download and run the app
- Shift to satellite view and you’ll see the whole of the USA
- Scroll right towards Europe
- Zoom in to your desired Euro location
- Select 2 (Directions) to find route
- Use ‘Select point on map’ to select the starting point, then finishing point
- The route will be calculated
- Click 3 to start stepping through your route
- Have fun
More detail than the browser version
The discovery doesn’t end there. After chatting further to Cristian Streng, we now also realise that there’s detail on the Mobile version that isn’t available via the ‘normal’ Web-based Google Maps.
To illustrate it, he sent us some screen grabs showing mapping data of Germany that is currently only available in GLM.
If you fancy having a look around too, but want to save the mobile phone data charges, we’ll pass on a tip from Cristian. He very sensibly did his investigation using a PC-based Java Virtual Machine rather than spending money on GPRS charges. Smart.
If you didn’t know it already, this makes is clear that software is there to play with, and if you do, you may find lots of areas and features that you’re officially told aren’t there. So, go, explore.
Google Local For Mobile
Cristian Streng Mobile GMaps app
10 November, 2005
Vodafone Licenses Intertrust DRM
Intertrust must have though that all of the xmases came at once on the day Vodafone confirmed their licensing deal. It’s not every day that the World’s largest mobile operator signs a deal like that with you.
The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) specified DRM (Digital Rights Management)contains what they refer to as, the essential patents – the minimum required to run the very basics of the content/rights protection.
The Vodafone deal goes well beyond these basics and licenses all of the technologies and patent that Intertrust have available.
When we asked which of the Intertrust pieces of technology they were planning to use, Vodafone became unusually very shy, explaining that they didn’t have definitive plans as to which parts would and wouldn’t be used.
Both Vodafone and Intertrust declined to reveal the value of the transaction, but given the need for separate deals with the handset companies, it may be here that Intertrust make most of their money. This will not be optional if the handset manufacturers want to be on the Vodafone service and offer content.
The length of the deal has been loosely described as ‘Long-term licensing’, but Vodafone didn’t reveal how long this was by the time we went to press.
Intertrust
Vodafone
10 November, 2005
GPS Discovered In Google Local For Mobile
Despite their emphatic denial, Google appear to be planning to bring GPS to the recently announced Google Local For Mobile.
Clever clogs, Cristian Streng has been digging around in his Google Local For Mobile .jad, the downloaded binary file for his Nokia 6600 and he found the following “GpsEnabled: false.” Well I never.
Just to refresh you, here’s what Google say in their FAQ
Does Google Local for mobile use GPS to figure out where I am?
Google Local for mobile doesn’t use any GPS technology, even if your phone has a built in GPS location device.
It looks like v2.0 could well be different.
Currently the users of the service have to key in or select the desired starting and destination points, and press a key to mimic their progress in the real world. Using GPS eradicates the need to tell the system where you are, or update the system to your progress.
With GPS Google’s service becomes a huge threat to many of the companies that already sell handheld navigation system like TomTom and Navicore. The disadvantage of Google’s approach is that the phone must be connected to the network, racking up data charges for the mobile owner. This disadvantage vanishes when the phone user had an all inclusive data rate.
The GPS feature could well be waiting for a second release of the service, or waiting for next-gen handsets with aGPS built into them, to become more widely used.
Google isn’t alone in their desire to provide mapping services to mobiles. Guy Kewney tells us that there have been mutterings about Yahoo Maps linking up with mobile phone companies too.
Google Local For Mobile
Cristian Streng Mobile GMaps app
9 November, 2005
RFID’s Are Go: Ofcom Extends UK Frequency Range
Ofcom, the UK uber-regulator, has today announced that they have removed the licensing restrictions on the frequency that radio frequency identification(RFID) tags use.
The currently spectrum available is limited to the range 869.4 to 869.65 MHz. The new position will make the range much wider, stretching between 865-868 MHz range.
The extension isn’t a great surprise as, for a number of years, there has been great excitement in industry as to the possible uses of RFID. The much used example is to improve the efficiency of handling goods in a warehouse, where items within a crate are wirelessly read, and their number deducted from the known stock list automatically as they leave the warehouse.
Many have voiced concerns about the privacy problems of information being remotely read about a person, using RFID, without their knowledge, or complicity. Their oft cited, but basically harmless example is of each item of clothing that a person is wearing being read as they walk into a shop.
Ofcom say that when coming to their decision, they considered two main issues. The first, the potential of interference from RFID devices, concluding that current legislation of output levels covered this. Secondarily, the economic costs and benefits. We quote
Ofcom conducted an impact assessment which found that the potential net benefits to businesses (through better inventory management and improved security) and consumers (if savings were reflected in lower prices) would be £100 – £200 million over 10 years
Benefits are clear for business, as efficiency is improved, by removing employees from the equation. Those to the consumers are less clear, as we can see Ofcom effectively acknowledge in their bracketed ‘if savings were reflected in lower prices’. Given what we know about the pursuit of profit, we see this as a very large If.
Perhaps the revealing section in Ofcom’s announcement is that they “seek to deregulate in order to increase the amount of licence-exempt spectrum used by businesses to bring new technologies and services to the market.” (Our stress).
It could be argued that Ofcom are losing site of their statutory dutiesunder the Communications Act 2003 – to look after the interests of the public. Specifically, quoting from the Ofcom site (again our stress).
3(1) It shall be the principal duty of Ofcom, in carrying out their functions;
(a) to further the interests of citizens in relation to communications matters; and
(b) to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition”
The above is listed on the ‘about section’ on Ofcom’s site .
Ofcom’s full statement (PDF)
Wikipedia RFID
9 November, 2005