With its streamlined design and Palm shortcuts layered on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, the Treo Pro is a combination of simplicity and robust productivity, including email, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities,to ...
Verizon Wireless today launched the Blitz. Once again, Verizon has hidden the true manufacturer of the phone, UTStarcom , from any marketing and promotion materials.
Many consumers are already familiar with the motion-sensor technology built into gaming consoles that translate physical motion into electronic commands, noted Nadine Clark, Olympus product manager. The Stylus 1050 SW employs similar technology.
"Adjusting the camera settings is intuitive because the whole camera reacts to the way it's tapped," Clark said. "When you absolutely must get the shot in tough conditions, the Stylus 1050 SW is the camera to have at your side."
Photo Tap Dance
Featuring a 10.1-megapixel imaging sensor, the Stylus 1050 SW is housed in a rugged body that renders it impervious to sudden shocks, freezing temperatures and water. Olympus even goes as far as to claim that the new digital camera can survive five-foot drops onto the ground, operate in a snowstorm or even go swimming, and keep on clicking.
However, the camera's main claim is that it can be controlled by means of a simple tap on its top, back or sides. The camera's built-in 3-D accelerometer detects the direction of the force impinging on the camera's body and converts it into individual commands. To activate the camera's flash or built-in shadow-adjustment technology, the user simply needs to tap twice on the camera's side.
The tap technology could come in handy whenever users operate the device under less-than-optimal environmental conditions, such as when outdoor temperatures drop below freezing. For example, users forced to wear gloves will find it much easier to tap on the camera's body than push a button or adjust a knob.
Even better, the lightweight, aluminum exterior of the Stylus 1050 SW mates with interior rubber gaskets and O-rings that tightly seal out...
The system, called Perspectives, also can protect against attacks related to a recently disclosed software flaw in the Domain Name System , the Internet phone book used to route messages between computers.
Wired.com surveyed 2,636 iPhone users in the United States, Europe, Australia and Canada. The results showed variation by country, major metropolitan areas and carrier.
"In our view, this data is a strong indicator that performance of the mobile carrier's network is affecting the iPhone 3G more than the handset itself," wrote Brian X. Chen of Wired.com. "[I]t's highly unlikely that Apple is going to wave a magic wand and say, '3G problems, be gone' with a software update. Before Apple can make such a claim, it needs to wait for all of its carriers to optimize 3G network behavior -- in terms of number of towers, how they're positioned and how much bandwidth each tower can handle."
AT&T in the Middle
The survey ranked U.S. carrier AT&T third, tied with Telstra, Telia and SoftBank. AT&T users averaged 990 Kbps, half of the 1,822 Kbps averaged on T-Mobile's European networks but miles beyond the 390 Kbps offered by Australian carriers Virgin and Optus. The average in Australia was 759 Kbps.
But the vast majority of participants reporting "0" speeds, meaning they dropped off of 3G entirely, were AT&T customers in the U.S. Out of more than 1,600 survey participants from the U.S., 63 reported speeds of 0. Only 80 participants worldwide reported speeds of 0.
In the American cities that should be the most built-out for 3G, many users are getting no better than EDGE speeds, the survey found. In San Francisco, one-third of respondents (10 out of 30) reported speeds just barely better than EDGE. This is probably because the number of iPhone 3G users are overwhelming the available 3G towers, the report said.
More Anecdotal Evidence
The...
Verizon Wireless is billing the phone as a device designed for the heaviest of texters. Loosely translated, that means tweens, or preteens.
The Blitz comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a dedicated My Messaging key. The tween-friendly phone also offers a 2.2-inch screen for browsing the Web or checking e-mail.
Also important to the youth demographic, the Blitz is a music player. Verizon's latest product comes equipped with an MP3 player that can access the Verizon V CAST Music with Rhapsody service.
"The nice part about technology, as with most things, is that mature platforms fragment," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile research for Jupitermedia. "So we have these youth-optimized devices that we really have never seen just a few years ago."
Priced to Sell
The Blitz is selling for $69.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year customer agreement with Verizon. Customers can sign up for V CAST Music with Rhapsody for a $14.99 monthly subscription.
"What's nice about it is that it appeals to a demographic that doesn't have a whole lot of money in their pocket," Gartenberg said. "These kids don't have $200 or $300 to spend on a phone, although they'd like to. The Blitz is cool enough that you don't have to be branded as the person using the cheap phone in school."
The Blitz also incorporates a 1.3-megapixel camera with color effects and a self-portrait mirror. It supports Bluetooth devices; is mobile Web-capable; offers mobile e-mail functionality through MSN, Hotmail, America Online, and Yahoo; and offers a media center that lets young people download games, ringtones, wallpapers, location-based services, and other media.
The Blitz also comes with mobile instant-messaging capabilities and picture messaging, as well...
Andy Abramson of VoIP Watch has figured out how to make voice calls using the data-only Aircell service on American Airlines. They tried Flash Audio (which isn’t blocked).
And guess what? It worked.Phweet. Yup, the unfunded brainchild of pals Stuart Henshall and Mr. Blog David Beckemeyer (who I consider one of the true great minds in VoIP) made it happen.
I invited Joanna, she replied and once I figured out how to get Phweet to answer (I had to use Safari, not Firefox) Joanna and I were having a lovely conversation while she was on an Aircell flight. I don’t mean a five second hi, hello. I mean, a real conversation, as she held her Lenovo UMPC up to her face. I even heard the announcement from the flight attendants as she was about to land.
Here’s the logic. Flash audio is embedded inside Flash. Unless Aircell wants to block all Flash traffic, this is the way to talk.
After more than a year of careful planning to accommodate the Democratic National Convention at Denver’s Pepsi Center, Qwest Communications found itself scrambling at the last minute to also wire up Invesco Field at Mile High, when Barack Obama’s campaign decided he would make his acceptance speech there, reports Telephony Magazine.
Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, is not already a Qwest customer, and Qwest is facing considerable complications getting fiber optic connections in place to accommodate the anticipated media coverage.
While the two sites are only about a half-mile apart on the outskirts of Denver’s downtown business district, they are separated by a major freight rail line, a major interstate highway and the South Platt River, said Chuck Ward, president of Qwest’s Colorado operations.
But Qwest is not providing wireless service to the DNC. Wireless networks were deemed not secure and robust enough. “The DNC are viewing this much the same way as we are – as a very sophisticated enterprise level network they are running for this convention“, said Ward. They did not want to put any mission-critical type applications in the wireless environment.
There is too much risk of interference when you think about 20,000 people, most of which will have wireless phones. Much of the communications between cameras also is done on RF devices. The chance for interference inside Pepsi Center is pretty high, which is why the DNC chose not to put anything mission-critical on wireless networks, and we agreed with that.”The four-week window left no time to bury fiber to Invesco, Ward said, and the company has only four days to work inside the site. “To the extent we had open conduit, we could blow some fiber in,” he said. “But Invesco is still a live venue – the Broncos play there Saturday [Aug. 23], and we get to come in after they leave the field, on Sunday morning. That gives us four days to construct all the inside infrastructure.”
Qwest will have to lay some fiber on the ground and then go to great lengths to protect it from vehicle and foot traffic, Ward said. “We are working carefully with the Invesco folks to provide the security this requires,” he said.
By contrast, plans for wiring the Pepsi Center began 18 months ago, and included what Ward calls “fiber to the parking lot.”
Qwest CTO Pieter Poll tells ZDNet they push fiber to distribution points that branch out to about 350 homes, then using copper wiring to reach the home with ADSL2+, according to Broadband Reports. AT&T’s U-Verse service uses faster VDSL modems. ADSL2+ extends the capability of basic ADSL by doubling the number of downstream bits with data rates topping out at 24 Mbit/s downstream. Poll says FTTH is too expensive.
Broadband wireless is available in Denver via Nth Air, which is launching a WiMAX service in Denver over a 3.65 GHz network. Sprint and Clearwire plan to jointly launch Mobile WiMax service in Denver next year.
Verizon Wireless expects to handle 5 million more calls and data transmissions than normal during the August 25-28 Democratic National Convention in Denver while Sprint will deploy an Emergency Response Team (ERT) using a Satellite Cellsite on Light Truck (SATCOLT) to stand by in case of unforeseen problems. Google will help set up a two-story, 8,000 square-foot headquarters for hundreds of bloggers (list of credentialed bloggers).
Official Providers of communications services at the DNC includes Vertigo Software, the Official Microsoft Silverlight Application Development Services Provider for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Vertigo has designed the interface for delivering live, gavel-to-gavel, high-definition (HD)-quality video through the official Convention Web site, DemConvention.com.
The DNCC has signed on ShadowTV as its Official Video Monitoring Service Provider. ShadowTV will provide allows users to search the closed-captioning text in news clips and receive real-time alerts when keywords are mentioned in television programming. Using this technology, the DNCC will be able to retrieve footage instantly from more than 250 television stations across the country.
Google has launched a mobile microsite dedicated to the Presidential race. The destination, m.google.com/elections, offers links to election-related news; mobile YouTube channels from both Barack Obama and John McCain; maps of Denver and Minneapolis (where next week’s Republican National Convention will be held) and other information.
See also; Denver Gets Fixed WiMAX and Bloggers Get HQ at Political Conventions
Wireless microphones were operating in spectrum occupied by television stations but didn't interfere with broadcasts during recent tests of new wireless broadband devices in Maryland, says a group pushing for ...
In 1995, when the media rights to the Beijing Games were awarded, NBC could not have imagined millions of live video streams of sporting events, but the company ensured it would own all video rights to the events, protecting its content no matter what technologies emerged.
NBCOlympics.com served up more than 1.2 billion pages and 72 million video streams through Saturday, more than doubling the combined traffic to its site during the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2006 Games in Turin, notes C/Net. NBC’s most popular video from Beijing, with 2.3 million views, was the United States swimming team’s 4×100 relay on August 11 featuring Michael Phelps’ second gold medal win.
The popularity of the site will very likely make digital rights more significant in next year’s bidding for the 2014 and 2016 Games.
On Friday the research firm eMarketer estimated that NBC earned $5.75 million in revenue from online video ads, a tiny proportion of the $1 billion in total advertising revenue it raised from the Games. eMarketer came up with its video ad estimate by multiplying an estimated 4.5 million streams daily by 1.5 ads per stream at a CPM of $50. NBC officials said that Internet advertising revenues could not be estimated because the ads were sold across various platforms.
Traffic to NBCOlympics.com peaked each day around noon as office workers checked in during the lunch hour. Gibs said Nielsen also saw traffic spikes on the last two Monday mornings, presumably as office workers caught up on Olympics action they might have missed over the weekend.
NBC’s decision to save some popular sports for prime time–up to 12 hours after they have happened–put the network at odds with the spirit of the Internet, which rewards speed and rejects scarcity. Americans awakened to breaking news e-mail messages and Web site headlines revealing the results of gymnastics and track and field races, but had to wait until bedtime to see the events on television.
But Tech Crunch brings the numbers back down to Earth; Yahoo Sports still edged it out with an average of 4.7 million visitors a day versus 4.3 million (source: Nielsen Online). And Yahoo didn’t even have video. eMarketer guesses that NBC’s Olympics video ad revenues came to $5.75 million. That compares to $23 million that CBS made from video ads when it streamed the NCAA basketball tournament live on its Website in March, explains Tech Crunch.
NBC treated the Olympics like a research laboratory, and it says it is gleaning information about how people preferred to consume content from its combination of television, online and mobile offerings.
Last week, eMarketer issued a revised forecast of $550 million for Web video ad spending in 2008, up from $324 million last year. The category is expected to hit $5.8 billion in ad dollars by 2013.
Related 2008 Olympics coverage on Dailywireless includes; Olympics: In Demand, Denver Gets Ready for DNC, WiMAX for TV Remote Feeds, The Olympic Handset, Olympics Has Not Melted The Internet - Yet, Mobile Users Becoming A Force, China Showcases TD-SCDMA at Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics: On Demand
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