Pioneering French music technology centre Ircam is finally arriving in Britain

Pioneering French music technology centre Ircam is finally arriving in Britain. Andrew Clements & composer Jonathan Harvey praise its radical spirit. Several digital techniques, which are taken for granted these days in electro-acoustic music, emerged from the Ircam lab in the first decade of its existence. It continues to come up with new techniques for extending the boundaries of a composer’s creativity. Several pieces heard regularly in the UK - rock and pop music and contemporary classical - use those innovations.

It has been over 20 years since Ircam showcased its activities in the UK. There was a series of concerts in the early 1980s devoted to its early achievements in London, conducted by Boulez. But it has greatly influenced the UK’s musical life far more than most music lovers realise. Jonathan Harvey was among the first British composers to conceive a piece using their hardware & software. He had mentioned: “I had conceived a desire for making an orchestra “speak”. The questions of why we’re the only species on the planet who speak, of how speech arose, of what role proto-speech plays - all these aspects informed my Ircam work. At Ircam, they’ve synthesised voices singing and, more importantly for me, speaking.”

British airlines can now apply for the wavelengths required to make calls ‘in the air’

Passengers who often are made to shout: “Hello! am on the plane!” could well join cramped legroom & bad food on the current list of in-flight annoyances since airlines moved closer to letting the usage of cell phones on board. Ofcom, the communications regulator, gave the go-ahead for British aircraft for installing systems, which will let passengers make calls as well as send text messages.

The go-ahead means that British airlines can now apply for the wavelengths that are required to make calls ‘in the air’. On-board base stations (picocells) that would be switched on - at a height of 10,000ft - will let licensed aircraft link up via satellite with mobile operators.

Air passengers would have to pay a roaming charge and would also be billed by their phone firms as normal. They would not be permitted to make use of their phones during take-off & landing, too. The airlines BMI & Ryanair, which are planning to install the new technology, welcomed the proposed move.

A couple of hurdles do remain. For example, other European regulators must still agree to the plan. However, Ryanair stated the majority of them had agreed. Also, the European Aviation Safety Agency needs to approve in-flight equipment for establishing the connectivity.

Users on mobile network 3 can watch music videos for free via their phones

Users on the mobile network 3 will now be able to watch music videos for no additional cost via their phones, after a deal in this regard with Sony BMG. The mobile network stated the deal through the Rhythm Media service, would greatly expand the firm’s advertising inventory following the advertising-funded video’s introduction in March last year. Videos from Mark Ronson, the Tings Tings and Alicia Keys will be indexed on 3’s popular music portal.

Viewers will get to see adverts of up to 20seconds before & after each song. These ads are targeted according to the gender and age of the customer. “The time is ideal for this kind of business model,” stated the head of portal advertising for 3, Neil Andrews. “Even a year ago there were some concerns in the industry about whether this kind of advertising would perform. But when we sell enough (ad) inventory, we are required to generate more impressions, and need compelling content to do that.”

The firm claims to have roughly 4 million UK customers. About 1.4 million of them make use of its video services. Andrews stated mobile video was not perceived as a niche or geek service by its customers, revealing that the operator happened to be the second largest retailer of ‘paid-for’ digital music after iTunes.

A new Podcasting software to access audio-visual content via Internet

Houston based Data Call Technologies Incorporation, announced that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire 100 per cent of Podcast Ready, Inc. (PRI), a private Delaware corporation, which deals in software & web services, allowing the aggregation and distribution of audio/video content directly to mobile and other devices.

Podcasting enables publishing audio/video programs via Internet, thus facilitating users to subscribe to useful, quality content, which is automatically downloaded for future usage in form of listening/viewing on portable media players, personal computers or cell phones.

Podcast Ready Inc. makes finding, managing as well as delivering podcasts - convenient for the end-user. A user can tune to podcasts on the web site or download them to their PC or MP3 player using Podcast Ready’s software.

This deal would surely strengthen Data Call’s present business strategy of expanding its products-services portfolio into fast growing markets, which are complimentary to those of Data Call’s current markets. The firm believes that the market for audio/video content offers great business opportunity. Data Call reinforces its long-term commitments to emerging new media markets through this deal.

Sybase to support corporate email for iPhone

Mobile specialist Sybase iAnywhere, is another company that joins the bandwagon of companies launching corporate applications geared for the Apple device. This company plans to offer support to iPhone within its Information Anywhere Suite. This platform will offer IT organizations secure delivery of Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange enterprise email to iPhone users. It aims at the enterprise and business user markets.

Senthil Krishnapillai, Boise, ID-based director of product management for mobile collaboration products at Sybase iAnywhere said that through this release, the company is providing enterprises a secure way to extend their corporate email solutions to the iPhone, while at the same time helping the end user utilise the native email capability of the iPhone. The company has touted several advantages to its iPhone support, firstly – security. Secondly, accessing email offline. And lastly, contact data access which secures access to contact data on the iPhone, covering both corporate directory and personal contacts. Other benefits include the platform’s multi-device support as well as enterprise email support, including support to Lotus Domino R6/7/8 and Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003/2007.

The iPhone support was born out of customer demand to support the mobile device for business email. It already supports corporate email for Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm devices.

SouthWing to reveal new LiveEye 3G Wireless IP Camera at CTIA 2008

SouthWing announces the launch of the LiveEye wireless IP camera at CTIA Wireless 2008. , The company’s core business is the development of intelligent wireless devices, applications and service platforms. This gadget is the first IP camera to transmit data via cable/DSL, Wi-Fi, and 3GPP wireless networks directly to a 3G mobile phone or PDA or laptop, or PC anywhere across the globe. It also doubles as a 3G wireless broadband router, thus, allowing users to access the internet during power outages or network failure.

The LiveEye has motion and audio detection features that can be toggled on and off using text messaging or through its internal online web interface. When motion or a loud noise is detected the camera automatically sends alerts through a text message to the user’s 3G mobile phone or email with a link to view the feed and assess the situation. Additionally, infrared night vision also facilitates users to see in dark conditions.

This Plug and Play device configures itself with no need for a dedicated PC to monitor the feed. Extra Wi-Fi cameras can also be linked to it with an optional Wi-Fi module.

The LiveEye will be exhibited along with various other product range from South Wing , such as Bluetooth headsets, car kits and stereo headsets.

SLES 11 at Sun and Red Hat targeted by Novell

Novell has announced six main “themes” for the release of Version 11 of SLES, which is not due until the middle of 2009. These themes include mission critical servers, virtualisation, interoperability, green IT, Unix migration and desktop Linux. This version will be available on appliances and integrated in devices.

Justin Steinman, director of Linux marketing at Novell, confirmed that the company considers Unix migration as a “huge growth opportunity and also expects Suse Linux to be adopted on many of the 700,000 servers currently running the Sun Solaris version of Unix. Though most of Novell’s Linux business comes in from servers, the company expects desktops to grow, and is doing deals to pre-load its software on PCs from Dell and Lenovo.
Novell has a joint development lab with Microsoft, one of the leading software companies in the world, and much of its code is produced side by side with Microsoft engineers. This and other such factors will facilitate Novell to continue to gain in market share on the enterprise leader Red Hat. The company picked up eight points of market share on Red Hat in fiscal 2007 and intends to pick up a lot more of market share this year too.

Usage of hosted-applications will rise

Thanks to the ever increasing technology, large enterprise’s adoption for software as a service has increased by a third over the last year, according to analysts at Forrester Research.

The analyst firm issued a report last week, which said adoption of software as a service (SaaS), or hosted applications, in large enterprises stands at 16 percent, up a third on the previous year’s 12 percent. This survey was based on research conducted among 1,017 “technology decision makers”. 46 percent, of those who were surveyed said they were interested in or planning to deploy SaaS applications, while 37 said they were not interested even a bit.

The SaaS model involves users accessing hosted online applications and also involves a completely different financial model to installed applications, as it is based on software rental rather than upfront payment.

The survey observed that the most popular sectors where the SaaS model was in use were human resources, collaboration and customer-relationship management. Approximately, 45 percent of the SaaS users surveyed were using “human capital management” applications, while just 22 percent claimed to be using SaaS for Web 2.0 technologies like RSS, wikis and blogs.

AT&T launches NCAA March Madness mobile portal

Wireless carrier AT&T Mobility has launched a new mobile content portal for NNCA March Madness. The firm has worked with mobile content management specialist Crisp Wireless for targeting sports fans. It is looking to hold on to its sports-crazy customer base by pushing content devoted to the NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament.

The March madness portal features the recent scores of all games, statistics, results and bracket updates. People who use 3G enabled phones will be able to watch video highlights of the tourney. All AT&T Mobility customers can access the portal on their mobile phone through Media Net.

In the meantime, users will also be able to make, track and manage their tournament bracket from their phone – thanks to the AT&T Bracket Challenge. Standard data charges will be applied to customers using this service. However, there will be no extra charge for accessing and the portal will not run advertisements.

“They don’t have an ad-driven model for this as of now,” Andy Sullivan, vice president of client services at Crisp, NY, stated. “It is really marketing-driven. But most of the things we do at Crisp Wireless are ad-supported. We work with many sports and media firms for building similar sorts of mobile sites so that they can gain from mobile advertising.”

Intel stretches Wi-Fi links to 100km to ensure greater connectivity

Wi-Fi is relatively easy to access in urban areas and metropolitan cities; however, the case is not the same in more rural, remote parts of the world. Intel now claims to have developed a new way to get wireless signals outside of cities. Termed as the Rural Connectivity Program (RCP), Intel’s initiative uses a processor, software radios, and an antenna to connect remote areas up to 60 miles (96 kilometers) away. This device also enables a relatively high output and can reach up to 6.5mbps to allow video conferencing.
The RCP has been tested in India, Panama, Vietnam and South Africa. Intel claims its service has a worldwide appeal. Intel’s technology uses a directional router placed atop a tower that communicates with a radio several kilometers away, thus sending signals over such a long distance. The tower is needed to ensure line of sight. The company also rewrote how the Wi-Fi signals communicate and used specific time slots to ensure that a connection would not time out until those radios connected with each other – all this to ensure smooth accessibility of internet.
Intel has confirmed that it plans to continue testing its technology at several locations worldwide in the following months; however, nothing has been revealed about the dates of release in specific areas.

Next Page »