Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Monday 23 June 2008, 1:41 PM
Nokia buys another location company
The Finnish handset behemoth has snapped up yet another location-based services company, Germany's Plazes. The 13-strong startup, based in Berlin, provides "a context-aware social-activity service that people can use to plan, record, and share their social activities: why they are at a given location at a given time, whether in the past, present or future." Whatever that means.
From the press release:
By acquiring Plazes, Nokia will be able to extend its context-based service offering with social presence and time-based activity planning features. Plazes adds the elements of "place" and "time" to social networking through features that allow people to alert friends of their activity and location; review their own and others' past activities; share their experiences and make plans with friends, who are then able to respond with comments and suggestions as well as their own location information.
Sounds interesting. Seeing as the company already has Navteq and sticks GPS in most of its handsets, this could be where Nokia's muscle translates into something truly innovative on the location front.
Friday 20 June 2008, 5:00 PM
Will Microsoft ever stop selling XP?
While writing up the release details of Asus' Eee Box today, it took me a moment to twig that the machine was slightly odd. Why? Because it's coming out in August, it'll be using Windows XP and it's a desktop PC. Microsoft had set June 30 as the cut-off date for XP sales, except for "netbooks" like the mobile Eee PC - how come a desktop is going to be available with the OS after that cut-off date?
The answer is self-evident: the Eee Box's innards are very similar to those of, say, the upcoming Eee PC 1000 - both use the low-powered Atom processor, for example - and it simply can't handle Vista. But, I asked Microsoft, surely the XP extension was only for netbooks...
Not so, says Microsoft. Didn't I see that press release that came out on June 3, in which they said XP would continue to be available on "nettops" like the Eee Box? Well, no, I didn't, nor had anyone in the office. Onto the intarwebs though, and there it is.
I can see why I missed it the first time. Here's the title: "Following Success of Windows on Netbooks, Microsoft Extends Windows Offering to Nettop Devices". And on it goes, for almost 600 words, with almost no mention of the name "XP" (it is in there once, towards the bottom, buried in a quote from Cellnet's general manager). So, here's the deal: Microsoft is killing off XP for desktops, except for desktops that are - and this really is the sole criterion - "ultralow-cost". Bearing in mind that this is going to be an exploding market, that means Microsoft isn't really killing off XP at all, much as it would love to.
"The company is seeing much demand among industry partners who want to ensure that customers can have the benefits of Windows on both new and existing devices," says the release. Indeed.
Friday 20 June 2008, 1:07 PM
T-Mobile slashes data roaming rates
We'll be writing a full story on this shortly, but news has just come through that T-Mobile's cut its data roaming rates by 80 percent. You know how painful it is to get charged £7.50 per megabyte while roaming in Europe? Well, as of July 1 that rate will be cut down to £1.50 per megabyte!
Funny, you'd never guess that July 1 was the deadline set by Viviane Reding for operators to cut their data roaming rates or else. It's not just data roaming rates she wants cut, it's also the charges for text messaging - and as of the end of August, T-Mobile's SMS roaming rates in Europe will be cut from 40p to 25p.
We've waited a long time for this. Let the slashing commence!
Thursday 19 June 2008, 2:43 PM
How much should text/data roaming cost?
Those of you who travel within Europe might be interested in an analysis, published by Denmark's equivalent of Ofcom, into the real cost of text messaging, multimedia messaging and internet surfing while abroad.
According to the National IT and Telecom Agency in Copenhagen, what travelling Danes should be looking at is 4.2 eurocents for a text message (they pay 33.6c), 27.7c for an MMS (they pay 33.6c) and €1.18 per megabyte for data usage (they pay €6.50).
Obviously this is partly based on Danish mobile operators' charges, but it's not hard to make a British comparison. Our Viv has set a deadline for the operators of July 1, so let's see what happens then.
Thursday 19 June 2008, 9:58 AM
TfL reponds to Oyster crack claims
Transport for London has been quick to hit back at claims, made by Dutch security researchers, that the Oyster card is crackable and clonable. Not only did the researchers apparently get a free ride on the underground, but they also seem to have perpetrated a DDOS attack on a Tube gate.
While we work on a complete story on this series of events, here's TfL's statement on the matter:
"Londoners can have total confidence in the security of their Oyster cards. We run daily tests for cloned or fraudulent cards and any found would be stopped within 24 hours of being discovered. Therefore the most anyone could gain from a rogue card is one day's travel. Security is the key aspect of the Oyster system and Londoners can have confidence in the security of their Oyster cards. Using a fraudulent card for free travel is subject to prosecution."
And here's a statement from TranSys - the consortium responsible for delivering Oyster on behalf of TfL:
"Oyster has been designed with security at the forefront of its functionality. It has robust security, which operates at different points within the system. This ensures that should one security measure be breached, another will protect Oyster cards and the system as a whole. No personal information is stored on an Oyster card and specific information relating to the individual card holder (name, address, telephone etc) is stored on a central database and kept separate from journey data."
More soon!
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