Winners in FCC Auction Talk of More ‘Open’ Networks

By Cecilia Kang Washington Post Staff Writer  Saturday, April 5, 2008; Page D01

Verizon Wireless and AT&T said they plan to create faster and more robust networks with a new chunk of radio spectrum they won at a recent federal auction of airwaves. They also talked about moving toward more “open” networks, offering consumers the ability to use a greater number of devices and more applications over their handsets.

The companies disclosed plans for their purchase of 700-megahertz radio frequencies after rules restricting them from discussing the Federal Communications Commission’s auction were lifted Thursday night.

Carriers currently control the types of phones and services their wireless subscribers can use.

Even though the companies touted their new networks as open, some said they won’t offer the extent of consumer choice that some public-interest groups and Internet companies sought.

The carriers’ definitions of an open network vary. AT&T argues that its use of SIM, operating and memory cards already allows the use of any device with those technologies on its network. It said it invites developers to create technologies for its networks, but it must approve their use.

Verizon Wireless, meanwhile, refused to elaborate on how it defines “open access.” It purchased a segment of airwaves at the auction that came with a requirement that it must build a network open to all devices and software applications. The company said it would begin testing technologies on its existing network by June.

“We don’t want to get into definitions at the moment that are ‘regulatory-ese.’ We want to get people to close their eyes and imagine all the possibilities,” said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson.

Google, the Internet phone service provider Skype and some public-interest groups had hoped to push the FCC and carriers to offer more unfettered consumer access. They also sought clearer regulatory definitions from the FCC.

“Our objective is to bring the ethos of the Internet to the wireless world . . . gathering the world’s information, making it universally accessible and easy to use,” but carriers still can control what users can do over the wireless network, said Rick Whitt, telecom and media counsel for Google.

Google, which bid in the airwave auction but didn’t win, said it will continue to stay involved with the implementation of rules to ensure that Verizon Wireless carries out the openness principles.

Wireless carriers, meanwhile, said they are being friendly to consumers.

Verizon Wireless chief executive Lowell McAdam said yesterday that the company’s purchase “will make Verizon the preferred partner for developers of a new wave of consumer electronics and applications using this next-generation technology.”

Article source - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403508.html

For more info please visit us at – Software Development Company India

If the file format does not become a standard, some governments could shy away from using Open XML — and therefore, potentially, Microsoft Office.

By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek March 31, 2008 05:25 PM

After years of wrangling, Microsoft’s Office Open XML file formats are set to gain or lose approval as international standards. The ballots are in and being counted, but the world won’t know the verdict of the International Standards Organization until Wednesday.

The voting ended over the weekend, and it’s not clear exactly what is delaying the results. A total of 87 national standards bodies are voting. In at least one case, Steve Pepper, chairman of Norway’s committee on the approval of Open XML is reported to have filed a formal protest with his country’s yes vote, citing “serious irregularities” with the vote.

The voting process has been marked by jostling and sometimes open hostility on both sides of Open XML’s standardization, with Microsoft competitors like IBM repeatedly coming down hard on Microsoft and with reports of Microsoft’s heavy-handed lobbying for its format, including promising “marketing contributions” in exchange for votes in Sweden — a move that Microsoft later said wasn’t company approved.

If the file format does not become a standard, some governments could shy away from using Open XML — and therefore, potentially, Microsoft Office — in favor of something like Open Document Format, (ODF) which has already become a standard. However, Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general manager for interoperability said in an interview, “most governments will come down on the side of choice.” The state of Massachusetts along with the countries of Switzerland and Denmark are among those that have said they’ll use either format.

Either way, Microsoft is pushing forward to get its formats used in more places. With Microsoft’s large market share in productivity software, Open XML isn’t likely to decrease in importance anytime soon.

Last week, for example, Microsoft announced that it would contribute to an Apache project that would let Open XML be used in Java apps. The formats have already been employed or supported in Apple’s iWork productivity suite, a productivity suite for Symbian mobile devices and a range of IBM products despite IBM’s efforts with its own ODF.

As Open XML moves forward, a few vital missing pieces need to be put into place. For example, there are no standard interoperability test suites available for Open XML. “It’s a real need,” said Robertson, who pointed out that Microsoft recently launched a Document Interoperability Initiative aimed at creating test suites and templates for forms that would be optimized for interoperability between Open XML and ODF.

Currently, Microsoft’s Open XML is a standard of ECMA International, where Microsoft is chair of the technical committee leading the standard’s development. However, Microsoft anticipates significant changes in the future course of the standard’s development if passed. Control of the standard will shift to ISO, where groups representing larger constituencies than in ECMA will be represented.

Microsoft has not yet said whether it will continue to use the standard version of Open XML for future releases of Office, and Robertson wouldn’t confirm its use in the upcoming Office 14. “I don’t know that there’s a company on earth that would say, into the future, we’re going to do X, Y or Z,” he said.

Article source- http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207000830&subSection=All+Stories

Despite a new owner and the potential for more competition in the future, MySQL and Oracle will continue to work together.

By Charles Babcock InformationWeek  March 31, 2008 10:00 AM

When MySQL AB was bought by Sun Microsystems, some knowledgeable observers said the first thing Sun would do is make MySQL free of its dependence on Oracle.

MySQL incorporated the InnoDB transaction storage system as part of its database system, then Oracle acquired its Finnish parent company, Innobase Oy, in October 2005. “Look for Sun to do more and more to make MySQL free of any third parties,” said Raven Zachary, open source analyst with the 451 Group, in an interview at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco.

But Zack Urlocker, the executive VP of products, who supervises both engineering and marketing at MySQL, says such independence is still viewed as unnecessary inside Sun. Urlocker appeared on a panel on the state of the open source database market. Seated nearby was Ken Jacobs, VP of product strategy at Oracle.

MySQL’s strength has been in its ability to serve Web pages, and many Web applications are built with MySQL as the database of choice in the background. Oracle aspires to be the database of future applications as well, including Web applications, and it’s conceivable the two eventually will come into more direct competition.

But Urlocker says that doesn’t mean MySQL can’t keep using InnoDB. “We’ve always had a very good relationship with Oracle,” he said after the panel concluded.

“It’s absolutely a fact. We’ve always had a very good relationship,” affirmed Jacobs, one of the original employees of Oracle, who helped establish Oracle with the federal government from its new Washington office in 1981.

MySQL isn’t ready to announce anything yet, but the way Urlocker and Jacobs exchanged meaningful glances, it was as if to say they’re ready to sign a multiyear continuation of their agreement.

Meanwhile, another third-party piece of software on which MySQL used to depend, the SolidDB for MySQL that was under the sponsorship of IBM, has been pushed off to SourceForge. Dhiren Patel, IBM’s community relations manager for the overall SolidDB project, announced that IBM had acquired SolidDB in December for its in-memory database, technology that will help it compete with Oracle TimesTen.

“This in-memory technology, and not Solid’s open source offering, was the key driver behind IBM’s acquisition. As a result, I regret to inform you that, effectively immediately, we will not be continuing further development on SolidDB for MySQL,” he wrote March 3, six days after Sun completed the MySQL deal.

The open source community around SolidDB for MySQL will be free to continue work on the project, and the developer forums and bug tracking have been migrated to SourceForge as well, Patel noted.

Urlocker said both Jacobs and Charles Phillips, Oracle’s president, have assured him of continued, unfettered access to InnoDB. MySQL, initially developed as a read-only database, gets its key transaction handling characteristics from InnoDB and SolidDB for MySQL.

Article source - http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207000559

For more info please visit us at - Oracle Database Application Development & Software development

Adobe Systems’ new Photoshop Express website hosts a basic version of its ubiquitous software that lets users edit and share digital images.

Adobe Systems launched a new photo-editing website Thursday that blends its popular Photoshop software with the ease and community of social networks.

Photoshop Express which is now open to everyone as a “beta” test version, strips away both the complexity and the price tag of the original Photoshop. This free web-based editor offers tools for one-click cropping, color adjusting, and sharing.

Express comes from an impressive software pedigree. After years of being the industry standard, Photoshop is already the colloquial verb for manipulating images. But Photoshop Express is a far cry from the $649 professional Photoshop CS3. And that’s the point.

“It’s not trying to be ‘Photoshop Online,’ ” says Geoff Baum, Adobe’s director of Express products. Express targets the casual consumer – those who love taking pictures, but probably don’t know what SLR stands for (it’s single-lens reflex, in case you were wondering).

This point-and-shoot crowd has posted billions of images to online photo-sharing and social-networking sites such as Flickr and Facebook. Adobe hopes to reel in these millions of users with easy photo-editing tools and ways to connect all their photo-sharing favorites.

Users can upload images from their computer or grab pictures they’ve already posted to Photobucket, Facebook, or Picasa. Pictures can then be sorted into albums, arranged as slideshows, lightly polished, and shared with the world.

Photoshop Express gives every user a unique URL for their portfolio and room for up to 2 gigabytes of images.

Adobe hopes to tweak the software and roll out a for-pay premium version in the next six to 12 months. The free edition will remain available, says Mr. Baum, but the premium pass could offer better tools and additional storage space.

Adobe plans to connect Photoshop Express to other photo-sharing sites. Baum says they are already working to let users plug into Flickr accounts – allowing for an easy flow of images to and from the popular photo site. That option should be available in a few weeks, he says.

Photoshop Express runs as a website, not an application. Therefore, it will work in any web browser and on every operating system. (It does require Flash 9 software, which is free.)

This is one of Adobe’s first steps into the world of “cloud computing” – the idea of putting software and files on a distant server that users then access through the Internet. There are downsides to this new frontier. For example, Photoshop Express doesn’t work without an Internet connection. So if a user is knocked offline, she losses access to her pictures.

On the flip side, since the images are stored remotely, they can be seen from any computer in the world (depending on user-privacy settings).

Since the program is hyped as both a photo-sharing and photo-editing site, Photoshop Express faces competition from two sides, says Amit Gupta, founder of the do-it-yourself enthusiast site Photojojo.com.

He says the two big editing contenders are Aviary, a suite of web-based image applications that are in private testing, and Picnik, which has already teamed up with Facebook, Flickr, and other popular photo-sharing sites.

“I kinda want to see the little guys win out,” Mr. Gupta jokes. “But Express has a very professional and slick look to it. And the tools are possibly better than any of the others that I’ve seen.”

As for the photo-sharing side, Adobe has cleared one major hurdle by letting users tap directly into their supposed competitors, says Ron Glaz, a research analyst for IDC, the technology-intelligence firm based in Framingham, Mass.

But hard-core Flickr users, for example, spend hours identifying their photos with captions, tags, even map coordinates. All of this investment makes switching services a potential nightmare, says Mr. Glaz. If Adobe wants to attract the millions of devoted Flickr fans, they’ll need to make sure that this information stays intact as a picture slides to and from Photoshop Express.

Adobe also hopes that happy Photoshop Express users will become happy Adobe customers in the future. The company has won over professionals with the full Photoshop package and snatched hobbyists with its $99 Photoshop Elements, which is more powerful than Express. Now Adobe is vying for that last consumer segment – the snapshot set.

Article source - http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0328/p25s04-stct.html

For more info please visit us at – Social Media Optimization Services & Photo editing services

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

March 20, 2008, 4:56 PM

Google yesterday announced the availability of a plug-in for Windows Mobile devices, which provides a shortcut on the home screen to Google’s search.

The plug-in was first made available to BlackBerry devices last December, and then to Symbian-based phones more recently. Making it available on Microsoft’s popular mobile operating system was only a logical step for Google.

The plug-in can be found at mobile.google.com, where Google offers its other mobile services. It comes as a 300KB file called “googlesearch.CAB,” which upon installation makes a Google search field appear on the home screen of the phone.

By eliminating the need to open a browser and navigate to Google, the company claims that searches have increased 20% among those with the Symbian and BlackBerry versions of the software.

Google’s dominance in mobile Web searches was the subject of debate at the Visiongain Mobile Web Search Conference in London. While some said the company is the last word in Web searches in both traditional and mobile settings, others accused Google of lacking innovation in its mobile search delivery, where more appropriate (e.g. location-based) results are required.

Read Full Article

For more info please visit us at: SEO services & Software Outsourcing Company

By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel, 7:58 PM EST Mon. Feb. 04, 2008,

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) may have soothed the angst of the service pack hungry masses by releasing Vista SP1 to manufacturing, but users won’t be able to actually download it until mid-March at the earliest, company officials said Monday.

During beta testing for Vista SP1, Microsoft found that some device drivers were causing problems on systems with SP1 installed. Although the issues can be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, Microsoft decided this would be too complicated for most users. As a result, Microsoft will spend the next month hunting for additional problematic device drivers, said David Zipkin, senior product manager in Windows Client Group.

“With drivers, we wanted to make sure when folks upgrade to Vista that they have a smooth experience,” Zipkin said.

Microsoft is currently working with its hardware partners to hammer out the device driver glitches, according to Zipkin, who declined to name the partners.

In mid-March, Microsoft plans to release Vista SP1 in 5 languages — English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese — through Windows Update and the Download Center, Zipkin said, adding that Microsoft will ensure that SP1 isn’t pushed out to PCs that have the aforementioned drivers installed.

In April, Microsoft will begin auto updates of Vista SP1 to users who’ve chosen this option, and will also release the rest of the language specific versions of Vista SP1, Zipkin said.

Microsoft has handed off the final Vista SP1 bits to its OEM partners, and if testing goes well, they’ll soon begin building new PCs based on Vista SP1 images. Microsoft has also begun pressing Vista SP1 DVDs for its retail and volume licensing customers, said Zipkin.

Vista and Windows Server 2008 are closely aligned and are both very similar from an engineering point of view, with a 95 percent shared code base, said Bob Visse, senior director of marketing in the Windows Server Marketing Group.

Microsoft is working with ISV partners and hardware partners to help them build Server 2008 compatible applications. As part of this effort, Microsoft has established three tiers for ISVs to pledge their support for the Server 2008 platform, each with successively more stringent application testing requirements.

Microsoft currently has 80 ISVs in the highest tier and expects that number to jump to 225 within the next three months, said Visse, who expects the “vast majority” of Microsoft’s approximately 1000 ISV partners to extend their support for Server 2008.

Read Full Article

For more info please visit us at:  Mobile application development & Business Process Outsourcing

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, February 5, 2008; Page D01

Microsoft has begun lobbying Congress even before its $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo has been accepted, while Google, the real object of Microsoft’s concern, has started to raise objections on Capitol Hill.

Top Microsoft executives, including General Counsel Brad Smith and Jack Krumholz, head of the company’s Washington office, contacted the offices of key lawmakers on Friday, one day after the unsolicited bid for Yahoo was announced.

The company’s approaches, made by e-mail and phone, were largely informational, according to congressional aides. The executives explained what the bid was and what advantages they saw in its completion. They also said they wanted to come in later to talk about the transaction at greater length, especially in advance of any hearings on the subject.

In lobbying parlance, this is known as “checking the boxes” — meticulously informing powerful congressmen and senators about a transaction they might want to weigh in on down the road. Lobbyists live by the rule that when it comes to senior government officials, surprises should be avoided at all costs.

Google’s lobbying, on the other hand, was unusual because the company is not involved in the proposed acquisition. Still, lobbyists for the Internet search engine, which has raised its misgivings in public pronouncements, spotlighted those objections for lawmakers and their aides over the past few days, congressional staffers said.

Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo is an effort by the software giant to compete for search and online ad dollars with Google, which dominates both forms of advertising.

Washington decision makers are gearing up for what could be a major policy and legal battle over Microsoft’s surprise offer. Technology industry executives and consumer advocates are pressing officials to think hard about the merger, which may have major antitrust and privacy implications.

In response, congressional committees are preparing hearings, and administration officials are making plans to investigate the transaction. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Friday on “The State of Competition on the Internet.” In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee expects to hold a hearing if the deal goes through.

Should the companies agree to the transaction, the Justice Department has made clear it would review the merger for potential anticompetitive implications. “We’d be interested in looking at it,” said department spokeswoman Gina Talamona.

Yahoo has not yet made its presence felt in official Washington circles, according to congressional aides. A spokeswoman for Yahoo would say only, “Yahoo’s board is carefully and thoroughly evaluating the Microsoft proposal in the context of all of the company’s strategic alternatives.”

Spokesmen for Microsoft and Google declined to comment.

Consumer groups, however, were getting ready to speak out against Microsoft’s bid. Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said his group and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups plan to complain to the Federal Trade Commission that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo poses a risk to individuals’ privacy rights. He said the groups will also urge Congress and the Justice Department to block the buyout.

“The danger is that by combining their platforms, the companies will be able to have a vast storehouse of information, of detailed dossiers on users that they can access without an individual’s consent or awareness,” Chester said.

The groups made a similar objection to the merger of Google and the online advertising company DoubleClick, but the FTC approved the merger in December.

Microsoft, aware of the consumer groups’ wariness on the privacy issue, began a campaign to win them over. After the bid was announced, a Microsoft executive sent an e-mail Friday to several consumer advocacy organizations.

It read in part: “Some of you have raised privacy concerns and may have questions about how consumer data might be treated. We’d be happy to discuss any issues you may have related to this deal. Microsoft has been at the forefront of privacy over the last few years, including support for a federal privacy bill. . . . Our strong views that privacy is important and needs to be protected have not changed. We will work to ensure that consumer privacy continues to be protected moving forward.”

Read full Article

For more info please visit us at:  Offshore software development & website development

I’m going to ask you to use your imagination for a moment.

Think of a topic that interests you. Maybe it’s your favorite sport or hobby, for example. Now imagine that you’re searching the Internet for information on that topic.

The first article you come across is related to the topic you’re researching, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of value. It’s too general and full of pointless “fluff.” It makes obvious points that a third-grader could grasp. And it fails to offer any related information or resources.

The second article you come across is much more in-depth. It explains several aspects of your topic with refreshing insight. It is helpful and useful, and it links out to many related articles and resources on the subject.

If you could only bookmark one of these pages for future reference, which one would it be? It would be the second page, right?

You, like most people, would probably prefer the second page to the first. It’s an easy choice, and that’s because the author of the second article understood (and delivered) the most important concept of website content development — the value factor.

5 Benefits of High-Value Web Content

This kind of content has value for the reader, obviously. But it also benefits the author / publisher. Here are the top five benefits of creating high-value website content for your small business website:

1. It keeps people on your website longer.

2. It makes people more inclined to trust you.

3. It encourages readers to recommend the site to others.

4. It encourages other webmasters to link to your content.

5. It helps you improve your search engine ranking and visibility.

All of this sounds great, you say. But how do I create that kind of small business website content? Here are the top five guidelines for creating high-value website content.

 5 Steps to High-Value Web Content

1. Choose the right author.

2. Choose the right topic.

3. Address all sides of the topic.

4. Add supporting graphics, pictures, etc.

5. Link to related resources, both on your site and elsewhere.

Let’s look at each of these steps in greater detail.

1. Choose the Right Author

I once worked for a company who let their web programmers write the instructions for their online ordering process. Big mistake. If their audience were programmers as well, this might be okay. But most of their customers had limited technical skills. So when these people encountered online instructions such as “Validate parameters before advancing” … the customers would often become dead in the water.

This is a prime example of choosing the wrong author for web writing. Sure, the programmers’ input is important. After all, they built the thing. But they should not be the voice of customer guidance. A skilled web writer (someone with usability experience) would have “translated” these instructions to say something like “Please fill in all required information before moving to the next screen.”

Here’s the key to this. The best author for your small business website content is not always the person who knows the most about the product or service from a technical standpoint. Often, it’s best to have an in-house writer who plays the go-between role of “consumer advocate,” getting the information from one group and translating it for another group.

 2. Choose the Right Topic

If your small business only offers one product or service, then that will likely be the topic of your web content. In this case, I would focus on choosing the right angle as well. Don’t tell people what you want them to know — this is an outdated way of thinking about public information, especially when it comes to small business website content. Instead, find out what people want to know about the types of products you offer, and use your web content to address those questions or concerns.

If you are writing web content for a company that has many products or services, you will have to spend more time choosing topics first and choosing your angle second. In this case, it becomes more about topic organization than anything. Large websites with many topics are ideally suited for a category and sub-category system: These are our products >> And this is product ‘A’ >> And this is a web page that explains product ‘A’ in detail.

3. Address All Sides of the Topic

Whether you’re writing about one of your products, or you’re creating a tutorial of some kind, you need to cover all the angles. There’s nothing worse than website content that leaves the job only half-done, telling you why a certain thing is important but not pursuing that lead.

When you are close to a certain topic — as is the case with people who create a product or service — it’s easy to assume everyone else understands it as well as you do. But the opposite is usually true, so you need to explain all sides of a topic when you write content for your small business website.

Want to keep your pages relatively short for easy reading? You can do that while still offering complete information. That’s what hyperlinks are for!

4. Link to Related Resources

Here’s the key to developing great content for your small business website. Try to create authority documents that others in your field would link to and recommend to others. One of the key criteria for a resource document is that it links to plenty of supporting information, both on the same website and elsewhere on the web.

In addition to being good for your readers, this kind of useful content will make other webmasters more inclined to link to your website. This adds to your link “popularity” and can further improve the search engine ranking of your small business website.

When writing a particular web page, try to think of it as “the ultimate guide to [blank].” This is the first step to creating the kind of authority documents that eventually dominate the search engines and drive endless web traffic for the authors. But it’s rarely possible to create an “ultimate guide” to anything in just one page, so be liberal about linking to other sources on your own website and elsewhere (as long as they are not direct competitors).

5. Add Supporting Graphics, Pictures, Etc.

Reading online can be hard on the eyeballs. You can make the reader’s job easier in two ways. First, you can format your content appropriately for web reading (short paragraphs, narrow text columns, lots of bullet points, headers, sub-headers, etc.). Secondly, you can add supporting images and helpful graphics.

Well-placed graphics can improve website content in a number of ways. Images are more enticing than text upon first glance, so they can help attract and retain readers. They also help you clarify your message with visual reinforcement.

Conclusion

I have a motto I use regarding website content. “If it’s not worth putting online, don’t put it online.” This is my reminder to myself that I need to use the techniques outlined above to create superior website content. Because that’s the kind of content that leads to online success. Apply these lessons to your small business website and watch your own success increase!

About The Author
Brandon Cornett operates a web marketing firm in Austin, Texas and is a web writer at large for dozens of websites and blogs. Learn more by visiting http://www.austinseoguy.com.

Read Full Article

For more info please visit us at:  Mobile Application Company & SEO services

Magnetic fields produced by Apple iPods and other such portable music devices don’t interfere with cardiac pacemakers, an FDA study says. Network World Staff

Friday, February 01, 2008 3:50 PM PST

A Food and Drug Administration-led study refutes claims that the magnetic fields produced by Apple iPods and other such portable music devices interfere with cardiac pacemakers.

A report from the research team, which tested four iPod models, appears in BioMedical Engineering OnLine.

A report from a Michigan high school student — who teamed with a couple of heart doctors — is among earlier research that generated some buzz about whether iPods could muck up pacemakers and raised the idea of putting warning labels on portable music devices.

From a BioMed Central press release: “Using a 3-coil sensor, the team measured the magnetic field produced by the iPod at a distance of around 5 to 10 millimeters. They obtained readings for the magnetic field at various specific and small regions 10 mm from an iPod. The peak magnetic field strength was 0.2 millionths of a Tesla, a value hundreds of times lower than the levels capable of interfering with a pacemaker.”

Howard Bassen, a researcher with the FDA, said in a statement: “Based on the observations of our in-vitro study we conclude that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we tested.”

One company breathing a sigh of relief: Tonicum. Last year it released a portable music device for DJs named, yes, Pacemaker.

Meanwhile, iPods continue to enjoy great success, most recently highlighted by the spate of new iPod-related offerings at the recent big Consumer Electronics Show show in Las Vegas. For more information about enterprise networking, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2007 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.

Read full Article

For more info please visit us at: Offshore software development & website development

Ian Williams, vnunet.com 28 Jan 2008

The US market for mobile games will rise from less than $800m in 2007 to more than $3bn by 2012, according to analysts.

A report from Juniper Research suggests that around 18 million Americans download or rent mobile games at least once a year, and that this number is expected to increase sharply over the next five years.

Juniper attributes the rise to the introduction of free trial periods for subscription-based games, as well as improvements in the user interface of mobile phones and all-you-can-eat data packages.

“This ‘try before you buy’ strategy makes the customer more comfortable about purchasing a particular title,” said Dr Windsor Holden, the report’s author.

“But it also makes the customer more familiar with mobile gameplay and will provide further encouragement to seek out additional titles in the future.”

The research also predicts that around 30 per cent of mobile game downloads in the US will be ad-funded by 2012, and that the increasing sophistication of high-end games combined with improved form factor in handsets should enable publishers to increase retail price points.

However, growth in the US will still lag behind China, the Far East and Western Europe over the next five years.

The report also warned that the poor marketing of mobile titles means that many customers are frequently unaware of new releases.

Juniper urges publishers to focus on enhancing their portfolios of ‘lifestyle games’ as a means of expanding the mobile gaming demographic.

Read full article

For more info please visit us at: Offshore Development Centre (ODC) & IT Staff Augmentation

Analysts are alarmed at a perceived discrepancy in the figures in iPhone sales figures. Jonny Evans, Macworld

Analysts are mulling over Apple’s iPhone sales numbers and are alarmed at a perceived discrepancy in the figures.

Apple claims slightly over 3.7 million iPhones were sold in 2007 — yet AT&T this week revealed it ended the year with “just at or sightly under two million iPhone customers”.

That two million has been boosted somewhat by an estimated 300,000-400,000 sales in Europe, analysts believe.

The discrepancy is that the 3.7 million iPhones Apple says it has sold and the estimated 2.4 million sold by its network partners still leaves 1.3 million of the devices unaccounted for.

That implies that around one in three iPhones are being purchased in order to unlock the device for use on other networks and/or for use with unapproved third party applications.

While it’s possible some iPhones were sold over the Christmas period but not activated immediately as new users (perhaps) worked to cancel their existing mobile contracts, the discrepancy still implies an active market for unlocked iPhones.

Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook told analysts this week that the company believes the number of unlocked iPhones in the wild to be “significant,” but declined to furnish accurate figures.

Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research cites these figures in order to claim a substantial market in unlocked iPhones, and speculates this news may also mean a build-up in iPhone inventory.

“It indicates end-user demand for iPhone is lower than many investors may think based on Apple’s sales figure — and it points to slower iPhone sales in the current quarter, since much of this inventory is likely to be drawn down,” the analyst explains.

Read Full Article

For more details please visit us at: Mobile Application Company & Web Development

Raanana, Israel (PRWEB) January 7, 2008 — CellAdmin, a developer of mobile content management solutions for operators and digital media providers, today announced the launches of Jagango, its advance and easy-to-use mobile internet sites creation tool with an inherent hosting and publishing facilities. People strive to share with others their ideas, photos, videos and music; and the notion that this user generated content should be available also to people on the go, is now resolved through Jagango, the ultimate tool for creating and hosting advanced mobile internet sites. No programming experience is required whatsoever and…it’s free!

With wealth of preset designs, in 5 simple steps and less time than one can imagine, anyone can create a personal mobile web site, accommodating multimedia content, as desired by site owner. After creating the site it is automatically stored on Jagango servers ready to be viewed by anyone who holds a mobile phone with Internet access (GSM, GPRS, HSDPA, etc.). So all is left to do is to invite people to visit the site created, by sending an SMS through Jagango sharing tool.

“Jagango is available through Jagango.com and soon will also be available through various online social networks site wishing to give their members a mobile presence,” said Pini Shmilovich CellAdmin’s CEO. “Jagango will also be offered to the members and subscribers of mobile network operators and media companies, who wish to have clearer role in the user generated content and social networking domains; while increasing their stickiness, customer satisfaction and revenues.”

“We are proud about Jagango, we succeeded to meet our nearly impossible goals - to develop a mobile sites development tool, to none developers,” said Barry Bazini, company’s founder and CTO. “I invite everyone to go to Jagango from any PC and see how easy and intuitive it is to create new site.”

CellAdmin will showcase its groundbreaking new product Jagango at the Mobil World Congress 2008, 11-14 February 2008, in Barcelona, Spain.

About Jagango
Jagango is a new cool mobile social networking platform for creating and sharing digital content such as photos, music and videos on mobile devices, by building free and easy-to-use mobile internet sites. To build your own mobile site, go to www.jagango.com.

About CellAdmin
CellAdmin is a market expert in the development and hosting of advanced Mobile Internet technologies and tool. It is focused in bringing the Mobile Internet to the masses, through the development of easy-to-use tools that enable both the most layman person and the more sophisticated programmer to develop, host and share a site that can be entered from any WAP equipped mobile phone. The company was established in 2005 by mobile Internet veterans. For more information about CellAdmin please visit the company website at www.celladmin.com

Read Full Article

For More info please visit us at: Website design company & SEO services

The company is marketing to IT-challenged small businesses that want computers capable of terabyte storage and improved graphics capabilities.

By Antone Gonsalves January 8, 2008 02:40 PM

Apple on Tuesday introduced a more powerful Xserve aimed at organizations with limited IT support, such as small businesses or departments in larger companies.

In addition, the company launched a Mac Pro with twice the performance of the previous version of the workstation for creative professionals and research organizations. Apple unveiled the new products a week before the Macworld conference opens in San Francisco.

Both new products are under $3,000 and come standard with two Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Xeon quad-core chips, codenamed Harpertown, which were released only last month. Last year, the same custom design would have cost $4,000.

“One of the advantages in using Harpertown is that it packs a lot more performance per watt in the same thermal envelope,” Tom Boger, senior director of desktop, servers and storage product marketing at Apple, told InformationWeek. “Just by itself, the Harpertown processor raw is a 60% improvement over the previous configuration [Cloverton].”

Apple designed the hardware and software in the new products to take advantage of Harpertown’s low-power capabilities, Boger said. The new machines can show as much as a 2x performance boost with some third-party applications. In addition, Apple is offering in both machines terabyte hard-drive capabilities for the first time.

With the new Xserve, Apple is also drawing attention to the Mac OS X Leopard Server operating system as a strong competitor to other products aimed at organizations without large IT staffs. The 1U rack server can operate in a mixed environment of Macs and Windows clients, and is powered by two Xeon 5400 series processors running up to 3.0GHz. The chips are Intel’s latest 45 nanometer manufactured processors, which top previous products in power and energy consumption.

The new Xserve includes up to 3 Tbytes of internal storage and two PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots that provide up to four times the input/output bandwidth of the previous model to support 4 Gbit Fibre channel and 10 Gbit Ethernet cards.

Apple has added accelerated graphics to the new Xserve to support several Apple Cinema Displays at once. The new product also includes two FireWire 800 and three USB 2.0 ports, and comes with a license for unlimited client seats. The starting price is $2,999.

The latest server draws attention to Leopard’s capabilities as an OS for small businesses and other organizations that can’t afford large IT staffs, industry analysts with Technology Business Research said in an e-mailed commentary.

“TBR believes this package is a strong offering wherever IT services are limited,” the market research firm said. “Apple will use the value proposition of easy-to-use comprehensive services to broaden its market to small businesses and departments, where Xserve is an ideal first server.”

Included with Leopard Server are mail hosting, Web hosting, file sharing, client management, network management and security, VPN, chat, search, and directory services, TBR said.

With the new Mac Pro workstation, Apple is offering its fastest Mac through the use of two Xeon 5400 series processors running up to 3.2GHz. The machine comes standard with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 Mbytes of video memory.

The machine includes a PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot that delivers twice the bandwidth as previous generations, and can be upgraded with Nvidia graphics cards, such as the GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of video memory, and the Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5GB of memory.

The system can carry up to four 1Tbyte Serial ATA hard drives, and includes nine ports for external devices, including five USB 2.0s, two FireWire 400s and two FireWire 800s. The Mac Pro also supports SAS drives, which run at a higher rate than SATA drives and provide RAID 0, 1 and 5 storage protection.

Pricing for the new desktop machine starts at $2,799.

Read Full Article

For More info please visit us at: Offshore Software Development Company & SEO services

One partner likely to take advantage of Intel’s latest chips is Apple, which is expected to introduce a new MacBook or other handheld computer this month.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
January 7, 2008 10:00 AM

Intel (NSDQ: INTC) on Monday introduced its first notebook processors built using the company’s latest 45-nanometer manufacturing process, which delivers more powerful products that use the same or less energy than previous models.

Along with the five mobile chips, Intel unveiled four server processors, and seven desktop products. All the new processors were built using the same manufacturing process, and are lead and halogen free, making them more environmentally friendly.

The latest processors bring the number of 45-nm products from Intel to 32, including desktop, laptop, and server processors. Intel said it delivers higher power-to-performance ratios by packing more transistors in a chip by shrinking their size to 45 nm. The previous generation chips had 60-nm transistors.

Intel unveiled the new products at the International Consumer Electronics show, where chief executive Paul Otellini is scheduled to give a keynote speech Monday night. Otellini is expected to also introduce Intel’s hardware and software partners that have agreed to support Intel’s upcoming platform, code-named Menlow, for mobile Internet devices and the smallest of notebooks that trade power for longer battery life.

Intel is scheduled to start production of Menlow, which will include a new low-power 45-nm processor packages codenamed Silverthorne, this quarter, Anand Chandrasekher, senior VP and general manager of Intel’s ultramobility group, told InformationWeek. In addition, Intel is building processors and chipsets for set-top boxes and digital video recorders. The platform, scheduled to ship this year, will use Menlow technology, but will be marketed under other names.

Intel’s latest mobile processors are available on the company’s dual-core Centrino platform for notebooks, which include the Intel 965 Express chipset. Optional with the platform are a third-party decoder for better performance in playing high-definition content in either HD DVD or Blu-ray format and support for 802.11n wireless networks. The latter is a Wi-Fi standard capable of streaming video.

Standard with the Centrino platform is Intel’s latest Deep Power Down Technology that greatly reduces the power consumption of individual cores of a multi-core processor when they’re not in use. In addition, the platform uses Intel’s new SSE4 instruction set, which leads to faster processing of workloads, such as high-definition video encoding and photo manipulation.

One manufacturer expected to take advantage of Intel’s latest chips is Apple, which industry watchers say is likely to introduce a new MacBook or other handheld computer at the Macworld Conference & Expo Jan. 14-18 in San Francisco.

Intel’s latest chips for the mainstream desktop will include three Core 2 quad-core processors and four Core 2 dual-core products. The processors will feature a range of clock speeds, and up to 6 Mbytes of Level 2 cache. The dual-core products begin shipping this month, and the quad-core processors are expected later in the quarter.

Also shipping later this quarter are the four 45-nm Xeon processors for servers and workstations.

Intel started shipping 45-nm processors late last year, giving it a jump on rival Advanced Micro Devices. AMD is expected to deliver 45-nm products later this quarter. Code-named Shanghai, AMD (NYSE: AMD)’s quad-core microprocessor is expected to be a server product under the Opteron brand.

Read Full Article

For more info please visit us at: Social Media Marketing & Search Engine Optimization

Apparently, Microsoft has no shame when it comes to borrowing Apple’s best ideas. This time, though, it’s in mobile phones. It looks like Microsoft is going to push a touch-screen interface in a big way. Screen shots and specs of the next version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 7, are being leaked. WinMo 7 appears to support a gesture interface that will let mobile consumers flick their fingers to slide through images and applications, zoom in and zoom out, and even shake the cell phone to do things like shuffle music.  (Note that these features are from a purported internal Microsoft document from last summer and may not actually find their way into Windows Mobile 7, but we are hoping that they do).

Not everything in WinMo 7 is copied from the iPhone. The shaking bit is new, and when the screen is locked, you will be able to doodle on your cell phone screen. But there is no denying that Microsoft is taking its cues linkindex=54 class=”snap_preview_icon” v:shapes=”_x0000_i1027″>  from Apple on the user interface of its mobile operating system. Will history repeat itself with Microsoft running away with the prize here, or will Apple strike back by licensing its mobile operating system to other cell phone manufacturers?

Read Full Article

For more info please visit us at: Mobile Application Development & Search Engine Marketing

AJAX is bolstered in new release

By Paul Krill

Looking to make Web development easier for Java developers, the Apache Software Foundation began offering this week Apache Wicket 1.3, an open source component-based Web framework.

Formerly housed at SourceForge, the Wicket project moved over to Apache last year; version 1.3 is the first release bearing the Apache nameplate, said Martijn Dashorst, chairman of the project and a senior software developer at Web application development firm Topicus. Enhancements have been made in areas such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and portal support.

“The purpose [of Apache Wicket] is to make development for Java developers simple as a possible,” Dashorst said. “We use a component model for that.”

Developers can create components with plain old Java and HTML, Dashorst said. Apache Wicket 1.3 is downloadable here.

Developing Web applications in Java has been a problem; Apache looks to address this with Wicket, according to Dashorst. “In JSF (JavaServer Faces), for instance, it’s fairly hard to create your custom components. You need to have almost a graduate degree to create custom components with JSF,” he said.

Apache Wicket’s lack of reliance on XML is hailed on the project’s Web site.

“With proper mark-up/logic separation, a POJO [Plain Old Java Objects] data model, and a refreshing lack of XML, Apache Wicket makes developing Web apps simple and enjoyable again. Swap the boilerplate, complex debugging and brittle code for powerful, reusable components written with plain Java and HTML,” the site said. Wicket emphasizes a logical separation of design and code.

A key improvement in version 1.3 is enhanced AJAX support. “Pages can be a lot more dynamic than previously,” Dashorst said.

Google Guice capability has been added as an alternative to using the Spring Framework with Wicket. Developers also can use Wicket pages directly in a portal without changing a line of code.

Also new is the switch to the Apache license over from the Lesser GPL (GNU General Public License). “It’s more business friendly,” because it allows companies to create closed-source products from Wicket, Dashorst said.

A user of Apache Wicket, Nicholas Heudecker, principal at software development firm System Mobile, said his company migrated to Wicket and away from Struts.

“With Wicket, it’s just a lot easier. There’s no extraneous configuration. Everything is controlled within the Java code,” Heudecker said. “Once people have an opportunity to take a look at it, they’ll really like it.”

Although pleased with the extra AJAX support and development features in version 1.3, Heudecker added he wished there were better tools support for IDEs. Heudecker said he uses the JetBrains IntelliJ Idea IDE with Wicket but would like more tools.

Version 1.3 can scale to very large numbers of users with stateless pages and components. An Apache Velocity template engine in version 1.3 allows for user-generated macros in applications such as a content management system.

The logging API in Apache Wicket 1.3 switches from commons-logging to SLF4J (Simple Logging Façade for Java). This bolsters debugging and makes application deployment safer.

Although the current version of Wicket is anchored on Java Development Kit 4, the next release in a couple months will be based on Java 5, gaining benefits such as generics to improve safety, Dashorst said.

Wicket has been downloaded about 120,000 times since it began three years ago. It was moved over to Apache because of infrastructure issues such as spam and sustaining outages in the Subversion repository at SourceForge, Dashorst said.

SourceForge representatives could not be reached for a response.

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld.

Read Full Article

For more info please visit us at: Offshore Software Development</