Cox to roll out tru2way, new UI this summer
Cox Communications may finally be making tru2way a reality. Tru2way is a common software platform that allows software developers, cable companies, or in this case set top box DRM maker NDS, to create interactive software and Web-based applications for use on the TV.
The initiative, which began as the OpenCable platform over ten years ago, has enjoyed only a moderate push from a few big names, like Panasonic, but hasn't yet made a tremendous splash. Cox announced today that tru2way services -- which will include integrated voice communications, e-mail, news, weather, and entertainment gadgets -- will be rolled out, along with a new user interface, this summer.
Sprint and Verizon take top wireless quality honors
CDMA for the call-quality win? The annual J.D. Power & Associates survey of wireless service quality has been released, and Verizon, US Cellular, and Sprint Nextel -- that's right, Sprint -- took top honors. The survey evaluated wireless call quality as measured in the number of problems (dropped connections, echoes and distortion, slow voice mail / text notification, static, or failure to connect) per 100 calls.
Service is, for J.D. Power's purposes, divided into six regions, and US Cellular stands alone in the North Central part of the country, winning its seventh consecutive nod there. Verizon won everywhere else (including its ninth consecutive best-of nods in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions), tying in the West with Sprint Nextel.
Vodafone and Telefonica partner up in 4G progress
European mobile telecommunications giants Vodafone and Telefonica today announced that they will consolidate much of their 2G and 3G network transmission infrastructure in Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the UK as the two companies roll out their 4G technologies.
As a cost-saving and environmentally conservative measure, the companies have agreed to consolidate their existing cellular masts and antennas where opportunity allows, and also by building new sites that will house the equipment of both carriers.
Salesforce.com cloud adds Twitter, stirs privacy concerns
Today's rollout of a new customer relationship management application for Twitter follows Salesforce.com's already contentious announcement of its Facebook- and Google-enabled Service Cloud in January.
Known as Salesforce.com for Twitter, the new CRM application will work as a plug-in to Service Cloud, a cloud-based customer service channel that gives business workers access to Facebook connections, Google search, and other communications and discussion tools and forums.
Bye-bye, Microsoft adCenter Analytics
In a blog post over the weekend Mel Carson, community manager for Microsoft's adCenter Analytics, announced that the project will not be leaving beta. The project, which began its pilot stage in France back in 2005, will remain online through the end of the year, and the associated blog will continue as "Insights & Analysis" -- indicating that perhaps Microsoft's not entirely done thinking about the Web numbers problem.
Carson called the beta program a success, despite the failure to launch. "The insights you've contributed through your feedback and your use of the tool have served an invaluable purpose in shaping Microsoft's future in this space. You've helped us work towards making an informed decision about building a general Web analytics solution," he wrote. He added that Microsoft in this case is now looking more closely at addressing specialized markets, as opposed to the more general small- and medium-sized "self-serve" clients that adCenter Analytics served.
One game console per child: Zeebo
Today, video game companies Capcom, EA Mobile, THQ, Namco, and PopCap Games announced their support for Zeebo, the first video game console designed especially for emerging markets.
It's an interesting concept indeed. Zeebo is a home video game console based on cell phone technology; it runs on Qualcomm's BREW platform and MSM chipset, consumes only 1 watt of power, and offers quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSPA connectivity.
Oracle buys health software vendor Relsys
As a next step in its ongoing pursuit of vertical markets such as health care, finance, and retail, Oracle today announced plans to acquire drug safety software specialist Relsys.
The buyout of the pharmacology software firm is the latest in a string of almost 50 acquisitions garnered by Oracle in less than four years.
TomTom calls in the 'Linux Defenders'
The intellectual property battle between Microsoft and Dutch personal navigation device maker TomTom today made its first significant impact on Linux: TomTom's Kernel is now a protectorate of The Open Invention Network.
This morning, The Open Invention Network announced that it has signed TomTom as a licensee. The Network takes a strong (if rather dramatic) stance on the issue of defending Linux. On its site, the group says it is "actively seeking to address problems that arise from patent trolls and industrial companies whose business models and behaviors are antagonistic to Linux and true innovation."
Riders of the next wave in music: Topspin Media
A moderately powerful computer and some choice bits of software can effectively replace dozens of individuals formerly integral to the music recording and mastering process. Multi-million dollar studios have been replaced by laptops with an arsenal of software plug-ins. Likewise, a high-speed connection and a fistful of properly chosen Web site memberships can do the job of an entire troupe of PR agents.
Yet there hasn't been a single solution exploiting the Internet as a music marketing tool, perhaps until now.
Uptake on IE8 slows to a crawl
If the latest figures from global network analytics firm NetApplications can be trusted as reliable samples -- and they certainly have in the past -- the general Web users' interest in Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 may have tapered off appreciably this morning. Over the weekend, the level of Web traffic monitored by NetApplications attributable specifically to the new version of the browser, peaked at 2.52% by 4:00 pm EDT yesterday.
For what is currently a voluntary upgrade, that two-and-a-half percent could certainly be a high number. That's quite a bit higher than Google Chrome, which although flirting with the 2% mark early in its release history, hovers today at closer to the 1% mark. By comparison, as much as 22% of last weekend's traffic was attributable to Mozilla Firefox 3.0 versions.
Senate could move cybersecurity from DHS to a cabinet-level post
One reason the US federal government may feel less and less secure about its technology is that there is no federal standard, maintained by the executive branch and mandated from the highest level, dictating what "security" should actually be. This according to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D - W.V.), who last week joined with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R - Me.) in the first stage of drafting legislation that would separate the whole issue of cybersecurity from the Dept. of Homeland Security, creating a separate office whose leader reports to Pres. Obama.
"At the risk of sounding alarmist, I know the threats we face. Our enemies are real, they are sophisticated, they are determined and they will not rest," stated Sen. Rockefeller in his opening statement, in hearings on the cybersecurity topic last Thursday before the Commerce Committee which he chairs. "I do not believe it is only the job of the Intelligence Committee or our national security and defense agencies to protect us from the threats we face. This committee can and must play a very proactive role in keeping Americans safe. Let me be very clear: I will not wait for a crisis to take action now. Today's economic climate simply does not allow room for error."
Cloudera open source start-up offers Hadoop cloud software for 'mere mortals'
Well backed Silicon Valley start-up Cloudera has now released a free, private cloud-oriented distribution of a Linux software environment first built by major Web enterprises for "big data."
"Hadoop offers capabilities for capturing, storing and analyzing data that are unmatched. But it's something that enterprises have shied away from until now," said Michael Olson, a former VP at Oracle and now CEO and co-founder of Burlingame, CA-based Cloudera, in a briefing with Betanews.
Can Mozilla escape a premature endgame for Firefox?
It's an undeniable fact that most businesses that transact with their customers through the Internet are wrestling with how to build a viable business model for themselves. Even the most successful enterprises are frankly struggling to ensure their long-term survival, and Mozilla is certainly among them. Its principal product is given away for free, and Firefox's lifeline stems from a percentage of revenues from searches generated though -- all of a sudden -- its own hottest competitor in the Web browser field today, Google.
Yesterday's release by Microsoft of Internet Explorer 8, with its visibly demonstrable speed and performance boosts, is bringing speed and performance back into the public discussion of what a Web browser can be. And there, Web users are likely to discover that while Firefox still outperforms IE8, it's chasing competition on the forward end of the racetrack. Google Chrome -- a browser created by many of the same individuals who are also working on Firefox -- will probably lead Firefox 3.5 in performance even as performance becomes the main value proposition for the new edition of Mozilla's browser.
IEEE begins work on new 1900.4 standards
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced today that work has begun on two new heterogeneous wireless network standards that fall under the 1900.4 category that was approved just two months ago.
IEEE 1900.4 is also known as "The Standard for Architectural Building Blocks Enabling Network-Device Distributed Decision-Making for Optimized Radio Resource Usage in Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks."
Region woes hose Obama gift to UK prime minister
It's either a minor diplomatic gaffe or an incredibly nuanced commentary on the current state of international copyright protec... nope, definitely a gaffe: The 25 classic DVDs given to British prime minister Gordon Brown when he recently visited President Obama turned out to be more DRM than drama.
According to the report in the Telegraph, when Mr. Brown returned to 10 Downing Street and tried to relax with the movies, his player returned a wrong-region message and would go no further. It's an embarrassment, atop the original fuss made when the gift was contrasted with Mr. Brown's thoughtful and historically rich gift to Mr. Obama. On the bright side, wouldn't it be something if an incident like this one clarified thinking on certain long-deplored aspects of digital rights management? Or at the very least, caused Vice-President Biden to have to explain why he thinks DRM is a reasonable thing to do to law-abiding -- let alone law-making -- citizens and lawfully purchased products?
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