Bev's News

Microsoft is going to showcase its new Kinect motion control system for the Xbox console at theme parks and events across the UK, so the public can try before they buy. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you can get yourself down to the Kinect Galleries in Covent Garden, London. This [...]

Apple’s next-gen smartphone is now being flogged by T-Mobile in the UK. You can pick up the 16GB and 32GB variants of the handset in black since yesterday, although on contract only as PAYG options aren’t yet available. They are “coming soon”, according to the website. Unfortunately we’re not going to get too excited about the prospect [...]

Samsung has confirmed that its iPad challenger, the Galaxy tablet, will be out this quarter. In other words, before the end of September, Reuters reports. The Android based tablet will come sporting a 7 inch screen, so a bit more compact than Apple’s magical effort. It’s also likely to be running a 1.2GHz processor, backed up by [...]

Sky Sports 1 and 2 will be available on BT Vision this weekend and, with the price starting at £6.99 a month for one channel, this might give the service the boost it badly needs. Hybrid Freeview/IPTV service, BT Vision, gained only 14,000 new customers in the second quarter, its worst performance for two years. [...]

Ireland is to step firmly in the digital era with plans announced to roll-out digital terrestrial television (DTT) by 31 December 2012, when the analogue signal will be switched off. Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan today revealed a €70 million investment to bring DTT to everyone in Ireland. A new terrestrial network will serve 98% [...]

Cloud Net, the business phone systems company, today announces that it has been awarded the Accredit UK certification and has become the first business/telecoms/VoIP company to achieve the recognition. The Accredit UK quality standard has been developed to prove a supplier’s level of proficiency in their specialist field – giving confidence to purchasers and opening new [...]

Brits trust the internet more than friends and colleagues when it comes to handing over personal information, according to a study published today by data storage specialists NetApp. The research, which polled 3000 adults, revealed that while the average adult freely divulges a string of personal details on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, [...]

You can sleep safer and sounder in your virtual beds tonight, as the Internet is starting to become a more secure place. This is due to the introduction of DNSSEC, or Domain Name System Security, which V3.co.uk reports that ICANN has announced at the Black Hat 2010 conference over in the States. ICANN calls the system the [...]

With many critics having a pop at Kinect’s price tag, and Sony re-confirming the price of its Move motion control system to be £50 for the Starter Kit, Microsoft has been defending the cost of Kinect. Its own motion control system weighs in at £130, although it does come bundled with a full game (Sony’s kit [...]

Sony has clarified exactly how much its Move motion control system will set back PS3 owners in the UK, and spilled the details on the contents of its starter pack. The Move motion controller itself will cost £35, with the PlayStation Eye camera £25, and the sub-controller £25 (though you don’t have to buy this, Sony [...]

Sprint wants you calling. And not with a cellphone. The new Sprint Peel is a backpack, charger and carrier for the Apple iPod touch. Well as it turns out, three of my favorite applications CounterPath's Bria, the Truphone of iPod/iPhone app and Skype all work very, very well on the iPod Touch. Add in a headset and mic and off you go making calls over 3G. Call it the poor man's iPhone. Now here's something to drool over. Bria works over BlueTooth. So that means in the car, your iPod on Sprint over 3G connected to your in car BlueTooth...

The New York Times story on saving money on mobile calling internationally hit home, so I thought I should add my spin to it. It's something through trial and error I've become sort of a subject matter expert on. Upfront, I think David Kelly did an excellent job of highlighting some of what’s possible (and I really appreciate his mentioning Truphone and Boingo - both clients - in his story) but I felt with more space, more could be told. Like so many international travelers I’ve also hated roaming rates for as long as I could remember. Given I’ve been...

Back on July 12th, while sitting in Paris, I posted that IBBS (Integrated Broadband Services) was going to acquire SinglePipe, a provider of Voice over IP to Tier Two and Tier Three cable operators. Well, it has happened. This is an example of gap filling, while also a "take away" type acquisition. Reports are the buy was for under $2.0 million dollars, meaning the investors behind SinglePipe had pretty much given up pouring more money into the company while IBBS, clearly a company making a roll-up within the industry that services the cable operators, saw an opportunity to widen their...

First Spain captured the World Cup of Football (soccer) in South Africa. Now their rider in the Tour de France, Alberto Contador, has captured the the race. The economy in Spain may be in the toilet and unemployment may be on the rise, but in athletics, a source of pride, these two global titles have to give the entire country hope.

A few days ago Om Malik drew my attention to the state of the telcos vs. the cable operators and how it's not only voice that moving away from the telcos. It's broadband too. The reason in my book though goes beyond simply the speed issue. It's also about customer service. In the 80s and 90s the cable operators as a group began attacking the "Cable Guy" image head on. They worked very hard to change the perception that they had acquired. And it worked. That said, we all hear the horror stories about Comcast or Time Warner, and that...

Skype Journal and others are reporting that Skype has decided to NOT charge for mobile calling from the iPhone. The news of the change in direction came as part of an announcement related to a new version of Skype for the iPhone 3GS and 4 editions.

I have always felt that one of the last remaining hurdles that SightSpeed faced in the past to widespread adoption of SightSpeed for Business was the nagging issue of NAT and Firewall traversal, especially in hotel and multi-stage router and access point deployments that we would always seem to run into at the most inopportune times. Sure from their offices to my home office and to then CEO Peter Csathy's home office it all worked, but when I would change into Road Warrior mode the hurdle that would arise when you last needed it to appear, like Mr. Murphy, was...

I'm in Phialdelphia for a family matter this weekend. It was ideal timing as my monthlong tour of duty in Europe and the UK had ended, and the timing of a few family and friends activities made for a perfect mid-point to my west coast return trip the end of this week in time for a BBQ on the beach next Saturday with some friends from the UK. So being in Philadelphia meant a few things had to be done in advance beyond my hotel and car reservations. It meant bringing along two devices that normally I have no need...

AT&T purchased Wayport about a year and a half or so ago. Wayport was the leading underlying provider of WiFi and Broadband services about a year or so ago. At that time Wayport's biggest customer was McDonalds. AT&T quickly took over StarBucks via Yahoo's ad engine as the cost savings driver, and now roughly has struck what I consider their first big deal. They've landed Hilton to provide WiFi and Guest Broadband services. This comes after some global horse-trading between AT&T and Swisscom, who along with Intertouch, DoCoMo's hospitality arm, are pretty much the global market leaders to hotel operators...