RICKSVILL

Put you head on its side...

The use of mobiles on planes flying in European airspace has been given approval by UK regulator Ofcom. It has issued plans that will allow airlines to offer mobile services on UK-registered aircraft. The decision means that mobiles could be used once a plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more. But airlines keen to offer the services must still satisfy other regulators about how the hardware will be used. Service charge Ofcom's decision comes out of a consultation exercise that began in October 2007. The decision to offer the services now falls to individual airlines. However, there are other regulatory hurdles to overcome before the technology is considered to be fully approved. The European Aviation Safety Agency needs to approve any hardware that would be installed in aircraft to ensure that it did not interfere with other flight systems.

In addition, said a spokesman for the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), airlines would need to develop operating procedures to ensure cabin crew were trained in the proper use of the systems. HAVE YOUR SAY Give cabin crew the power to tell users to keep their voice down! Alan Charles, Kingston upon Thames

The spokesman said the CAA knew many airlines had expressed interest in offering such services but added: "None have formally approached us yet." "It's down to the airlines to decide whether they want to fit the systems then they would have to get approval for that," he said. The plan is to install small mobile phone base stations, called pico cells, in aircraft that will be switched on after take-off. The base station generates a bubble of coverage in and around the aircraft. Calls made via the pico cell will be routed to terrestrial networks via satellite link. Across Europe radio spectrum has been set aside for the technology. The services could stop working once aircraft leave European airspace. Initially, only second generation networks will be offered but growing interest would mean that third generation, or 3G, services would follow later, said Ofcom. The cost of making a mobile phone call from a plane will be higher than making one from the ground. In the UK, regulator Ofcom said it would investigate and address any evidence of "excessive charges and abuses of competition" if prices were set unfairly by airlines and mobile networks. Mobile use is currently prohibited on planes because there is evidence that they interfere with onboard communication and navigation systems. Research published in 2003 by the CAA found mobile phone signals skewed navigation bearing displays by up to five degrees. There are also fears that mobiles used onboard aircraft that are not fitted with pico cells could disrupt the working of terrestrial networks.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/7314362.stm

Published: 2008/03/26 12:14:23 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Joss Stone is unveiled as the new voice and face of Flake. The 20 year old Grammy-Award winning singer gives her thoughts about performing on stage; on the constant press intrusion in her life; and what her plans for the future could hold beyond her singing career.

Microsoft has launched a bid to capture a segment of the growing market for rich web content on mobile phones. The software firm has signed a deal with handset manufacturer Nokia to bring its Silverlight platform to millions of mobile phones.
Silverlight is seen as a competitor to Adobe's Flash, which is already used by popular websites such as YouTube. The software will first be available on Nokia's high end smart phones running a Symbian operating system. Flash phone Nokia's S60 platform, which uses Symbian, will be the first to take advantage of Silverlight. S60 is used in handsets built by LG and Samsung as well as Nokia and is the most popular smart phone software platform with more than 53% market share.
It is used in Nokia's latest N96 phone, the successor to its popular N95. Other handsets and internet tablets running different software will follow at a later date, according to the firm. Silverlight allows designers and developers to produce rich web applications that are independent of browser, operating system and handset. Microsoft has stressed its value for developing Web 2.0 applications that would work on a computer, but also on any other device including mobile phones. The software enters a marketplace already dominated by Adobe's Flash, and its recently launched Air product. Flash is already on millions of mobile phones. Adobe has agreements with 18 of the top 20 device manufacturers worldwide including Nokia. And, according to Adobe, 450 million devices have been shipped with the cut-down version of Flash, known as Flash Lite. Microsoft will hope to compete with this presence. The firm is currently working on a version of Sliverlight for its own Windows Mobile software.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/7276907.stm
Published: 2008/03/04 11:57:10 GMT
© BBC MMVIII

Warning given over techno addicts

Warning given over techno addicts A growing number of people are becoming addicted to their mobile phones, Blackberries and other digital devices, researchers are warning. Techno addiction can become so bad that people wake up several times a night to check their e-mails and text messages. It can even interfere with an addict's job as he feels he has to be linked up all the time, says Professor Nada Kakabadse of Northampton University. She is conducting research into how widespread the addiction may be.

You would be surprised how many people had their PDA or Blackberry next to their bed heads                                                       Prof Kakabadse
Northampton University

Evidence emerging from a small-scale study of 360 people carried out by Prof Kakabadse and her colleagues suggested up to a third were addicted. People could become addicted to just about anything, she said. "We are creatures of habit and we can get addicted to quite unusual things. "Technology has become much more interesting over the past 10 years with the internet and everything. "It is much simpler and much more portable which makes it more accessible. "You would be surprised how many people had their PDA or Blackberry next to their bed heads." She added: "Those who are addicted will get up in the middle of the night and pick up messages on their PDAs two or three times a night." 'Too late' The addiction could also lead to problems with relationships as the addict became more and more withdrawn from their family. And there were other social consequences as the addict suffered from anxieties and sicknesses, she said. Prof Kakabadse said in the early stages of addiction, workers were often very productive, replying to e-mails and messages, but as time went on there were more serious consequences. "Some people are very anxious when they don't have their technological gadgets next to them. "They might get into trouble with their employers as they spend more and more time checking messages." She said it was often difficult to detect when someone had become an addict, "And when it is detectable it is often too late". She stopped short of calling for warnings to be put on all gadgets, but said employers should provide training on the safe use of technological devices they provided to their staff. Prof Kakabadse has looked in detail at case studies but now intends to see how widespread the problem is.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/education/7253493.stm

Published: 2008/02/19 17:17:35 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Blu-Ray wins the war to become the next generation DVD.

Today Toshiba announced it will stop making HD DVD's.

Toshiba has said it will stop making its high definition DVDs, ending a battle with rival format Blu-ray over which would be the industry standard.


Read the full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252172.stm

Why the future is in your hands By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website
Sales of smartphones are expected to overtake those of laptops in the next 12 to 18 months as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer. Convergence has been the Holy Grail for mobile phone makers, software and hardware partners, as well as consumers, for more than a decade. And for the first time the rhetoric of companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, who have boasted of putting a multimedia computer in your pocket, no longer seems far fetched. "Converged devices are always with you and always connected," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia chief executive at last week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Last year Nokia sold almost 200m camera phones and about 146m music phones, making it the world's biggest seller of digital cameras and MP3 players. In the coming year the firm predicts it will sell 35 million GPS-enabled phones as personal navigation becomes the latest feature to be assimilated into the mobile phone. Form and function Nigel Clifford, chief executive of Symbian, said: "All of those single use devices - MP3 players, digital camera, GPS - are collapsing onto the phone." "We are going past the point where this was a phone with a few other things," he said. Symbian's operating system shipped on 188 million phones last year and a third of those came with GPS. "We see mobile phones evolving into multi-functional devices that now support consumer electronics, multimedia entertainment and mobile professional enterprise applications; all converging," said Luis Pineda, from mobile phone chip firm Qualcomm.

Convergence is being driven by a combination of software, services and hardware. The first phones powered by a chip running at 1Ghz will hit the market later this year, seven years after the first desktop chip broke the gigahertz barrier. Qualcomm's 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset will debut inside a number of handsets, including some from Samsung and HTC "It's a first in the industry for a wireless chipset," said Mr Pineda. As well as raw horsepower Snapdragon also features a dedicated application processor, as well as the ability to handle 12 megapixel digital photos and up to 720p high definition video imaging. Mr Clifford from Symbian said the mobile industry had to deliver multi-function devices which did not compromise. He said: "When we look at what is collapsing on to these devices and people's expectations with their experiences on single-use specialized devices there is going to be rising expectations." Chip shop More than 90% of the world's mobile phones are powered by technology created by British firm Arm. It designs chip architectures that it licenses to semiconductors makers such as Qualcomm and Broadcom. Ian Drew from Arm said future mobile phones demanded ever more processing power. But building chips with greater processing was not a straightforward, he said.

The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it's going to be mobile


Nigel Clifford, Symbian "If you look at a typical phone the first thing you have got to do is get within the half a watt envelope. "It needs to get into your pocket. And there's no fan. It needs to work for days rather than hours." He added: "When you start adding multi media experiences - such as 3D graphics, video, and games - there are two ways to do that: you can get bigger and bigger processors or you have multi core where you can switch off a processor when you don't need it." Arm is demonstrating a chip architecture, called Coretex A9, that will offer four cores, or processors, on a single chip. Symbian has been working with Arm on future uses for multi-core mobile phones. "You can use massive amounts of processing if you need it. But if you don't you can power down the cores that aren't required," said Mr Clifford. Symmetrical Multi Processing will drive the next generation of applications on a phone, he added. "Silicon vendors are looking very seriously at how they integrate SMP." Mr Clifford added: "The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it's going to be mobile."

He said gaming would be the next feature to collapse into phones. "That is one of the next single usage devices that will start feeling the pressure from the mobile device," he said. 3D graphics acceleration is becoming standard on many of today's mobile phones and specialists like Nvidia have joined the market. Mr Clifford said today's most powerful mobile phones, such as Nokia's N96 and NTTDoCoMo's 905 series have the same power as a laptop from 2000. Nvidia's APX 2500 chip has enough 3D graphics acceleration to handle Quake 3, a PC game from 1999, on a mobile phone. Handset owners were also beginning to expect the same online experience they have on their desktop PCs on their mobile phones. "Web 2.0, social networking and video sharing; that's a real driver of horsepower," said Mr Drew from Arm. He added: "But you need to be able to get data in. The next generation of mobile phones need high performance radios - they will have high data rates that will enable this content to be streamed to you." Symbian is working on technology called Freeway to give phones the ability to move seamlessly between wireless networks, like wi-fi and cell networks like 3G and 4G. "We don't want people to feel the mobile web is a second class experience."

Leading-edge phone technology on show in Barcelona
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/7250465.stm

Published: 2008/02/18 11:21:40 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Face book gets is verey own IM, you can find it here.
I remember whn Microsoft 's MSN messanger was launched,, now evrey site seems to have its own IM.

I fitted my car radio to my new car the other day but when I switched off the ignition is lost all its presets.
After running some testes it became clear that the switched live and the permanent live were the wrong way round.
And according to a couple of chaps on the internet its quite common.

Its all sorted now though... role on Chris Moyles in the morning.