Nokia spent this year’s Mobile World Congress focused solely on its new open source OS, Meego, eschewing new phones in favour of bigging up its world-beating software.

 

But lo the Finnish mobile maker has rocked up today with the sleek new Nokia 7230. Not one for the smartphone brigade, this basic blower is aimed directly at those who want a standard cell that can handle calls and texts best.

 

According for Nokia fan site Noknok, you’ll find Symbian S40, microSD support, Bluetooth, a 3.5mm jack and, best of all, direct access to Facebook and Flickr inside.

 

Nokia is asking for a mere £129 for the 7230, not half bad when you consider that’s without a SIM and you get social networking skills baked into the device. 

 

Link: Via: Nok Nok TV

Parliamentary reporter, Computing, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 14:55:00

and most aren’t aware of their on-line consumer rights

A Business, Innovation and Skills Department survey has revealed almost two-thirds of consumers are less likely to return goods bought online than those they have purchased from the high street.

This is in despite of a statutory seven-day cooling-off period for goods bought over the internet.

The survey confirmed Britons are now the biggest on-line shoppers in Europe – having spent £38bn or 10 per cent of UK retail sales — but 77 per cent are not aware of the difference in their rights between shopping over the internet and visiting a store in person.

Consumer Minister Kevin Brennan said: “It’s important we all know that most online goods can be returned with no questions asked within seven days.”

Martin Courtney, Computing, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 14:37:00

University shows a high degree of forward thinking with UC

The University of Sheffield provides voice and data connections to thousands of students and staff at its city-wide campus, and in 2008 found that its existing telephone system could not be further expanded to support them.

“The existing platform was getting quite large and was based on one box on a fibre network – if that went down, so did the whole system,” says Mark Franklin, the university’s voice and data support manager. “We had reached the maximum number of ports we could configure on the network and there were supportability issues as well, so we needed to move forwards.”

To prepare for future expansion of about 20 per cent, the university switched its 10,000 voice connections from a previous Avaya telephony platform to the same vendor’s Communications Manager (CM) 5.0, which protects its existing IP PBX investment, provides a converged voice and data network and adds new UC features.

“The original plan was to give the students IP handsets, but unfortunately the cost of that meant we could not put one in each room,” says Franklin. “Instead, we used a third-party IPT solution that allowed students to use softphones. Moving forwards, we will start looking at softphones accessed via a portal from anywhere, so that members of staff can work from wherever they have to travel to as part of the job.”

CM 5.0 also provides the university with a voice portal running an interactive voice response application to help handle enquiries at its central switchboard.

“We are looking at implementing call reporting features, both for the contact centre and for IT helpdesk scenarios – first-line security and the like – but also in the future for recording calls around clearing house results and for the finance department, though we are not obliged to do so,” says Franklin.

The university is confident that its core IP network can handle the various the demands that providing students and staff with advanced voice and data communications will put on it.

“Over the past four to five years we have been building a LAN with resilience in the core anyway,” says Franklin.

“There are two Avaya CM 5.0 servers in the core IP, and there is loads of bandwidth all over the place – gigabit over fibre for most connections.”

Read here how various companies have harnessed the power of unified communications

Sony has unveiled its slick new lineup of 3D TVs in Japan, promising our Far East brethren the chance to don some special specs and check out these new three dimensional gadgets by June or July this year.

 

Leading the line is the LED edge lit LX900 TV. As well as rocking a really sharp new design, this model also crams in a pair of dedicated RealD active shutter specs and comes in 40, 46, 51 and 60 inch models, kicking off at £2,155 over in Tokyo.

 

Its coolest feature is undoubtedly its ability to use face detection in order to spot your mug and beam out a message telling you not to sit too close. We can’t see anyone listening during high intensity football matches, but the idea is superb.

 

The question is, how much will this Sony 3D TV cost over here in Britain? The answer: Sony’s giving nothing away. Previously we’ve been promised that Sony’s 3D line up would land in the summer, so hopefully the UK launch will coincide with that in Japan. Either way, it seems Samsung will beat them to the punch with its launch today.

 

Link: Via Engadget

Martin Courtney, Computing, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 14:32:00

The reasons for adopting unified communications can be as varied and contrasting as the adopters themselves, as Martin Courtney discovers

Advances in communications hardware and software, coupled with improvements in network bandwidth and reliability, have given rise to new unified communications (UC) platforms that offer firms a wealth of new collaborative opportunities.

A survey by Orange Business Services published late last year, which canvassed the opinions of 600 chief information officers (CIOs) from multinational corporations, estimated that 15 per cent were trialling or evaluating a UC system, with six per cent having already implemented a solution.

A separate, ad hoc poll of 100 communications professionals conducted by Siemens Enterprise Communications in 2009 found that just over half – 51 per cent – were already using UC systems in some capacity, with 17 per cent saying they were already using “a full unified communications” system. Fifty one per cent also said they believed that UC systems would be widely adopted among enterprises before 2012.

But despite the technology’s potential to facilitate new, more innovative ways of working, what pushes most organisations to roll out UC platforms tends to be rather mundane: existing telephone systems reaching end of life, or no longer being able to support the number of users required.

“The primary reason for our UC deployment was that our Philips Sofitel system had come to the end of its life, while we were also moving to a new location,” says Stewart Page, assistant director of IT at the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE), which last year replaced its nine-year-old digital telephone system with a ShoreTel UC platform.

The system provides IP telephony services to the many exhibitors attending RASE events at its Stoneleigh Park show ground in Warwickshire, and helps the society improve customer service by monitoring calls more efficiently. The deployment covers about 230 IP extensions within the show ground’s exhibition and conference areas, with a smaller number of analogue extensions running into the system as well.

Like many organisations deploying UC for the first time, RASE is taking a gradual approach to harnessing the more advanced Web 2.0 features available on ShoreTel’s UC platform, such as instant messaging (IM), videoconferencing, unified messaging and presence.

“We are aware of those features and will possibly look at them in the future, but it is not something we are doing at the moment,” says Page. “The reason we chose ShoreTel is that we wanted the flexibility of being able to grow the system over time.”

Resilience
Ensuring the underlying data network has the bandwidth and reliability to support IP voice traffic and other UC features is fundamental to any implementation’s success, which is why UC installations often run in parallel with local (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) upgrades.

A simultaneous network upgrade formed part of the UC implementation carried out by the NHS Kensington and Chelsea Primary Care Trust, for example. It will roll out Siemens Enterprise Communications Group’s Open­Scape UC platform on an Enterasys LAN later this year, after almost three years of planning and testing.

The network will eventually deliver IP telephony and data communications to staff using PCs and handheld devices at eight locations, as well as partner sites such as GP and dental surgeries, starting with the St Charles Community Hospital.

“It has been built to cater for a host of demands, and not just as a telephony system, but to include things such as call centre handling, voicemail and mobility,” says Ken Pear­son, the Trust’s telecommunications manager.

Mobile connectivity
Every one of the 700 users at the St Charles hospital will be given a Siemens OptiPoint VoIP handset, and doctors and nurses travelling offsite for home visits will access the HiPath DAKs digital alarm and conference server.

The DAKS server supports a range of UC features, including messaging, presence, conferencing and text display, and St Charles staff use it to record their movements with a central server that keeps track of their whereabouts and activities via mobile phones.

“Users carry a mobile device that notifies a central database of their movements, logging the destination and raising an alarm if nothing further is heard or that person cannot be contacted,” says Pearson.

Extending UC features to mobile devices while simultaneously building a high-bandwidth LAN/WAN to support high volumes of voice and data traffic was also part of the rationale behind multinational manufacturing company Element Six’s decision to implement a Cisco UC system.

Based in Shannon, Ireland, the company operates from 22 locations worldwide, producing synthetic diamond and other engineering materials for use in the optical, mechanical, thermal, electronic, automotive, telecommunications and medical industries.

With almost 4,000 employees, Element Six was looking to bring down international travel and communication costs running to millions of euros per year by finding new ways to collaborate and share information.

It implemented Cisco’s UC system across a WAN linking its 22 offices. The implementation involved deploying 2,000 IP telephones alongside collaboration tools such as Lotus Notes and Sametime IM to help employees stay in constant touch. It uses Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager IP PBX platform and Unity UM software to route calls to the appropriate extension, voicemail box or email address.

“The onus used to be on callers to decide whether to use email, the landline or a mobile, and determine the person’s location and time zone. Now we just call the extension number and the technology sorts it out,” says Element Six group i nformation manager Patrick Seeber.

The company also installed Cisco dual-mode GSM/Wi-Fi mobile phones over WLANs linked to the same vendors’ unified communications system, allowing employees to make mobile calls using Wi-Fi when in range, saving money on calls that would usually be routed via mobile operator networks.

Videoconferencing
Tayside Fire and Rescue is using UC to deliver streaming video to up to 800 staff desktop computers for training purposes, saving considerable travel time and money.

“With the introduction of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server and Communicator, we had the capability to deliver training remotely. But by upgrading our Nortel voice system to support SIP, the integrated systems can now deliver video to the desktop. Staff can also use headsets at their desk to listen to and communicate with the trainer, meaning I don’t have to invest in lots of webcams or microphones,” says Tayside ICT manager Gary Bellfied.

Return on investment
Cost savings are often, but not always, cited as the prime driver for UC implementations. The Siemens survey found the most likely justifications for implementing UC were increased productivity (24 per cent), reduced cost (19 per cent), improved customer service (15 per cent) and less travel (14 per cent), for example, with seven per cent actively making video calls.

“One of the key issues from our initial discussions about the proposed transition to VoIP was that payback would be fine if it came within two to three years, but on the four sites we have upgraded so far, it has been less than that, around 18 months,” says Pearson at the NHS Ken­sington and Chelsea Primary Care Trust.

“Cost savings came from being able to integrate telephony covering other departments and offices into one location, which meant we did not need to pay for extra ISDN lines,” says Page at RASE.

Many IT managers also report integration with existing telephony systems and ease of management as a big benefit. A further 12 per cent of participants in the Siemens survey suggested the best thing about UC was the ability to integrate the technology into an existing communications platform.

Tayside Fire and Rescue was able to implement Microsoft’s Office Co mmunications Server and Communicator alongside its existing Nortel IP PBX voice and data platform, which supports non-emergency voice systems, for example, without having to scrap a system that represents a significant legacy investment.

Page reports that RASE can now set up new users and reconfigure existing ones in minutes, and from any computer.

“Having access to the management console via the web interface lets us give individual exhibitors an account code that lets them use the same extension even if there are two or three conferences running at the same time,” he says.

The Orange Business Services survey highlighted that customer service (33 per cent) and sales (28 per cent) departments were the prime beneficiaries of UC deployments, with 45 per cent saying multiple communications channels caused severe delays in colleague response times, which had a direct effect on the organisation’s ability to meet deadlines.

Cisco’s UC system helped Element Six expand its business through a period of growth and acquisition, for example, connecting new offices and employees simply and at minimum cost, and increasing personal and business productivity through more efficient internal communication and information sharing.

Read our case study here on how the University of Sheffield shows a high degree of forward thinking with UC

The buzzword of 2010 so far has definitely been 3D. We’ve seen the storming success of Avatar, watched all the top brands bring out their 3D TV big guns at CES in Las Vegas and sampled the world’s first live football broadcast of Arsenal v Man Utd back in February courtesy of Sky.

 

Today in New York, Samsung will up the stakes with a Braveheart rallying cry at the global launch event for their 3D TV range. The Korean giants will give us an insight into how they plan to sell us the concept of 3D TV and T3 will be in town to bring you the latest live from the press conference and launch event. You can follow all the action by following us here.

 

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3D TV: Reviews, news and updates:

- Samsung 9000 series review: Hands-on with the flagship 3D TV

- 3D TV guide: Everything you need to know

- Sky 3D TV Premier League review

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With the first 3D sets tipped to ship into the UK in April, plenty of questions still remain about how effectively, the big cinematic screen success of Avatar 3D can be recreated in the home. There’s the cost, the content and of course the ever present doubts over the glasses. If 3D is to take off in the short term, the big brands like Samsung are going to have to answer those concerns with aplomb.

 

Yesterday, Sky – the big broadcaster playing in 3D – did their bit to ease the worries over the availability of content announcing a series of public events to showcase thier latest 3D channel.

 

And today it will be Samsung’s turn to reveal their vision of the future of 3D entertainment in our home. We’re hoping to see a lot more detail on pricing, details on whether we’ll be getting the glasses bundled and also finding out just how many of Samsung’s TV sets will be 3D ready in the next few years.

Parliamentary reporter, Computing, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 13:20:00

Cross-party demands for changes to the Crime and Security Bill ignored

The government has used its Commons majority less than a month before the likely date of the general election to push through changes in the law placing the government’s DNA database on a statutory footing.

This follows a debate on the Crime and Security Bill, which is currently at the report stage in the Commons.

Crime and Policing Minister David Hanson flatly rejected cross-party demands for a retention period of three years for data from those not subsequently convicted of a crime. Further demands for the data to be held for a longer period (as in Scotland) – where the suspect was arrested for a serious violent or sexual crime – were also denied.

The only government concessions have been to reduce the retention period from 12 years to six and add a new clause to the Crime and Security Bill, which has now completed its passage through the Commons.

The clause provides a procedure through which in exceptional circumstances the “innocent” can “request” the destruction of their data, thereby taking this process out of the hands of the chief constables whose discretion will vary.

The process, which will be upheld by the National DNA Database Strategy Board, is widely expected to be applied to just a handful of those wrongly arrested or who volunteered DNA data to eliminate them from a crime.

During the debate former Tory minister Douglas Hogg said there was “a strong case for a national database including all citizens”. However, most of those contributing to the debate deemed the government’s reduction of the retention period from 12 to six years to be insufficient.

Tory shadow Home Office minister James Brokenshire said about a million records on the existing database are from those never convicted, cautioned, formally warned or reprimanded, including 100,000 children.

“It is the impact that this has on those who feel they have been criminalised that is so damaging,” he added.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne contrasted the increase in the size of the database from 2.1 million in 2002 to 5.6 million last year while the number of detected crimes for which a DNA match was available had fallen from 21,000 to 18,000 in the same period.

Earlier yesterday [08.03.10] a report from the cross party Home Affairs Committee accused the government of failing to detail more than a handful of cases where DNA data on file had been pivotal in securing a conviction.

The Tory proposals were defeated by 264 to 185 on a whipped vote.

Nicola Brittain, Computing, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 13:18:00

Reed Henry, senior vice president of cyber security firm ArcSight, explains how the Cyber Security Operations Centre will help in the fight against cybercrime

The first of two offices due to be set up under Gordon Brown’s National Cyber Security Strategy announced last summer will start operations on 10 March.

The Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) will comprise about 20 staff and co-ordinate incident response as well as preventative measures – it will also provide advice and information about the risks associated with cybercrime to business and the public.

Just ahead of the opening, Computing spoke to Reed Henry, senior vice president of cyber security firm ArcSight, about cybercrime and the role of the CSOC in fighting it.

ArcSight works with the UK government and 26 other nations to protect their critical infrastructures against cyber attacks.

Computing: How has cybercrime evolved over the past five years?

(Reed Henry) RH: The attacks are not random anymore. Five years ago most of them – such as the slammer worm – were made by novices, but they have evolved from scatter-shot to rifle-shot. They can take the form of corruption or disruption of computer networks and software, hacking, computer forensics and espionage.

There is now a sophisticated crime element that includes advanced technological knowledge. These criminal groups have research and development arms and write code that is customised to target the specific government agencies or private companies they want to target.

The vast majority of the attacks are for financial information or intellectual property that can then be sold on.

According to a report released by Verizon in 2008, 93 per cent of such attacks are on financial institutions or government.

What is the single most worrying element in all this?

The fact that it is increasingly being used as part of real warfare. For example, 10 minutes before Russia attacked Georgia in 2008, a series of pro-Russian slogans appeared on news service websites, then the planes hit. The cyber-attack was traced back to the Russian Business Network, a notorious cybercrime organisation that has carried out a range of malware exploits, most famously the Storm Worm. It originated as an ISP for child pornography, phishing and spam.

There are 250 hacking groups that are tolerated within Russia; arguably these groups are in some ways a national asset.

So where are these attacks coming from primarily?

Well, the obvious country to cite is China, in light of the recent reports around Google hackers there, but in fact the attackers are situated all over the world. A high percentage of attacks come from Eastern Europe, Russia, Brazil and even the US. A report recently published on Network Access Control by the IISS estimated that 200 nation states were building up their cyber-warfare capabilities.

However, these attacks are notoriously difficult to trace.

It is estimated that between 12 and 15 per cent of the 1.6 billion computers worldwide are controlled by botnets, but you wouldn’t know you had one if you did. It would follow your access of online banking for example, collect your details and steal your credentials.

What can the government do about these attacks?

It can co-ordinate its critical infrastructures which would include financial infrastructures, the telecoms network, power [electric grids], water and healthcare systems to control and protect the cyberworld surrounding them.

These infrastructures, which until now all had their own individual cybersecurity capabilities, will now use the CSOS to share threat information, including “attack vectors”, which describe the type of servers that are vulnerable to a specific type of malware because they are lacking a patch update, for example.

The CSOS will be looking at cyber-espionage and warfare in an offensive and defensive capability.

The centre will create a protocol around the sharing of threat information with MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

Whenever a threat is recognised there will be a log file generated, containing the code used and other details. This would then be published to a common clearing site where tech experts would run through all the information with a fine-tooth comb.

The financial services industry in the US has run a system like this since 1998.

There also needs to be open communication between nation states.

 

We already knew from a sneak peak last year that the tablet would be a twin screen device with both finger and stylus operation.

 

But now, thanks to the video below, we know a whole lot more about how it’d work, and we have to admit, we’re impressed.

 

First off, it looks a lot smaller than previously trailed at around 5 x 7 inches and an inch think, making it much more portable.

 

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Related articles:

- Best tablets: five iPad alternatives

- Apple iPad: the ultimate guide

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It also seems to have a camera – unlike the iPad – that can recognise handwriting which combined with multi-apps running is going to take user interaction to another level.

 

From the activities shown on the video, we also get a good idea of what Microsoft will be selling the device as: the 21st Century Filofax.

 

Courier, according to the leaks on Engadget, will also run on the Tegra 2 OS which powers the Zune HD rather than Windows 7.

 

Microsoft are reportedly looking to launching Courier in the later half of this year, and according to sources in the company, it’s looking at big volume sales, which means competitive pricing.

 

Check out the latest Courier video and let us know what you think.

 

Nicola Brittain, Computing, Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 13:12:00

Smaller ICT firms find it particularly difficult to secure finance

Private equity investors in the UK information and communication technologies (ICT) sector are facing a liquidity crunch, according to a report from finance and business adviser Grant Thornton UK LLP.

The report, called Where is the Smart Money Going in ICT?, is based on interviews with 40 private equity companies involved in the ICT sector.

It found that over 80 per cent of the respondents wishing to make an investment in the sector still see the shortage of debt finance available as an significant obstacle.

Some 68 per cent of those polled cite the price dislocation between those looking to buy and those looking to sell as the biggest problem for investors, while 28 per cent said that a preoccupation with preserving value in existing portfolio investments is preventing further investment.

The survey also indicated that smaller ICT firms are finding it difficult to secure finance as investors avoid startups with ’speculative’ growth prospects. Some 33 per cent of companies said they are now more selective, favouring larger companies with robust revenue streams and eschewing riskier investments.

Overall deal sizes have gone down, with 53 per cent of deals in the ICT sector last year in the £15m-£100m range down from an average £250m, while 33 per cent were in the less-than-£15m range.