Smartphones to be used on the battlefield?

With shrinking budgets, defence contractors, much like other industries are looking for ways to use existing equipment, rather than designing new dedicated pieces of equipment.

The iPhone being used as a weapon at war is a concept that is a long way from being operational, but it’s an idea that is growing in military circles, and today’s release of a missile training app is certainly a step closer.


US defence firm Raytheon has released and iPhone app for The Patriot anti-missile system. Patriot Crew Drill is a multiple-choice game, designed as a refresher tool for missile troops to keep them fresh between tours.


The game, which will not be available on Apple's App Store, will help keep Patriot troops, assigned to other duties, up to speed on the working and mechanics of the system.


Raytheon has said it intends to launch a number of iPhone military apps.

Battery Power from a good shake?

Japanese electronics has been showing off a new breakthrough in ‘green energy’ as Brother Industries introduces a vibration-harvesting generator that could replace standard AA batteries.



The Vibration Energy Cell batteries deliver power after a vigorous shake. It works in a similar way to a bicycle light dynamo, the only difference is that with the battery, movement from just a few shakes provides energy to power.


"Because of its low output this type of cell is designed to be used for things such as TV remote controls and LED devices, which consume low power and do not consume electrical power continuously." A Brother Spokesman said.


Despite the low power output this seems to be receiving a lot of interest from the industry as a significant breakthrough with bucket loads of potential.


UK mobile operator Orange has also been ‘getting green’ recently as they have revealed their Power Wellies, created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind.

Quote for the Week!

"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak”

Thomas Carlyle

vBulletin invites Hacker Attention

vBulletin users have been frantically dealing with issues of security after the software was found to carry a major flaw, inviting the attention of even amateur hackers.

vBulletin is a piece of software that is used to power the vast majority of internet forums and discussion boards on the web. It was originally developed by Jelsoft and vBulletin Solutions, but was sold to Internet Brands in 2007.

On the 13th July 2010 version 3.8.6 of the software was released to customers containing a very dangerous flaw. The flaw allows even unskilled people to hack websites that are running the software and obtain the administrator's username and password for the website.


David Ross, founder of Hexus.net, a technology news and reviews website, said the flaw was a "potential nightmare". "It could allow someone to access all of the user accounts for the site," he said.


Hexus.net, which has 75,000 registered users, updated their site as soon as they were made aware of the flaw.


Internet Brands announced a patch for the problem at 1900 BST on 21 July on its website.

Apple profits sore!

Concerns about the Apple iPod4 have been reduced as the company have just revealed “phenomenal” quarterly figures.
 Wall Street forecasts were completely undone by Apple’s profit figures which have been boosted by the sales of Mac computers and the introduction of the iPad.

 Apple's revenues rose to $15.7bn, well ahead of analysts' forecasts of about $14.75bn.


"It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple's history with iPhone 4," said Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive.

"iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year," he said.

 The company reported net income for the three months to 26 June of $3.25bn (£2.1bn), or $3.51 a share, up from $1.83bn for the quarter last year.


The news sent Apple shares up 3.4% in after-hours trading, and go some way to relieve investors' concerns about the quality of the iPhone 4.

Phones and MP3 players are soon to be too dangerous for Schools

Currently, teachers have the power to search pupils for knives or other weapons. However, in a new government policy that was announced on 6 July in a written statement to Parliament from Schools Minister Nick Gibb, it was made clear that these powers were to be extended.



The controversy lies in the fact that Mr. Gibb also plans to add to the above list of items those which are considered so undesirable or dangerous that students must be forced to surrender their civil liberties and allow teachers to search them.


From the autumn this will include fireworks, legal highs – i.e. completely legal chemicals - pornography, cigarettes and "personal electronic devices such as mobile phones, MP3 players and cameras".


Whilst there does seem some obvious benefits in keep such contraband items off schools premises, there also seems to be some fairly obvious problems with such drastic measures.


Not least a pupils right to privacy, or a teacher being asked to do more than they are trained to do, but how about the teacher/pupil relationship? Surely this is one based on trust and soon to be destroyed by the need to be searched. Should the human rights argument be defeated, there is also one based in the preservation of modern technology.


As technology continues to perpetuate, should we not encourage the next generation to embrace new technology and learn to use it properly?

Apple is far from perfect

"We're not perfect", said Apple boss Steve Jobs, at a press conference called to tackle the ongoing speculation about the iPhone 4's antenna problem. He went on to claim that reception problems were endemic throughout the smartphone industry.



To dumb the noise of complaints that they have had to date Apple is offering a free case to every complaining owner of its iPhone 4.


You will be able to get your free case via the Apple website between 22 July and the 30th September. Mr Jobs said Apple could not make enough for all owners of the phone, afterall three million customers equals approximately £118m, but would source a supply and offer a range of cases.


It seems that they had to do something, so owners will be pleased to hear that Mr Jobs also extended an offer to iPhone 4 users to give them a full refund within 30 days if they were still unhappy with the handset's performance.

BT Price Hike

From the beginning of October BT customers are going to be charged up to 10% more for phone calls on their landlines.

The Telecoms giants are also hiking up the costs of land line rental by 50p. Price reviews are necessary so that the company can come out of the recession in “good shape” said a company spokesman.


12.5million customers will see the cost of connecting a call go up from 9.9p to 10.9p and daytime rate will rise from 5.9p to 6.4p. This inevitably means that customers will be asked to sign long term contracts in order to save money.

Quote for the Week!

"This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Delay for Broadband Britain

Labour gave 2012 as the deadline for Broadband Britain to be in place, giving the whole of the UK 2 Megabits per second. With that deadline fast approaching, the new Government has pushed it back to 2015 citing a lack of “sufficient funding” as the reason.

All seem to be in agreement that a universal service of 2 Mbps per second is the minimum required but BT has warned that it will cost billions to get fast broadband to every part of Britain.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of BT Openreach, believes that the goal can not be achieved without around £2bn in public funding.

The government wants the industry to be imaginative in solving that problem. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt believes that the previous administrations goal was unrealistic and had this to say a recent industry conference:

"I have looked at the provision the Government had made to achieve this by 2012. And I'm afraid that I am not convinced that there is sufficient funding in place.

"So, while we will keep working towards that date, we have set ourselves a more realistic target of achieving universal 2 Mbps access within the lifetime of this Parliament," he added.

SpliceCom's Server Boost

SpliceCom's 5108 Call Server for branch offices and small businesses has been given a capacity boost with up to 12 IP extensions now supported.


Alternatively, the server can be configured to handle up to four analogue devices and eight IP extensions.

Robin Hayman, a Director as SpliceCom, stated: "Businesses now demand that their UC applications are available in a consistent nature to all of their employees, irrespective of location.
"By increasing the capacity of the 5108, the smallest platform in our 5 Series family provides inclusion for those working in smaller offices of large organisations."


Source: Comms Dealer July 2010

Adodo become Race Online Official Partners

Adodo have joined UK digital champion Martha Lane Fox in her plans to get everybody of working age in Britain online by the end of the current Parliament.  In a recent interview with the BBC she claimed that there are curently 10million Britons who are not on the net.  She also says no-one should reach retirement age without gaining experience of using the web.

We agree: So watch this space, as we use Adodo Community to help with the national campaign.

Slap on the wrist for mobile firms

The Communications Consumer Panel has called on mobile firms to offer consistent guidelines to customers. The appeal follows secret shopper tests that found over half of shoppers were given inaccurate information.



Panel chair Anna Bradley said that consumers must be given simple and accurate information before locking themselves into contracts that they might not be able to leave for up to two years.


The main problem revolves around cancellation policies, which vary dramatically across the industry. The problem worsens when the consumer wishes to cancel the contract because of poor coverage, as some firms allow cancellations due to coverage issues and others do not.


"We are calling for an across-the-board minimum 14 days to cancel contracts where consumers have coverage problems," she said.

StreetView: The American Conspiracy Theory

Street View is at it again, as the popular Google project is now being accused of collecting personal information of members of Congress, including some involved in national security issues.



The accusation was made by leading advocacy group, Consumer Watchdog. They want Congress to hold hearings into what data Google's Street View actually possesses. They go further in launching a Conspiracy Theory about Google’s intentions:

"We think the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history," John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog

Google has admitted that the problems started in 2006 and that it may have mistakenly collected information, transmitted over unsecured wireless networks, as its cars filmed locations for mapping purposes. However the issue only came to light when German authorities asked to audit the data.


Some of the material that could be captured includes parts of an email, text, photograph, or even the website someone might be viewing.

Quote for the Week!

“Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time."

Marabel Morgan

Five Billion Mobiles connected worldwide!

In 1987, when the first mobile phone companies launched here in the UK, industry insiders predicted just 10,000 phones. According to Wireless Intelligence, in 2010 the worldwide mobile phone connection figure has just breached 5 billion!



India and China has been the main source of recent growth, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for 47% of global mobile connections at the end of June 2010.


In many regions, penetration exceeds 100%, where there is more than one connection per person in the country. In western Europe, mobile phone penetration has reached 130%, although these stats also include those phones that you have in the draw and haven’t used in months.


Five billion phones means there are more than three times as many phones as personal computers, which surely just further demonstrates the rise of mobile technology.

ISPs to take the digital economy act to court!

BT and Talk Talk are joining forces to take on the Digital Economy Act in the High Court.

Both organisations feel that the Act was “rushed through” parliament in the run up to the General Election. They are seeking a judicial review to clarify the legality of the act before it is implemented. The two internet providers think that the act had "insufficient scrutiny" and question whether its proposals to curb illegal file-sharing harm "basic rights and freedoms".

This is an argument that is at the forefront of the opinion held by the Lib Dem arm of the coalition government, as they too argued have the act repealed in the run up to the election.


Among the Acts most controversial measures are proposals to disconnect persistent illegal file-sharers from the web and give copyright holders the power to block access to websites hosting illegal content.


Regulator Ofcom, are currently drawing up detailed plans of how the legislation will work, and has recently said that plans to remove peoples' internet connections would not come into force until at least 2012.


As the code of practice suggests that this only affects larger ISPs with over 400,000 users, there is an argument that it puts them at a disadvantage. The larger ISPs feel that their users will opt for smaller suppliers in order to avoid detection.

TalkTalk and BT are particularly interested in seeking clarity as to whether the act conflicts with EU legislation. The legislation states that ISPs are "mere conduits" of content and should not be held responsible for the traffic on their networks.

The ISPs are outraged that they are being forced to protect the creative industries old business models, instead of the industries being encouraged to find new ways of distributing their products online.

As a broadband user – what do you think of the digital economy act? Is the internet a basic human right or a luxury that we should treat with care?

Union Cancel BT Strike Ballot!

A ballot that could have brought more than half of BT's staff out on strike has been cancelled following legal advice.

The Communication Workers Union abandoned the vote after its lawyers warned that "technical breaches" meant BT would probably have overturned the result in the courts.

BT said it welcomed the decision to drop the ballot.


The CWU said it would ballot its members again for a new strike vote, but would also reopen negotiations with BT.
 
Source:  Guardian Online

Adodo Live joins Facebook!

Social Networking technology is becoming more and more important in business industry.  We have been talking a good game for sometime, but as we launch the Adodo Live Facebook page, it seems we have stiff competition!

Lady Gaga has become the first living person to have more than 10 million fans on Facebook with her tally standing at 10,673,476 (5 July).


According to new research by online site Famecount, the star recently overtook Barack Obama (9,824,885) to claim the number one spot.


Despite setting the new record, she's still only in sixth place overall.

Above her are Texas Hold 'em Poker, Michael Jackson, Mafia Wars, Facebook and the US TV show Family Guy.

Join our 'ever growing' facebook fan page here!

Does the Digital Economy Act stand a chance?

In Finland, 96% of its 5.3million citizens are now connected to the internet. In a law passed in October and brought into force last week, their citizens now have the legal right to broadband access.



There is a stark difference between Finland and the UK. Our Nordic friends are treating broadband as essential to its infrastructure, whereas here in the UK, the highly contentious Digital Economy Act offers the potential for structures where people could, in theory, be cut off if they are judged to have broken copyright law.


The Lib Dem arm of today’s coalition government is taking steps to have the Act repealed, and it will be very interesting if they manage it. They are in favour of most of the act but are completely opposed to the parts that relate to the blocking of people's internet connections.


Under the law in Finland, telecomms providers are obliged to offer always-on high-speed internet connections to all citizens, with a minimum speed of at least 1 megabit per second. In the UK, the government is aiming at 2Mbps for 99% of the population by 2012 - but there's no law to back it.


We are now ranked 33rd in the world when it comes to broadband speed, with an average that is nearly five times slower than South Korea. Reminiscent of the 2010 World Cup then!

If the Liberal Democrats manage to get the act repealed they have stated that they will “"take it off the statue book replace it with something better”. Do you have any suggestions for them?

Quote of the Week!

"The internet is the most disruptive technology in history, even more than something like electricity, because it replaces scarcity with abundance."

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, 2010

The future of the written word is online and digital

As I browsed the Apple iPads section of PC World yesterday, it suddenly dawned on me that the future of newspapers is going to be online. It seems I’m not the only one that thinks so, but am I the only one that is concerned about it?



Addressing the audience at the Activate 2010 summit held at the Guardian, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said that the experience of the reading news will move to digital devices quite rapidly – and that it will involve personalised and local news which will be alert to your interests and existing knowledge. He also warned that organisations should think of their mobile strategy ahead of their internet strategy – but that the two were intertwined so deeply that it was impossible to think of one without the other.


I certainly agree that with the uprising of mobile technology it is inevitable that the way we access the news, and that as technology develops, our approach to news will continue to be personalised. We will be able to read the news with the addition of video and colour, which can only be a good thing, can’t it?