Monday, January 5, 2009

Motorola Unveils "Carbon Neutral" Mobile Phone Made from Recycled Plastic

Motorola introduced the first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottle. The MOTO W233 Renew is described as "the world's first carbon neutral phone." Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org's CarbonFree Product Certification after an extensive product life-cycle assessment.


When designing the packaging, Motorola was able to reduce its size by 22 percent and the box and all of the materials inside are printed on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. In addition, a postage-paid recycling envelope in box makes it easy for the consumer to return his or her previous mobile phone for recycling at no cost.


"Today, natural resources, energy and time are more precious than ever before," said Jeremy Dale, corporate vice president, global marketing, Motorola Mobile Devices. "From the product's design, to the packaging to our partnership with Carbonfund.org, we wanted to ensure that this device makes the right impact with consumers and the environment."http://www.motorola.com

Broadcom Supports Adobe Flash in DTV and STB Designs

Broadcom has added support for Adobe Flash into its latest digital television (DTV) and set-top box (STB) system-on-a-chip (SoC) platforms. The collaboration paves the way for rich Flash based entertainment experiences on televisions that offer viewers new options for accessing web content on their TVs.


Specifically, Adobe Flash Lite 3 software is now supported in the Broadcom BCM3549, BCM3556, BCM7400 and BCM7405 SoC solutions. Broadcom DTV and STB platforms with integrated Adobe Flash support are expected to be available to manufacturers in the first half of 2009.


The companies said their collaboration further accelerates the transition to high definition (HD) web-based video on televisions.
http://www.broadcom.com

Motorola Supplies WiMAX Devices, Infrastructure in Portland

Motorola supplied the WiMAX infrastructure and with its USBw 100 adaptor and its CPEi 150 devices for Clear's service rollout in Portland, Oregon.


The Greater Portland area is served by cell sites that utilize Motorola's WAP450 Diversity Access Point product. The WAP450 utilizes a tower top power amplifier and base control unit housed in a small outdoor cabinet linked with fiber optic cable creating a very compact cell site configuration significantly smaller than traditional cellular infrastructure products that offer only a fraction of the capacity and performance available with WiMAX technology.


Motorola's CPEi 150 features one data port, supports remote management and operates in the 2.5GHz band. The device automatically connects to the WiMAX network and authenticates itself for easy setup. The USBw 100 thumb-drive-sized device plugs directly into laptop computers to provide mobile and nomadic wireless broadband connectivity, both indoors and out.
http://www.motorola.com/wimax

Samsung Introduces “Green�? SSD for Enterprise, Data Centers

Samsung Electronics has developed a 100 gigabyte (GB) solid state drive for use in servers for applications such as video on demand, streaming media content delivery, Internet data centers, virtualization and on-line transaction processing.


The new performance-optimized 100GB Enterprise SSD

can process IOPS (input/output per second) more than 10 times faster than the fastest 15K rpm SAS HDD available for transactional data workloads, with a random read speed of 25K and a random write speed of 6K. Samsung said its new drive can process as much as 100 times the number of IOPS per watt as a 15K rpm 2.5-inch SAS HDD in applications where higher performance and lower power consumption are both needed.


The high-performance 2.5-inch enterprise drive reads data sequentially at 230 megabytes per second (MB/s) and writes sequentially at 180 MB/s.


Samsung's enterprise SSDs use 1.9 watts of power in active mode and 0.6 watts in idle mode, minimizing power and heat loads. These "green" ratings out perform 15K HDDs, which typically consume between 8 to 15 watts in active mode and 1 to 2 watts in idle mode.
http://www.samsung.com

Ixia Cuts Financial Guidance

Ixia trimmed guidance for its fourth fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2008. Total revenues are expected to be in the range of $40.5 to $41.5 million, below the company's previous guidance of $44.0 to $48.0 million.


Ixia said fourth quarter 2008 revenues were impacted by lower than expected bookings from service providers in North America and Europe while bookings from government accounts were seasonally down from the immediately preceding third quarter. Fourth quarter 2008 sales to Ixia's largest account, Cisco Systems, are estimated to be approximately $7.9 million, compared to $9.2 million in the immediately preceding third quarter. Asia Pacific bookings for the fourth quarter of 2008 were at record levels driven by strong network equipment manufacturer bookings in Japan.


On a GAAP basis, Ixia expect to realize a net loss per share of $0.03 to $0.04 for the fourth quarter of 2008 as compared to the company's guidance of earnings per diluted share of breakeven to $0.03.
http://www.ixiacom.com

NetScout Raises 2009 Guidance

NetScout, which offers network and service assurance solutions, said GAAP revenue for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31 will be in the range of $71 million to $72 million with GAAP net income per diluted share between $0.16 and $0.18. For the 2009 fiscal year ending March 31, NetScout is raising its outlook for GAAP revenue to a range of $266 million to $274 million with GAAP net income per diluted share between $0.44 and $0.54, and non-GAAP revenue to a range of $278 million to $286 million, with non-GAAP net income per diluted share between $0.81 and $0.91.


Stronger than expected bookings in the quarter were led by the telecommunications sector, driven primarily by stronger demand from wireless carriers.


"While we remain cautious about the effect on our customers of the turmoil in the financial markets and in the broader economy, we are encouraged that we have only seen a modest impact on our business... We expect further strengthening in the wireless sector as we add carrier relevant functionality to our products at an increasing pace. We are also seeing a growing demand for our solutions in other vertical markets as our customers work to overcome the challenges of managing the modern IP network. Thanks to these dynamics, our visibility into the near term direction of our business remains strong. We are confident in our guidance for the balance of this fiscal year," said Anil Singhal, President and CEO of NetScout Systems.
http://www.netscout.com

RMI and NetLogic Collaborate on Content Inspection Solution

RMI has collaborated with NetLogic Microsystems on an SMB secure wireless gateway reference design for small and midsize business (SMB) systems. The design features RMI's multi-core, multi-threaded XLS Processor and NetLogic Microsystems' NLS045 content processor for advanced protection against cyber security attacks, such as viruses, intrusions, malware and spam for SMB systems. The SMB secure wireless gateway reference design is available now from RMI, and includes a full design kit, including schematics, gerbers, board layout files, and a complete software development kit.


"We are excited to have broadened our collaboration with RMI to cover the entire spectrum of performance and price points, from the high-end 20Gbps reference design to this new SMB solution," said Mike Ichiriu, senior director of Layer 7 products at NetLogic Microsystems.
http://www.netlogicmicro.com
http://www.RMICorp.com

One Minute Video: What is DOCSIS 3.0?










One Minute Video

What is DOCSIS 3.0?.

Presented by Irvind S. Ghai, Texas Instruments

Apple's iTunes Moves to DRM-free Format

All four major music labels -- Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels, are now offering their music in iTunes Plus, Apple's DRM-free format. Apple also announced more flexible pricing, which had long been sought by the music labels.


iTunes now boasts a catalog of over 10 million songs, over 30,000 TV episodes and over 2,500 films including over 600 in high definition video. http://www.itunes.com

RipCode Raises $12.5 Million for Mobile Transcoding

RipCode, a start-up based in Dallas, Texas, raised $12.5 million in new venture financing for its video delivery technology for mobiles.


RipCode's On-Demand and Real-Time Stream Transcoding appliances are designed to optimize end-user viewing experience while reducing operational cost and complexity for content providers and network operators. Unlike many of the encoding solutions available in the market today that are powered by general purpose processors, the RipCode transcoding appliance is built around arrays of DSP-based processors. It is designed to process multiple, concurrent transcode paths, which significantly accelerates the entire transcode process. The company claims its consolidated, high concurrency processing enables its appliance to replace between 10 - 20 existing general process servers.


Granite Ventures led the round alongside existing investors Hunt Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, and ATA Ventures. Additionally, Eric Zimits, managing director of Granite Ventures, joins RipCode's board of directors.
http://www.ripcode.com
  • Last month, RipCode and MySpace announced the launch of a global mobile video initiative with MySpace Mobile, which relies on RipCode's on-demand video transcoding to let MySpace Mobile users view MySpace video content from many of the most popular video-enabled mobile devices. Because MySpace uses RipCode's technology to transcode video on demand, the premier lifestyle portal eliminates the need to store the extensive MySpace video library in multiple mobile formats, which saves significant hardware, energy and storage resources. The company also recently announced the availability of on-demand video transcoding for the most popular video-enabled phones, including the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile G1, RIM Blackberry Bold and Blackberry Storm.


  • RipCode is headed by Brendan Mills, who previously served as founder, CEO and president of GENBAND. Mills has also held positions at Cisco Systems and was the director of product marketing for NetSpeed, Inc, a developer of DSL broadband technology acquired by Cisco Systems in 1998.

NEC Magnus Supplies 4 Million VDSL Access Lines with Ikanos

Ikanos Communications and NEC Magnus Communications, which sells and installs telecommunications and electronics equipment,., announced the deployment of the world's largest VDSL network. Together, the companies have shipped more than four million central office and customer premises equipment products which are enabling delivery of higher bandwidth services to the growing number of VDSL subscribers across Japan.

As a result of NEC Magnus' advanced product line, Japan's service providers have been able to hasten rollouts and accelerate return on investment for new broadband services. By leveraging the existing copper infrastructure, NEC Magnus' multi-dwelling unit (MDU) access equipment and customer premises equipment (CPE) are making possible low cost access to applications such as Internet protocol television (IPTV), video on demand, network gaming, peer-to-peer video sharing and video conferencing.

"Ikanos' high performance central office and CPE chipsets allow us to provide the means for service providers to deploy very high speed, affordable broadband to the doorsteps of Japanese homes," said Takashi Senba, associate senior vice president at NEC Magnus. "We have designed with Ikanos' VDSL products since 2002, and look forward to continuing this long-standing relationship through which we advance technologies to address the speed, power and stability required by the broadband market."http://www.ikanos.com
http://www.necmagnus.com/

Clearwire Launches WiMAX in Portland -- up to 6 Mbps Downlink

Clearwire officially launched its "Clear" WiMAX service in Portland, Oregon promising up to 6 Mbps download speeds for customers with residential modems and up to 4 Mbps download speeds for mobile Internet customers. Home Internet service plans start at $20 per month, while mobile Internet plans start at $30 per month, or customers can purchase a day pass for $10. Additional savings are available for customers that purchase both home and mobile Internet services or that sign up for a two-year service agreement.


Clearwire also launched a series of marketing and advertising initiatives introducing the company's "Let's be Clear" campaign in Portland. http://www.clear.com

Motorola Showcases Femtocell + Picture Frame Design

Motorola's "KeepMeConnected" Femtocells - CDMA 9100 Series has been selected as an honoree of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Innovations 2009 Design and Engineering Awards. The CDMA Femtocell 9100 Series includes a SIP-based soft phone and provides enhanced mobile phone coverage inside the home. The device allows users to have a single, basic land line service (using VoIP) for both land line and mobile phones, even if they are using a mobile device outside the home. This means users can have one bill, one phone and a single service provider.
http://www.motorola.com

ICO Wins $631 Million Court Judgment in Case Against Boeing

The Los Angeles Superior Court awarded a judgment of$631,067,767.00 to ICO Global Communications in its lawsuit against The Boeing Company and its Boeing Satellite Services International subsidiary. The judgment consists of compensatory damages of $371 million and punitive damages of $236 million, which the jury awarded in October 2008, plus pre-judgment interest. Beginning January 2, 2009, post-judgment interest will accrue on the full judgment amount at the rate of 10% per annum (simple interest), or $63,106,777.00 per year. Based on available information, ICO believes that the judgment represents the largest jury verdict of 2008.


The judgment is subject to post-judgment motions, appeal and collection.
http://www.ico.com

ICO and Alcatel-Lucent Demo integrated Satellite-/Terrestrial Network

ICO Global Communications (ICO) and Alcatel-Lucent will be demonstrating the world's first fully integrated satellite-terrestrial network being used to deliver mobile video and interactive two-way communications services during the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas.

The network is supporting ICO's mobile interactive media service, ICO mim, which delivers live television, interactive navigation and two-way communications to a wide variety of mobile and portable devices. The mobile demonstrations during CES will feature several vehicles in a range of configurations which showcase the ICO satellite-terrestrial network. The mobile video demonstrations include eight channels of national news, entertainment and children's content delivered to 7 to 10 inch video screens, highlighting the advantages of mobile video delivered to larger screens with high quality picture resolution.


ICO mim is powered by the largest commercial satellite launched to date, ICO G1, which covers the entire United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. ICO G1 allows for a unique, fully interactive mobile experience, and at CES, users will witness the full range of features that can be deployed utilizing the satellite's unique two-way capabilities.


Services from ICO G1 are supplemented by a terrestrial network that provides coverage in dense urban areas. This hybrid satellite-terrestrial network design allows for anytime, anywhere coverage, especially in areas where wireless services are unavailable. Trials for the ICO mim service are underway in Las Vegas, Nevada and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.


Alcatel-Lucent supplied mobile video technology based on the worldwide DVB-SH standard (Digital Video Broadcast - Satellite services to Handhelds). Alcatel-Lucent is also ICO's network integrator supporting the construction of terrestrial networks in both test markets and ensuring the overall network performance across the multi-vendor hybrid network.
http://www.ico.com
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
  • In April 2008, ICO Global Communications successfully launched of its North American geosynchronous satellite, ICO G1, on board an Atlas V 421 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. ICO G1, which was constructed by Space Systems/Loral using the Loral 1300 platform, has a total mass of 6634kg, making it the largest satellite ever launched by an Atlas rocket, and is the largest commercial satellite ever launched. ICO is planning to offer a converged mobile media service called "mim" that addresses a wide variety of consumers' entertainment, information, and two-way communication needs: live and stored mobile TV in vehicles, interactive navigation, and roadside assistance, all with nationwide coverage.

Motorola Launches IPTV Storefront Engine for Service Providers

Motorola released a new version of its Communications Convergence Engine (CCE) that features an IPTV "storefront" for helping network operators to simplify the process of marketing and bundling IPTV, Internet and physical goods.


Motorola CCE Storefront 1.0 enables IPTV operators to create rich, personalized, on-demand experiences for subscribers as well as the ability to offer new bundled services which include multimedia content. The resulting "storefront experience" allows consumers to browse personalized catalogues of content via TV, web and mobile devices.




The CCE product family includes the Content Manager and Service Broker applications.


"With the latest CCE updates, IPTV operators can differentiate their content packages through personalized offers and promotions, packaged with personalized advertisements, thus getting the most value out of their premium video assets," said Alan Lefkof, general manager and corporate vice president, Broadband Home Gateways and Software, Motorola.
http://www.motorola.com