AivX DivX Player

I've just bought a new 2.5" HDD enclosure from Sarotech, AivX.



I got it for $80 on eBay, which is pricey for a HDD enclosure but you get a lots of extras. First up, the build quality is excellent and features an tough aluminium casing (although there is a mock-silver plastic strip around the unit that looks a little cheap). It feels solid and is slightly smaller than my LaCie P2 drive. All cables are supplied along with a neat carry case.



(The S-Video cable, FM antenna extension and 5.1 channel adapter are missing from this picture.)
Fitting the 2.5" drive was easy and a screwdriver was supplied (which is a nice touch).

The main feature is the ability to act as a multimedia device. Video formats supported are AVI (DivX 3.x, 4.x, 5.x XviD), DAT, MPG and VOB (unlike the Mvisto ISO is not supported, unfortunately); music formats are MP3, WMA and OGG. Suppored picture format is just JPEG, but a later firmware upgrade may support others.

Basic operation means plugging into a PC via a USB 2.0 connection. It's bus powered, so there is no need for additional cabling. The HDD can be FAT or NTFS formatted and up to two partitions are supported with the current firmware. Transfer of media is quick and can be placed anywhere on the drive.

There are many options for plugging into your TV. PAL, NTSC and HDTV are supported. You can switch to anamorphic 16:9 widscreen, letterbox 16:9 or standard 4:3. The component cable supplied features separate conections for each component so I will have to get a component to SCART converter to test RGB.



I used the S-Video connection (composite is also supplied) so I cannot judge the true picture quality.

Sound is stereo or 5.1 surround with DTS passthrough. I've not tested the 5.1 surround, so stuck with stereo for the time being. There is a built-in FM transmitter for music playback in a car or to a Hi-Fi system. An FM antenna extension is supplied to increase quality and distance. It works very well.

All operations are controlled by the remote control (there is support for an IR-Blaster compatible IR extension). It works well over distances of around 10m.

Operation is easy. Press the remote's power button and within 5 seconds the media browser is displayed on the TV screen.



Navigate using the scroll buttons to a movie, music or picture file and then press the play button to view or listen. All other operations such as pause, fast forward/reverse etc all work well. You also get all the standard DVD menu navigation and special features etc when viewing VOBs.



Most movies have worked straight away, with only one XviD causing problems. I need to investigate more to see if the transcoding failed. All music files have also worked, and if the album cover art is called background.jpg you get to see that displayed on the TV. I encode music at a high variable bitrate (> 450kbps), so I was worried that I might have to downsample this. However, it worked fine and the music quality was good (although I've only played this through the TV so far).

The picture slideshow worked well. It displayed a huge 4800x4800 graphic, although took a few seconds to appear.

In general, I'm very happy with this device and would recommend it. Alternatives are LaCie silverscreen, Mvisto and Mvolt.

Solution to team project creation problem

Mike Attili has blogged a solution to the SQL Server Reporting Services Permissions that prevents the creation of new team projects in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

Installing Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

I've been trying to get Visual Studio Team Foundation Server working:

My Movies

My Movies is a Media Center 2005 Add-On Application and works really well. It acts as an indexing system for DVDs. It lets you drill into information as you view a film. It links to IMDB.

Amazon.com Free Music Downloads

Amazon.com currently have over 200 free music dowloads from artists such as Moby, Interpol and Bloc Party. Check out the top 200 and Amazon.com Free Music Downloads

Firms paid TV tech gurus

This is a bit poor. The Wall Street Journal discovered that firms such as Apple and Sony paid TV commentators to plug their products on news programs (Firms Paid TV's Tech Gurus To Promote Their Products).

Skype to hit mobile phones this year

See Skype to hit mobile phones this year. I'm not sure how this is going to work out cheaper than voice calls. Data is still very expensive and latency problems are also going to have an impact. I guess this is just a placeholder for when decent 3G services (such as EV-DO Rev. A) start to appear.

MSN to add tabbed browsing to existing IE

See MSN To Build Tabbed Browsing Into IE.

Google Maps for UK

Google Maps and Google Local now work for the UK.

Google Local for mobiles

Google have produced a version of Google Local that works on mobiles (complete with Google Map) and works for UK addresses. Works a treat on my Orange SPV C500 phone.

See Google Local for Mobile. The map data is also UK based.

T-Mobile's Flarion trial a big success

See T-Mobile Praise Flarion. Seems to back up Intel's results. It'll be interesting to see how EV-DO Rev. A shapes up against such technologies.

Verizon, Sprint, others reject 'iPod phone'

See Verizon, Sprint, other wireless companies balk at carrying Apple's and Motorola's 'iPod phone'.

This is just another example of how the mobile phone operators are so far out of touch. If they expect to charge between $2 - $3 per download, they'll have another WAP/MMS failure on their hands. (See Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg's recent comments: "Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house? The customer has come to expect so much" for an example of such a disconnection between the customer and the operator.)

iriver H300 firmware updated

A clock function has been added (the alarm and timer recording function is to follow):



WAV playback (11.025 kHz / 22.05 kHz / 44.1kHz/ 48kHz, 16bit) but no WAV recording yet, and an additional playback speed adjustment ± 10% (not sure what that's for):



See iriver H300 Firmware V1.28 for downloads and more information.

Motorola Cancels MPx Smartphone

This seems a bit odd, but Motorola cancel the MPx. See Motorola Cancels MPx Smartphone Due To Chinese Wi-Fi Ban on Mobiledia.

The Return of the Mac?

Ernest Turro has plotted Apple's quoted sales figures for the Mac. Things are looking very positive, although as a comment rightly points out, things may not be as positive as they may first seem (the growth in real terms over the last year is close to 7.8%, or 1.35% in the last four years).

Basically, Apple are on course to achieve a 2.5% market share in the next year or so - up from 1.8% around four years ago. With the introduction of Tiger and the Mac mini, this is more than likely to accelerate.

This is still likely to remain a small fraction of the Windows market (or Linux, for that matter) unless Apple get on top of their poor development environment. (It is no coincidence that Windows sales were directly proportional to sales of early version of Visual Basic).

SQL Server 2005 April CTP released

SQL Server 2005 April CTP has been released to MSDN Subscribers.

This is the final piece required to build a Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (Team Foundation Installation Guide - Beta 2).

Crown Castle's DVB-H to use Microsoft technology

Crown Castle will use Windows Media Audio and Video to deliver a wireless TV service via DVB-H. See Crown Castle to use Microsoft technology for wireless TV service. Also see my previous post on DVB-H. This is pretty significant since it makes it very easy for Microsoft Smartphones (such as Orange SPV C500) to support this service since they have Windows Media functionality built in. It might also explain this recent collaboration between Microsoft and Nokia.

Visual Studio / SQL Server Express Updates

SQL Server Express Edition April CTP

Visual Basic Express Edition Beta 2

Visual C++ Express Edition Beta 2

Visual C# Express Edition Beta 2

Visual J# Express Edition Beta 2

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Beta 2

Adobe to acquire Macromedia in $3.4B deal

See Adobe to acquire Macromedia in $3.4B deal.

Mac OS X "Tiger"'s 200+ New Features

Here's a list of 200+ New Features for Apple's Mac OS X.

My Outlook

My Outlook is pretty cool. It's a MCE frontend for Microsoft Outlook. More info here and at Addicted to Digital Media, more screenshots are here.

Samsung showcase DMB and DVB-H phone

A few months ago I blogged an article about DVB-H as a potential threat to 3G telephony. There are now some mobile phones close to release with Samsung apparently ahead of the competition.

The first phone supports DMB (a multimedia equivalent of DAB). The Samsung B200 features a swivel to horizontal screen, 2 MegaPixel camera and TV-Out functionality to complement its MPEG4 video recording ability. I guess it's destined for the US market since it supports cdma2000 1xEV-DO. Here's a screenshot:



Another pair of phones were demonstrated at this year's CTIA trade show. These have been developed for CDMA and GSM networks and support DVB-H. They also support IPDC (Internet Protocol Datacast) which allow interactivity (for example, make a direct purchase while watching a shopping channel). Here's a screenshot:

StartSomethingPC.com

StartSomethingPC.com is due to kick-off during WinHEC 2005 and conveniently a few days before Apple release Mac OS X "Tiger" (although that launch itself was scheduled by Apple to take some of the shine off WinHEC). Neowin suggest this could be linked to the Athens PC reference platform. There's a RSS feed.

Update: Paul Thurrott has the scoop on this. It seems to be part of a marketing campaign (see XP Reloaded Phase 3: Windows Marketing Campaign on Tap).

Home Theatre PC Guide

2cpu.com have written a comprehensive Home Theatre PC Guide looking at the hardware and software (including Media Center Edition 2005) to turn a PC into a PVR (via Scoble's Link Blog).

Bottled Water Experiment

This Neville's Financial Blog post is excellent: Bottled Water Experiment (also read the follow-up).

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 on MSDN

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 has been released to MSDN Subscribers.

See Team Foundation Installation Guide - Beta 2

Update: One gotcha at the moment is the requirement for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 April CTP. This is not currently available, so Team Foundation Server will have to wait. I'm guessing this will be available very soon.

BBC Radio podcasts 20 more shows

BBC Radio podcasts 20 more shows.

Use iPodder or Doppler.

Orange SPV C550 and M500 due in May

The upgrade to the Orange SPV C500 is due in May according to The Carphone Warehouse. The SPV C550 is based on HTC's Amadeus II platform (which is an upgrade of T-Mobile SDA Music). It features a QVGA (240x320) screen, joystick and built-in 1.3 MegaPixel camera.

Early rumours suggested it would support Windows Mobile 2005, but this is not due for several months. A release in May would suggest that this is not the case. (Update: Orange Netherlands lists this as supporting Windows Mobile 2003.)

The Orange SPV M500 is also due out in the UK soon. This is an upgrade of the HTC Magician platform (as used by T-Mobile MDA Compact).

MSF for Agile Software Development Update

Update here.

Apple to Ship Mac OS X Tiger April 29

See Apple press release.

US Media supporting Internet journalists

Earlier this year, Apple demanded that Internet providers of some online reporters (mainly Apple fan sites) turn over e-mail records to Apple. Apple would then use them to identify leakers of confidential information. Apple won the case and a California Judge (James Kleinberg) stated that reporters who publish confidential company information aren't entitled to protections.

The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Mercury News and others join three online journalists to appeal against Kleinberg's ruling. They consider that, if upheld, the ruling could impair the ability of all journalists to reveal important news, from financial corruption to government cover-ups.

See the Mercury News or CBS News for more information.

5Gb iriver H10 for £99

The best mp3 player in the iPod Mini range is the iriver H10. Its sound quality is better than the iPod Mini (SNR of 80dB) and is comparable to the Creative Zen Micro (SNR of 96dB). It offers FM radio (including a timed radio recording), plays WMA and OGG and has the best docking cradle on the market. It is also the most stylish player I have come across (although I think the new Sony NW-HD5 might give it a run for its money).

Anyway, it can now be bought for £99 here. Not sure how long this offer will last.

Update: The offer didn't last long and is no longer available :(

MSN Messenger 7

Download here.

Herb Sutter's OOPLSA Keynote

Herb Sutter's OOPLSA Keynote: Concrete Languages on Virtual Platforms (C++/CLI).

"From the JVM to .NET, virtual machine runtime environments with garbage collection are now the mainstream of computing rather than the exception, and they are here to stay. Microsoft has bet its medium-term future on it: The successor to Win32 as the API for Windows Longhorn is WinFX, which is based on today's .NET Frameworks and puts the garbage-collected VM squarely at the heart of a major operating system. In this talk, the lead architect of C++/CLI talks about the importance and viability of environments based on virtual machines and garbage collection, even for performance-driven applications, and demonstrates the challenges and rewards of evolving existing performance- and hardware-oriented languages to operate seamlessly and with first-class status in modern virtual environments."

Outlook Web Access Themes

Microsoft TechNet have a useful article on Creating and Deploying Outlook Web Access Themes.

Sony NW-HD5 20GB Network Walkman

See Engadget here. Also check out a comparison with the iPod here:



Sony claim this has a 40 hour battery life. Amazon.co.uk originally listed this at £170 with a May release date.







Check out a 3D view. Looks pretty cool, but I'm not tempted... Same old SonicStage software pushing just ATRAC and mp3. No WMA or OGG. However, they are getting closer.

Update: Here are some more photos, including the NW-HD5H 30GB version. Even the battery looks cool. I'm having second thoughts about this player. It looks so good (in my opinion) that I may be tempted to choose form over function.

Google Maps adds satellite view

Google Maps now includes a satellite view. See this tour.

To get the satellite view by default, append "&t=k" to the URL. So, for a map view, use:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.870358,-77.055767&spn=0.005955,0.007693&hl=en

and for a satellite view use:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.870358,-77.055767&spn=0.005955,0.007693&hl=en&t=k

John Carmack and mobile gaming

John Carmack has recently added an entry on his cell phone adventures. His use of J2ME seemed fairly frustrating, but he points out that Qualcomm's BREW looks promising. It would be interesting to find out if he's tried the .NET Compact Framework which I believe has support for the 3D graphics accelerator found in HTC's Feeler (marketed as O2 Xphone II - similar to HTC's Typhoon, aka Orange SPV C500, but targetted for gaming). From what I understand, unlike J2ME, the .NET Compact Framework does act as a WORA platform.

Amongst other things, he discusses a problem for multi-player games - long thought to be a "killer app" for 3G phones. Firstly he points out one problem: 2" screens limit the immersive experience. Secondly he describes the problems that will arise due to the high latency of packet communication technologies including current 3G infrastructure. Basically, unless you want to play some turn-based game, low latency circuit-switched communications is necessary even though the throughput can be very low. This could be very expensive if the game lasts several hours. This will remain true for some time. However, there is some hope. Many US operators (including this recent Verizon timetable) plan VoIP across EV-DO Revision A: 2008 or 2009 for Verizon, early 2007 for Sprint. Using some of the protocols including QoS specification in Rev. A, these network upgrades should be capable of providing the desired low latency.

Skype 1.2 update includes SkypeIn

Skype have just released Skype 1.2. This release features SkypeIn support in addition to many other features (see a list of changes: Skype for Windows Change Log).

Download here (for Windows).

Updated "Longhorn" screenshots

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows has some updated "Longhorn" information in The Road to Windows "Longhorn" 2005.

Note the program hang! Doh!

Windows Mobile 2005 screenshots

Engadget have some new screenshots of Windows Mobile 2005.

The scoop on the Super Shuffle

See here.

Microsoft delays Visual Studio 2005 to end of year

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 is now delayed to some time in April (see here) with the full release due in September 2005. With only three months to go to 2006 it would seem prudent for Microsoft to rename it to Visual Studio 2006 if they want to avoid looking very silly.

So what's the point of 3G?

Interesting BBC News article: So what's the point of 3G?.

Makes you think!

Quote for the Day from Terry Wogan (via Gavin Esler's Newsnight e-mail):

"Amid all the tumult and the shouting over the soaring price of oil, has it not gone unnoticed that, even at a pound a pint, petrol is still cheaper than a bottle of water in most London restaurants?"

It's not just London, of course. There are similar high prices in Cardiff and most other cities in the UK.

Ajax

Here's an interesting post: Ajax: a new approach to web applications. It's not a new technique but is interesting since it gives a formal "definition" (a pattern) to an approach that reduces latency and improves the user experience.

Grand Slam

Wales beat Ireland to claim Six Nations Grand Slam. (Wales Under-21s also completed the Under-21s Grand Slam yesterday.)

Phalanger

Phalanger: PHP .NET compiler revealed

WiMAX and 3G technology comparison

Here's an interesting paper from Intel. It makes a technical comparison between WiMAX/OFDMA and 3G technologies. It concludes that WiMAX has a distinct advantage for data-centric applications. It would be interesting to understand the impact of the greater use of VoIP over the wireless network. I wonder if VoIP skews the results in favour of WCDMA/EV-DO since it would require higher QoS guarantees.

Qualcomm abandons cdma2000 EV-DV

There are several reports (RCR Wireless News, TheFeature) suggesting that Qualcomm have abandoned their EV-DV chipset development in favour of VoIP across the EV-DO Revision A standard.

Update: Sprint also commit to EV-DO with a future VoIP network and officially discarding EV-DV (see here for more information). Sprint are accelerating their plans with network trials early 2006 with the possibility of rollout late 2006. Sprint Vice President of Technology Development Oliver Valente said "voice capabilities of Rev. A make it applicable to Sprint's entire footprint".

World Wind updates

World Wind 1.3 is available here, World Wind Central is here and there is a blog here.

Also take a look at the Geocoder here.

iRiver H10 Junior

iRiver seem to be planning a smaller version of the H10 (see above next to the new Apple iPod Mini). It has a colour screen, FM radio and up to 4GB of one of these Toshiba 2cm mobile phone drives:



Doesn't say if it plays video, but then you probably wouldn't want to watch anything on such a small screen.

Update: this will only contain a 1GB drive.

Doves: Some Cities

The first quality album this year: Doves' Some Cities.

Macintosh Stories

I'm fascinated by computing history, especially the development of the personal computer. So it was wonderful to come across (via Don Box's blog) Folklore.org. It's full of anecdotes about the development of the Macintosh, and the people who created it. I've just spent two inspiring hours reading the articles (most are by Andy Hertzfeld) and would recommend it to everyone.

Nextel invests in Florida

Nextel plan to build 500 new cell sites (which equates to 20 percent of the total sites the company built nationwide in 2004) while adding a further 12,000 radios to the Florida market during 2005.

MSF for Agile Software Development update

Randy Miller has an overview of MSF for Agile Software Development within Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Delivering the MSF Agile Mindset.

There are a few things to note such as the cool reporting of remaining tasks and one of his comments that states that MSF Agile will be included in Beta 2.

Overview of Branching, Merging, and Shelving

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation's WebLog contains a good Overview of Branching, Merging, and Shelving.

Process Explorer updated to version 9.01

Download here

Google Toolbar 3 beta

Google Toolbar 3 beta

MSF Agile reaches Beta

Download here.

C++ on .NET attacked

Java creator James Gosling called Microsoft's decision to support C and C++ in the CLR the "biggest and most offensive mistakes that they could have made".

Scary stuff? Not really. Just some FUD:

    Low-level language + JNI + Java = Doh!

Update... Ignore my feeble effort to dispell Gosling's FUD. Don Box already has this covered: "Huge Security Hole in Solaris and JVM"

Cool Commands for Whidbey

Gaston Milano has added some more cool functionality to "Whidbey". Check out these new additions ("Copy File" and "Send by Mail") via his Cool Commands for Whidbey post.

Google Maps

Google Maps is interesting (US only for the moment).

Update: See Joel Webber's analysis for some technical details.

Herb Sutter on Channel 9

Download here.

iriverter

Use iriverter to convert your DVDs for use on the iRiver H3xx or H10. These movies also work well with the Orange SPV C500 (although it can go to a higher frame rate so you may want to do that some other way).

Microsoft Internal Coding Guidelines

Internal Coding Guidelines.

HOWTO: Hack iPod into iPod Shuffle

Step 4: delete all but 240 songs! :)

(From Gizmodo.)

Andrew Corp. aquire Xenicom

Xenicom have just been bought by Andrew Corporation. For more information see here.

Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 released

Download here.

CDs/2004: Air — ­­Talkie Walkie

Zoom
Talkie Walkie is Air's fourth album (not counting their soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicide) and a more natural descendent of 1998's Moon Safari. Trademark layers of melodic synthesizer and strings (arranged by Michel Colombier - sadly one of his last collaborations) compliment Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin's soft vocal harmonies. If I were only allowed to choose one album from 2004, this would be it.

Released: January 26, 2004
Singles: Cherry Blossom Girl, Surfing on a Rocket, Alpha Beta Gaga
Adverts: Alpha Beta Gaga (Orange), Alone in Kyoto (BT)
Film: Alone in Kyoto (Lost in Translation)
Web: http://www.intairnet.org/

CDs/2004: Favourites

I thought, over the next few days, I'd list some of my favourite CDs of 2004.

Overall, 2004 has been a poor year for music, but there have been one or two quality releases. Hopefully 2005 will be much better.

Windows XP SP2: The Inside Story

Paul Thurrott has published an interesting article on the development of Windows XP Service Pack 2: The Inside Story.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System CTP on MSDN

The December 2004 CTP of Visual Studio 2005 Team System has been released on MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

For an installation guide see here.

Whidbey Commands for Visual Studio 2003

I mentioned Gaston Milano in a recent "Avalon" post. Prior to his XamlViewer for Visual Studio 2005 he developed an excellent little utility called WhidbeyCommands for Visual Studio 2003. This installed three extra commands onto each tab:



It turns out that Gaston released two further updates this year. The first, WhidbeyCommands 2.0 for Visual Studio 2003, adds the following to the Solution Explorer context menu:



The "Collapse All Projects" is something I've wanted for a long time and, on its own, is worth the download.

While the second update, WhidbeyCommands 2.1 for Visual Studio 2003, adds the following to the Text Editor context menu:



Demo Font swaps the editor font to a larger, clearer font. This is useful when you have a bunch of developers crowded around your desk trying to help debug some nasty crash.

Wheel Font Sizing is really good if you regularly connect to your machine from several monitors with different resolution (i.e. using Remote Desktop). By pressing Ctrl while rolling the mouse wheel, you can enlarge or reduce the font size.

Download WhidbeyCommands 2.1 for Visual Studio 2003. Before installing, download and install the Microsoft Interop Assemblies.

Outlook 2003 Integration API

Microsoft release a reference guide for the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Integration APIs. Download here.

How to cluster virtual machines

Virtual PC Guy recently pointed out an article on creating two-node Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Cluster using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. How did we ever cope in the dark ages before virtualization...?

Motorola Announces 3 year deal for iDEN Technology

Just to prove that iDEN is not going to die out anytime soon, Motorola Announces Next Generation Push to Talk Platform for iDEN Technology and announce a 3 year deal with Nextel.

More good news for Nextel...

Nextel Nets Spectrum Credit

Get podcasts and videos on Windows Mobile Smartphones

Engadget show how to get podcasts onto Windows Mobile Smartphones.

Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update

Apple release the Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update.

How Stuff Works

How Stuff Works give clear explanations of things around us such as computers, DVDs etc.

Google for Microsoft

I didn't know this, but Google provide a search engine dedicated to Microsoft-related sites:

http://www.google.com/microsoft.html

MSN Toolbar Suite shortcut:

@gms,http://www.google.com/microsoft?q=$w&hq=microsoft

MSN Toolbar Suite tips

Here are a few tips I use with MSN Toolbar Suite:

First I get rid of the extra buttons on either side of the textbox of the MSN Deskbar. To do this you need to start regedit and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSN Apps\DB. Then add a DWORD with the name Buttons and value = 1.

Second I change the default hotkey to SHIFT+S. This means you can use WindowsKey+S to change focus to the Deskbar textbox (I don't know why Shift works). To do this select Option and select Deskbar in the treeview and press SHIFT and S in the textbox.

I'm happy using MSN Search for Web queries, but News and Groups (which is not suplied by MSN Search at the moment) are better handled by Google. So add shortcuts from the Deskbar textbox:

Google Groups:
@gg,http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=$w

Google News
@gn,http://news.google.com/news?tab=gn&q=$w&hl=en&

Another shortcut I like:

@msdn2,http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/$w

which lets you search by typing "msdn2 System.IO.File" to go directly to a description of the File class in the .NET Framework.

Unstrung

Unstrung seem to have some good wireless telecoms articles/news. No sign of an RSS feed at the moment.

Microsoft release a Christmas Theme for Windows

Microsoft have released a Christmas Theme that includes "new wallpaper, animated cursors, new icons, new sounds and a 3D screensaver".

Sprint Nextel deal confirmed

Sprint to Buy Nextel in $35 Billion Deal. If regulatory approval follows the same nine month path as the Cingular/AT&T Wireless deal, the buyout should close in the second half of 2005.

This solves Nextel's 3G deliberations with them almost certain to move their 15.3 million subscribers to Sprint's future 1xEV-DO network. This will be at the expense of Flarion Technologies' Flash-OFDM. Sprint have already begun their 3G rollout in the hope that this is completed by 2007.

In the shorter-term Motorola agree to make dual-mode phones to bridge Sprint Nextel's incompatible CDMA/iDEN networks.

More details regarding their plans:

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3448181

Note the following timetable:

Co-location work to start in 2005, but little will change as they await approval – they’ll concentrate on making Sprint’s 1.9GHz network interoperable with Nextel’s 800 MHz, “as well as drafting up site-sharing arrangements”. Co-location work will continue in 2006 with Nextel pushing the plans to move iDEN over to CDMA. This will continue through 2007. Sprint Nextel will then develop VoIP across the cdma2000 1xEV-DO network during 2008. Sprint Nextel expect 14,000 Nextel cell sites will host CDMA equipment by 2008.

Sprint Nextel have an official merger site:

http://sprintnextel.mergerannouncement.com/

Of particular interest is the Investor briefing and page 13 in particular.

MSN Toolbar Suite

Microsoft have released a beta of MSN Toolbar Suite.

ETSI adopt DVB-H standard

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is to adopt the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld) standard for mobile TV services. (See official deliverable.)

Nokia have issued a press release welcoming this news and promising handsets by 2006.

This could slow the rate of 3G adoption. For example, 3G services currently offer the download of all the goals scored in the Premier League at an expensive per-MB download rate (roughly £1 per minute). O2 are already planning to use DVB-H next year despite having paid £4-billion for their 3G license. It is likely that they'll be offering a service around £8 per month for 16 channels. Premium content is likely to cost more, and is likely to be offered on a pay-per-view basis. Assuming they price this right, it will be difficult to imagine anyone prepared to pay to download a few 10 second clips of the top goals through the expensive mobile network when they can watch the entire match.

The UK is likely to be a good match for DVB-H transmissions since it is based on the system used to transmit the Freeview digital TV service.

For more information see this New Scientist article and this article from Wireless Week. Note the incredible bargain Crown Castle's 5MHz US spectrum deal could be in the future.

Sprint to buy Nextel for $36-billion

According to many reports (e.g. Sprint in talks to buy Nextel for $36B and Sprint, Nextel close to merger) Sprint and Nextel have tentatively agreed on key terms for Sprint to buy Nextel for $36-billion

Regulatory hurdles are expected to be low since federal regulators recently approved the $41-billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless by Cingular.

This makes a lot of sense. Sprint are able to consolidate their No. 3 position behind Cingular and Verizon. Spectrally, such a deal offers many synergies. Sprint’s spectrum in the PCS band is adjacent to the band Nextel are expected to receive through the FCC’s 800MHz rebanding requirement. Furthermore, Nextel have been investigating CDMA technologies to replace their existing iDEN systems.

Amazon.co.uk -- Rent This DVD

Amazon.co.uk have introduced a new service called DVD Rental by Post. For £9.99 a month, you can rent up to 6 DVDs with free postage to and from your home. You also get 10% off all DVD purchases.

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 Released

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0

Process Explorer 8.6

Download here.

New in this release:

• Multi-row tabs on process properties dialog
• Image signing verification on process image properties dialog
• Mini-CPU usage graph on toolbar
• Command-line option for specifying Process Explorer priority
• Manual refresh (F5) forces recheck of job and .NET process status
• Single-clicking on tray icon minimizes and restores main window

Winter Fun Pack 2004 for Windows XP

Winter Fun Pack 2004 for Windows XP

MSN Spaces

MSN Spaces is Microsoft's entry into the world of blogging. Shame they've missed this opportunity and produced something so poor. Hopefully, over time, things will improve.

This is my MSN Spaces blog:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/simonchapman.

There is nothing there yet, and I'll not use it in the foreseeable future. It's just a placeholder just in case this does get interesting.

MSN Messenger 7.0 Beta

Download MSN Messenger Beta

iRiver H300 Series Firmware 1.25

The new firmware release improves the usability of video playback. Download here.

Konfabulator 1.8.1

Konfabulator 1.8.1 is now available.

Fixes include:

• Reduced memory footprint in Task Manager
• Upgraded the URL object to support POSTing, outputting to a file and returning the HTTP response code
• Made the Below window level stick to the desktop when choosing Show Desktop from the Task Bar
• Now reacts properly to monitor configuration changes and move widgets appropriately
• Now stores unzipped widgets in the local app data folder, not the system's temporary folder
• Fixed problem where click-through was not working
• Redid CPU monitoring code to avoid issues with performance counters
• Attempted to solve the occasional spontaneous unregistering issue
• Added automatic check for updates, with ability to 'skip' a version

Cingular announce its 3G plans

Cingular Wireless have announced their 3G plans and award Lucent Technologies the contract for its nationwide 3G UMTS deployment.

The network will use a new evolution of UMTS -- High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which will ultimately support theoretical peak data rates of up to 14.4 Mbps and is necessary to combat Verizon's EV-DO rollout.