Fact On Technology

Best Way to Watch Tv - Direct Satellite Tv

2009-10-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for budget Packages for Direct TV, you just need to log on to www.directsattv.com. You can get your quotes on their online sites or you can call them for any enquiry on 866-931-7229.

Direct Sat TV is a direct broadcast satellite service that is based in N.C and transmits satellite TV directly to your home. With 18 million subscribers television doesn’t get any better. Direct Sat TV is an authorized and elite dealer of Direct TV Satellite TV. Digital television is definitely the way to go in every sense of the word. Enjoy greater quality and clarity in your channels and get good deals. Cable TV can be quite expensive and doesn’t offer the same level of service and quality.

Do not get quizzed with different Direct TV Satellite Television service providers. Here is the best Direct Sat TV authorized dealer providing the best Direct TV Packages in the industry by offering the best Direct TV Deals and the best Direct TV Offers. Take the advantage of their exclusive special offers by just making a call to their customer support number or asking for an online quote. Phone order customers are getting an extra off for limited period.

Direct Sat TV is the leader in the cable industry and offers Direct TV packages better than what the current cable provider is offering in the town. They offer top notch digital services and at the best Satellite TV deal around the year. With them customers get up to 14 games free on Sundays, and can view scores, stats and rankings at just a touch of a button. By their Add SuperFan service customers can also watch live games on their cell phones.

New iPod Shuffle - - Not That exciting

2009-06-04T00:46:00.000-07:00

Apple pulled the covers off its newest iPod Wednesday, the tie-clip-sized iPod Shuffle. The new music player is half the size of its predecessor, but ups the memory capacity to 4GB (about 1,000 songs).

The new Shuffle gets its small size, in part, from placing the controls on the headset cord, as opposed to on the iPod itself. Like all previous Shuffles, there’s no display, but Apple has added VoiceOver, its new synthesized-speech feature, that tells you what song is playing, who is singing it or what playlists you have.

Available for $79 in silver or dark gray, the new Shuffle is available now at apple.com. Of course, at this size, Apple may want to consider adding another feature: a locator beacon. The new Shuffle’s so small, it’s only a matter of time before you lose it. Source

3rd Generation Partnership Project

2009-05-22T05:54:00.000-07:00

Are you aware of the file extension 3gp? File extension 3gp is the abbreviation for 3rd Generation Partnership Project files that are no other but multimedia files which along with its sister cousin that is the .3g2 which is the abbreviation for 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 that are used in the creation and distribution of multimedia on mobile devices across the 3G networks.

These two file extensions are used world wide by most of the providers of mobile communications equipment and services as they provide standards for 3rd generation multimedia. They are derived from the MPEG-4 format. The advantage is that the file structure’s container system helps in reducing the storage usage and the bandwidth because of which it becomes perfect for being used in mobile communications applications. Some mobile phones have the extension .mp4 to its 3GP videos.

This website gives you the free download and the best is the testimonials of people who have been benefitted coming on this site. You can avail the benefit of their free driver scan which will update all your drivers plus give you a repair option incase any fault is found. So go on and have a look.

Information on the file extension “.PLAYLIST”

2009-05-18T06:07:00.000-07:00

Hello friends I am sure you would be aware of the File Extension PLAYLIST but even I did not have the complete understanding of the File Extension PLAYLIST until I came across fileextensionplaylist.net. Playlist as the name suggests are those files which are playable media files like movies or music files but not every playable file has the complete suffix as the name as ”filename.playlist”.

In todays advancement there are files which help us also record the information of the files listed such as the artist names, the title of the album and such other information, thus simplifying our job of organizing this data according to our usage. We can also easily edit these types of files by using either any of the text editors or we can best use the playlist editing function of the software which actually created the file initially. You can get a free download from the website fileextensionplaylist.net where you can also have a glimpse of the testimonials attached by the visitors who have been facilitated by this informative website.

Additionally you can get best use of their driver scan facility which will instantly update all your computer drivers thus making your life simpler. Incase any system requirement is missing it will even repair the fault after the scan is successful and has detected the missing requirement.

So what you waiting for, get on and use this one stop website for multiple needs.

Real Audio Metafile

2009-04-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

Do you enjoy listening to music? I do… Hence today I am writing about the Real Audio Metafile or Real Audio Media extension that is the .ram files which are used for music files across the internet to access remote online streams. This .ram extension is developed by the real networks to be used with the real player for us to enjoy music content files without any hassels. This .ram extension actually in the backend directs the computer to files containing music which is normally associated with the .ra or .rm files.
The File Extension RAM makes use of a url signal to find the music files containing the .ra or .rm file extensions and thus only plug ins for real player are required for few radio sites otherwise it is readily accessible without any extra plug ins.
You must visit fileextensionram.org to get complete understanding on this File Extension RAM and along with this it also helps you to detect the drivers for your computer and also does scanning and repairing if required after the scan.It will give you all the information required for the system to match the minimum system requirements for the driver to run..the best part is the testimonials of satisfied users like me which help you understand and gives you an assurance that they are genuine and good source to be used.Do share with me your feedback once you visit this link.

15 positions in Graphics UI, Middleware Development and Testing with one of the worlds TOP 3 mobile company

2008-12-08T00:34:00.000-08:00

Company:

Globally one of the most respected organizations which is counted amongst the WORLDS TOP 3 mobile phone companies, has over 100,000 employees in 120 countries who generate over 50 billion USD in revenues annually. Currently they are adding 15 people to support their open source initiatives, hence looking for ambitious people from anywhere in the world.

Location: Finland

Compensation: Best in the industry, Good hike from current salary & very good relocation support (if required)

Requirement:

If you have 3-15 years of relevant experience in any one of the five requirements, please forward your CV to cv@cxo-strategy.com . ALL VACANCIES HAVE MULTIPLE POSITIONS TO BE FILLED SOON. The details are as follows:-

Requirement 1: Very Good Linux, C & C++skills, Sufficient experience in Qt graphics, Touchscreen UI development and Experience in code optimization & agile development methodologies highly desirable. Any of the following: OpenGL, OpenVG, Cairo, Arthur, SDL, Hitchcock, Clutter, SVG, Core Animation etc.

Requirement 2: Good experience in Linux, C++, Qt internals, UI building blocks & frameworks. Understanding of graphics programming fundamentals and UI middleware development exposure. Any of the following: OpenGL, OpenVG, Cairo, Arthur, SDL, Hitchcock, Clutter, SVG, Core Animation etc.

Requirement 3: Good exp in C++ & Qt. Experience with indexing, synchronization, OMA DM, Metadata, tagging, XML will be highly valued. Good understanding of User data middleware & content on a mobile device. Experience in code optimization & agile development methodologies highly desirable.

Requirement 4: Good understanding of debian packaging policy. Experience in creating & managing repositories and VCS (subversion & git). Scripting languages (shell, python) and Linux System Administration is advantageous. Opening for Pre-integration & release management.

Requirement 5: Good experience in open source development (desirably C & C++) as well as Open source testing and software test automation. Experience with testing in incremental, agile and highly iterative software projects is highly desirable.

Candidates with experience in leading a team will be considered for Sr. Positions. For first 3 positions strong math background for computer graphics and exp with few high performance graphics software’s is highly desirable. PLEASE DO FORWARD THESE OPENINGS & REFER FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES ASAP.

Contact Details :- cv@cxo-strategy.com

Is the rumor about Microsoft and Facebook True?

2008-05-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

Putting an end to the speculation about one of the biggest potential technology mergers in recent times, Microsoft (News - Alert) said earlier this week that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc.

So rumor of Microsoft to bid for Facebook is in the market,

Microsoft will likely meet with stern resistance from within the Facebook community should its reported approach to the fast-growing social networking site gather momentum.

The Facebook community, populated as it is by a large core of university students, is one of the strongest bastions of anti-Microsoft sentiment on the web, and frequently points out what it sees as the flaws in many of the software giant's products.

Yesterday it was reported that Microsoft's bankers had approached Facebook to ask whether the company might be interested in selling - although the parties are not said to be in official talks. Neither company has commented on the report, which appeared first in The Wall Street Journal. Now Microsoft does have excess money to invest on atleast something. They believe that something is better then nothing. So we are waiting facebook to reply on the general asked question about selling Facebook.

There are at least three groups of Facebook users set up specifically to vent anger at the site's potential acquisition by Microsoft, with names such as 'If Facebook sells to Microsoft, we're leaving', and 'Don't sell Facebook to Microsoft!'.

On the largest, 'Don't let Facebook buy Microsoft', which was formed around the time Microsoft bought a $240 million stake in the site in October, one member recently commented: "If Microsoft buys Facebook I will deactivate my account and never come back - after clearing my friends, my information. YOU people are my witnesses!'

HAHA well everyone hates Microsoft, on facebook atleast. My thoughts says it better facebook don't sell there site, or else even facebook would have fatal errors. ;-)

Cisco introduces fully integrated networking semiconductor

2008-03-07T00:29:00.000-08:00

Cisco has introduced the Cisco QuantumFlow Processor, the industry's first fully integrated and programmable networking chipset. More than half a decade in the making, the Cisco QuantumFlow Processor consists of 40 cores on a single chip and can perform up to 160 simultaneous processes.

The chipset was designed by a team of more than 100 Cisco engineers and has led to more than 40 patent submissions. Many of the engineers who developed the Cisco Silicon Packet Processor (SPP) for the Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), which debuted in 2004, also worked on the Cisco QuantumFlow Processor.

Continued advancements in technology, design and expertise enabled the team to increase the transistor density on the chip from a then networking-industry, leading 185 million on the Cisco SPP to more than 800 million on the Cisco QuantumFlow processor.

Xsan 2 is available immediately for $999.

2008-03-07T00:23:00.000-08:00

In the first major upgrade to its Storage Area Network (SAN) file system, Apple on Tuesday introduced Xsan 2, adding a new feature called MultiSAN and making it easier for first time users to get up and running.

“The feedback we’ve heard from customers is that a SAN is too difficult to setup, so one of the goals in this release was to make SAN simpler,” Eric Zelenka, senior product line manager server & storage software, told Macworld.

One of the ways Apple has accomplished this is with the SAN Setup Assistant, which is integrated into Mac OS X Leopard Server or as an application that can be run on its own. When first setting up Mac OS X Server, a fourth option automatically appears if you have a Fibre Channel card installed. The setup assistant will do all the heavy lifting for you, setting up everything including Open Directory permissions.

Xsan 2 also includes a new feature called MultiSAN for users who need to access multiple Xsan volumes from the same workstation or server. Zelenka pointed to examples like a newsroom with separate SAN volumes for production and broadcast.

“Tens of thousands of businesses, from small video post-production houses to large data centers and TV stations, use Xsan as their clustered SAN file system,” said Zelenka. “Now with Xsan 2, businesses can efficiently share and access their data faster and easier than ever before.”

In addition, Apple said that Leopard Server features such as iCal Server, Mail Server and Podcast Producer, can now integrate with Xsan 2 to support clustered file systems, improving performance and scalability and reducing the impact of a service outage from the loss of any one server.

Xsan 2 has also been qualified with third-party RAID storage hardware from Promise Technology in configurations tuned and optimized for Xsan.

Apple has qualified Xsan 2 with Xserve, Mac Pro and Apple Fibre Channel PCI-X cards. Xsan 2 requires that Mac OS X version 10.5 or Mac OS X Server version 10.5 software be installed and will support qualified Fibre Channel switches from vendors such as Brocade, QLogic and Cisco, and RAID storage hardware including Xserve RAID and Promise VTrak E-Class RAID subsystems.

Inside Gossip

2008-02-29T09:36:00.000-08:00

Google is partnering with the city of San Francisco, nearby their headquarters, to offer free voicemail to the homeless that reside within San Francisco. Google is doing this through their acquisition of GrandCentral late last year.

homeless

The announcement that Google was going to offer this free service to those in need was made only a month after they acquired GrandCentral. Making an announcement so shortly after acquiring a new company, or product rather, leads me to believe that they had a hidden agenda already to get some good PR about this.

GrandCentral had already been operating Project CARE since April of 2006, but Google’s hand will help speed things up dramatically.

This is, I believe, a great thing that Google is doing in conjunction with GrandCentral. Given, GrandCentral is owned by Google, it’s still a great decision to finally push forward with this.

This remark stuck out to me from the MSNBC article. “The move by the city and the company would allow someone to be able to fill out a job application, which asks for a call back number.” I will not say I’m guilt-free of it, but I know that sometimes I think to myself “why can’t they just go get a job,” and now, Google is helping that become a reality.

I cannot even begin to imagine ever being homeless, so I will not say that I know it’s a hard life or try to make up something about what they are going through. Google is doing something simple, yet profound, to exert effort in an attempt to change one life at a time.

source: msnbc.com - image courtesy of photographyblog.com

Goolag Tool Lets Google Aid Hackers

2008-02-25T01:57:00.000-08:00

Source:

Goolag Tool Lets Google Aid

The hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow has released a tool that should make Google hacking a little easier for novices.

CalledGoolag, the open-source software lets hackers use the Google search engine to scan Web sites for vulnerabilities.

This is something that hackers have been doing for years, but it can be tricky work -- involving custom scripts and tools that sift through the mountain of data available via Google.

The Cult of the Dead Cow is best known forcreating the Back Orifice software10 years ago, which could be used to remotely control a Windows machine.

Like Back Orifice, the software could be used by both legitimate security professionals and criminals. Goolag comes with an easy-to-use graphical interface. It is based on techniques developed by Computer Sciences Corp. researcher Johnny Long, a well-known computer hacker who has spent years documenting the way that Google's search engine can be used to uncover security vulnerabilities in the Web sites it indexes.

In a statement, The Cult of the Dead Cow said that the software is "one more tool for Web site owners to patch up their online properties."

"It's no big secret that the Web is the platform," the statement said. "And this platform pretty much sucks from a security perspective."

There are already free Web vulnerability search tools available -- such as theWiktoscanning software -- but the Cult of the Dead Cow's notoriety will probably help make Goolag popular, security experts said Friday.

"I don't think it's particularly new, but maybe it makes [Google hacking] more accessible," said Robert Hansen, CEO of Sectheory.com and author of theHa.ckers.orgWeb security blog.

"It is interesting because it could theoretically represent a lower burden of entry for the novice Google hacker," he added.

Amichai Shulman, chief technology officer with security vendor Imperva, agreed that there are still far too many security vulnerabilities on Web sites. "Maybe the headlines that this release is getting will serve as a wake-up call for application owners," he said.

AOL gets widgety with Goowy acquisition from C/net

2008-02-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

AOL - LLC. (formerly America Online, Inc.) is an American global Internet services and media company operated by Time Warner and headquartered in New York, New York. It has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world, or set up international versions of its services.

Goowy - develop innovative online products and services that provide simple, intuitive tools for managing your digital life and expressing yourself on the web. Our two consumer services, yourminis and the goowy webtop, have received high acclaim and are being used by people from all over the world to manage their digital lifestyle.

AOL announced on Monday that it has purchased Goowy Media, a company that has created technology for widget creation and analytics reporting. AOL has been partnering with Goowy since early in 2007; financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

To consumers, Goowy is best-known as the parent company of Yourminis, a widget creation and discovery engine.

But the Time Warner unit's aim with Goowy is more likely on the advertising front. AOL recently relocated its headquarters from Virginia to New York to bolster its Madison Avenue street cred; the former online-service powerhouse has been attempting to reshape itself as a digital-media company with profits stemming primarily from advertising, not subscription revenues.

AOL stated in a press release on Monday that Goowy's technology will be used in part for widget-based advertising, providing both more interactive content and detailed statistics on where and how the widgets are being used.

Microsoft's antipiracy effort brings in $77M

2008-01-28T12:33:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp. credited antipiracy efforts for contributing to the record-breaking revenues it reported Thursday, saying that Windows Vista's more aggressive anticopying technology and a string of lawsuits have borne fruit.

The bounce to Microsoft's bottom line, calculated by Allan Krans, an analyst at Technology Business Review Inc., was $77 million.

"Since the Windows market is so saturated, they're looking for any niches to increase their revenue line beyond PC growth, and antipiracy is one of those areas," said Krans. "The opportunity isn't substantial, but it's still revenue. If they can tweak an extra $100 million or so a quarter, they'll take it."

Yesterday, Microsoft executives touted antipiracy efforts for bringing home the bacon. Chris Liddell, chief financial officer, said Thursday afternoon that the sales growth of Windows was several percentage points higher than the increase in sales of PCs, which account for the vast majority of all copies of the operating system that the company ships. The difference between the two numbers, he said, was the boost provided by the company's antipiracy efforts. "Our sales [typically] grow 1% to 2% faster than the market as a result of taking piracy away," said Liddell. "Over the last couple of quarters, that has picked up. It was around 5% in the first quarter and around 3% in the second quarter."

Liddell listed several reasons for the uptick, including more arm-twisting of late. "We've had a significant enforcement activity over the last few quarters, something like 74 legal actions in 22 countries," he said. In filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company highlighted antipiracy efforts in Russia and China, and "other emerging markets."

Windows Vista's tougher anti-counterfeit technology also got some of the credit. "We've seen some of the technology advances in Vista helping us, relative to previous editions of Windows," Liddell added.

Vista, unlike its Windows XP predecessor, repeatedly checks itself for signs of piracy, a technique that then lets Microsoft blacklist copies activated with stolen volume license keys. And until it backtracked last month and announced it was killing the Vista "kill switch," its policy was to lock down bogus copies of that operating system so that they were essentially unusable. (The demise of "reduced functionality mode" actually doesn't take place until the final version of Vista Service Pack 1 appears sometime this quarter.)

Liddell also attributed the boost to a shift in PC sales. "We've seen a shift to laptops and, in particular, sales through multinational OEMs who typically have a lower piracy rate," Liddell noted.

"This is finite; it's not unlimited," said Krans, referring to the pool of pirated copies that can potentially be sold as a legitimate version of Windows. "But if they get a handle on it now, you're talking substantial amounts of money. What they're doing is setting themselves up for some strong growth in this area for the next decade or so.

"So it's not just about this quarter, but about putting the checks in place to make sure that they're fully capitalized here," he said.

A tougher line on piracy may warm the hearts of shareholders, but the reception from users hasn't always been as accepting. In July 2006, for example, users cried foul when they found out Windows XP was "phoning home" daily to Microsoft's servers; a little over a year later, they blasted the company when thousands of Vista and XP owners were pegged as pirates because of a server outage at Microsoft.

"Microsoft's trying a mixture of both [technology and enforcement]," said Krans. "And it's making progress in setting the bar that software piracy is not to be accepted."

Juniper Sends Strong Signals for Cisco

2008-01-26T08:57:00.000-08:00

Juniper's (JNPR - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) outlook gives the networking sector an all-clear sign.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., tech shop on Thursday blew past fourth-quarter targets and raised guidance for the quarter and year ahead. The report helped quiet concerns that demand for new Internet gear was tightening as a slowing economy looms.

Shares of Juniper were climbing 94 cents, or 3.6%, to $27.24 Friday. Top rival Cisco (CSCO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) added 41 cents, or 1.6%, to $25.52.

On a conference call with analysts Thursday, Juniper said it had confidence in its upbeat forecast due to good visibility in the market. The outlook suggested that there were no cautious cutbacks in orders for the sort of high-capacity equipment to help phone companies handle higher traffic volumes.

This is "a recurring theme we've heard now from nearly every carrier-focused high-end telecom equipment maker," JPMorgan analyst Ehud Gelblum wrote in a note Friday.

Gelblum prefers Cisco in this two-player race. He points out that the valuation gap between Cisco and Juniper is near a two-year high, with Wall Street undervaluing Cisco relative to Juniper's surging price.

Comparing the multiples, or the price of the stock divided by the projected earnings per share for 2008, Gelblum has Cisco at a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.8 to Juniper's 23.3. In other words, if Cisco reports strong results and a solid outlook next month, its stock may have higher to go, Gelblum believes.

The Juniper case, however, doesn't necessarily apply to some of the other gear peers like Alcatel Lucent (ALU - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Nortel (NT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). While those companies sell new-generation equipment to telcos, a dwindling demand for old-line gear weighs on the overall performance of the supply giants.

For the fourth quarter, Juniper posted adjusted earnings of 27 cents a share, up from the 19-cent comparable profit in the year-earlier quarter. The results beat analysts' average estimate by 3 cents.

Sales for the quarter jumped 36% to $809.2 million from $595.8 million the prior year. That top line exceeded analysts' target calling for sales of $786 million.

For the year, Juniper posted adjusted net income of $504 million, or 87 cents a share, up from $440.4 million, or 73 cents a share, in 2006. Sales for 2007 climbed 23% to $2.8 billion.

For the first quarter, Juniper expects to post an adjusted profit of around 24 cents to 25 cents a share on sales of $815 million. Wall Street predicts a profit of 24 cents a share, with sales of $798 million in sales.

Juniper anticipates 2008 earnings of roughly $1.08 and $1.13 per share and sales of $3.4 billion to $3.55 billion. Analysts project a profit of $1.11 a share on sales of $3.42 billion.

Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo scramble as Woomail Launches Email Replacement

2008-01-26T08:53:00.000-08:00

According to Ferris research, spam cost a total of $100B worldwide in 2007. Compared with industry estimates of the cost of spam being $19 Billion in 2004 and $50 Billion in 2006; spam doubles in cost approximately every 24 months. Electronic communication in its present form - email - will only continue to get worse. A new and viable alternative was desperately needed, and Woomail (www.woomail.com) rose to the challenge. Woomail is a new form of electronic messaging that could replace email as the standard. It takes control of electronic messages, giving complete power to the user. Woomail servers control both ends of the information exchange and messages never enter cyberspace.

Although interactive, Woomail is not email. Woomail is a better way to message online; an intelligent and controlled online communication tool that works in a simple yet effective manner, eliminating spam and putting total control in the hands of the recipient.

Woomail appeals to both the personal and business markets. Personally, parents can rest assured that their kids will not be assailed with pornographic emails or unwanted solicitation of any kind. Business owners and managers will work confidently knowing a real person generates every message and their networks are not being bogged down by unwanted messages, thus allowing employees to be more productive while reducing overall operational costs. Large enterprise users are empowered with the knowledge that all online communications are sent and received on in-house servers, never leaving their protection.

By setting up a Woomail account, the power of email is instantly transferred from the sender to the receiver. Recipients can set their own preferences, restrict abusers and decide who can contacts them and for how long. The essence of Woomail is that it switches control to the end user, which saves money, time and alleviates nuisance. To register for a free Woomail account, visit http://www.woomail.com

About Woomail

Woomail is the first to market with an advanced, more secure form of electronic communication. "Woomail.com understands the critical issues that have plagued traditional email and has created a new process that will revolutionize online communications for individuals, small business and large enterprises", says CEO John Halloran. Woomail offers an unparalleled level of online messaging that is safe, hassle-free and encrypted.

Further information and press enquiries about The World's Safest Mail™ should be directed to John Halloran at 650-739-8082 or http://www.woomail.com/1

Yahoo's Search for a Vision

2008-01-23T01:18:00.000-08:00

Everyone from Wall Street analysts to former employees to advertising firms seems to know just what struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! (YHOO) should do to turn itself around. And each "solution" is a doozy: Lay off hundreds or even thousands of employees. Get out of the search ad business and just use Google (GOOG). Sell out completely to Microsoft (MSFT).

As persistent as all these rumors have been over the past year or more, the most radical versions of those moves are still unlikely to happen until Yahoo addresses it's overriding problem: Its leaders—in particular co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang—need to decide once and for all what Yahoo stands for in a new era dominated by search and social networking. And they must clearly articulate how they're going to get it there.

Start at the Top

So far, that hasn't happened. Last October, Yang outlined a strategic direction that to many observers was more of a three-pronged to-do list than a cohesive vision of Yahoo's future. He said Yahoo would look to be the starting point for Internet users, extend its ad offerings to other sites, and open up its technology base to outside programmers and publishers to come up with spiffy new services for the company's Web pages.

But many people, most of all investors, don't think any of that will help consumers understand why they should spend more time using Yahoo than Google, Facebook, MySpace (NWS), or countless other services growing much faster in popularity. Even people at Yahoo, says one executive, aren't sure which projects they should focus on, so efforts to improve services continue to move slowly. "I don't think they understand where to go," says Sramana Mitra, a Silicon Valley Web strategist who has written extensively about Yahoo's challenges on her blog. "They're running around like chickens."

With inadequate direction from Yahoo's leadership, it's no surprise that nearly everyone has advice. Here's the rundown on the possibilities—none of which seem likely to get Yahoo back on track in the absence of more fundamental thinking on Yahoo's raison d'être:

Slash and burn. Fire 2,000 employees, Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay advised in a Jan. 11 report. He said that would give Yahoo more profits to pursue initiatives such as mobile search and video as well as acquisitions. The company is mulling layoffs, but more in the range of hundreds of employees. Deeper cuts, flagged privately by people at Yahoo as unlikely, sound more like wishful thinking by investors than sound advice. They presume that Yahoo is stumbling toward death's door when it's not: In its fourth-quarter report Jan. 29, the company is expected to show a 15% gain in sales, to $1.4 billion, though profits are expected to fall.

And despite a stock price that's fallen 41% from last year's Oct. 26 peak, a steady departure of executives, and continuing losses in its share of the Web search market to Google, Yahoo boasts strengths that belie the dire predictions of doom by naysayers. Yahoo gets 500 million visitors a month, still the most on the Web, and remains a leader in key areas such as e-mail, sports, and financial news and information. "They continue to have a ton of traffic," says Kevin Lee, executive chairman of digital ad firm Didit.

Google, Consumer Groups Fire Opening Salvos in EU Talks

2008-01-23T01:14:00.000-08:00

Testy exchanges punctuated yesterday's debate over the relevance of privacy concerns in the European Commission's (EC) review of the proposed Google-DoubleClick merger.

At yesterday's meeting in Brussels, consumer advocates appealed to European lawmakers and regulators to examine privacy concerns when evaluating Google's acquisition of the online advertising provider.

The complaints came in spite of the Commission's previous statement that the review would only consider the impact on competition.

"People [are] trying to take a privacy case and shoehorn it into a competition law review," Google's global privacy counsel Pete Fleischer said in response to attacks from U.S. and European privacy advocates, according to a Reuters report.

Despite the criticism, Google expects the EC to follow the lead of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's -- which approved the merger -- in basing its decision solely on the issue of competition.

"We need a common set of principles to guide the entire industry," Google spokesman Ben Novick told InternetNews.com. "It would be wrong and even counterproductive to single out one company."

Neelie Kroes, an EU competition commissioner, had said in October that privacy would not factor into the Commission's review.

However, that statement has not deterred the merger's opponents from pressing regulators to consider the privacy implications of the deal.

Its critics, led by the BEUC, Europe's largest consumer group, have argued that because the combined company would have a far greater trove of consumer data at its disposal that the issues of privacy and competition were necessarily intertwined.

Rebecca Arbogast, analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus and Co., said that for privacy advocates, the best outcome of yesterday's meeting would likely be to put political pressure on the EU's Directorate General of Competition, a regulatory body loosely parallel to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Yesterday's session was a meeting of the European Parliament, rather than the EC itself, to discuss the privacy issue as it relates to online advertising in general. The Parliament does not rule on competition reviews of mergers.

In that context, yesterday's meeting was similar to the "town hall" meeting on behavior-targeted online advertising held in fall by the FTC. That meeting examined privacy issues on an industry-wide basis, rather than just looking at Google and DoubleClick.

Nevertheless, some groups at the FTC meeting seized the opportunity to challenge the Google/DoubleClick deal. One of those groups was the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), whose executive director, Marc Rotenberg, also spoke during yesterday's meeting.

The EC review is the last major hurdle facing the $3.1 billion acquisition. In December, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission blessed the merger with unconditional approval by a 4-1 vote.

The approving majority determined that privacy concerns were "not unique to Google and DoubleClick."

As a companion to the ruling, the FTC issued a general list of principles for behavioral marketing throughout the industry.

In his testimony yesterday, Google's Fleischer tried to frame the privacy discussion as an area of industry-wide concern that should be addressed in a global context.

"Privacy practices on the Internet cannot stop or change at borders," he said. "In the area of online advertising, the industry cannot develop one set of self-regulatory principles in Washington and another in Brussels."

Fleischer claimed that Google has taken numerous steps to limiting the information that it collects about consumers, including cutting the lifespan of its cookie from 30 years to two years.

Yesterday's meeting was the first public discussion of the merger since the EC decided in November to move its review into the more rigorous phase two investigation.

Pamela Harbour, the lone dissenting commissioner in the FTC vote, also spoke at the meeting yesterday. Harbour, who articulated her view that the FTC did not sufficiently address the privacy issue in its review of the merger, attended the meeting independently, not as a representative of the FTC.

As of now, there are no more public meetings scheduled in Europe that could factor in the EC's decision. The deadline to rule on the merger is April 2.

Mobile Java with J2ME

2008-01-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

Mobile Java is a rapidly changing area. However, the associated Java development toolkits are well engineered and they include a plethora of easy to follow examples. This helps to reduce the cost of entry into this domain. To find out some more examples, read on.

Mobile Computing: Smaller Is Beautiful

The penetration of electronic systems into everyday life continues apace, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of small mobile devices. These represent what can be called the demand side of the mobile network, i.e., the entities that consume the services offered by the network(s). The supply side of the mobile network provides the required services, and it's important to note that mobile phone networks are evolving to accommodate users' needs. Those include the ability to use small devices (such as mobile phones) for browsing websites, reading and sending email, downloading and playing music, etc. The evolution of mobile computing requires a massive level of investment in both the supply and demand sides of the network.

So, mobile computing and mobile telephony are strong growth areas, and substantial investments are being made on both sides of the supply and demand equation. This area is often somewhat fuzzily described as the "convergence of multiple technologies." Despite the vague marketing-speak, however, it's likely that impressive features will continue to be rolled out over time. In a sense, users and device vendors are trying to overcome the traditional limits imposed by geography by squeezing more and more capabilities into increasingly smaller mobile devices.

In parallel with all this vendor activity, Java is evolving, too, as Sun Microsystems attempts to position the language on the crest of the mobile computing development wave. Keep in mind that software must be specifically engineered for mobile elements such as consumer products, embedded devices, mobile phones, and portable computers. This is because the spectrum of platform types features not one but many runtime environments; therefore, the Java platform has been modified to suit.

History teaches us that technology offerings tend to be most innovative when resources are scarce. For example, do you remember the nineties, when exotic things like DOS extenders and expanded memory were important? These were specific technologies designed to try and squeeze ever more code into and performance out of software hosted on the then-ubiquitous DOS operating system. History is in a sense repeating itself as the mobile computing revolution unfolds. The J2ME platform has been modified to suit the increasingly diverse mobile device area, and that is the topic of this article.

Google puts New Zealand on the World Wide Maps

2008-01-01T11:02:00.000-08:00

Internet giant Google is filming streets in New Zealand towns - and raising privacy concerns.

Google plans this year to place New Zealand streetscapes in its "Street View", a feature that created a public uproar in the United States.
Images of partially clothed sunbathing women, a man entering an adult bookshop and another a strip club, and one being arrested, sparked debate over what should be public and what should stay private.

"When out on our daily business we don't expect a camera-wielding car to capture hundreds of pictures of us and publish them on the net with city and address attached," wrote one internet user.

"Maybe if their 'photo car' was bright yellow and had a man on a blow horn yelling, 'I'm going to publish your photo on the internet', I could understand."

Some feared criminals could use images to select sites to commit crime.

However, the Street View feature has also been credited as a learning opportunity for students and for providing exposure to businesses.

Rob Shilkin, corporate communications chief for Google Australia and New Zealand, said the company had a fleet of labelled cars fitted with high-tech equipment in several major New Zealand towns.

More details about the locations will be given - a Dunedin resident told the Herald he saw a camera-topped car in central-city High St.

Mr Shilkin said Google was mindful of privacy issues and Street View carried only images that anyone would be able to see walking down a public street.

"We're complying with principles and requirements of New Zealand law," he said.

The company was giving considerable thought to how to best safeguard New Zealanders' privacy and would consult experts and community groups here.

"[We] are focusing on finding ways to ensure that individuals' faces and licence plates are not identifiable in pictures taken in New Zealand."

People would also be able to flag images for removal, Mr Shilkin said.

Herald IT columnist Peter Griffin said the addition of New Zealand streetscapes showed Google was interested in this country and believed there were advertising opportunities.

He said it could benefit tourism, with potential visitors able to check out destinations before booking travel.

"Anyone in the world will be able to access that information."

generate electricity using salt and a magnet

2007-12-20T00:59:00.000-08:00

I'll show you how to generate electricity using salt and a magnet

Objectives/Goals

The goal of my project is to see if I can generate electricity by evaporating water. The main reason I did this project is that the world is currently having problems with electricity. I thought that with this method I could help the world#s electricity problem a little.

Methods/Materials

A Meter; 5 1/2 powerful magnets; A glass cup; A coil of wire; A Classic Drinking Bird; Water. For this experiment I used a Classic Drinking Bird to show how electricity can be generated by evaporation. By wetting the bird#s head, and tapping it to start the motion, you can create an endless bobbing motion. By attaching a magnet to its beak, and letting the bird dip into a glass of water wrapped

in a metal coil, you can generate an electric current. The Classic Drinking Bird works by a liquid moving up a tube connected to the bird's head. If you wet the head with water, it becomes colder than the bottom of the bird due to evaporation. Because it is colder, the vapor pressure in the head is lower and this is what causes the water to move up the tube. The liquid starts rising, making the bird bob deeper and deeper, until the beak dips down and meets the water surface.

When the bird dips into a glass of cold water, the liquid in the head goes back down to the bottom of the bird.

Results

Because I was interested in getting the most electricity that I could, I tried to make the bird bob as fast as it could go. I found that the bird#s bobbing rate depended on how fast the water on its head evaporates. By using a small, hand-held electric fan, I could make the bird bob faster. With the fan, the evaporation process is faster. I tried using salt water to see if the bobbing rate would change, and it did. This is

because salt water evaporates more slowly than fresh water.

Conclusions/Discussion

I have discovered from the data I have collected, that my hypothesis is correct. Evaporation can produce electricity. The experiment I have done could be taken up another level. The design I have conducted can only produce enough electricity to move a needle, but with a bigger design, and more powerful magnets, it could be enough electricity to light up a light bulb, a lamp, or a small town. I think this could help solve our energy problems. My project is to see if evaporation can produce electricity.

Help Received

Dad helped measure electricity; Mom helped explain evaporation

Salt Power - The top video clips of the week are here

How Can the Range of a WiFi Network Be Boosted?

2007-12-20T00:53:00.000-08:00

You can boost the signal range of a WiFi computer network in several ways:

reposition your router (or access point) to avoid obstructions and radio interference. Both reduce the range of WiFi network equipment. Common sources of interference in residences include brick or plaster walls, microwave ovens, and cordless phones. Additionally, consider changing the WiFi channel number on your equipment to avoid interference.
upgrade the antenna on your router (or access point). WiFi antennas on most wireless base stations can be removed and replaced with more powerful ones.
add another access point (or router). Large residences typically require no more than two APs, whereas businesses may employ dozens of APs. In a home, this option requires connecting your primary wireless router (access point) to the second one with Ethernet cable; home wireless routers and/or APs don't normally communicate with each other directly.
add a bi-directional WiFi signal amplifier to wireless devices as needed. A WiFi signal amplifier (sometimes called "signal booster") attaches to a router, access point or Wi-Fi client at the place where the antenna connects. Bi-directional antennas amplify the wireless signal in both transmit and receive directions. These should be used as WiFi transmissions are two-way radio communications.
add a WiFi repeater. A wireless repeater is a stand-alone unit positioned within range of a wireless router (access point). Repeaters (sometimes called "range expanders") serve as a two-way relay station for WiFi signals. Clients too far away from the original router / AP can instead associate with the WLAN through the repeater.

OR YOU CAN TRY THIS TO BOOST YOUR WI-FI

How To Boost Wi-Fi Range With A Homemade Parabolic Reflector - The Techy videos clips are here

Coming Soon: Google Gdrive

2007-11-28T07:28:00.000-08:00

Google is planning to launch a new online service dubbed "Gdrive", wherein users will be allowed to securely store their PC data online.

The service will allow users to store data such as Office docs, digital music, video clips, and images from their PC hard drives onto the online storage space to be offered by Google.

The stored data will be available for access to users through the Internet on different PCs and mobile phones. It will also be available for sharing files with friends after signing-in with a password, as and when required.

However, the storage space and expansion options being made available to users have not been revealed yet.

The online storage service is no news as rumors about "Gdrive" have been doing the rounds of industry for quite sometime now.

And amidst all this, there are concerns being raised about the privacy of data and copyright issues, because content will be stored online, which can lead to illegal sharing of it.

According to Google though, data privacy has been addressed with the utmost sensitivity, and extensive safeguards have been put in place to protect user data.

"Gdrive" is just a few months away from release.

Google to spend hundreds of millions on developing renewable energy

2007-11-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. says it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop renewable energy as part of an ambitious plan to clean the environment and reduce the company's own power bill.

The Mountain View company said Tuesday that it will open its deep pockets to foster innovation in solar, wind and geothermal technology in the hopes of making green energy cheaper than power produced by burning coal.

To start the initiative, Google said that it will invest tens of millions of dollars in renewable power, spread over research and development and related investments, in 2008.

"Solar isn't currently cheaper than coal," Google co-founder Larry Page said in a conference call. "That's the point of this - to get it there."

Google, which dubbed the project RE

Google also hopes to license any technology spawned from the effort to other companies so that they, too, can reduce their reliance on more polluting forms of energy while saving money. Co-founder Sergey Brin raised the possibility that the fees will be a new source of revenue for his company, but insisted that the goal isn't to rake in big profit.

About 40 percent of the world's electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. Providing an affordable, cleaner alternative would go a long way in reducing pollution, particularly in China, where coal plants are proliferating.

In unveiling its plan, Google joins many companies and investors focused on clean energy, an area that is getting increasing attention amid high energy costs and concern about global warming. That list includes Wal-Mart, Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard. Google's financial contribution will be relatively minor when measured against overall investment on alternative energy.

Ron Pernick, co-founder of Clean Edge, an energy research company, said U.S. venture capital investment alone in clean energy was $2.4 billion, according to a joint study by Clean Edge and Nth Power, a venture capital firm.

Whether Google's money will fund anything new is unclear because the company announced few specifics. But Pernick said that Google's contribution is significant nonetheless, because it sets a clear goal.

"What they did today was to put a stake in the ground saying, 'Let's get renewable energy to be cost-competitive with coal,' " he said. "That's the differentiator that shows vision and commitment."

In general, Google said it will make investments and give grants to projects that show promise in developing energy at a cost below coal-fired power plants. Companies, universities and research and development labs will be eligible.

Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, which will fund all the company's investment in outside companies, already is working with two partners in alternative energy.

ESolar, in Pasadena, designs solar thermal power plants. Makani Power, in Alameda, is working on wind power generated at high altitudes, a futuristic technology that potentially calls for turbines to be held aloft on kites or sails.

Executives from both startups were unavailable for comment. Larry Brilliant, who leads Google.org, declined to offer details about their cooperation.

Google's founders acknowledged that renewable energy is far more expensive than coal, which can cost 2 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on the country. Bill Weihl, who oversees green energy for Google, said that the cost of renewable energy will have to drop to 1 to 3 cents per kilowatt hour to make it competitive.

James Sweeney, a Stanford professor and director of the university's Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, said wind and geothermal power, under ideal conditions, are already close to Google's target price. However, solar power is several times more expensive than coal and would require significant innovation to become competitive.

Sweeney applauded Google's plans and said that it's almost irrelevant whether the company meets its goal. He said that the money will push innovation if it is well spent.

"If a large fraction goes to investing into companies that are being created anyway, then it's a big drop in a bucket," Sweeney said. "But if it's funding basic research, which isn't getting enough funding, then it's probably a significant force in moving this forward."

As part of its plan, Google intends to hire up to 30 engineers and energy experts. The plan is to generate one gigawatt of renewable energy, enough to power a city the size of San Francisco.

No deadline was announced. The company gave a vague timeline of years, not decades.

Potentially, the company could even operate power plants next to its data centers.

Google's founders have long been interested in energy efficiency and have played a big role in getting the company to go green. Last year the company said it would become carbon-neutral by the end of this year, meaning that it will be responsible for zero carbon emissions.

Relying on renewable energy would help bring Google closer to the goal. But in practice, it probably means the company will engage in buying "carbon offsets," the controversial practice of paying others to plant trees that then absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Already, Google has built a solar panel installation at its headquarters that generates 1.6 megawatts, making it among the biggest corporate arrays in the country. In addition, the company has put out a request for proposals to fund up to $10 million in research and development of electric and hybrid cars.

Google's founders have taken some hits, however, for failing to practice what they preach by flying in a Boeing 767 that they own through a holding company. Brin answered the criticism Tuesday by emphasizing that he compensates for the pollution from the flights by buying carbon offsets.

Brin added that Google's interest in renewable energy won't distract the company from its main search and online advertising businesses. But he added that he doesn't want the company's focus to "preclude us from using some of our resources on more speculative areas, especially when they touch us."

Dell to sell Google appliances

2007-11-28T07:17:00.000-08:00

Dell has signed a deal with Google allowing the PC maker to sell Google Search Appliance and Google Mini devices direct to corporate customers.

Although the units are actually manufactured by Dell, the firm has not been able to sell them until now.

"Having Google Search Appliance and Google Mini bolsters our enterprise offerings and simplifies the search engine process for our commercial and public customers," said Terry Klein, vice president at Dell's Americas Advanced Solutions Group.

"Google's turnkey search appliances align well with Dell's priority to simplify IT in the data centre."

The Google Search Appliance, with its distinctive yellow chassis, is designed for larger enterprises, while the blue Google Mini is targeted at SMEs.

The appliances deliver relevant search results from information sources within a company's firewall.

Companies can also design their own interface that users will recognise from their familiarity with Google.com, without compromising existing corporate security requirements.

"Expanding our channel presence will help meet the growing demand and interest in Google Enterprise solutions worldwide," said Darci Dutton-Reimund, head of North America channels at Google Enterprise.

"Dell's partnership is critical in helping us deliver the best of Google business innovation to our rapidly growing customer base."

The Google Search Appliance starts at $30,000 and the Google Mini starts at $1,995.

Domino theories for Microsoft's Surface PC

2007-10-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled its Surface tabletop PC, and now Redmond is taking the technology demonstration on the road. Recently, it stopped off in London, where News.com sister siteSilicon.com had a chance to take a closer look.

The Surface system, also known by the Milan code name, uses a 30-inch screen, several cameras, a PC running the Vista operating system and a projector to create an interactive, touch-sensitive environment that reacts to objects coming into contact with its flat surface.

This picture shows an application developed for T-Mobile. The company plans to use Surface in some of its U.S. stores toward the end of the year. A mobile phone with a domino tag (left) is placed on the Surface top and the relevant information for the handset is brought up. The customer can then select from the different talk plans at the bottom and drag them onto the phone to get an idea of pricing and so on. Here, the user is selecting ringtones and dragging them to the phone.

This demo shows how Surface could be used in a restaurant or bar environment. The glass has a domino tag on the bottom that sends information about the drink and potentially how and where it's made. It could even be used to order another drink.

Microsoft plans to launch this Surface concierge application in the U.S. at the end of this year or in early 2008 with Starwood Hotels and Resorts and with Harrah's Entertainment, which owns the Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas.

The domino tags have been placed on the face drawn in the paint program, prompting the computer to display these strange patterns around the tabs to create the eyes. Surface is also compatible with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so it will be able to react in a similar way to mobile phone commands and RFID chips.

Here the humble paint application is shown--with a real paint brush being used to draw a face on the Surface table. Mark Bolger, director of marketing for Microsoft Surface Computing, said: "We're redefining the way people interact with digital content. What we want to do is make technology more accessible."

This application shows an image of the bed of a stream. When you place a finger on the screen, it reacts as if you have disturbed the water above the pebbles. The Surface device currently costs between $5,000 and $10,000, but Microsoft hopes it will be in homes in around three to five years.

The same application can be used to pay for food or drink at the end of the night. Here a credit card (left) with a domino tag fitted is being used to pay the bill, which is stored on the card on the right. To pay, the customer simply drags the bill onto the credit card.

This is a puzzle application in which each domino-tagged tile has a different part of a video image showing scenes from London. The tiles can be arranged to create the complete picture. Microsoft is aiming to provide similar applications for use in people's homes and also is working with IGT, which makes computer arcade games.

Some more News on Technology on This Link.

Overcoming misconceptions faced by animators regarding motion capture

2007-10-24T05:01:00.000-07:00

Overcoming misconceptions faced by animators regarding motion capture

One of the basic reasons why animation companies baulk at motion capture is because of misconceptions rather than face when the reality is that motion capture can actually make things cheaper and easier for animation companies.

Based on Nickelodeon's model, a half-hour motion capture animation program could cost as little as $200,000 versus a minimum of $400,000 per episode for a traditional cell animated half-hour program.

A 1997 Los Angeles Times article, Marla Matzer provides another perspective on costs: "Medialab... estimates that a 'full body' character can be animated for as little as $1,000 per minute; over a series of shows, the price can go even lower. Cell animation, by contrast, can cost as much as $5,000 a minute." these prices don't include other production elements, such as backgrounds

The costing goes up because in traditional animation the number of personnel involved is much higher than compared to motion capture or mocap for short.

Mocap is fast becoming the mainstay in many animated movies and non animation movies cause the usage of mocap can make characters like for example Davy Jones and his crew in the movie pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. And the best part was that when they came to the part where Davy Jones was to b shown as the real person Bill Nighy was used both in cgi and normal person to potraray Davy Jones.

Motion capture is reffered to as 3D rotoscoping. But the problem was that the stigma that was associates with rotoscope seems to have come into motioncapture. For example in movies where one character is completely different from the others, lets say for example in terms of physical appearience. As long as the picture is running correctly and the desired results are available there is no need for people to know that the given movie is made using rotoscope. But for most people the usage of rotoscope was making them feel that it was innadiquate or just not natural.

In motion capture the actor and the action is saved frame by frame and fed to the character to be animated. Thus in mocap it can be said that in all since the animation used is natural and the real animation. Dancers stroke a metaphorical canvas, sketching ephemeral lines that are lost in the moment of creation. The invention of film and video immortalized some of these centuryY5 greatest dancers, preserving their movement for the next generation. But the quality of such recordings betrays the vitality of the dancer, often leaving the viewer with snatches of their genius seen through a murky lens. Motion capturing, the product of body sensors that create a constellation-like skeleton reassembled with computer brushes and palettes, may change the dancers predicament de rigueur by invigorating a self they didn't know they had. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar of Riverbed have motion captured the legendary dancer Bill T. Jones for their exhibit at Cooper Union. The artists call it "Ghost catching," the term Native Americans gave to photography which some believed stole their souls.

The feature-length Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists, produced by Pentafour in 1999, employed one performer for the body of each character and another for its facial data. Body performers were chosen because they matched the height and body shape of the characters in the film. Voice performers for the film are recognizable stars (including Brendan Fraser, Leonard Nimoy, Mark Hamill, Jennifer Hale, and John Rhys Davies), a common marketing decision for feature films. Incidentally, shooting of the film's studio material lasted eight weeks and the films' cost is estimated to be under US$20 million, about one-fifth that of a Disney animated feature.

A 1996 Wired article by Evantheia Schibsted suggests that motion capture taps into intangible elements of experience. In the article, the author refers to Merce Cunningham's opinion of a specific type of software called Lifeforms, which "is not revolutionizing dance but expanding it, because you see movement in a way that was always there-but wasn't visible to the naked eye." Dancer and software designer Theela Shiphorst extends this idea, adding that "the nonlinguistic knowledge inherent in physical training is a richly technical world that can inform technological development."

By Antony

About the Author

A Motion Capture Assistant of InnerEsteem Motion capture Studios

An Added Benefit of Surveillance Systems by Michael Gravette

2007-10-24T04:59:00.000-07:00

This was something that never occurred to me when I was selling the restaurant a surveillance system, but it sure is a big benefit that I won't leave out in the future. BODY:

One of the first surveillance systems I installed was for a friend of mine down here in sunny Florida. He has several sucessful restaurants and he was going to start his test of the equipment on one of the units that happened to be located near the beach.

The installation went smoothly, and we had him up and running in short order. He was now able to watch the restaurant from home on his laptop. He was so pleased with the system that he had it installed in all his restaurants. He has called me several times to tell how much he appreciated me taking the time to convince him this was a good move.

On one of the calls he just casually mentioned that four months after installing the systems, he has not had a workmans compensation claim in two months, something that was very common before the cameras were installed. This alone is paying for the systems. Not only is it saving him money, it is saving him time.

He isn't filling out forms, or going to hearings.

The cameras have foiled the old accident game. No more paying for back injuries that never happened. The employees now know that if they fell, the camera would see it, and the result is no more phony claims.

This was something that never occurred to me when I was selling the system, but it sure is a big benefit that I won't leave out in the future.

Insurance money is a big part of any business with employees, and if you have a good record of being "accident free" your premiums go down, and many times substantially. Over the span of a few years that could mean a much bigger slice of the pie going in your pocket, or to funding another business, or to making repairs or capital improvements.

My Florida friend tunes in to his different operations at different times every day, and takes a few notes on what he sees. Then he gets together with his managers and implements procedures to fix what is wrong. His estimate is that the surveillance systems paid for themselves in the first month, and that since then he has put thousands and thousands of dollars on his bottom line.

"Sometimes," he says, "it is the little things that I see. But when you have multiple properties, and they are all doing a little thing wrong, it's a big thing. If all your bartenders are over pouring, that's a tremendous amount of money in a month. If we are over-cooking four or five steaks a night in six locations, that's a lot of money in a month in waste. I fix one or two things at a time, and the bottom line results are outstanding."

I'm sure there are going to be even more benefits that I haven't thought of as surveillance systems become more and more commonplace. One thing I know for sure though, is that the benefits already far outweigh the cost.

If you're prepared, you'll never be surprised.

About the Author

Michael Gravette is a successful entrepreneur and ex-Air Force Intelligence that provides surveillance systems to restaurants. He is the founder and president of Safety Technology, the largest provider of wholesale drop ship hidden cameras and surveillance systems.

CyberCrime And Hacking Top Stories

2007-10-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

Experts say proposed security standards for power grid not enough
A cybersecurity standard proposed for the U.S. would leave critical gaps in system safety, and one congressman warned Wednesday that if issues are not addressed in short order, "the future isn't going to be pretty" for the nation's infrastructure. Read more...

New study to comb Secret Service ID-theft case files

Spammers pump up volume with major spoken scam slam

Couple swarmed by SWAT team after 911 'hack'

Six hot items on the hacker's holiday shopping list

Storm botnet divides, preps for sale to spammers

Commerce Bank Thwarts a Major Database Hack

Retailers Take Swipe at PCI Security Rules

Storm Trojan flaunts crazy cat to build out botnet

.Asia registry to crack down on phishy domains

Exploit code found serving from popular advertising site

2007-10-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

Real readies patch for player's zero-day bug

October 19, 2007 (Computerworld) -- RealNetworks Inc. said it would publish a patch later Friday for its RealPlayer media program to protect users from ongoing attacks. Less than 24 hours before, Symantec Corp. had issued a high-level alert that warned of a critical vulnerability in RealPlayer that could be used against anyone browsing the Web with Internet Explorer.

The bug came to light after the NASA space agency warned employees of a spike in attacks that it said originated from advertisements placed on "well-known" but unnamed news sites.

"Real has created a patch for RealPlayer 10.5 and RealPlayer 11 that addresses the vulnerability identified by Symantec on 10/18," said Russ Ryan, RealPlayer's general manager for product development, in a posting to a company blog today.

NASA knew first

Late Thursday, Symantec released a warning to customers of its DeepSight threat network that said an ActiveX control installed by RealPlayer was flawed. When combined with Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) browser -- which relies on ActiveX controls to extend its functionality -- the bug can be exploited and malicious code downloaded to any PC that wanders to a specially crafted site.

Only systems on which both RealPlayer and IE have been installed are vulnerable.

Symantec hinted that it first found out about the vulnerability by reading a blog that had posted information about the bug Wednesday morning. The blogger, identified only as Roger, claimed that NASA had warned workers not to use IE because of an unspecified problem with RealPlayer.

On Friday, agency spokesman Mike Mewhinney confirmed Roger's account. According to Mewhinney, who works at the Ames Research Center south of San Francisco, the alert went out Tuesday. Employees were told of a surge in security problems at Ames and other NASA centers, and informed that systems running IE and RealPlayer had been infected, apparently by malicious code downloaded after visiting legitimate sites.

"Recent indicators point to well-known news sites which may be hosting advertisements from ad servers that redirect the users to malware hosting sites," the NASA warning said. Workers were also instructed to limit their use of IE to browsing NASA's intranets, and to "Use non Internet Explorer browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, etc., for sites external to NASA."

Symantec ranked the attack as a "10" on its urgency scale because it confirmed that attacks were being conducted in the wild; those attacks had resulted in malicious code downloaded to victimized PCs. Originally, however, Symantec saw a silver lining, and said in the Thursday warning that: "We are not currently aware of widespread exploitation of this issue," the company's warning read.

But then...

By Friday, however, Symantec had changed its tune.

After retracing attacks on one of its honeypots, Symantec said the exploit code was embedded in advertisements served by 247realmedia.com, a New York-based digital marketing company that's part of WPP Group PLC, a U.K.-based marketing giant with revenues of $12.1 billion in 2006. WPP may be better known for some of the 200+ companies under its logo, including ad agency J. Walter Thompson (now JWT), and the public relations company Hill & Knowlton.

The ads served by 247realmedia, Symantec continued, were shown on Tripod.com, the Web hosting service owned by Lycos. Anyone running IE on a PC with RealPlayer also on board whom then visited any Tripod-hosted site with the URL "name.tripod.com" would end up infected.

"To emphasize the severity of this attack, [the ad-called script] is embedded and called in every tripod.com user webpage," said Symantec in the Friday follow-up analysis.

Other evidence, said Symantec, indicated that attacks had been going on since at least Oct. 8.

Multiple versions of RealPlayer install the ActiveX control, including the current 10.5 and the beta of Version 11, the only two versions that will be patched. Users running older editions -- including RealOne Player, RealOne Player v2 and RealPlayer 10 -- must first upgrade to 10.5 or 11 before applying the patch.

The RealPlayer 10.5 and 11 patches are to post to the RealNetworks security page before midnight (Pacific) on Friday.

SAP has BO - Oralce News

2007-10-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

Just months after competitor Oracle’s Hyperion acquisition, SAP recently announced that it plans to acquire Business Objects in a cash deal valued at slightly more than $6.8 billion.

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software with more than 41,200 customers in more than 120 countries running SAP applications. Nearly a year ago, SAP noticed the business intelligence market was growing at a rapid rate. SAP's customers, meanwhile, have been calling on the enterprise applications giant to add an end-to-end solution for structured and unstructured business analytics and embed them into SAP's business suite, Kagermann noted in an article recently posted on CNET News.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9792531-7.html

Jointly, SAP and Business Objects plan to offer high-value solutions for process- and business-oriented professionals. The solutions will focus on assisting companies with strengthening decision processes, increase customer value and create sustainable competitive advantage through real-time, multi-dimensional business intelligence.

Business Objects, based in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, will operate as a stand-alone business and be part of the SAP Group. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.

Looking for Reviews Look for “The Geek Within”.

2007-10-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Any one who is looking for Reviews on music,movies, websites, dramas and many more you can check for “The Geek Within”.

“The Geek Within” has the best reviews on some of the best hits on entertainment stuff. Don't forget to check “The Geek Within” for your best experience to read reviews.

Trust only Trust Srouce

2007-10-13T03:49:00.000-07:00

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Science of James Bond : BBC

2007-10-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

Key points

	Ian Fleming sold the film rights for Casino Royale for $600. The series is reputed to have made over $3 billion.
	In Fleming's novels James Bond attended Fettes in Edinburgh, the same public school as Tony Blair. Sean Connery was once the school's milkman.
	When the first Bond novel was published in 1953, 007 smoked 60 cigarettes a day. In 1971, when Sean Connery played Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, he'd kicked the habit.
	Bond's favourite drink, the martini, contains 130 calories. This is approximately what he burns during sex.

Girls and martini
James Bond really needs no introduction. After 40 years in the cinema with 20 official movies (and two more that enthusiasts don't count), 007's adventures are known around the world. It's estimated that over two billion people have watched Bond movies – that's two fifths of the earth's population.

Since Dr No was released in 1962, Bond has killed over 150 men and slept with 44 women – three quarters of whom have tried to kill him!

Pussy Galore
Of course, Bond isn't getting any younger. In fact, he's positively middle-aged - could 007 be getting too old for Pussy Galore, Plenty O'Toole, and treatment from Dr Goodhead?

Connery with Bond girl

Roger Moore was 56 in his final Bond role, and Pierce Brosnan is now 51. Men reach their sexual peak around their late teens or early twenties. At this point they can orgasm three to six times a day. Later in life they may need 12-24 hours before they've recharged their batteries.

Yet Bond's virility is never in doubt. The way he acts towards women, however, has definitely changed over time.

An intellectual match
Critics used to argue that the James Bond scripts treat female characters disrespectfully and portray them as sex objects created for the sole purpose of titillating the viewer. They don't need big brains, just big hair and bigger chests.

However, it's not only 007's scriptwriters who seem to have been unimpressed by the female intellect. Scientists have long linked head size to intelligence. And because men's bodies and, therefore, their heads and brains tend to be larger, they expected men to be more intelligent than women.

Only recently have researchers found that the ability to do well in intelligence tests is linked with the amount of grey matter in the brain, not the brain size. And since women have higher proportions of grey matter than men, the total amount of grey matter in both men's and women's brains is similar.

With these advances in science and increasing gender equality in general, 007 had to become more politically correct. Now the women Bond beds are very much his intellectual match. Even 'M', Bond’s superior, is now a woman – played by Dame Judi Dench.

Bond's boss

Shaken not stirred
But Bond hasn't stopped womanising and is still knocking back cocktails. His signature drink is the martini, shaken not stirred, as if we could forget. But does it make any difference?

A traditional martini is made with gin and dry vermouth, served with either an olive or a thin slice of lemon peel. It's stirred with ice in a mixing glass before being poured. Bond drinks vodka martinis – the same as an ordinary martini with gin substituted for vodka.

The reason 007 likes his shaken is to improve the taste and texture of his tipple. The shaking process causes tiny bubbles. This means that a well-shaken martini is cloudy and therefore less oily than the stirred version, which in turn has an effect on the taste of the drink.

Scientists at the University of Western Ontario in Canada also found that shaking a martini increases the antioxidant activity in the drink, thereby reducing the risk of cataracts, strokes and cardiovascular diseases. This, however, doesn't matter to the actors since all martinis on set are made from pure water.

Mobile Terms & Acronyms

2007-10-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

1-9

1G
The first generation of analogue mobile phone technologies including AMPS, TACS and NMT

2G
The second generation of digital mobile phone technologies including GSM, CDMA IS-95 and D-AMPS IS-136

2.5G
The enhancement of GSM which includes technologies such as GPRS

3G
The third generation of mobile phone technologies covered by the ITU IMT-2000 family

3GPP
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project, a grouping of international standards bodies, operators and vendors with the responsibility of standardising the WCDMA based members of the IMT-2000 family

3GPP2
The counterpart of 3GPP with responsibility for standardising the CDMA2000-based members of the IMT-2000 family. 3GPP2 is spearheaded by ANSI

8PSK
Octantal Phase Shift Keying

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A5/1/2/3/8X
Encryption algorithms for GSM networks

AAL
ATM Adaptation Layer

ABR
Available Bit Rate

A-bis
Interface between the BSC and BTS in a GSM network

AB
Access Burst; used for random access and characterised by a longer guard period to allow for burst transmission from a MS that does not know the correct timing advance when first contacting a network

ACTE
Approvals Committee for Terminal Equipment

ACTS
Advanced Communications Technologies and Services – a European technology initiative

ACU
Antenna Combining Unit

ADPCM
Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation; a form of voice compression that typically uses 32kbit/s

AFC
Automatic Frequency Control

AGCH
Access Grant Channel; downlink only, BTS allocates a TCH or SDCCH to the MS, allowing it access to the network

Air interface
In a mobile phone network, the radio transmission path between the base station and the mobile terminal

A-interface
Interface between the MSC and BSS in a GSM network

AM
Amplitude Modulation

AMPS
Advanced Mobile Phone System, the analogue mobile phone technology used in North and South America and in around 35 other countries. Operates in the 800MHz band using FDMA technology

AMR
Adaptive Multi-Rate codec. Developed in 1999 for use in GSM networks, the AMR
has been adopted by 3GPP for 3G

Analogue
The representation of information by a continuously variable physical quantity such as voltage

ANSI
American National Standards Institute. An non-profit making US organisation which does not carry out standardisation work but reviews the work of standards bodies and assigns them category codes and numbers

ANSI-136
See D-AMPS

API
Application Program Interface

AoC
Advice of Charge

ARIB
Association of Radio Industries and Businesses. An organisation established by Japan’s Ministry of Posts and Communications to act as the standardisation authority for radio communication and broadcasting

ARPU
Average Revenue Per User

ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASIC
Application Specific Integrated Circuit

ASP
Application Service Provider

Asymmetric Transmission
Data transmissions where the traffic from the network to the subscriber is at a higher rate than the traffic from the subscriber to the network

A-TDMA
Advanced Time Division Multiple Access

ATM
Asynchronous Transfer Mode; a multiplexed information transfer and switching method in which the data is organised into fixed length 53-octet cells and transmitted according to each application’s instantaneous need

AUC
Authentication Centre; the element within a GSM network which generates the parameters for subscriber authentication

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Bandwidth
A term meaning both the width of a transmission channel in terms of Hertz and the maximum transmission speed in bits per second that it will support

BCH
Broadcast Channels; carry only downlink information and are mainly responsible for synchronisation and frequency correction (BCCH, FCCH and SCH)

BCCH
Broadcast Control Channel; the logical channel used in cellular networks to broadcast signalling and control information to all mobile phones within the network

B-CDMA
Broadband Code Division Multiple Access

B-ISDN
Broadband ISDN

BER
Bit Error Rate; the percentage of received bits in error compared to the total number of bits received

BERT
Bit Error Rate Test

Bit
A bit is the smallest unit of information technology. As bits are made up using the binary number system, all multiples of bits must be powers of two i.e. a kilobit is actually 1024 bits and a megabit 1048576 bits. Transmission speeds are given in bits per second (bit/s)

Bluetooth
A low power, short range wireless technology designed to provide a replacement for the serial cable. Operating in the 2.4GHz ISM band, Bluetooth can connect a wide range of personal, professional and domestic devices such a laptop computers and mobile phones together wirelessly.

BHCA
Busy Hour Call Attempts; the number of call attempts made during a network’s busiest hour of the day

BSC
Base Station Controller; the network entity controlling a number of Base Transceiver Stations

BSS
Base Station System/Subsystem

BTS
Base Transceiver Station; the network entity which communicates with the mobile station

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CAI
Common Air Interface; a standard developed for the UK’s public CT2 networks which enabled the same handset to be used on different networks

CAMEL
Customised Application for Mobile network Enhanced Logic; an IN feature in GSM networks that enables users to carry personal services with them when roaming into other networks that support CAMEL

CSE
CAMEL Service Environment

Capacity
A measure of a cellular network’s ability to support simultaneous calls

CB
Cell Broadcast

CC
Call Control; manages call connections

CCB
Customer Care and Billing

CCCH
Common Control Channels; a group of uplink and downlink channels between the MS and the BTS (see PCH, AGCH and RACH)

CCS7
Common Channel Signalling No. 7

CDMA
Code Division Multiple Access; also known as spread spectrum, CDMA cellular systems utilise a single frequency band for all traffic, differentiating the individual transmissions by assigning them unique codes before transmission. There are a number of variants of CDMA (see W-CDMA, B-CDMA, TD-SCDMA et al)

CDMAone
The first commercial CDMA cellular system; deployed in North America and Korea; also known as IS-95

CDMA2000
A member of the IMT-2000 3G family; backwardly compatible with cdmaOne

CDMA 1X
The first generation of cdma2000; the standardisation process indicated that there would be CDMA 2X and CDMA 3X but this no longer appears likely

CDMA 1X EV-DO
A variant of CDMA 1X which delivers data only

CDPD
Cellular Digital Packet Data; a packet switched data service largely deployed in the USA. The service uses idle analogue channels to carry the packetised information.

CDPSK
Coherent Differential Phase Shift Keying

CDR
Call Detail Records; the record made within the cellular network of all details of both incoming and outgoing calls made by subscribers, The CDR is passed to the billing system for action

Cell
The area covered by a cellular base station. A cell site may sectorise its antennas to service several cells from one locationCell site
The facility housing the transmitters/receivers, the antennas and associated equipment

Cell splitting
The process of converting a single cell to multiple cells by sectorising the antennas in the cell site or constructing additional cells within a cell site

CELP
Code Excited Linear Prediction; an analogue to digital voice coding scheme, there are a number of variants used in cellular systems

CEPT
Conference of European Posts and Telecommunications. A organisation of national posts, telegraphs and telephone administrations. Until 1988, when this work was take over by ETSI, the main European body for telecommunications standardisation. CEPT established the original GSM standardisation group

CF
Call Forwarding

CI
Carrier to Interference ratio

CIBER
Cellular Intercarrier Billing Exchange Roamer Record

CID
Caller Identification

Circuit switching
A method used in telecommunications where a temporary dedicated circuit of constant bandwidth is established between two distant endpoints in a network. Mainly used for voice traffic; the opposite of packet switching

CLID
Calling Line Identification

CLIP
Calling Line Identification Presentation

CLIR
Calling Line Identification Restriction

CM
Connection Management; is used to set up, maintain and take down call connections

CMOS
Complementary Metal Oxide Substrate

Codec
A word formed by combining coder and decoder the codec is a device which encodes and decodes signals. The voice codec in a cellular network converts voice signals into and back from bit strings. In GSM networks, in addition to the standard voice codec, it is possible to implement Half Rate (HR) codecs and Enhanced Full Rate (EFR) codecs

Control signal
A signal sent to a cellular phone from a base station or vice versa which carries information essential to the call but not including the audio portion of a conversation

CPE
Customer Premises Equipment; all the equipment on the end user’s side of the network interface

CPU
Central Processing Unit

CRC
Cyclic Redundancy Check

CRM
Customer Relationship Management

CSS
Customer Support System

CT
Cordless Telephony

CT0
Zero generation cordless telephony; the earliest domestic cordless phones which used analogue technology and which had severe limitations in terms of range and security

CT1
First generation cordless telephony; Improved analogue phones with greater range and security; a number of European nations produced CT1 standards

CT2
Second generation cordless telephony; Using digital technology CT2 phones offered greater range, improved security and a wide range of new functionalities. Used in both domestic and cordless PABX deployments, CT2 was standardised as an interim ETS but was overwhelmed by DECT

CT2-CAI
Second generation cordless telephony-common air interface

CTA
Cordless Terminal Adaptor; a DECT term

CTM
Cordless Terminal Mobility

CTR
Common Technical Regulation; part of the ETSI standardisation process

CUG
Closed User Group

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D/A
Digital to Analogue conversion

DAC
Digital to Analogue Convertor

DAMA
Demand Assigned Multiple Access

D-AMPS
Digital AMPS, a US wireless standard also known as IS-136

DAN
DECT Access Node

DCA
Dynamic Channel Assignment

DCCH
Dedicated Control Channels; responsible for roaming, handovers, encryption etc. (See SDCCH, SACCH and FACCH)

DCE
Data Communications Equipment

DCH
Data Clearing House

DCPSK
Differentially Coherent Phase Shift Keying

DCS1800
Digital Cellular System at 1800MHz, now known as GSM1800

DECT
Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications system, a second generation digital cordless technology standardised by ETSI

DEPSK
Differential Encoded Phase Shift Keying

DES
Digital Encryption Standard

DFSK
Double Frequency Shift Keying

Digital
a method of representing information as numbers with discrete values; usually expressed as a sequence of bits

DPCM
Differential Pulse Code Modulation

DPSK
Digital Phase Shift Keying

DQPSK
Digital Quadrature Phase Shift Keying

DS-CDMA
Direct Sequence CDMA

DSP
Digital Signal Processing

DSRR
Digital Short Range Radio; a UK standard for a low power, short range radio system designed for small voice and data networks

DTE
Data Terminal Equipment

DTMF
Dual Tone MultiFrequency; better know as Touch Tone. The tones generated by touching the keys on the phone are used for a variety of purposes including voice mail systems and voice messaging

DTX
Discontinuous Transmission

Dual Band
The capability of GSM infrastructure elements and handsets to work across both the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands. The capability to seamlessly handover between the two bands offers operators major capacity gains

DB
Dummy Burst; transmitted as a filler in unused timeslots of the carrier

Duplex
The wireless technique where one frequency band is used for traffic from the network to the subscriber (the downlink) and another, widely separated, band is used for traffic from the subscriber to the network (the uplink)

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EDGE
Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution; effectively the final stage in the evolution of the GSM standard, EDGE uses a new modulation schema to enable theoretical data speeds of up to 384kbit/s within the existing GSM spectrum. An alternative upgrade path towards 3G services for operators, such as those in the USA, without access to new spectrum. Also known as Enhanced GPRS (E-GPRS)

EEPROM
Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory

EFR
Enhanced Full Rate; a alternative voice codec that provides improved voice quality in a GSM network (see codec)

EFT
Electronic Funds Transfer

EGSM
Extended (frequency range) GSM

EIR
Equipment Identity Register; a database that contains a list of all valid mobile stations within a network based on their IMEI

EIRP
Effective Isotropic Radiated Power

EPOC
The mobile phone operating system developed by Symbian. Derived from epoch-the beginning of an era-EPOC is a 32-bit operating environment which comprises a suite of applications, customisable user interfaces, connectivity options and a range of development tools

EPROM
Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory

Erlang
A dimensionless unit of average traffic density in a telecommunications network

ERMES
Enhanced Radio Messaging System; a paging technology developed by ETSI which was intended to allow users to roam throughout Europe. Adopted by a number of European and Middle Eastern countries, ERMES, like paging in general, was overtaken by the ubiquity of GSM

ERO
European Radiocommunications Office

ERP
Effective Radiated Power

ESMR
Enhanced Special Mobile Radio; a US PMR variant (see SMR)

ESN
Electronic Serial Number; a 32-bit number that uniquely identifies a mobile phone

ESPRIT
European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology

ETACS
Extended TACS; the extension of TACS by the addition of new frequencies

ETSI
European Telecommunications Standards Institute: The European group responsible for defining telecommunications standards

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FACCH
Fast Associated Control Channel; similar to the SDCCH but used in parallel for operation of the TCH. If the data rate of the SACCH is insufficient borrowing mode is used

FB
Frequency Correction Burst; used for frequency synchronisation of the mobile

FCC
Federal Communications Commission; the US regulatory body for telecommunications

FCCH
Frequency Correction Channel; downlink only, correction of MS frequencies, transmission of frequency standard to MS etc.

FDD
Frequency Division Duplex; a radio technique which uses paired spectrum; UMTS has an FDD element

FDMA
Frequency Division Multiple Access-a transmission technique where the assigned frequency band for a network is divided into sub-bands which are allocated to a subscriber for the duration of their calls

FEC
Forward Error Correction

FH
Frequency Hopping

FH-CDMA
Frequency Hopping CDMA

FMC
Fixed Mobile Convergence

FMI
Fixed Mobile Integration

FPLMTS
Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunications System, the original title of the ITU’s third generation concept now known as IMT-2000

FRA
Fixed Radio Access; see WLL

FSDPSK
Filtered Symmetric Differential Phase Shift Keying

FSK
Frequency Shift Keying; a method of using frequency modulation to send digital information

FSOQ
Frequency Shift Offset Quadrature Modulation

FSS
Fixed Satellite ServiceGb
The interface between the PCU and the SGSN in a GSM/GPRS network

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Gc
The interface between the GGSN and the HLR in a GSM/GPRS network

Gd
The interface between the SGSN and the SMSC in a GSM/GPRS network

Gf
The interface between the SGSN and the EIR in a GSM/GPRS network

Gi
The interface between the GGSN and the Internet in a GPRS network

Gn
The interface between the GGSN and the SGSN in a GPRS network

Gp
The interfaces between the GGSN/SGSN and the Border Gateway in a GPRS network

Gr
The interface between the SGSN and the HLR in a GPRS network

Gs
The interface between the SGSN and the MSC in a GSM/GPRS network

GAIT
GSM/ANSI 136 Interoperability Committee

GAP
Generic Access Profile; a DECT term

Gbit/s
A unit of data transmission rate equal to one billion bits per second

GMSC
Gateway Mobile Services Switching Centre; the gateway between two networks

GCF
Global Certification Forum

Geostationary
Refers to a satellite in equatorial orbit above the earth which appears from the surface to be stationary

GERAN
GSM-EDGE Radio Access Network; the name for the evolution of GSM towards 3G based on EDGE

GGRF
GSM Global Roaming Forum

GGSN
Gateway GPRS Support Node; the gateway between a cellular network and a IP network.

GHz
A unit of frequency equal to one billion Hertz per second

GMPCS
Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite

GMSK
Gaussian filtered Minimum Shift Keying; a refinement of FSK which minimises adjacent channel interference

GPRS
General Packet Radio Service; standardised as part of GSM Phase 2+, GPRS represents the first implementation of packet switching within GSM, which is a circuit switched technology. GPRS offers theoretical data speeds of up to 115kbit/s using multislot techniques. GPRS is an essential precursor for 3G as it introduces the packet switched core required for UMTS

GPS
Global Positioning System; a location system based on a constellation of US Department of Defence satellites. Depending on the number of satellites visible to the user can provide accuracies down to tens of metres. Now being incorporated as a key feature in an increasing number of handsets

GRX
GPRS Roaming Exchange

GSM
Global System for Mobile communications, the second generation digital technology originally developed for Europe but which now has in excess of 71 per cent of the world market. Initially developed for operation in the 900MHz band and subsequently modified for the 850, 1800 and 1900MHz bands. GSM originally stood for Groupe Speciale Mobile, the CEPT committee which began the GSM standardisation process

GSM MoU
The GSM Memorandum of Understanding, an agreement signed between all the major European operators to work together to promote GSM. The precursor of the GSM Association

GSM-R
GSM-Railway, A variant of GSM designed to meet the special communications needs of international train operators

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Handoff
The transfer of control of a cellular phone call in progress from one cell to another, without any discontinuity

Hands-free
The operation of a cellular phone without using the handset; usually installed in vehicles.

HCS
Hierarchical Cell Structure; the architecture of a multi-layered cellular network where subscribers are handed over from the macro to the micro to the pico layer depending on the current network capacity and the needs of the subscriber

HDLC
High level Data Link Control

HIPERLAN
High Performance Radio Local Access Network; a wireless local area network being standardised by ETSI (Also HIPERLAN2)

HLR
Home Location Register; the database within a GSM network which stores all the subscriber data. An important element in the roaming process

HSCSD
High Speed Circuit Switched Data; a special mode in GSM networks which provides higher data throughput By cocatenating a number of timeslots, each delivering 14.4kbit/s, much higher data speeds can be achieved

HSPSD
High Speed Packet Switched DataIub
The interface between the Node B and the RNC in a UMTS network

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Iur
The interface between RNCs in a UMTS network

Iups
The connection between the RNC and the packet switched network in a GSM/GPRS/UMTS network

Iucs
The connection between the RNC and the circuit switched network in a GSM/GPRS/
UMTS network

I-ETS
Interim European Telecommunications Standard

I-mode
A service developed by Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo, I-mode delivers a huge range of services to subscribers and has proved enormously popular with some 30 million regular users. The revenue sharing model used for I-mode is being adopted by other operators as the basis for the new services enabled by GPRS and 3G

IMEI
International Mobile Equipment Identity

IMSI
International Mobile Subscriber Identity; an internal subscriber identity used only by the network

IMT-2000
The family of third generation technologies approved by the ITU. There are five members of the family: IMT-DS, a direct sequence WCDMA FDD solution IMT-TC, a WCDMA TDD solution IMT-MC, a multicarrier solution developed from cdma2000 IMT-SC, a single carrier solution developed from IS-136/UWC-136 IMT-FT, a TDMA/TDD solution derived from DECT

IN
Intelligent Network

INAP
Intelligent Network Application Part

Internet
A loose confederation of autonomous databases and networks. Originally developed for academic use the Internet is now a global structure of millions of sites accessible by anyone

Intranet
A private network which utilises the same techniques as the Internet but is accessible only by authorised users

IP
Internet Protocol

IPR
Intellectual Property Rights

IPv6
The next generation of IP addressing designed to replace the current system IPv4 which uses a 32 bit address code which limits the number of possible addresses. IPv6 uses a 128 bit code ensuring that the possible number of IP addresses will be virtually limitless

IrDA
Infra red Data Association

Iridium
A low earth orbit satellite communications system developed initially by Motorola.

IS-54
The first evolution in the USA from analogue to digital technology. Used a hybrid of analogue and digital technology, superseded by IS-136

IS-95
Cellular standard know also as cdmaOne

IS-136
Cellular standard also known as TDMA or D-AMPS

ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network

ISO
International Standards Organisation

ISP
Internet Service Provider

ITU
International Telecommunications Union

ITU-R
ITU Telecommunications Radio Sector

ITU-T
ITU Telecommunications Standardisation Sector

IWF
Interworking Function

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Java
A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems Java is characterised by the fact that programs written in Java do not rely on an operating system

JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group

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LAN
Local Area Network

LANS
Local Area Network Services

LAP
Link Access Protocol

LEO
Low Earth Orbit; refers to satellites which orbit the Earth at around 1,000 kilometres

LMSS
Land Mobile Satellite Service

LOS
Line of Sight

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MAC
Media Access Control; the lower sublayer of the OSI system

MAN
Metropolitan Area Network

MAP
Mobile Application Part

Mbit/s
Megabit: a unit of data transmission speed equal to one million bits per second

MHz
Megahertz; a unit of frequency equal to one million Hertz

MCPA
Multi Carrier Power Amplifier

MeXe
Mobile Execution Environment; likely to be based on Java, MeXe enables WAP-enabled devices to offer a wider range of features with greater security and flexibility, as well as greater control of telephony features

MFSK
Multiple Frequency Shift Keying

MMI
Man Machine Interface

MMS
Multimedia Messaging Service; an evolution of SMS, MMS goes beyond text messaging offering various kinds of multimedia content including images, audio and video clips

MMSK
Modified Minimum Shift Keying

MNO
Mobile Network Operator

Modulation
The process of imposing an information signal on a carrier. This can be done by changing the amplitude (AM), the frequency (FM) or the phase, or any combination of these

MoU
Memorandum of Understanding-
see GSM MoU

MPEG
Motion Picture Experts Group; MPEG4 is a technology for compressing voice and video so that the information can be transmitted over normally difficult links such as mobile radio

MS
Mobile Station

MSC
Mobile Switching Centre; the switching centre of a mobile phone network, the MSC has interfaces to the BSCs, HLR, VLR and other MSCs

MSISDN
Mobile Station International ISDN Number

MSK
Minimum Shift Keying; Another term for FFSK

Multiplexing
A telecommunications technique where several channels can be combined to share the same transmission medium. The most common forms are Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) and Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM)

MVPN
Mobile Virtual Private Network

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N-AMPS
Narrowband AMPS

NB
Normal Burst; used to carry traffic and control channels except RACH

NET
Norme Europeenne de Telecommunications

NMT
Nordic Mobile Telephone system; an analogue cellular technology deployed in the Nordic countries in the late 1970’s; variations were also deployed in the Benelux countries and in Russia. NMT operated in the 450 and 900MHz bands and was the first technology to offer international roaming, albeit only in the Nordic countries

Node B
The element in a UMTS network which interfaces with the mobile station, analogous to a BTS in a GSM network

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OTA
Over the air activation (of services and tariff changes)

O&M
Operations and Maintenance

OMC
Operations and Maintenance Centre

OMC-R
The radio OMC

OMC-S
The switching OMC

OSI
Open Systems Interconnection; a seven layer model for protocols defined by ISO

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PACS
Personal Access Communication System; a digital cordless technology developed initially by Bell Labs in the US, PACS was designed to compete with DECT

Packet switching
A communication system wherein the information is transmitted in packets of a set size. These packets have address headers and find their way to their destination by the most efficient route through the network. Compared to circuit switching where a connection is occupied until the traffic exchange is completed, packet switching offers considerable efficiencies as connections can be used by a number of users simultaneously

PAMR
Public Access Mobile Radio; Commercial service using trunking techniques in which multiple groups of users can set up their own closed systems within a shared public network

PAP
Public Access Profile; a DECT term

PCH
Paging Channel; downlink only, the MS is informed of incoming calls by the BTS via the PCH

PCM
Pulse Code Modulation; the standard digital voice format at 64kbit/s

PCMCIA
Personal Computer Memory Card Interface Association the body responsible for defining the standards and formats for memory expansion cards for laptop computers and PDAs. Now extended to cover cards for mobile phones

PCN
Personal Communications Network; a designation initially used in the UK to refer to networks operating in the 1800MHz band (see also DCS1800). No longer in use

PCS 1900
Personal Communications Systems 1900MHz; the terminology used in the US to describe the new digital networks being deployed in the 1900MHz band; rarely used today

PCU
Packet Control Unit; an element in a GPRS/UMTS network

PDA
Personal Digital Assistant

PDC
Personal Digital Communications; a digital cellular technology developed and deployed uniquely in Japan. A TDMA technology, PDC is incompatible with any other digital cellular standard

PEDC
Pan European Digital Communications; A designation occasionally used in the early 1990’s to describe GSM. No longer in use

Penetration
The percentage of the total population which owns a mobile phone

PHS / PHP
Personal HandyPhone System/Phone; a digital cordless technology developed in Japan which achieved great success. Deployed by NTT DoCoMo and other Japanese operators PHS offered two-way communications, data services and Internet access and eventually won some 28 million customers. Now in decline as cellular’s wide area capabilities offer better service

PIN
Personal Identifier Number

PKI
Public Key Infrastructure

PLMN
Public Land Mobile Network; any cellular operator’s network

PMR
Private Mobile Radiocommunications; two-way radio technology widely used for despatch and delivery services, taxi companies and the like. See TETRA

POCSAG
Post Office Code Standardisation Group; a now defunct industry grouping which standardised pager addressing systems

PoP
Points of Presence; a method of measuring the value of a cellular licence; the approximate number of potential customers within a geographical area

POTS
Plain Old Telephone Service

PROM
Programmable Read Only Memory

PSK
Phase Shift Keying

PSRCP
Public Safety Radio Communications Project; an initiative by the UK Government to standardise all emergency services communications on to a single digital technology (see TETRA)

PSDN
Public Switched Data Network

PSPDN
Public Switched Packet Data Network

PSTN
Public Switched Telephone Network

PSU
Power Supply Unit

PTO
Public Telecommunication Operator

PTT
Posts, Telephone and Telegraph Administration

PTT
Push-to-Talk; a feature of PMR systems

PWT
Personal Wireless Telecommunications; a variant of DECT developed for use in the USA

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QAM
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

QAPSK
Quadrature Amplitude Phase Shift Keying

QCELP
Quadrature Code Excited Linear Prediction

QoS
Quality of Service; a broad term to describe the performance attributes of an end-to-end connection

QPSK
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying

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RACE
Research in Advanced Communications in Europe

RACH
Random Access Channel; uplink only, allows the MS to request an SDCCH in response to a page or for a call

RAM
Random Access Memory

RFP
Radio Fixed Part; equivalent to a base station in a DECT system

RCC
Radio Common Carrier

RELP
Regular pulse Excitation Linear Prediction coding

Reuse
The assignment of frequencies or channels to cells so that adjoining cells do not use the same frequencies and cause interference whereas more distant cells can use the same frequencies. Reuse expands the capacity of a cellular network by enabling the use of the same channels throughout the network

RP
Radio Part

RNC
Radio Network Controller; the element which controls the Node Bs within a UMTS network. It is roughly analogous to a BSC in a GSM network

Roaming
A service unique to GSM which enables a subscriber to make and receive calls when outside the service area of his home network e.g. when travelling abroad

Router
A device which forwards information in a network on a connectionless basis

RRM
Radio Resource Management, part of the UMTS infrastructure

RT
Remote Terminal

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SACCH
Slow Associated Control Channel; transmits continuous measurements in parallel with operation of TCH or SDCCH; needed for handover decisions

SAR
Specific Absorption Rate

SB
Synchronisation Burst; used for time synchronisation of the mobile

S-CDMA
Synchronous CDMA (see CDMA)

SCH
Synchronisation Channel; downlink only frame synchronisation and identification of base station

SCP
Switching/Service Control Point

SDCCH
Stand-alone Dedicated Control Channel; communications channel between the MS and the BTS. Used for signalling during call set-up before a TCH is allocated

SDLC
Synchronous Data Link Control

SDMA
Spatial Division Multiple Access

SGSN
Serving GPRS Support Node; the gateway between the RNC and the core network in a GPRS/UMTS network

SIM
Subscriber Identity Module; A smart card containing the telephone number of the subscriber, encoded network identification details, the PIN and other user data such as the phone book. A user’s SIM card can be moved from phone to phone as it contains all the key information required to activate the phone

SoHo
Small Office/Home Office

Streaming
An Internet derived expression for the one-way transmission of video and audio content

STK
SIM ToolKit: specified within the GSM standard, this allows operators to add additional functions to the phone menu in order to provide new services such as mobile banking or email

SMR
Specialised Mobile Radio; the US term for private mobile radio (See PMR)

SMS
Short Message Service; a text message service which enables users to send short messages (160 characters) to other users. A very popular service, particularly amongst young people, with 400 billion SMS messages sent worldwide in 2002

SMSC
SMS Centre-the network entity which switches SMS traffic

SMSCB
SMS Cell Broadcast

SMS-MO
SMS Mobile Originated

SMS-MT
SMS Mobile Terminated

SMS-PP
SMS Point to Point

SP
Service Provider

SQAM
Staggered Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

SQPSK
Staggered Quadrature Phase Shift Keying

SS
Supplementary Service Support; handles special services

SS7
Signalling System Number 7 (See CCS7)

SSP
Service Switching Point

STM
Synchronous Transfer Mode

Symbian
A company created by Psion, Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola in 1998 with the aim of developing and standardising an operating system which enable mobile phones from different manufacturers to exchange information
The operating system is known as EPOC. Matsushita has subsequently joined Symbian

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TACS
Total Access Communications System (an AMPS variant deployed in a number of countries principally the UK)

TAP
Transferred Account Procedure; the essential charging methodology for international GSM roaming. There have been four TAP standards, TAP1, TAP2, TAP2+ and TAP3. The latter offers variable record length and is sufficiently flexible to support all future requirements arising from the move to 3G

TBR
Technical Basis for Regulation (part of the ETSI standardisation process)

TCH
Traffic Channel

TD-CDMA
Time Division CDMA

TD-SCDMA
Time Division-Synchronous CDMA; a CDMA variant developed by Chinese vendors which is claimed to offer high data rates and greater coverage

TDD
Time Division Duplex; a radio technology for use in unpaired spectrum. WCDMA/UMTS includes a band for TDD mode usage and both PHS and DECT use this technology

TDMA
Time Division Multiple Access; a technique for multiplexing multiple users onto a single channel on a single carrier by splitting the carrier into time slots and allocating these on a as-needed basis

Telematics
A wireless communications system designed for the collection and dissemination of information, particularly refers to vehicle-based electronic systems, vehicle tracking and positioning, on-line vehicle navigation and information systems and emergency assistance

TETRA
Terrestrial Trunked Radio; a European developed digital private mobile radio technology which is now being extensively deployed worldwide

Tetrapol
A competitive digital PMR technology to TETRA developed by French vendors

TFTS
Terrestrial Flight Telephone System

Timeslot
A frame within a TDMA schema; has a time interval of 576 microseconds. Physical content of a timeslot is known as a burst. Five different burst types exist, they are distinguished by different TDMA frame divisions (see NB, FB, SB, AB and DB)

TIPHON
Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonisation over Networks; an ETSI project designed to support the market for voice communications and voice band communications. In particular TIPHON will ensure that users on IP-based networks can communicate with those on circuit switched networks

TMN
Telecommunications Management Network

TMSI
Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity; covers the IMSI to prevent over-the-air interception and tracing

TRAU
Transcoder Rate Adapter Unit; the transport unit for a 16kbit/s traffic channel on the A-bis interface

Tri-band
Refers to a mobile phone able to operate on the three internationally designated GSM frequencies- 900, 1800 and 1900MHz

TrueSync
A technology which enables the optimal synchronisation of calendars, address books, action lists and memoranda. It enables multi-point, one-step synchronisation of wireless and wireline devices, desktop computers and server-based applications and services

TRX
Transmitter/receiver (transceiver)

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UI
User Interface

Um
The air interface between the BTS and the MS in a GSM network

Uu
The air interface between the Node B and the MS in a UMTS network.

UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System; the European entrant for 3G; now subsumed into the IMT-2000 family as the WCDMA technology.

UPN
Universal Personal Number

UPT
Universal Personal Telecommunications

URL
Uniform Resource Locator; the addressing system of the Internet

USO
Universal Service Obligation

UTRA
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access; the air interface component of WCDMA.

UTRAN
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network; the UMTS radio access network comprising the RNC, Node B and the air interface

USIM
Universal Subscriber Identity Module; the 3G equivalent of the GSM SIM

UWB
Ultra Wide Band

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VAS
Value Added Services

VBR
Variable Bit Rate

VHE
Virtual Home Environment

VLR
Visitor Location Register

Vocoder
Voice coder

VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol

VPN
Virtual Private Network

VSAT
Very Small Aperture Terminal

VSELP
Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction

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WAP
Wireless Application Protocol; a de facto standard for enabling mobile phones to access the Internet and advanced services. Users can access websites and pages which have been converted by the use of WML into stripped-down versions of the original more suitable for the limited display capabilities of mobile phones

WARC
World Administration Radio Conference; an ITU conference held at regular intervals to determine the allocation of spectrum for various services

WCDMA
Wideband CDMA; the technology created from a fusion of proposals to act as the European entrant for the ITU IMT-2000 family

WLL
Wireless Local Loop; a technique for providing telephony and low speed data services to fixed customers using wireless. Regarded as having considerably potential for rapidly addressing the telecommunications gap in developing countries. A number of different WLL solutions have been marketed based on cellular and cordless technologies

WLAN
Wireless Local Area Network; a short range radio network normally deployed in traffic hotspots such as airport lounges, hotels and restaurants. WLAN enables suitably equipped users to access the fixed network wirelessly, providing high speed access (up to 11Mbit/s download) to distant servers. The key WLAN technologies are the IEEE802.11 family and ETSI HIPERLAN/2

WML
Wireless Markup Language; a markup language developed specifically for wireless applications. WML is based on XML

WQAM
Weighted Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

WWW
World Wide Web

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XML
eXtended Markup Language

The Consumer Mobile Glossary

Advice of charge
A service which provides the user with information on the cost of calls from a mobile phone

Airtime
The amount of time a subscriber spends using his/her mobile phone

Battery status/Battery charge display
An indication of the amount of battery life remaining

Battery
A chargeable device which provides the mobile phone with power. A variety of battery technologies have been used for mobile phones including nickel cadmium (NiCad), nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium ion (Li-ion)

Call barring
A service which enables users to bar certain incoming or outgoing calls on their mobile phones

Call timer
A service which keeps track of the amount of airtime being used by the subscriber on a cumulative basis

Call divert
The capability to divert incoming calls to another phone (fixed or mobile) or to an answering service

Call hold
The ability to put an ongoing call on hold whilst answering or making a second call

Caller ID
Caller Identification; displays the name/number of the person calling a mobile phone. Also known as CLI

CLI
See Caller ID

CLR
Clear; the key on a cellular phone which is pressed to remove information from the display

Data capable
Mobile phones which have the capability to enable transmission of data from a laptop computer or PDA via the phone

Dual band
Mobile phones which support transmission and reception of calls on the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands with seamless handover between the two frequency bands

EFR
Enhanced Full Rate (codec); an improved version of the standard voice codec used in GSM phones; offers improved speech quality without impacting on network capacity

END
The key on a cellular phone which is pressed to terminate a call

Infrared data port
A facility on a mobile phone to allow information to be exchanged with other devices e.g. a PC using infra red technology

Lock
A function on a cellular phone which, when activated, prevents use of the phone until the user enters a security code

No Service
An indication on the display of a cellular phone that indicates that the user is in an area where cellular service is unavailable

One-touch dialling
The ability to dial frequently called numbers using a single key stroke; see Speed Dialling

PCN
Personal Communications Networks; an outdated term for GSM services in the 1800MHz band

PDA
Personal Digital Assistant; a sophisticated handheld device with advanced display facilities and a range of business-oriented software programs

Phone book
A list of personal names and numbers stored in a mobile phone’s internal memory or in the SIM card. These numbers can be called by accessing the appropriate memory and making a single key stroke

PIN
Personal Identity Number; a number, usually four digits, that must be keyed into a mobile phone to make it work. A security measure to prevent unauthorised usage

RCL
The function on a cellular phone which recalls a phone number from memory

Roaming
The ability to make and receive calls on the same mobile phone when travelling outside the area of the home network operator

Smartphone
a combination of mobile phone and personal digital assistant

SND
Send; The key on a cellular phone which initiates a call or answers an incoming call

Speed dialling
See One-touch dialling

Standby time
The length of time a battery can power a mobile phone when it is switched on but not making or receiving calls

Talk-time
The length of time a battery can power a mobile phone when making or receiving calls

Voicemail
A service offered by network operators whereby calls received when the mobile is in use, switched off or out of coverage can be diverted to an answering service which can be personalised by the user

WAP
Wireless Application Protocol; a standard whereby mobile phones can gain access to specially tailored Internet websites

WML
Wireless Markup Language; a specially designed markup language used for tailoring WAP content. WML enables optimum usage of the limited display capabilities of the mobile phone

Glossary of Acronyms for PC and Server Technologies

2007-10-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

A

A/V - audio/video
A2DP - advanced audio distribution profile
AAF - advanced authoring format ACalternating current
AC-3 - Advanced Cluster Computer Consortium
ACCM - asynchronous control character map
ACE - access control entry
ACK - acknowledgment
ACL - access control list
ACM - Audio Compression Manager
ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
ACPM - Active State Power Management
ACR - advanced communication riser
AD - Active Directory
ADC - analog-to-digital converter
ADF - automatic document feeder
ADS - Automated Deployment Services
AEC - acoustic echo cancellation
AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
AGC - automatic gain control
AGP - accelerated graphics port
AHCI - Advanced Host Controller Interface
ALPC - adaptive link power control
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
AMR - audio modem riser
AP - access point; adjunct processor
APC - asynchronous procedure call
API - application programming interface
APIC - advanced programmable interrupt controller
APS - Advanced Photo System
ARIB - Association of Radio Industries and Businesses
ARP - Address Resolution Protocol
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASL - ACPI source language
AT - Advanced Technology
ATA - Advanced Technology Attachment
ATAPI - ATA Packet Interface
ATC - address translation control
ATIS - Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
ATM - asynchronous transfer mode
ATSC - Advanced Television Systems Committee
AV/C - audio/video control
AVCTP - Audio/Video Control Transport Protocol
AVDTP - Audio/Video Distribution Transport Protocol

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B

BAR - base address register
BCB - buffer control block
BCD - binary coded decimal; boot configuration data
BDA - broadcast driver architecture
BE - best effort
BIOS - basic input/output system
BLOB - binary large object
BMC - Baseboard Management Controller
BOT - bulk-only transport
bpp - bits per pixel
bps - bits per second
BRM - big real mode
BSP - bit-slice processor

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C

CA - conditional access
CBLID - cable ID

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D

DIFxAPP - Driver Install Framework for Applications
DIRQL - device interrupt request level
DLL - dynamic link library
DLNA - Digital Living Network Alliance
DLP - digital - direct memory access
DMO - DirectX media object
DNS - Domain Name Service
DO - device object
DOCSIS - Data-over-Cable Service Interface Specification
DOS - denial of service
DPC - deferred procedure call; display position counter
DPI - dots per inch
DPInst - Driver Package Installer
DPLBASE - DMA position lower base address
DPPE - device power policy engine
DPUBASE - DMA position upper base address
DPWS - Devices Profile for Web Services
DRM - digital rights management
DRS - Driver Reliability Signature
DSCP - differential services control point
DSDT - differentiated system description table
DSF - device simulation framework
DSL - digital subscriber line
DSM - data source manager; device-specific module
DSP - digital signal processor
DSS - digital satellite system
DSTN - double-layer supertwisted nematic
DTE - data terminal equipment
DTM - driver test manager
DTV - digital television
DUN - dial-up networking
DV - digital video
DVB - digital video broadcasting
DVD - digital video disc
DVI - Digital Video Interface
DVR - digital video recorder
DWA - device wire adapter
DWG - Device Working Group
DXGI - DirectX Graphics Infrastructure
DXVA - DirectX video acceleration

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E

EAP - Extensible Authentication Protocol
EC - embedded controller
ECC - error correction code
ECMA - European Computer Manufacturers Association
ECN - engineering change notice
ECP - extended capabilities port
ECR - engineering change request
EDD - enhanced disk drive services
E - DDC - extended display data channel
EDID - extended display identification data
EDR - event data recorder
E - EDID - enhanced extended display identification data
EFI - Extensible Firmware Interface
EHCI - Enhanced Host Controller Interface
EIA - Electronic Industries Association
EMF - enhanced metafile
EPT - extended page table
ESCD - extended system configuration data
ESD - electrostatic discharge
ETSI - European Telecommunications Standards Institute
ETW - event tracing for Windows
EULA - end user license agreement
ExCA - exchangeable card architecture
EXIF - exchangeable image file

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F

FFACS - firmware ACPI control structure
FADT - fixed ACPI description table
FC - Fibre Channel
FCC - Federal Communications Commission
FC - FS - Fibre Channel Framing and Signaling
FC - HBA - Common HBA API
FCP - function control protocol
FCP - 2 - Fibre Channel Protocol for SCSI, Version 2
FDC - floppy disk controller
FDO - functional device object
FIFO - first - in, first - out
FIR - fast infrared
FIS - frame information structure
FM - frequency modulation
FQDN - fully qualified domain name
FS - file system; full scale
FSCTL - file system control
FUA - force unit access

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G

GART - graphics address remapping table
GB - gigabyte
GDI - graphics device interface
GDT - global descriptor table
GFX - global effects
GHz - gigahertz
GMO - guest memory operation
GPA - guest physical address
GPADL - guest physical address descriptor list
GPDPT - guest page directory pointer table
GPDT - guest page directory table
GPE - general purpose event
GPIO - general - purpose I/O
GPML4T - guest page map level 4 table
GPO - group policy object
GPRS - general packet radio services
GPT - GUID partition table; guest page table
GPU - graphics processing unit
GQoS - generic quality of service
GRE - generic routing encapsulation
GTF - generalized timing formula
GUI - graphical user interface
GUID - globally unique identifier
GVA - guest virtual address
GXC - GDI - to - XPS conversion

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H

HAL - hardware abstraction layer
HBA - host bus adapter
HCI - host controller interface
HCL - hardware compatibility list
HCT - hardware compatibility test
HD - high - definition
HDA - High Definition Audio [Intel]
HDC - hard disk controller
HDCP - high - bandwidth digital content protection
HDD - hard disk drive
HDK - hardware development kit
HDLC - high - level data link control
HDMI - high - definition multimedia interface
HDTV - high - definition television
HFS - hardware functionality scan
HID - human interface device
HPC - high - performance computing
HPD - hot plug detect
HPET - high precision event timer
HPNA - home phone network adapter
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
HWA - host wire adapter
Hz – hertz.

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I

I/O - input/output
I2C - Inter - integrated circuit
I2O - intelligent I/O
IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
IA - PC - Intel Architecture personal computer
ICC - International Color Consortium
ICM - image color management
ICMP - Internet Control Message Protocol
ID - identifier
IDCT - inverse discrete - cosine transform
IDE - Integrated Device Electronics
IDT - interrupt dispatch table
IE - information element
IEC - International Electrotechnical Commission
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force
IFS - installable file system
IFSC - information field size integrated circuit card
IFSD - information field size device
IGD - Internet gateway device
IGMP - Internet Group Management Protocol
IHV - independent hardware vendor
IID - interface identifier; instance identifier
IKE - Internet key exchange
IM - intermediate
INCITS - InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards
INI - initialization files
IO/MMIO - I/O or memory - mapped I/O
IOCTL - I/O control
IP - Internet Protocol
IPMI - Intelligent Platform Management Interface
IPsec - Internet Protocol security
IPTV - Internet Protocol television
IPv6 - Internet Protocol version 6
IR - infrared
IrDA - Infrared Data Association
IrLAP - Infrared Link Access Protocol
IrLMP - Infrared Link Management Protocol
IRP - I/O request packet
IrPHY - IrDA Serial Infrared Physical Layer Link Specification
IrPnP - IrDA Plug and Play Extensions to IrLMP
IRQ - interrupt request
IRQL - interrupt request level
IrTinyTP - Infrared Tiny Transport Protocol
ISA - Industry Standard Architecture
ISC - Interconnect Standard Consortium
iSCSI - Internet small computer system interface
ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network
iSNS - Internet Server Name Service
ISO - International Standards Organization
ISP - Internet service provider
ISR - interrupt service routine
IST - interrupt service thread
ISV - independent software vendor
ITU - International Telecommunications Union
ITU - T - International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization
IU - information unit; Internet update
IVMS - interactive virtual machine session

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J

JEITA - Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group

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K

K - kilobyte
Kbps - kilobits per second
KCS - Keyboard Controller Style
Kg - kilogram
kHz - kilohertz
KMCL - kernel - mode client library
KMDF - Kernel Mode Driver Framework
KS - kernel streaming
KVM - keyboard, video, and mouse

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L

LAN - local area network
LAPM - link apcess protocol for modem
LBA - logical block addressing
LBN - logical block number
LCD - liquid crystal display
LCP - Link Control Protocol
LEAP - Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol
LFE - low - frequency effects
LFX - local effects
LLD2 - Link Layer Discovery and Diagnostics
LLTD - link layer topology discovery
LLTD - Link Layer Topology Discovery
LPC - local procedure call
LPD - line printer daemon
LPR - line printer remote
LSB - least significant bit
LSO - large send offload
LU - logical unit
LUN - logical unit number
LUT - look - up table
LVDS - low - voltage differential signaling

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M

MAC - Media Access Control
MAC - Media Access Control
MADT - multiple APIC description table
Mb - megabit
MB - megabyte; memory block
MBE - memory block entry
MBP - memory block page
Mbps - megabits per second
MCCS - Monitor Control Command Set
MCI - Multimedia Control Interface
MCX - Media Center Extender
MD4 - Message Direct 4
MDF - Microsoft Meta - Data Framework
MDK - Modem Developers Kit
MDL - memory descriptor list
MF - multifunction
MFP - multifunction printer
MFT - master file table
MHz - megahertz
MIB - management information base
MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIMO - multiple - input multiple - output
MIPS - millions of instructions per second
mm - millimeter
MMC - multimedia card; Microsoft Management Console
MMIO - memory - mapped I/O
MMU - memory - management unit
MO - magneto - optic
MOF - managed object format
MOM - Microsoft Operations Manager
MPEG - Motion Picture Experts Group
MPIO - Multipath I/O
MR - modem riser
MRL - manual retention latch
ms - millisecond
MSAS - multiple shadow address space
MSB - most - significant bit
MSC - most - significant character
MSI - message signaled interrupt
MSR - Microsoft reserved partition
MTBF - mean time between failures
MTP - Media Transfer Protocol
MTS - multichannel television sound
MTU - maximum transmission unit
MUI - multilingual user interface
MUX - multiplexer
MXC - media center extender
MXDW - Microsoft XPS Document Writer

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N

NABTS - North American Basic Teletext Specification
NAK - negative acknowledgment
NAND - Not AND
NAP - Network Access Protection
NAS - network - attached storage
NAT - network address translation
NAVI - D - New Analog Video Interface - Digital
NAVI - P - New Analog Video Interface - Portable
NAVI - V - New Analog Video Interface – VGA
NCQ - native command queuing
NDA - non - disclosure agreement
NDIS - Network Driver Interface Specification
NIC - network interface card
NLA - network location awareness
NLB - network load balancing
NS - noise suppression
NTFS - NT file system
NTLDR - Windows NT Loader
NTSC - National Television System Committee
NUMA - nonuniform memory access
NVRAM - non - volatile random access memory

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O

OAL - OEM adaptation layer
OCA - Online Crash Analysis
OCUR - OpenCable unidirectional receivers
OEM - original equipment manufacturer
OHCI - Open Host Controller Interface
OID - object identifier
OOBE - out - of - box experience
OPK - open product key
OPM - output protection management
OS - operating system
OSI - open systems interconnection
OSPM - operating system - directed power management
OSTA - Optical Storage Technology Association
OUI - organizationally unique identifier

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P

P2P - peer - to - peer
PA - physical address
PAE - physical address extension
PAL - phase alternation line; Platform Abstraction Layer
PAN - personal area network
PAP - protected audio path
PATA - parallel ATA
PAWS - protection against wrapping sequence
PC - personal computer
PCB - printed circuit board
PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect
PCIe - PCI Express
PCIIO - PCI I/O
PCL - printer control language
PCM - pulse code modulation
PCMCIA - Personal Computer Memory Card International Association
PD - phase dual
PDA - personal digital assistant
PDB - parallel data base
PDL - page description language
PDO - physical device object
PE - Protected Environment; portable executable
PES - packetized elementary stream
PFD - PREfast for drivers
PHY - Physical layer
PIC - programmable interrupt controller; publisher identity certificate
PID - product identifier
PIM - personal information manager
PIMA - Photographic and Imaging Manufacturers Association
PIN - personal identification number
PIO - programmed input/output
PM - power management
PME - power management event
PMP - protected media path
PNP, PnP - Plug and Play
PnP - X - Plug and Play Extensions
POS - point of sale
POST - power - on self test
POTS - plain old telephone service
ppi - points per inch
PPM - parent partition mapping
PPP - Point - to - Point Protocol
PRCB - processor control block
PRCS - proactive reporting and correcting safeguard
PS2 - Personal System 2
PSH - push
PSHED - platform - specific hardware error driver
PSK - product service key
PSS - product support services
PSTN - public switched telephone network
PTE - page table entry
PTEC - page table edit control
PTP - Picture Transfer Protocol
PTS - page table shadowing
PTS - presentation time stamp
PU - partition unit
PUMA - protected user - mode audio
PVP - protected video path
PVR - personal video recorder
PXE - preboot execution environment

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Q

QAM - quadrature amplitude modulation
QFE - quick - fix engineering
QIC - quarter - inch cartridge
QoS - quality of service
qWAVE - quality Windows audio/video experience.

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R

RADIUS - Remote Authentication Dial - in User Service
RAID - redundant array of independent disks
RAM - random access memory
RBC - reduced block command
RCA - Radio Corporation of America
RDMA - remote direct memory access
RDP - Remote Desktop Protocol
RF - radio frequency
RFC - request for comment
RG - residential gateway
RGB - red green blue
RIP - raster image processor
RIRB - response input ring buffer
RIS - remote installation server
RME - real - mode emulator
RMS - Rights Management Services
RNDIS - Remote Network Driver Interface Specification
ROM - read - only memory
RPC - remote procedure call
RSDP - root system description pointer
RSS - receive - side scaling
RSSI - received signal strength indication
RST - reset
RT - real time
RTC - real - time clock
RTCP - Real Time Control Protocol
RTP - Real - Time Transport Protocol
RW - readable/writable.

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S

s - second
S/PDIF - Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format
S/T - pseudo - ternary
SACL - system access control list
SAL - system abstraction layer
SAM - SCSI architecture mode
SAN - storage area network
SAP - secondary audio programming
SAPIC - streamlined advanced programmable interrupt controller
SAS - serial attached SCSI; shadow address space
SATA - Serial ATA
SBC - SCSI block command
SBP - serial bus protocol
SCI - system control interrupt
SCSI - small computer system interface
SD - secure digital
SDDL - security descriptor definition language
SDIO - secure digital I/O
SDK - Software Development Kit
SDO - serial data out
SDP - Sockets Direct Protocol
SDTV - standard - definition television
SDV - Static Driver Verifier
SECAM - Sequential Color with Memory
SFF - small form factor
SID - security identifier
SIG - special interest group
SIOM - server I/O module
SIR - serial infrared
SKU - stock keeping unit
SLAM - Software, Languages, Analysis, and Modeling
SLAT - second - level address translation
SMART - self - monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology
SMBIOS - system management BIOS
SMC - SDSI media changer
SMI - system management interrupt
SMM - system management mode
SMP - symmetric multiprocessing
SMPTE - Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol
SNR - signal - to - noise ratio
SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol
SoC - system on a chip
SoftAP - "Soft" Access Point
SoIP - storage - over - IP
SP - service pack
SPA - system physical address
SPC - SCSI primary commands
SPDPT - shadow page directory pointer table
SPDT - shadow page directory table
SPI - SCSI parallel interface
SPID - service profile identifier
SPML4T - shadow page map level - 4 table
SPP - serial port profile
SPT - shadow page table
SRB - SCSI request block
SRC - sample rate conversion
sRGB - standard red - green - blue
SRTM - static root of trust for measurement
SSDP - Simple Service Discovery Protocol
SSID - service set identifier
SSL - secure sockets layer
STB - set - top box
STI - still image architecture
STP - Spanning Tree Protocol
SUT - system under test
SVID - subsystem vendor ID
SVM - See secure virtual machine

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T

TC - traffic control
TCG - Trusted Computer Group
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol
TCS - trusted configuration space
TDI - transport driver interface
TIA - Telecommunications Industry Association
TLC - third - level cache
TLV - type length value
TLV - type - length - value
TMF - trace message format
TMM - Transient Multimon Manager
TOE - TCP offload engine
TPL - Trusted Products List
TPM - Trusted Platform Module
TV - television
TVAF - TV Anytime Forum

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U

UAA - Universal Audio Architecture
UAGP - universal accelerated graphics port
UAP - user account protection
UART - universal asynchronous receiver - transmitter
UDCR - uni - directional cable receiver
UDF - universal disk format
UDMA - ultra - direct memory access
UDP - User Datagram Protocol
UEFI - Unified Extended Firmware Interface
UFD - USB flash drive
UFDA - USB Flash Drive Alliance
UHCI - Universal Host Controller Interface
UI - user interface
UMA - user - mode audio
UMDF - User Mode Driver Fframework
UML - Unified Modeling Language
UMV - User Mode Bus
UNC - universal naming convention
UPnP - universal Plug and Play
URB - universal request block
URI - uniform resource identifier
USB - Universal Serial Bus
USB - IF - USB Implementers Forum
USN - unique service name
UUID - universally unique identifier
UVC - USB video class
UWB - ultrawide band
UX - user experience.

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V

VA - video acceleration; virtual address
VBE - VESA BIOS extension
VBI - vertical blanking interval
VBR - variable bit rate
VC - virtual channel
Vcc - Voltage at the common collector (positive [+] electrical connection)
VCP - Virtual Control Program Interface
VCR - video cassette recorder
VDS - virtual disk service
VESA - Video Electronics Standards Association
VFIR - very fast infrared
VGA - video graphics array
VHD - virtual hard disk
VHF - very high frequency
VID - vendor ID; virtualization infrastructure driver
VLAN - virtual local area network
VM - virtual machine
VMBus - virtual machine bus
VML - virtual machine library
VMR - video mixing renderer
VoIP - voice over IP
VP - virtual processor
VPD - vital product data
VPN - virtual private network
Vrms - volt root mean square
VSB - vestigial side band
VSC - virtualization service client
VSMM - virtualization stack memory manager
VSP - virtualization service provider
VSS - volume shadow copy service
VT - [Intel] Virtualization Technology.

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W

WAN - wide area network
WAP - Wireless Application Protocol
WaveRT - wave real time
WBEM - Web - Based Enterprise Management
WC - write - combined
WCN - Windows Connect Now
WCS - Windows color system
WDDM - Window Display Driver Model
WDF - Windows Driver Foundation
WDK - Windows Driver Kit
WDM - Windows Driver Model
WDRT - watchdog resource table
WDT - watchdog timers
WDTF - Windows device testing framework
WEP - wired equivalent privacy
WER - Windows error reporting
WFA - Wi - Fi Alliance
WFP - Windows Filtering Platform
WGF - Windows Graphics Foundation
WHCI - wireless host controller interface
WHDC - Windows Hardware Developer Central
WHEA - Windows hardware error architecture
WHQL - Windows Hardware Quality Labs
WIA - Windows image acquisition
Wi - Fi - wireless fidelity
Winqual - Windows Quality Online Services
WinSAT - Windows System Assessment Tool
WiX - Windows Installer XML
WLAN - wireless LAN
WLP - Windows Logo Program
WMA - Windows Media Audio
WMDM - Windows Media device manager
WMDRM - Windows Media digital rights management
WME - wireless multimedia extension
WMI - Windows Management Instrumentation
WMM - wireless multimedia
WMV - Windows Media video
WMX - Web Services for Management extension
WOL - wake - on LAN
WOW64 - Microsoft Windows - 32 - bit - on - Windows - 64 - bit
WPA - Wi - Fi protected access
WPAN - wireless personal area network
WPD - Windows portable devices
WPF - Windows Presentation Foundation
WPP - Windows software trace preprocessor
WQL - WMI query language
WRE - write cache enable
WSC - Wi - Fi Simple Configuration
WSD - Web Services for Devices
WSDAPI - Web Services for Devices API
WSK - Winsock kernel
WUSB - wireless USB
WWAN - wireless wide area network
WWN - worldwide name
WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get
WZC - wireless zero configuration.

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X

XAML - extensible application markup language
XDDM - Windows XP Display Driver Model
XGC - XPS - to - GDI conversion
XID - transaction ID
XML - extensible markup language
XPDDM - Windows XP Display Driver Model
XPS - XML Paper Specification
XSD - XML schema definition
XSDT - extended system description table
XSP - Extender Session Protocol
XUSB - Xbox 360 Universal Serial Bus