By David Sims
[email protected]
More news as of the second or third or, heck, fifth cup of
coffee. As it's early afternoon here on the Mediterranean coast, we're well
into the java and the music's the bit more up-tempo 1993 Cracker debut album.
So, rounding up bits of import off the news wires…
SMS.CO.UK, an Internet domain name
synonymous with the telecoms and messaging industries, looks likely to set "a record for the price of any UK based domain
name to date," according to Hollywood Internet, Ltd, the Birmingham-based
company behind the sale, along with GVA Grimley.
The sale will take place in November 2005 by Private Tender and at the sms.co.uk
web site. Be warned that there is a reserve, or minimum bid, placed on the
name.
David Carter, director of Hollywood Internet Ltd., says "sms.co.uk is the
biggest name ever to hit the UK resale market." He expects that "all
of the major telecoms and new media companies will be interested."
The Tenders Sale will take place on a sealed bid basis, with a closing date
expected to be 4 November 2005 when all bids will be opened and the name will
be sold to the highest bidder, assuming that the reserve price has been met.
First CoffeeSM wonders how much www.sex.com
would go for.
…
The Associated Press's Michael Liedtke is reporting from San
Francisco that Yahoo Inc. has acquired Upcoming.org, "an online event
planning site that's expected to infuse the Internet powerhouse with more
content about local communities."
Yahoo confirmed the deal late Tuesday without disclosing financial terms of the
acquisition, Liedtke said, adding that "Los Angeles-based Upcoming acts as
a social calendar that depends on its users to post free listings about a wide
range of upcoming events, from local rock concerts to picnics in the park."
Andy Baio's site lets users "share observations about the events and
identify common areas of interests." Yahoo plans to keep Upcoming's
current Web site separate from www.yahoo.com, at least initially, but Liedtke
says they'll "eventually incorporate much of the content into its own site
to bolster its local search capabilities," citing Paul Levine, Yahoo's
general manager of local search.
…
Nokia has signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with Brazilian telecommunications giant Telemar Oi to begin trials of Nokia's Fixed Mobile
Convergence products.
The Nokia Fixed Mobile Convergence products can use
Telemar's current fixed network to create what Nokia officials describe as
"a converged packet-based domain for fixed and mobile services."
Telemar operates the largest fixed network in South America,
with around 15 million subscribers, as well as the Oi branded mobile network,
which currently caters to around 8 million subscribers.
The trial will use a Nokia end-to-end product for unified core and converged
access networks, as well as Nokia terminals providing multimedia and VoIP
services for both mobile and fixed customers. The Nokia unified core includes
the Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem, for voice calls and multimedia services, the
Nokia VoIP Server, and the Nokia MSC Server System.
The agreement also includes testing of the Nokia Unlicensed
Mobile Access for extending the potential of fixed broadband networks.
Alberto Blanco, marketing director of Telemar Group notes that Telemar Oi, has
already launched integrated service packages for fixed and mobile residential
customers.
…
AMD, which develops what it considers to be
power-efficient, environmentally-conscious products such as the Cool'n'Quiet
technology, has announced that it will
sponsor The University of Texas at Austin's Solar Decathlon Team. Hook 'em
Helios!
The UT SolarD Team will compete in the 2005 Solar Decathlon
taking place October 7-14, 2005 in Washington, D.C. Founded by the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the
Solar Decathlon is an international competition in which 18 college and
university teams from around the globe compete to design and build houses that
demonstrate the advantages of a solar lifestyle.
As part of the competition, teams will compete in an appliance contest and be
judged on how energy efficient their appliances are in their respective solar
homes. The specific contest, which involves such appliances as computers,
televisions and dishwashers, is designed to replicate appliance energy use in
the average American home.
AMD's Cool'n'Quiet technology is designed to lower power
consumption in desktop PCs, It's used in all desktop AMD Athlon 64 processors as
a system-level feature that enables a quieter running system and reduces the
power consumption of a computer whenever maximum performance is not needed.
The UT SolarD Team is student-run and includes undergraduate
and graduate students from the schools of architecture, engineering, and
liberal arts as well as volunteers, faculty advisors, and an Advisory Committee
of local professionals. They will compete against teams from around the world
in 10 contests to see which team can design, build and operate the most livable
and energy-efficient completely solar-powered house.
…
The Descartes Systems Group Inc., which
sells on-demand delivery management solutions and services is announcing that Precision Software, a global trade
logistics provider, has joined Descartes' Global Logistics Network.
Precision Software's customers will be able to access
electronic shipment information with the more than 2,000 transportation and
logistics providers participating on the GLN.
Using the GLN, Precision Software customers can access data relating to the
status, milestones and arrival dates of shipments; exchange this information
with the GLN's participating transportation and logistics providers; and can
use Precision Software's TRAXi3 Track and Trace tool to see the status and
movements of shipments.
…
AirGATE Technologies, Inc., a wholly owned
subsidiary of the X-Change Corporation has developed a prototype system using
radio frequency identification to
authenticate inmate identification in an effort to verify usage of the
often-abused prison phone system.
According to Bureau of Justice statistics on June 30, 2004,
2,131,180 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails.
Inmates make over one million phone calls per day in correctional institutions.
The majority of these calls are collect, although some institutions have begun
using inmate issued debit cards against inmate accounts.
In California, for example, a 15-minute collect call from
prison costs the party at the receiving end about $90. Prison and telephone
officials claim the high rates are due to the special security needs of prison
phones, but state and local authorities also levy a hefty commission on top of
phone company rates. In a given year, the California correctional system earns
$26 million combined, from revenues generated by MCI and Verizon.
Inmates are issued PIN numbers to validate identity when making phone calls to
prevent misuse and fraud, however, inmates may forget their PIN numbers and use,
ah, intimidation to steal PIN numbers and make unauthorized phone calls.
A number of companies have begun providing RFID-enabled
wristbands to prisons. These non-removable (except with special tools)
wristbands help classify and track inmates and assist in medication
distribution, tracking, and commissary use. They save time, money, and labor,
while ensuring positive inmate identification.
AirGATE is developing a prototype RFID scanner that is located within the
telephone that reads the inmate identification from the wristband. It can be
used with or without a PIN, and is suitable for both collect and debit card
calls. AirGATE will charge per call for authentication.
