This should suit users who have say small mailboxes, but large image files or vice versa.
Customers can still upgrade and 100GB is $4.99 per month, or 200GB is $9.99 per month.
This will surely put pressure on other cloud storage providers such as Dropbox - who only offer 2GB as standard (though this can be increased by referring people and other methods to around 25GB).
The roll-out will take place in 3 phases, with the 1st phase covering South Camden (highest footfall), with phase 2 covering Camden Town and Kentish Town and phase 3 moving to Kilburn, Finchley, Hampstead and Belsize Park. The service is expected to be fully finished by the end of 2014.
The WiFi access points will be attached to lamp posts in streets and public places and Camden is aiming to make the borough "one of the most connected place in the country".
The first 30 minutes of access are free and following that users can elect to pay for more time, though access to Camden's own services can be accessed at any time.
Users will have to register their devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones) in order to use the WiFi, which must be in order to limit abuse which can occur through open WiFi networks.
Arqiva have a 10 year contract with Camden to provide enhanced digital services and the WiFi access points may well be enhanced int he future with 3G/4G small cells etc to offload traffic from the mobile network operators (assuming Arqiva gain access to licensed spectrum).
Camden are leading this effort which will eventually encompass 17 other Councils.
The Government is hoping to free 500MHz of spectrum by 2020, mainly by re-allocating spectrum currently held by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The first part of freed up spectrum is in the 2300MHz band (2350MHz to 2390 MHz) which should be released in 2014.
Though Ofcom will issue a technology neutral license, it's expected that the spectrum will be acquired for Long Term Evolution (LTE) services.
Ofcom is requesting that stakeholders in the 2.4GHz band let Ofcom know how releasing the 2300MHz band might affect them.
The statement is on-line here and stakeholders may respond using an on-line form.
The consultation closes at 5pm on the 19th June 2013.
The band falls within spectrum used for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) also know as the UHF band IV and V which spans 470MHz through 862MHz. After the digital switchover the 800MHz band was cleared (channels 61 through 69) and this was recently auctioned off for use by mobile network for 4G/LTE services.
The lower end of the band (channels 21 through 30) starting at 470MHz is used for interleaved spectrum, local TV broadcasts (from 2013), Program making and special events (PMSE) and whitespace services (from 2014).
The band between channels 31 to 37 - the 600MHz band was cleared as part of the digital switchover.
Channel 38 is used for PMSE exclusively and now allows high power devices in the lower end of the spectrum.
The current 700MHz DTT band extends from channel 39 through channel 60 and will also be used for whitespace services from 2014.
If this spectrum is made available for mobile broadband use, it will have very good propagation characteristics and be good for rural broadband and other uses.
Though Ofcom is consulting now, the 700MHz band won't be available until 2018 at the earliest as use of the band must be in-line with International policy.
Ofcom have produced a nice picture describing the changes.
Ofcom has a duty under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 to have regard to: -
and using the 700MHz band falls into these duties.
Unfortunately it does mean all DTT transmissions will have to move into the cleared 600MHz (channels 31 through 37) band and the lower end of the current 700MHz band (channels 39 through 48) so in 2018 there is likely to be a second TV switchover. It's also likely that set top boxes will have to use DVB-T2 and MPEG4 (rather than the less efficient DVB-T and MPEG2 that is currently used by standard definition broadcasts today, though DTT in High Definition or HD already uses DBV-T2 and MPEG4).
The full statement is on-line here and stakeholders may respond through an on-line form.
The unused spectrum is therefore 'wasted', but with careful management, can be used for localised services such as wireless broadband.
Neul is a technology leader based out of Cambridge (spun out of Cambridge Silicon Radio or CSR, now owned by Samsung) and already have systems available to use whitespace frequencies. Neul even have a chipset available for end-user devices.
There are (and have been) several whitespace trials, but these have been limited to localised technology trials.
One of the features that is required for whitespace to work is a centralised database of locations, frequencies and power levels. Generally there will be a central base station which will have to contact the database and report its position and it can then use that information to select the frequencies and power levels to use. End-user devices will just scan the whitespace bands and look for a carrier and can just use that as a base, from which it can then retrieve information about what other frequencies to use.
A quirk of the system is that Ofcom has mandated a kill switch so that if interference with commercial TV or other is found, all devices using whitespace can be shut-off in an area.
Ofcom has not specified how the database should be implemented, just the queries and responses that should be supported, it will be up to the market to decide how to implement. Database operators will be able to charge for running the service (again not specified, but it may be based on queries of the database).
This trial will again test the technology but also database implementations etc.
Ofcom's statement is on-line and any interested party wishing to take place in the trial can email TV.WhiteSpaces@ofcom.org.uk
Current SRDs operate in 24 GHz (21.65 to 26.65 GHz) and existing devices in vehicles can continue to use these frequencies until 2018, however new equipment will now have to support the range 24.25 to 26.65 GHz.
The current license exemption for 21.65 to 26.65 GHz SRDs will be revoked on 30 June 2013, except for devices that were installed in cars between 1 July 2005 and 30 June 2013 in which case they can continue to use this band.
After 30 June 2013, SRDs will need to operate in 24.25 to 26.65 GHz and this band will be made license exempt.
The full statement is available here and the on-line consultation for interested stakeholders here.
This will directly affect Facebook's Android app, which had a persistent message displayed to users that a new version was available and took the user to a download link directly from Facebook.
Forcing users to only update through Google Play is a good move as it also allows Google to ensure apps can be removed from the store and thus users will no longer be able to access updates, which is especially useful if they are found to have malicious code or break other T&Cs. It also allows Google to track downloads etc.
It's possible to subscribe on a monthly or annual basis which give the following options: -
| Feature | Monthly £24.99 pm | Annual £249.99 pa |
| Document downloads | 500 pm | unlimited |
| Credit Reports | 15 pm | 180 pa |
| CSV account downloads | 5- pm | 600 pa |
All of Duedil's basic services will remain free and users can still access a wealth of information without paying for anything, however the new paid for services will now give the company a nice revenue stream which should see them well into the future.
If it's run on on a Surface Pro tablet it makes full use of the touch capabilities and of course it fully uses pen systems on non-touch systems.
The package is easy to use (even for a non artist) and it doesn't take much time to get used to the various controls and painting techniques such as smearing and blending of oil paints and watercolours that flow into each other.
There's also nice features such as stencils (which can be painted on, but the paint only applies to the empty spaces on the stencil) and stickers that are just stuck onto a painting.
A nice feature is tracing where an image is loaded as the background - but not as part of the image being painted - and then it can be traced. When it's saved, it's only the tracing and not the original image, though the same process could be achieved using layers.
Artrage also fully supports Wacom features available with some of their stylus' such as Pressure, Tilt, Barrel Rotation, and the Airbrush Wheel.
It's available for $49.90 from the Artrage Store. There is also a version available for Apple's iPhone/iPad.
The Android app (available in Google Play) has been around for some time and the iPhone app is unfortunately a poor cousin in terms of functionality due to the limitations of Apple's restrictions in iOS.
The iPhone app is more of a WiFi locator app, though it does have access to Opensignal's coverage data as a map overlay. This is pulled from Opensignal rather than being able to read any information (apart from signal strength and connected network) from iOS itself.
In order to better coverage data, users will still have to download the Android app and use that to map WiFi and cellular signals which are directly exposed in the underlying operating system.
Opensignal could release a Blackberry app as much of the underlying network is also exposed, though whether they will do this is as yet unknown.
Initially HP will bundle Leap Motion's Controller with their workstations and in future embed the controller hardware and software within the workstations.
Leap Motion have just announced the availability of their Software Development Kit (SDK) which will allow 3rd parties to add motion control to their applications.
Initially motion control will used to control the operating system itself, though apps will be available through Leap Motion's Airspace app store.
The stand-alone Leap Motion controller (which is attached to a PC/Mac through USB) is available for pre-order from Leap Motion for $79.99 (plus shipping).
The HALO system is offered in a ruggedised enclosure, board only OEM unit and system on module unit for value add systems integrators. As the system uses FPGAs, new functionality can be added to the module at anytime. HALO supports the following video features: -
It supports voltages from 4V to 27V DC.
Though Microsoft have said they will support Silverlight until 2021, Netflix have been ready to migrate for a while and users can be unhappy with the browser extension that can be troublesome to install.
The video extensions Netflix will use are Media Source, Encrypted Media and Web Cryptography API which will be implemented in Google's Chrome browser and ARM based Chromebook and are likely to be native to other browsers soon. As the extensions are part of the W3C HTML5 specifications, users wont have to install any browser plug-ins to support them.
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