2009/11/06

Amazon drops Kindle (CDMA)

Amazon has stopped selling the US only CDMA Sprint/Nextel Kindle, though it will continue to support exiting units. Amazon is only going to sell the 3G version that works on AT&T's network in the US, though it's the same model that is sold internationally.

Amazon could have used a chip manufactured by Qualcomm known as the Gobi which support 2G/3G and US protocols but Amazon said the chip was more suited to netbooks, they may consider using Gobi in a future device.

Sprint/Nextel must be disappointed as it's assumed most of their 394,000 wholesale customers are Kindles. On the other hand it's a good move by Amazon to recognise that the 3G world is bigger than the US market.

2009/11/04

Skype re-engineering the world

Please note this is completely based on my own thoughts and I have not liaised with anybody else on the content.

Skype is currently having a few legal issues with JoltID who own the P2P technology (known as Global Index) that Skype runs on. Oddly when Ebay purchased Skype from JoltID for $4.1bn they only licensed the P2P technology. Now that Ebay has sold off 65% of Skype to a private investment company, JoltID have said that their licensing has been infringed and there's a UK court case planned for June 2010.

Ebay must be slightly worried (well Skype now) as if the court case is successful Skype may not be allowed to continue to use the underlying P2P technology, which means no more Skype, or at least no more functioning Skype network.

Skype must be doing something about this? Maybe they are as they've taken on-board Theo Zourzouvillys who's job description seems to be "Internet Hippy at Skype Labs". Theo is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to VoIP, especially SIP and he has written many SIP stacks and built hugely scalable SIP networks and is the author of many an IETF drafts on said protocols.

Though Skype are making huge efforts in supporting SIP for business users (they already utilise SIP for connectivity to telcos for interconnect i.e. for Skype In and Skype Out), could Skype be re-engineering their network from the ground up, utilising non proprietary protocols? If that was the case and the underlying technology changed significantly from the Global Index P2P system, then the JoltID problem goes away.

In this case only time will tell.

2009/11/03

3 is 94% data

UK Mobile Network Operator 3's CEO Kevin Russell says 94% of all traffic across 3's network is data. This is a dramatic increase as 3 has pushed data services to attract users such as offering Skype phones and INQ phones which are application centric.

He stated that Skype use has increased from 90,000 minutes in 2006 to 600 million minutes last year.

3 has been unusual in that it has promoted VoIP and other internet services, when most mobile networks tried to block them.

However it must be remembered that services like Skype are actually using an iSkoot client that then connects to a 3 hosted server which then uses Skype's protocols out to the rest of the world (though the user is unaware of this).

Windows 7 becomes a WiFI Hotspot

Nomadio has discovered some features in Windows 7 that allows it to be converted to a wireless hotspot.

It seems Microsoft were developing features to allow virtualising interfaces and the code was left inside the release version and though not accessible from the user interface they are available programmatically.

Nomadio then developed some software Connectify which is available form their here which exploits these features and will share any interface over WiFi (i.e. you 3G or wired connection).

Nokia N-Gage RIP

Nokia has officially killed the N-Gage platform with the user community etc closing down by the end of the year. Software for N-Gage will be available until Sept 2010. No new devices will have N-Gage pre-installed, but instead will have the Ovi store software and users can download N-Gage and titles through that.