2011/12/20

The Next Generation Secure Memory Initiative to secure mobile devices

Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, SanDisk, Sony and Toshiba have teamed up to form the The Next Generation Secure Memory Initiative which will put DRM (Digital Rights Management) on to mobile devices and memory.

This should allow content providers to put their content on mobile devices securely, allowing Blu-ray HD films to be copied on to a mobile device and played.

The system uses public key infrastructure to ensure robust copy protection.

If they achieve their aims, then the technology should be available on Flash memory such as SD Cards and on Google's Android, connected TVs and Blu-ray players.

Ofcom mandates battery back-up for FTTP services

Ofcom has published a statement mandating battery back-up for fibre provided broadband. The Communication Provider must provide at least 1 hour's battery back-up time.

When broadband is provided over copper (using standard ADSL/2/2+) or even when the service is FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) where cabinet to the premises is over copper (using VDSL/2/2+) then the copper pair is powered from the cabinet and even if the premises suffers a power-cut, then line will still be powered and phone calls can still be made.

With FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) then fibre goes all the way to the customer premise and there is now power. Telephony services are provided over the fibre, so if there's a power-cut to the premise both broadband and telephony services are lost. If the premise end of the fibre has equipment that is battery backed, then at least calls can be made.

Ofcom recognises that FTTP deployments at are an early stage in the UK and will monitor the situation and amend if necessary.

iTunes Match, great, but SLOW

Apple seem to have sorted the initial problems with iTunes Match and it's now up and running, the service costs £21.99 per annum.

The first thing it does is scan your music collection to see what tracks are available in the iTunes Store, it then marks them and makes them available through iTunes.

Then comes the slow bit, any tracks it can't directly match get uploaded to iCloud and that takes a LONG time.

My music collection consists of around 11,000 tracks, of which around 8,000 were matched to iTunes Store tracks. That leaves just over 3,000 unmatched tracks which have to be uploaded - and iTunes seems to upload around 300 per day, so it's going to take a while (around 10 days of leaving the computer on and continuously uploading). Hopefully Apple will track users' uploaded tracks and if it spots identical tracks from other users will use those for matching purposes.