Infrant

Infrant make some great boxes if you're into NAS disk storage. The ReadyNAS NV is a home or small business system that supports 4 SATA disks and currently allows about 2TB of storage. It's incredibly easy to set-up and supports Linux, WIndows and Mac clients (NFS, CIFS/Windows File sharing and AFS).

Sam Feng, their marketing guy, was incredibly helpfull and they've got some exciting systems coming down the line.

Watch out for something coming supporting larger work systems.

Apple WWDC

Definately a geekfest - but a trendy one held in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Though I wasn't allowed in (my registration hadn't gone through), Apple announced the new features of MacOS X 10.5 Leopard for both Macs and servers.

They also completed their line-up with a 64bit desktop the Mac Pro and the new Xserve, both feature quad Xeon 64bit processors (actually 2 Core 2 Duo processors). The CPUs run up to 3GHz, with the Mac Pro support 16GB of RAM and the Xserve 32GB. The Mac Pro also supports 4 SATA II drives up to 500GB (up to 2TB) and the Xserve 2.25TB using SATA or SAS (serial attached SCSI). The Mac Pro is available now (though it's not yet in the SF Apple Store) - though it's now on Apple's site.

Leopard features enhanced versions of iChat and Mail and introduces Time Machine (an advanced back-up solution) and Spaces (allowing grouping applications for working on particular projects).

Time Machine will back-up everything to an external hard dis or an Xserve (also running Leopard) and a user can then get back anything they've deleted.

iChat now supports shared working with other iChat users. Mail supports stationary.

The server version supports Leopard clients and will automagically configure them so they use the Xserve for all their services (print, mail, calendaring, iChat etc). iChat server has been improved and now links into other XMPP networks (including GoogleTalk). Mail can be clustered if the Xserve is used with Apple XSan and Quicktime Streaming server supports the latest 3GPP standards for mobile streaming. There's also an adaptive firewall which can automatically monitor traffic and block IP addresses that are suspicious in nature.


The new Mac Pros are definately the way forward for desktops and though Leopard improves on Tiger, many of the new features could be just a gimmick.

Foveon still in the camera game

An industry insider reports that Foveon is still in the high end sensor market for digital cameras and something is going to be announced at PhotoKina - an evolution of the X3 sensor. Likely to be Sigma who have a camera based on it, though that was neither confirmed nor denied.

Also they are working on "other products", likely to be for the camera phone market - though currently in stealth mode.

Though the camera phone market is crowded, it's a huge space - so could be a very sensible move for Foveon.

Canon announces compact HD camera

Canon's HV10 is smaller than Sony's HDR-HC3. It only weighs 500g including battery and tape (normal MiniDV type tapes, though data is stored in HDV format).

It supports 1080i at 1,920 pixels by 1,080 resolution.

It's expected to ship n September in the UK, though no UK pricing has been announced. In Japan it will cost £700.

nVidia launches beta program for Gelato

Gelato is nVidia's high end rendering package. The new version will plug into Maya and 3D Studio Max.

It off-loads rendering directly to nVidia graphics cards (which are optimised to do that kind of work anyway) rather than running on the hosts general purpose CPU.

If anyone has used the MAXtreme plugin for 3DS, the realtime rendering is pretty well real-time, compared to the output renderer which can take hours. Gelato will offer the same sort of speeds for final rendering.

Gelato has been speeded-up while using less memory than earlier versions.

Sony introduces GPS unit

Sony's GPS-CS1 is a portable 7cm unit that the user is expected to wear. It tracks their location and timestamps it every 15 minutes into memory (31MB i..e about 15 days worth). The unit runs of a single AA battery which lasts about 10 hours.

When using's Sony software on the PC, it then matches the GPS data to the timestamp taken from the EXIF data with the photo so can store the location.

It will cost about $150 in the US and Japan when launched in September, no European plans have been announced.

Monotype acquires Linotype

The two largest font foundries have combined forces, though they'll still maintain their seperate identities for now.

Linotype brings 6,000 fonts including Helvetica, Frutiger and Optima to the Monotype stable. They will keep all the independent designers working through their sites.

NUKE is free

D2 have released a free version of the NUKE compositing tool. It only supports output of up to 640 x 480 and it's watermarked.

This is definately a trend whereby companies are releasing cut-down or even complete systems based on their very expensive commercial counterparts.

HP goes Duo

HP has introduced a workstation (xw4400) which is based around the Intel 975X Express chipset.

It can utilise the Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme CPUs. The Due goes to 2.66GHz and the Extgreme 2.93GHz.

The workstations support up to 8GB of RAM, PCI Express graphics and serial attached SCSI.

Pricing from £700+ +VAT

Core 2 Duo is here

Intel, under increasing pressure form AMD, have released new Core 2 Duo CPUs. They say they are the most significant thing since the launch of the Pentium 4.

They are based on their microarchitechture which replaces NetBurst (used in P4) which is already available in Woodcrest (used in newer Xeons).

The processors don't run as fast as existing P4s which means they run cooler, but they run more instructions per cycle.

The Core 2 Due also comes in an Extreme edition designed with gamers and creatives in mind.

a Toast to BluRay

Roxio have announced a new version of Toast 7 for the Mac that supports BluRay burners.

Currently only available to OEMs it will support writing 50GB of data onto BD-R or BD-RE discs.

As with Toast 7.1 it's a universal binary so will run on both PowerPC and Intel based Macs.

Roxio currently don't have plans to add BluRay support to the retail version of Toast.

Mighty Mouse goes wireless

Apple have released a Bluetooth 2.0 version of their mighty mouse. It uses one or two AA batteries and has power saving features that reduce power when not in use (i.e. moving). It also has an on/off switch.

Apple claim the new laser tracking technology is 20 times more sensitive than a conventional mouse.

It costs £40 (+VAT) from the Apple store.

ImageKind launches

A new site ImageKind has launched (in beta). Though other sites have been offering image galleries for a while, ImageKind is different as it allow users to print quality artwork from their images (utilising the latest printing technology without users having to worry about how the technology works), it's a social site so users can build up communities of work, users can sell their images and have control of how much they make, it's very easy to use and users can buy normal art just like in a "real" shop.

The printed artwork is professionally produced and touched by real people who'll do their best to actually make sure it all comes out right.

There are 3 types of service: -

* Create allows users to purely upload their own images and have them printed.

* Free allows a single gallery and is limited to 200MB storage and 200MB bandwidth per month.

* PRO has no storage limits, unlimited galleries and 400MB bandwidth per month.

Both Free and PRO accounts allow users to sell art and set their own pricing, PRO account users also get commission on any framed sold. PRO accounts cost $7.99 per month.

Though only in beta, it's a pretty slick site and worth a look. If you've got some interesting artwork, set-up an account and get selling.

Sony goes back into profit

Sony has posted a profit for the April to June quarter. Sales of laptops and TFT screens improved, though Plasmas and CRTs fell.

The DaVinci Code movie helped a lot too.

Playstation sales weren't that good, though that's exected to change when the PS3 is launched later this year.

Ofcom Telephone Numbering Statement

Ofcom revealed further details of its numbering plans for the UK.

There will be a new numbering range 03 which will be considered geographic and can be included in free-call plans etc. There will be no revenue share available on 03 numbers. It is expected that businesses will take up 03 numbers instead of 084/087 ranges so consumers understand the charges etc.

07 personal numbers are to be reviewed and ONLY allowable for personal numbering, any company who has fraudulantly used 07 personal numbers will not be allowed to use them in the future. Use will be monitored and they may be moved to a 06 range instead, so 07 will be completely reserved for mobile numbers.

My rant on broadband pricing

> >Says download in eclipse's aup. And it's 50gig between 6-11pm. And
> >they don't ban you, just rate limit you if you go over it
> What's actually the problem with ISPs letting people download things
> unlimited??? Are they just capping things to charge us more money or
> is there actually a problem they're trying to control?

Because the redicuously low margins that ISPs make don't cover the infrastructure required to support GB's of international transit.

The "Internet" is a loose collection of around 40,000+ networks that "talk" to each other. ISPs and other organisations have "peering"
agreements at places like public Internet exchanges where they agree to exchange packets. LINX in the UK is one of the bigger exchanges, anyone can connect (for a fee), but everyone connecting has to make their own agreements to exchange traffic (so ISPa and ISPb have to make their own agreements), this is even more true as security is implemented so traffic cant be diverted to the wrong place.

Exchanging traffic locally doesn't actually cost anything (generally) so UK traffic is really just local to LINX, so having (a) fat enough
connection(s) to LINX means that's the basic cost of transferring traffic.

Getting out of the UK is another matter, and there are companies that just offer "transit" connections i.e. local peering is just swapping packets between your customers and those of the other end of the peer.
Transit connections allow traffic going to other places i.e. say to non-customers in say the US or EU.

Transit traffic is metered and charged by the MB (or GB or TB or whatever), and it's measured both ways (i.e. in and out).

In order to get good connectivity ISPs will have local peering agreements and transit peering agreements. Transit agreements cost real money. The more data transferred, the more the ISP has to pay.

When connections cost a lot of money (like leased lines, early broadband or even dial-up) the transit costs could easily be absorbed. With the ever increasing speeds of broadband and the ever decreasing revenues, those transit costs become increasingly apparent.

BT Wholesale charge something like GBP 8.25 per month per end-user connection, then add the capacity of the "fat-pipe" connecting the ISP to BTW (something like 300,000 pa for a 155Mb/s connection i.e. 25K per month - when that was supporting 512K customers that allowed about 16,000 customers per pipe i.e. it costs around 1.50 per month per customer), so 8.25 + 1.5 is about 9.75 per month per customer. Companies were charging say 20 quid per month so that left (inc VAT) so there's maybe 6 quid a month to pay for everything else and make a profit. When the customers move to 2Mb/s that costs about 6.50 per month - so suddenly most of the money has gone to pay for anything else. Take that to 8Mb/s and it's costing more ... OK, the backhaul pricing has changed, but they are still ballpark figures.

LLU operators have it better (like Easynet, Bulldog, Be etc) but the margins are incredibly low (Bulldog pulled out of retail as the marketing/cost to acquire a customer would eat most if not all of their profit and they couldn't compete with all the free offers, it took them several years to get ~100,000 customers, TalkTalk got 340,000+ in 3 months).

BT Wholesale are NOT allowed by Ofcom to reduce pricing until there are 1.5m LLU customers, this sounds reasonable to stimulate the market, but it's killing current BTW resellers as their margins are feable and they have to compete with the LLU players. When BTW can reduce costs, then the LLU operators will struggle as they'll have to match BTW in order to be competetive and price wars start again, margins potentially reduce further, more fire sales and ISPs (and indeed telcos) get bought or absorbed which then reduces competetiveness as there's less players.

BTW have something like 8m+ customers (through Openworld, Demon, etc etc), NTL (inc Telewest) about 4m, AOL 1.3m etc.

AOL's now up for sale, probably going to Orange or Sky.

It's just going to get worse.

> BTW I wrote to my MP about the article I posted to the list recently,
> about the idea to start charging for different streams of internet
> usage, and realised that if we start following the Merkin system
> that's so unfair - because the corporations' arguments (why shouldn't
> we charge for the infrastructure we've built to make the internet
> work) are mainly stemming from the US, where public opinion is
> different cos internet is free for users there anyway, isn't it.

It's potentially a good thing, and also very bad. It's a net-head vs bell-head argument. In the telecoms worls (bell-heads) data has always been metered (ignoring free "local" calls and things - even they were metered, just zero rated), in telephony terms you pay per minute/second/whatever, in data terms you pay for the size of the pipe (i.e. a 2Mb/s circuit costs less than an 8Mb/s or 155Mb/s pipe). In tjings like Frame Relay (which was popular before IP came along) you paid for the pipe and data sent through it.

The Internet changed all that and made connectivity flat-rate. However the "core" networks still charge per bit, and that's where the issues arise. Core networks tend to still be run by bell-heads and will continue to do so (telcos own fibre and the core networks). Therefore consumers are consuming bandwidth at ever increasing speed (sic) and no one's really paying for the increased infrastructure required.

As voice moves over the Internet, things will likely change as businesses etc will pay for quality (to ensure your voice path isn't congested), and quality costs. So there may well be 2 Internets, one which is flat rate and one which maintains quality metrics and people will pay for the quality version. Market forces will dictate how much goes where!!!!

Adobe releases Lightroom for Windows

It's still a beta, but Lightroom for Windows is now available to download. Users must have an Adobe/Macromedia ID to get to the download section, but anyone can register.

It's not clear when Lightroom will come out of beta, or how much it will cost.

MS Coming Zune to you

Microsoft have set-up an official site Coming Zune for their future range of products under the Zune brand. This will be their iPod killer supporting music, video and photos. The unit will also have WiFi and allow users to directly download tracks from Microsoft's download site.

Little information is available, though the unit is expected before the Xmas period. It will be designed and built by Microsoft like the Xbox and family, however they may license the design to others.

It's likely to integrate well to other Microsoft offerings.

AMD to buy ATI

AMD the chip manufacturer giving Intel a run for its money in the CPU wars has now agreed to purchase the Canadian graphics chip company ATI for $5.4 billion in cash and stock.

AMD just makes CPUs while rival Intel makes embedded graphics controllers for motherboards etc, with this purchase AMD get the capability and can better compete with Intel.

AMD also have agreements with NVidia a major rival to ATI but AMD say this will not effect the relationship.

If all goes well the deal should complete in the 4th quarter of this year.

End-to-end connectivity

Ofcom Website | End-to-end connectivity

When a telecoms providers offers telephony service calls have to get on or off their network. As BT is the largest supplier of services in the UK, they are obligated to provide termination services, and make those services available to others.

This consultation considers whether other operators should have to provide similar termination services to all others, or can restrict who they offer termination to and make others go through BT.

Ofcom has identified four options for ensuring end-to-end connectivity:

* Option 1 – Do nothing;

* Option 2 – To publish new guidelines;

* Option 3 – To require all providers of a public electronic communications network(‘PECN’) to purchase wholesale narrowband (fixed and mobile voice and narrowband data) call termination services on reasonable terms and conditions from any other PECN who wishes to supply termination to it (and its customers);

* Option 4 – To require BT to purchase wholesale narrowband (fixed and mobile voice and narrowband data) call termination services on reasonable terms and conditions from any PECN who wishes to supply termination to BT (and its customers) on the basis that end-to-end connectivity will be ensured through an obligation on BT without the need to impose such an obligation on all PECNs.

Ofcom is proposing access-related condition will apply to BT only, and will require BT:

* to purchase wholesale narrowband (fixed and mobile voice and narrowband data) call termination services from any PECN that reasonably requests in writing that BT purchases such services (proposed condition 1.1);

* to ensure that the purchase of the wholesale narrowband (fixed and mobile voice and narrowband data) call termination services shall occur as soon as reasonably practicable and shall be on reasonable terms and conditions (including charges), and on such terms and conditions (including charges) as Ofcom may from time to time direct (proposed condition 1.2);

* to ensure that after purchasing wholesale narrowband (fixed and mobile voice and narrowband data) call termination services, BT will not be able to unreasonably change, withdraw or restrict access to an applicable Normal Telephone Number (proposed condition1.3);

* to comply with any direction Ofcom may make from time to time under this Condition (proposed condition 1.4).

The consultation runs until August 15th 2006.