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Issue no. 31, 2002 Published: Aug 30, 2002
Brussels throws lifeline to stricken 3G
Governments should switch to open source - study
Eutelsat satellite successfully launched
Judge throws out hyperlink lawsuit
Rival DVD format proposed
Chip giants make CMOS breakthrough
JVC claims 'uncopyable' CD-ROM
Netscape faces massacre in browser wars
Scientists test universal translator

Brussels throws lifeline to stricken 3G
Struggling mobile phone companies will be thrown a lifeline by Brussels after competition regulators backed plans for increased co-operation between third-generation networks. The European Commission will support an agreement to share the costs of building new 3G infrastructure in Britain. Clearance for a deal between T-Mobile, the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary, and MMO, the mobile operator spun off from British Telecommunications last year, follows indications that the Commission will approve a similar agreement between the two companies in Germany. A final decision will not be taken until a further month of consultations have taken place with the industry but it is extremely rare for Brussels to reverse its initial opinion. The move, which affects Europe's two biggest telecoms markets, will help end regulatory uncertainty and reduce costs. During 3G auctions across Europe, operators spent more than €100bn on licences but analysts say they are unlikely to recoup much of this.
Financial Times Aug 25, 2002	back to top

Governments should switch to open source - study
Public sector institutions should move to open source software because it is cheaper and easier to manage, and also accelerates competition in the software market, according to researchers at University of Maastricht's International Institute of Infonomics in the Netherlands. The EU-sponsored 'Free/Libre and Open Source Software' (FLOSS) study, which involved surveying 1,452 companies and public institutions in Germany, Sweden and the UK, provides information on the use of open source software, and identifies business models and the impact of changes in government policy. The report also finds that open source software is especially suited for government institutions because it supports the right of access to public information, and provides good control over the security of stored information. Germany’s central government is already using Linux in all its workstations, and the French Ministry of Defence, Culture and Economics is migrating to open source software. full report
Europemedia.net / ZDNet Aug 27, 2002	back to top

Eutelsat satellite successfully launched
Eutelsat announced that ATLANTIC BIRD 1 has been successfully launched and is making its way to 12.5 degrees West over the Atlantic Ocean. Eutelsat has leased all 24 transponders on the satellite on a long-term, exclusive basis. The satellite is scheduled to enter into full commercial service in early October. ATLANTIC BIRD 1 will join its sister satellite ATLANTIC BIRD 2, that is positioned at 8 degrees West, at Eutelsat's Atlantic Gate neighbourhood. From this orbital arc, Eutelsat provides connectivity from the Americas into Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for services that include video distribution and contribution services and satellite newsgathering as well as VSAT-based corporate networks and direct internet backbone access for IP trunking.
Telecom Paper Aug 29, 2002	back to top

Judge throws out hyperlink lawsuit
US District Judge Colleen McMahon rejected BT Group's claim that it owns the patent on hyperlinks. Filed earlier this year, the suit accused internet service provider Prodigy Communication of infringing on BT's patent on hyperlinks. The suit had been viewed as a test case that could have opened the door for BT to challenge other internet service providers and demand licensing fees that might add to members' costs. At a hearing in February, McMahon warned that it would be difficult to prove that a patent filed in 1976 - more than a decade before the World Wide Web was created - somehow applies to modern computers. Some computer historians trace the idea of hypertext back to Vannevar Bush, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, in the 1930s. They also note that Doug Engelbart, who invented the computer mouse, worked on an early hypertext system in the late 1960s.
New York Times / AP Aug 24, 2002	back to top

Rival DVD format proposed
Japanese electronics giants Toshiba and NEC have proposed a cheaper type of high-capacity DVD. The companies submitted their format to the DVD Forum, an industry group of more than 230 companies that defines DVD format specifications and aims to promote DVD use. The format would be incompatible with the Blu-ray standard unveiled in February by Sony, Sharp, Hitachi, LG, Matsushita Thomson, Philips, Pioneer, and Samsung. Both technologies use a blue laser for recording and playback, which has a shorter wavelength than the red lasers currently used in DVDs. Blue laser light has a wavelength of 405 nanometres, whereas a red laser has a 650-nanometre wavelength. The shorter wavelength means more data can be squeezed onto a conventional 12 centimetre-sized disk. The Toshiba-NEC technology would increase data storage capacity from the current 4.7 to 8.5 gigabytes to between 15 and 30 gigabytes, although a 40-gigabyte disk is also planned. Thirty gigabytes translates to more than 12 hours of television quality video. However, Blu-Ray discs are expected to hold between 40 and 50 gigabytes of data.
New Scientist / CNN / Reuters Aug 29, 2002	back to top

Chip giants make CMOS breakthrough
Motorola, Philips and STMicroelectronics have unveiled what they claim is the industry's first 90nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) design platform. The new platform will allow designers to start next-generation system-on-chip (SoC) product development for low-power, wireless, networking, consumer and high-speed applications. The newly announced SoC support comes in the form of a common library of cells that will be shared by the three companies. The design platform takes advantage of the multiple features and modularity of 90nm process technology. Specifically, multiple threshold-based library elements can be selected at the design level and used in the same design block, which the companies said would provide users with more flexibility to optimise performance and power consumption. Further extensions, including Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) versions and high-performance integrated passive devices will be available soon, according to the companies.
VNUnet UK Aug 28, 2002	back to top

JVC claims 'uncopyable' CD-ROM
Consumer electronics maker JVC and games developer Hudson Soft have developed a new copy-protection technology that they claim will prevent CD-ROM discs from being copied. The technology, called 'Root', marks the latest effort by the computer industry to control software piracy through technical means. The new technology uses encryption keys, a method that has been tried in the past. The disc’s contents are encrypted, so that it cannot be read without a 'key' also placed on the disc. The innovation in this case is that the key is hidden in such a way that it can be read by any CD-ROM drive, but cannot be written by a CD-R/RW drive, so that a copied version of the disc would be unreadable. The key is different for each disc, and is hidden in a different place each time, according to the companies. The companies said that the technique could be applied to other media, including DVDs, but not to audio CDs.
MSNBC / CNET Aug 29, 2002	back to top

Netscape faces massacre in browser wars
Despite the introduction of new technology, Netscape carries on losing ground to Internet Explorer which now has well over 90 per cent of the market. Netscape browsers have continued to lose market share at a steady pace, falling to a new low of 3.4 per cent as of this week. A twice-yearly survey from StatMarket showed that despite recent technological advances AOL Time Warner's Netscape browsers, which use technology from the open-source Mozilla project, have ceded more ground to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. A year ago, Netscape's market share stood at 13 per cent, but fell steeply to 7 per cent by March, as IE 6 gained popularity. IE has now reached 96 per cent market penetration, up from 87 per cent a year ago. Mozilla gained some market share when it finally reached a 1.0 release earlier this year, but browsers such as Mozilla and Opera still only accounted for less than 1 per cent of the market, StatMarket said.
Yahoo / Silicon.com Aug 28, 2002	back to top

Scientists test universal translator
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, have developed a speech translator similar to the device used on the Star Trek Enterprise. The machine was tested by US Army chaplains in Croatia and, according to its inventors, demonstrates the way in which simple speech-to-speech translation systems can be rapidly and successfully constructed. Commissioned by the US Army, which is increasingly finding itself in peace-keeping roles where communication is key, the portable translator is installed in a standard laptop. For the trials, the chaplains used the translator to speak to Croatians who knew just a smattering of English. The system worked by picking up the words in Croatian and turning the speech into text. The written words were then translated into English and read out by a speech synthesiser. Although the research team admitted that the system is not yet ready to be deployed in the field, they believe that it could be brought up to scratch with further research and development.
Yahoo / VNUnet UK Aug 29, 2002	back to top