The Federal Communications Commission or FCC has finally embraced social media by bringing its presence on web and twitter. FCC has launched its very own blog called Blogband. It has also joined the twitter circus which you can follow @fccdotgov. The first post has been done by the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowsky.

Genachowsky has mainly talked about using the blog as a two-way communication platform between the FCC and the people to gather the ideas and feedback in order to develop the best possible National Broadband Plan.

Read: Blogband
Follow Blogband on Twitter: @fccdotgov

Verizon has dropped the prices of pretty much all the smartphones in its kitty to only $99 for a two-year agreement. The only two smartphones which have been kept out of this price drop are BlackBerry Tour and Samsung Saga. This is certainly a nice development for all the consumers planning to move to Verizon especially when people are so miffed with the AT&T coverage. The HTC Touch Pro has also been reduced to $99 for a two-year long agreement. Most of the smartphones in the Verizon kitty which have now become less expensive and more in range of our pockets are BlackBerries.

 

Barack Obama has in ways more than one redefined the way politicians campaign. He has used the web like.no.other in the recent times in the history of US elections. We talked about a Firefox extension yesterday which lets users to stay updated with the news of Barcak Obama but it was not the only web tool that Barack Obama is using to make his presence felt online. He has been very bullish on social media right from the start and it could be one reason why he’s poised to be the next man in action.

Barack Obama is present on almost all the major networks of the monemt like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace etc. There are dozens of Facebook applications which supporters are proudly sporting on their profiles. Barack Obama spent around $3 million between the months of January and April 2008 on advertising on Google. Some reports have reveladed that that Barack Obama has taken advertising slots on running online ads in Xbox 360 video games such as Madden NFL 09 and EA Sports games such as Burnout Paradise, NASCAR 09, NHL 09, NBA Live 08, Need For Speed: Carbon, Need For Speed: ProStreet, NFL Tour, and Skate.

There is an iPhone application as well which helps supporters to connect with other Democratic voters, receive the latest news, updates and blog posts from the Obama camp. If you have visited the official website of Barack Obama then you might have realized how good it looks. The website has been designed in an user-friendly way and it gives strong focus to red button of “Donation.” There are wallpapers, posters in it and you buy goodies from Obama Store which I believe is a nice way to make some money. Democrats have received ample monetary support from its supporters and they were way ahead than Republicans in fundraising.

I usually don’t like to talk about Politics on Realgeek but I think the repercussions of the US elections will be felt around the world and the way Barack Obama has utilized the online media is just commendable.

DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephony) is a relatively new cordless telephony standard in the United States, but it has been successfully deployed in Europe from last 10 years.
not like Wi-Fi, which operates in unlicensed frequency band in the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands but DECT operates in a licensed band (1,920 MHz to 1,930 MHz).

Siemens product announcement is a significant move towards  some vendor providing an alternative to Vo-Fi (voice over Wi-Fi) in the home.

Siemens Home and Office Communications Devices this week said it is delivering an array of cordless phones–including VoIP models–based on DECT standards.

Siemens new Gigaset phones include models E450, S450 and S455, as well as new integrated VoIP devices, the S450 IP and the SX762 WLAN DSL gateway.

On the VoIP side, the S450 supports both regular telephone and IP-based service. The SX762 WLAN DSL gateway includes a wireless Internet router, an integrated ADSL2+ modem, a USB 2.0 host port, two analog phone interfaces and four Ethernet ports for networking PCs.

All the products will be shown off next week’s NXTcomm show in Chicago that begins on June17th 2007.

Time Warner Cable Inc. will let its home broadband customers turn their connections into public wireless hotspots, a practice shunned by most U.S. Internet service providers.

For Fon, which has forged similar agreements with ISPs across Europe, the deal will boost its credibility with U.S. consumers.

For Time Warner Cable, which has 6.6 million broadband subscribers, the move could help protect the company from an exodus as free or cheap municipal wireless becomes more readily available.

Fon was founded in Spain in 1995 on the premise that people shouldn’t have to pay twice once at home, then again in a coffee shop — for Internet access. At first, the company offered software that let members, called Foneros, turn Wi-Fi routers into shared access points, but it took hours to get up and running.

In the fall of 2006, Fon, which counts Google Inc. and eBay Inc.’s Skype among its investors, started selling and sometimes giving away its own branded wireless router, called La Fonera. Since then, it has distributed about 370,000 of them worldwide.

La Fonera splits a Wi-Fi connection in two: an encrypted channel for the Fonero and a public one for neighbors or passers-by. Foneros can decide how much of their bandwidth to share with the public and can log on to any Fon router without charge. “Aliens,” as Fon calls nonmembers, can register on a Web page and pay a modest $2 or $3 for 24 hours of access.

In the U.S., where it costs $10 for a day pass to use a T-Mobile HotSpot at a Starbucks, Fon’s economics seem particularly appealing.

Starbucks Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. representatives responded that they provide a premium service, and that customers see value in paying for speed, security and reliability.Fon has about 60,000 Foneros in the U.S. In February, the company launched “Fonbucks,” a one-month router giveaway aimed at people who live above or next-door to a Starbucks. It was an amusing way to get more La Foneras into high-density areas, and it worked to the tune of 6,800 free routers.

But until now, ISPs in the U.S. have resisted the Fon model. Most big companies’ end-user license agreements prohibit subscribers from sharing their connection outside the home or business. Verizon Communications Inc., for example, can terminate contracts if it finds an ad-hoc hotspot.

Those policies are antiquated and don’t mesh with the reality of untold thousands of people using their neighbors’ unsecured Wi-Fi connections, Rees argues.

“It’s a dirty secret how much leeching” goes on, Rees said. She said ISPs should embrace Fon because the routers, which require that “aliens” enter a valid credit card number before getting online, put a sharp stop to the leeching. And getting free access to the worldwide network of La Fonera routers encourages people to get or keep a broadband connection at home.

In the Time Warner deal expected to be announced Monday, Fon and the cable company will split what “aliens” pay to use the hotspots. Rees said the two companies are still working out details on how the partnership will be marketed. Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Maureen Huff confirmed the broad outlines of the deal but declined to discuss any details.

Time Warner may be looking ahead to the not-so-distant future when some of the 300 or so municipal wireless projects — featuring free or at least inexpensive broadband — being considered today become reality.

Source: AP

Oracle Corp. has filed a suit today against SAP alleging violations of U.S. fraud legislation, unfair competition and civil conspiracy.

Oracle filed the lawsuit against SAP, its SAP America division and its TomorrowNow subsidiary in U.S. Federal District Court in the Northern District of California. Details of the complaint can be found here. TomorrowNow provides third-party maintenance and support in large part for Oracle applications drawn from its PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards product families.

In the suit, the database, applications and middleware vendor alleges that SAP violated the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. Oracle also charges SAP with intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage, unfair competition and civil conspiracy. The vendor demands a jury trial and is seeking both damages and injunctive relief. Through the complaint, Oracle seeks to stop SAP’s illegal intrusions into its computer systems and theft, to prevent SAP from using the materials it has illegally acquired to compete with Oracle, and to recover damages and attorneys’ fees,” the lawsuit states.

“Through this scheme, SAP has stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers,” the lawsuit states.

The suit points to a period of unusually heavy download activity from Oracle’s Customer Connection user support Web site for its PeopleSoft and JD Edwards applications in late November and December 2006. The site contains Oracle copyright material including software updates, bug fixes and patches. Customers paying Oracle for support log into the site with their passwords and download the software they require. Instead of genuine users, the suit alleges SAP employees used the log-in credentials of Oracle customers whose support rights had already expired or were about to expire in a few days’ time. Those staffers then allegedly copied Oracle’s software and support materials.

Reuters have today reported that New York inhabitants who carelessly cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.New York State Sen. Carl Kruger says three pedestrians in his Brooklyn district have been killed since September upon stepping into traffic while distracted by an electronic device. In one case bystanders screamed “watch out” to no avail.

Kruger says he will introduce legislation on Wednesday to ban the use of gadgets such as Blackberry devices and video games while crossing the street.

“Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,” Kruger said in a telephone interview from Albany, the state capital.

“This electronic gadgetry is reaching the point where it’s becoming not only endemic but it’s creating an atmosphere where we have a major public safety crisis at hand.”

Tech-consuming New Yorkers trudge to work on sidewalks and subways like an army of drones, appearing to talk to themselves on wireless devices or swaying to seemingly silent tunes.

The security and reliability of electronic voting systems continues to worry many election experts and security researchers. During the 2006 midterm elections, a combination of ballot problems and the lack, on e-voting machines, of an obvious warning for voters who failed to vote in a race led to massive undervoting in Sarasota County, Florida, and likely gave the election to Vern Buchanan, a Republican representative. According to Securityfocus.com today
The U.S. federal agency in charge of government technology standards approved on Thursday the accreditation of two laboratories to perform certification of election computers.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended that iBeta Quality Assurance and SysTest Labs be allowed to test election equipment under the current guidelines, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) said on Thursday. If the EAC approves the recommendations, the two companies will be the first to receive credentials under the new Voting System Certification and Laboratory Accreditation Program.

“EAC’s Voting System Certification and Laboratory Accreditation Program represents the first time the federal government will accredit test laboratories and certify voting equipment,” the EAC stated in a press release on Thursday. “In the past, these functions were performed on a volunteer basis by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), which did not receive any federal funds.”

The current accreditation program uses the 2002 Voting System Standards and the 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. The latest guidelines–dubbed the 2007 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines– will likely include a requirement that a software independent audit trail be implemented by voting machines. Those guidelines will not be considered by the EAC until July 2007.

NIST made the recommendations in a letter sent to the EAC on Thursday. Four other companies–including InfoGuard Laboratories, BKP Security Labs, Wyle Laboratories and Ciber Labs–have not received a recommendation from NIST. As reported earlier this month, Ciber Labs lost its accreditation after failing to follow quality-control guidelines

Symbian are not that popular in US mobile market, they rank on third position and have rather small market share,this is entirely different to the global mobile market share, where Symbian has over 80% monoply.

The Main reason for this is that Nokia dont have many good CDMA phones that are needed for Verizon Wireless and Sprint wireless carriers. Apart from that the GSM wireless carriers from USA which are Cingular and T-Mobile  often force Nokia to release particular phones to USA market, they control demand and supply.
This time around the year several new Symbian phones with HSDPA are about to hit markets in first quarter of 2007 (mainly from Nokia, Samsung and LG), but for now the Motorola Q which is a Windows Mobile smartphone edition (MS Smartphone) is a market leader in USA

Top smartphones in sales from August through October in united states are as follows:

1. Motorola Q

2. Palm Treo 650

3. Verizon Wireless XV6700

4. Palm Treo 700p

5. BlackBerry 8700

FCC has approved AT&T’s proposed acquisition of BellSouth. This approval has finally come after AT&T offered a few more concessions to consumers, such as network neutrality, in order to break the 2 vs. 2 voting stalemate at the FCC. The deal is worth US$85 billion.

This approval clears the way for AT&T to start the re-branding of US wireless carrier Cingular, which it jointly owns with BellSouth and will now have complete ownership of.

While the finer details of the re-branding plan have not yet been made clear, the AT&T website states that it will happen in early 2007.