The MIT Review has revealed its list of the ten emerging technologies which it believes are likely to make the biggest difference to the way we live.
Among the more interesting innovations is a wireless power technology that could allow devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players to recharge automatically, simply by coming within range of a wireless power source.
Another of the standout technologies are “probabilistic chips”. The premise runs that for video and audio applications, processors are not being asked to return a correct answer, thus the chip doesn’t have to be 100% accurate. This could allow the voltage to be lowered, leading to significant power savings.
Among the other innovations are transistors made of grapheme, a carbon material one atom thick, which apparently has amazing conductive properties and could replace silicon paving the way for faster and smaller electrical devices.
Another enterprising group has developed tiny radios built from single nanotubes, which could lead the way to other nano-technology including medical devices capable of being injected into the bloodstream to deliver drugs directly to targeted organs.
Source – PC Pro
Every industry has a story, and VoIP’s story circa 2008 is about a technology with growing business adoption, modest consumer success and an increasing dominance of the U.S. residential market by cable providers.
What follows are a few statistical highlights of where VoIP stands in these three areas today.
Enterprise VoIP
In 2005, the big news in VoIP was that U.S. revenues had finally broken the $1 billion mark, raising the question, “Is VoIP finally here?” But in 2007, the big news was that just over $1 billion in traditional PSTN (public switched telephone network) PBXes were sold, for what Infonetics Research speculated might be the last time ever. At least for enterprise deployments, the question about VoIP has become, “Is PSTN still around?”
Of course, IP PBX systems have been stealing PSTN’s market share for some time, but in 2007, hybrid IP PBX systems made up two-thirds of all lines shipped, while pure IP systems alone accounted for 18 percent. In addition, MarketResearch.com reported that 50 percent of global telecom traffic is now handled over IP, and it predicted this figure would increase to 75 percent “in a few years’ time.”
These figures jibe nicely with Garrett Smith’s anecdotal report that sales of enterprise VoIP systems are getting both larger and easier to close — roughly 20 times the rate of a year ago.
Consumer VoIP
However, consumer VoIP adoption remains modest worldwide — Infonetics reported just under 80 million VoIP subscribers worldwide in 2007, with the strongest adoption rates in the Asia Pacific region. That said, MarketResearch.com predicted that total VoIP subscribers would rise to 135 million in 2011, and London-based research firm Disruptive Analysis Ltd. predicted a mobile-VoIP market that will rise from today’s essentially zero users to 250 million users by 2012. Disruptive Analysis reasoned that mobile providers are unlikely to keep running separate voice and IP networks in parallel and will choose IP by default.
In December 2007, German Internet-traffic-management-systems provider Ipoque sampled three petabytes of anonymous data from Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany, the Middle East and Southern Europe. It estimated that while VoIP makes up just one percent of all Internet traffic, it is used by 30 percent of Internet users, and Skype Ltd. accounts for 95 percent of all VoIP traffic.
The U.S. VoIP Market
Back in the U.S., Ike Elliott assembled an interesting table ranking the top six VoIP providers by both revenue and subscribers. Four of the six are cable companies (CableVision, Charter Communications, Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc.) while two are pure VoIP providers (Skype and Vonage Holdings Corp.).
Vonage and Skype are in third and fifth place respectively, with approximately 23 percent of revenue and 27 percent of subscribers in a market Elliott estimates at $1.44 billion in revenues. (He had to estimate how much revenue each subscriber represents to Skype, settling on $35.70 per month.) Unfortunately for these two, Elliott reports, the cable companies’ VoIP-subscription rates are accelerating while those of the pure plays are slowing. Worse still, cable has already captured 73 percent of the U.S. market for residential VoIP.
This story may be best told by this TeleGeography graphic, which shows Time Warner’s VoIP subscriber base pursuing and then surpassing Vonage’s in Q207. The four largest U.S. VoIP providers now have a total of 12 million customers, broken down as follows: Comcast, 4 million; Time Warner, 3 million; Vonage, 2.6 million; and Cox Communications Inc., 2.4 million.
However, Skype still beats all comers in terms of ease of use, as measured in a “PC Magazine” reader-satisfaction survey of whose customers needed tech support most frequently. For example, while a whopping 34 percent of Charter and AT&T Inc.’s CallVantage customers needed tech support, just 6 percent of Skype users needed a hand with their PC-to-PC calls.
This didn’t prevent Wired from running its own head-to-head test of seven VoIP services in October 2007, with the winner being the relatively unknown Lingo Inc., which won plaudits for price, ease of use and call clarity.
Lingo’s case highlights the fact that VoIP remains a fiercely competitive market that currently offers low payoffs thanks to its low barriers to entry and the legacy telephone companies’ strength. A pure VoIP provider like Jaxtr Inc. can enter the market and claim 10 million subscribers in relatively short order — but it still has zero revenue. Jaxtr is counting on its Café Jaxtr product to attract advertising dollars — but on a recent morning the sole display ad on Café Jaxtr’s homepage was for Qwest Communications International Inc.’s long-distance phone service.
TalkTalk customers will get chance to decide if they want targeted ads
Broadband provider TalkTalk has confirmed that it will allow customers to ‘opt in’ to Phorm’s controversial new advertisement system.
TalkTalk is one of three UK ISPs to sign up to the Webwise service which sees user’s surfing habits tracked.
It has decided not to offer the service by default but rather to allow users to choose whether they want it.
It follows 1,000 people signing a Downing Street online petition saying the system breaches customer privacy.
“We will be endorsing and recommending take-up of the system but we want to ensure that customers make their own decision,” said a spokesman for TalkTalk.
It believes that there is a two-fold benefit for customers.
“We feel customers will welcome the opportunity to get fewer irrelevant advertisements as well as benefit from the real-time anti-phishing alerts,” he said.
Behavioural advertising
Phorm works by placing a cookie on a user’s machine that contains a randomised identifying number. That cookie tracks websites visited and draws conclusions about a user’s behaviour in order to target more relevant adverts.
So, for example, someone who often visits the Top Gear website is likely to be served motoring advertisements.
The controversy over the system surrounds the fact that ISPs are “selling” information about users on to a third party.
Phorm, the US company behind the system, is keen to stress that the data it collects is 100% anonymous and no profile of the user is ever created, so that no-one could “reverse engineer” the information in order to establish identity.
Campaigner Simon Davies was asked to assess its privacy measures as part of the work he does for privacy start-up 80/20.
He believed the system “advances the whole sector of protecting personal information by two or three steps”, although he was not sure that the public was ready to buy into behavioural advertising.
The fact that TalkTalk has decided to let consumers choose whether they want to sign up to the service is likely to be a blow for Phorm, thinks Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
“Ideally Phorm would like to have automatic access to all users but TalkTalk has gone for the safe option of opt-in which could limit the number of consumers,” he said.
For ISPs desperate to retain customers entering the untested world of behavioural targeted advertisng is “scary”., said Mr Elliott.
“If ISPs do something that consumers see as a violation of their privacy then they will simply change provider.”
Kent Ertegrul, chief executive of Phorm, told the BBC News website that he was confused about why the issue of opt-in versus opt-out was causing so much controversy.
“There is no way of not knowing that this is switched on. There is a clear choice offered to consumers and I am surprised that there has been so many questions about this. I find it a bit bizarre,” he said.
For him the service is a win win for consumers.
“Having advertising behind it allows for better, cheaper broadband,” he said.
BT will start a trial of the Webwise system this month and said that it would be offering it as an opt-in service in so far as it would be inviting 10,000 broadband customers to trial it.
“We will look at the findings of the trial before we make a decision on how to go about a more widespread deployment,” said a spokesman.
He believes that the anti-phishing tools will attract customers concerned by online safety although he stressed that other security measures would still be in place for customers who did not want to use the system.
Automatic access
He also said that triallists wishing to sign up to the system would have to agree to new terms and conditions. The details of this have not yet been finalised but it would not be a “material change”, said the spokesman.
Virgin Media is also due to trial the system later in the year and is happy that it does not breach any existing privacy legislation.
“We have had a few customers get in touch with privacy concerns but these have been fairly comprehensively addressed by answers from Phorm,” said a spokesman.
He believes the system sets a “new standard” in targeted advertising and is not convinced that there is any foundation for concern.
“Google and Hitwise manage and manipulate data and people generally don’t have an objection to that,” he said.
How the system was to be rolled out to Virgin Media customers was yet to be decided, he added.
“Deployment is months away but we will make sure that people know what it is about and exactly how it will work.”
ISPs entering the lucrative world of online advertising could receive a big revenue boost. Proceeds from the advertising platform being set up by Phorm – known as the Open Internet Exchange – will be shared with any ISPs that sign up.
Some analysts predict that the deal could generate millions of pounds annually for BT and other ISPs but not everyone is so optimistic.
“Our figures show that only 10% of online advertisers currently use behavioural targetted ads,” said Mr Elliott.
Source – BBC
Smart IT has teamed up with the world’s largest computer provider – Dell.
As a result Smart IT will enjoy greater access to Dell Technical resources, even better pricing and priority customer service through a dedicated accounts team.
Commenting on the new partnership, Managing Director Barry Weaver said “we’ve been trying to work a deal with many manufacturers for some time now and have practically covered the world looking for the right partner”.
“Dell are the most responsive to our needs and have gone above and beyond the call of duty to assist us in offering maximum value for our customers”.
“The savings and benefits will directly impact our customers in an extremely positive manner”.
“With other suppliers we always felt there was a compromise between good quality and good value.”
“Dell is different. They are much more than just “box shifters” and offer a wide variety of products and solutions from printers and software to storage and servers with the technical pre and post sales knowledge and back up we find extremely helpful right through their product range”.
“It was these qualities that made Dell the natural choice and swung the deal for us”.
“We are all delighted to be working with Dell and look forward to a positive long term partnership”.
Smart IT today unveiled their updated and restyled web site. Containing a wealth of information on the services and products offered by Smart IT including IT support for Chester, Manchester, Liverpool, Denbighshire, Wirral, Nantwich, Northwich, Tarporley, Warrington, Whitchurch and Wrexham.
Commenting on the new website, Barry Weaver, Managing Director, said “Our aim with the new website is to offer both existing and potential customers clear and understandable information on how we can help them with their business”
“Smart IT offer many different types of services which we feel will be a massive benefit to new and old customers alike – such as VOIP telephone systems, installations and IT solutions, network installations, antivirus software and IT consultancy to name but a few”.
“We will be striving to keep our IT news section up to date daily with relevant stories our customers might find of interest”.
“We will be working to strengthen our relationships with suppliers such as ESET, EMC, Microsoft and Dell to offer our customers unrivalled product provision competitiveness”
“We are also in talks with a market leading IFA software house to become their first ever IT company registered as a reseller”.
