Computers And Internet Blog

The Real News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:18:00 +0000

The Real News is a member-supported English language global online video news network. Launched in 2007 by Paul Jay, a former producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation it states it is "focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism", on "the critical issues of our times".

The Real News relies on supporters' donations, and does not accept funding from advertising, government or corporations. It also receives funding from grants and funds.

The Real News uses internet broadcasting, but it has contracts with satellite and cable television channels which it intends to use for broadcast once it reaches its first sustainability goal of 50,000 supporters. The Real News has bureaus in Washington D.C., and Toronto.

Stated goals

The stated goal of The Real News is to provide "independent and uncompromising" verifiable worldwide coverage of "the critical issues of our times". They aim to avoid what they consider to be pitfalls of mainstream journalism, such as a disproportionate focus on people in high office and reliance on official press releases or wire services to frame debate. Their editorial policies in practice result in focus on issues affecting less powerful people, children, indigenous people, immigrants, women, and laborers. Human rights and environmental issues, topics on religious freedom and freedom of conscience, movements for moral and spiritual values, against war, and against racism usually get daily coverage.

While covering people in high office, The Real News attempts to seek the facts that they feel matter and not limit themselves to reporting what they believe their interlocutors want audiences to hear. In this way, and by bringing in well-informed guests, they hope to trigger debate which covers many aspects of an issue, avoids personal attacks and partisan rhetoric without substance. The Real News also operates forums where their work can be debated and criticized, purportedly to remain aware of their own biases.

The Real News relies exclusively on supporters' donations, and does not accept funding from advertising, government or corporations.

History

On August 10, 2008 The Real News was featured on PBS Foreign Exchange, where host Daljit Dhaliwal interviewed The Real News senior editor Paul Jay.

Staff

The Real News journalist committee includes Lewis H. Lapham, Gore Vidal, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, and Howard Zinn. The most regular political analysts are Aijaz Ahmad, Pepe Escobar and Eric Margolis. The Real News features experienced professional journalists from all over the world. It is planning to host reports from volunteer-based citizen journalism in a dedicated portion of the network's website.

Analysts and correspondents:

* Host and senior editor: Paul Jay.
* Main journalists: Jesse Freeston covers a wide range of topics but specializes in Latin America and resource exploitation. Lia Tarachansky covers Israel and Palestine from the region, and Ania Smolenskaia covers U.S. domestic policy and the health care debate.
* Global senior analysts: Pepe Escobar, Aijaz Ahmad, Minqi Li, and Forrest Hylton
* Other guests: David Harvey, Naomi Klein, Phyllis Bennis, Eric Margolis, Michael Ratner, Gideon Levy, Helen Thomas.

Technical staff:

* Mishuk Munier - Director of News Operations
* Hezvo Mpunga - IT and Website Development
* Taruna Godric - Communications and Volunteer Coordinator
* Elena Perova - Executive Assistant

Other staff:

* Sharmini Peries - Executive Director

Content

The Real News also frequently hosts content by the American News Project, Al Jazeera English, and SleptOn Magazine

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Rabbit Bites

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:40:00 +0000

Rabbit Bites is an Internet video series created by Nicholas Quixote in June 2006. It is featured each week on the cover of the online magazine Salon. The show has been airing on the website since January 2007 and stars two rabbits: Buns, a gray male rabbit, and Chou Chou, a black and white female rabbit.

Overview

The internet show stars Buns (a brown dwarf rabbit) and Chou Chou (an English Lop), two rabbits who critique popular culture from the chairs in their living room. Rabbit Bites began as a good-natured, yet harsh critique of the current state of Internet video and vlogging in particular. Rabbit Bites has satirized many of the video creators who were central in popularizing web video, on which it originally focused. After 6 months, Rabbit Bites started to examine popular culture and give opinions in the rabbits' typical "biting" style. Buns and Chou Chou have covered topics ranging from television shows, such as American Idol and To Catch A Predator, to celebrities, such as Tom Cruise and Britney Spears, and general pop culture topics, such as the iPhone. Now, Rabbit Bites continues in this format as a social critique, particularly of celebrity, attitudes about wealth and luxury, and the death of culture.

The show also has two additional components in some episodes. Chou Chou has her own show, called Coffee With Chou. It's a talk show with Chou Chou as the host and Buns as the sidekick. Chou Chou has done real interviews with author Andrew Keen and blogger Robert Scoble, as well as fake interviews, created by editing previous interview footage with celebrities. Chou Chou has done interviews in this style with stars such as Paris Hilton and Eli Roth. Since the show began, real guests include David Alan Grier, William Redpath, Greg Fitzsimmons, Dana Snyder, Bobby Lee, Tom Papa, Michael Ian Black, Jane Lynch, Carbon Silicon, Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garofalo, and the band They Might Be Giants.

The third component of the show is a "man on the street" segment, in which the rabbits ask one of their correspondents to go out and seek responses from the public. The first of these was done by Nalts, who is popular on YouTube, in regards to finding out about Generation Y and its need for praise.

Philosophical and historical references

Although the show is mostly a critique of pop culture, it does contain some hidden meanings and references to art and history:

* Plato's Allegory of the Cave has been referenced in two episodes. An older one about the podcast "Amyville", and a more recent one about horror films, such as Hostel and Saw.
* In an episode about the infamous Alec Baldwin voicemail message, Buns and Chou Chou talk about how the camera obscura is present in life.
* An early episode about Robert Scoble features paintings by Piet Mondrian.
* An early episode about The Long Tail features the Tower of Babel.
* Two episodes feature the idea and significance of mirror images. An episode covering CSI features mirror images in a painting by Vermeer. Also, an episode covering blogger Ryanne Hodson features the rabbits mentioning mirror images when Hodson holds a stained glass piece that is made to look like her.

In the media

In addition to being featured each week on Salon, the show has been featured on the YouTube homepage, as well as the Yahoo! Video homepage. The show has won The 9 on Yahoo! twice and has been featured in the British newspaper The Guardian. Amanda Congdon covered the show and interviewed Buns, Chou Chou, and Quixote on her series Amanda Across America, and the show has also been mentioned in the New York Times as being "twisted and sublime".

http://en.wikipedia.org/

P2PTV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:51:00 +0000

The term P2PTV refers to peer-to-peer (P2P) software applications designed to redistribute video streams in real time on a P2P network; the distributed video streams are typically TV channels from all over the world but may also come from other sources. The draw to these applications is significant because they have the potential to make any TV channel globally available.

Technology and use

In a P2PTV system, each user, while downloading a video stream, is simultaneously also uploading that stream to other users, thus contributing to the overall available bandwidth. The arriving streams are typically a few minutes time-delayed compared to the original sources. The video quality of the channels usually depends on how many users are watching; the video quality is better if there are more users. The architecture of many P2PTV networks can be thought of as real-time versions of BitTorrent: if a user wishes to view a certain channel, the P2PTV software contacts a "tracker server" for that channel in order to obtain addresses of peers who distribute that channel; it then contacts these peers to receive the feed. The tracker records the user's address, so that it can be given to other users who wish to view the same channel. In effect, this creates an overlay network on top of the regular internet for the distribution of real-time video content.

The need for a tracker can also be eliminated by the use of distributed hash table technology.

Some applications allow users to broadcast their own streams, whether self-produced, obtained from a video file, or through a TV tuner card or video capture card.

Many of the commercial P2PTV applications were developed in China (TVUPlayer, PPLive, QQLive, PPStream). The majority of available applications broadcast mainly Asian TV stations, with the exception of TVUPlayer, which carries a number of North American stations including CBS, Spike TV, and Fox News. Some applications distribute TV channels without a legal license to do so; this utilization of P2P technology is particularly popular to view channels that are either not available locally, or only available by paid subscription, as is the case for some sports channels.By January 2009, there were about 14,000 P2P channels on PPStream.

Other commercial P2PTV applications outside China are Abroadcasting (USA), Zattoo (Switzerland/USA), Octoshape (Denmark), LiveStation (UK).

Issues for broadcasters

* Broadcasting via a P2PTV system is usually much cheaper than the alternatives and can be done by private individuals.
* No quality of service (QoS). Compared to unicasting (the standard server-client architecture used in streaming media) no one can guarantee a reliable stream, since every user is a rebroadcaster. Each viewer is a part of a chain of viewers which all can have a negative influence on the reliability of the stream (by having a slow PC, a filled downlink or uplink or an unreliable consumer grade DSL or cable connection).
* Less control. If a broadcaster prefers to limit access to their content based on regions, and would like good data on viewer behaviour, such as volume, trends and viewing time, then a traditional broadcasting solution offers more control.
* Professional broadcasters and distributors have used a hybrid solution for many years. Distribution servers are not centrally installed, but are rolled out in a smart, decentralized way. A central management facility manages content distribution over multiple peer servers (also known as Edge servers, or Caches), strategically located near user swarms (generally popular access ISP networks), manages load balancing, redirection of users, view reporting and QoS. Examples are Akamai.

Notable applications

Branded webtv service for end-users

* Babelgum.com (non-live)
* BBC iPlayer (live and non-live, used peer-to-peer technology until December 2008)
* Joost.com (non-live, live trials)
* LiveStation.com (Windows, Linux, Mac) - based in United Kingdom
* Miro (non-live)
* ReelTime.com (non-live)
* Zattoo.com (Windows, Mac)

Commercial solutions for broadcasters

* Alluvium - based in Texas, USA
* Octoshape (Windows, Linux, Mac)
* Pando
* Rawflow

Unclassified (yet)

* CDNetworks (CDN service)
* CoolStreaming (discontinued service)
* Cybersky-TV - software
* PeerCast (Windows, Linux, Mac)
* PPLive - based in China mainland, chinese only program.
* PPStream - based in China mainland
* Tribler - linked to P2P-Next, relies on BitTorrent protocol
* TVUnetworks - Windows and MacOSX P2PTV Software and Network
* Pulse - (Windows, Linux) LGPL P2PTV engine with announcement portal and unrestricted access

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Multicast

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:18:00 +0000

Multicast addressing is a network technology for the delivery of information to a group of destinations simultaneously using the most efficient strategy to deliver the messages over each link of the network only once, creating copies only when the links to the multiple destinations split.

The word "multicast" is typically used to refer to IP multicast which is often employed for streaming media and Internet television applications. In IP multicast the implementation of the multicast concept occurs at the IP routing level, where routers create optimal distribution paths for datagrams sent to a multicast destination address spanning tree in real-time. At the Data Link Layer, multicast describes one-to-many distribution such as Ethernet multicast addressing, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) point-to-multipoint virtual circuits or Infiniband multicast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

MediaCore

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 03:24:00 +0000

MediaCore Video CMS is an open source media focused content management system. It features: video & audio support, YouTube & Vimeo integration, podcasting, iTunes RSS generation, user-submitted content, embedded media player, wysiwyg editor, search, and is highly customizable. There is both a front-end for users and a back-end for administrators. It is built upon TurboGears, SQLAlchemy, MYSQL and runs with Apache, FastCGI or Mod_WSGI.

Requirements

MediaCore requires a Linux or Unix server that runs Python 2.5.x and MySQL 5.0.x or newer. It should also be noted GCC must be installed and available on the $PATH for certain required Python packages to install properly. Additional requirements can be found on the MediaCore website.

Features

The following is a list of some of the major features in Mediacore:

* Users can browse videos or podcasts
* Users can search for videos by topics and tags
* Users can upload videos to the platform, administrators can moderate newly uploaded videos
* Administrators can add video, audio, or podcasts
* Comment platform and moderation is built-in
* Podcasts can be video or audio
* Automatic iTunes podcast generation
* Automatic RSS generation
* Feedburner support

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Local-News TV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:11:00 +0000

Local-News TV is a local news channel for Bedfordshire, England. The channel is broadcast solely over the internet with content available on-demand.

The channel's primary focus is local news and events in and around Bedfordshire. Local News TV's main aim is improving communication between the people who live in Bedfordshire, delivering information between the public and the public authorities.

Most content is produced by the channel in short clip format by a regular team of 3 or 4 main presenters, though viewers are encouraged to contribute their own local-interest stories and videos. The channel works in partnership with organisations and groups associated with Bedfordshire. These include the Bedfordshire Fire & Rescue Service, Sport England, and with national figures based in Bedfordshire. The channel recently interviewed the president of the NFU Peter Kendall, who farms in Bedfordshire. Local News TV also show studio based recap episodes covering recent OB (Outside Broadcast) stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

List of streaming media systems

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:11:00 +0000

Servers

* Ampache
* Broadwave Allows you to create your own broadcast from pre-recorded or live audio
* Darwin Streaming Server
* dyne:bolic GNU/Linux live CD ready for radio streaming
* Firefly Media Server
* Flash Media Server
* Flumotion Streaming Server
* FreeJ video streamer for Icecast
* Helix Community
* Icecast an open source streaming media server
* PlayOn a cheap media server that runs on a PC and supports Netflix streaming
* PS3 Media Server open source media server for streaming to a Playstation 3
* QuickTime Broadcaster
* Red5
* SHOUTcast audio streaming (HTTP and/or multicast)
* Sockso Free streaming music server, stream music via any web browser
* SqueezeCenter Open source music streaming server, backboned by a music database (formerly known as SlimServer)
* Steamcast a freeware streaming media server
* Subsonic is an open source, web-based media server
* TVersity partially open source, web-based media server
* UltraStream SoundBox Commercial media server based on IceCast
* Unreal Media Server Live MPEG4/MP3 encoding; MPEG1/2/4, WMV, MP3, AVI files
* VideoLAN
* Windows Media Encoder
* Windows Media Services
* GNUMP3d

Streaming server for MP3s, OGG vorbis files, movies and other media formats.

P2P & Multicasting

* FreeCast Java application which allows peer-to-peer stream broadcast
* IceShare P2P Icecast protocol
* MediaBlog
* Octoshape
* PeerCast is a peer-to-peer broadcasting tool which allows you to broadcast without needing much upstream bandwidth
* Peercasting multicasting streaming in a P2P network
* Rawflow
* Red Swoosh
* Tribler
* Veoh

Software as a Service

* Deezer
* eMusic
* eSnips
* gogoyoko
* Grooveshark
* iLike
* Justin.tv Allows users to produce and watch live streaming video.
* Last.fm Internet radio and music community website
* Live365 Live365 streaming media library
* MeeMix
* mog
* Musicovery
* MySpace
* Pandora (music service)
* Playlist.com
* Qik
* Radiolicious Internet radio
* RadioTime
* ShareTheMusic
* Songza
* Spotify free and paid streaming music tool, currently UK/Europe only
* UStream
* we7
* Wuala a free online storage solution with streaming capability

Clients

* Amarok
* RTMP Stream Plugin

* MediaMonkey
* MPlayer
* Screamer Radio
* SDP Multimedia Open Source project to save streaming media to disk
* StationRipper
* Streamripper
* Totem
* VLC Media Player
* Winamp a freeware media player for Microsoft Windows
* XMMS
* Zinf

Other & Unknown

* Campcaster Open source radio station management, live broadcast and remote automation
* FFmpeg
* FORscene Java video reviewing, logging, editing and publishing
* LastBASH
* Liquidsoap
* Mod4Win
* Mount
* Muziic
* Qtch
* QuickTime
* SAM Broadcaster Professional internet broadcasting automation system
* SomaPlayer
* Swarmcast
* Traction
* Xiph.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/

IPTV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is a system through which digital television service is delivered using the architecture and networking methods of the Internet Protocol Suite over a packet-switched network infrastructure, e.g., the Internet and broadband Internet access networks, instead of being delivered through traditional radio frequency broadcast, satellite signal, and cable television (CATV) formats. See Internet television.

IPTV services may be classified into three main groups: live television, time-shifted programming, and content (or video) on demand. It is distinguished from general Internet-based or web-based multimedia services by its on-going standardization process (e.g., ETSI) and preferential deployment scenarios in subscriber-based telecommunications networks with high-speed access channels into end-user premises via set-top boxes or other customer-premises equipment.

Definition

Historically, many different definitions of IPTV have appeared, including elementary streams over IP networks, transport streams over IP networks and a number of proprietary systems. Although (in Mid 2007) it is premature to say that there is a full consensus of exactly what IPTV should mean, there is no doubt that the most widely used definition today for consumer IPTV is for single or multiple program transport streams (MPTS) which are sourced by the same network operator that owns or directly controls the "last mile" to the consumer's premises. This control over delivery enables a guaranteed quality of service (QoS), and also allows the service provider to offer an enhanced user experience such as better program guide, interactive services etc.

In commercial environments IPTV is widely deployed for distribution of live TV, video playout channels and Video on Demand (VOD) material across LAN or WAN IP network infrastructures, with a controlled QoS.

The official definition approved by the International Telecommunication Union focus group on IPTV (ITU-T FG IPTV) is as follows:
"IPTV is defined as multimedia services such as television/video/audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP based networks managed to provide the required level of quality of service and experience, security, interactivity and reliability."

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Internet television

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:07:00 +0000

Internet television (otherwise known as Internet TV, iTV or Online TV) is television service distributed via the Internet. It has become very popular during the 21st century with services such as the Hulu in the United States, Nederland 24 in the Netherlands and BBC iPlayer, 4od, ITV Player and Demand Five in the United Kingdom.

Concept

Internet television allows its users to choose the program or the TV show they want to watch from an archive of programs or from a channel directory. The two forms of viewing Internet television are streaming the content directly to a media player or simply downloading the program to the user's computer. With the "TV on Demand" market growing, these on demand websites or applications are a must have for major television broadcasters. For example the BBC's iPlayer brings in users which stream more than one million videos per week, with one of the BBC's headline shows "The Apprentice" taking over 3 - 5% of the UK's internet traffic due to people watching the first episode on iPlayer.

Every night the use of On Demand TV peaks at around 10 pm, Most providers of the service provide several different formats and quality controls so that the service can be viewed on many different devices. Some services now offer a HD service along side their SD, streaming is the same but offers the quality of HD to the device being used, as long as it is using a HD screen. During Peak times the BBC's iPlayer transmits 12 GB (gigabytes) of information per second. Over the course of a month the iPlayer sends 7 PB (petabytes) of information.

Before 2006, most Catch-up services used peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, in which users downloaded an application and data would be shared between the users rather than the service provider giving the now more commonly used streaming method. Now most service providers have moved away from the P2P systems and are now using the streaming media. This is good for the service provider as in the old P2P system the distribution costs were high and the servers normally couldn't handle the large amount of downloading and data transfer.

Market competitors

Many providers of internet television services exist including conventional television stations that have taken advantage of the internet as way to continue showing programmes after they have been broadcast often advertised as "On Demand" and "Catch Up" services. Examples include the BBC, which introduced the BBC iPlayer on 25 June 2008 as an extension to its "RadioPlayer" and already existing streamed video clip content, and Channel 4 that launched 4oD ("4 on Demand") in November 2006 allowing users to watch recently shown content. Most internet television services allow users to view content free of charge however some content is charged for, Channel 4's internet television service employs a pay per-download system for some of its content. Other internet television providers include ITV player, Demand Five, Eurosport player and Sky Player.

Access/usability

Accessing internet television is a relatively simple process. Using an Internet Service Provider, something which is common in many homes in the developed world, the user simply enters their chosen website address. For example, bbc.com/iplayer or http://video.pbs.org

. If the user has no select preference of streaming service, the name of a chosen television programme can be inputted into a search engine followed by a phrase such as “online streaming” or “watch on the net”. Accessing television on the internet has never been so simple, due to this usability of streaming services has had to be improved to maintain the simplicity of the process. Upon selection of a programme and website, the user may have to wait a few seconds or minutes to allow their desired programme to stream. A process called buffering allows the programme to run in one smooth showing as opposed to stopping and starting to allow the programme to stream.

Control

Controlling content on the Internet presents a challenge for most providers; to try to ensure that a user is allowed to view content such as programmes with age certificates, providers use methods such as parental controls that allows restrictions to be placed upon the use and access of certificated material. The BBC iPlayer makes use of a parental control system giving parents the option to "lock" content, meaning that a password would have to be used to access it. Flagging systems can be used to warn a user that content may be certified or that it may be post watershed for a programme. Honor systems are also used where users are asked for their dates of birth or age to verify if they are able to view certain content.

Archives

An archive is a collection of information and media much like a library or interactive storage facility. It is a necessity for an on demand media service to maintain archives so that users can watch programmes that have already been aired on standard broadcast television. However, these archives can vary from a few weeks to months to years, depending on the curator and what programme it is.

For example, BBC iPlayer offers most of its programmes for 30 days after their original air date on the BBC. However, some special programmes such as Panorama are available for an extended period because it is a factual programme and is highly watched and so is worth the extra money needed to host it for longer.

In contrast 4OD channel 4's on demand service offers many of its much older programmes as well that were originally aired years ago. An example of this is the comedy "The IT Crowd" where users can view the full series on the internet player. The same is true for other hit channel 4 comedies such as "The Inbetweeners" and "Black Books".

Having an extensive archive however can bring problems along with benefits. Large archives are expensive to maintain, server farms and mass storage is needed along with ample bandwidth to transmit it all. Vast archives can be hard to catalogue and sort so that it is accessible to users.

The benefits in most cases outweigh these problems. This is because large archives bring in far more users who in turn watch more media, leading to a wider audience base and more advertising revenue. Large archives will also mean the user will spend more time on that website rather than a competitors, leading to starvation of demand for the competitors.

Broadcasting rights

Broadcasting rights change from country to country and even within provinces of countries. These rights govern the distribution of copyrighted content and media and allow the sole distribution of that content at any one time.

An example of programmes only being aired in certain countries is BBC iPlayer. Users can only stream content from iPlayer from Britain because the BBC only allows free use of their product for users within Britain because those users pay a TV license to fund part of the BBC.

Broadcasting rights can also be restricted to allowing a broadcaster rights to distribute that content for a limited time. Channel 4’s online service 4OD can only stream shows created in the US by companies such as “HBO” for 30 days after they are aired on one of the Channel 4 group channels. This is to boost DVD sales for the companies who produce that media.

Some companies pay very large amounts for broadcasting rights with sports and US sitcoms usually fetching the highest price from UK based broadcasters.

Profits and costs

With the exception of Internet connectivity costs many online television channels or sites are free. These sites maintain this free TV policy through the use of advertising, short commercials and banner adverts may show up before a video is played. An example of this is on the abc.com catch up website; in place of the advert breaks on normal television a short 30 second advert is played. This short advertising time means that the user does not get fed up and money can be made off of advertising, to allow web designers to offer quality content which would otherwise cost. This is how online TV makes a profit.

Technologies used for Internet television

The Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) consortium of industry companies (such as SES Astra, Humax, Philips, and ANT Software)is currently promoting and establishing an open European standard (called HbbTV) for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast and broadband digital TV and multimedia applications with a single user interface.

Current providers of internet television use various technologies to provide a service such as peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies, VoD systems, and live streaming. BBC iPlayer makes use of Adobe Flash Player to provide streaming video clips and other software provided by Adobe for its download service. CNBC, Bloomberg Television, and Showtime use live streaming services from BitGravity to stream live television to paid subscribers using a standard http protocol. DRM (digital rights management) software is also incorporated into many internet television services Sky Player has software that is provided by Microsoft to prevent content being copied. Internet television is also cross platform, the Sky Player service has been expanded to the Xbox 360 on October 27 and to Windows Media Center and then to Windows 7 PCs on November 19. BBC iPlayer is also available through Virgin Media's on demand service and other platforms such as FetchTV and games consoles including the Xbox 360, Wii and the PlayStation 3. Other platforms that internet television is available on include mobile platforms such as the iPhone and iPod Touch, Nokia N96, Sony Ericsson C905 and many other mobile devices.

Website vs applications

The main problem with on demand video services that are applications on desktop computers is getting users to download them and register. It is far easier for a user to simply log onto a webpage without registering than to have to spend time registering and downloading often large programs.

However applications are more powerful in that they can manage the downloading of content far better and these programs can usually be watched offline for 30 days after downloading.

Stream quality

Stream quality refers to the quality of the image and audio transferred from the servers of the distributor to the home screen on a user.

Higher quality video such as video in high definition (720p+) requires higher bandwidth and faster connection speeds. The general accepted kbps download rate needed to stream high definition video that has been encoded with H.264 is 3500, where as standard definition TV can range from 500 to 1500 kbps depending on the resolution on screen.

In the UK BBC iPlayer deals with the largest amount of traffic yet it offers HD content along with SD content. As more people get internet connections which can deal with streaming HD video over the internet iPlayer has tried to keep up with demand and pace. However, as streaming HD video takes around 1.5gb of data per hour of video it took a lot of investment by the BBC to implement this on such a large scale.

For users which do not have the bandwidth to stream HD video or even high SD video which requires 1500kbps iPlayer offers lower bitrate streams which in turn leads to lower video quality. This makes use of an adaptive bitrate stream so that if the users bandwidth suddenly drops, iPlayer will lower it's streaming rate to compensate for this.

This diagnostic tool offered on the BBC iPlayer site measures a user's streaming capabilities and bandwidth for free.

Although competitors in the UK such as 4od, ITV Player and Demand Five have not yet offered HD streaming, the technology to support it is fairly new and widespread HD streaming is not an impossibility. The availability of Channel 4 and Five programs on YouTube is predicted to prove incredibly popular as series such as Skins, Green Wing, The X Factor and others become available in a simple, straightforward format on a website which already attracts millions of people every day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Grid casting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:28:00 +0000

Grid casting or gridcasting is a file and stream sharing system that cooperates transparently by using idle bandwidth on a user's computer to deliver large scale live or on-demand broadcasts. Grid casting is used for the purpose of improving performance, scalability, and cost efficiency, of delivering files and streams to end users through the use of a media plug-in.

Grid casting is similar to peer-to-peer file sharing systems such as BitTorrent, but has the advantage of providing a robust live or on-demand streaming solution. The original high bit-rate stream is split up into smaller bit-rate streams that are shared through users computers, by incorporating a plug-in, that reconstructs the smaller streams back to the original high bit-rate stream.

Grid casting constructs several smaller data streams a lower bit-rates from an original higher bit-rate stream. In grid casting, none of the data streams are identical.

As an example, assume the live stream is a 400 kbit/s signal and the gridcasting solution constructs multiple data streams at a size of 100 kbit/s. Now, an end user receiving any four of the different data streams at 100 kbit/s may use these four data streams to construct the original live stream back to 400 kbits/s, and thus the movie can be played in real time at the end user.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Content delivery network

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:58:00 +0000

A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a system of computers containing copies of data, placed at various points in a network so as to maximize bandwidth for access to the data from clients throughout the network. A client accesses a copy of the data near to the client, as opposed to all clients accessing the same central server, so as to avoid bottleneck near that server.

Content types include web objects, downloadable objects (media files, software, documents), applications, real time media streams, and other components of internet delivery (DNS, routes, and database queries).

CDN benefits

The capacity sum of strategically placed servers can be higher than the network backbone capacity. This can result in an impressive increase in the number of concurrent users. For instance, when there is a 10 Gbit/s network backbone and 100 Gbit/s central server capacity, only 10 Gbit/s can be delivered. But when 10 servers are moved to 10 edge locations, total capacity can be 10*10 Gbit/s.

Strategically placed edge servers decrease the load on interconnects, public peers, private peers and backbones, freeing up capacity and lowering delivery costs. It uses the same principle as above. Instead of loading all traffic on a backbone or peer link, a CDN can offload these by redirecting traffic to edge servers.

CDNs generally deliver content over TCP and UDP connections. TCP throughput over a network is impacted by both latency and packet loss. In order to reduce both of these parameters, CDNs traditionally place servers as close to the edge networks that users are on as possible. Theoretically the closer the content the faster the delivery, although network distance may not be the factor that leads to best performance. End users will likely experience less jitter, fewer network peaks and surges, and improved stream quality - especially in remote areas. The increased reliability allows a CDN operator to deliver HD quality content with high Quality of Service, low costs and low network load.

CDNs can dynamically distribute assets to strategically placed redundant core, fallback and edge servers. CDNs can have automatic server availability sensing with instant user redirection. A CDN can offer 100% availability, even with large power, network or hardware outages.

CDN technologies give more control of asset delivery and network load. They can optimize capacity per customer, provide views of real-time load and statistics, reveal which assets are popular, show active regions and report exact viewing details to the customers. These usage details are an important feature that a CDN provider must provide, since the usage logs are no longer available at the content source server after it has been plugged into the CDN, because the connections of end-users are now served by the CDN edges instead of the content source.

ASP versus on-net

Most CDNs are operated as an application service provider (ASP) on the Internet, although an increasing number of internet network owners, such as AT&T, are building their own CDN to improve on-net content delivery and to generate revenues from content customers. Some develop internal CDN software; others use commercially available software.

Technology

CDN nodes are usually deployed in multiple locations, often over multiple backbones. These nodes cooperate with each other to satisfy requests for content by end users, transparently moving content to optimize the delivery process. Optimization can take the form of reducing bandwidth costs, improving end-user performance (reducing page load times and user experience), or increasing global availability of content.

The number of nodes and servers making up CDN varies, depending on the architecture, some reaching thousands of nodes with tens of thousands of servers on many remote PoPs. Others build a global network and have a small number of geographical PoPs.

Requests for content are typically algorithmically directed to nodes that are optimal in some way. When optimizing for performance, locations that are best for serving content to the user may be chosen. This may be measured by choosing locations that are the fewest hops, the fewest number of network seconds away from the requesting client, or the highest availability in terms of server performance (both current and historical), so as to optimize delivery across local networks. When optimizing for cost, locations that are least expensive may be chosen instead.

In an optimal scenario, these two goals tend to align, as servers that are close to the end user at the edge of the network may have an advantage in performance or cost. The Edge Network is grown outward from the origin/s by further acquiring (via purchase, peering, or exchange) co-locations facilities, bandwidth and servers.

Content networking techniques

The Internet was designed according to the end-to-end principle. This principle keeps the core network relatively simple and moves the intelligence as much as possible to the network end-points: the hosts and clients. As a result the core network is specialized, simplified, and optimized to only forward data packets.

Content Delivery Networks augment the end-to-end transport network by distributing on it a variety of intelligent applications employing techniques designed to optimize content delivery. The resulting tightly integrated overlay uses web caching, server-load balancing, request routing, and content services. These techniques are briefly described below.

Web caches store popular content on servers that have the greatest demand for the content requested. These shared network appliances reduce bandwidth requirements, reduce server load, and improve the client response times for content stored in the cache.

Server-load balancing uses one or more techniques including service based (global load balancing) or hardware based, i.e. layer 4–7 switches, also known as a web switch, content switch, or multilayer switch to share traffic among a number of servers or web caches. Here the switch is assigned a single virtual IP address. Traffic arriving at the switch is then directed to one of the real web servers attached to the switch. This has the advantages of balancing load, increasing total capacity, improving scalability, and providing increased reliability by redistributing the load of a failed web server and providing server health checks.

A content cluster or service node can be formed using a layer 4–7 switch to balance load across a number of servers or a number of web caches within the network.

Request routing directs client requests to the content source best able to serve the request. This may involve directing a client request to the service node that is closest to the client, or to the one with the most capacity. A variety of algorithms are used to route the request. These include Global Server Load Balancing, DNS-based request routing, Dynamic metafile generation, HTML rewriting, and anycasting. Proximity—choosing the closest service node—is estimated using a variety of techniques including reactive probing, proactive probing, and connection monitoring.

CDNs use a variety of methods of content delivery including, but not limited to, manual asset copying, active web caches, and global hardware load balancers.

Content service protocols

Several protocols suites are designed to provide access to a wide variety of content services distributed throughout a content network. The Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) was developed in the late 1990s to provide an open standard for connecting application servers. A more recently defined and robust solution is provided by the Open Pluggable Edge Services (OPES) protocol. This architecture defines OPES service applications that can reside on the OPES processor itself or be executed remotely on a Callout Server. Edge Side Includes or ESI is a small markup language for edge level dynamic web content assembly. It is fairly common for websites to have generated content. It could be because of changing content like catalogs or forums, or because of personalization. This creates a problem for caching systems. To overcome this problem a group of companies created ESI.

Peer-to-peer CDNs

Although peer-to-peer (P2P) is not traditional CDN technology, it is increasingly used to deliver content to end users. P2P claims low cost and efficient distribution. Even though P2P actually generates more traffic than traditional client-server CDNs (because a peer also uploads data instead of just downloading it) it's welcomed by parties running content delivery/distribution services. The real strength of P2P shows when one has to distribute highly attractive data, like the latest episode of a soap opera or some sort of software patch/update in short period of time. One of the advantages of this is that the more people who download the (same) data, the more efficient P2P is for the provider, slashing the cost of the transit fees that a CDN provider has to pay to their upstream IP transit providers.

On the other hand, the “long tail” type material does not benefit much from P2P delivery schema, since, to gain advantage over traditional distribution models, a P2P-enabled CDN must force storing (caching) data on peers—something that is usually not desired by users and which is rarely enabled.

Contrary to popular belief P2P is not limited to low-bandwidth audio-video signal distribution. There is no technical boundary, built-in inefficiency, or flaw-by-design in peer-to-peer technology to prevent distribution of full HD audio+video signal at, for example, 8 Mbit/s. It's just environmental factors, like low (upload) bandwidth or inadequate computing power in CE devices, that prevent HD material being publicly available in P2P CDNs. (Low bandwidth problems also apply to traditional CDN, though.)

There are some concerns about lack of Quality of Service control over P2P distribution, but these are being addressed by the P2P-Next consortium. Other concerns include security (e.g. modification of content to include malware) and DRM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

American News Project

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:15:00 +0000

American News Project is an English-language journalism network broadcast via the Internet. Launched in May 2008 by Nick Penniman, its aim is to collaborate with other journalists in the independent press. According to their website, their videos have received "hundreds of thousands of views on dozens of websites all over the world." The website hosts professional and citizen journalism typically outside the United States' mass media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

ACC Select

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:34:00 +0000

ACC Select is a subscription-based internet television service hosted by CBS College Sports Network that broadcasts live Atlantic Coast Conference sporting events. ACC Select broadcasts over 600 sporting events throughout each year, including many of the conference's otherwise untelevised college football games. The service was previously hosted by the now-defunct PlayOn! Sports before moving to CBS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

User:Charliebobgordon/TuneVibez

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:53:00 +0000

TuneVibez is an international internet radio station ran by a group of British teenagers. The station airs for a few hours in the evening on weekends and primarily gains their listeners from the social networking website, Twitter by asking users of the website to tweet about the station.

The station plays music primarily from indie record labels and artists like DFTBA records, Outasight, Dave Days and Music from Blue Skies. Although, they have gained more popular artists like Marina And The Diamonds.

The station uses an Icecast server to stream live audio to the stations listeners, the station currently streams at 56kbps but there are plans to raise this to 128kbps to provide better audio quality for the stations listeners.

The station was founded by 15 year old Andrew Brackin on December 26, 2009.

Content

People involved in running the station

TuneVibez has gained volunteers to manage the radio station over the past few months. The following are listed in order joined:

* Andrew Brackin (Producer, founder, presenter and DJ)
* Alexander Odam (Presenter and DJ)
* Grant Parkes (Presenter and DJ)
* Charlie Gordon (Website designer, presenter and DJ)
* Jonathan Rowntree (Co-producer, presenter and DJ)
* Liam Forkings (Presenter and DJ)
* Matthew Underwood (Presenter and DJ)

More detailed description of each DJ can be found on the TuneVibez website.

Music

TuneVibez broadcasts from a selection of artists and record labels that they have written permission to play on air. The station plays independent music, as well as more popular music from artists like Marina And The Diamonds.

Genres of music that TuneVibez plays include Rap, Hip Hop, Rock, House Music, Electronica, Dance Music, Drum N' Bass and Pop Music. The station also plays cover music, and humorous parodies.

Discussion Topics

The TuneVibez presenters use Twitter as a way to get the community interacting with the shows by them being able to talk to the presenters live on air.

Frequencies

The station is streamed in the Windows Media format via the "TuneVibez Player" at http://tunevibez.com/player/

but can also be listened to from mobile devices, and desktop applications such as Apple iTunes, VLC Media Player, Winamp or Windows Media Player

Website features

The TuneVibez website

was built by 14 year old Charlie Gordon. The website was created to allow users to interact with the station more.

Twitter chat

The TuneVibez website uses a Roomatic Twitter chat

that allows listeners to tweet about the station and communicate with the presenters and the other DJs.

Requesting songs

The website has a Request Tunes page

where the listeners can fill in a PHP contact form to request a song to be played on air. Listeners have a selection of artists to choose from.

Contacting the station

Users of the website are able to use the Contact page

to get in touch with Andrew Brackin, the founder of TuneVibez. They created the page so that artists and record labels that would like their songs on TuneVibez, can contact them, it's also used to report website issues.

Help pages

The webmaster created a help page

where users can visit the page to get assistance with using some of the website's features, as well as giving users ways to promote TuneVibez.

Founder

Andrew came up with the idea for TuneVibez in late 2009 after creating a few test streams under his company name Brackin Media. Andrew comes from South London in the UK and is 15 years old. In the past he has ran technology blogs such as TotallyTechBlog which has now been sold and has produced video content on YouTube since late 2006. Brackin Media has started a number of

Further reading

* Rowntree, Jonathan (2010-02-12). "Me and TuneVibez".
http://jonnyrowntree.com/2010/02/me-and-tunevibez/.

* Cec, CpFilmsLike (2009-02-13). "TuneVibez (YouTube video)".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_HuBA_lPXg.

* Underwood, Matthew. "TuneVibez".
http://www.greenmanvideos.com/#/tunevibez/4538463958.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:49:00 +0000

ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband is a two-way satellite broadband Internet service for use on private boats and commercial ships throughout European waters.

ASTRA2Connect provides high-speed Internet access (at up to 2Mbit/s downlink) along with VoIP telephone, email, and virtual private network services to vessels while at anchor/moored or in motion. The service started in September 2009.

The ship-borne service is based on the ASTRA2Connect land-based satellite broadband technology and is operated by ASTRA Broadband Services (ABBS), a subsidiary of SES ASTRA, itself a subsidiary of SES based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg, in conjunction with Korean marine antenna manufacturers KNS.

Uses

ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband provides an always-on Internet connection to vessels, and the service can be used equally well while a vessel is either docked or underway at sea, to provide users the same connectivity capabilities they have in their homes or offices.

The service is intended for pleasure crafts, fishing and coastal ships, ferries and smaller commercial cargo carriers, operating mainly in the North and Baltic Seas, and the northern Mediterranean. ASTRA2Connect coverage is available throughout Europe and so the service may also be used by boats on in-land waterways.

Astra Broadband Services claims that the service provides for all aspects of maritime communications, including:

* VoIP telephone
* email
* on-board entertainment
* worldwide web browsing
* crew communications
* data transfer
* content-on-demand
* virtual private networks

The main alternative to the service is Inmarsat's FleetBroadband service that, although almost global in reach, is based on 3G technologies and limited to a 432Kbits/s download speed.

Marketing

ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband is marketed to end users by third party service providers, of which there is currently one for all of Europe – UK-based H2OSatellite. The H2OLitespeed package includes hardware rental and broadband access in a fixed-rate monthly fee, dependent on the speed of connection (512Kbit/s download, 96Kbits/s upload, 1024Kbit/s download, 128Kbits/s upload, and 2048Kbit/s download, 128Kbits/s upload are available).

Technology

The Internet connection provided by ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband is a two-way satellite link between the user’s vessel and the Astra 1E communications satellite at 23.5° east, which in turn is linked to the Astra Broadband Services HQ and teleport in Betzdorf where a hub connects to the Internet backbone.

Downlinks and uplinks to/from the vessel's antenna comprise IP data embedded in a DVB-S2 carrier using the Ku band (10.70GHz-12.75GHz for downlink, 14.00GHz-14.50GHz for uplink).

User Equipment

essels using ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband require a simple VSAT terminal comprising an antenna developed by KNS and modem from Newtec. The antenna is an in-motion motorised and stabilised dish for reception and transmission (500mW), which automatically aligns to the Astra 1E satellite and maintains its orientation (and therefore the IP link to the satellite) even while the vessel is in motion – underway, manoeuvring, rolling or pitching.

ASTRA2Connect Maritime Broadband uses the KNS SuperTrack A9 antenna – an 85cm dish weighing 57 kg, housed in a 110 cm x 103 cm protective radome – which is mounted on the superstructure and connected to an ACU (Antenna Control Unit) in the control room. Also in the control room, the ASTRA2Connect satellite modem connects to the dish’s iLNB and to the user's local area network using a standard RJ-45 Ethernet connector, behaving as an IP Bridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:28:00 +0000

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail.

Most traditional communications media, such as telephone and television services, are reshaped or redefined using the technologies of the Internet, giving rise to services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV. Newspaper publishing has been reshaped into Web sites, blogging, and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated the creation of new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking sites.

The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant and distributed computer networks. This research and a period of civilian funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation spawned worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and led to the commercialization of an international network in the mid 1990s, and resulted in the following popularization of countless applications in virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth's population uses the services of the Internet.

The Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own standards. Only the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System, are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely-affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Future Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:55:00 +0000

Future Internet is a summarizing term for worldwide research activities dedicated to the further development of the original Internet (see also History of the Internet).

While the technical development of the Internet has been an extensive research topic from the beginning, an increased public awareness of several critical shortcomings in terms of performance, reliability, scalability, security and many other categories including societal, economical and business aspects, has led to Future Internet research efforts.

Given the diversity of technologies related to the Internet, extended by lower and higher layers and applications, the related research topics are wide spread.

In addition, the approaches towards a Future Internet range from small, incremental evolutionary steps to complete redesigns (clean slate) and architecture principles, where the applied technologies shall not be limited by existing standards or paradigms such as client server networking, which, for example, might evolve into co-operative peer structures. The fact that an IP address denotes both the identifier as well as the locator of an end system, sometimes referred to as semantic overload, is an example of a conceptual shortcoming of the Internet protocol architecture. The clean slate type of approaches are based on the experience that supplementary or late additions to an original and established design are limited in their acceptance and introduction. Technical examples for evolutionary approaches include supplements to existing Internet technology, such as MobileIP, IPSec, DiffServ, HIP, RSerPool, Shim6 or IPv6. Illustrative examples for alternatives that follow the clean slate idea can be found by using search engines. Since most of the projects are either ongoing, or technically not settled yet, and also to avoid instability or bias of this article towards any of them, none of them are listed or explained here.

Regarding the current status of Future Internet, it seems too early to identify any technical consensus or even standardization. Therefore, the term Future Internet should be used with caution only, especially not as a specific technology but instead as an abstract referrer to the visible, worldwide activities in this direction.

The non-technical aspects of the Future Internet span large areas such as socio-economics, business and environmental issues. The OECD has picked up the term and shown activities such as publishing recommendations for the future of the Internet economy, for example (see the activities section).

The time horizon of Future Internet studies is typically considered to be long term, taking several years before significant results can be expected or corresponding deployments take place in the real world.

Research areas that could be seen as components of the Future Internet include Network management, see Management of the Future Internet, Network virtualization, and an approach called network of information, treating any kind of information as objects, independent of their storage or location.

Implementation plans and activities

While Future Internet is often connotated with the Global Environment for Network Innovations initiatives of the NSF, several other international research programmes have adopted this term. Future Internet Research and Experimentation is a research program funded by the European Union to foster research on the future developments of Internet technology and services. While the list is non-exhaustive, it exemplifies the world wide or national scale, and not on single projects.

* European Future Internet Portal
* FIA - Future Internet Assembly
* EU ICT FP7 Future Internet projects
* Future Internet Research and Experimentation
* FIND - Future Internet network design
* GENI - Global Environment for Network Innovations
* Clean Slate Research Program - Stanford University
* ITU-T Study Group 13 (SG13) on Future Networks including mobile and NGN, focus group FG-FN, Q21/13
* ITFAN Inter-Agency Task Force for Advanced Networking (USA)
* it839/u-it839 (Korea)
* it839/u-it839 and FIF (Future Internet Forum) funded by MIC (Korea) http://www.fif.kr/
* NICTA (Australia)
* ANR (France)
* Groupe de Reflexion Internet du Futur (France)
* G-LAB funded by BMBF (Germany)http://www.german-lab.de/project/
* ICT SHOK (Finland) http://www.futureinternet.fi
* AKARI Project (Japan) http://akari-project.nict.go.jp/eng/index2.htm
* Super Janet funded by EPSRC (UK)
* Plataforma tecnologica española de convergencia hacia IF (Spain) http://www.idi.aetic.es/esInternet/
* Internet del Futuro (Spain) http://www.internetdelfuturo.es
* Ambient Sweden http://www.vinnova.se/upload/EPiStorePDF/AmbientSweden.pdf
* Belgium http://www.ibbt.be
* Luxembourg ttp://www.ipv6council.lu
* Italy http://cit.fbk.eu/future_internet
* Netherlands http://www.futureinternet.ez.nl
* Ireland http://www.futureinternet.ie

http://en.wikipedia.org/

ACC Select

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:06:00 +0000

Zarafa (software)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:40:00 +0000

Zarafa is a European open source collaborative software solution developed in Delft, the Netherlands. It provides email storage on the server side and brings its own Ajax-based mail client called WebAccess. All server side components and the WebAccess of Zarafa are published under the AGPL license. Advanced features are available in commercially supported versions ("Standard", "Professional" and "Enterprise" (different feature levels)). The community edition supports three Outlook users for free.

Zarafa is designed to integrate with Microsoft Office Outlook and is meant as an alternative to the Microsoft Exchange Server. The WebAccess has the same "look-and-feel" as the Outlook desktop application. People used to working with Outlook will be able to use the WebAccess without any problems. Besides the personal address book, calendar, notes and tasks, "Public Folders" and shared calendar functionalities (inviting internal and external users, resource management) can be handled by the software as well.

On 18th of September 2008 Zarafa launched the full server side stack under the Affero General Public License. The open source community version can be downloaded at www.zarafa.com/community.

The company that develops Zarafa has used Connectux as a tradename but is now called Zarafa.

Technology

Zarafa provides its groupware functionality by connecting the Linux-based server with Outlook clients using MAPI. The communication between server and client is based upon SOAP technology. The secure Outlook connect is realized using HTTPS. All data is generally stored in a MySQL. Attachments can be saved on the filesystem. The Zarafa server can get its users information from LDAP, Active directory, Unix users or the MySQL database. The webmail is based on AJAX technology, with a PHP backend using a MAPI php extension. Other clients can connect via POP3, IMAP and iCalendar.

The project Z-Push was initiated by Zarafa in October 2007. It supports ActiveSync compatible devices (Symbian, Pocket PC, iPhone (firmware 2.X), Nokia (mail4Exchange)) implementing the ActiveSync protocol and using the Incremental Change System (ICS) provided by the PHP-MAPI extension.

Zarafa is part of the OpenMapi project which is developing an open groupware API based on MAPI.

Supported clients

* Outlook 2000 - 2007
* Web access via Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8
* All ActiveSync compatible PDA's and smartphones via Z-push
* BlackBerry devices via the Blackberry Enterprise Server
* POP3/IMAP4 email clients
* iCal/Caldav calendar clients

Features

* Addressbook
* Calendar
* Notes
* Tasks
* Personal Folders / Public Outlook Folders
* Permissions for every User and Folder configurable
* Meeting invitation and free/busy option
* Resources planning
* POP3
* IMAP
* iCalendar
* Caldav
* PDA synchronization via Z-push
* BlackBerry integration over BES
* Out-of-office message
* Brick-level backup
* Single sign-on

Screen Shot

Screenshots are available at the Zarafa homepage.

Integrated in open source

Zarafa is compatible / integrated with many other open source projects.

* MTA: Postfix, Exim, Qmail, Sendmail
* Database: MySQL
* Authentication: OpenLDAP, Kerberos (protocol)
* Web technologies: Apache, PHP
* Anti-Spam/Virus solutions: ClamAV, SpamAssassin, AMaViS/amavisd-new, DSPAM

Integration with other applications

Zarafa developed and recently released an integration framework for 3rd party software. On the serverside the Zarafa calendar, contacts, tasks and notes can be replicated in realtime to other applications using the replication framework Z-Merge. A demo integration for SugarCRM was realized. The Alfresco ECM system was integrated using the Webaccess Plugin System. The user is able to archive attachments directly to Alfresco and send e-mails attaching files from the Alfresco repository. An integration with OpenERP is also available.

A overview of integrated applications and an online demo (incl. SugarCRM and Alfresco ECM) can be found at the homepage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Z-push

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:39:00 +0000

Z-Push is an open source implementation of Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol which is used 'over-the-air' for multi platform active sync devices, including Windows Mobile and other ActiveSync compatible devices.

Z-Push enables any PHP-based groupware package to become fully syncable with any ActiveSync-compliant device.

Currently, Z-Push is available with only four backends: the IMAP and the Maildir backend for e-mail synchronization, the vCard backend for contact synchronization and one for the Zarafa package which is sold by allowing full synchronization of E-mail, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks.

Technical background & Architecture

The Z-Push protocol is HTTP based, and uses WBXML (WAP Binary XML) as a communication layer, which is used for bi-directional communication between the PDA/cellular phone and the Server.

Inside the protocol there is everything you expect from a synchronization protocol: the process of sending items from one side to the other, while keeping track of what has already been sent. The Z-Push hides the complexity of handling these protocol requests to the backend developer, who only needs to implement various standard functions, like getting a list of items, and getting the data for a specific item. All that is needed is a good understanding of the WBXML object definitions and fields, and a developer can quite easily get the items of any groupware solutions onto the PDA/cellular phone.

The Z-Push has various performance and usability-related features; for example, the entire architecture of the project is based on the idea that only one message should ever have to be in memory at one time, even when the server is sending hundreds of messages to a PDA. This may sound easy, but in most XML-based applications, the XML result data is built in-memory before being serialized to the network - exactly the opposite to what Z-Push does, as data is streamed to the client while it is read from the backend. This not only improves already restricted memory usage in PHP, it also makes the progress bar on the client more user-friendly, as data starts arriving as soon as the synchronization request is made. Z-Push has provided a streaming WBXML encoder and decoder to make this happen.

When a backend supports it, Z-Push can also make use of advanced features which bring server load down even lower, for example reading message changes directly from a 'diff' source, instead of comparing all the messages with whatever was in there last time. So if the groupware backend can provide a list of changes on-the-fly, then Z-Push can use this information almost instantaneously. Zarafa provides an incremental synchronization backend for its own MAPI-based solution here through their PHP-MAPI extension, enabling extremely low-load synchronizations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Remo Sync

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:52:00 +0000

RemoSync is a software application that provides corporate email, calendar and contact synchronization for mobile phones capable of running BREW applications. Conceived as a low-cost alternative to BlackBerry or iPhone devices, RemoSync is currently available on the Verizon wireless network.

RemoSync was developed by Remoba, Inc., a software firm in Santa Clara, California.

Criticism

Advantages

* RemoSync operates on a variety of low-to-mid-range handsets.
* No additional server infrastructure is required. Back-end implemention is via Microsoft Exchange Server Mobile Policy Settings.
* Data transmission is encrypted with SSL. RemoSync implements all mobile security features available on Microsoft Exchange.

Disadvantages

* Service must be offered by wireless carrier. Currently only Verizon wireless enables RemoSync.
* Only available for companies running Microsoft Exchange Server or those using a hosted Exchange solution.

Notable Devices Using RemoSync

* LG Dare
* Samsung Alias 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Push e-mail

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Push e-mail is used to describe e-mail systems that provide an always-on capability, in which new e-mail is actively transferred (pushed) as it arrives by the mail delivery agent (MDA) (commonly called mail server) to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the e-mail client. E-mail clients include smartphones and, less strictly, IMAP personal computer mail applications.

Comparison with polling e-mail

Post Office Protocol (POP3) is an example of a polling email delivery protocol. At login and later at intervals, the Mail User Agent (client) polls the Mail Delivery Agent (server) to see if there is new mail, and if so downloads it to a mailbox on the user's computer. However, outgoing mail is generally pushed directly from the sender to the final Mail Delivery Agent. Extending this push to the last delivery step is what distinguishes push e-mail from polling e-mail systems.

The reason that polling is often used for the last stage of mail delivery is that, although the server Mail Delivery Agent would normally be permanently connected to the network, it does not necessarily know how to locate the client Mail User Agent, which may only be connected occasionally and also change network address quite often. For example, a user with a laptop on a WiFi connection may be assigned different addresses from the network DHCP server periodically and have no persistent network name. When new mail arrives to the mail server, it does not know what address the client is currently assigned.

The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) provides support for polling and notifications. When a client receives a notification from a server, the client may choose to fetch the new data from the server. This makes retrieval of new messages more flexible than a purely-push system, because the client can choose whether to download new message data.

Mobile users

Although push e-mail had existed in wired-based systems for many years, one of the first uses of the system with a portable, "always on" wireless device outside of Asia was the BlackBerry service from Research In Motion. In Japan, "push e-mail" has been standard in cell phones since 2000.

Apple iPhone and iPod touch

Apple's iPhone do not support background services, this means that there is literally no push mail when the phone is in standby mode. To overcome this Apple have integrated the Apple Push Notification Service in the OS3. To use the service each email provider must build a separate notification service and connect it to the Apple Push Notification Service, and as usual have the application approved. When the phone is turned on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch support Yahoo! push e-mail, Gmail push e-mail (via Google Sync) and Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync platform allowing them to synchronize e-mail, calendars and contacts with a Microsoft Exchange Server, Zimbra, NuevaSync or Kerio MailServer. Apple's own MobileMe subscription-service for push email, contacts, and calendars is also supported.

Google Android

Google's Mobile OS supports Push e-mail based on Microsoft's ActiveSync platform, including push GMail.

Helio Ocean

Helio began adding support to its "ultimate inbox" for push e-mail to the Helio Ocean in July 2007 with support for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, and AOL Mail. On April 23, 2008 push support was added for Gmail, along with automatic notifications for POP and IMAP services.

Microsoft Windows Mobile

Microsoft began offering real-time e-mail notification with Windows Mobile 2003 (sending SMS mesages when new mail arrive), then replaced it with a simulated push experience (long polling) in 2007 with the release of Windows Mobile 5 AKU2 under the name "Direct Push Technology". 'Direct Push' technology is an additional feature added to Microsoft Exchange 2003 with service pack 2 that adds messaging and security features. A phone device running Windows Mobile 5 is enabled to poll Exchange Server each 30 minutes. If new mail arrives in polling interval, it is instantly pulled using a subscriber's existing wireless phone account (this allows device to have changing IP or traverse NAT/Proxy). To achieve push mail with e-mail providers other than Exchange, there is a commercially available plug-in from Emansio that enables push mail with almost any public e-mail provider (such as Google, AOL, GoDaddy), or any e-mail server that supports IMAP-IDLE. Additionally, a free, open-source, executable has been developed to take advantage of the IMAP-IDLE command.

Nokia Symbian Series 60

Some Nokia Symbian S60 models support basic IMAP IDLE functionality with its built-in client.

Mail for Exchange

The Nokia Eseries smartphones and select models of Nseries smartphones support the Mail for Exchange software, which is compatible with Microsoft Exchange Server Active Sync and Direct Push, allowing the Nokia smartphones to receive push email as well as sync contact lists, calendars, and tasks with Exchange servers. Global Address Lookup is also supported, starting with version 2 of the Mail for Exchange software.

Nokia Messaging

Nokia Messaging Email is a push e-mail service and client application, that supports most of the popular e-mail providers like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, GMail and many more. Nokia Messaging servers aggregate messages from up to ten accounts on and pushes them to compliant devices (Nokia S60 and some S40, plus Maemo-based devices like the N900).

Palm OS

Palm Smartphone devices such as the Treo have had IMAP IDLE available through the use of 3rd Party software ChatterEmail as early as 2004. There is no additional server software required.

Palm webOS

The Palm Pre webOS has push email for Gmail, IMAP, and Exchange accounts.

Research In Motion BlackBerry

RIM's BlackBerry uses wireless Mail User Agent devices and a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) attached to a traditional e-mail system. The BES monitors the e-mail server, and when it sees new e-mail for a BlackBerry user, it retrieves (pulls) a copy and then pushes it to the BlackBerry handheld device over the wireless network.

BlackBerry became very popular, in part because it offers remote users "instant" e-mail; new e-mails appear on the device as soon as they arrive, without the need for any user intervention. The handheld becomes a mobile, dynamically updating, copy of the user's mailbox. As a result of the success of BlackBerry, other manufacturers have developed push e-mail systems for other handheld devices, such as Symbian- and Windows Mobile-based mobile phones. However, IMAP synchronization through BlackBerry Internet Service is not two-way.

Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson Smartphones (M600, P990, W950, P1, W960, W995, G900, G700) as well as some Cybershot phones (K790, K800, K810, K850, C510, C905) feature push e-mail using IMAP IDLE or with the built-in ActiveSync client (developed by Dataviz). Most other Sony Ericsson phones support IMAP IDLE push e-mail quite well (only the inbox however).

Other mobile users

Other open push e-mail solutions available in the market today are NotifyLink, Visto and Good Technology (part of Motorola) as well as Synchronica.

NotifyLink supports the following backends: Alt-N Technologies, Communigate Pro, Kerio MailServer, Meeting Maker, Microsoft Exchange 2000/03/07, Mirapoint, Novell GroupWise, Oracle, Scalix, Sun Java Communications Suite, and Zimbra, plus other solutions for e-mail only. The supported mobile devices/operating systems include Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian OS and Palm OS.

The key benefit of Visto Solution is that it works on any SmartPhone Treo680, 700w, and the new MotoQ.

Good Technology's Good Mobile Messaging (formerly known as GoodLink) supports Microsoft Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007 as well as Lotus Notes.

Visto supports Exchange 5.5/2000/2003, Domino all versions and works with any ISP e-mail. Visto acquired Good at early 2009 and changed their Company name as GOOD.

Synchronica provides a client-less, carrier-grade push Email and synchronization solution based entirely on open industry standards. Their core product, Mobile Gateway, supports push mail standards like IMAP, IDLE and OMA EMN as well as PIM synchronization using OMA DS (SyncML). Towards backends, it supports POP, IMAP, Microsoft Exchange and Sun Communications Suite.

Peek provides mobile push email for consumers. They have their own device, very much like the BlackBerry. Peek supports POP and IMAP, with compatibility to 'Yahoo Mail', 'AOL Mail', 'Hotmail', and 'Gmail'. The Peek device is email only and does not provide voice or any other converged services available on cell phones.

Another company to offer a push e-mail solution is Critical Path, Inc. under the brand name Memova Mobile, the only requirement of this is that the handset have GPRS and MMS capability.

Most of these non-proprietary solutions are network independent, meaning that as long as a device is GPRS enabled and has an e-mail client, it will have the ability to send/receive e-mails in any country and via any telco that has GPRS on its network. It also means that so long as the device itself is not SIM locked, the constraints of BlackBerry such as Network locking, vendor locking (BlackBerry devices and BlackBerry Connect devices) and GPRS-roaming charges (for non-home access) are not an issue. Pop in a local SIM card in any country the user is in, have the correct APN settings and get your mail at LOCAL rates.

Simulation using traditional e-mail

Traditional mobile mail clients may poll for new mail at frequent intervals, with or without downloading the mail to the client, thus providing a similar user experience as push e-mail.

IMAP in fact allows many notifications to be sent at any time, but not message data. The IDLE command is often used to signal the ability of a client to process notifications sent outside of a command running, which effectively provides a user experience identical to push.

Protocols

In contrast to traditional e-mail, most of the protocols used in popular current systems are proprietary; for example, BlackBerry uses its own private protocols developed by RIM. Both the Push-IMAP standard and parts of the SyncML standards are attempting to develop more open solutions.

IETF Lemonade is a set of extensions to IMAP and SMTP to make them more suited to the demands of mobile e-mail. Among the extensions are rapid IMAP resynchronization and a new NOTIFY command in IMAP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

O3SIS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:13:00 +0000

O3SIS AG Founded 1996 by Bernd Rützel, Ute Heymann and Dirk Dörre, O3SIS AG initially has been focusing on research and development of middleware connecting "thin client" devices to application servers via IP networks.

O3SIS AG is a provider of carrier-grade mobile software solutions. O3SIS living mobility products help to protect and share personal mobile data and media content. Users can interact and communicate through web, mobile phones, communities and social networks.

History

O3SIS AG (formerly O3SIS Information Technology AG) was founded by Bernd Rützel, Ute Heymann and Dirk Dörre in 1996, specializing in carrier-grade mobile software solutions.
Now
New Living Mobility product suites presented for next generation mobile communication, data protection and sharing of personal data and media
2008 New company divisions "Enterprise" and "Retail" with tailored products introduced
2007 O3SIS start roll out of its market leading mobile device Client strategy to enable Synchronisation and Push Mail on Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone and other smartphones
2007 O3SIS introduces Over-The-Air Backup & Restore and Push Mail on PocketPC and Windows Mobile Smartphones
2006 o2 Germany is first mobile operator to deploy a fully fledged Communication Center based on the O3SIS Unified Mobile Applications platform (UMA)
2005 Worldwide marketing of O3SIS' Over The Air Data Synchronisation Services
2004 Vodafone Germany is the first mobile operator to offer O3SIS Over The Air (OTA) Backup & Restore services of personal addresses to its customers in Germany
2001 New product "XPAnywhere" presented for seamless synchronisation of contacts and calendar as well as transfer of files from PC to mobile phones
2000 Introducing first Mobile E-mail with T-Motion UK
2000 Launch Wireless Companion and "Untereschbach.com" – first "Wireless Village" of the world
1999 Launch of famous "YourWap.com" portal for personal communication via Internet and Mobile Phones
1996 o3sis AG – company founded

Acquisitions

O3SIS’ solutions are currently deployed by top tier mobile operators, including Vodafone Group, E-Plus, O2, and T-Mobile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Funambol

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:38:00 +0000

Funambol is an American corporation that earns revenue from its dual-licensing business model that includes commercial software and free open source mobile data synchronization software based on the Funambol core project.

Funambol project

The Funambol core project is a free and open source mobile synchronization server that provides push email, address book and calendar (PIM) data synchronization, and device management for wireless devices, leveraging standard protocols such as SyncML. For users, this means BlackBerry-like capabilities on commodity handsets.

Funambol is also a development platform for mobile applications. It provides C++ and Java client APIs and server side Java APIs, and facilitates the development, deployment and management of any mobile project.

Funambol consists of several components, including:

* Funambol Data Synchronization Server: a mobile application server providing synchronization services for wireless clients and PCs, including push email.
* Funambol Device Management: an OMA DM server to remotely manage mobile devices.
* Funambol Connectors: gateways to file systems, databases, email systems, and applications for two-way synchronization with existing data assets.
* Funambol Client Plug-ins: protocol extenders and clients for Microsoft Office Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird (experimental), Mozilla Sunbird (experimental), Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm and iPod and iPhone so users can synchronize their email messages and PIM data (address book, calendar, tasks and notes) with the server.
* Funambol Software Development Kit: tools to develop sometimes-connected mobile applications on devices (in Java - J2SE and J2ME - and C++) and to add data sources to the server.

History

The Funambol project was started in 2001 by developers because of the lack of an open source Java implementation for mobile device data synchronization. The Funambol project has gone beyond the original server engine, and now includes administration tools and client-side APIs. According to the project website, Funambol has been downloaded more than two million times. The project won Linux World Editor's Choice 2006 Award and Gold Star awards from Mobile Village readers for consumer push email and PIM solutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Skyfire (web browser)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:14:00 +0000

Skyfire is a mobile web browser for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 and Symbian S60 v3. On May 27, 2009, version 1.0 was released.

It is the first browser software for Windows Mobile which can view Adobe Flash content and streaming video.

In Skyfire, a webpage is fully rendered by a server separate from the mobile device, similar to the operation of a thin client. This approach is also used by Opera Mini, and is usually faster and supports better rendering techniques.

How it works

Skyfire is a web browser which operates by rendering requested web pages on a server using the Gecko rendering engine before sending the rendered output to the browser. The output is sent as images annotated with interactive items such as links and text-fields.

Consequently, the browser is able to use features from a fully-featured desktop web browser without the need to have a powerful mobile device. Features such as Adobe Flash, Silverlight and QuickTime are usable without additional plug-ins on the device, and can be easily updated server-side without the need to update the client.

Supported Devices and Platforms

* Windows Mobile 5, 6, 6.1 AT&T 8525, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Fuze, Treo 750
* Symbian OS, Nokia Eseries and Nseries running Symbian S60, 3rd edition [1]

For a complete list of devices visit the support site

Awards

* 2008 Read Write Web's one of six must have applications for Windows Mobile
* 2008 Laptop Magazine's Mobile Maverick Award
* 2009 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Mobile Application

http://en.wikipedia.org/