Gillian Shaw
Sun

A little device that lets you watch your home TV programs from anywhere in the world is being launched across Canada today.

In B.C., London Drugs announced Wednesday it will be among the first retailers in western Canada to sell the Slingbox, a $299 box that redirects a cable or satellite TV feed through an Internet connection so users can watch their favourite programs on a computer or even a cellphone, wherever they are.

And Future Shop is offering the Slingbox for sale on its online site today, with the device expected on store shelves across Canada starting early next week.

It was first available in the U.S. last summer.

The brainchild of brothers Blake and Jason Krikorian and Bhupen Shah, the Slingbox had its start when the brothers were upset at missing games of their home team, the San Francisco Giants, in 2002 when it was in the midst of its hunt for the World Series championship.

The Slingbox, a sleek little device only 27-centimetres long and nine-centimetres wide and weighing less than a kilogram, grew out of that frustration.

Brian Jaquet, spokesman for Sling Media, the California company behind the device, said the Slingbox will be available for ordering across Canada starting today with stock already on some store shelves and others to follow next week.

“Wherever you can get a network connection, you can get the same control of your home TV as if you were at home,” said Jaquet, who said that since Slingbox is a one-to-one stream and not a broadcast and uses the same cable or satellite connection consumers have paid for, only in a different location, it has not raised concerns among cable and satellite providers.

Along with live television, the Slingbox also lets viewers tune into shows they have recorded on their personal video recorders (PVRs).

Since the Slingbox first emerged, Cedric Tetzel, merchandise manager for computers at London Drugs, said his company has been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to sell it here.

“We’re quite excited about it,” he said. “It was a technology we were keeping track of, but it needed Canadian certification, and that took a while.

“Now we can get our hands on it, it is really exciting.”

Tetzel, who has been trying out the Slingbox at home, said on a recent business trip to Germany he was able to watch the Canucks playing the Anaheim Mighty Ducks from his hotel room. On the WiFi-equipped plane ride back, he could watch his home channels on his laptop just as if he were sitting in his living room.

At home, when his children monopolized the family’s two television sets, Tetzel said the Slingbox allowed him to watch a Canucks game on his laptop.

“It is really great for people who travel and for people who don’t have enough televisions at home,” he said.

The U.S.-based makers of the device, Sling Media Inc., also recently announced the release of SlingPlayer Mobile, a new software package that lets Slingbox owners watch and control their television from any network-enabled mobile phone or handheld computer powered by Windows Mobile.

Anywhere you have a broadband Internet connection — whether wireless or wired — you’ll be able to tune into your home TV shows on computer or wireless device that has the Slingbox software loaded in it.

While London Drugs is listing the Slingbox at $299, Tetzel said it will be offered with a $50 rebate in an upcoming advertisement, dropping the price to $249.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Marc Saltzman
Sun

As a communications consultant and executive coach, Simon Atkins is in demand — and on the move.

So, the president of Socratic Communications, who serves clients in the Toronto area, relies on a pocket-sized e-mail device so he can stay in touch while out of the office.

“In the business I’m in, it’s critical that I’m accessible, especially to journalists who may be on deadline” explains Atkins. “It’s my conduit for doing business, and staying connected and productive.”

Atkins relies on the Palm Treo 650 hand-held “as it seamlessly integrates with my Apple computer [and it] can also play music and video files.”

“And I’m a recent convert to the game Sudoku” Atkins says with a smile.

Products such as Atkins’s beloved Treo and the wildly popular BlackBerry devices from Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion, have become indispensable business tools capable of “push e-mail.” That is, instead of logging onto the Internet to “pull” e-mail down to the handset, “push e-mail” devices let users know when a new e-mail has arrived in real-time via a chime or vibration. You can then read the note and decide to type a response on the fly.

Whether it’s for business or pleasure or a bit of both, the following are a few of the popular “push e-mail” solutions available today:

– BlackBerry 7130e ($99 for a three-year service plan with Bell Mobility or Telus Mobility; www.rim.com)

Unlike the wider BlackBerry handsets on the market, the candy bar-sized 7130e is a popular pick among mobile executives for its slim form. The trade-off, however, is the alphanumeric buttons instead of the QWERTY keyboard, but Research in Motion’s proprietary SureType technology is super smart as it completes your words for you. This CDMA-based handset also runs on the EVDO network for fast download speeds. It’s also a phone and speakerphone, and supports Bluetooth peripherals.

– Palm Treo 650 ($299 to $349 for a three-year plan with Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless or Telus Mobility; www.palm.com)

Consider it the digital Swiss Army Knife of mobile gadgets. This popular handset with backlight thumb keyboard offers push e-mail, web surfing, games, text-messaging and cellphone functionality. It also includes a digital camera, MP3 player and support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook files. It’s also fully customizable: It’s a Palm O/S-based PDA (personal digital assistant), so users can tweak the look and functionality of the device with thousands of free downloads.

– UTStarcom PPC 6700 ($399 for a three-year contract with Telus Mobility; www.utstar.com)

It’s a bit of a mouthful, but the UTStarcom PPC6700 is one souped-up gadget with a lot under the hood. For one, it’s the first Pocket PC-based handset in Canada with the brand new Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. It also operates on Telus Mobility’s high-speed wireless CDMA 1xEVDO network for fast downloads (400 to 700 kilobits a second), although this feature is only available in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal. Bundled apps, such as Microsoft Office PowerPoint Mobile, Excel Mobile, Word Mobile and Internet Explorer Mobile make this pocket-sized device with slide-out keyboard feel more like a full PC than a smartphone. Bell Mobility customers may want to consider the Audiovox PPC 6600 ($599 with a three-year contract; www.audiovox.com).

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Two technologies have captured the public’s imagination

Danny Bradbury
Sun

Today, Wi-Fi hotspots are used primarily by Internet users on the move. Coffee-shop users who want to surf and sip can curl up with a laptop, read the news and check their e-mail. But if technology evangelists have their way, tomorrow the same networks will be used for convenient voice calls, bringing cost savings and new service features to mobile users.

Voice over IP using Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) brings together two technologies that have captured the public’s imagination. Wi-Fi has enabled users to cut their network cables and work from anywhere, while voice over IP (VoIP) has shaken up the telephony industry. Users tired of expensive long-distance phone bills have taken to making calls over the Internet using software that converts their voice signals to Internet traffic and reassembles it at the other end.

VoIP started off purely with PC-to-PC calls using headsets, but recently companies such as Skype have made it possible for users to call regular phone numbers from their PCs, and to take calls on their computers from regular phone users, too. Now, companies like Vonage let people make and receive VoIP calls without using a PC at all.

VoWiFi gives users the benefits of both technologies by letting them use VoIP over Wi-Fi links. In the past, people wanting VoWiFi would have to create a makeshift version of it themselves. Using a wireless laptop with Skype, for example, you can make calls from anywhere with a wireless hotspot. It works, but you need a PC headset, and it’s cumbersome when you’re on the move. It’s also annoying to wait for your laptop to boot if it’s turned off.

More convenient forms of VoWiFi are on the horizon and speeding towards us quicker than you might think. Wireless equipment vendor Netgear will soon launch a Wi-Fi handset that will enable people to make and receive Skype calls when they’re in range of a wireless hotspot. Vonage conducted a trial of a Wi-Fi-capable handset in the United States last year, although it drew criticism from industry commentators over its short battery life.

But the biggest boost for VoWiFi will come in the form of traditional cellular phones with a built-in Wi-Fi capability. Currently these are thin on the ground but analyst company ABI Research believes the annual global sales of dual-mode mobile phones will exceed 100 million by 2010. Sprint in the U.S. has already promised a cellphone that will switch to VoWiFi when users are at home, for example.

“Handset makers are definitely putting Wi-Fi chipsets in handsets. The operators are ensuring that the handsets are available. It’s definitely getting there,” says Miguel Myhrer, a senior manager in the global network group at high-tech consultancy firm Accenture. “Once handsets are available and price decreases, you’ll see that take-up.”

Aside from the availability and takeup of Wi-Fi cellular handsets, the biggest barrier to adoption is the availability of Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi hotspot coverage is still patchy, making it difficult to accept calls, and even as meshed Wi-Fi networks begin offering blanket coverage in cities, overloaded access points could cause poor call quality.

Wi-Fi isn’t the only technology relevant to wireless voice.

Wimax — a nascent wireless technology offering long-range wireless coverage — will become important in the future. Bell is particularly active in this area. Last year the company teamed up with U.S.-based Clearwire, which provides wireless broadband services to customers south of the border using a precursor to Wimax. Bell is now the company’s preferred supplier of VoIP services.

“Note that Bell Canada’s move to provide VoIP will impact U.S. incumbent telcos, but not its own incumbent telco operations in Canada,” says Mike Roberts, a principal analyst at telecommunications analyst firm Informa.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Using a phone to pay will become increasingly common in the future

Danny Bradbury
Sun

Jen Pederson was always getting parking tickets. The Saskatoon-based founder of freelance copy-editing agency Second Set of Eyes got caught without change for the meter while travelling to meetings with clients. But when Saskatoon became the first Canadian city to test-trial parking meter payments by mobile phone, it allowed her to solve her parking problems even when she didn’t have a loonie handy.

“Now I just dial a number and my parking’s paid. I don’t have to scrabble for spare change,” she says.

When Pederson reaches a meter, she calls a number provided by Calgary start-up New Parking and enters the parking meter’s ID. The system logs her as having parked and charges her credit card (it can also charge a debit card). Parking meter attendants using wireless devices will know she has paid, and won’t ticket her. When she’s done, she calls the number to end the transaction, which ends anyway after a maximum of two hours. She can even use broken parking meters this way.

Using your cellphone to pay for goods and services will become increasingly common in the future. Mobile phone companies already sell products to consumers via cellphones but they are electronic products designed to be delivered over a network, explains Roger Parks, vice-president of global products for QPass, a company that sells billing systems for mobile phone payments.

Selling ringtones, screensaver pictures and games for phones is one thing. The real trick will come in paying for other goods and services not designed to be delivered over a network.

“Those are consumable third-party goods where returns are not an issue. Parking meters will be the first one, and tickets for events will be the next one,” Parks says. It’s easy to imagine a future in which you buy a ticket online and present a code on a mobile phone screen to a ticket agent at an event, for example.

The third category will be low-priced physical goods such as coffee and items from vending machines, and the last and most challenging category will be “hard” consumer products, where product returns must be dealt with. “You’re talking fuzzy slippers and basketballs,” he quips.

Bell Mobility, Telus Mobility and Rogers Wireless are already preparing for mobile payments. Last November they formed Wireless Payment Services (WPS), a joint venture to develop a standard payment-processing system for mobile e-commerce.

It made more sense for them all to iron out the technical challenges together rather than reinventing the wheel with three separate systems, explains WPS president Jeff Chorlton.

“Once the consumer hits the checkout button on their mobile shopping mall or cart they would be routed to WPS,” he says.

“This will enable the consumer to finish the payment process using their debit or credit card, or another payment instrument.”

In the third quarter of 2006, WPS will launch the first phase of its service, enabling wireless users to top up pre-paid cellular accounts using their mobile phones. In the future, the system will go much further, essentially serving as a phone-based version of cards such as the commonly used Interac debit card. “We will marry the usage of credit cards and debit cards with the mobile device,” says Chorlton. “There will be no physical card to do the transaction.”

Over time, the system will enable customers to buy physical goods and services. For that, the system will require new features in mobile handsets. A promising technology is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) — a small radio device that can communicate with readers nearby.

“You’ll have a terminal, and a more intelligent handset that you will wave at the terminal,” Chortlon says. “The user will then be prompted to enter a pin number. That is ultimately what we’re looking at.”

North America is lagging far behind European countries like Finland, where customers have been able to pay for items like chocolate from vending machines for years.

As for Jen Pederson, she’s happy about not having to pay parking tickets anymore, but she has also developed a new and unsettling relationship with her phone.

“For a while I was getting SMS messages offering discounted rates at parking lots around the city,” she says, amused. When your parking meter starts stalking you and suggesting other meters you might like to try, it’s a sign the system may be getting just a little too smart.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Marc Saltzman
Sun

Setting up a wireless network in the home is one of the hottest tech trends among Canadian computer users. After all, it’s not unusual for more than one PC to be found in a home today — desktop, laptop or wireless-enabled pocket computer — and why shouldn’t they all enjoy the same high-speed Internet connection?

In addition to allowing multiple computers to share the same Internet connection, a wireless network allows you to share the same peripheral between computers, such as a printer. Now you won’t have to buy one for each PC in the home.

What’s more, you can share files between multiple computers, such as listening to your favourite MP3s on any computer in the home. Or you can use a wireless Bluetooth headset with your laptop as a free long-distance phone via MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger or Skype.

This wireless revolution means not only can you avoid fishing wires through walls and floorboards, you don’t have to trade performance for convenience. Today’s wireless equipment can transmit information at 54 Mbps (megabits per second) or higher, which is much faster than your high-speed Internet connection.

– WHAT YOU NEED

As long as you have broadband Internet service — something more than 51 per cent of Canadian homes have today, according to Toronto’s Evans Research Corporation — just two other products are required: One is a wireless router, and the other is a wireless network adapter for any desktop or laptop computer you want to join the network. And you might not need the second item, as most laptops these days already boast built-in wireless network support.

Depending on the speed and features, wireless routers cost between $20 and $200 from manufacturers D-Link, Linksys or Netgear. Be sure to look for one that offers 802.11g technology, as it can transmit information between PCs roughly five times faster than the slightly older 802.11b technology. You may also see 802.11a on the box, which is also ideal as it operates on a different bandwidth (five gigahertz) than the “b” and “g” (at 2.4 Ghz); it should cause less interference with other wireless products such as cordless phones and baby monitors.

Wireless adapters for laptops or desktops can cost between $30 and $80, depending on the brand and speed.

– WHAT TO DO

Unplug the DSL or cable modem cord (a.k.a. “Ethernet” cable) from the computer, and plug it into the wireless router. The correct slot should be labelled with something like “Internet” or “To Modem.”

Plug the wireless router into the back of the PC with an available Ethernet cord, which may be included in the box with the router. The wireless router is now the “middle man” between your modem and your computer.

Next, install any software included with the router (if any); depending on your Internet provider, information about your computer may be required first. You also may be prompted to open your browser to type in some numbers to configure your new wireless router. The manual should provide any necessary help. You will also be asked to give your home network a name, such as “Home Network.”

Unless your computer or PDA (personal digital assistant) already has built-in wireless connectivity, you will need to install a supported Wi-Fi card or USB dongle into a laptop, or connect an internal or external adapter to a desktop computer. Then you’re ready to surf wirelessly.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

20 per cent of firms courting data disaster

Jim Jamieson
Province

Small to medium-sized businesses in Vancouver still don’t get the backup concept, according to a survey conducted by Condor IT Solutions Inc.

The survey found that less than half of all companies surveyed have a disaster recovery plan in case of computer crash, theft or natural disaster.

The survey also found that 56 per cent rely on outdated backup and recovery systems, and a shocking one in five companies has no data backup system whatsoever.

Condor interviewed 184 small to medium-sized companies, including law, accounting and architectural firms, retailers and restaurants.

“Most people don’t realize that data lost from a computer crash isn’t covered by business-interruption insurance, but it can be as devastating to a business as a fire or flood,” said Norm Friend, president of Condor IT Solutions.

Forty-six per cent of local companies reported that one full day without access to their data could put them out of business, while 74 per cent of professional services — such as lawyers and accountants — reported that their business’s future would be “threatened” by a full day without data access.

Despite this, only 31 per cent keep a copy of their software off site.

Friend’s company developed DataVault, a data backup and recovery system aimed at making the backup process simpler and more affordable. The system compresses, transfers and stores a customer’s files in external hard drives that are attached to a pair of DataVaults — about the size of a shoe box.

One is stored in the office, while a second is put in a remote location. Both are connected to the Internet.

“If they’ve got a local DataVault in their office, their information backs up to that one and then at night it backs up to one at their home,” said Friend.

“It goes over the Internet and is encrypted. If their system goes down or their office burns down, they can go to the remote location and you’re back in business.”

Friend said the service, which is monitored for activity but not content, costs $500 for setup and installation and $150 a month.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

David Lieberman
USA Today

NEW YORK — In a move that could ignite a major debate about consumer “fair use” of TV programming, Cablevision Systems will unveil plans to test a service that gives cable subscribers the ability to record and time-shift shows using existing digital set-top boxes.

Although it works just like TiVo and other digital video recorders (DVRs) — consumers choose in advance which shows to capture and can fast-forward through ads — the recording itself will be stored at the cable system, not on a hard drive in the consumer’s home.

The technology for what Cablevision calls its “remote storage digital video recorder” (RS-DVR) “is here today, and in Cablevision’s case, we can use it to put DVR functionality in more than 2 million digital cable homes instantaneously, without ever rolling a truck or swapping out a set-top box,” COO Tom Rutledge says in a statement.

It will be tested on Long Island in the second quarter in advance of a broad commercial rollout. The system will give each subscriber about 80 gigabytes of storage capacity — enough for about 45 hours of programming — on the central server. They’ll also be able to record two programs simultaneously while watching a previously recorded show.

Although pricing hasn’t been set, the company expects it to be less than what it charges for DVR, currently $9.95.

Cablevision’s plan is sure to irk TV networks and programmers. If it catches on, it would weaken their ability to sell reruns of their shows via Internet downloading or video on demand. They also have long held that recordings of their shows — particularly by commercial entities — violates their copyrights.

That’s one reason Time Warner in 2003 scrapped plans to introduce a centralized DVR-like system it called Mystro. It would have recorded all TV shows, giving consumers the ability to select shows to watch on demand up to a month after they had aired.

Time Warner followed up in October with a system called “Start Over,” now in 65,000 homes in South Carolina. It gives cable customers who tune in late to a show the opportunity to watch it from the beginning — but without the ability to fast-forward through ads.

Cablevision says it believes its RS-DVRs don’t violate copyright laws.

“Consumers have well-established rights to ‘time-shift’ television programming by making copies for personal, in-home viewing,” the company says. “This new technology merely enables consumers to exercise their time-shifting rights in the same manner as with traditional DVRs, but at less cost.”

Software developed by pros, so thieves need no training

BRIAN KREBS
Sun

ONLINE FRAUD I When Graeme Frost received an e-mail notice that an expensive camera had been charged to his credit card account, he immediately clicked on the Internet link included in the message that said it would allow him to dispute the charge.
   As the 29-year-old resident of southwestern England scoured the resulting Web page for the merchant’s phone number, the site silently installed a passwordstealing program that transmitted all of his personal and financial information.
   Frost is just one of thousands of victims whose personal data has been stolen by what security experts are calling one of the more brazen and sophisticated Internet fraud rings ever.
   The Web-based softwa re employed by ring members to manage large numbers of illegally commandeered computers is just as easy to use as basic commercial office programs. No knowledge of computer programming or hacking techniques is required to operate the software, which allows the user to infiltrate and steal financial information from thousands of PCs simultaneously.
   The quality of the software tools cyber criminals are using to sort through the mountains of information they’ve stolen is a clear sign that they are seeking more efficient ways to use stolen data, experts say.
   “We believe this to be the work of a group, not a single person,” said Vincent Weafer, senior director of security response at Cupertino, Calif.-based computer security giant Symantec Corp.
   The data thieves use the IE flaw to install programs known as “keyloggers” on computers that visit the specially coded Web pages. The keyloggers then copy the victims’ stored passwords and computer keystrokes and upload that information to a database.

Star Trek-style ‘tricorder’ — invented by a Canadian — can analyse rocks, plants and animals

Tom Spears
Sun

A Canadian geoscientist has invented a Star Trek-style “tricorder” — his own word — that can scan the surface of other planets and identify the rocks without having to stop and grind up pieces in a lab.

It can also analyse plants, animals, and probably other materials.

The hand-held device will be ready for NASA’s next Mars lander, a robotic mission to be launched in 2009.

It shines a laser beam at a rock sample, which “excites” the atoms in the rock, or raises them to a more energetic state. These atoms then give off a weak light in a wavelength unique to each type of rock, like a fingerprint.

All the tricorder needs is an internal catalogue to tell it which wavelength comes from a diamond and which comes from cubic zirconia. It’s also a bit short-sighted; it can only analyse rocks that are close to it.

Scientists call this spectral analysis. It’s the same field in which Canada’s Gerhard Herzberg won a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

The tricorder is the brainchild of Bob Downs, a Canadian professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

It’s designed to be useful for a geologist or prospector in the field to identify rocks, gems or other minerals.

“But it goes much farther than that,” Downs says. “I sent one of my students out around our building, and he recorded all the different leaves, so you can do species of plants with it.

“We have someone who has a collection of snakeskins. We shot all the different skins.”

In other words, the technique of analysing the spectrum of each type of material can go far outside the rock world. Even, he acknowledges, to space aliens.

Like Star Trek’s Klingons, perhaps?

“Well, first you have to have the spectrum in the catalogue [of known materials], so you’d have to bring me one first,” he says. But in principle, he thinks the tricorder could handle it.

That matches the wild assortment of duties that Star Trek got from its hand-held gadget. The tricorder could trouble-shoot a wonky machine, find people (or aliens), and even diagnose disease.

NASA hasn’t said it will definitely take the tricorder to Mars. It funded four scientists in the research, and Mr. Downs is one of them — the only one, he claims, to have a hand-held model the size of a cell phone.

Rocks on Mars won’t be a lot different from earth rocks, he believes. “Mars has a bit more manganese, a bit more iron” than Earth.

“I’d be surprised if we found something we don’t know. But we’ll probably find a different distribution of minerals.”

The geoscientist was to present his machine Sunday to the annual Pittsburgh conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy.

Downs is from Dawson Creek and Nanaimo, and did 10 years of construction work around the province before going back to university.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Peter Wilson
Sun

A city-wide WiFi system for Vancouver is under study, but there is no complete plan laid out like the one announced Wednesday for Toronto that involves Toronto Hydro covering the entire city.

Vancouver Councillor Peter Ladner said that staff at Vancouver city hall are looking at the matter “and we are eagerly awaiting their report back on how we could do it here and the best structure and what we could hope to achieve by it.”

Ladner said that the fact that Toronto Hydro was doing it would suggest that such a system would be a piece of basic civic infrastructure that all cities are going to have to provide to some degree.

“It’s what people expect of city amenities,” he said.

However, neither BC Hydro nor Telus seem to be taking more than a wait-and-see interest in a city-wide WiFi system for Vancouver.

“We have no immediate plans for this,” said Hydro media relations manager Elisha Moreno. “There may be a future opportunity, but currently not now, just because of questions of logistics and economics.”

Moreno said that its not feasible right now for BC Hydro to run Internet over its lines, which would be a requirement to set up a WiFi system in Vancouver.

“We’re watching it and watching it with interest right now,” Moreno said.

Telus, which already has large WiFi hot spots in place around Vancouver, at such places as Vancouver International Airport, conference centres and businesses, is now offering a high speed EVDO system that would substitute for a city-wide WiFi network by allowing users to connect cell phones and laptops to the Internet through Telus’ wireless network.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006