[MobileRatty] tag: firmware

UK: Samsung to empty 5m in to Omnia Advertising!

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:35:47 +0000

We’ve known the Omnia has been coming for some time - we’ve even seen the Ads in the sunday newspaper today - but what is the total cost of all that marketing and advertising in the UK? Well, according to Mobile News, we now have an answer……

….. and the answer is nearly £5m!

The Omnia has come at somewhat an awkward time, in so much as the established competition (a certain Apple device) is selling like the proverbial ‘hotcakes’, and other newcomers such as the Nokia N96, and Sony Ericsson Xperia are looming on the horizon.

So it would appear Samsung is going to address this by dumping a ton of cash in to making sure that everyone and his mate knows about this device! Oh, and the global marketing campaign is going to hit around £24m, just in case you were wondering.

In the UK at least, Samsung has qualified their spend to say it covers advertising in the press, online, and also outdoor (in ‘the street’ so to speak), but no TV Ads. So I think once it is done, we are all going to be pretty aware of this touch-based smartphone….

I’ve still got to wonder though - does that UI layer that Samsung have added to WinMo really make it competitive with the iPhone’s native UI? Best get myself down the local mobile shop and find out!!

[Via: mobilenewscwp.co.uk]

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Nokia N96 and BBC iPlayer - a match made in heaven!

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:50:58 +0000

I was just mentioning about the SIM-free price-point of the N96, and immediately following that… here comes the fact that the BBC have announced iPlayer support for it!

N96 users will be able to both stream and download programmes from the popular service, which will be delivered in a purpose-built application. Luckily, it will be able to use both 3G and WiFi, to avoid those (potentially, depending on contract) high data costs.

It is said that the app will also be available as a download from the BBC site, though we’ll wait to see if any Operators try and restrict that (or change the N96 firmware for their variants - you never know, it could happen!).

Nokia are making sure the N96 is going to rock Mobile TV, one way or the other - broadcast, 3G streaming, or app-based download - take your pic (depending on your country)!

[Via: Pocketlint.co.uk]

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Samsung i900 Omnia hitting Europe, big time!

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:42:37 +0000

Few days ago, Samsung has announced the “European wide market availability” of its iPhone-killin’ i900 Omnia smartphone. Currently, the all-touchscreen device is available in Italy, Netherlands, and Germany; and will be available in most of European countries including UK, France, Spain from September.

And that’s about all we have from the Samsung’s release. In the rest of the text they’re talking how Europeans crave for multimedia features on their mobile phones and even provide data to prove it…

Here’s the link to the full release if you care to know more.

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Nokia N95 gets a firmware update

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:23:55 +0000

A new software update is available for the Nokia N95. From what we can tell, it’s a major update as it brings the firmware version from 21.0.016 to 30.0.015.

As usual, the new update optimizes the device’s performance and improves the overall stability. Additionally, once the upgrade is completed the N95 has more software installed and some of the existing apps are updated. Here’s what’s changed:

Nokia Maps 2.0 built-in
Full N-Gage client
Nokia Search 4.0 with Google plug-in
Share online 3.0
Enablers for Comes With Music
Download! application updated (v 3.1.50)
Upgrade to Music Player
Update for Flash Lite 3
New baseline for VoIP (with error corrections)
Autorotate
Added 5th theme

To update your Nokia N95, simply start Nokia PC Suite and follow the instructions…

[Via: SymbianFreak, SymbianGuru]

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Pwnage Tool 2.0.3 Out Now

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:17:25 +0000

If you are still stuck with a shackled iPhone 3G, you might want to know that the enterprising individuals of iPhone Dev Team have announced the availability of the new Pwnage Tool 2.0.3. Nothing much to it other than going on with its business of jailbreaking iPhones, with a few small improvements:

.de localization for German users

Beta installer app has been updated to beta

Now supports iPhone and iPod Touch firmware 2.0.2 5C1

Head over to iPhone Dev Team's blog or hit update if you already have an older version of the Pwnage Tool running. Keep in mind that this is for OSX only and for Windows, you could try the QuickPwn available from the same guys.

Hacker to Bypass iPhone Passcode Lock During Live Webcast on September 11th [IPhone]

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:45:00 +0000

On September 11th, Data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski will guide law enforcement personnel "and anyone else who has a need to access the not-so-readily available data on an iPhone" through the process of bypassing the passcode lock security using a custom firmware bundle during a 45-minute webcast on O'Reilly.com. This will enable users to "recover, process, and remove sensitive data stored on the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch."

Zdziarski was one of the first to successfully open up the iPhone to 3rd party development, so you have to wonder what is the real motivation is here. Is it about educating and supporting law enforcement on methods of gathering information, or is it really targeted towards hackers who may or may not have a malicious agenda? [Wired Gadget Lab]

Hacker Will Break iPhone Security on Video

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:01:19 +0000

After iPhone users discovered a major security flaw exposing their private data, Wired.com published a how-to on securing the iPhone. But yikes -- apparently that's not enough, as a hacker has stepped up to the plate to demonstrate how to break through iPhone's security measures.

In a Webcast to be held Sept. 11, hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski will show how to bypass the iPhone's passcode lock using a custom firmware bundle. The webcast is aimed at educating those in law enforcement to perform forensics on iPhones and iPod touches dropped by criminals. The method would allow them to recover, process and remove sensitive data from said devices.

"This live presentation is aimed towards law enforcement and anyone else who has a need to access the not-so-readily available data on an iPhone," says the webcast description.

Uh, that last part -- "anyone else who has a need to access" -- is troubling. Couldn't that include malicious hackers or paranoid significant others? Hmm.

Wired.com will tune in on the event next week and write a summary of the webcast. You can register to view it, too, at O'Reilly Webcasts.

(Photo credit: .schill/Flickr)

trixbox Pro 2.0 review

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:19:03 +0000

Fonality is one of the premiere providers of Asterisk-based IP-PBX solutions. Fonality offers three products: PBXtra, trixbox CE (community edition), and trixbox Pro (commercial/reseller edition). trixbox Pro. which is their commercial edition runs on Fonality's "hardened" PBXtra technology, which Fonality claims has 5 thousand installations and over 325 million calls to date. trixbox Pro is a hybrid-hosted solution, which means you get 24/7 monitoring, phone mobility with no NAT traversal issues, and automatic software updates.

trixbox appliance

Ratings	Score
Installation
Documentation
Features
Usability
Performance
Overall

trixbox Pro comes in three editions. The trixbox Pro family starts with Standard Edition (SE), which is free.The remaining two editions, Enterprise Edition (EE) and Call Center Edition (CCE), are available at a low monthly cost or for a lifetime fee. TMC Labs checked out Fonality's flagship product, trixbox Pro Call Center Edition (CCE) which has all the features of trixbox Pro SE and trixbox Pro EE, plus additional call center functionality. trixbox Pro Call Center Edition scored very well in my ratings. It's lowest rating was still a very good 4 stars for 'Performance'. The reason for this not achieving 4.5 or a 5 star rating was that their hosted web interface can be occasionally slow.

trixbox Pro CCE is based on Asterisk and includes an easy web-based user interface, web-based voice mail, exportable reporting, click-to-call, mouse-driven operator panel, Outlook integration, real-time resource graphs, system alerts, auto-card configuring, seamless VoIP trunking, and more. trixbox Pro CCE is designed for companies with 2 - 200 agents and includes ACD and IVR capabilities with unlimited queues, skills-based routing, real-time queue statistics, graphical reports, and web-based recording access.

One of the most powerful features included in trixbox Pro CCE is HUD Pro, a communications software application which features enhanced presence, on-the-fly recording, call barge, call monitor, CRM integration, and one-touch agent login. Each extension has up to 6 icons at the bottom. Depending on your permissions, you can click on one of these icons to call their voicemail, record, barge, email, call their alternate number (mobile phone), or chat.

Here's a screenshot of HUD during an internal extension call.

You'll notice there are different colors to indicate presence and color coding of calls.

Green - Inbound/outbound call
Orange - Queue call
Purple - Intraoffice extension call
Grey - Unregistered

HUD also features drag-and-drop call control, which not only lets you drag calls to someone's extension, but if that person is out of the office, you can drag the call to the mobile phone icon which will transfer the call to their mobile phone. One neat feature is that HUD can launch a Web browser to a custom URL when your extension rings. This can be used to look up inbound callers in your Web-based CRM software or even direct the search query to Google, AnyWho reverse number lookup, etc. HUD Pro also features secure chat for intraoffice instant messaging.

For users that use Outlook Contacts, there is a TAPI plugin that lets you simply right-click on a Contact and initiate a call. They have also extended TAPI so that you can call directly from your Inbox or any other Outlook email folder. What's even cooler is that trixbox Pro takes care of dialing the "9" and it automatically takes your phone off-hook (speakerphone mode) so you don't have to even touch the phone. The off-hook speakerphone mode actually works throughout HUD. So you can also double-click an internal extension from within HUD and your phone will go off-hook automatically. Similarly, you can highlight a phone number anywhere on your computer, and then "drag" that number into HUD and HUD will dial the number. I should mention that currently trixbox Pro supports this off-hook feature on Polycom and Aastra phones.

trixbox Pro has some other interesting tricks up its sleeve. For instance, it has a Firefox plugin called FONcall which automatically highlights a phone number on a web-page. You simply click it and it initiates the call - once again automatically taking your phone off-hook.

Similar to an Outlook toast popup on an incoming email, HUD also displays a toast alert in the lower right of your screen on an inbound or outbound call. This allows you to direct callers to voicemail, record, or other functions without having to open the main HUD interface. The feature-rich HUD Pro client is certainly a competitive advantage Fonality has over many other Asterisk-based solutions. Though, Fonality does offer a free version HUD Lite which has a slimmed down feature-set and which works on most Asterisk flavors. HUD Lite for instance, doesn't have on-the-fly recording, recording of others, log in & out of queues, call barging, call monitoring, and some other features. Thus, the powerful functionality in HUD Pro is a compelling reason for prospective buyers evaluating various flavors of Asterisk.

trixbox Pro supports your traditional telephony features such as auto-attendant, IVR, and voicemail. Similarly, from your desktop phone you get your traditional features such as call parking, call transfer (after a flash hook), and call conferencing. All of these work as expected. trixbox Pro also supports Ring-All (Blast Group) and similarly the ability to intercom page an extension or a group.

For trunk support, trixbox Pro supports analog, T1/E1, and now BRI. The user-friendly web-based administrator supports plug-and-play detection of your telephony hardware, which is typically Sangoma hardware in trixbox Pro. I liked the ease at which I was able to detect and configure the T1/E1 card and the two analog cards in the machine.

Faxing is also supported on trixbox Pro. While faxing on Asterisk-based platforms often gets a bad rap, (due to timing/clock syncing issues) Sangoma has recently built some very good analog hardware to solve this problem. Actually, the developed a simple bridging cable that connects from the T1/E1 card to the analog hardware to keep the timing in sync. Presto, bango! - reliable faxing on an Asterisk-based platform!

trixbox Pro has extensive BLF support, although only for Aastra phones. You can easily drag-and-drop users into your BLF area on any Aastra model with BLF support. Fonality also added automatic detection and support for the Aastra 536M and 560M sidecars to extend the number of BLF keys available on your Aastra phone.

Another key feature is the built-in conference bridges. The 5 built-in conference bridges each support an unlimited number of internal participants and as many external participants as you have inbound phone lines.

Mobility features are very strong in trixbox Pro. Each user can logon to their own personal web control panel and specify rules for how/when/where they are contacted as part of their FindMe feature (see screenshot below). FindMe supports presence detection (via HUD) to know when you have walked away from your desk and thereby ring your cell phone. Further, it features a "white list" to only allow specific people to access "findme", as well as a VIP list (spouse, important contacts) that can reach you regardless of the schedule or your HUD presence status. Very useful feature to help stay in touch with your important contacts while respecting the times you don't wish to be contacted.

Part of FindMe, the Boomerang feature allows you to send a call that has been forwarded to your cell phone right back to any extension on your PBX. Simply press some touch-tones on your cell and the call can be redirected to your assistant or back to your own desk. You can also record calls on your mobile using Boomerang - a powerful feature. Call screening is included and one of my favorite features. The caller is prompted for their name and once again you have the choice to accept or reject the call.

Telecommuters/Home workers Support
Telecommuting support in trixbox Pro is very good. trixbox Pro's hybrid-hosted approach means no more pesky VoIP over NAT firewall issues. I was able to take an Aastra phone I auto-provisioned in the office home with me, connect to my home broadband connection, and simply change the DNS setting on the phone to the external DNS entry of the trixbox server and voilà, I was able to make & receive calls to my extension. No need to poke any holes in the corporate firewall or my home firewall. Nice and simple.

Features:

Outlook Integration
Voicemail
Voicemail-to-Email
Hot Desk
Music-on-Hold
Scheduler
Night Mode New!
Custom CTI (AGI)
Analog & IP Phones
Call Forwarding
Name Directory
DIDs
Unlimited VoIP Accounts
PSTN Fallback
Branch Office Support
Web-based Control Panel
Powerful Reporting
Hands Free Auto Phone Provisioning
FAX Support
BLF Support
BRI Detection
E1 Support
Live Backup Server
Multiple Deployment Management
Conference Bridges
Routing by DIDs
Paging / Zone Paging
Intercom / Zone Intercom
Voicemail Groups
Advanced Call Forwarding
Call Return
Call Out
Custom Caller IDs
SMS/Pager Voicemail Notify
Alerts & Notifications
Trunks Status Pages
Real-Time System Graphs
FindMe
Boomerang Mobile Integration
Call Screening
Music-On-Hold (Unlimited)
Historical System Graphs
Unlimited Call Queues
Full Featured A.C.D.
Skills-Based Routing
Graphical Queue Reports
Barge Report
Agent Call Recording
Agent Variable Log-off
Agents on Cell Phones
Agents Shared across Sites
Real-Time Queue Stats

HUD features:

Operator Panel (w/ BLF)
Call Parking Area
Drag & Drop Call Control
Color-Coded Call Status
Drag & Drop to Voicemail
Extension Sorting
Enterprise Instant Messaging
Outlook Integration
Presence Management
Click-to-Call Mobile Phones
Click-to-Email
Desktop Alerts
Interactive Desktop Alerts
Group & User Permissions
Extension Grouping
Extension Search
Extension SearchQuickMenu
Shortcuts (Hotkeys)
On-the-Fly Recording
Queue Status
Agent Login/Logout
Call Barging (active)
Call Monitoring (passive)
Web Access to Recordings
Advanced CRM Integration

Some important new features in trixbox Pro 2.0 worth highlighting:
First, calendar-based scheduling has been added allowing you to have your call menu do something specific, such as special holiday greetings. trixbox Pro has had very good auto-provisioning already, but they've improved it in 2.0. I was able to connect several Aastra and Polycom phones on our network and trixbox Pro auto-detected them and auto-assigned them an extension in sequential order. Hands free phone auto-provisioning is supported on all supported Aastra models and Polycom models with firmware 2.2 and above.

Resellers will especially like the single-screen management for all of their customers. From one Admin web interface you can switch between installations with two clicks of the mouse in the lower-right corner of the Admin Panel.

Room for Improvement:
The call recordings (screenshot of interface below) within the web-based interface should have a memo text field to allow users to add recording details, such as caller's name, topic discussed, etc. If you keep a lot of recordings, this will make it easier to reference them in the future.

I'd like to see standard-based videoconferencing support in HUD Pro. If Counterpath can offer a slick videoconferencing app (eyeBeam softphone) based on SIP and other industry standards, then surely so can Fonality. In addition to video, perhaps collaboration capabilities (WebEx, Microsoft Live Meeting) would be a nice addition. This would negate the need for a separate collaboration platform, the associated licensing fees, and duplication of the same employee information which must also be maintained due to employee turnover.

One last suggestion would be to email the call recordings automatically, similar to the voicemail-to-email feature. You can of course access the recordings via the web and download & save to your local PC, but an automatic email option would be nice.

Conclusion
I was very impressed with the ease-of-use of the admin interface, and I especially liked the strong mobility features. Users will like the web-based visual voicemail and voicemail-to-email features. The web-based GUI is one of the best you'll see on any Asterisk-based platform and it makes extensive use of AJAX and tool-tips. Lastly, HUD's motley of features, including desktop call control, presence, and on-the-fly recording make trixbox Pro a compelling choice when deciding which IP-PBX to purchase.

Perhaps the only caveat with trixbox Pro as compared with other Asterisk-based solutions is the trixbox pricing. Many Asterisk-based solutions are extremely inexpensive, some under $1000. trixbox Pro does offer a relatively inexpensive monthly option. For instance, for trixbox Pro Call Center Edition (CCE) that I tested, it's $11.39/month per extension for 26-50 extensions. However, the lifetime fee is $159.99/month per extension which works out to be $14,259.50 for a 50 extension IP-PBX. That's not 'terribly' expensive, but it is more than some competing Asterisk-based solutions, though still much less expensive than many Nortel, Avaya, or Cisco systems.

I'm sure Fonality would argue their main competitors are not other Asterisk solutions but the "Big 3" (Avaya, Nortel, Cisco). Further, in my past discussions with Fonality, they've told me that they believe they add a lot of value to the "core" Asterisk that gives it a much stronger feature-set than other Asterisk-based systems. In testing trixbox Pro I would agree that it has many features I have not seen in many other Asterisk-based systems, including HUD Pro, call screening, call recording (some others do have this), strong call center functionality (queues), easy-to-use web-based admin, etc.

I recently saw a demo of Digium's latest version of Switchvox down at Digium's headquarters and did notice there are features in Switchvox that trixbox Pro doesn't have, like Web 2.0 features. I plan on doing a review on Switchvox in the near future. It'll be interesting to compare the two. Overall, I think trixbox Pro is one of the most feature-rich IP-PBXs I've reviewed and I would not hesitate to recommend it to companies looking for an easy-to-use and easy to maintain IP-PBX.

Tags: Asterisk, fonality, HUD, IP-PBX, trixbox CE, trixbox Pro, trixbox Pro Call Center Edition, trixbox Pro CCE, trixbox Pro Enterprise Edition, VoIP

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Schmooze the Yiddish Asterisk - Feb 01, 2008
PIKA for Asterisk boards now trixbox CE compatible - Jan 22, 2008
Avaya #1 VoIP PBX Vendor? - Aug 21, 2007
Mitel sues ShoreTel - What does it mean? - Jun 28, 2007
PBX Prompts for Asterisk and other open source PBXs launches tomorrow - Apr 03, 2007
Fonality's trixbox appliance Part 2 - Mar 19, 2007
Fonality launches Asterisk-based trixbox Appliance - Mar 18, 2007
Fonality Lands $12M Financing Round from Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) - Sep 04, 2008
Digium Headquarters Tour - Aug 26, 2008

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Comments on this Entry:

(John Fitzpatrick on Sep 4, 2008 10:32 AM) Great review! Can you tell me why Performance was only 4 stars?

(Tom Keating on Sep 4, 2008 10:47 AM) I didn't give it 4.5 or 5 stars because their hosted web server which hosts thousands of customers can be 'slightly' slow at times. And when I say 'slightly' I mean slightly. I'm just used to web pages that load instantly and the hosted web admin web pages sometimes take a few seconds to load. Nothing terrible mind you, but enough to make it a good 4 stars and not a great 4.5 or 5 stars. The changes you make on the hosted web server have to be synced back to the trixbox Pro IP-PBX at the customer premise. So it could in fact be a bandwidth issue at the customer premise and not necessarily something to do with trixbox's hosted web server. I don't think the performance of the web interface diminishes trixbox Pro. Without a doubt the easy to use web interface and all of the web-based features greatly enhances the product. I would like to see it be a little snappier, but all-in-all I like the web interface. As for performance of the trixbox's CPU, number/scalability of IP extensions, etc. I can tell you that the CPU load on the trixbox Pro appliance I tested was very low (load average = 0.44 in Linux 'top' command) even when testing with 60 IP phone extensions and launching a couple of CPU-intensive conference bridges.

Sony backpedals, claims PSP-3000 will have same battery life after all

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:09:48 +0000

Last week, Sony's PlayStation Director of Hardware Marketing, John Koller, said the new, brighter PSP-3000 would suffer a battery life loss of up to half an hour. Now he's furiously backtracking.

I'd like to make a correction and clarify that the new PSP will have equivalent battery life to the current PSP, about 4 to 6 hours for games and about 4 to 5 hours for UMD videos. While the enhanced screen of the new PSP draws a little more power, our engineers in Japan worked to reduce the power consumption of the overall system including its components, so you won't have to worry about losing any time when enjoying the more vibrant visuals displayed with the new PSP.

That's nice to hear, but it certainly doesn't gel with what Koller was saying just last week. Nothing could have possibly changed in the design since then.

Speculation: the sentence "our engineers in Japan worked to reduce the power consumption of the overall system" is a bit weasely. According to Famitsu, the new PSP-3000 firmware will featurea setting which will allow you to ramp back the color and brightness to PSP-2000 levels. My guess is that Koller's backpedaling, but if you want to play on a lower-power mode, at least that option's available to you.

New PSP’s Battery Life Equivalent to Current PSP [PlayStation Blog]

Canon posts up 1.0.9 firmware update for EOS Rebel XSi

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:52:00 +0000

Filed under: Digital Cameras

By and large, Canon's EOS Rebel XSi was widely adored. Still, even the fanboys in attendance can't deny that firmware updates that solve any number of quirks are loved just the same. Canon has just posted up firmware v1.0.9 for the aforesaid DSLR, which purportedly fixes three primary issues. The 7.81MB download addresses a "phenomenon in which AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) shooting does not operate normally under specific conditions," another in which "the Live View exposure simulation warning indication does not properly display during Live View shooting, and yet another in which "images cannot be played back after continuous shooting when a printer is connected to the camera or a video output terminal is used." Tap that read link to get your download on, and be sure to let us know if this update actually works as advertised.

[Via CNET]

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