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Immersion
announces sense of touch to the web Immersion
announces sense of touch to the web Alcatel may buy
Newbridge Networks Newbridge, which has financially struggled lately, has discussed buyouts with several companies in the last few months, the source said. The source declined to name the suitors. Published reports have speculated that Germany's Siemens and Sweden's Ericsson have been among the companies interested. Similar to those firms, Alcatel would be interested in Newbridge because the company has developed a set of high-end Internet-based equipment for voice and data traffic, something the French phone equipment maker lacks. The source close to Newbridge said Alcatel's current offer on the table is "significantly higher" than the company's current stock price. Newbridge currently has a market value of $5.9 billion. For Alcatel, buying Newbridge will help it in its quest to tackle the North American market. The French phone equipment maker is one of several international companies hoping to compete against domestic leaders like Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks in supplying service providers and businesses the equipment they need to build faster networks. For Newbridge, a one-time leader in the networking market, the acquisition will end several years of executive turnover and financial struggles. The company has had seven profit warnings in the last three years.
Sony
and Intel form home
networking alliance The move marked Sony's latest effort to seal its leading position in the fast-growing home networking business by linking up with powerful electronics manufacturers. The collaboration includes links between personal computers and next-generation flat panel displays, and sharing copyright technology for digital data transmission. Sony, armed with its popular audio-visual products and rich entertainment content, wants a core role in the digital network era under which digital televisions, set-top boxes and other devices are being linked in home networks. Prior to the announcement, Sony's share rose 750 yen ($6.77), or 2.6 percent, to close at 29,650 yen ($267.51).
Philips introduces
speech-enabled call routing Philips is now shipping Pure ReQuest! Small Business Edition, a less expensive version of their Pure Request! auto-attendant. A wider range of companies will benefit from the release by Philips Voice Request, a unit of Philips Speech Processing, since Pure ReQuest! has typically utilized by larger organizations. Small Business Edition offers the same feature set and technology, but handles up to 700 names. Previously, all versions of Pure ReQuest! would accommodate tens of thousands of names, but could be costly for smaller companies. Pure ReQuest! routes incoming or internal telephone calls when callers say the name of the person or department they wish to reach. It eliminates the need to memorize extension numbers or spell a person's last name on the telephone keypad. It greets the caller, listens for the request, looks up the extension of the party requested and transfers the call. By automating the routing of routine telephone calls, it frees up operators to handle more complex calls.. Atmel introduces Internet phone processor chip Source: iLocus Atmel in partnership with Aplio has launched its Internet Appliance Processor integrated chip aimed at the corporate and individual end user markets. The product strengthens Atmel's position as a supplier of single-chip solutions in the fast-growing market for Internet and other digital communications appliances. The chip features an Embedded Linux operating system, VoIP and Audio application software, together with a scalable application development platform. It provides a solution enabling manufacturers to launch Internet Phones, E-mail and MP3 appliances at low cost with a short time to market. The VoIP application software delivers telephone sound quality featuring PacketPlus Technology. The processor is first in a family of Atmel products for Internet-enabled voice and multimedia applications. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets on a worldwide basis advanced logic, mixed-signal, non-volatile memory, and RF semiconductors.
IXnet delivers voice, data and video over IP IXnet has entered into a business alliance with Cisco Systems to create an intelligent IP Extranet for the financial services community, based on Cisco's infrastructure and network management platform. IXnet and Cisco will partner on systems and product development of VoIP solutions, customer service systems, directory and messaging services, and tailored solutions development and consulting. IXnet and Cisco will build a multi-service network backbone to enhance the existing IXnet's Extranet which currently connects over 600 financial services firms in 44 financial centers. IXnet's IP network will build on its existing Cisco infrastructure and will include multi-service platforms consolidating voice, data and video traffic, delivering a wide range of services over single connections into customers' premises. Additional Cisco equipment and systems will be integrated into IXnet's Network Operation Control Centers in New York, London, and Sydney, as well as into Points of Presence and customer sites. IXnet currently has 72 points of presence and more than 1450 Customer Access Nodes.
First Win2000 fix out Company officials said the patch will help Windows 2000 work better with applications. Microsoft’s own FrontPage 98, a Web page building application, is on the list of programs that are helped by the patch. But the bulk of the list is mostly games, such as Creature 3, F22 Lightning III, and Mageslayer. A Microsoft spokesman said the company was focused on Windows 2000 compatibility with top business applications up until now. But with two months of extensive beta testing behind the product, Microsoft was able to expand testing to consumer titles. That is important, since even though Windows 2000 targets business users, Microsoft officials said they expect it will also make its way into in the hands of home users. Microsoft gave no schedule for future compatibility releases. Windows 2000 still has a number of acknowledged application incompatibilities, including AOL 4.0 and early versions of Microsoft’s own MSN portal.
Free DSL takes step closer to market
Reinventing the operator AT&T Labs is developing a technology called
VoiceTone that may allow for personalized phone service. Instead of a dial tone,
callers will be greeted by a voice asking to assist them. It will connect
callers even when they can't remember the number to the place they are calling.
AT&T hopes to use the service to differentiate itself from competitors. New
area codes and the need to check messages by punching in codes have made calling
more complex than ever, said Jay Wilpon, director of speech-processing research
at AT&T. AT&T wants to make calling easier through a service that uses
speech recognition, natural-language comprehension, dialog management, and voice
synthesis. Such features are blended with computing power and efficient systems
to create VoiceTone. The service may be adopted by consumers and corporate
customers and could serve as an alternative to automated customer-service
systems. Security for broadband access Security experts say telecommuters who log on to corporate networks via DSL and cable modems usually do not have the protection of a corporate firewall, making the computers vulnerable to security breaches. High-speed Internet access users are also easy prey for hackers, as the systems are basically always on and use the same IP addresses for long periods of time. However, two new business-oriented products aim to remedy this situation. The Zone Alarm 2.0 from Zone Labs allows only authorized traffic onto a computer, and can stonewall illegitimate applications. The software also features an Internet Lock function that turns away all Internet traffic when a computer is not in use. The software can run on Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, and 2000. WatchGuard Technology recently released its Firebox Telecommuter, which is a tiny hub with four port connections that provide built-in firewall and VPN mechanisms. The company has also released a version of the product geared toward small offices with 50 employees or less, called Firebox SOHO.
Photonic telecom networks emerging In the optical networking industry, performance doubles every ten months. With that in mind, photons may soon force electrons into extinction in telecom networks. Photonics supporters believe a wealth of bandwidth could be created if the need to convert light to electricity is eliminated. Long-distance phone calls could be offered for the same price as local calls. In addition, Internet downloads could occur instantly. Ultra-dense wavedivision multiplexing (UDWDM), optical amplification, and optical switching will help create the all-optical network that will make such features possible. While UDWDM offers a great deal of capacity by increasing the amount of information that can be placed on a fiber, amplifiers are necessary to put that capacity to work. Optical amplification is an established concept compared to optical switching, which is still in development. Bell Labs is developing an optical switch that uses 256 mirrors to reflect photons, allowing light to be redirected among fibers. Corning is developing optical switching based on liquid crystals. The switch splits an inbound WDM stream into message-channel frequencies and then sifts each channel through a filter. Nanovation is also developing optical switching. The company is basing its work on waveguides, which can send photons along curves. Xerox jumps into
wireless market The move is the latest Internet-related effort for Xerox, a company best known for its high-end photocopy machines and laser printers but which has tried to recast itself as "the digital document company" in recent years as profits from its core products sink. The new software also is Xerox's first wireless product since forming the mobile unit a year ago, providing further evidence of the growing interest in wireless technologies. Hundreds of technology companies--the major Internet portals, for example--are developing plans to participate in the wireless industry, which is expected to reach 1 billion users worldwide in just a few years. MobileDoc, which is targeted at large business customers, allows users to retrieve a variety of electronic documents--such as Microsoft Office, portable document files (PDFs) and HTML pages--by having them forwarded to any email address or fax machine. The software on a phone, pager or handheld computer remotely connects to software installed on a file server or corporate network. Currently, MobileDoc is available on Web-enabled Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) phones in Europe and on Motorola's PageWriter two-way pager in the United States. Xerox is testing the service for U.S. WAP phones and expects to offer commercial Web-based phone service domestically during the third quarter. Xerox also will begin testing a version for Palm VII handheld computers, which have wireless connection capabilities, during the second quarter. The company is expected to announce pricing for MobileDoc next week. Service adds face value to Internet Source: Digitalmass If all the time we are spending on the Internet is turning us into a nation of antisocial losers, as Stanford University researchers reported last week, what about making our Internet chatting something more like real human interaction? That's one big possibility for a newly launched version of a service that allows you to see and hear people you are chatting with on the Net, so you can have something a little more like a face-to-face conversation than a disembodied exchange of one-liners in a chat room. The software, called CU-SeeMe World, developed at Cornell University and licensed by White Pine Software of Nashua, has been around for more than four years and now counts up to 4 million users globally. What's new is that CU-SeeMe is quietly starting to offer a new version of the system that can be quickly downloaded, for free, from the Net instead of requiring you to spend $70 by mail order or at CompUSA to install it in your machine. Through the cuseemeworld.com Web site, people who have paid $50 or $100 for a little camera to mount on top of their computer monitor can set up video chat rooms "on the fly." The idea of giving it away is to attract more advertising to the site and spur demand for premium versions of the service, including fully private and lurker-proof chat rooms.
Net2Phone
hangs up on Bill Gates "Mr. Jonas hung up on Mr. Gates," said one person familiar with the Net2Phone negotiations, referring to Howard Jonas, president of IDT, Net2Phone's parent company, and Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. "Microsoft is very used to getting what it wants, but there is just not enough interest around here to work with them," said the source, who wished not to be identified. At press time, sources close to the AOL-Net2Phone negotiations said the last issue on the table is money, but the desire to make the deal happen was strong. AOL is rumored to have offered $70 per share, or $3.6 billion for the company. Net2Phone's market capitalization currently stands at $2.7 billion. Why the big interest in the small company? Its Internet Protocol (IP) telephony platform is a crucial missing piece for both companies, industry experts said. According to Hilary Mine, senior vice president of research at Probe Research, Net2Phone is so hotly contested because it has end-user software that is reasonably successful. And the next big application to hit the consumer Internet market is voice. Microsoft has also been making strategic investments in broadband, with $1 billion going to Comcast and $500 million to AT&T. On the software side, a voice-over-IP (VoIP) feature could easily be added to Windows, Internet Explorer or even NetMeeting. That said, Net2Phone would be a nice fit for AOL, analysts said. It is yet to be seen what the competitive onslaught of AOL or Microsoft would do to long-distance and international telephone rates, but one thing is certain: The company hit the hardest by VoIP telephony would be AT&T. |
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