text:
Former "ER" star Maura Tierney will go in front of the cameras for the first time since she began breast-cancer treatment — but we won't get to see the end result for some time.
Tierney is set to reprise her guest role on "Rescue Me" during the show's final run, FX confirms to Zap2it. The series is filming its final two seasons back-to-back, and Tierney — who guested last year as Tommy's (Denis Leary) love interest, Kelly — is working on shows that will air in Season 7, which will likely debut in 2011. She's set to appear in multiple episodes.
"Rescue Me" is the first TV work Tierney has done since her cancer treatment forced her to drop out of NBC's "Parenthood" last summer. The show recast her role with Lauren Graham.
Season 6 of "Rescue Me" will debut in the summer.
– "Fringe" has booked former "Dirty Sexy Money" star Seth Gabel for a key role in its final episodes of the season.
Gabel will play a fringe-cases agent not unlike Olivia (Anna Torv) in the last two episodes of the spring, sources confirm to Zap2it. Here's the catch, though — he'll be doing his job from the alternate reality "Fringe" has visited several times. A good portion of the season finale will take place in the alt-world.
For now Gabel is just doing these two episodes, but there's a chance he could return next season as well.
The final "Fringe" episodes of the season are scheduled for May 13 and 20. Gabel will also have a recurring part on Showtime's "United States of Tara" later this season.
Follow Zap2it and Zap2itRick on Twitter and Zap2it
on Facebook for the latest TV, movie and celeb news.
Photo credits: NBC (Tierney), Getty Images (Gabel)


text:
Sunday, July 31, 2011
New Panel Ideas
Got a great panel idea? Put it here!
Want to Volunteer?
Here's a handy dandy form for you to fill out. Alternatively just e-mail away!
See the Programme LIVE!
By the power of GREYSKULL! I mean Google Docs, Please see the CURRENT version of the VilainCon Programme LIVE right here
UMG have blocked the content of the VillainCon trailer. Boo! Hiss!
So much for the remix culture :-)
So much for the remix culture :-)
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Opening the gates
Well folks, we're now taking payment for VillainCon.
If you'd like to pay by direct deposit, you can!
Pay to:
Account Number: 451533495
Please make sure you put YOUR name in the details. I'd really appreciate it if you could also e-mail me if you pay via this as it goes directly into a WASFF held account.
Remember that there are only 75 places for VillainCon, so get in early!
Oh and PayPal will be coming shortly and if you want to pay by other methods, feel free to e-mail me at the above adress
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Critics: Apple Has Nothing Under Construction Following Apple's iPhone Event last Tuesday, September 10th, the Pundits – echoed by the stock market – have been relentlessly critical of Apple's iPhone 5C pricing strategy. Investors have … Continue reading
Near the end the dot-com bubble, smart investors finally realized that a major problem with tech stock pricing was that dozens of companies were priced to perfection: Their stock prices were so high relative to … Continue reading
Today Apple released their earnings report for the third quarter of 2011. As was expected there was much anticipation regarding the earnings, not only from Wall St but also from media outlets. Apple did not … Continue reading


text: DimOnOff's has expanded its line of wireless radio frequency products with INT-ADR-XB, a universal interface that uses wireless communication in Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) standard RF signals. The interface provides digital inputs for widely available low-voltage switches and occupancy sensors from several manufacturers. Inter-device networking is plug and play with any initial RF network configuration. Designed for institutional, commercial, and industrial buildings, the INT-ADR-XB can be used to add daylighting and demand functions to motion and lux sensors. www.dimonoff.com


text:
Watch the new item song of Vikram Bhatt's forthcoming spook fest
Bollywood's resident horror flick specialist, Vikram Bhatt is ready with his next – Raaz 3. From what we have seen of this Emraan Hashmi-Bipasha Basu-Esha Gupta starrer, we can say that the makers have managed to come up with a fair balance of spooks and intimate scenes – the two big reasons why such films work. And just when we were beginning to wonder, why Esha is getting more footage than Bipasha, the makers have come out with an item number called Kya Raaz Hai featuring the Bong beauty.
Interestingly, the video of the title song made us laugh. Obviously not at apni Bips, but the funny set that the song has been shot in. The dance moves are quite boring too. The Billo Rani babe is at her sensual best, but the props and the junior dancers are a hoot to watch. Especially those dead bodies lying still in some blue liquid. It is something that we have not seen anywhere. Kudos to the guy who came up with that idea! Just kidding! But yes, the lyrics by Kumaar are noteworthy as they talk about the mysteries of life.
Composed by Jeet Ganguli, sung by Zubeen and Shreya Ghoshal, Kaisa raaz hai has nothing noteworthy, except the funny set. Did you like the song, dear Bollywoodlifer?
[jwplayer mediaid="135004″]


text:
On one side of the issue, there's a group called "No Higher Taxes for Maine." On the other side, there are two organizations: "Still Fed Up With Taxes" and "Vote Yes to Reject New Taxes."
The tax question on the June ballot appears to pit fiscal conservatives against fiscal conservatives. For once, the beleaguered taxpayers of Maine can't lose.
Just kidding. Of course they'll lose.
Despite these political action committees' tight-fisted titles, none of them has the slightest intention of reducing your taxes. In fact, all the participants actually claim they're in favor of maintaining the status quo, although one side is promising a status quo that will screw over a slightly different bunch of people, while the other side is in favor of continuing to screw over the same folks.
Which choice you make between these unattractive alternatives could come down to credibility. But since both camps are about as believable as Bigfoot sightings, a solid argument can be made for skipping this question altogether and moving on to the lies being told about the bond issues and gubernatorial candidates.
Nevertheless, I'll attempt to explain tax reform, using easy-to-understand phrases, such as "fundamentally misleading," "deliberately inaccurate," and "twisted in ways that are unappealing, uncomfortable and, quite possibly, unnatural."
Last year, Democrats in the Legislature passed a bill that reduced the state income tax from a maximum rate of 8.5 percent (which nearly everyone pays on most of their income, because Maine's tax brackets are about as progressive as a Tea Party convention) to a flat rate of 6.5 percent for all but the richest taxpayers. To cover the resulting loss in revenue, the measure calls for broadening the sales tax to cover some products and services that had previously been exempt, and raising the meals-and-lodging tax from 7 to 8.5 percent.
Republicans opposed the bill, because . . . well, mostly because it was supported by Democrats. For decades, the GOP, both locally and nationally, had advocated in favor of replacing taxes on income with taxes on consumption, on the grounds that such a system gave people more control over how much they paid the government. For just as long, Democrats opposed the idea, claiming it would harm the poor and benefit only the wealthy. Sometime in the last decade, the parties got bored making the same old arguments and agreed to swap positions.
Before the bill became law, Democratic Governor John Baldacci tinkered with it to make it fairer, by which he meant fairer for ski areas and people who sell mansions, both of which were exempted from the expanded sales tax for the very good reason that they were represented by high-priced lobbyists who were close allies of the governor.
Once Baldacci signed this much-improved version of the legislation into law, Republicans set about gathering signatures to force a People's Veto referendum. They succeeded in collecting more than enough names through a method known as "lying through their Sarah Palin-esque teeth." Petition circulators told voters the Democrats' bill would tax haircuts and create death panels.
In reality, it would create haircuts and tax death panels.
The GOP also resorted to the sordid tactic employed nationally against health-care reform: Pretend it's more complicated than it really is. In a newspaper op-ed, Republican state Representative Jonathan McKane claimed the legislation had been "jammed through the Legislature at lightning speed last June, with no hearing, no work session and no real debate."
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text:
Recommended Topic Related To:
Men on ED Drugs Get More STDs »
"July 6, 2010 -- Men prescribed drugs for erectile dysfunction are two to three times more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), particularly HIV or chlamydia, than men who are not prescribed ED treatments, researchers report./"...
Viagra (sildenafil citrate)
Pharmacy Author: Omudhome Ogbru, PharmD
Pharmacy Editor: Jay W. Marks, MD
Drug Class: phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor
Similar Drugs: Adcirca (tadalafil), Levitra (vardenafil), Revatio (sildenafil), Cialis (tadalafil), Staxyn ODT (vardenafil)
In this drug monograph:
- Viagra (sildenafil) Indications
- Dosage and Administration of Viagra (sildenafil)
- Contraindications, Warnings, and Precautions
- Side Effects or Adverse Reactions
- Drug Interactions
- Efficacy of Viagra (sildenafil)
- Pharmacology (Mechanism of Action)
- Viagra Pill Identification and Imprint Code
- Viagra User Reviews
Viagra (sildenafil) Indications
Treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED)
Dosage and Administration of Viagra (sildenafil)
Viagra is a selective phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor available as 25, 50, and 100 mg tablets for oral administration.
- The recommended dose for most patients is 50 mg taken as needed about one hour before sexual activity. It may be taken between 30 minutes and four hours prior to sexual activity. Depending on effect and tolerability, the dose may be increased to a maximum dose of 100 mg daily or reduced to 25 mg daily. It should not be used more than once daily.
- Individuals older than 65 years, with liver failure or creatinine clearance <30 ml/min, or using potent cytochrome P450 inhibitors (for example, erythromycin, ketoconazole, itraconazole, and saquinavir [Invirase]) should start at 25 mg.
- Individuals taking ritonavir should not exceed 25 mg daily in any 48 hour period.
Contraindications, Warnings, and Precautions
- Use of nitrates (for example,, nitroglycerine, isosorbide): Viagra may increase hypotensive effects of nitrates.
- Hypersensitivity reactions to tadalafil (Viagra or Revatio)
Warnings and Precautions
- Angina: Patients with angina should not use Viagra because sexual activity may precipitate angina.
- Prolonged erections and priapism have been reported.
- Sudden loss of vision: NAION (non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy).
- Sudden hearing loss has been reported.
- Alpha blockers and antihypertensives: Viagra potentiates the antihypertensive effects of alpha blockers and antihypertensives.
- Renal impairment: Clearance is reduced in patients with severe renal impairment (creatinine clearance <30 ml/min). See dosing section.
- Hepatic impairment: Main route of excretion is metabolism via CYP3A4 and CYP2C9 liver enzymes. See dosing section.
- CYP3A4 inhibitors (for example, ritonavir, ketoconazole, itraconazole, saquinavir, erythromycin): Limit dose (see dosage and administration).
- Other PDE5 inhibitors: Viagra should not be combined with other PDE5 inhibitors.
- Bleeding: PDE5 is found on platelets. Use of Viagra in patients with bleeding disorders or active peptic ulcers has not been evaluated.
Use Pill Finder
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Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Get tips to boost your love life.


text:
Other than his appearance on Daft Punk's "Doin' It Right," Panda Bear stayed pretty quiet last year. But the Animal Collective member is now at work on a new solo album, the follow-up to his 2011 LP Tomboy. He's recording it in Lisbon, his adapted hometown, with Sonic Boom, the psych-rock baron and former Spacemen 3 member who mixed Tomboy. The new album has the working title Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper, he's hoping to have it out next year on Domino, and he's already divulged a few details.
Talking to Under The Radar, Panda reports that his new album is "more linked to" 2007's Person Pitch, his undisputed masterpiece, than it is to Tomboy. He also names 9th Wonder, the North Carolina rap producer and former Little Brother member, as an inspiration. Panda says that he's working more with samples than he did on Tomboy, though he's often making the sounds that he's sampling himself: "The drum stuff, I feel, is a real focal point of the music. It's heavier and break-centric music." And he says that even though he's putting it together using computers, he likes to keep "a certain imperfection" in the music. You can find out more by reading the interview here.


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TVs and robotic vacuums aren't the only Smart-branded devices Samsung will be showing off at this year's CES. We just met with the company here in NYC to take a look at its newest entrant into the camera game, dubbed the NX300. No, it's not Android-equipped, but this 20.3-megapixel APS-C shooter stands as its new flagship mirrorless model, boasting a key gimmick feature of 3D capability for stills and videos (up to 1080p at 60fps) thanks to a new DRIMe IV processor.
Getting the usual numbers aside, you'll be able to harness an ISO range of 100 to 25600, a maximum shutter speed of 1,6000 and a top speed of 8.6fps for JPG bursts. On back, you'll find a 3.31-inch, 768 dot AMOLED touch-display, and a d-pad-esque section with five buttons for manual control. Lastly, there's a dedicated mode dial on the top, along with a full-size hot shoe mount. This shooter is also WiFi-enabled like previous cameras in the range, allowing you to share content wirelessly and giving you access to apps, like a remote viewfinder that works with iOS and Android devices.
Having a new NX that can handle 3D naturally calls for a lens that can shoot it, and a 2D/3D-capable f/1.8 45mm lens was also shown to us — a "world-first," according to Sammy. While you won't be able to shoot in 3D with older NX cameras (we're told they don't have the processing power), it'll still work as regular 2D lens if you're interested in its focal perspective. We spent a few fleeting moments with an engineering sample of the camera in-hand, so join us past he break for more.
View original here:
Samsung unveils 3D-capable NX300 mirrorless camera and 45mm f/1.8 2D/3D lens ahead of CES (eyes-on)


text:
Abt Card
Product Questions - Ask
Average Customer Reviews
Protect your iPad mini in style with VersaCover's sophisticated design. Inspired by origami, its unique folding cover displays your iPad mini at all the right angles for typing, reading, and browsing the web. VersaCover's built-in magnet assembly supports iPad mini's auto-wake/sleep feature for quick access to all your apps and media. The soft microfiber cover shields the display while on the go, and the polycarbonate shell protects the aluminum back from scratches and shocks. Treat your iPad mini to a slim and stylish case that stands the test of time.
Approximate Weight:
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By N
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Comments about Moshi Versacover Grey iPad Mini Case:
Sturdy; light but secure. Allows 3 viewing angles and is very intuitive to use after learning the origami options. Highly recommend it.
Sturdily Flexible
By MelKen
from Chicago suburbs
The Moshi Versa cover for the iPad mini provides a much wider array of stand options than the traditional covers. It is almost like iPad origami. The cover is very well made, and provides good feel when transporting the iPad.
Great Product
By Copper
from St. Louis, MO
This product is great! It is the second cover to go with my second iPad mini. Constructed well, simple design, great functionality.
Service and delivery comments:
Although the product arrived in great condition, there was considerable time waiting for delivery.
Fill out the form below to request Better Price for this product.


text:
Living to 100 while still looking and feeling healthy is now a very real possibility. Dr. Thomas Perls, founder and director of the New England Centenarian Study, the largest study of centenarians and their families in the world, has developed a calculator to predict your longevity.
In his research, Dr. Perls noticed that today's centenarians were not only living longer – they were living better, more active and fulfilling lives than ever before.
After a comprehensive scientific evaluation of this community, Dr. Perls was able to make sound assumptions about what factors influence longevity. Next, he integrated that research into a formula that anyone could use to predict their lifespan.
Determine your life expectancy and add active years to your life. Click here for the full version of the Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator.
Women should begin calculating with a base age of 89, while men should start with 86 as their base age. Adjust your base according to the following factors:
High levels of stress can take a dramatic toll on the body. Reducing stress and learning how to control it can make a huge difference. Keeping a positive attitude about getting older reduces the harmful effects of stress.
Calculate: If you are the type of person who can shake off stress while maintaining a positive attitude, you can add 5 years to your life!
Conversely, if you feel stressed or pessimistic about the future (i.e. you are concerned that you will not look or feel the same as you do now or are worried about the aches and pains that accompany old age), do not add anything to your base age.


text:
The TRU in Wilkes-Barre has a small number of Clone Wars items in stock.
Armored Assault Tanks - 1 left @ $21.99
Jedi Starfighter (blue) - 2 left @ $21.99
Destroyer Droid w/ Launcher - 3 left @ $10.99
Droid Army 3-Pack - 1 left @ $10.99
The two deluxe packs are not all that great upon close inspection. The quality of the DDs and SBDs is much cheaper than the basic figures. You're better off building your armies with SBDs on clearance at KB for $1.99 each. It does have the red BD though.
The AAT is pretty cool though. I haven't seen the EP1 version, so I don't know if there's any differences.
At least new product is slowly starting to roll in around here.


text:
Major Ministries
Depending on the capacity and the location, church buildings can cost an average of $10,000 – $40,000. Due to the tremendous growth on the field, many of the churches GFA is building can hold 500 people.
Daily, our brothers and sisters on the field face the reality of persecution for their faith in Christ. It's not uncommon for angry mobs of anti-Christians to beat up believers, burn down churches and torture pastors.
By contributing to persecution relief, you'll be a part of paying the medical expenses for believers, which can also include travel to bigger hospitals for treatment.
The funds will also be used to replace destroyed Gospel literature, rebuild houses and repair damaged church buildings, providing healing for all aspects of life touched by persecution-related attacks.
You can broadcast the story of Christ throughout India and other nearby countries through GFA Radio. Thousands have given their lives to the Lord through these programs in their own language. People who are exposed to the Gospel through radio tend to be more receptive to national missionaries when they visit. You can provide one 15-minute program for $45 or one hour of programming for $180. Your donation will send a message of hope through the airwaves.
Women across South Asia gather each week for literacy classes where they learn reading, writing and math skills. When a woman completes the course, she's able to read warning labels to protect her children and understand contracts to avoid bonded labor. She won't get cheated at the marketplace because she will finally know how to add. And she can read the Bible for herself and teach it to her children.
Empower Women with the Ability to Read
These women must become better equipped to survive in a society that frequently takes advantage of them. Classrooms are available and willing teachers are ready—all these eager students need is a literacy book and something to write on. Please donate toward these effective teaching tools.
Gospel for Asia Compassion Services teams are already on the ground caring for the victims of a powerful cyclone that ravaged West Bengal, India, and the neighboring country of Bangladesh.
Rebuilding Myanmar could take years. And since our missionaries, churches and Bible college students are indigenous, they will be there for the long haul.
Nargis Survivors Find New Hope Amid Suffering


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Do you want to make Ohio.com your homepage?
XMen's basketball
A young Akron team might have finally got the hint tonight: They have to be tough to win.
The Zips traveled to an experienced Bowling Green team's gym and won, 62-52. Akron's team defense was nearly faultless. Aside from some penetration issues in the first half, the individual defense was air-tight, as well. Bowling Green shot only 28 percent from the field.
The Zips also benefited from offensive toughness I have never seen before from Chris McKnight. On a few possessions, he became a bull with the ball. Rather than settling for a mid-range fadeaway, he used his power and footwork until the rim was within sneezing distance. Humpty Hitchens led the team with 15 points.
I was surprised to see Brett McClanahan enter the game and melt his redshirt. Knowing Keith Dambrot, this move was just as much about motivating his team as it was adding a shooter to the floor. Whether it was complacency or a string of bad shooting nights for Steve McNees and Darryl Roberts, I don't know. But neither has made much of an impact in the last month. If McClanahan plays, one of them will not. Hopefully they got that message.
It would be premature to say Akron is any better than tonight than Tuesday against Buffalo, but this win might be a turning point in terms of confidence.
Next up is a trip to Athens on Tuesday. The Bobcats have played well this season. I will preview the game on Monday.


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There's little denying that 2013 was a marvellous year for videogames, a well deserved swan song for the sternly loyal long lived last generation of consoles – Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. 2013 was arguably one of gamings best years in recent memory. But who cares, old game is old – right? The moment Playstation 4 and Xbox One were released last year gamings most dedicated communities suddenly cast their expectant gaze forward. So then, to celebrate the beginning of 2014, and a hopefully yet another fantastic year for gaming we've decided to count down a top ten list of our most anticipated titles slated for release this year, next up is number eight Mario Kart 8.
Zipping around as the charming denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom through a host of its iconic locale has never disappointed in any iteration of now long running Mario Kart series, and we don't see the upcoming eighth entry being any different. Nintendo's premier racing franchise (sorry F-Zero!) was born way back on the SNES; since then it's become a mainstay on pretty much everyone of the Big N's home and handheld systems alike. The series has long retained a core fundamental formula of stellar iconic tracks, frenzied competitive multiplayer and responsive karting controls. Recent years may have seen Mario Kart fare better critically on the DS's, but regardless Mario and friends will undoubtedly deliver a bevy of addictive karting content in this next home console installment. It's hard not to mention that Mario Kart 8 is excitedly the series first chance to combine it's uniquely charming style with sublime HD visuals.
Those shiny new high definition graphics are of course only possible because Mario Kart 8 is coming exclusively to Nintendo's struggling WiiU platform, perhaps they're hoping that the tremendous success of the Wii version will prove hereditary- doubtful as not even Super Mario 3D World was able to reverse the consoles woes. Regardless of sales problems Mario Kart 8 looks to be a great boon for those who've already adopted a WiiU, bringing back a host of traditional mechanics whilst adventurously trying out some new off the wall ideas, quite literally. Most obviously challenging the status quo is the addition of anti-gravity segments, a continuation of the transforming kart mechanic first introduced on the 3DS installment Mario Kart 7. Similar to the handheld vehicles will niftily shift forms depending track conditions, gliders spring up for floaty segments, propellers materialise for tricky underwater sections, and now wheels stylishly retract to form hovercrafts when tackling slidy anti-gravity areas – including some stomach churning upside driving acrobatics.
Whilst some complained the transform-a-kart feature was little more than superficial fluff the anti-grav sections are challenging that notion, as even small alterations like collisions causing karts to spin out of control rather than cartoonishly bounce off one another has the potential to radically alter play styles for portions of a race, forcing players to dynamically shift tactics depending on track conditions. They're aesthetic changes too, like the simplistic turning on and off of headlamps in dark/ light sections of a track. Miiverse integration is also present, as is standard across all WiiU games, the social network will in this case give players the ability to share replay videos, and comment on fellow drivers uploaded clips. In terms of gameplay bikes will return from their Wii debut, the newly reinvigorated coin system will also find it's way back, a deeper kart customization suite will be in place and returning classic tracks from earlier entries will be present alongside a full roster of new courses – though if they'll be altered for the new mechanics remains to be seen.
When talking about Mario Kart it's easy to get lost in nostalgia; memories of friends sitting around an N64 verbally slinging challenges at one another whilst the characters onscreen reflected the tensions in the room with jovial gloats and anguished screams. Those memories were built around a simple racing game with oodles of hidden depth waiting to be mastered, the reasons those vivid recollections could be generated in the first place is because of Mario Kart's accessibility and charm that kept players coming back for more. It's not a game that tries to deliver a serious message, challenge your world view or even build a realistic racing experience, it's a game that wants to make you smile, whose cartoonish characteristics make it the closest you'll ever get to playing Wacky Racers. It's lovable simplicity and quirky tracks are why we can't wait to burnup the Mushroom Kingdom once more. Besides, we need to hear the tangible shattered disappointment of a friend scorned by a blue shell in the last second just one more time; maybe another after that.
<- Click Here To See Our #9 Most Anticipated Game of 2014 Click Here To See Our #7 Most Anticipated Game of 2014 ->


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Re: "Do What I Mean" - a suggestion for improving Mathematica experience
David Bakin wrote: > A few days ago I posted that Mathematica should have a "DWIM" feature - "Do > What I Mean". > > In InterLisp, in the 80's, the DWIM facility was hooked into error messages, > and when invoked on a user error would poke around on the stack and in the > environment using some rules to describe common error situations and it > would uncover user errors and offer to correct them. Many of the errors > were simple spelling errors and it would correct a misspelled variable name > if it found an unbound variable but a similarly spelled variable was bound > in the environment. > > Mathematica could benefit from this, and in fact, we at mathgroup could > supply the rules (and framework) as a useful group project. > > If some guru would write the framework - trapping error messages somehow, > perhaps when they were written to the $Messages channel (by replacing the > default $Messages channel with something that would hook into the DWIM > function), or perhaps with some other hook like redefining Message[] - then > the rest of us could supply rules for the common errors. Especially the > common errors we see puzzling Mathematica newbies on this list. > > I would suggest that the rules provide messages, hopefully with hyperlinks > to the documentation. > > A true DWIM might also offer to rewrite the current expression and try it > again, but I don't know if that can be done given the hooks into Mathematica > that are currently available. > > Some situations that could be addressed are: > > 1. User writes "xy" instead of "x y". Rule could inspect the expression > under evaluation and find (unevaluated) symbols like "xy" of the form > "<prefix><suffix>" where both "<prefix>" and "<suffix>" were either symbols > used in the expression or symbols bound in the environment. Rule would > explain the problem and offer to rewrite expression and try again. > > 2. Some expression using a user-defined function causes an error when > evaluating, or doesn't evaluate. Looking at the function, a rule finds > function calls where the function arguments' patterns include "_Integer" or > similar but the arguments given to it are not integers. Rule points to > documentation describing argument types required by the called function. > > 3. Similar to 2 above, but it finds function calls that do numeric > evaluation only or are optimized for numeric evaluation but the arguments > given to it are symbolic. > > 4. Result returned is machine precision very close to zero (that is, > with large negative exponent), but an error message complained of > singularity, or other ill-conditioning. Rule points to documentation > explaining about machine precision, and/or singularity, and offers to retry > the expression with more digits of precision, rewriting the expression to > achieve this. > > Actually, now that I think of it, the DWIM facility needs also to be invoked > by the user because some of these situations don't cause error messages, but > only cause (wholly or partially) unevaluated expressions. So maybe the user > could be trained to type a word, like "Explain[]" after he didn't get the > result he wanted and the DWIM facility would look at the In[] and Out[] > arrays to find out what he's been doing recently. > > I would be glad to contribute rules to the framework ... but I'm not yet up > to writing the framework. Hopefully one of the gurus here will find this > interesting (and possible) and provide a framework. Then the rest of us > could contribute rules that would improve the Mathematica experience for all > newcomers. (AES, I'm looking at you! :-) ) > > -- David > Wow - that sounds a very challenging project! I wonder if it would be better to start with a slightly more modest idea, and write a CommentOn function that would have attribute HoldFirst, and take any expression as an argument, and apply as many heuristics as possible, looking for possible mistakes - such as your xy example. Another such function might be WhyNoMatch that would take a function call and attempt to explain why it did not match the definition. The problem is, I suspect beginners write arguments as x_ rather than x_Integer - but having said that, they sometimes write them as x - which can waste a lot of time. As it happens, I have just released an experimental debugger (see my post of the other day). I guess that could look for certain things going wrong - such as the problem you cite of a numeric routine ending up doing a symbolic calculation. I think the real challenge might be to raise the success rate high enough that people felt it was worth running the code. David Bailey http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk


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Asus' budget Xonar DGX and DSX sound cards reviewed Asus' Xonar DGX and DSX cost less than $50, making them tempting upgrades for folks seeking better sound. Both cards have PCI Express interfaces,... Type: Feature article Tags: Multimedia |
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A quick look at Corsair's Professional Series AX1200i digital power supply Corsair's new Professional Series AX1200i uses digital circuitry to convert AC to DC power. We take a quick look at the PSU and the... Type: Feature article Tags: Power Software |
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A look at hardware video transcoding on the PC The market is rife with hardware video transcoders and software that can take advantage of them. However, making sense of that jungle of disparate offerings... Type: Feature article Tags: CPUs Graphics Multimedia |
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Sennheiser's HD 558 headphones are cans of whoop-ass It's rumored that if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll probably ask you for a glass of milk. They also say that if... Type: Blog post Tags: Multimedia |
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A quick look at Intel's DZ77GA-70K motherboard While preparing for a certain upcoming processor launch, we've been spending some quality time with Intel's DZ77GA-70K motherboard. Read on for a quick... Type: Feature article Tags: Motherboards Chipsets |
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Western Digital's VelociRaptor 1TB hard drive Is there any hope for high-performance mechanical drives? We test WD's latest 10k-RPM VelociRaptor 1TB against a diverse array of competitors to find out. Type: Feature article Tags: Storage Servers Workstations |
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Z77 motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI Intel's Ivy Bridge processor may still be waiting in the wings, but the 7-series motherboards designed for it are already for sale. To provide... Type: Feature article Tags: Motherboards Chipsets |
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OCZ's RevoDrive 3 X2 240GB solid-state drive Using virtualization voodoo, the RevoDrive 3 X2 combines four SandForce-based SSDs on a single PCIe card purportedly capable of transfer rates up to 1500MB/s. ... Type: Feature article Tags: Storage Servers Workstations |
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A closer look at the new AMD AMD has a new management team and a new direction. They recently shared their vision for the company's future, and we were there, listening... Type: Feature article Tags: CPUs Graphics Servers |
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The misadventures of Blu-ray in HTPC land If you'll humor me, I'd like to take a brief break from all the CES coverage to complain about the sad state of Blu-ray on... Type: Blog post Tags: Multimedia |
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Where's my 21st-century television? Gabe Newell said something that caught my eye the other day. As part of a broader interview with The Cambridge Student, Newell shared some... Type: Blog post Tags: Multimedia |
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Sandy Bridge-E motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and MSI If you want to get in on Intel's new Sandy Bridge-E CPU, you'll need an LGA2011 motherboard. We've gathered four examples from Asus, Gigabyte,... Type: Feature article Tags: Motherboards Chipsets |
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Are sound cards still relevant? Recently, I supplemented my desktop's arsenal of hardware with a stand-alone Asus Xonar DX sound card. This upgrade was something of a shot in... Type: Blog post Tags: Multimedia |
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Lucid's 'smarter vsync' could revolutionize game performance Lucid's new 'HyperFormance' tech may have an unfortunate name, but it still has the potential to change the way we think about GPU performance by... Type: Feature article Tags: Graphics Software |
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The next computing revolution will be televised Up until very recently, I had been able to remain faithful to my home-theater PC. Well, that's not entirely true. I've gone through... Type: Blog post Tags: Multimedia |
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Asus' Xonar U3 USB audio device For just $40, the Xonar U3 squeezes headphone and microphone jacks, an S/PDIF output, EAX emulation, speaker virtualization, and Dolby Digital Live support into... Type: Feature article Tags: Multimedia |
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Llano motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI AMD's Llano APU arrives on the desktop with an FM1 socket that requires a new motherboard. We've assembled three candidates from Asus, Gigabyte,... Type: Feature article Tags: Motherboards Chipsets |
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Bulldozer mobos from Asus and MSI: Sabertooth 990FX & 990FXA-GD80 Bulldozer-based Zambezi CPUs are coming, but motherboard makers can't be bothered to wait. We take a detailed look at a pair of Bulldozer... Type: Feature article Tags: Motherboards Chipsets |
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The Tech Report System Guide: March 2017 edition | 44 |


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It is clear that the Asia Pacific region is a GSM stronghold, with 1.075 billion of the total 1.36 billion connections using that system and a further 85 million using 3rd Generation W-CDMA. These numbers compare with 1.003 billion and 75.0 million at the end of Q3 07 and 817.6 million and 48.3 million one year earlier, implying annual growth rates of 32% and 77% respectively.
Asia Pacific: Customers by Technology
However, GSM is not the only force in the market and for the moment at least, CDMA is still gaining ground.
It closed the quarter with 182.9 million connections, up 8.2% on the quarter and 21% on the year. The US technology may be wilting in other markets, but its presence in India gives it a lifeline here. How long this will continue though is not clear. In Australia, the technology will become extinct next week as Telstra is finally allowed to shut down its network in favour of its new NextG W-CDMA alternative. Reliance, Indias largest CDMA operator now has over 6 million of its 41 million total connected to GSM systems, while even more worryingly, South Korea seems to be moving away too. At the end of 2006, there were just 30k W-CDMA customers out of a total base of 41 million. At the end of 2007, this number had leapt to over 6 million, with CDMA declining to 37.6 million.
In total, there are five other technologies in use within the AsiaPac region, but all five are in clear decline. There are now fewer than 100,000 customers connected to first generation analogue technology (represented by AMPS, ETACS and NMT). This compares with over 700k three years ago. Other second generation technologies are not faring well either. The US TDMA standard has now almost completely disappeared with fewer than 350k connections in total, while Japans PDC system is in steady decline, losing another 2.7 million customers this quarter to end at 16.76 million.
Source: Cellular News.
Revenue from mobile media and entertainment (MME) services in the US will more than double during the next five years, according to the latest research from Analysys. US MME services (excluding messaging, and mobile browsing and data charges) generated US$3.1 billion in revenue in 2007, and Analysys Research forecasts that revenue will grow to $6.6 billion in 2012, at a compound annual growth rate of 16.3%. The strongest growth will not occur until after 2010, as the technical and market environment for MME services improves, according to the latest Analysys report, Mobile Media and Entertainment in the US: forecasts 2007-2012.
Key trends that are driving market growth include:
Analysys Research forecasts that MME services will account for 12.3% of non-voice service revenue in the US by 2012. Mobile TV and VoD services will experience the highest growth rate of any MME service during the next five years. When combined, broadcast and unicast TV and video services will account for 36% of MME revenue by 2012. By contrast, revenue from personalization services will decline from 47% of total MME revenue in 2007 to 17% in 2012.
"Operators, content providers and device manufacturers will have to work together to increase subscriber awareness of MME offerings and to ensure straightforward pricing, and simpler purchase and delivery processes," said Alexandra Rehak, co-author of the report. "It is also critical that the user experience of MME services be compelling and complementary to the subscriber's experience of entertainment across other media."
From data by CCID Consulting, the sales volume in China's mobile phone market is 150 million units in 2007, which is 24.1% more than that of 2006. If black- market mobiles from smuggling, unregistered brands and other illegal products are counted, the number exceeded 200 million in 2007.
Sales & Growth Rate of China Mobile Market 2000-2007
In 2007, over 60% of users changed their mobiles with over 90 million mobiles sold for this purpose. The reasons could be attributed to faster function upgrades, higher performance- price ratio, shorter product life cycle, and customized service by the network operators. The number of new subscriber reached a new record in recent years with over 86 million new subscribers in 2007 and over 7 million per month.
According to their statistics, new subscribers mainly come from rural markets and 3rd/4th-level cities.
CCID says that the competition of products on the market will be rather fierce while the China mobile market is developing on a large scale. The homogeneity, price wars, and sinking channels will direct consumer behavior, and manufacturers will turn from seizing market share to chasing profit. The certificate of mobile authority and the launch of the China 3G mobile market will stimulate market competition and create concentrated market share in already-advantaged brands and less market share in small brands. It will also create competitive cooperation among manufacturers, distributors and network operators.
Mobile payment is a service at an early stage with an expected 32.9 million users worldwide in 2008, growing to 103.9 million users in 2011, according to Gartner. Short Message Service (SMS) is the dominant mobile payment technology today, driven by mobile money transfers, and it will remain the dominant technology through 2011.
Gartner defines mobile payment as paying for a product or service using mobile technologies, such as SMS, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and Near Field Communications (NFC). It excludes telebanking by using a mobile phone to call the service center, as well as mobile ticketing where the ticket value has been prepaid and stored on the phone. The payment is made via the phone, although not necessarily over a wireless network, as in the case of NFC. Examples include merchandise purchase, payment for parking or transit, paying monthly bills and paying for money transfers.
"Mobile payment could bring revenue opportunities for carriers and, potentially, banks if deployed properly," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. "The business case is more obvious for mobile carriers than banks; however, banks can justify the investment if they look at mobile as an extension of their existing channels and bundle payments with additional banking services."
"The service is easier to justify in emerging markets, where many people are unbanked or underbanked, and there are few payment options," Ms. Shen said. "In developed markets, mobile payment is likely to start as a loyalty scheme, as an extension of existing services. However, banks should be aware of alternative services from nonbanking institutions, such as PayPal and Obopay, that can compete on lower fees and faster transactions and that are more proactive on the mobile front. These could threaten the lucrative card business should momentum build up."
Asia/Pacific has the most mobile payment users with a projected 28 million users in 2008, accounting for 85 percent of the worldwide total. Western Europe is expected to have 499,000 users in 2008, and North America is projected to have 1 million users.
"Asia leads the world in the uptake of mobile payment and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future," Ms. Shen said. "There are three main reasons for this, the first being the early launch of such services in the region, led by the Philippines and Japan. Secondly, there are some significant developing markets in the region, such as China and India, with large numbers of mobile users and insufficient banking and payment infrastructure. Thirdly, Asia is ahead of the world in mobile service development due to the receptive attitude of the end user, who is more willing to try new services."
North America and Western Europe will see slower uptake of mobile payment because of the more established nature of the payment infrastructure in those regions and a higher sensitivity to security. However, Gartner expects that the arrival of advanced mobile payment technologies, such as NFC, has the potential to speed up service adoption as consumers associate the "cool factor" and convenience with contactless mobile payments.
Algerias communications minister has announced that tariffs for ADSL broadband internet services will be cut by 50%. State-owned Algerie Telecom will reduce charges for a 128kbps connection to DZD590 (USD9) a month, while a 256kbps service will cost DZD1,100 and a 512kbps link will be DZD1,500, Telecompaper reports.
Source: TeleGeography.
A new report from Telecommunications Management Group, Inc. (TMG), "IPTV: The Killer Broadband Application," forecasts that there will be nearly 60 million Internet Protocol television (IPTV) subscribers worldwide by the end of 2010. IPTV -- providing video services over managed IP networks to consumers' televisions -- has been doubling each year since its commercial introduction in 2002. There were 9.9 million IPTV subscribers around the world at the end of 2007, more than double the previous year, and TMG projects more than a 500 percent increase over the next three years. According to Michael Minges, TMG Senior Market Analyst and lead author of the report, "IPTV is revolutionizing the television market by introducing greater competition and providing consumers with a plethora of customizable content, viewable any time."
Other points of interest in the report include the finding that IPTV has succeeded in countries with relatively low pay television penetration but high broadband penetration. This is characteristic of some countries in Europe, which has the largest number of IPTV subscribers and where thereare few regulatory obstacles, nationwide telecommunications operators and widely available broadband networks.
IPTV subscribers by region, 2007 Europe 5.3 million Asia 3.3 million Americas 1.3 millionFrance Telecom is the largest IPTV operator in the world with 1.1 million subscribers at the end of 2007, followed by Verizon's FiOS television service in the United States. With over 50 percent of its broadband subscribers using its "now" broadband TV service, Hong Kong's PCCW has the most successful overall uptake.IPTV is not limited to high-income economies. China and India have launched IPTV, as have several countries in Africa. TMG forecasts that China and the United States will be the world's largest IPTV markets by 2010.The report is a rich resource for operators, manufacturers, regulators, policymakers, researchers and others. In addition to annual historical data and a 2010 subscriber forecast for more than 40 countries that had IPTV at the beginning of 2008, the report includes penetration rates for television households, pay television households, broadband subscribers and broadband households. The report also contains a listing of IPTV providers and pricing around the world.
Source: WASHINGTON, PRNewswire (Based on TMG).
Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry has issued a report on the telecoms market and says that 3G subscriptions reached 6.91 million at the end of last year - representing a rise of 16.5% and a total base of 28.5%. 2G subscriptions fell by 4.2 % to 15.9 million. The Institute anticipates that 3G subscriptions will top 10 million, or 40% of the total base by the end of this year.
The population penetration level reached 105.8 percent.
The Institute also reported that text messaging volumes rose by 26% to 1,256 billion in the fourth quarter of last year. The average subscriber sent just over 54 text messages during the quarter and 18 text messages per month.
Mobile internet access increased by 7.8% to 11.86 million and nearly half of all mobile phones sold included mobile internet services. Just over 55% of mobile internet access is carried out via a 3G handset, compared to 32% being carried out over a GPRS network.
A very complex mobile value chain and a growing business reliance on mobile products have created the need for services that help businesses maximize the value of their mobile investments. In a recent report from ABI Research, mobile device management (MDM) services are forecast to grow from $583 million in 2007 to over $20 billion by 2013, for a compound annual growth rate of 80%.
Mobile device management services include policy development, procurement and asset management, billing audit and reconciliation, enhanced customer care, device/content security, and additional services that are vertical- and occupation-specific. According to principal analyst Dan Shey, The range of services needed to manage a businesss mobile investments requires inputs from many different wireless equipment and services providers including operators, MDM platform vendors, IT services providers, telecom expense management firms, and mobility management services firms. All want to be part of the action.
But the biggest disruptors for the market have yet to make their mark on the industry. Mobile device management platforms are slowly evolving with more and more capabilities for mobile device management services. Their increasing functionality on a growing base of device platforms automates many important mobile device management processes. Not only can these platforms be employed by many value chain suppliers, but more importantly, businesses can acquire and use these platforms themselves.
Shey concludes, Operators are the dark horses in this race: they provide and appropriate revenues for nearly all mobile capabilities, they already use MDM platforms, and they value the mobile business customer highly. MDM platforms, and the possible participation scenarios of the mobile operator, beg the question: Who will manage?
The European Union (EU) has topped the United States in broadband penetration, according to a report issued this morning by the European Commission (EC) that assesses the state of information and communication technology (ICT) growth under the so-called "i2010" program launched by the EC in 2005.
"The European broadband market is developing rapidly and already outstrips that of the United States," the EC wrote. It estimated some 99.2 million broadband lines in the EC, compared with 81.6 million in the United States and Canada combined, and 43.1 million in Japan and South Korea together. In 2007, the number of regular active Internet users in Europe rose by 40 million, to a total of 250 million.
"It is a welcome change of political direction that today, ICT, the main driver of European growth, is being promoted by all 27 EU Member States in their national policies. This helps Europe compete internationally and modernizes the daily lives of Europeans," comments EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding. "It is especially good news that 77 percent of EU businesses, 67 percent of schools and 48 percent of doctors are now benefiting from fast broadband connections."
Ticking off Europe's broadband achievements, in its report the EC says more than 96 percent of European schools now are connected to the Internet -- two-thirds of them to broadband, up from almost zero in 2001. In the health sector, 57 percent of doctors now send or receive patient data, up from 17 percent in 2002, with 46 percent of them receiving results from laboratories electronically, up from only 11 percent in 2002. Some 77 percent of EU businesses had a broadband connection in 2007, up from 62 percent in 2005, and 77 percent use the Internet for dealing with banks, up from 70 percent in 2005.
Still, the EC found the pattern of Internet and broadband usage varies widely from country to country. Nearly 40 percent of Europeans don't use the Internet at all, the EC noted, with the lowest usage in Romania (69 percent are unconnected), Bulgaria (65 percent unconnected) and Greece (62 percent unconnected). In contrast, only 13 percent of the populations in Denmark and The Netherlands are unconnected, and those countries also are two of the Top Three in EU broadband penetration, at 35.6 percent and 34.2 percent, respectively.
In its report, the EC also warned, "There are now some signs of fatigue: growth in penetration is slowing down, and there are increasing gaps between Member States in terms of take-up, speed, price and coverage. Bandwidth requirements are on the rise and, although speeds are developing similarly to those in the United States, the migration to high-speed broadband in the EU is sluggish."
"Investment in next-generation networks is not going ahead as quickly as Europe needs," the EC lamented. In hopes of rectifying the situation and encouraging NGNs, this year it is going to "clarify the regulatory provisions for next-generation access."
Source: Telecom Web.
Given the explosive growth in mobile communications, India, through its use of a variety of wireless technologies, aims to reach 500 million subscribers by 2010, according to private sector and government officials attending a Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) conference in Kerala, India. India forecasts that its current level of 240 million subscribers will be doubled within less than two years, thanks to the policies being implemented by the Government of India, especially for universal access in rural and suburban areas.
The effort to connect rural communities is an important issue for ICT operatives in Asia, as regulators, governments and other stakeholders see the urgency of harnessing ICTs to bridge the digital divide and further create new market opportunities for the private sector in Asia.
As a diplomatic inter-governmental ICT organisation, the CTO has assembled regulators, Ministers of Communications and ICT giants to map rural connectivity in this explosive, high-growth market. The forum outlined the latest elements of rural ICT developments, while creating networking opportunities for the industry elite from across the entire value chain.
Commenting on the success of the conference, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, the CEO of the CTO, said: In our view at the CTO, the central challenge facing the development community in the ICT arena is how to connect the unconnected. In most developing countries, the unconnected are in the rural areas, hence the critical importance of our series of conferences in Africa and Asia on connecting rural communities. These events have been very helpful to our member governments, ICT regulators and industry executives in appreciating the right combination of policies, legislation, regulation, operational strategies, unique business models, innovative financing mechanisms and other local ownership and management arrangements that make rural connectivity initiatives sustainable.
Pakistan's mobile operators have blocked some 1.36 million SIM cards since the beginning of the year after their owners failed to register them as is now required. In addition, even subscribers who did register their details had a limit of 10 SIMs per person imposed and any additional SIM cards were cut off.
A Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) official told the Dawn newspaper that despite the media campaign had been suspended in the first week of this month, the authority will continue to carryout surveys/ground checks of outlets (franchisees/retailers) on a regular basis and mobile companies will be held responsible for any violation on part of registered or unregistered franchisees or retailers.
The regulator issued a requirement last year forcing all mobile phone users to register their details with the phone operators - and a clarification was issued in February to the operators to make the registration process easier.
According to figures from the Mobile World database, Pakistan ended last year with some 76.9 million subscribers, so the loss of 1.36 million subscribers if evenly distributed amongst the operators, while not insignificant is unlikely to be catastrophic.
In related news, India has alleged that Pakistans nine mobile phone towers erected along the border have security-related implications. Tests carried out by the Ministry of State for Home Affairs tested 44 locations inside the Indian border and reported to have found mobile signals from the Pakistani operators leaking across the border at 39 location.
The market for wireless devices and equipment in process manufacturing will grow to over $1.1B in 2012, a growth rate of 32% per year, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study. The data in this study is from 2007 and includes a forecast of market growth through the year 2012.
The market will also change its character during the period, as new standardized wireless sensing products and hardened wireless local area networks (LAN) penetrate the process market. Deployment of wireless in continuous process manufacturing industries (e.g., chemicals, oil & gas, oil refining, electric power, mining & metals) has lagged other manufacturing industries, such as automotive and aerospace, because process plants are often larger and located mainly outdoors, and because the presence of dangerous and potentially explosive materials mandates use of equipment carrying special certifications.
Wireless process sensing is expected to be the fastest growing market segment. Today it accounts for only a small portion of the total market, but according to ARC, it will become the largest segment during the next five years, as the market absorbs a deluge of new wireless sensing products that comply with wireless versions of industrial standards. Two industrial networking standards, WirelessHART and ISA100, both use the same sensor radio hardware as the ZigBee standard, but with their own software. The driving force for wireless process sensing is its dramatically lower installation cost, which ARC believes will cause the normal change-averse process industries to use it wherever they can, leading to more rapid adoption.
Wireless LAN use will also grow rapidly, spurred by the introduction of new access point products that can safely be installed in the hazardous environments that may be present in such plants. The longer range and clearer signals of future IEEE 802.11n wireless will also make them attractive to process industry customers.
Manufacturers in the process industries know that they need better visibility into operations that occur inside their own fence, said Harry Forbes, Senior Analyst at Boston-based ARC Advisory Group. ARCs end user research indicates that manufacturers believe better visibility has huge potential value in the form of more consistent use of best practices, higher plant utilization, and improved operational safety.
Another area of operations where improved (and wireless-enabled) practices have high potential is major equipment turnarounds. These are pre-planned major maintenance activities that are becoming increasingly complex and involve huge numbers of coordinated tasks, contractors, suppliers, and materials over ever-shorter outage periods.
Third generation connection numbers in Europe grew by a record 11.2m in Q4 2007 to reach 81.5m by the end of the 2007 - an 81% improvement year on year. New W-CDMA connections accounted for 45% of net connection growth in the final quarter, which was the lowest proportion for the year, after 46.9% in Q1, 56.5% in Q2 and 46.8% in Q3.
Given the extent to which the fourth quarter Christmas boom is driven by the lower-cost and prepaid market, however, this is not a surprising result. It was GSM, of course, which was dominant in terms of net additions, with 13.8m in Q4 2007, giving it a total of 39.3m for the full year, against 36.5m for its 3G derivative.
Nevertheless, proportionately speaking the growth in the GSM base only amounted to 6.5% for the year, which led to a strengthening of the contribution of the 3G base to the total. At the end of 2006, W-CDMA customers accounted for 6.9% of all European mobile connections; at the end of 2007, the proportion of the total made up of 3G enabled connections had risen to 11.2% - with 1.2pp of the increase (the highest ever) coming in the fourth quarter.
Europe: % Customers W-CDMA, Q4 02 - Q4 07
The proportion of customers outside of the GSM/W-CDMA family remained extremely small at the end of 2007, but it did increase marginally over the course of the year.
The growth rate for Europes CDMA base amounted to 26.1% in the 12 months to 31st December 2007, taking the total over 1m in the third quarter to end the year at 1.12m. Offsetting this to a small extent was a 23% decline in the size of the legacy analogue base, although this amounted to less than 50k customers in absolute terms. The result was an increase in the proportion of the total European base made up of CDMA and other customers from 0.168% at the end of 2006 to 0.176% a year later. The vast majority of the CDMA connections were of the 1x or 1x EV-DO variety at the end of the year, which when included took the 3G total to over 82.5m.
Just as search became critical on the desktop, search will become increasingly important in the mobile space. The growth of consumer options to search on-deck and off-deck, SMS, and via branded or white-label search providers in the mobile domain has created opportunities for advertisers to reach consumers through sponsored search opportunities. ABI Research believes mobile search advertising growth will be driven by this escalating array of options, as total search-related mobile advertising expands from $813 million in 2008 to $5 billion by 2013.
We are seeing strong growth of mobile search services within an on-portal and off-portal context, says ABI Research director Michael Wolf. However, given the constraints of mobile platforms and the specific needs of mobile users, mobile search services and the integration of advertising - need to be thought out carefully by branded providers, white-label search vendors, and carriers.
The growth of mobile-search-related advertising will be strong across many regions, with Asia-Pacific showing the greatest overall gains. On-portal, off-portal, and SMS-based search will be important drivers of search-related advertising, with total SMS searches growing from 13 billion in 2008 to over 76 billion by 2013.
Branded providers such as Yahoo and Google see the importance of the mobile platform, as the overall population of Internet users on mobile devices exceeds that of PC-based Internet users, continues Wolf. While mobile search incorporates more contextually relevant information such as location, consumers will increasingly look to search as a way to discover content and pertinent information that could drive purchasing behavior. Providers that can supply the most applicable solutions tailored toward mobile users will ultimately win in the marketplace.
A new report by Juniper Research into the mobile financial services sector has found that the number of consumers accessing banking services and products via their mobile phones will reach 816 million by 2011, a tenfold increase on the number using such services in 2007.
The report found that financial institutions are delivering an increasing variety of products in the mobile environment including financial information services, funds transfer, bill payment and presentation, account management and customer service.
According to the report, the annual number of global mobile banking transactions will rise from 2.7 billion in 2007 to 37 billion by 2011, as a greater number of services are deployed worldwide. It adds that increased consumer confidence, due to the enhanced security measures that are being utilised in mobile financial services will be crucial to greater service usage levels.
However, the report cautioned that a number of hurdles to service deployment and user adoption have yet to be overcome, including financial regulation, payment transaction costs, revenue share issues and customer support difficulties.
Other findings from the report include:
The number of cellphones in circulation in Brazil totaled 125.8 million at the end of March, up 1.36% from February and 23.2% higher than the same month one year before, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday by telecommunications regulator Anatel.
Net additions in the month were 1.69 million. In the first quarter, net additions reached 4.83 million.
"The strong growth seen in 2008 is due at least in part to the practice of selling multiple subscriber identity module, or SIM, cards per subscriber, which artificially inflates the number of wireless subscribers and net additions." Morgan Stanley said in a research report.
"As a result, we believe revenues and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, growth may not follow subscriber growth at the same pace. So far, we have not seen this trend, but we will be following close as wireless operators report first quarter results over the next few weeks," it added.
Brazil's main operator are Vivo Participacoes, which is jointly owned by Spain's Telefonica and Portugal Telecom; TIM Participacoes, the local unit of Telecom Italia and Claro, the local unit of Mexico's America Movil.
According to new data from the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the countrys mobile operators added 1.38 million new subscribers in March 2008 to raise the total user base to 38.93 million. The figures show that market leading Telenor subsidiary GrameenPhones subscriber base increased by 610,000 in March to reach 17.81 million; Orascom Telecoms Banglalinks customer base grew by 430,000 to 8.31 million; Telecom Malaysia International Bangladesh (AKTEL) signed up 90,000 users to take its total to 7.45 million (after slipping behind Banglalink in the first two months of the year); Warid Telecom Bangladesh (which launched in May 2007) has already firmly established itself in fourth place with 2.79 million subscribers at the end of March, up from 2.6 million in February; SingTel-backed CityCell (the only CDMA operator in a GSM-dominated field) added 50,000 users to end the month with 1.56 million; and finally state-owned Teletalk was reported to have 1.01 million customers, compared to a million the month before. The latest growth figures bring the impoverished countrys cellular penetration rate to an estimated 27%.
Russia's largest mobile phone operator, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), has reported that net profit for 2007 almost doubled to USD2.07 billion compared to USD1.08 billion in 2006. Revenue for the year ended 31 December 2007 increased 29% to USD8.25 billion from USD6.38 billion. Consolidated OIBDA grew 31% to USD4.223 billion, with OIBDA margin amounting to 51.2%, up from 50.6% in 2006. Subscriber numbers across the group's operations rose 13% to 85.77 million, while it gained 6.21 million new subscribers in Russia during 2007.On a quarterly basis, MTSs net profit more than quadrupled in the final three months of the year to USD460 million compared to USD110 million in same period of 2006. This was less than analysts had anticipated, but revenues, which rose to USD2.33 billion in the period from USD1.81 billion a year ago, were higher than forecasted. MTS said monthly ARPU rose to USD10 in Russia in the fourth quarter.MTS said it expects revenues to grow by at least 25% in 2008, fuelled by an increase in the demand for voice services and a higher consumption of extra services and data transfer. The company plans capital expenditure of up to USD2.5 billion for the year.
The total number of mobile connections in the UK surpassed 70 million during the fourth quarter of 2007, finishing the year on 70.99 million. In total there were 4.10 million net additions during the year, up from 1.35 million in 2006, while on a proportionate basis the annual customer growth rate almost tripled from 2.1% to 6.2%. This was due in part to the one-off loss of 1.30 million customers in 2006 as a result of T-Mobile's change in policy regarding active users, but even if we discount this there would have been an increase in customer growth in 2007. This is despite the fact that penetration is well over 100%: at the end of 2007, in fact, the penetration rate had reached 116.5%, up from 110.1% a year earlier.
Customers and Annual Customer Growth Rate
Monthly ARPU - Top Four Operators
The key to the year's strong customer growth was the performance of Vodafone, which added 2.06 million active customers, over half the total net additions for the market in 2007. It finished the year with an estimated 16.75 million active subscribers, up 14.1% year-on-year, compared to a 0.9% decline in 2006.
Vodafone was the only operator to record double digit customer growth in 2007, although Hutchison was not too far off with an 8.4% annual growth rate. Market leader O2 - the only operator to record over 10% growth in 2006 - saw a 4.4pp drop to 6.7% in 2007. However, it still managed to record a 0.2pp increase in market share to 28.4%, as well as breaking the 20 million barrier in Q4 to finish the year with 20.13 million active customers.
Vodafone saw the greatest gain in market share, however, adding 1.6pp to reach 23.6%.
Orange, which saw its second place taken by Vodafone in Q1 07, lost 0.8pp of share in the year to finish on 22.1%. It added just 0.31 million customers in 2007, down from 0.48 million in 2006, and ended the year with 15.64 million connections. In fourth place, T-Mobile saw its fifth successive yearly decline in market share, ending 2007 down 0.5pp on 14.5%. It did at least manage a net gain in customers, although the increase was only 0.26 million.
Virgin, which operates as an MVNO on T-Mobile's network, was the only operator of the top six to see a net loss of customers in 2007, dropping 31.4k as a result of a poor performance in the first half of the year. It lost 0.5pp of market share in the year to finish on 6.3%. Finally, Hutchison added 0.24 million in the year to finish on 3.11 million, with market share up 0.1pp at 4.4%.
The 2nd chart offers a comparison of the ARPU figures for the top four operators. It should be noted that since not all four publish a quarterly average for monthly ARPU, certain adjustments have been made for the sake of comparability: T-Mobile's figure is only released in Euros, so has been converted to pounds sterling using the relevant exchange rates, while Orange's monthly figure has been derived from the annual average that it publishes. The chart demonstrates that O2 has maintained the highest ARPU figure of the top four for the past three quarters, the increase in ARPU in 2007 suggesting that the company has been focusing on increasing customer value rather than on raw customer growth. Vodafone, by contrast, has paid for its strong customer growth with a fall in ARPU. Meanwhile, the upward trend of T-Mobile's ARPU has seen it match Orange's Q4 07 figure of £22.10, although both companies' figures should be approached with a degree of caution for the reasons stated above.
A report published by Pyramid Research says that mobile data will account for 29 percent of the global mobile service revenue in 2012, up from 19 percent in 2007. Clearly, the mobile data opportunity is soaring: the 2007 mobile data revenue was more than double what it was in 2004, and Pyramid Research expects it to double again to $300 billion by 2012.
The report also said that more than 60 percent of worldwide mobile data revenue will come from developed markets through 2012, despite the fact that 85 percent of the world's population lives in emerging markets. However, mobile data revenue in emerging markets will grow more than 50 percent faster than developed markets from 2007 to 2012
Mobile data revenue outlook, 2007 to 2012: Developed vs. emerging markets
In emerging markets, 3G and WiMAX will provide Internet connectivity to many consumers for the first time, partly due to a lack of viable fixed alternatives. Asia-Pacific will generate the highest mobile data revenue throughout the forecast period, and Africa and the Middle East will grow the fastest.
Across the developed regions, North America will experience the fastest growth in mobile data revenue, spurred by the United States, which will rake in the largest revenue from mobile data services, followed by Japan and China. India's mobile data revenue will grow fastest from 2007 to 2012. By 2012, India will have moved ahead of most developed nations to become the fourth largest market for mobile data revenue with more than $14 billion. Other fastest growing markets include Pakistan and Brazil.
Compared with emerging markets, data ARPS (average revenue per subscriber) is five times higher in developed nations, and the difference gets even greater in those markets where operators provide flat-rate data bundles and promote 3G. In emerging markets, the growth of data ARPS will be hindered by an increasing majority of prepaid subscriptions, and pricing for 3G services and handsets. We expect 71 percent of subscriptions in developed markets to use 3G handsets in 2012 compared with only 10 percent in emerging markets. The operators that generate the highest data ARPS are focused on 3G data services and offer flat-rate data bundles; they include Hutchison Whampoa's 3 in several markets including the United Kingdom and Australia as well as Japanese operators NTT DoCoMo and KDDI.
SMS will continue to generate the highest share of global mobile data revenue through 2012 and will make a larger impact in emerging markets. However, SMS revenue as a percentage of mobile data revenue will decline throughout the forecast period, as other data services - made possible by the rollout of next generation networks - gain further traction.
Slower 3G rollouts in emerging markets will likely hold back the growth of non-messaging data services. In 2012, in emerging markets, SMS will still comprise 45 percent of data ARPS in contrast to less than a quarter in developed markets. From 2007 to 2012, we expect the growth rate for SMS revenue in emerging nations to be almost three times as high as that of developed nations.
While Bluetooth has been in the market for almost a decade, it has not proliferated widely in Asia. In terms of consumer awareness, this region still lags behind others. However, the picture is changing, especially when it comes to cellular handsets, and a new study from ABI Research indicates that Bluetooth-enabled equipment shipments in Asia will reach 982 million units in 2013, representing a compound annual growth rate of 39% over 2006 shipments.
One of biggest barriers for consumers is cost, says senior analyst Andy Bae. Consumers in Asia believe that the Bluetooth headset is comparatively expensive; they also seem to underestimate its voice quality.
Bluetooth has achieved its greatest penetration to date in mobile handsets, as mobile operators have demanded continuous support from manufacturers. In South Korea, the penetration rate in mobile phones reached 51% in 2007.
Bae adds, Streaming music services over mobile networks, such as Japans Chaku Uta, will be key drivers of Bluetooth inclusion in cellular handsets.
The positive uptake in the cellular sector also produces a ripple effect for other devices. With increasing consumer awareness, notebook manufacturers now consider Bluetooth to be an ideal medium for exchanging files and data with peripherals and devices such as printers and digital cameras.
Bluetooth will still face challenges from competing short-range wireless technologies. In Asia, there are home-grown technologies to deliver music, voice, and video within a small radius. These include Binary CDMA, Wireless USB, and GiGa-Fi, which are all discussed in the ABI Research study, in order to compare their market positions and technical features with Bluetooth.
Those technologies may have superior transmission capabilities, notes Bae. But there is no other technology as well suited as Bluetooth for the transmission of audio services - nor does any other technology maintain the same price points or the same well-established market position.
While a large number of phones today still use browsers with very limited web browsing capabilities, many smartphones are incorporating browsers that support the latest capabilities such as AJAX and RSS, as well as websites optimized for viewing on a mobile device. ABI Research sees this segment of the mobile browser market accounting for the vast majority of growth over the next five years, as the open-Internet browser (OIB) segment for mobile grows from 76 million in 2007 to nearly 700 million browsers delivered in 2013.
The focus today for mobile browser developers is to take advantage of the latest web standards while also developing solutions tailored towards the unique experience of using a browser on a mobile phone, says research director Michael Wolf. The most recent commercial solutions from Opera, Openwave and ACCESS, as well as those using open source solutions such as Webkit, are targeted towards allowing consumers to access content on the web without limitations due to browser constraints.
Still, its important to note that despite the best efforts of browser vendors and handset manufacturers, web usage on mobile devices has a significant distance to go in closing the gap with PC-based browsers. The absence of important plug-ins such as Flash on many handsets and the constraints of many phones compared to the PC mean that even OIB browser vendors such as Skyfire continue to see a need for server-assisted architectures for transcoding and web acceleration.
There is a lot of development momentum for web content on mobile phones, adds Wolf. The move towards web-based applications means browser and web services engines will become increasingly important for mobile, whether these are in a commercial browser implementation or a customized widget. Ultimately, the long-term trend away from native applications to web-based applications means browser and web services engines will be increasingly important components in the mobile environment.
Global suppliers of services for telecom operators saw revenue increases across the board in 2007 as the total market grew to $70 billion, an 8% increase over 2006, according to Technology Business Research's Telecom Infrastructure Services (TIS) Market Model.
The TIS Market Model tracks market share of leading telecom equipment suppliers and provides forecasts for the rapidly-evolving market for selling deployment, maintenance, consulting & integration and managed services to telecom service providers.
Figure: Telecommunication Infrastructure Services Market Model
2007 Market Trends
In 2007, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei, and others stepped up their focus on services businesses to help insulate against slowing demand for telecom equipment. Meanwhile, the increasing intersection of network and IT worlds is creating significant opportunities for IT vendors such as IBM, HP, Accenture and EDS to seize growth opportunities within telco operator accounts and for traditional infrastructure vendors to expand into more software-centric parts of the network, particularly OSS/BSS. Beyond the major players, a second tier of network and software vendors are stepping up their systems integration and consulting initiatives.
TBR believes that determining the magnitude of the market as a whole, its various segments and the market share of major players are critical steps toward understanding the strategies that a firm should apply to win additional services business.
Key findings:
1) After announcing a handful of managed services contracts in 2006, suppliers reported a surge in 2007, with more than 100 deals announced. While interest in outsourcing remains low in North America, other regions, especially Western Europe, are seeing increased activity.
2)Completion of mergers among suppliers has tightened the competition among the three largest telecom suppliers. TBR believes that Ericsson will face significant challenges to its market leadership as both Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks become more aggressive in the network services space.
3)While IBM continues to lead large IT systems integrators in revenue from service providers, HP markedly increased its position in 2007 bringing it into a virtual tie for the lead among these players.
4)While network equipment spending slowed in 2007, service provider consolidation and migration to IP-based multimedia infrastructure drove opportunities for services.
MUMBAI -(Dow Jones)- Indian telecommunications operator Bharti Airtel added 2.31 million mobile phone subscribers in March, industry data showed Friday.
As a result, Bharti's total mobile phone user base has grown to 61.98 million subscribers at the end of March, according to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India.
In March, Vodafone Essar added 1.57 million mobile phone users taking its total subscriber base to 44.13 million, said COAI, which represents the 10 operators using the global system for mobile communications technology.
State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) added 1.64 million mobile phone users, taking its total subscriber base to 36.21 million at the end of March.
Idea Cellular added 1.13 million users and had 24 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of March.
Another state-run operator, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., added 120,020 new mobile phone users in March and has a total subscriber base of 3.24 million
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