Telcordia OSS Selected by JT Group for Rollout of Comprehensive Fiber Telecoms … – MarketWatch (press release)
Telcordia OSS Selected by JT Group for Rollout of Comprehensive Fiber Telecoms ... MarketWatch (press release) JT, the leading telecommunications provider for the UK's Channel Islands, has selected the Telcordia Plan--to--Provision for Fixed Broadband solution to support the replacement of its existing copper network with a newly-designed fiber-to-the-home ... |
Stuck for an outing? Try the National Tractor Weekend
It's the first-ever, prompted by the runaway success of a vintage farm machinery rally in north Yorkshire
The grip of the tractor on the human mind is peculiar but real. I can never shop at Morrisons in Idle without thinking of 'Tractors' – the enormous International Harvester plant which took over from Jowett Cars and was humming away when I was on the Telegraph & Argus.
Pateley Bridge's toyshop is always an enjoyable sight as well. Guardian readers concerned about children playing endlessly with 'war toys' will be revived by its contents. The healthy children of upper Nidderdale clearly prefer model farm machines, combine harvesters, seed drillers and of course tractors by the yard.
And now we have National Tractor Weekend, which prompts this post, following an email from Newby Hall which cautiously describes the coming event as 'a weekend with a difference'. If you have tractor fans in your family or salon of buddies, real-life versions of David and Bert in The Archers, this is the outing for them. It's on 9 and 10 June, rthe first of which is the UK's second National Tractor Day.
Newby is always excellent value anyway – lovely place, ace tearoom and a great history including an ancestor of the resident Compton family who was unfortunately murdered by brigands in Greece. For the past five years, the Yorkshire Vintage Association has held its annual rally there, and now that exhibits have topped 1000, this has become the National Tractor Weekend.
Even those immune to internal combustion and traction engines should be intrigued by some of the ingenious machinery on show. For example, there's the 1920s Hart-Parr 'Bootstrap', a rig operated by a tractor which lifts itself into the air using its own power. There will also be three rare Fowler Gyrotillers, huge caterpillar-tracked machines which carried out deep cultivation on difficult land.
One of them is the biggest ever made, and it will galumph around alongside hundreds of other veteran machines, while sideshows offer rides, tractor races and demonstrations of mechanical tree trunk-sawing, threshing, baling, milling and manufacture of reed mats. The weekend is highlighting five makes which eventually came together in the American White Motor Corp. One of them is Hart-Parr which claims responsiblity – remember this for trivial pursuits and pub quizzes – for adding the word 'tractor' to the English language.
Final proof of tractor power. One of my London colleagues who kindly loaded the pictures accompanying this post on to the big Guardian's system, told me:
My brother owns several of these vintage tractors, so these events are very familiar to me.
Please make your own tractor-related confessions below. Meanwhile, here's a cheery little clip from YouTube of a Bootstrap doing its special thing.
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Pinterest valued at more than $1bn
Popular social network valued at between $1bn and $1.5bn following a $100m round of funding
Move over, Facebook. Pinterest, the social site that lets people "pin" pictures and content to create collections of interest, has become the latest company to be valued at more than $1bn (£630m), following a $100m round of funding.
While estimates of the effective valuation implied by the investment vary between $1bn and $1.5bn, they highlight the fact that Pinterest has already discovered a business model in which it collects an "affiliate" payment on purchases people make via the site.
The new valuation is at least a fivefold leap in value since October 2011, when a previous financing round put it at $200m.
The company has shot to stardom in the past few months to become the 16th most-visited site in the US, according to measurement company Alexa. In April it had more than 20 million users, up from 1 million in July 2011, according to ComScore, another ranking company.
Its traffic soared after August 2011 when it was named one of the 50 best websites of 2011 by Time magazine, and by December it was getting 11m visitors worldwide a week, according to Hitwise.
Now it has received a fresh round of funding led by the Japanese online retailing giant Rakuten, and with particiapants including its existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, and a number of angel investors.
In October 2011 it received a $27m funding round that valued it at $200m. The site only opened for business in March 2010.
Although the company has not disclosed its revenues, they are probably less than $10m according to modelling carried out in March by Rags Srinivasan, a strategic marketing expert. But with user numbers still growing fast, that could be advancing rapidly.
A growing number of brands are using Pinterest to advertise their wares effectively for free, with the aim of driving sales via the displays. That could offer a future means for Pinterest to charge, either for position or visibility.
However, legal experts have queried the site's liability for copyright lawsuits because it effectively allows the copying of images that are often copyrighted. While some brands may not mind if it drives sales, photographers and commercial organisations could be less pleased.
Rakuten has invested in a number of online retailing companies around the world, including the British retailer Play.com.
"While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining," said Rakuten chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani.
"We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest's vision and Rakuten's model for e-commerce."
In an interview with the FT, Mikitani revealed that he had also become an e-commerce advisor to the site, and said: "Having a good grasp of images is becoming more important for e-commerce. It's more straightforward and appealing to the instinct of human beings than text. That is the strength of Pinterest, I think."
He added that Rakuten had wanted to fund the entire round, but Pinterest's board already had agreements with existing investors.
He was enthusiastic about the prospects because, he said, traffic going to shopping sites from Pinterest would have high conversion rates [to sales] because people would have high interest in products.
Of the copyright risks, he said: "I think, on the whole, they will overcome those issues. Their intention is not to damage any brand."
Mikitani added that Rakuten-owned sites would in future use the Pinterest "Pin it" badge to add content.
"Pinterest is the future – we know we are going to have a more tight integration for all the e-commerce sites we have."
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CECE and FIEC call for investment – KHL Group
 KHL Group | CECE and FIEC call for investment KHL Group Investment in transport, energy and telecom infrastructure, as well as in the energy efficiency of buildings is seen as essential for growth and jobs, according to two of Europe's leading industry bodies. CECE (the Committee for European Construction ... |
London Olympics 2012 diver Tom Daley to launch iPhone app
British 18-year-old who made the finals in Beijing aims to raise awareness of the sport
British Olympic hopeful Tom Daley is hoping to cash in on his rising celebrity status with his own iPhone diving app launching on Friday.
The Tom Daley Dive is aimed at his estimated 1 million fans as well as mobile gamers and diving enthusiasts and has been developed by a firm set up by former London Evening Standard managing director Mike Anderson.
Over rising levels of difficulty, gamers are scored according to their ability to copy 79 of Daley's dives ranging from a simple tuck to a more difficult twister using the iPhone touchscreen.
Daley has a huge following among teenagers after his star performance as a 14-year-old in the Beijing Olympics and is tipped for lucrative David Beckham-style promotional deals for sportswear and male grooming products following this summer's Games.
On Twitter, where he has almost 225,000 followers, he told fans he was also about to launch a book, giving an early indication of the buzz his management is expecting.
Earlier this year, concerns were raised about Daley's media commitments with the British Diving performance director, Alexei Evangulov, saying he needed to reduce his promotional activities and focus on training if he was to stand a chance of beating the Chinese, who he said were training "three times harder".
Daley said he wanted to develop the app because "there are no good diving games out there". He modelled for the graphics in the game and signed off every stage of the development. "If the game helps raise awareness of diving and gets people excited about the Olympics, I'll be really pleased," he added.
Anderson, who also worked at News International in a senior commercial role, set up Chelsea Apps Factory two years ago and is developing a niche in platform-neutral apps for consumer and non-consumer clients including Vodafone, which developed an app for Tate Britain, and CNBC, which ordered one for the G8 summit in Davos.
He said he it was the "perfect time" to release the app as Daley was "tipped to be one of the biggest stars of London 2012".
Chelsea Apps has also been commissioned to build the official app for the Queen's diamond jubilee pageant on the Thames.
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New Hungarian Telecoms Tax Will Harm Economic Recovery – PR Newswire UK (press release)
New Hungarian Telecoms Tax Will Harm Economic Recovery PR Newswire UK (press release) This approach to levy the tax on providers is similar to the existing telecommunication tax, introduced in 2010, which is currently being challenged by the European Union Commission at the European Court of Justice. Previously the Hungarian government ... |
Live Q&A: Open data for charities, Tuesday 22 May
Join our experts, from 1pm to 3pm, to discuss how open data could help your charity and the voluntary sector more widely
As the public sector opens up much more of its data, many in the voluntary sector are looking at what open data can do for their organisations.
Ed Anderton from the Nominet Trust recently wrote on the network that "a broad base of organisations using and supplying open data would allow for better understanding of the impact made by the social sector, potentially revealing gaps in provision and providing evidence of the quality of the relationships between funders, public and private sector partners."
But some charities are still confused by the concept of open data and how it could help them achieve their strategic aims. With this in mind, our live Q&A will consider:
• The $64m question – what is open data?
• The benefits of opening up data.
• How charities of all sizes can include open data into their strategy.
• The challenges that open data presents.
• The support and advice available.
You can leave your views and questions in the comments section below, or come back to join the discussion live from 1pm to 3pm on Tuesday 22 May. To join our experts on the panel, email Kate Hodge.
Expert panel
Ed Anderton – development researcher, Nominet Trust
Tim Davies – co-founder, Practical Participation
David Kane – research officer, NCVO
Laura Conrad – policy and marketing officer, Barnsley Hospice
Chris Lucas – data and finance officer, Barnsley Hospice
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the voluntary sector network, click here.
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Using a VPN to protect your web use
Dave Null is looking for a good free VPN (virtual private network) to ensure his privacy while using open Wi-Fi hotspots
Lots of us surf using unsecured Wi-Fi networks, and where I live in the US, Starbucks doesn't require a pass code and the Wi-Fi is up 24/7 regardless of whether the shop is open. Are there any good free VPNs for privacy in such a situation? I'm using Cocoon with Firefox, but I don't have the means to compare it with alternatives.
Dave Null
A VPN, or virtual private network, creates a virtual "tunnel" of encrypted data running over the public internet. VPNs first became popular as a way of connecting different parts of a company without the high cost of leasing dedicated phone lines. Secure encryption was needed to protect corporate data, and one consequence was that nobody else – internet service providers (ISPs), snoopers etc – could see what sort of traffic was inside the data stream.
Today, many individuals are using VPNs for the security and privacy they provide. Some people use VPNs at Wi-Fi hotspots to prevent snoopers from collecting private information. Others use VPNs at home as a way to get around ISPs and service providers blocking certain websites, which may include Pirate Bay, Facebook and BBC iPlayer. Of course, cybercriminals also use VPNs and anonymous proxy servers, though Tor might be a more likely prospect.
The simplest type of VPN is one that runs at the application level, typically inside a web browser. In your case, this is Cocoon, which is available for different browsers (Firefox and Internet Explorer) and different operating systems (Microsoft Windows, Apple's Mac OS X and Linux). The drawback is that it only protects what's in the browser. If you were to run another browser alongside Firefox, or a separate email program, the data from these other programs would not be protected by Cocoon's VPN.
The most popular VPN for personal users – which I mentioned in response to your similar question in 2010 – is probably AnchorFree's Hotspot Shield. Like many other cheap or free VPNs, Hotspot Shield is based on open source OpenVPN code, so it encrypts all the internet traffic on your PC: every web browser, email program, and so on. It supports Windows, Mac OS X, and Apple iOS devices, with Android to come.
The drawbacks with Hotspot Shield are that, as with Cocoon and some other VPNs, the free versions are supported by showing adverts, though you can avoid these by upgrading to a paid-for version. Hotspot Shield also switches your home page and default search engine, though you can switch these back. This can be annoying and has prompted some users to look elsewhere, but you can pay AnchorFree $29.95 per year for its Hotspot Shield Elite service, or if you use it for travelling, buy 20 one-day passes for $10.
There are, of course, dozens of alternative VPNs, and there's a big list on the internet censorship wiki. The ones worth considering include SecurityKiss, CyberGhost, and It's Hidden. CyberGhost's servers are in Germany, and It's Hidden's are in the Netherlands, which may not suit US users.
One of the features of a VPN is that your internet connection appears to come from wherever the server is based: it acts as your proxy on the internet. This can confuse websites that do a lot of geolocation and personalisation, such as Google, which will serve up versions in the local language. This can, of course, be useful. Europeans can use a US-based VPN server to watch videos that are otherwise blocked in our region, while those who live outside the UK can use a UK-based VPN to watch TV programmes on, for example, the BBC's iPlayer. Indeed, AnchorFree produced ExpatShield for Windows, so that pining Brits could get a UK IP and access content available only in UK from anywhere.
If this kind of thing is important to you, then Hide My Ass! now offers a Pro VPN service that supports different protocols (so you can use OpenVPN for maximum security or PPTP to stream video, for example) and access to 247 servers in 43 countries. So, yes, you can actually get a fast IP address in Japan. However, the service costs $11.52 per month or $78.66 per year.
The Best VPN Provider comparison website lets you select from dropdown menus such as Destination Country, Protocol and Price/Month to find potential VPN suppliers. However, it only suggests commercial services.
Most if not all VPN providers have lots of terms and conditions that forbid you from doing bad things, including spamming, and say that they will co-operate with police and other authorities if required. If you plan to use peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as bittorrent, check that these are allowed under the T&Cs. Also check how long they keep records. TorrentFreak has a good article on Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?
Using a VPN protects you from snooping in your local coffee shop and by your ISP, but the VPN provider is decoding your datastream and putting it on the internet, so it sees everything. It has to be a company you trust.
Also bear in mind that while your ISP cannot see what is in your data stream, it can certainly see you sending lots of encrypted traffic to Hotspot Shield, Hide My Ass! or whatever. So much business traffic now goes via VPNs that I don't expect this is particularly noticeable, but ISPs could filter the obvious free VPNs.
There's an increasing tendency for websites to use the https Secure Sockets Layer (SLL) system, shown by a padlock in the browser, and this already encrypts data to protect it from casual snoopers. However, the appearance of "session jacking" software such as the Firesheep add-on for Firefox means a VPN is probably a good idea when using public Wi-Fi hotspots for important data.
But it's also a good idea to start getting familiar with VPNs because of government attempts to monitor people's internet use. If this becomes a reality in the UK, then perhaps we should all start using VPNs all the time. Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The internet has more or less delivered that right, and using a VPN may be the simplest way to preserve it.
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We finally understand operators, says Intel – Telecoms.com
We finally understand operators, says Intel Telecoms.com Herbert Weber, EMEA marketing director for mobile and communications at Intel, told Telecoms.com that the firm has since taken the time to understand the nuances between the PC and mobile business models and has adjusted its offerings and features ... |