TechSmec.com towers gets its satellite TV from a 50 cm dish stuck on the side of the building. Viewers in Korea can now watch satellite ( DMB ) TV on a mobile phone which is only a fraction of that size, which has left us somewhat blown away.
Samsung’s new B250 boasts a ridiculously compact design while supporting horizontal viewing. The B250 is, without doubt, the smallest Samsung DMB handset ever.
The B250 is a folder type with pivotal LCD screen which rotates 90 degrees into landscape mode. The B250 follows the same basic design as the hugely popular SCH-V500 camera phone that went on the market in August of last year.
Samsung introduced its innovative horizontal LCD design last year with the V500 and is expanding this design trend for mobile phones, especially DMB phones.
With the B250, users can make phone calls or send and receive text messages even while watching TV. The DMB broadcast received by the phone can also be relayed to a regular TV.
The B250 has external buttons that allow users to play MP3 files without opening the phone. The 128-polyphonic sound chip has been built in to provide exquisite ring tones.
The B250 is also equipped with a 2 megapixel camera and the photo editing function has been upgraded. This allows the user to change facial expressions on photos such as turning a smiling face into one showing anger. Various other effects are also possible such as changing the picture frame design.
The File Viewer function provides access to Microsoft Office or PDF files, and a 330,000-word dictionary is included in the software.
The B250 also supports external memory of 256MB, IrDA, and mobile banking capabilities for user convenience.
The phone is, alas, only available in Korea at around US$700.
August 28th, 2005
There is chaos in the States as the Federal Communications Commission attempts to tidy up the 911 situation affecting users of VoIP (Voice Over IP) telephone services.
As VoIP users can make telephone calls from wherever there is a high-speed internet connection, it is difficult to route 911 call to an appropriate operator. Usually the caller’s telephone number is used to direct the call to a local control centre, but with VoIP, the number is not tied to a physical location. There is also the problem that VoIP systems are dependent on factors such as the PC being switched on and the appropriate microphone hardware being available.
The FCC has given operators until November 28 to provide full 911 capability.
In a further complication, the FCC ruled that VoIP operators must contact their customers and obtain acknowledgement of the limitations of the 911 service. If a customer did not respond they were to be cut off on 30 August, but the FCC has just extended that deadline to September 28 after it became clear that hundreds of thousands of users would be affected after a poor response to the information campaign, but that the companies involved were, in the main, making every effort to obtain the required acknowledgement.
“During this additional period of time, the bureau expects that all interconnected VoIP providers that qualify for this extension will continue to use all means available to them to obtain affirmative acknowledgements from all of their subscribers,” the FCC said.
The irony of this situation is that a VoIP user who doesn’t respond by September 28 might try to make a 911 call on that day (which would have probably been correctly handled by their provider) and find that their service had been terminated. VoIP carriers argue that it is unfair to punish consumers simply for not acknowledging a failure on the part of the service of which they are a customer.
August 28th, 2005