ActiveMania and DVBLogic announce first CE device with embedded DVBLink

ActiveMania, focusing on smart living technologies, and DVBLogic, enabling TV everywhere, announce the launch of the first set-top box with embedded DVBLink for IPTV.

DVBLOGIC

As Windows Media Center does not natively support IPTV, ActiveMania uses DVBLink on top of the embedded Windows Media Center to provide advanced TV features such as live TV, time-shift, recording and scheduling to IPTV customers.

ActiveMania presented the new Smart IPTV Set-Top-Box aiHome 600 and other smart
living devices in cooperation with Solidere’s Broadband Network (BBN) division (BBN) at
the Smart Connected Life event end of February. BBN is the first ISP in Beirut/Lebanon
to provide fibre to the building services including IPTV. Besides the advanced TV
features the set-top box also allows the user to store movies and music collections, and
control home automation and security systems via the TV screen. Customers can also
browse the Internet including services for email access, online radio stations, weather
forecasts, news and social networks.

DVBLink for IPTV seamlessly integrates IPTV channels into Windows multimedia
applications especially Windows Media Center. The software enables all native TV
control features of Windows Media Center for these channels such as guide listings, live
TV, pausing live TV, one touch or timer recordings and parental control.

DVBLink applications support Windows operating systems from XP SP2 on. Using the
software on a headless system like a set-top-box together with embedded Windows
Media Center offers hardware manufacturers a complete IPTV enabled media centre
instantly.

Amazon Rolls Out Kindle Fire Software Update Version 6.3

Today saw Amazon roll out a software update for it’s Kindle Fire device, taking it to version 6.3.

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The 6.3 update includes the following:

  • Sharing: Customers will be able to easily share favorite passages and notes from their books directly from Kindle Fire, without even leaving the book. Customers simply highlight a passage and select “Share” or choose the “Share” option from the toolbar within a book, write a note if they choose, and select which social network to share with. Passages or notes a customer chooses to share will be displayed to other Kindle readers viewing the same book, and customers can also choose to share via Facebook and Twitter. Amazon already has a vibrant community of readers who choose to share favorite passages and notes from their reading through Kindle.amazon.com. This update brings these notes and highlights to Kindle Fire, so a reader can easily see what other readers are saying about their books.
  • Book Extras: Powered by Shelfari, Amazon’s community of book lovers, Book Extras make it easy for customers to see supplemental material about the book they are reading, without even leaving the book. Customers can view descriptions of characters, a glossary of common terms used in the book, information on the authors and common locations referenced in the book, and more. To view Book Extras from within a book, customers simply tap the top of the screen to bring up the toolbar, tap the menu button and select “Book Extras.”
  • Archive of Personal Documents: Customers’ personal documents will be stored in the Amazon Cloud and available for re-download at any time from the Documents tab on Kindle Fire. Just as with Kindle books, Whispersync will automatically sync notes, highlights and last page read for personal documents.
  • Print Replica Textbooks: Students can buy thousands of print replica textbooks to read on their Kindle Fire and save up to 60% off the list price of the print textbook. Print replica textbooks maintain the rich formatting, color and layout of the print editions, with features including notes and highlights, zoom and pan, linked table of contents, real page numbers and Whispersync of notes, highlights and last page read.
  • Reading View for Amazon Silk: There is a seemingly endless array of interesting and engaging content available on the Internet. Sometimes, unfortunately, that business article, blog post, or sports recap you clicked on is surrounded by a host of competing material. With Reading View on Silk, the content that you’re interested in is elevated above the clutter. When invoked by the customer, Silk will load the body of the page in a reading-optimized, single screen view (even for multi-page articles). The full page is still available in the background, allowing the reader to easily toggle back to a traditional view to see other interesting features on the page.
  • Movie Rentals: The rental period for movie rentals that are downloaded to Kindle Fire now starts when a customer starts watching the movie, rather than when a customer starts downloading the movie.
  • Additional Enhancements: This update will also bring some of the features customers have requested, including faster re-connect of Wi-Fi after Kindle Fire has been asleep, and general performance enhancements.

Have you got a Kindle Fire? Have you got the update yet? Let us know.

Google Maps app for Android updated

The Google Maps app for Android has been updated again.

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Download the latest release of Google Maps, and never carry a paper map again. Google Maps for Android with Navigation (Beta) has:

* Detailed maps with 3D buildings
* Voice guided turn-by-turn GPS navigation
* Driving, public transit, biking, and walking directions
* Live traffic information to avoid congestion
* Local search and business reviews
* Google Maps Street View
* Indoor maps for select airports, hotels, retail stores, and more

Whether you need directions to your destination, the closest good place for a bite to eat, or just a sense of where you are, Google Maps for Android can help.

What’s in this version:

  1. New home screen design for Google Maps Navigation (Beta)
  2. Options to get transit directions for preferred transit mode
Download now from Google Play

Possible delays for Raspberry Pi due to CE compliance

Even though the first 1,950 Raspberry Pi’s are now in the UK, it looks like they can’t be distributed because of a CE compliance issue!

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This is what was posted on the blog:

Following on from last week’s discussions, both RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell have now informed us that they are not willing to distribute the Raspberry Pi until it has received the CE mark. While this differs from our view (as we’ve said before, we believe that the uncased Raspberry Pi is not a “finished end product”, and may be distributed on the same terms as Beagleboard and other non-CE-marked platforms), we respect their right to make that decision.

The good news is that our first 2,000 boards arrived in the UK on Monday and that we are working to get them CE marked as soon as is humanly possible, in parallel with bringing the remainder of our initial batch into the country. Pete and Eben have been burning the midnight oil – literally; I only exchanged about three words with Eben yesterday, and those were when he got back in from a long day’s hacking at two in the morning. On the basis of preliminary measurements, we expect emissions from the uncased product to meet category A requirements comfortably without modification, and possibly to meet the more stringent category B requirements which we had originally expected would require a metalised case.

We’re also talking to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), to better understand the terms under which devices like Beagleboard are permitted to ship to domestic end users in the UK, and to obtain a definitive statement as to whether we can distribute on the same terms. We should say the UK Government in general, and BIS in particular, have been incredibly supportive of the project so far; they are looking into this as a matter of urgency, so hopefully we should have another update for you soon. With graphs in. We know you guys love graphs.

All this means that we’re waiting on one of two things – the results of further EMC tests, and whatever BIS comes back to us with – before RS and Farnell can give you any firm delivery dates. We’ll let you know as soon as we do.

Check out A Slice of Raspberry Pi at Beeb@30 post from earlier in the week

European online Xtreamer store now open

Xtreamer has opened an online store for the European market.

Xtreamer shop

This is what Xtreamer said:

We are happy to extend our services for our customers and announce the new official shop of xtreamer in Europe.

The Shop is ready to serve customers from within the European Union and was built to extend the localised service and technical support expected from European Customers .

The Shop accept various payment methods including paypal, IDEAL and many other.

We have created for you a live Chat Customer Service that is backed up with a fully capable HOT line via skype or Phone.

Visit the European store

Nokia Lumia 800 PR 1.2 Software Update Rolling Out Now

Earlier this month we told you about the Nokia Lumia 800 PR 1.2 1600.2487.8107.12070 update, and now it’s rolling out.

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The fixes include:

• Enhanced battery standby and talk time performance
• Battery capacity icon instead of question mark on top right of screen
• Improved bass in audio performance
• Soft-key illumination at all brightness levels
• Fixes for device performance issues including self-reboots, freezes and call-ending

Do you have a Lumia 800? What do you think of it?

Raspberry Pi running elkulator Acorn Electron emulator

Raspberry Pi is hotting up and now there is a video of an Acorn Electron emulator running on one.

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The video was posted by ukscone. Check out the cool video below:

Check out A Slice of Raspberry Pi at Beeb@30 post from earlier in the week

Buy a Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone for £169.99

Are you looking to buy a cheap Windows Phone? If so, how does the Nokia Lumia 710 for £169.99 with no contract sound?

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O2 are offering the Nokia Lumia 710 for £169.99 as a pay as you go phone, or for free on pay monthly.

We have been testing the Lumia 710 for a while and will be posting our review shortly.

Learn more and buy from here

Microsoft talks Touch hardware and Windows 8

In the latest Windows 8 article, Microsoft talks about Touch Hardware and Windows 8.

Windows 8 touch

This is how the latest article starts:

The Windows team has continued to work in lock step with external hardware partners to fully embrace the experience we want for Windows 8. New Windows 8 PCs are coming, and while that is not a topic for this post, we at Microsoft are excited with what our hardware partners have in store for you.

It’s worth reinforcing that Windows 8 will run on the hardware available today, and we are committed to making sure that happens. So you should feel confidence in installing the Consumer Preview on the machines that you own today. However, as much as we value compatibility, we also have to balance this with making Windows 8 really shine on new Windows 8 PCs. We’d like to provide you with some perspective on our efforts and how we will achieve this.

Making sure Windows 8 works on your Windows 7 PC

At the //build/ conference we introduced a set of touch interactions that make up the Windows 8 touch language. These core interactions form the basis of the Windows 8 user interface, and are reused heavily in the application frameworks within our common controls and samples. The primary goal of our touch language is to promote ease-of-use and ensure user confidence. By confidence, we mean that all touch interactions work consistently and reliably all the time. Developers who consume our controls will automatically feature this language in their applications when they re-use the common controls or use the samples, and in doing so, they also minimize any learning required for users.

Click here to continue reading it.

Apple releases iTunes 10.6.1

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Apple has just released 10.6.1 of iTunes, bringing with it the usual fixes!

itunes 10.6.1

iTunes 10.6.1 provides a number of improvements, including:

• Fixes several issues that may cause iTunes to unexpectedly quit while playing videos, changing artwork size in Grid view and syncing photos to devices.

• Addresses an issue where some iTunes interface elements are incorrectly described by VoiceOver and WindowEyes.

• Fixes a problem where iTunes may become unresponsive while syncing iPod nano or iPod shuffle.

• Resolves an ordering problem while browsing TV episodes in your iTunes library on Apple TV.

CloudBerry Backup for Windows Home Server now half price

If you are considering an offsite backup solution using your Windows Home Server, then CloudBerry Backup for WHS is one to look at, and for a limited time they are offering it half price!

Cloudberry offer

Do you know that March 31st was chosen to be a World Backup Day? To support the initiative started by a small group of people.

If you don’t have a backup plan yet, this is the perfect time setup one. Don’t miss you chance to get CloudBerry Backup for a half-price which is only $14.99 for a WHS edition.

Get you CloudBerry Backup for just $14.99

Limited time offer: ends on April 7th.

Raspberry Pi RS availability and purchasing info update

There is an update on RS availability and purchasing info on the Raspberry Pi blog.

CDW - The Beeb @ 30 Event 037

This is what was posted on the Raspberry Pi blog today:

We will be opening up a bespoke Online Raspberry Pi Store for customers to order their Raspberry Pi Model B boards and all associated accessories. The store will be opened up to customers who have registered with RS, in sequence, according to the time that they registered their interest with us. Our new Raspberry Pi Store has been designed to support private individuals wishing to purchase Raspberry Pi’s and has a number of advantages for customers:

  • The current RS websites do not support PayPal but the new RS Raspberry Pi Store will accept orders via PayPal, Visa and Mastercard. (I know there has been some questions about this!)
  • Customers will be able to select between payment currencies of GBP£, Euro€ or USD$.
  • We are no longer restricted from selling to private individuals in Austria, so we are able to support all countries unless we are legally prohibited by trade restrictions.
Check out A Slice of Raspberry Pi at Beeb@30 post from earlier in the week

Update Rollup 2 for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard released

Update Rollup 2 for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard is now available.

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This update rollup contains all the updates that were included in the previous update rollup.

You can download it now via Windows Update.

Additionally, this update fixes the following issues that were not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article.

Issue 1

Consider the following scenario:

  • You enable the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) mode on a computer that is running Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard.
  • You configure a recurring backup task on the computer.
  • You try to perform a bare-metal recovery by using the Recovery Console.

In this scenario, the Bare Metal Recovery feature does not find any valid backups.
Note: This update does not change any existing backups on the computer. Therefore, to resolve this issue, you must configure the backup task again after you install this update.

Issue 2

Assume that you try to log on to the Remote Web Access webpage of Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard by using a user principal name (UPN). In this situation, you receive the following error message:

Server Error in ‘/Remote’ Application.
The domain is null or empty
Parameter name: domain
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.ArgumentException: The domain is null or empty
Parameter name: domain

Issue 3

Assume that you try to connect to a client computer that is joined to a Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard-based network domain by using the Remote Web Access webpage. However, if your username contains Unicode characters, the username is displayed incorrectly when you are prompted to enter your user credentials. For example, this issue occurs if your username contains a Chinese character.

Issue 4

You cannot download files from the Remote Web Access webpage if you log on to the webpage by using a slate device. For example, you cannot download files from the Remote Web Access webpage to an Apple iPad.

Issue 5

Assume that you migrate from Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard to Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard. In this situation, you cannot log on to the Remote Web Access webpage by using a nonadministrative account. When this issue occurs, you receive the following error message:

Server Error in ‘/Remote’ Application.
An error (87) occurred while enumerating the groups. The group’s SID could not be resolved.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.PrincipalOperationException: An error (87) occurred while enumerating the groups. The group’s SID could not be resolved.

Plex for Ruku is now available

The Plex Roku Channel is now officially available in the Roku Channel Store.

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If you haven’t seen it for a while, this is what’s new:

  • Full myPlex support: Sign into your myPlex account, and you get instant access to your media queue, shared content, and your own servers that you’ve published through myPlex. So easy! So awesome!
  • Audio and Photo support: We now support browsing and playing the full range of media that the Plex Media Server supports, both from your library and channels.
  • Revamped UI: as you can see below, we’re now using grids on a lot of screens now, and there’s a nice Plex-like theme throughout.
  • Direct Play: For media formats that are supported by the Roku, we’ll try to play it without transcoding.
  • Tons of other stuff, including many bug-fixes.

Have you tried it yet? Let us know.