BBC wants help developing open source video codec

BBC wants help developing open source video codec

The BBC demoed an early version of an open source codec it hopes will give proprietary video technology a serious run for its money at the LinuxWorld exhibition today.

Dirac, currently alpha software, can deliver equivalent results using only 50 per cent of the bandwidth needed for video files encoded using the MPEG-2 format, according to its developers in the BBC's research and development division. The codec is aimed at a wide range of applications including streaming media and storage of video content.

Full Story: The Register

Cisco Allows CCIE Written for Recertifying CCNA, CCNP, Others

Cisco Allows CCIE Written for Recertifying CCNA, CCNP, Others

On Friday Cisco Systems announced that starting Oct. 1. any Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert written exam will recertify all of its associate- and professional-level certifications, as well as any Qualified Specialist title.

This new recertification option "will offer candidates the opportunity to pursue lifelong learning while ensuring that existing certifications remain current," the company said on its Web site.

There are currently 11 CCIE written exams available in a variety of specialties. Passing one of these exams is required to attempt to a hands-on CCIE lab exam.

Full Story: certcities.com

SpaceShipOne claims the Ansari X Prize

SpaceShipOne claims the Ansari X-Prize

I know its not really cert related, and god i'm late (this is news from the 4th)

But on Monday at 7:45 (MST or PST i assume), White Night launched with SpaceShipOne aboard, a clean non eventful flight commenced, and at 7:51 a height of 328'000ft was attained (enough to beat the record set by the X-15 in 1963

SpaceShipOne was piloted this flight by Brian Binnie, who landed the craft safely about 20 minutes after takeoff.

I would like to congratulate all those who took part in the X Prize, who may just of changed human space exploration forever. May the future hold bright things for mans journey into the new frontier.

Various articles related to this are floating around the net
Slashdot
BBC...

8GB Flash for a grand

8GB Flash for a grand

San Disk has announced that a mouth-watering 8 gigabyte Compact Flash cartridge will be able in November, for the eye-watering price of $959 (or €959). That's twice the capacity of the current generation of hard drives powering devices such as the iPod mini.

The company claims the Ultra II disk can write at 9MB/sec and read at 10MB/s. San Disk also unveiled 2GB SD cards and 4GB Memory Stick Duos today, the latter priced the same as the 8GB CF card

Full Story: The Register

Hotmail fees for Outlook access

Hotmail fees for Outlook access

Millions of Hotmail users face having to pay to access their messages using the Outlook e-mail program.

Full Story: Here

Thanks noelg24 for the story.

Firefox bites back

Firefox bites back

A hundred thousand users an hour think Firefox is good news, but for Microsoft the story is rather different.

With a million downloads in 10 hours, the Firefox browser has kicked off a brand new round in a very old conflict.

Six years ago, Microsoft won the browser wars against Netscape -- the distant forefather of Firefox -- not because Internet Explorer was a better browser, but by the simple expedient of giving it away with every copy of Windows. That gave MS a killer lock on the market back in the last century when the CD was the only software distribution medium in town. Now we have broadband and the game's afoot once again.

Full story: Here

Rumours surround Google browser

Rumours surround Google browser

The net is buzzing with rumours that Google is working on a web browser.

Full Story: Here

Thanks to noelg24 for informing about this story.

VMware creates PC software condom

VMware creates PC software condom

Not satisfied with its prominent position on servers and workstations, VMware has charged the desktop with a new software package that creates "containers" of applications that can be centrally managed by an administrator.

Full Story: Here

BT proposes changes to ADSL pricing structure

UBC pricing proposals - who are they good for?

UBC pricing, or Usage Based Pricing is meant to complement the Capacity Based Pricing (CBC) that has allowed some ISPs to start to offer 1Mbps services at 0.5Mbps service pricing. It is expected that the standard based pricing BT use for the BT Central products that link every IPStream based ISP to the BT Wholesale network will be withdrawn a few months after the introduction of UBC pricing.

UBC pricing apparently will work by BT Wholesale billing an ISP based on the 95% percentile of the peak bandwidth usage. So if a 34Mbps BT Central has a calculated peak of 26Mbps during a monthly billing period, BT will charge for 26Mbps of bandwidth. This means that an ISPs bill will vary from month to month, and things like the release of a service pack or security patch by Microsoft could push the cost to the ISP up vastly.


Full story: ADSL...

Be careful what you say on the net

Be careful what you say on the net

Online publishing is not outside the law, argues technology commentator Bill Thompson, and nor should it be.

The debate about who is responsible for material published on the internet took an interesting turn this week when the Sunday Herald newspaper paid former Nato secretary-general George Robertson undisclosed damages after admitting it had libelled him on its website.

Back in February 2003 the newspaper was running an online discussion forum about the 1996 Dunblane school shootings, when Thomas Hamilton shot dead a teacher and 16 children in a primary school.


Full Story: Here

Thanks to Fergal1982 for highlighting this story