Yves Ramanzin, the co-chair of IMTC PSS Activity Group sent us the following update about the group activities:

“The charter of PSS Activity group is to perform interoperability tests for Packet-Switched Streaming Services (PSS) according to the technical specifications. The testing scope covers the creation, the delivery and the playback of multimedia content over wireless network. Initially the tests were dedicated to the technologies specified in 3GPP; over the past year the scope of the tests has been extended to standards not covered by 3GPP but widely adopted by the industry.

From a streaming technology perspective, the focus of the group has now completely shifted from RTSP to HTTP streaming technologies. We are currently testing Apple Live Streaming and Microsoft Smooth Streaming protocols, and we have started to look at 3GPP Dash. This is just the beginning of the process and we are working to enrich the test specifications to cover more use-cases.

It could be the right time for companies active in this field to join the group in order to improve their products and help to mature the technology.

Yves Ramanzin,
PacketVideo
ramanzin@pv.com”

AT&T VP of U-verse & Video Products Interview
FirceTelecom posted an interview with Jeff Weber, VP of U-verse and video products at AT&T.
In the interview Jeff explains why AT&T’s offering for triple service (IPTV, Internet and Voice) proved to be highly successful – a great read in my humble opinion:
http://www.fiercetelecom.com/special-reports/jeff-weber-growth-att-u-verse-and-plug-play-home-networks

FCC Clears 650mhz Spectrum for Rural Connectivity
The Federal Communications Commission announced its decision to free part of the 650MHz spectrum for wireless backhaul. The decision should should help expand network availability in remote/rural areas. More info at http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=8622

Lightsquared Signs a Roaming Agreement with Cleartalk
Lightsquared signs a roaming agreement with Cleartalk, getting one step closer to their LTE network launch:http://mobile.engadget.com/2011/08/08/lightsquared-signs-roaming-agreement-with-cleartalk-thumbs-nose/

Polycom announced the Polycom CX7000 a Microsoft Lync Video Conferencing System
The CX7000 is the one of the first Lync enabled room solutions from Polycom – it contains a high-end camera, a SFF thin-pc (powered by windows 7 embedded), full-dupkex speakerphone and wireless keyboard-mouse set. The CX7000 is a part of the CX series, which is tailored for Microsoft Lync connectivity.
Source: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/polycom/polycom-today-announced-the-polycom.asp

Polycom CX7000

Lifesize to offer Videoconferencing on the Cloud
LifeSize announced it’s new video collaboration platfrom – LifeSize Connections.
LifeSize connections will offer HD video calling with full connectivity to LifeSize video conferencing rooms, PC and Mac clients. LifeSize Connections will offer nine-way video bridging, data encryption and more.

More info at FierceEnterpiseCommunications.

Avatar based virtual chat-room service
Microsoft unveiled it’s Kincet virtual chat service – a virtual chat that use motion tracking and facial recognition with the Kinect camera. Each user will be represented via a cartoon avatar and will be able to join with up to sever other people in one of 24 different virtual environments. The avatars will show different gestures in realtime such as smiles, nods, etc.

More info at Gizmag.com.

HP Broadened It’s UC Portfolio
After selling it’s Telepresence business to Polycom, HP strengthen it’s partnerships with Microsoft, Polycom, Avaya and Alcatel-lucent as UC partners. HP goal is to sell UC services based on open and interoperable products from various makers.
More info at eWeek.com.

Creating Telepresence Enviorments – Telepresence Design Guide by ‘Telepresence Options’
Telepresence Options posted a great guide for building Telepresence environments. From audio to lighting to furniture – it’s all there:
Creating Telepresence Environments

Polycom and Microsoft strengthen relationships
Polycom continues to strengthen its co-operation with Microsoft, the Unified Communication supplier inked an agreement with Microsoft for suppling Unified Communication products.
Microsoft offer products in the software side – Office and Microsoft Communication Server, Exchange Server and Active Directory services.

Tandberg Movi 4.0 platform released
Now with Mac support, Movi 4.0 is the latest in the company personal video conferencing products.  Movi supports connectivity to the higher end Telepresence systems by Tandberg, bitrate adaptation and h264 recovery techniques.

Avaya CEO talks about the Flare and video conferencing
In a PCWORLD interview, Avaya CEO talks about the Flare Platform and Video conferencing in general.
Telepresence Options wrote a great article about the Avaya “Mojo”, the new video tablet device which is a part of the Flare Platform.

A step towards Unified Communications?
Polycom merges its Video, Telepresence and Voice development units into a single R&D unit for the corporate market.

Middle-Man Interoperability?
VoIP Watch blogger, Andy Abramson talks about a different approach to interoperability – having a middle-man.  Glowpoint do just that, on the cloud, with their ability to connect video-conferencing equipment from different makers into hosted meetings. As a managed service in a not-yet interoperable world – it does sound interesting.

Gmail Video Chat getting sharper
Google boosted their video quality in their latest Gmail Labs addition. The modification brings up the quality to WVGA standards.

LTE on the cheap, MetroPCS new 4G plan in Las Vegas
4G without smartphones? For MetroPCS this seems like an ideal solution with a Samsung Craft phone (with its own intergraded operation system, which is not Android/Symbian based) and LTE support. MetroPCS offers a cheap mobile device with a cheap data plan – this seems to fit their current user base.

Stephen Botzko (Polycom) presented an overview of the IMTC Telepresence Activity Group.
You can view his presentation here (Quicktime required, Flash version will be uploaded shortly).
Updated – flash version for web-viewing is here:

HTML 5 and  its effect on the industry will be discussed at IMTC virtual conference “2025″. For more details check this link.

Apple doesn’t like Flash. We know that already. Steve Jobs recently called Adobe lazy, and we all know that iPhone and iPad doesn’t support Flash. But the story is a bit more complex than that.

Apple’s opposition to Adobe is linked to HTML 5 – an open standard that would enable developers to use open formats to deliver rich media experiences. As such, this format is a threat on Adobe. And as Apple Insider analyzed in a great post about Flash vs. Apple:

By not putting Flash on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Apple is creating a significant installed base of affluent users who simply can’t be reached via proprietary binaries like Flash and Silverlight. That has successfully shifted attention both to Apple’s own App Store platform for mobile apps and to the open web, encouraging developers to embrace standards-based rich web apps and multimedia delivery based on open specifications.

Yesterday, I quoted this post on my Facebook profile, stating that Apple are promoting open web standards, by supporting HTML 5 over Flash. This created an interesting thread of responses, that you can see here.

I’d like to better explain why I still believe that Apple are supporting open standards in comparison to Adobe. HTML 5 is not propeatiery format. It is not owned by a single company. Also, Apple played a key role in creating H264 format – one of the key events in online videos in the recent years. As such they are clearly more supportive of open standards then Microsoft (especially if looking at the browser wars) or Adobe.

Now, it doesn’t mean that Jobs help old ladies cross the street. Apple are supporting open standards from selfish reasons – they want to diminish Adobe’s power, and especially keep it out of Apple’s ecosystem. Also, they can support open standards, and still build a closed garden such as the app store.

You see, supporting open standards is not good, bad or anything else. It is, first and foremost, a business strategy.  But from some reason, some think that open is “good” while close is “bad”.

Do you think that Skype is evil? No. But they have a proprietary  protocol. They chose this strtategy as it got them to the market faster then going the standards route.

For more about this topic, from Skype, Cisco, Jabber and Radvision, check out this panel that I had the honor to moderate couple of years ago as part of my role in IMTC. We discuss the value of standardization as business advantage in details:

Originally posted at www.pravdam.com