Xbox Development

The Xbox is a sixth generation video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed directly with Sony's PlayStation 2, and the Nintendo GameCube. It was first released on November 15, 2001 in North America; February 22, 2002 in Japan; and on March 14, 2002 in Europe. The Australian launch came on April 26 of the same year. It is the predecessor to Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. The Xbox was Microsoft's first product that ventured into the console arena, after having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Dreamcast console. Notable launch titles for the console included Halo: Combat Evolved, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing, and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee

Development

The Xbox was initially developed within Microsoft by a small team which included game developer Seamus Blackley. Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which finally emerged at the end of 1999 following interviews of Bill Gates. Gates said that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times of digital entertainment. On March 10, 2000 the "X-box Project" was officially confirmed by Microsoft with a press release.

According to the book Smartbomb, by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, the remarkable success of the upstart Sony PlayStation worried Microsoft in late 1990s. The growing video game market seemed to threaten the PC market which Microsoft had dominated and relied upon for most of its revenues. Additionally, a venture into the gaming console market would also diversify Microsoft's product line, which up to that time had been heavily concentrated into software.

According to Dean Takahashi's book, Opening the Xbox, the Xbox was originally going to be called "DirectX-box", to show the extensive use of DirectX within the console's technology.^[4] "Xbox" was the final name decided by marketing, but the console still retains some hints towards DirectX, most notably the "X"-shaped logo, which DirectX is famous for, along with the "X" shape on the top of the system.

As time progressed, Microsoft's J Allard was responsible for the hardware and system software development. Ed Fries was responsible for all game development on the platform. Mitch Koch was responsible for sales and marketing and all three reported to Robbie Bach. This team was also primarily responsible for Microsoft's follow-up product, the Xbox 360.

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is a video game console produced by Microsoft, developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, and SiS. Its Xbox Live service allows players to compete online and download arcade games and content such as game demos, trailers, TV shows, music videos, or rented movies. The Xbox 360 is the successor to the Xbox, and competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of gaming systems.

The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. It is the first console to provide a near-simultaneous launch across the three major regions, and to provide wireless controller support at launch. The console sold out completely at release (with the exception of Japan) and, as of September 30, 2007, 13.4 million units have been sold worldwide.

Development

Known during development as Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS,^[4] Xbox Next or NextBox, the Xbox 360 was conceived in early 2003.^[5] In February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft VP J Allard.^[5] That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, Washington, to recruit support for the system.^[5] Also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12, 2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, a deal which was publicly announced two days later.^[6] The following month, IBM signed on to develop the triple-core CPU for the console.^[5] Before the launch of the Xbox 360, several alpha development kits were spotted using Apple's Power Mac G5 hardware. This was due to the system's PowerPC 970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBM's Xenon processor

Voice over Internet Protocol (Voip)

A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a protocol optimized for transmission of voice through the Internet or other packet switched networks. VoIP is often used abstractly to refer to the actual transmission of voice (rather than the protocol implimenting it). VoIP is also known as IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband. "VoIP" is sometimes pronounced voyp.

Companies providing VoIP service are commonly referred to as providers, and protocols which are used to carry voice signals over the IP network are commonly referred to as Voice over IP or VoIP protocols. They may be viewed as commercial realizations of the experimental Network Voice Protocol (1973) invented for the ARPANET providers. Some cost savings are due to utilizing a single network to carry voice and data, especially where users have existing underutilized network capacity that can carry VoIP at no additional cost. VoIP to VoIP phone calls are sometimes free, while VoIP to public switched telephone networks, PSTN, may have a cost that is borne by the VoIP user.

Voice over IP protocols carry telephony signals as digital audio, typically reduced in data rate using speech data compression techniques, encapsulated in a data packet stream over IP.

There are two types of PSTN to VoIP services: Direct Inward Dialing (DID) and access numbers. DID will connect the caller directly to the VoIP user while access numbers require the caller to input the extension number of the VoIP user.

Functionality

VoIP can facilitate tasks that may be more difficult to achieve using traditional networks that have been typically used historically:

• Ability to transmit more than one telephone call down the same broadband-connected telephone line. This can make VoIP a simple way to add an extra telephone line to a home or office.
• Many VoIP packages include PSTN features that most telcos (telecommunication companies) normally charge extra for, or may be unavailable from your local telco, such as 3-way calling, call forwarding, automatic redial, and caller ID.
• VoIP can be secured with existing off-the-shelf protocols such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol. Most of the difficulties of creating a secure phone over traditional phone lines, like digitizing and digital transmission are already in place with VoIP. It is only necessary to encrypt and authenticate the existing data stream.
• VoIP is location independent, only an internet connection is needed to get a connection to a VoIP provider; for instance call center agents using VoIP phones can work from anywhere with a sufficiently fast and stable Internet connection.
• VoIP phones can integrate with other services available over the Internet, including video conversation, message or data file exchange in parallel with the conversation, audio conferencing, managing address books and passing information about whether others (e.g. friends or colleagues) are available online to interested parties.

I Pod

iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched in October 2001. The line-up currently consists of the original style hard drive-based flagship iPod classic, the iPod touch, the mid-level video-capable iPod nano, and the low-end screenless iPod shuffle. Former products include the compact iPod mini (replaced by the iPod nano) and the high-end spin-off iPod photo (re-integrated into the main iPod classic line). iPod classic models store media on an internal hard drive, while all other models, aside from the Microdrive-based mini, use flash memory to enable their smaller size. As with many other digital music players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices.

Apple's iTunes software is used to transfer music to the devices. As a jukebox application, iTunes stores a music library on the user's computer and can play, burn, and rip music from a CD. It also transfers photos, videos, games, and calendars to those iPod models that support them. Apple focused its development on the iPod's unique user interface and its ease of use, rather than on technical capability. As of September 2007, the iPod had sold over 110 million units worldwide (stated in "The Beat Goes On" conference) making it the best-selling digital audio player series in history.

iPod came from Apple's digital hub strategy,^[1] when the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices being purchased by consumers. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, but the company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful,"^[1] so Apple decided to develop its own. Apple's hardware engineering chief, Jon Rubinstein, ordered by Steve Jobs, assembled a team of engineers to design it, including Tony Fadell, hardware engineer Michael Dhuey, and design engineer Jonathan Ive, with Stan Ng as the marketing manager. The product was developed in less than a year and unveiled on October 23, 2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put "1000 songs in your pocket."

Uncharacteristically, Apple did not develop iPod's software entirely in-house. Apple instead used PortalPlayer's reference platform which was based on 2 ARM cores. The platform had rudimentary software running on a commercial microkernel embedded operating system. PortalPlayer had previously been working on an IBM-branded MP3 player with Bluetooth headphones.^[2] Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to help design and implement the user interface, under the direct supervision of Steve Jobs.^[1] Once established, Apple continued to refine the software's look and feel. Starting with iPod mini, the Chicago font was replaced with Espy Sans. Later iPods switched fonts again to Podium Sans — a font similar to Apple's corporate font Myriad. iPods with color displays then adopted some Mac OS X themes like Aqua progress bars, and brushed metal in the lock interface. In 2007, Apple modified the iPod interface again with the introduction of the sixth-generation iPod classic and third-generation iPod nano by changing the font to Helvetica, and in most cases, splitting the screen in half by displaying the menus on the left and album artwork, photos, or videos on the right (whichever was appropriate for the selected item).

User interface

iPods with color displays use anti-aliased graphics and text, with sliding animations. Classic iPods have five buttons and the later generations have the buttons integrated into the click wheel — an innovation which gives an uncluttered, minimalist interface. The buttons perform basic functions such as play, next track, etc. Other operations such as scrolling through menu items and controlling the volume are performed by using the click wheel in a rotational manner. iPod shuffle does not have a click wheel and instead has five buttons positioned differently from the larger models. iPod touch uses no buttons for any of these functions, instead relying on the same Multi-touch input style as the iPhone.

Xbox

The Xbox is a sixth generation video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed directly with Sony's PlayStation 2, and the Nintendo GameCube. It was first released on November 15, 2001 in North America; February 22, 2002 in Japan; and on March 14, 2002 in Europe. The Australian launch came on April 26 of the same year. It is the predecessor to Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. The Xbox was Microsoft's first product that ventured into the console arena, after having collaborated with Sega in porting Windows CE to the Dreamcast console. Notable launch titles for the console included Halo: Combat Evolved, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing, and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee

Development

The Xbox was initially developed within Microsoft by a small team which included game developer Seamus Blackley. Microsoft repeatedly delayed the console, which finally emerged at the end of 1999 following interviews of Bill Gates. Gates said that a gaming/multimedia device was essential for multimedia convergence in the new times of digital entertainment. On March 10, 2000 the "X-box Project" was officially confirmed by Microsoft with a press release.

According to the book Smartbomb, by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, the remarkable success of the upstart Sony PlayStation worried Microsoft in late 1990s. The growing video game market seemed to threaten the PC market which Microsoft had dominated and relied upon for most of its revenues. Additionally, a venture into the gaming console market would also diversify Microsoft's product line, which up to that time had been heavily concentrated into software.

According to Dean Takahashi's book, Opening the Xbox, the Xbox was originally going to be called "DirectX-box", to show the extensive use of DirectX within the console's technology.^[4] "Xbox" was the final name decided by marketing, but the console still retains some hints towards DirectX, most notably the "X"-shaped logo, which DirectX is famous for, along with the "X" shape on the top of the system.

As time progressed, Microsoft's J Allard was responsible for the hardware and system software development. Ed Fries was responsible for all game development on the platform. Mitch Koch was responsible for sales and marketing and all three reported to Robbie Bach. This team was also primarily responsible for Microsoft's follow-up product, the Xbox 360.

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is a video game console produced by Microsoft, developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, and SiS. Its Xbox Live service allows players to compete online and download arcade games and content such as game demos, trailers, TV shows, music videos, or rented movies. The Xbox 360 is the successor to the Xbox, and competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of gaming systems.

The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. It is the first console to provide a near-simultaneous launch across the three major regions, and to provide wireless controller support at launch. The console sold out completely at release (with the exception of Japan) and, as of September 30, 2007, 13.4 million units have been sold worldwide.

Development

Known during development as Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS,^[4] Xbox Next or NextBox, the Xbox 360 was conceived in early 2003.^[5] In February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft VP J Allard.^[5] That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, Washington, to recruit support for the system.^[5] Also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12, 2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, a deal which was publicly announced two days later.^[6] The following month, IBM signed on to develop the triple-core CPU for the console.^[5] Before the launch of the Xbox 360, several alpha development kits were spotted using Apple's Power Mac G5 hardware. This was due to the system's PowerPC 970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBM's Xenon processor

Orange to launch Google mobile phone by 2008

Google has held initial talks with Orange, the mobile network provider, on the formation of a multi-media partnership that will create the 'Google phone', a device which aims to make it easier to surf the web on a mobile device designed for Google's search functionality.

A partnership between these powerful brands has the potential to completely change the landscape of internet marketing. Although many mobile phones offer internet access, the Google phone will have special software provided by the Silicon Valley multinational, which will make it easier to access the internet. This development will dramatically improve user experience, adding useful features like Google Local Search, which will allow consumers to look up local cinema listings, restaurant guides and similar products depending on the geographical location of the mobile handset itself.

The initial plans look set to release a fully branded Google phone that will appeal to younger mobile users and will utilise Google software integrated into an Orange handset. The Google phone will also be manufactured by HTC, who specialise in the production of PDAs.

Larry Page, Co-Founder and President of Products in Google, appears eager to expand the search engine's power into the mobile arena, since there are twice as many mobile phones as PCs in the world. Additionally, mobile usage is growing at a very fast rate, since mobile phones are more affordable than PCs and can be used in areas with minimum infrastructure.

The deal looks set to be successful for a number of reasons. For instance, Orange can offer GoogleGoogle possesses expertise in data compression that can significantly improve performance in mobile devices, which usually suffer from limitation as far as memory and bandwidth are concerned.

The growing interest shown by multinationals in the mobile industry has been accompanied by offerings of internet features on mobile devises, such as Google Maps and Gmail. According to Anssi Vanjoki, executive Vice-President of mobile phone manufacturing firm, Nokia, "In 10 years' time if you don't have a full internet in your pocket, you will be making a declaration that you wanted to be outside organised society."

Google's mobile phone is expected to be made available in 2008 and when this happens it is likely to change the advertising world as we know it today. In fact, by this time, the mobile phone may well be a hybrid device resembling a portable PC, rather than simply a wireless phone

I Phone

The iPhone is a multimedia and Internet-enabled quad-band GSM EDGE-supported mobile phone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPhone's functions include those of a camera phone and a portable media player ("iPod"), in addition to text messaging and visual voicemail. It also offers Internet services including e-mail, web browsing, and local Wi-Fi connectivity. User input is accomplished via a multi-touch screen with virtual keyboard and buttons.
The iPhone has been available since June 29, 2007 in the United States from Apple retail and online stores, and from AT&T Mobility. The current price is US$399 for an 8 GB model. On September 18, 2007, Apple announced in a special event that the iPhone will be available on November 9, 2007 on the carrier O2 in the United Kingdom.[1] On September 19, 2007, Apple and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile announced the iPhone would go on sale November 9, 2007 throughout Germany.[2] On October 16, 2007, Apple confirmed that France Télécom's Orange would be the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in France with a release date of November 29, 2007.[3] On October 24, 2007 as a result of a Molson contest, Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail revealed that Rogers Wireless may begin offering the iPhone in Canada starting sometime in 2008, however no official statement has been released by Apple or Rogers confirming this.

Satellite Phone

A satellite telephone, satellite phone, or satphone is a mobile phone that communicates directly with orbiting communications satellites. Depending on the architecture of a particular system, coverage may include the entire Earth, or only specific regions.The mobile equipment, also known as a terminal or earth station, varies widely. A satellite phone handset has a size and weight comparable to that of a late 1980s or early 1990s mobile phone, but usually with a large retractable antenna. These are popular on expeditions into remote areas where terrestrial cellular service is unavailable.A fixed installation, such as used shipboard, may include large, rugged, rack-mounted electronics, and a steerable microwave antenna on the mast that automatically tracks the overhead satellites. Satellite phones have notoriously poor reception indoors, it may be possible to get a consistent signal near a window or in the top floor of a building if the roof is sufficiently thin. The phones have connectors for external antennae that are often installed in vehicles and buildings. Satellite phones are usually issued with numbers in a special country calling code. For example, Inmarsat satellite phones are issued with codes +870 through +874, while Iridium satellite phones are issued with codes +881 6 and +881 7. Some satellite phones are issued with ordinary phone numbers, such as Globalstar satellite phones issued with U.S. telephone numbers.

Cost of a satellite phone

While it is possible to obtain old handsets for the Thuraya, Iridium & Globalstar networks for around $200 the newest handsets such as the iconic Iridium 9505A, although released in 2001 still sells for well over $1,000 new. Since satellite phones are built from the ground up for one particular network and cannot be switched to other networks the price of handsets varies with the performance of the network. If a satellite phone provider runs into trouble with its network the handset prices will fall, and pick up again once new satellites are launched. Similarly handset prices will go up when calling rates are reduced.
Among the most expensive satellite phones are BGAN terminals, often costing several thousand dollars. Satellite phones are sometimes subsidised by the provider if one signs a post-paid contract but subsidies are usually only a few hundred dollars or less.
Since most satellite phones are built under license or the manufacturing of handsets is contracted out to OEM's operators have a large influence over the selling price. Satellite networks operate under proprietary closed standards, making it difficult for manufacturers to independently make their own handsets.