SiTel Semiconductor today announced how its collaboration with Target Compiler Technologies led to the creation of customized audio DSPs for its SC14452 Green VoIP processor. The DSPs combine extreme energy efficiency with high processing performance, enabling industry-leading audio quality and power consumption. Key components of the SC14452 that won a 2009 Frost and Sullivan Green Excellence Award, the DSPs were developed using Target’s IP Designer retargetable tool suite.

Target’s tools allowed SiTel to develop application-specific Gen2DSPs including a C-compiler, which means customers can program the DSPs themselves. The DSPs operate at low frequency to minimize energy consumption, yet provide high processing power. The SC14552 features two of these DSPs, which together deliver 160 MIPS. At the same time, they help minimize power consumption, enabling in-call power figures below 600 mW.

 With these powerful DSPs on-board, the SC14452 delivers outstanding sound quality for crystal clear communications. It can support four concurrent IP connections, independent of the codec chosen. Currently supported codecs include G.711, G.729, G.722, G.726, iLBC and MP3. Highly integrated, this VoIP solution reduces the overall system bill of materials (BoM) for enterprise VoIP desktop phones and IP-DECT base stations. It features integrated DECT, CAT-iq, DECT 6.0 and KDECT support and a dedicated cryptography engine for complete call confidentially.

SiTel’s drive towards more advanced and flexible System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions is the reason behind the company’s choice of Target’s tools. Target’s IP Designer is the leading retargetable tool suite for the design, programming and verification of application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIPs).

About Green VoIP
Concerns over climate change and fossil fuel supplies have put energy efficiency of all products at the forefront of both consumer and government agendas. For example, the European Commission Regulation on ecodesign (implementing Directive 2005/32/EC) proposes limiting the standby power consumption of domestic and office devices initially to 2 W if the device has a display and 1 W otherwise. A future second phase will further tighten these limits to 1 W and 0.5 W. Similar legislation is currently making its way through Congress in the US.

To help customers respond to these concerns and regulations, SiTel launched the Green VoIP range in 2008. These energy-efficient ICs allow manufacturers to create VoIP solutions that are environmentally friendly and reduce electricity bills. The first Green VoIP product, the SC14450, reduced the net system power consumption for typical applications by 50% to around 800 mW during calls and 550 mW in idle mode. The next Green VoIP processor, the SC14452, pushed down power consumption even further to 550 and 350 mW respectively – meeting the most stringent proposed limits.

Intrinsyc Software International is exhibiting a host of products that exemplify its leading expertise and proven products within the mobile software industry. From e-Reader technology to mobile device middleware and smartphone applications, Intrinsyc Software International is showcasing its mobile software development and service capabilities during Mobile World Congress.

“The strategic partnerships with Intrinsyc announced at Mobile World Congress and related product announcements significantly elevate Intrinsyc’s profile in the wireless industry” said Tracy Rees, President and CEO, Intrinsyc, “The momentum, driven by our continued innovation and new business relationships, will help pave the way to future growth and long term value.”

Highlights from the show include:

• Working with femtocell providers, Intrinsyc’s UX-Zone helps network operators to increase their network bandwidth by optimally offloading connectivity demands to high bandwidth femtocells. With Intrinsyc' UX-Zone, the appearance of a phone interface can change automatically to alert the user to the availability of high bandwidth services. UX-Zone changes a phone’s theme and displays relevant applications for the location and the services available, or an event, such as entering your home or work. Intrinsyc’s UX-Zone software is being displayed by a number of femtocell partners at Mobile World Congress, including Alcatel-Lucent, Ubiquisys, and IP Access.
• Forging new paths for mobile products, MIPS technology announced a partnership with Intrinsyc to bring 3.5G functionality to the MIPS® architecture. The companies are porting Intrinsyc's RapidRIL software to the MIPS architecture in order to accelerate mobile SoC development for MIPS licensees around the globe. Both companies are exhibiting this collaboration by demonstrating 3.5G voice calls with audio and video playback on a MIPS-Based™ Android™ platform at Mobile World Congress. 
• Enhancing the quality of the mobile experience, Intrinsyc, in collaboration with Interdigital, Inc. demonstrated its Media Independent Handover (MIH) technology, the IEEE 802.21 standard for uninterrupted, seamless multimedia session transfers between 2G/3G/4G cellular, WiFi or WiMax networks, and other wired and wireless interfaces. InterDigital's MIH client running with Intrinsyc's RapidRIL/Connection Manager software supports a seamless transfer of communications and media between different wireless technologies and improves the quality of the end users’ mobile experience. 
• Bringing social networks to new frontiers, Intrinsyc announced a partnership with GyPSii to bridge social networks to Destinator’s popular turn-by-turn navigation. The new GyPSii integration was showcased at Mobile World Congress and is planned for rollout later this year across the breadth of Intrinsyc’s Destinator navigation smartphone software applications. 
• Rolling out navigation to the hottest mobile platforms, Intrinsyc showcased its newest version of Destinator software application for smartphones to the press and public, at the PEPCOM event at Mobile World Congress and throughout partner booths at the show. The application has been released across global markets on Android and Windows Mobile smartphones, and was recently submitted for approval to the Apple iPhone Application Store.

Google embraces mobile, makes announcements in a special keynote at World Mobile Congress in Barcelona

Schmidt outlined how Google’s top programmers were now concentrating on mobile as their primary focus; he also pointed to recent acquisitions in the mobile space, notably AdMob. 

Unveiling a new Google mantra - ‘Mobile First’ - Schmidt proclaimed that three unique areas had now converged on the mobile device: computing power, interconnectivity and the cloud: “The phone is where these three all interconnect  and you need to get these three waves right if you want to win.” He highlighted Internet phenomenons such as Spotify, Facebook - and Google itself - as leading the cloud concept across both fixed and mobile. “If you don’t use the power of the cloud you will fail,” he said.

He added that in places such as Indonesia and South Africa Google was now seeing more searches on mobile than via the desktop.

Google programmers joining Schmidt on stage demonstrated the firm’s latest developments, including efforts to merge its speech and image recognition technology; the firm impressed with a preview of an optical character recognition (OCR) tool that was able to recognise and translate a picture of a German menu into English. Google announced that German has now been added to its speech system as its fourth language.

Schmidt also provided an update on Google’s Android platform, which he said was now running across 26 different devices. He said that Android handset vendors were selling  more than 60,000 per day, a figure that has doubled over the last quarter. During an Android demonstration, Google’s Eric Tseng announced that the platform now supports Flash – the full Flash version (10.2) rather than Flash Lite – allowing gaming and movies over handsets. The announcement will give Android devices an advantage over Apple’s iPhone, which does not support the technology.

The convergence of increasingly IP-based telco networks and emerging cloud computing platforms is not only happening today, but resulting in new sorts of management systems and approaches that look at the two infrastructures as one.

That’s the word from Kieran Moynihan, vice president and CTO Telecoms, Tivoli software, IBM. It’s an intriguing but not surprising finding, since what used to be telco central offices are looking more and more like data centers anyway, with rows of blade servers replacing purpose-built switches and interconnects – and a new generation of OSS software needed to manage it all.

Alongside those technology changes, telcos today face massive pressure to change their business models, provide new, more differentiated customer experiences and improve overall efficiency, said Moynihan, discussing his IBM group’s outlook for 2010 in an interview today

That new reality has service providers “talking a lot more about how you deploy OSS/BSS to support new business models and improve overall operational efficiency,” he said. “Three years ago, a lot of those inefficiencies could be tolerated; there was just so much cash coming through the door.”

Today, however, margins are tightening and cost-cutting is a requirement. In addition to deploying cheaper, simpler to manage next-generation IP systems and networks, operators are also increasingly outsourcing their operations, both on the IT and telecom sides of the house, Moynihan said.

For Moynihan’s IBM Tivoli group, which offers OSS and management software for both telecom and IT networks, the blurring of those two sides of the house makes for some interesting opportunities.

“What we’re seeing is systems management and telecom management being looked at end-to-end, and from the perspective of the services being offered,” not just the networks being managed, he said. On a Tivoli product basis, that means continued, smarter integration of its IT and telecom management products, including new advanced cloud management capabilities slated for 2010.

“We’re starting to see a good mix of large, tier one telcos around the world right now offer their own cloud platforms as a service, similar to Amazon and enterprise cloud service providers,” Moynihan said, noting that for telecom service providers in particular, such a move requires more integrated management of their IP networks and cloud infrastructure, side by side.

Source: connectedplanet.com

An interesting article about HACS and the different wireless systems like Z-Wave, Zigbee / 802.15.4, Wavenis, Power line, Insteon, X10, M-bus, Lonworks, HomePlug, Wi-Fi and DECT / CAT-iq, written by Steven Leussink and René Kohlmann, SiTel Semiconductor B.V. in pddnet.com

Here is part of the article:

Sensor-Actuator Nodes Autonomously For 5 to 10 Years

Building a home network, more than 300 million households worldwide will have one installed by 2011.

The home network market has grown consistently over the last few decades. According to recent research by InStat1, more than 300 million households worldwide will have a home network installed by 2011.

Perhaps the most familiar home networking application areas are computing and computer accessories. Most home computers these days are connected to wired or wireless networks that link them to other computers, printers, network-attached storage (NAS), internet gateways and the like. Similarly, we are using a growing number of accessories such as mice, headsets and keyboards to expand the functionality of computing or mobile devices, connecting them in an ad hoc fashion as and when we need them.

Now a third category of networked devices is about to enter our homes. Focusing on infrastructure applications such as automation, control, security and energy management, this category aims to make our daily lives more comfortable, safer and more energy efficient.

Building a home network, more than 300 million households worldwide will have one installed by 2011.

The home network market has grown consistently over the last few decades. According to recent research by InStat1, more than 300 million households worldwide will have a home network installed by 2011.

Perhaps the most familiar home networking application areas are computing and computer accessories. Most home computers these days are connected to wired or wireless networks that link them to other computers, printers, network-attached storage (NAS), internet gateways and the like. Similarly, we are using a growing number of accessories such as mice, headsets and keyboards to expand the functionality of computing or mobile devices, connecting them in an ad hoc fashion as and when we need them.

Now a third category of networked devices is about to enter our homes. Focusing on infrastructure applications such as automation, control, security and energy management, this category aims to make our daily lives more comfortable, safer and more energy efficient.

Read the full article

Four months before its opening, ANGA Cable, Europe’s leading Trade Fair and Congress for Cable, Broadband and Satellite is nearly fully booked. The organizer has received more than 300 exhibitor registrations – demand for floor space is higher than that of the previous year at the corresponding point in time. The registrations already account for more than 90 percent of the available floor space.

ANGA Cable Show will take place 4 - 6 May 2010 and comprises an exhibition and an international congress. The organizer, who is not tied to any exhibition site, has opted once again for the Cologne Fairground in 2010. In 2009 there were 383 exhibitors and more than 13,600 trade visitors from over 69 countries. 42 % of the visitors travelled to ANGA Cable from abroad.

The highlights of the congress which takes place alongside the exhibition are the German Strategy Summit and the International Broadband Summit. Participants will include top level representatives from Alcatel-Lucent, Cable Labs, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Eutelsat, Kabel Baden-Württemberg, Kabel Deutschland, Liberty Global, Motorola, NetCologne, ProSiebenSat.1, SES Astra, Unitymedia, YouSee, and ZDF. All 20 congress events will be translated simultaneously (German/English).