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A few weeks ago the thought of being as connected in the air as you are on the ground using onboard broadband and mobile phones looked like a definite no-no.

The alleged bomb plot in Britain prompted heightened security and temporary bans on the use of electronic devices on some flights. It also made airlines and technology providers reassess their plans to turn the aeroplane cabin into a mobile office.

But experts say connectivity - already a reality for passengers on Scandinavian, Singapore and other airlines with broadband - will continue to be important to travellers and to carriers as a point of difference in their fight for market share.

Now Qantas (http://www.qantas.com.au) has announced it will trial mobile telephony on one of its Boeing 767 aircraft on domestic routes next year.

Qantas group general manager, customer product and service, Lesley Grant, says business travellers are demanding connectivity, especially email access, so they can use their travelling time more effectively.

Email will be available on GPRS-enabled handheld devices such as the BlackBerry and smart phones as well as laptops with a network card at dial-up speed. Calls and text messaging will be possible on GSM phones with global roaming accounts during flights.

Calls will be billed by each passenger's own telco in line with international roaming rates, according to Qantas. CDMA and 3G phones will not work during the trial.

Mobile phones will connect to a mini-base station on board the aircraft known as a picocell. This will pass calls through a satellite connection to ground-based mobile networks via a gateway in Norway. The picocell controls the power output of the mobile phones and throws a low radio frequency blanket over the cabin to prevent handhelds from interfering with the plane's navigation instruments as they try to connect to base stations on the ground.

The three-month trial will be conducted with Telstra and avionics companies to ensure the technology fulfils regulatory and customer expectations.

In 2007, Qantas will receive the first of its Airbus 380 fleet. According to OnAir, a joint-venture between Airbus and transport communications company SITA, the fleet will be equipped ex-factory with the picocell and a high-speed wireless network to provide full broadband internet access to Wi-Fi enabled laptops, PDAs and mobile phones. OnAir will retrofit the system to older aircraft next year.

Full story at SMH

The SmartyBlog awards, established by Melbourne web hosting company SmartyHost, were announced two weeks ago and will close tonight at midnight.

Blogging or "web logging" is a growing phenomenon worldwide, as Australians increasingly embrace it as a means of communicating ideas and opinions. A blog takes the form of an online diary or newsletter and can span any topic from politics to sport.

SmartyHost said the competition was accepting entries from any Australian regardless of the where their blog was hosted, and out of 25,000 visitors to the entry page, 500 had so far put their blog forward for the top prize.

Anoosh Manzoori, managing director, said this was the first time a competition of this size had set its sights on blogging.

"The judging will assess the actual content of the blog and how frequently they update their content," he said.

The judging panel will comprise a number of journalists, academics and executives from outside the company, who will jointly decide on the winning blog.

The winner of the grand $10,000 prize will be announced on December 5 along with ten runners up who will each receive a $150 package of internet services from SmartyHost.

source: SMH

Changing consumer behaviour may make a business website a portal for online purchasing but is much more likely to make the website a place to research the business' products and services.

A surge in usage of the internet by consumers is reflecting the changes in the way consumers seek out information.

We now have more than 10 million Australians online. Purchasing decisions are more and more likely to be based on information gathered on the internet.

For many, online research is replacing the store as the way they gather information on products and pricing before purchasing at the store level.

Sensis figures show that there were 1.9 million unique visitors in May to the Yellow Pages website, a sharp rise on the year previous.

Two compelling factors are contributing to this: the first is the massive increase in the numbers of new customers signing up to high-speed internet broadband services.

Large telecommunications carriers such as Telstra and Optus are reporting continuing high rates of new subscriptions.

The second factor is the acceleration of domain name registrations reported by several operators in this field.

Melbourne IT, for example, is registering 50,000 new names monthly.

These trends, in particular Broadband, are dramatically influencing consumer patterns towards an 'always on' mode.

That is, rather than going to their computers, dialing up and searching, consumers are now always online. It's therefore cheaper, quicker, and more comprehensive for them to seek out information from websites and search engines.

Typically, people will compare prices and features online and then book their service provider by phone. Some buy online.

A Sensis executive, Mirella Prince, group manager of Interactive Consumer Experiences, says technology has raised consumer expectations.

"You've seen this already in the banking and travel industries. People now have an expectation of finding what they want, quickly, easily."

The growth in the population that is using always-on, broadband internet connections is prompting a growing number of small-to-medium sized businesses to view websites as serving a similar function to that of Yellow Pages advertising. Hence the boost in domain registrations.

In effect, a website is rapidly becoming the easiest and most affordable way to communicate information.

Paul Jameson, managing director of website developer Ozetrades, says it is a misconception that web sites are expensive or complex.

"Is a listing in the Yellow Pages complex?"

He says that the days of expensive web designers and web developers charging thousands of dollars for a web presence are numbered.

"Building web sites is moving from the designers to the packaged product.

"Every industry – mobile phones, banking, you name it – goes through this evolutionary stage."

A website is now becoming a money-saving investment rather than a hope-driven, expensive marketing strategy.

In the case of professionals or tradespeople limited by geographical reach, the business case is nevertheless compelling.

Having a brochure-style web presence reduces time in handling suspect phone calls, marketing expenses, postage, faxes, phone bills and office supplies.

Getting a website is not without some risks. Computers and websites break down and it often happens at the most inopportune times.

Care should be taken when putting information about your business and products on the internet as you might be giving away your competitive advantage or crucial parts of your intellectual property.

The early businesses that established websites were likely to be computer-literate and tech-savvy.

They also were likely to be very interested in selling on the Net, and they often included an e-commerce capability when they initially set up their sites.

Today, in contrast, the SMEs that are fueling the new wave of websites and domain registrations are much more likely to be focused on establishing an online presence that can deliver 'brochure ware' whose mission is to provide information.


Source: The Daily Telegraph

The product is only available to those who have a fixed-line service which is bundled with iiNet's broadband internet plans, the company's chief technical officer Greg Bader said.

A subscriber who has a DSL connection with iiNet would first have to take a fixed-line service from the provider in order to get the VoIP service.

Malone said iiNetphone would have no monthly rental fee and low call rates, with 10 cents being charged for both local untimed calls and calls to capital cities countrywide.

National calls outside capital cities would cost five cents per minute over fixed lines.

Bader said users would be provided a free second phone line and number using VoIP technology.

While the VoIP product is available from today, hardware sourced from Belkin, which is ADSL2-compatible, would be available only from mid-September, Bader said.

VoIP-enabled modems and routers and analog telephone adaptors will be supplied to help customers set up their VoIP service.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/iinet-launches-voip-service/2005/08/29/1125167595971.html

The Australian Communications Authority launched proceedings yesterday in the Federal Court in Perth against Wayne Mansfield and his company Clarity1, which also uses the name Business Seminars.

The authority alleges Mansfield is a global spammer and because of the scale of his operation, is seeking an interim injunction against the company.

Complaints had been received from as far afield as Britain, said Bob Horton, the communications authority's acting chairman.

Mansfield and Business Seminars Australia were listed by the international anti-spam watchdog, Spamhaus, as allegedly being among the world's top 200 spammers, he said. The top 200 spammers produce 80 per cent of the world's spam.

Despite this, Web interaction designers can't help but feel a little envious of our colleagues who create desktop software. Desktop applications have a richness and responsiveness that has seemed out of reach on the Web. The same simplicity that enabled the Web's rapid proliferation also creates a gap between the experiences we can provide and the experiences users can get from a desktop application.

That gap is closing. Take a look at Google Suggest. Watch the way the suggested terms update as you type, almost instantly. Now look at Google Maps. Zoom in. Use your cursor to grab the map and scroll around a bit. Again, everything happens almost instantly, with no waiting for pages to reload.

Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax. The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in what's possible on the Web.

Full Article here:
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php

Here is a great new Firefox extension for those who look forward to Beeroclock.

Its called "Beeroclock" funnily enough.

A small beer icon appears in the status bar of your browser which periodically alerts you to the time until your office beer o'clock: "17 hours 'til beer o'clock".

Messages are not just displayed in hours and minutes, but other time-frames that may be more relevant to you and your office fellows: "15 cups of coffee 'til beer o'clock", "3500 lines of code 'til beer o'clock", "10 ridiculous questions from clients 'til beer o'clock". You can also add your own messages for non-stop beer/office fun.

You can get it from here

The CSIRO developed groundbreaking technology in 1996 that allows computers to network with each other without cables.

The technology is now built in to most laptop computers and manufacturers pay the CSIRO a licence fee to use it.

CSIRO chief executive Dr Geoff Garrett said the system made it possible to increase the speed of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) by a factor of five.

The CSIRO took legal action against a Japanese company earlier this year for not paying the licence fees.

In February 2005, the CSIRO began legal action in the United States against Buffalo Technology, a Japanese owned company, which had unilaterally terminated negotiations with CSIRO in relation to a license.

Now Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Apple and Netgear are taking legal action against the CSIRO to break the US patent.

The Australian Government's research arm says that any royalties collected are invested in further development and it will fight the legal action to protect its intellectual property.

"As part of our business we create high quality intellectual property and we are prepared to defend it," Dr Garrett said.

"We actively encourage the utilisation of the results of research in industry and communities, both nationally and globally, and any royalty income will be reinvested in further research."

[source: www.abc.net.au]

'In moving to the free Firefox, he did more than just install a web browser that rivals Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which comes for free with every PC running the Windows operating system. The CIO defined a radically new desktop interface for the company and forced his software suppliers to comply with his technology direction, which had a heavy emphasis on open standards so he would no longer be locked into any one vendor's products.

Firefox is a small and streamlined web browser created by the US-based charity The Mozilla Foundation from the bones of the Netscape and Mozilla browsers. It runs on all desktop computers and supports most languages.

Firefox is often paired with its open source sibling, Thunderbird, a free email client that competes with Microsoft's Outlook in the enterprise.

ON 80 Windows PCs, Mr Robertson uses Firefox downloaded from the web; on 20 Linux desktops he installed Firefox as part of a customised system that runs from read-only DVDs. It's safe from accidents and is replaced with a simple hardware swap.

Mr Robertson used these systems at new sites with heavy demand, and where existing Windows users weren't affected.

Full Story here: www.smh.com.au

According to the courier mail the itunes music store for australia has been help because by "one unnamed major record company that refused to sign an agreement in time."

Some users reported they were even able to access the store as a work-in-progress before they were banned.

here is the story

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