Meganet

One of the best new features of Blackberry's new BB10 operating system is Blackberry Balance. This allows a corporate user of Blackberry to maintain two profiles, one completely secured and tied-down by the office using Blackberry's Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES) and the other for personal use. The user can switch between the two, but cant, say, install their own apps in the secure environment.

Since BES 10 now supports non Blackberry devices such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android, the Secure Work Space service has been made available to them and includes protected client applications for email, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos, secure browsing and document editing. Unfortunately due to operating system differences the service won't be as secure on non Blackberry 10 devices (though there are now 3rd party enhancements to Android to do similar things).

If Blackberry can regain their enterprise customers while allowing users to have access to other features they may actually be able to hold on to the market which they've been losing over the last few years.

O'Reilly (via Make:Magazine.com) have published Getting Started with Raspberry Pi the $35 ARM power Linux computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

The book is 10 chapters with 3 appendices.

• Chapter 1 - Getting Up and Running
• Chapter 2 - Getting Around Linux on the Raspberry Pi
• Chapter 3 - Python On The Pi
• Chapter 4 - Animation and Multimedia in Python
• Chapter 5 - Scratch on the Pi
• Chapter 6 - Arduino and the Pi
• Chapter 7 - Basic Input and Output
• Chapter 8 - Programming Inputs and Outputs with Python
• Chapter 9 - Working with Webcams
• Chapter 10 - Python and the Internet
• Appendix A - Writing an SD Card Image
• Appendix B - Astral Trespassers Complete
• Appendix C - Analog Input

Though it's a "Getting Started" book, it quickly gets difficult for non-technical users and very quickly loses them. The first few chapters are helpful and allow people to get a Raspberry Pi up and get started with it, though some essential information (like getting the operating system on to an SD card) is in the appendices which would have probably better been placed in the first chapter.

Someone who has programming knowledge will find the book useful as they should be able to get to grips with the environment reasonably quickly (it is Linux), but it should maybe have been split into 2 books or a just into 2 major sections, one really for beginners and then an advanced user section.

The book is available in paper or via O'Reilly's Safari store, it's also available on Valobox.

Nominet is the registry for the .uk country domain. They had wanted to offer domains directly under .uk rather than the existing .co.uk, .org.uk subdomains.

As well as proposing some sensible policies (like only supporting DNSSEC the secure version of the domain name protocols) others didn't go down so well, so Nominet is re-thinking the their policies and will offer ;-

• A revised phased release mechanism based lrgely on the prior registrations of domains in existing third levels within .uk and in which contention between different applicants for the same domain name should be reduced or eliminated.
• Measures to improve security across the whole of the .uk namespace. This would include increased focus on encouraging the adoption of DNSSEC.
• A firm focus on registrant verification and some form of UK presence.
• Further investigations into the impact on the SME sector.
• An appropriate pricing model.

Which will be reviewed at the June board meeting.

If the new direct.uk system is implemented, Nominet have still committed to supporting the existing .co.uk space.

Digia, the company that acquired Qt from Nokia has announced enhanced support the Blackberry's new Blackberry 10 operating system.

Qt is a framework that works across many platforms (both desktop and mobile) and allows developers to use the same front-end code which will work across all the supported platforms and Qt is used in Blackberry's Cascade framework which is used to develop native Blackberry applications.

Digia maintains the commercial version of Qt and also the open source version that is available from the Qt Project which is where any Blackberry enhancements are upstreamed to.

Ofcom has decided that short range devices (SRDs) should move from the band 10.675 to 10.699 GHz to 10.575 to 10.6 GHz in line the frequency allocation policy.

This new band will be made license exempt, but that requires a change to the Wireless Telegraphy Act which Ofcom is progressing.

The band was extended after the 2nd consultation (the 10.5GHz band consultation) as respondents complained there was not enough bandwidth in the proposed 10.577 to 10.597 GHz band and Ofcom has now extended this band.

No new SRDs will be allowed to operate in the existing band.

Ofcom will issue a consultation on the proposed regulations shortly.

The full statement can be found here as a PDF.

This blog can now be read in an app on Blackberry devices (on OS7 or BB10), it works both on smartphones and the Playbook and it's available on Blackberry World.

Developing an app for Blackberrys is notably hard, but Blackberry have come to the rescue with Blackberry App Generator (actually developed by Mippin) which does all the hard work for you. No code required, but there is a bit of work getting logos and icons in the right size. In the app generator just specify the feeds (it works with ATOM and RSS) and the app is built for you.

There are a few hoops to go through, initially a Blackberry Vendor ID is required (free sign-up, but company documents are needed as proof) from Blackberry Vendor Portal and that takes a while. Once the app is built, it needs to be approved, which can take a few weeks. Once approval is gained, the app must be published through the vendor portal and it's put into the app stores which can take up to 24h.

Though it's a nice feature and easily allows a website with news feeds to easily convert them into an app, could it be that Blackberry is just using this to swell the number of apps in Blackberry World?

It's really a 'no brainer' for anyone with a website that has regular updates presented as a feed and wants their own app.

Ofcom, the super regulator today announced the awards (and subsequent prices) for the 4G spectrum awards. Everything Everywhere Ltd, Hutchison 3G UK Ltd and Telefónica UK Ltd (O2) did not have to pay anything following the original auction and awarding of their spectrum.

Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited (a subsidiary of BT Group plc) paid £15,061,179 to be allocated the spectrum bands 2,520 to 2,535 MHz and 2,640 to 2,655 MHz.

Vodafone Limited has paid £8,060,020 to be allocated the spectrum bands 801 to 811 MHz and 842 to 852 MHz, and an additional £4,039,123 to be allocated the spectrum bands 2,500 to 2,520 MHz and 2,620 to 2,640 MHz.

O2 was awarded 811 to 821 MHz and 852 to 862 MHz in the 4G spectrum award and has an obligation to cover 98% of the UK population by 2017.

The original auction raised £2,341,113,000 for the UK Treasury, this additional bidding has raised an extra £27,160,322 bringing the total raised to £2,368,273,322 for the UK coffers.

The licenses are now free to deploy 4G (LTE) services on these bands.

Last week Ofcom announced the winning bidders for 4G spectrum and amounts bid for it.

Everything Everywhere Ltd	2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz and 2 x 35 MHz of 2.6 GHz	£588,876,000
Hutchison 3G UK Ltd	2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz	£225,000,000
Niche Spectrum Ventures	2 x 15 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired)	£186,476,000
Telefónica UK Ltd	2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz (coverage obligation lot)	£550,000,000
Vodafone Ltd	2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz, 2 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 25 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired)	£790,761,000

CADScan has launched a project on Kickstarter to produce an affordable 3D scanner, which can scan 3D objects into an electronic format suitable for 3D printing.

The aim is to produce the scanner for £650 ($1,000) which puts it into the realm of companies and serious home users allowing objects sized up to 25cm x 25cm x 25cm (10" x 10" x 10") to be scanned.

With the combination of affordable 3D printers, it will now be possible to duplicate objects for under $2,000 which also brings interesting thoughts on affordable piracy of objects.

CADScan is based in Chester in the UK.

BSkyB the media giant has agreed to acquire O2/Telefonica's O2 broadband service (this also includes the Be broadband service that O2 originally acquired to launch their broadband services). Sky will initially pay Telefonica £180m followed by another £20m following the successful migration of the customer base.

O2/Be have 560,100 broadband customers which added to Sky's 4,235,000 customers gives them 4,795,100 customers and pushes Sky into 2nd place in the UK broadband market following BT Retail with 6,569,000 and putting VirginMedia into 3rd place with 4,465,000.

The acquisition also covers O2's fixed line telephony unit and will increase Sky's consumer offering.

Though there is overlap in terms of infrastructure, O2's network will be migrated on to Sky's existing network - though it's likely there will be some exchanges that O2 have unbundled that Sky haven't - which means Sky's LLU (local loop unbundled) network will grow slightly as they move into those exchanges.

Sky will maintain O2's LLU offering (i.e. wholesale broadband service offered to other operators), but O2's LLU business will be migrated on to Sky's network. This should be a 'good thing' as O2's network reach will increase as they get access to Sky's unbundled exchanges, however some operators are worried that the quality of the underlying network will decrease and thus the customer experience may deteriorate.

The deal still has to get regulatory approval, but assuming there are no objections it should complete by April.

The added cash (which cant hurt as Telefonica/O2 has just spend a chunk on buying 800MHz spectrum in the recent 4G spectrum auctions) will be used to accelerate the rollout of 4G services.