Nokia - Google Android is not for us. Yet.

Nokia, USA - According to Niklas Savander, executive vice president of services and software at Nokia, Google Android isn't yet ready for Nokia to make an assessment on. "A platform has three to four million lines of code" Savander told SFGate.com. "When Android has that many lines, we'll make an assessment. Until then it's just an announcement".

source: http://conversations.nokia.com/home/2008/05/google-android.html

3 milion lines of code, so what? 

Android 2.0

The Android 2.0 platform introduces many new and exciting features for users and developers. This document provides a glimpse at some of the new features and technologies in Android 2.0.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/10/announcing-android-20-support-in-sdk.html

New User Features

Quick Contact for Android

Multiple Accounts

Messaging Search

Email Combined Inbox

Camera Modes

Contacts and accounts

• Multiple accounts can be added to a device for email and contact synchronization, including Exchange accounts. (Handset manufacturers can choose whether to include Exchange support in their devices.)
• Developers can create sync adapters that provide synchronization with additional data sources.
• Quick Contact for Android provides instant access to a contact's information and communication modes. For example, a user can tap a contact photo and select to call, SMS, or email the person. Other applications such as Email, Messaging, and Calendar can also reveal the Quick Contact widget when you touch a contact photo or status icon.

Email

• Exchange support.
• Combined inbox to browse email from multiple accounts in one page.

Messaging

• Search functionality for all saved SMS and MMS messages.
• Auto delete the oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached.

Camera

• Built-in flash support
• Digital zoom
• Scene mode
• White balance
• Color effect
• Macro focus

Android virtual keyboard

• An improved keyboard layout to makes it easier to hit the correct characters and improve typing speed.
• The framework's multi-touch support ensures that key presses aren't missed while typing rapidly with two fingers.
• A smarter dictionary learns from word usage and automatically includes contact names as suggestions.

Browser

• Refreshed UI with actionable browser URL bar enables users to directly tap the address bar for instant searches and navigation.
• Bookmarks with web page thumbnails.
• Support for double-tap zoom.
• Support for HTML5:
  • Database API support, for client-side databases using SQL.
  • Application cache support, for offline applications.
  • Geolocation API support, to provide location information about the device.
  • tag support in fullscreen mode.

Calendar

• Agenda view provides infinite scrolling.
• Events indicate the attending status for each invitee.
• Invite new guests to events.

New Platform Technologies

Media Framework

Revamped graphics architecture for improved performance that enables better hardware acceleration.

Bluetooth

• Bluetooth 2.1
• New BT profiles: Object Push Profile (OPP) and Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP)

New Framework APIs

Android 2.0 includes several new developer APIs. For an overview of new APIs, see the Android 2.0 version notes.

For a complete report of all API changes, see the API Differences Report.

The Dumb Pipe Paradox ― How open access networks build shareholder value

On more than one occasion, "natural monopoly" arguments have been used to obtain, and/or hold onto, a government granted monopoly, This is definitely true of access networks where the physical right-of-way to any specific real estate parcel is a limited resource, but the economics of what you put in it have changed over time. At one time it made sense to consider telephone service a natural monopoly. And for most of the twentieth century, telephone service was operated that way (think Bell System in the US and government run PTTs in most of the rest of the world). In the latter 20th century, cable TV became a second such monopoly. Today, it's increasingly clear that telephony and television are higher layer services, not inherently tied to the access network. Yet our laws and regulation have barely evolved ― each access network is still regulated as a different vertically integrated monopoly. And, managers in each business focus on preserving their historic monopoly even as market forces or government regulations force them to also offer Internet access.

So it's interesting to see solid economic analysis showing that access network shareholders would make more money if management was willing to open up their access networks, i.e. become "dumb pipes."

The first such argument I encountered was by Craig Moffett and Amelia Wong of Bernstein Research who wrote an interesting paper The Dumb Pipe Paradox, early in 2006. The original paper is not on line but I have some quotes here and there are some other comments here. Craig and Amelia were looking at Cable TV's hybrid fiber-coax networks and concluded that cable companies could make more return on investment if they were in the pure dumb pipes business.

More recently, I reported on a speech given by Benoît Felten of Yankee Group and Fiberevolution in which he argued that new fiber to the home (FTTH) investments could be paid back more rapidly if the FTTH network were open, i.e. offered to competitors at attractive wholesale rates.

Now Benoît has written a detailed report describing his findings. Although the report is for Yankee Group subscribers only, Benoît is also giving a webinar on the subject next Tuesday and that's open to all. Register here.

I particularly liked the polite suggestion near the end of Benoît's report:

Recommendations for Incumbents
• Re-examine your economic fundamentals in light of the FTTH business model. It’s irrational to cling to antiquated business practices if new approaches, no matter how disruptive, deliver better shareholder value.

source:http://blogs.dialogic.com/2009/06/the-dumb-pipe-paradox-how-open-access-networks-build-shareholder-value.html

Carrier-Grade: Five Nines, the Myth and the Reality

It's pretty interesting issue about so called "fine nines" concept. 

What is the hard fast requirement for Carrier-Grade?  Is “five-nines” or 99.999% up 

or 0.99999 available a hard, fast requirement of telecommunications or is it the 

telecommunications equivalent of an Urban Myth?

..

www.pipelinepub.com/0407/pdf/Article%204_Carrier%20Grade_LTC.pdf

Updates to the CCIE Lab and Written Exam Question Format and Scoring

Effective February 1, 2009, Cisco will introduce a new type of question format to CCIE Routing and Switching lab exams. In addition to the live configuration scenarios, candidates will be asked a series of four or five open-ended questions, on the computer screen, drawn from a pool of questions based on the material covered on the lab blueprint. No new topics are being added.

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To increase the security & integrity of the CCIE R&S Lab exam, there will be a series of open-ended, short answer questions added to the lab exam and delivered online in all global lab locations. The addition of these questions does not change the lab exam blue-print, nor does it require time be added to the total exam time. At this point the questions are being added to the Routing and Switching lab; lab exams in other tracks will be announced in advance.