SUNY Orange launches streaming Internet radio station

Middletown - Boasting a format that includes classic rock music, talk, interviews, educational programming, audio books and classic radio shows, SUNY Orange launched Colt Rock Radio, a student-oriented streaming Internet radio station this past Monday, Feb. 5.Colt Rock will feature 12 hours of "new" daily programming from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with that same 12-hour block being re-broadcast "overnight" from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Friday's shows will be re-aired throughout the weekend.Typical live music-talk radio formats, with musical artists ranging from Aerosmith to The Beatles, will be sprinkled among current events reporting, taped interviews with faculty and staff, assorted lecture series and announcements of the latest happenings at the College.Colt Rock can be accessed via the SUNY Orange Web site at www.sunyorange.edu/coltrock."The goal of this station is to get the college's name out into the community," said Linda Fedrizzi, a SUNY Orange professor who oversees the management of the station.Fedrizzi and Richard Heppner, the College's associate vice president for liberal arts, were instrumental in taking the station from concept to reality.

UMA looks to jump the 3G gap

Software company Kineto has gained another big backer for its UMA (unlicensed mobile access) technology that converges mobiles and fixed lines phones. But it still lacks the crucial support it needs - 3G handsets.

Kineto's UMA technology, endorsed as a standard from the 3GPP, has been adopted by BT (in its Fusion product) and is available in about six services worldwide.

BenQ has announced plans to deliver UMA handsets, which should reduce a criticism of UMA - the has been the lack of handset choice. Apart from BT's Fusion, initially based on Bluetooth, it requires a dual-mode Wi-Fi / cellular device, with software to run the UMA service, and so far few handsets are available.

"With BenQ we now have five out of the top six handset makers," said Steve Shaw, director of marketing at Kineto.

Wi-Fi Alliance Talks Phones

Can't find a Wi-Fi-based VoIP phone? Don't blame the Wi-Fi Alliance. The industry group, mainly known for testing interoperability between products using 802.11 technology, is announcing today at the 3GSM World Congress conference in Barcelona, Spain, that 92 Wi-Fi phones have been certified since 2004.

Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the Alliance, breaks down the number to 10 single-mode (Wi-Fi only) phones, those generally used in the enterprise or vertical markets, and 82 dual-mode, supporting both Wi-Fi and a cellular technology. (However, to be fair, he points out that the same phone may have been tested under many different SKUs used in different parts of the world).

"A lot of these were tested for straight-up interoperability," Hanzlik told Wi-Fi Planet.

Garmin's Latest is One Sturdy Travel Companion

To keep pace with competitors, tech gadgets are generally supposed to get sleeker and smaller with each revision. Garmin's (NasdaqGS:GRMN - News) GPSMAP 60Cx handheld GPS navigation device bucks that trend, wholeheartedly adopting a chunky, rough-and-tumble look and feel. .

Review: Parrot Conference

Conference calling and mobile phones are two technologies that have seldom crossed paths, but it does make a kind of sense. Most offices won't have a fixed-line conference phone system fitted to every meeting room and although there are cordless conference phones, DECT still isn't quite as free roaming as a mobile phone and Bluetooth device.

The Parrot Conference is pretty much exactly like any ordinary conference phone in most other regards. It has three integrated microphones for a 360 degree voice pickup and a 5W internal speaker so you can hear the person on the other end. To ensure that you can do things completely wirelessly, it includes three rechargeable Li-Ion batteries that offer up to ten hours of continuous talk-time. The unit will also store 50 different phones in its memory and up to 6,000 contacts which, rather than programming in yourself, you can upload directly using any Bluetooth enabled device.

New 1344 service provides all phone numbers: fixed and cellular

The new 1344 phone number information service began operations yesterday. The new directory assistance center will provide the caller with all the phone numbers for anyone from all of Israel's communications companies - cellular and landline.

The implementation of a unified source for all telephone numbers is a result of a decision made by the Communications Ministry, and its minister Ariel Atias.

Bezeq will operate the service. Cellular companies signed an agreement with Bezeq on the matter, and therefore, there will not be any competition between companies for the service.