Seems Google will win their point of mandating “open access” on the sought after C-Block in the ongoing 700MHz wireless spectrum auction. Bidding had stalled yesterday for a bit, but in the latest round today bidding has reached the minimum bid requiring that a winner institutes “open access” on any wireless network they create.

The FCC has confirmed through its auction site that at least one bidder in the auction has pressed past the crucial $4.6 billion mark for the “C block” spectrum, with bids at the end of the 17th round of the auction just surpassing $4.7 billion. No end dates or bidding limits have been established for the auction, which is set to continue until bidding stops.

I am a big fan of Pandora, the personalized Internet radio station where you control what you hear by selecting artists or songs you like. Pandora then matches your choices with old and new tracks that match your choices. I have written about several applications that allow you to listen to Pandora without the need to keep your web browser open all day like PandoraJam, PandoraBoy and PandoraMan, all for the Mac. I thought I would recommend to Windows users the recently updated Pandora’s Box (donation-ware).

Garnin has announced that it will be bringing its own smartphone called the Nuviphone featuring their experience with GPS navigation to the forefront. Featuring a 3.5-inch touchscreen interface and a GPS unit in addition to a host of Google apps allow it to search for local businesses, check traffic, and view nearby weather.

The built-in camera can take photos or videos that are automatically geotagged for positioning in location-based services. The Nuviphone will connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi or through a 3G HSDPA connection with AT&T or other worldwide networks. This will allow multi-network instant messaging and easy access to GMail, according to Garmin. It also supports MMS media messaging in addition to SMS texting. Garmin will preload the Nuviphone with North American maps that store “millions” of points of interest and plans to ship the phone during the summer of this year. Neither a price nor carriers have been identified, though the phone’s quad-band GSM and use of HSDPA point to an American release either paired with AT&T or as a separate, unlocked device for use with any provider.

Amazon announced that it will acquire Audible, the audiobook company in a share buyout deal worth about $300 million. The agreement effectively gives Amazon control of Audible’s audiobook collection and is described as an effort to develop and expand the audiobook forrmat, which has been largely dominated by Audible.

Amazon has not announced any of its immediate plans for Audible but is likely to have a major effect on the audiobook industry. The former’s Kindle e-book reader is currently focused on text and only supports MP3s for audio, preventing it from supporting Audible’s proprietary, copy-protected format for audiobooks. However, whether Amazon will add support to the Kindle or alter the store to support MP3s (similar to its music store) is unclear. Amazon has also declined to say whether Audible will continue to support third-party companies such as Apple, who have integrated the Audible format into devices such as the iPhone and iPod.

The day that all broadcast TV in the U.S. goes all digital and analog TV goes blank is February 17, 2009. Although, this is an important moment in TV history it is not panic time as most TV viewers will not even notice the switch. For me as a video engineer, I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. There has been many false starts along the way, as far back as when my career began and I attended my first National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show over 20 years ago.

I remember having discussions with other engineers working in broadcast and giving them my point of view that if TV went all digital, we could free up some of the spectrum used to broadcast “off-air” TV for wireless technologies that would change our world. Now since this was before the World Wide Web, many older engineers thought I was a bit radical and maybe even crazy. But now, the time is close for exactly what we spoke about.

Continue reading The Day Analog TV Dies - What You Need To Know…

Apple has announced that the free Apple TV software update enabling movie rentals is not quite finished and will now be available in another week or two. This highly anticipated update will allow the Apple TV to work more like a “stand-alone” set top box and give users the ability to “rent” movies from iTunes in standard and HD quality directly from the iTunes Store without the need of a computer.

Dell has announced that it will close all 140 of its U.S. kiosks in a matter of days that were launched back in 2002 as a way for customers to see products firsthand before ordering online or by phone. Dell will focus its retail efforts with deals with Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Staples. Although, the company is not closing its kiosks outside the US.

RCR Wireless News is reporting that the FCC could hit their goal of $10 billion in 700Mhz auction bids by sometime today.

After failing to garner a bid during round 11, the package of eight C-Block licenses covering the 50 states picked up a new bid in round 12 that pushed the potential winning price to nearly $3.8 billion, or 83% of the reserve price of $4.6 billion that would trigger the open-access provision on all C-Block licenses. The minimum new bid for the license now stands at $4.3 billion. The C-Block is a very desirable piece of spectrum.

Rules require bidders remain anonymous, so it’s still too early to tell if incumbents AT&T & Verizon, Google, or some other entity are leading the C Block.

Convert videos from the Internet to your Mac / iPod / iPhone / AppleTV automatically. CosmoPod €6.90 or $10.20 US (5-day free trial available) is a Safari add-on that helps you download and convert Flash, DivX, WMV and Real Media videos from the Internet to your Mac / iPod / iPhone / AppleTV automatically.

CosmoPod is almost universal. It will work on most sites broadcasting video content.

CosmoPod lounges in Safari’s address bar and activates whenever a video is detected on the website you’re on.
In a single click, the video is downloaded and converted to a friendly video format, and added to your iTunes Library so it’s ready for your next iPod / iPhone / AppleTV sync.

DVcreators has released dvcPrompt, a teleprompting application for video shoots and video podcasts that runs on Macs and Windows PCs. It offers single or dual window modes for one or two person operation, right-reading or mirrored text for talent in dual window mode, QuickRewind for retakes, a script editor for quick changes, text search for scripts, scroll wheel support, control of text size and line spacing, and other features. dvcPrompt is $60 for Mac OS X or Windows XP/Vista. Looks like a nice tele-prompter solution.

For the past few years I have used PT8000 $699 (now the PT1000), from ikan and Presentation Prompter $65 software for my Mac with good results on the few shoots I have needed a prompter. dvcPrompt looks like another great option. See my post on my prompter set-up.

Apple has added a new “Find Out How” section to their website featuring video tutorials Mac OS X, Photos, Movies, Web, Music and Documents. The videos are also downloadable to iTunes via a provided link at the bottom of each video. Seems to cover many aspects of using a Mac that “switchers” and even some seasoned Mac users may find extremely helpful. Be a good person and send a link to your friends or relatives that need help.

Apple has just sent some iWork ‘08 updates out via software update. Updates are Pages 3.0.2 and Numbers 1.0.2 “update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X” says Apple. While the Keynote 4.0.2 update “primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations.”

Continue reading iPod Tip #36: Convert 5G iPod Video to Compact Flash Storage…

Google has recently rolled out a search feature which updates information from FlightStats to allow users to check whether a flight is on time or delayed. Users are also able to check the departure and arrival times by just typing in the Airline Name or Airline Code and flight number into the regular Google Search box. For example, to see the status for United Airlines flight 134 search for “United 134.” You will be instantly given the status.

To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport’s three letter code followed by the word “airport.” For example, San Francisco International Airport updates can be found by searching for “sfo airport.” Thanks Google.

If you have ever found yourself on the road using a computer that does not have the tools you need to work with PDFs, check this out. PDF Hammer is a website that allows you to edit your PDF files online for free. You can edit PDF documents right inside your browser. Once you start, you will be able to upload one or more PDF files into your project, arrange the pages in any order you wish, and delete any pages you don’t want.

Continue reading PDF Hammer: Edit PDFs Online Free…