Telecom or all

MegaPath Inc., the leading provider of managed IP data, voice and security services in North America, today announced that Unified Grocers, the largest wholesale grocery distributor in the Western United States, has purchased MegaPath's Retail Site SSL and Managed Security services. MegaPath Retail Site SSL allows approximately 220 independent retail grocery stores (members and customers of Unified Grocers) to easily and securely access their in-store systems. MegaPath's Managed Security service also ensures that the stores' applications and business critical data are protected at all times. Unified plans to add another 105 supported sites as it integrates locations from its fall 2007 acquisition of Seattle-based Associated Grocers. (PRWeb Apr 29, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/megapath/retail/prweb901614.htm

Global Knowledge, the worldwide leader in IT and Business training, now offers project management training Boot Camps and courses featuring Microsoft Office Project products. In the four-day Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Boot Camps, students will take the exam on the last day of class, and upon passing, will earn either the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certification for Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 or for Enterprise Product Management with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007. The MCTS certifications validate a student's expertise in applying project management best practices as established by the Project Management Institute. Each Boot Camp offers 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs). (PRWeb Apr 29, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/project/microsoft/prweb901604.htm

Sixteen Industry Leaders First To Provide Blades For EnterpriseDB Postgres Plus And Postgres Plus Advanced Server (PRWeb Apr 29, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/enterprisedb/blade/prweb899604.htm

DSS Corporation, (www.equature.com) launched a new Telephone Recording Basics thought leadership website (www.telephonerecordingbasics.com). This is the first in a series to come. (PRWeb Apr 29, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/04/prweb899354.htm

Online university currently offers the only online graduate specialization in business analysis. (PRWeb Apr 29, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/Capella/IT/prweb899174.htm

TECOM Investments has announced a new deal with du, the UAE telecoms operator, to offer a WiFi service in public areas of Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and Knowledge Village starting this April.

To begin with the new WiFi coverage will include food courts, lobbies and select offices and villas, but TECOM intends to extend this until it’s available in all outdoor public spaces within the free zone clusters.

Du already has WiFi installations in Starbucks outlets in the Dubai free zones, and more at Dubai Festival City, Times Square Centre and the Dubai World Trade Centre.

AT&T is planning to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone to $199, say a variety of news reports. According to Fortune:

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

AT&T and Apple declined to comment.

At $200, the iPhone would be within reach of a much wider consumer market and give AT&T a strong magnet to pull lucrative customers away from rivals like Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile. The $200 rebate or subsidy would be limited to AT&T customers and not available through Apple’s stores. The new iPhone sold by AT&T will likely be locked or programmed so buyers can’t take the cheaper iPhone to another phone service.

In other news, the Associated Press has signed a deal with mobile video vendor Transpera to power the AP’s Mobile News Network.

Transpera will be used for the AP’s Mobile News Network, scheduled to launch later this quarter, the first product of the AP’s Digital Cooperative, a program from AP members designed to find ways to distribute news over new-media platforms.

In addition to providing technology for video delivery, Transpera will help advertisers reach mobile users through banner, pre-roll and post-roll ads. Cellular provider Alltel has uses Transpera for their Social Video service, which is available for $3 per month. It allows subscribers to access, rate and share videos from popular Web destinations such as Break.com, AtomFilms and GrindTV.com.

YouTube is also extending their offerings to wireless. Other user-generated mobile video startups including Mywaves, Eyespot, 4thMedia, Mojungle and Zannel.

Inexpensive Wifi devices (like the iPhone), just might bring municipal wireless networks back from the dead — they’re used outdoors, they’re mobile, they’re Wi-Fi enabled. What’s not to like?

iPhones are already a huge factor in most municipal wireless networks. MIDs and UMPCs, arriving later this year, will add fuel to the fire. Perhaps municipal WiFi was just a little ahead of its time.

This development is going to be fun to watch. You unlock this door with the key of imagination.

A $20 million, 28-mile prototype ‘virtual’ fence built by Boeing, and developed to thwart illegal immigration along the Mexico-U.S. border hasn’t met border control agents’ needs, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported.

However, the federal government has no plans to scrap the program as recently reported by the mainstream press, said Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Laura Keehner.

The towers — the backbone of the test project known as Project 28 — have been operational for about three months but have failed to meet expectations since going up in summer 2007. But, “It would be wrong to conclude that the federal government is scrapping the virtual fence,” said Keehner.

The P-28 virtual fence project uses a series of electronic, wireless devices to detect movement along the 28-mile stretch near Tuscon, Ariz. The GAO said its main shortcoming is the lapse time between the electronic detection of individuals illegally crossing the border and the data reaching hand-held devices and border-control personnel.

Wayne Esser, Boeing’s director of strategic development for the Secure Border Initiative program that developed the fence, said the prototype uses off-the-shelf hardware and software to track illegal immigration activities. It currently consists of communication technologies that include sensors and radar systems housed on a series of mobile towers. The data then are transmitted over a restricted, wireless network to border-control agents, he said.

“Part of the problem was that the [technologies] were put in on a temporary basis, and so we didn’t put up the full communications system. We used a slower satellite system because of the costs and timing because we would not have been able to meet the schedule if we tried to put up the full system,” Esser said.

“We’re not using the cellular networks because, in most of the [rural area] along the border, there just aren’t any,” Esser said. “We looked at it and talked to several of the major cell-phone operators to look at the economics of actually using cellular and installing it—and it’s just not there.”

The next phase of the system that includes the erection of fixed towers as well as microwave communication systems and will be deployed in late summer, Esser said.

Dailywireless has more on the Secure Border Initiative.