EU Hopes Satellites Will Push Mobile TV
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A European Commission plan to simplify the licensing of Europe-wide mobile satellite services could boost the nascent market for broadcast TV services over handheld devices.
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BRUSSELS, Sep 28 (IPS) - With images of monks converging courageously on  Rangoon broadcast around the world, the European Union threatened  this week that it would respond to any use of violence against  peaceful protesters by strengthening the sanctions it had  previously imposed on Burma's military junta.
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Europe's "super rocket" which can lift multiple and heavier satellites into orbit prepares for its first trip to space.
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Europe is slightly ahead of other  continents in developing mobile television, but lack of joint  radio spectrum for the service means it may lose its  leadership, regulators and industry leaders said on Thursday.
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Leading mobile phone operators in the European Union could save billions of euros on third-generation network access under a proposal to be launched next month by Brussels.
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Una ricerca del Politecnico di Milano fa luce sulle future strade della multimedialit&agrave; su piattaforma mobile, con TV e Internet
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(InfoWorld) - The European Union will provide a sizeable amount of money to research groups this year as part of a multiyear program to spur research in new information and communications technologies. More than 2,000 ICT researchers met Thursday in Cologne, Germany, to learn how they can participate in the E.U.'s 7th Framework Program for research and development, with a budget of â¬50 billion ($65 billion) through 2013. ICT research accounts for the lion's share of the framework budget at â¬9.1 billion, with â¬1.2 billion to be allocated this year. The E.U. is keen to fund research in areas where the region has a technological edge, including communications, software systems, networked media, and embedded systems. The European government also hopes to speed innovation in areas where companies in the region could gain a competitive edge, such as next-generation Internet technology. Early E.U. investment in digital mobile communications, the Brussels government is quick to point out, led to the development and worldwide adoption of the GSM standard, the most widely used mobile phone system in the world. Research organizations across Europe are encouraged to establish a research priority, form a consortium, and apply for funding. The E.U., which launched a call for proposals on Dec. 22, will accept proposals through May 8. While researchers team up in Cologne, other partnerships are already taking shape in the ICT area. Under aÂ new strategy for funding technology research announced in November, the E.U. has agreed to pool its vast resources with those from private industry and individual member states in a public-private partnership. The plan calls for technology companies and research institutes to marry their own R&DÂ investments with additional funds from the member states and the E.U. through new Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI). The first JTI, called Artemis, is focused on embedded systems, an area signaled by European ministers as being of strategic importance for Europe's economy. European industry's own research investment in this area is estimated at around â¬15 billion to â¬20 billion per year. Â
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The mobile phone industry has been  predicting for years that the future of television is wireless.
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Europe gives handout to boost competitiveness The European Union this week announced plans to pump â¬9bn into research on information and communications technologies.â¦
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MITV Corp Sdn Bhd in collaboration with Nokia will launch a commercial broadcast mobile TV service based on digital video broadcast-handheld (DVB-H) technology in Malaysia in the second half of the year.
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Several European phone companies plan to announce significant expansions of Internet protocol television, or IPTV, this week.
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(InfoWorld) - Satellite navigation boxes using the GPS (global positioning system) are no longer the preserve of luxury car owners in Europe. Now you see them in the humblest vehicles on the Continent's highways. That's part of the reason why the European Commission Wednesday proposed taking on the entire â¬3.4 billion ($4.7 billion) cost of creatingÂ Galileo, Europe's answer to GPS, which is based in the U.S. "Do consumers really want this product? To answer that you must ask why consumers like GPS so much," said transport commissioner Jacques Barrot at a press conference Wednesday. "Consumers are answering the question by buying more and more GPSes," he said. "Galileo will make money, and with the E.U. as its owner, it will generate income for the E.U. budget." Barrot's confidence wasn't shared earlier this year byÂ the companies picked to share the cost and benefitsÂ of building the 30-strong constellation of satellites. Unsure of the costs and unconvinced of Galileo's eventual commercial potential, theÂ companies dragged their feetÂ to a point in June where the Commission abandoned the partnership with the private sector. Under the original plan, public money was supposed to pay for the first four satellites and then the private consortium of companies building the satellites were to pay for two-thirds of the 26 remaining satellites. This amounted to a private sector cost of â¬2.4 billion. The companies -- AENA, Alcatel-Lucent, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp, and Thales -- were to recoup their investment costs by then operating the satellites and collecting fees once they were in operation. Barrot said Wednesday that the Commission wants the â¬2.4 billion to be paid for out of European Union funds. The E.U. has already committed â¬1 billion to the project. He said that he initially wanted the 27 member states of the E.U. to fill the funding gap through payments directly to the European Space Agency (ESA). But as 10 countries in the E.U. aren't members of the ESA this was dismissed, leaving the E.U. budget as the only possibility for ensuring that the project is financed. With the E.U. as the sole owner of Galileo, it will still need companies from a variety of industries to build the system's infrastructure, Barrot said. Astrium (EADS group) and Thales Alenia Space (Thales and Finmeccanica groups) approached the ESA for some of this work recently, the commissioner said. "Galileo is extremely important for the strategic autonomy of Europe. We can't let this opportunity to manage the know-how in this advanced technology pass," Barrot said. Transportation ministers of the E.U. member states will meet in Luxembourg on Oct. 2 to debate the Commission's proposal. Countries with most to gain from the project include France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. They are believed to support the Commission. However, others including the U.K. and the Netherlands, remain to be convinced that there is a real need for a European GPS. Separately, U.S. president George W. Bush said in a statement issued by the U.S. mission to the E.U. Wednesday, that he will stop the GPS signal from being interrupted or degraded by military purposes. One of the main justifications for launching Galileo was that GPS is ultimately at the mercy of the U.S. Department of Defense, and could be jammed for strategic reasons, potentially endangering private users' lives. Galileo is intended to be purely for civilian use. However, the U.S. recently has taken steps to assure GPS users that they can count on the system. "President George W. Bush has accepted a recommendation to end procurement of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites that have the capability to intentionally degrade the accuracy of civil signals," the White House press secretary said in a statement Tuesday. Although the U.S. stopped the intentional degradation of GPS satellite signals in May 2000, this new action will result in the removal of "Selective Availability" capabilities, thereby eliminating a source of uncertainty in GPS performance that has been of concern to civil GPS users worldwide. This decision reflects the nation's commitment to GPS users that this free global utility can be counted on to support peaceful civil activities around the world, the statement said.
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EU transport ministers agree to deploy the multi-billion-euro Galileo satellite navigation system for operations starting from 2008.
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European Commission may forbid the use of Qualcomm's mobile TV technology in Europe.
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Cell phone manufacturers are teaming up to bring mobile television to your handset.
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Asia is set to overtake Europe&#39;s  early lead in adopting mobile television broadcasting as Europe  struggles to find available airwaves for broadcasts, industry  executives at an Asian trade fair said this week.
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â¢ 2004-12-02 â¢ Accessing satellite radio on mobile phones would be possibile in the next five years. Hugh Panero, chief executive officer, XM Satellite Radio Holdings, has confirmed that his company is