One of this season's ITV series that I enjoyed watching is Demons.
It takes place in modern London (if I am not mistaken), and it follows the life of the last of the Van Hellsings (Luke) who just found out that all that was written about vampires and demons is true.

Philip Glenister (or Life on Mars fame) is his godfather who apprentices Luke into the world of cleansing this world of half-lives (their term for anything that is not human).

It's a pretty interesting series, and I don't want to ruin it for everyone, but what struck me is the stark contrast between this series and Sanctuary. This series takes the view that all demons are bad and must thus be purged whereas Sanctuary takes the view that these beings are part of the ecosystem and we must all learn to peacefully co-exist with one another.

Demons reminds me a bit of the steampunk genre with the weapons they use.

Here's some more info on the series:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demons_(TV_series)
http://www.itv.com/Drama/cult/Demons/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1157595/


More info on Sanctury:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_(web_series)#Webisodes
http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302522/

Tags: entertainment, telephony, ITV, scifi

Having written about Jekyll on BBC, I thought it only fitting to write about another series, similar to Jekyll, that is interesting. This season NBC brought us a new series called My own worst enemy.

Like Jackman in Jekyll, the main character in my own worst enemy has a split personality. A day time personality of a typical office worker who is married and has the 2.5 kid + large house american dream going for him, and an evening life of someone who is an international spy. The difference is that in this series there is a brain implant that created that split personality instead of it being genetic as in Jekyll.

I've been taking my time and watching the episodes on Hulu (I rarely watch things when they are broadcast now) and I am impressed. Sadly it seems that the series is cancelled, so I am hoping for a good closing to the story...or if we are lucky the sci-fi channel or some other cable channel will pick it up and continue the plot.

IMDB info

Tags: entertainment, telephony, action, NBC, hulu

Here's a funny Joy of Tech comic strip that goes into the subject

Tags: technology, humor, att, SMS, telephony

I saw the following mockup recently on a number of websites.

Of course it's a fake, but it's rather interesting.

What I like about it is the front facing camera for video conferencing, the keyboard and joypad buttons, and what looks to be a higher resolution camera with good optiocs on in.

Would I buy one of these? Well, if I didn't have to buy a data plan, sure!

As I've said before I agree that the iphone needs some game controls (a pad and buttons) because the touch screen + tilt control aren't always convenient (anyone try playing Cube?)

Tags: apple, iPhone, technology, telephony, gaming

I don't know if this is the same as 'ratified' but at least it means that people can start implementing it! This will mean more competition in our Market. In the US verizon will really compete with AT&T and T-Mobile because devices will be portable. Sprint is still doing their WiMAX thing - which isn't bad, but I won't be going to Sprint to my mobile needs.

In Canada this means that all carriers will be using the same technology, so Bell, Telus and Rogers will now see real competition because the handsets will have the potential to be unlock and brought with you to another carrier

The future looks bright! (now if data package prices were to fall...)

Tags: LTE, technology, GSM, telephony

OK, Babylon 5 is not great, but if you are patient, the story line is worth it.

I started watching Babylon 5 in high school after a debate with a friend of mine on which one was better: Babylon 5 or Star Trek: The next generation. I thought that to make a better decision, I would have to watch Babylon 5. I did and I was hooked!

I recently watched all of Babylon 5 from season 1 to season 5, plus all the movies, and the sense I have of the series now, is different from the sense I had when I was in high school (10 years ago). This is a function of two things:

The first is that I started watching Babylon 5 during season 5 (which was good), and I really did not pay attention to the previous seasons that kinda sucked. I put up with them in order to get the back story.

The second was that I was in high school.


Babylon 5 as a concept is actually not bad. The story makes sense. The alien races are great and they really show they work as paradigms of the different natures of humanity. The main conflict is great. Where the series falls short is the absolutely horrible writing of J. Michael Straczynski (JMS).

JMS wrote ALL of the episodes and the subsequent movies, and his bad writing stigmatizes the whole Babylon 5 universe. His writing is just awful! There was also little thought on how the series was going to end.

Season 1 was a good setup for the conflict ahead (bad writing aside)

Seasons 2 thought 4 were good in terms of dealing with the conflict and giving us a climax for the end of that conflict (the shadow war)

Season 5...fell on its face! Really! What the heck happened? Season 5 stunk!

Then...there were the movies... I think you should check out IMDB and the different user ratings for the movies because those speak volumes, and I actually agree with most negative remarks.


Now should YOU watch Babylon 5? Well, if you don't mind cheesy, korny, and really bad dialog, you should. The sci-fi plot, or at least the underlying ideas are pretty good. The execution (and writing) is what sucks!

If you have little patience for bad writing...then perhaps you shouldn't

At this point I think that The Next Generation is better than Babylon 5. If you want to see a space station sci-fi drama you should check out Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Tags: entertainment, telephony, scifi, babylon5

I know, this news is a week or two old, but wow!
I was thinking that my next phone would be an iPhone but...Nokia REALLY upped the anti with this one! IF this phone has Triband HSPA (or even better quadband) I may go for it if I have the money.

I wish that people start working on S60 touch apps now so we can get all those iPhone like apps out . There is no capacitive touch display on the N97 (so no multifinger gestures) but that's OK. Maybe someone can get me one for my birthday

Tags: technology, Nokia, telephony, s60

Well, SonyEricsson wasn't that enthusiastic about UIQ recently when it announced that UIQ failed to meet expectations. Recently motorola - the other major backer of UIQ, called it a day for UIQ when it announced that it was stopping development on UIQ and MOTOMAGX (their linux based OS).


I have to say that I still love my P800 and I won't be giving it up any time soon. It's going to my personal gadget museum (along with my Newton). I also have to say that that it wasn't UIQ that failed to meet expectations, but rather SonyEricsson and Motorola. They never put their full weight behind the platform to support it so as a consequence:

1. Not enough phones running UIQ (compared to Nokia's S60)

2. Some phones were problematic and said companies never fixed them creating a problem in the brand image and customer loyalty

3. No binary compatibility with other Symbian platforms! This seems like a no brainer, especially since S60 apps were plentiful!

4. The phones that came our were feature deprived: one glaring example is the complete lack of quadband GSM and US 3G bands! by omitting such a large market SE kept the UIQ out of the hands of willing users.

Oh well, UIQ - another footnote in tech history. Long live Symbian!

Tags: UIQ, symbian, s60, sony, ericsson, Phones, telephony

One of my problems with the iPhone is that it lacks an MMS client. Now I don't send MMS messages often, and I don't receive them often. Having unlimited data on the iPhone would encourage me to send out more MMS messages. Sadly, the iPhone does not support this feature.


Many fanboys will says that MMS is antiquated, we not have email so we can send photos over email - hooray for email! What these fanboys are failing to see if that MMS is so much more than just a simple photo sending application. The applications of email and MMS are different and are aimed at a different demographic.


To claim that you can do with email what you do with MMS, and you can do it better is to claim that can do with a mallet what you can do with a jewel's hammer. I suppose you can, but the end result is not the same.


An email is built for text, and attachments come second. There is no presentation layer with email, and there is no streamlining of the data for mobile phones. If you send a 5MP photo over email, it's going to be 5MP - overkill. In addition, there is no notification of whether you have email unless you constantly poll your email server, and even today not all phones come with email clients.


MMS on the other hand is available on all handsets, from the cheap handset you get for free when you sign a contract, to the most advanced smartphones (with the exception of the iPhone of course), so there is a layer of compatibility there.


MMS messages allow you to create slides with content, almost like powerpoint, but as a message platform. The MMS application takes that huge picture you took and scales it down for you to make sending and receiving faster and easier. When you send a picture message (MMS) to someone, the point is not that you want them to have the photo, you just want to show them something.


Finally, with MMS messages you get a notification that you have a new MMS, over the network. You don't have to poll a server to do this - it's just pushed to you.


I wish the fanboys would quiet down already about the superiority of email because they obviously don't get the difference.

Tags: technology, iPhone, apple, MMS, telephony, annoying, settingTheRecordStraight, rant

I read this article last week posted on the UIQ blog, and it was titled "Why UIQ failed to meet the expectations". I caution those that want to read this article: it is horribly written! Nevertheless it does provide some insight as to why the UIQ never became popular.

The article talks mostly about software, and I think that software is quite a valid reason for the failure to meet expectations. Lack of flash, memory issues, and not a lot of apps (compared to S60, Palm and Windows Mobile) are definite contributors to the lack of success of the platform. I however disagree that the software, and SonyEricsson's support policies, are the root of the problem.

My diagnosis: It's the phones, stupid!
I bought my P800 on the day it came out. I was a happy camper even after two years after it came out! Yes there were issues, but I was content with the phone. Other models succeeded it: the P900, P910 and P990. None of these phones enticed me to spend another $600-$1000 to upgrade!

When Nokia, and HTC were coming out with phones that were Quadband GSM, UMTS, had GPS and WiFi built-in, and had cameras that were 3 or 5 Megapixel, why would I spend my hard earned money to buy a P9xx phone that had a limited camera, no GPS, no WiFi *and* was only triband GSM?

Nokia did a smart thing, it put S60 on a boatload of phones, and gave consumers choice! SonyEricsson on the other hand gave you one P-model (Professional), on W-model (Walkman) and one M-model (mid range?) Why lower your expectations with SonyEricsson when you can have more options with Nokia? This lack of hardware probably discouraged a lot of developers, and deprived the UIQ from a user base that would ultimately support it.

I am interested in seeing how the UIQ will be folded into the open symbian platform. Will it survive in some fashion? or will it bite the dust?

Tags: Phones, telephony, sony, ericsson, UIQ

I've been looking at phones lately (no thanks to the iPhone!) and I must say that I am seeing some absurdities with the selection of bands. GSM had five bands (frequencies), although only four are used. THe original band was 900Mhz, then 1800Mhz rolled out in Europe, 1900Mhz and 850Mhz followed suit in the Americas and 450Mhz was tested but never deployed. This was a 2G technology

Now we've got 3G rolling out. We started with 2100Mhz and we rejoiced! This would be the one band to unify the world! Well, no! at&t came in and decided to use 1900Mhz and 850Mhz as well! OK, phones are triband 3G now (well some anyway), and T-Mobile US comes out with 1700Mhz, and some carriers in Europe are experimenting with 900Mhz...that's five bands!

Nokia phones aren't triband (the iPhone and some HTC handsets are). With nokia handsets you get 2100, or 1900/850, or 2100/900 or 2100/850... Just make a quintband 3G chip already! I wonder what LTE is going to bring...

This sort of reminds me of a recent Hollowmen episode I watched. The think tank had a 6-point plan for the Prime Minister, but they could not implement it. So... they came up with a 4-point plan, to make the 6-point plan a 2-point plan. Hillarious, until you think about it!

Tags: GSM, frequencies, UMTS, Phones, telephony

Well, Helio is going the way of the dodo! It’s being acquired by Virgin Mobile, and the brand will eventually merge into the Virgin brand. When Helio came out, I thought that their focus was a little too narrow. When they first came out they were going after Korean ex-pats, and people who wanted advanced Korean features on their phones. While the company did well (170,000 subscribers is nothing to scoff at), and their phones were pretty cool and had a great user interface, they just could not compete.

My problem with Helio was that it was not GSM. While I don’t change phones that often these days, I still like to pull out my SIM and put it in a different phone for the day or the weekend. CDMA phones just don’t have that and I just never got to use Helio because of it. Now if their network piggybacked off AT&T and T-Mobile for GSM/UMTS, I would most likely have given them a try. I keep hoping that Virgin will jump onto the UMTS bandwagon, but given that 40% is the company is owned by Sprint, that is most likely not happening.

Adios to Helio!

Tags: helio, technology, Phones, telephony, defunct

In the past, my gripe about US cellular technologies has been that there is no standardization, so I can’t just buy a phone and go to any carrier (like I can in the rest of the world). The US used GSM, iDEN, CDMA, TDMA and AMPS. Luckily in recent years it’s really just come down to GSM and CDMA since the rest of the technologies are already laid to rest (AMPS and TDMA) or have one foot in the grace (iDEN). Most phones are Quadband GSM, so I can use my Phone with AT&T, T-Mobile, or any of the MVNOs that are on GSM.

3G is a bit of a quagmire. Most of the word uses the 1900/2100Mhz frequency pair for UMTS (3G GSM). The US on the other hand uses the 850Mhz, 1900Mhz and 1700/2100 pair for 3G. There are no Quadband 3G phones (yet). This is somewhat problematic for a ‘one phone for any carrier’ type of person…and CDMA is still holding in there, which means that I can’t just take my AT&T phone to Verizon, Sprint or AllTel (or Bell and Telus in Canada).

Here comes 4G. Of course 4G is 3 years (or so) into the future. All existing GSM/UMTS carriers around the world have decided that they are going with LTE for the 4G technology. Verizon announced that they are going to LTE, recently so did AllTel. Cool! This means, that when the time comes, I can have one phone that will work around the world, with any carrier! Just swap out the SIM! If I get sick of AT&T, I can go to Verizon, or T-Mobile, or AllTel. Sprint on the other hand…who knows! They might be bought by Deutche Telekom in the next few years, so they may be part of T-Mobile

Tags: GSM, CDMA, LTE, UMTS, telephony