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Confirmed: FaceTime for iPad 2 works with video out
This morning, fellow TUAW blogger Erica Sadun and I both played with the video out features of the new iPad 2. While Erica discovered that something is preventing her iPad 2 from working properly with the video mirroring function that is supposed to work with all of the various video adapters (HDMI, Composite, Component and VGA) for the device, I was able to get mirroring of everything on my iPad just by plugging in the VGA Adapter. TiPb's Rene Ritchie verified that video mirroring was plug and play for him with all of the adapters as well. While that means a lot for all of us who demonstrate apps on the iPad, it means even more for people who use FaceTime or other video conferencing apps. We were able to confirm that FaceTime on the iPad 2 can be mirrored to another display. By pushing the video out to a big screen HDTV, for example, you can now share a FaceTime session with a group or the family. This is going to kill the market for Cisco's $500 "ūmi telepresence" device, which turns a big screen TV into a home teleconferencing tool. Sure, the ūmi is about the same price as an entry-level iPad 2, but the ūmi also requires a $99 annual service fee. FaceTime on an iPad 2? Free. ūmi has better resolution than FaceTime does, providing full 1080p video calling over the somewhat lo-res FaceTime image on the iPad, but the iPad can do so much more than just do teleconferencing. It may be time for Cisco spokesperson Ellen Page to get a new gig. Erica and I also discussed the fact that by feeding the iPad 2's video mirror into a capture device, such as an Elgato Video Capture, it would be possible to grab fairly high quality movies of an iPad screen for training or demonstration purposes. Video mirroring FTW!
Cisco's Umi and TelePresence video calling systems: now with work at home and home at work
It was only a matter of time before Cisco's Umi and TelePresence services got together for some HD video calling synergy, and the company has finally enabled "full interoperability" between the two. Not only that, but the networking giant is also rolling out a free HD calling client called Umi Connect for PC and Mac (think SkypeHD) and a new Umi 720 system that works with slower broadband connections. The 720 will cost $399 upon its market arrival this summer, while the already available Umi 1080 gets a much-needed-yet-still-underwhelming hundred dollar price drop to $499. Service fees have also fallen from $275 to $99 a year and from $24.95 to $9.95 monthly for those who are commitment-averse. Maybe now you can persuade the bossman (or bosslady, as it were) to finally let you work from home -- though pants-free employment will undoubtedly remain off, or maybe just under, the table. PR's after the break. [Thanks, Adam]
AT&T and Cisco have WiFi on the cable box backwards
Adding WiFi to a cable set-top box is probably something every geek has thought would be a great idea, but we suspect you and AT&T aren't on the same page. You were probably thinking it'd be cool to stream viral internet videos to the big screen without switching inputs, or maybe you thought it'd be cool to ditch the cable modem and WiFi access point and feed your laptop internet via the same box you deliver your HD with. Nope, AT&T and Cisco obviously don't think those are worthy ideas, and instead, this new box simply works without a coax cable. We suppose there's a market for this as only like 90 percent of TVs have coax running to them already -- and no new house is built these days without 'em -- but we have tried to stream HD via WiFi and it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that it doesn't "just work." Of course the fact that U-Verse's H.264 streams are pitifully over-compressed should help, but even when you add that to the great performance of 802.11n, we suspect you'd still be better served by a good ol' copper wire.
Redpark Console Cable gives iDevices an RJ-45 connector, not Ethernet access
Ever find yourself wishing your iPad iPad 2 was free from the fickle whims of wireless internet connections? Neither do we -- but, if you're the cable-dependent type, your prayers may not go unanswered for much longer. Redpark (who gave the iPhone an RJ-11 dongle) has created the Console Cable with the ubiquitous 30-pin Apple connector on one end and an RJ-45 plug on the other. The $69 device is used in conjunction with a $9.99 Get Console app to allow Cisco engineers to use their iDevice of choice to perform maintenance out in the field. Cable and app are exclusively compatible with Cisco devices, however, so no Ethernet on the iPhone... yet. It's only a matter of time before someone makes it happen -- your move, hackers.
Apple, others lobby for tax holiday
Fortune is reporting that Apple is one of many major multinational corporations that are banding together to lobby the US government for a one-year "tax holiday" on foreign cash that is repatriated back to the country. At the present time, repatriated cash is taxed at a 35 percent rate. The companies, which include Cisco, Duke Energy, Pfizer and many others in addition to Apple, are looking for a one-year window in which the rate would drop to 5 percent. Cisco CEO John Chambers has advocated the idea for years, saying that allowing the cash to be repatriated at a lower rate would stimulate investment in the US and allow shareholders to reap the rewards of their investments in the form of higher dividends (note: Apple does not pay shareholder dividends). These companies currently have about US$1 trillion in cash parked overseas, and bringing that money home at a lower tax rate would be expected to have a positive effect on the US economy. A previous tax holiday in 2004 didn't necessarily result in new investment, but it did create an increase in shareholder payouts of between 60 and 92 cents for every dollar repatriated. Lobbyists for the group are expected to try to attempt to have the repatriation tax become part of any corporate tax reform bill that Congress tries to pass this year. [via Barrons]
Samsung working with Sybase and Cisco to make Galaxy S II enterprise-friendly
BlackBerry may be the go-to enterprise smartphone platform, but Samsung is positioning its newly unveiled Galaxy S II as new contenders for the crown. To get there, Samsung's working with Sybase to bring far more advanced security to the handsets than stock Android offers, including control of individual applications and ports and also allowing for remote administration -- including admin-pushed app updates. Samsung also talked up the phone's Exchange compatibility and, with help from Cisco, the phone offers WebEx compatibility, VPN support, and VOIP calling. Know what this means? Your next corporate phone just got a lot more interesting.
Cisco looking to acquire Inlet Technologies, get even hipper with streaming
We haven't heard a lot about Inlet Technologies over the years, a company that works mostly behind the scenes on advanced encoding technology, but it was right there on the cutting-edge of the Blu-ray bandwagon back in 2008. Now it's looking set to become the latest addition to Cisco, with that company announcing intent to drop $95 million and see the acquisition through. It's not entirely clear what Cisco will do if it picks up this toy, but it certainly sounds like mobility is on the mind of Enrique Rodriguez, Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group General Manager: Cisco's Videoscape platform will play a key role in reinventing the TV experience, and the acquisition of Inlet will enable our customers to leverage the network as a platform to deliver innovative video experiences to consumers on any device. If that name sounds familiar, until recently Enrique worked at Microsoft on, among other things, the Zune and Media Center. That might also give another clue to where Cisco is going.
Flip Mino HD with 802.11n WiFi hits the FCC
We'd been hearing rumors that a next-gen Flip camera with WiFi would hit sometime in the first half of the year, and what's this? A new Flip video camera with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n WiFi just popped up in the FCC database. Based on the shape of the FCC label, the location of the HDMI port, and the M3260 model number, it definitely looks like a member of the Mino family, but that's really all we know -- although if we had to bet, the 5GHz support is there so it can beam movies to the FlipShare TV. We'll see, we'll see.
Cisco unveils Linksys E4200 dual-band router capable of speeds up to 450Mbps
Cisco has continued its push to make home entertainment wire-free with its latest E-Series wireless router, the Linksys E4200. Cisco's new dual-band 802.11n rig enters a high-end market segment currently occupied by the TRENDnet TEW-692GR. Both routers utilize a 3x3 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) configuration for a max throughput of 450Mbps on the 5GHz band, and while the E4200 only reaches speeds of 300Mbps at 2.4 GHz (as compared to the TEW-692GRs 450Mbps) it should still be quite the video streaming powerhouse. As we've seen in previous Cisco offerings, the company's latest has USB connectivity and UPnP media server capabilities to add network storage and share all of your movies and music. Additionally, the E4200 packs technology similar to that seen in other routers, which allows users to prioritize bandwidth for movies, voice, or music. To keep everyone connected, it has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, six antennas, and several internal and external signal amplifiers to provide coverage for even the most palatial of estates. For those itching to pair a performance router with their new internet capable TV, the E4200 is priced at $179.99 and is currently available at Best Buy.
Cisco's Cius tablet gets the Verizon LTE treatment
It looks like Verizon's gone and added yet another device -- make that two -- to their 4G LTE network. The company announced Thursday that it will offer the business-savvy Cius tablet on LTE starting this March, and will also offer LTE interfaces for Cisco's second generation Integrated Service Router. Verizon says it's got about one-third of the US covered with LTE, which offers downstream speeds between 5Mbps and 12Mbps, and will have the other two-thrids blanketed by 2012. If you're lucky enough to live in that first one-third, the Cius tablet, which sports a 7-inch diagonal touchscreen and weighs about 1.15lbs, could become your preferred form of business communication -- it offers HD video streaming, real-time video, and multi-party conferencing. Cius will also have 3G capability for those unfortunate souls operating outside of the LTE sphere. Verizon isn't ready to settle on a data plan for the tablet, as its main functions have potential to eat up a ton of bandwidth, but they're pretty sure employers will be the ones footing the bill.
Cisco announces Videoscape IPTV platform and products
As expected, Cisco held a quick CES presser today to launch its connected TV initiative, which it's calling Videoscape. It's pretty ambitious stuff -- Cisco's goal isn't to kick out a single consumer-focused set-top box, but rather to build out an entire video network architecture in conjunction with service providers that allows customers to view any authorized content on any device on any network. That means that in addition to the actual Videoscape set-top box for your TV, there will also be apps for everything from Android and iOS to game consoles and Macs and PCs -- in the end, Cisco thinks your standard premium cable subscription will serve content everywhere, negating the need for supplemental services like Hulu and Netflix. There's also a Videoscape Media Gateway that can serve up local content across all your devices -- the company demoed sharing a quick Flip video with family members just by plugging the camera into the Gateway. Obviously rebuilding entire cable systems around pervasive content delivery won't be easy -- Cisco says "video is the new voice" when it comes to disruptive industry shifts -- and the only partner announced today is Telstra. To really gain momentum the company will have to sell its vision to huge companies like Comcast and Time Warner, who are already working on their own projects. We'll see what happens -- it makes sense for a networking provider like Cisco to take this sort of end-to-end approach, but there's a lot of action in this space right now, and we don't think anyone has the luxury of time. %Gallery-112784% %Gallery-112750%
Cisco joining connected TV party with updated cable boxes at CES
The battle for the connected living room is about to heat up in a big way: the Wall Street Journal reports that Cisco will announce a new series of connected cable boxes here at CES tomorrow, as part of a larger announcement that combines online video with recorded and live television. You scoff now, but keep in mind that Cisco owns Scientific Atlanta, which makes an absolutely huge number of cable boxes for providers like Time Warner and Comcast -- and if Big Cable embraces connected TV by distributing integrated Cisco hardware, well, we'd say upstarts like Apple and Google might just go home with their tails between their legs. On the other hand, the WSJ says "cable operators will be able to customize the software interface and decide on pricing" for Cisco's new boxes, so it's possible America's favorite corporations will completely bungle everything at the first opportunity. We'll be there live tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.
Mark Papermaster returns to chip business courtesy of Cisco, Apple silently watches
We don't blame you if you fail to recognize this good looking fella. Just a quick recap: this is Mark Papermaster, the ex-IBM chip designer who stirred up a storm while transitioning to Apple, only to quietly depart the company 16 months later for reasons that we'll never truly know. Fear not though, folks, as word has it that the boy is back in town: Papermaster is now hanging out with Cisco's Silicon Switching Technology Group as its new vice president. Ironically, our man here will be responsible for making chips that power Cisco's switches, so it'll probably be more or less like his good old days back at IBM. Oh, and without Steve Jobs breathing over his shoulders.
Ex-Apple, IBM exec Mark Papermaster lands at Cisco
Recently departed Apple Senior VP Mark Papermaster has landed a new gig, signing on with Cisco as vice president of the Silicon Switching Technology Group. Papermaster's resume includes time working on chip design for IBM as well as his brief tenure running the hardware engineering group at Apple. The Cisco job certainly won't have the same kind of profile as the Apple position but it is certainly important. Papermaster will lead the development of chips for Cisco switching equipment. Cisco hardware runs a lot of the infrastructure that makes up the internet as well as corporate networks. Papermaster's relationship with Apple was marred by controversy before he even started working there. IBM sued Apple in an attempt to prevent Papermaster from joining the company. After only a year and a half in Cupertino, Papermaster left Apple in the wake of reception problems with the iPhone 4.
Cisco responds, fixes Linksys Extenders for Media Center, certificate issue to blame
Ever have a really bad day? You know, when you try to do a simple task like reboot a server and suddenly your whole week is shot? That, apparently, is what happened at Cisco HQ, with the result being the disabling of thousands of Linksys Extenders for Media Center, as we reported last week. Our request for info was finally channeled through to the right people and we have a response as to what happened: Yes we did have to take the server down for maintenance and during the reboot realized we had an issue with a certificate server. All is fixed now and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused to our customers. So, that missing IP should now be responding and hopefully your Extenders are working again. Also, it seems this was not part of a vast cable company conspiracy to keep you from watching downloaded versions of The Walking Dead and finding out how Rick got out of that tank. Now, as to why the thing needs to dial home in the first place, and when will that freshly certified server be put out to pasture for good, rest assured we're looking for answers. Update: The word is that the Extenders are actually dialing home to see if new firmware is available, not to send reports on how many obnoxious Geico commercials you've skipped in the past 24 hours. Why does a failed firmware update check cause the boxes to be freak out like this? That we don't know, and we hope it's an issue conveniently addressed via that very same firmware update process, but we're also told that there are no plans to retire these boxes, so you just keep on streaming the good stream.
Linksys Media Extenders suddenly stop working, did Cisco pull the plug?
It was the halcyon summer of 2009. The Hubble Space Telescope was fixed, Helio Castroneves won the Indy 500, Somali pirates were really doing their thing, and Linksys decided it was time to pull the plug on its DMA2100 and DMA2200 Media Center Extenders. Production was ceased and that was that... or so we thought. Now we're hearing dozens of reports that those extenders mysteriously stopped working over the past few days, and indeed a thread over at The Green Button is full of hundreds rightfully disgruntled users. Thanks to a lot of investigations by members it's been determined that the boxes are trying to dial home to an address that no longer exists. Naturally this is causing wild speculation about DRM checks and the boxes being remotely disabled, but for now there are some manual work-arounds, including configuring your router to explicitly block any traffic from the Extender or simply assign an invalid gateway. This seems to work for many, but not for all. We've reached out to get an official word from Cisco on what's up here, but until we hear back feel free to post your most alluring conspiracy theories in comments below. Update: Still no official response from Cisco/Linksys, but Matt was kind enough to send us the official work-around that users who have reported the issue are told to use. We've included that for you below. Update 2: Cisco responds! [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Cisco Umi hands-on
At Cisco's CTIA press conference this week we got a chance to "experience" the Umi consumer video conferencing system, and it's pretty much what you'd expect: FaceTime for your living room. Just bigger, wider, and with, well... more living room. The hardware consists of 3 parts: a camera unit, a set-top box, and an infrared remote. The camera is able to pan and zoom, and connects to the set-top box via two cables. The set-top box features connections for power, Ethernet, and both HDMI in and out (for passthrough) as well as optical audio out We also got a video demo of Umi Connect by Steve Sullivan, product manager at Cisco -- it's the online portal which handles your messages, videos, call history, and contacts. There's also a "share" feature, for posting videos to Facebook and YouTube. Take a look at some video of Umi in action after the break, and please: remember to keep your pants on. %Gallery-104483%
Cisco unveils Umi consumer video conferencing system
Well hey -- Cisco's finally announced the consumer-level HD video conferencing system that's been rumored for a while now. Called Umi, (you me -- get it?) the system consists of a 1080p camera module, remote, and a separate set-top box. Cisco says Umi will allow for full 1080p video calls with 720p/30 recording, with a fallback to 720p / 480p if bandwidth is constrained. The camera itself has a glass lens with an optical zoom, autofocus, auto exposure and auto white balance, as well as motorized pan, tilt, and zoom. There's also a motorized privacy shutter, which is a nice touch. The service is compatible with Google Voice and Video Chat, and Cisco says it's looking into FaceTime integration as well -- we'd expect Skype and Fring are also high on the list of potential partners. Cisco says it'll be demoing Umi on Oprah and launching an ad campaign with Ellen Page in the runup to a holiday launch, but none of that will distract from the required $24.99 monthly / $275 annually Umi service plan and $599 MSRP. We don't know how well that's going to go over with anyone, but that'll give you something else to ponder along with this new Cisco slogan we just came up with: Cisco Umi: Now you have to wear pants.
Skype lands Cisco's Tony Bates as new CEO
It may sound fairly bland on paper, but the potential implications here are notable. Tony Bates, who was seen as a major player within Cisco reporting directly to CEO John Chambers, has just left to take over the CEO role at Skype. Cisco's own blog affirmed that Bates was leaving "to pursue another opportunity," and The New York Times has it that Joshua Silverman is stepping aside to make room for Mr. Bates. He'll arrive just in time to make a serious push for an IPO, grab more profit from its blossoming user base (which largely doesn't pay anything to make Skype-to-Skype calls) and possibly "make a deeper push into carrier and enterprise markets," as GigaOM puts it. Frankly, we'd be interested in seeing if any leftover synergies (yeah, we said it) could lead to a Skype-enabled Flip Video camcorder. Bates would obviously have great contacts with Cisco in order to make it happen, and honestly, it'd be a win-win for both parties. Crazier things have happened, right?
Logitech's Google TV offering to also handle HD video conferencing, challenge Cisco's upcoming solution?
We're just days away from Logitech unveiling its Google TV hardware lineup, but now VP Eric Kintz is saying that's not all the company will have to show. You may remember that Logitech acquired LifeSize Communications late last year, a company specializing in corporate HD video conferencing, and now that technology will be coming to the living room. Logi isn't unveiling details yet, but whatever solution it offers will be compatible with Google TV and, given that Logitech's C910 webcam was recently granted SkypeHD compatibility, we wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of tie-in there. Hardware cost is unknown but no monthly fee will be charged, contrasting with Cisco's rumored solution -- coincidentally also said to be unveiled on Weds. According to The Wall Street Journal Cisco's HD conferencing option will cost a whopping $600 and, on top of that, will require a $30 monthly fee. That seems somewhat outrageously priced for a one trick pony, so here's to hoping there's more to it than that.
