Confused.com releases new Facebook app designed to celebrate friendships

Coinciding with the release of a report titled 'Friendship, Finance and the Future: The rise of Singledom in the UK', Confused.com has created an app that allows users to celebrate the important friends in their life.

A report by Future Poll for Confused.com has shown that four in five say that friendships last longer than romantic relationships. With friends playing such an important role in our lives the app gives users the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of their meetings, or 'Frenniversary' and show how important their friends are.

The app, called 'Friend Booth', has three different functions; a tattoo booth, a cover photo montage creator and a Frenniversary reminder service.

The tattoo booth allows Facebook users to create an image with a virtual tattoo dedicated to their closest friend. The user selects their friend and either takes a photo or chooses an existing one, they then select the style of tattoo they want their friend’s name to appear in. They can resize the tattoo and adjust the angle to make it look as convincing as possible before posting it to their wall.

The photo montage creator allows users to create a montage that's sized, ready for them to have as their cover photo. The Facebook application asks users to enter the name of their best friend. Photos in which both the user and their best friend are tagged will be displayed, allowing the user to select their favourite pictures which will be automatically added into a bespoke image that the user can set as their profile cover image.

The report claims that in the future relationships status on passports and census forms could include mate-trimony as an option, with next of kin automatically being a friend. With friends playing such a significant role in our lives celebrating Frenniversaries will become more common. The Facebook application helps us remember this date by providing a Frenniversary reminder service. When they sign up their email address and friend's name they’ll be sent an email reminder to make sure they don’t forget to celebrate the day.

Sharon Flaherty, head of content at Confused.com said: "This application is all about having fun with your friends and showing you appreciate them, but the report raises issues around how insurance companies need to protect long-term friendships as they do marriage. More and more people are relying on their friends, buying houses with them and becoming financially co-dependent. If something were to happen they would be left completely unprotected.

"This report by Future Poll shows that in the future more single people will protect their most important relationships with life insurance, in the short term the app allows users to show the people that matter they care."

Stratus Technologies Expands Operations in Russia and CIS

Stratus Technologies, Inc. announced today the expansion of its operations in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Entering into a trademark license agreement with its existing Moscow-based master reseller STR LLC, Stratus has accredited STR to supply and support its full portfolio of resilient technologies and complementary proactive availability management and monitoring services.

“This is a strategic investment for Stratus - as one of the BRIC economies, Russia is broadly acknowledged as being in a state of advanced economic growth,” said Thierry Seror, VP Stratus Technologies EMEA. “Stratus has conducted business in Russia for more than 20 years through a network of partners and distributors, just as it does throughout EMEA. Developing our business by establishing an accredited and focussed presence in Moscow demonstrates our increased commitment not only to serving existing customers, but also to new organisations and their end users who depend on systems uptime.”

“STR is delighted to have been given the opportunity to further develop its association with Stratus,” said Alexey Kondrashov, CEO of STR. “As a result of the agreement, we are looking forward to a sustained period of growth within our existing markets. We are also investing in new resources to complement our specialised team of experts to develop and penetrate new business markets.”

Stratus delivers uptime assurance for the applications its customers depend on most for their success. With its resilient software and hardware technologies, combined with proactive availability management, Stratus products help to save lives and to protect the business and reputations of companies, institutions, and governments the world over. To learn more about worry-free computing, visit www.stratus.com.

Safe Driving Service Wins Second Global Innovation Award for Vodafone New Zealand & Telsis

A unique smart messaging service that helps people to resist the temptation to drive and text at the same time has won Vodafone New Zealand and its technology partner Telsis a second joint global award for innovation.

Known as DriveSafe and offered free to all Vodafone New Zealand customers since February 2012, the latest service has already been praised by road safety groups and others in New Zealand.

Yesterday, the world’s premier telecommunications industry publication, Global Telecoms Business, presented Vodafone New Zealand and Telsis jointly with its annual Consumer Service Innovation Award. At last year’s ceremony, Vodafone and Telsis won the same award category with Blacklist, a network service that enables phone users to block malicious texts. All Telsis services run on the same platform, and all work on all handsets of all types and all ages.

Texting whilst driving is illegal in New Zealand and many other countries, and is known to increase the chances of a crash even more than alcohol. While the phone user concentrates on driving safely, DriveSafe automatically replies to any text messages with a short operator-branded reply such as ‘I’m driving at the moment. I’ll read your text as soon as it is safe to do so.’

New Zealand Automobile Association motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon said “One of the worst things about texting and driving is that drivers know they shouldn’t do it but in many cases just can’t seem to stop themselves when they hear a message arrive. Vodafone DriveSafe is a simple tool that can help drivers to leave the phone alone. The driver can relax knowing the person who texted them has been sent a reply and, as a bonus, it is spreading the message that texting and driving are a potentially lethal mix.”

Vodafone New Zealand CEO Russell Stanners is delighted with the win. “Texting and driving is illegal and a hugely topical issue in New Zealand. We’re delighted to be recognised for our part in contributing to road safety, and Vodafone will continue to bring innovations like this to New Zealand so customers can make safer choices when they are travelling.”

Telsis Chairman and founder Jeff Wilson said the award highlighted the way in which smart SMS network services could generate multiple wins for operators. “With Blacklist and now DriveSafe, Vodafone has taken positive steps to help protect its customers and others. At the same time it has differentiated itself from its competitors and generated valuable publicity for its brand.”

Presenting the award, Alan Burkitt-Gray, editor of Global Telecoms Business, commented: “The Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards were created to acknowledge and celebrate the ways in which the telecommunications industry uses innovation. It is especially pleasing to be able to present Telsis and Vodafone New Zealand with this year's Consumer Service Innovation Award for the launch of with DriveSafe following their win of the same award last year with Blacklist. Both services show how operators can use social responsibility initiatives to enhance peoples' lives while at the same time generating significant commercial paybacks."

For further information about the Global Telecoms Business Innovation awards: http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/Stub/GTBInnovationAwar...

Telsis has delivered service innovations to communications service providers globally for almost a quarter of a century. The company’s solutions enable operators to generate more revenue, strengthen their brands, recruit and retain more customers, drive up Net Promoter Scores and increase profitability.

Telsis’ portfolio of services is backed by proven engineering skills, system integration expertise, and a deep understanding of human factors, all of which combine in solutions that enable operators to offer customers exciting and practical services with compelling real-world appeal.

http://www.telsis.com

Leadership Position Secured Based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

Sourcefire, Inc. (Nasdaq: FIRE), a leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, today announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned the company as a Leader in the “Magic Quadrant for Intrusion Prevention Systems.”1

According to Gartner, "The network intrusion prevention system market is undergoing a period of dynamic evolution. Next-generation IPSs are available for the best protection, and first-generation IPSs are increasingly being absorbed by new next-generation firewall placements.”

Sourcefire pioneered NGIPS in 2003 when it delivered real-time contextual awareness, full-stack visibility and intelligent security automation to its customers. Sourcefire is also the only company to offer these capabilities with integrated application control.

The new report also highlights the company’s high-performance FirePOWER™ platform and FireSIGHT® contextual awareness and automation, which are foundational to both Sourcefire’s NGIPS and Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW).

Based on FirePOWER, Sourcefire NGIPS addresses enterprise requirements for flexible configurations, maximum protection, and faster processing of network data. FirePOWER acceleration technology provides market-leading performance with lower power consumption, allowing enterprises better threat detection and protection while maintaining a proven total cost of ownership (TCO). FirePOWER appliances’ consistent and linear performance results make them a trusted solution for enterprise customers who need to scale their network security deployments with larger throughput models.

“After pioneering NGIPS, we continue to be committed to industry-leading innovation as we deliver on our vision of Agile Security. Our unparalleled ability to deliver visibility and control provides customers with true Information Superiority,” said Martin Roesch, founder, CTO and interim CEO of Sourcefire. “We’re very pleased that Gartner recognises our execution and vision in the market as we continue to provide our NGIPS offering to our large enterprise and government organisation customers.”

To access a copy of the full report, compliments of Sourcefire, please visit www.sourcefire.com/IPSMQ.

AppSense wins MicroScope ACEs Award for Infrastructure Technology

AppSense’s leadership in user virtualization technology was recognised by the channel community in this year’s MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence (ACEs) at which it won the Technology Category: Infrastructure. The MicroScope ACEs, now in its fifth year, celebrate the best-performing organisations in the IT channel.

AppSense was initially shortlisted for the award by an independent panel of industry judges and voted for by key channel representatives. The award entry was based on the company’s User Virtualization Platform (UVP). Other company’s shortlisted in this category included Comtec and Fujitsu.

The AppSense UVP allows IT professionals to separate the user layer from devices, operating systems, and applications, thereby enabling them to manage only a single instance of the user, eliminating the arduous task of running unique configurations on every device. It also profoundly simplifies the management of mobile workers, systems migrations, and the rapidly increasing number of user devices being brought into the workplace.

Nick Lowe, VP of Sales for EMEA at AppSense said, “Winning this award is a testament to AppSense’s innovative approach to infrastructure management and the hard work of our dedicated channel team. It is a great accomplishment and honour to be recognised by the channel for our commitment to user centric computing and the benefits this brings to all levels within organisations.”

AppSense, a leading provider of user virtualisation solutions, makes physical and virtual desktop deployment possible by ensuring a seamless user experience across all delivery platforms. AppSense accelerates multi-platform desktop deployments by eliminating costly user management tools, enabling single-image application delivery, and ensuring users have the same experience from any desktop. AppSense technology is used around the world by companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Lowes, United Airlines, Wachovia and ESPN. AppSense has offices in New York and San Jose in the US, London and Manchester in the UK, and additional offices in Munich, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Paris and Oslo. For more information, visit www.appsense.com.

CDNetworks accelerated web content and secured document collaboration by up to 2,000%

HighQ, a leading global provider of secure document exchange and enterprise collaboration software, has selected CDNetworks to accelerate its dynamic web application content and enable its legal, investment bank, and corporate customers to collaborate securely across different countries and continents. CDNetworks’ global points of presence (POPs), including in emerging markets, create a localised user experience, achieving up to a 2,000% increase in speed of downloads.

Saviz Izadpanah. IT Director, HighQ noted: “Global organisations are becoming increasingly dependent on cloud-based solutions and, by using CDNetworks, we’re now able to give them the high performance they expect from anywhere in the world."

When rolling out its collaboration platform to overseas offices the company cited customers’ latency issues as a prime motivator in selecting the Dynamic Web Acceleration service from CDNetworks as well as the related benefits of being able to plug into the CDNetworks network and be up and running quickly.

Another key factor in HighQ’s decision was to preserve the ‘instant-on’ nature of its cloud application without the need to invest in expensive data centres that would take considerable time to come on-line and drain resources in terms of man-hours, set up costs and technology investment. This enabled HighQ to speed-up download times greatly and to improve its service globally, realising an approximate 70% saving in infrastructure costs. It also meant that the company could focus on its core expertise in enabling collaboration and rely on CDNetworks for delivery of dynamic site content and applications across multiple data centres and networks.

CDNetworks’ solution enabled HighQ to accelerate both the application and its dynamic environment without relying on local caches to store documents. This allowed HighQ to streamline its service upgrade and respond to its clients’ requirements as quickly as possible and at the same time maintain the highly dynamic and interactive nature of its application.

Now, HighQ is able to provide fast enterprise collaboration for its US and UK customers regardless of location including distant and hard-to-get-to markets like Australia, the Middle East, India and China.

Izadpanah added: “Delivering a responsive service has been a cornerstone of HighQ’s growth and success. We have experienced 100% year-on-year growth over the past three years, partly because our clients see us as a partner that responds to their concerns without delay. To maintain our hard-fought reputation, we sought to address the issue of global Internet performance as quickly as possible. We didn’t want to limit our ability to serve our international users.”

HighQ is a leading provider of secure document exchange and enterprise collaboration software. It provides innovative collaboration and publishing products to some of the world’s leading law firms, investment banks and corporations. It uniquely combines secure, enterprise-grade document management with the best corporate social tools. Now you can securely exchange critical business information and collaborate with colleagues, customers and partners globally, in one place. www.highqsolutions.com

CDNetworks enables mission critical e-business in the world’s most challenging markets. CDNetworks’ unique position as the only multinational CDN with expertise and infrastructure in China, and other emerging markets, makes us a trusted technology and business advisor to more than 1,200 companies across the highly-competitive industries of software, travel, eCommerce, high tech, manufacturing, media, and gaming. Reliably delivering over-the-top performance anywhere in the world, CDNetworks helps businesses get closer to their end users without the limitations of hardware and private networks. Founded in 2000, CDNetworks has offices in the U.S., Korea, China, Japan, the UK and France. For more information, please visit: http://www.cdnetworks.com.

Client roster grows as Media Safari scoops two new technology PR wins

Award winning tech PR agency to start work on PR and social media campaigns for cloud security provider and a free-to-play Twitter-based fantasy stock exchange

Two new campaigns for a cloud security provider and a free-to-play Twitter-based fantasy stock exchange are set to make an impact as tech PR agency Media Safari kicks off client activity. The client wins bolster Media Safari’s Technology in Business (B2B tech PR) and Technology at Home (B2C tech PR) divisions.

Bitdefender: Security for Virtualised Environments

Media Safari has extended its relationship with Bitdefender, the award-winning provider of innovative antivirus solutions. The new win, Security for Virtualised Environments, is a security solution for companies using cloud technologies and virtualised datacentres. Media Safari’s campaign ‘The eyes and ears of cloud security’ will provide a business intelligence gathering service to the overseas Enterprise team as well as a press office and media relations campaign.

twiDAQ: Free-to-play Twitter-based fantasy stock exchange

A further new client win is twiDAQ, a fantasy stock market based in the world of Twitter. It gives users the chance to own and trade a portfolio of virtual shares and where Twitterers themselves are the traded commodity. Media Safari has devised a campaign called ‘What are you #worth?’ to generate a target number of new stock traders per month. This will be driven through media relations and social media.

Matt King, Managing Director at Media Safari commented, “As the business community increasingly accepts cloud based technologies, security in these virtualised environments will become more and more critical. This is not a message that is readily understood so our campaign will begin to educate target decision makers and help to identify possible business development opportunities. With regard to twiDAQ we expect that the nature of Media Safari’s campaign will inspire a viral word-of-mouth spread and twitterers themselves will encourage a corresponding growth in traders.”

Media Safari’s security and gaming PR experience lends itself very well to these campaigns as cloud and gamification technologies start to take hold.

To learn more about their award winning client campaigns view Media Safari's tech PR case studies

For more information visit Media Safari

IGEL presents first SoC thin client with exceptional multimedia performance

The UD2-LX MultiMedia is an economical and efficient multiprotocol SoC thin client with outstanding multimedia characteristics. The technical highlights: Support for Citrix HDX and Microsoft Remote FX along with multimedia acceleration.

IGEL Technology, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of thin clients, is now shipping the first evaluation units of its new UD2-LX MultiMedia – a compact and cost-effective system-on-chip (SoC) thin client for virtualized desktops and Server Based Computing environments. The SoC hardware platform from Texas Instruments allows this multiprotocol thin client to provide high multimedia performance with low power consumption. This particularly economical model combines high performance with IGEL’s well-proven software solutions – starting with its IGEL Linux operating system and extending all the way to the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) remote-management software, which comes standard with IGEL devices. The market launch of the UD2-LX MultiMedia is scheduled for the third quarter of this year.

The IGEL UD2-LX MultiMedia, which fits in IGEL’s current smallest housing, features a system-on-chip (SoC) platform based on a Texas Instruments 1.0 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor. The SoC also integrates a digital signal processor (DSP) in order to accelerate protocols such as Microsoft RemoteFX and Citrix HDX. As a result, the UD2-LX MultiMedia features multimedia performance comparable to that of the top models in the thin client sector. Examples of this high performance include the capability to display full-screen HD video as well as render complex graphical content such as Windows Aero effects and PowerPoint presentations as well as rich media by means of Flash Player.

Superb Technology with Superb Future Readiness
By leveraging the high performance and energy efficiency of ARM systems, the UD2-LX MultiMedia actually uses the least power of all the devices in IGEL's product range. In fact, it uses only 7 W in idle mode and less than 1 W in sleep mode. Its display has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1200. Like all other IGEL devices, it also offers a dualview option. To ensure a high degree of future readiness, IGEL has succeeded in taking the features of its Universal Desktop models, which support a great variety of applications, and implementing them on the new platform. At this time, these include the transmission protocols Microsoft RDP including RemoteFX, Citrix ICA including HDX, and VMware View by means of RDP or PCoIP. However, the last protocol is not available with multimedia acceleration. In addition, a local Firefox browser, a Java runtime environment as well as a PDF reader and a local media player are all integrated in the Linux-based device firmware.

“With the IGEL UD2-740 LX, we’ve succeeded in taking a major technological step,” stated Dirk Dördelmann, the Head of Research & Development and a Managing Director at IGEL. “The new hardware platform not only offers our customers increased performance but also an opportunity to further cut their investment and operating costs whilst maintaining their flexible open desktop policy.”

“We're very pleased that IGEL has decided to use the DM8148 application processor from Texas Instruments in its new UD2-740 LX,” stated Ms. Kim Devlin-Allen, a thin client business manager at TI, who explained that “the DM8148’s powerful DSP VDI coprocessor ensures a rich, responsive desktop experience that also allows playback of HD multimedia content and use of several HD displays – and all that with only one SoC.” Devlin-Allen added that “with its combination of IGEL’s expertise in thin clients and TI’s expertise in technology for real-time processing and multimedia playback, the UD2-LX MultiMedia offers a new class of thin client that does not require a cooling fan and consumes less power while at the same time attaining the performance of much more expensive platforms.”

Price and Availability
The market launch of the UD2-LX MultiMedia is scheduled for the third quarter of 2012 with a planned introductory price of 239,- € plus tax. Evaluation units can be ordered online immediately.
Picture caption for attachment:
High-performance, efficient and future-ready: the new IGEL UD2-740 LX, which combines ARM and DSP hardware from Texas Instruments with well-proven IGEL software.

FACTFILE:
A world leader in thin client solutions, IGEL Technology helps organizations improve the agility, efficiency, and security of their virtual desktop and application delivery systems. IGEL produces one of the industry's widest range of thin clients, based on Linux and Microsoft Windows, allowing customers to access a broad spectrum of server-based infrastructures and applications. IGEL also offers a powerful and intuitive management software for easy deployment and administration of thin clients throughout any size organization. Partnerships with industry leaders like Red Hat, Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft ensure that IGEL provides the most up-to-date technology and trustworthy security to clients in industries that include Healthcare, Education & Research, Public Sector, Financial, Insurance, Retail, Logistics, and Manufacturing. IGEL has offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore and is represented by partners in over 50 countries worldwide. To learn more, visit www.igel.co.uk

Fasthosts launches 32 core dedicated server

Fasthosts Internet Ltd, a leading web hosting provider, has launched a powerful new, high quality server to further bolster the Fasthosts Dedicated Server range. The new Fasthosts DS1200 server boasts Solid State Drives (SSD) and 2 x 2TB of storage, providing faster access speed, greater resilience, supreme reliability and amps of storage. The DS1200 can be run via a choice of operating systems including the latest CentOS 6 operating system, includes the Plesk 10 control panel, and features a generous allowance of storage space RAM with RAID1 protection, offering better security and performance for business users.

Dedicated Servers are the ideal solution for IT professionals and businesses that require robust server operations for applications and data storage without the capital expenditure or the physical space required for running hardware 24/7 on their premises. Fasthosts' Dedicated Servers, currently with 50 per cent off for 3 months, offer enterprises a powerful and secure server platform and far greater flexibility than on-premise solutions. 

The flagship DS1200 enables businesses to leverage a best in-class specification and performance without large CAPEX commitment. The server uses 2 x 2.4GHz AMD OpteronTM 16-core processors to deliver powerful, energy-efficient performance, meaning intensive programs can be run simultaneously without the need to slow down. Users enjoy guaranteed access to unlimited bandwidth, and retain complete hands-on (KVM) remote control of their server at all times. The DS1200 guarantees 99.99% network uptime, perfect for multiple complex calculations or to host large websites, mail or media, ensuring you and your customers get the best performance.

The Fasthosts DS1200 Dedicated Server solution also benefits from massive 64GB RAM, 2 x 120GB RAID 1 SSD hard-disk drives and 2 x 2TB RAID 1 SATA hard-disk drives.

Fasthosts also includes free SSL certificates for the first year and  Plesk 10 can be added for a small monthly fee. Currently, all Fasthosts Windows Dedicated Servers are provided with 50GB of free Online Backup. For those not sure which specification would best fit their business needs, the Fasthosts website provides a guide to servers that highlights the features specifically suited to business tasks.

Especially important for business users, all data is hosted in Fasthosts' highly secure state-of-the-art UK data centres, and receives Fasthosts' unlimited bandwidth and 100Mbps high-speed virtual data pipe. Every Fasthosts server is maintained with the latest operating system updates to maximise efficiency and security. Technical support is provided 24/7 from the UK via the phone or online. 

Claire Lewis, Marketing Director, Fasthosts Internet Ltd, said: "Our new 32 core server is an excellent opportunity to access huge processor power on an affordable basis. We are confident that even the most demanding professional users will be impressed with the performance and responsiveness. Our continued investment to build world-class UK-based infrastructure means Fasthosts servers continue to be a sound proposition for many businesses."

As a leading web hosting provider, and Technology Sponsor of The Great Exhibition 2012, Fasthosts offers a comprehensive range of web services including domain name registrations, servers, online backup solutions, reseller web hosting and feature-rich broadband packages. Fasthosts is well placed to deliver a high quality service.

Full details can be found at www.fasthosts.co.uk.

Stolen device tracked and recovered using TAAP

TAAP’s technology has recently been put to good use recovering an expensive mobile device, costing £1,400, which was stolen from the vehicle of one of its utility contractor clients, and was subsequently recovered by police within a few hours of the incident being reported.

Remote management software was used to disable the device and remove any potentially sensitive job information. As a further precaution, the device was monitored and the last co-ordinates of the device were shown, which had been recorded using GPS-related technology within the mobile handset.

This produced a precise location with an associated residential address, which was passed on to local police, who recovered the device and returned it to the employee from whom it had been stolen.

GPS – Global Positioning System data – like that used in sat-nav devices, is used within TAAP’s ‘TiPs’ technology which provides a number of geo-positional applications and capabilities – Current Location (CLOC), Journey, and Vehicle on Route (VORTEX) – which are a critical part of many of its clients’ daily operations as devices communicate their location to a central database at regular intervals.

CLOC can be used for lone-worker situations to ensure an employee is not in trouble or has encountered an incident, because the driver’s location is tracked and displayed on a map. Journey allows the driver’s journey to be displayed as a route on a web-based map, so in situations where a device is stolen, the last position is shown and can be traced.

VORTEX enables better customer service to be provided – the software is configured so that messages are sent to the customer when the driver is in a certain range of proximity. Messages can be sent as texts or emails. This means customers aren’t kept waiting or can return to their address so they are present when the driver arrives.

These technologies allow pinpointed locations to be precisely identified through GPS co-ordinates. They enable organisations which run any type of field service operation to track their vehicles in order to confirm routes and positions.

Steve Higgon, Product Architect, explained “CLOC and VORTEX work using the GPS technology within the mobile device, and display the location of all the organisation’s employees on a web-based map, at any one time. By clicking on a location pin in ‘CLOC,’ which represents an individual employee, a driver’s daily route is highlighted. This means that organisations need to spend less time checking on employees’ locations by telephoning or messaging, because the data is automatically presented visually at regular intervals. VORTEX improves customer service because customers are updated as to the location and proximity of the driver.”

www.ontaap.com