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What is HD Voice?

Details Published on Monday, 13 August 2012 06:24 We humans have the ability to hear sounds in the range of 80 Hz to 14 kHz, which is pretty good considering the small size of the ears we were given. However, as we get older this range is reduced especially at the top end of the spectrum. The frequency band of normal human speech is much lower than this. Typically, the frequency for male speech ranges between 85 Hz to 180 Hz and for female it is between 165 Hz to 255 Hz. When we speak to someone on the phone the frequency reserved for the telephone call is in the range of 300 Hz to 3 kHz. This is just enough dynamic frequency to ensure the speech doesn't sound like it is coming from the moon or through an underwater pipe. Background and Codecs All digital speech uses the concept of a codec. The word “codec” is an abbreviation combination of coder and decoder. This process describes the algorithm, which digitally encodes and compresses speech samples, so they can be tra

Tech-Savvy CEOs

Details Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 16:00 A large number of Asia Pacific CEOs see their organisations as ‘pioneers’ or ‘fast followers’ in adopting business- and IT-led innovation, says Gartner. The desire and intent to leverage technology better is tempered by some headwinds, as CEOs acknowledge they have IT departments that are still struggling with getting the basics right. CEO “It is interesting that the Asia Pacific region, long seen anecdotally as more conservative in leveraging technology and driving innovation, has overtaken the global average of CEOs (26 percent) who describe their company cultures as being pioneering in the adoption of innovation,” says Gartner vice president Partha Iyengar. “This means a larger number of CEOs than we would anecdotally expect are willing to take risks in the adoption of technology to get first-mover advantage. Half of them are focusing on creating a ‘digital strategy’ for their enterprises.”

Securing Utilities Infrastructure

Details Published on Thursday, 21 February 2013 05:29 Written by Craig Sutherland As a highly critical sector, the oil and gas infrastructure should be one of the most secure, both physically and digitally. This is not the case. A multi-billion dollar industry, trading one of the most valuable commodities on the market, is connecting its industrial control systems full of unpatched vulnerabilities to the Internet, where cyber criminals roam in all impunity. These systems are poorly protected against cyber threats – at best, they are secured with IT solutions which are ill-adapted to legacy control systems. “The lack of appropriate security has already allowed a number of destructive cyber-attacks to lay waste to some of the most high-profile companies in the industry,” says senior cyber security analyst Michela Menting. “Oil and gas companies have been the victims of sophisticated cyber threats since 2009. Many of these attacks have caused significant financial damages. Inevi

Proximity-Based Social Change

Details Published on Tuesday, 11 June 2013 11:45 The next revolution of the Internet is upon us, and not only is it continuing to shape the way we do things, it's changing the way our things do things. In 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet surpassed the number of people on the planet, and just like people these "things" are talking to one another via the Internet and wirelessly now more than ever. Proximity-based social networking applications, which use geo-proximity as the main filter for discovering people and places, are instrumental in this online evolution, as our immediate needs are often dictated or affected by how near or far we are from something. As more technologies enable devices to discover one another over distances through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC (Near Field Communications), businesses and marketers are using social networking, mobility, and gaming to dive into the proximity pool. The emerging proximity-based mobile social

Taking the Telework Pledge

Details Published on Tuesday, 05 March 2013 13:26 Turn off the alarm and get out of bed, check. Crank up the coffee pot, check. Sit in traffic for an hour on the way to work? Not this week. Thousands of people across the country are giving up the commute, and working from home as part of their pledge to telecommute this week. It’s part of Telework Week 2013, promoted by The Mobile Work Exchange and sponsored by Cisco, which champions the work anywhere, anytime mentality for today’s mobile employee. The week is part of a yearly push to get people to telecommute. And the movement is growing. This year about 110,000 people pledged to work from home. With more highly connected employees, and solutions that allow people to work anywhere, the International Data Corporation projects 37% of the global workforce will be mobile by 2015. An interesting twist to Telework week this year is the timing of a major policy change at Yahoo. CEO Marissa Mayer told her employees they could no lon

Advanced Analytics a Priority

Details Published on Sunday, 26 October 2014 06:05 Advanced analytics is a top business priority, fuelled by the need to make advanced analysis accessible to more users and broaden the insight into the business, according to market analyst Gartner. Advanced analytics is the fastest-growing segment of the business intelligence (BI) and analytics software market and surpassed US $1 billion in 2013. "While advanced analytics have existed for over 20 years, big data has accelerated interest in the market and its position in the business," says Alexander Linden, research director at Gartner. "Rather than being the domain of a few select groups (for example, marketing, risk), many more business functions now have a legitimate interest in this capability to help foster better decision making and improved business outcomes." says Linden. IT and business leaders must expand their efforts to move their organizations from using only traditional BI that addresses descri