Cisco
In one of the most astonishing bits of news we’ve seen in a long time, the iconic Flip video camera was officially pronounced dead earlier this week. Cisco, which paid US$590 million for the business from Pure Digital just two years ago, has decided to kill the entire company. In an unprecedented scenario, the Flip has been killed outright while holding United States video camera sales market leadership (marginally ahead of Sony and roughly double the share of third-placed Kodak). Why Cisco didn’t sell the brand rather than kill it is probably more to do with showing analysts it is serious about remedying its ailments, though if I were a shareholder, I’d be asking why some effort wasn’t made to extract value from a market leading brand and retaining the jobs of hundreds of people. The good news is that the Flip 4GB Ultra HD is already down to US$130, which makes it a worthwhile buy if your phone doesn’t yet shoot 1080p video. Read More
Cisco has given an ambitious green city project a huge credibility boost by agreeing to work with urban-scale sustainable technology company Living PlanIT on its creation. The new community in Portugal will use the latest cutting-edge green technology from both companies, and house over 200,000 people with minimal environmental impact. Read More
Cisco is joining the tablet party, albeit with a device aimed specifically at business customers. The Android-based Cius has a 7 inch multi-touch display, weighs just 1.15 pounds and comes with cameras front and back. It's powered by an Atom processor supported by a gigabyte of RAM and 32GB of solid state storage. Read More
With its new line of Valet wireless routers, Cisco is promising to take away the strain of setting up and managing a home network. Getting the network ready to go is claimed to be as simple as placing an Easy Setup Key into a USB port and following three short steps offered by the Cisco Connect software. Read More
The first major new Flip pocket video camera to be released since Cisco bought Pure Digital earlier this year will go on sale in early 2010. Reports indicate that the as-yet unnamed model will feature built-in WiFi capability and a larger screen. Read More
Of Amazon's top five selling camcorders, versions of the Flip take four of the slots. The 4Gb MinoHD holds fourth position, but things never stand still for too long in the world of gadgetry and the MinoHD has just been supercharged. The second generation model features more memory, a bigger viewing screen with better resolution and a more powerful lens. Read More
Cisco’s new PVC300 Pan Tilt Optical Zoom Internet Camera provides a suite of surveillance features aimed at small companies who want to keep a watchful eye on their employees and business property. Designed to operate on existing wired networks, the PVC300 provides two-way audio, motion activated recording, automatic alerts and full-motion live video that can be viewed from virtually anywhere on an Internet-enabled PC or mobile phone. Read More
‘Whatever you want – wherever and whenever you want it' is pretty much today’s philosophy, especially when it comes to music, movies and photos. We’re used to getting our content at the click of a mouse, button or scroll-wheel and it's this kind of flexibility and simplicity of access that Cisco's Linksys Media Hub aims to bring to personal media collections, delivering up to a terabyte of storage capacity backed by an intuitive interface and remote access functionality. Read More
January 11, 2007 Apple’s iPhone burst onto the internet yesterday like a nuclear explosion, immediately becoming the most sought after product of 2007. Given that just about every tech journalist in the world was aware of Cisco’s registered iPhone trademark, we all assumed that a deal had been struck, but apparently not! Cisco today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple, seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using it’s trademark. Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear’s original filing for the trademark dates to 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been shipping a new family of iPhone products since early last year, expanding the iPhone family with additional products as recently as December. “Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission. Read More
