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Dear Colleagues I hope you have all had a restful, or at least productive, Christmas break and that the New Year holds the prospect of something better. I'm looking forward to catching up with as many of possible at our forums and am also hoping to arrange visits with those of you whom I haven't been fortunate enough to have seen recently. I'm hoping that this year will see the issue of supporting mobile users developing into more of an opportunity than a threat, particularly in the light of increased growth in the handheld market for devices and in the growth of awareness and interest in 3G+ technologies. Some of you may have seen the recent JANET call for project proposals in this respect and if any of you are interested in participating you may wish to have a look at the attached call for proposals. The Deadline for proposals is January 11th, so there is not much time I'm afraid! My recommendation would be to try to get in with a local University, if they are making a bid. In my experience JANET tend to favour the HE Sector in terms of network projects, partly because they are generally better resourced to undertake them, and therefore joining with a University proposal would not only strengthen their bid but enhance your prospects of participating in the trials. One of the two bids is specifically aimed at "community use cases for true broadband mobile technologies" so this may well be of interest to those of you provided adult and community learning, although this probably needs more investigation. Details are at https://community.ja.net/groups/4g-data-telephony/document/4g-trial-call-par ticipation Alongside these there is also the offer from Microsoft to develop a Windows 8 App for your college, free of charge. This is set out below. The new windows 8 phones are all likely to support 3G+ or LTE, so this is also in line with this trending technology. For those of you who missed the '4G' presentation at our forum in Letchworth last July, this technology will offer speeds which are generally better than domestic broadband speeds (typically ~15Mbs download and up to 8Mbs upload), thus making it suitable for live video at 25 frames per second. By way of endorsement we ran a 3-hour meeting using Skype yesterday and a 3G+ MiFi device, with good quality sound and reasonable video between Anglia Ruskin University and a colleague in rural Essex on an ADSL line, who was unable to come into work that day. Please give me a call if you want to discuss any points relating to this, or join us at the Technical Managers' Forum in Letchworth on February 6th to share views with other Providers as well. Kindest Regards, Thomas ========================================================== Thomas Rochford | e-Learning Advisor | Jisc RSC Eastern Tel: 01223 564749 | Mobile: 07500 669002 | Skype: cambridge.serendipity Email: [log in to unmask] | Web: http://www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/eastern Cambridge Serendipity, 35 Gough Way, Cambridge, CB3 9LN For the full range of RSC UK events, resources and blog, visit http://www.jiscrsc.ac.uk Hi all, I am considering offering to create a windows 8 app for each college that is going to buy windows 8 devices. Please could anyone who is interested send the information requested below to [log in to unmask]: . College Name: . Contact details: . Brief device project details (example number of devices, timescales, staff or student) . Are you also switching to windows phones? Y/N If I get enough interest I will definitely go ahead with this and I will contact the colleges direct with full details. As you can hopefully tell this represents a major investment by us into Further Education Regards Mike Mike Morris Further Education Business Manager Microsoft UK Tel: +44 (0) 118 909 5869 Mob: +44 (0) 7581 132 708 Email : [log in to unmask] Twitter: @FEMikeMorris Blog: www.microsoft.com/uk/education/further-education/ Microsoft Technical Support Line: 0844 567 1451 MICROSOFT SURFACE "Like a tablet but useful" <http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx> http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx MICROSOFT DREAMSPARK Free developer and designer tools <http://youtu.be/8fMu9V3bJns> http://youtu.be/8fMu9V3bJns. OFFICE 365 Free for Education <http://www.microsoft.com/office365> www.microsoft.com/office365