Communications Technology

First it was Roger Federer, then the All Blacks had a crack and now football star David Beckham has wowed the internet with his trick shot prowess - but the question on everyone’s lips is, is it real?

A new clip published on Pepsi’s YouTube channel shows Beckham on a California beach making some seemingly impossible trick shots - he is apparently able to easily shoot three balls into far away garbage cans while barefoot.

The debate over whether the shots are real has sent the clip viral, and it has garnered almost 900,000 views in just a few days. If it is fake it was clearly designed to look spontaneous.

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A new Optus product launched today has been panned by analysts who claim it is a ploy by the telco to force customers to pay for mobile network upgrades that the telco should be making itself.

Australia’s second largest telco launched its 3G Home Zone product today, designed primarily to boost indoor 3G wireless signals for Optus mobile customers at home. There is an upfront cost of between $60 and $240 to install the equipment or a monthly payment of $5 to $15.

The product is based on a new wireless technology called “Femtocell” and Optus claims it is the first Australian carrier to run a commercial pilot of the technology. It essentially uses home broadband connections to create a personal 3G base station for the user.

But analysts believe the real reason behind launching the product is that the Optus mobile network is struggling and Optus would prefer to make consumers fork out money to ensure their mobile phones work at home, as opposed to the telco investing in more mobile towers.

Foad Fadaghi, a telecommunications analyst at Telsyte, said femtocells had typically been used in the US by poor quality carriers that had not invested enough in the capacity of their networks.

“While there are benefits for users not able to switch providers, I would be worried as a consumer if I cannot get mobile reception in my home or office from a carrier, thus needing to resort to Femtocells,” Mr Fadaghi said.

Telstra wasted no time laying into its main rival, saying its fast Next G network did not require such devices. “Femtocells are a means of compensating for poor coverage,” a spokeswoman said.

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The next evolution in portable music - storing your songs on the internet and streaming them on a smartphone - has taken a leap forward after Amazon became the first big company to offer the service.

Amazon customers can upload five gigabytes of their own music for free on the retail giant’s website. They can listen to that music anywhere in the world as long as they have an Android smartphone - iPhones are not compatible - that can tap wireless broadband.

Any PC or Mac connected to landline broadband will also play the service, known as Cloud Player.

”Our customers have told us they don’t want to download music to their work computers or phones because they find it hard to move music around to different devices,” said Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice-president of music. ”Now, whether at work, home or on the go, customers can buy music from Amazon MP3, store it on the cloud, and play it anywhere.”

The ”cloud” is jargon for websites such as Facebook, Gmail, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Posterous, Flickr - and now Amazon - where users can upload and store personal documents, photos, and sound and video files.

The five gigabytes on Cloud Player is equal to 9.5 hours of CD-quality music or 100 hours of MP3-quality music. US customers can have four times that amount of storage if they buy an album on Amazon MP3, but Amazon would not say if this offer will spread to markets such as Australia.

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