Sharp HealthCare, San Diego County healthcare system, has selected the Anakam Identity Suite to enable access for patients accessing Sharp’s new patient portal.

The Anakam Identity Suite is aimed at providing Sharp the assurance of ‘trusted access’ through a next-generation authentication platform that performs identity ‘proofing’ upon patient registration into the portal, and then delivers multi-channel two-factor authentication, without the burden of tokens or cards.

With the Anakam Identity Suite, Sharp seeks to improve the assurance that the right individual is accessing, viewing, updating, and consenting to information and functionality within the portal; and at the same time help Sharp reduce the risk of medical identity theft and fraud.

Ericsson hs signed a deal with operator Ucom to bring interactive TV to viewers in Armenia. Ericsson informed that it will deliver its IPTV solution including GPON technology.

IPTV allows viewers to experience the same type of interactivity on their televisions as they are used to on their PCs, with personalised features such as chat, e-voting, web TV and access to social media networks.

Ericsson noted that the IPTV solution for Ucom will also give viewers access to a flexible, customised portal that offers a range of broadcast channels, video-on-demand, an electronic programme guide and personal video-recording capabilities.

The IPTV services will be delivered via a fibre-access technology, known as Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON), supplied by Ericsson.

GPON allows the consumer to watch several HDTV channels, download large files from the internet and place voice calls simultaneously without service disruptions, the company explained.

Rollout will start in July 2009.

Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation have announced a wide-ranging strategic partnership designed to mutually benefit each organisation’s users by extending the way people can access free knowledge.

Orange, the European telco player, will initially provide customers in France, the UK, Spain and Poland with access to co-branded content from the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organisation behind the web encyclopedia Wikipedia. Partnership activities include:

1) creating specific Wikipedia channels on Orange mobile and web portals

2) improving sections of the Orange web and mobile portals with links to relevant Wikipedia information

3) developing mobile and web-based widgets, which enable customers to access Wikipedia content directly from their Orange mobile or web homepage

Phase two of the agreement will see the two organisations cooperate to create a range of new services drawing on Orange’s experience as a communications provider across mobile, internet and television. In addition, the partnership will be rolled out across the rest of Orange’s European footprint.

SAP has announced the launch of the SAP University Alliances community, an advanced, interactive Web portal designed for the academic population worldwide.

The portal is an online environment that delivers the academic resources for bringing real-life SAP knowledge and skills into university classrooms.

It is also expected to improve related academic and research-oriented projects for professors and students.

Telefonica Europe has selected Amdocs ChangingWorlds’ technology to launch a new Mobile Internet service to four of the mobile operators from Telefonica Europe. Amdocs completed its acquisition of ChangingWorlds in December 2008.

The agreement includes O2 UK and Czech Republic, which have already launched, and O2 Germany and O2 Ireland, which will launch in 2009.

The new service will be made available across the majority of the Telefonica Europe device portfolio.

The solution was defined by Telefonica Europe in close collaboration with Amdocs ChangingWorlds and offers a new internet-like portal and a browser bar that provides intuitive navigation support.

As users browse the service, the browser bar guides and provides links to both on- and off-portal content that matches their content preferences and behavioural profiles.

The personalisation engine automatically selects new, fresh and relevant content for each user based on learned user content preferences and behavioural patterns. Additionally, the Amdocs ChangingWorlds’ device management system optimises content presentation and screen flows to the specific capabilities of each O2 handset, Amdocs explained.

Ericsson has announced the launch of a social networking portfolio for mobile network operators, the Pixl8r initiative and the Social Media Portal.

The technologies together offer simplified sharing of user-generated content between friends across diverse networks.

The Pixl8r drive is an open-standard solution that allows photo sharing sites to interact in real time. With Pixl8r, mobile subscribers can easily share social media across different operator portals and receive SMS notification of friends’ activities regardless of network.

With Ericsson’s Social Media Portal, operators can deliver a Pixl8r-compatible social networking service; and consumers can connect to the social web using any mobile phone.

The solution does not require client downloads, and encourages posting and accessing of real-time, user-generated content to diverse internet communities.

Western Blue, an IT solutions integrator Northern in California, has unveiled its interactive social networking and resource site Begin With Blue (www.beginwithblue.ning.com).

Begin With Blue is a social networking and resource site that allows users to view and comment on blog postings by IT Professionals, view and register for upcoming events, read relevant articles through RSS feeds or the article resource page, participate in discussion forums, sign up as a member and more.

The site allows for open communication between Western Blue, its partners, and their customers.