Category Archives: Technology

Cox tests premium land-line products in Wichita

WICHITA — Nationally, Cox is looking to offer customers new services for their land lines, but before moving ahead with potential upgrades the company is asking 300 Wichitans what they think.

Wichita is a test market for Cox Premium Communications, which includes advanced phone features such as the ability to transfer calls between wireless and home phones.

Potentially, customers also could choose if they want their land lines to ring at home or if they’d prefer calls to come through their wireless phones.

“They chose Wichita, Kansas . . . to ask customers, ‘Hey, do you like this? Does this work well for you?’ ” says Cox Communications Kansas spokeswoman Sarah Kauffman.

She says Wichita is “very well suited for the trial.”

That includes operationally.

“We raise our hand every time there is a new technology,” Kauffman says of testing products.

In other markets, Cox is testing its wireless phones.

Kauffman says Cox could start wireless service here by late 2010.

Pixel Time to open at CityArts

WICHITA — The growing number of events downtown is actually attracting businesses, too.

Skyler Lovelace is moving her company, Pixel Time, to CityArts in part because she wants to be where she perceives the excitement to be.

“I wanted to be downtown so bad I could taste it,” Lovelace says.

Her business, which is teaching families how to maximize and have more fun with their computers, had been on 29th Street near Rock Road.

Lovelace says she often found herself stuck at her office around the time things like Final Friday events were starting downtown.

When she moved the bulk of her office into her new space on July 31st, it was the same night of the All-America City block party in Old Town Square where CityArts also is located.

“We were pretending it was like welcoming us to the square,” Lovelace says, laughing.

Classes won’t start in the new space until Sept. 12.

Lovelace, who also is the lead instructor for digital media at Butler Community College, says she wants her classes to complement other things CityArts offers.

She says her agreement there is almost like she’s a guest artist.

“What’s different about me is I brought a lot more equipment than would a typical artist.”

Heartland Technology to sell Delano building

kellyWICHITA — If you’re looking for real estate in Delano, a prime piece of property is about to come on the market near the clock tower and across from Hatman Jack’s.

Comsol Management Group, which owns Heartland Technology Solutions, is selling the company’s building at the northwest corner of Douglas and Sycamore.

“They just don’t need brick and mortar,” Comsol’s Kelly Walker says.

The employees of Heartland, which is a computer solution provider, all work out of their houses now.

Walker first bought the 6,250-square-foot building in 1991 when he owned Business Computer Center. In 2006, he merged with Heartland. He then retired last year but still is a partner in Comsol.

The space first opened in the 1940s as a grocery store, Walker says.

“It’s still got a box furnace,” he says. “It’s an interesting old building.”

Walker says he hasn’t had the building appraised in a decade, so he’s not sure how much he’ll list it for yet. His ballpark guess is $350,000.

“Commercial (real estate) is down,” Walker says of Wichita in general, “but Delano has been doing pretty well.”

New iPhone app is Wichita based

iphoneA couple of Wichita software engineers hope to quit their day jobs for games. Not to play games, but to create them.

Gregg Bolinger and Hycel Taylor recently had their first game approved as an iPhone application.

“It got approved in eight days,” Bolinger says. “It was really fast.”

He says anyone can pay $99 and submit an “app” to the iPhone App Store, and a team of people who work for Apple review whether to make the application available to iPhone users.

“It’s an interesting process because I’ve heard of apps sitting in the review process for months,” Bolinger says.

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