Month: January 2004

Smallest GPS Locator Phone Announced

Wherify Wireless, based in Redwood Shores California, have announced what they claim is the smallest device to contain a GPS receiver and CDMA mobile phone. It has been specifically designed to help locate people carrying it. It is very compact (48mm x 12mm), light (45 grams) and simple to use, with only two buttons to operate. One button directly alerts the emergency services, 911, giving them the location within a few feet and ability to have a conversation with owner. The second button carries out the same function but to a user programmable phone number.

Authorised parties can find out the location of the device either using a Web browser, which will show the location of the device within a number of feet, or over a phone with an operator. Both methods take around a minute.

The rather grandly named GPS Universal Locator is rechargeable and power should last around 70 hours or 40 locates. To conserve battery, the GPS is not enabled until a location query is activated.

Wherify expect it to be available to consumers late second quarter 2004 and it is expected to retail for less than $150 with month subscription to the service at $19-$44 a month.

A similar service, mapAmobile, was launched in the UK in August 2003, but mapAmobile worked with a standard mobile phone, rather than needing a separate device.

Wherify Wireless, GPS Universal Locator, spec sheet

Wherify Wireless

First WiFi Portable Music Player

Ever since the rise of the portable digital music player people have been discussing the possibilities of connecting them wirelessly rather than via a cable, either for loading content, or playing it back. After two years development SoniqCast has now released the Element Aireo, the first product to come to market that includes 802.11b (WiFi) support.

The WiFi connection enables the synchronisation of music-file contents with those on the PC’s hard drive, using their SoniqSync software. Synchronisation is either on demand or based on a user-defined schedule. Looking to the future SoniqCast are expecting to enable content download directly from the Internet via Hotspots and peer-to-peer content download from one Aireo™ player to another.

The built in FM transmitter (FM TX) can be used for wireless playback of music in cars or at home. While not a unique idea, this is achievable with an iPod by adding a third party extra to it, it is the first time it has been included.

This initial release has a 1.5Gb hard drive capacity built in, which while it hold a considerable amount of music, may appear to consumers to be dwarfed by the 40Gb storage offered on some other devices. The physical size of drive, could in a later product, be replaced by a 4Gb drive. Additional storage can be enhanced by up to another 1Gb by inserting an SD memory card.

The device won the “Best of CES Portable Audio” at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

While we welcome this type of device, we feel the wireless features will not remain unique for very long and our concern would be the devices battery life – using WiFi consumes a far amount of power, potentially leading to short periods between charging, eliminating the benefits of it being wireless.

It is expect to go on sale for $300 within the next month.

SoniqCast

Review of Bleep – DRM-Free digital music sales

Warp Records have made their music back-catalogue available for purchase online via their Bleep service, but with the twist that the tracks are not electronically protected.  The bought tracks are downloaded as high quality, open MP3 files not using any form of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

We see this as an important development, as it takes a different approach to the purchaser of the music – it assumes that the majority of their customers are honest and will not pepper the file sharing networks with their paid for tracks. We will continue to monitor whether this approach has been good or bad for their sales, certainly short term they have benefited from positive press from the technically aware.

We have used the service extensively and below give an overview of the process.

_The standard – iTunes Music Store
As anyone who is attempting to sell music online is very well aware, Apple’s iTunes Music Store (iTMS) has set a high bar for other to reach, never mind exceed. iTMS addresses one of the major reasons for music copying, it brings music that people want to listen to and purchase easily within their grasp. It’s a friendly, well thought out and fast to use system, that charges an arguably reasonable amount of money, 99c, per track. The purchased tracks are downloaded in secure AAC format, can be held on up to three computers, burnt to audio CD and held on as many iPods as the track purchaser owns. iTMS licensing terms were a liberal world apart from compared to the highly restricted, effectively rental-based previous system.

_The Bleep interface
Bleep does a good job of keeping the screen uncluttered and uses three easy to follow columns that naturally progress form left to right to complete purchases. The left is for locating tracks at an album level, or for searching; the middle columns list the details tracks selected as well as enabling previewing and picking for purchase; the right hand column show the tracks ready for purchase, and following purchase, a list of tracks that can be or have been downloaded.

Selection of albums and tracks is as smooth a process as you would expect, either by clicking on the album cover icon or individual track name, if a text search has been carried out.

_Browsing & previewing tracks
Once the tracks have reached the middle column, simply clicking on Play can preview them. The previewing is quick to start, essential for a good user experience. Although it is not quite as fast as iTunes, which is like pressing track skip on a CD player, it is impressive considering it does not use a content delivery network like Akamai.

The loading of the preview track in displayed in a small, integrated Flash player, just below the album cover art, giving good feedback to the user making them aware that something is going on. Once sufficient has buffered, the first 30 seconds of the track starts playing, with a green highlight bar showing progress along the track. The preview track has been encoded at 90kbs and we found the quality more than sufficient.

There are a number of areas that Bleep wins over iTMS.

  • Preview is no limited to just 30 seconds of the track – the whole track can be previewed simply by clicking the play button again, every 30 second chunk.
  • Once buffered, the listener can click anywhere to the tracks timeline to listen from that point.

__Purchasing tracks
When tracks are selected for purchase, they are placed in the right hand column. A running total of the cost is displayed at the bottom of the column, as is useful additional information such as the size of download and an approximation of the time they will take to download.

Clicking on the tracks in the checkout basket the chance to still preview the tracks, you can still listen to it.

When ready to pay, the user simply clicks on the Checkout link, and they will be asked to login to their account or create an account if they have not used it before.

Warp has done a good and wise thing in making creating an account as straightforward as possible, you simply supplying your email address and a password.

The user has three way to pay; credit card, PayPal, and in the UK, mobile phone SMS text message for single tracks. After entering these relevant details, future purchases are as simple as clicking on a link.

The purchase via SMS is of particular interest as this has never been used for buying music downloads. After entering your mobile phone number in the setup screens and sending a confirmation message from you mobile to Warp, purchasing single tracks is a simple as confirming your desire to pay via SMS. An SMS is then received to the handset confirming the price charged and giving a reference number. The SMS payment option is a great idea for opening music sales to people too young to have a credit card, as they are bound to have a mobile phone.

_Receiving the booty
Once payment has been cleared, the right hand column lists the tracks now available for download. To save the trouble of downloading each track individually, there is an option to bundle them all into one Zipped file.

The user is also free to add tracks to a new shopping basket while tracking are sitting in their download list.

_Summary
Warp has done a good job with this service, generally improving on Apple’s iTMS. When comparing them it should be remember that this service is browser based, not the simpler dedicated application approach that iTMS takes.

We spoken to Warp at some length and are impressed with their understanding of the users needs. They also have some very interesting plans for the service, which we will report on when they are becoming available.

Bleep online music service

Music Label Sells DRM-Free Music

Warp records have been a major force in electronic music for fifteen years (Band such as Aphex Twin, Autechre and Squarepusher) and are equally know for their Internet advances, being early converts to the Web when it was just beginning. The UK company today they launched a service called Bleep that sells all of their musical back catalog online – but the product their customer recieves is substancially different from the myriad of MeToo music services, it is a unprotected, high quality MP3. Going against the tide of the major record companies, Warp, through Bleep, have decided to not use Digital Right Management (DRM), in their words

“Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals.”

Pricing is slightly higher than the now-standard 99c. With individual tracks at 99 UK pence (~$1.80, ~€1.40) and albums at £6.99 (~$12.70, ~€10) or less. Payment can be made using PayPal, credit cards or, for UK users, premium rate SMS. Refreshingly reasonably after the bandwidth charges and Bleep running costs are subtracted, the artist gets half of the album or track price.

The tracks have been encoded at a slightly higher bitrate than Apple’s offering, averaging 205k vs 192k and are expected to be excellent through the use of the LAME (LAME Ain’t an MP3 Encoder), the open source and highly-rated encoding software taking advantage of the Variable Bit Rate (VBR).

We are impressed with the thinking and technology behind Bleep and will be writing a review of it on Friday.

Bleep, by Warp records

LAME

HP’s iPod – Microsoft Protest

Following the HP announcement at CES that it would be working with Apple and selling a rebranded version of the iPod (possibly called HPod, or more officially ‘HP Digital Music Player’) and bundling the Apple iTunes software on to HP PC’s, the general manager of Microsoft’s digital media division, David Fester has gone on record suggesting that HP going with Apple is a mistake as it would restrict consumer choice, “Windows is about choice – you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.” Clearly the printed text alone cannot detect any irony that might have been in Mr Festers voice when talking about Windows and choice. What is also clear is that Microsoft must be seriously concerned about the perceived threat from Apple and their iPod.

There is a long, and previously frosty history between HP and Apple, starting way back when Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, who was working at HP, asking them if they would be interested in marketing the personal computer. When they turned him down, he went off with Jobs to form Apple in 1976.

This is all now water under the bridge and as part of the deal HP gets “instant access to Apple’s technology and music rights and the opportunity to offer a full range of popular digital products to consumers”. Benefits for Apple include exploding the number of shops selling products based on their technology, leveraging HP current relationships with their 11,000 retailers around the world and widening the install base of Apple iTunes.

Further development of the HP Digital Music Player continues and it is thought that HP are working on integrating Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to play back on the iPod for the first time and plan for the device to go on sale in June.

We find the Apple/HP deal interesting for a number of reasons, including that it is the first Jobs has done with an external hardware company since his return to Apple in 1997, when he cancelled all of the disastrous OEM deals that had been previously signed.

HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina keynote at CES

Sony Announce Location Free TV

Among the many announcements at CES was an interesting portable 12″ LCD TV screen from Sony, that can be carried around a house and have various content delivered to it from its base station, enabling the showing of video from many different sources, as well as playing music, viewing photos and browsing the Internet. Sony calls it LocationFree™.

It is based on a similar device released just in Japan called AirTact and a few TVs. Kunitake Ando, president and group COO at Sony Corp has realised the potential to freeing the screen. At Sony “Dream World” held in Paris, Sept. 2003 was quoted that transforming traditional TVs to “location-free” TV or displays could take the 125 million TV sets sold worldwide and “easily increased to four or five times that number.”

The basestation can have many different sources plugged in to it, including; video, be that TV ariel/cable, DVD, VCR, DV video camera; audio sources; other media files stored on computers via Ethernet. There is a wide selection for possible connections to the network, wirelessly (802.11a, 802.11b (WiFi), or 802.11g) or an Ethernet cable. The content is delivered to the remote, battery-powered 12.1″ LCD touch screen, which can also run from a main source. There are also plans for a pocket sized 5.8″ version. The viewer is free to move around the house while continuing to access the different media sources, selecting them by touching the screen. As yet, Sony has not discussed battery life.

For the first time Sony have brought technology from their high-end TV sets to the LCD display including 3D Y/C separation circuitry for clear, vivid picture and colour blur reduction; angled line correction circuitry for smoothing out jagged lines; motion adaptive I/P conversion circuitry for improving fast moving action scenes; and digital audio amplifier circuitry for crisp sound and minimized distortion.

It looks like Sony have carried out considerable research to find what function user may want. The five pounds screen itself has a lot of connectors includes an Ethernet port, a USB port, Memory Stick media slot, headphone jack, keyboard port and an AV input for connecting to a camcorder. Useful features include viewers being able to “freeze” and save a TV scene by using the “capture” button on the remote screen – saving a mad scrabble for pen and paper where information appears on the TV.  Prints of the images or homepage data, e-mail attachments and digital photos can also be made to USB printers connected to the base-station.

While using the screen to browse the Internet, the viewer will be able to watch their choice of TV/video source displayed in a Picture in Picture (PiP) window, but given the screen is 800×600, we imaging this might not be used much beyond demos to friends.

Sony has omitted to give any precise dates for the shipping of Location Free, preferring to say it would be “Later in the year”.

Sony say one of the benefits of the screen being an IP device is that access your media does not need to be restricted just to your own home network. By taking the screen with you on your travels, you can access the self same content through any IP connection, which are increasingly found around the world in offices and hotel rooms. One example cited gives an interesting twist to the product – a person on the road, unable to attend their child’s birthday, has an opportunity to tune in, watching the live video being shot on a camcorder plugged in to the basestation at home. We believe application such as this, which can be used to bring together families distributed over great distances, will be a major driver in purchasing products.

We are excited about this step of remote access to your home media, firewall configuration allowing of course. It could be an interesting early step into a future where your home media server becomes the focal point of your media ownership, with your various remote IP devices having access, via your home server.

At this point it is worth highlighting that hard facts about which protocols are used to transfer content back and forth between base-station and screen. It would be a great shame if the protocols were proprietary. We think there is real potential in this device, and by using open standards; there could be a real potential for a product like this to become a standard for interfacing analog media to an IP device. There is a real need for a device like it and it appears that Mr Ando at Sony Corp is trying to fill it.

Record 11m SMS’s Sent New Years Day in the UK

A stunning 111 million mobile phone text messages (SMS’s) were sent person-to-person in the UK between midnight on 31st December 2003 and midnight on 1st January 2004, nearly double the normal daily average. New Year in 2002 set the previous record, which for the first time broke the 100 million level.

The trend for SMS is still continuing to increase, as is illustrated by the 8% increase on the most recent New Year. Further examples of growth are October 2003 hitting a new monthly record, by reaching 1.8 billion messages sent, and 76 million being sent on the day of England victory in the Rugby World Cup.

It has been know for along time that the younger generations are big SMS users and further proof of this was shown on 14th August 2003, when 67 million text messages were sent on the day that A-level (pre-university examinations) results were announced, which at that time was the previous highest number of message sent.

The figures come from the Mobile Data Association (MDA) and were collected from the four GSM operators in the UK, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

Mobile Data Association

Multimedia over Coax Alliance Forms

Getting digitised media moving around the home has remained a question without a fixed answer. CAT5 network cabling, powerline, phone line and wireless have all been tried with varying levels of success and ease of installation. A new approach has been floated by a collective of networking, cable and Consumer Electronics (CE) industry big-boys under the banner of the Multimedia over Coax Alliance or MoCA.

They suggest that the coax cable routed around 70% of US homes, could offer considerable bandwidth, ideal for multi-use, digital video and data applications, while simultaneously carrying existing analog and digital cable as well as satellite services currently on the cable.

Cisco Systems, Comcast, EchoStar, Entropic Communications, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), Motorola, RadioShack and Toshiba, among others, have formed a non-profit, mutual benefit corporation to develop and promote the specifications. These will be used as the basis for the certification process to validate products as interoperable with other MoCA enabled products.

MoCA plans to build on technology developed by Entropic Communications Inc, a closely held company in San Diego formed in May 2001, which designed chips to help send data over coax at up to 270 megabits per second. Expected to translate into a guaranteed bandwidth of about 100 megabits per second with a Quality of Service (QoS), provided by prioritised asynchronous services (802.1p), and what they describe as state of the art packet-level encryption, DES link layer baseline privacy. It will carry Ethernet (IP), 1394, MPEG applications.

Coaxial cabling is already connected to over 300 million television sets and is the preferred in-home video distribution medium for 90+ million cable and satellite homes in the US today. It offers a number of positive drives for the current content producing and distribution worlds; the innate security of a shielded, wired connection and a long-standing familiarity – the cable companies buy the stuff by the mile.

The MoCA technology is designed to be sold at retail, be as simple as a cable TV to install and be virtually transparent to the consumer. The final specification is expected to be available within 12 months.

Multimedia over Coax Alliance

Review – Gateway FMC-901X

Extreme Tech have reviewed Gateway Computers latest media PC that runs Windows Media edition, the FMC-901X, and they like it.

The Gateway FMC-901X is a far cry from the original Gateway Destination (anyone remember those?) It’s sleek looks and high degree of usability makes it an appealing choice. TV image quality is excellent, and so is TV recording. Burning your favorite shows to DVD with a few button clicks is incredibly easy.