December 2006 – Page 2 – Digital-Lifestyles

iPhone Announced – But It’s Not From Apple

iPhone Announced - But It's Not From Apple The iPhone has been revealed, but it’s not coming from Apple, but network and router specialists, Cisco.

Cisco is branding its entire range of Linksys VoIP devices with the much-touted ‘iPhone’ tag, something we can’t imagine the Apple head honchos will be too happy about.

Although everyone was expecting Apple’s eagerly awaited venture into the phone world to be called the iPhone, it turns out that Cisco have quietly been holding the trademark in their hot, clammy hands since 2000 (after acquiring Infogear, who registered the name in 1996).

Speculation is rife that Cisco’s decision may have come about after they failed to sell the rights of the name to Apple, and so decided to use the already well-memed name for their own kit. Or maybe it’s just a ruse to raise the stakes.

Either way, Cisco may still be minded to let Apple use the iPhone name – for a sizeable reimbursement, natch – seeing as the name is already firmly associated with Apple (notably, the domain name www.iphone.org points to www.apple.com).

iPhone Announced - But It's Not From Apple Back to the kit, Cisco’s new range includes a $180 (£92) iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype CIT400 which plugs directly into an Ethernet port and a $200 (£102) iPhone Wireless-G Phone for Skype WIP320 which offers Skype and landline calls.

We can’t imagine either of them giving Apple’s designers sleepless nights, although Cisco have a rock solid reputation for providing quality gear.

Despite intense media speculation, Apple continues to neither confirm nor deny that they’re working on their own mobile phone, although many analysts are predicting that it may finally be unveiled at the Macworld Expo trade show in San Francisco on 9th January.

[Via Business Week]

gPhone: Google/Orange Phone Set To Take On Apple iPhone?

gPhone: Google/Orange Phone Set To Take On iPhone? According to a report in yesterday’s Observer, Google has been cosying up to mobile giants Orange with a multi-billion-dollar plan to knock out a ‘Google phone,’ offering easy Web searches on the move.

The branded Google phone is expected to be manufactured by the Taiwanese smartphone/PDA makers, HTC, and come with a screen similar in size to a video iPod.

The phone will come with optimized Google software designed to speed up the notoriously cumbersome task of surfing and searching the Web on a handheld device, and offer mobile versions of Google applications such as Google Earth, Gmail and Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Palm Treo users will already be familiar with some of these programs with the superb Google Maps for Treo application scoring full marks in our recent review.

gPhone: Google/Orange Phone Set To Take On iPhone? The Observer reported that the phone could access Google’s databases to offer a wealth of location-based searches, including personalised listings of local cinemas, restaurants and other amenities, and maps and images from Google Earth.

Rumours of the Google/Orange partnership come as expectations of an Apple iPhone announcement are reaching fever pitch, with one Website suggesting that the leaking of the story could just be a cunning ruse to steal the thunder of an imminent Apple announcement.

The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket (Observer)

UK Monthly Online Sales Hit £3bn For The First Time

UK Monthly Online Sales Hit £3bn For The First Time Santa’s sleigh bells are in danger of being drowned out by the ringing of virtual cash tills, with a new report revealing that UK Internet retail sales hit £3 billion for the first time during November.

The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) estimates that £3,260,000,000 was spent by the UK’s 25 million online shoppers during the month of November, raking in an astonishing average of £4.57 million per hour – nearly 45% up on the same period last year.

IMRG calculates that November’s online sales were up more than half a billion pounds on the previous month, when their Index recorded a value of £2,729 million for October.

This adds up to a whopping ten times growth on the average monthly increase of £50 million recorded during the first ten months of 2006.

UK Monthly Online Sales Hit £3bn For The First Time Looking back to 2004 reveals just how dramatic the increase of online sales has become, with the year only averaging a comparatively feeble growth rate of just £16 million per month.

Commenting on the figures, James Roper, IMRG’s CEO, said: “In 2000, the first year in which the IMRG collected hard online sales data, Christmas trading was worth well under half a billion pounds, and we thought that was huge at the time. Now we can see that the e-retail market is just getting into its stride, with large potential for long-term growth.”

The Interactive Media in Retail Group

[Via Net Imperative]

3 X-Series Review (89%)

3 X-Series Review (89%) The first time Nokia told me that they no longer sold mobile phones, but multimedia computers, I scoffed. How can anything that you speak on while moving be anything but a mobile phone? You talk, you walk. Anything else is a handy extra, a camera to snap while you’re at a gig or a site to browse for train times when you’re in a hurry.

But when I picked up the X-Series Nokia N73 phone from 3, everything became clear. Because it’s simply not accurate to call this device a mobile phone any longer. The N73 is, in essence, a powerful 3G handset that uses a variety of technologies to perform a variety of tasks using a variety of services. And if that sounds woolly and imprecise, welcome to the 21st century.

The hardware
Let’s start with the hardware – arguably the least interesting aspect of the package. The N73 is part of Nokia’s multimedia N-series, and so boasts a pin-sharp 2.4-inch screen, 3.2MP camera, media players, stereo Bluetooth, office software and more. It’s simple to use, less bulky than the photo-mad N93 (home to an optical zoom) but more than capable of dealing with everyday photos, files, songs and videos.

It lacks the Wi-Fi aerial of the business-focused N80 – but then it really doesn’t need it, thanks to 3’s innovative X-Series web pricing. This offers all-you-can-surf web access via 3G for a price of £5 a month on top of any 12-month or longer contract. That represents stunning value for money when compared to traditional networks, and is still a few quid less than T-Mobile’s generous £7.50 Web ‘n’ Walk monthly cost.

3 X-Series Review (89%) Using Skype On The X-Series
Above and beyond that, the hot news is the packages that the N73 comes pre-loaded with: Skype, Yahoo Go!, Mobile Mail, MSN Messenger and, for another £5 per month, Sling and Orb. The revolutionary package is, of course, Skype. The world’s most popular VOIP application earns one-touch access from the home screen and has been well optimised for the mobile platform. You can sign in with your normal Skype name to see your usual contact list, or create an account there and then. My phone had to download an update (less than a minute) and then plough through a variety of disclaimers and permissions – basically absolving 3 of any responsibility for you trying to call the emergency services.

Refreshing and adding contacts is all very easy and making a call is utterly intuitive: simply select a contact and hit the dial key. Voice calls sounded compressed but comprehensible. The usual Skype delays on the line are more pronounced than with a PC, but you do feel the benefit of a genuinely well-engineered speaker and microphone instead of the usual cheapo VOIP headsets. The current version works only with other Skype accounts, although 3 promises the ability to Skype Out (calls to any real phone number, globally, charged at pennies a minute) in 2007.

Incoming calls don’t specify which contact is calling, relying instead on a generic ‘Skype Service calling’ message. And Skype chat doesn’t work either, although your contact does receive a message encouraging them to call instead. Running Skype on your computer and phone simultaneously doesn’t cause any problems either – both devices will ring and you can simply answer whichever you choose. If you do want to IM, the pre-loaded MSN and Yahoo Messenger software seem to work fine.

Slingbox – TV on your X-series
So why would you upgrade from the Silver package (£5/month extra) to the Gold (£10/month?). The key offering here is the Slingbox, which you can buy at a discounted price of £99 (it’s usually about £150). This connects to your TV or set-top box and fires video over your domestic broadband service to the X-Series handset (or a laptop) running the SlingPlayer software. Unlike other mobile TV services, this is actually streaming your very own telly signals, so if you’ve got a Sky box, for instance, you’ll be able to watch exactly what’s showing on your TV at home, be it BBC One, Premiership footie or a ‘specialist’ subscription channel.

However, it’s worth noting that the Slingbox can be a real pig to set up. If you have a complex broadband set-up with multiple routers, you’d better be good at port forwarding and hacking your router configuration or you’ll soon be pulling your hair out. If you can get it to work, video quality is pretty good; detailed enough to read the info bar on Sky broadcasts for instance. Sound is below average and can be quite harsh and glitchy. Unfortunately, you’re limited to portrait format display, leaving massive empty bands above and below the images – why no landscape option to make full use of that great screen?

Menus give access to your home device’s basic features (power, channel and volume, menu etc). I was disappointed that I couldn’t access recorded shows on my Sky HD box because the SlingPlayer lacks virtual red/green/yellow/blue buttons. This would be a key selling point, widening the video service from live TV to my entire hard drive. Note that the Slingbox is happy to sling (resized, compressed) HD signals out to your phone.

3 X-Series Review (89%) Accessing your PC using OrbPC
Supposedly, you need to sign up to the Gold service to use PC-away-from-home service Orb, although I’ve been using Orb on a Wi-Fi phone for some time and can’t see why normal web access to Orb wouldn’t work perfectly well. If this is a driver for you, check out the Silver package first. Orb allows you to view (read-only) the contents of various folders on your PC’s hard drive, giving access to your photos, videos and MP3 tunes, for example, and even files in your My Documents folder. It’s great for finding those essential business documents or staging impromptu holiday slideshows, without taking up memory space in the phone itself. The interface is a little flaky but normally gets there in the end.

On top of all this, of course, you’ve got full, free web access. The browser from 3 modifies pages to look ‘better’ on the Nokia’s small screen. This devastates design but (usually) improves legibility. You’ll either love or hate this but it’s well worth trying before you buy given that you’ll be using that interface an awful lot.

Conclusion
Overall, this is a really interesting device. The web access alone represents tremendous value and the pre-loaded, generally hassle-free applications only make it more attractive. However, there’s no denying that as it stands the X-Series is a tremendously geeky offering. Skype sounds better than it sounds, if you get my drift, although it’ll soon pay off if you regularly call abroad. Slingbox is fun but sluggish and over-complicated to set up – and battery life is bound to suffer.

Make no mistake, the X-Series is the future. Whether we’re ready to take the giant leap forward that it represents yet is another question entirely…

Score: 89%

3 X-series

Skype Offers US Unlimited Calling Plan

Skype US Unlimited Calling Plan Announced While announcing the release 3.0 of their VoIP software, Skype have unveiled the US Unlimited Calling Plan.

Don’t panic – this doesn’t affect Skype to Skype calls, but calls to US landlines and mobile.

The offer to US Skype users is $29.95 per year. Those who sign up for the new plan before 31 January 2007 will get it for half price – $14.95 per year. Pay per call SkypeOut will continue.

Skype will be sweetening the deal further by giving 100 minutes of SkypeOut credit for making International calls and over $50 in discount coupons for purchasing Skype-certified hardware products.

Skype Zones Offers Wi-Fi Access On The Move Those Europeans who are surprised that calls to mobiles are included, should know that in the US owners of mobile pay to receive calls, so callers don’t pay extra to make them.

Until now, calls to landlines from Skype have been paid on a per calls basis, whenthey’re not offering free calls for a limited period which ends at the end of this year.

Skype are really doing rather well, with claims of over 11m Skype users, way in excess of any other VoIP services.

3.2m Wii-mote Straps NOT Recalled By Nintendo

3.2m Wii-mote Straps NOT Recalled By Nintendo There’s been quite a few stories flying around the Internet that Nintendo will be recalling 3.2m Wii remote safety straps.

We’ve been contacted by Nintendo to clarify the situation. They tell us that a _very_ small number of Wii remote straps have broken. How small? Well, they claim it’s 0.001% of the machines they’ve sold.

When we asked where the 3.2m figure came from, they said that it was unclear and they’re trying to trace the source.

If there have been breakages, they suspect that it’s been down to unusually active playing. It makes us think that if people are using their controllers that violently, they must be pretty passion game players.

Despite their view that their isn’t a problem, they’re offering an exchange service for those who are worried about their straps. UK owners should either contact them through [email protected] or on 0870 60 60 247.

They’re also passing on the “useful” tips for “safe play”

Always wear the wrist strap while playing.
Keep a firm grip on the Wii Remote at all times.
Make sure people and objects are out of the range of movement before play begins.
Players should keep at least three feet/ one meter from their televisions and dry their hands if they become sweaty or wet for any other reason.
Remember that the Wii Remote is responsive enough to detect minor movements – so excessive and forceful actions are not necessary. Therefore we recommend not to use excessively rapid, violent or wide swinging motions while using the Wii Remote during game play.

All new Wii machines will be shipped with the new-style strap, which Nintendo say is to alleviate the fears of the public..

Ofcom Proposed Spectrum Auction: Analysis

Ofcom Consulting On The Auction Of Spectrum In The 2GHz Band There’s a fair chunk of spectrum that’s sitting there not being used in the 2GHz band. The various bits are 2500-2690 MHz, 2010-2025 MHz and 2290-2300 MHz.

Ofcom has a duty to ensure spectrum isn’t wasted and as a consequence of the auction will end up driving revenue for the Government. Previously, and famously they did very well when they auctioned the 3G licenses, raising £21bn for the Treasury.

They recently auctioned some GSM spectrum and that only raised £3.8m, but it was much less than the 3G lot with many more restrictions.

Under its new face, and following EU directives, Ofcom likes to offer technology neutral licenses, which means the licensee can use the spectrum for whatever they want – as long as they meet the radio restrictions on that band (power, spectral masks, etc). They hope this will stimulate innovative services which is good for the economy.

There’s a lot of interest in the spectrum, as it could be used for lots of services including 3G and WiMAX, but that’s where the problems start.

Possible European Interference
There are various blocks of spectrum which are coordinated at a European level and each EU country uses the spectrum for the same things. That’s pretty much what happens for GSM and 3G, as well as some TV and radio bands.

It’s all organised by CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications) and the Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC), CEPT is represented by 47 countries and the RSC by 25 EU states. They ensure that radio usage is coordinated. Unfortunately radio waves don’t abide by national borders, so it would be no good if one country was using spectrum for say TV and another for radio as they’d interfere with each other.

Ofcom Consulting On The Auction Of Spectrum In The 2GHz Band

Though the UK is an island, interference issues are quite common, especially in the south east with France and the north east with the Dutch and even the Nordic countries. The west has to worry about Ireland (and of course Northern Ireland abides by UK policy).

These particular bands are already allocated for 3G, 10MHz in 2010 – 2020 MHz, is already designed for license-exempt self-provided, self-coordinated IMT-2000 use. In the UK none of the 3G networks have actually utilised it, though in other parts of Europe it has been used for this purpose.

2500 – 2690 MHz is currently mainly used for video broadcast systems, all licensees have been given notice to vacate by 31st December 2006. This is a significant amount of spectrum (190MHz) which is greater than is currently allocated to the whole of 3G use (140MHz). It was reserved for a “new” entrant if the current 5th 3G operator failed or for existing 3G expansion.

Ofcom’s suggestions summarised

Ofcom are currently holding UK consultations to see what stakeholders think should happen. They are proposing the following: –

2500-2690 MHz Packaged on the basis of blocks of 5 MHz as lots of paired spectrum (2×5 MHz, 120 MHz duplex spacing) and unpaired spectrum (5 MHz), with the eventual amount of lots in each category to be determined in the auction. The reference point is as per the CEPT band plan: 14 lots of paired channels (14x2x5 MHz with uplink in 2500-2570 MHz and downlink in 2620-2690 MHz) and 9 lots of unpaired channels (9×5 MHz in 2570-2615 MHz).

One guard channel will be necessary at adjacencies between paired and unpaired spectrum, at 2615-2620 MHz, and possibly another in the top part of the band.

There is a possibility to allow paired lots to be converted into the equivalent of two unpaired lots in the event that demand for unpaired lots exceeds that for paired lots at a given lot price.

Each bidder should receive contiguous lots in each category, except potentially one assignment of unpaired spectrum which could need to be split into two blocks of contiguous lots.

2010-2025 MHz Package for award as a single 15 MHz lot.

2290-2302 MHz Package for award as a single 10 MHz lot and retain 2300-2302 MHz for possible inclusion as part of a future award together with 2302-2310 MHz.

What might the response be?
The consultation will close in March 2007 and it’s likely the 3G operators will be extremely vocal in their claim to this spectrum, as they paid so much for their original licenses.

Once Ofcom digest the responses, they’ll then have to argue the case at the European level to ensure it can be licensed off in a technology neutral manner without upsetting our neighbours, however getting agreement from at least 47 countries tends to be a time consuming process.

Luckily CEPT are already discussing the issues and are expecting to make a statement in July next year. RSC will follow shortly after.

Although there’s no guarantee that discussions will go in Ofcom’s favour, they are hoping an award process can start in the Autumn of 2007, though it may well be delayed until 2008.

Potential Cash
With 16 national licenses available, there’s a fair amount of cash the government can expect to raise. Even if Ofcom set the minimum price at £50,000 then that’s £800,000 – they are likely to reach much higher values, although not the silly pricing that the original 3G licenses fetched.

Ofcom
CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications)
Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC)

Storm In A T(C) Cup: How Sam Sethi Was Sacked From TechCrunch UK: UPDATED

There’s a right kerfuffle going on in the blogosphere at the moment centering around TechCrunch UK, but with possible implications for two of the biggest names in the blogging world, Six Apart and the main TechCrunch (TC) site.

Here’s the background.

TechCrunch was a partner in Le Web 3 conference, organised by Loic Le Meur, the European representative of blogging tool supplier, Six Apart.
Many people have blogged that they were unhappy with the Le Web 3 conference in general, and specifically they were very unhappy with three French presidential hopefuls being parachuted in at the last moment. One of those was Nikolas Sarkozy, who was accused of racist comments, triggering the Parisian riots last year. The attendant bloggers reaction to this wasn’t very positive – to say the least.
Sam Sethi, editor/publisher (you take your pick) of TechCrunch UK writes a review after the event saying it wasn’t that good. Attending bloggers write much stronger pieces saying that the event stinks. Even the BBC reported the dissent.
Loic Le Meur (event organiser) leaves a comment calling Sethi an “asshole.”
Mike Arrington (founder of TechCrunch) has a private discussion with Le Meur who said he commented in haste, being emotional.
Arrington asks Sethi to remove the Asshole comment. Sethi refuses and posts his own comment mentioning the comment. Other parts of the Sethi comment disturb Arrington, particularly about conferences being organised by Sethi that he doesn’t know about.
Private chat between Arrington asks Sethi – result Sethi is fired for non-“ethical behaviour.”
Sethi posts this to Tech Crunch UK (TC UK). His comment is then removed by Arrington (these are later re-published elsewhere by bloggers who read them on their RSS feedreaders).
Arrington posts a comment “Putting TechCrunch UK on Hold” on TC UK.
Next – All hell breaks loose in the blogging world with everyone sticking in the comment on their blogs or on TechCrunch, CrunchNotes and Tech Crunch UK.
Arrington comes back on the site and says that he doesn’t like the comments he’s been seeing and may well just shut down TC UK.
Cue lots more comments on how ridiculous Arrington is – and the odd one supporting him.
UPDATE:Mike Butcher got in touch with us to let us know that he’s now resigned as co-editor of TC UK. Lots of detail in his post.

Truly a storm in a T(C) cup, but it does raise a lot of interesting issues.

What’s the fall out?
Arrington has come off very badly in this and from reading the many comments posted about it, I think it’s highly likely that many of the previous fans of TechCrunch may well stop reading it, in disgust of the way they feel it’s been handled – particularly those from Europe who attended Le Web. TechCrunch UK may well have been terminally damaged through this.

Prior to this, not a bad word has been even whispered against TechCrunch. It was hugely widely read making it one of the most popular sites on the Internet – its RSS feed alone has 144,000 subscribers. Now, in the matter of a couple days it’s possible that it may struggle to maintain its position.

This also extends to Six Apart, because of the Le Meur connection. The size and success of Six Apart was built on support from bloggers – but it’s arguable that they are now sufficiently popular with the general public that they are beyond being damaged by bloggers railing against them.

Only time will tell if Six Apart stick by Le Meur. This could well be dictated by the reaction of the bloggers as they look to continue to rant on the subject and run out of things to say about TC. At the very least I suspect Le Web won’t be hitting number 4.

What issues are raised by this?
Again accountability and transparency of business relationships (many question the deal between Le Web and TC) have been shown to be of the upmost importance in the world of blogging – and quite right too.

It also raises the issue of who owns a comment once it has been posted to a site – is it the poster, or is it the owner of the site it is posted to?

If you want more details – and there’s plenty more of them, you can find them on TechCrunch UK; CrunchNotes or more generally on a search for Sethi on Technorati

On a much lighter note, well done to Jemima, writing for the Guardian, in digging out this photo of Mike Arrington, which we’re sure will be referenced many times over the next period of inevitable fuss around this issue.

Sarkozy Image courtesy of Feuillu

BT Internet Radio Review (75%)

BT Internet Radio Review (75%) With last week’s launch of it’s TV over the Internet service, a raft of integrated net-based services and a slew of new hardware devices, BT has relauched itself as a multi-media service provider instead of a plain old utility company. The BT Internet Radio shows another face of BT’s rebranding. It’s a slickly designed consumer electrical product aimed directly at the growing digital radio sector.

The design of the device itself echoes Apple’s trademark austere, white aesthetic. Organically shaped, it has no straight edges or corners and is slightly flared towards the base. Wraparound silver mesh panels add some contrast and a front centred LED displays information in a soft blue light. On top are a series of quite ‘plasticy’ buttons. Two larger buttons provide volume control and menu navigation and various others control playback, station memory, alarm and other functions.

Setting it up is a breeze. A simple press button starts the device scanning for your wireless network. You log on using the scrolling navigation button to enter your normal network password and the radio takes care of the rest.

Once online, stations are accessed through the same navigation button. They are grouped by location or genre, though there doesn’t appear to be a way just to browse all available stations. A series of sub-menus gives access to the features of each station. A choice between live and on demand material is visible where archived material is available. This means you can access services like the BBC’s listen-again service, picking programmes from all the recent BBC broadcasts for the last seven days. More sub menus allow you to choose programmes and days where appropriate.

BT Internet Radio Review (75%) Choosing between stations is a bit of a hit and miss affair. If your tastes tend towards anything beyond the mainstream categorizations (rock, pop, dance, hip hop etc) you’ll struggle to find the music you want to hear. This, of course, isn’t BT’s fault. The device uses the Reciva Internet Portal to aggregate its stations. If you access the Reciva Website (Reciva) you can find some more detail on the content of stations but, since Reciva (like the Gracenote database) allows users to add information there are some frustratingly arbitrary categorizations. That said, there are over 5000 stations available and, once I located Resonance FM under the experimental section I was happily listening to an assortment of droning and scraping, Bollywood soundtracks and post-modern poetry.

Sound quality is quite adequate and better than that produced by most internal computer speakers. The sound is deep and clear with none of the echoing or breakup that DAB radio is prone to. There are, however, a couple of niggles with sound adjustment. There is no way to adjust bass or treble and the volume control does not automatically increase when held down, meaning you have to keep pressing to raise or lower volume. Unlike DAB, the radio doesn’t display any info (such as such as track titles) about the source.

Using the unit was no problem though there were some irritations. It tends to hang on to the last programme played and starts up replaying that every time. In the case of a live station that’s ok but for archived content it can become annoying. The radio is also subject to same problems you would encounter with any wireless device: proximity to router and the number of walls in between can affect reception. I noticed a tendency for buffering in most locations in which I tried. Access to a signal is entirely dependent on your internet connection being on. My router drops the line when it isn’t in use therefore the auto-play alarm function is no use. When the unit reconnects to the network after being switched off, it uses the saved security key however I found that often the logon failed a second attempt was required.

BT Internet Radio Review (75%) The device can access and playback MP3 or other audio files from a networked PC. An extremely useful feature and one that really capitalizes on the network power of the unit. It probably would have done the most to sell this device to me. In practice it was unable to connect to my PC so I had to leave the feature untested. Typically, macs are not supported and I was unable to access my sizable MP3 collection via either of the macs on the network. It’s not surprising that BT have chosen to adopt Windows technology for integration with computers but it is disappointing that they couldn’t have adopted an interoperable standard which would have supported any operating system.

Given that Windows-centric tendency I wonder exactly who the Internet Radio will be useful to? On one hand it brings a host of Internet radio stations and a variety of useful services and features into one portable unit. It’s easy to set up and use and, in the right circumstances, has the potential to integrate with an existing network to provide extended access to shared music files.

On the other hand, it is only Windows compatible and therefore restricted in terms of both OS and DRM technologies.

Conclusion

If you are already streaming audio over your wireless network, there isn’t a whole lot of extra functionality in this box. Since a wireless network is a necessary prerequisite for the unit to work, I have to wonder how many people will find it sufficiently superior to their existing methods of playback to make it worth the £120 price tag.

Score: 75%

DRM-Interchange Alive And Living In Korea

DRM-Interchange Alive And Living In Korea As we’ve been covering for ages, Korea is super forward in many things electronic.

Now they’re leading in their treatment of DRM – making different DRM schemes interchangeable.

DRM systems are used to restrict what people can do with their digital media, normally audio and video. This pleases the content owners considerably, but consumers are finding it frustrating that media they are buying on one service will not play on all of their portable music players – eg music bought on iTunes cannot play on a non-iPod player.

By making DRM system interchangeable, the hope is that everyone remains happy – the content owner, because the content stays ‘protected’ by the DRM and the consumer because they have the freedom to move it to any playing device they have.

DRM-Interchange Alive And Living In Korea The Koreans are achieving this by the EXIM standard for online and mobile music service. EXIM stands for Export/Import which was developed Korea’s Electronic & Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and INKA Entworks. It should be wide reaching as up to 90% of online music sites and 70% of portable music devices deployed in Korea at the moment use DRM solutions based on the EXIM standard.

What differentiates the Korean mobile music market is that all phones sold since 2003 have a USB connector, which is used to transfer music they download via their computers, to their mobiles. This is sometimes called sideloading.

DRM-Interchange Alive And Living In Korea SK Telecom, the largest mobile provider in Korea as finally agreed to open up their handsets and service to allow music from third party services to be used. Until now only content authorised by SK could be loaded onto their phones.

James Ahn, CEO of INKA Entworks, was clearly excited at the prospect, “SK Telecom’s decision to implement the EXIM standard is an important milestone because of its dominant position in the mobile phone services and online music services markets. We’re happy to have SK Telecom as a partner.”

ETRI
INKA