McDonald’s and Softbank will be offering free Wireless Internet access (WiFi) from twenty of their restaurants in Japan for six months, to coincide with the World Cup.
Month: May 2002
TiVo announce AOL IM deal
TiVo have just announced a deal with one of their current investors, AOL, to include their instant messaging and live chat on to the Series2 TiVo. Interestingly TiVo/AOL users will be able to set their TiVo recording schedule via AOL – I thought it was pretty stunning that remote programming wasn’t build in from the outset.
Sony buys part of Real Networks
Sony has bought 1% of Real Networks to demonstrate how they are getting closer together, in their attempt to fend off Microsoft taking control of digital music.
Cricket to be webcast
In contrast to the football World Cup, all international cricket from India will be broadcast live on the Internet to registered users of wisden.com.
Audio webcasting goes silent
Yesterday the audio webcasting industry went silent for the day, as a protest to the recently recommended fee of 0.14 US cents per track played. Webcasters say they already finding it hard to survive and the additional financial burden of paying, what initially looks like a small amount of money, would add about an extra $9,000 to their monthly cost. Clearly the record companies don’t see it that way and by 21.May, we will all find out what the final figure due will be as that’s when the Librarian of Congress is required to set sound recording performance royalty rates for Web radio stations.
World Cup streaming video pricing announced
The details of the online viewing of the Korean-held World Cup have now been announced. For a cost of $19.95 viewers will be able to watch four-minute video packages at up to 300k of each of the 64 matches and listen to bespoke commentaries in either English, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish or German. They will be available two to three hours after the match finish, to keep the TV stations happy I suspect.
Telewest drop broadband pricing
Telewest are running a special broadband promotion in the UK. The 4.3m households that lie within Telewest a franchise will be able to get the first three months of the blueyonder service for £13.48 not the usual £25 charge.