With penetration of 50.2% of UK households, the total number of homes in the UK watching digital television now stands at 12.3 million, up 423,000 in Q4 2003. This number includes 3.2 million free to air digital viewers using Freeview and ITV Digital boxes, and PC cards.
The report will be submitted to the secretary of state for culture, media and sport at the end of March.
SCO is charging companies a licencing fee for using Linux – despite the fact that they don’t offer a distribution of the open source operating system, but instead claim ownership over part of the code used in the kernel.
The key reason we bring you news in this area is because Linux is a fundamental part of many of the devices that Digital Lifestyles readers use now, or will use in the future: the Linux kernel has been extremely successful as an embedded operating system in consumer devices.
The majority of set-top boxes use a Linux kernel as their operating system, Linux is the core of many phones and PDAs, and PVRs (and PVR-capable cards) are increasingly either Linux-based or feature extensive Linux support. Even your G5 Macintosh running OSX has more than a whiff of the penguin about it, just under that Aqua look and feel. This is because other operating systems are often too flabby to function on the limited hardware available or licensing another operating system can just be too expensive.
If SCO are successful in their legal claim it will push up the cost of licencing the kernel for use in embedded devices.
Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources (a varied remit if ever we saw one) Dermot Ahern has launched a free wifi service at the country’s three largest airports to mark Ireland’s Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers.
The service is only free until June, and will be centred on departure lounges and other major passenger areas.
Hosted by Aer Rianta at Dublin, Shannon and Cork Airports, each location will be in partnership with either Eircom, Esat Telecom and O2, depending on what airport you’re visiting.
Twenty million passegers pass through these airports each year and given how much of that traffic is related to the technology firms in Ireland, the service should be very successful.
West Lothian Council has banned mobile camera phones from all 11 secondary schools and 66 primary schools in its area. The council stated misuse of the cameras as its motivation for the ruling – images can be used for bullying or more sinister purposes, though the council has yet to receive any complaints involving the phones.
The Gartner Group estimate that soon 80% of phones sold will feature cameras, and this is causing security problems in companies, as well as personal security issues. Many companies simply do not have the infrastructure, staff or budget to protect their business and employees from misuse of digital camera phones.
A report from the UN University recommends more effort is made to recycle computer hardware as every PC, from production to disposal, uses huge amounts of natural resources.
The UN report states that producing a PC system (base unit, monitor etc.) requires 240kg of fossil fuel, 22kg of other chemicals and 1.5 tonnes of water. This incredible figure then needs to be multiplied by 130 million, as that’s the number of PCs that roll out of factories every year.
BBC Breakfast picked up on the news and produced a rather confusing report based on it: they seemed to think that UK computer firms could take old motherboards and produce refurbished computers from them after a bit of recycling. Recycling electronic components is extremely difficult and produces large amounts of toxic materials, requiring specialist facilities which are often in developing countries.
So what can you do?
Only about 10% of electronic devices are recycled currently. To address this, the European Union has legislation coming into place in 2005 which will promote recycling by organising proper “take back” services and drop-off points for equipment – though expect the cost of a PC to go up by about US$50 as a result. Small price to pay, we say.
Computer Aid (UK, France and Spain) Digital-Lifestyles.info’s choice
With the same memory capacity as the BBC Micro and based on Radio Frequency ID (RFID) technology, researchers have developed a paper board computer with 32kb of memory and basic processing and communication capabilities.
The device has many applications in data collection and processing – self-tracking courier packages, passports, pharmaceutical dosing, interactive books … the list is endless. As it incorporates a high standard of encryption, transactions with the device can be secure and authenticated. Current projects for the Cypak computer include providing tamper-proof packaging for the Swedish Post Office and pharmaceutical monitoring with a Swedish university.
The computer is based on “printed” sensors and can be incorporated in a wide range of products, and is priced at about US$1.
From July 2005, every digital TV tuner sold in North America, whether a card or standalone television set, will incorporate a chip listening out for the Advanced Television Systems Committee Flag, or “broadcast flag” as it has become known.
Devised by the Motion Picture Association of America, the broadcast flag is a technology where broadcasters will be able to control whether or not a home viewer can make a digital copy of a particular programme. If a programme has the flag set, receivers disable their digital outputs – so if a viewer wishes to make a copy, it will have to be onto analogue tape, or onto special low-resolution DVDs.
Needless to say the flag has had a somewhat mixed reception – as do most initiatives where the default position is to mistrust the customer.
But what will the flag be capable of in the future? Further incarnations of the technology could be used to prevent viewers from skipping adverts, or even preventing time shifting.
Kevin Rollins, Dell’s president and chief operating officer has taken over the role of CEO from Michael Dell. Rollins joined the company as second in command in 1996, from Bains and Co.
Last year, Dell announced plans to launch new consumer products including televisions and its own personal music player.
Dell founded the company in 1984 with US$1,000 – last year Dell’s sales were worth $41.4bn. Shares in the company closed down slightly on the announcement, but the news is not expected to damage the company’s share price in the long term.
In what’s beginning to become a crowded market, Scientific Atlanta have announced that they are working on a games console. No specifications have been released yet, but the company claimed the device could compete with current games consoles from Sony and Nintendo. Chief Executive James McDonald said their new product would offer “the same performance you get out of those game boxes.”
Scientific Atlanta do not expect their Explorer hardware to be available to buy on the high street but will instead be installed by cable operators in subscribers’ homes. Games will then be downloaded to the box on a pay-per-play or perhaps a “buy outright” charging scheme.
Set top box builders and suppliers are working on ever more sophisticated hardware to compete for the coveted space under your television – getting the most compelling media gateway into millions of homes is worth a lot of revenue.
It will be interesting to see how the new console compares with Infinium Labs’ notorious Phantom console, summarised here a few weeks ago. What content will be available for Scientific Atlanta’s new console? It’ll need a lot of software to be able to compete with the systems already in the market, and with the potentially huge library of adapted PC games available to the Phantom.
Also allegedly about to emerge is the DISCover Console – a PC based system that boasts of the simplicity of a console. It allows users to play games simply by dropping the disk in the DISCover’s drive, rather than having to install and configure each game. The DISCover may cause problems for both Infinium and Scientific Atlanta based on the technology they eventually use: their website claims “‘DISCover® technology is protected by U.S. Patent No. 5,721, 951: a “home entertainment system for playing software designed for play in home computers.’ No one can manufacture a game console that plays PC games without infringing on this patent.”
Universal Music has digitised its back catalogue and signed a deal with OD2, currently Europe’s largest digital music distributor. We say currently, because iTunes and Napster have yet to launch in Europe – and Universal has deals in place with Apple and Roxio for when those music sites open up later this year. OD2 operates MyCokeMusic and MediaMarkt, amongst others.
The 300,000 tracks will not be available as MP3s – Universal is keen to use DRM to protect the tracks which are extremely popular and bound to appeal to music copiers, though customers will be able to burn tracks to CD and transfer them to audio players. Artists in the deal include Rob Zombie, The Orb and, of course, the talentlessly unpleasant ex-Soviet sock puppets T.A.T.U.