April 2004 – Page 3 – Digital-Lifestyles

Forgent Networks Sues 31 Companies Over JPEG Patent

Forgent Networks are claiming ownership for a patent filed in 1986 by Compression Labs – a dormant company acquired by Forgent in 1997

Forgent Networks are now suing, amongst others, JVC, Matsushita, Fuji Photo, Agfa, Dell, HP, Apple, Adobe … the list goes on.

The suddenly flurry of activity could be something to do with the fact that the patent was filed 18 years ago, and Forgent have less than two years to milk some revenue out of it. However, since the defendants have now been notified, Forgent can now take their time seeking damages, and they can claim damages all the way back to when the claim was issued.

Unisys and Compuserve began to seek royalites on their LZW compression algorithm in the late 90s as that patent neared its expiry. Hence, 20th June 2003 was known as “GIF Liberation Day” when the patent finally expired.

If these suits are successful, everyone will have to charge more for software that uses the JPEG format (i.e. Almost everything) or the file type will just be abandoned for something less controversial. This will suit Microsoft, as the PNG format will be most likely benefit.

We ran an April Fool on a company who claimed to own the patent for plain text in programs – but now we’ve seen this story, we rather wish we hadn’t.

Forgent Networks

The Register comments

Picsel – Better Web Browsing on Mobile Phones

Browsing the web on a mobile phone is still a less than satisfying experience – and that’s without taking connection speeds into account. Mobile phone browsers have always been simpler, less featured affairs due to memory and processor limitations. Consequently phone users are missing out on a lot of the internet: many site architects don’t bother testing with mobile browsers, or can’t be bothered writing for them. We can’t blame them either – often the browsers themselves are inconsistent, or writing for them is unimaginably painful. We wrote a WAP application a couple of years ago and we’re sure it’s responsible for some of the bad dreams we have still.

Picsel Technologies have a browser that uses their ePAGE multi-media content engine to give phone users a better experience on the web, without site providers having to write special portals for phones.

Instead of staring at tiny text on a page, the Picsel browser allows users to zoom in on any content and pan it about with Live Pan and Zoom. LPZ is compatible with a range of input methods, so you’ll be able to use it with a stylus or phone joystick.

The browser will also resize content to fit the width of the screen, avoiding all that tedious back and forth scrolling, just because someone doesn’t know how to properly set table widths in Dreamweaver. File filters for Microsoft Word and Adobe’s PDF are welcome additions, and should ensure that you can read the majority of things you get sent at the last minute for reading on the train to your meetings.

The first phone to feature the browser is Motorola’s A768 smartphone. The A768 is based on Linux, but Picsel will also be providing their browser for Motorola’s MPX smartphone which is based on Microsoft Windows Mobile.

How the browser works Picsel’s information sheet

Stream Ripping Gains Popularity

We never did it of course, but many people remember sitting by their cassette radio as a child, waiting to tape favourite songs off the charts to a fresh C90. Stream ripping is basically a 2004 remix of that old Sunday evening tradition, and it’s providing music sharers with a “new” way to acquire content – and it’s untraceable.

Stream ripping applications allow users to capture multiple streams all day, amounting to several thousand songs. In fact, one program, StationRipper will record 300 streams simultaneously and make a separate MP3 for every song played. It will even skip broadcast tracks that you’ve already recorded.

We tried StationRipper this morning as a bit of reaseach and found it almost unbelievably easy to use. It works best with Shoutcast, but you can access any radio station stream you have a URL for.

One feature that particularly impressed us was the ability to buy whatever music was being played in a stream – simply click on the station and then the buy button: StreamRipper takes the track details to Amazon and presents you with the album featuring the track, if it’s found.

Greg Ratajik wrote StationRipper after he saw the limitations in other programs like StreamRipper32, and estimates that the program has been downloaded over 350,000 times.

Whilst not quite as user friendly as many P2P packages, and with many of the problems associated with recording traditional radio stations (lower broadcast quality, DJs prattling over the top of music), programs like StationRipper present a convenient way of time-shifting internet radio broadcasts.

Acquiring music from ripping radio streams is untraceable, unlike logging onto P2P networks and downloading tracks. The radio station will have a listener’s IP number, but since users aren’t required to log into most stations, it’s extremely difficulty to ID them. Besides, they have no way of telling if someone is listening to a stream or archiving it.

But is it legal? Stream ripping software has lots of non-infringing uses, so it looks like the programs have nothing to fear … yet. It’s really up to what the user then does with the music – if they are using it as a way to acquire music without paying, or then go onto to share streams or tracks that they have ripped, then that’s illegal.

Stream ripping applications go to further demonstrate that if labels insist on crippling music with restrictive and untrusting DRM, then inventive consumers will find ways to defeat it until they get a fairer system.

StationRipper

Shoutcast

US Wireless Broadband Market Grows – But Which Standard Will Survive?

One thing is for certain – demand for wireless broadband is going to increase rapidly in the US. However, perceived competition between the three main access technologies means that many companies don’t know how to meet that demand.

WiFi, WiMAX and 802.20 are three technologies for providing broadband network connections wirelessly, and it’s difficult to tell which one to back in this race.

WiFi is well established, has a reasonably large installed base and is in use globally. As McDonalds have already named their WiFi provider, you can tell it’s reached mainstream.

WiMAX is backed extensively by Intel and Nokia, and is rapidly emerging as a favourite, though cards employing the technology and WiMAX-enabled laptops are not expected to reach the market until 2007.

WiMAX, based on the 802.16 standard, has huge bandwidth – typically more than 30 times that of 3G data services – and it allows subscribers to receive broadband network access simply by attaching a receiver to their home. This method is being trialled by BT in rural areas as an alternative to digging up fields. The standard is also suitable for people on the move as WiMAX can be used in vehicles up to a speed of 150 Km/h.

The 802.20 wireless networking standard will let you travel at 250 Km/h and still keep a network connection, and so is ideal for deployment on high speed trains.

There are some overlaps between the two technologies, but they are not meant to compete. WiMAX is intended for fixed locations like houses, or a mobile user with a PDA or laptop. 802.20 is intended for high-speed mobility, and can be overlaid on top of an existing WiMAX network.

The WiMAX forum

Senza Fili Consulting’s report on wireless broadband

Inside 802.16

Police Seize 200 Computers in Anti-Piracy Raid

Law enforcement agencies in 11 countries have seized 200 computers in raids on piracy networks around the world. No arrests have been made yet, but charges are expected to be brought.

The 120 synchronised raids were targeted at illegal operations in 27 US states and also in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the UK. The raided groups are suspected of distributing games and films as “warez”. The US Customs Department estimated (and we suspect this is a real finger in the air guess) that the 100 participants identified were responsible for 95% of all pirated material online. We think that is highly unlikely.

The raids, part of Operation Fastlink, were described by US Attorney General John Ashcroft as “the most far-reaching and aggressive enforcement action ever” against online piracy. Amongst the equipment seized were 30 file servers. Looks like someone won’t be downloading that copy of Half Life 2 they were hoping to.

John Malcolm, chief of antipiracy operations for the Motion Picture Association told the Associated Press: “Today is a good day for creative artists. Without copyright protection and enforcement, piracy will dramatically and deleteriously impact the future of the American film industry.”

ZDNet on the story

Tactile Text Messages

Researchers at Bonn University have come up with a way of feeling text messages using a matrix of pins. Rather like the Braille readers used by blind and partially-sighted PC users, pins are raised and lowered, in patterns – but the system isn’t Braille for mobile phones yet.

Users program which patterns the phone makes to which keywords – examples given are a wave towards the user to indicate “I” and you a wave away from the user to indicate “you”.

It’s currently cumbersome, and of limited use (why not just look at your phone?), but the team feel it will have uses in art-installations or other more traditional feedback systems – such as steering wheels. There’s also no reason why the system can’t be refined so that blind users can read text messages.

If the array can be made small enough to work with mobile phones of 3g dimensions, this feedback system might be a great idea for giving access to PDAs for the blind.

Prof Eckmiller of Bonn University told the BBC: “Our major intention with this invention and development is to open up the sense of touch as a new channel for human communication, the sense of touch will in the future be added as the third communication channel to human communication technologies.”

Department of Neuroinformatics at Bonn

Napster Hits Problems as European iTunes Launch Confirmed

Napster has run into licensing problems as it prepares its UK launch – with only four months to go. It would appear that the fragmented nature of Europe’s music labels, licensing bodies and royalty collection services are causing headaches for the new music services.

Negotiations are apparently heading back on track in the UK, but are only in preliminary stages in Europe.

Former Napster investors Bertelsmann AG will be in court in San Francisco next week where music labels are accusing the media giant of keeping the download service operational because of its investment in 2000.

Bertelsmann invested US$90 million (€76 million) in Napster in 2000, hoping to turn the service into the legal music site it is now. Now Universal Music and the EMI Group are claiming the $90 million investment cost them approximately $17 billion (€14.3 billion) in lost revenue because of illegal downloads.

Not a bad return on an investment, really.

Reuters

Napster – still Coming Soon

Send Spam, Get Paid, Get Banned

Sendmails Corp are a marketing firm that know that people will do anything for money – and that includes allowing their PCs to be used to send spam. The New Hampshire-based company is offering US$5 (€4.22) to internet users who download and install their VirtualMDA (Mail Delivery Agent) client, followed by US$1 for every hour of CPU time the agent uses sending out bulk emails to “customers”.

Despite fact that most net users complain bitterly about the unstoppable rise in unsolicited emails, anti-spam groups fear that plain old human greed will prompt people to sign up for the service, and spam will just get worse.

There is, of course another problem here. Sending spam isn’t SETI@home – it doesn’t take massive amounts of CPU cycles to even huge amounts of mail. Sendmail don’t really want your processor time – what they’re really after is your IP (internet protocol) address.

Companies who make a habit of making huge bulk mailings tend to get their IP address blocked by ISP’s mail servers. Internet service providers know who the key culprits are and block or at least heavily filter all mail coming from their domains. Users of VirtualMDA will be sending spam from their own IP address – and that’s not going to make your DSL provider very happy. They’ll ban you, and your email address may well get blocked by several mail providers.

Of course, Sendmail and their customers don’t care about this as plenty more people will sign up and take the US$1.

Wired on the service

Computer not as busy as it could be? Sign up for SETI and get us all killed

CyWorld – A Virtual World with 6 Million Inhabitants

Six million virtual inhabitants? No, it’s not Everquest, it’s not Star Wars Galaxies and sadly it’s not EVE – Cyworld is a Korean virtual community, and the fastest growing site in the country.The site has proven so popular that Park Geun-hee, the daughter of former president Park Chung-hee caused a stir last month by creating her own Cyworld site with pictures of her hobbies and video of her playing the piano. “I wanted to find a way to show young people, especially young girls, who I really am”, she later explained to the press.

Cyworld was founded in 2001 and toodled along for a few years with a number of keen fans, but its popularity exploded when SK Telecom bought it. SKT put marketing Won behind it and it now has 13% of Korea’s 47.6 million inhabitants as members. Korea has long been a key part of the connected world – nearly 80% of Koreans subscribe to broadband internet services, spending an average of 13.5 hours per week.

Subscribers to Cyworld, meet, decorate their homes, wander about a bit, listen to music, accessorise and invite friends over for parties – just what young trendy avatars like to do. Graphics are stylish, but simple and colourful isometric drawings – none of the 3D polygon look that has blighted many attempts at virtual worlds in the past. Think eBoy meets meets MacPaint.

So, apart from subscription costs, what’s the revenue stream? Cyworld’s currency is the Acorn – Acorns are used to buy music for your virtual gatherings, furniture and accessories to keep you at the height of avatar fashion. Here’s another incredible fact: about 100 million Won worth (€72,000, US$85,000) are sold to subscribers every day. That’s about €26.3 million (USD$31 million) worth of play money sold every year.

With 30,000 new members signing up every day, there’s obviously a lot of money to be made in virtual worlds. Could a site like Cyworld be this popular in the West? And who would design it?

One hundred million Won worth of Acorns sold every day.

Cyworld’s home page (Korean)

NAB: New 5.1 Extension Means Better Compression

Dolby Laboratories have announced an extension to their Dolby 5.1 codec, called Dolby Digital Plus. The codec extension is of particular interest to television broadcasters because of the efficiency of its compression: if audio tracks take up less room, then it leaves more bandwidth for more channels.

Broadcasters are keen to deliver more channels to customers – particularly when they’re charging them – but need to keep picture quality up to, or even better than, current standards.The existing DD codec supports but rates from 320Kbps to 640Kbps for 5.1 audio – yet this new extension will reproduce 5.1-channel sound down to 192Kbps. Dolby Digital Plus has a new top end to – up to 6Mbps, which will no doubt be handy in the future.

Importantly, Digital Plus is backwardly-compatible with previous versions of the 5.1 codec.

Dolby have already come up with an interesting application for the new codec – a DVD could access a studio’s website and stream a live director’s commentary, or other interactive content, through the viewer’s TV.

Dolby Digital on Digital Plus