May 2005

Apple Releases Tiger Patch. So soon?
Just 17 days after releasing its ‘Tiger’ OS X 10.4 operating system, Apple has issued a sizeable bug fix update after growing gripes from customers.
The hefty 37MB patch delivers upgraded graphics card drivers and fixes at least 35 bugs in the operating system, including problems with bundled applications such as the Mail client, Safari browser, iCal, Mail client, iSync and iDVD.
Almost immediately after Tiger was launched, customers were posting up on Internet bulletin boards detailing problems varying from networking hassles to applications that would crash under certain circumstances.
Upgraders weren’t too pleased to discover that Safari would “unexpectedly quit” when right clicking on some PDF files or graphics or that iDVD would commit hari-kari when hiding it while burning a DVD or saving a disc image.
Russians were also most annoyedski to find the iDVD player bombing when the operating system was set to their home language (something that affected a host of other languages too).
A security fix included in the update disallows files, applications and Web pages from automatically opening at the password prompt, appearing whenever a user wakes the computer from sleep or stops a screen saver.
Apple’s support site claims the patch also improves the reliability of the operating system’s Active Directory plug-in.
Talking to vnunet.com, senior analyst Joe Wilcox at Jupiter Research commented: “The quick update really shows how responsive Apple tries to be in respect to its operating system.”
But there was a sting in Wilcox’s praise, as the analyst pointed out that releasing such a man-sized patch just weeks after the launch revealed a flaw in Apple’s development process.
“A lot of things [at Apple] are pretty secretive; there aren’t necessarily as many eyes looking over the products as there could be,” said Wilcox, commenting on the company’s decision to use a limited group of beta testers looking at the code.
“Apple has a developer programme that catches a lot of things, but certain problems won’t be uncovered until a whole lot of people have the software,” he added.
The 10.4.1 update can be downloaded manually from Apple’s Web site, or retrieved automatically from within the Tiger OS using its Software Update feature.
About the Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update
Apple download page
vnunet.com
19 May, 2005
UK Office Workers: 20% Using IM
Despite the corporate wires buzzing with office gossips, chatting clerks, bored employees and downloading demons, a survey warns that IM remains unregulated in the workplace.
An online survey by YouGov, commissioned by security firm Akonix, has revealed that a quarter of users admitted to using Instant Messaging for office gossip, with another quarter admitting that they have used it to send something their boss wouldn’t approve of.
A further 16% have admitted to sending or receiving sensitive company information via IM.
Once the domain of hyperactive teens chatting incessantly online with their chums, IM has become one of the most widely deployed communications tools in corporations today with research firm Gartner predicting that the number of IM messages sent will outweigh the number of e-mail messages by 2006.
IM has grown hugely popular with users aged 18-29 years, with 80% of people in this age group saying they use it to blather away with friends and family at work.
Some 25% of particularly bored office workers have also used IM to download music and film trailers at work.
According to research firm Gartner, nearly three quarters of IM services are installed on to office PCs by employees sneakily downloading them for their own purposes.
Despite Bill Harmer, managing director of Akonix, warning of the risks of letting employees install software that has not been vetted by the IT bods, 62% of firms admitted to having no policy or technology in place to manage or block IM.
With most instant messaging in the workplace taking place over free, public IM networks, there is a danger that IM systems can open up dangerous security holes in a corporate network.
Public IM traffic is not encrypted, leaving it susceptible to ‘orrible hackers, identify spoofers and pesky packet-sniffers, increasing the possibility of networks becoming vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks.
For example, anti-virus firm Symantec reported a 400 percent increase in IM and peer-to-peer (P2P) networking viruses, worms and trojans over the last 12 months.
Harmer noted that IM could bring big benefits to firms but it needed policies to regulate its use and technical solutions to ward off spammers and virus writers targeting IM.
“The findings of this survey should be a wake-up call to UK companies. IM should be embraced but protect your business adequately or the consequences can be severe,” finger-wagged Mr Harmer.
The YouGov survey found that in addition to its gossiping potential, IM can be an invaluable business tool for improving communications with customers or partners, gathering information or maintaining contacts.
Worryingly for many an office time-waster, Mr Harmer urged firms to archive all IM messages and be mindful of government regulations that demand that company data be stored for longer periods of time.
The survey was carried out by online pollsters YouGov with two thousand UK residents taking part.
MSN Messenger
YouGov
You can’t stop IM so learn to love it
19 May, 2005
Nintendo Revolution Console Details Revealed: E3
After the high profile launches of Microsoft’s next generation consoles, Nintendo disappointed razzamatazz-seeking visitors at the E3 show by serving up a rather understated presentation.
Beginning with a talk about their plans for their other consoles, Nintendo revealed their upcoming Game Boy Micro and the “Nintendo WiFi Connection”, a free worldwide gaming service for the DS.
Of course, what the assembled hacks really wanted to know about was the new Revolution console, but Saturo Iwata, Nintendo’s main man, was coy on specific details, offering a black prototype box with a blue front-loading disc drive.
This, Iwata explained, was still only a prototype and the small size – about the same as three DVD cases stacked on top of each other – may become even smaller by the time the Revolution hits the shops.
A few facts did emerge: the Revolution will come with 512MB of internal RAM, an IBM CPU, ATi GPU, an SD slot, built-in WiFi, wireless controllers and a selection of USB2 ports.
The expected whizz bang, jaw-dropping demo videos were not in attendance, although Itawa assured the audience that the Revolution’s graphics will “wow” gamers when they finally get an eyeful of them.
Not everyone is convinced about these claims, with some industry pundits predicting that the Revolution’s processing power will be but a mere squeak compared to the mighty powerhouses lurking inside the PS3 and X360 consoles.
But Nintendo’s success has been built on gameplay not sheer grunt, a fact highlighted by Itawa, “It is the game experience that will most separate Revolution from its competitors.”
Nintendo’s new machine will be their first console capable of playing standard storage DVDs, but they haven’t forgotten their old-school fans, with the Revolution able to accept Ye Olde Gamecube discs.
Impressively, the company has ensured that backward compatibility goes all the way back to the dawn of time, offering support for every single game that has ever been released for a Nintendo home system – including N64, SNES and NES consoles.
Nintendo teased the crowd with talk of a new online content delivery service, although actual details were thin on the ground.
Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo were unable to roll out an all-star glittering cast of big name game partners, although Itawa was able to confirm several games under development for the Revolution including Metroid Prime 3, The Legend of Zelda, Mario and Donkey Kong.
The Final Fantasy series is also expected to appear onto the Revolution as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicle.
Rumours persist that Nintendo may have a surprise up their sleeve for the end of the expo, but so far reaction to their presentation seems a little muted.
The Revolution faces fearsome competition from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 as manufacturers move to create digital entertainment hubs rather than simple video games consoles.
“They are all pursing strategies that really play to their own strengths,” said P.J. McNealy, a senior analyst at American Technology Research. “At this point it is primarily marketing and position, that’s the main goal here.”
Nintendo
18 May, 2005
Llamasoft Visualiser Built Into XBox 360
Wooargh! The lights! The shapes…the colours….all that swirling…and moving…have I gone back in time to a chemically assisted squat rave?
Sadly not: instead, I’m being mesmerised by Jeff Minter’s Llamasoft graphics, a cutting edge music visualisation system designed for Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
Based on Neon, Llamasoft’s proprietary graphics technology, the Llamasoft Visualiser comes pre-installed on Xbox360s and it’s “capable of generating anything from soothing ambient swirls to strobing multicolour explosions.”
The mind-melding visual feasts are driven by beat detection or joypad control, letting users take interactive control of the camera, patterns and effect generators, to create their own psychedelic wig-outs.
The results are pretty damn amazing, with the silky smooth, rock-solid rendering engine creating a brain-troubling swathe of swirling, abstract, multi-layered psychotropic imagery.
The effect is so convincing, that all you’d need is some 2,000 watt techno blasting out, a floor covered in spent beer cans, a few ‘funny’ cigarettes and you could recreate the perfect rave in your bedroom.
We’ve liked Jeff Minter’s stuff ever since the days when an Amiga 1200 (RIP) with 4meg of RAM was considered positively ostentatious. Even then his Llamatron was streets ahead of the competition, so it’s great it see the spliff-consuming, loveable hippy still producing such great work.
“Without giving any secrets away and getting myself into trouble with Microsoft,” enthused Minter, “I can tell you that the Xbox 360 can bring to bear an absolutely staggering amount of computational power on each and every pixel, and never drop below 60 frames a second.”
And he’s still got his principles too, writing on his bulletin board: “And we haven’t sold our souls, or our IP, to Microsoft either. We’ve created for them an interactive visualiser for the Xbox360, and we’ll not do a visualiser for the rival consoles for this coming generation. But if someone were to ring me up tomorrow and say “Blimey Yak mate, that Neon’s a bit tasty, any chance of a bit of that for the next “not_a_console_visualiser_app” I could quite legitimately say “abso-smegging-lutely!” and we could be delivering working code in a few weeks. We can use it in games on *any* platform. The engine is small, efficient and portable.”
Bless him.
Llamasoft
Jeff Minter’s forum
18 May, 2005
Game Boy Micro Launched by Nintendo
Although Nintendo’s Revolution launch yesterday was a bit thin on detail, the company have now released full details of their itsy-bitsy addition to the Game Boy family, Game Boy Micro.
Sizing up at a diminutive four inches wide, two inches tall, and 0.7 inches thick, Nintendo are billing the Game Boy Micro as the “smallest and sleekest Game Boy product” they’ve created, claiming that it will fit comfortably into the pocket of your “tightest jeans.”
We’re not quite sure that they’ll find space in the straining waistband of Billy “20 Pints” McQuaffer, but it is a wee thing with dimensions only slightly larger than an iPod Mini and weighing just 2.8 ounces (“the same weight as 80 paper clips” as Nintendo bizarrely informed us).
The Game Boy Micro offers the same processing power as the Game Boy Advance SP models and plays all the same titles while, apparently, lending you an air of “industrial-hip cool.”
“We’re making the gorgeous Game Boy Micro for image-conscious folks who love video games, the ones who want the look of their system to be as cool as the games they play on it,” waffled George Harrison, who has one of the longest job descriptions we’ve seen for a while: Nintendo Of America’s Senior Vice President Of Marketing And Corporate Communications.
But Harrison (NOASVPOMACC) wasn’t quite finished with the ludicrous marketing tosh: “Because of its diminutive size and industrial-hip look, Game Boy Micro immediately identifies the person playing it as a trendsetter with discriminating style.”
So there you have it: any hopeless buffoon walking around with a Micro will automatically be transformed into a style icon….
Back in the real world, Nintendo are well chuffed with their new two-inch backlit screen – “the best Game Boy screen ever” – which lets users adjust the brightness of the screen to adapt to indoor lights or outdoor sunshine.
Wrapping up the feature list, the Game Boy Micro comes with a built-in, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, supports standard headphones and comes with a removable face plate for that all-important customisation thang.
Game Boy Micro is expected to be released this autumn.
Nintendo
18 May, 2005
Sony Unveils World’s Smallest and Lightest HD Consumer Camcorder
Pausing briefly for breath after announcing the new PlayStation today, the busy bees in the Sony hive have announced the world’s smallest and lightest high definition consumer camcorder with full HD resolution based on HDV 1080i.
The HDR-HC1 is the second consumer HD camcorder from Sony with the company hoping its lower price and size will help popularise the HD video recording format.
With some skilful spatial jiggery-pokery, Sony have managed to squeeze the camcorder’s size down to less than half that of their current model, the HDR-FX1, with the price falling substantially too.
The price and size economies were brought about by replacing the 3 CCD sensors with a single CMOS image sensor – a cheaper, simpler optical system that doesn’t require a bulky prism to split the image to each of the sensors.
The new camera also uses a smaller and more compact Carl Zeiss lens, with a diameter of 60mm compared to 92 mm on the previous model.
The lens offers a 10X optical and 120X digital zoom, zoom ring, zebra pattern and spot focus with manually adjustable white balance, shutter speed and focus.
Depending on the recording mode, the camcorder can provide around 90 minutes of continuous recording.
A 2.7in wide hybrid, touch-panel LCD screen allows access to menu options, with an option to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios (in DV mode) to see exactly how the content might look on television.
There’s also a built-in microphone, pop-up flash, Super SteadyShot image stabilisation and Sony’s Super NightShot Plus Infrared System for filming in low/no light conditions.
A Memory Stick PRO Duo media slot is provided for transferring images captured on the camcorder’s 2.8-megapixel still camera.
Even with all these features, Sony’s engineers have managed to reduce the size of the camera’s electronics, cutting the 5 circuit boards down to 2 and reducing the total component count from 3,000 to 2,000.
This has been achieved with some nifty integration of components into chips, said Sony.
All of this has made the HDR-HC1 into a tiny little puppy, measuring just 71 x 94 x 188mm, and weighing a mere 680g without the battery – compare that with the previous bruiser of a camcorder that measured 151 x 181 x365 mm and weighed a muscle building 2kg.
Like its predecessor, the HDR-HC1 is based on the HDV format, which uses current-generation DV tapes to store high-definition video.
DV tapes are completely compatible and can hold the same amount of video under HDV as they can under standard definition, offering advantages to current DV camcorder users looking to preserve their investment in recording media.
HD video connectivity comes in the shape of Y/Pb/Pr component video signal, Japanese D3/D4 format signal and a 4-pin iLink interface.
This output can be streamed to high-definition compatible monitors and televisions with an HDV iLink interface.
The HDR-HC1 will be launched in Japan in early July and in North America, Europe and Asia around the same time. Although costing is not confirmed, it’s expected to roll out for 180,000 Yen in Japan. (~£915 ~US$1,680 ~€1,328).
Sony
18 May, 2005
Strategy Analytics: Nokia 6680 ‘Best’ 3G WCDMA Device
The Nokia 6680 imaging smartphone has been declared the new ‘Best in Class’ 3G device according to a report by Strategy Analytics.
Four of the best 3G devices currently available in Western European were put under the microscope by Strategy Analytics’ Advanced Wireless Laboratory (AWL) panels in London, UK and Milan, Italy.
All of the phones were assessed on four categories: Video Features, User Interface & Input, Display, and Style/Design, with the Nokia reigning supreme in two categories, Display and Style/Design, as well as registering a joint highest score for User Interface.
When the white-coated, clipboard-toting boffins had finished tallying up the scores, the Nokia 6680 was also the only device to score above the mean score across all four categories.
The 6680 achieved a composite mean rating of 73, compared with 71 for the Sony Ericsson V800, 69 for the Motorola E1000 and 64 for the NEC e338.
The report noted strong deviations (oo-er!) in the results of these evaluations by gender with the lay-deees preferring the Sony Ericsson and NEC devices, whereas the geezers exhibited a strong preference for the Nokia and Motorola handsets.
“This acknowledgment underscores Nokia’s leadership in 3G devices,” purred Joe Coles, Director of imaging product marketing at Nokia. “The Nokia 6680 is an example of an engineering masterpiece that offers very sophisticated technology combined with ease of use and extremely desirable design. Devices like it pave the way for transforming the way people live, work, play and communicate.”
The Nokia scored particularly well in the Style/Design category, with 98% of participants nominating the phone as the ‘coolest’.
Users were also mightily impressed with the clarity, resolution and brightness of the Nokia 6680 smartphone’s display.
The phone’s User Interface and menu system was considered “logical and easy to use” by the majority of users, with the smartphone scoring highest in the exciting sounding categories of ‘Configuration and Usability of Hot-Buttons’ and ‘Ease of switching between text options’ (who dreams these things up?).
Kevin Nolan, Director of Strategy Analytics’ Advanced Wireless Laboratory commented: “As handset manufacturers compete to launch compelling devices that will meet the demands of the advanced buyers who will drive multimedia content consumption across 3G networks, the Nokia 6680 has set a new standard for performance in terms of usability and device size and style.”
As we announced in March, the Nokia 6680 imaging smartphone comes with a shedload of features including two integrated cameras, a flash, the Nokia XpressPrint printing solution, an active slide for easy camera activation and a bright screen of up to 262,144 colours.
All the vogue Smartphone features are present and correct, with the Nokia sporting an organiser, video streaming, Internet browser, email and 3G-enabled services, such as two-way video calling and video sharing.
As competing handset manufacturers try to catch the eye of consumers by ramping up the gizmos and widgets, it’s important that the phones remain easy to use.
Nokia have acquired a well earned reputation for the simplicity of their interfaces and this writer still rues the day he moved from his Nokia phone to a fiddly-tastic Sony Ericsson.
Strategy Analytics
Nokia 6680
17 May, 2005
MSN Search Toolbar Required For MSN Desktop Search
Microsoft has released the final version of MSN Desktop Search, offering new features based on extensive user feedback and boasting extended support for file types.
Along with Internet Explorer, search toolbars reside in Windows Explorer and Microsoft Office Outlook, with desktop searches available via a toolbar in the Windows taskbar.
The free 5.5Mb download (in contrast to Google’s 700K) can index over 200 types of files, ranging from Office 2003 documents to Outlook contacts, calendar files and emails including attachments, with add-ins available for specialised files, such as PDF, DWF and ZIP files.
The new toolbar has ramped up multimedia file support, including GIF, JPEG, Adobe files and MP3, with browser-style “search as you type” input fields to speed up searching.
It’s now possible to select which items should be indexed, with a dialog box letting users choose specific files and locations.
These advanced indexing options also let users specify file types to be indexed as text, create a list of file types that should not be indexed, decide the location of the index file and boost the priority of the indexing process (although this may cause some PCs to run as slow as a tired sloth on Mogadons, but at least it can be turned off).
The new version lets users customise how the program sorts different files — by date, size, author or sender etc – with Justin Osmer, product manager for MSN Search, gleefully boasting, “You can really slice and dice the results any way you want.”
Search results are now accompanied by a preview pane that displays a summary of a selected results with the option to launch the targeted file’s native application.
As with the beta release, the MSN desktop search application positively demands that the MSN Search Toolbar be installed, with the product parking itself inside Internet Explorer.
Although users must have MSN Search Toolbar installed to use MSN Desktop search, it’s possible to select which features are enabled on the toolbar, and to hide MSN navigation links to services such as Hotmail, Messenger etc.
Conveniently, users can also change the default search engine from MSN Search to any other search engine.
As is the norm with search toolbars, there’s a pop up blocker and form-filler installed, although there’s still no Firefox-style tabbed browsing on offer, although MSN says it will be added soon.
MSN also is launching a new Web site, addins.msn.com, serving up a selection of third-party developer additions to the desktop search toolbar.
The competition for the desktop search market is getting hotter than Justin Timberlake’s underpants, with Google and Yahoo already off to a flying start.
Although Microsoft’s offering may not have enough features to tempt those using rival services, it may prove perfect for regular users of Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.
MSN Desktop Search
17 May, 2005
E3 2005
E3 2005 promises to be another exciting show for the interactive entertainment industry. There’s no better place for you to play the hottest new titles, see the latest industry developments and trends, or make a sales pitch for your products. Los Angeles, USA http://www.e3expo.com/
17 May, 2005
PS3 Launching Spring 2006: Sony At E3
Sony has unveiled prototypes of their new Playstation 3 console at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles.
Not so much a games console as a mo’fo’ media machine, the PS3 contains a veritable beast in the box, with the Cell processor – jointly developed by IBM, Sony Group and Toshiba – capable of producing two teraflops of computing power. That’s twice that of the Xbox 360.
Like the XBox, home entertainment convergence is the big story here, with the PlayStation3 offering high quality TV output and the ability to play digital music, Blu-ray high-definition DVD, as well as show off home movies and digital pictures.
The powerful new microprocessor allows many of the functions to be carried out at the same time, allowing gamers to record TV shows or listen to music while playing a game.
Sony’s curvy silver unit comes with more connections than the StereoMCs, serving up six USB sockets; Ethernet and Wi-Fi wireless technology; BlueTooth support for up to seven wireless controllers and a removable hard drive.
The new BD-ROM (Blu-ray Disc ROM) offers a thumping great 54 GB (dual layer) storage capacity providing ample space for storing full high-definition (HD) quality movies with two HDMI high-definition sockets allowing games to be played on one screen and video conferencing on a second.
With an almighty 2 teraflops of computing power on call, the box should be capable of rendering landscapes and virtual worlds in real-time with super-smooth characters and object motion.
Sony are currently collaborating with the world’s leading tools and middleware companies, to provide developers with extensive tools and libraries to make the best of the Cell processor and enable efficient software development.
As is now the custom, every new product has to represent a ‘new era’ in something or another. Last week, Microsoft was describing their XBox launch as “a dawn of a new era in entertainment.”
Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc was ready to go a little bit further: “Empowered by the Cell processor with super computer like performance, a new age of PLAYSTATION 3 is about to begin. Together with content creators from all over the world, SCEI will accelerate the arrival of a new era in computer entertainment.”
Sony’s announcement came with a long, long list of partners enthusiastically effervescing about the new Playstation. We can sum up their opinions thus: “We think it’s great!”
Consumers will be able to find out for themselves when the PS3 launches “in the spring of 2006,” although old-school gamers will be pleased to learn that PS3 will offer backward compatibility for the 13,000-title strong PS and PS2 back catalogue.
With the two big guns XBox and PS3 showing their hands, all eyes are on Nintendo’s next-generation machine, code-named ‘Revolution,’ which will be revealed at E3 later today. We’ll be filing a report shortly.
Watch the amazing PS3 technical demos: 1UP
Sony Playstation
17 May, 2005