July 2005

DVB-H Digital Mobile TV Pilot For Spain
Abertis Telecom, Nokia and Telefonica Moviles Espana have emerged smiling from a big converging huddle with news of a mobile TV pilot using Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) technology.
The project, backed by major regional and local Spanish channels, is said to be the first of its kind to take place in the country and will serve up a feast of converged mobile communications and TV broadcasting technologies.
Scheduled to take place in Madrid and Barcelona from September 2005 to February 2006, the pilot will also coincide with the closing ceremony of the GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona.
The trial will let 500 lucky users from Madrid and Barcelona gorge themselves on high quality broadcast TV content from Antena 3, Sogecable, Telecinco, Telemadrid, TVE and TV3 on Nokia 7710 smartphones.
These will be equipped with a “special accessory” to receive the mobile TV broadcasts.
With the units sporting a wide (640 x 320 pixels) colour touch-screen and a built in stereo music player, users will also be able to take part in programme-related interactive services while viewing TV.
White coated boffins have already started technical trials, with the consumer pilot designed to allow the three companies to test the feasibility of the DVB-H technology and the new mobile TV services.
The trial will also allow interested parties to assess new business opportunities, tweak the user experience (ooo-er!) and measure public interest in mobile TV services.
Outdoor and indoor signal and broadcast quality will also be tested to help fine tune the best technical parameters for the viability of DVB-H based services.
The deal gives Telefonica Moviles responsibility for customer support, invoicing and interactive services, Abertis Telecom will be charged with broadcasting the programmes in Madrid and Barcelona – and taking care of technical issues – while Nokia will provide the Mobile TV solution and smartphones for the pilot.
Telefónica Móviles España
Abertis Telecom
5 July, 2005
African Farmers Boost Profits With Mobile Phones
Around a hundred rural African farmers around Makuleke are testing cell phone technology that gives them access to national markets via the Internet, allowing them to compete with the big boys and boost profits by at least 30 percent.
Previously, farmers would travel huge distances to the market in Johannesburg in the hope of selling their goods, often losing half their harvest along the way, but a new virtual trading facility installed on mobile phones lets them sell their produce direct from their small farms.
Farmers can check prices on the phone and choose to sell when prices are high or raise the selling price if demand is high – and by dealing directly with sellers, farmer can raise profits by cutting out the middle man.
“Mainstream farmers have access to market information so they can negotiate better prices. This cell phone enables poor rural farmers to get that same information,” said Mthobi Tyamzashe, head of communications at South African cell phone operator Vodacom, project sponsors.
It’s an example of how technology can bring real benefits to the world’s poorest continent, and cell phone use has already rocketed 100 percent in Africa since 2000.
It’s believed that wireless technology is the best way to bring the Internet to the poor, as Africa’s sparsely-populated and often inhospitable landscapes make a landline infrastructure commercially unviable.
Senegalese company Manobi has already signed up 40,000 customers to their trading platform for farmers and fishermen, allowing customers to access information on a Web-based trading platform via Internet-enabled phones. Users can also request prices and make trades via SMS, or text message.
“It’s a trading platform and a business space,” said Manobi Chief Executive Daniel Annerose. “Small Senegalese farmers even linked up with the French army (on the platform) last year and agreed to supply one of their ships when it docked in Dakar.”
Manobi plans to expand the project into South Africa, followed by the rest of the continent and the Middle East, in partnership with French cell phone manufacturer Alcatel and Vodacom.
Of course, Vodacom and Alcatel aren’t investing all this cash because – like a Miss World contestant – they want to make the world a better place.
There’s a hard business ethic at work here, with the companies keen to expand the cell phone market into rural areas and grab new customers before the competition steps in.
“The idea is that if people start off with your product they will stay with it once they become more profitable clients,” said Vodacom’s Tyamzashe.
The company dished out 360 starter packs and airtime vouchers worth 300 rand each, while Alcatel has handed out 200 handsets, although there are questions as to the long term viability of the scheme – farmers often living on less than a dollar a day may not be able to afford the luxury or surfing the Web on their phones once free airtime runs out.
“Individual projects like this may not be sustainable, but in a wider context it is an important part of getting telecoms out to the rural areas,” said telecommunications expert Arthur Goldstuck, from research group World Wide Worx.
“It is a case of throwing all kinds of things at the wall and hoping that some of it works.”
Hi-tech cell phones help Africans trade crops
5 July, 2005
Tiscali To Webcast Reading Festival
It used to be that attending a festival was more akin to a long trek in a distant country, with festival-goers vanishing for days on end, uncontactable by the outside world.
When they returned, battle weary and hungry, they could be assured of a ready audience as they retold their tales of epic mudbaths, day-long guitar solos and beery quagmires.
Sadly, festival goers might find the folks at home a little less interested in their stories as they can now view the entire thing, live and direct, from the comfort of their home PC.
Like Glastonbury, Live 8 and several other big music festivals, band’s performances at the Reading Festival will be available to view over the Web via a streaming Webcast, with official sponsors Tiscali providing the coverage.
The streams will be available through Tiscali with further exclusive archive footage streaming after the Festival itself.
Tiscali will also launch and host exclusive Tiscali Sessions in a specially created backstage Tiscali VIP Tent during the festival, with private performance footage being made available after the Festival.
Richard Ayers, portal director of Tiscali.co.uk converged: “Already many of the Reading audience will be buying most their music online so our involvement in bringing The Carling Weekend: Reading Festival experience to millions of online viewers only serves to prove further that broadband and entertainment are excellent bedfellows.”
The festival, now corporate branded into the “Carling Weekend Reading Festival”, takes place over the August bank holiday weekend.
Reading Festival
5 July, 2005
China Opens Clinic For Internet Addicts
China has opened its first officially licensed clinic for Internet addiction as State media reports growing cases of obsessed Internet gamers whose addiction has caused them to quit school, commit suicide or even murder fellow gamers.
Dr. Tao Ran, the clinic’s director reports that his patients suffer from a series of maladies including depression, nervousness, fear, panic, agitation and an unwillingness to interact with others (to be honest, that sounds like a lot of normal teenagers we know).
Their Internet addiction also manifests itself in sleep disorders, the shakes and numbness in their hands from a surfeit of fragging, clicking and scrolling.
The government-owned clinic opened for business in March this year, and is situated within the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital, with the patients – mainly aged between 14 to 24 – looked after by a team of a dozen nurses and 11 doctors.
Most report losing sleep, weight and friends after spending countless grimly hours glued to their PCs, with one 12-year-old reported to have spent four days in an Internet cafe, barely eating or sleeping.
The Web addicts claim that their online obsession helped them to escape everyday stress, with many older kids becoming fixated by online chats with the opposite sex.
Tao estimates that up to 2.5 million Chinese suffer from Internet addiction, although Kuang Wenbo, a professor of mass media at Beijing’s Renmin University, thinks the problem is being overstated:
“As the number of the Netizens grows, the number of the addicted people will grow as well, but we should not worry about the issue too much. The young men at the age of growing up have their own problems. Even if there was no Internet they will get addicted to other things.”
Patients diagnosed as Internet-addicted by Tao’s diagnostic test are presented with a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports exercise, with the courses lasting around 10 to 15 days.
Treatment is not cheap, with the daily US$48 (~£27 ~€40) charge working out at more than double the average city dweller’s weekly income in China.
Some of Tao’s treatment sounds a bit medieval with one session involving a machine that stimulates nerve impulses by delivering 30-volt charges to pressure points.
Another treatment is reported to involve a clear fluid delivered via an intravenous drip to “adjust the unbalanced status of brain secretions.” Eek!
Although Tao claims that the long-term effects of treatment are generally successful, not all patients are available to resist the temptation to log on.
Internet addicts treated at clinic in Beijing [AP]
4 July, 2005
iTunes Live8 McCartney/U2 Track Fast Release
Hot on the heels of the hugely successful Live8 concert in London, Apple’s iTunes Music Store has made the opening performance of The Beatles’s “Sergeant Pepper” (sung by McCartney with U2) available for purchase through its store.
With the Guinness Book of Records monitoring proceedings to see if the venture qualifies as the fastest-ever global release of a live track, the speedy release reveals how digital technology has vastly accelerated the distribution of content.
Straight after the live performance, the opening track was transmitted by satellite to BBC TV Centre in London and then relayed to UK radio broadcast company, Capital Radio.
A direct digital recording was captured there for Universal Music, which edited, mastered and transmitted the track to its production centre in Hanover, Germany.
The final master was forwarded on to Universal’s global electronic distribution warehouse in the US, and made available for real-time delivery to online retailers around the world, ready to be purchased as the “first Live 8 download”,
Distribution is to be exclusively digital, so there will be no physical product. All profits are to be donated to Live 8, “and the fight for the future of Africa”, according to the iTunes Website.
A further message on the site reminds users: “100 artists, a million spectators, one billion viewers, and one message: stop extreme poverty in Africa”.
Despite battling hard with unhealthy levels of cynicism all week – a feeling not helped by Apple’s self-serving publicity and the presence of Bill Gates at the Live8 show itself – I can only applaud anything that raises awareness of the obscene disparity of wealth in the world.
Let’s just hope that people don’t think that downloading the track is anywhere near enough.
iTunes
Live 8
4 July, 2005
Cardiff First For BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN)
Their glorious football team many not be first at anything much these days, but BT have announced that Cardiff and the surrounding area will lead the UK with the implementation of their 21st Century Network (21CN).
The £10bn investment will roll out the next generation of converged communications, including telephone calls, broadband and Ethernet services delivered through an Internet-based platform.
The investment will end BT’s dependence on telephony through on Ye Olde public switched telephone network (PSTN) and should – in theory – result in cheaper telephone bills for its customers.
What is this 21CN thing, do I hear you ask?
Here’s how BT describe the technology:
“BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN) is a global IP infrastructure, based upon multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), that carries voice, data and Internet services on a single network. The 21CN offers multiple services across a single network, rather than today’s multitude of networks offering specific services.”
“For BT, this will mean fewer network elements overall and require simpler network management. For BT’s customers, the 21CN will deliver more choice, control and accessibility, as well as increased flexibility, reliability and security.”
BT is expected to begin migrating around 350,000 customer lines in the area during the second half of 2006, with the 21CN programme requiring the replacement of equipment in more than 50 local exchanges along with the implementation of new IT systems to make the technology do its stuff.
Ask BT competitors what 21CN is and you’ll get quite a different answer. Their view is that it is effectively the death of meaningful competition in the UK and that once BT has it in place there will be no incentive to try and unbundle exchanges.
Three cool-sounding “metro nodes” (super telephone exchanges) are to be developed in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, with 10 new transmission sites also being developed across the region. These will be assessed for power supply, space and logistics planning before the ‘on’ switch is pressed.
First Minister Rhodri Morgan purred, “It’s incredibly exciting for us that Wales has been selected to provide the test bed for BT’s new 21st Century Network This investment by BT clearly signifies that Cardiff and central South Wales is one of Europe’s most dynamic and progressive regions. The end result will transform our personal and business lives, and help attract high-tech industry and services to Wales.”
Matt Bross, BT group’s chief technology officer, said, “This roll-out will be the first time anywhere in the world that customers will have communications services provided over such a radical next generation network.”
“The operational experience that we gain in Cardiff and the surrounding area will enable us to move full steam ahead and deliver 21CN to everyone in the UK – migrating a total of 30 million lines – in just four years.”
“It’s an enormous technical and operational challenge, but will enable customers to benefit from compelling new services.”
How the installation and implementation of the service – and the customer feedback – works out will help BT finalise plans to roll out 21CN to customers across the UK by the end of the decade.
BT 21st Century Network
4 July, 2005
DoJ Operation Site Down: Raids In 11 Nations
In a pretty gung-ho move that shows a lot of seriousness, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) have announced the results of Operation Site Down. More than 20 raids occurred in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK, as well as 70 in the USA.
Four arrests: David Fish; Nate Lovell; Chirayu Patel; and William Veyna were made in the US with them being charged with violating federal copyright protection laws.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales was nothing if not stern, “By dismantling these networks, the Department is striking at the top of the copyright piracy supply chain—a distribution chain that provides the vast majority of the illegal digital content now available online, and by penetrating this illegal world of high-technology and intellectual property theft, we have shown that law enforcement can and will find — and we will prosecute — those who try to use the Internet to create piracy networks beyond the reach of law enforcement.”
We’d imagine there’s been a fair degree of celebration at this news in the entertainment world – dinner tables will be booked.
The DoJ reported that hundreds of computers had been seized, leading to at least eight major online distribution networks being shut down.
With the size of the seizures we’d imagine there’ll a big gap left in the world downloading. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to repair itself.
One thing the Attorney General said particularly struck us, “this illegal world of high-technology and intellectual property theft.” Let’s hope the two of these are bound together, and he’s not talking about a separate illegal world of high-technology. Now that would be worrying.
While closing down some file sharing networks for a period of time will temporarily throttle the flow of material over the Internet, we see far more direct financial loss through gangs selling DVD’s around pubs, clubs and streets of the UK, where this has reached such a level that we have seen a pub with “No DVDs” signs on the door.
File trading on the Internet is done by spending the time doing it, but it has no financial gain. The DVDs being sold in public are making someone very rich.
It does make you think that if downloading high-quality movies without seeing the head of someone getting up in the middle of the film to go to the toilet were easy, most of that fiver that people pay on the street would end up in the film company’s pocket. Sadly they’re waiting for DRM to be in place first.
US Department of Justice
4 July, 2005
Ofcom’s BT statement – Legal Issues Examined
Following hot on the heals of yesterdays Ofcom’s notice to BT, under Section 155(1) of the Enterprise Act 2002, Russ Taylor of OfcomWatch takes us through the legal issues.
Ofcom released the details of the BT settlement.
Folks, here are the key takeaways / open issues as I see them from a legal perspective:
* This is essentially a consultation on whether BT has promised enough (‘undertakings’ – spelled out in Section 2 of the document) to avoid referral of this matter to the Competition Commission. Ofcom concludes that BT has, and asks for public comment until August 12, 2005.
* Section 4.14 of the document is the key allegation, and check-out the indirect wording on Ofcom’s part! Ofcom basically say that BT had the incentive to engage in anti-competitive conduct, and later say that it suspects BT ‘may have acted in accordance with the incentives set out above.’ Is that Plain English? Even the title of Section 4 is non-confrontational… referring to the problems of the market, rather than problems with BT.
* Annex E is the basic document (the Annexes are here). It is the proposed agreement between BT and Ofcom. It specifies the undertakings. It looks to me like the Access Service Division (ASD) CEO reports to the BT CEO. So, presumably, the BT CEO can terminate the ASD CEO? That’s not exactly ‘separation’. And more importantly, it does not square with the classic definition of a CEO.
* It’s a lengthy document, and I’ve only skimmed it, but the missing element–in my opinion–seems to be a clear dispute resolution / problem solving element of the undertakings. In other words, what happens if BT shirks its duties, or there is a dispute about one of the undertakings. Are the undertakings self-enforcing? I don’t think so. Sections 12 through 17 of Annex E purport to cover this ground, but I think they are vaguely worded. Section 14, in particular, seems to merely allow BT and Ofcom to agree to disagree, and has no real teeth other than Ofcom’s ability to declare BT in breach of the undertakings. But what then? Does Ofcom then have the power to fine BT? I don’t think so – I think a breach would require Ofcom to go to court to secure a remedy… or threaten another referral? So, would communications policy decisions then rest in the hands of a court? Why didn’t Ofcom require BT, as part of its undertakings, to waive court procedures and agree to a schedule of monetary penalties, etc.
* I also recall that Ofcom initially said that third parties would be able to secure relief under this settlement–for their losses caused by BT’s breaches of the undertakings. How does that work? This element of the scheme seems to be completely missing from the documents.
* Finally, what happens if BT merges with another entity to which these undertakings do not apply. I’m confused… Overall, I think the document accomplishes much by way of technically sorting out a way to limit BT’s market power. But from a legal perspective, it needs some more thought.
* * *
This should be an interesting consultation… stay tuned…
Russ taylor is a co-founder of OfcomWatch
Ofcom
1 July, 2005
HowTo: Play Films on PSP
Sony’s PlayStation Portable is a media hub, but unfortunately, apart from games there isn’t really any content available for it (not forgetting unlucky UK citizens who can’t even officially buy one until September).
It’s possible to put MP3’s on to your memory stick (Duo Pro) and listen to them through your PSP, but an iPod is probably a better system for just audio.
What makes the PSP special is its screen, very bright, lots of colours and wide. When Sony release movies on UMD they’ll sell thousands and you’ll get the public transport commuter zombies staring at their PSPs, earphones stuffed in their ears watching the latest blockbuster trying their hardest to escape from the real world.
Become a Zombie now
Though it’s not possible to get UMD movies yet, the PSP will play MPEG4 movies off the memory stick. A 1GB memory stick costs about £100 (~US$177, ~€148) which will hold about 2 full length movies (more, if quality is compromised).
Making movies used to be complicated, but luckily there are programs out there that considerably simplify the process and make it easy.
Using an Apple Mac has many advantages and ripping DVDs is one of them. Look for an application MacTheRipper, it does exactly what is says on the tin, and takes the MPEG2 information from a DVD while removing region coding, macrovision and other DVD annoyances and stores the resulting files on the hard disk.
In order to make it PSP friendly, just extract the main title.
Now find a nice utility PSPWARE, which links the Mac with the PSP. It backs-up saved programs from the PSP, but from the Mac to PSP it does a whole lot more, like syncing photo albums, playlists from iTunes but more importantly movies.
PSPWARE just takes the movie directory (produced from MacTheRipper) and magically out pops some MPEG4 files. They take a while to convert, but when the PSP is plugged in, they zap across and just work.
They really do look good and are very watchable.
Windows users don’t despair
PSPWARE has just been released for Windows with the same functionality as the Mac version. Unfortunately though there are DVD rippers out there they can be difficult to use.
DVDdecrypter was one of the best (very similar to MacTheRipper) and it’s still available from various sites, but the author has stopped supporting it as he was “put under pressure” from a major corporation.
PSPWARE is available from NullRiver it costs about £8 (~US$14~€11) for a perpetual license (free upgrades).
MacTheRipper is availble from RipDifferent and is freeware.
Windows users will have to do a bit of digging for DVDdecrypter – but it’s out there and free.
NOTE: Incredible as it may seem, making digital copies of films may be illegal in your country, even if for personal use.
1 July, 2005
Gizmo Project takes on Skype
It’s not surprising that when an entrepreneur sees something as successful as Skype has been, (you can’t see over 127m downloads in any other way), that the word opportunity is writ large in their eyes. This is especially when that person likes disrupting legacy business models, such as the phone system.
Enter Michael Robertson, he of mp3.com fame.
After selling mp3.com for a considerable amount of money, Mr Robertson went on to create Lindows. A Linux-based desktop operating system that aimed to take on Microsoft and their Windows product head on. After some huffing and puffing from Microsoft Lindows changed its name to the less controversial Linspire.
During the time of building up Linspire, I was surprised to see Robertson launched SIPPhone.com – his first pop at a VoIP business. When I first saw this it looked like a distraction from his OS business, almost like he saw the great opportunity of VoIP coming and couldn’t resist jumping on top of it.
Well things have move on now, and after 6 months software development, Robinson is publicly showing his Skype-killer, Gizmo Project.
The big differentiator between Gizmo Project (a temporary name – they’re asking for suggestions) and Skype is Gizmo uses the open standard of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol, for those who really want to know), as opposed to the proprietary method Skype uses. This goes after Skype in the only way it can.
Many of the early users of Skype were hardcore Linux/Open source fans. Although using Skype was free, it still stuck in their throats a little that they were talking over proprietary protocols.
Skype doesn’t allow connections to other VoIP service, and as they control all of the inside processing, if they don’t want it to happen, it won’t.
Robertson claims that as Gizmo is SIP-based, it will interconnect to any other phone system.
Using Gizmo Once the software is installed, anyone familiar with Skype will not have a problem quickly adapting to use Gizmo. It runs on Linux, Macintosh and Windows. It appears to have all of Skype’s functions plus quite a few extras.
Useful additional features include a call quality meter, located at the bottom left of the app.
Gee whiz factor is provided by features like the World map that can be summoned up, showing you how far you are calling – good for gloating that you’re not paying a penny extra for calling that distance.
Despite the product being in beta, it’s currently on version 0.8, Gizmo haven’t been slow in holding back on the in and outbound call features – the ones that generate the income. It was surprising to see that the pricing of Gizmo In is more expensive than SkypeIn, with the $30 buying just 6 months of service compared with Skypes – I thought new entrants to a market were supposed to be more competitive not half the value.
Skype has done well in encouraging other companies to build extra software and importantly, hardware including phone handsets (Siemens M34; Cyberphone K). This has been enabled by them publishing the API (Application Program Interface). As to whether/if Gizmo will have an API as Skype does, is as yet unclear.
Trying to unseat Skype is one hell of a tough battle; it’s seriously entrenched in the tech world, and is making pretty strong moves in to the general market.
The fact that it uses open protocols is a big advantage, if that kind of thing is important to you. For the rest of the market what’s important is that they’re able to speak to their friends on the service. As things stand today, that is probably Skype.
Expect a rash of these applications.
Gizmo Project
1 July, 2005