November 2005

TiVo: PSP/ iPod Downloads Planned
TiVo have announced the release of new software, slated for the first quarter of 2006 that will let owners watch recorded television shows on their Sony PSPs and video iPods.
It doesn’t stop does it? Boy, is this technology disruptive.
What’s that sound? The sound of TV legal types rubbing their hands together as TiVo’s press release hit the ‘wires’.
TiVo’s software will enable subscribers to easily transfer recorded television programming, in MPEG-4 format. Other capabilities include auto-sync, letting TiVo users choose if they want new recordings of their favorite programs transferred to their portable devices via their PC. Recharging content onto their devices overnight, ready for the next days commute. It is expected to be priced as a one off of around $30 (~£17, ~€25).
This development is a further blow to TV network schedulers and their much-relied on conventional prime time programmes. This theory is torn apart when mobile viewers are able to watch programmes recorded the previous night, on the go.
The US networks are unlikely to take this lying down. Companies like ABC (part of media giant Disney) have been keen to generate additional revenue from download deals of their premium shows like Desperate Housewives – as offered by Apple through their online store, to their video iPod.
This TiVo development sees that particular rug being pulled from under them, and we suspect that they won’t be won over by TiVo’s promises to employ “watermark” technologies on programs transferred to a portable device.
TiVo’s share price has initially climbed, having faltered due to the perceived weakness in TiVo capabilities for both dual recording and HD use.
Some commentators are warning of the practical problems, expecting only the technically adept to be able to handle the transfers and pointing out that the enhancements will only be available to a subset of TiVo’s 3.8 million subscribers.
We think that while this could be the case for now, we don’t see this particular genie jumping back in the bottle.
TiVo
22 November, 2005
Search Engines Challenge Email As Most Popular Web Activity
Using search engines has become the second most popular activity for Web users, according to new research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
The figures put search engines second only to email as the numero uno Net application, with reading the news registering as the third most popular Web activity.
The research reveals that an average 41 per cent of Web-connected Americans use search engines on a typical day, a sharp 55 percent rise from the middle of 2004.
In numbers, this equates to a jump from 38 million daily search engine users in June 2004 to around 59 million users in September, 2005.
As expected, email remains the Web’s major attraction, with 52 per cent of Americans checking mail on any given day, up 45 per cent from June last year.
The Pew project looked into the demographics of Web users and discovered that those spending the most time on search engines tended to be in their 30s and well-off.
‘Gen X’ surfers (29-40 year olds, not the Billy Idol-fronted band) were online the most (51 per cent), followed by ‘Gen Y’ users (18-28 year olds), ‘Older Baby Boomers’ (51-59 yrs old), ‘Younger Baby Boomers’ (41-50), ‘Matures’ (60-69) and, finally ‘After work’ (70+). We wonder who makes up these daft categories?
The report commented, “Those who use search engines on an average day tend to be heavy Internet users. They are much more likely to have broadband connections than dial-up connections; to log on to the Internet several times a day; and to have spent considerable time online during the day.”
With Google recently claiming to have trebled its index of 8bn pages and Yahoo! claiming 19.2bn pages, it’s not surprising that the search engines are getting a hammering.
What is interesting, however, is the rise in people searching using ‘local’ qualifiers, like postcodes or addresses, to narrow down their search results.
Google still rules supreme as the king of the Web search tools, registering 43.7 per cent of local searches, with Yahoo! lording it over Internet Yellow Page search sites (where users type in data such as location and business type) with 27.6 per cent of searches.
Pew Internet & American Life Project report [PDF]
22 November, 2005
Royal Mail: Internet Fuels Growth Of Paper Catalogues
The Internet was supposed to herald in an age of paperless offices, online browsing and tree-untroubling electronic mail, but it seems that when it comes to flogging goods, the trusty old print catalogue still rules the roost.
According to new research from the Royal Mail, online retailers will be looking to stuff your letterbox full of paper catalogues before Christmas in an attempt to drive up sales over the festive season.
In a survey conducted by the Royal Mail, more than 20 online traders – including big names like John Lewis Direct and Firebox.com – were asked about their marketing strategies.
The survey found that old fashioned catalogues remain one of the most effective promotional channels for generating online orders, with 60% of survey respondents currently licking stamps on catalogues and brochures to be sent to customers in an attempt to increase online sales.
Of course, the Royal Mail has something of a vested interest in promoting these figures, but we have to admit that we always prefer to flick through a glossy print catalogue than stare at a screen. And, of course, it’s a bit trickier to take a laptop to the loo for a bit of furtive, at-work browsing for gifts.
The Royal Mail also found that some 36% of consumers agreed that having an online catalogue makes them more likely to purchase something from a retailer’s website.
Additionally, the survey revealed that 55% of retailers planned to follow the annoying trend set by High Street stores and “extend” the Christmas buying period by encouraging consumers to buy earlier (If only we could “extend” the Christmas holiday period too).
Record earnings are predicted for online retailers this year, with UK shoppers leading their European counterparts when it comes to online shopping.
Around 80% of consumers are expected to buy at least a quarter of their Christmas purchases online this year – up a mighty 15% over last year.
Royal Mail
22 November, 2005
Nielsen To Include PVR Viewing In Ratings
Nielsen, the top American agency that measures TV viewing audiences, is going to provide ratings that take account of time-shifted viewing through digital recording devices like TiVos even though viewers are able to, and in my experience, generally do, fast-forward through the paid for messages.
And as usual, with research funded by those that benefit, it could be worth taking several pinches of salt with this study. Some of the phraseology has strong hints of bamboozlement; the underlying message from a study conducted for the US TV networks, is that homes with PVRs and equivalents watch more commercials. Much the same came out from Sky after they introduced their Sky+ PVR.
The US networks say that time-shifted ratings should be taken into account, and point out that PVR users watch more TV – which we don’t dispute. They watch around 5.7 hours and that’s more than 10% extra when compared with the technologically-disadvantaged standard household. Their logic follows that this extra 10% of viewing, gives them more opportunity to see commercials. With PVR penetration in the USA already around 8% of the TV universe and expected to rise steadily over the coming years, this adds up to a is significant amount for media buyers.
As one would expect, media buyers remain sceptical and many have said that they will ignore the new time delay viewers.
TV is now being consumed in a variety of ways. With Apple having sold more than one million download viewings of ABC programmes, expect further challenges for the agencies, as media companies seek to measure the viewing of commercials from mobile devices, Internet and other on-demand screenings.
21 November, 2005
Cisco and Scientific Atlanta Converge
Convergence took a step forward Friday past as Cisco announced the takeover of Scientific Atlanta (SA). The price? $6.9 billion cash.
SA shareholders don’t get a big premium (around 4%). The markets had already priced the shares to allow for a takeover talk, of which has been ongoing for some time – Sony being rumoured as one of the prospective suitors. Conversely, Cisco stockholders aren’t too enthused with the takeover, and see the cable business as riskier than the high margin routers that have been Cisco’s cash cows.
The acquisition looks a good fit though, Cisco are keen to push their IPTV proposition, SA’s strength in the US set-top-box market (they have around 40% market share) will allow them to capitalise on the access to the home that video brings. The companies’ combined news release majors on this, John Chambers, president and chief executive officer of Cisco Systems said “Video is emerging as the key strategic application in the service provider triple play bundle of consumer entertainment, communication and online services.”
The release also notes that the coming together of the two companies “creates a world class, end-to-end triple play solution for carrier networks and the digital home”
Formed in 1951, SA has long been a market leader in Cable TV, has a healthy balance sheet and already has one large IPTV customer in the shape of SBC Communications. The critical mass of SA as part of Cisco should help it win more.
Expect both Motorola (SA’s main US competitor) and Microsoft to consider how best to respond to this strategic move by the dominant Internet hardware backbone provider.
Cisco
Scientific Atlanta
21 November, 2005
The Teen View On SonyBMG DRM Woes
We’re really pleased to have Lawrence Dudley writing for us.
Digital-Lifestyles thinks that all too often articles about teenagers are written by people old enough to be their parents. What teenagers are thinking isn’t represented.
Lawrence will give you a point of view that you won’t find in other publications. You see Lawrence _is_ a teenager.
Because Criminals Make the Best Police Officers
A while ago, another teen, Jon Lech Johansen, who was most likely one of those addicted to the Internet, did something that upset a lot of people: He cracked the encryption used to protect DVDs. His actions had a huge impact and a lot of the big movie companies were upset. So much so, that they filed a lawsuit against the then-19 year old.
Imagine then, after the scandal that was SonyBMG’s DRM software which was actually a rootkit, that SonyBMG actually incorporated some open source software (OSS) code in their CDs. And not just any OSS either: It was software written by Jon himself a few years ago.
This leaves SonyBMG in a tricky position: If proven to be correct, they have broken almost every rule in the LGPL, a license used for Open Source Software. This license states that a distributor may not distribute software containing LGPL code without revealing the code’s source. SonyBMG and the suppliers of the DRM software, First4Internet, appear to have failed in doing that, and could end up being penalised for it. My views? How about sending a cool million dollars over to our friend Jon Jen Johansen? I’m sure he could use it to research some new cracks.
The other law other are saying have been broken by SonyBMG, and this is one that could land them in BIG legal difficulties, is The Computer Misuse Act, which contains the following clauses, all of which have been broken by SonyBMG in their keenes for DRM:
- 3.(1) A person is guilty of an offence if
- (a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer; and SonyBMG certainly caused an unauthorized modification of the computers on which its software was unknowingly installed on. It even installed a security risk.
- (b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge. Well this obviously applies to a company like SonyBMG.
- (2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing
- (a) to impair the operation of any computer; it would appear that making it impossible to make legitimate, fair-use copies of CDs an impairment
- (b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or to me it looks like SonyBMG followed the rule, thinking their program had to break every single clause. Preventing access to data, namely $sys$ named folders, is exactly what SonyBMG did.
- (c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data. Again an impairment in the operation of the computer. Again a clause which SonyBMG broke.
There is one interesting little caveat though: The software wasn’t developed by SonyBMG, but by First4Internet, and was only deployed by SonyBMG on their CDs. Whether it will be SonyBMG or First4Internet who will get into trouble over this one remains to be seen, but from my point of view, Sony as a whole has done themselves a lot of damage with this one.
21 November, 2005
Hauppauge Nova-s PC Card Offers Freesat TV Via Sky
Hauppauge Digital have whipped out a new add-on card to convert a boring old PC into a multimedia-tastic satellite TV receiver.
Their new WinTV Nova-s card receives free satellite channels (the -s is for satellite), and will work with Sky’s Freesat, that give free access to the unencrypted channels on Sky, which are currently all of the BBC offering and soon ITV (hopefully). Sky normally charge you £150 for the privilege.
Once they’ve shelled out for the £59.99 (~$103, ~€87) decoding device, punters won’t need a viewing card or subscription fees to enjoy free satellite transmissions on their desktop.
The card is aimed at consumers who already have a satellite dish stuck on their roof/wall, with Hauppauge suggesting that the WinTV Nova-s would be ideal for a PC “in the kitchen, study or bedroom as an additional digital TV.”
Owners can watch full screen satellite TV on their desktop, or have a smaller window open whilst trying to work on something else (yeah, right: who’s going to carry on working on their VAT return when there’s some top notch footie onscreen?!)
The Nova-s is compatible with Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition, and also offers the option to record shows to the PC’s hard disk. It will also work with all-round media handlers like ShowShifter.
At the moment, the Hauppauge’s WinTV Nova-s can receive all the BBC TV channels (including One, Two, Three, Four, CBBC, Cbeebies and BBC News24 and Radios 1 to 7.)
ITV currently encrypts, or scrambles, its satellite transmissions using the service provided by Sky, but will soon be following BBC’s lead and broadcasting its channels without encryption, so they can be viewed any satellite receiver.
This means that ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and the ever-fascinating Men&Motors will become available soon, with more channels to be added in 2006 when Freesat officially launches.
Freesat will be the satellite equivalent of Freeview,” said Yehia Oweiss, Managing Director of Hauppauge Digital. “Already broadcasting BBC, the service will be available to all UK households and bring free digital TV to the 25 per cent who are outside Freeview’s area. Consumers can buy our Freesat tuner now and enjoy many digital channels now, with more being added all the time.”
The WinTV Nova-s looks reasonably future proofed too, offering HDTV (High Definition TV) compatibility, with HDTV broadcasts expected to be delivered by satellite in 2006/7
Freesat’s EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) will be made available on the Hauppauge card, but for now the information can be downloaded through the Internet.
The Hauppauge WinTV Nova-s also provides a video input socket for slapping in a camcorder and digitising the content into MPEG format for editing and burning to DVD.
Hauppauge
Showshifter
21 November, 2005
Will UK Public Sector Voluntarily Give Up ‘Spare’ Spectrum?
The UK Treasury announced earlier today that the Pre-Budget Report (PBR) will be on 5th December. This will allow the Chancellor to outline the Government’s economic priorities and focus ahead of the Budget in the spring, and provide an update on a number of reviews.
Of interest to the media and communications industries will be the final report of the Martin Cave led Independent Audit of public sector spectrum holdings. This review was announced in the Chancellor’s 2004 PBR – and generated some excitement as to the possible freeing up of spectrum held but not used by public sector organisations. In recent weeks there have been suggestions that the review won’t yield up very much in the way of ‘spare’ allocations.
The Cox Review that aimed to investigate how best to enhance the role of creativity in raising the productivity performance of SMEs in the UK will probably also get a mention. The Review is led by Sir George Cox, Chairman of the Design Council. It was commissioned by HM Treasury and has had team support led by the DTI.
Pre-Budget Report
Luke Gibbs writes regularly for Ofcomwatch.
18 November, 2005
Mesh Networks Discovered By The Mainstream
Mesh Networks are going to grow enormously by the end of the decade, according to ABI research. This ‘revalation’ is following years technical-types raving on about them.
While predicting “stellar growth rate”, they don’t think it will eat into current providers of current infrastructure, but instead new markets will emerge such as alternative service providers, municipalities and college campus’s. Oh and buy happy co-incidence, ABI have a report that you can buy about the subject, “Wireless Mesh Networking: Technologies and Deployment Strategies for Metropolitan and Campus Networks.”
Indeed, at the launch of the One Laptop Per Child event earlier in the week, Nicholas Negroponte explained that Mesh Networking was intrinsic to the success of the project, as many countries it would be used in do not have communication infrastructures.
Mesh Networks explained
Mesh Networks, have been spoken about, and set up by some, for many years. The idea behind it is simple. Each user of the network expands the reach of the network, by letting information pass through their machine to its eventual destination, be that another user of the network, or an external connection.
Using this a small community of people could share a single network connection. The network is ‘organic’ – everyone who uses it, contributes to it.
There are technical challenges. As each person on the network could disappear at any time, the routing of the information needs to be highly dynamic.
At the start of this week, Cisco announced their first Mesh network products, following their purchase of Airespace for $450 million in December of 2004.
ABI Research
18 November, 2005
Teenage Internet Addiction
We’re really pleased to have Lawrence Dudley writing for us.
Digital-Lifestyles thinks that all too often articles about teenagers are written by people old enough to be their parents. What teenagers are thinking isn’t represented.
Lawrence will give you a point of view that you won’t find in other publications. You see Lawrence _is_ a teenager.
There’s a Trust Issue Here
With the Digital world coming ever closer to reality, there is a danger of the two merging. The upshot of this is a danger that people become so involved with the Digital world, that they lose a grasp of reality. In short, they become addicted.
Internet addiction disorder is already a widely recognised addiction and those most likely to become addicted to the Internet are teenagers. This is partly because of the anonymity and therefore reputation-less nature of the Internet, allowing them to be whoever they want to be, and partly because teens just have so much more time on their hands than their grown-up counterparts. This together, results in a vast amount of Internet use.
What can responsible parents do when their teenager refuses to turn off the computer or refuses to go to school because they’ve been up too late playing online?
There are two approaches: The first is to talk to the child in question about the problem. While this will work with the majority of responsible teenagers, there will always be a minority who won’t listen. The other approach is using parental control software which can do a variety of things including limit the amount of time that a user is allowed to spend on the Internet. Trouble with any sort of software solution is, of course, that it can easily hacked or broken. Very often the teenager has a much better knowledge of the computer than the parent has.
A company called Woog Labs (yes, really) have unveiled a product that is designed to be hack-proof and will apparently work for any operating system.
Trouble with it is that A) It requires an adaptor to be used with any video cable other than VGA (mine’s DVI), and B) It only works with PS/2 Keyboards… PS/2?!
This makes their claim that it works with any operating system a bit hard to swallow: I’m sure that theoretically, this device will work on Mac OS X. However, to my knowledge there has NEVER been a Mac shipped with a PS/2 port. Makes it a bit useless really…
I can see that there is probably a market for a device like this, but what’s really needed is for someone to educate parents on their responsibilities. Surely it should be up to the parents to teach the kids what’s right and what’s wrong? If they don’t, then what are the kids going to do when they grow older? When they are forced to look after themselves? Digital nannying should only go so far in my opinion.
18 November, 2005