2005

Dynax/Maxxum 5D dSLR From Konica Minolta Adds Anti-Shake
It wasn’t that long ago that digital dSLRs were the sole preserve of well-heeled enthusiasts and the pestering paparazzi, but with prices continuing to fall, digital dSLRs are coming within the reach of the mainstream.
Canon started the revolution, slapping down a hefty gauntlet in the face of their competitors when they introduced their 6.3 megapixel Canon EOS 300D (aka Digital Rebel) in 2003 for around US$1,000 (~£572, ~€828).
The camera immediately found favour with amateur snappers, semi-pros and some newspaper reporters, who wanted the immediacy and flexibility of a single lens reflex camera without the eye-watering price of a pro camera.
Nikon took some time to respond, but hit back hard with the Nikon D70, a well-specified camera that offered the same resolution as the Canon, but with a more comprehensive feature set – and a lightning fast start up time (often the bane of digital cameras).
Pentax, Olympus and Minolta also weighed in with affordable dSLRS and consumers got happier as prices kept on falling.
In February this year, Canon returned with its cheaper-faster-more featured next generation 8 megapixel camera, the EOS350D (Digital Rebel XT) retailing for US$880 (~£503, ~€728) while Nikon’s similarly priced D50 was introduced in April.
Trying to wedge their elbow into the highly competitive and lucrative affordable dSLR market is Konica Minolta’s new Dynax/Maxxum 5D digital SLR, announced last Friday
Aimed more at the beginner market, it’s a smaller and lighter version of their Maxxum 7D camera, with fewer external controls, a bright 2.5″ display, “easy and intuitive” operation and a shedload of exposure presets on hand.
The highlight of the camera is Konica Minolta’s unique in-camera Anti-Shake system, which works by stabilising the sensor instead of the lens element.
This can be of real benefit when shooting in low light and gives the Dynax/Maxxum 5D digital SLR a real edge over their rivals, and it’s the first time this system-wide feature has been seen on a sub US$1,000 dSLR.
The rest of the specs of the camera are impressive but not cutting edge: 6.1 megapixel sensor, JPEG and RAW image capture (RAW: 3 fps, up to 5 frames), white-balance bracketing, 100-3200 ISO, built-in pop flash and USB 2.0.
With its bigger name rivals winning plaudits for their new budget dSLRS, it may be hard for new punters to be won over to Konica Minolta’s new offering, although it looks like a winner for those already using Minolta bayonet mount lenses.
Maxxum 5D will be available in early August, with pricing yet to be announced.
Konica Minolta
18 July, 2005
UK Is Wi-fi Hotspot Hotshot Of Europe
A report from consultancy firm BroadGroup has revealed that the deployment of wireless hotspots in Europe have soared by 67 percent in the six months up to May 2005.
BroadGroup’s research surveyed 122 service providers in 29 countries with the UK triumphing as the hotshot hotspot of Europe, impressively boasting 34 percent of all Wi-Fi hotspots in Europe.
Wi-Fi growth has been spurred on by steadily falling access charges – albeit slowly.
Weekly subscription packages have plummeted at the fastest rate, falling over 62 percent in the first half of this year.
The study discovered that the vast majority of Wi-Fi access is bought on a pay-as-you-go basis rather than via a regular contract, with only a measly 10 percent of all access being through pre-pay deals.
As many a disgruntled transatlantic traveller may tell you, Wi-Fi access in Europe still remains considerably more pricey than the US market, although the report suggests that “price declines are continuing to trend downwards” (I think this means, “prices are going down”).
As the wireless revolution continues, other services designed for mobile workforces are also set to increase.
Industry analysts Berg Insight have predicted that mobile location-based services (LBS) will be worth € 274 million (~US$331 ~ £189) this year, with sales set for super soar-away growth as operators pile on more data-based services.
Some operators are already keen to exploit the burgeoning LBS market, with Vodafone recently introducing their Vodafone Navigator service, turning mobiles into GPS location devices with mapping technology.
A growing demand for fleet management and monitoring dispersed workforces is also expected to boost global LBS take-up.
BroadGroup
18 July, 2005
Vodafone: Women Can Use Mobile Phones Shock
With a survey that could be described as pointless fluff at best and patronising drivel at worst, Vodafone D2 have trotted out the details of their ‘Women and Mobile Phones’ market research survey.
After interviewing 1,044 female mobile phone users aged between 14 and 49, Vodafone produced the astonishing conclusion that women are informed mobile phone users who know what they want.
Gosh! Whatever next? Women like food too?
The April 2005 survey, undertaken by GfK, apparently confirmed that women are confident mobile phone users with a “sound knowledge and overview of mobile communications when buying mobile phones, using handsets and services and in many daily mobile communication applications.”
In other words, they can use mobile phones just like everyone else.
After wading through pages of the depressing minutiae contained in the report, I can reveal that one-third of women trust their own judgment when buying a phone, with the rest asking their husband, boyfriend, or a sales assistant (lesbians don’t seem to exist in this survey).
Vodafone’s survey tells us that women – just like the other half of the human race – are price conscious, with the operator’s tariff being ranked as the most important criteria (71 percent) for purchase, followed by the handset price (66 percent)
The report claimed to be “surprised” that the ‘typical female’ criterion of colour was only accorded a priority ranking of eleven out of a total of sixteen criteria.
Predictably, the most used functions were text messages (92 percent), alarm clock function (72 percent), calendar (56 percent) and ring tones (50 percent).
Neatly half of women use the camera on their phone with 37 percent of respondents citing the provision of Bluetooth for wireless data transfer as important.
In another startlingly obvious conclusion, the survey reveals that games are used most frequently by the 14-19 years age group, and that camera, video and music functions are becoming “increasingly popular.”
Wow. I bet you didn’t know that.
The report seems almost disappointed that the ladies weren’t lining up to register their approval of pretty pink phones with sparkly bits on, with half of all respondents stating that mobile phone accessories are unnecessary ‘fashion gimmicks.’
Plumbing the absolute depths of irrelevant detail, the survey found that more than half of the women said that their favourite place for making mobile calls is a comfortable sofa, with 43 percent sitting on the patio or balcony and 31 percent preferring to make calls in bed. Fascinating stuff!
There’s even a bit at the end where the report tries to link the impact of mobiles on relationships between men and women, but we’d just about lost the will to live by then.
And so the report drones on in a never-ending stream of dreary stats of little consequence to anyone – and with no comparative stats for men’s mobile phone usage, this survey is not only one of the dullest we’ve ever read (and boy, we’ve seen some corkers!), it’s completely meaningless too.
Vodafone survey
15 July, 2005
SPB Weather Review, For Pocket PCs (It’s Great)
For travelling PocketPC users unsure whether to pack away a brolly or load up with the sunscreen lotion, Spb Weather could prove to be an essential tool.
The weather forecast plug-in for the ‘Today’ screen on PocketPC serves up a veritable storm of weather-related information in a neat, concise interface.
Spb Weather is designed to display the latest worldwide weather reports from a variety of weather sources including GisMeteo, Intellicast, and Weather.com, with the option for users to specify their own data source.
Installation on to a Pocket PC was straightforward enough using Microsoft Activesync, with no faffing about with firewalls needed for the app to automatically update the forecasts from the web (you can specify when and how often you want updates to occur).
I decided to install it on to the storage card of my XDA Compact (iMate JAM) and it ran with no problems.
Once installed, it’s simply a case of choosing the cities you want displayed (you can manually add unlisted locations), and then having a fiddle about with all the fun display options lurking in the options dialog.
You can rummage through a wide variety of nicely-designed skins, icons and layouts, and decide how you want the information to be presented on your ‘Today’ screen, with options to select a 4 day, 5 day, 7 day or multiline view.
Clicking on a specific day brings up a detailed forecast for the day, with a mass of facts about temperature, humidity, pressure and wind information.
I’ve set the program to show me the weather in various cities around the world – including my home town and locations I’ll be travelling to shortly – and, of course, my lovely Cardiff, where the ‘rain’ icon seems to appear with alarming regularity.
For travellers, tourists and stay-at-homers with a passing interest in the weather, this is a handy, fun application that adds real value to a Pocket PC. Recommended.
Star rating: 5/5
Cost: US$14.95 (~£8.50~€12.30)
Tech requirements: 2.0 MB space on handheld, Pocket PC 2002 or Windows Mobile 2003 device
Spb Weather
15 July, 2005
SMS Usage Rises In The US
Us in UK-land have long been fans of SMS messaging, with button-pushing Brits banging out 3 million text messages every hour, with 2.5 billions text being sent in January 2005 alone.
In the States, it’s a different story, where network inoperability has held back the medium, but new figures show that SMS is finally make an impact in the USA, as messaging soared 59% last year.
The figures emerged in the June 2005 edition of Informa Telecoms & Media’s World Cellular Data Metrics, which pointed out that the value of the US mobile data market has increased by around 80 percent.
Total revenues from non-voice services for the four biggest US mobile operators roared up to more than USD 1.2 billion in Q1 2005, compared to a comparatively miserly USD 689 million in the same period of 2004.
Kester Mann, Senior Research Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media has the answers: “Interoperability is fundamental to the success of messaging and has been the key limiting factor to SMS usage in the States in the past.”
“The near 60% increase in traffic last year would not have been possible if subscribers could have sent SMS only within their own networks”, he added, sagely.
GSM operator T-Mobile was particularly chuffed with its performance as its customers belted out a total of 3.6 billion messages during Q1 2005 – that works out at around 67 texts per subscription per month.
This total is more than double last year’s volume, and SMS traffic looks set to rise as operators like T-Mobile roll out attractively priced “unlimited texting” tariffs.
Just like in Europe, texting in the US has also been boosted by cheesy TV shows offering interaction via SMS.
“Thanks largely to SMS, data now typically contributes 6-10% of mobile operators’ total revenues in the States,” mulled Mr Mann, manfully.
“While this still remains some way below the industry average, it marks a significant increase from the 4% recorded this time last year and less than 2% at the beginning of 2003,” he added.
US text traffic still has a long way to go until it matches Western European levels – where non-voice services form an average of 15-16% of mobile operators’ revenues – and is unlikely to top the 48% of revenue generated by SMS-smitten Filipinos.
And while we’re in the mood to throw around some SMS-related facts, get a load of this UK selection, courtesy of text.it:
On New Year’s Day 2003, the number of text messages sent in one day topped one hundred million for the first time, and on New Year ‘s Day 2004, the daily total reached 111 million messages
On New Year’s Day 2005, the highest daily total ever recorded by the Mobile Data Association was reached, when 133 million messages were sent
UK text message figures for January 2005 topped 2.5 billion, with 2.4 billion sent in December 2004 and 2.2 billion for November 2004
92 million text messages were sent by Britons on Valentine’s Day 2005, compared to the estimated 12 million cards sent.
15 July, 2005
FeedStation, FeedDemon Review: RSS Newsreader (Rated 5/5)
Developed by Nick Bradbury, the smart fella responsible for creating the fabulous Homesite (still our fave HTML editor) and the superb Top Style CSS Editor, FeedDemon 1.5 is a powerful RSS aggregation tool.
As we’re sure you know RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. It’s an XML standard that easily enables the distribution of new article, as summaries or full text – further details are on Wikipedia. The key thing to know is that in this world of fast moving, ever-increasing news, RSS and its readers making it easier to stay on top of it all.
The slick, standalone newsreader is ideal for people dipping their toes into the world of RSS, with FeedDemon’s setup wizard making it easy for folks to find and subscribe to popular RSS feeds by simply choosing from a pre-configured list of popular feeds.
If you can’t find anything of interest, users can boldly seek out new search channels via the Search Channels functions.
This lets users select a feed search engine, enter a keyword, and sit back while FeedDemon subscribes to a dynamic channel containing the search results for that keyword.
An unlimited amount of feeds can be filed into channel groups (like ‘news’, technology’, ‘sports’ etc), with all the RSS feeds being displayed in the left hand panel.
Clicking on a feed brings up a list of headlines in the middle panel, listed by date, and clicking on a headline opens up the entire article within a tabbed browser in the third pane.
We found this approach intuitive and fast, although users with small monitors may have to indulge in an orgy of scrolling to view all the content in its default layout.
The interface is configurable though, so users can make more room by shunting the browser to the bottom of the interface.
The program contains a nifty “Watch Channels” feature which searches for news items containing user-specified keywords and then organises them into a separate group so they’re easier to find.
The “News Bins” function was also a hit with us: this feature lets you archive a story simply by dragging a headline and lobbing it in the storage bin at the bottom of the left-side column.
FeedDemon’s new podcasting tools let news-hungry junkies download audio files and automatically copy them to their iPod (and, notably, other media players) with the bundled FeedStation utility allowing the scheduling of downloads – letting users charge up their iPod with new content while they’re snoozing.
With an enthusiastic developer regularly contributing to the online help forums and a slew of updates and tweaks being made to the program, we can thoroughly recommend FeedDemon for both newbies and RSS old hands.
Star Rating: 5/5
FeedDemon
Price: US$29.95 (~£17 ~€24) Windows only.
15 July, 2005
Palm Gets New Name, Ticker, Logo and HQ
palmOne transmogrifies into Palm, Inc today, following an announcement on May 24 that the company had acquired unencumbered rights to the Palm brand after buying out the share of the brand formerly controlled by PalmSource, Inc.
“I’m confident we’ll build our momentum even faster now that we can use the same term consumers and business people have always used for our products – PALM,” frothed Ed Colligan, Palm president and CEO.
“And while a lot has changed – our name, ticker, logo and headquarters – our vision remains the same. We believe the future of personal computing is ‘mobile computing,’ and we aim to deliver superior hardware and software solutions so that we can continue to set the bar in the industry.”
Clearly dizzy after overdoing the double Caramel Macchiatos, Palm talks lovingly about its new logo, claiming that it “builds upon the strong brand equity already established in the former blue Palm circular medallion, but the updated typeface suggests the trend toward digital content and an orange gradated background evokes energy.”
Page Murray, Palm vice president of marketing, was also in a state of ecstasy over the new design: “Our new logo takes advantage of the high brand awareness we’ve built over time through award-winning and commercially successful handheld computers and smartphones,”
Getting carried away on a wave of hyperbole, Murray waxed lyrical about the new logo: “It balances the past with the future, and signals to customers that they can expect to see a lot more of the name ‘Palm’ going forward in exciting mobile-computing products.”
Palm have a bit of a history with faffing about with their name. palmOne was created in October 2003 when the earlier Palm, Inc. spun off PalmSource and acquired Handspring, Inc.
The Palm brand was then shared between palmOne and PalmSource, but Palm claim that customers have come to identify the name Palm more with physical products than with the operating system that powers it.
We wish that they’d spend less time messing about with pretty logo redesigns, and got around to doing something useful – like creating the Wi-Fi drivers for the Treo phone promised months ago.
We wrote to them two months ago asking for a Palm Treo 650 to review and for information about the Wi-Fi drivers.
We’re still waiting for a reply.
Palm
14 July, 2005
‘Naked DSL’ Demanded By Vonage In UK
Research has revealed that two thirds of UK Internet users are deeply unchuffed about having to pay a BT line rental on top of their broadband subscription.
The stating-the-bleeding-obvious revelation was the conclusion of an online survey of more than 1,000 broadband subscribers in the UK who were questioned in June 2005 by online research company, TickBox.
The research, carried out on behalf of the broadband telephony outfit Vonage, also revealed that only 37% of Internet users believe there is a real choice of telephony provider, against 72% for mobile phones.
Vonage has demanded ‘Naked DSL’ in the UK, which would enable consumers to independently subscribe to telephone and broadband services and allow users to subscribe to a VoIP service instead of a traditional fixed-line service,
In a statement, Vonage commented: “In the UK, by the end of this year, broadband subscribers will be paying a surcharge of £672m annually to BT in line rental on top of their broadband bill, no matter who their ISP is.”
“Broadband subscribers deserve the right to choose their broadband and telephone providers independently without being forced to pay for a telephone line they may never use,” clarion-called Vonage UK MD Kerry Ritz.
“The broadband infrastructure will support a variety of services, one of which is telephony. Customers should be able to decide what services they want to ‘plug’ into their broadband network in the same way that they choose their electricity provider,” he added.
BT was quick to scoff at Vonage’s appeal, putting on its best supercilious tone while patting the upstarts on the head, saying that the company had little grasp of the costs involved in supporting its nationwide broadband network.
“We are aware that applications providers that don’t contribute to the cost of building and supporting that ever improving broadband network have little appreciation of the economics involved,” said a BT spokesman. “Our customers, however, do”.
Vonage
14 July, 2005
BT Resort To Soft Porn To Sell BT Communicator?
We had a report from a reader today that he’d been … ehm, carrying out tests on his content filtering service. This entailed going to sites with photos of naked bodies – purely to test that the content filter blocked his access to them you understand. One of first sites he went to was the well known UK tabloid, The Sun.
Clicking through a few pages he was somewhat taken aback to find a scantily clothed woman leaning over a computer, promoting BT Communicator, which is BT’s software-based VoIP (Voice over IP) offering. When it launched, one of our writers, Fraser Lovatt, looked at BT communicator and wondered quite why the product existed at all,
“It certainly won’t make it cheaper as BT will bill you at exactly the same rate they bill for calls from your home phone, despite giving a clear warning on their site that PC calls aren’t as good. So, I have to ask – what’s the point?”
It would appear to us that BT’s confidence in their BT Communicator product seems to have hit an all-time low today with its appearance in The Sun.
The piece in the Gizmo section of the site and paper features BT’s new model to promote BT Communicator, Michelle Marsh.
In her excitement to use the product, Michelle has fortunately remembered to don her headset, but sadly has put on her school shirt (it’s a little tight) and then forgotten to wear a skirt.
This is the wording they used in the article ..
“Marvellous Michelle Marsh has been signed up by BT to front (and let’s face it, she’s got plenty of it) a campaign for its Communicator service.
The luscious lovely is plugging the virtues of BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger, technology that allows you to phone, text, email and instant message from your PC.
And the stunner is doing it as only she knows how – dressed up in stockings and suspenders as a saucy secretary.”
Classy isn’t it. Lots of mentions of commercial products in there, not the sort of copy that falls out of the finger tips of a tabloid journalist. Surely BT aren’t using advertorials in The Sun to promote Communicator to the masses?
Looking at Ms Marsh’s previous work, it’s clear that she’s a busy little bunny. Her extensive career features the expected large variety of lads mag, car and bike mag shoots, but also extends to a photo shoot in Blackpool for the Tory party conference. Interestingly earlier this year she did the press launch for Bulldog Broadband – a big competitor to BT.
So is this a desperate ploy to try and promote a product that has no reason to exist? or have we go the wrong end of the stick?
The Sun – BT Communicator
14 July, 2005
SPV C550 Launched By Orange UK
It’s been a long time coming, but Orange have finally announced that their Windows Mobile-powered SPV C550 smartphone will go on sale later this month
The “Orange SPV C550 Great for Music handset” – to give its full name – is a compact mobile offering full smartphone functionality and a digital music player, sporting dedicated play, rewind and fast-forward keys.
Sporting a natty brushed aluminum finish, the phone can store up to 170 (presumably very short) music tracks on a removable 128MB mini SD memory card and comes pre-loaded with Orange Music Player, compatible with AAC+, WAV, MP3 and MPEG-4 formats.
The player integrates with the Orange World portal where Orange are hoping punters will be tempted into shelling out for some of the 300,000 music tracks available for download.
Songs downloaded through the phone’s Music Player software are DRM-protected, although the built in Fireplayer application will let punters remix their fave tunes into ringtones.
Media playback times for the C550 weren’t announced, but Orange’s own figures put it at 4 hours of talk time and up to 6 days of standby time.
The device, codenamed Amadeus, is a tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz affair that’s big on connectivity, offering GPRS Class 10, USB, Bluetooth and Infrared.
There’s an integrated 1.3 Megapixel camera wedged into its diminutive 108 x 46 x 16 mm case, and the whole caboodle weighs in at a pocket-unruffling 107g.
With the smartphone being built around Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 2003 platform, it’s easy to blast off emails on the move and synchronise contacts, diary and calendar information with your desktop PC.
Matthew Kirk, Director of Devices at Orange was ready and willing to spin out the PR schmooze: “Since the launch of the first SPV handset three years ago, Orange has led the development of smartphones and provided its customers with a choice of the latest and most powerful devices. The Orange SPV C500 was the world’s smallest smartphone and today its successor provides the first realistic alternative to carrying around a separate MP3 player, phone and PDA.”
The SPV C550 joins Orange’s growing SPV range of Windows Mobile-based devices, which includes the SPV C500 phone, SPV M2000 PDA and the recently-launched SPV M500 mini PDA.
Pricing details are yet to be announced, but will, as ever, be dependant on contract.
Orange
Orange SPV C550
14 July, 2005