2005

JVC MP-XV841 MiniNote Review: Small is beautiful
The JVC Mini Note (MP-XV841GB) is what’s known as a sub-notebook, but for such a small system it’s packed with features. What is immediately noticeable is the fantastic screen which is extremely bright and sharp and in a widescreen format (about 9 inches across diagonally) perfect for playing DVD’s on the move. The screen resolution is 1024 x 600.
It’s powered by a 1GHz Pentium processor (Centrino) with speed-step technology, so it slows down to save battery when you don’t need the processing power. Unfortunately the base system only comes with 256MB of memory which is just about enough to run Windows XP (Professional, which came with the unit), though another 512MB can be installed by the user by removing a few screws in the base and inserting and clipping in a single expansion card.
The internal drive plays DVD’s (and comes with WinDVD so you can watch them) and also writes CD’s (both CD-R and R/W). There’s 2 USB ports, an i.link (or IEEE-1394/Firewire) port, 10/100 Ethernet, a V.90 modem, microphone and line out jacks. The in-built microphone is OK for Internet chat type applications and the stereo speakers have a virtual surround sound. You can plug in an external monitor with a supplied adapter, there’s a PC Card slot and a slot for an SD memory card. Not forgetting the built-in WiFi for connecting to wireless networks or hotspots. The disk drive is 40GB split into a drive C: and D:
The docking station/port replicator which comes with is plugs into the same connector as the external monitor, giving you 4 USB ports, an Ethernet socket (LAN), standard VGA connector and an optical digital out so you can listen to your DVD’s through an external surround sound decoder.
JVC include some reasonable software. Pinnacle Studio v9 which is a simple video editing package (supporting capturing video from your DV camera through the firewire port), Real Networks RealOne player, Norton Antivirus (with a 3 month subscription), WinDVD for DVD playback and CC converter a sound enhancing utility.
All work makes you a dull boy
The Mini Note is a full featured PC, though definitely aimed at the user on the move who wants to use the media friendly features – at a light weight. Unfortunately though usable, the keyboard is just too small to do real work and plugging in an external keyboard is definitely needed if you want to touch type (unless you have tiny fingers). The pointing device is a small nipple type in the keyboard and again is usable, though I didn’t find it particularly easy.
Summary
All in all it is a good system, the screen is one of the best out there, it’s got enough grunt to run most standard applications, but I found it too small to use as a desktop machine without external additions. For such a light and portable system it’s pretty usable for working on the move and watching DVD’s.
JCV MP-XV841 MiniNote
1 June, 2005
8Meg Bulldog DSL Goes UK Wide
Bulldog Communications, the Internet and telecom group owned by Cable & Wireless, is rolling up its sleeves and shouting “Oy! Let’s be ‘aving you!” at its rivals as it doubles the speed of its broadband offering to a super-swifty 8 megabits-per-second from 4 megabits, and spread it across the UK.
With its local loop unbundling (LLU) cutting BT out of the loop, Bulldog can offer highly competitive prices, letting subscribers get broadband at speeds of up to 8 meg.
Prices start at £15.50 (~US$28 ~€22) for eight hours online a month with their ‘Start@ctive’ package.
The unlimited ‘Inter@ctive’ 8 meg product costs £29.50 (~US$53 ~€42) a month, with the ‘Super@ctive’ package bundling in free unlimited local and national calls for £41.50/month (~US$75 ~€60).
It should be noted, however, that punters have to install Bulldog’s telephone service to enjoy the @ctive prices.
Like a crack dealer giving out free samples, Bulldog is offering the first month’s broadband service for just one pound in the hope that customers will get addicted to their high speed service.
A bullish Bulldog CEO Emanuele Angelidis insisted that the launch of the 8 meg service showed how the LLU operator was “redefining the boundaries of the broadband market”.
“Eight meg from Bulldog, with no download caps, gives customers the freedom to use the Internet as they wish,” he growled before retiring to his executive kennel.
Elsewhere, a spokesman for BT could be heard conceding that Bulldog’s pricing was “an interesting proposition … and a sign of a very healthy broadband market”.
Although competition in this sector is white hot, BT remains the King Dong of the UK telecoms market, although it is yet to announce anything as fast as an 8 megabit broadband service.
Currently, entry level broadband products tend to offer miserly speeds of around 256Kbps, although pricing pressure has seen major players such as BT, Tiscali, AOL and Wanadoo offering 1Mbps or 2Mbps broadband deals for around £14.99 (~US$27, ~€22) to £29.99 (~US$54, ~€44) per month.
C&W have been embarking on a broadband spending spree recently, announcing last week that it was doubling its investment in LLU to provide broadband coverage to 800 telephone exchanges – adding up to around 30 percent of homes and businesses across the UK.
Bulldog Broadband
1 June, 2005
DABplus With EPG Launched By Frontier Silicon
Frontier Silicon has launched a new module that claims to bring personal-video-recorder (PVR) like capabilities to DAB digital radio.
The newly introduced DABplus brings a combination of a smarty-pants electronic programme guide (EPG) and advanced recording and timer capabilities to its successful Venice module.
Just like a PVR, DABplus will let radio listeners shuffle through a guide detailing up to seven days of programmes and select what they want to listen to (or record via the built in timers).
Recordings can be saved onto a memory card on the same radio or played back on any compatible audio unit.
With a Tim Henman-esque clenched fist action, Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon whooped up the benefits of his company’s new product, “This will revolutionise digital radio just as PVR has revolutionised the television viewing experience.”
The Venice module comes with all the necessary components pre-installed, making it easy for manufacturers to start churning out DAB radios by simply bolting on a power source, antenna, display and keypad (it’s probably a bit more difficult than that, but you get our gist).
The module contains the Chorus processor which has already proved a hot potato in the DAB world, shifting over two million units.
Frontier Silicon’s software provides an interface through which EPG and dynamic service information (DLS) can be viewed, with scrolling text allowing information ‘wider’ than the 16-character screen to be seen.
Anthony Sethill added, “The addition of DABplus to our market leading modules will help accelerate the adoption of new broadcast features such as EPG and is therefore an important next step for the digital radio market.”
Frontier Silicon
1 June, 2005
The Dream Team That Invented Practical Television – Free IEE Lecture
IEE John Logie Baird Memorial Lecture and Buffet Lecture Presented by Norman Green Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI) Contribution to the Development of Television 1931 to 1978. In April 1931, two companies, the Gramophone Company (HMV) and the Columbia Graphophone Company, whose businesses were based on the recording and reproduction of gramophone records but who were also already interested in television, merged to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI). One of the first projects of the combined research laboratories was the development of an all-electronic television system. To do this, EMI assembled one of the finest groups of engineers and scientists in an industrial company the world has ever seen. People such as Shoenberg, Blumlein, Condliffe, McGee, Lubszynski and White. Their work caused the famous scientist, Lord Rutherford of the Cambridge University Cavendish Laboratory, to say ‘they are carrying out almost pure laboratory physics and then applying it directly to industrial work.’ When they started their television work at EMI the state of the television art was mechanical scanning at 30 lines and a bandwidth of 5KHz; when they finished it was 405 lines and 3 MHz. In developing electronic television they had also invented the circuits that are still widely used today in electronic designs. How this was achieved and how EMI progressed the development of television, through telerecording, 1000 line systems, transmitters, aerials and colour until they withdrew from television equipment design in 1978, will be told. This will be an audio-visual presentation by presenter, Norman Green much of which has not been seen before by the general public. Savoy Place, London http://www.iee.org/Events/JohnLogieBairdLecture.cfm
1 June, 2005
Men Remain Moguls Of The Mobile:Cingular Wireless
A survey by Cingular Wireless has revealed that men spend more time yakking on mobiles than women.
For the fifth year on the trot, the annual survey has men coming out on top of the blabber’s league, with the fellas talking 35 percent more on their wireless phones than women – more than double the 16 percent lead men held in 2004.
“The results are undisputable, and after five consecutive years, men are definitely the top wireless talkers,” said Jennifer Bowcock, Director of Consumer Media Relations, Cingular Wireless.
It may seem at odds with the experience of some blokes, but the survey concluded that men communicate, grunt, leer, mumble or beerily chortle down their phones for an average of 571 minutes a month, compared to an average of 424 wireless minutes a month for women.
Traditionally, the home phone has been the favoured instrument of choice for women keen to sit down with a cup of tea and hog the phone forever, and this is reflected by the study which shows that women natter for 491 minutes each month against the 321 minutes per month for men.
The gap is narrowing though, down from 62 percent in 2004 to 53 percent in 2005.
Even when it comes to the traditional male domain of gadget owning, women still lead the way, with 25 percent of women owning a camera-capable cell phone in 2005, against only 21 percent of men.
Women aren’t afraid to get snapping either, with 60 percent using their camera feature frequently or occasionally against 40 percent of men using it as often.
The survey also discovered that men and women use wireless phones for different purposes, with 82 percent of the lay-dees using their phones to talk to family and friends, while only 62 percent of blokes use their phones for that purpose.
However, figures revealed that men spend twice as much time using their cell phones for business than women.
The survey concluded that convenience still remains the numero uno reason for both sexes using their mobile phones, with 62 percent indicating they primarily use their wireless phones for convenience purposes. Safety comes in second at 19 percent.
Cingular Wireless
1 June, 2005
Broadband Beats Dial-Up In The UK
Research from BT shows that the number of users connecting to the Internet via broadband has overtaken dial-up subscriptions for the first time, with 7.4 million broadband customers (including cable) now online.
The figures, released by the BT Group, reveal that it has taken just over three years for broadband connections to overtake dial-up, with millions bidding farewell to “KKKKK-ER-ZRRRR-WEEIR!” modem dial up sounds for the silent, swift appeal of always-on broadband.
The speed of uptake has been accelerated by the intense competition from a host of high-speed Internet service providers, all offering customer-tempting speedier connections and services at ever-falling prices.
Initially, broadband availability was geographically limited, but according to Ben Verwaayen, the chief executive of BT, connections are now available to 99.6 per cent of the UK population, “equivalent to the proportion with running water.”
Businesses have been quick to take advantage of broadband’s ability to handle significantly more data than dial-up, with always-on connectivity delivering commercial advantages in the global markets.
High speed connections are also good news to those selling goods and services online, with an explosive growth in the consumer market for buying media online, such as films, music and television.
Mr Verwaayen said: “I know people’s memories are short but I don’t think that anybody three years ago had even the faintest hope this would happen. I remember when I came into BT [April 2002] it was not in anyone’s imagination.”
Cash is still rolling into broadband investment, with Cable & Wireless announcing last week that it would be shelling out another £70m (~US$127m ~€m)to expand its Bulldog broadband brand.
Bulldog is currently handling 14,000 customer orders a month after launching last year at a cost of £41m (~US$74m, ~€103m).
BT remains the Big Cheese of the broadband world in the UK, boasting 1.7 million broadband subscribers of its own, with its network supplying a further 3.7 million broadband connections for other Internet service providers.
Two million cable customers now enjoy broadband connectivity through NTL and Telewest.
Mr Verwaayen wrapped things up: “We have to take the internet out of the domain of the geek and into the normal world. That’s the journey we are on. After that you can increase the multiplier effect of broadband in the economy. “It’s great to have overtaken dial-up, that’s another step, but it’s still in its early days.”
BT Group
Bulldog Broadband
31 May, 2005
Log On Through The Lord
Cardiff vicar Reverend Kimber is hoping that by introducing wireless broadband access from the pews of his city centre church, more people will be encouraged to join his flock at St John’s Church.
The decision was made after the tech-savvy Reverend discovered that the thick walls of the 1473 church blocked his own wireless signal as he used his laptop to write sermons and create orders of service.
The Welsh capital is awash with Wi-Fi after a joint project between Cardiff council and BT Openzone resulted in more than 100 wireless broadband points being created around Cardiff city centre and parts of Cardiff Bay.
With the streets full of wired Welsh business folks looking for a fix, Kimber realised that they might appreciate a quieter place to do business.
“The church is a sanctuary for everyone, including business people with laptops and mobiles who may want to find a quiet area without lots of noise and loud music to sit in peace and do some work or just send an e-mail,” Kimber told the BBC.
The laptop-toting vicar added, “I couldn’t do my job without one and it has made me more aware of other people’s needs.”
After Kimber approached BT, the company agreed to fill in the gap in Cardiff’s wireless broadband network and fitted the church with its own Openzone node, providing access to surfers sitting in the corner of the north aisle at St John’s.
Hopeful to convert Skype surfers into Bible-troublers, the Rev Kimber said: “This church has a strong commitment to be open for people in the city, and of course, if this will encourage more new people into the church, the project will have been a success.
Fearful of mass sessions of multiplayer shoot-em-ups and virtual battles breaking out in the aisles, Kimber added, “All we ask is that they respect the church environment and do not to use loud mobile ring tones or play music on their computers, especially when a service is in progress.”
It wouldn’t be the first time the church has seen battle – the original medieval church was severely damaged during the revolt of Owain Glyndwr in the early 15th century.
According to Ann Beynon, BT’s director Wales, when it comes to wireless connectivity, Cardiff is now one of the most connected in the UK.
St John’s church, Cardiff
Wireless broadband goes to church
31 May, 2005
Training Foundation Launches National Online Learning Initiative
The Training Foundation has launched its Ready for Work online training programme, an employment-awareness course free to all young people in (or recently in) full-time education and those in modern apprenticeships.
Warmly welcomed by leading education and industy-based bodies such as HTI, Confederation of British Industry and the British Chambers of Commerce, the scheme is aimed at ensuring that fresh-faced young ‘uns arriving at the workplace know how to become responsible employees.
The Ready for Work program will give young workers an idea of what employers might expect of them as they start out on their working lives and, is it hoped, make the transition to employment a more pleasurable experience (I’m still waiting for that bit to happen).
The training programme consists of 12 online courses designed to raise awareness on employment issues of major concern to today’s employers.
The “interactive and engaging” programme covers subjects such as “showing respect at work, embracing diversity, being enterprising, managing workplace stress, health & safety, following drugs & alcohol policies, sensible email and Internet use, data protection and being a responsible employee.”
Each self study course ends with a short test to check the learner’s understanding, with an 80% or better grade qualifying the student for an optional Ready for Work Certificate and Ready for Work Handbook.
Certificates are awarded by ABC (Awarding Body Consortium), a leading UK awarding body with full Qualifications Curriculum Authority (QCA) recognition.
In April 2005, The Training Foundation became the first ever training organisation to be awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise – Innovation, and its new scheme has had industry bigwogs falling over themselves to lavish praise on the initiative.
Sir Richard Branson was first in the queue; “We need our young people, on which the Country’s future prosperity depends, to be equipped with an appreciation of business, so that they can set out with a spirit of enterprise. I welcome the Ready for Work programme. Co-operation between employers and educators on initiatives like this can do nothing but good.”
Sir Digby Jones, Director General of the CBI wanted to hug the Ready for Work program and take it home: “We need more employable young people understanding the world of work, trained in the most relevant areas and able to add value to their employer. The Ready for Work programme will help to bridge this gap.”
David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce roared his approval: “We need initiatives such as Ready for Work, which can help to ensure that young people leaving full-time education and training are equipped with skills that are both relevant for the workplace and will help advance their careers.”
Roger Opie, HTI Trust Director, also sprinkled the scheme with love: “The partnership between business and education is critical in raising the employability stakes for young people. An understanding of the skills and behaviours required in the workplace is a shared responsibility. This free programme provides both the content and motivation to complement existing initiatives.”
The course is accessible over the Internet at The Training Foundation’s online learning portal www.readyforwork.org.
31 May, 2005
Does Anyone Understand The Ringtone Business?
It’s OK to say you don’t understand the ringtones business.
I know there are people who initially claim they do, but not one of the many people that I’ve spoken to about the ringtones business can explain its workings to me. I’m not talking about how the downloads work, but why it’s so big.
Anyone in the UK will be able to tell you at some length about the Crazy Frog ringtone – it’s been a cultural phenomenon.
When they make I Love May 2005 (inevitable), some sardonic fellow (they normally are fellow, those sardonic ones) will make a witticism about it, that’s just long enough to fit perfectly into the edit between the clips. Then those watching will be able to delight in hearing the hallowed tones again.
Reasons for this started with an incessant TV advertising[*1] campaign.
This lead to three possible reactions – the haters, the lovers and the not-bovered.
I’d imagine that lots of the UK viewing public hate it to the point of distraction, despising the ‘music’ and being irritated at their generally bafflement at ringtones. In fact 60 people chose to voice their disapproval to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), other chose to complain about other parts of the frog, which quite honestly I can’t say I’ve been looking for. As quoted from the ASA Website.
“It wasn’t long before complaints were flooding into the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Some viewers complained that the commercial was annoying and broadcast far too frequently. However, the main crux of the complaints related to a far more unusual and surprising subject matter. Frog genitalia.
Viewers had noticed that Crazy Frog was very definitely male due to a protrusion that stuck out from his cartoon body. The complainants found this inappropriate. Some were worried about children seeing this kind of advertising material whilst a few parents had felt embarrassed by some of the questions their children had asked them.”
The Crazy Frog was investigated and exonerated on all counts.
As to the regularity of the adverts, they said
“Lastly, though the ASA accepted that advertisements which are broadcast frequently can rankle with some viewers, it didn’t uphold the complaints, as it’s the advertiser and broadcaster who decide how often they show a commercial.”
So the ASA say it’s OK for them to continue spreading their joy among the nation – even if they don’t want it.
This has started a revolt from other advertisers who don’t want to be on the same slot as the Crazy Frog. On some channels this has lead to many Jamster ads[*2] being shown in the same break. In fact, this afternoon on E4, nearly all adverts were Jamster’s.
In the process of this it has become the first ringtone to reach number one in the charts since downloads have become included.
Popjournalism tells us
“Representatives from the UK Singles Chart said the novelty track sold 150,000 copies and was at one point outselling Coldplay’s new single “Speed of Sound” on a four-to-one basis.”
This stuff has been on the news and news quizzes. We’re told it’s sold over 11 million copies throughout Europe for goodness sake.
Ironically its popularity is the tragedy of its success.
How often do people who have chosen that as a ringtone incorrectly reach for their phone, when its played in a TV ad; on the news; a chart show on the radio; or as someone else’s ringtone? Conversely, how many have missed calls because when their phone was ringing, when they assumed it was from another source.
Its popularity defeats its main purpose – you can fail to be alerted when someone is try to contact you.
This comes to the core of my misunderstanding of ringtones.
The draw of ringtones is to individualise the phone handset. But with ringtones, there is no scarcity of supply. Everyone can have one, if they pay for it.
If a ringtone becomes well known enough, like Crazy Frog, the purchaser ends up paying for the privilege of advertising their product for them.
I can foresee the next wave of ringtone distribution will be quite different – generating the same kind of revenues (remember, 11m ringtones at £3) without the huge amount they’re spending on TV adverts.
I would mobilize their most powerful sales force – the ringtone user. By enabling each of the ringtone enthusiasts to act as sales people, they let them sell tunes directly to their friends, with a percentage of the sale to them for their trouble.
Unfortunately instant gratification for the keen purchaser is not currently possible due to the inadequacies of phone DRM, so direct transfer of music peer-to-peer is not allowed, due to the “fear of piracy”, or not trusting your customer as it’s otherwise known.
Perhaps a SMS/WAP passed token would work …
As to how do you judge what’s going to be a massive smash – I really have no idea
[*1 A sweet spot has been created. The downward pressure on the cost of advertising on the UK’s terrestrial channels, has crossed the rise in income generated by the ringtone business. This sweet spot, unfortuntley, creates very frequent TV adverts for ringtones.]
[*2 Jamster sell the Crazy Frog ringtone, other ringtones, wallpapers, etc]
An extensive history of the Crazy Frog birth is available from bloggerheads.
31 May, 2005
MobiTV Powers Orange 3G TV
We covered the announcement of Orange’s 3G TV content to mobile handsets last week, but today we discovered who’s providing the content-to-mobiles technology powering the services.
Idetic, the company behind MobiTV, who are in turn Orange’s partners for the service, are the technical brawn behind the operation. Headquartered in Berkeley, CA they have been around since 1999, originally working on bandwidth optimisation systems for cellular networks.
We spoken extensively with Ray DeRenzo, former Chief Marketing Officer of Vodafone America’s Global Platform and Internet Services Group, who joined Idetic as VP of EMEA (so he’ll have a somewhat less-wide business card these days), running through many areas of their business.
A fortuitous early deal with Siemens saw the creation of a smart proxy server product being bundled with Siemens hardware and begin actively sold, with Siemens effectively becoming a sales agent for Idetic system. This licensing deal gave them the breathing space, and cash flow, to further develop the system.
The roots of the system that is being used on the Orange project lay in a demonstration system for delivering content over IP connections to TV, originally created as a sales tool to sell their optimisation products.
During a demo with a major US broadcaster, the eyes across the table lit up, generating great excitement about using the system to syndicate broadcaster content to many platforms.
This pivotal moment for the company, altered the companies direction, expanding them in a new direction.
After much careful thinking and planning they’ve ended up with an end-to-end solution, spanning ingestion; digitisation; encoding; and distribution going initially to IP TV, now cellular and wireless.
In what must have been a pretty big transition for the technical-focused company, they launched MobiTV, hiring the BSD’s from Hollywood, TV and the cellular world. By gathering content distribution deals initially in the US, now Europe and soon Asian markets, they have placed themselves in an enviable position, supplying the delivery system and the content to be delivered – both sides of the transaction.
With expansion into Europe and Asia on their main, back in February, MobiTV swelled their ranks with some of the great and the good from the mobile world, one of which being our interviewee Ray DeRenzo. A smart move bringing in people who’ve been very close to the Giant.
Digital-Lifestyles spoke to Ray this afternoon who confirmed their first trip to MipTV this year had been highly rewarding with many of the content companies beating a path to their door. He commented that seeking content deals has been significantly easier in the US, as the content owners are consolidated into a small number of very powerful providers, differing from the significantly more fractured map of Europe.
Their heritage in the US has done them big favours. The deals that they have made there have enabled them to supply a similar service to the Orange TV service, in the US to Sprint PCS, AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and a number of other regional carriers in the region carrying 23 channels.
These US roots could go someway to clarify why the Orange UK TV service is so weighted towards US content. Signing deals like CNN are a sure thing in many countries of the world.
The simplicity of the whole system is quite beautiful. Ingesting at satellite downlink sites in the US and Europe, this is transferred to their operations centre in the US where the content is prepared and distributed to cellular phone users handsets via their downloaded application. When content is delivered of the handset, the application takes care of the deliver of the content, DRM and rescaling of the video to the specific characteristics of the destination handset.
They’ve opted not to use the RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) standard as many other video streaming services have, but have decided to use their own packeted-delivery approach, which they claim is more bandwidth efficient than leaving the connection constantly open, as RTSP does. It would seem to make sense.
Orange have initially decided to only offer a bundle deal, £10 (~US$18 ~€14.5)per month including 20 hours of access to any of the TV content. MobiTV system is also able to offer many more payment options including one-off payment using micro-payments.
Depending on the handset that is used, MobiTV claim mobile views should be getting a frame rate of around 15 fps, which while it’s around half the frame rate of ‘normal’ TV, sound eminently very watch able – certainly a considerable improvements on the much maligned 1-2 fps of a couple of years ago.
The delivery of TV and video content to the mobile handset is currently white hot both in the content and mobile worlds – and it’s been getting that way for the last 18 months. What has yet to be consistently proven is the consumer’s appetite for paying for it – Will it have the run away success of SMS or only generate the mild interest of MMS.
We don’t know Idetic/MobiTV’s offering intimately, but from the overview we’ve had it certainly looks like an interesting offering.
Idetic
MobiTV
27 May, 2005