2005

Apple Tiger OSX Launch Date Announced
Apple Computer has announced that the latest major update of its Mac OS X operating system, code-named Tiger, will be available on 29 April.
Modestly described as “The World’s Most Advanced Operating System,” Apple’s highly anticipated update to Mac OS X (now at version 10.4) will be available to mobs of grasping Mac huggers on Friday, 29 April.
With over 200 new features on offer, Apple aficionados should find the upgrade worth the price, with one of the most eagerly awaited new features being a sophisticated new search facility called ‘Spotlight’.
This powerful core application lets users search just about everything on their system – files, emails, contacts, images, movies, calendars and applications – with the results appearing “instantly”.
Stealing a march on their Microsoft rivals, Spotlight can also rummage around inside the metadata of files and organise search results by criteria, such as the kind of content, author, edit history, format, size etc.
The new OS will also feature Dashboard, an accessory desktop application letting users display a variety of real-time information from the Internet, including stocks, weather forecasts, track flights and currency rates and other third party apps.
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs was clearly excited by the new OSX upgrade: “Tiger’s groundbreaking new features, like Spotlight and Dashboard, will change the way people use their computers, and drive our competitors nuts, trying to copy them.”
Other updates include an updated Safari browser offering built-in RSS support, improved connectivity with other desktop operating systems and support for the next-generation video-compression standard H.264 (allowing multiple users on the video-conferencing program iChat).
Mac OS X version 10.4 “Tiger” will be available on 29 April from 6:00 pm at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorised Resellers for a suggested retail price of £89 (US$129, €129)
Apple will also be offering a “family pack” version of the software, for £139 (US$199 €199), serving up to five computers in a single residence.
Apple OSX
13 April, 2005
Vodafone Appeases Content Suppliers with Marketing
There has been much rumblings of discontent from content suppliers to the mobile phone industry, and, as the globally dominant brand, Vodafone have been taking a lot of the flack.
With sales soaring through the roof, you’d think all would be cream cakes and Earl Grey tea in Mobile Land, but trouble’s been a-brewing concerning the split of income from subscribers for the content.
In a world where content providers are used to calling the shots about product pricing – and the mobile companies are used to a similar position of dominance – an uneasy truce has been maintained, with the best spilt available being 50/50.
Clearly dissatisfied with their lot, content providers have been making long whining noises in the direction of Vodafone. They want more money but – not surprisingly – Vodafone aren’t to keen to dish it out.
Feeling the pressure, Vodafone have tried to placate their grumbling partners in the short term by dishing out a sizzling barbeque of buzzwords, liberally doused with PR doublespeak.
We’re not sure if their partners are going to have much of an appetite for what’s on offer – if they can make sense of it – but it seems that Vodafone are offering to spend more on marketing mobile games (without altering their percentage split of the income.)
The extra promotion will clearly be good news for content providers, but the more cynical amongst us will be quick to point out that Vodafone will clearly benefit from the extra publicity too.
It looks like Tim Harrison, Head of Games at Vodafone Group Services, had been smoking pure Moroccan Buzzword when he came out with this piece of baffling industry-speak: “Having pre-agreed, pan-regional marketing and distribution capacity will allow us to run multi-territory co-marketing more easily, improve efficiencies for our partners and benefit the industry as a whole.”
Vodafone will be rolling out their grandly titled ‘Marketing and Distribution Plan’ by the end of April, with the remaining Vodafone Operating Companies and partner markets enjoying “maximised marketing and distribution efficiencies” by the end of Q3 2005.
Vodafone
Vodafone press release
13 April, 2005
Google Unveils Mobile Local Search
Google is making its local-search service available to mobile-toting users, offering maps and driving directions optimised for the wee screen.
The nifty service – currently being publicly tested – lets nomadic users find local restaurants, stores and other businesses using their Web-enabled mobiles/PDAs equipped with suitable XHTML (Extensible HTML)-enabled browsers.
Using the service is simplicity itself, with a simple interface offering two boxes to enter “what” and “where” search terms, a search button and a link to get driving directions.
If you’re gasping for a Budweiser beer in Brooklyn, simply type ‘bar’ in the first box and the area’s zip code in the second and you’ll be presented with a helpful list of ten hostelries, with a ‘next’ button offering more locations.
Each search result offers the name, address and phone number of the bar and the distance from your location (sadly the service is currently only available for US and Canadian services).
As with Google local search results, clicking on the link for a result takes you to a page offering more detail about the business (there’s not much there at the moment, though).
Telephone numbers are displayed as a hyperlink, and if the users’ phone supports the facility, clicking on the link will dial the listed telephone number (unlike some local search services, there is no additional charge for this).
At the top of the page, a small map shows the locations of the bars listed, with each marked with a pushpin-like icon. A set of text links below lets you zoom in and pan around the local area.
Basic driving instructions can also be obtained by inputting your start and end addresses.
Naturally, such a genuinely useful service suggests a host of revenue earning possibilities, but Georges Harik, director of product management for Google declined to discuss future plans for sponsored listings, pay-per-call advertisements or other potential enhancements to the local mobile service.
Instead, the cryptic chappie stated that Google “plans to do whatever would be useful” for users of the service.
Local search services are set to be the big hot potato of 2005, with the Kelsey Group reporting that local search ad spending hit US$162 million (£85m/€125m) in 2004.
The local advertising market is predicted to reach US$5.1 billion in the United States by 2009, with local search advertising accounting for about two-thirds of the spend.
With Google’s arch-rivals, Yahoo, already offering a mobile search service, we can look forward to a glorious bun fight as the search engine giants ramp up the feature sets to woo customers. Bring it on!
Google Mobile
Google Local
Yahoo Local
12 April, 2005
Mobile Games Industry Attracts £183m Of Venture Capital Funding In 2004
New figures by media researchers, Screen Digest, has shown that the mobile games market has scooped up £327m worth of funding since September 1999, 56% of which was raised during 2004.
A hefty chunk part of this investment has been driven by private equity houses as the mobile games market begins to realise its lucrative potential.
Between 2002 and 2004 mobile game company fund-raising soared from £23m (US$43.5m/€33.5m), with investors scrambling to secure an interest in the market.
UK companies attracting investment included Digital Bridges and Atatio, with Jamdat and MFORMA leading the way in the US.
The growth of multimedia/web-enabled phones has supercharged consumer spending on downloadable mobile games, with sales growing from £380m (US$719m/€554m)in 2003 to £778m (US$1.4bnm/€1,134m) in 2004.
What people in expensive suits call “merger and acquisition activity” has also shown a dramatic increase over the past 12 months, with Screen Digest’s research highlighting the exponential growth in game developer transactions – from just two transactions in 2002, to four in 2003, rising massively to 19 in 2004.
Screen Digest’s Chief Analyst, Ben Keen explains, “Once the top developers have been acquired, there is likely to be a trend towards consolidation at the publishing/aggregation level to achieve greater ‘scale’ in the marketplace. We believe that once again it will be the private equity houses that will emerge as the driving force behind any sector ‘roll-ups’.”
Evidence of the mobile games market’s strength is highlighted by growing activity in the financial community and the increased involvement of the traditional games publishers.
The recent creation of dedicated mobile publishing divisions by a number of computer and video games companies (most notably Electronic Arts) provides further evidence that the mobile games market has finally come of age.
Screen Digest
12 April, 2005
Sony W800 Walkman Phone First European Showing
I had a Sony W800 Walkman Phone in my hands for the first time today at the Sony Media Experience in Bordeaux. There’s already been a terrific buzz about this camera and it was great to get my hands on the thing during what Sony claims was its first European outing.
First impressions – good. Its weight is just right, light enough to make it carriable but sufficiently weighty to make it of substance.
The central music button is the focus of the handset and, not surprisingly, pressing it takes you straight to your music selection.
Once tracks have been selected, there are separate buttons on either side of the handset. The button on the left is play/pause and the right control volume. Again, without having to dive into the menus of the phone. A smart move.
The software comes with the handset will take music CDs straight from the player on your machine to handset, without intervention.
It follows on from other Sony camera phones, in that taking photos is easy. Simply sliding the switch at the rear of the machine, takes the horizontally-held phone straight to camera mode, again without having to devle into menus.
The W800 should retail for €500 (US$644/£341) pre-operator’s discounts.

Single button to access music

Volume controls

Headphones attach at the bottom
12 April, 2005
TComm Launches TELLYfone, A UK Mobile TV Service
TComm has launched a mobile TV service capable of delivering live, streamed and downloaded audio/video content to mobile phones.
Announced at the MIP TV/MILIA audiovisual and digital content trade show, the TELLYfoneSM mobile TV service is the UK’s first cross-platform, network independent mobile TV service.
The service comes with full digital rights management, capable of delivering live, streamed and downloaded audio/video content to suitably equipped mobile phones.
The TELLYfone network includes individual subscription channels and will serve up a “full library” of content including; Comedy, Soaps, Sitcoms, Films,Music, Animations, Horror, Xtreme, Horoscopes, Cooking and a Games show.
Subscribers currently have a choice of six premium channels with another eight channels rolling out over the next 60 days.
“TELLYfone expands on the existing ‘TComm TV’ service and offers a much better content package for subscribers,” enthused Managing Director, Stewart Mclean.
“We feel that it is important to allow users to choose what they want to see and to present them with a broad spectrum of content. With this new service we are confident that we will find European partners in both the mobile industry and retail sector to use the TELLYfone service on their network or make it available to their customers,” continued McLean.
The TELLYfone service is available on the majority of current mobile phones and works over GSM, GPRS and 3G mobile networks with Symbian, JAVA or 3G enabled mobile phones.
Further services will include the ability to deliver the inevitable ringtones, wallpapers and logos with the content.
Tony Johnson, the Content Manager of TComm (UK) Limited, was on hand to lavish praise on his own service: “With content from UK and US production companies such as 2 Minute TV, Fearless Music, Sandy Frank Entertainment and Hungry Biker, TELLYfone sets a new standard in content provision for the mobile phone market.”
“We have committed ourselves to provide more of the very best content to our subscribers,” continued Johnson.
I’m sure you’ll forgive us if we fail to get as excited as ol’Tony about TELLYfone’s current line up which includes “Genius on a Shoestring – a lively reality show set in the streets of New York” and “Krysta LeBall – Daily Horoscopes and Astrology.”
And try as we might, we couldn’t get even slightly moist about this forthcoming service: “SexyCam – The hilariously naughty candid camera format programme that features 260 cheeky situations… Imagine the shock of entering your local restaurant to find all the other diners are suddenly naked!”
A special promotion is offering free access to the service throughout April, after which access will be on a paid subscription basis.
Anyone desperate to discover Krysta LeBall’s latest astrological mumblings can access the service by texting TELLY to 81223.
Tellyfone.tv
12 April, 2005
Frontier Silicon Trials Roadster Automotive DAB Module
Automotive DAB market gets a boost with successful road trials and three new design wins for Frontier Silicon.
In possibly the longest sentence we’ve ever read in an announcement (68 words long!), Frontier Silicon breathlessly informed us of the success of their trials with the Roadster automotive DAB module.
The Roadster module, launched last year, is based on the award winning DAB technology already in use in over 70% of DAB radios on the market today.
The module allows OEM (original equipment manufacturer) fitting of DAB into integrated head units in the car, giving drivers a wide choice of DAB services.
In addition, the module supports telematics features such as Traffic Message Channel (TMC), TPEG and other emerging traffic data services at the full DAB decode rate.
The vertically mounted module is a fully shielded, self-contained complete system featuring Eureka 147 DAB receiver, dual band (Band III and L-band) high performance RF front end, base band processor, power supply, flash memory for program and data storage, additional random access memory and a full suite of firmware.
The Roadster module operates from a single 3.3V supply, pulling just 800mW power while decoding DAB, and also includes a phantom antenna power supply to support active antenna arrangements.
The whole caboodle measures only 55mm x 37mm x 13mm and is designed to mount inside a 1DIN radio/CD player.
Steve Evans, VP sales, Frontier Silicon, opened up his big book of industry buzzwords and let rip: “The automotive Infotainment market is an exciting area and a natural extension of the consumer DAB radio market which we have successfully helped to grow over the last three years.”
“The key factors that enabled our Roadster module to be successful in Winning the design slots with these manufacturers are its RF performance, power consumption and small size as well as the robust and feature-rich firmware that we are able to supply alongside the module. The ability to support TMC on the module was also considered an advantage.” He added, “We are looking forward to seeing the first production cars later this year with DAB functionality enabled by the Roadster module.”
Frontier Silicon
11 April, 2005
MobiBlu DAH-1500 – The “World’s Smallest MP3 Player”
It must be tough trying to get noticed in the crowded MP3 player market.
Most small concerns haven’t got a hope in hell of competing with the grace or design finesse of Apple, neither have they the resources to dream up the compelling feature sets served up by the likes of Creative and iRiver.
So squeezed on both sides, smaller MP3 manufacturers often serve up designs “inspired” by their successful rivals, try to get noticed by playing the wacky design card or claim some kind of world record for their product.
So, no prizes for guessing what route MobiBlu have taken with their DAH-1500 player, billed as the “world’s smallest MP3 player”.
The new teensy-weensy MobiBlu DAH-1500 player apparently offers MP3 and WMA support, a FM tuner and a claimed 15- 20 hours battery life (we say ‘apparently’ because our Japanese translation skills aren’t too good).
But it certainly is a wee little fellow, measuring a Tom Thumb-esque 24x24x24mm and weighing in at just 18 grams.
The unit features an attractive OLED display taking up one side, adjacent to a iPod-style circular control wheel.
In an interesting twist, MobiBlu’s press agency seem to think that showing someone about to drop their sugarcube-shaped player into a cup of tea forms a winning marketing strategy.
If users manage to avoid dunking the player, their publicity photos also suggest they can wear the device as a head tilting earring or lug it around the neck as a clunky necklace. Cool, or err, what?
There’s some remote hope that the unit may see the light of day sometime this month – we spotted this rebranded JNC Digital version on the web.
imp3
Aving
11 April, 2005
Men Spend More Money on Video Games Than Music: Nielsen Report
A study by Nielsen Entertainment has revealed that men spend more money on video games than they do on music, adding weight to a growing belief that video games are displacing other forms of media for the notoriously fickle attentions of young men.
And it’s not just the kids fragging and gibbing away – the study also reveals that old ‘uns are getting down with da yoot on the consoles, with nearly a quarter of all gamers being over 40.
The random survey of 1,500 people was conducted by the interactive unit of Nielsen Entertainment earlier this year and revealed that games now rank only behind DVDs as a purchase category, ahead of CDs, digital MP3 files and other ways of buying music.
We’ve no idea why this is relevant, but Nielsen also wanted to know how gaming split along lines of race, discovering that African-Americans and Hispanics spend more money on games each month than Caucasians. So now we know.
Naturally, advertisers are keen to cash in on the rising popularity of games, and are looking at ever more persuasive ways to bombard bedroom-bound, bunglesome boys with beguiling adverts (branded billboards in race games are already commonplace, as we’ve reported previously).
Never one to miss an opportunity, Nielsen has announced that they are working on a method to measure audience response to the in-game ads.
The study also discovered that 40% of US households have some kind of system dedicated to game play – whether a gaming PC, a console or a handheld device – with 23% mad-for-it gamers owning all three types of systems.
Like masturbation, older gamers prefer to do it alone, with 79% of men and 79% of women over the age of 45 spending most of their time playing alone.
Teenage girls tended to play more socially, while women aged 25-54 spent equal time playing alone and with others.
Overall, Nielsen reported that active gamers tend to spend just over 5 hours a week playing alone and 3 hours a week playing with people or online.
The US video game industry now rakes in US$10 billion (€7.7b/£5.3b) in annual revenue, roughly as much as US box office sales.
Nielsen Entertainment
11 April, 2005
UK Online Broadband Now From £9.99
UK Online is hoping to bring broadband to the masses by smashing the price point for “entry-level” home broadband down to a wallet-untroubling £10 a month.
The Broadband 500 service will offer unlimited 512K broadband (yes, unlimited!) from just £9.99 ($18.95,/€14.55) per month to UK customers lucky enough to be in their catchment area.
The company has also reduced the price of its unlimited Broadband 2000 (2Mb) service, to £19.99 ($37.75/ €29.13) per month, with its Broadband 8000 (8Mb) service – the fastest home broadband service available in the UK – crashing down to an affordable £29.99 ($56.64/ €43.70) per month.
UK Online will be utilising Easynet’s Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) investment, to offer the new price points for 512K, 2Mb, and 8Mb broadband to users on its network of unbundled exchanges – adding up to over 4.4 million homes nationwide.
Chris Stening, General Manager of UK Online, said, “LLU enables us to offer more innovative products than our competitors. Our unique 8Mb service has led the way on speed and now we are leading the way on price.”
Surfers not used to this level of generosity may be wondering where the catch is, but we haven’t found it yet: we wrote to UK Online and they confirmed that both the Broadband 500 and Broadband 2000 are unlimited services with the Broadband 8000 offering an enormous 500GB monthly download allowance.
The spokeswoman also added that none of their current customers currently signed up to the package have come anywhere near that limit yet.
Suitably tempted, we headed off to their site faster than a crack-fuelled ferret up a drainpipe, only to discover that we weren’t in an “enabled” area.
This meant that the service would have to be delivered via BT’s network, pushing the prices up to £19.99 per month for the Broadband 500 per month and £29.99 per month for the Broadband 2000 – with no Broadband 8000 option.
UK Online
11 April, 2005