Digital-Lifestyles

2005

  • Ofcom Release Ultra Wideband (UWB) Document

    Ofcom released a consultation document today on ultra wideband (UWB) in the UK.

    Given Ofcom’s statutory duties under the Communications Act 2003 to ensure the optimal use of the radio spectrum under its management, they should be keen on UWB.

    The strength of UWB also causes its problems. By simultaneously transmitting over a wide range of frequencies (around 3.1 – 10.6GHz, if you’re interested), UWB is able to achieve higher data transfer rate than other wireless technologies.

    By spreading over these frequencies it has the possibility of interfering with services that currently operate in or around these services, such as 3G, broadband fixed wireless access and radio astronomy.

    Back in May 2004, Ofcom commissioned Mason Communications and DotEcon to produce an independent report in to UWB. Delivered in December 2004 (Read the final report, all 218 pages of PDF fun), it looked at the advantages to the UK economy of allowing UWB applications and the disadvantages of increased interference to existing radio spectrum users.

    The report focuses on the use of UWB to create a Personal Area Network (PAN) with examples of usage being; providing wireless connections between DVD players, displays and speakers; and using them for high speed wireless links between digital cameras and computers.

    While acknowledging interference is likely, it’s clear that Ofcom feels this should be weighed carefully against UWB’s potential benefits. To check this interference, the suggestion is to use a technical ‘mask’, controlling the amount of power that could be used at different frequencies, in an attempt to reduce the impact of interference.

    The US regulator has already authorised UWB on a licence-exempt basis, but Ofcom consider the US specification to be inappropriate for the UK. Their proposal is that if UWB is allowed, it should be on a licence-exempt basis, but be limited to the same in-band power levels as permitted in the US, but have tighter out-of-band limits.

    Ofcom point out that there is a need to come to a decision soon, fearing US-built UWB devices could be imported in to the UK.

    All of these add up to a big pressure on the frequency users that would be affected. It will be interesting to see what their reaction will be during the consultation period which closes 24 March 2005.

    Ofcom Ultra Wideband consultation document
    Mason Communications and DotEcon final report

  • The Sun launch Page 3 Soft Porn to Mobile Phones

    Sun MobileNews International, the publisher of well known UK tabloid ‘newspaper’, The Sun, has opened the doors on its own mobile content service that it calls Sun Mobile.

    It will feature ringtones, java games and … you guessed it … Page 3 wallpapers and screen savers. For our non-UK readers, Page 3 of the Sun is dominated by a photo of a topless (at least) woman.

    The service won’t be short of promotion. The Sun website, Sun Online, has around 3m users, with half of its traffic coming from the US and Canada. The printed paper has a circulation of 9 million.

    Despite The Sun having a presence on the Vodafone live! and Orange World portals, News International (NI) has set up their own mobile site, developed by Blue Start Mobile. It will be accessible in over 130 countries around the world, thanks to NI’s deal with Bango.

    Many mobile content providers are discontented with what they see as unbalanced, operator-biased revenue splits that the mobile phone company are currently offering in the UK. It sounds to us like NI has recognised this, as Simon Ashley the commercial manager dealing with the launch points out, “Sun Mobile gives us direct, interactive relationship with our customers on mobile.”

    Sun Mobile (contains nudity)

  • RocketFM – Unleash Your Computers Audio to FM Radio

    Griffin RocketFMWow, Griffin Technologies are busy. Following a flood of announcements from them in the build up to MacWorld including the SmartDeck iPod cassette adaptor, they’ve just announced RocketFM.

    Building on their idea of transmitting iPod music to FM radios, RocketFM is a USB FM Transmitter for PC or Macintosh that takes the sound from your computer to an FM radio that you might have knocking around.

    The software that comes with it, lets the broadcasting frequency be chosen by the user, to avoid clashed with your favourite stations.

    Costing $39.95 it will starting shipping in the US in the first quarter of 2005.

    Different countries around the world have different rules on the use of this type of device. Quite a few countries in Northern Europe, including Sweden, Austria, Iceland and the UK, don’t like you broadcasting on FM, no matter how weak the signal.

    Ofcom, the UK super regulator, has been very clear about their dislike of such devices, like iTrip. It contravenes the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949 and use of one in the UK could in theory be met with the maximum penalty of two years in prison.

    Griffin RocketFM

  • Apple iTunes Selling 1.25m Tracks per Day

    During his MacWorld keynote, Steve Jobs took time to tell the Apple faithful about the success of iTunes.

    Back in mid-December, we were rather dismissive when we heard that iTunes had sold 200m tracks, so when we heard Jobs saying that the figure had now reached 230m songs, it didn’t set our world alight.

    What we did find interesting was the current rate at which tracks are being sold per day. From their combined online stores in the 15 countries they have running (covering 70% of global music market), they are currently selling at the rate of 1.25m per day.

    Jobs was quick to point out that ‘at this rate’ the annualised sale of tracks would be 0.5 billion tracks.

    While this tracks/day rate initially sounds enormous, it has to be put against the explosion in the sales of iPod over the last quarter of 2004.

    In the run up to xmas a very impressive 4.5m iPods were sold (a 500% growth over the same quarter last year) and dropped in to people’s xmas stockings, bringing the total sold to 10m. Clearly these arrive empty and have to be filled with music, some of which may be already owned, but experience tells that the common action is for people to take this as an opportunity to buy more music.

    The number of tracks downloaded will have been helped by the 1m prepaid card that Apple has sold since US Thanksgiving (25 Nov).

    These combined factors may account for the big hike in tracks/day and could point towards this being a seasonal blip. Sustaining it will require a continued enthusiastic appetite for new music from the current owners or legions of new iPod owners continuing to arrive.

    Apple iTunes

  • iPod shuffle. Apple’s Flash Music Player

    apple iPod shuffleThe success of Apple’s iPod range is well known. They have to date sold over 10 million units and have total domination of the hard disk-based portable music players. The only market they weren’t in was the solid state memory, or Flash memory players. To address with the hope of being the winner there too, Jobs announced the Apple iPod shuffle.

    Shown in iPod white it’s 3.3 inches x 0.98 x 0.33 (8.4 cm x 2.5 x 0.84) and weighs only 0.78 ounces (22.11g). In summary it’s very small, about the size of a pack of chewing gum.

    The controls are very simple, numbering just five – play/pause; volume up and down; next and previous track. Unexpectedly it has no display, so there is no visual way to know which track is playing. Apple being Apple, worked this idea to their advantage, suggesting that receiving your music in a random, unexpected order was fun. We’ll see if the market agrees.

    Connecting to either a Mac or PC via its USB 2.0 port, it also takes its charge onto its 12 hours battery this way. This is a great feature that players like the Jens MP-130 had used, which we found a real boon.

    While we’re on the Jens MP-130, it had a really excellent microphone build into it which enabled quality recording of interviews and the like. It’s noticeable that the iPod shuffle doesn’t have a mic onboard or even a jack for an input. This is for playback only.

    It comes in two models; 0.5 GB and 1GB – pretty beefy for a Flash player. Prices are $99 (~€75, ~£53) and $149 (~€113, ~£79) in the US, £69 (~€98, ~$130) and £99 (~€141, ~$187) in the UK and is “shipping from the factory” yesterday.

    The integration with iTunes is strong and features AutoFill. This gives various methods of selecting music tracks to go onto the iPod shuffle, filling it to capacity.

    The experience that we’ve had in the Digital Lifestyles office with USB music players is that the ones that have a clip-on lid end up having problems with the lid dropping off. The iPod Shuffle is using a removable lid as the attachment to the lanyard which then hangs around the neck.

    The reaction throughout most of Jobs’s presentation was pretty ecstatic as is the norm, with them cheering and whooping on cue. Strangely during the presentation of the iPod shuffle, it was pretty restrained, even quiet. The only audible excitement was during the announcement of the price of the base model.

    We’re sure Apple will be hoping the public has a more enthusiastic reaction to it. We’ll be getting our hands on it this Friday, so we will update you after that.

    Apple iPod shuffle

  • Netflix Subscription Slowdown Projected: SG Cowen

    Yesterday SG Cowen & Co released a Morning Call that cast a shadow over Netflix.

    They expect Netflix to report solid Q4 results in 2004, but believe it’s unlikely to achieve its goal of 4m subscriptions in 2005, for two reasons.

    Blockbuster has lowered the price of their online postal 3-DVD service in the US from $17.49/month to $14.99/month. Netflix have stated that they will maintain their pricing at $17.99.

    SG Cowen has been carrying out a survey of DVD postal rental services in four US markets. Their results indicate that Blockbuster service has improved, while heavy users of the Netflix service are getting a reduced service.

    SG Cowen actually tied some numbers to Blockbuster’s improvement. The levels of movie availability were at 20-25% in October 2004, improving to 62-84% in November and reaching 84-94% in December.

    Over this time they found that Netflix is cutting back.

    Their belief is that Netflix is reducing the number of new releases that they are purchasing, which is impacting the availability of the titles to their customers. This in turn brings further cost savings for Netflix as they are sending out less DVD’s, thus reducing their shipping costs for heavy users of the service.

    If SG Cowen are correct, it looks like the road ahead for Netflix and its high usage subscribers could be bumpy.

    SG Cowen

  • UPDATED – Mac Mini Announced by Jobs – $499/£339

    apple mini mac box In what isn’t a surprise move Steve Jobs has announced the Apple “Mac Mini”, a low cost addition to the Macintosh computer range. Priced at $499 (~€380, ~£265) and $599 (~€457, ~£319), it can sit in the palm on your hand (measuring 6.5 inches (16.51 cm) square and just 2 inches (5.08 cm) tall and weights just 2.9 pounds (1.32 kg). True to form for Apple, it looks great.

    Disappointingly Apple plan to sell the Mac Mini for £339 (~$634) and £399 (~$746) in the UK. Which, when converted back in to dollars at current exchange rates, don’t sound quite so sweet. Quite why UK uses will have the privilege of paying more is currently unclear.

    The bargain-basement prices are because it comes with quite a few things not included – like keyboard, mouse, screen – or “BYODKM, bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse” as Jobs put it.

    What do you get for your money? The different prices give you either a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 or a 1.42GHz (you know when they’re talking about 0.02 of a GHz they’re talking about a budget machine) processor and a 40GB or 80GB hard drive. Two included optical drives are available; a combo, that reads CD & DVD and writes CDs; or a SuperDrive, that reads and writes CDs & DVDs.

    Interestingly, the video output is via DVI (Digital Video Interface) and support up to a 1920 x 1200 resolution. DVI is used on many Plasma TV and large LCD screens as the standard interface. Additional adaptors will enable the DVI to be connected to a VGA, S-video and composite video output.

    Cleverly they are including lots of software – iLife 05 ( iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand); Quicken 2005 and AppleWorks 6, providing word processing and spreadsheets.

    It’s connectors to the outside world are – One FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports. The keyboard and mouse (extra cost) can be connected using these. An optional internal Bluetooth module enabled the connection of a wireless keyboard and mouse. 10/100Mb Ethernet and a 56K modem.

    Wireless networking is possible using the internally fitted AirPort Extreme Card – which comes at extra cost.

    We see this as Apple’s chance to cash in on all of the non-Macintosh owning iPod users, whether they be computer-virgins or current PC owners who are looking to upgrade.

    We were wondering what the final cost of the machines would be when spec’d up with wireless networking, etc. It appears that many other people around the planet were thinking the same thing, as the ordering section of the online Apple Store has fallen over from the demand.

    This baby is going to sell – by the truck load. First truck load arriving 22 January 2005.

    Apple Mac Mini
    Watch Jobs keynote

  • SmartDeck from Griffin gives iPod control

    Griffin SmartDeck iPodGriffin Technology has announced what they call SmartDeck Intelligent Cassette Technology.

    At first glance it appears to be a “seen it” product, a bit of audio cassette-shaped plastic that you pop into your cassette player to let you play the music you’ve got on your digital music player.

    Take another look beacuse this device is smarter than that. Rather than having to fumble for the control on your iPod while you should be concentrating on things like … driving. This little beauty lets you use the buttons on your cassette deck to control your iPod. The fast forward and rewind buttons take you to the next or previous playlist track; the Stop and pause buttons do as would be expected; and hitting Eject or selecting car stereo’s radio also put the iPod on pause.

    How does it do it? The cassette adaptor has sensors on it (note the teeth inside the holes in the middle of it) and passes this information down a single white cable to the four-pin top accessory port on the top of the iPod. Clever isn’t it?

    Griffin are also claiming it automatically sets optimal volume on the iPod for best audio quality and the devices innards are the highest-quality to give crystal clear quality sound.

    It should be available in the second quarter of 2005, priced at $24.99 (~€19, ~£13.50). If you can’t wait until then to see it, it’s going to be on show on Booth #1917 at current MacWorld show.

    Griffin SmartDeck

  • Children’s Cellular phone withdrawn following UK health report

    Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), today published a report of the emissions of mobile phones. He said he believed that mobiles may pose a health risk, although this was not yet proven. He said “If there are risks – and we think there may be risks – then the people who are going to be most affected are children, and the younger the child, the greater the danger.”

    Following this, Communic8 the company who sells MyMo, a mobile phone specifically for use of children between 4 and 8, announced that they were to stop selling it immediately.

    We spoke to Adam Stephenson of MyMo and he said “After listening to the the tone and content of Sir William Stewart on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, we have decided to stop selling MyMo.” He went on explain that they had read between the lines to see a considerable risk. “The idea behind MyMo was to protect children. We have no intention of exposing children to any danger.” While pointing out that no one in his company were medical experts, he went on to say “We feel it would be foolish to challenge their findings.”

    The MyMo offered a simple ‘cut down’ mobile phone with three buttons on it that enable pre-set phone number to be called easily. It was licensed from a company in Germany and is still for sale in Italy and in the Netherlands, through KPN.

    This is the second piece of research within a month, flagging the possible dangers of mobile phone emissions. The last study, majority-funded by the European Union, has found in December that in laboratory conditions, radio waves from mobile phones harm body cells and damage DNA.

    MyMo
    Sir William Stewart on BBC Radio 4 (Real player req.)
    Health warning on children with mobile phones – The Scotsman
    Cellular Phone Emissions Damage DNA, Study Finds – Digital-Lifestyles.info

  • Philips WACS700 Wireless Music Center – Interesting

    Philips WACS700 Wireless Music CenterPhilips used to strike us as a funny old company. They’ve been tremendously innovative. They had, after all, been a key players in the creation of many pieces of consumer technology; compact cassette; CD; DVD, but their products often looked like a dog’s breakfast.

    About 18 months ago we noticed a change, as their design started becoming more “with it” (as I believe they used to call it in the ’60’s).

    At CES last week they showed their Wireless Music Centre, WACS700 to the crowds. It doesn’t look too shabby, reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may sound confusing that a film released in 1968, set in 2001 should look modern in 2005, but the films styling is near-timeless).

    Equipped with a 40GB hard drive and its own 802.11g (54 Mbps) networking, it’s able to wirelessly stream music around your house to up to five satellite units. 750 CDs of music can be loaded on to it using the built in CD player or via the Ethernet port, which is also used to pull down information on the ripped CDs from the Gracenote CDDB database.

    There are a couple of features that make it of particular interest.

    It comes complete with a two-way remote control, which cunningly displays the currently playing track, as well as allowing the navigation your music.

    The master unit has slim, built-in speakers using Philips Super Sound Panel Speaker technology, a nifty space saving trick to uniting tweeter and woofer into a single unit.

    Satellite units can be configured for playback in a number of ways. Separate music can be played on each on; the same music on each (this is harder than it sounds due to fractional speed difference in wireless packet delivery) or a follow me feature that lets you take your music from one room to the next as you walk between rooms.

    Available in the US from April 2005, the WACS700 will have a suggested retail price of US$999 including one satellite unit. Additional satellites will cost between US$200 and US$250. We’re waiting on Philips to find out European availability and pricing.

    Philips