The World Cup In Germany this year is going to be the big opener for HDTV in Europe.
When I was in Berlin mid-last year there was a lot of talk about it, and with the annoucment below, it’s clear that that HD mania isn’t going to just be restricted to Germany, as Holland follows suit.
Sport1, a new pay-TV channel will be the first HDTV channel in Holland and on the back of it they’ll be launching Film1 – no prizes for guessing what they’ll be putting on that.
Dutch Sport1 and Film1 to launch HDTV channels with World Championship football
News release follows
Amsterdam, 21 February 2006 – New Dutch pay-TV service Sport1 will air the World Championship football in Germany in the HDTV (High Definition Television) format to kick off the first Dutch HDTV channel fully dedicated to sports. A Sport1 HDTV channel will launch early June, driven by the start of the World Championship on June 9, and will also show matches from the main European football competitions as well as a wide variety of international sports in the HDTV format. Launching at the same time in early June, a Film1 HDTV channel will show the latest Hollywood movies in the HDTV format.
The launch of these two channels is an important step forward in making the superior HDTV broadcasting available in the Netherlands. chellomedia, the owner of Sport1 and Film1 in the Netherlands, has concluded an agreement to this effect with the digital cable platforms of UPC, Essent, Multikabel and CaiW. These Dutch cable operators are currently preparing their technical infrastructures for the launch of HD services. Digital cable is optimally suited to HDTV transmission due to the very high capacity of the cable infrastructure.
chellomedia, which bought the film and sports rights for the Netherlands from Canal+ last year, first concentrated on the launch of Sport1 and Film1 as a digital pay-TV service. The main goal was more content and more channels for the consumer at a lower price. The launch of HD channels for Sport1 and Film1 is a logical next step in the strategy to become the leading provider of sport and film content in the Netherlands. Another step, in advance of the launch of the HDTV channels is the change to broadcast Film1 and Sport1 in the anamorph widescreen format (16:9), coming from the older 4:3 screen format related to analogue television (as far as the content allows for this).
HDTV: far better picture and sound
Jeroen Bergman, Managing Director of chellomedia Benelux added: “A growing number of consumers are buying high quality flatscreen TV systems for their homes, with which they enjoy a better viewing experience. HDTV transmission here provides a huge improvement of picture and sound quality over current standards of transmission. HDTV offers television viewing of the future. There has not been such a technological revolution since the move from black and white TV to colour. We are proud to be among the initiators of the future of a new standard of television viewing.” Consumers need a HDTV ready TV set and HDTV ready digital decoder for viewing in the HDTV format.Film1 and Sport1
Film1 and Sport1 are Dutch pay-TV services of chellomedia, the European content and digital services division of Liberty Global, Inc. Film1 boasts four movie channels and broadcasts first-rate films that are making their first appearance on Dutch television. These vary from blockbusters to independent and art house films.Sport1 is a 24-hour sports channel with an extensive range of live sports. This channel can be extended to maximally eight sport channels, enabling viewers to decide for themselves what matches to follow. Sport1 televises all the major European soccer leagues, as well as the UEFA Champions League, the English FA Cup and the Copa Libertadores, as well as hockey, basketball, baseball, darts, golf and tennis.
The City of London is to get blanket Wi-Fi, with city slickers able to access the Web anywhere within London’s famous financial district, the Square Mile.
Unfortunately, unlike the free Wi-Fi service 
The move follows an announcement that The Cloud would be installing network hubs and rolling out WiFi in nine cities across Britain, including Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Liverpool.
America Online is about to come out of its corner fighting as it gets ready to slug it out with Internet heavyweights such as MySpace, Skype and Google.
Mashing up MySpace
Stalking Skype
Canon have unleashed a veritable avalanche of new cameras today, with no less than ten new models being announced ahead of the PMA 2006 show.
Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH (European name: IXUS 800 IS)
Canon PowerShot SD600 and SD630 (European name: Canon Digital IXUS 60 / IXUS 65)
Canon Powershots A700 and A540
The 4-megapixel A420 serves up a 3.2x zoom and 5-point AiAF auto focus, the 4-megapixel A430 has a 4x optical zoom and 9-point AiAF auto focus while the A530 ramps up the resolution to 5 million pixels, a 4x zoom and ISO 800.
A shiny new 8 megapixel digital camera has just rolled of Casio’s well-used photographic slipway, the Exilim Zoom EX-Z850. 
Although effective, this is never as good as a proper optical stabilisation system, and relies on ramping up the ISO and shutter speed to freeze action – so you often get sharp pictures at the expense of increased image noise.
We’re not quite sure what that means or how the effect is achieved, but we hope it doesn’t involve digital zoom.
Apparently it does this by “automatically adjusting for obliquity even when photos are shot while still in the album” – whatever that means.
ISO sensitivity Auto (Max ISO1600 when using ‘Anti-Shake’ or’ High Sensitivity’ BEST SHOT modes)ISO50, ISO100, ISO200, ISO400
So, it’s Monday morning, you’ve sat down at your desk, powered up your PC and then slunk lower and lower in your chair as a fresh tide of spam rolls into your inbox.
If musing over updated spam graphs are your thing, check out the 
We covered 
In an interesting and innovative twist, Dixons have teamed up with Pulse Rated, a Internet radio station, to fill up the empty space on new MP3 players with tracks from unsigned bands.
We expect this initiative to increase our already impressive tally of artists offered recording deals as a result of our activities – all of which are provided totally free of charge to the artists,” he added with a plug-tastic air.
The kids may love it, but concerns are growing over social-networking sites like MySpace.com which encourage young users to build ever-larger circles of friends.
Last week, authorities in Santa Cruz, California arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion of felony child molestation after he met a 14-year-old high-school student on MySpace.
With promotions like this, it’s not surprising that the site is proving attractive to older predators seeking to exploit young members.
Handango has released their annual “Handango Yardstick”, a global snapshot of the state of the mobile content industry in 2005. 
New additions included the Motorola RAZR V3, the BlackBerry 7100 Series and the BlackBerry 7250/7290 (the first BlackBerry smartphone to ever make the top ten).
The top ten Windows Mobile Pocket PC applications were: