March 2006

Sony Ericsson MP001 Portable Speakers For Mobiles
There was a time when the word ‘dock’ only conjured up visions of dirty great harbours full of ships, cranes, an angry Marlon Brando and beefy tattooed blokes lugging great sacks around the place.
But to your average teenager, a ‘dock’ is now simply something they slam their phone or iPod into for recharging or connecting to their computer, and keen to keep up the connection, Sony Ericsson have just announced a new docking wotsit for their phones, the MP001.
It’s not going to be battling for design awards, but it’s an attractive enough device (as docking cradles go) and capable of belting out a very reasonable 25W (RMS) of sound through the built-in amp and speakers.
Powering the silver, triangular dock is Sony’s very own S-Master Digital amplifier, with onboard digital signal processing (DSP) keeping the sounds sweet.
This is the very same amplifier found in some Sony home cinema kits and car audio systems and, coupled with the built in sub-woofer speaker, there’s a good chance that this mini system will make a decent racket for its size.
So long as your phone has a FM tuner, it can be activated as soon as you plonk the handset into the cradle, letting the MP001 double up as a home radio system – neat.
Naturally, the phone is automatically charged while you’re getting on down to your sounds and long-term sofa residents will appreciate the bundled basic remote control offering volume, bass and treble control.
Daniel Svoboda, Sony Ericsson’s General Manager, Home Electronics Marketing Europe was suitably enthusiastic, “Something like this is perfect for so many types of people. Teenagers, students, office workers, basically anyone who wants to use their music phone to the full.”
The MP001 is only compatible with Sony Ericsson music phones with Fast Port and is due to go on sale in the UK around June. No word on pricing or availability yet.
Sony Ericsson at CeBIT
7 March, 2006
Mac OS X Hacked In Half An Hour. Or Maybe Not.
To find out how secure Apple’s OS X operating system is, a Swedish-based Mac fan set up his Mac Mini on the Internet, and invited hackers to try and break through the computer’s security and gain root control.
Just six hours later, a hacker called “Gwerdna” had won the “rm-my-mac” competition by gaining the necessary access, altering the Website to read, “This sucks. Six hours later this poor little Mac was owned and this page got defaced.”
In an interview with ZDNet Australia, ‘gwerdna’ said that he managed to gain root control of the Mac in less than 30 minutes, using some unpublished exploits “of which there are a lot for Mac OS X” to hack the machine.
Gwerdna added that the hacked Mac could have been better protected, but even that wouldn’t have stopped him because he exploited a vulnerability that has not yet been made public or patched by Apple.
Declaring the OS X as “easy pickings” for hackers looking for vulnerabilities, gwerdna observed that OS X doesn’t HAVE the market share to really interest most serious bug finders.
This opinion was shared by security researcher Neil Archibald, who said: “The only thing which has kept Mac OS X relatively safe up until now is the fact that the market share is significantly lower than that of Microsoft Windows or the more common UNIX platforms.”
“If this situation was to change, in my opinion, things could be a lot worse on Mac OS X than they currently are on other operating systems,” he added.
It wasn’t a hack!
The University of Wisconsin wasn’t impressed, calling the story, “woefully misleading” and pointing out that it wasn’t a “genuine hack” but a “privilege escalation for a legitimate user.”
Dave Schroeder of the University of Wisconsin explained that because anyone logging on was allowed to set up a local account on the Swedish machine (accessed via ssh), the exercise was more like breaking into a different user account while sat behind the computer. And that is much easier then hacking into a fully protected system over the Internet.
In other words, the machine was not hacked from the outside (via the Internet), it was hacked from within – a big distinction.
In response, the University has launched another competition in which hackers are challenged to break into an OS X system connected to the internet.
Their Mac OS X Security Challenge invites users to alter the web page at test.doit.wisc.edu by Friday.
Hobson’s iChoice
Either way, all this attention adds up to something of a double edged sword for Mac fans, who enjoy far less grief from hackers and virus writers than their Windows counterparts.
Understandably, they’re keen to see their platform of choice flourish, but the more successful Apple becomes, the higher the risk becomes that they’ll be targeted by hackers.
Mac OS X hacked in half an hour (C|Net)
7 March, 2006
FT New Media And Broadcasting Conference
7.Mar.06 – 8.Mar.06 Digital Media is booming for the second time. An exciting new generation of broadband internet and wireless technologies is driving forward a new wave of growth and spending. Digital televisions and games consoles are taking over living rooms. Digital platform producers are racing to create the ultimate convergence device. Internet service providers are expanding their services to include music, film and free phone calls, and are preparing to do battle with the wider communications industry. Meanwhile the traditional broadcasters and content producers have been rethinking their strategies to keep pace with a rapidly transforming landscape. The stakes are high: by 2009, it is predicted that the global digital media market will be worth US$1.8 trillion. Along the way there will be winners, losers, and many new stars will be born. http://www.ftconferences.co.uk/digitalmedia/
7 March, 2006
Supersites Bloom As Web Users ‘Only Visit Six Sites’
There may be almost 76 million sites stuffed full of six billion pages of information vying for our attention on the Web, but it seems that most surfers only choose to visit six sites on a regular basis.
This rather amazing fact emerged from a survey commissioned by the Cabinet Office to publicise the relaunch of Directgov, the Government’s one-stop Internet Website.
The study echoed what experts are calling the ‘Supersite’ phenomenon, with over half of UK Internet users (51 per cent) visiting just six or less sites on a regular basis.
It seems that despite the immense choice on offer, most people deliberately restrict themselves to visiting just a handful of sites, preferring to stick with the familiar and the trusted.
The survey also found that three quarters of people questioned declared the Internet to be “indispensable” to their daily lives.
Sadly, it seems that the days of random surfing are coming to a close, with the vast majority of Web users (95 per cent) going online with a specific destination in mind.
For most people, it appears that banking, shopping, travel and holiday Websites are all the Web is good for, with “supersites” now including Ebay, Amazon, Google, Lastminute.com and National Rail Enquiries. And, of course, digital-lifestyles.info and urban75.com.
Naturally, all of this new research ties in perfectly with this relaunch of the www.direct.gov.uk, the government’s very own wannabe supersite.
Bringing together public services from across eleven Whitehall departments, visitors to Directgov can unearth a mountain of useful information and services, from renewing driving licences, car taxes or passports , locating local services like schools, childminders and recycling and even planning journeys on foot, by car or by public transport.
Building up a formidable head of promotional steam, Cabinet Office Minister Jim Murphy enthused, “Directgov makes it much easier for people to get to the public services they need by joining up government to bring everything together all in one place.”
“It’s our response to the changing way that people want to access information, communicate and deal with things online and on the move. Renewing your car tax, learning about benefit entitlement, finding out about training or checking your council’s recycling facilities need not be complicated – it’s all there at www.direct.gov.uk,” he added.
7 March, 2006
Orange Announce Daft Animal Pricing Tariffs
With a bonkers new naming strategy that suggests the creatives may have been on something stronger than caffeine, Orange have launched a new tariff that links customer behaviour with animal characteristics.
Backed by a whopping great £10 million advertising campaign running to the end of the year, Orange’s new pricing scheme comes in four, err, animal type packages.
The ‘Dolphin’ package is aimed at those who “like to text a lot,” The ‘Panther’ package is “for people who like all the extras” and offers inclusive 3G minutes, while the ‘Canary’ deal is for “people who love to chat,” and comes with Orange to Orange off-peak minutes.
Finally, the ‘Raccoon’ package is for grumpy hairshirt types who “want no nonsense basics” and demand a “tool, not a toy.”
Possibly recovering from a hurricane of flip-chart activity, Orange’s Neil Macgeorge, reflected on the lengthy brainstorming sessions which saw finger-clicking creatives initially mull over food types and fabrics as possible tariff names.
As the double skinny cappuccinos flowed, it was eventually decided to run with the animals idea as it – apparently – “really resonated with consumers across the board.”
We’re not entirely convinced that customers will appreciate being labelled a Racoon, but Macgeorge was on-message as he explained their philosophy;
“Over the past year we’ve been looking at the whole market and evaluating exactly how, when and why people use their phones. From that data, we then identified four clear behavioural patterns around which we’ve built our new packages.”
“Consequently, we’re shifting the way we sell services to customers and changing the headlines on the high street from complicated tariff tables to simple messages. We’re focused on offering packages which are designed to meet the different needs consumers have,” he added.
Initially launching to Pay Monthly customers, the animal packages will be made available to Pay as you go customers later in the year.
Here’s some examples of how the pricing tariffs pan out:
For thirty quid (£30), a chattering Canary gets 200 any network minutes, plus 75 texts and 50 Orange off-peak minutes, while a cheapskate Racoon would get 200 minutes plus 50 extra fixed line minutes.
For the same price, Dolphins get 100 minutes and 200 texts, while Panthers can only prowl on to the network for £45/month, which buys them 400 minutes, plus 100 texts and 25% extra anynet minutes if they buy a 3G handset.
To keep the, err, animals grazing on Orange’s pastures, customers choosing to fork out for an 18 month contract will gain access to Orange’s newly introduced “Magic Numbers” deal.
Nothing to do with the indie-pop band of the same name, a ‘Magic Number’ is simply a customer’s most frequently called Orange number and under the scheme they’ll be allowed to make calls of up to an hour to that number and only pay for a minute.
To keep the herd from straying, Pay Monthly customers will be able to choose an additional Magic Number every six months.
Sony Ericsson at CeBIT
7 March, 2006
O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
6-9 March Every single year this has been on, we’ve wanted to go to this. If like us you’ve felt the same, do yourself a favour – make plans, come and join us. The O’Reilly site says
We’re five years into the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference and the stuff of which it is made shows no sign of abating: bandwidth continues to broaden, storage grows ever larger and cheaper, and content keeps pouring from the firehose. How do we visualize all of this digital data, filter it, remix it, and access it in meaningful ways? The coming technical challenge is not about generating digital content-we have more than enough already. It’s time to do something with that data. It’s time to build The Attention Economy. Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etech/
6 March, 2006
Seiko’s BT Bluetooth Watch
Seiko Instruments has announced their first Bluetooth watch, known as either the BT Watch or the rather less snappy, CPC TR-006 ver.1.0.
Although the thing appears to be in its early stages, there’s some interesting technology on show here which we may find filtering into our everyday lives in a year or two.
Designed to be an extension of your phone, the hi-tech watch promises to integrate fully with your phone’s functionality.
If you get an SMS or email on your phone the watch can alert you, and if your phone’s ringing, you won’t have to rummage about in your bag or pockets to see who is calling – the number will appear on the watch.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be the ability to talk into the watch, Dick Tracy-style, but the display will warn you if you lose the Bluetooth connection.
Now, much as we like the idea of cool high tech toys buzzing away on our wrists, we have to say that this watch looks more than a bit silly – it’s so big you may as well strap your mobile onto your wrist and be done with it!
But unlike those rubbish pens that light up when you get a call on your mobile, we can actually imagine this gadget being quite a handy thing to have – if it was shrunk down to about a tenth of the size, of course.
We reckon it would be cool to have text messages, news headlines, RSS feeds, football scores and other short bursts of info appear on your watch – particularly when you’re stuck in a dull meeting.
But no matter how cutting edge the technology, no one in their right mind is going to strut about with this ten-ton brick on their arm, so we’ll wait for a bijou version before we can take it seriously.
You can see a Real Video demo of the brick in action on WBS TV Tokyo’s Website
6 March, 2006
BT Beefs Up Broadband With Boosted Speeds
BT has announced that some of its users should be able to obtain broadband speeds of ‘up to’ 8 Mbps by the end of March.
Following successful trials, Britain’s largest telecom company confirmed that the BT ADSL Max and BT ADSL Max Premium broadband services will start rolling out across the country from March 31st.
It’s going to be a big job for the BT boys and girls, with the new services requiring the upgrading of more than 5300 exchanges, which together serve more than 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses.
All good news you’d think, but the new connectivity comes with a bag full of caveats related to physical factors, with only those lucky enough to live or work close to their local telephone exchange able to scoop up the maximum 8Mbit/s speed.
BT explained that an estimated 78 per cent of BT phone lines should support broadband at line rates of 4Mbit/s and above, with 42 per cent offering 6Mbit/s and above.
Paul Reynolds, BT’s Wholesale chief executive, was keen to big up his company’s commitment to broadband availability in the UK “Thanks to BT’s continued investment in the broadband network, the UK now boasts the highest level of broadband availability in the G8. We’re now building on those efforts in becoming the first operator in the UK to commit to a national service which is capable of broadband speeds of up to 8Mbit/s.
Although BT will be making the faster broadband speeds available to service providers for new orders from the end of the month, existing customers may have to wait “several months” until their lines are upgraded. In other words – loyal customers can go to the back of the queue.
BT’s line checker at bt.com/broadband is also being updated to show the expected speeds available for individual lines.
6 March, 2006
LG LG-KF1100 One Phone II And XNOTE TX Laptop
Those clever Koreans at LG are at it again, releasing the ONE PHONE II, a smart new Bluetooth home/mobile phone and the XNOTE TX, a tiny laptop with a built in DMB module.
ONE PHONE II
Also known as the LG-KF1100, this cordless-cellular phone can be used as a mobile phone outside your home and then switch to a cordless phone when you’re at home.
Details are still a bit scarce, but it seems that it offers similar functionality to BT’s Fusion phone, using Bluetooth to switch phone connections when the user comes within range of a Bluetooth hub.
It appears that this phone, however, uses the technology to automatically switch to a landline and not a Wi-Fi home network like the Fusion.
Precious other details have been released yet, although the compact handset offers LG’s familiar slide-out keypad design and comes with 1.3MP camera onboard.
XNOTE TX EXPRESS
Cuter than a fluffy kitten all curled up in a ball, LG’s latest XNOTE laptop is an attractive, ultra-portable laptop weighing in at just 2.4-pounds, but managing to wedge in a ton of technology into its Twiggy-esque dimensions.
Packed inside its ultra-thin body is 12.1-inch, 1366×768 pixel LCD, a 1.3GHz Intel Pentium-M processor, Geforce Go 7300 graphics, a healthy 60GB disk with support for up to 2GB RAM.
There’s also a ton of connectivity in the shape of 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 1.2, BlueCore 4, three USB ports, and a 5-in-1 memory card slot and – most interesting of all – the ability to shove in a DMB-module to turn the lappy into a mobile digital TV receiver.
Battery life is quoted around a disappointing 2 hours (up to 8 hours with additional battery), although this plummets down to just 1hr 12 mins if you’re using the attached optical drive.
For power users, there’s also a core duo version called LG XNOTE S1. This comes with a larger 100GB HDD, upgraded video card ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 and comes with a remote control for sofa-lolling, channel switching action.
We have to say we’re mightily impressed with the desirability factor of the so-small-you-want-to-pat-them-on-the-head XNOTEs and it’s great to see LG coming up with design to rival Apple/Sony’s finest.
No European release or pricing details released yet, but we’re definitely looking at wallet-pummelling prices.
XNOTE TX EXPRESS
6 March, 2006
Samsung SGH-i310 – World’s First 8GB Hard Disk Smartphone
Samsung has announced the world’s first 8GB Hard Disk embedded smartphone, the SGH-i310, which is expected to start shipping in Europe during the second half of this year.
With a hefty 8 gig of onboard storage you can leave your iPod at home, with the Samsung offering capacity for around 2,000 songs.
The phone comes in a familiar ‘candy bar’ form (we’re still looking for a UK equivalent of this American phrase – ‘Mars Bar shaped’ doesn’t sound quite right!) and is compatible with the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution).
The i310 is powered by the latest version of Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone which makes it easy for users to transfer their music libraries from their desktop machines via USB 2.0 connectivity and a Plug & Play feature allows the phone to be used as a removable hard disk.
A fully featured smartphone, the i310 comes with a 2 inch, 240 x 320, 65,536-colour display, onboard 2 megapixel camera with flash, microSD memory expansion slot, document viewer and TV output.
The camera can also record video (MPEG4/H.263), and there’s enhanced music functionality, with Bluetooth stereo (A2DP), high quality digital power amp, dual speakers and support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV and Ogg music file formats.
The smartphone seems pretty pocketable too, measuring 111.9 x 48.5 x 19.8 mm and weighing 120g.
Will HD-smartphones kill off dedicated music players?
Pundits are expecting an onslaught of mobile phones using hard-disk drives as manufacturers continue to pack in memory-hungry functions and features into handsets.
Cornice, a US-based maker of mini-hard drives used in portable music players and mobiles reckons that the mobile phone disk drive market will explode at a compound annual growth rate of 325 per cent between 2004 and 2009.
The company expects to see around 72 million mobile phones with embedded drives shipped in 2009 out of a global total of around 1 billion handsets – making it bigger than the personal storage and portable audio player markets (Cornice predicts these to stand at 10 million and 43 million shipments, respectively, in 2009.)
The i310 will be shown to public at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany from March 9th to March 16th. No pricing for the handset has been announced yet.
6 March, 2006