Month: April 2006

Microsoft ‘World’s Most Valuable Brand’

Microsoft 'World's Most Valuable Brand'Two new studies into branding have produced two very different results, with a UK study declaring Microsoft the strongest brand in the known universe, while research in the US saw consumers slapping Microsoft down to near-bottom of their ‘most trusted’ list.

Brand consultancy Millward Brown Optimor (MBO) rated companies by calculating the value their brand was expected to generate in the future.

Microsoft topped the list, with the study showing most consumers held positive feelings about the brand. Andy Farr, executive director at MBO commented, “When you look at what customers and consumers say to us, they do hold Microsoft in high regard.”

“They don’t love [Microsoft] like they love Google but they respect it,” he added just before his laptop crashed.

The survey results were based on a load of marketing guff that involved measuring buzzword-laded criteria like ‘brand momentum,’ ‘intangible earnings’ and ‘brand contribution,’ whatever all that means.

Tech companies hogged four of the top 10 global brand places with Vodafone grabbing the number one UK slot, while Google came in seventh overall for global brands and second for the tech sector,

Big-boy retailers also figured prominently, with Wal-Mart coming in at number six and Tesco notching up 30th place overall and number two in the UK).

According to the study, these are the top ten global brands (rated in $millions):
Microsoft Corporation ($62,039)
GE ($55,834)
Coca-Cola ($41.406)
China Mobile ($39,168)
Marlboro cigarettes ($38,510)
Wal-Mart ($37,567)
Google ($37,445)
IBM ($38,084)
Citigroup ($31.028)

Microsoft 'World's Most Valuable Brand'Bose, Dell, and Apple Score High On Trust
Across the pond, a brand study by Forrester Research saw Bose, Dell and Apple Computer being declared as technology brands trusted by U.S. consumers, with users warily eying the likes of Toshiba, Hitachi, Microsoft, Gateway and LG.

Forrester surveyed 4,700 US households between September and October last year to find out how much they trusted 48 technology brands.

The results weren’t too encouraging for the industry, with the survey showing an across-the-board drop in trust in consumer computer and electronics brands – a trend continuing from 2003.

In the survey, only Apple and TiVo managed to register an increase in consumer trust between 2003 and 2005.

With Microsoft’s brand scraping in at a lowly 20th spot out of the 22 companies included in the poll, Forrester’s warned that Microsoft faces big a consumer defection risk.

With a deft turn of marketing-speak, Forrester analyst Ted Schadler observed that, “A decline in trust causes brand erosion and price-driven purchase decisions, which in turn correlates with low market growth.”

“Trust is a powerful way to measure a brand’s value and its ability to command a premium price or drive consumers into a higher-profit direct channel,” concluded Ted Schadler.

Firefox Grabs 10 Percent Of Browser Market

Firefox Grabs 10 Percent Of Browser MarketMozilla’s Firefox continues to bite into Internet Explorer’s once-unassailable market dominance, snaffling 10 percent of the Web browser market in March, according to Web audience measurement firm Net Applications.

Their report claims that the free, open source Web browser from Mozilla.org was used by 10.05 percent of surfers last month, a notable shimmy upwards from 9.75 percent in February.

It’s got a long way to go before it starts to rival Microsoft’s behemoth of a browser though, with various versions of Internet Explorer (IE) still hogging 84.7 percent of the market.

Lagging behind in third place was Apple’s Safari Mac-only browser, used by 3.19 percent of surfers, with trusty old Netscape in fourth place with 1.05 percent of the market, followed by Opera at 0.54 percent.

Firefox Grabs 10 Percent Of Browser MarketFirefox’s rise has been slow but inexorable, with the improved feature set of version 1.5 helping them garner a 3.34 percent share over the year.

Over the same period, Internet Explorer saw 3.89 percent of their market slip away, with the long wait for IE7 not helping their cause.

“With a strong feature set, aggressive product development cycle, open source platform and by offering the browser for free, Firefox has the strategy in place to maintain its growth,” commented Net Applications analyst with a cool name, Vincent Vizzaccaro

Despite Firefox’s continuing growth, Vincey boy added that Microsoft, “has the much easier task of defending an entrenched position rather than attacking one.”

Firefox Grabs 10 Percent Of Browser MarketGet optimising!
If you’re already using Firefox, take a look at the top ten plug ins at download.com and get customising.

Our favourites aren’t on their list, however. We recommend the Spellbound specllchecker , Chatzilla IRC client and the dead-simple-but-useful Copy Plain Text extension which, err, copies text without formatting.

Mozilla.org

Sony Hi-Fi EX90SL In-Ear Headphones

Sony Hi-Fi EX90SL In-Ear HeadphonesFans of Star Trek keen to feel like their communicating with the Xyrillians when they’re hoverbooting walking down the street may be interested in Sony’s new EX90SL in-ear headphones.

Looking like a slimmed down version of the shiny chunk of metal that resided in Lieutenant Uhura’s lughole, the ‘bud’ style phones have encapsulated, inner-ear-speakers attached to a space-age shiny metal casing.

To ensure that the sound gets right down yer earhole, the EX90 sports an articulated design that swivels to get in deep and dirty amongst the ear wax.

Sony Hi-Fi EX90SL In-Ear HeadphonesThe high quality ‘phones sport a pair of large, 16 Ohm, 13.5mm (CCAW) speakers serving up 106dB/mW on a wide 5 to 25kHz frequency response (not that any human is likely to hear the extremes of that quoted range. Unless you’re an owl or something). Output is rated at 200mW (IEC).

Aimed at the mobile MP3 listening market, the Sony’s look to offer a real improvement on the standard cheapo headphones that get bundled with players, but we strongly recommend users give this style of headphones a try out first before whipping out their wedge.

Sony Hi-Fi EX90SL In-Ear HeadphonesWhen we reviewed the MDR-EX71SL Sony Fontopia in-ear headphones we found that the air-tight seal made us go over a bit funny – although we were wowed by the sound quality. And if you’re listening to music and eating at the same time, the sensation can be distinctly odd!

The EX90SL’s appear to be only available in Japan at the moment, retailing for around 10,000 Yen (£48). We’ve no idea when they’ll be beaming units into the UK.

Sony Japan

Wicked Lasers 95mw Extreme:Review (93%)

Wicked Lasers 95mw ReviewWe’ve had the Wicked Laser Green 95mw laser for a couple of weeks now. It’s falls outside the sort of things we’d normally test, but I’m glad we made an exception, because this thing is bonkers.

I suspect that if you’ve never worked professionally with lasers, the only thing that you will have seen that’s brighter than this laser is the Sun. This – 95mW CLASS IIIb portable laser, to give it it’s full name – is a little more convenient than the Sun though, as it’s the size of a pen (15cm, 6inch) and you can switch it on and off.

Wicked Lasers 95mw ReviewIt arrived well packaged in a rather natty box and we couldn’t wait to get it on. An unexpected lack of the required 2 x AAA batteries at our end lead us to initial disappointment but this instantly evaporated when it was powered and switched on for the first time.

What you can do with it
Once you get over the brightness, you’re left with what to do with amazing product of human engineering.

Wicked Lasers 95mw Reviewpromotional video on their site, this baby burns things. It can light a match, cut though black tape, pop balloons and burn through papers. I can confirm that I burnt a hole in a newspaper – my tip, focus on an area of black print (obviously), wait for 10-15 seconds, the smoke will rise and the hole appear. All from something that sits in your pocket and runs on a few tiny batteries. Crazy.

Man-magnet I showed the Wicked Laser to a room full of lads (aged 25-35). The effect was remarkable. I have never seen some of these people move so fast, as a collective WOW went up around the room and they literally dashed towards it. Their attention was completely captivated.

If you’ve got any reason to want to grab the attention of a large group of boys, you could do little better than to get yourself one of these.

So how far does it go?
Naturally our curiosity was peaked – how far does the beam go? What size is the light point when it gets there? Wicked Lasers tells us that the beam will reach 30-40 miles, yes MILES, and if you were to be there looking at it, the point of the beam will be about the size of a house!

Wicked Lasers 95mw ReviewSafety
To re-itterate a warning – this laser is seriously bright. Forget every laser pointer you might have seen before. This is like nothing you’ve ever seen. James Bond look out.

I’d definitely recommend wearing protective goggles with it, if you’re going to be using indoors. This baby has so much power that it reflects a serious amount of light when you point/shine in to surfaces. In our findings, the longest you want to use it indoors without protective glasses is about 15 mins. After that you start to get a strange ache in the back of your eyes. This fades off over around 10 mins.

Wicked Lasers 95mw ReviewConclusion
This thing is seriously powerful and certainly not to be messed with. You _will_ impress the pants off people who see it – especially men. Take care with it though, it could be dangerous It’s certainly not cheap, but you’re paying for its extreme power.

We don’t really know how or what to compare it with as it’s outside out normal remit. All we can rate it by is how much it impressed us – and everyone we showed it to, without exception.

Score: 93%

Wicked Laser 95mW CLASS IIIb portable laser- $369.99 (E307, £214)

Wicked Lasers 95mw Extreme

Extra photos and videos

When you get to the end of burning things and scaring ocean liners, you start to explore the potential. Here’s one of the videos that we shot with using the laser. Link.

Wicked Lasers 95mw Review
Creating lighting havoc from the sofa.

Wicked Lasers 95mw Review
Commanding the street.

Wicked Lasers 95mw Review
Oh look, it’s the corner of the room.

Wicked Lasers 95mw Review
Freaking out the camera with a direct hit.

“In the near future, you will have 10,000 computers”: BT Futurologist

In the near future, you will have 10,000 computersThe quote isn’t quite accurate, but it makes the point. The words are (nearly) those of BT’s internal “tame futurologist” Graham Whitehead; and what he actually said was that you will be associated with 10,000 processors.

Whitehead’s job is to march around BT’s research facility at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich (the facility formerly known as Adastral Park, but the name seems to be reverting to Martlesham) and tell the researchers what to study. A group of us met him on a visit to the facility where BT was showing off its vision of what IT can do to home, office, and other service providers like banks and doctors and chemists.

The fascinating thing about Whitehead was that he was the only part of the presentation to be an attempt to see the future. The rest of BT’s exhibition was (they emphasised this!) stuff you can actually buy. So the demonstration home had nothing in it you can’t go out and buy.

The future, however, is further away, and harder to guess: it’s Whitehead’s duty to provide the map for BT – and boy! does he do a good job. I just sat back and listened.

“The next ten years will see more changes in lifestyle than the previous hundred. We are moving towards the AORTA world – Always On Real Time Access – where everything BT does will be Internet Protocol over MPLS.”

“RFID? Don’t worry about being tracked down the street by RFID scanners. It will be your DNA that tracks you, because your VISA card will have your DNA on it, for biometric scanning, instead of the hologram it has today.”

In the near future, you will have 10,000 computers“Mobile will go everywhere. BT’s biggest customers are the mobile networks. And the pattern will evolve along the lines of BT Fusion – a Bluetooth wireless phone which is also a cellphone, and which negotiates the best call rates for you every time you dial someone. The tipping point in our move to the mobile AORTA world, will come when nobody places calls any more. It won’t only be that my car will be able to converse with yours; it will be the point where they are connected anyway; no call needed, because both are always on.”

“The reason a car might talk to another car? Traffic. We won’t just know where the crashes are, so we can dodge them; we’ll have the car plan the route. It will know that it’s Saturday when I always go to see Granny, and it will map out the route before I even switch on the engine, and work out what other cars are doing and where the congestion will be.”

“Will it become anti-social to travel? By the year 2015, oil production will have peaked; oil will become a precious resource for the plastics industry, and travel for pleasure will reach the tipping point. People will expect to have the world brought to them, rather than having to go there.”

But will there be big surprises? He thinks so:

“Robots are coming. There is a Sumo robot. The Sony robot – now discontinued – is 19 inches high; it can look at symphony score and conduct orchestra, better than a human. But if it’s not selling, why is Sony wasting money on it? Because someone will have to push your wheelchair around the home in 30 years! It won’t be the little people who will push your wheelchair: we aren’t making enough of them. Instead, robots will be the cleaners, porters, intelligent wheelchairs, and other servants.”

In the near future, you will have 10,000 computersAnd we’ll need them: “The latest baby has a better than 40% chance of reaching 150; it will be the result of stem cell research. There will be a window between the ages of 70-85 where some will get dementia; and if you don’t get dementia there, you will get through it.”

But the cost of energy will mean that today’s massive, hot processors will become unfashionable. “I see a lot of small distributed computers. You will be associated with 10,000 processors. Just for fun, I decided to investigate my car, and see how many computers it had, and I found 76 processors in my vehicle. So Intel will bring the clock speed down, bring the lines in from other processors. I think the total power of individual computers will go down, from now.”

HDTV? “Most of us won’t be able to see the difference, frankly. I can remember when a colleague retired, and bought himself the top-of-the-range hi-fi system, and was very proud of it; we all went around to listen. We all thought: ‘Awful mains hum!’ and it was. We got him to check his hearing; it turned out his ears levelled off at 300 Hz. But the problem is, if you buy a big TV set, HDTV will be all you can get.”

Spam? “It won’t be a problem, because it won’t be spam. It will be advertising precisely aimed at you. I’ll send you mail which will make you feel like you’re the only person in a group of one, and the most important possible person in that group.”
And what can’t the IT world do? “A pint of beer. I’ve been setting this challenge for 15 years now, and nobody can crack it. If you want a pint of beer, you’re going to have to get up and go get it.”

Gold! Sony Ericsson W700 WALKMAN Phone Launched

Gold! Sony Ericsson W700 WALKMAN Phone LaunchedRolling off Sony Ericsson’s well-furrowed product slipway this morning is the W700i Walkman Phone, the company’s eighth addition to their Walkman range.

Looking almost identical to its big brothers in the W800 range, the W700 is designed to tempt the pockets of punters looking to play a bit of music but not needing a “full blown music phone.”

“The W700i builds on the legacy of the first Walkman phone, the W800i. This phone will appeal to anyone who wants a quality music player in their phone for occasional listening,” commented Jan Wäreby, Corporate Executive Vice President, Head of Sale and Marketing, Sony Ericsson.

Sporting a natty Titanium Gold finish, the W700 comes with a Memory Stick in the retail box, although punters will only get a measly 256MB PRO Duo card instead of the 512Mb card bundled with the W800i.

The phone can, however, accept cards up to 2GB, providing storage for up to 47 CDs – long enough to see you through even the longest of tube delays.

To save battery life (and keep flight attendants happy), the music player works when the phone is turned off.

Gold! Sony Ericsson W700 WALKMAN Phone LaunchedLike the W800, the W700 comes with a full complement of onboard gizmos, including a two megapixel camera, 1.8 inch 262k 176×220 colour TFT display, dedicated music buttons and Bluetooth and Tri-band connectivity.

Battery life is claimed at up to 30-hours of music playback time, 9 hours talk time and 400 hours standby time.

The W700i will ship globally during Q2 2006, with a ‘Smooth White’ colour option available in some markets.

Sony Ericsson W700 specs
Band GSM 900/1800/1900MHz
Data GPRS
Size 100mm x 46mm x 20.5mm (3.9″ x 1.8″ x 0.8″)
Weight 99g (3.5oz)
Battery Life 9 hours talk time, 400 hours standby time
Main Display 1.8″ 262k color TFT LCD, 176×220 pixel resolution
Sub-Display N/A
Camera Yes, 2.0 megapixel
Video Video capture/playback
Messaging MMS/EMS/SMS
Email Yes
Bluetooth Yes
Infrared Yes
Java Yes, MIDP v2.0
Polyphonics Yes
Memory 256MB on board memory, Memory Stick PRO Duo expansion

Sony Ericsson

Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie Downloads

Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie DownloadsHollywood has finally embraced the online movie distribution business with the launch of two new digital services that will make films available to download on the same day of their DVD release.

In a move designed to stave off movie piracy – estimated to cost Tinseltown up to 3.5 billion dollars a year – the two competing download services, Movielink and CinemaNow, have announced that they will be making hit films available to download online.

Movielink
The Internet video-on-demand company Movielink was launched back in 2002, and is jointly owned by big name studios Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox.

Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie DownloadsThe company will start offering more than 200 movies for sale online, with Universal’s Oscar-winning “Brokeback Mountain” set to be the first major Hollywood blockbuster to be simultaneously released as a DVD and digital download.

Other films due to made available from Movielink are Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” George Clooney’s Oscar-nominated “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the Johnny Cash story “Walk the Line” and the kids’ favourite “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”

Rival company CinemaNow has also announced that it will start making movie downloads available from Lions Gate Entertainment and Sony.

Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie DownloadsHow it works
The system will let consumers shell out for a permanent digital film library of films, or rent downloaded movies for 24 hours.

Purchased movies can be permanently stored on a computer’s hard drive or saved to a DVD in Windows Media format for backup or playback on up to two additional tethered computers.

For road warriors, movies can also be downloaded to a laptop, with users also able to stream movies to a TV hooked up to a media centre extender or Xbox.

Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie DownloadsWe take a look. And get annoyed
We thought we’d take a quick shufti at the two sites for more information but found Movielink’s site a real wind-up.

After wasting a few moments being forced to circumnavigate their irritating geographical filter (it won’t let you see the site unless your IP address is in the US) the company annoyed us further by insisting that we use ‘IE 5.0 or higher’ to access the site.

No thanks. We choose to use Firefox and resent being told what tools we should use. Oh, and their service is, apparently, Windows only. Grrrr..

Movielink
CinemaNow

Virgin Mobile France Launches

Virgin Mobile France LaunchesBeardy rich bloke Richard Branson has picked up a baguette and waved it angrily at French telecom suppliers, accusing them of “ripping off” consumers as he launched his new Virgin Mobile service in France.

” In examining the French market we saw the bulk of people in France have been ripped off big-time,” table-thumped Branson at the media launch, before unveiling ambitious plans to recruit one million customers to Virgin Mobile in the first three years of operation.

Branson has teamed up with Europe’s grand fromage mobile retailer, Carphone Warehouse for the Virgin-branded venture, which will offer services through mobile phone operator Orange’s network.

The French market – long seen as one of Europe’s least competitive mobile markets – could prove highly profitable for Branson who said that pressure from regulators had gifted Virgin the opportunity to set up a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in the country.

Branson’s Virgin Group were one of the early adopters of the MVNO concept in the UK, building the network into the UK’s fifth-largest mobile brand by customers, before exporting operations into the US, Canada and Australia.

France is currently dominated by its three network operators: Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR, all of whom have remained tight-lipped on the news of Virgin elbowing onto their turf.

They should be worried though, with Virgin’s rates set to undercut the competition with pre-paid services offered at a basic 0.42 euros a minute compared to the usual €0.48-0.55 rate.

Virgin Mobile France LaunchesTo further tempt Frenchies, Virgin will be offering free SMS text to subscription customers signing up for 12 month deals (although Orange can review this later if its network subsequently becomes overloaded.)

Marketed and distributed through Carphone’s 200+ Phone House Stores and Virgin’s Megastores music stores, Branson is hoping to create a buzz in the younger market that will filter up to the crumblies.

“The marketing is aimed at young people because older people will buy what young people are buying, but young people won’t necessarily buy what older people are buying,” he commented.

NTL Deal set to finally go ahead
Elsewhere, NTL’s bid for Virgin Mobile – which has dragged on for an eternity – looks set to be sealed this week.

NTL are expected to announce that the Virgin Mobile board has accepted a revised offer – first rumoured in December last year – that will see Virgin’s mobile phone services added to to NTL’s ‘triple-play’ packages of voice, broadband Internet access and television.

Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile France

Mobiles Are Ruddy Annoying But Invaluable: Study

Mobiles Are Ruddy Annoying But InvaluableWe didn’t think we needed a poll to find this one out, but a new poll in the States has found that just about everyone – including fellow mobile users – get annoyed by people talking loudly on their phones in public.

The AP-AOL-Pew poll questioned people’s attitudes towards mobile phones and although most declared their phones to be very useful things, nearly 90 per cent said that they encountered others being annoying on their phones.

In a fabulous act of self righteous denial, a mere 8 percent thought that their own public yakking could possibly be seen as sometimes rude too.

Hooked on handsets
The survey found that more than two-thirds of mobile users say they’d find it hard to be parted from their precious phones, while a hardcore 26 percent said they couldn’t imagine life without their mobile.

Half of mobile users say that they keep their phones permanently on, while seventy five percent say that they have used it in an emergency.

The convenience of mobile phones has its drawbacks too, with around twenty five percent complaining that they’re bothered by too many calls, and over a third of those interviewed moaning that their service bills were sometime “shocking.”

More worryingly, an idiotic 28 percent admitted to not driving a safely as they might because they were chatting on their mobile.

Mobiles Are Ruddy Annoying But InvaluableMultimedia is for da kidZ
Although most phone users stuck to the basics, annoying others with their public calls, growing feature sets are tempting users to fork out for phones with built-in cameras, MP3 players, games and Internet/e-mail access.

We’re not quite sure of the significance of this, but the survey found that “young adults and minorities” liked multimedia handsets best and were more likely than “older adults and whites” to text, take snaps, surf the web and play tunes on their phones.

Texting finally starts to take off in the States
Text messaging is nowhere near as popular in the States as it is in Europe and Asia, with a mere one-third of U.S. cell phone owners giving their keypads some texting action.

However, this text messaging may be set to cross over to the mainstream with two-thirds of American users between 18 and 29 year olds now using the service.

Not surprisingly, multimedia gizmos also found more favour with young adults, with over half using the camera functions on their phones, 47 percent playing games and 28 percent using the Internet.

Pew Research