5-7 May
Armed with their GPS devices, a band of enthusiastic amateurs hope to overthrow a UK government agency. Well, the Ordnance Survey mapping part of it anyway. Everyone is welcome in this public created mapping extravaganza. More details at their Wiki Isle of Wight http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OSM_Workshop
Month: May 2006
$8Bn US Ad Income At Risk From PVRs: JupiterResearch
JupiterResearch have released research that indicates that 53 percent of Digital Video Recorder (DVR)/PVR users in America have used their DVRs to skip commercials.
Amazing isn’t it? What are the other 47% doing? Have they still left the DVR in the box, yet to plug it in? Why would anyone with a DVR not want to skip through the adverts unless they weren’t in the room; had some medical condition where they weren’t able to operate the remote control; didn’t know that they could skip through adverts; worked in the advertising industry and loved it so much they wanted to see all of the advert possible; were asleep while watching TV (this is likely given the quality of what’s shown); or a handful of other implausible reasons?
Jupiter claim that there’s a potential to threaten $8 billion out of the $74 billion US TV advertising market. This is like being at the birth of TiVo all over again – but this time for the people who weren’t there/listening/believing the first time.
Quick recap on events last time – the TV companies, advertising agencies and anyone else with a vested interest then poo-poo the idea, saying it will never catch on. You may even remember some later research from Sky TV in the UK laughably saying that their research found that people watched more adverts when using their Sky+. Yes you read that right, more adverts. Clearly it was designed to stop mass panic among their many advertisers.
Now where we’re united with Jupiter is that people watch more TV when they’ve got a DVR. That is the experience of the vast majority of PVR/DVR users.
Their report The DVR Dilemma: Managing Consumer Behavior found that the ad-skippers watched 18 hours of television, over the normal 17 of the DVR-less. Given they’re skipping the adverts, chopping around 15-20 mins of adverts out per hours, that’s a considerable amount of more ‘entertainment.’
Is it likely that the advertising world will come back and deny it again? Probably not, just you can never tell with those wiley old birds can you? I’d expect some sort of counter spin.
Live Football And Cricket on Vodafone 3G Mobiles
This weekend marks the start of Vodafone UK offering live coverage of international cricket and the Football League Playoffs from Sky Sports to their 3G customers.
They’re keen to point out that this is the first time in the UK, live football matches will be shown simultaneously live on mobile and on TV.
It’s not like this is going to be a trickle of content. There’s over 100 hours of coverage scheduled in the first month, with fifteen live football matches and three live Test matches. The cricket will continue with live coverage until the final Test against Pakistan in September.
Don’t think there’s going to an extra financial penalty to pay for this. The coverage will be available at no extra charge as a bonus service for subscribers to Sky Mobile TV’s News, Sports and Factual Pack.
Having said that the packages aren’t what you’d call cheap. Each Sky Mobile TV pack (detailed below) is and extra £5/month.
Sky has been actively putting its content over different platforms for quite some months now, following the announcement in January of Sky by Broadband which delivers some of Sky’s content to PC’s over a, you guess it, broadband connection.
Bizarrely, Sky specify that the content is for Personal use only. Errr … it’s on a mobile phone Sky. It’s not like you’re going to get the throngs in the pub crowding around watching it on a tiny screen. That is until someone comes up with a huge magnifying glass that the phone sits behind.
The packs that are available are
- News, Sport & Factual Pack: Sky News; CNN; Bloomberg; Sky Sports News; At The Races; Discovery Mobile Factual; National Geographic Channel; The History Channel.
- Entertainment Pack: Sky One; Sky Movies; Living TV; Discovery Mobile Lifestyle; Nickelodeon; Paramount Comedy; Cartoon Network; Bravo; The Biography Channel and MTV Trax and MTV Snax.
- Music Pack: MTV Trax, MTV Snax, The Box, Smash Hits, Kiss, Kerrang, B4, IMF and IMF 2.
Most of these don’t run live but are made up of dedicated ‘made for mobile’ channels, featuring regularly updated blocks of programming.
A Gadget Lover’s Day Out In The Countryside
With the weather warming up and the great outdoors beckoning, here’s our selection of must-have gadgets for technology addicts heading off for a day strolling over heath and heather.
Snapping the scenery: Ricoh GR Digital
Fast, pocketable and with enough controls to grab perfect exposures in the trickiest of conditions, the Ricoh GR is our fave take-anywhere camera.
With its panoramic 28mm, f2.4 lens this small, rugged and highly versatile beauty is perfect for capturing dramatic, sweeping landscapes.
Attach the optional 21mm superwide angle lens for capturing the entire pub interior majestic mountain vista with one shot or get up close to weird crawly things and strange flower-like growths using its 1cm macro lens.
Smartphone: Treo 650
The Palm Treo packs in enough functionality to keep you in touch with the cricket scores, send off emails, write texts and perhaps pen a short, moving poem to the Great Outdoors using its WYSIWYG keyboard.
If you prefer strutting to the sounds of Wolfmother rather than hearing the gentle rustle of Mother Nature, you can slap in a MP3-stuffed 2GB card and rock your way through the countryside.
And if the weather turns bad, you can shelter under a tree and pass away the hours playing the annoyingly addictive BeJeweled game.
Where the chuffin’ ‘eck am I? GPS and Memory-Map
Although an Ordnance Survey map and a trusty compass are more than ample for finding your way around, that’s clearly waaaay too lo-tech a solution for a full-on gadget freak.
Gizmo-lovers should instead load up their GPS-enabled Pocket PC PDAs with Memory-Map and head to the hills.
This mapping software uses real OS colour maps and offers waypoint-to-waypoint directions, bearing and distance indicators, real-time positioning and a tracklog to see how far you’ve shuffled.
There’s also a velocity vector for projecting your current course/speed so you can work out how far it is to the nearest boozer.
Keeping track of time: Suunto X6 Pro
Naturally, when it comes to watches, a mere pair of hands giving you the time won’t be enough for hard core tech heads, so we recommend the Suunto X6.
With this baby strapped on your arm you’ll have no need to look at the countryside around you, as the display offers a far more interesting display including an altimeter, barometer, thermometer and compass.
Armed with all the kit above (and suitable weatherproof clothing and boots, natch) you should be ready for anything the countryside can throw at you.
Just don’t forget spare batteries for your bag full o’gadgets and your bus fare in case you get tired lugging all those gizmos about.
Butler For The Palm OS Review (85%)
Butler is a hugely popular selection of nifty utilities for the Palm Treo smartphone that manages to fix many of the minor shortcomings of the phone in one fell swoop.
Billed as “The Essential Tool for the Treo 650 & 600”, Butler offers a suite of tools to help you set up the Treo the way you like it and introduce productivity-boosting extras.
Accessed through a rather basic looking interface, Butler offers repeating alarms with ringtones/MP3 playback, nagging alerts, extra security options, navigation enhancements, LED controls, keyguards and more.
Launching apps
We particularly liked the Keylauncher feature which lets you fire off specified programs from any other application just by holding down a specified key.
Another option lets you specify different modes for the external volume buttons on the Treo; as ‘back’ and ‘forward’ controls for moving through recent opened applications used; a ‘select key,’ or as scroll bars (particularly useful for reading e-books).
Lights out
The Treo is one of those phones with a multicolour LED that is constantly broadcasting its status.
Butler lets you take control over the colours and flash rates, and includes an option to set the hours the LED will do its flashing thang (handy if you don’t fancy an all night disco show).
You can also set a specific colour to remind you of outstanding voicemails.
Onguard!
An improved keyguard lets you override Palm’s functions, offering control over the lock time (from 1-30 seconds) and the ability to disable the touchscreen, space, delete and return keys when incoming calls are received or in progress – so if you’ve got Spock-like pointy ears you won’t be inadvertently ending calls.
Oy! You!
To absolutely, categorically guarantee that you’ll know all about a missed appointment, incoming call, SMS, alert or voicemail notification, the “Attention Grabber” feature can nag you into submission, with options to keep on reminding you once every 10 seconds to every 15 minutes, from 5 to 1000 times.
Reminders can be assigned MP3, vibrating alarms or ring tones, and custom LED notifications set up with an option to set time periods when the program shuts the feck up.
Butler also offers a straight alarm feature that lets you set up to 6 repeating alarms, complete with customised messages and the option to assign a program to open after you’ve cleared the alarm.
Nuke ’em
The trouble with smart phones is that you by carting around all that personal information there could be serious consequences if it gets lost or stolen.
To protect your data, Butlers offers a set of SMS-triggered security functions.
By sending your missing phone a pre-configured text messages, Butler can carry out a variety of security operations from simply turning off and locking your device to the Armageddon option which wipes the SD card and RAM clean.
We would have liked it if it hurled taunting abuse at the thief as the data was being deleted or even blasted out a massive electric shock, but I guess that would be too much to ask. And possibly illegal too
Wrapping up the feature set is a “Hide SMS popup” option which stops you being bothered by SMS screens, an option to beam your business card by holding the phone button down and a useful “Keep Exchange Manager Clean” utility which addresses the annoying ‘preference loss’ bug seen on the Palm OS.
Conclusion
Butler is a fantastic set of utilities for fine-tuning your Treo, richly deserving its place in Palm’s Best Seller list.
The interface isn’t the easiest to get your head immediately around, however, and sometimes things may seem a little confusing when first exploring the options.
It’s worth persevering though because it won’t take long before you begin to wonder how you ever coped without Butler on your Treo – and at just $14.95 (£8.20,€11.90) it’s something of a bargain!
Features: 85%
Ease of use: 70%
Value For Money: 85%
Overall: 85%
IFA Berlin CE Show Yearly From Now On
Last year took ourselves to Berlin to attend IFA. Being the first time we’d attended we were _totally_ blow away at the size of the place – it’s massive. Every side of the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry was covered, from the smallest to the largest with the later building their own houses (Siemens, Deutsche Telekom).
Previously it’s been on every two years and, acknowledging the speed that the CE world is now moving, the German CE trade body, gfu and event organisers, messe-Berlin have now realised a year gap between shows is impractical. IFA 2006 will mark the start of them moving to a yearly show, frankly so they don’t become obsolete – oh and there’s the benefit of all of that extra income, so course.
Dr Christian Göke told us he was “convinced that there would be an increased difference between work and home in the future,” and that this would be one of the reasons that IFA would continue in its position as the second largest CE show in the world.
Asked why IFA was so loved by trade visitors, his answer was simple, “We treat them as VIP’s. Nothing is too much and they feel very special.” Sounds like a recipe for success to us, one that could easily be learned by many other shows around the world.
We understand that exhibition space has been selling like hot Strudel, with over 80% gone already. They also spreading their wings to include companies like mobile giant o2.
One of our major gripes last year was that with us being linguistically-challenged (being English ‘n’ tha’) some of the press conferences were held only in German. Reasonable being it was in Berlin, but not great for attracting an International audience. From now on they’ll all be held in English. Hurrah!
So if you fancy joining us, get yourself over to Berlin, 1-6 September.
Opera Mini 2.0 For Mobiles Released
Nordic browser kings Opera Software have released Opera Mini 2.0, a spanking new version of their tiny Web browser that runs on almost all mobile phones.
Building on the success of the first version – which has already notched up 2.5 million users since its January 2006 release – Opera Mini accelerates mobile surfing by using compression and reformatting techniques.
The latest version of the Java-powered browser adds a selection of tweaks and refinements, including the ability to download multimedia content, like images and MP3s, directly to the phone.
There’s also a selection of new skins available to customise the look of the browser, and a natty new multisearch feature, letting users select extra search engines for the home page.
Also new for version two is a speed dial widget, which lets surfers call up bookmarks by assigning shortcut key combinations.
“Opera Mini has kick-started real mobile Web browsing by enabling non-smartphone owners to surf the full Internet on their phones, just as they do on their PCs,” purred Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.
With Opera Mini supporting mobile commerce via SMS, users can directly buy ringtones, games and other content for delivery as an SMS.
This system lets the seller set the price with charges appearing in the phone bill as an SMS.
The new browser is compatible with a host of phones, smartphones and PDAs (including Sony Ericsson, Pocket PC and Palm handets) and can be downloaded for free by typing in http://mini.opera.com into your WAP-tastic browser or by delivery via SMS download for a small fee.
‘No Vista Till 2Q 2007’ Says Gartner
Research firm Gartner has said that it expects Vista, Microsoft’s major Windows upgrade, to not appear until the second quarter of next year.
According to Gartner, Windows Vista is unlikely to rear its shiny, Aero-decorated head before the second quarter of 2007 – possibly for an April launch with “broad availability” following in the same quarter.
This projection puts the release date several months behind Microsoft’s scheduled launch date of January 2007.
Writing in a research note, Gartner commented, “Microsoft’s track record is clear. It consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don’t expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q ’07.”
Microsoft’s current plans involve releasing Vista to manufacturing in October/November 2006 and making it available to enterprises through volume licenses by the end of this year, with the OS becoming available to computer manufacturers for shipping in January, 2007.
Although Windows users are no strangers to endlessly delayed launches, a Microsoft spokesperson insisted that all was well in the wonderful world of Windows.
“Respectfully disagreeing” with Gartner’s view, the spokesperson said that that finished Windows Vista would ship in November and January with a second beta ready to roll in the second quarter of this year.
Gartner was having none of it, sagely advising that “one should never overestimate how much Microsoft will underestimate the complexity and time needed to deliver a major new client OS.”
OpenStreetMap To Free The Isle of Wight (Map)
OpenStreetMap, an organisation that is using consumer technology to create copyright-free maps, is meeting this weekend (5-7 May) on the Isle of Wight – to map the whole Island and give the data away under a Creative Commons license.
Driven by a united belief that mapping information should be free, the thirty plus volunteers gathered from the Isle of Wight, the wider UK, Germany and nine from Norway will be gathering their GPS kits, and taking themselves around the Island. They’ll be heading out in cars, on bicycles and on foot to explore the diamond-shaped, 22 x 14 mile island, covering the 147 square miles (381 square km).
“The Isle of Wight is a manageable size, one we believe can be mapped over the space of a weekend,” said Nick Black one of the co-ordinators, “Not only will the roads be covered, but the walkers plan to get as many of the footpaths mapped as possible too. This is a group effort.”
Once the GPS data is combined with notes of road names taken via audio recordings or even notebooks (shock horror), accurate mapping data will be put into the OpenStreetMap system for all to share. Quite different to the huge cost that the Ordnance Survey (OS) is asking for similar data.
Why so expensive?
We’ve always been unsure why the cost of licensing the maps of the UK is so prohibitory expensive. How much? Well according to the BBC TV show QI, the full Ordnance Survey (OS) map data of 2002, the most detailed map of Great Britain, sells for £30,000 for every town, or £4,099,000 for the whole country” (ref). Ouch!
Let’s be clear about this, UK tax payers money has been and is being used to collect and collate this data, but UK citizens and businesses are charged to use it. The Ordnance Survey argument is that it needs the money to maintain its high standards of mapping, employing around 350 surveyors as they do.
Strange, but we’ve not noticed the UK randomly shifting around during the night, so they’re clearly not remapping daily. What they are doing is seeking to obtain a 20cm absolute accuracy for their large-scale data. This will then be sold on to those who can afford it.
It’s not just commercial organisations that have to pay for accessing such information. On a parallel track, look at postcode and address information. As Charles Arthur and Michael Cross pointed out in their article in the Guardian, local authorities often collect much of this information and then have to pay to access that self, same information.
A local authority such as Swindon has to pay OS £38,000 a year to use its addresses and geographical data. It also has to pay the Royal Mail £3,000 for every website that includes the facility for people to look up their postcodes. Yet it was local authorities, which have a statutory duty to collect street addresses, that collected much of this data.
If you’re not submerged in this world, it may surprise you to find out that the United States actually gives its mapping data away for free. So through agents like Navtec, and Teleatlas, it ends up on applications like Yahoo & Google maps. Innovation like that isn’t possible in the UK as it falls at the first hurdle – that of huge expense.
We’re proud that we’d been knocking the same Isle of Wight idea around the Digital-Lifestyles offices for a while now. Our thinking, it’s such a perfect, containable location for technology experiments. It’s an area where trials can be carried out, proven, then expanded to wider areas.
Wake up and smell the technology
Here’s the stark reality – technology in the hands of enthused members of the public is changing for ever the business models in many areas. Movements like OpenStreetMap will succeed in mapping the UK.
Not only that but access to their data will be better that the current the OS offering. It will include additional information that the public has contributed such as photo’s, audio recordings, text descriptions, etc.
Organisation like the OS who do not let their data free will be be left clutching hold of something whose value has been severely diminished, if not zero’d.
Come and join in
Previously thought of as a sleepy backwater, the Isle of Wight is under going a renaissance, with an explosion of musical and artistic talent in wide abundance, much of it concentrated on a Victorian town called Ventnor (disclosure: We love Ventnor).
We’re going to be there and if you fancy a weekend travelling around a beautiful Island, then get in touch with OpenStreetMap via their wiki. There’s still time to get yourselves there and help change the world (a little) for the better – one step at a time.
OpenStreetMap, Isle of Wight Workshop
OpenStreetMap
OneMap – Norwegian project
The Isle of Wight
Telewest Get ASA Dodgy Advert Slapdown
Broadband giants Telewest have had to bend over and feel the sharp swish of the Advertising Standards Agency’s corrective ruler on their ample rumps after their broadband radio advert was deemed ‘misleading.’
The advert seemed straightforward enough:
“… getting broadband couldn’t be easier. Telewest even install it for you. Get unlimited broadband and you can also have digital TV and a phone line, all three for £30 a month. If you live in a Telewest area and you want all three for £30 a month for a year call xxxx or go to Telewest.co.uk. Available to customers taking new services. Minimum term contract and conditions apply.”
A Telewest customer – clearly already living in a Telewest area – liked the sound of the deal so much they rang up to sign on, only to find that they were clearly in the wrong sort of ‘Telewest area.’
When the customer was told that the full range of Telewest products was not in fact available, a stroppy mail was despatched to ASA who made short thrift of Telewest’s insistence that their “Conditions apply” caveat covered their ass.
With Telewest admitting that they were unable to offer digital services to 100% of their customers as 3.7% were situated in non-digital areas, the bendy ruler of the ASA was administered with relish as the complaint was upheld.
The ASA concluded, “We considered this important restriction should have been explained in the ad and that “Conditions apply” had not been adequate to cover such a significant condition to the offer. The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code section 2, rule 3.”