June 2006

MobiBox MP410 Digital Video Recorder/Player
Smaller than a pack of cards and packed with enough whizz-bang functionality to keep a hyperactive cokehead entertained for hours, MobiBox’s new MP410 multimedia recorder and player packs a big punch for the price.
Featuring a 2.5-inch TFT display and measuring just 18x68x81, the MP410 is a veritable mini-marvel – not only can it groove to MP3 and WMA music files, but it can record and play back MPEG4 video files from video sources such as VCR, DVD, DVB-T and satellite at an impressive 30fps (VGA resolution.)
The unit ships with memory capacities running from 128MB to 512MB – not a great deal when you’re dealing with video files, but at least the SD/MMC slot can accept expansion cards up to 4GB.
To help keep file sizes down, the MPEG4 recorder comes with a variety of quality settings running from ‘best’ and ‘fine’ right down to the dandruff in a snowstorm ‘economy’ resolution.
There’s also a FM radio (87.5MHz~108MHz) with 20 presets with autoscan onboard and the ability to view JPEG pictures.
The MP410 also features a pair of folding out speakers for added ‘Tony Blair’ appeal, and comes with a pull-out stand for desk viewing.
The MobiBox MP410 is on sale now for around £130 (€188, $237).
MobiBox MP410 Specs
Dual stereo speaker
Built-in microphone
Buttons: power/mode/menu/display/up/down/left/right/hold switch
Storage Type SD/MMC card + Built-in flash memory 128 MB (optional 256MB / 512MB)
LCD Display 2.5″ LTPS TFT LCD 960X240, 230K pixels / 262K color
FM Tuner/Recorder 76MHz~96MHz for Japan; 87.5MHz~108MHz for worldwide
UP to 20 frequency preset channels available
Auto scan radio frequency channel
Interface 2 in 1 MiniUSB (USB 2.0/power in)
5 in 1 earphone jack (video out/earphone jack/external microphone/ AV in/FM antenna)
Video / Audio Video out /
Video in TV out (NTSC / PAL) / AV in (NTSC / PAL)
AV recorder resolution 640*480 (VGA) / max 30 fps
AV audio quality 2 modes: radio quality (16KHz) / CD quality (48KHz)
AV recorder quality MPEG4 : best/fine/normal/basic/economy
Voice recorder 2 modes: radio quality (16KHz) / CD quality (48KHz)
Picture Print Out Support DPOF (digital print order format)
Playback Mode 2 modes for playback
Single / Index- nine image indexes
File Transfer / Copy Support copying or transferring files between SD card and internal memory
Format Support
* DSC: JPEG (EXIF 2.2)
* DV: ASF (simple profile MPEG4)
* Voice recorder: WAV (IMA ADPCM)
* Music file format: mp3, WMA (got license from Microsoft and SISVEL)
Power Supply
Battery Rechargeable Li-Ion battery (3.7V / 920 mA , compatible with NP60 type battery)
Adapter 5V DC adapter (mini USB port) / USB cable
Dimensions Weight(g) 96 g (with battery)
Size 18x68x81(LxWxH) mm
MobiBox MP410
27 June, 2006
Panasonic RP-DJ100 Review (55%)
Although in-ear bud headphones are all well and good for strutting down the street with your iPod/PDA/smartphone in your pocket, when it comes to DJing or listening at home, you might need something a little more substantial.
If you’ve got deep pockets (and don’t mind looking like Biggles coming back from a WW2 mission), you can’t go wrong with the amazing Grado SR60 headphones (review June 2005), but if you’re looking for something cheap and cheerful, the Panasonic DJ100 headphones are worth a look.
Optimistically described as ‘professional’ headphones (yeah, right), the silver and black closed-ear headset is more of the cheap’n’cheerful variety, although the build quality seems pretty reasonable for a street price of around £18.
In case you’re not sure what this ‘closed-ear’ stuff is all about, it means that the headphones completely cover yer lug’oles, and thus reduce extraneous sounds interfering with your music.
Designed for DJs
You’ll note the headphones describe themselves as being for DJs – this is due to their closed ear construction (a bit of a must for monitoring in noisy environments) and the fact that the individual earpieces rotate so you can listen to one earpiece without having to put the headphones on your head.
If looking like a DJ isn’t your thing, the ‘cans’ (as those in the music biz like to call them) felt comfortable enough when worn ‘normally’ with enough travel on the plastic extending headband to cover head sizes from a pinhead skinhead to a beehived big ‘ead.
There’s also a generous length of cable supplied with the ‘phones (around 2 metres) with a gold plated 2.5mm jack plug and 3.5mm adapter supplied.
A particularly nice touch is that the Panasonic RP-DJ100’s can fold up into an impressively small space, so that you can wedge them into your record bag or laptop case.
The sound
Naturally, at this price level you’re not going to get anything approaching hi-fi, but the RP-DJ100’s produced a sound that was neither too harsh or too overbearing, with the XBS Extra Bass System adding a bit of oomph which might come in useful when listening through a cheapo MP3 player.
The Panasonics were also capable of knocking out pretty loud volumes without too much distortion which is an essential attribute for Djing.
The verdict
Considering their build and price level, we were all set to give the Panasonic RP-DJ100’s top marks until the things let us down at a gig, when both channels cut out.
After some investigation, it seemed the phones had suffered the all-too-familiar problem of a dodgy jackplug, where the wiring had worked loose inside.
No problem we thought -let’s whip out the soldering iron and do a quick on the spot repair.
Annoyingly, once we’d removed the jack, ready for replacement, we found out that Pansonic were using the chuffing annoying lacquer coating cables (popular with Sony models), which are a ruddy pain to solder (see Headwize.com for solutions).
So after our own (paid for) headphones conked out after just four months and with no chance of a replacement after voiding our guarantee with the attempted emergency repair, we’ve had to rapidly downsize our enthusiasm.
We certainly wouldn’t recommend them for working DJs as we don’t think they’re up to the job. After all, if you’re serious about your playing, it’s defintely worth paying the extra for a robust, high quality pair. However, for bedroom-bound disk-spinners and iPodders on the move, they might be worth a look. So long as you treat them gently.
Looks 65%
Sound quality 60%
Build quality 50%
Overall 55%
Panasonic RP-DJ100 Specs:
XBS Extra Bass System
Travel fold design
28mm driver unit
Response bandwidth 14 – 24000 Hz
Sensitivity* 102 dB/mW
Impedance 24 Ohm
Diaphragm 1.1 in
Magnet Type Neodymium Rare-earth magnet
27 June, 2006
Study: Desktop PCs And Laptops Get More Reliable
Something will go wrong sooner or later with nearly one-fifth of all notebooks, with a new hardware component needed to sort the problem, according to a new survey by industry analysts Gartner.
The study found that 15 per cent of new laptops will break within the first year, and over a fifth will break within four years.
The fault could be something as minor as a broken latch, but the most frequent failures were major disasters like knackered motherboards and toasted hard drives – the kind of catastrophe that could turn mild mannered folks into screaming, blubbering wrecks of rage (we speak from experience here).
The picture is better for desktops, with just five per cent of desktop PCs purchased in 2005-2006 breaking within the first year, and only 12 per cent going AWOL within four years.
Although these figures look bad, they actually represent a 25 per cent decrease in annual failure rates for PC hardware over the last two years.
Laptops have also shown a significant improvement, with features like suspension mounting of hard drives and rubber bumpers between laptop lids and keyboards helping keep the damage tally down.
Busted screens
The most common disaster to hit laptops used to be the dreaded broken screen.
Improvements by notebook manufacturers – like adding structural rigidity to the casing and screen bezel and providing more space between the screen and keyboard on closed lappies – have happily made cracked and smashed screens less common.
Motherboard fry-ups and hard drive breakdowns are now the two main sources of failure for desktops, a situation brought about by the increasingly complexity of the things, with more components being integrated into the motherboard.
Years ago, if a network card went down, a quick call to the coke-slurpin’, death-metal listenin’ IT spod guy would have the card replaced in a jiffy, but with the network card welded onto the motherboard, the job suddenly becomes a much bigger one.
According to the study, less common hardware failures include latches and hinges on the chassis breaking, keycaps disappearing into the ether and the time-honoured, “Whoops! I’ve just spilt coffee/beer/coke on my keyboard.”
Gartner
27 June, 2006
Democracy Player: Upgrade to Free TV
As if you don’t already spend enough time looking at your computer, the folks at Democracy would like to introduce you to the delights of free Internet TV.
Democracy have just launched the latest upgrade to their open-source TV application, Democracy Player. The player offers downloads from over 300 channels of Internet video and provides RSS support, an auto-download feature and integration with Bittorrent. Democracy Player is available for Windows, Mac and 3 different flavours of Linux (Ubunu, Debian and Fedora).
The player is a breeze to use. We tested the Mac version and it looks and feels just like a well written Mac app. Functions are intuitive and smooth and there’s more than a hint of iTunes about the interface. Locating videos is easy. You can browse the 300 channels via the channel guide, select from the latest popular material, run a search or add your own videos. Having located your video just double click the item to download to your computer and sit back as Democracy Player runs it in full screen mode.
For those interested in making their own videos, Democracy also offers Broadcast Machine, an application allowing you to set-up channels and RSS feeds as well as enabling video uploads, all from your own Website.
Democracy is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the principal of free, open access to media through the use of open-source software.
While Democracy focuses on free content, moves towards commercial Internet TV services are proceeding apace. Last week Channel Four announced its intention to launch a video-on-demand service based on ‘closed’ channels such as cable, BT Broadband and the Internet. The service will include a film download service offering movies typical of the channel’s soon-to-be free FilmFour movie channel. There will also be a wide range of other material including Channel 4 shows and pay-for content from the archives. In addition Channel Four is expected to start online streaming of its own content (films and US exports expected) in the very near future.
Not to be out done, the BBC proposes to launch its iPlayer (previously named iMP – Interactive Media Player) service in two versions; a free service offering a seven-day catch-up for all its TV and radio output and a commercial version offering archived versions of programmes.
Elsewhere Apple continues to develop iTunes with Steve Jobs in serious talks with Hollywood studios about making movies available over the service. This may well prove to be an insurmountable challenge, given the movie industry’s scattershot approach to electronic licensing, distribution and DRM.
26 June, 2006
V-MODA Heavy Bass Headphones
More often than not, the in-ear headphones that come bundled with MP3 players are weedy affairs, producing a feeble floppy fart of a low end when you’re looking for a thunderous bass.
For drum’n’bass heads, techno fans and hip hop freaks, a little more bottom end oomph is what’s needed and the folks at V-MODA reckon they’ve got just the headphones for the job.
Their new “Heavy Bass” headphones have been specially designed to dish out the underpant-oscillating bass, with a frequency range running from 8Hz – 22000Hz and 122dB at 20Hz.
Bass! How low can you go?
Although 8Hz sounds like the deepest, most bassiest thing ever, the truth is that you’d need to have suffered some weird sort of genetic mutation and developed elephant sized ears to hear bass notes that low.
The human ear can only hear frequencies around 20 to 20,000 Hz, and that’s only when you’re young and healthy.
As you get older, your lug ‘oles’ decline rapidly – even more so if you’ve had a misspent youth with your head in Motorhead’s bass bins – and the highest frequency that a normal middle-aged adult can hear is only 12-14 kilohertz.
It’s the blokes who get it worst too, with their hearing range declining so quick that women can hear notes of higher pitch than men of the same age.
Silence is silicon
Back to the headphones, the V-MODA’s use the same sort of silicon covers as the Sony Fontopia In-Ear Headphones that we reviewed last year.
These come in three sizes so that they can make a perfect airtight seal with your ears and keep the bass booming in your shell-likes.
This improved the sound no end, and the ‘phones are great for using on planes and trains when you want to hear as little exterior noise as possible and don’t fancy forking out for expensive noise cancelling units.
The only problem is that this sonic isolation can do strange things to your head, with your own footsteps and breathing becoming so loud that if feels like a soundtrack from a horror film has been dubbed over the music.
Not everyone has this problem though, but we strongly suggest you try out these sealed headphones before buying.
If you still reckon these are the sort of headphones for you, we can tell you that the V-MODAs come in platinum white, mango orange, jet black with a 24k gold-plated jack for maximum hi-fi quality.
They’re priced at 8,480 Yen in Japan (£40, €58), but there’s no news on UK pricing and availability yet.
Product specs
Bus level: 122dB at 20Hz
Frequency characteristic: 8Hz – 22000Hz
Speaker driver: 10mm neodymium rate rare ground magnet
Cable size: Approximately 77.5cm (Y letter branch cable length approximately 34cm)
Plug: High sensitivity 24k gold-plating adoption stereo mini- jack 3.5mm
Bundled contents
V-moda bass freq itself
Modawrap cable winder
Silicon year pad (small and medium, 3 size sets of large)
Focal [Japanese]
26 June, 2006
Oracom UB890 Portable Media Player
Lined up on the new product runway and awaiting clearance for take off is the slick looking Oracom UB890 portable media player.
This attractively designed pocket-rocket comes in two colours (black or white) and four versions, with the memory capacity starting at 512MB and going all the way up to a healthy 4GB.
Packing a 2.0″ 262K colour TFT LCD screen, there’s enough functionality onboard to keep a Hoxton fin-toter happy for hours.
The media player covers a fair range of music formats – MP3/WMA/OGG/WAV – with MPEG, AVI, WMV and ASF (after conversion) video support.
There’s also built in equaliser and 3D sound and onscreen visual effects to keep the easily-bored entertained.
BMP and JPEG photos can be viewed onscreen (with zooming) and there’s slideshow/wallpapers support.
A handy line-in encoder with built-in microphone lets you use the thing like an old fashioned tape recorder, and if you get fed up with your own recordings, you can turn on the built in FM tuner and record tunes off the radio – either live or by using the pre-schedule timer option.
Rounding off the gadget-fest, there’s also an alarm clock, sleep timer, built-in speakers (500mW + 500mW) and an iPod-esque ‘Touch Sensor Key Pad’ for shimmying through the menus.
Through the marvels of modern technology, all these fancy gizmos have been shoehorned into a shiny case measuring just 81 X 43 X 12.2 mm and weighing a paltry 55 grams.
The USB 2.0 (High Speed) device runs off a Li-Polymer battery (which takes a patience-challenging 3 hours to fully recharge) and Oracom claim that’ll it play audio for a not-exactly-pushing-the-envelope 13 hours (MP3 128Kbps) and video for a more impressive 8 hours continuously.
Oracom
26 June, 2006
Silly USB Devices: Mini Guitar And Underwater Fingerprint Reader
Straight out of the, “What’s The Chuffin’ Point Of That” Dept comes two utterly daft USB devices.
This one goes all the way up to zero The first is a completely pointless guitar shaped USB stick, which comes complete with its own red-felt lined guitar case.
Even if you had the tiniest hands in the universe, you still wouldn’t be able to play the thing because it’s not a real guitar, and it measures a pixie-unchallenging 160 x 46 x 20mm.
Although we can’t help but admire the handiwork – a near perfect copy of the legendary Fender Stratocaster (the “axe” of choice for megastars like Eric Clapton and Hendrix) – we can’t work out who on earth would want to fork out €55 for what is essentially a cheap USB stick with a plastic guitar stuck on.
But if you fancy indulging in a bit of micro air guitar work while carrying around a paltry amount of over-priced flash memory, point your credit card in the direction of geekstuff4u.com
Mini Guitar USB Memory
Underwater windows
If you’re the proud owner of a secret underwater complex and need to have secure access to your submerged laptop while you’re flapping about in your scuba gear, look no further than the SecuTronix waterproof fingerprint reader.
This utterly bizarre invention (pictured here with a mini waterfall running over it) lets users authenticate themselves under water by swiping their fingers on the waterproof sensor.
We’re not sure at what depth the thing keeps on working or why anyone would want to be logging on to Windows in their Speedos, but there’s an English language version of the software available, and the whole sub-aqua caboodle could be yours for just €137.
akihabaranews.com
26 June, 2006
BT Home Hub Examined
To date, most ADSL equipment that BT has put out has been pretty …. functional … or put another way, ugly. Their ethernet routers have been transposed from office equipment, and their USB kit, the Frog as it was known … well don’t get us started on that*.
This has all changed with their latest packaging of broadband. Released alongside this, the newly-announced BT WiFi Home Hub has been designed to seduce people into pulling their router out from it previous position in the study or under the stairs, and putting it in to their living space.
Why would they care about that? Well it’s important for the success of products like BT Vision, their autumn-release IPTV service, as the connection between the Home Hub and the BT Vision box currently has to be wired ethernet. Given most people don’t have their house cabled for ethernet, the Home Hub has to be located close to the main TV in the house, normally in the lounge. It also doesn’t hurt to have their new wireless-DECT VoIP phone handsets sitting in the main room in the house either.
It’s a looker
BT have clearly had the industrial designers on the case and what they’ve turned out is a bit of a looker.
Being white, you can’t but fail to be reminded of Apple (being that they own the colour white). It’s like a cross between a small, white, upstanding PS2 and an iPod, but lacking the curves of the iPod.
The BT VoIP handset, or BT Broadband Talk handset as they call it (sssh, don’t mentioned VoIP), sits in an integrated docking unit that is slots in the front of the base of the Home Hub.
What can you connect to it?
Apart from the 802.11G/B wireless connectivity, there’s six physical connectors tucked away at the back of the Home Hub.
There’s the connector that runs between the phone line and the box, a slot for you POTS phone, two ethernet connectors (one of these will be used for BT Vision) and two USB connectors.
One of these USB ports is intended for computers that don’t have ethernet ports on them (are there any of these still in circulation?) and the other is for an as-yet unannounced use.
One trick I feel they’ve missed is using the Hub as a print server, but discussing this with BT’s, they suggest that this is something that could be introduced later, via a software update.
Disco lights may drive you mad
The only issue we raised after spending a brief time with it was the usage indicator lights that sit at the top of the unit, which flicker whenever data passes through the box. Sadly, as yet, these can’t be turned off.
We’d imagine that while having these beauties flickering away may be a novelty initially, but long term, people are going to find it _really_ annoying, as they catch them out of the corner of their eye. Expect either the addition of some masking tape over them or a software update giving the option to kill them.
Over broadband software updates
Keeping equipment up to date is a expensive and risky business, especially if you need to get the customer involved.
Like their video phone handsets, the Home Hub can be updated remotely by BT over the broadband connection. This gives them a chance to provide new features in the future, or to fix an problems that they might find, without having to bother the subscriber.
Do you need a Home Hub?
If you want to carry on using the Internet as you have previously, then the short answer is no, _but_ if you want to use any of the new BT services like BT Vision or BT Homesafe, their home security system (more on this soon), then yes.
For BT Vision to work, the STB that comes with it has to be able to control the flow of data over the broadband connection, because frankly, getting TV to run over a 2Mb DSL connection is asking a lot of it. If little Johnny is sitting in the bedroom downloading goodness knows what, he’s going to have to have his connection throttled, which Dad is watching the Football on Saturday night.
* Thank the gods of USB that BT have finally dumped the USB-connected Frog that used to ship in previous version of their broadband offering. We found this an odious move purposely designed to limit the number of computers that connect to one. In our book, this was detrimental to the wider adoption of broadband in the UK.
23 June, 2006
ICommons Summit – ISummit’06
23-25 June, 2006 “Towards a global digital commons” The past few years has seen the burgeoning of a number of initiatives aimed at opening the fields of creativity, science and knowledge in communities around the world. Practitioners from these movements currently identify themselves as falling within a particular community – ‘free and open source software’, ‘open access’, ‘open content’ and ‘open science’, amongst others – but they share key processes and values whose common elements are yet to be fully realized. This year’s iCommons Summit aims to bring together, in a creative, stimulating and cooperative environment, the pioneers from these communities – to inspire and learn from one another and establish closer working relationships around a set of incubator projects. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil http://icommons.org/
23 June, 2006
BT Include OpenZone WiFi Minutes with Broadband Package Shakeup
BT have released a shake up of their home broadband offering.
As well as reducing the number of options available, they’re also boosting the packages to try and both get people to switch to them, as well as attempting to induce their current subscribers not to switch away.
Mirroring their phone call plans, BT have gone for the Option 1, 2 & 3.
250 minutes of BT OpenZone WiFi
Most of the offering isn’t that different – OK, they’re bundling Norton Antivirus and firewall – the big innovation is the inclusion of 250 minutes of BT OpenZone WiFi.
BT have done a clever thing here in providing WiFi minutes. People will come to realise that they can use WiFi when out and about … near a BT roaming point only of course.
This is of course only averaging 8 minutes a day – and we all know how quickly time on the Internet can disappear.
Once they get used to that behaviour, people will start to run out of the 250 minutes that are available over the month – and start to pay BT for extra minutes.
This is a very clear indication that the convergence of network access is now well underway.
Free VoIP calls to UK Landlines
All of the packages provide free evening and weekend calls to UK landline, and until Jan 07, free video calls. International calls are not discounted – at all, which we thought a bit shocking.
This is not just calls using the PC softphone, but using the new Hi Def phone handset. We’ll cover this in more detail soon.
As well as the Hi Def phones and BT softphone, calls can be made to other BT VoIP handsets, like the now available BT Broadband Talk Videophone 1000 and soon to be available 1000 video phones.
We specifically asked about linking to other VoIP services. With no shock, we heard that this wasn’t going to be supported ‘at launch’, and we suspect ever. Locking people in to the BT handsets will be a way to attempt to increase their subscribers, with BT subscribers encouraging their family and friends into having a compatible, ie BT handset.
Equipment
In an effort to try and get you to step up to the highest subscription, BT are using an increasing amount of equipment to induce you to be tempted every increasing monthly fees. They’re leveraging their ability to buy huge amounts of equipment and the discounts that brings to them.
The entry-level Option 1 customers will be provided, free of charge, with a BT Wired router; Option 2 brings the white BT Home Hub; Option 3 includes the Home Hub and VoIP/DECT handset, that they label the Hi-Def handset.
If you persist in opting for Option 1, you’re able to purchase the Home Hub at the additional cost of £30 – £25 if done online.
Costs
There’s a promotional offer on each of the packages of a reduced cost for the first six months of subscription.
Option 1 – £9.95 for six months, then £17.99/month
Option 2 – £14.99, then £22.99/month
Option 3 – £22.99, then £26.99/month
Learning a trick or two from the mobile business, contract length for the entry Option 1 is 18 months. The others are a more expected 12. Do you get the impression that they really don’t want you to go for the Option 1?
Options 2 & 3 are pretty much the same, except for the amount of data that can be downloaded by the subscriber – option 2 give 6Gb usage per month, Option 3 a more generous 40Gb. It’s unclear if BT Vision is used if this will be included in the usage.
23 June, 2006