July 2006

Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z700 Announced
Looking to scoop up some late summer sales action is Casio’s new Exilim Zoom EX-Z700 digital camera, available in silver and gunmetal.
This latest addition to the popular Exilim family serves up a beefy 7.2 megapixels-worth of resolution, with a large 153k LCD screen offering 1200cd/m2 brightness – claimed to be bright enough to let you see what’s going on in the dazzling sunshine of Grimethorpe and Abu Dhabi.
Despite its pocket-sized dimensions (88.5 x 57 x 20.5 mm ), the battery life looks pretty healthy, with a claimed 460 still images on a single charge.
New modes
The auto-everything camera boasts two interesting new ‘Best Shot’ modes; the first being Auto Framing.
This claims to keep “dynamic subjects like playful, active children at the centre of the photograph” apparently “solving one of photography’s most perplexing challenges” on the way. Phew. Thanks for that, Casio!
When the camera is set to Auto Framing, a thin, outlined frame appears on the LCD, centred on the moving subject of the photo, with the area within the frame being captured when the shutter is fully depressed.
Cheese FX
The second, less useful, new mode is called Layout Shot, which lets users create collages made up of multiple shots of chums taken against the same scenic backdrop, or mix shots with different compositions to create a, err, “single artistic layout.”
Users keen to get a bit Salvador Dali on their Casio have to select one of two predefined layout templates, blast out 2-3 photos and then let the camera create its masterpiece.
To be honest, the thing sounds absolutely dreadful to us, but there may be some folks out there who can’t get enough of cheesy effects like this. But not us.
Rounding up the feature set of this thoroughly unremarkable camera is Casio’s Anti Shake DSP, a 38-114mm (35mm equiv) 3x optical zoom
The Casio Exilim EX-Z700 will be shunting off the shelves in the UK and Eire in August 2006, with priocing to be announced.
Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z700 specifications
Sensor: 7.20 million effective pixels
Image sizes: 3072 x 2304, 3072 x 2048 (3:2), 2560 x 1920, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480
Movie clips: 640 x 480 @ 30fps, 512 x 384 @ 30fps, 320 x 240 @ 30fps
File formats: JPEG (Exif v2.2), DCF 1.0, DPOF, AVI Motion JPEG
Lens: 38-114mm (35mm equiv), 3x optical zoom
Image stabilization: Anti Shake DSP
Digital zoom: up to 4x
Focus Contrast Type AF (selectable between spot, multi)
AF assist lamp: Yes
Focus distance: Normal: 40cm-infinity, Macro: 15-50cm, Manual: 15cm-infinity, Metering Multi-pattern, Centre-weighted, Spot
ISO sensitivity: Auto, ISO 50, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400
Exposure compensation -/+2EV in 1/3 EV steps
Shutter speed 1/2 to 1/2000 sec
Night Scene: 4 to 1/2000 sec
Aperture: F2.7 / 4.3 (auto switching)
Modes: Still, Still with audio (max 30secs), Continuous, BEST SHOT, Macro, Movie with audio, Voice recording
Scene modes: BEST SHOT
White balance: Auto, Fixed (6 modes), Manual switching
Self timer : 2 or 10 sec. Triple Self-timer
Continuous shooting: approx 1fps, High-speed continuous shutter and Rapid Flash approx 3fps
Flash: Auto, On, Off, Soft Flash, Red-eye reduction
Range: 0.15-3.4m (w) 0.4-1.8m (t)
Viewfinder No
LCD monitor 2.7-inch TFT colour, 153,600 pixels
Connectivity USB 2.0
Storage SDHC / MMC / SD card compatible, 8.3 MB internal memory
Power Lithium-ion NP-40 rechargeable battery, AC Adapter
Weight (no batt) 112 g
Dimensions 88.5 x 57 x 20.5 mm
Casio
26 July, 2006
Pentax Optio S7 Announced
Pentax have announced their new ultra-compact Optio S7 camera which features a seven megapixel sensor with high sensitivity up to ISO 1600 (at 4 mp).Released almost a year after their popular Optio S6 model, the camera upgrade features Pentax’s “Face Recognition AF & AE”, a 2.5″ non-glare LCD monitor, DivX Movie Mode and support for the new SDHC card format.
Slippy slidey lens
The Optio S7 comes in a suitably fashionable thin and compact body with a 3X optical zoom which uses Pentax’s proprietary original Sliding Lens System to keep the camera pocketable.
The lens offers a par-for-the-course 37.5 – 112.5 mm (35 mm equiv) 3x optical zoom range, with an aperture of F2.7 to 5.2.
There’s also 4x digital zoom onboard, but we never recommend using built in digi-zooms (you’re better off blowing up the images on your home PC).
Blur be gone
The camera features a Blur Reduction High ISO mode to help reduce camera shake and blur.
This ramps the ISO up to 1600, letting the Optio take advantage of faster shutter speeds in low light situations, but at the expense of image size, with the resolution slipping down to 4 MB (2304 x 1728 pixels).
Phizzog snapping
Employing the Face Tracker face-recognition technology from FotoNation, the new Face Recognition AF & AE mode claims to simplify portrait-taking by “automatically detecting the position of the subject’s face and adjusting the focus and exposure based on the detected position.”
The camera also sports an auto-tracking AF feature to provide continuously focus on marauding kids, mauling pets and passing UFOs.
Making movies
The Optio S7 can capture movies at 30 fps at sizes up to 640 x 480 pixels, with the DivX (MPEG-4 compliant) movie format offering longer recording times.
There’s also a movie anti-shake feature, although this will give users a narrower field of view than during normal recording.
Auto modes
Naturally, the camera comes stuffed with a ton of auto picture/scene modes, covering subjects such as Flowers, Kids, Pet, Nifgt Scene and the all-important Food mode (has anyone ever used this, anywhere?!).
Storage
Accompanying the 23 MB of built-in memory, the Optio S7 unusually supports two removable storage media formats; the tried and trusted SD memory cards as well as the new SDHC memory cards.
The Optio S7 will be available in September for “under US$300.”
Pentax Optio S7 specifications
Sensor , 1/2.5″ Type CCD, 7.0 million effective pixels
Image sizes 3072 x 2304, 2592 x 1944, 2304 x 1728, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480
Movie clips 640 x 480 @ 30 fps, 320 x 240 @ 30 fps, AVI (DivX compatible MPEG-4), With sound, movie anti-shake
File formats Still: JPEG (3 compression levels), Movie: AVI (DivX, MPEG-4), Sound: WAV
Lens 37.5 – 112.5 mm (35 mm equiv) 3x optical zoom, F2.7 – 5.2
Digital zoom Up to 4x
Focus TTL contrast detection autofocus ystem with AF spotbeam
AF area modes 5-point multi AF, Tracking AF switchable, Spot AF
AF assist lamp Yes
Focus distance Normal: 0.4 m (1.31ft) – infinity, Macro: 0.15 m – 0.5 m (0.49 ft – 1.64 ft), Pan focus: 1.1m (3.6 ft) to infinity at wide-angle setting/ 4.5m (15 ft) to infinity at telephoto setting
Metering Multi-segment, Center-weighted, Spot
ISO sensitivity Auto, ISO 64-400, ISO 400, ISO 800/1600 (Blur reduction mode; 4 mp)
Exposure compensation o +/- 2EV, 1/3 EV steps
Shutter speed 1/2000 – 4 secs
White balance Auto, Daylight, Tungsten, Fluorescen, Manual
Drive modes One shot, Self-timer (10 / 2 sec), Continuous, Remote control (3 / 0 sec)
Flash Built-in
Modes: Auto, on, off, soft flash, red-eye reduction
Range: Approx. 0.15 m – 5.1 m (0.49 ft -17 ft) at 5.8 mm, Sensitivity
Auto Approx. 0.4 m -2.7 m (1.31 ft -8.9 ft) at 17.4 mm, Sensitivity Auto
Viewfinder No
LCD monitor 2.5″ TFT LCD, 232,000 pixels
Connectivity USB 2.0 (Hi-Speed), AV out, DC in
Storage SD / SDHC card, 23 MB internal memory
Power Rechargeable D-LI8 lithium-ion battery
Weight 100 g (3.5 oz) (no battery or card), 120 g (4.2 oz) (loaded and ready)
Dimensions 86 x 54 x 20 mm (3.4 x 2.1 x 0.7 in)
Pentax Optio s7
26 July, 2006
Google Video: Advertising Sponsorship
Google Video has been serving videos to the Internet population for over a year and a half now, both paid download via their Video Store.
Today, when researching a story, we noticed that they’ve also brought in a third model – sponsored playback, a new one to us. Never let it be said that given an opportunity to raise advertising dollars, Google aren’t at the forefront.
Above the video being played back is a banner containing the logo of the advertiser (in this case HP), a couple of lines of advertising copy and a couple of links.
How the financial on this works isn’t clear, but we’d assume that the owner of the contact will receive some payment from the sponsor, via gogole, for each video that is watched, in a similar way that the record companies get paid a small number of pennies when a people play their artists music on a monthly music subscription service.
One interesting feature is that the video is still available for purchase, as the version that is shown is at a lower quality than the for-sale version. Google call the for-free version Preview, although for our purposes, retrieving information from the programme, this is all that we’d need. You could see that other types of programs would benefit from higher resolution.
Clicking on Watch their Ad link opens a new browser session and plays the video advert from … Google Video. All very neat.
It is interesting to note that the cost from Google, in this case 99c, is significantly less than the price when purchased from Charlie Rose’s own site, which is available on DVD or VHS at at least $30.
What is powerful about this rendition of advertising with video content is that the brand is associated with the content, in our case a well known and respected US journalist, and the viewer is given the opportunity of watching the content. They aren’t forced to watch it, as we commented about at the end of the recent review of GoTuit, and are they given the opportunity to stop watching it whenever they feel like it.
Example of Google Video being sponsored by an advertiser.
26 July, 2006
Live Traffic Updates Added To Google Maps For Mobile
The ever-expanding selection of Google features just grew by one as they announce that they’re providing Live Traffic updates to mobile phones in 30 US cities and partial information in many others.
The traffic-concious will be able to fire their mobile phones up, look at Google Maps For Mobile (or GMM as those in the trade call it) and see the masses of traffic jams appear before their very eyes.
The most up-to-date traffic information will be sent directly to the users’ call phone, showing the severity of the delays on commuter routes using red, yellow, and green overlays. The amount of time the travelers are likely to be delayed is also shown on the mobile.
Google are slightly playing catchup with Yahoo on this one, as they been plotting live traffic on Yahoo Maps since March 2005.
Back in November 2005 we broke the story about the existence of GPS-using code in Google Local For Mobile, but this has yet to be officially enabled.
On the back of the Mobile Maps news, Google also announced that users now have the ability to customize the content that appears on the mobile version of their Personalized Homepage, making it even easier for mobile phone users to quickly get the information they need when away from their computers.
Google Maps For Mobile
25 July, 2006
Motorola Unveils 3G MotoRAZR MAXX
Somewhat earlier than expected, Motorola has officially announced the follow up to their wildly successful V3x phone, the new MotoRAZR MAXX.
Wearers of tight spandex pants will appreciate the 0.2-inches that has been carefully shaved off the V3x’s dimensions, giving the MAXX a super-slimmer width of just 0.6-inches.
Lurking inside the sleek black flip handset is a veritable GCHQ of connectivity, with the phone now offering nippy EDGE and HSDPA connectivity, GSM 900/1800/1900MHz, as well as the speedy UMTS (2100MHz).
Motorola claim that the phone can reach download speeds as fast as 3.6MB per second using the High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) handsets.
As ever, the phone looks slicker than a Torey Canyon coastline, with a large 2.2-inch QVGA display, flat metal keys and external touch sensitive music controls backlit with a lovely blue glow that screams, “I am a hip fecker” to any passers by.
Moto has wedged in VGA and 2.0 megapixel cameras for two-way video calling, with Bluetooth 2.0+ Enhanced Data Rate, 50MB of internal storage and a microSD slot (up to 2GB) for storing tunes, videos and data.
If you’re already salivating at the sight of all this lovely technology, you’re going to have to keep your hanky to hand for a while longer as Motorola have yet to give specific release/pricing/market details.
Motorola
25 July, 2006
US Stays Top Of The Spam League
Once again, America remains firmly rooted to the top of the league of spam-relaying nations, accounting for a hefty 23.2 per cent of the world’s unsolicited email during the second quarter of 2006
Lurking close behind with a 20 per cent contribution to the global spam total is China (inc. Hong Kong), with South Korea in third with 7.5 per cent.
However, the figures from IT security firm Sophos reveal that both China and South Korea have managed to reduce their spam output since the first quarter of the year, unlike the US which has failed to reduce its spam for the first time in over two years.
Botnets of zombies. Aaaieee!
Sophos explained that the vast majority of the spam tracked by the company was relayed by botnets of ‘zombie’ computers hijacked by Trojan horses, worms and viruses, controlled by devilish hackers.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos commented that the introduction of the 2004 US Can-Spam legislation in 2004 had resulted in a regular quarter-on-quarter drop in the proportion of US-based spam, Until now, of course.
“Given the number of arrests, and the huge fines dished out to guilty spammers, it is hard to criticise the US for failing to take action, said Cluley.
“Perhaps the reality is that the statistics cannot be reduced any further unless US home users take action to secure their computers and put a halt to the zombie PC problem,” he added.
Eurospam
When it comes to spam-per-continent, Sophos found Asia the busiest around, but noted that spam relaying in Europe continues to grow.
Europe collectively accounted for 25 per cent of the world’s spam in the first quarter of 2006, a figure that has now increased to 27.1 per cent, overtaking North America in the spam spreading league.
Ruski controllers
There may be no sign of Russia in the “dirty dozen” of steeeenkin’ spam-relaying countries, but Sophos reckons there’s still ’nuff bad boys to be found, claiming that Russian spammers may be controlling “vast networks” of zombie PCs.
Embedded spam
Spams containing embedded images have seen a huge rise this year, leaping from 18.2 per cent in January to 35.9 per cent in June.
Using images instead of plain text lets spammers bypass some anti-spam filters that weed out spam by analysing the textual spam content.
Pump and dump
Sophos reckons that 15 per cent of all spam emails are now ‘pump-and-dump’ scams, up from just 0.8 per cent in January 2005.
We’ve suffered a ton of these scams which are designed to boost the value of a company’s stock in order for spammers to make a quick profit
“It is worrying to see so many pump-and-dump emails, often with embedded graphics, being spammed out to the general public,” commented Cluley.
“The people that act on these emails are not skilled investors, and do not realise that purchasing the shares is likely to reap no reward, benefiting only the spammers while creating a financial rollercoaster for the organisation in question,” he added.
Although we sympathise with his words, you’d have to be madder than Jock McFruitloop wearing jelly trousers to even consider buying any stocks recommended by these emails.
The Bad Boy tables
Spam relaying countries, April to June 2006:
1. United States 23.2%
2. China (inc. Hong Kong) 20.0%
3. S Korea 7.5%
4. France 5.2%
5. Spain 4.8%
6. Poland 3.6%
7. Brazil 3.1%
8. Italy 3.0% new entry
9. Germany 2.5%
10. United Kingdom 1.8%
11. Taiwan 1.7%
12. Japan 1.6%
Others 22.0%
Spam relaying continents, April to June 2006:
1. Asia 40.2%
2. Europe 27.1%
3. North America 25.7%
4. South America 5.5%
5= Australasia 0.7%
5= Africa 0.7%
Others 0.1%
Sophos
25 July, 2006
India Embracing Advertiser-Funded Programming
It’s not just computer programming and call centres that are being outsourced to India, it now appears that advertising and research on advertiser-funded programming is moving there too.
As the public gains more control over their media due to digitisation, we all know that traditional advertising takes a knock.
The massive Interpublic Group, which includes the advertising agency McCann-Erickson, is creating an Emerging Media Lab in India under one of their companies, Lodestar Universal.
It will not only have the now-inevitable ‘this is what the house of the future’ setup within it, but will be applying all of those highly-educated brains to studying the affects of these medias on individuals and try to apply some matrix to them.
Lodestar Universal CEO Shashi Sinha told Television India, “We are in the process of building up a credible measurement system for consumer behaviour in the activation, films and retail space with the launch of the Emerging Media Lab in India. Consumers today are involved in multiple activities at the same time and hence there was a need to churn out some mechanics to measure it.”
Sinha is very optimistic about the future of branded entertainment giving the example of paint manufacturer Nerolac, who are shifting their advertising spend by “starting allocating 20-25 per cent of their spends to the branded entertainment space.” He believes this will shift over the next five years to half of their spend.
Those in the West would do well to gain an understanding as deep as our Indian cousins appear to have.
25 July, 2006
Sky Buys Mykindaplace: Murdoch Grabs More Of The Web
The Murdoch empire continues to buy to part of the online world, as BSkyB announce the full purchase of Web publishing and design company, mykindaplace, a company that they’d invested in 2000 when they previously dabbled in buying bits of the Internet.
Founded in 1999, mykindaplace has a couple of publications aimed at teenagers, one for girls, and another boys, monkeyslum, that launched in September 2004. At the other extreme end of the age range, they also published livingit in January 2006 aimed at those 45+.
With the purchase of mykindaplace, Sky will also gain Burst Interactive, which currently handles the skyone.co.uk site for Sky.
James Baker, Managing Director of Sky Networked Media, who will have the mykindaplace teams under his power, invented a new term to us “super-serve,” when he said “Working even more closely with mykindaplace will allow us to accelerate the expansion of our web portfolio. We intend to super-serve audiences in key content genres and target new users with a suite of content-rich sites thatdeepen customer relationships and drive new revenue.”
Sky who already owned 49% of mykindaplace bought Eurovestech shareholding in Mykindaplace for £0.5 million cash back on 30 June. We understand that Eurovestech owned 5.6% which they bought into at the same time as Sky back in April 2000. At the time of going to press, it isn’t clear who owned the remaining shares, although it is understood that Freeserve invested in the company in 2000 as well.
25 July, 2006
Brits Love Affair With Mobiles Continues
In the largest UK study of its kind, the Mobile Life Report has revealed our attitudes towards mobile phones and how they have impacted on our lives, with more than 90% of UK mobile users saying they can’t get through the day without using their phone.
More than 16,500 people were surveyed for the report, which was published by The Carphone Warehouse in collaboration with the London School of Economics.
Text-tastic
The report revealed that the British love affair with texting is still in full flow, with people sending an average 3.6 mobile text messages a day compared with 2.8 voice calls a day.
Not surprisingly, it’s amongst da yoot that texting is the most popular with 51% of 18-24 year-olds sending/receiving at least six text messages a day, but with only 15% troubling themselves to have six or more mobile phone conversations a day.
Better than the tele
In the same 18-24 years old age bracket, mobile phones were declared to be more important than television (26% to 11%), with the figure jumping to 32% for women in the same age group.
Thievery
Mobiles continue to be hugely popular with muggers/thieves, with nearly one in ten people (9%) reporting that they’ve had a mobile phone stolen.
Not unexpectedly, 18 to 24 year olds were found to be at the most at risk, with 17% of women in that age group having had their phone purloined compared with 10% of men.
Citizen journalism
People were also found to be ready and willing to use their camera phones to record evidence of a crime (50%), or to snap a crime in progress (47%), with more than a third (36%) saying that they’d use their mobiles to grab a mugshot of a passing celebrity or newsworthy event.
Sex and mobiles
With a keen eye to garnering some press in the tabloids, the research bothered to ask about ‘relationships and mobiles’.
Lord knows why people bothered to answer these questions, but the survey found that a quarter of people bothered to disconnect their mobiles before indulging in a bit of hanky panky, with 11% switching them to silent (writer resists cheap joke about vibra-alerts) and 14% turning their phones off altogether.
The study also found that phones could be used to ward off unwelcome suitors, with over half of women under 25 admitting to getting out their mobiles in public situations to deter people from approaching them.
Tribes
For reasons best know to itself, the study also identified six tribes or groups of mobile phone users.
These are:
Generation Mobile – single, style conscious, 18-24 year olds who are students or working in their first jobs
Phonatics – single, employed folks aged 18-34 who elevate their mobile into being their most important electronic possession.
Practical Parents – young, cost-conscious families aged 18-34 who choose their mobiles for practical rather than style or function.
Smart Connecteds – affluent families and professionals aged 25-44 who use their mobile to organise their hectic work and social lives.
Fingers & Thumbs – married, middle-aged or retired folks with children or grandchildren.
Silver Cynics – affluent, married with children rapidly heading for retirement.
Mobile Life Report
25 July, 2006
Microsoft Zune Targets Apple’s iPods, Finally
After an eternity of denials, obfuscation, rumour and counter-rumour, Microsoft have finally confirmed that they will be launching their own rival to Apple’s iPod range.
In a statement late last week, the company said, “Today we confirmed a new music and entertainment project called Zune. Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year. We see a great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together.”
This announcement posits Zune as a brand name for an entire family of hardware and software products, supported by music, movie and media services, much like Apple’s iPod, iTunes and iTunes Music Store offering.
Billboard Magazine, who broke the story, has speculated that the Zune-branded range of products will include music players, video players, WiFi-enabled devices and possibly even a portable video game device, with Microsoft incorporating social networking and mobile media purchasing.
The first Zune device (which may or may not look like the one illustrated) is scheduled to be launched late this year ready for Christmas, with further devices following in 2007.
Microsoft has already busied itself with the dreadfully punned ComingZune.com viral marketing site which, bizarrely, features a big bloke and a tiny bloke stroking a rabbit to the strains of the excellent Regina Spektor song, ‘Us.’
Because we’re all being strung along by Microsoft’s teaser campaign, details are still very sketchy (like the illustrations on the site) although some rumours suggest that there’ll be a 30GB Zune with the “same pricing, look and feel as the 60GB iPod,” with Wi-Fi functionality letting users share music with up to 10 nearby chums.
We’ll keep you posted with more information just as soon as we hear summat.
24 July, 2006