 |
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Dimensions
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Duo size (31 x 20 x 1.6) mm |
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Connector Pin
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14-pin |
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Capacity
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32GB (format maximum) *4 |
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Max. Data Transfer Rate
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480 Mbps (theoretical) |
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Min. Write Speed
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120 Mbps *1 (As of 8-bit parallel transfer)
40 Mbps *1 (As of 4-bit parallel transfer) |
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Operating Voltage
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2.7 to 3.6 V |
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Interface
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8-bit / 4-bit parallel I/F and Serial I/F |
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Max. Clock frequency
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60MHz *5 |
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Copyright Protection Technology
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MagicGate |
 BT are pushing BT Digital Vault, their product to store all of your digital data on, to that end they’ve just launched a Web service to calculate the value of your digital output.
The site lets you enter the number of music tracks, photos and videos that you have and attach a ‘sentimental value’ to each format.
We threw a few numbers into it and it tells us the total monetary value of our digital doodlings is £3,490.
We’re confused as to how they’ve come to attach these arbitrary values to the various bits of media – Music tracks – 79p; Photos – 10p; Videos – £12.
The music pricing is based of the costs of tracks on iTunes. The other two? Photos based on BonusPrint.co.uk and films, Lovefilm.co.uk.
Frankly the valuation service is a bit hollow – but may draw attention to the fact that people don’t have a backup.
Backup your data
Our view is that you cannot attach a value to the photos of friends and family that you have – they can never be replaced, so we’re all for people looking after their data. BT’s Digital Vault is one way of doing this.
One of the major advantages of an online backup service is you are protected against fire in your home, that may well wipe out backup that you hold at home.
BT offer a free service, the ‘Basic,’ which lets you store up to 2Gb of data, but you have to manually copy the data up there. With a price like that, why would you refuse? You’ll need to sign up for the service before 8 Jan 2007, after that you’ll only get 1Gb.
The pay-for service is £4.99/month, but gives 20Gb of storage and an automated backup manager. It’s this that provides the essential feature of any backup system – the ability to not to have to think about it – your data just gets backed up. Sadly the software only works on PCs though.
BT are far from unique from offering this, as there are many other services around.
Other services
One example that has been running for very many years is Iron Mountain Connected Backup, or connected.com as it used to be. Back in our PC days, we used the service on a daily basis as it was just so simple of use – the backup occurred automatically as the machine was shutting down. Prices range from $10 – $75/month for their 30Gb service.
When you look at the amount of storage BT offers for its price, it looks quite a bargain against the Connected Backup.
Vault Calculator
BT Digital Vault
 Ofcom has released a proposal for the UK’s largest single release of radio spectrum, to be auctioned.
It’s not the auction itself, but a consultation document seeking views on a proposal to auction licences – if that isn’t long-winded enough.
Initially 215MHz of frequency will be made available, with a plan to release 400MHz in total in the ‘next few years.’
Ofcom’s approach is not to dictate what the released frequencies are to be used for, or even the technology that should be used to operate on it. Once auctioned off, they plan to let it be used for whatever the bidder chooses for it.
Their suggested uses include:
* mobile broadband wireless services, offering high-speed, high-capacity mobile data connections using technologies such as WiMAX;
* mobile multimedia services, such as mobile television;
* advanced mobile services using technologies such as UMTS and its evolutions; and
* mobile broadcast, such as wireless cameras for outside broadcasts and temporary or portable video links.
They believe that the spectrum could be released by the end of 2007 although this is subject to on-going EU regulatory discussions. All licences are proposed to be tradable – this is key.
It’s likely that frequencies like this will be bought by a major player, who can then either use it all themselves (unlikely) or re-sell it, as a wholesaler would, to smaller organisations. It’s a pretty radical approach in the world of frequency regulation.
Ed Richards, Chief Executive of Ofcom, said, “Releasing more spectrum to the market will create new opportunities for innovation in wireless technologies, promoting competition and driving convergence.”
Ofcom’s suggestion is to release the spectrum though two separate auctions.
* The bands 2500-2690 MHz, 2010-2025 MHz will be packaged into a number of lots and auctioned together. Participants will be able to bid for multiple lots. The auction will be conducted online using a secure server and there will be a number of rounds to the auction.
* The bands 2290-2300 MHz will be packaged as a single lot and auctioned though a sealed bid process.
Better get started counting your pennies and getting your responses together. You’ve got until 9 March 2007 to get your comments in.
Full details at Award of available spectrum: 2500-2690 MHz, 2010-2025 MHz and 2290-2300 MHz
 Waterproof gadgets aren’t just for the lounging by the pool in the summer. Despite its rather alarming name (“Stop the ferry! iPod overboard!”), this case promises to protect your tunes from the worst the winter weather can throw at you, as well as providing full waterproofing to a depth of six metres for summertime use.
The £15 case is made from padded vinyl, with a clear window to let you see what your player is up to. It’s been designed for market-leading Apples, and an 8th-gen 80Gb iPod does indeed slide in extremely snugly. A close fit is important to avoid excessive motion, which can damage miniature hard drives. However, if you’re planning to use the OverBoard for vigorous jogging or skiing, a totally solid state player such as a Nano will always be more resilient than a hard drive unit.
Despite being designed for full-size iPods, which have the headphone socket on the top right corner, the internal headphone jack is centrally mounted, so there’s a degree of awkwardness in marrying the plugs. Once it’s in, though, it feels quite secure and shows no sign of working itself loose.
The most important part of any waterproof case is the seal and this has a familiar self-tightening sliding design. You need to pull both switches outwards to open the seal. Unfortunately, the seal lacks a safety interlock of any kind and the pressure needed to release it is worryingly light. I would definitely be concerned about accidentally opening the unit while mucking about in a swimming pool or snorkelling in the surf. The seal proved effective in basic waterproofing, although a very small amount of water did find it way into the seal. This could leak into the case when you subsequently open the seal.
 The case comes with a small eyelet for a lanyard (supplied) and a large Velcro armband. This is tougher and more comfortable than the standard Apple armband, for example, and closes very firmly – a quality piece of kit. Assuming you want to read your iPod’s display and have the headphone jack upward, that means the seal faces downward – another potential concern if the seal were to accidentally open while you’re running.
The good news is that the Apple clickwheel works perfectly well through the plastic window, and the screen is clearly visible – you could easily watch downloaded video clips while bobbing on a lilo. Sound quality is not noticeably affected by the intervening jacks. Even with an 80Gb iPod (the heaviest Apple currently available) inside, the case floats in fresh water.
Conclusion
The OverBoard has clearly had some thought go into it. It’s well padded, easy to use the player inside and has an excellent armband. But the seal system is neither secure enough nor convincingly impenetrable for the most active users. The warning on the package that ‘contents should be insured separately’ seems like very sensible advice.
A good solution for casual use near snow, rain, water and dust, then, but athletes and divers should definitely spend a little more on protection.
Score: 65%
 The BBC has announced it is running a push-VoD trial in the UK.
Around 300 people, based in and around London, are taking part in the three month trial.
The trialists will get a box with a large hard drive in it, storing up to 100 hours of TV content from the previous seven days. Half of the hours will be automatically recorded by the device, with the rest available for the trialist to select. The content will arrive through a normal TV aerial, via DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) as used by Freeview. Clearly in the future, content would be able to be added via broadband.
Rahul Chakkara, Controller of BBCi said: “As we move further into an on-demand world, where viewers are looking for more opportunities to take control of their viewing schedules, it is imperative that the BBC is at the forefront of exploring new technologies to meet their needs.
Just hearing that, you’d be fully entitled to excuse them that they’re grandly calling it Push-VoD, when in reality it’s a PVR. It appears that there’s more to it than that.
Push-PVR underplays it
The BBC is working with Bristol based UK company Cabot Communications, who will be providing expertise in MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group).
We think the story on this is actually about the BBC being able to trickle content to these boxes over the air (OTA), primarily overnight.
Translated to English, this means MHEG programs, elaborate graphics, sound files and even additional video can be delivered ready to be used for the interactivity – when the viewer presses the red-button.
With this level of additional assets the interactivity becomes very rich – far more like a broadband computer experience than people are used to with their TVs currently.
 The potential for this is huge – both with general interactivity and specifically with games or educational material.
Cabot Communications have supplied the software and they have achieved all of this cleverness by extending MHEG, enabling the program to access the assets locally. It’s the first time this has been done..
The boxes for the trial have been provided by Vestel, the Turkish manufacturer.
Possible impact of the news
Those at BT Vision are probably fretting considerably as this news is likely to put off some people who are targets for the V-box. BT Vision’s approach is to pursue people who are interested in Freeview (the UK FTA DTT service) that going for the V-box will given them all of Freeviews content and functions, but will enhance it by offering a PVR and other content available over a broadband connection.
Many of those in the commercial sector will be shouting “Foul,” at the suggestion that they might be proposing their own device to receive content. The common approach is to say that the BBC should stick with what they’re known for – making great TV and radio programmes, and not spreading their attention to areas where the commercial sector already is.
We think although interesting, people shouldn’t get too excited about this. The BBC has often dangled interesting technology in front of people, only then to have them spoken about but for them to not emerge – see the Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft.
Cabot Communications
Vestel
 What are Ajax homepages?
Examples of some of the ideas behind the new spate of Internet applications, described by those in the know as Web 2.0, include Ajax, RSS, aggregation and user generated content. Most types of applications tend to choose just one or two characteristics of Web 2.0, but if there is one space which typifies the approach of the new Web, it is Ajax Homepages.
The companies behind them, want you to set them as your browser homepage, and they each provide a multitude of ‘widgets’ for you to drag-and-drop onto your homepage, updating you on incoming email, latest items in RSS feeds you are watching. These widgets can also work as mini programs, providing functionality from calculators to free sending of text messages. The early releases came from Google (who decided to go out on a limb, naming theirs the Personalised Homepage), Netvibes and Pageflakes. In this article I want to give you a quick rundown on why I think Ajax homepages are becoming increasingly important and what challenges they face if they want to become successful.
YourminisThe best way to do this is probably through a case-study of my favourite Ajax homepage, yourminis. It’s actually inaccurate to call yourminis an Ajax homepage, since it is built with Flash, a different Web technology. That doesn’t matter, because what I’m really interested in here is what one might call the ‘ideology’ of these Web 2.0 homepages rather than the underlying technology.
When you first visit yourminis, you are given a page with default ‘minis’ (their word for widgets). These include a Digg module and a YouTube module, amongst others. It is possible to add more minis from an impressive selection that includes a calendar, an email module, the iTunes chart and an MP3 player. Yourminis is aiming to become a place where you can pull in information from all round the Web from the sites that interest you, and be able to quickly see what is new since you last opened up your browser. If you’re into photo sharing site Flickr, you can see the latest photos from there. You can set it up so that the latest posts from Digital-lifestyles appear.
There are so many possibilities, and that’s the whole point. No-one uses the web in exactly the same way, and so what yourminis and the applications like them are trying to do is to allow you to create your own personal portal, far more flexible than the attempts of the last Web revolution, such as MyYahoo, which was hard to customise and offered far less content in the first place.
A feature that I particularly like about yourminis is the ability to publish pages that you have produced, so that your friends can see them. You could use it for research, or a more colourful example used by Goowy’s CEO, Alex Bard, is a page dedicated to a favourite band, with the latest news about them from various fan blogs combined with album art, all with their music playing in the background.
So, now you know why you should use a product like yourminis, but what does the future hold for them? A key challenge faced by providers of these Ajax homepages is monetisation; users would undoubtedly react badly to any attempt to plaster banner ads, or even contextual text links, onto their page that they have created. This was one of the questions I asked Goowy’s CEO when I interviewed him recently, and his approach to the monetisation of yourminis involves ‘value added revenue generation’. An example of this might be the affiliate revenue earned by yourminis when a user buys something from ebay using a mini on youminis. Around the biggest players (particularly Google), an ecosystem of third party developers producing widgets for the service is developing. As this happens, and the process of developing widgets becomes easier, the flexibility of the systems can only increase.
Huw Leslie is editor of UK-based Web 2.0 and software blog Gizbuzz, and the co-founder of technology blog network Oratos Media. His personal blog is For Crying Out Loud!
 Last Thursday saw the launch of the Wii across Europe.
As we’d detected after we saw the demand to play it at the Eurogamer has got some great shots form the UK launch.
 Channel 4 are having problems delivering their 4OD, Geo-restricted content to their UK-based consumers.
Following the launch of 4oD on wednesday, we were really keen to try the service out. It became available a little after the expected mid-day launch, but frankly who’s counting.
We got the software down and were really impressed with the way it looked. Channel 4 really know how to design stuff that looks good and is easy to interact with. Bold use of large graphics and well executed example pieces of video viewable, just my mousing over. A really good job.
We thought we’d initially test out service by using the freely available porgrammes, two of which are given away each week. Plumbing for Trigger Happy, we clicked with some excitement.
Disappointment hit when we found that Channel 4, or at least their geo-sensing service thought we were outside the UK, and therefore refused to deliver the content to us (see image).
Geo-sensing is used by a growing number of Web-based service, as it gives them knowledge of where users are coming from. By looking up the originating IP address, the theory is that they can tell which country you’re in, or in even more detail than that sometimes.
It’s features are all the more important to distributers of content that has a restricted license, like video content. If the content is licensed for UK use, the rights holds want assurance that it can only get to people in the UK.
This is all fine and dandy – if the geo-sensing is correct. We’re with Metronet, now part of Plus.net. They’re a significant player in the ISP game, so much so that BT has made a cash bid for them.
We reported the problem to Channel 4 a couple of hours after launch, providing various pieces of helpful information over a number of emails. We understood that they’d be getting right on to it. While we know that these things take a little time, we pretty surprised that it hasn’t been fixed two days later
We’re sure that other people with different ISP’s are able to view the content, just surprised that companies who are selling geo-sensing service are not correct as to what is in the UK and what’s outside.
We hope that Channel-4 and their geo-sensing provider can get their wrinkles ironed out – they’re missing income here.
Channel 4oD
 It’s coming up to Xmas and everyone’s making Skype accessories. Belkin are no exception and have joined the crowd to release a Skype phone, in BLACK.
It’s reminiscent of a SonyEricsson T610, but bigger – measuring about 4.5″ by 2″ by 5/8″ (11.5cm by 5cm by 2cm). The screen looks bigger than it is, as there’s about 3/4″ between it and the keypad. It’s actually only 1.5″ by 1.12″, which is big enough to show 7 contacts at a time.
It’s not really a phone in the normal sense, just an embedded Skype client on dedicated hardware.
It’s Skype, but not as you know it
Skype on a PC environment is more functional, for a start this phone version doesn’t allow text instant messages (IM), it only supports the voice functionality of Skype (even though the keyboard does allow text input, much like a mobile phone except no predictive text).
Once the device is configured, the screen will display the current time and your Skype balance with two softkeys at the bottom of the screen showing “menu” and “Contacts”.
 If you’ve got credit you can make normal calls to the PSTN (i.e.ordinary phones), but you have to type the telephone number in international format (i.e. putting +44 infront of the number and dropping the leading zero). Unless you’ve got a SkypeIn number, the called phone will show “Number Unavailable” when you call.
Dialing contacts is easy, just hit the right soft key and they’ll be listed, go to the one you want and hit the green “dial” button (or you can use the left soft key which will show “options” and then select “call”). You can also leave them a voicemail (if they have thatservice) or view their profile.
WiFi isn’t HiFi
Call quality is pretty good, though it’s reliant on both the WiFi and Internet connection which can both vary depending on the environment.
As a WiFi phone, it’s permanently connected to the Internet whether it’s being used or not and though it can blank the screen, the Skype client is running all the time the phone is on, which means it’s eating into the battery life.
Though using the phone will increase the rate the battery discharges, WiFi isn’t particularly battery friendly. Saying that, after a full charge the phone lasted at least 20 hours before turning itself off.
 Phone Set-up
Setting the phone up is easy, but not trivial. It works through a WiFi connection so that the first thing that needs to be configured. The network should be configured with one of the WiFi security protocols (and if it’s not, do it NOW), the Belkin phone supports WEP and the newer more secure WPA protocols. The IP configuration will be automatic if the network is configured to dish out the settings (most are) though they can be entered manually.
Once the networking is configured, just enter the Skype log-in details and the client connects to the network, and just works.
All in all it took less than 2 minutes to make the first call – even with the pretty slow text input.
The phone software can also update itself over the network, but no software updates have so far been made available.
Internals
Though Belkin don’t say what’s in the phone there’s some clues from the copyright notices. Of course there’s Skype in there, but the P2P stuff is licensed from Joltid (who seem to be the company behind the technology in Kazaa etc and Skype too).
There’s also Qt licensed from Trolltech. Qt is a cross platform user interface available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. As the phone is unlikely to run either of the first two, it’s probably running embedded Linux, and Trolltech make a version of that too called Qtopia. So as a bet it’s running some variant of embedded Linux, Qtopia, Qt and a Linux variant of Skype.
 It’s not perfect
The current phone isn’t perfect, the phone settings are static and are designed to work in a fixed home or office environment and are tied to a specified WiFi network.
As the phone doesn’t have a browser it’s not possible to utilise a public hotspot as there’s no way to enter your credentials to get on-line.
Belkin have said this will be possible with the next version which will have a Java micro-browser which will allow configuring hotspot settings and saving them too so it will be possible to configure the phone in a Starbucks then move to an Openzone network and the phone will continue working.
The phone costs around £99 which isn’t cheap, but having a Skype phone that isn’t tethered to a PC makes it usable whenever it’s needed.
Verdict
It’s a nicely built phone, though the screen’s a bit small. The most annoying thing is not being able to “chat” to people and other Skype users just get a message that the software’s to old or incompatible if they try to chat with you.
Suprisingly, battery life is pretty good.
Score: 71%
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O2 Ireland has become the first European mobile operator to offer Napster Mobile.
O2 has spend a considerable amount of money tying themselves to music, attempting to benefit from all of the ‘cool’ that it can bring. You only have to witness the party they threw at IFA last year to understand how successfully they’ve been with it – it was definitely the best party at IFA, rammed full of young things gyrating.
Sony are expanding their range of Memory Sticks further by adding the “Memory Stick PRO-HG.”
Major Specifications of Memory Stick PRO-HG