March 2007

Emporia Life Phone Targets Older Generation
On display at the CeBit hi-tech fair last week was a new mobile phone offering a built-in emergency button.
Designed for older folks, the Life mobile phone gets rid of all the usual multimedia razzmatazz and bells’n’whistles in preference for a no-nonsense, back-to-basics handset that should prove simpler to use for the technologically challenged.
The stripped down dual band phone comes with a big 2.7in (6.8cm) monochrome screen matched by over-sized buttons designed to be read by people with failing sight.
The phone comes with extra loud volume options for speaker and ring tones and has a powerful vibration alert to ensure the owner knows that someone’s calling.
For added security, there’s a big emergency red button on the back which can be programmed to call a designated number for help and send off a pre-written text message.
The Life phone has been created by the Austrian firm Emporia, who have started developing simpler phones aimed at the older generation.
There seems to be some debate about just how old the target market actually is: the MatureMarket.com website (for “seniors & Baby boomers worldwide”) had it pegged as a phone targeted at the over 40s. The BBC reckoned it was for over the over 50s, while the manufacturers own site had it pegged for even older people, “the 60+ generation.”
Emporia Life (PDF)
Emporia Site
19 March, 2007
Cisco Buy WebEx For $3.2Bn
Networking powerhouse Cisco is to buy the Web conference company WebEx for $3.2Bn.
WebEx is listed on the NASDAQ (WEBX) and is reported to be the leader in its field. They offer a ton of different products, all based around sharing information between a number of remote parties, with the majority of them featuring shared video.
Cisco is actively spreading the number of products and business areas that it covers – they have to really as companies like China-based Huawei move on to Cisco’s previously-core network businesses.
Scientific Atlanta, the maker of TV Set Top Boxes, was a previous purchase. In November 2005, Cisco slapped down twice as much cash for that one – $9.6Bn.
Strangely enough bringing WebEx into the Cisco fold is at the opposite end of the content creation spectrum.
As Charles Giancarlo, Chief Development Officer at Cisco, concisely put it, “As collaboration in the workplace becomes increasingly important, companies are looking for rich communications tools to help them work more effectively and efficiently.”
WebEx is currently focused on business applications, but it’s highly likely that nearly everyone will be carrying out video conferences in the future as travel becomes more expensive and general restrictions come into effect.
Read Charlie Giancarlo blog piece about the deal
16 March, 2007
EU Reding: Europe Should Standardise on DVB-H
Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media has been re-encouraging the European telco industry to pull their collective socks up and agree a standard to mobile TV.
Her guidance to them is to settle on DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds), a European led development of the DVB-T (Television) standard that is throughout large areas of Europe.
It makes total sense for the industry to select and stick to one technical solution, as it makes life easier for everyone, especially the consumer – avoiding the VHS/Betamax Blu-Ray/HD-DVD confusion.
While commenting on the estimated global value of mobile TV being 11.4Bn Euro, she followed it with “I am disappointed about the lack of progress made so far. To fully reap the benefits of this market and to export a European model for Mobile TV as we did with GSM for mobile phones, industry and Member States must work more closely together to devise a common approach, compare technologies, look at possible legal obstacles, make spectrum available throughout Europe and choose together the best way to ensure a quick and large take-up of Mobile TV by Europeans, preferably based on a single standard.”
It is understood that she is meeting today with Telecom ministers from the European Member-states to try and get some agreement.
Despite a number of trials stretching back years, including the UK, Spain and Finland, the jury is still out on whether the public will pay anything for the privilege of watching TV on their mobiles, while on the go.
Mobile TV: Commission urges industry and Member States to develop a proactive European strategy
16 March, 2007
HDForAll Pressure Ofcom on HD Freeview
On the day after news of the date of the first English town to start to go full digital on the delivery of TV, we’re reminded by HDforAll that Ofcom currently doesn’t have plans to set aside any of the freed up frequencies for HDTV usage.
Despite a successful trial run in London during 2006, where HD was delivered over Freeview, the only available ways currently to watch HDTV is via Sky satellite or cable.
One of the major reasons that the UK Government, and in turn, Ofcom is so keen for transferring everyone from the current analogue TV service to digital, is that it will free up large swathes of frequency. Ofcom’s plans are to auction this, and other frequencies off to the highest bidder, as we’ve covered a couple of times.
Not wishing to be left out of the HD world, the BBC are also keen to not just rely on Freeview delivering HD and to this end the BBC Trust have been given a provisional Yes for a FreeSat service capable to deliver their HD.
HDForAll are a pressure group made up of TV manufacturers, retailers and public service broadcasters including DSGI, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba and BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. They’re keen to remind people that there’s only a limited amount of time left to contact Ofcom to make their views known on auctioning off spectrum to the highest bidder. Background on this and how to respond are available on Ofcom’s site.
The public appear to be behind having HDTV on Freeview, nearly 5,000 have signed an e-petition (now closed) and there’s another one urging that
spectrum be made available for citizen and community uses – a la open access cable in the US.
A survey carried out at the end of last year, also found that the vast majority of people, no matter what platform they use, want HD to be available on Freeview – 96% of Freeview, 91% satellite and 92% cable users.
HDforAll
Ofcom’s Digital Dividend Review
16 March, 2007
Virgin Media Boosts XL Broadband to 20Mbps
Virgin Media have announced that they are to boost the top speed of their ‘XL’ cable broadband offering from 10Mbps to 20Mbps, starting in May.
The upload speed will also be upped to 768Kbs, not exactly setting the uploading world alight, but better than a poke in the eye with a stick, non?
While getting people excited about this, they’re also raising the price of their top service by £2 to £37/month.
They’re claiming it “will make the XL broadband service the fastest (widely available) home internet connection in Britain,” which is questionable, depending on your definition of “widely available.”
UK Online and Be Unlimited have been offering 22Mbps and 24Mbps broadband services (respectively) around the UK since the end of 2005, although Virgin Media has a wider reach than them. Both UK Online and Be Unlimited rely on their equipment being installed at the telephone exchange.
To us, these speed increases make it sound like they’re getting ready to start offering other IPTV/VoD-type services.
15 March, 2007
Whitehaven Digital TV Switchover Process Details Emerge
The details of how Whitehaven will switch over from Analogue to Digital are starting to come out.
It’s quite an interesting approach that’s worthy of a little attention, especially as this will form the basis for the approach for the rest of the UK.
Lots of local press have already become involved in informing local residents about the forth coming changes.
This will be added to by sending a letter to each of the 25,000 households in the Whitehaven area to give them details. In there will be details of the Help Scheme for the over-75s, those with disabilities, and blind.
Those qualifying will benefit from a one-off subsidised fee of £40, unless the households receive income-related benefits, in which case assistance will be free.
Starting in May, the awareness of the TV watching residents of Whitehaven will be further raised with captions appearing on their current analogue channels, warning them of the impending switch off of the analogue channels and the need for them to change their equipment if they want to continue watching TV.
As announced, analogue BBC2 will be switched off on 17 October between 2-4 am, freeing up a chunk of analogue frequency for digital use.
The process is slightly more complicated than first appears, although the effect of the actions will remain the same.
Analogue ITV1 will be switched over to the frequency currently used by analogue BBC2, which will become unavailable.
This will leave ITV1’s frequency available to be used by the first digital mux, which will provide three full time stations BBC1, BBC2, BBC News 24, with CBBC and BBC Three sharing the same frequency, switching between the two at 7pm daily.
Summary – For the price of one analogue TV channel (ITV1), four digital TV channels will work in its place.
(BTW we think DigitalUK should be ashamed with themselves at referring to the date as October 17, they are after all a UK Government body. This is the UK and dates are referred to with the date _before_ the month. The UK isn’t the US)
During this time, ITV1 will slip a little from button 3 on their remotes to button 2 – previously occupied by BBC2. A possible source of some confusion for Whitehaven residents, but reducing it to a minimum.
Four weeks later, the other analogue channels will switch off, making space for ‘at least’ 18 channels including ITV2, E4, BBC Four and some digital radio channels all via their TV aerial. There are a number of channels that are available in other parts of the country that won’t be making it to Whitehaven (detailed three paragraphs in).
We’ll keep our eyes and ears open to monitor the success of the process.
15 March, 2007
Whitehaven Digital TV Switchover Date: 17 October 2007
(Update: Details of the switch over process)
Today the date of the start of switchover to Digital TV of the first English town was announced as 17 October 2007. Being cautious types, they’re only going to be switching off one analogue channel to start, BBC 2, with BBC1, ITV and Channel 4 going dark over the rest of the month.
Back in June last year, we heard that Whitehaven was going to be the first town in England to switch off their analogue signal to be replaced by a purely digital service.
Whilst the majority of the channels, including all of the public service ones, will be available via DTT (Freeview), there are a number that won’t. Film 4 won’t be available, but Film 4 +1 (the same, but delayed by an hour) will be – no great loss there. Other missing channels will be a number of shopping and adult channels – a loss for some.
Whitehaven follows analogue switch off which started in Wales, specifically Ferryside and Llanstephan, back in March 2005 and four months later was judged to be a success.
Whitehaven, Cumbria, has similar characteristics to the previous Welsh site – pretty self-contained with the sea to its left and a jolly big mountain on to its right. Areas like this (Google Maps) are chosen to minimising the impact on the surrounding areas.
The official figures for preparedness do present a few hurdles for them. Only 73% of the Wighthaven households have the equipment to let them receive Digital TV – be that via Sky or Freeview. That leaves over a quarter of them still exclusively on analogue.
Photos of Whitehaven
15 March, 2007
iPod – The Missing Manual: Review (80%)
Another in O’Reilly’s missing manual series, this covers the iPod and its companion program iTunes.
Although most of the information can be had elsewhere, it’s useful to have a single source where everything’s in one place. Forgotten how to reset your iPod? It’s in the Missing Manual.
Some sections are genuinely useful, especially the Power of Playlists. It describes how to set them up and even gives links to software and on-line services which may make your life easier, including things like shared playlists and what other people are listening to.
The book is US centric and the iTunes sections assume you live in the US and can purchase TV shows and such like (which us Brits can’t do yet), but it’s still a useful reference.
The sections on photos and video are reasonably complete and help users manage their photo collection on and off an iPod and convert video for iPod use. There’s also a good section on the other features available on the iPod so you can manage address books, calendars etc.
At around £14/$20 it’s not the cheapest book out there, but it should be the only iPod book you’ll ever need.
Verdict
Value – 72%
Information – 88%
Overall – 80%
Buy at US Amazon $12.59
Buy at UK Amazon £9.23
The chapters are: –
Meet the iPod
Bopping Around the iPod
In Tune with iTunes
The Power of Playlists
Shop the iTunes Store
Videos Everywhere
Picturing Your Photos on the iPod
Other Stuff the iPod Can Do for You
iPod Out Loud
What to Do When the iPod Isn’t Working Right
Advanced iPodding
15 March, 2007
Vodafone To Offer Europe-wide Daily Flat Data Rate
The practicality of using cellular data service while you’re abroad hasn’t been high, unless your company doesn’t mind paying the crazy rates that has been data-roaming.
Sanity appears to have been reached by Vodafone, as they announce a flat-rate of €12/day for data in Europe – but only if accessed from “mobile-enable laptops” from 1 July 2007. It will replace their current per Megabyte service, giving what they say is “practically unlimited data usage,” which is actually up to 50Mb/day.
We asked Vodafone for clarification as to what “mobile-enable laptops” were and they said the service would be open to any laptop user who has a datacard, or a mobile phone with modem – as long as they opted-in to the service. The opt-in is free of charge.
Back in June 2005, Vodafone offered a months worth of data roaming for €75, but only included 100Mb in the service – the equivalent of two days data limit for the new service.
Vodafone have been running a voice equivalent roaming service, Vodafone Passport, for two years now, which they claim has 12m users. They tell us that they’ve yet to come up with a swish name for the equivalent data service.
The EU has been on at mobile phone companies to make their European voice roaming charges more reasonable for a while – in fact Vodafone pre-empted any action by the EU, by announcing a dropping their prices a year before they were going to do it.
14 March, 2007
Bling Player Screams Steal Me
As if the life of the portable music player listener isn’t hard enough to survive already, MediaReady has brought out a new range to attract the eye of street magpies – the Bling Player.
As you might guess from the name, the Bling Player has rather a lot of bling-esque stuff stuck to it. The young dudes and dudesses at Digital-Lifestyles tell me that this is referred to as being “iced out,’ or at least it used to be – street phrases move fast.
There’s two models available DOGTAG or SKULL’N’BONES, which MediaReady tell us creates “a new kind of fashion statement.”
The Bling Player is a 2Gb Flash player with FM radio built into it, capable of storing 30+ hours of music or 16+ plus hours of video. We hear that it “will ship to leading consumer electronics, clothing, and jewellry retailers,” starting April 2007.
The price of $199 will possibly mean that prospective purchasers will need to sell a bit of their current bling to own it.
MediaREADY Bling Player
14 March, 2007