April 2007

Google Developer Day Announced
All of you budding code-aholics take note, Google is hosting ten Google Developer Days in their various offices around the world on 31 May.
They’re going to have workshops, keynotes and breakout discussions on Google’s APIs and developer tools.
Google have been running a few of these already with much smaller capacity. A few have happened in Silicon Valley and a couple in London that we’re aware of, but this is on a much bigger scale.
The program is being headed up by code-fan pin-up girl Marissa Mayer, who’s Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. She was one of the first 20 people to join Google (just imagine her stock options!) and the first female engineer hired by them.
They’re rolling out some of their top talent to get the code-kids hot under the collar. Get ready for this …
Guido Van Rossum, Google software engineer and creator of the Python programming language (Beijing); Chris DiBona, Google open source programs manager (London); Mark Stahl, Google data APIs tech lead (Madrid); Bruce Johnson and Joel Webber, co-creators of the Google Web Toolkit (Mountain View); Bret Taylor, group product manager for Google developer products (Mountain View); Lars Rasmussen, Google Maps senior engineer (Sydney); and Greg Stein, Google engineering manager and chairman of the Apache Software Foundation (Tokyo).
The subjects they’ll be covering also sound pretty enticing. Here’s a cross section, “Developing with Geo: Google Maps, Google Earth and SketchUp,” “Tools for Better Web Development: The Google Web Toolkit, Open Source and Other Developer Initiatives” and “Mashups and More: AJAX, Google Gadgets and the Google Data APIs.”
What does Google get out of this?
Google’s going to be lashing all of their cash, time and resources on this, so what’s driving them?
Well, people become more familiar with how to write programs to use their applications via the published API’s, which means the potential for extra advertising income for Google.
That’s all well a good but more importantly, Google get to spot the hottest programming talent around the world and can in turn try to persuade that talent to join the Google gang. Meaning Google ends up with the best programmers, not their competition.
Smart, eh?
Locations
- Mountain View, California
- São Paulo, Brasil
- London, United Kingdom
- Paris, France
- Madrid, España
- Hamburg, Deutschland
- Москва, Россия (That’s Russia to you)
- Tokyo – Japan
- Sydney, Australia
- Beijing,China
Those who can’t make it don’t need to be left out, Google will offer live streaming webcasts from its Mountain View office and provide a YouTube™ channel with videos of Google Developer Day sessions around the world.
Google Developer Day
11 April, 2007
Frontline Wireless: US Analogue TV Spectrum Raising Much Interest
There’s a scramble for US spectrum by a collection of big-time venture capitalists.
In the same way that UK frequencies are being freed up by analogue TV going digital, a big chunk of valuable frequency will also be coming up for grabs in the US too. The big difference is that the US one is coming up a lot sooner, with the US government having mandated that their analogue switch off occurs on 19 Feb 2009.
Once freed-up, it is to reallocate the frequencies to public-safety organizations and commercial broadband networks.
According to the IHT, one of the contenders is a company called Frontline Wireless, which was formed at the start of this year to try to utilise the 700-megahertz band – by fulfilling both public-safety usage and commercial usage simultaneously.
A key part of their technical solution is the use of Software Defined Radio (SDR), which allows the same device to operate on many different frequencies, using the same chipset, switched by software.
The 700-megahertz frequency is highly favoured as it has a significant capacity, good range and can easily penetrate buildings and other structures.
Frontline has a number of advantages on their side. Not only does it have Reed Hundt, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman acting as Vice Chairman, but the company’s first public investor was K. Ram Shriram, an early Google investor known for his investment acumen. Venture capitalists L. John Doerr and James Barksdale, originators of Netscape, have also jumped on board.
They plan to offer to the public-safety network free of charge, while monetising the commercial side of the network. It’s estimated that they’d spend over $8 billion building out the network.
Frontline Wireless
11 April, 2007
Sony’s VAIO G1 Lappie With Flash Memory
Large pools of envious drool and “gimme! gimme! gimme!” saliva were found dripping around the desks at Digi Lifestyle after Sony’s latest version of the superlight Vaio G1 laptop was spotted on t’web.
Previously released as a featherweight 2.1 pounds laptop sporting a 40/80GB hard drive and 12.1 inch display, Sony have just cranked up the VAIO’s desirability rating to wanton craving with the news of a 32GB Solid State Disk option.
With the hard drive ejected and replaced with super silent, super fast, super durable solid state flash memory, the laptop can now claim to be the world’s lightest 12.1-inch laptop, registering a butterfly-untroubling 1.89-pounds.
Without a hard drove rattling away inside, the standard battery life has been extended by half an hour, giving a very generous 6.5 hours in total. Users investing in the longlife ‘L’ battery can enjoy a battery life that will leave even the Duracell bunny in need of a fag and lie down, with Sony claiming a whopping 12.5 hours of use.
As well as the 1,024×768 pixel (XGA)screen, there’s also an Intel 945GMS Express video card, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, a Type2 PC card slot, memory stick PRO/DUO and SD card/MMC slots, Gigabit Ethernet, modem and voice input/output.
Its dimensions may be small (277 x 215 x 23.5-25.5mm) but the price tag is a bit of a heavyweight beastie, with the base unit starting at around 229,800 Yen – adding up to a hefty $545 premium over the 40GB hard disk option.
Source
10 April, 2007
Mobile Linux Use Set To Soar
Linux may be associated with sunlight-avoiding, beardy computer ‘enthusiasts’ pottering in sheds, but the popularity of its mobile phone version is predicted to soar.
Although Linux take-up has traditionally trailed miles behind Symbian – currently the head honchos of mobile OS platforms hogging around 60 per cent of the market share – research firm ABI thinks things are about to change.
They reckon that the number of mobile phones purring along on Linux is about to skyrocket from the current tally of 8.1 million phones to more than 200 million by 2012.
ABI also predicts that handsets incorporating the open source Linux as a real-time operating system (RTOS) replacement will also grow massively, leaping up from a base of just about zero today to 76 million units in 2012.
Stuart Carlaw, research director at ABI reckoned that Linux’s growth will be down to a number of factors; the breaking down of barriers for adoption, more industry bodies working to promote the OS (including Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung) and the ease in which phone makers and mobile operators can customise their handsets.
The new report by ABI Research, “Mobile Linux: Bringing License-Free Operating Systems to Smartphones and Mid-Tier Devices”, concludes that “Linux in the cellular phone is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’.”
ABI research
Elsewhere, The Linux Foundation has announced an update of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and the release of a new testing toolkit, which can be found here: www.linux-foundation.org/en/LSB
10 April, 2007
SanDisk ‘Connect’ With Yahoo For Wi-Fi Music Service
Flash memory maestros Sandisk have announced that they’re hooking up with Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go to provide a service that lets music fans fuel up their music players wirelessly.
After connecting the Sansa Connect media player to the Internet via Wi-Fi, users will be able to listen to LAUNCHcast Internet radio, rummage through Flickr photos and check out what Yahoo Messenger friends and nearby Sansa Connect owners are grooving to.
Meandering music fans will also be able to access Yahoo’s free music services or connect to Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go subscription service to download tunes to their players, without the need to connect it to their home PCs.
“We see this as a very strong partnership with Yahoo,” purred top SanDisk marketing bod Eric Bone, adding that he saw his company progressing from “fast-follower mode to a technical-leadership mode” in a market still dominated by the ubiquitous iPod.
The attractive 4-gigabyte palm sized player comes with a bright 2.2″ screen, a tactile scroll wheel, a microSD slot and a built in mono speaker for sharing the music with (quiet) friends. There’s also a slightly strange looking stubby antennae for the wireless connectivity.
As well as wirelessly connecting to Yahoo’s Music service, the Connect supports MP3s and DRM WMAs provided by other services like Rhapsody, but you’ll have to get out Ye Olde cable to transfer the music from your desktop.
The Sansa Connect is set to retail for around $250 in the States. We haven’t heard any news about UK pricing/release dates yet.
It looks like it’s a beauty and we’re looking forward to getting out hands on it.
SanDisk Sansa Connect MP3 Player
10 April, 2007
iPod Hits 100 Million. Celebs Fawn All Over The Place
Yesterday, Apple announced that it had shifted its 100 millionth iPod, making it the fastest selling music player in the history of the known universe and quite possibly beyond.
The iconic iPod first appeared in November 2001, with Apple going on to introduce a host of different models, including five generations of the original iPod, two generations of the iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle.
With the Apple PR backslap machine set to ‘turbo,’ Steve Jobs issued a statement personally thanking, “music lovers everywhere for making iPod such an incredible success.” And he means that most sincerely, folks.
Never one to knowingly underhype his own products, Jobs continued; “iPod has helped millions of people around the world rekindle their passion for music, and we’re thrilled to be a part of that.”
As ever, celebs were lining up for a piece of the profile-boosting action, with Mary J. Blige apparently suffering some sort of strange pre-iPod amnesia, claiming that she found it “hard to remember” what she did “before the iPod,” before going on to claim that the player was, an, err, “extension of her personality.”
John Mayer, another GRAMMY award winner (and quite possibly the owner of a degree in corporate fawning) was also ready and willing to crank up the gush-o-meter, announcing that the “iPod experience has kept the spirit of what it means to be a music lover alive.”
We’ve no idea what on earth that means. But we know it’s poppycock.
10 April, 2007
MyMaps Launched By Google: Add Your Bits To Maps: Mini Review
Google is bringing User Generated Content to the Google Maps, by extending it to let users add their own comments, photos and video.
Google Maps has wowed people ever since it moved to the Web from the standalone Google Earth application, letting anyone with a Web browser take a look at both the maps and satellite images of anywhere in the world.
Adding content to online maps, or geographic locations isn’t a new idea. It’s been around for ages and it’s commonly called geotagging, or less frequently Geocoding.
Google Maps has been possible for a while using a combination of Google Maps API and XML, but it wasn’t for the faint-hearted, requiring quite a lot of know-how and skill to add items. It uses an XML schema called KML, Keyhole Markup Language.
Their new version, currently available in ten counties, gets away from this by extending Google Maps to include a simple drag and drop interface.
We’ve given it a go and found it a breeze.
When people create their own MyMaps they are able to define if they are to be shared with the world – coming up in Google search results – or define if they are the remain private.
Adding placemarks is a breeze. Simply select the placemark icon and click on the map area that you want it to appear on. These can be titled and a description added, be that plain text, rich text, or HTML
There are further tools to allow lines and shapes to be draw onto the maps. Once set, these can then have their colours and attributes changed.
Adding photo and video
Photos and video can be added to the maps, as long as they’re hosted somewhere online.
Adding them requires the smallest amount of HTML skill, as they have to be added to the placemarks using HTML code. (pointers)
Once you’ve created you mapping master pieces, you can take the data from Google Maps, out via KML, to Google Earth.
Current competition
Yahoo has offered the ability to attach photographs to maps via their Flickr service for quite a while now (Bestival example) and Microsoft have also had a similar tool Via their Maps Live service.
Google Maps
5 April, 2007
UK PS3 Sales Down 82% In Second Week
The news for Sony and their PlayStation 3 just keeps getting worse.
Early pre-UK-release signs weren’t promising, nor were they looking any better when the UK PS3 was selling for £100 under their release price, a couple of days beforehand.
On the positive side, Sony did claim to sell 165,000 consoles in the UK in the first week – making it the UK’s fastest selling home console to date.
Now the official Chart Track figures, that follow sales in the UK are reporting to gamesindustry.biz that sales of the PS3 in the UK have dropped by 82% during its second week of release.
Software sales are also suffering with “sales of the top two PlayStation 3 titles, Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm, had dropped by over 60 per cent.”
It’s not looking much better for the PS3 in Japan, where Bloomberg is claiming that Sony has sold 812,000 PS3s since November 11, against a mighty 1.95 million Wii consoles by Nintendo.
5 April, 2007
Pace Celebrate 25 Years In Business
Our favourite UK Set Top Box manufacturer is celebrating their 25th birthday this year.
25 years! Staggering how old the industry is now isn’t it?
Waaaaaay back in 1982 they started off selling modems and software. Their first product was a PSTN modem called the Nightingale and we can even remember Pace modems from back when 1200/75 baud modems appeared as an exotic advance from the 300 baud ones that were the standard.
For all of you young ones who weren’t around in those days, that’s 1.2/0.075 Kbps vs 0.3 Kbps. Scarily slow.
Following their modem and software successes, Pace launched their first satellite set-top box (SR640) in 1987 and like all design, it was a product of its time, with a fab HiTech feel about it.
From there, Pace really haven’t looked back. They’ve consistently carried out pioneering development, building up a large selection of industry firsts, including the first digital satellite receiver in the UK, the first PVR (personal video recorder) in Europe, the first low-cost digital terrestrial adapter (thereby creating the freeview market in the UK) and, more recently, the very first H.264 DVB-S2 high definition set-top box in the world.
Their latest and greatest product is a HD DVR, the HR20, which records using MPEG-4.
If you, like us, dear tech trivia fan don’t know the history behind the name of Pace, you’ll be excited to hear that the name Pace came from an innovative shipping company in Australia called the Pacific Australia Container Express.
The Next 25 years
Looking forward to the next 25 years, Neil Gaydon, CEO, give his views of where Pace will be innovating, “Soon we will see multiroom and home networking solutions coming through, that will allow you to watch anything you want from any screen in the house, including mobile TV. When you add the fact you will import your photos and internet entertainment to any screen, your music to any room in the home along with wireless technologies emerging, so removing the need for wires, we are at the early stages of a new TV revolution.”
Best of luck to Pace in the coming years, may they continue their success.
Pace Jubilee
4 April, 2007
Play Bestival: Learn Ukulele Via MySpace
Our Sister site, Ventnor-Blog, has been scooping the world with announcements of who and what will be appearing at the amazing, manic extended weekend that is Bestival.
Besides the now-known amazing acts of The Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, a whole slew of talented ladies, Primal Scream, Jah Wobble and many others will be appearing.
The latest mold-breaking announcement of today is that willing punters, will themselves be able to play on stage at this coming Bestival, if they’re willing to pick up a ukulele and learn to play it.
That’s all very lovely, but what’s the relevance for Digital-Lifestyles? Well, the innovative way that enthused Uke holders will get up to speed on the required songs is via MySpace.
The whole jolly lot is being organised by the venerable Dulwich Ukulele Club (background) through the Night of 100 Ukes’s.
On there, in the lead up to Bestival, will appear details of the songs, the lyrics that need to be learnt and the cords that need to be sweated over in pursuit of Ukulele-nirvana.
The majority of preparation through practice will be done in the privacy of Uke-ers homes, but besides the planned rehearsal at “a central London pub” in August, Who knows, they might even choose to use Skype to Live to have remote practices.
We’re going to keep an eye on this one, both in our personal pursuit of Uke-ism and to watch how this MySpace-driven mass learning works out.
Night of 100 Ukes’s MySpace
Bestival
Bestival Latest News
4 April, 2007