Author: Berni Dwan

Akimbo IP-VOD to Sell Through Amazon

Akimbo IP-VODWe’ve been keeping our eye on Akimbo, an IP-delivered VOD (Video-On-Demand) service and have learnt that they are launching and have signed on Amazon.com as its official retailer. Akimbo has just launched its video-on-demand service and signed on Amazon.com as its official retailer. Akimbo is to video what Apple’s iTunes is to the iPod. The Akimbo Player, utilising an easy “Queue and View” format is a set-top box that delivers hundreds of mainly niche program videos to television through a broadband-Internet connection allowing consumers to choose content and view it on-demand – or maybe even later.

Amazon.com will be the exclusive retailer for the 2004 holiday season, and the Akimbo Player which can hold about 200 hours of video, is now available in the Amazon.com Electronics store for US$229.99 (~£125, €180) [Buy]. Consumers can sign up for the Akimbo Service by visiting their site at a cost of US$9.99 (~ £5, €8.10) a month. Sadly, for content licensing reasons we assume, it’s only available in the US currently.

The service offers consumers 50 categories of content, including mainstream, classic and independent films, foreign language, news, health and fitness, sports, children’s programs, and education. At no additional charge you can download old series such as “The Jewel In the Crown” from Granada International, consult comprehensive independent film catalogues from Undergroundfilm, GreenCine, Amaze Films, and IFILM.  Or you can receive news specials and features from CNN, more conventional classic movies from Turner Classic Movies and cartoon episodes from the Cartoon Network. Premium services are also available for access to foreign language programming.

The Akimbo Player utilizes widely adopted technology for playback including Windows Media 9 technologies for audio and video compression, and digital rights management. The Akimbo Service automatically delivers an onscreen program guide and subscribers choose which programming they would like to download to the Akimbo Player. Then, each time Akimbo Service subscribers turn on their TVs, they have new videos, previews and editorial information waiting for them.

Akimbo has competition from other VOD suppliers waiting in the wings, including Disney’s Moviebeam, TiVo and Netflix, all who have plans for 2005.

Akimbo

Buy Akimbo Player from Amazon

In-Game Ads in the Ascendance

With the effectiveness of TV advertising on the wane other avenues are being pursued. Chrysler Group are doing it, McDonalds are doing it – advertising on game consoles instead of the screen.

The fantasy world of video games is rapidly becoming prime advertising space.  According to Nielsen Media Research, TV viewership among men aged 18 to 34 declined by about 12 percent last year, while they spent 20 percent more time playing video games.  So, if you want to successfully target a niche market pick the console rather than the screen.

Chrysler Group has already cottoned on to this trend and they are availing of some simple measurement science to see how they can do it better. Nielsen Entertainment and Activision Games have launched a test to measure how consumers react to ads in video games. The test uses audio encoders to identify when and for how long players are exposed to product placements within the game, and to do this they will use the exposure of Chrysler Group’s Jeep in the newly released ‘Tony Hawk’s Underground 2’.

Nielsen also conducted pre- and post-test surveys with 500 male gamers aged 13-to-34 in their research.  Two-thirds of respondents actually believed real-world products and advertising in the games made them more realistic. The more highly integrated the brand was in the game the more it was remembered, with 40% even admitting that they would be more inclined to buy the advertised product.

Four years ago the Chrysler Group did not even have a budget for video game advertising but now it represents 10% of that budget, with Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles featuring in more than a dozen games.  Conversely, their spending on TV and print ads has dropped.  Chrysler first experimented with this medium a few years ago in the  “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2” game where players had to do rail stunts over a Jeep to get points, or go through game levels festooned with Jeep billboards. In  “Tony Hawk’s Underground 2” they have gone a step further – players who want game upgrades will have to go to Jeep’s Web site to download them.

Activision and The Chrysler Group have also just announced the Chrysler brand will feature in the upcoming simulation game, The Movies.

Nielson

Napster Take PayPal Payment

As an appetiser, Napster introduced pre-pay cards at Dixons’ stores across the UK earlier this month, in an effort to attract customers who don’t have a credit card. As the music business is fretting most about  teenagers downloading music, it would appear to make perfect sense to give them a payment method that allows them to pay for the music.  Now, the Los Angeles-based digital music provider has announced that customers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada can now pay for tunes using PayPal, using it to purchase monthly subscriptions or individual tracks and albums.  PayPal, owned by eBay is one of the largest payment handling companies on the Internet.

Napster obviously wants its payment options to be as convenient and accessible as its music download options. If you don’t already have a PayPal account, Napster will set one up for as part of its registration process, while existing customers can select the new payment option when they enter billing information.

The ultimate benefit of PayPal, which already has nearly 57 million customer accounts around the world, lies in its flexibility. It acts like a virtual wallet, allowing users to pay for products online with multiple funding options including a bank account, a credit card or an existing PayPal account. Other payment options on Napster, such as credit and debit cards as well as prepaid cards, will continue to be available.

Unless you have been living in a parallel universe, you will know that Napster popularised free music swapping over the Internet, primarily using the MP3 format, before turning into a legal music service. Now the popularity of legal downloading services like Napster and Apple Computer’s iTunes has resulted in a resurgence of interest in online transactions that use micropayments. 

iTunes still only accept the credit card, but no doubt they will now feel under pressure to offer an alternative payment method also, and are probably already talking to an online payment handling company as I write.

Napster
PayPal
Apple iTunes

Nintendo DS – Big US Ad Campaign Due

Its efforts to spread the word about the innovative, touch- and dual-screened Nintendo DS may reach Biblical proportions, and will certainly be the largest launch program ever for a Nintendo product, as well as the first outside of Japan.

Pre-launch television ads for the Nintendo DS started on Oct. 25. And in fairness, a new level of sophistication incorporating voice recognition, wireless features allowing multi-user play using one DS game card, and the PictoChat chat function catering for up to 16 simultaneous users, has been brought to the handheld game console market.

A series of three provocative ads presents a static-filled screen with a female voice-over inviting viewers to interact with two blue boxes on the screen, while MTV have produced a custom ad featuring the stars of Wildboyz using the Nintendo DS wireless features.  In December, Nintendo will run ads on more than 5,000 movie screens, and to add the icing to the cake, Nintendo DS is being featured on the multi-city Nintendo Fusion Tour.

While Nintendo DS goes on sale in the US on 21 November and in Japan on December 2nd, Europe must wait until early 2005. It will sell at $149.99 (~£84, ~€122) and comes bundled with a playable demo of Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt.

Before the end of the year, Nintendo DS users will be able to enjoy the following eclectic mix.  Super Mario 64 DS, Madden NFL 2005, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 2005, The Urbz: Sims in the City, Spider-Man 2, Ping Pals, Feel the Magic XY/XX, Rayman DS, Asphalt Urban GT, Ridge Racer DS, and Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits. In addition to this more than 120 games remain in development for Nintendo DS around the world. New games will come from 100 different companies, while Nintendo itself is developing 20 titles.

Ben Hur won the chariot race and Spartacus ended up being crucified – how will Nintendo DS and Sony PSP fare in battle?

Nintendo

Treo 650 Launched by PalmOne

PalmOne Treo 650A finer, mellow blend of phone and PDA, PalmOne launched the Treo 650 in the US yesterday. There are changes on the outside and changes on the inside – some cosmetic, some ergonomic, and some fundamentally technical. I’d be happy to ditch my current phone if I won this in a raffle!

PalmOne plans to make two versions of the Treo 650. A dual-band version will support CDMA/1XRTT cellular networks, used by Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless. A quad-band version will run on GSM networks, used by T-Mobile, Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless. The GSM model will also support AT&T’s EDGE, a higher-speed data network. But built in Wi-Fi support is still missing as is, we understand, support for PalmOne’s own add on WiFi cards. We expect this is bowing to pressure from cellular providers who are terrified of Voice over WiFi eating their high-charging services for breakfast.

The Treo 650 has a higher-resolution screen – 320 by 320 pixels compared with the Treo 600’s 160 by 160 pixels.  It’s faster with a 312MHz Intel processor compared with the Treo 600’s 144MHz Texas Instruments chip, while memory capacity remains the same at 32MB.  An improved VGA camera can record video as well as still images and should work better in low-light situations. Storage is provided by Flash memory enabling expansion. The Treo 650 has a removable battery, which gives up to five hours of continuous digital talk time and over two weeks of standby time

A new e-mail application, VersaMail supports Exchange Server 2003, POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP, so 650 users can now connect remotely to corporate networks to get e-mail. Furthermore, built-in Bluetooth Wireless Technology allows you to wirelessly synchronise with Bluetooth-enabled desktop or laptop computers.

Software applications include Documents To Go 7 with native MS Office support allowing you to View and edit Word and Excel documents, an audio player for MP3s, and the new palmOne Media suite from Zire 72.

With all that improved technology on the inside, simple ergonomics have not been forgotten. The 650 has an improved backlit QWERTY keyboard with larger, flatter keys, and strategic button placement for easier one-handed access. 

A touch too far might be the vanity mirror for self-portraits, while a community service to movie and theatre buffs might be the hardware silent switch. Sprint will be the first carrier to offer the smart phone from mid-November, and pricing is expected to be in the $400 (~£217, €312) to $500 (~£271, €390) range.

PalmOne Treo 650

QUICPay Using RFID in Tokyo Taxi Payment Trial

News reaches us that a Japanese credit card company, JCB International, is starting a two-month trial in November of a contactless payment system using mobile phones.  It’s called QUICPay and the guinea pigs will be taxi drivers in one of the world’s busiest cities, Tokyo. The exercise makes sense in Japan where it has been found that people use cell phones more than they use credit cards, and the Kanachu Hire taxi company will make contactless payment history.

QUICPay will be tested with NTT DoCoMo mobile wallet service handsets that are embedded with Sony’s FeliCa IC chip.  When the phone is presented within ten centimetres of the QUICPAY RFID (Radio Frequency ID) reader, it will determine the balance stored on the customer’s chip, automatically deduct the fare and reset the chip’s balance.  The QUICPay (“Quick and Useful IC Payment”) amount will then be billed to their existing credit card just like any other card purchase.

QUICPay can skip the authorisation process because it can instantly determine the balance that is available on the chip. The great thing about this system is its immediacy.  How often have the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes multiplied while you waited for the shop assistant to move heaven and earth to finalise your card transaction? In contrast to this a QUICPay offline payment transaction can be done in seconds and what’s more, no signature is required. 

While this trial is using only phones, it will be possible to embed the chip in a credit or other plastic cards in the future. If the experiment is successful JCB hopes to introduce the technology to convenience stores by 2006.

As far as we’re aware, there is no ‘keep the change’ option on QUICPay, so if the system becomes universal and moves us ever closer to a cashless society we’d better find another way of tipping.
 
Other mobile phone-based payment systems such as SimPay are being actively pursued. What isn’t clear is what transaction fees the handler will remove. Given it is all electronic, one would hope they would be negligible.

JCB International

Clothing Mounted Computer Sensors Discussed by MIT

How would you like some magic fabric that you could use to make, and remake useful objects depending upon the job you neededon a given day? A wallet might inform you that you have run out of money, a belt might tell you that the pollen count is low, or a hat might tell you that the sunburn index if high.  The wallet, the belt and the hat will be the same set of patches used in different ways on different occasions. 

The New Scientist Magazine reports on a system of computerised fabric patches developed by engineers Adrian Cable, Gauri Nanda and Michael Bove at MIT’s Media Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Each patch contains a functional unit of the system – a microprocessor and memory plus either a radio transceiver, a sensor, a microphone, batteries or a display. It’s like intelligent Lego or transformers – you can put the patches together in different ways to create a variety of information-providing or environment-sensing objects.  You can then pull it apart and put it together again to perform an entirely different function.

In order to remain waterproof, the circuit board inside each patch is first coated with a hard transparent resin and then padded with a thin layer of foam before being housed in the chosen fabric. It can be populated with a variety of components, from Bluetooth transmitters to a cut-down PC motherboard, reports the New Scientist.

The dressmaking exercise continues as the patches, which can be square or triangular, are joined using Velcro. Wires from the circuit board are attached to silver-coated contacts in the Velcro so that data and power can flow from between modules.
 
To make a bag that prevents people forgetting things, Nanda and Cable have incorporated a sensor module in the bag’s handle that detects when the bag has been picked up, indicating that the owner might be leaving, says the New Scientist. This triggers the reader to check through the objects the computer module has been programmed to look for, and it uses a voice synthesiser module to warn the owner if items are missing.

All Grandparents should get this bag for Christmas!

New Scientist – Smart fabrics make for enhanced living

Diagnosis of Patients in Transit via Video Link Trailed in Japan.

Imagine the advantages of being able to send high-definition video of a patient from an ambulance to a hospital via cell phone. It will happen nation-wide in Japan from next April.

A collaborative project by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Tsukuba Medical Centre Hospital, and the Tsukuba Fire Headquarters has developed such a system that can do just this. Simply at the flick of a switch, paramedics will activate the system to enable a hospital doctor to examine a patient via remote control video camera using the new technology that has made it possible to compress high-definition image data sufficiently to allow its transmission via cell phone.

According to national statistics in Japan, it takes an average of 21 minutes to transport an emergency patient to hospital.  These high-definition images though, will make it possible for doctors at the receiving hospital to give critical, timesaving and appropriate advice to paramedics, with obvious positive implications for the survival prospects of the patient. 

To implement the system, ambulances will need to be modified to carry a video camera, laptop computer and special antenna, and AIST say the system will be tested in the city by the end of the year and will go on sale nation-wide in April.

This is the first time we have heard of video from a moving vehicle being used for medical diagnosis and treatment. Fixed-location use of video is now becoming common place, in deed a story in News.com this summer highlighted the importance of being able to avail of expert instructions remotely, when cardiac surgery on a patient in Guam was led by physician, Dr. Benjamin Berg in front of a computer screen 3,500 miles away at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. He dictated the procedure to a less experienced colleague, monitoring every move with a high-resolution video camera.

AIST already has a track record in using technology to advance medical practice, having developed a therapeutic robot seal called PARO in collaboration with Microjenics. In February 2002, the Guinness Book of Records acknowledged the PARO robot as the most therapeutic robot in the world. AIST has licensed all PARO’s intellectual property rights to its affiliated venture company Intelligent System (ISC), who plan to introduce the robot to nursing homes for the elderly.

News.com –  Digital Agenda Broadband (24 page PDF)
JCN – AIST Develops Therapeutic Robot Seal

Pocket Streets 2005 Now for Smartphones and Pocket PC’s

Microsoft Pocket Streets 2005Microsoft recently announced Pocket Streets 2005 as a stand-alone product, although it still remains a component of their Streets and Trips 2005 package. There are two separate stand-alone versions ¯ Pocket Streets 2005 for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs, and Pocket Streets 2005 for Windows Mobile-based Smartphones.

If you own a Smartphone, you can toss away the compass since the Smartphone version now has GPS support. Previous versions of Pocket Streets only had GPS functionality in the Pocket PC version. If you are looking for routing and driving directions though you will still need to consult Microsoft Streets & Trips or Microsoft MapPoint.

You can generate directions and maps for Pocket Streets using the 2004 or later versions of MapPoint, Microsoft Streets & Trips, and AutoRoute, or you can download Microsoft’s maps of major cities. Pocket Streets 2005 includes more than 300 maps of North America and more than 275 maps of Western Europe, as well as Microsoft ActiveSync 3.7. New maps are available for Australia, Brazil, and Greece, but these will only be compatible with Pocket Streets 2005.

This is an ideal companion for any tourist visiting a city for the first time.  You can locate the nearest ATM or service garage, in fact Pocket Streets has an extensive in-built list of bank ATMs and public transportation sites. You can customize maps with personal points of interest, and a new measurement scale feature is expected to determine the distance between locations more accurately.

Two useful features will help the more absent-minded traveller. Pocket Streets 2005 opens with the most recently used map already loaded, and you can search for destinations and addresses by using only partial names.

Pocket Streets is currently only available in English, but you can download maps that are in any language. It will sell for an estimated retail price of $24.95 (~€19.63). 

Pocket Streets 2005

Targeted adverts for P2P

AlmondNet, Inc. and Intent MediaWorks will separate the appropriate from the irrelevant to exclusively bring you only the good ads.

Should your browsing habits make you fair game for any advertiser or should you only be subjected to ‘relevant, targeted interactive ads’?  The latter option is obviously a lot more preferable, and if done in the right way, it shouldn’t be too much of a nuisance.

Two technology companies in New York and Atlanta are trying to achieve the latter option and have consequently signed a deal whereby advertisers can target specific ads to P2P users.

During the download process users are served ads via the INTENT MediaWorks client, using AlmondNet’s technology, which is cookie based and they say doesn’t collect personally identifiable information, adverts should be targeted.

The two companies involved are AlmondNet, Inc., a New York-based advertising technology company that offers web publishers targeted ads based on audience attributes, and Intent MediaWorks, an Atlanta-based company that provides a technology platform for secure distribution of content via legal peer-to-peer networks. They have signed a co-operation agreement whereby Intent MediaWorks will use AlmondNet’s patent-pending behavioural targeting technology to target ads to P2P users who use their secure distribution platform.

Intent MediaWorks already has technology that allows recording artists and music companies to distribute their digital content securely via major P2P systems like Kazaa, Gnutella, and Bit Torrent. INTENT say they already has 600 artists on its books for music distribution.

Ads come in good, bad and ugly flavours, not to mention irrelevant and downright inappropriate. As usual it is the 18-34 year old that is being targeted in this space, and while one has to be slightly suspicious about users being targeted based on their online behavior and interests, since no ad campaign is altruistic, at least they are being spared the irrelevant and inappropriate.

We’re not certain that anyone who is downloading via a P2P network will be looking at their screens while the files are coming down, it’s normally a fire-and-fire operation. If this is widely-so, we’re not sure who is going to pay to advertise?

INTENT MediaWorks,LLC
AlmondNet, Inc