Author: Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people. Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon. At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC. After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video. These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?

HomePlug AV – A 200 Mps Network From Your Power Sockets

NEWS UPDATE: HomePlug AV Now Official

The HomePlug Powerline Alliance has entered the final stages of the development of their specification for the HomePlug AV standard, and is now inviting companies from home networking, consumer electronics, computing and other related fields to contribute to the final version of the spec.

HomePlug AV is designed to accommodate the home networking needs of future homes – and as such, can move data around the house at up to 200 Mbps. Rather than using WiFi or cat 5 cables, the system goes back to the tried and tested technique of using power sockets – after all, every home has them, usually right by where their TV and computers are installed. HomePlug are aiming for a global standard that can be deployed in markets across the world – regardless of domestic voltage and frequency.

200 Mps is intended to accommodate music, multiple HDTV streams, broadband internet and other data around the house.

The standard is not just aimed solely at domestic users, however: “This is a truly great technology that has broad applications both inside and outside of the home,” commented Oleg Logvinov, president of the alliance and president and CEO of Arkados, Inc. “With HomePlug AV, people will be able to transfer high-definition video and digital audio by simply connecting the device to an electrical outlet. The technology inside is complex, but it is designed to be incredibly easy-to-use.”

The HomePlug Powerline Alliance arrived at the technology by assembling elements from the best technologies submitted to the group, building what they claim is the best platform yet.

The network can operate at near capacity even on noisy power lines – I certainly don’t want to see static on my 2001 DVD whenever the central heating clicks on at 5am.

As households acquire and use more digital technology, efficient networking is more critical than ever – yet current solutions are tricky for non-technical users to install and maintain. A simple, yet powerful solution that is literally plug and play will take the headaches out of home networking for millions of consumers.

HomePlug

UPDATE: HomePlug AV Now Official

OQO’s Ultrapersonal Computer Hits the Shops

OQO have launched their ultrapersonal computer, the OQO Model 01. At 4.9” x 3.4” x 0.9”, it’s the size of a largish PDA, and has a 5” touch-sensitive 800 x 480 screen. Inside, though, it’s definitely not a PDA – it’s built around a 1ghz Transmeta Crusoe chip with 256mb of RAM and a cushioned 20gb hard drive. The sort of specification seen in laptops three or so years ago, though Bluetooth and WiFi (b only) are built in. OQO claim around three hours of usage on a single charge.

The screen slides back over the unit in a sort of rack and pinion arrangement, revealing a 52 button keyboard. Graphics are handled by a 8mb 3D accelerator. A docking unit is available so that your OQO can be connected to a DVD drive, external monitor and a keyboard you don’t have to be an Ewok to use.

All this miniaturisation comes at a cost – the Model 01 will set you back US$1900 (€1533!), so you’d better have a really good reason to justify buying this over, say, one of the smaller notebooks.

The Model 01 will run Window XP, though reports on performance are not good – the 1ghz processor struggles with Microsoft’s behemoth of an operating system. Since the 01 will run some Linux distributions, users following the path of the penguin might get better results. It could be handy for those who regularly give presentations – it can be attached to PC projectors, and Mandrake with OpenOffice might be a good solution for this sort of work.

OQO Model 01

Google Your Computer

OK, it’s Friday so it must be time for another Google announcement – and here it is: rather than integrate the web into the desktop like Microsoft, Google have instead chosen to integrate the desktop with the web.

Google Desktop is the company’s latest product aimed at revolutionising the way we search for information. Simply, it’s an applet that indexes files on your PC and allows you to search for them in a web browser using the same clean Google interface used to great success in their web product.

The applet is available as a 400k download from the company’s main site and works with Windows XP and 2000 (SP3 and above). The applet initially builds an index of the files on your PC, the index is subsequently updated when you’re not using you computer to ensure that its performance isn’t affected, though Google recommend at least 128mb of RAM and 500mb of free disk space.

Desktop Search is even available as an option from your standard Google Search page, meaning that you can find things on the internet and your PC at the same time. Results are returned seemingly instantly – a speed advantage gained through not having to download them from a website.

Google Desktop will happily search through and return Outlook emails, text files, HTML, PowerPoint Presentations and documents in a range of other formats. I was delighted when my first search brought me an email, nicely presented in the browser, that had only just arrived and I hadn’t even opened in Outlook yet. Better still, you can hit Reply on the result page and an email window will launch, so you don’t even have to go back into your email client. Items can be removed from results so that repeat searches don’t bring them back.

Currently in beta, Google intend to add more features to Desktop Search with better algorithms and file filters – now, where’s that browser, guys?

All about Google Desktop
Download Google Desktop

Halo 2 Hit by Pirates

A version of Bungie’s new Halo 2 game has been leaked onto the internet, a month before the game is due for release. The game is set for launch on November 9th – and is one of the most eagerly awaited video games of all time.

The version in question is a PAL XBox edition, in French. In order to make use of the pirated copy, a downloader would have to make a DVD from an ISO file, and this would only work on a modified console. Also, I don’t fancy your chances at getting it to work with XBox Live. Given the size of the file and the sheer awkwardness involved in getting it to run, it’s dubious that the leak will affect sales of the game even minutely. However, theft and piracy are still offences and Bungie is not the first high-profile company to be the victim of this sort of crime: a section of Valve’s Half-Life 2 source code relating to Steam was stolen some months ago. It seems that the more demand there is for a title, the greater the impulse to rip it off – will this disruptive, and quite frankly boring, hacker hobby be inevitable for all future big-budget games? I sincerely hope not.

Microsoft issued a statement regarding the leak, asking for anyone with information to come forward.

“Microsoft has learned that a version of Halo 2 has been posted to various newsgroups and web sites. We consider downloading this code or making it available for others to download as theft. We are currently investigating the source of this leak with the appropriate authorities. Pending the result of our investigation, we do not have further comment. Microsoft takes the integrity of its intellectual property extremely seriously, and we are aggressively pursuing the source of this illegal act. The launch of Halo 2 worldwide remains unaffected. We’re asking anyone with information on the source of this leak to contact Microsoft at 1-800-RULEGIT or send email to [email protected].”

Bungie

OS X on XP

Ah, the legally troubling world of emulation. MSX, a company based in Hawaii, have announced the release of their CherryOS – an application that allows the owner of any reasonably well-specified PC to turn it into a Macintosh G4, if they so choose.

The G4 is based on on IBM’s PowerPC architecture and as such is radically different from Intel’s x86 platform – so the host processor’s instruction set has to be translated from one platform to the other. Emulation effectively creates a virtual machine, in this case a G4, within the other computer’s operating system, in this case a PC. CherryOS emulates a G4 so well that all of the system’s hardware resources, an area where most emulators usually fall down, are accessible. Getting Firewire, USB, PCMCIA and Ethernet all to work well can’t have been easy.

Processor overheads and memory use are another traditional sticking point for emulators since the emulator has to be stored somewhere and instructions have to be translated, but MSX claim that CherryOS uses up only 20% of a host PC’s resources.

Users won’t be able to do much with their virtual G4 unless they install an operating system on it. MSX assure that OS X, available from Apple for about US$149 (€120), works fine.

Apple won’t be pleased: even if the product is 100% legal, didn’t reverse engineer any of their hardware or use any Apple code, it means users can now run Macintosh applications on hardware that is considerably cheaper (and less stylish) than their own kit.

Arben Kryeziu, CherryOS inventor says he created the application because he grew tired carrying a PC and mac around with him. “Think about it,” he said, “Now about 600 million PC users can have the Mac advantage. One computer to use all software and if PC users would use Mac software to get email, perhaps they would avoid viruses, Trojans and spy-ware.” True, but one could argue that about Linux, which is more popular than OS X. What else have you got?

He also went on to describe some of the advantages CherryOS brings: “You can build and test applications for a Mac on your development PC, test web site design for Mac web browsers without having to buy the hardware, run OS X, the world’s best operating system, on a less expensive hardware platform and use your favourite Mac apps on a PC.”

CherryOS

Napster Pre-Paid Cards and Media Room Edition

Napster pre-paid cardNapster, the online music store, has made a couple of key announcements regarding its future business plans. The UK arm of the store has just launched a pre-paid music card scheme, aimed at under 18s and other music buyers who don’t have credit cards.

The scheme is a first for the UK, and will be sold through the Dixons Group of stores. The cards will initially be available in two values – UK£14.95 (€21.65) and UK£56.95 (€83), which works out at UK£0.99 (€1.44) and UK£0.95 (€1.38) per track respectively.

Aside from being good for business, Napster sees a key advantage in making it easier for teenagers to buy music: they’ll be less likely to download it illegally. More music, more stores and more ways to pay mean that people will be less attracted to P2P networks when trying to acquire music that they enjoy.

Napster vice-president and UK general manager Leanne Sharman said in a statement: “The launch of pre-paid cards in the UK is a major development in the evolution of the online music market. Our partnership with Dixons Group broke the mould and gave online music a high street presence for the first time; now the introduction of pre-paid cards takes this one step further and increases accessibility to Napster.”

Napster have also announced a new Media Room Edition of their client software, featured in Windows XP Media Centre 2005. The new version of their software has been designed for easy viewing on a television, allowing users to access their music collection from their sofa, or even buy music that way. Dangerous, given some of the urges to buy music that I get and can’t be bothered getting off the sofa and onto my PC to action them.

Additionally, Napster MRE features an expanded music video collection and enhanced artist photos and album art. The forthcoming Napster to Go portable subscription service will also be included when it débuts this year.

“The Napster Media Room Edition is for the growing number of music fans that want to take digital music beyond the PC and integrate it into their home entertainment experience,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chairman and CEO. “Napster’s expansion from a PC-based experience into the living room and into the home began over a year ago as a feature of Microsoft’s ground-breaking Media Centre PC so we are pleased to continue our legacy of innovation with the most comprehensive and easy to use music experience available.”

Napster

Sony’s DVDirect – Transfer Home Movies Without a PC

What are you doing with all those digital tapes you’ve shot on your video camera? With many camera owners, chances are they’ll be in a drawer somewhere, unwatched an decaying – usually because attaching the camera to the television or hunting through a linear tape for the bit that you’re interested in is just too much effort – as is making copies of a tape to share.

Sony have recognised that home video archives really need the convenience of DVD, yet attaching cameras to PCs, capturing content and then editing it down to a disk is a far from simple job.

Enter the DVDirect – a US$300 (€243) external drive that can record DVDs straight from a digital or analogue source. Sony claim that the appliance is a world first and hopes that it will extend home DVD recording to a much wider range of consumers.

Available in November, DVDirect can burn up to 12 hours of high-quality MPEG-2 video onto a double-layer DVD+R – or up to six hours on single layer DVD+R/DVD+RW discs. It does this through a combination of built-in real-time video capturing and hardware MPEG-2 encoding. DVDirect sports a USB2.0 interface, and supports 16x burning – writing a full disk in around six minutes.

To simplify playback, the device can automatically insert chapter points at timed intervals – though extra features such as special effects or music require it to be connected to a PC. For this, a copy of Nero is provided.

“Preserving precious moments onto DVD has never been easier than with the DVDirect burner,” said Robert DeMoulin, marketing manager for branded storage products in Sony Electronics’ IT Products Division. “Users can simply connect their camcorder to the recorder, hit the record button, and out comes a DVD disc that they can pop into their home DVD player. Meanwhile, computer-savvy users can attach the DVDirect device to a PC to perform all of the common tasks characteristic of computer-attached burners.”

Sony talk DVDirect

Apple Still Doing Nicely Out of iPod

Apple Computer have just released their fourth quarter earnings — and they’ve more than doubled. Q4 2003 was good with the company bringing in a profit of US$44 million (€35.59 million), but Q4 2004 is a different story Apple reporting a profit of US$106 million (€85.74 million) – a leap of 240%. It’s a sign of how the iPod has changed Apple that music products and services now account for 27% of the company’s revenue.

Steve Jobs announced why the company had done so well: “We are thrilled to report our highest fourth quarter revenue in nine years. We shipped over 2 million iPods, our Retail store revenue grew 95% year-over-year, and the new iMac G5 has received phenomenal reviews and is off to a great start.”

The iPod certainly is still popular – last quarter Apple sold “only” 860,000, and Q4 2003 sales were 336,000. A annual sales hike of 500% this far after a product’s launch is remarkable and shows that Apple’s policy of regular revisions is working well. Indeed, the company is currently selling more than two iPods for every computer they ship.

Apple’s Q4 results

RIAA Suffers Setback

The Recording Industry Association of America has suffered a setback in its John Doe pursuit of illegal file sharers, as the Supreme Court has now denied their demand that Verizon and other ISPs identify customers whom the RIAA believe are sharing infringing music.

Previously, the RIAA had been pursuing ISP Verizon with subpoenas demanding subscriber details without actually knowing who their targets where. Anonymous individuals were picked out by investigating traffic and file sharing on peer to peer networks, though identities are often hidden through aliases. Let’s face it, someone sharing files illegally would have to be pretty daft to give their real details as a user name and profile.

Verizon refused the demands from the RIAA on the grounds that, due to P2P networks’ very nature, they themselves did not store infringing material – it’s all stored on individuals’ own PCs. They argue that they cannot remove files or police their customers for every single infringing action.

The Supreme Court agrees with them, and the RIAA will now have to try a different strategy, instead of using the DMCA as a means to issue subpoenas to ISPs. “The Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case leaves the DC Circuit’s well-reasoned opinion as law: The DMCA doesn’t give the RIAA a blank fishing license to issue subpoenas and invade Internet users’ privacy,” said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer.

In recent weeks the RIAA has stepped up its activity against illegal file sharers by launching a further 762 cases, including suing individuals at 26 different schools. In the past, each case has netted an average of US$3000 (€2,473), none of which goes to the artists who are losing money.

The EFF

The RIAA

3G Phones in Japan Get Even More Interesting

Twenty four hours is a long time in the Japanese mobile phone market, vividly demonstrated by the three interesting developments I’m going to outline below.

Firstly, KDDI, the second largest mobile operator in Japan will be distributing the new Casio W21CA handset with Opera as its default web browser – this makes Opera the first full web browser to be deployed on the 3G CDMA network in Japan.

Toshio Maki, the vice president and general manager of KDDI’s Service and Product Planning Divisionsaid in a statement:”With a market eager to experience evolved mobile communications, a crucial part of that experience will be how impressively users can browse the Internet and how rich Web content will be. Opera is the ideal mobile Web application to browse the full Web because of its speed, usability, and unique SSR [Small-Screen Rendering] technology, Opera is the best browser to utilize the high-speed access capabilities of the 3G CDMA network.”

Secondly, KDDI are about to launch a new music distribution service whilst introducing new phones that have enough memory to make them genuinely useful as music players. The new music store will launch with about 10,000 tracks, though we’ve not been able to confirm how much a download will cost.

The service will launch at the end of November, and will coincide with new phones from Toshiba, Sanyo and Hitachi. With 40mb of memory, the new Sanyo W22SA will be able to store about 100 minutes of J-Pop with around nine hours of playback.

Lastly, if you’re worried about your phone’s battery life now that it’s your video camera, music player, games console, TV and, errr, phone – then KDDI is hoping to introduce fuel-cell based batteries in the near future, with a prototype expected this year. Conventional batteries are just not up to the sort of energy drain required for all the new 3G services that network providers and phone manufacturers are hoping to seel to customers. The fuel cells are methanol-based and are charged by attaching methanol cartridges. Expect a sudden increase in tramps asking for 10p to make a phone call.

Opera

KDDI