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?

Apple Takes iTunes to China

Apple have announced a deal with Founder PC – one the largest PC manufacturers in China. From the start of June, all Founder PCs will have iTunes preinstalled giving access to iTunes features, but without the music store. So, a bit like being an iPod owner in Europe then. Apple have not announced plans to take the iTunes Music Store to China yet.

“Digital music is becoming very important in the Chinese PC market, and Apple’s iTunes is the runaway market leader,” said Wei Xin, chairman of Founder Group and Founder Technology. “As the first Chinese company to bundle this innovative software with our PCs, we are excited to provide our customers with the world’s best digital music experience.”

“Around the world, iTunes has revolutionised the way people manage and listen to their digital music,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Marketing. “We are teaming up with Founder to deliver an easy-to-use, seamless music experience to millions of Chinese customers.”

This isn’t Founder’s first licensing deal with western software/hardware manufacturers – they licensed Palm’s OS late last year with the aim of bringing Palm-powered devices to the Chinese market in the future.

Foundertech (Chinese language)

Apple Releases iTunes SDK for Windows

Apple have released the iTunes software development kit (SDK) for Windows, opening up iTunes functionality to Windows programmers though the Windows Component Object Model (COM) interface.

The SDK includes header files, documentation and sample Jscripts on how to use the iTunes interface.

The release of the SDK means that programmers will now be able to integrate iTunes features into third party programs, including of course, Windows Media Player. This means that it is theoretically possible to build iTunes Music Store support into Window Media Player – but it’s unlikely that Microsoft will be sending users over to Apple’s online shop any time soon.

One thing is almost certain – the SDK mean that Fairplay AAC (Advanced Audio enCoding) support will become much more prevalent as people use the interface in their programs. AAC has received a lot of praise since it has become more popular though the iPod and iTunes store, as it demonstrates great compression ratios and audio quality.

We look forward to seeing what widespread adoption of AAC as a DRM and encoding solution will mean for Windows Media.

Get the iTunes SDK here

All about AAC

Lycos Beat Google With 1gig Email Service

Lycos Europe have launched a 1 gigabyte email service whilst Google was embroiled in the privacy protests surrounding their GMail offering.

The Lycos Inbox costs a quite reasonable £3.49 (€5.18) a month, includes 50 email addresses and features 1 gig of space. Subscibers can even make use of their own domain name, which is a very tempting feature. Subscribers can also send 50 free SMS messages per month too.

“The research we’ve done shows that privacy and security is incredibly important to consumers,” said Lycos Europe Portals and Communications Vice President Alex Kovach.

Google have yet to launch GMail in Europe because of concerns over the automated scanning of email content to provide targeted adverts.

More details on the Lycos Inbox

AOL Leaves Japan to eAccess

AOL Japan is being sold to eAccess for 2.1 billion Yen (€15.38 million) in yet another shuffle. The division was once DoCoMo AOL, a joint venture between NTT DoCoMo and the US media giant Time Warner.

DoCoMo pulled out last November as subscription numbers to it’s PC/cell phone link service were thought disappointing.

eAccess says it will keep most of AOL Japan’s 200 employees along with the AOL branding.

Yahoo

UK Cinemas To Get 250 Digital Screens

Around £13 million (€19 million) of National Lottery money will be spent on installing 250 digital projectors in UK cinemas.

Apart from some quality improvements, the main benefit here is that distribution costs for films plummet – there are no expensive reels of film to cart around, and the number of screens a film can be shown on is not limited to the number of prints in existence. At upwards of £1000 (€1472) a print, it can be very costly to get enough copies together to secure a decent cinema release.

Hopefully, this means we’ll be able to see Wings of Desire in the cinema a bit more often.

Anyone who has seen a digitally projected film knows that improved quality is not always the case – there can be digital artefacts and some colour washout, so it’s not a case of digital better than film yet.

To qualify for the money, cinemas will set aside a portion of screen time to niche films, so that customers will have more rewarding fare to watch than the usual brain-devouring noise.

This new move will put the UK well ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to digital projection – there are currently only 190 digital cinema projectors around the world, with about a dozen in the UK.

UK Film Council

MP3 + Blogs = MP3jays?

Audioblogs tap into the human desire to share what’s important to us – or at least to show everyone how cool we are. This growth in “MP3jays” writing audioblogs further demonstrates that there’s a lot of interest out there in what other people are listening to. To join in, Apple have recently included a feature in iTunes 1.5 that allows users to publish up their playlists for all to see (and admire or laugh at) – but outside of iTunes, some blogs are courting controversy by offering unlicensed samples of tracks.

The RIAA could chose to target audiobloggers if they don’t license tracks properly – and since many of the bloggers are individuals, they won’t be able to afford the fees to get legal.

However, the advantages in audioblogs to the industry are immense: people place greater value on individual’s tastes and being able to listen to a piece of music tells you much more about how you feel about it than words ever will. Audioblogs represent high quality, highly-targeted publicity for record companies, and not only is it free, but someone else is paying for the bandwidth.

Try the most successful audioblog out there: Fluxblog from Matthew Perpetua posts music on the site – but all the tracks are used properly and with permission.

Fluxblog

BT and Vodafone – Joined Together at Last

If Ofcom approve it, BT has entered a deal to make Vodaphone the mobile provider its sole mobile communications provider in the UK. This means that BT will cease its current partnerships with T-Mobile and MmO2, surprising many as BT and Vodafone have long been rivals. In fact, MmO2 was originally a BT operation, but was sold off to repay debts.

One revolutionary change this would bring about is that BT would be able to offer its 250,000 BT Business and 50,000 Commercial customers a single bill for fixed-line and mobile services.

The Daily Telegraph reports the deal

Sony “iPod” Killer Will Play Video

Another week, another “iPod killer” story: Sony have announced that the next version of their Vaio Pocket audio player will play video too.

Sony is keen to get back some of the portable media player market lost to Apple, and is hoping to do so with its next range of machines. Sony’s players will be backed with an online Sony music store, Connect, so the company will be able to provide the entire content process – from PC to content to player. Sony’s insistence on using its own proprietary audio format to reduce piracy may make the job of growing market share harder as customers’ ease of use suffers.

Sony unveiled their new music player in Japan this week, the VGF-AP1. Whilst the device features a 2.2″ colour screen, it’s for the user interface only: it can’t play video.

Sony is working with the Digital Home Networking group to define standards for device interoperability, and will use 802.11g to transmit video from its next generation Vaio Pocket to compatible televisions.

Sony’s new music player

The Matrix Online

Admittedly, we’d be a lot more excited about this had the last two films been any good, but Monolith Production’s new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the Matrix series of films is set to go public in November. The new game will be published by Warner Bros. Interactive and Sega, Monolith have already produced two respectable titles based on licenses: No-one Lives Forever and TRON2.0.

Set directly after the Martrix: Revolutions, Matrix Online (MxO) boasts a story line written by the Wachowski brothers. Mind you, so did Enter the Matrix and look how good that was. The MMORPG is meant to be seen as a fourth instalment, rather like Enter the Matrix being another part of the second film.

MxO is set in a city environment and incorporates the films’ distinctive martial arts fighting theme, but players will also be able to command their own hovercraft and form factions for and against other groups. Bullet time will be incorporated in the game play as apparently there are some people out there who don’t think it’s been completely overused.

Characters’ appearances can be completely customised, so you don’t have to worry about turning up at an event wearing the same sunglasses and trench coat as everyone else.

“Ability codes” seem intriguing, where players download sources of information to create Matrix items and learn special abilities. If you don’t fancy PvP (player versus player combat), then you can create Matrix code and distribute it in the game.

We’ll give it a try when it appears and let you know how we get on.

The Matrix wants you

Ofcom’s LLU Proposals

UK regulator Ofcom have published proposals intended to open up competition in broadband provision for data, content and voice services.

As predicted, Ofcom have announced a market review consultation of local loop unbundling (LLU) – it was the threat of this review that many believe prompted BT to make huge cuts in its charges for LLU. BT hopes to avoid regulatory intervention by improving access to the local loop and charging fairer rates.

To help with local loop unbundling Ofcom are also proposing the establishment of a Telecoms Adjudicator, who will be entirely independent of Ofcom and the industry.

Ofcom Chief Executive Stephen Carter said: “These proposals, combined with the recent proposals on migration charges, mark an opportunity to accelerate the prospects for sustainably competitive investment in Broaderband Britain. Furthermore, Ofcom particularly welcomes BT’s commitment to both price and process improvements in these key wholesale products.”

Ofcom’s release