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?

IBC News: Companies Flocking Window Media 9

With several leading European content and distribution companies announcing new tools and services based around the Microsoft’s Windows Media 9 platform, support for the technology is growing fast.

BBC Technology, Capital Radio, NTL Broadcast, Quantel and many other companies announced that they were either moving to adopt WM9, or were embracing it further in new services.

Because of the breadth of support for the format in the industry, Microsoft has decided to open its specification for the codec by submitting it to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) C24 Technical Committee for consideration as an international standard.

Said Peter Symes, vice president of engineering at SMPTE. "The creation of an international standard based on this compression technology means there will be new choices for organizations that are strongly committed to the use of open standards and to those looking for the maximum level of interoperability in their products."

It will be interesting to see how the providers of the two other main media formats, Real and Apple, a going to react to this news.

Quantel will be using WM9 in its product lines to streamline production processes and improve quality. BBC Technology will be demonstrating its Colledia Control – a system designed to simplify the operation of broadcast equipment and provide workflow throughout the process.

Microsoft have made an improved range of tools available for WM9, such as the File Editor and Batch Encoder – these, coupled with the efficiency of the compression will no doubt have contributed to the uptake of the format.

With Windows Media 9, Microsoft are also finally providing the DRM capabilities they have been aiming towards for the last few years.

BBC Technology on Colledia

The Windows Media Encoder tools

3D Displays for Laptops – No Silly Glasses Required

Incorporating the new 3D LCD*1 technology developed by Sharp, their new PC-RD3D (sounds a bit Star Wars, really) is a high-performance workbook with a 2.8GHz processor and a GeForce 4 440 graphics chip.

The 3D display has very exciting applications: CAD, medical imaging, playing Star Wars Galaxies … but how does it work?

The display is switchable between two modes, standard 2D and a mode optimised for 3D applications. In 3D mode, light leaving the display is polarized by a filter into one of two different directions, so each eye sees a different image. This "parallax barrier system" has been used in things like those LCD switching glasses you get handed at the IMAX cinema, but this is the first time it’s been employed on a display.

Sharp explain how their 3D display works

Sony’s Dream World a Success, MySony launches

With more than 30,000 visitors, far exceeding all predictions, Sony have announced that their Dream World exhibition was a great success for them. As predicted, Sony’s entertainment robots AIBO and QRIO were big hits.

Sony launched their MySony service at the event – and more than 4,000 visitors signed up for it there and then. The programme offers subscribers a range of benefits based on their preferences, and is based around an internet portal. Users also earn points for using the portal which can then be put towards purchasing CDs, electronics from the Sony range. We’d best get clicking for that Dawson’s Creek boxset.

MySony

Motorola’s Mini GPS Unit

The tiny FS Oncore module from Motorola consumes just 70mW whilst providing one position fix per second, and is designed to operate even with weak GPS signals.

To make the chip simpler, and therefore easier and cheaper to produce, the firmware is stored on the host device and retrieved when the chip is powered up.

Applications could include PDAs and maps that show real time navigation, position “stamping” in digital cameras, theft recovery, and mobile phones that can locate their position and find contacts and services nearby. The size of the unit means that it manufacturing companies will be able to use it in inventory tracking applications, and the low cost will help in making GPS units in cars more affordable.

FS Oncore User Manual

Synergy GPS

Devices for the Digital Home

Obviously to have a fully integrated home you need a fair smattering of equipment, but knowing which bits to buy and what will work with what, can be a nightmare. CRN, the technology site, has produced a shopping list of recommended components and what they will do for you.

Encompassing the usual favourites – projectors, plasma displays, wireless cameras, wireless routers – the list helps clear up some of the confusion in the bewildering array of compatible (and incompatible) equipment out there today.

CRN

Lessig on the BBC Creative Archive

Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University and cultural commentator thinks that the BBC have got it right with their proposal of making their freely archive available to the public for non-commercial uses.

By making the content available, commercial entities will also be able to identify BBC material and then license it for a fee.

Lessig describes this as “a brilliant response to the extra ordinary explosion of creative capacity enabled by digital technologies.”

There is less evidence of this sort of thinking in the US: corporations there are opposed to sharing standards and protocols and, as highlighted by the fascinating and ongoing Linux vs SCO vs IBM case, suspicious of the open source movement.

Original FT article

Lessig on Intellectual Property

Lessig’s weblog

Mass Market Self-destructing DVDs Get Closer

Amongst protestations from environmental groups, the Walt Disney Co is testing out new rental disks which become unreadable after 48 hours.

The trial is this week in Austin, Texas; Peoria/Bloomington, Illinois; Charleston, South Carolina; and Kansas City, Missouri.

Intended for convenience stores rather than Blockbuster, the “EZ-D” discs are intended as impulse purchases. Developed by Flexplay Technologies Inc, the discs start off red, but turn black as they are oxidized. The system doesn’t make DVDs any more secure against piracy, as they can still be copied in the first 48 hours.

To appease environmentalists, such as the Alliance for Safe Alternatives, concerned at the needless landfill this will create, Disney are offering a recycling programme – and as an incentive, customers will get a new disk for every six used ones they return.

Flexplay: http://www.flexplay.com/

AOL Opens Up its Instant Messaging Service to Brokerage Firms

AOL and Reuters are forming a partnership to provide a secure, encrypted instant messaging (IM) service for commercial banks, investment firms, mutual funds and other financial organisations. Another feature of the service is that messages can be stored, as regulators require.

This is the first time that AOL has opened up its IM service to another network. The guts of it comes down to translating to and from AOL’s OSCAR protocol and Reuter’s own SIMPLE schema.

Michael Osterman, and industry analyst makes the point: “Email no longer offers a competitive advantage since everyone has it. If you offer instant messaging and the ability to communicate with customers and partners, that can provide you with a competitive advantage.”

Washington Post

AtNewYork

New Captioning System Makes Live Theatre Accesible to the Deaf

Sound Associates’ Personal Captioning System (PCS) is a wireless handheld device featuring a colour LCD that deaf patrons can take to their seat. Captions are sent to the device synchronised to the show’s lighting cues, so the text is always in sync. The handheld uses a light polarising filter so theatregoers sitting nearby are not distracted.

The system is currently being used for the musical Big River at the American Airline Theatre in New York.

Sound Associates
American Broadcasting Corporation on Personal Captioning in Chicago

ZVUE! $100 Personal Video Player Causes a Stir

At a price point that is sure to create interest, HandHeld Entertainment are going after the Christmas “tween” market with the $100 ZVUE! Player.

Long suspected to be vapourware, until it was actually seen in an interview. The device is based around Secure Digital/MultiMedia Cards and an ultra bright 2.5 inch full-colour screen (still TFT based, not OLED). About the size of an iPod, the ZVUE! will play full motion videos, MP3s and display digital images. The media cards are being branded as ZCARDS! and will be priced from $5.99 upwards, depending on capacity and content. The player has no inbuilt user memory and needs a media card to function.

Connectivity is provided via a USB1.1 socket and it features, a rather sociable, two headphone sockets. The battery life of around eight to ten hours is provided through standard AA batteries.

Nathan Schulhof, president and chief executive officer of HandHeld Entertainment said: “The ZVUE! has the right combination of features, price and content to make it the ultimate, ‘must-have’ and ‘must-give’ device for the 2003 Holiday Season.” The device certainly sounds interesting, but we’re worried about the proprietary format – though since Schulhof is credited as the inventor of the portable MP3 player, he may just know what he’s doing.

The ZVUE only plays files encoded in the proprietary HHe format – so you won’t be able to play just any old media files on it. This system will live or die based on the quality of the content available for it.

Retail content packages are to include cartoons, music videos and extreme sports.

HandHeld Entertainment

CNet PVP Roundup