Mike Slocombe

UK Internet Gambling Firms Hit By US Online Betting Ban
Millions of game-toughened poker faces are showing signs of impending blubbering as the US Congress unexpectedly passed anti-online gambling laws last week.
Moreover, the new laws are set to hit Britain’s Internet gambling companies hard, with many of the US big players being based in the UK.
Shares of internet gambling sites like PartyGaming, Sportingbet and 888 plummeted as the new legislation made it unlawful for credit-card companies to collect payments for transactions with online-gaming sites.
The laws – contained in The Safe Port Act – are now just a George W. Bush signature away, with the President expected to put pen to paper within the next two weeks.
The new laws will wipe out US revenue for London-based online-gaming companies, with PartyGaming saying that they’d suspend business with US residents as soon as the law takes effect.
For PartyGaming it’s a calamitous blow. With more than half of the company’s revenue coming from US residents, share prices plummeted by 60 per cent, while 888Holdings – who enjoy a similar percentage of US revenue – saw its share price crash 45 per cent.
In a Stock Market announcement, the company said:
“After taking extensive legal advice, the Board of PartyGaming Plc has concluded that the new legislation, if signed into law, will make it practically impossible to provide US residents with access to its real money poker and other real money gaming sites. As a result of this development, the Board of PartyGaming has determined that if the President signs the Act into law, the Company will suspend all real money gaming business with US residents, and such suspension will continue indefinitely, subject to clarification of the interpretation and enforcement of US law and the impact on financial institutions of this and other related legislation.”
888 Holdings has already suspended its US operations, commenting that, “the board will continue to seek clarification of the overall US legal position to determine whether and to what extent if any resumption of participation by US customers is feasible”.
“At present however no assurance can be given that this will be possible,” they added.
Bizarrely, the anti-gambling legislation has been bundled in with The Safe Port Act, which is all about raising $3.4bn to “make ports safe” from evil terrorists by adding security measures like increased goods containers inspections.
PartyGaming Stock Exchange statement
2 October, 2006
Lastolite Cubelite Portable Studio Review (83%)
Producing high quality, well-lit, studio-style photographs can be quite a challenge if you don’t happen to have access to a studio set-up at home or be the proud owner of an expensive camera.
Although half-decent pictures can be obtained courtesy of some Blue Paper style bodging about with white paper, desk lamps and sticky back plastic, it’s hardly the best solution if you need to be able to consistently take professional looking photos.
The Lastolite Cubelite kits look to provide a handy solution here, bundling all the components you need to knock out fab shots from the comfort of your own home.
The Cubelite cubes come in a range of sizes, from two foot up to six foot six inches, with each package including a 500w tungsten light and tripod, two-sided silver and white reflector, white background and carry case.
We plumped to review the 2 foot kit and the first surprise was the size of the box it all came in – it was enormous!
On unpacking the contents, we were suitably impressed by the pro-looking lamp and the tripod that extended all the way up to our ceiling.
Unleashing the beast
Releasing the Cubelite from its natty blue bag was fun: a quick shake of the thing and – wooowargh! – a white mini-tent pops out!
Although we chose the smallest size, it was still quite a large beast, and you’d need a fair size table to accommodate the set-up – we reckon you could probably take the 6 foot tent to Glastonbury and provide accommodation for a few friends.
Following the straightforward instructions, we stuck the lamp on the tripod and set it up so that it shone it through the fabric from a distance of 18 inches.
Inside the light tent, we used the elastic loops and supplied clips to fix the white background and then positioned the reflector inside, on the opposite side to the lamp.
We grabbed the nearest object we could find (an apple), lobbed it into the middle of the tent and then angled the reflector about until we got the light looking jus’ so.
A useful, albeit minimal, single sheet of A4 paper advised us on how to sort out the colour balance on our camera, and before long we were knocking out some s-s-s-studio style photos with ease, with the diffusing material making it a cinch to grab attractive, shadow-free results.
Verdict
We liked the Cubelite a lot, and it’s a great product for people who need to be able to take high quality images without the hassle of erecting a permanent studio.
We found the Cubelite easy to lug about, although the towering tripod and heavy duty lamp may have bordered on overkill for such a small set up.
It’s not cheap at £256 (excl VAT) either, but for working photographers and mustard-keen eBay sellers, it could prove a wise investment and it’s a product we’re happy to recommend.
Rating
Ease of use: 85%
Build: 80%
Features: 80%
Value for money: 80%
Overall: 83%
Cubelite
28 September, 2006
Sony Vaio C Series Notebooks Announced
We love a good laugh at overblown press releases that get carried away with themselves, so we certainly cheered up when we got our hands on Sony’s latest artistic offering describing their new Sony’s new Vaio C range of laptops.
After a flurry of flapping flipcharts, mind-storming mood-boards and envelope-pushing, Sony’s visioneer team decided that the fact that the laptops come in five “hip colours” wasn’t enough; they needed to explain the significance of each colour to us mere mortals.
Graciously declaring that “what you choose depends on who you are,” the creative team declared that the silver white model was just the ticket for the “modern, sophisticated man or woman who wants to reflect calm, cool, karma,” with its “natural, lighter tones suggestive of inner peace.”
The pink model was apparently designed for “the free spirit who likes to be noticed,” while the green laptop is for “the explorer who wants to feel at one with nature.”
Meanwhile, the grey and orange combo is for the “jet-setting nomad,” apparently offering a, “catchy hint of an active, mobile lifestyle,” while the black model was for those who want a “classic understated look that offers timeless elegance” with the “luxurious olive blacks” being “suggestive of subtle chic and sophistication.”
High on triple-shot, low-fat buzzword-uccinos, Sony’s press release went on to insist that the C in the C-series stands for “Choice, Colour, Cosmopolitan and Chic.”
Or maybe, “Cor blimey, who writes this Cobblers?”
Once we managed to waft away the noxious fug of marketing-spiel, we could see there’s a lot to like about Sony’s new machines.
Weighing in at 5 pounds, the Vaio C laptops are powered by Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66Ghz processors with the lappie proclaiming its future-proofing as, “Windows Vista capable” and” Windows Vista Premium ready”.
Flipping open the Vaio, there’s a 13.3-inch WXGA (1280 x 800) widescreen display employing Sony’s energy-saving XBRITE-ECO LCD technology.
Connectivity options come in the shape of an integrated 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro or ExpressCard media slots and i.LINK (IEEE 802.11) and USB ports.
Hard drive capacity runs from 100GB to 120GB, there’s a healthy 1 GB DDR2-533 SDRAM onboard and a built-in DVD+/-R Double Layer/DVD+/-RW/-RAM drive for your multimedia pleasure.
The new range should be available at the end of October, priced from £999 upwards, and customers looking to “complete the look with panache” can shell out for a custom carrying case created exclusively by a “trendsetting” Italian bag designer who regales under the fabulous name of Mandarina Duck.
[From SonyStyle]
27 September, 2006
Kodak Z710 EasyShare: Photokina
With the Photokina 2006 photo fair opening its gates for business, the big guns are rolling out new product announcements at a rate of knots, and Kodak has offered details of their budget-priced 7.1-megapixel EasyShare Z710 Zoom.
It’s unlikely to win any beauty competitions, but the Z710 has a reasonable feature set, sporting a beefy (but non-stabilised) 10x optical zoom and advanced manual controls including programme, aperture and shutter priority, as well as a full manual mode -a nice addition at this price point.
Point and shooters should feel suitably pampered with no less than 19 pre-programmed scene and colour modes to attend to their every photographic whim, including candlelight, fireworks, party and beach settings.
At the rear there’s a (now) rather miserly 2″ LCD, plus the standard array of controls and an optical viewfinder (we like them).
The display also features a live histogram and a capture grid line display helping punters keep their horizons level and their verticals upright.
Kodak are claiming that the 7.1 megapixel image sensor and ‘professional quality’ Schneider Kreuznach Variogon 10X optical zoom lens are capable of capturing high-quality prints up to 30 x 40 inches (76 x 102 cm), helped by their Kodak Color Science imaging processing chip.
Available this month, the Kodak Z710 camera is set to retail for £279 (RRP) ($530, €415).
Kodak Z710
27 September, 2006
Hackers Target Home PCs As Browser Bugs Soar
Hackers racked up attacks on home PC users and financial services companies in the first half of this year, according to the latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Trends.
The report tracked Internet threat trends from January to June this year and discovered a new high in the volume of emerging vulnerabilities.
Employing a network of 40,000 sensors spread across 180 countries, Symantec identified 2,249 new vulnerabilities, with the majority of the new threats (69 per cent) being in Web applications.
Vulnerability researchers (now, there’s a job title!) found 47 flaws in the Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla browsers, a hefty increase of 17 flaws from the previous six months.
As expected, Microsoft led the pack with new threats, recording a total of 38 new threats affecting Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, up from 25 in the earlier period, with even Apple’s Safari browser notching up six more flaws to hit a total of 12 flaws.
Opera was the sole browser to see a drop in recorded vulnerabilities over the six months, dropping from nine to seven during the period.
No safe browser
“There is no safe browser,” senior director with Symantec Security Response, Vincent Weafer, finger-wagged. “If you’ve got a browser, make sure you’re configuring it correctly,” he added.
Although more bugs were found lurking in Mozilla than in IE, Symantec commended the open-source project for its prompt bug-fixing, with bugs usually being patched within one day of their public disclosure – the snappiest response of all measured browsers.
Opera came in second with an average two days to fix bugs, with Apple’s Safari recording a rather tardy five-days.
The notoriously leisurely Microsoft averaged nine days per patch, but that snail-like response was still faster than Sun Microsystems.
The report found that home users were targeted most (86 per cent), with the US being the numero uno source of online attacks (37 percent), thanks to its large number of compromised machines with broadband connections,
“What really surprises is the way that attackers are moving,” says Dean Turner, editor of the bi-annual threat report.
“They’re now starting to target home users quite heavily primarily because home users are the weakest link in the security chain,” says Turner.
Phishing, spamming and badboy bots
Phishing continues to grow in popularity, with Symantec identifying a total of 157,477 distinct phishing messages over the six month period, while spam accounted for 54 per cent of all monitored email traffic, up 50 per cent.
Symantec also detected more than 4.6 million active bot network computers, registering an average of 57,717 active bot network computers per day.
Bot networks are commonly used in denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and their stats revealed an average of 6,110 DoS attacks per day.
The report concluded that polymorphic viruses are likely to grow, with Web 2.0 technologies and Instant Messaging affording new opportunities for pesky hackers to wreak havoc.
The real battleground, however, should come with the release of Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, which will see hackers doing their damndest to circumvent its new security features.
Symantec
26 September, 2006
Orange Unique/Unik Offers Converged VoIP/Mobile Telephony
Orange has launched, nay unleashed, the Unique phone, its first converged service using a single handset that connects via WLAN in the home and then switches to the regular mobile network when the user goes walkabout.
Initially rolling out in the UK and selected European countries, the phone promises unlimited free VoIP calls from home to other Orange mobiles and landlines.
Calls can be seamlessly switched between the Orange mobile network and VoIP, with screen icons keeping customers constantly informed of the network connection.
Interestingly, calls started from home remain free, even when the user has wandered out of their front door and out of range of their Wi-Fi network, causing the phone to switch to the mobile network.
To use the service, customers must get an Orange Livebox which lets users connect to the Orange network via Wi-Fi.
Households can have up to six Unique phones, although there is a limitation on their use, with only three users allowed to use the Internet or make calls at any time.
So far, only the Motorola A910, the Nokia 6136 and the Samsung P200 can be used with the service, but more phones will be launched in 2007.
Two price plans are currently on offer; the Canary 50 (offering 600 minutes per month) and the Panther 65 (1,200 mins), priced at £50 and £65 respectively.
A broadband connection is bundled in free with the convergence-tastic deal, with the setup offering clear benefits to users, who’ll now only need one phone, one number, one address book, and one bill from Orange.
The service will be available from November, although punters keen to be hip with the convergence crew can pre-register their interest here: www.orange.co.uk/uniquephone
26 September, 2006
US Web Half-Yearly Advertising Revenue Hits $8bn
U.S. Internet advertising revenue has hit a new record high of nearly $8 billion for first six months of the year, increasing by a money-spinning 37 per cent, according to a new study.
The figures from a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, suggest Internet advertising revenue has continued to surge, despite a recent warning by Yahoo that new media ad spending could be slowing.
Yahoo pointed to weaknesses in two key sectors in marketing – automobile and financial firms – although some analysts think that the claimed slowdown is more about Yahoo’s own business declining and is not symptomatic of an industry-wide trend.
“The latest results reaffirm the Internet’s growing importance for marketers to integrate online advertising into their overall media plans,” commented David Silverman, Partner, Entertainment & Media Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“While search advertising remains the largest format in terms of revenues, we expect to see new formats like video ads to continue to emerge as advertisers seek to leverage the branding opportunities afforded by the growing installed base of broadband users,” headded.
The IAB/ PricewaterhouseCoopers figures show that Internet advertising revenue totalled nearly $4.1 billion in the last quarter, representing a thumping a 36 percent increase over the same period last year, and up a healthy 5.5 percent over the first quarter of 2006.
The study also reports that search-related advertising rose 40 percent in the first half of 2006, with classified advertising rising 20 percent.
“With the seventh consecutive quarter of growth behind us we are confident that the Internet will continue to reconcile the imbalances between its share of media consumption versus its relative share of total advertising spend,” enthused Pete Petrusky, director, Entertainment & Media Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Elsewhere, the Online Publishers Association (which includes CNET, iVillage and Reuters), forecasted a rosy future for its members, saying that it expected online advertising grow about 28 percent for the third quarter, with most of its members “seeing strength in all advertising categories with no areas appearing to slow down.”
[Via Reuters]
26 September, 2006
i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone: Photos
Currently blossoming on the Ugly Tree and ripe for plucking is the new i-mate JAQ PocketPC phone.
The press launch photos looked ugly enough, but it looks like it doesn’t get any prettier close up, as hands-on photos released on Mobility Today reveal.
Looking like a Treo built by Cybermen, the i-Mate JAQ Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone is one of the first i-Mate devices to be developed from the company’s new partnership with Taiwanese firm, Inventec Mercury (previously, i-Mate phones have been made by HTC).
As far as we know, i-Mate haven’t officially split from HTC, but the company seems to be following O2’s policy of sourcing Windows smartphones from other manufacturers as well as HTC – a decision perhaps prompted by HTC recently releasing phones under their own name.
Specification-wise, it’s a case of no alarms or surprises, with the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900, GPRS + EDGE) i-mate JAQ running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and featuring a full QWERTY keyboard with 128 MB ROM/64MB RAM and a MiniSD memory card slot.
Quite a hefty beast at 122x71x22mm and weighing 160 grams, the i-Mate JAQ comes with a 2.8″ 320×240 pixels, 65k colour display, Bluetooth and InfraRed, but there’s no WiFi or 3G in sight, neither is there an onboard camera, which strikes us as a serious omission.
With looks that even its own mother couldn’t love, and a no-fun, limited feature set, here’s one phone that we can’t get excited about.
Let’s hope future collaborations between i-Mate and Inventec bring more exciting results.
i-mate JAQ specs:
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Data: GPRS + EDGE
Screen: 320×240 pixels, 65k colours
Camera: No
Size: 122x71x22mm / 160 grams
Bluetooth: Yes
Memory card: microSD
Infra-red: Yes
Polyphonic: Yes
Java: Limited
Battery life: Not specified
25 September, 2006
FinePix F31fd Offers World’s Fastest Face Detection Technology: Photokina
Barely half a year after the launch of the pocket-sized FinePix F30, Fujifilm has launched an upgraded version with the somewhat less memorable name of the FinePix F31fd.
As far as we could see, the new model is identical to its predecessor apart from the addition of hardware-based face recognition technology using the Real Photo Processor II and IR communication capabilities.
Fujifilm is making a big hoo-ha of their Face Detection technology, which ensures that the camera automatically focuses on and exposes for faces, rather than background details.
Face Detection does its clever stuff by triangulating eyes and mouth, using an algorithm to optimise focus and exposure and is able to cope with up to ten grinning mugs in a single frame.
The company claim that the technology is able to identify faces, optimise settings and take a winning snapshot within just 0.05 seconds (although it won’t solve the problem of people blinking as soon as your finger goes near the shutter, or pesky kids pulling stupid faces).
Like the F30, the F31fd offers full resolution ISO 3200 exposures, Fujinon 3x optical zoom lens, 6.3 megapixel Super CCD HR VI, VGA movie capture of 30 frames per second with sound and a 2.5 inch, 230,000 pixel LCD screen.
It’s a nippy little fella too, with a claimed 0.01 second shutter lag and 1.5 second start-up time, backed by a healthy 580-shot battery life, although the company are resolutely sticking to their obscure xD-Picture Card memory storage.
Fujifilm FinePix F31fd specs:
Sensor 1/1.7 ” Type Super CCD HR, 6.3 million effective pixels, Real Photo Processor II
Image sizes 2848 x 2136, 3024 x 2016 (3:2), 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480
Movie clips 640 x 480 @30fps, 320 x 240 @30fps with Mono sound
File formats JPEG (Exif 2.2), Movie: AVI (Motion JPEG), DPOF
Lens 36-108mm equiv, F2.8-5.0, 3x optical zoom
Digital zoom up to 6.2x
Focus AF with Macro
AF area modes Center, Multi
Focus distance Normal: 60cm-infinity, Macro: 5cm (wide)
Metering 256- zone TTL / Spot / Average
ISO sensitivity Auto, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200
Shutter speed 1/2000-15secs
Aperture F2.8-8
Modes Auto, Program AE, Picture Stabilisation, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Burst/Continuous
Scene modes Natural light, Natural light with flash, Portrait, Landscape, Sport, Night, Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Underwater, Museum, Party, Flower close-up, Text
White balance Auto, Fine, Shade, Fluorescent light (Daylight/Warm white/Cool white), Incandescent light, Custom
Self timer 2 or 10secs
Continuous shooting 2.2fps max 3 images
Image parameters Standard, Chrome (vivid), B&W
Flash Auto, Intelligent flash mode, Red eye reduction, Forced flash, Suppressed flash, Slow synch, Red eye reduction & Slow synch
Other photographic functions Face Detection, High-speed shooting, Best framing, Frame No. memory
Playback Functions Face Detection, IR Communication(IR simpleTM), Single frame, 9 Multi-frame , Sorting by date, Image rotate, Voice Memo Trimming, Automatic playback
Viewfinder No
LCD monitor 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixels, Anti-glare/low reflection
Connectivity USB 2.0 high speed, Video out
Print compliance PictBridge
Storage 26MB internal memory, xD-Picture Card
Power NP-95 Li-ion battery, AC adapter AC-5VC included
Weight (no batt) 155 g (5.5 oz)
Dimensions 92.7 x 56.7 x 27.8 mm (3.6 x 2.2 x 1.1 in)
Fujifilm
25 September, 2006
Palm Treo 680 Smartphone Picture Leaked
Currently leaking out all over the Web is this picture of a Palm Treo 680 with Cingular branding.
Apparently found lurking on Palm’s software store before it promptly vanished, the Treo 680 looks to be the likely candidate for “lower priced Treo” which was recently hinted at by Palm’s CEO.
Like the recently announced Windows Mobile Treo 750v, the Palm OS Treo 680 has lost the distinctive chunky antennae seen on earlier models.
Unsurprisingly, Palm OS aficionados who have been starved of a new Treo release on their favoured platform for some time have been carefully examining the photograph.
Some have suggested that what looks like a larger memory card cover means that the company are sticking with the standard SD card expansion slot, although the IR port may have vanished (or simply shuffled to another part of the phone).
Although it looks like a slimmer, sleeker version of the 650, the phone is aimed at the lower end of the market, so is expected to feature a rather disappointing VGA resolution camera along with Bluetooth, 64MB memory and run the trusty Garnet version of the Palm OS (sure it’s as old as the hills now, but it’s still one of the best mobile operating systems around in our opinion).
Sadly, there’s no Wi-Fi or 3G onboard, which leaves Palm OS fans hoping that a higher spec’d Treo may also be waiting in the wings.
There’s no news on pricing yet, although an October release is widely anticipated.
Source Palm Infocenter
25 September, 2006