Mike Slocombe

Blinkx Builds Free Online Video Library
Search company Blinkx have launched a free service that lets amateurs and pro filmmakers upload and store their video files to a searchable online library.
The service, called My Blinkx.tv, will make filmmakers’ work available for viewing to Web searchers via a clever conversion process.
Videos submitted to the library are automatically converted into Flash format, with speech soundtracks transcribed and indexed.
Metadata, such as creation date, length, title, owner’s name along with any other relevant information, will also embedded into the content.
Once indexed, uploaded videos can be retrieved and viewed by visitors to My Blinkx.tv via keyword searches.
Users of the Blinkx.tv service will also be able to create custom channels, based on a specific search term.
Blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake explained that users could, for example, create a channel for all video results from a My Blinkx.tv search for the term, “Hurricane Katrina.”
My Blinkx.tv service would then continue to add new videos matching the search terms in the background, so that returning users would be presented with up-to-date listings.
The system relies on cookies but Chandratillake said that the company would consider using a more reliable logging in system if there’s enough demand for it.
Users will also be able to access their channels without visiting My Blinkx.tv by setting up a “smart folder” on their PCs.
This will be automatically populated in the background with videos that match a chosen search term, encouraging users to have the occasional rummage around in their smart folder to see what new videos have been added.
Chandratillake said that Blinkx will initially only feature non-commercial videos – mainly from grassroots groups, individuals and amateur video bloggers – but the company plans to cut deals with commercial video producers keen to include their videos in the service.
The service is free for visitors viewing videos, but Blinkx may introduce the option of charging for video views, with revenue split between Blinkx and the content owners.
The company may also consider raising revenue though video advertising.
According to Chandratillake, My Blinkx.tv already features user-generated video from 3,500 to 4,000 sources, with the service competing with video search services from Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Notably, none of these services currently offer My Blinkx.tv’s automatic, continuous streaming video.
Blinkx
4 October, 2005
Google Maps-Based Toys, Distractions And Timewasters
Oh we like this!
Seeing as we’re nowhere near New York right now, it’s of absolutely no practical use to us whatsoever, but – hey! – that’s no reason to stop us wasting precious time playing about with this brilliant implementation of Google Maps.
NYSee – a Web project by developers alkemis – uses Google’s mapping system to provide up to date traffic news and display traffic cam feeds from in and around Manhattan.
The information is presented via the familiar system of different coloured pins stuck on the map, and clicking on a green pin will bring up a live video feed for the traffic cam at that particular location – great fun!
The locations of the cams can be viewed via the Google maps interface as a map, satellite view or hybrid.
Live cams that aren’t working are – appropriately enough – shown as black pins while gray pins seemed to indicate cams on the blink.
The NYSee map also offers regularly updated traffic news (sourced from Google rivals traffic.yahoo.com) displayed as yellow pins on the map.
If clicking on Web cams in foreign countries doesn’t take your fancy, you can always waste away a few more idle minutes calculating national and international areas using the Google Planimeter.
Google Sightseeing, another Google maps-based site, asks, “why bother seeing the world for real?”, inviting surfers to visit the “best tourist spots in the world via satellite images from Google Maps & Google Earth.”
ViaVirtualEarth uses the MSN map interface to graphically show the location of MSNBC news stories on a world map, while ChicagoCrime lets surfers view the locations of specific crimes from the database of crimes reported in Chicago.
Finally, we took a shine to Found City, a community-generated map of interesting places in New York City, with growing resources for Brooklyn, San Francisco, LA, London, Boston, Chicago and Portland.
4 October, 2005
Japan’s Ceatec Show Opens Today
Japan’s largest annual IT show, Ceatec (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies), opens today and will feature around 700 companies, according to the organisers.
Last year, the show – the largest international exhibition in Asia for the technology and electronics sectors – attracted 182,000 people with greater numbers anticipated this year.
Naturally, Simon Perry – the Digi-Lifestyles big cheese – is at the show, so you can expect hot news and updates from the floor over the next couple of days.
Running from Tuesday until Saturday at the Makuhari Messe convention centre, Chiba, just outside Tokyo, the show is designed to provide a platform for Japan’s technology vendors to display their latest gear and showcase prototype products.
The anticipated unveiling of rival HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players could prove to be a show highlight, and there’s great interest in the eagerly awaited new high-definition TVs.
Sharp is expected to show off a hard-disk drive-based digital recorder that is capable of recording two HDTV programs at once, with the machine ready to roll just one second after being switched on.
Toshiba has promised to display a super-slim 12.7 millimetre high drive designed for laptops which can read HD-DVD discs and read and write DVDs and CDs.
Naturally, there’s loads of activity on the mobile phone front, with new products and technology on offer, including portable fuel cells from network operator KDDI.
The company has been working with Hitachi and Toshiba to develop fuel cell-based chargers for cell phones, with the first commercial products expected on sale before the end of March 2006.
As well as shiny new consumer boxes, Ceatec also showcases the products of component makers, with Matsushita showing off a flexible optical circuit board and Seiko Epson displaying a flexible memory chip for use in flat-panel displays.
Born out of a merger between Japan Electronics Show and Com Japan, Ceatec attracted 172,053 visitors in its debut year in 2000, rising to 182,490 visitors last year.
Ceatec
4 October, 2005
DSC-N1 Digital Camera From Sony Offers Huge 3″ Viewing Screen
Sony’s new digital compact camera, the DSC-N1, cunningly attempts to combine the functions of a digital camera with a ‘pocket viewer’.
Sporting a gargantuan 3.0 inch, 230k touch screen LCD, the camera’s display is designed to act as both camera control and photo viewer, with a wide viewing angle making it easier to show off photos to gangs of chums.
Based on the software first seen in the innovative Cybershot M2 stills and video camera, the DSC-N1 records and internally stores up to 500 VGA (640×480) copies of every image taken on the camera.
These low resolution photos stay on the camera after the full size images have been transferred, so folks can carry a personal photo album around with their camera.
Stored images can be played back individually or as a slideshow, complete with options to add transitions, pans, wipes, fades and zooms, cheesy themes and background music.
For compulsive dabblers, the DSC-N1 also comes with a paint function letting users draw symbols or words on photos onscreen using their finger or supplied stylus.
“Since the introduction of compact cameras with large LCDs, consumers have increasingly been using their cameras to not only capture moments, but also share and show them immediately on the LCD screens,” said James Neal, director of digital imaging products at Sony Electronics.
“The combination of these functions makes the N1 ‘more than just a camera’, because it takes sharing to a whole new level.”
The slimline (22.7mm) DSC-N1 is aimed at the point’n’shoot crowd, with eight pre-set Scene Selection modes, including Twilight, Snow and Beach functions as well as a few limited manual controls.
The brushed aluminum metal body packs a sizeable eight megapixel 1/1.8″ CCD sensor, Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x optical zoom (38 – 114mm, F2.8 – F5.4) and sensitivity from ISO 64 to ISO 800.
Naturally, there’s a built in movie mode, capable of recording at 640 x 480 @ 30 fps (Fine).
Although the camera can only record stills in JPEG format, dpreview.com reports that it is the first camera to feature ‘Clear RAW NR’, a process which appears to carry out noise reduction on the RAW data before it is converted to JPEG.
The DSC-N1 is expected to retail for around £285 (~$499, €420).
Sony
3 October, 2005
NTL Announces $6 Billion Telewest Buy Out
Britain’s biggest cable operator, NTL, has agreed to shell out an eye-watering $6 billion (~£3.42bn, ~€5bn) for Telewest Global.
This new uber cable company should provide more effective competition with BT and create a powerful rival for pay-TV leader Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, which currently has more television customers in the U.K. than the two cable providers combined.
At the end of March this year, BSkyB had 7.70 million television subscribers compared with NTL’s 3.19 million and Telewest’s 1.82 million.
According to a statement – which ends three years of speculation about the merger – Simon Duffy, NTL’s chief executive, will lead the combined company.
“While the combined entity could potentially pose a longer-term competitive threat to BSkyB, the merger of the two companies could give BSkyB a short-term competitive boost in that it may distract the cable companies from external growth as they merge their networks,” said UBS AG analyst Aryeh Bourkoff.
Both sides are currently keeping Mum about the mixture of cash or shares involved, although a large cash component is believed to be involved.
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that executives at Telewest are set to rake in obscene amounts of filthy lucre for their stock options and other options if the NTL deal goes ahead.
Chairman Cob Stenham can expect his bank balance to increase to the tune of $20m (~£11.4m, ~€16.77m) while chief executive Barry Ellison will no doubt cackle wildly with joy as $17m (~£9.7m, ~€14.25m) rolls into his coffers.
And there’s more, with finance director Neil Smith scooping $3.5m, CEO Eric Tveter getting $9m (~£5.13m, ~€7.54m) and seven non-executive Telewest directors holding 230,000 shares receiving a total of $36.4m (~£20.75m, ~€30.5m) in total from selling their stakes as part of the takeover.
Good work if you can get it, eh?
Telewest
NTL
3 October, 2005
Paramount To Offer HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc Movies
As the next-generation DVD wars between HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc grind on, Paramount Home Entertainment has employed a time-honoured fudge and announced that it will be offering movies in both formats.
High-definition versions of Paramount’s movies will be released in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc, the company said yesterday.
Viacom subsidiary Paramount is the first major content provider to announce support for both high-definition video-disc formats, and follows a similar line of thinking as Samsung’s dual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Player which we reported on last month.
Both formats serve up far more storage capacity than current DVD discs, with HD-DVD offering 15GB or 30GB and Blu-ray Disc 25GB or 50GB, depending on the disc.
Unfortunately, the two formats remain incompatible with each other, something that’s sure to hold back consumers with less than fond memories of the VHS vs Betamax battles of the past.
Paramount was one of the first major content players to back the Toshiba/NEC-developed HD-DVD format, with other major backers including Warner Home Video, HBO, New Line Cinema, Universal Pictures and Sanyo Electric, followed by Intel and Microsoft last week.
Blu-ray enjoys far greater support from electronics companies like Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic), Samsung, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Philips, with an impressive line up of Blu-ray supporting content providers including Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Universal Music Group.
Influential in Paramount’s decision was the PlayStation 3’s support for Blu-ray Disc.
“After a detailed assessment and new data on cost, manufacturability and copy-protection solutions, we have now made the decision to move ahead with the Blu-ray format,” Paramount said.
Paramount
3 October, 2005
Lumix LX1 Goes On Sale … Or Does It?
Bibs were hastily donned to soak up the undignified rivers of drooling dribble that appeared in the office when Panasonic first announced the latest addition to their high quality Lumix digital camera range, the LX1, back in July.
It wasn’t just the stunning looks, manual control, image stabilisation and crisp wide-angle 4X Leica zoom lens that set our saliva organs into ungainly overdrive – we loved the fact that this was the first camera to feature a 16:9 aspect ratio, using the full 8.4-megapixel sensor.
The 16:9 aspect ratio closely approximates the natural wide field of view of the human eye meaning its dimensions will fill a widescreen TV perfectly.
The camera can also shoot in 3:2 and the more conventional 4:3 aspect ratio, with a switch on the lens barrel making it easy to switch to the format best suited for the composition on a shot-by-shot basis.
Boasting an impressively wide zoom range of 28 mm to 112 mm (35mm equiv), the LEICA DC VARIO-ELMARIT lens should prove ideal for indoor photography, architectural and landscape shots.
Recovering alcoholics and compulsive wobblers will love the optical stabilization system (OIS) that does a great job of steadying the camera at slow shutter speeds and producing sharp images where other cameras would fail.
It’s no mean feat to fit an effective stabilisation system into a 4.2 by 2.2 by 1.4 inches camera, and users should find it an invaluable feature for low light photography – small cameras can be notoriously hard to hold steady at slow shutter speeds.
As well as a comprehensive selection of 14 scene modes, there’s manual controls offering a choice of apertures between f/2.8 and f/8 (adjustable in 1/3-stop increments) at the wide-angle position and f/4.9 to f/8 at the telephoto end.
Shutter speeds can be selected from 8 seconds to 1/2,000 second (60 seconds to 1/2,000 second in manual mode).
Sensitivity can be set to ISO 80, 100, 200, or 400, with the built in pop-up flash offering coverage up to 13.1 feet in wide-angle mode and 7.5 feet at the telephoto position.
Photo enthusiasts will appreciate the manual focus feature which uses a joystick to fine-tune focus on an enlarged portion of the image, with the same joystick being used to change shutter speed and aperture in manual or shutter/aperture priority mode.
In line with its high end aspirations, images can be saved in JPEG (choice of two compression ratios), TIFF and raw file formats.
The Leica lens can focus down to two inches in macro modem with focus switchable from spot to single-point, three-point, or nine-point autofocus zones.
For manual and automatic shooting, there’s evaluative, centre-weighted and spot metering available.
Wannabe Spielberg’s will be tempted by the camera’s particularly impressive movie mode, offering an astonishing ultra-high-quality 16:19 Wide VGA film-clip capability, capturing 848×480 sound movies at a smooth 30fps.
Sadly, there’s no optical viewfinder on offer, so all framing and viewing of images – and camera fine tuning – is taken care of via the a sharp and bright 207k 2.5-inch LCD on the back panel.
In shooting mode, this presents a wealth of optional information including a handy alignment grid dividing the screen into vertical and horizontal thirds.
With its beautiful looks, enthusiast pleasing feature set, world’s first 16:9 aspect ratio and pin-sharp Leica lens, Panasonic look to be on to an absolute winner here – but where is the thing?
Apart from a few, quickly scooped-up, silver versions of the camera appearing online and in central London, most stores are reporting that they are “awaiting stock”, with no news of the drop-dead gorgeous black version that we’re keen to get our paws on.
A few reviews have cropped up on the web – usually in strange languages – with the excellent DPreview.com offering some pre-production samples that looked mighty fine to our eyes
Worryingly, a promised review on dcresource.com has been “delayed due to technical difficulties” – or, as the author explains elsewhere – because the camera “kicked the bucket.”
We hope that that these problems are just pre-production glitches because we’ve rarely seen such a tempting looking camera.
As soon as we get our hands on one, we’ll have a review for you. Soon, we hope!
Lumix LX1
29 September, 2005
SanDisk ‘Gruvi’ TrustedFlash: Content On Memory Carts
SanDisk have unveiled their “fingernail-sized” new TrustedFlash cards, a technology that embeds Digital Rights Management (DRM) and decryption technology into memory cards, and also includes a subscription manager enabling the cards to be used for digital subscription music services.
Speaking at the CTIA Wireless show, SanDisk Chief Executive Eli Harar said, “We think this will be a disruptive technology, but will enable a whole new world of opportunities in the mobile market.”
“Today content is locked to play back on one device. Now we have the freedom to enjoy content on whatever device consumers want to use,” he added.
Harar stated that the TrustedFlash card would act like current SD cards, with the technology able to be extend into on-demand content such as feature films and online games.
Despite their speck-like proportions – a mere 18 mm long and 2g in weight – the cards can offer enough storage space to hold thousands of DRM-protected MP3, films, photographs or games.
The “Gruvi” (what?!) cards use the micro SD card interface so they can be slotted into mobile phones, GPS devices, MP3 players and computers.
Users of the card could, for example, buy a video online, view it on their home PC, save it to the TrustedFlash card and then slap the card into their PDA/smartphone for watching on the move later.
SanDisk are also hoping that content providers like music companies, film suppliers and mapping data companies will ship preloaded Gruvi cards with the content protected against copying by TrustedFlash.
The first batch of cards using TrustedFlash will be preloaded with the Rolling Stones’ new CD “A Bigger Bang,” due for a November release with the 265MB card costing $39.95 (£22, €33) – What?!? How Much?!?
The Stones’ release will also hold four additional albums that can be unlocked for an extra fee.
SanDisk hopes that the new cards – expected in the UK by Christmas – will eventually reduce the costs of buying music.
Pedro Vargas, SanDisk’s director of mobile entertainment, said that the price was justified by the extra capacity and flexibility on offer, and that he expected prices to drop over time.
In the future, the cards could be used to play content from subscription music services such as Yahoo Music and Napster.
Subscribers could download the DRM-protected songs onto the chip and play them back on any suitably equipped MP3 player, with the DRM continually checking the subscription status (so if the subscriber hasn’t kept up with their payments – whoosh! – no more music!)
SanDisk are producing the new cards in capacities ranging from 256MB to 4GB and expect them to debut in October followed by a complete rollout to be completed by March 2006.
SanDisk
28 September, 2005
V3x: Motorola’s 3G RAZR: More Details
Motorola have offered more details about their forthcoming 3G RAZR V3x slim flip phone.
Surprisingly not as slender as the hugely popular original RAZR, the new V3x packs in dual cameras, a hefty two megapixel camera with an 8x zoom and macro mode for photography, and a VGA camera for 2-way video calling.
The sleek housing has fattened up a bit to accommodate the 3G gubbins, and comes with two vivid colour displays.
The onboard Bluetooth chip supports wireless stereo sound through Motorola’s Bluetooth Stereo headphones and other compatible hands free wotsits, with up to 512 MB of removable optional TransFlash memory.
There’s support for playback of AAC+, MPEG4, WMV, WMA, MP3 and Real Video/Audio media files, with progressive downloading to view media files on demand.
The handset will include a new service called SCREEN3 giving users “zero-click access” to news, sports, entertainment, and other premium content on the go, providing a handy source of revenue for mobile operators.
Motorola have also included an advanced speaker-independent voice recognition which lets users state a number/name and be connected without all that pre-recording palaver.
The Motorola RAZR V3x is expected to be available in Q4 2005 with pricing to be announced around that time.
Meanwhile, as Motorola’s phones scoff the pies, rival NEC has launched the World’s Thinnest Folding Camera Phone, a feather-untoubling slip of a thing.
Motorola
28 September, 2005
Blackberry 8700 Details Emerge As RIM Announce Intel Deal
We’re still waiting for the official announcement, but Blackberry enthusiast site Pimstack has managed to unearth some photos and specs of the forthcoming Blackberry 8700.
Expected to be released around December/January, the matt-black and silver smartphone looks sure to appeal to blokes who like their technology beefy, manly and without a girly curve in sight.
Thinner and narrower than the 7200 series, the Darth Vader-esque case sports “high-end ornamental accents” (huh?) with a large 320 x 240 (1/4 VGA) colour LCD screen and a light sensor to automatically adjust brightness.
Below the screen is a full QWERTY keypad with dedicated Send & End Keys, a mute key and two User-Definable Keys.
Connectivity is taken care of via quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity with onboard support for Bluetooth 2.0. There’s also a hands-free speaker phone built in.
Powering up the Blackberry is a 312 MHz processor, with 16MB RAM and 64MB ROM built in.
Research in Motion (RIM) are claiming that their updated OS will offer an improved user interface and better performance across the board, so users can look forward to nippier navigation, faster web browsing and speedier programs.
The new phone (codenamed Electron) will also provide contact-specific ring tones, better support for viewing attachments and Enhanced Power Point slide viewing.
RIM Announce Intel Partnership
Elsewhere, RIM have announced that they will be using Intel’s XScale PXA9xx mobile phone processors in upcoming BlackBerry devices.
The Intel processor, with the strange codename of “Hermon”, will run on Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution networks (EDGE).
This technology lets users connect to the Internet and send and receive data at broadband comparable speeds.
The chip is also expected to support video conferencing, which suggests that there’s 3G support going on.
RIM’s co-chief executive, Mike Lazaridis, commented that the next-generation BlackBerries would boast increased browser speeds and help the company push into new markets, while predicting that the new platform would also appeal to third-party application developers.
Research In Motion (RIM)
Pinstack
28 September, 2005