Mike Slocombe

Virgin Launches UK Music Service This Week
Sir Richard Branson will be slamming the virtual champagne against the good ship Virgin Digital UK as another digital music service slides down the slipway on September 2nd.
Virgin’s new service will serve up over a million tracks, available to punters through a subscription and a download service.
Subscriptions will start from 40p (~US$0.70, €0.58~) each day, with permanent downloads costing 79p (~US$1.15, €1.4~) upwards, but Ipod owners needn’t apply as the service uses Windows Media, which goes together with iPods like chocolate and cabbage.
Sir Richard Branson, ubermensch of the Virgin Group, set his PR spin machine to eleven: “With a strong music heritage behind us, as a record label and a retailer, Virgin has a huge advantage, and platform to launch a digital service that will become the ultimate destination to buy, stream, burn and enjoy the best the music world has to offer.”
In an already crowded digital download marketplace dominated by iTunes, digital music services are hard-pushed to dream up compelling USPs, but Virgin claim that their service aims to “redefine” the digital music experience with a wallet-opening combination of features and consumer elements.
Virgin Digital UK is set to serve up a mix of digital music store, music club subscription service, streaming radio, powerful digital music and portable device management tools, along with a collection of music-discovery gizmos.
Developed in-house, the service is a collaboration between Virgin and US digital music provider Music Net and ramps up the feature set with additional track info, musical recommendations with phonetic search, comprehensive artist biographies and a ‘Related Artists’ feature which serves up information about the influences, collaborations and recommendations of similar artists.
To big up the launch of the service, Virgin will host exclusive performances from Bloc Party, The Dandy Warhols and The Cribs on September 2nd, with another 150 London-wide live performances in the pipeline, providing exclusive content to the Virgin Digital site.
Virgin are offering two subscription services; Basic £9.99 (~US $17.8, €14.6~) or Premium £14.99 (~US$26.7, €22~), with individual tracks available from 79p (~US$1.15, €1.4~) per song.
Virgin Digital UK
31 August, 2005
Samsung Unleash A Monster 19″ Notebook
Thanks to Samsung’s PR for getting in touch with us to clarify facts on this story.
Samsung will be debuting the world’s first 19″ notebook, the Samsung M70, on 2 September at the IFA Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin.
Despite sporting a multiplex-threatening 1680 x 1050 TFT display, the 19″ monster is no slouch in the speed stakes, with Samsung claiming a 10m/s response time, 600:1 contrast ratio and a “brightness and depth of shade not known in previous notebooks of 280cd/m.”
Samsung insist that it’s not just about size though, and to prove it they’ve added a clever removable screen widget.
This lets users detach the laptop’s screen and place it in a dock to give the appearance of a conventional desktop.
Anyone who has spent hours slumped over a laptop screen should welcome this innovation as the screen dock affords a far more comfortable viewing position – and there’s also a handy DVI interface on the docking station for external appliances too.
Powering the monster screen will be a Nvidia chipset, with the laptop promising to have the “fastest mobile processor” onboard (most likely an Intel).
Despite the added complexity and enormous screen size, Samsung have claimed that the laptop will weigh no more than their current 17-inch notebook so it should be vaguely portable (if you work out at the gym).
The Notebook M70 will be available sometime in October 2005 although there’s been no announcement about price or availability.
Samsung
31 August, 2005
Apple’s iPhone Coming Soon?
After enjoying huge success with the iPod, mini iPod and photo iPod, Apple are looking to score another hit with consumers with the expected announcement of the iPhone, a music playing mobile phone.
Speculation about the new product has been running rife after Apple announced a mystery San Francisco launch scheduled for next Wednesday with the teasing statement, “1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again.”
Pundits are predicting that Steve Jobs’ outfit will finally be launching their much-delayed music-playing mobile in partnership with handset giants Motorola, the world’s second-largest mobile phone manufacturer.
The New York Times reported that Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst with research firm Ovum, had been briefed on the new phone and that it would be compatible with Apple’s iTunes software, declaring it “a deluxe music player now on your cellphone.”
The phone has taken longer than a one legged sloth to arrive, with the project dogged by delays while rivals Sony Ericsson and Nokia have gained ground with their own music-playing models handsets – Sony Ericsson’s recently launched W800i phone has already proved a hit and Nokia’s 1,000 song-capacity N series will be in shops by the end of the year.
Despite arriving late at the party, Apple are hopeful that the iPod brand will successfully translate into big sales amongst the world’s estimated 1 billion mobile phone users.
Thomas Husson, a mobile analyst with Jupiter Research, had some doubts: “It’s been awaited for a year, if not more. That means people might be disappointed, because I don’t think it will be much more than a phone that can play music – and there are already others on the market that can do that. But iTunes and iPod are quite famous now in the music space, and they will be hoping for leverage.”
Some analysts have also expressed concerns that the iPhone might cannibalise Apple’s own market and cut into sales of their low end players, while others suspect that mobile phone networks might refuse to carry the phone to protect their own music download services.
With Motorola’s history of announcing new products months ahead of launch and Apple’s traditional penchant for headline-grabbing, last-minute announcements, the launch might be an interesting one.
Apple Motorola
31 August, 2005
News Roundup: Hamster Powered Mobile; US Kids SMS
Elvis Charges Mobile Phones
A 16-year-old lad in the West Country is breaking open the alcopops as he celebrates passing his GSCE electronics course – all thanks to his cunning hamster powered phone charger invention.
Peter Ash, from Lawford in Somerset, rustled up the wheeze after listening to his sister Sarah moaning that his pet hamster Elvis was keeping her awake at night by whizzing around on his exercise wheel for hours on end.
A light bulb illuminated above young Peter’s head as he realised that his hamster’s nocturnal marathons could be used to generate electricity.
For the next 13 months, the teenager worked on perfecting the hamster-powered device for his GSCE electronics coursework project.
After strenuous trials, Peter managed to get the insomniac hamster to generate enough power to charge his mobile phone overnight.
Rumours that he is now working on a dog powered version for powering small sound systems have proved to be unfounded.
Nearly 40% of Mobiles Bought By US Teens For Texting
A recent survey in the States by IDC and SMS.ac revealed that talking is, like, so uncool amongst teenagers, with Da KidZ preferring to text than talk.
The study revealed that 35.9% of teens acquired their cellphones for the sole or main purpose of texting, with just 13.3% of them getting all traditional and actually talking into the things.
Naturally, we advise that a large mountain side of salt be consumed with these ‘facts’ seeing as the survey was commissioned by online text service SMS.ac who have something of a vested interest.
Curiously, the survey doesn’t explain what the remaining 50.8% of kids are doing with their phones.
SMS.ac
A Feast Of Firefox Facts
Anyone using the excellent Mozilla Firefox browser may find this site invaluable: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl
The site serves up a ton of useful links to turn browser dabblers into Firefox pros, with information about rendering issues, downloading, interface enhancements, installable mini-applications, configuration and preference customisation, browser tabs, extensions and more.
30 August, 2005
Blokes More Stupid Online
Straight out of the text book of Thinly Veiled Product Placement Exercises comes this featherlight-fluff from StreamShield, who commissioned a survey asking the vital question: “Are women more sensible surfers?”
Somehow finding 1,005 adults across Britain prepared to answer the questions, the MORI survey discovered that female PC and Internet users are less likely to succumb to threats such as viruses and receive junk in their inboxes than male users.
The survey revealed that 46% of men reported that their PC had been infected with a virus compared with 38% of women, and 50% of men moaned about receiving excessive spam versus 38% of women.
In a statistic barely worth repeating, StreamShield’s report also tells us that men suffered more unwanted pop up ads than women (74% to 69% of women).
A total of 29% of blokes reported receiving a dodgy email from a bogus financial institution asking for their banking details, compared to 16% of female users.
When it comes to experiencing online fraud, it seems that the geezers were more gullible with 8% reporting that they’d been stung compared to just 4% of the ladies.
But it’s not all bad news for thicko blokes, with the survey claiming that the manly sex have a better overall awareness of Internet threats, with nearly all of them (97%) knowing what a computer virus was versus 92% of female users.
The same applies to other terms like Spyware (66% of men are aware of the term compared with 47% of women), Adware (51% men, 29% women), Phishing (37% men, 18% women) and Key loggers (27% men, 10% women).
Geoff Bennett, Director of Product Marketing at StreamShield insisted that the research proves that there is a clear difference between the male and female experience when online, suggesting that this may be due to the “two sexes may be using the Internet differently.”
(We think he means that many blokes tend to get their machines stuffed full of online nasties because of their undying attraction to Websites containing “artistic nudes.”)
Bennett wraps up his product-pushing survey by claiming that there’s “an education job that needs to be done across both genders as awareness of these threats overall is far too low and at the moment this is one battle of the sexes which men are evidently losing!”
Oh, and in case you missed it, StreamShield Networks provide Internet-based protection for email and the Web applications.
StreamShield
26 August, 2005
Bluetooth Billboards To Bother Bystanders
Bluetooth enabled billboards may soon be bothering passers-by with wireless advertisements blasted to mobile phones, according to the New Scientist magazine.
The brainchild of Alasdair Scott, co-founder and chief creative officer of London-based Filter UK, the ‘BlueCasting’ system will send a message to Bluetooth enabled phones strolling within 100 metres of a wired-up advert.
If the user has their Bluetooth turned on, they’ll be pestered by an invitation to download a pile of digital content related to the advertised product.
Anyone bonkers enough to actually agree to this can look forward to having their phone bombarded with video ads, discount vouchers, animations, music, still images and other advertising guff.
Trials took place recently at six London railway stations in partnership with the advertising company Maiden Group, with Bluetooth-equipped posters offering to beam promotional material and song clips from Coldplay’s new album to passers-by.
Over the space of two weeks, 87,000 Bluetooth phones were recorded ambling past and – amazingly – 17% of those were willing to download the clip.
Although such a high take-up figure is sure to moisten gussets in advertising boardrooms, we reckon it’s more to do with the novelty factor and the fact that the test billboards offered popular mainstream content.
Had they been offering people the chance to download dire advertisements like ESURE’s insurance toe-curler (punchline: “calm down dear, it’s only a commercial!”) we confidently predict that the take up would have been closer to 0%.
Now on to the science bit: The system uses proximity-based broadcasting courtesy of a directional Bluetooth transmitter lurking behind the billboard.
This beams the adverts to anyone within 100m of the billboard with Simon O’Regan, Filter UK’s Technical Officer insisting that, “only people who can see the billboard are offered the additional promotion.”
The Maiden Group are currently installing transmitters on its billboards at 30 U.K. train stations over the next 18 months, and plans to extend the service to large shopping malls, with Filter getting ready to pester harassed passengers with their own sites at Heathrow.
It looks like consumers won’t be able to escape being bothered by requests to download material from Bluetooth adverts as there’s currently no UK regulations restricting the use of Bluetooth ads being sent to mobile phones (short of users being forced to turn off the Bluetooth ‘discoverable’ functionality)
However, the advertising still comes under the jurisdiction of the Advertising Standards Authority who have voiced concerns that adverts for 18-rated computer games may be blasted at under age kids.
Mind you, we imagine ne’er do wells are going to love the BlueCasting system, with the area around Bluetooth enabled posters turning into a virtual shopping mall for mobile phone purloiners.
Bluecasting
Filter UK
26 August, 2005
Onkyo CR-505DAB CD Receiver Review
See the update below for the reason for the reason we now don’t rate this product.
After our clapped out Sony mini-system refused to play one track too many and the usual thump on the side failed to yield the required result, we realised it was time to find a new stereo system for the office.
With the room stuffed full of humming computers, books, cables, gizmos and overflowing racks of CDs, we were looking for something compact but with enough grunt to shake the walls when the punk rock mood takes.
After several trudges up London’s hi-fi Mecca, Tottenham Court Road, and long periods scanning the minutiae of online spec sheets, we decided that the Onkyo looked like the one for us.
One trip to Richer Sounds later we returned back to the office clutching the Onkyo CR505 DAB CD receiver system.
For £240 (~US$433, €352~) you get a lot of bang for your money, with the attractive brushed aluminium unit packing in a high quality amplifier, CD player, AM/FMRDS tuner and – best of all – a DAB (Digital Broadcast Audio) receiver.
Unlike many other all-in units in the same bracket, this puppy offers a ‘proper’ amplifier with high-quality Wolfson DACs delivering accurate digital-to-analogue conversion and discrete output stage circuitry for a clean output signal.
Moreover, there’s a slew of RCA/digital connectors available on the rear for hooking up external units like MD players and cassette recorders, so the unit can be used as the heart of a small hi-fi system.
Setting up the system was easy enough, although it was strange to discover that three separate aerials had to be installed for the FM/AM and DAB tuners!
We couldn’t wait to get playing with the DAB tuner, and after a quick bash on the auto-scan button we were astounded by the huge variety of channels it managed to find.
Admittedly, most of the channels sounded absolute rubbish, but it was a revelation to find so much content available.
With all those channels to wade through, it was necessary to set up our own list of favourites, and although it was a bit of a fiddly process, it wasn’t long before we’d programmed the thing to our liking.
The nice thing about DAB is the additional text information transmitted with the audio signal, and the CR505’s pretty blue LED display served up two rows of text, with users able to choose which DAB information they want onscreen – we fell in love with the scrolling text option that provided details about the station and the song currently being played.
The FM and AM tuners were equally straightforward enough to sort out, with the auto scan quickly scooping up a list of available radio stations.
The onboard CD player usefully supports MP3s recorded on CD-R and CD-RW discs as well as Audio CDs. We had no problems at all playing a wide selection of discs.
With so much on board, working out what does what can be baffling at first, but we were pleased to find that the manual came in just one language instead of the usual United Nations ten-ton tomes.
The Onkyo system is offered in two flavours. The CS-220UK version ships with Onkyo speakers but we bought the bare-bones CR-505DAB unit and wired up our own £100 (~US$180, €147~) Eltac speakers.
The sound was impressive, with a tight, controlled bass and clear soundstage. Cranking up the sound levels, the system coped admirably, with no harshness or distortion marring the thundering output.
The system would make a great bedroom, kitchen or study stereo system, offering a huge range of radio channels and enough poke to accompany the occasional air guitar wig out or party.
If you’re looking for a compact, flexible mini-system with loads of features and a big sound, ~~we thoroughly recommend the Onkyo. It’s a winner!~~
~~FIVE STARS~~, Now ZERO STARS
See the update below for the reason for the now Zero rating.
Specs:
Amplifier: 25 W/Ch int4 (1 kHz), WRAT (Wide Range Amplifier Technology), Discrete output stage circuitry, Tone control (Bass/Treble), Tone direct and 3 audio inputs and 2 outputs.
CD Player: Plays Audio CDs and MP3 CDs, Wolfson single-bit D/A converter, 20-track programming, Random/Memory/Repeat play modes, Optical digital output.
Tuner: DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) with 59 Presets, 5-mode timer (Timer 1/2/3/4/Sleep), 40 FM/AM presets, Automatic FM scan tuning, RDS (CT/PS/RT).
Other features: Battery-free memory backup, Headphone jack, RI-compatible remote control
Onkyo
Update 24 November 2005
Sadly, we have to add that after we gave the Onkyo such a glowing review, ugly problems reared their head.
Firstly, the CD player started to stall on new and old CDs, introducing party-wrecking uninvited gaps mid-way through albums.
Changing disks made no difference and after triple-checking that there were no overheating problems, the unit was sent back to Richer Sounds who gladly swapped it over for a replacement player.
Sadly, this turned out to be even worse, with the same CD-stuttering problem and a curious display glitch that sent random characters flying across the screen.
We’d had enough, so once again despatched the unit back to trusty Richer Sounds who were happy to oblige with a full refund.
With two failed units we can’t recommend this player to our readers.
Maybe we were just unlucky, but after having major problems with two ‘regular’ units (i.e. not press review models), we’d hate to see others experiencing the same hassle.
We’re now planning a review of a replacement DAB product from PURE – expect a review and news shortly.
25 August, 2005
Fujitsu Announces LifeBook T4020 And Stylistic ST5032 Tablet PCs
Fujitsu LifeBook T4020
Claimed to combine the “convenience and familiarity of a notebook with the powerful and versatile functionality of a slate Tablet PC”, Toshiba’s new LifeBook T4020 comes with Intel Pentium M 740 or 760 processors beating inside its swish silver and black casing, with a swivel-tastic 12.1″ XGA display offering a 160 degree viewing angle.
The Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005-powered convertible Tablet PC comes fitted with a 56K V.90 modem, Ethernet and Atheros Super AG or Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Wi-Fi connectivity, with the option to add Bluetooth.
Paranoid types can also purchase an optional fingerprint sensor to keep prying eyes away.
The laptop comes with a rather miserly 256 meg of RAM as standard (upgradeable to 2GB), 40GB Shock-Mounted Hard Drive and one Type I or Type II PCMCIA card slot fitted into its 11.5″ x 9.3″ x 1.4″ dimensions.
Fujitsu Stylistic ST5032 tablet
Running on Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, the Stylistic ST5032 tablet PC comes in two sizes, with customers able to choose between the 12.1″ XGA and 10.4″ indoor/outdoor displays.
The super slimline silver beastie (12.77″ x 8.66″ x .88″) weighs in at 3.5 pounds, boasting an Intel Pentium M 753 processor, a shock-mounted hard drive and built-in TPM, a dedicated Smart Card slot and a biometric swipe sensor (on 12.1″ display models only).
There’s also a nifty dual mic array with noise cancellation software, 60 GB hard drive, built in 56K V.90 modem, 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth, Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection (Tri-mode 802.11a/b/g) and 512 meg RAM.
The PR blurb
“As enterprises increasingly rely on vast numbers of mobile workers, they require a mobile computing platform that is easy to deploy, maintain, and service,” frothed Paul Moore, director of mobile product marketing at Fujitsu Computer Systems.
Cranking up his PR offensive to eleven, Moore continued, “Fujitsu offers a broad array of mobile solutions with the features, security, flexibility, reliability and ease of integration these companies need – all at competitive prices”.
Prices for the Fujitsu LifeBook T4020 start at US$1,599 (£888, €1,300) and US$2,499 (£1,390, €2,030) for the T5032. Availability is to be announced.
Fujitsu LifeBook T4020
Stylistic ST5032 Tablet PC
25 August, 2005
Virgin Radio Adds Another Podcast
After an encouraging response from listeners, Virgin Radio has announced that it will be making its Sunday afternoon programme ‘The Tim Lovejoy Show’ available as a podcast.
Virgin first experimented with podcasting earlier this year, with the ‘The Pete & Geoff Breakfast Show’ making Virgin Radio the first UK radio station to offer a podcast of a daily show.
The service, launched on the 9th March 2005, now receives 85,000 downloads a month.
Lovejoy’s sports and entertainment show is broadcast weekly from 4pm to 7pm, and Virgin have said that they’ll make the “best bits” available for consumers to download to their MP3 players from 28th August.
iPod-toting fans of the show will no doubt appreciate the new service, although they may not be pleased with having to put up with adverts for the podcast’s sponsor, Nivea, popping up throughout the download (see: ‘Podvertising’ Supports Virgin Radio Daily Podcast)
James Cridland, head of strategic development for new media at Virgin Radio was enthusiastic about the potential for podcasts, “The response shows us that people are more than willing to have a play with the technology if the content is good enough”.
“It also allows them to listen in at their own convenience if they don’t fancy getting up at 6am,” he added.
Cridland has stated that the radio station was also looking to make more of its content available as podcasts, describing the delivery method as “a great mechanism to get people to trial our flagship shows”.
Virgin Radio Podcasts
25 August, 2005
Google Launches Online IM And Voice Chat Service
Thanks to Mathew for corrections to this piece
Google has slapped down a big leathery gauntlet to the communications industry with the beta launch of its instant messaging service with voice-over-IP capabilities today.
Currently in beta, the Google Talk program will link its instant-messaging service to its e-mail service, Gmail, letting users contact each other over email, IM or a VoIP call.
The program, Google Talk, is based on the open source Jabber protocol and competes directly with the three major providers of instant messaging – AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo.
With the company trumpeting the service’s integration with GMail, Google Talk will use the same log-in information as their email account, with users able to access their inbox from within the Google Talk interface and send e-mails from there too.
Interestingly Google appears to refer to the accounts as a Google User Account – an interesting shift, pointing to the continued rise of additional Google services.
Users will be able to chat via IM and then talk to contacts on Google Talk by clicking on a “call” button in an open chat window or by clicking on the phone icon next to names on the contact list.
The software will let users have multiple voice sessions open at the same time, but only one can be active at any given time.
Gmail contacts will be loaded automatically into the Google Talk interface, letting users exchange instant messages with those who have downloaded the IM software.
Jabber is an open standard messaging protocol called eXtensible Message and Presence Protocol, or XMPP, and Google have stated that the company hoped to use the standard to interconnect the messaging industry. Many feel XMPP have advantages over SIP (Session Initiation Protocol, commonly used for VoIP) for voice communications.
Currently, the three major messaging services are closed shops that generally don’t permit users to send messages to and from competing services – a source of continuing frustration for many IM users.
Jabber have been reported as preparing to interconnect with AOL, whose AOL Instant Messenger system is the largest provider of messaging.
“We are going to start working to federate all the other networks,” said Georges Harik, a Google director of product management who is responsible for Google Talk and several other services.
According to figures from comScore Media Metrix, more than 80 million Americans chattered on instant-messaging services in July, with 30.9 million using AIM, 23.3 million chatting on MSN Messenger and 23.2 million connecting via Yahoo Insider.
Peter Saint-Andre, executive director of the Jabber Software Foundation, estimated that 13.5 million use the Jabber standard, based on figures from Osterman Research.
The company is yet to announce how the new service may earn its keep, but Google has stated that it intends to look for revenue opportunities in the future.
Google Talk reveals the company’s continuing ambitions provide to extend beyond Web searching, with some analysts predicting that Google will soon be taking on voice-over-Internet phone services like Vonage and Skype as well as the communication industry big boys.
How the industry reacts to this onslaught should be entertaining.
Google Talk
24 August, 2005