Mike Slocombe

‘Great For Music’ Handsets And ‘Find Music’ Programme Launched By Orange UK
Orange, the UK’s most popular mobile network, has wheeled out the initial line-up for its Great for Music handsets; the Nokia 6680 3G handset, Nokia 3230 and Sony Ericsson K300i handsets.
All the phones utilise the full range of music services available from Orange World, making it easy to download tracks, news and gossip, follow the hit40uk chart and buy videos, True Tones, wallpapers and tickets.
If all that proves too technologically challenging for confused customers, Orange are kindly staffing their stores with “phone trainers” to explain what button does what (we can’t help imagining a store full of lycra-clad sales assistants dancing to bad disco).
Music downloads from Orange World are to be included in the Official UK Download Chart, paving the way for tracks downloaded to Orange mobiles to be included in the Official UK Singles Chart for the first time.
“The Official UK Chart’s decision to include music downloads from Orange World in its Chart demonstrates that the music industry has recognised the rising importance of mobile music downloads within the digital music sphere,” said Mark Ashford, head of music, Orange UK. “The advent of digital music downloads on mobile means that up-to-date phones also act as music players, making digital music accessible for one in three people in the UK.”
A backslap of sponsorship deals will make it possible to book gig tickets through Orange handsets and download exclusive artist material and downloads.
“Enjoying music on your mobile handset is the going to explode in 2005. Therefore it is no surprise that Orange is committed to providing customers with the richest and most rewarding music experience possible. With Find music we are working with the best in both the music and mobile industry to help people buy, receive, listen and even interact with music in much more spontaneous and exciting ways.” enthused Julian Diment, head of brand and commercial partnerships, Orange UK.
Music downloads from Orange World cost £1.50 (US$2.8/€2.20) per track (£3.50/US$6.55/€5.10 for Fireplayer tracks), with users able to browse through the latest releases or search for the artist of their choice on Music Player.
Orange will also be trying to look hip and radical while promoting their corporate brand at the forthcoming Glastonbury and T in the Park events.
Orange UK
Nokia 6680 3G handset
Fireplayer
4 April, 2005
Napster Live, Music TV Series To Broadcast On UK’s Channel 4
Napster UK has teamed up with Channel 4 to broadcast a short series of live TV music shows, creating the first national terrestrial television programme to be run by a digital music service.
Napster UK has announced the deal to broadcast the predictably titled “Napster Live”, which will take the form of six 11 minute programmes featuring “established and emerging acts”.
Each episode will serve up an exclusive performance of two songs by a featured artist, along with an interview, biography and the all-important competition spot.
The programmes are being put together by independent television production company Blaze TV (who also knock out the weekly music show CD:UK).
Included in Channel 4’s ‘T4 Youth and Music’ programming, the first show will be screened at midnight on Saturday April 16 and feature rock band Garbage.
Other acts so far confirmed for Napster Live on Channel 4 include MOBO-winning UK R&B artist Estelle and UK rockers The Subways.
Napster Live already exists on the Napster digital music service as audio-only recordings, but the TV show will showcase a new format produced exclusively for Napster and Channel 4 by Blaze TV. Music from the TV show will be made available online at a later date on the Napster UK service.
“We’re incredibly excited to be teaming up with Napster on what feels like a truly unique and exciting proposition for 4Music,” frothed Neil McCallum, Commissioning Editor, T4, Youth & Music. “The bands booked are exactly the sorts of artists we’ve been supporting and this allows us to capitalise on bringing even more live music to a wider, up-for-it audience.”
“To extend the Napster experience to television is the logical next step in the UK roll out of the biggest brand in digital music,” purred Leanne Sharman, Napster vice-president and UK general manager.
Building up to a crescendo of mutual backslapping, Sharman added: “Channel 4 has a deserved reputation for groundbreaking and forward-looking programming as well as championing live music, so we’re delighted to make our TV debut on their platform. Napster is also extremely fortunate to have a partner like Blaze TV whose production skills, expertise and contact book have proven invaluable in creating this series.”
Not one to miss out on the quote frenzy, Conor McAnally, Blaze TV director of programmes, offered this insight: “In a world where the production and consumption of music are changing so drastically and so rapidly we are delighted to be involved with the market leader in music digital downloading and to have been given the opportunity to create exciting new programming for Channel 4 whose commitment to music, and especially new music, is unparalleled in the UK”.
Although eleven minute pop music programmes are hardly going to change the face of modern TV, Napster’s move reflects the inevitable convergence between online and terrestrial TV, with download charts already hitting the mainstream.
The series will be broadcast every Saturday night on Channel 4 from April 16, 2005 for six weeks.
Napster UK
Channel 4
4 April, 2005
R.E.M. On-Demand Music Channel Launched By HomeChoice
Video Networks, providers of the HomeChoice entertainment and communications service, has announced the addition of a brand new R.E.M. video-on-demand (VoD) channel to its platform.
HomeChoice customers keen to keep on losing their religion will gain exclusive access to the channel – which has been entirely designed and built in-house – from 31st March 2005.
Earlier this year also saw the re-release of nine of R.E.M.’s most successful albums including Green, Out of Time and Automatic for the People. The launch of the R.E.M. channel ties in with the band’s UK tour.
The V:MX R.E.M. channel is being trumpeted as the first artist specific video-on-demand package in the world and will sit within HomeChoice’s suite of V:MX music channels, which feature a library of over 3,000 music videos.
The R.E.M. channel will offer a R.E.M. videography (a what?!), featuring the nine re-released R.E.M. albums.
Sofa reclining HomeChoice customers will be able to access music videos – and associated live and documentary footage – by selecting the appropriate album cover using their remote control.
The functionality of the HomeChoice service will let customers create their own R.E.M. play list from the music videos on the channel and optionally purchase downloadable tracks by SMS.
While useful, this isn’t quite as slick as it sounds: if a viewer hears a track they want to buy, they have to click on the onscreen information button which will provide a number to text. A code is then sent back to them which they can enter when they log onto the Internet to download the music track. When we spoke to HomeChoice, they told us they were working on a more integrated way of getting pay-for content to their customers.
Naturally, there’s the usual ring tone guff provided for those who like to display their ‘individuality’ with irritating phone noises, with the channel offering 10 R.E.M. true tones of their most popular tracks, purchasable via SMS for £3 (US$5.60 /€4.40) each.
The R.E.M. channel will also include four competitions throughout the life of the channel, with prizes including an MP3 player pre-loaded with R.E.M. tracks, a pair of VIP tickets to R.E.M.’s concert in Hyde Park in July plus several R.E.M. goody bags.
The deal is what ghastly corporate types would call a “synergetic win win situation”, with Video Networks telling us that “no money has changed hands as both parties have brought certain elements to the channel and will then be sharing the revenue from the downloads and ring tones.” This would make sense, Warners/R.E.M. are providing a lot of content, and HomeChoice/Video Networks are providing a lot of design, programming and, of course, bandwidth. Video Networks have 34 people working in their in-house design studio and within the TV product team.
Roger Lynch, Chairman and Chief Executive, Video Networks Ltd said: “The addition of this on-demand channel is not only a true coup for R.E.M. fans but also ensures Video Networks continues to offer the most innovative music content on TV in the world today.”
The R.E.M. music channel will be automatically available to all shiny, happy customers who currently subscribe to the HomeChoice music package.
The negotiations for the deal with Warner Music have been underway since the beginning of 2005, brokered by a Video Networks BizDev person, who joined them from the music business. The service launches on 31st March 2005 and is available for a total of 16 weeks.
Home Choice
Video Networks
R.E.M. official site
4 April, 2005
Pope’s Death Told Via SMS Text Message
News of the Pope’s death was broadcast to the media from the Vatican using text messages and email enabling the 2,000-year-old Church to meet the increasing demands of real-time news.
Just a quarter of an hour after the Pope was pronounced dead on Saturday at 8:37pm (GMT), officials at the Vatican got out their texting fingers and sent journalists an SMS message alerting them to a pending statement.
With most of the world’s media hungry for news, an email communiqué was beamed to a sea of state-of-the-art handheld computers a minute later, purchased by journalists at the suggestion of the Vatican.
The email contained a simple, short Word document saying: “The Holy father died this evening at 21:37 in his private apartment.”
The technology ensured that TV viewers across the globe learned of the Pope’s death before the faithful thousands gathered in prayer below the Pope’s window in St. Peter’s Square.
Minutes later, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri informed the crowds, who greeted the news with a long round of applause – an Italian tradition – with the spectacle being captured on television in real time.
The Vatican’s embracing of the mass media is a relatively new phenomenon – as recently as the 1960s news of Pope John XXIII’s inoperable stomach cancer was kept secret until just a few days before his death in June 1963.
Pope John Paul proved to be far more open to the media, writing in February that the Church should not be shy of using the media, including the Internet, to spread its message, saying the “mass media can and must promote justice and solidarity”.
With real time news networks and Internet bulletins documenting every minute of the Pope’s demise, he certainly got his wish.
Vatican
4 April, 2005
2GB Gmail Inbox From Google
A year after its launch, Google has doubled the capacity of its Gmail service and added new features.
Those lucky souls invited to have an account now get a whopping great 2GB of storage, with the ability to send up to 10MB of attachments in a single message with free POP access – with Google promising further increases in the pipeline.
“Since we introduced Gmail, people have had a lot of places to store e-mail, but some of our heavier users have been approaching their limits, and have been wondering what is going to happen,” says Georges Harik, Gmail’s product management director. “So, starting today, we are going to give people more and more space continuously and indefinitely.”
“Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GB by giving more space as we are able to do so. We know that email will only become more important in people’s lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs.”
The move comes hot on the heels of last week’s decision by Yahoo to increase the size of its free account to 1GB. Both Yahoo and Hotmail can offer up to 2GB of storage as well, but users must fork out for the privilege.
The company has announced no immediate plans to increase Gmail’s 10MB limit on attachment sizes, and there’s no prospect of subscribers being able to turn their in-box storage into a full-featured virtual external hard disk.
Google is, however, aware that some crafty Gmail subscribers are using the service for this purpose, mailing files to themselves as a way of storing them online.
Google seems cool about it too, with Harik saying, “We want our users to understand that we have a plan and that we are anticipating their needs, and that nothing strange is going to happen with Gmail down the line.”
Google is also testing phishing protection on the accounts, serving up a warning when it detects a dodgy looking email.
Gmail’s arrival on the scene a year ago sent up a rocket up the backsides of the Web mail market, whose main players had been providing minimal inbox storage for their free services.
At the time, Yahoo only offered a paltry 4MB of in-box with Microsoft providing even less at 2MB.
Since then, most major Web mail providers have reacted to Gmail’s generous inbox quotas with Microsoft and Yahoo both now offering 250MB for their free services. Yahoo plans to begin offering 1GB starting in late April.
Curiously, Gmail is still technically in a beta phase, and is not generally available – the only way users can obtain a Gmail account is by invitation from an existing user (each current user has 50 invitations to give).
Google also randomly offers Gmail accounts via its main Google.com Web page.
Google have yet to clarify whether Gmail accounts would ever be totally open, with Harik cryptically commenting, “We keep looking for ways to make it more broadly available to people who want to use it”.
While Gmail is totally free to use, it’s financed by text ads that are served up to users with each message they open. The fact that the ads are based on each message’s text caused an outcry, but Google insist that text scanning is automated and without nosey human intervention.
Google Gmail
Gmail new features list
1 April, 2005
Toshiba unveils XDR ‘world’s fastest’ memory chip and ‘one-minute charge’ battery
Toshiba has developed a super-fast Lithium-Ion battery capable of being charged to 80 per cent of its full capacity in under 60 seconds. According to the company, a full charge takes just “a few more minutes”.
Toshiba prototype ‘one-minute charge’ Li-ion battery can be recharged about 60 times faster than conventional lithium ion batteries, with the company claiming that the technology could be commercialised for portable electronics products in about three years.
Toshiba has developed two prototype batteries, with the smaller prototype (measuring 3.8mm by 62mm by 35mm) retaining 99 percent of its capacity after being charged 1,000 times, and the company are claiming that their fast-charging batteries will have about the same life as conventional rivals.
The company has been shouting about the new battery’s eco-credentials, pointing out that the fast recharging time will consume less energy than today’s Li-ion cells, leading to reduced carbon-dioxide emissions.
And, as they say on shampoo adverts, here’s the science: Toshiba clever technology uses “nano-particles” to “prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging. The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode”.
So, err, now you know.
Toshiba’s ‘miracle’ battery will come to market next year, the company said, initially in automotive and industrial applications.
Toshiba announce Billy Whizz memory chip
Meanwhile, those crazy speed freaks at Toshiba have been busy making the earth go faster with an announcement that they have been sampling computer memory chips with the “world’s fastest data rate.”
The 512Mb XDR (extreme data rate) DRAM chips run at a turbo-charged speed of 4.8GHz, which is about 12 times faster than that of the memory typically found in today’s desktop PCs.
DRAM is the main type of memory used in PCs and servers. The faster the memory, the more smoothly computers tend to work with the increased speed offering better graphics and gaming performance.
Working at the 4.8GHz speed, the chips deliver a bandwidth of 12.8GBps, making them suitable for use in high-end digital TVs and PC graphics applications.
If more voltage is used, the chips can work at a peak operating speed of 6.4GHz, according to Toshiba.
XDR memory technology was developed by U.S.-based Rambus, with the chips incorporating Rambus’s ODR (octal data rate) signalling, which can transfer eight bits of data per clock cycle, according to Toshiba.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Japan’s Elpida Memory have also licensed XDR technologies from Rambus, and both chip companies plan to go into mass production of 512Mb XDR chips in the second half of 2005.
Toshiba made it past the post first, with Kim Soo-Kyoum, program director for semiconductor research at market research company IDC commenting, “Yes, it looks like Toshiba’s is the first … and yes, it’s the fastest … but Samsung and Elpida have similar schedules.”
Adoption of XDR as a main memory in high-end computing will start during 2007, according to a December 2004 report by IDC.
Toshiba
31 March, 2005
Legend of Mir 3 Gamer Killed After Selling Virtual Sword
In a shocking example of virtual life crashing into real life, a Shanghai online game player stabbed his gaming pal in the chest multiple times after he learned that he had stolen approximately US$870 (£462/€671) from the sale of a powerful “dragon sabre”, jointly owned by both players.
The “dragon sabre” sword didn’t actually exist in real life – it was an artifact used in the popular online fantasy game, “Legend of Mir 3”, featuring heroes and villains, sorcerers and warriors, many of whom wield enormous swords.
Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after learning that he had sold his “dragon sabre.”
Chengwei and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan (£464/US$872/€673), according to the China Daily.
Qui went to the police to report the “theft” but we can only assume the desk sergeant couldn’t get his head around the notion of something that doesn’t exist being stolen. If you get our drift.
Still fuming, Chengwei popped around to have a word with Caoyuan who didn’t convince with his promises to pay him for the sword.
Eventually, Chengwei lost patience and let rip with a real-life knife that was most definitely sharp and very pointy, killing Caoyuan with stab wounds to the chest.
Chengwei gave himself up to police and has already pleaded guilty to intentional injury.
No verdict has yet been announced.
This tragic incident highlights the problems online gamers are having protecting their online property, with some experts suggesting that cyber armour and swords in games should be deemed as private property as they cost players both money and time.
But some legal experts aren’t impressed: “The ‘assets’ of one player could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just data created by game providers,” a lawyer for a Shanghai-based Internet game company was quoted as saying.
However, online game companies in Shanghai – the city with the most players – are planning to set up a dispute system where aggrieved players can find recourse.
Shang Jiangang, a lawyer with the newly established Shanghai Online Game Association, commented that “the association has drafted some measures to facilitate the settlement of disputes over virtual assets”, adding, “once any cyberweapon stealing occurs, players can report to the operator, which will then sort it out according to the circumstances.”
31 March, 2005
MSNVideoDownloads.com Launches For Mobile Devices
Microsoft has launched MSN Video Downloads, a spanking new mobile service that will provide daily television programming for downloading to Windows Mobile devices, such as Portable Media Centers, Smartphones and Pocket PCs.
MSN Video Downloads will shunt out a wide range of daily content including, sports highlights, news headlines, children’s programming, music videos, independent films and comedy shows.
The video content will be produced by companies such as MSNBC.com, FOX Sports Food Network, and IFILM Corp.
Users will be able to download the digital videos daily to a Windows Media Player 10 library, ready to be synchronised with their portable device.
The video content is compliant with ‘PlaysForSure’ video devices, and is optimised for Portable Media Centers and compatible with Smartphones and Pocket PCs that support Windows Media Player 10 Mobile.
A one-year premium “all you can eat” membership to the service costs $19.95, while freeloaders can access a limited amount of free content without a paid membership.
The service lets subscribers select the specific content they want downloaded daily to their XP-based PC each day. A new automatic deleting feature lets users specify how long they want MSN Video downloads to remain on their PC, thus avoiding a large backlog of clips.
“The launch of Portable Media Centers in 2004 began a new era of portable entertainment, and today’s announcement solidifies the continued momentum we’ve seen for portable video,” purred John Pollard, director of Windows Mobile Applications and Services Marketing at Microsoft.
“With content from some of the most recognized brands in entertainment, MSN Video Downloads helps bring this vision to life, allowing people to take their favourite television shows with them whether they are on the train, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, or keeping the kids occupied in the back seat of the car.”
Josh Martin, associate research analyst at IDC, was on hand to tell us that “Readily available digital video content remains a key driver for the portable multimedia player market,” adding that “the proliferation and growth of video service providers will serve to fill the existing video content void and increase adoption of portable multimedia players such as Windows Mobile-based devices.”
In other words, people want easy-to-find and easy-to-download quality video content to slap on their mobile devices and Microsoft hope to grab a large chunk of the action with this service.
WatchMusicHere.com announces music video deal.
Another company, CinemaNow has also started offering mobile video downloads with its newly launched service, WatchMusicHere.com
The company will offer music videos from multiple genres ranging from classics to the latest chart-topping videos, priced from US$1.99 (£1.06, €1.55) to US$2.99 (£1.60, €2.33) for a permanent copy (viewable for an unlimited number of times on the selected playback device).
All music videos on the site will be made available in multiple formats for playing on traditional PCs, laptops and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile-based secure devices including the Portable Media Centers, Pocket PCs and select Smartphones.
Users will be able to download the appropriate format and then transfer the video file to the secure device using Windows Media Player 10.
The company says that this announcement marks a major shift for record labels as they are now offering, for the first time, both classic and new music videos for purchase on-demand.
The site will launch with 75 music videos with over 1,500 additional titles expected to be available by December, 2005.
Windows Mobile
MSN Videodownloads
WatchMusicHere.com
31 March, 2005
Nuenen: Netherland’s Largest Fiber-to-the-Home Network Opens
Last week, deputy Director-General Mr Broesterhuizen of the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs officially opened the Netherland’s largest Fiber-to-the-Home (FttH) network in Nuenen, a village in the south of The Netherlands.
The Dutch haven’t messed about here: the entire village is covering 7,500 households, shops, offices, schools, elderly homes, sports clubs, churches, hotels and health institutes.
This provides over 15,000 people with access to super high-speed internet access (up to 100 Mbps full duplex), with several other services (telephony, TV, and unique local services) following soon.
The Nuenen network (try saying that after a few drinks) is part of the Kenniswijk Project, an Dutch government initiative to encourage public and private organisations to start experimenting with and deploying FttH infrastructure and broadband services.
By summer 2005, approximately 16,000 FttH connections will be up and running in the Kenniswijk area, with over “100 innovative services” being developed, of which 50 are already available.
With the Dutch Government having no direct investment in the infrastructure, FttH in the Netherlands is a fully market-driven process.
Previously, companies weren’t too keen to invest their wedge in such untested, large scale ventures, but a new business model was used in Nuenen which made it possible to get this huge project up and running within just 6 months.
The business model works by individual households joining a cooperative society – “Ons Net” (Our Network) – which pays for and owns the network.
This ensures a high degree of user commitment and an extremely high degree of active users (a whopping great 97% in Nuenen).
These impressive figures have shown housing corporations, banks and the money men that it is a relatively safe and worthwhile investment, thus easing potential financial bottlenecks in the large-scale deployment of FttH elsewhere.
The success of the scheme has created a blueprint for FttH projects in the rest of the Netherlands, with lots of other countries expressing a keen interest in the ‘Ons Net solution’.
Ons Net has also led to the development of innovative local broadband services, ranging from video consultations by family doctors to church services and sports broadcasts, offering interesting examples of how the internet can benefit communities.
Kenniswijk Project
30 March, 2005
Vodafone Access Control: Mobile Porn Block Offered To Dutch
As of early May, Dutch Vodafone customers will be able to say ‘nr!’ to saucy adult content offered via Vodafone live! from their mobile phone.
A new ‘Vodafone Access Control’ service created in partnership with De Kijkwijzer allows sleaze-allergic customers to customise their mobile needs by allowing them to block adult content.
But who the chuffin’ Nora is De Kijkwijzer, do we hear you ask?
A quick rattle of the keys at babelfish tells us that De Kijkwijzer means “Look indicator” and their Web site reveals that it is a “classification system to advise and warn parents and educators about the possibly harmful influences that children may experience from a programme or film.”
This classification is carried out by suppliers of audiovisual productions for the Dutch market, including both public service broadcasters and commercial broadcasting organisations.
With hand-rubbing porn-shifters keenly eying up a growing – and lucrative – mobile multimedia market, it makes sense for telcos to be able to reassure parents that young Timmy’s new handset isn’t going to become a mobile gateway into the portals of smut.
With this in mind, Vodafone will only be offering sexually explicit content to its ‘postpaid’ customers, a service only provided for over 16s.
Using ‘Vodafone Access Control’, customers wanting to avoid titillation will have the ability to block access to the saucy stuff by simply calling Vodafone Customer Services.
The service will only be offered in Holland, but we expect other telcos to follow suit.
Vodafone
De Kijkwijzer
30 March, 2005