Simon Perry

IFA Berlin CE Show Yearly From Now On
Last year took ourselves to Berlin to attend IFA. Being the first time we’d attended we were _totally_ blow away at the size of the place – it’s massive. Every side of the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry was covered, from the smallest to the largest with the later building their own houses (Siemens, Deutsche Telekom).
Previously it’s been on every two years and, acknowledging the speed that the CE world is now moving, the German CE trade body, gfu and event organisers, messe-Berlin have now realised a year gap between shows is impractical. IFA 2006 will mark the start of them moving to a yearly show, frankly so they don’t become obsolete – oh and there’s the benefit of all of that extra income, so course.
Dr Christian Göke told us he was “convinced that there would be an increased difference between work and home in the future,” and that this would be one of the reasons that IFA would continue in its position as the second largest CE show in the world.
Asked why IFA was so loved by trade visitors, his answer was simple, “We treat them as VIP’s. Nothing is too much and they feel very special.” Sounds like a recipe for success to us, one that could easily be learned by many other shows around the world.
We understand that exhibition space has been selling like hot Strudel, with over 80% gone already. They also spreading their wings to include companies like mobile giant o2.
One of our major gripes last year was that with us being linguistically-challenged (being English ‘n’ tha’) some of the press conferences were held only in German. Reasonable being it was in Berlin, but not great for attracting an International audience. From now on they’ll all be held in English. Hurrah!
So if you fancy joining us, get yourself over to Berlin, 1-6 September.
IFA 2006
4 May, 2006
OpenStreetMap To Free The Isle of Wight (Map)
OpenStreetMap, an organisation that is using consumer technology to create copyright-free maps, is meeting this weekend (5-7 May) on the Isle of Wight – to map the whole Island and give the data away under a Creative Commons license.
Driven by a united belief that mapping information should be free, the thirty plus volunteers gathered from the Isle of Wight, the wider UK, Germany and nine from Norway will be gathering their GPS kits, and taking themselves around the Island. They’ll be heading out in cars, on bicycles and on foot to explore the diamond-shaped, 22 x 14 mile island, covering the 147 square miles (381 square km).
“The Isle of Wight is a manageable size, one we believe can be mapped over the space of a weekend,” said Nick Black one of the co-ordinators, “Not only will the roads be covered, but the walkers plan to get as many of the footpaths mapped as possible too. This is a group effort.”
Once the GPS data is combined with notes of road names taken via audio recordings or even notebooks (shock horror), accurate mapping data will be put into the OpenStreetMap system for all to share. Quite different to the huge cost that the Ordnance Survey (OS) is asking for similar data.
Why so expensive?
We’ve always been unsure why the cost of licensing the maps of the UK is so prohibitory expensive. How much? Well according to the BBC TV show QI, the full Ordnance Survey (OS) map data of 2002, the most detailed map of Great Britain, sells for £30,000 for every town, or £4,099,000 for the whole country” (ref). Ouch!
Let’s be clear about this, UK tax payers money has been and is being used to collect and collate this data, but UK citizens and businesses are charged to use it. The Ordnance Survey argument is that it needs the money to maintain its high standards of mapping, employing around 350 surveyors as they do.
Strange, but we’ve not noticed the UK randomly shifting around during the night, so they’re clearly not remapping daily. What they are doing is seeking to obtain a 20cm absolute accuracy for their large-scale data. This will then be sold on to those who can afford it.
It’s not just commercial organisations that have to pay for accessing such information. On a parallel track, look at postcode and address information. As Charles Arthur and Michael Cross pointed out in their article in the Guardian, local authorities often collect much of this information and then have to pay to access that self, same information.
A local authority such as Swindon has to pay OS £38,000 a year to use its addresses and geographical data. It also has to pay the Royal Mail £3,000 for every website that includes the facility for people to look up their postcodes. Yet it was local authorities, which have a statutory duty to collect street addresses, that collected much of this data.
If you’re not submerged in this world, it may surprise you to find out that the United States actually gives its mapping data away for free. So through agents like Navtec, and Teleatlas, it ends up on applications like Yahoo & Google maps. Innovation like that isn’t possible in the UK as it falls at the first hurdle – that of huge expense.
We’re proud that we’d been knocking the same Isle of Wight idea around the Digital-Lifestyles offices for a while now. Our thinking, it’s such a perfect, containable location for technology experiments. It’s an area where trials can be carried out, proven, then expanded to wider areas.
Wake up and smell the technology
Here’s the stark reality – technology in the hands of enthused members of the public is changing for ever the business models in many areas. Movements like OpenStreetMap will succeed in mapping the UK.
Not only that but access to their data will be better that the current the OS offering. It will include additional information that the public has contributed such as photo’s, audio recordings, text descriptions, etc.
Organisation like the OS who do not let their data free will be be left clutching hold of something whose value has been severely diminished, if not zero’d.
Come and join in
Previously thought of as a sleepy backwater, the Isle of Wight is under going a renaissance, with an explosion of musical and artistic talent in wide abundance, much of it concentrated on a Victorian town called Ventnor (disclosure: We love Ventnor).
We’re going to be there and if you fancy a weekend travelling around a beautiful Island, then get in touch with OpenStreetMap via their wiki. There’s still time to get yourselves there and help change the world (a little) for the better – one step at a time.
OpenStreetMap, Isle of Wight Workshop
OpenStreetMap
OneMap – Norwegian project
The Isle of Wight
3 May, 2006
Man Vs Machine
Tuesday 2 May-Tuesday 16 May 2006 The events feature Do-It-Yourself robots (or how to make a robot in ten minutes!) and a demonstration from the next generation of robot to be used on Mars. Also up for discussion is how computing is affecting creativity and how military research into robotics is set to change the landscape of war forever. Experts at the Dana Centre events include scientists from the University of Aberystwyth’s Intelligent Robotics department and Dr Chris Langley from Scientists for Global Responsibility, who will outline the extent of power the UK military has over the development of science and technology. As the world enters a new age of robotics, the Dana Centre – the Science Museum’s bar and café for adults to discuss contemporary science, technology, the environment and medicine – asks: what are the implications of a cyborg society? Dana Centre, 165 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5HD www.danacentre.org.uk
2 May, 2006
Spam Filters Force Mark Steyn Into A Surprising Place
The “Old Media” is still struggling with the idea of the Internet – and discovering that embarrassing mistakes can’t be swept under the carpet. On the Internet, insults are permanent, the Guardian has discovered.
And can it be that someone senior on the London Evening Standard has a soft spot for Mark Steyn? There has to be a reason why the paper’s Web site has unaccountably failed to repeat a story which reflected rather little credit on Steyn – or on the editorial production process at a rival newspaper, the Guardian.
The story that should have been printed was one about the blog of “internet cannibal” Kevin Underwood. It seems that Mr Underwood was a man in terminal spiritual melt-down, because not only did he eat people, but he also wanted to buy a copy of “The Vagina Monologues” from Amazon.
The story ran in the Guardian. It is still there, but if you read it, you’ll be puzzled indeed by a scathing attack on the story posted by Scott Burgess in his “meeja critic” blog. Burgess not only hates the way Brown wrote, but expresses himself baffled by a “laughable” error by Andrew Brown:
To quote Burgess: “Hilariously, Mr. Brown takes special care to note (brackets in original) that: ‘Underwood also kept a wish list on Amazon, which has now disappeared, but is reported to have contained The [Mark Steyn] Monologues’ – the [Mark Steyn] Monologues? What the heck is that?! Has Mr. Steyn been doing some work of which I’ve been unaware?”
Read the story as it is today on the Guardian web site; you’ll see that Burgess is quite right to point out that the book in question was, as the cannibal admits, “The Vagina Monologues.”
“How could Mr. Brown possibly have made such a laughable error?” stormed Burgess, asking “Is it simply due to his own sloppiness, or is there a macro installed on all Guardian computers that changes ‘Vagina’ into ‘Mark Steyn’, and vice versa? Both seem equally likely.”
The explanation is no secret. Tuesday, a week after the error, the Guardian printed a correction, both online and in the paper version. It tersely said: “The Vagina Monologues, which we intended to refer to in eBay, Manga and murder, page 2, G2, April 19, became, bizarrely, The [Mark Steyn] Monologues.”
How did it happen? The writer, Andrew Brown, explains that he sent the article on Underwood to the Guardian via email. Brown himself reports succinctly enough on what happened then:
“It got held up there by the spam filters — this seems to happen to my copy quite often — so I had to send another version with all the naughty words replaced by square-bracketed euphemisms. They all seemed clear enough to me, and all but one was obviously clear to the sub who did, however, let through the phrase “a copy of the [Mark Steyn] monologues”.
No insult, obviously, was intended to the eminent writer, Steyn. But it looks like some people have got cold feet. Today’s London Evening Standard, early editions, reported that the Guardian had not covered itself with glory: “Great copytaking of our time,” it crowed in its Wednesday Media section; “Yesterday’s Guardian included the correction…” and quoted the correction, as given above, in full.
Two hours later, the “West End Final” edition of the Standard appeared. You can search it all you like, but you won’t find a reference to Steyn, nor to vaginas.
We’ll leave it to Private Eye to summarise it: see illustration – alas, a story which the satirical fortnightly had not managed to upload to its online edition by press time. But you can buy a copy at any London newsagent… And if, at the end of that, you’re still puzzled, you might like to read today’s Daily Mirror, on all the words beginning with the letter “C” which might apply to Tory Party leader, David Cameron.
And if you still don’t get it, you probably cant.
28 April, 2006
UK SMS Record In March 2006
It’s with absolutely no surprise that news reaches us that the number of text (SMS) messages has reached a record high.
Initially you wouldn’t think that March would have any particular special reasons to get punters putting fingers to (small) keyboard and waxing lyrical, but frankly the number of mobile phone users compared with number of those that can have the ability to use SMS are no equal yet. As little Johnny persuade his grandma/mother/any elder relative that the only way they’re only way that they’re going to be able to communicate is via the keyboard she can hardly see, never mind type on to, the number of messages will go up.
The previously largest number of texts that were sent was 3.11Bn (yes, billion) which was in the far more likely month of December, as people cut corners and got lazy by sending xmas texts instead of bothering to make a card and send it to their ‘friends’.
March 2006 hit a profit-enhancing 3.19Bn messages, up a digit-bleeding 24% on the same period last year. The Mobile Data Association (MDA), who publish the figures, put it down to Mother’s Day, which, if true, is frankly a sad reflection on Uk society.
26 April, 2006
UKTV Sports Live Broadband Euroleague Basketball First
UKTV Sports have announced that they will be premiering Euroleague Basketball live on Broadband, rather than their more normal means, on the goggle box (TV).
PremierTV, a sports rights agency, are working with UKTV to provide clearance of the content and are providing the technical aspects of the delivery. They have built a broadband subscription site, UKTVSlam.tv, and plan to deliver live streaming of two key Euroleague Basketball games each week.
We spoke to Martin Henlan, Sports development manager at UKTV Sports to dig a bit deeper into the story.
Henlan raised a very valid point. Currently there’s no research available for how, or even if, people will consume niche sports over broadband in the UK. If UKTV were to commission a study it would cost them considerably more money than them just getting down and carrying out the trial themselves. We love this let’s-just-do-it approach, but suspect media consultancies all over the world will be meeting is little huddles trying to figure out how they can counter this plain common-sense.
Interestingly, and quite against normal conventions, UKTV will be using the TV shows to promote the broadband, pay-for content. Henlan said they were “looking to build a community and a service, where we can learn valuable lessons, with the potential to take this knowledge to coverage of other sports.”
We find the pricing slightly confusing – either a one-off annual payment, £39.99 (E57, $70) ; annual direct debit payment, £34.99; or a monthly direct debit payment, £3.99.
In our book, at those prices you’ve got to be a pretty devoted basketball fan (and it’s claimed that there are over a million in the UK), to be happy to pay £35 and up to. For the cash they will see only two basketball games a week, delivered as it will be for most of the viewers, to a PC. Clearly the whole offering becomes more attractive if you have your home media centre attached in your cinema room – but the number who currently have this is an insignificant number.
PremierTV will also provide the video-on-demand technology for basketball fans to access video highlights of every other Euroleague Basketball match played each week, as well as Euroleague Basketball news and features.
Due to content licensing deals, the content will be geo-blocked – in an effort to try and ensure the content is not seen outside the UK and Eire.
This coming Friday there will be free access to the the live game, so what are you waiting for? Give it a go.
UKTVSlam.tv
UKTV Sports
25 April, 2006
African Movie Channel To HomeChoice – Niche Lives!
Proving Niche is alive and living on UK IPTV pioneer HomeChoice, they’ve today announced an African Movie Channel, self described as “the UK’s first channel dedicated to showing new and recent releases from the major African film production houses.”
The newly formed African Movie Channel tell us that that they are focused on Africans currently residing in the UK, as well as Britons and non-Britons of African and Afro-Caribbean descent, and anyone with historical connections to Africa.
Lola Onigbogi, African Movie Channel, said: “To launch the African Movie Channel on HomeChoice is a very important and exciting step for us. Demand for both classic and new release African movies is very high in the UK, where there is a large African population.”
We’ve got to admit that our knowledge of African cinema is pretty weak, but then again, we’re not the target niche. We hear from HomeChoice that they’ve got an initial stable of 100’s of film available though the on-demand section of the service. These include classic films such as Violated, Osofia in London and Madam Dearest and new and recent releases staring favorite African actors like Richard Mofe-Damijo, Genevieve Nnaji and Olu Jacobs.
On another side, we see that HomeChoicePR department have their own MySpace account, which we think is pretty enterprising, but it does make some of us at Digital-Lifestyles wonder, are we the only people without at least one MySpace? We also note the perversity of Nick S having a “huge DVD collection”, given he works for a VOD company!
HomeChoice
24 April, 2006
NAB2006
From entertainment to news to business communications, NAB2006 is the only global event that covers the entire spectrum of media. Experience comprehensive business and technology insights and innovations covering every aspect of audio and video content production, management and distribution across all forms of media. http://www.nabshow.com/
22 April, 2006
Opera 9 Beta Includes BitTorrent Client
In the seemingly endless round of upgrades and improvements, Opera Software have just announced the first public Beta of Opera 9.
A number of new features have been included, those most relevant to the content world being a BitTorrent client built directly into the browser, so downloads can be kicked off without having to load a separate piece of software. BitTorrent is a distributed file-sharing protocol that enables the simple sharing of large files, without the need for a central server, or the bandwidth bills associated with it.
It will be interesting to see if Opera’s other customers who use the embedded version for Consumer Electronics chips, throw any objection to the inclusion of BitTorrent – given the content worlds near-obsessive dislike of it.
Widgets are being included. These will be familiar with Apple Mac users, as it will do with users of the Yahoo Widgets, after their purchase of Konfabulator. They’re little applications that can be written by users to provide features like a calendar, calculator, alarm clock, news headlines, weather reports, etc.
With the writers at Digital-Lifestyles being tab-monsters, we find one of the new features, thumbnail preview, highly desirable. By hovering over a tab, a miniature version of the page will popup to help you identify which page relates to which tab.
Among the other features in the new version are
- Content blocker – Choose the content you want to view. Remove ads or images – it is up to you. Right-click on the Web page and choose “Block content”
- Improved rich text editing – Take advantage of rich text editing capabilities when using the latest Web mail or blogging services
- Customize your search engines – Use your favorite search engine in the search box. Right-click on the site’s search field and select “Create search” from the menu
- Site-specific preferences – Do you need to view a site in a different way or deny certain cookies? Want to block pop-ups on certain sites only? Site specific preferences hold the key
Opera
20 April, 2006
Simply Hired, Job Site, Gets News Corp. Cash
News Corp continue their Internet-based investments by ~~chucking~~ jointly investing $13.5m into a jobs search engine company, Simply Hired Inc, with VC firm, Foundation Capita. Back in August, Simply Hired previously raised $3m in a Series B round.
Simply Hired has a different business model. Rather than solicit open job positions directly from potential employees, they gather job postings from a wide set of sites, including Monster, the Wall Street Journal, CareerBuilder, Hotjobs and craigslist. They currently make money from placing advertising next to the job search results.
Users can create searches for required jobs based on title, company name, location, or keywords. Once defined, jobs that pop into their system are altered to the users either via email or RSS.
Newspapers generally have been getting worried about their increasing losses from classified advertising, including job adverts.
Murdoch’s News Corp has been splashing the cash recently on a number of Internet business, the most high profile being MySpace (MySpace considered) for $580m.
Simply Hired News Corp
19 April, 2006