Simon Perry

Big UK DAB Radio Sales in December
DAB radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is really taking off in the UK.
Sales figures for the all important christmas period are now in. How many do you think were sold? Get ready for it – a gnat’s whisker short of 500,000! That’s just in the UK in December. Close to a third of all DAB sets sold that years.
As at the end of December there’s over 2.7m DAB sets having been sold so far. It’s not hard to see that the hockey stick curve is really getting considerably steeper.
When DAB sets like the new Asono DAB1 are becoming available, it’s hardly surprising that people are getting encouraged to make the switch. What a lovely bit of kit
We thing that the sheer quality of BBC radio, 4 in particular, is a major reason why the UK is being seduced by DAB.
Referring to the competition from the increasing popular digital music players, in particular the iPod, DRDB (Digital Radio Development Bureau) chief executive, Ian Dickens said: “Christmas on the High Street was a tough proposition this year. DAB digital radio was once again a shining light with independents, the multi-nationals and especially the mass-merchandisers enjoying strong sales right through the holidays and into January.”
The continued growth of DAB is hoped to receive a further boost as uber-regulator, OfCom, plans to release further, new DAB-able spectrum.
Digital Radio Development Bureau
Asono DAB1
3 February, 2006
iPod fittings on HMS Darling: Still Valid In 2009?
You may have heard about yesterdays launching of the latest UK warship – HMS Darling (its ninth incarnation), a Type 45 Destroyer.
Now this is a serious bit of kit, that not only costs about £605m, but is 150-metres long and is a hefty 7,350 tonnes
We happened to hear the launching ceremony on the radio, and the reporter was fairly stunned by its pace down the runway into the water. Luckily there was over 160-tonnes of chains on each side of the ship to make sure it didn’t bash into the other side.
The constructors are putting it about that the the Principal Anti-Air Missile System (PAAMS to those in the know) “can trace and destroy hostile objects as small a cricket ball travelling at three times the speed of sound. Its range is effective over a radius of several hundred miles.” Which I’m sure is reassuring when you’re floating around in the middle of an ocean on a bit of metal, and people are throwing things at you, you rather they didn’t. The summary – don’t mess.
As well as all of the killing parts, it’s also got a cuddly side, which frankly is the side that interests us more. The 230 crew will be treated quite unlike any other Navy.
Not only will the accommodation be individual cabins, in the “Hotel Facilities”, but each of them will have an I-pod charging point, CD player, internet access and a five channel recreational audio.
The potentially embarrassing thing about the audio tech on board is that, when this monster is fully commissioned in 2009, it’s highly likely that both the iPod and its charging point will have been superseded and that the CD payer will be of very little use too.
If you’re interested in buying one, do let BAE Systems know that you saw it on Digital-Lifestyles, and we’ll hopefully get a referral payment.
If you’re interested in the technology on board, there’s a fair bit of detail at Darling.org.uk, as well as the Royal Navy’s own site, and the dedicated site on the via)
2 February, 2006
Anyone Got A Job For Free Culture IP Lawyer?
Inga Chernyak, until recently, had a legal clerk job at an IP law firm in New York City. On the 26 January she was called in to the firms HR department and fired.
Why does that make news in Digital-Lifestyles?
Her claim is that she was told it was because she’d appeared in an article in the New York’s Village Voice, discussing the Lawrence Lessig-inspired Free Culture movement. The article came out in the Village Voice on 10 January. She was fired on the 26th.
She also assets that they told her that her “views about what the firm does were incompatible with…what the firm does.” Her views on the expansion of Copyright laws are that they place overt restrictions on the population as a whole.
There may be those who think that it’s pretty obvious that is you work in an IP firm; wanting to train as an IP lawyer; you hold views that IP law is over restrictive; then have your name and photo featured in an article that starts by describing how to circumvent CD DRM protection and are a founder of NYU chapter of the Free Culture movement – you’re going to end up in trouble said IP law firm. Others cry foul.
Given how the blogging world works, I’d imagine that this incident will far from harm her career, and as she says in her own words, “as a member of the Free Culture movement, and a young woman of 19 without children to support, I can afford to take this blow in the name of progress.”
Take a stand against DRM? Get fired from your day job
2 February, 2006
BBC World Now On Australian And Norwegian Mobile Phones
BBC World have been busy bunnies of late, signing distribution deals all over the globe.
Two of the most recent, in the last week are Telenor Nordic Mobile and Hutchinson/3 Australia. Both have signed deals to deliver the BBC’s commercial news service, BBC World, to mobile handsets.
Mobile subscribers who have compatible 3G handsets will be able to watch live running 24-house news, streamed to their handsets.
The video streams include the adverts that would be shown if BBC World were being shown on the TV in the region. As yet, BBC World aren’t charging their advertisers any extra to splash them on mobile screens – they’re seeing it as added value for them
As far as who pays what to whom (BBC World) varies on the mobile company and if the mobile subscribers are being charged to receive the service to their mobile, on top of data fees. Some of the mobile operators currently provide the service for gratis, while others include it in content bundles.
In general, we’ve found that there’s not too many Mobile companies that are charging for video content currently, as they are ~~desperate~~ very keen to get people to sign up to receive video so they get in the habit of watching ~~and get addicted~~. Having said that, things are starting to change and you can expect the freebies to start drying up.
In the 3/Hutchinson Australia deal, the subscribers are being asked to pay Au$4/month for unlimited access, Au$2/day or Au$0.50/two minutes.
The management and delivery of the service for Telenor is being handled by Rubberduck Media Lab, a subsidiary of the Mobile Media Company.
BBC World is a separate entity to the UK license-funded BBC, and its normal commercial cousin, BBC Worldwide. They’re free to do deals, as long as they’re outside the UK. They now distribute their service to mobile in eight countries – Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Bahrain, Malaysia and Australia.
BBC World
Mobile Media
2 February, 2006
First UK Filesharers Sued By BPI
News has broken that two men in the UK have been found liable for file sharing their music. The first ruling of its kind in the UK.
Both men who were ruled against are, as yet, unnamed. The details that are know are – one is a postman, father of two and living in Brighton; the other living in King’s Lynn.
King’s Lynn, as we shall call him, has been instructed to pay £5,000 ‘down-payment’ on costs and damages, Brighton must pay £1,500. Both have been instructed to stop filesharing.
Having been found liable, the two are now exposed to the BPI’s legal fees. Given the City law firms the BPI use, where it’s not unusual to pay £200/hours for their services, it’s going to be an expensive business. BPI have stated that “Total costs are estimated at £13,500 and damages are expected to take the bill even higher.”
Each defense used a different argument. The first, that the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement; the second on the grounds that he was unaware that what he was doing was illegal and did not seek to gain financially.
The second case was dismissed by Judge Justice Lawrence Collins declaring, “Ignorance is not a defence,” which we thought was known by one and all. Given the weakness of this defence, we imagine that this person must have defended themselves. Details of argument against the first were no disclosed.
The names of the people who were sued haven’t been released by the BPI. When we asked for their names, we were told they weren’t to be made available as, “we don’t want to put them through anymore stress.” A bit strange when the stress they’re under, which we imagine to be pretty considerable, would have been caused by the BPI’s actions.
This route, taking legal action against members of the public, has been well trod in the US. Reaction there has been varied from Hurrah! from the majority of the US music business – to Boo! from a large number of citizens, who in reaction have threatened not to buy music from the major music companies.
The BPI is obviously taking this opportunity to pressure the 51 file-sharers that they have in their sights, urging them settle. We suspect that many will take the hint.
27 January, 2006
ZipTV: UK iTV Pioneer Falters
A great shame to hear that ZipTV has had to enter receivership.
ZipTV launched in July 2004 with high ideals. Their original aim was to take on the mighty power of Sky and create an interactive advertising channel running in parallel to Sky TV’s programming.
They way it worked was, as the punters were watching ‘normal’ TV and an advert from one of ZipTV’s clients was shown, a press of the Red button on the remote control (the UK standard for interaction), would take the punter away from the ‘normal’ TV show, to a dedicated TV channel. This gave the advertiser the opportunity to show an 8 minute video advert, but just pay for a 30-second spot-ad to get them there.
A very neat idea, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Taking on Sky, especially their income-generating advertising is … well, brave to say the least. If you were contemplating it, it’s the sort of thing you check with your lawyer, bank manager and then frankly, your psychiatrist before doing. We’re not sure if ZipTV did any of these.
You see Sky, and it’s very competent employees and owner, Rupert Murdoch don’t muck around. If they see some bright young things coming along with a super wheeze they will drain their income – it will get their attention – and not in a good, cuddly way.
In advance of launching, ZipTV gathered some of the biggest advertisers around, including Honda, BT and Unilever, but some were lots prior to their launch.
Not surprisingly Andrew Howells, founder and joint managing partner at Zip TV, said, “Having a genuine alternative to Sky is a necessity. There is only room for one alternative and it needs to be an independent one.”
26 January, 2006
Google.cn Censorship. Don’t Be Greedy
It was with great disappointment and a heavy heart that we heard that Google had compromised their search results in China, excluding results the Chinese government didn’t find acceptable. In effect becoming the government’s censor.
Why would a company whose strap-line was Don’t be Evil do this? The draw of the potential of huge amounts of income in the future has to figure large. The business logic being, if you’re not in China (they’ve been blocked by the Chinese for years), your global future looks less assured.
We suspect that the public reaction around the world, won’t be quite as accepting, as was signaled in the Radio 4’s business interview this morning with Google‘s Senior Policy Counsel, Andrew McLaughlin.
McLaughlin’s attempt to draw parallels between the censorships that they’re required to carry out in Germany for terms around the Nazi’s and their actions in China were slapped down by Greg Wood, the interviewer.
“The situation is different in those countries, because the users of your Web services in countries like Germany, also have some influence in drafting the laws that ban access to Nazi-realted sites, and that’s not the case in China – is It?
McLaughlin’s tell us that they’ve taken a year to develop the idea. We suspect a good deal of that time has been spent trying to figure out how to sell this terrible compromise to their current customers/believers.
We feel this single action has marked the start of the end of the Google-fanatics relationship with the company.
It’s not that we think that people will stop searching on Google, it’s just that they won’t trust Google implicitly any more
Importantly, we feel that if another company came along offering a similar service – which isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility – current Google users will feel a lot less concerned about making the switch.
It’s not like people haven’t change search engines before – remember when nothing but AltaVista existed for search?
It appears that Google now feel that they are so vital to the world that they can act against the wishes of the vast majority of their users. We can’t help but to draw strong parallels to many Western governments of late.
We hate to burst your bubble Google, but the reality is that the World could live with a similar service, and not notice the loss of Google.
Those who don’t like what Google has done, and really want to change their mind have an easy means at their disposal – take away their income.
Where Google would really start to suffer is by Web sites removing their Google TextAds from their sites – and bloggers seem like an ideal start for this.
After all, from their China/censorship actions, it’s clear that Google’s really driven by income. Added to this, we also know that Google isn’t primarily a search engine company, it’s an advertising company. Removing their adverts means to removing their income.
25 January, 2006
NATPE 2006
24.Jan – 26.Jan.06 NATPE 2006 is the only American market serving the worldwide television industry. Attending the annual conference January 24-26 under one roof at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center in Las Vegas offers you a clear vantage point to view the global television community. Whether you’re looking to meet with colleagues, find new partners, learn about the burgeoning business opportunities of mobile and digital or share ideas, it’s all under one roof at NATPE 2006. Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas http://www.natpe.org/conference/
24 January, 2006
Are They/ Aren’t They? – Pixar/Disney
(Digg this!)
Over the last couple of weeks there’s been a lot of speculation that Disney are going to be bidding to buy Pixar, the digital animation studio that’s supplied the majority of Disney’s successful computer-generated animation successes.
The Telegraph got very excited over the weekend and jumped the gun on the purchase, to announce that Pixar had in-fact already been bought by Disney. The poor dears, obviously embarrassed about their blunder, have replaced the story (without mention of the cockup) on the original URL to say that Jobs _would_ receive about $3.5Bn for his share of Pixar. The whole deal is rumored to be worth $7.5Bn, achieved through a stock swap.
Jobs hasn’t done too badly with the $10m that he paid for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm in 1986, that he then turned into Pixar as we know and love it now. It is thought that if the deal were to complete, Jobs would become the largest single Disney shareholder.
As it is now understood, negotiation between the two parties have taken place, but the boards of both companies have yet to make their decisions.
With mutterings abounding that Jobs may become the Chair of Disney, they’d gain a huge boost with the personal PR ranking that Jobs has fashioned for himself to become the darling of all things Digital.
(Digg this!)
23 January, 2006
Oxford Media Convention 2006
19.Jan.06 The 2006 Oxford Media Convention organised by ippr in association with MediaGuardian and PCMLP, Oxford University will focus on the role of public service broadcasting and media regulation in a digital age. Convergence, which has been talked about for so long, is finally upon us, as the internet and mobile phones are gradually becoming viable platforms for consuming and sharing all forms of content. The public contract between media companies and citizens is being rewritten, with fundamental reviews of the BBC and other broadcasters, to bring them in line with the new giants of audiovisual. Saïd Business School, Oxford University, UKhttp://media.guardian.co.uk/oxfordmediaconvention
19 January, 2006