Simon Perry

PURE DMX-25 DAB Micro System With MP3 Playback Launched
Those lovely people at Pure have launched another means of listening to DAB radio and other audio, this time in a compact micro Hi-Fi form.
The new PURE DMX-25 DAB Micro System with MP3 playback comes with the ability to playback MP3/ WMA files from portable USB flash memory drives, SD memory cards and CDs. Beyond those terribly modern means, there’s also two auxiliary inputs, letting you connect iPod, MiniDisc or MP3 player.
This micro system is Micro with the main unit being 140mm wide and 150mm tall – not much wider than a CD case.
All the DAB goodies are available including autotuning to all available stations and scrolling text showing news, sports results, artist names and track titles (as long as it’s supported by the broadcaster). Pure tells us that some areas of the UK have up to 55 DAB stations these days.
The CD player isn’t just for the run of the mill audio CDs. It will playback CD-R and CD-RW disks with support for CD Text and audio CD playlists. The DMX-25 also plays back MP3-CDs, including support for ID3 tags, giving significantly increased capacity.
For those of you who love to know about the guts of what you’re buying – The DMX-25 is powered by the Frontier Chorus FS1010, which incorporates the revolutionary META multi-threaded processor and Universal Communications Core technologies developed by Imagination Technologies. So there!
DMX-25 is on sale from April 2007 from major retailers and independent hi-fi dealers nationwide for just £129.99 (SSP inc. VAT).
Tech Specs
Tuner: Stereo digital radio with full Band III and FM reception. ETS 300 410 compliant and capable of decoding all DAB transmission modes 1-4 up to and including 192 kbps. Supports FM RDS and RadioText.
Frequency ranges: Band III 174-240 MHz, FM 87.5-108 MHz.
CD Player: CD-R and CD-RW playback compatible. Support for 20 track audio CD playlist. Multiple playback modes (repeat, shuffle, etc.). MP3 & WMA playback, including support for ID3 tags.
Speakers: 4 Ohms (nominal) impedance. 10W RMS power handling. Two-way design. Treated paper mid-bass driver. Custom-tuned crossover. Rosewood finish. Removable grilles.
Input connectors: Two 3.5mm line-inputs for auxiliary devices. USB host port for flash-based memory sticks (key drives) and powered media devices. SD memory card support.
Output connectors: 3.5mm stereo output for headphones.
Controls: Power on/standby, clock/sleep, source, tune/select, menu, timer, info, presets, volume, play/pause, stop, fast forward, rewind and MP3 directory navigation.
Remote: Fully featured infrared remote control. Uses 2 AAA batteries (supplied).
Presets: 30 presets (10 DAB and 20 FM).
LCD Display: LCD display with 16 x 2 characters, plus additional function icons.
Mains power supply: 240V. Euro/UK power socket adapter.
Approvals: CE marked. Compliant with the EMC and Low Voltage Directives (89/336/EEC and 73/23/EEC).
Dimensions (mm): Unit – 140 wide x 150 high (280 with CD compartment open) x 230 deep (including controls). Speakers – 130 wide x 205 high x 160 deep.
Aerial: Wire dipole DAB/FM aerial.
Warranty: Comprehensive two year warranty.
Pure DMX-25
23 February, 2007
USB Rules Mobile Phone Interfacing
USB rules the roost for people loading and unloading content on and off their mobiles phones. It was employed in more handsets than all other interface standards combined in 2006, according to iSuppli Corp.
While the wireless alternatives of WiFi and Bluetooth might grab the news headlines, good old-fashioned USB keeps doing the doo, primarily because some sort of USB is on pretty much any computer since it’s introduction ten years ago.
iSupply think this dominance will continue to the point where, by the end of 2010, USB will still be the leading local interface, being included 764 million of all handsets shipped that year. They also think that Bluetooth will be fitted to all handsets, while NFC and WiFi will become stronger that their currently weak position.
Alongside getting content on and off the phone using the varied interfaces, there will be a corresponding increase in flash memory add-in cards. iSupply are predicting significant increases, with the 186m units shipped in 2005 increasing to 640m units in 2010.
It was interesting to note that the whole range of new Sony Ericsson phones were fitted with Memory Stick Micro (M2), and not the now-standard Memory Sticks. When we queried it with company people, they said that was the trend, allowing the size of the handsets to shrink.
iSupply
23 February, 2007
XBox 360 IPTV Coming To London
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 running as an IPTV box will be demonstrated in London for the first time in Europe on 5 March.
It’s had an outing at CES in January this year and was well received.
There’s little doubt that the X360 has the grunt to be able to act as an IPTV STB – if anything it’s total over kill, given the considerable graphics ability it has.
Here’s what Robbie Bach, Sr. VP and Chief Xbox Officer, said about IPTV Edition, the middleware that the network operator will run to power the IPTV-ness of the Xbox 360, “IPTV Edition enables you to do, regardless of whether you’re a cable provider or a telco or any net operator, you can take live media, on-demand media, across an IP network and put it into the home on a high-definition television, and you can do multiple streams of that content without having to have multiple tuners in the set-top box. You really can produce an amazing TV experience.”
He went on to explain it’s not just about selling the IPTV software to the head-end, “this product sells SQL Server, it sells Commerce Server, it sells the rest of our backbone into these operators, and really helps broaden our business.” Hmmm, Nice.
It’s also been on what they call “scale commercial deployments” with the BT Group in the UK, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, T-Online in France and Swisscom in Switzerland. AT&T is working with Microsoft in the US.
There’s a history here
When the original Xbox was launched, Microsoft spent an awful amount of effort in denying that it was a going to be used to bring them closer to the TV in the lounge.
Despite this, they did quietly release some add-on software package that allowed you to pull picture and music from a PC. We bought it to give it a go, and found it to be disastrous. Hugely bloated software that needed to loaded on the PC that was to share and disastrous software that loaded on the Xbox. It was rare that it worked at all.
We assume that the X360 is considerably better than this.
The US version of XBox Live already gives subscribers the ability to download films and TV programmes to their X360s.
22 February, 2007
Viacom Joost Deal Struck
US media giant, Viacom, have struck a deal with Joost, the VOD TV to computer previously known as The Venice Project.
Joost is currently in beta, and it’s understood that the Viacom material will be available for the yet-undefined launch date of Joost. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Joost users will have financially-free access to the content. Joost users will ‘pay’ by being shown brief adverts, that we call blip-verts. They only last a couple of seconds and aren’t _that_ offensive, if the video pieces that are being watched aren’t too short.
The Viacom channels covered by the deal are MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Spike TV, Logo and BET.
Clearly Philippe Dauman, Viacom President and Chief Executive Officer, is showing his excitement at being involved, “We’re extremely pleased to be working with Joost, and couldn’t be prouder to be a key partner in the launch of the next generation in broadband video technology.” He’s not looking at the Joost deal as an exclusive though, “we’re determined to keep pushing and growing our digital presence and bring our programming to audiences on every platform and device that they want. In addition to strong partnerships we have with traditional distributors, we will continue to seek out partners like Joost, which has created an exciting breakthrough platform that represents not only a fantastic user experience, but one that is built on a compelling and sustainable business model that respects both content creators and consumers.”
All of this comes only a couple of week after Viacom threw their legal department at YouTube, insisting that they remove their content from the video sharing site and accused Google-owned YouTube of knowingly profiting from material stolen from them.
Joost recently introduced a version of Joost to run on Apple’s Mac. Version 0.8.0.1 for Mac came out on Monday, following a brief period in Alpha test. They describe it as looking “very much like Joost for Windows, while behaving very much like a Mac application.” A growing number of Mac Beta testers are complaining that the software only works on Intel-based Macs.
Joost
21 February, 2007
Skype Pro: Europe Details Emerge
As you know, Skype Pro was announced in the middle of January. Today the pricing was confirmed.
For €2 + VAT per month, subscribers will be getting
- Zero cents per minute calling to domestic landlines in the UK previously 1.7c per minute
- Free Skype Voicemail (normally €15 per year)
- €30 discount on SkypeIn numbers
- €5 Skype Credit included as part of the introductory offer (see below)
- A €30 discount on a Philips VoIP 841 cordless phone
- A €10 discount on an SMC WiFi phone
- Additional discounts on a series of Skype Extras are also available including desktop sharing, avatars, emoticons and ring tones
It’s not all free on the calls to landlines, as each call made will have a 3.9c connection charge made against it.
The lucky dwellers of Europe (specifically Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the UK) will benefit from this first.
Other countries worldwide will follow in 2007.
Skype Pro
20 February, 2007
Blair To Write To Each Road Pricing Petitioner
Over the last few weeks there’s been a lot of attention drawn to the huge number of votes cast by the British public in an online petition calling for the “Prime Minister to scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.”
Over 1.5 million people have signed to show that they reject the idea from the UK government to force UK drivers to have to pay £200 for the privilege of having all of their car journeys monitored, recorded and charged accordingly.
On Saturday, the Guardian newspaper picked up on the idea that, as part of the registering views on the site, users had to enter their names, postal and email addresses, giving the UK government direct contact with each and every person who used the petition to voice their disapproval on the road usage charging scheme. They postulate that this gives them the opportunity of contacting the objectors directly to try and cajole them into changing their minds.
Quite if this is something that the petitioners realised when they placed their votes is unclear.
The site itself isn’t doesn’t really help either “our email will not be published, and is collected only to confirm your account and to keep you informed of response to this petition.”
Closer examination of the Privacy Policy makes it a little clearer- “unless you ask us not to, to write to you a maximum of two times about the issues raised in the petition.”
The straw poll that we’ve taken among some of those who had placed their votes, felt their email addresses were only required to validate the vote. They weren’t aware of the chance to opt-out of being contacted at a later date.
Blair writes about writing
Sunday’s Observer sees Tony Blair publishing a piece explaining what a great idea it is to have over 1.5 million people telling him he’s wrong, and how it has sparked debate … which luckily enough was just what he wanted … he tells us now. (Let’s hope he doesn’t mean like his nuclear power debate).
He goes on to say “What it has given us is the ability, which was simply not there before, to engage with those who have signed the petition,” he then confirms that “Over the next few days, I will be sending out a response to everyone who has signed the petition against road charging, explaining the problems the country faces and why I believe road charging is surely part of the answer here as it is in many other countries.”
So is the whole e-petition idea a ruse just to find out who opposes government policy – then use this information to write to them directly to ‘inform them of why they’re wrong not to be thinking the same way as the government.
If they find out this isn’t successful with all of the voters, they will be taken into detention centers and have it beaten into them (OK, I made this last bit up)
I suspect people will want to have their say, but when they receive government spin in return, will stop using their real email addresses and start taking advantage of temporary email addresses like Temporary inbox.
The Petition
Many people have also questioned whether they should pay yet more money to use their cars as there’s already an effective tax per mile of car usage – the heavily taxed petrol that the UK government already imposes.
19 February, 2007
GRAW 2 Interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director, Red Storm: Podcast
Christian Allen, Creative Director at Red Storm, responsible for the online multi-player portion of GRAW 2 (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2) and I sat down for 15 minutes at the exclusive First Look in London.
I’ve already reviewed the game, which is highly impressive and took the chance to touch on quite a few different areas with Christian in this chat. These include the new Spawning system that avoids Spawn Camping; the advances in graphics for the new game; what the next stage of video games might be; how their early prototyping works during their current develop process; the new storm shooter weapons in the game (CX4 storm & RX4 storm); how they research the future weapons they’re including in GRAW2, like the Natick Solider Center (catch phrase “We’re the science behind the Soldier”) and their Future Force Warrior (FFW) Program; find out his favourite GRAW 2 weapons; discuss the stuff they’ve had to pull from the game because it’s too futuristic, like solider health monitoring; and how the new health patching media function will really encourage team play.
It’s quite a ride. Click below to listen …
[audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/christian-allen-GRAW-2-interview.mp3]
Buy GRAW 2 on Amazon UK or Amazon US
16 February, 2007
MySpace Ruled Not Liable In Texan Sex Case
The family of a 13-year old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by someone she met via Myspace have had their lawsuit against MySpace thrown out by a Texan judge.
As we’ve covered previously, this family was one of four who are pursuing MySpace for not taking sufficient effort to protect their children.
As the LA Times reports, “the ruling appears to be the first time a federal court has extended to social-networking sites the same broad free-speech protections granted to Internet service providers,” which if correct will have far reaching consequences. We imagine that all at MySpace will also be breathing a huge sigh of relief.
To protect the anonymity of the young girl, she was referred to as Julie Doe, through the case. The court papers revealed that when she joined MySpace, she had listed her age as 18, despite only being 13 years old at the time.
The Judge, Sam Sparks, was very direct in his ruling dismissing the case, “If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace.”
Not deterred by the ruling, Adam J Loewy, the Austin lawyer who represented the girl, said they planned an appeal, adding “We were prepared for a very long battle in this.”
16 February, 2007
GRAW 2 First Look Review: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2: Wow (Pt 2/2)
Following on from yesterday’s introduction to the multi-player version of GRAW 2, today, we’ll dig a bit further into the detail.
Spawn Camping tackled
Players of multi-player will be very glad to hear that it has an updated version of spawning. In previous games, after death, players were brought back at set spawning points, which lead some naughty-types to sit at these points, just shooting people before they had a chance to escape. These rotters will be frustrated to hear that they’ll no longer be able to do this.
Spawning is now to a region rather than a set point. The spawn algorithm looks at the number of people who have previously been killed there, numbers of enemy soldiers present, etc. On spawning, the player is invulnerable, but able to fire. As soon as they fire a shot, they lose their invulnerability.
Customisation and clans
Building and managing a clan – of up to 100 people – is now built in thanks to Ubisoft’s tool that has been incorporated.
There’s lots of customisation of your player possible with a tremendous selection of clothing and headgear. Ubisoft tells us that lots of clans that have been on the beta have created a ‘uniform’ that all members must wear. Some may be sad to hear that there’s no face-mapping, but it had to go because of the customisation.
One new feature that should provide an extra dimension to multi-player games is the addition of the medic function, giving you the ability to get players back to full health when they’ve been hit with a round that has incapacitated them.
Maps
The developers have spent a lot of time on the multi-player maps, improving not only the quality, but also the details. In their words, they’ve “tried to create spaces that aren’t just normal.”
Examples of this are jungles that aren’t just jungles, but ones that have had a C130 aircraft recently crashed within it, still smoking and a village that has just been ravaged by a Tsunami.
The largest map is now a significant 500 x 500m.
Shhhh, listen to the audio
If you want to get that edge on your opponents, you’re going to have to listen hard, as sound has been brought further in to successful playing of the game. By turning your HiFi and ears up, you’ll be able to track other players simply by listening to their where their foot steps or gun shots are coming from.
To build your adrenaline, the music in the multi-player game changes as things get more difficult.
__Conclusion
The hour or so I had with it, doesn’t give you the opportunity to really get your teeth into a game like this. The real delight of it will be exposed after many hours of button and trigger jiggling, playing via xBox Live.
What I can tell you, is it looks very special with the realistic lighting heightening an already impressive experience.
They’re going to have to do something pretty disastrous between now and the launch to muck this up. To me, this has all of the makings of a hit game.
Buy it on Amazon UK or Amazon US
Have a listen to our exclusive audio interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director of Red Storm.
GRAW 2. Demo of the single player available.
15 February, 2007
GRAW 2 First Look Review: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2: Wow
GRAW 2 or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2, to give it its full name, will run on XBox 360 and PC when it’s released in March (the PS3 should be arriving late-spring) but I was able to get to play it at a small, exclusive First Look event.
I’ll fess-up straight away. I’m a huge fan of the original Ghost Recon that first came out on the original Xbox. The game looked great, the missions were compelling and the co-operative multi-player via xBox Live! was like no other game I’d played. So much so, that you actually cared about the random strangers that you were playing with.
The single and multi player versions of the X360 were available for our willing hands. Both were highly impressive, but most of my comments will apply to the multi-player version.
The work on GRAW2 started during the closing stages of the development when the original GRAW was completed. GRAW being their first game on the then-next-gen consoles. Although united within the game, the two versions were developed separately – the Multi-player by Red Storm and the Single by Ubisoft’s Paris office.
The over-riding brief was to improve the customisation, ramp up the detail even further and to expand the weaponry to include the leading edge of killing things that the US military and special forces use.
The selection of arms is massive, stretching to include a new unmanned ground-drone called ‘M.U.L.E.’, giving the player mobile cover and ground reconnaissance, while also serving as a mobile weapon station.
The Look
Frankly the game looks stunning. A real visual feast with amazing detail.
The screen shots give you an idea, but won’t tell you the full story, as the real-time effects are what really bring the impressive dimension to this game.
The light and shade are dynamically generated, so anything passing between you and the sun, will cast its own accurate shadow. During missions, realism is heightened by the changes of lighting conditions as they would in the real world, with smooth transitions between the four lighting scenarios.
That sort of detail is also extended to the incidentals. Smoke is effected by changes in wind direction, so you can imagine the kind of complexity that is created when helicopters get involved and blow the smoke around. It’s details like this that can’t fail to impress.
While effects like this will be heighten realism, you’re also able to do things that aren’t possible in the real world. When you’re in the single player game you guide your team buddies around to different locations, but … and here’s the really cool bit … you’re able to disconnect your retainers and see though your team mates eyes using CrossComm 2.0. This isn’t a poxy mini view, but a full screen view, really letting you see the details.
When you select this feature, the transition is a neat pixilation of the screen, that sharpens when you join your buddies eyes.
This visual switch is also available with the M.U.L.E., the ground drone.
It’s full of superb detail, even in the transition between missions. Almost to prove the power of the X360, the transition isn’t just a dull static loading screen, but interactive scenes. The example we saw was a helicopter trip over a wrecked city that could be scanned around, while the next section is loading.
Buy it on Amazon UK or Amazon US
The second part of the GRAW 2 review, will be going into the details that really make this game special. Also listen to our exclusive audio interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director of Red Storm.
14 February, 2007