Simon Perry

‘Red Ring of Death’: BBC Watchdog Highlight XBox 360 Issue
Last night the BBC Consumer TV programme, Watchdog, had a pop at Microsoft and the XBox 360 over its reliability.
Many of the people who had purchased X360’s were finding that their machines were failing a short time after one-year warranty period had expired. The BBC say that 250 of them had contacted Watchdog to complain.
The most common cause of failure? The “Red ring of death” that indicates that their Xboxes have become Ex-boxes. The name comes from the front panel of the X360 which shows three flashing red lights, where normally there are green. If all of the lights but the first section are flashing, this indicates a general hardware failure has occurred.
When Xbox fan-boys contact Microsoft, they’ve been told that they have to shell out £80-85 to get their little dream machines fixed, as they out of warranty – even if it is just a little.
Many are attributing this failure to the machines running too hot. Anyone who has played the X360 will know that those babies run _loud_, due to the significant amount of fan-age they require to keep them running cool enough.
Microsoft have issued a statement, the first paragraph of which is
“The vast majority of Xbox 360 owners are having an outstanding experience with their systems. That being said, we have received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected. It’s important to note that there is no systemic issue with Xbox 360 – each incident is unique and these customer inquiries are being handled on a case-by-case basis.
The BBC are a little slow on the uptake with this as the problem has been debated on bulletin boards for a mighty long time. Having said that, getting it on broadcast TV is about the best thing that can happen in resolving these problem.
As is usually the case with this type of thing, people who have had their plight discussed, (not so) mysteriously get their machines replaced, after fighting with the companies for ages. A case in point is Alex Ainsow, who has now not only been offered a replacement console, but has had the deal sweetened with some new games.
Rumours of Xbox 360 ver 2.0 have been circulating, with one of the items being that the fan has been made much quieter. This would point to the chips having been reworked to get their operating temperature down.
Previously, Watchdog was fronted by Anne Robinson who later went on to present The Weakest Link. At that time, it struck us that Watchdog was the most aptly name programme on TV.
BBC Watchdog on Ring of Death
Microsoft: Xbox 360: Three red lights flash on the Ring of Light
14 February, 2007
Virgin ‘iTunes for Games’ Announced
Virgin have announced their intention to create an iTunes for Games. The service, to be called, A World Of My Own, will offer video games for download.
As with the majority of The Bearded One’s businesses, this is a partnership with another company, in this case, Game Domain International, who will be providing the technical know-how. The marketing and sizzle will come from Virgin.
They’ve decided to abbreviate A World Of My Own, AWOMO.
Knowledge of their intentions dates back to June last year.
Downloading games isn’t new. Services like Steam have been working since 2004, but while these services have appealed to the hard-core of gaming, they’ve never really broken out to the general public.
Virgin chucking their marketing muscle behind is likely to change that. Beyond that there’s the great cross promotional opportunities, between Virgin Media (NTL/Telewest cable as was) and even their airlines.
AWOMO are taking a different approach to the plain-looking Steam, as the environment will be 3D, with different areas – think Second Life meets games distribution.
We hear that the Koch Media Group, Europe’s largest PC games distributor who work with major brands such as EA, Ubisoft and Deep Silver are in discussions with Virgin about the service.
Virgin used to be pretty big in games during the BBC Micro days, but fell out of love with it and sold it all off before the ’90’s got going.
It’s planned that the service will start in March this year. Let’s just hope they come up with a better moniker than AWOMO.
A World Of My Own
14 February, 2007
Google Breaching Belgian Copyright: Judge
Belgian courts have ruled that Google is in breach of copyright.
The case was brought by Copiepresse, a copyright protection organisation that was representing 17 [UPDATE (thanks Michel) French-speaking] Belgian newspapers, complaining that both Google’s search and News service were in breach.
Their complaint is that their news pages are being cached by Google, thus, in their view, offering free access to their valuable content. Google’s argument is that they only display a headline and a short part of the content and also point out that they drive huge amount of readers to the newspapers Web sites.
This action was first launched last August in the Belgian courts. Google lost the case and was directed by the judge to remove the offending articles from the Google.be site and corresponding news service and post messages to their home pages. Google appealed the decision and lost yesterday.
Copiepresse is also pursuing similar action against Yahoo and MSN and it’s reported that they are in touch with copyright groups in Norway, Austria and Italy.
It is understood that Copiepresse is pursuing Google for payment for access to their content. Google has stated that this will not happen – not surprisingly as _every_ other publication, worldwide, would be asking for the same.
Google respect both robots.txt and metatags that enable any Web pages publisher to exclude them from being included in the Google index. As Google’s Rachel Whetstone, European Director of Communications and Public Affairs, points out, if asked, Google will remove content if requested.
Confused
We’re very confused by the ruling. How do these publishers think people are going to find their content without a search engine pointing them? Sure, their regular readers will still visit their home pages, but their potential readership will not be aware of the quality of their writing.
Copiepresse
14 February, 2007
3GSM World Congress
12.Feb.07 – 15.Feb.07 Top executives from the world’s leading mobile phone companies came to the 2006 Congress. Hear what some of them had to say about their annual attendance at the world’s leading mobile technology event. Fira de Barcelona
Barcelona, Barcelona
http://www.3gsmworldcongress.com/
12 February, 2007
Vodafone Mobile Services Expansion: The Why
Vodafone has made three days of surprising announcements. Three of them for Web services soon to be accessible over their mobile network (MySpace, eBay and YouTube) and the other relating to the building out of their 3G networks in the future (analysis).
We thought it would be worthwhile taking a look as to why this might be happening and why it’s come at this time.
Why the push?
Well, lots of other companies are moving in to tread on Vodafone’s toes – example – Virgin Mobile now with NTL/Telewest TV/broadband/telephone service – as all forms of communication converge.
Vodafone is pretty much a mobile only company. They’re trying to change this, through deals with BT to offer fixed-line broadband and similar offerings in Italy and Germany. In the converged game, they’re pretty weak.
This weakness is leaving their previous highly-profitable dominance of the mobile space threatened.
They’ve been aware of the benefit of differentiating their service through providing access to content for a while, but these recent moves mark a serious step forward.
Previously it’s been about them providing the means of accessing content from third parties, games, music, etc. These most recent deals are about access to services.
I know content is being accessed, a la YouTube, but they’re actually providing access to the service … one that happens to be providing content.
What’s the benefit?
There’s many advantages to Vodafone on this.
Short term it’s about making people associate Vodafone with being on the leading-edge – “Wow, they’ve got MySpace and YouTube!”
It’s unclear how far this benefit will extend into the future, as more phones become easier to browse the Web, where these services live.
eBay, MySpace and YouTube all have fanatical following. When people become embroiled in them, they _must_ find out what has _just_ happened. They’re a modern day replacement for TV soap-operas.
Obsessions like these drive people to choose mobile phones that enable them to get access – and Vodafone will be shouting this from the roof tops to encourage people to switch to them.
Interestingly, those three services are also used by a great deal of people who don’t have a strong technical understanding. People who don’t know that the whole Internet is available through the Web Browser on their mobile phone. This changing is just a matter of time.
Another short-term benefit for them is the amount of revenue they’ll end up generating. We imagine that it’s cost Vodafone a pretty penny to get exclusives from all three services, but this will be made up by the seriously boosted data charges that they’ll be clawing in.
MySpace is pretty rich with bandwidth hungry media – lots of photos, and many many pages to check. Same for eBay.
The real earner for them will be YouTube. You’ll struggle to find an application that uses as much data as video and with the ability to pass links to favourite videos, subscribers will be helping their friends run up big data charges too.
9 February, 2007
Vodafone Now Have YouTube
Is this now getting boring? Vodafone have announced another content access deal, this time with YouTube.
Well they certainly have the set in their hands now don’t they? – First MySpace on Tuesday, then eBay yesterday, and today YouTube.
What can you do with the service? Well, watch YouTube videos really. But it won’t be all of the videos, just “a daily selection of new videos,” chosen by YouTube and accessed through Vodafone Live! True, these can be very entertaining, but one of the delights of YouTube is the wide access to all of the content. The process of near-unlimited discovery, down some very strange rabbit-holes, will be lost through editorialised content.
To encourage the viral effect, subscribers will be able to forward links of their favourite videos to friends. No shock there.
One big benefit for YouTube will be Vodafone making it easy for mobile phone users to upload films that they’ve shot on their mobiles, up to YouTube.
The most interesting part of this lies in the following statement, “Vodafone and YouTube will continue to explore ways to enhance this offering and cooperate closely in the coming months.” The potential in this is considerable.
Vodafone will be rubbing their hands thinking about all of the extra potential income from the data charges of delivering videos to mobile handsets.
9 February, 2007
Orange And Vodafone Propose Sharing 3G Aerials In UK
There’s a lot of radical thinking going on in the mobile business these days and here’s the latest. Vodafone and Orange have signed a non-binding agreement to let each other to use the others 3G infrastructure.
It’s all about their RANs – Radio Access Networks, which connect customers mobiles to the operators networks.
Until now they’ve gone around installing their own, but are now realising that this is a mighty expensive business, seeing as the cost is several £100k per base station. In rural areas these may only service a handful of people, thus rending their investment uneconomic.
The core of the proposal is to
- Continue managing their own traffic independently
- Retain full responsibility for the quality of service they offer their respective customers
- Remain competitors in the UK mobile wholesale and retail markets
The summary – share infrastructure, but compete on service.
What’s forcing this?
When the mobile companies bid for the 3G licenses, not only did they pay over a huge amount of money, but they also took on obligations to provider 3G services to a certain percentage of the UK population.
As not many people have signed up for 3G, the mobile companies haven’t wanted to spend the money on servicing a population that isn’t giving them money with subscriptions and they’ve let their obligations slip. Until now Ofcom hasn’t been pursing them on this.
Three, the largest 3G provider in the UK, has recently been saddled with three little letters by Ofcom – SMP – Significant Market Power. They’re not too happy with the restrictions that this imposes on them, so have been pointing out to Ofcom that the other 3G license holders aren’t fulfilling their coverage obligations.
To ensure that they don’t get saddled with substantial fines by Ofcom, the other 3G holders will need to expand their infrastructure. By sharing costs on this, they save money.
More details of this will be provided by Steve Kennedy, an expert in this area, in an article ~~later today~~ tomorrow.
8 February, 2007
Amazon Unbox On TiVo Bound For US
Amazon are expanding their Amazon Unbox service to the TiVo platform. It’s being described as a “soon-to-be-launched service.”
Unbox offers TV programmes and films for rental or purchase, delivered down a broadband connection.
Amazon are taking a route much the same that Sky is in the UK. They initially offered the Sky Anytime service on PC first, and are now in process of moving it to their Sky+ box. TiVo are claiming 1.5m broadband-ready TiVo boxes in the US, significantly less than the number of Sky+ boxes in the UK.
The straight Amazon Unbox service (omitting the Tivo part) was launched in September 2006, delivering content to PCs and, by way of difference from Sky, portable device (as long as they were Windows Media Video-compatible).
The line-up of content providers includes the usual suspects – CBS, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

How do you get it?
Sign up for the service sounds pretty easy. TiVo subscribers simply log on to Amazon.com and follow a few simple steps to establish a link between their broadband connected TiVo Series2 or Series3 box and their Amazon account. The list of available content will then make its way down the broadband pipe, to be displayed on the usual TiVo “Now Playing” list.
Prices for television episodes are $1.99, with most films costing between $9.99 and $14.99 for purchase. Film rental starts at $1.99.
Respect for the customer
In a move that shows that TiVo/Amazon look at things from the consumer perspective, all purchased videos are automatically stored in each customer’s “Your Media Library” at Amazon.com for future access and download. This is absolutely the right way to do this, rather than forcing the consumer to buy it all again in their hardware gets into difficulty.
Impact
We suspect that Amazon won’t be stopping at delivering Unbox to TiVo and are likely to offer it on other PVR platforms after a period of exclusivity.
Given the straight Amazon Unbox service is wrapped in Microsoft’s DRM, we assume some kind of content protection will be applied to the Amazon Unbox on TiVo content. What is unclear is if this will also be by Microsoft – highly unlikely given TiVo runs on a Linux platform.
Potentially having to apply a second form of DRM to all of the content will be a major overhead for Amazon.
TiVo on Amazon Unbox
Amazon on Amazon Unbox
8 February, 2007
LG Shine (KE970) Is Released In UK
The long-awaited and drooled-over LG Shine is being added to their Black Label range today.
As I’m sure you’re aware it’s a looker … and you’ll not be surprised to hear that it’s shiny – mirrored in fact.
Swimming in Ooo-Errr-ness, the screen is mounted under the 2.2″ mirrored surface, beaming its full colour screen though the mirror when a call is received or the front is slid up. Blue light is emitted from the keys to make them usable in dark corners.
There’s already been over 200,000 of them sold on LG’s home turf, Korea, since November 2006 and LG is no doubt hoping for a similar, if not greater success in Europe.
The success of Ooo-Err phones is now much less assured, since the release of the LG Chocolate (the first in the Black Label range), as other manufacturers are trying to impress just as hard.
There’s bash in London tonight to celebrate the launch with Magician, sorry Illusionist (he’s a bit sensitive about that one), David Blaine, or Git Wizard as Marcus Brigstocke calls him.
LG Shine
7 February, 2007
Domain Name Infrastructure Attacked
The most significant attack on the Domain Name infrastructure since 2002 took place last night.
The infrastructure stands at the middle of the DNS structure that translates domain names into their numeric IP addresses. Effectively acting as an address book.
It appears that two servers were the target of the attack. One of them was operated by the US defence department and the other by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, who look after the domain name structure.
It is understood that the attacks, which started last night and ran for 12 hours, were mounted from Asia.
“It was a significant and concerted attack, but the average Internet user would have barely noticed,” said Paul Levins, the vice-president of corporate affairs at ICANN, reports the Guardian.
These days the DNS structure is pretty robust.
Using language that only a quasi-military force can, the US homeland security department confirmed it was monitoring what it called “anomalous” Internet traffic.
7 February, 2007