Simon Perry

Giant Graphic For Australian Google Maps
A few bods in Australia got together after hearing that the Google Maps satellite which it takes images from was going to be passing over Sydney.
Their mission? To create a giant graphic, so it would be picked up and be viewable on Google Maps.
It’s not the first time anyone has thought of the idea of course (we’ve all done this at Digital-Lifestyles towers), but these characters actually got off their behinds and did it.
They started at 4am, pegging 2,500 sheets of paper in the grass of a park to form a giant eye – the pun being that Australia was also watching the world.
It appeared on the tech discussion board Slashdot, and subsequently was hit with a ton of comments accusing them of “spamming Google Maps.” You’ll know that we hate spam (natch), but we fail to see why some of the commenters are getting so irate.
As one of the comments pointed out, they don’t really have to wait for the map to appear on Google Maps – they’ve gained loads of it from the stunt alone.
Read more on their posting about it.
29 January, 2007
Getamac: Apple Launches UK Switch Campaign
The UK equivalent of the Apple US Switch campaign was launched today in the UK. Featuring Mitchell & Webb, well known and highly-respected UK comics, they maintain the signature people-standing-in-front–of-a-white-backgrounds look of other Apple campaigns.
The casting is perfect, with the PC played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb being the Mac – the business/casual roles they played in the genius TV venture, Peep Show.
Apple must be spending large on this as it’s all over the UK MySpace pages, with double ads showing on a lot of the pages.
Clearly riding on the shirt-tails of the world’s obsession with iPods, through this campaign Apple, are attempting to persuade iPod-owners that their computing lives could be just as beautiful as their music lives. By the look of the last Quarter’s figures from Apple, where they sold just over a million Macs and over 21 million iPods, it’s not a bad idea to increase your computer sales.
There’s three campaigns in the wild at the moment, Restart; Virus and Office, are all worth a watch. Luckily someone (just perhaps, just perhaps, the advertising company!) has put the adverts up on YouTube – a pretty neat trick for something that hasn’t been on TV yet.
Restart plays on the fact that PCs freeze and often crash during use, while Macs don’t suffer this to the same degree – although it’s not unknown.
Virus takes great delight in the 140k new viruses that were created for PCs last year, while the number of Mac viruses remains minimal – something that might change if lots more people starts buying Macs.
Office encourages people to detach their home PCs from being associated from the work PC, which is normally a PC – what this will do to people who have Macs at work is yet to be established.
Quite what Mitchell thinks of being cast as the dorky PC is unknown, but we suspect he’ll be mopping up his tears with his bulging appearance fee cheque.
BTW – Our fave Apple advert remains the Home Movie.
Apple also have it all over their site.
29 January, 2007
Channel 4: Careful, You’re Damaging Trust
We all know that the Web is all about Trust, don’t we … and those companies that do not prove that they’re trustworthy will lose out.
While writing the piece about the shocking state of DRM and the Big Brother stream, it struck me that beyond the trust that was being lost through their insistence of using DRM-restricted content, they were also losing the trust of their paying customers another way.
Here’s a word in your shell like Channel 4.
When people sign up for the Celebrity Big Brother Season Pass, they understand that they’re paying for access to a live stream of the ‘action’ (as far as that goes) – and that’s what they’re lead to believe.
We viewers understand the rules. There’s an understanding that there’ll be a delay to avoid ‘rude’ words going out. Eventually the paying punters also understand that other conversations will be blanked out with sound effects, even when it’s completely clear that there’s no need for it – it’s designed to create intrigue.
What is deeply wrong however is repeating the previous hours footage between the announcement of the name of the contestant leaving the house, and their actual leaving.
It’s just wrong. The end result is that it makes me think less of Channel 4 – definitely not a good idea when they’re betting so much of their future on digital delivery.
People who pay for the pass are paying for that ‘insiders view of the house’. They hope to see what the general TV viewing public can’t.
When people have paid for it, not letting them have access to what is behind the broadcast footage is wrong.
26 January, 2007
iTunes Illegal Declares Norway Consumer Watchdog
Norway has declared iTunes to be illegal because it doesn’t allow songs downloaded from the online music store to be played on any other equipment except their own, today’s FT reported.
This is the first time, worldwide, for action like this to have been successful, despite bodies in other countries threatening the same, including France.
The decision by the Norwegian consumer watchdog, which the FT describes as “powerful” is based on Apple’s restrictive approach breaking their consumer protection laws.
Apple have until the 1 October deadline to make their FairPlay DRM schema available to other technology companies or face fines, or ultimately have the service shutdown.
The original complaint was made by Torgeir Waterhouse, senior advisor to the Norwegian Consumer Council. He told the FT that “he was in negotiations with pan_European consumer groups to present a unified position on iTunes’ legality.”
Worrying news for Apple, especially when they hear that Germany and France have joined Sweden and Finland. When added together, this comprises more than 100m European consumers.
25 January, 2007
PCMover Vista: Transfer Your PC Life To Vista
Avanquest Software, makers of the old-faithful LapLink, have launched PCMover to help people transfer all of their PC data from previous versions of Windows on to Vista.
Getting a new machine with a new operating system is both a joy and a pain. The joy is the shiny new OS you have to play with and the likelihood that it runs considerably faster than the previous machine. The pain, is trying to make sure you’ve remembered all of the little bits of data tucked away in forgotten corners, and usually having to reconfigure all of your settings back to the way you had them on your previous machine.
That’s where PCMover comes in.
The software digs deep into your current version of Windows (going back to Win95), rummages around and gathers all files, settings and programs, including those held in the registry, for transfer to a new Vista-equipped machine.
It has mind-settling features such as not overwriting any pre-installed software on the new PC, or alter the old PC in any way and if you feel it’s all gone horribly wrong, there’s an undo function.
The available options to carry out the transfer are extensive. The package comes with a custom USB 2.0 lead which “includes a chipset that allows for a simultaneous, bi-directional flow of information between PCs,” that they tell us enables a faster transfer.
Beyond this, you can choose from a wired/wireless network for top speed, or resort to a USB 1.1 or a parallel cable. There’s also an option to use removable media such as a CD-R or DVD-R.
With the forthcoming release of Vista at the end of the month, there’s likely to be a number of supporting applications to help people switch.
Thomas Koll, Chairman and CEO of Laplink Software feel that they are in a strong position, as he was more that happy to share, “Because our competition can’t move software programs, they don’t offer the same total migration solution that we do.”
PCmover Vista is available now at the SRP of £49.99 from their online shop, or if you like to collect boxes, from selected retail outlets.
25 January, 2007
The Risks Of e-voting: ORG London Event
Clearly we love technology – it would be a bit of rum do calling ourselves Digital-Lifestyles if we didn’t.
Firm believers in technology being used to add something, not being used for the sake of it, we also think there are some areas that technology should stay out of.
One being the counting of votes for elections. Democracy is just too valuable to be fiddled with.
We’ve all heard about the introduction of electronic voting machines in America and the huge number of concerns that has thrown up. Hell, there was even a film made about it – Hacking Democracy.
As we in the tech world know, anything that is on a computer can be manipulated. Removing people, who bring the appropriate check and balances to the process, is a very bad idea.
What does it matter if it takes a little bit longer to count the votes? Who’s hurrying? Let’s not forget that the party elected in the UK is going to be in power for four years, so a couple of extra days to count the vote matters not.
There are just too many risks to let this go ahead.
Well, some bright spark appears to think that introducing computerised voting in the UK and further afield is a good idea.
Luckily the Open Rights Group (ORG) is holding some discussions on the 8th Feb to discuss this very subject.
If you’re near to London, we urge you to attend. This is important stuff.
25 January, 2007
One Fifth Of Windows Are Copies: Microsoft
Microsoft have let it be known that they know that at least 22.3% of the copies of Windows in use in the world are not purchased.
They’ve been compiling stats on this using Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program since July 2005.
Initially WGA only used to be called upon when users of the Windows OS want to update their software. The most frequent reason for updates is when Microsoft needs to ship software patches to their OS or applications due to them being buggy and hackers having exploited holes in it.
Since June 2006, it’s been clear that a change to the WGA, is that it’s been contacting Microsoft without the users permission or knowledge, passing on information. This news of “phoning home” was met with accusations of Microsoft shipping spyware … and countered by software developers by the creation of removeWGA.
We know where you live
Given Microsoft knows where most of those people are – via their IP address that they were using when they did the downloads – it’s interesting that they haven’t acted on the information. Perhaps they figured that knocking on the door of dead grannies demanding compensation, as others have done, wasn’t good PR.
The real figure of pirated copies is likely to be far higher than the 22.3% figure quoted, as it’s only the innocent/daft who would let their computer tell Microsoft that they are using a piece a software they bought from the bloke at the car boot sale for a fiver.
Why release this news now?
With the arrival of Microsoft Vista on the 30 January, it pays Microsoft well to let people know how hard done by they are, giving them all the more reason to promote the security features that come with Vista.
It’s doubtful many will shed a tear for Microsoft given how outrageously profitable the company is. Perhaps we should run a competition to see just how many people are crying about this one?
24 January, 2007
Sky Anytime on PC: One Million Films In A Year
Sky Anytime on PC downloaded its one millionth film on the 14 January neatly marking its first year of operation.
The Sky Anytime on TV service is the renamed Sky By Broadband service, which delivers select Sky’s TV content over a broadband connection to a PC.
Figures for the film downloads could have been larger if Sky hadn’t had to pull the service back in September after their chosen DRM-restriction system, by Microsoft, was cracked.
We’re assuming that the million films that have been downloaded have been paid for, making it a pretty big bonanza, given the films are a wallet-emptying £3.95 each. Once subscribers have paid up, they’re given access to it for seven days, but are restricting to 48 hours viewing window after the first viewing.
Dawn Airey, BSkyB’s managing director of channels and services, was keen to say her piece about it … “We’re delighted that customers have taken to Anytime with such enthusiasm. Sky Movies is the UK’s most popular movie service and we’re able to use broadband to give customers more flexibility in how they watch. The fact that in this first year we’ve already seen 1m movie downloads is testament to customers’ willingness to embrace new technologies and get more from Sky.”
Sky report that the service has gained a quarter of a million registered users in its first year of operation.
24 January, 2007
Big Brother’s DRM Nightmare
Backstory
Forgive me. I forked over money to Channel 4 to become a paying Season Pass sucker for the Celebrity Big Brother live stream.
My dearest, a less-than closet BB fan, persuaded me to watch CBB on the launch night – something made all the more peculilar by the fact that I don’t watch TV anymore (apart from The Simpsons at 6pm on Channel 4, of course).
To be frank, by the end of the program I was grateful to her. The sight of the fantastic disdain of Ken Russell made it worthwhile in itself.
What got me reaching for my credit card was the sheer hilarity of seeing Jade Goody enter the house – post her journey through crowds of frantic screaming BB fans, proceeded by her 50-yard car drive and obligatory press photo pose – to a house with three grumpy, quiet people who didn’t jump up and down when they saw her enter. It couldn’t have been further from her expected truth.
Her face was priceless – well, I thought it was at least worth £5 to see it for a while longer, showing a mixture of confusion and pain.
It appeared that finally Endemol had got a quality production team behind this one, lead by an intelligent director.
Hence my giving money, enabling this rubbish to make huge profits for those concerned.
__Using DRM … it _does_ suck
Once I’d registered and paid for it, the first surprise was not to be sent a direct URL to access the stream. Instead the process is long and painful as you have to drag yourself through the Channel4 site to find the stream.
Here’s a run down of the hoops they get you to jump through …
*Deep breath now* –
Navigating through their home page to the CBB page; click on the “Watch 24/7” link; then the “Already own the pass” link. This pops up a new window with a form requesting sign up detail (despite the link being specific about already owning a pass).
After some searching you’ll notice, at the top of the window, a single word link for Login; which, once clicked, you’ll be asked for your email and password.
Finally the video player appears – hurrah!
Don’t be fooled, the agony isn’t over yet, this is where the DRM pain begins.
Despite having logged in a number of times already, you’re told that you do not have rights to play the content.
Clicking Yes takes you to yet another Web page, grandly entitled License Acquisition. Here you’re requested to login _again_.
Once you’ve bashed the keys in the right order, you’re requested to “wait a moment,” as the licence is “obtained”. Eventually you’re offered to click the Play button.
Finally, finally you get to the steam.
That’s bad enough to do once, but adding insult to injury, the worst of it is that each and everytime you want to watch a stream, you’ve got to go through this bullshit.
Summary – DRM Don’t Work
From the experience above you can see that the current version of DRM – Microsoft’s naturally – just doesn’t work for the consumer.
It’s not from lack of trying on their part either, Microsoft have been plugging away at their DRM solution for many years and, we have to assume, this is their latest as to get to view the streams, there’s a requirement to ‘upgrade’ your Windows Media Player to the latest version.
We also have to assume that Channel4/Endemol and Microsoft worked together to get the Big Brother streaming working. Say what you want about Big Brother, but it’s a high profile TV ‘event’, so important for them to have it working correctly.
Even after all of this effort, the end user experience is truly atrocious, so bad, that you feel anger every time to access the stream, and let’s not forget, people are paying for the privilege of being insulted like this.
With the difficulty of this process, it’s no wonder that people still try to get their content from file sharing networks to avoid DRM.
24 January, 2007
Samson Blinded: Extreme Jewish Blog Wins Award
Samson Blinded, a blog advocating an ultra-hard-line Israeli approach to Arab nations, received the 2006 People’s Choice Jewish and Israeli Blog Award in the Best Overall Blog category and scored the highest in six other categories including Best Jewish Current Events blog.
It’s written under a pen name, Obadiah Shoher, as Israeli law criminalizes racism and incitation. With this knowledge you have some sort of idea as to the views that are put across.
You’ll not be surprised to heard that it’s not a regular read for us, but we’ve given it a once over and Shoher does appear to have some fairly extreme views. We’re told that …
Shoher denies ethnic-blind democracy and argues for expulsion of Arabs
from Israel. He rejects democratic process dominated, he asserts, by liberal and Arab voters, and calls for violent opposition to police efforts at removing the illegal settlements.
On the even more worrying front, we understand that they call for nearly dismantling Israeli army and fully relying on nuclear response to counter possible Arab aggression. Nice!
Many Americans won’t like the cut of its jib either with excepts like this from the current site …
The US-sponsored civil war left over 1.5 million Afghanis dead. Their corpses cause no concern on the Capitol Hill. The fuss is about 400 detainees who are treated at Guantanamo a bit worse than under the Taliban and considerably better than under the Northern Alliance rule. Had they been killed instead of arrested, human rights activists won’t care.
Shoher isn’t just shooting in the dark. The book, Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict has been downloaded by more than 170,000 people from 78 countries.
What they heck?
Now we all know that these Best-Of awards aren’t always worth the electrons that they’re written on. They’re often too easy to influence by getting readers to vote over-and-over again, and we would suspect that those with extreme views would have the kind of readers, nay followers, that might have the inclination to do this.
Here’s the reality – The Internet and blogs are for anyone who want to write anything – and that includes things that you might not like. `What’s important is peoples right to express themselves – and that should never be removed.
One thing that you can do is not link to it, thus depriving it of search engine ranking.
Find it at www.samsonblinded.org/blog
23 January, 2007