21 Nov 2006 With Heather Brooke, David Leigh and Maurice Frankel. Join us as we discuss how proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act are supposedly cost cutting measures but would dramatically restrict the media’s access to information. The government is proposing to add financial and time restrictions to access to information under the Act. Currently, access to government and public service information under the Act is free unless costs exceed £600. But the new proposal will cut the number of requests by at least 13 percent, most of which will likely be requests from the media. In future, all requests made by the same individual or organisation to a given authority will be considered as one. This will mean that if a broadcaster or a publication requests information on a given subject and exceeds the limit on cost stipulated no other member of this organisation will be able to request information for at least 60 working days. Join us as we discuss this thorny topic. Frontline Club
13 Norfolk PLace
London, London W2 1 QJ
http://frontlineclub.com
Simon Perry
Frontline Confidential
Podcastcon UK, London
18 November, 2006 It started with PodcastCon UK 2005, which broke new ground as both Europe’s first podcasting conference and as the world’s first dedicated podcasting conference. True to the independent spirit of podcasting, four people — who had never met in person — created a conference to bring together podcasters, enthusiasts, tech-watchers, the media and many others. It was a gathering as diverse as it was vibrant and entertaining. What was originally envisioned as a handful of folks in a pub grew to a sponsored event in a posh London meeting room with 140 attendees gathered from all around the world. Live demos, speakers, and lots of social networking made it a day to remember. CCT Smithfield
2 East Poultry Avenue
London, London EC1A 9PT
http://podcastcon.co.uk/MiniBar London
17 November 2006Your Monthly Face To Face You think about creating the next Last.fm, flickr, or Web 2.0 start up? You think London lacks opportunities to meet up and discuss those ideas? For those who don’t have time to attend a full BarCamp, some of us have come up with MiniBar, a chance to snaffle some free beer while discussing p2p, Creative Commons, web applications, social networking and general Web 2.0 mayhem & fandango. Corbet Place
London, London E1 6NH
http://barcamp.org/minibarUK Web-rage Man Gets 2 Years Jail
The UK first case of Web-rage to go through the courts has reached sentencing.Paul Gibbons, 47, of Bermondsey, south-east London has been handed a two year jail stretch.
It all started when Gibbons took an extreme dislike (to put it lightly) to some of the online discussion comments put forward to John Jones, 43, who lived in Essex. This grew to the point where Jones taunted Gibbons.
The normal course of events in this type of occasion, would be a flame war as the various parties attack each other over a series of posts – then, eventually it would fizzle out.
Not this time. Gibbons took such affront, that he gathered details online about John Jones’ address and went to pay him a visit, complete with a pickaxe handle and a friend with a machete.
When Jones opened the door of his house – with a knife of his own, he was severely attacked.There have been previous examples of people being attacked for online conflict. In China, one player of online game “Legend of Mir 3” killed another over a dispute over ownership of a virtual sword.
As Investigating Officer Det Sgt Jean-Marc Bazzoni of Essex Police said, “The dangers of giving personal information out in a chatroom environment must never be underestimated.”
(via)
BlueOrb: Faster Text Input For PS2 and XBox
To defeat the pain of trying to enter text using an on-screen keyboard using your gaming controller to peck out a letter at a time, Blue Orb have released Texter, a small device that sits between the game controller and the game box. Using some general cleverness, the box will appear as a USB keyboard.Once it’s installed, you only need to click the left analog joystick (on PS2) to get it working. By moving the right and left joysticks in different combinations, letters are created. To understand where to move the joysticks, Blue Orb provide colours rings to put on your controller to train you. Using it, Blue Orb claim a five fold speed improvement.
We’ve not tried it yet, but looking at the usage diagrams it initially looks a little complex. That’s not to say that using it wouldn’t become easier after some practice. We’ve had a lot of experience in having to use different ways of putting text in, normally by having to review so many different mobile phones. Once you get past the initial pain of using the new method, some of them can be pretty fast.There’s a brief video that tries to show the difference in using the ‘normal’ chicken picking method vs the Blue Orb method.
The PS2 version is available now, with the Xbox 360 arriving during December.
London Open Source Jam
16.Nov.06Some people may choose to present a 5 minute lightning talk on what they’re doing. Then little groups will form and people will work together on code! We’ll encourage contributing good things back to open source projects, or maybe the launch of new projects. Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 9TQ http://www.red-bean.com/ospowiki/LondonOpenSourceJam
3 X-Series Launch: Analysis
3 has seriously stepped up the offerings for providing services to mobile handsets. Their new service, X-Series, offers viewing of your own TV using Orb and free voice calls using Skype.The general data use will be flat-fee, or “all X-Series services will be free at the point of use, subject only to fair usage limits,” as Three puts it. Initially there will be an additional fee for the use of Slingbox and Orb.
Hutchison Whampoa, the owners of 3, haven’t been doing this all by themselves. The partner list is extensive including Skype, Sling Media, Yahoo, Nokia, Google, EBay, Microsoft’s MSN, Orb and Sony Ericsson.
The service is launching in the UK on 1st December, with Three’s other markets (Italy, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Israel, Ireland and Sweden) during 2007.
The service will launch with two handsets supporting all of the features, the Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson W950i
Comment
Three are playing to their strengths. They and their network know how to shift data around – they’ve been pushing video (the most dense use of data) on their networks commercially for over two years. As Frank Sixt, Group Finance Director of Hutchison Whampoa, said, “This is why we created 3, and what our network was designed to deliver.”3 have taken a number of applications that have been available to the technically aware for some time, but cleverly brought them together into a single package that all consumers should be able to understand.
It’s companies like Hutchison Whampoa that start moving industries. Significant innovation within the mobile business has been static for a long time, with only small changes to their offerings. There’s been a near unanimous ignoring of VoIP services running over networks – not surprising really when it would remove a significant source of income for them.
There will be repercussions – not least from the TV companies who really don’t like the idea that people can watch their TV when they’re on the move. To be precise it’s the fact that they don’t make any money out of it, is the bit they don’t like.Phrase Spotting – Mobile broadband – the second time we’ve heard that phrase in as many days. We wonder if Orange had heard what 3 would be announcing and decided to scoop them on the first usage.
Moixa USBCell: Rechargeable Batteries via USB
UK firm Moixa have come up with a rechargeable battery that can be re-charged on a USB port, as well as more normal battery chargers.You know what it’s like when you go on trips, you end up with a bag full of chargers and plug converters. These batteries from Moixa could lighten your load by removing a battery recharger from your packing.
It achieves this flexibility by popping the top of the AA battery off to reveal a USB connector. Charging the currently available 1,300mAh cell fully takes six hours, but we understand that quick 10 minutes charges will give results too. Moixa claim the batteries don’t suffer from ‘battery memory,’ where capacity can be quickly lost by brief charging.We imagine that the batteries won’t be used as the primary source of power, but highly useful for a charge anywhere backup. While 1,300mAh isn’t ideal with high-drain devices like cameras, it’ll get you through a sticky patch.
It initially launched in September, but somehow we didn’t notice it. Todays announcement of their deal with DSGi, the largest electronics retailing group in the UK that includes such delights as Currys, Currys.digital and PC World, brought it back into focus for us.
Moixa have other batteries in the pipeline, including AAA, 9V and most interestingly, phone and device batteries.
A bit of background on Moixa. You may have heard of them before, they’re behind the PDA folding keyboard, which is in use in over 2 million products worldwide.If you’re wondering where the heck does a name like Moixa come from, it’s the Greek word Axiom reversed. Used it in the following way, “Moixa rethinks market axioms and creates new technology and Intellectual Property.”
They retail for £13 and are in UK and US shops now.
Orange Expand Mobile BBC World Deal To 8 Countries
The BBC is expanding its distribution with Orange to take its international news service, BBC World, to Orange mobile phones in eight countries.The live stream of BBC World has been available on Orange mobiles in France for the past two years, so given this background it make sense for Orange to want to expand the coverage. They’re taking it to quite an assortment of countries – Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, Romania, Portugal, Jordan, Egypt and the Dominican Republic.
The live streams will be distributed over either 3G or EDGE to what they’re calling “mobile broadband customers,” (first time we’ve heard Orange use the term before).
We spoke to Gerry Ritchie, BBC World’s Regional Director and Business Development, Europe, Middle East, South Asia, Americas (A title that would at one time have been an anathema – BizDev … at the BBC!) about the deal.
Gerry said that in the time that they’ve been doing video to mobiles, they’ve come to realise that ‘made for’ packages (edited summaries) don’t really work. When people hear about an event, they “turn to BBC World for immediate coverage, so even a 10 minute editing delay won’t work. People place trust in the BBC brand, as it is known for the quality of its reporting, not just getting the news there first, but making sure it’s accurate.”
BBC World is held within the commercial arm of the BBC, so Orange are paying the BBC for the privilege of showing it to their subscribers. Gerry wouldn’t give specific details of deal, but we did learn that they don’t do deals on the number of streams that are watched.The deal isn’t on an exclusive basis, as the BBC want to get their content distributed as widely as they can, but clearly Orange will have a major advantage in being the first mover.
BBC World has already been highly successful in getting its content distributed around the world, including 46 cruise liners, 36 airlines and 26 mobile phone platforms.
iPods Integrated Into Planes
Apple have just announced that they have signed deals with six major airlines, offering the first seamless integration between iPod and the planes in-flight entertainment systems.Starting mid 2007, Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United passengers will be able to charge their iPod while in the air, but more interestingly be able to watch the video held on their iPods on the seat-back monitor.
Beyond that, Panasonic Avionics Corporation is working with Apple to build it into other airlines
Comment
This is a great deal for Apple. Not only do they fix the problem with people running their batteries down during a flight, and possibly not having any juice when they land and continue their journey, but as they’ve got first mover advantage on this. It’s going to be significantly harder for another player to have their kit integrated in to the planes. There’s only so many connectors that the airlines can make available.We asked Apple if it was an exclusive deal, thereby blocking out other media players, but at the time of going to press we hadn’t heard back.
For the passenger, surely the wise move would be just to provide a USB port and allow people to plug whichever device they have with them, and have the in-flight system decode the media file and play them back. Thereby not being locked to a make of player.
The only down side we can see for this is for the airlines, as they won’t be making money out of charging for films.
The UK first case of Web-rage to go through the courts has reached sentencing.
When Jones opened the door of his house – with a knife of his own, he was severely attacked.
To defeat the pain of trying to enter text using an on-screen keyboard using your gaming controller to peck out a letter at a time, Blue Orb have released Texter, a small device that sits between the game controller and the game box. Using some general cleverness, the box will appear as a USB keyboard.
We’ve not tried it yet, but looking at the usage diagrams it initially looks a little complex. That’s not to say that using it wouldn’t become easier after some practice. We’ve had a lot of experience in having to use different ways of putting text in, normally by having to review so many different mobile phones. Once you get past the initial pain of using the new method, some of them can be pretty fast.
3 has seriously stepped up the offerings for providing services to mobile handsets. Their new service, X-Series, offers viewing of your own TV using 
Comment
There will be repercussions – not least from the TV companies who really don’t like the idea that people can watch their TV when they’re on the move. To be precise it’s the fact that they don’t make any money out of it, is the bit they don’t like.
UK firm Moixa have come up with a rechargeable battery that can be re-charged on a USB port, as well as more normal battery chargers.
It achieves this flexibility by popping the top of the AA battery off to reveal a USB connector. Charging the currently available 1,300mAh cell fully takes six hours, but we understand that quick 10 minutes charges will give results too. Moixa claim the batteries don’t suffer from ‘battery memory,’ where capacity can be quickly lost by brief charging.
A bit of background on Moixa. You may have heard of them before, they’re behind the PDA folding keyboard, which is in use in over 2 million products worldwide.
The BBC is expanding its distribution with Orange to take its international news service, BBC World, to Orange mobile phones in eight countries.
BBC World is held within the commercial arm of the BBC, so Orange are paying the BBC for the privilege of showing it to their subscribers. Gerry wouldn’t give specific details of deal, but we did learn that they don’t do deals on the number of streams that are watched.
Apple have just announced that they have signed deals with six major airlines, offering the first seamless integration between iPod and the planes in-flight entertainment systems.