Changes to business digitisation brings
Finally the BBC Trust appears to be open to talking about the iPlayer going Open Source.
Good to see that the BBC Trust is to take representation from the Open Source Consortium (OSC) regarding their concerns about the fact that the BBC iPlayer is currently dependent on Microsoft’s Windows DRM.
The OSC made an official complaint to the BBC Trust in January this year but did not hear back from them until now. Quite unlike Ofcom and the old DTI, who they did get replies from.
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On Thu 5th July Nominet (the domain registry for .uk) held an open day for registrars (people who register domains). This was a chance for Nominet to explain what they do, and what services are available currently and what will be introduced in the future.
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Vodafone has shaken hands and heartily slapped besuited backs with its chums at the mobile banking service Monilink to secure a deal allowing their customers to access their bank accounts from mobile phones.
Part of Vodafone’s “Internet On Your Mobile” initiative to give access to fully-featured web sites, the service will let customers with Internet enabled phones go online to check their balance, request a mini-statement and top-up their “pay as you talk” mobile phone balance.
The Monilink service is available for nowt for customers of Alliance & Leicester, First Direct and HSBC, with the Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest and Ulster Bank joining the party later this summer.
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The online music social network Last.fm have announced a global deal with SONY BMG Music Entertainment to make the record company giants vast catalogue of tracks available for streaming.
The deal will make Sony’s bumper-sized music catalogue available to the 20 million users of Last.fm’s online radio streaming service, with the option to buy the tracks via the music downloads store, 7digital, or through Amazon.
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Barclaycard has released details of its new multi-purpose credit card that combines Oyster smartcard, credit and contactless functionalities.
Expected to be launched across London this September, the three-in-one “OnePulse” card will be the first UK credit card to pack Transport for London (TfL) Oyster contactless travel pass technology, giving the capital’s commuters one less card to lug about.
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The US found itself sitting right at the top of the Irish spam charts for June 2007, according to e-mail security statistics from security and e-mail monitoring firm, IE Internet.
Their filtering stats show the US as being a veritable hotbed of steeenkin’ spammer activity, generating 37.4 per cent of all spam during June, miles ahead of the next big spammers, China, who registered 17 per cent of spam sent to Irish firms.
The UK reared its v1ag5a-shifting face with 10.9 per cent of all spam, followed by Mexico (9.9 per cent) and Russia (7.6 per cent).
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As we all know Virgin Media and Sky TV have been having a little spat.
Now Virgin Media are taking a leaf out of Sky’s book and signing up rights to distribute sports.
The Football League have signed a deal that will see the Coca-Cola Football League matches will be delivered to Virgin Media’s broadband and mobile phone platforms for the first time.
Starting on 11 August and running for two seasons, the highlights of league 1 and 2 will be available to watch on-demand for up to one week after transmission.
No surprisingly, Malcolm Wall, chief executive officer of content at Virgin Media, earnestly sang, “We’re committed to investing in great content for our customers and this new partnership will give football fans a genuinely value-added service.”
The Championship, as it’s abbreviated to by those who follow it, is the step down from the UK Premier League, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a load of cash involved with it. Deloitte are on record as finding that, in 2004-05, it was the richest non-top flight football division in the world.
Why?
No matter how poor, or not, football teams are, they do a very loyal fans, so much so that making their matches available on on-demand may encourage people to change their mobile or broadband provider. Or that’s the bet that Virgin Media are making.
Commercial terms were not disclosed.
Where does the insanity of the iPhone coverage go now? The US hoopla is over, so the media needs another hook, and today sees it heighten – the battle of the European operators to have the exclusive for the iPhone.
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Further news of the power of the Wii arrives, with Japanese data service Famitsu Marketing Data Service reporting that the Nintendo Wii outsold the PS3 again in Japan.
June saw another factor of one being added to the previous two months of PS3 thrashing with Wii outselling it 6.5 to one. The figure quoted are 270,974 Wiis against 41,628 PS3s.
April saw a ratio 4:1 of Wii to PS3 sales and May a 5:1.
Clearly these latest figures are just one territory, but we’ve been pointing out how much more popular the Wii was with the public since before its UK launch.
The Xbox 360 is relatively no where with a tiny 17,616 being sold, putting the Wii outselling it at 15 to one!
iSupply did one of their usual Teardown’s on the Apple iPhone, estimating that they are on a 55% margin for each 8Gb phone that they sell.
The Teardown involves taking new consumer devices apart, as soon as they’re released, and working out how much they cost manufacturers to build and therefore how much profit – or loss – the sale of each device brings.
Such is the influence of iSupply these days, the news of the very healthy margin appeared to cause a rise in the value of Apple’s shares, up 4.9%.
The bill of materials and manufacturing costs totalled $265.83, with the iPhone selling for $599.
Given the close-to-lunatic media coverage (you’ll have noticed that we’ve been rather restrained, if not a little dismissive of the madness), we suspect that there’ll be triples all around at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop office and some big celebrations over the 4 July holiday in the US today.