Companies – Page 103 – Digital-Lifestyles

BBC To Premiere Programmes Over Broadband

BBC To Premiere Programmes Over Broadband The BBC has announced a pilot scheme to premiere some new TV programmes before they are broadcast on over traditional channels.

The trial starts with the new BBC3 comedy series ‘The Mighty Boosh’, which will be made available for web streaming from July 19th, one week before its scheduled TV transmission.

BBC To Premiere Programmes Over Broadband Jana Bennett, The BBC’s Director of Television, said: “The broadband premiere of The Mighty Boosh is a significant step forward in offering our audiences even greater value in a changing television world.

“It is one of a number of pilots that BBC Television will be undertaking over the next few months, exploiting the opportunities that new technologies offer to look at how programmes might be delivered beyond the traditional linear broadcast.”

BBC To Premiere Programmes Over Broadband There’s something of a stampede starting up of companies ready and willing to experiment with video over broadband, with BT announcing that it planned to begin trials of video-on-demand (VoD) via broadband early next year, ready for a full commercial roll out scheduled for summer 2006.

Telewest also recently launched its own web-based TV service, initially offering four channels as part of a trial of 26,000 consumrs in the Cheltenham and Gloucester area.

BBC Broadband

Yahoo WAP Mobile Price Check Service Launched

Yahoo! UK and Ireland have launched a handy new mobile search service which allows consumers to check the prices of goods via Yahoo! WAP services when they’re out and about.

The service, accessible on all WAP enabled phones at standard browsing rates, serves up instant price and product information from the Yahoo-owned comparison service Kelkoo.

Yahoo! said it will not charge for the service which promises to cover 3 million product offers and more than 5000 UK retailers.

Mobile users accessing the WAP site at http://wap.yahoo.co.uk, can type in their desired product into the search box and click on the “Products” button.

A result screen then displays images, pricing and product information, providing users with the low down about the cheapest prices around.

Dorothea Arndt, director of search and distribution at Kelkoo enthused: “Mobile price comparison is a major step towards aligning the on and offline shopping experience and brings us significantly closer to achieving our mission of making shopping simple for everyone.”

It all sounds great, but we found the service a little flaky.

At the first two attempts, we got a screen of results serving up nothing more than the price and the name of the shop with no location, address, phone number or Weblink. A fat lot of good, then.

However, if you persevere and click through to the next results page, a ‘compare’ link should magically appear under some products and this will let you access its full details.

Once the service is fully ironed out, shopkeepers around the UK can prepare to brace themselves for a stream of tech-savvy bargain hunters waving their WAP phones around the counter and demanding price matching.

Yahoo!

iTunes Live8 McCartney/U2 Track Fast Release

Apple iTunes Releases Live8 McCartney/U2 Track Hot on the heels of the hugely successful Live8 concert in London, Apple’s iTunes Music Store has made the opening performance of The Beatles’s “Sergeant Pepper” (sung by McCartney with U2) available for purchase through its store.

With the Guinness Book of Records monitoring proceedings to see if the venture qualifies as the fastest-ever global release of a live track, the speedy release reveals how digital technology has vastly accelerated the distribution of content.

Straight after the live performance, the opening track was transmitted by satellite to BBC TV Centre in London and then relayed to UK radio broadcast company, Capital Radio.

A direct digital recording was captured there for Universal Music, which edited, mastered and transmitted the track to its production centre in Hanover, Germany.

The final master was forwarded on to Universal’s global electronic distribution warehouse in the US, and made available for real-time delivery to online retailers around the world, ready to be purchased as the “first Live 8 download”,

Apple iTunes Releases Live8 McCartney/U2 Track Distribution is to be exclusively digital, so there will be no physical product. All profits are to be donated to Live 8, “and the fight for the future of Africa”, according to the iTunes Website.

A further message on the site reminds users: “100 artists, a million spectators, one billion viewers, and one message: stop extreme poverty in Africa”.

Despite battling hard with unhealthy levels of cynicism all week – a feeling not helped by Apple’s self-serving publicity and the presence of Bill Gates at the Live8 show itself – I can only applaud anything that raises awareness of the obscene disparity of wealth in the world.

Let’s just hope that people don’t think that downloading the track is anywhere near enough.

iTunes
Live 8

Cardiff First For BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN)

Cardiff First For BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) Their glorious football team many not be first at anything much these days, but BT have announced that Cardiff and the surrounding area will lead the UK with the implementation of their 21st Century Network (21CN).

The £10bn investment will roll out the next generation of converged communications, including telephone calls, broadband and Ethernet services delivered through an Internet-based platform.

The investment will end BT’s dependence on telephony through on Ye Olde public switched telephone network (PSTN) and should – in theory – result in cheaper telephone bills for its customers.

What is this 21CN thing, do I hear you ask?

Here’s how BT describe the technology:

“BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN) is a global IP infrastructure, based upon multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), that carries voice, data and Internet services on a single network. The 21CN offers multiple services across a single network, rather than today’s multitude of networks offering specific services.”

“For BT, this will mean fewer network elements overall and require simpler network management. For BT’s customers, the 21CN will deliver more choice, control and accessibility, as well as increased flexibility, reliability and security.”

Cardiff First For BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) BT is expected to begin migrating around 350,000 customer lines in the area during the second half of 2006, with the 21CN programme requiring the replacement of equipment in more than 50 local exchanges along with the implementation of new IT systems to make the technology do its stuff.

Ask BT competitors what 21CN is and you’ll get quite a different answer. Their view is that it is effectively the death of meaningful competition in the UK and that once BT has it in place there will be no incentive to try and unbundle exchanges.

Three cool-sounding “metro nodes” (super telephone exchanges) are to be developed in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, with 10 new transmission sites also being developed across the region. These will be assessed for power supply, space and logistics planning before the ‘on’ switch is pressed.

First Minister Rhodri Morgan purred, “It’s incredibly exciting for us that Wales has been selected to provide the test bed for BT’s new 21st Century Network This investment by BT clearly signifies that Cardiff and central South Wales is one of Europe’s most dynamic and progressive regions. The end result will transform our personal and business lives, and help attract high-tech industry and services to Wales.”

Matt Bross, BT group’s chief technology officer, said, “This roll-out will be the first time anywhere in the world that customers will have communications services provided over such a radical next generation network.”

“The operational experience that we gain in Cardiff and the surrounding area will enable us to move full steam ahead and deliver 21CN to everyone in the UK – migrating a total of 30 million lines – in just four years.”

“It’s an enormous technical and operational challenge, but will enable customers to benefit from compelling new services.”

How the installation and implementation of the service – and the customer feedback – works out will help BT finalise plans to roll out 21CN to customers across the UK by the end of the decade.

BT 21st Century Network

Ofcom’s BT statement – Legal Issues Examined

Following hot on the heals of yesterdays Ofcom’s notice to BT, under Section 155(1) of the Enterprise Act 2002, Russ Taylor of OfcomWatch takes us through the legal issues.

Ofcom released the details of the BT settlement.

Folks, here are the key takeaways / open issues as I see them from a legal perspective:

* This is essentially a consultation on whether BT has promised enough (‘undertakings’ – spelled out in Section 2 of the document) to avoid referral of this matter to the Competition Commission. Ofcom concludes that BT has, and asks for public comment until August 12, 2005.

* Section 4.14 of the document is the key allegation, and check-out the indirect wording on Ofcom’s part! Ofcom basically say that BT had the incentive to engage in anti-competitive conduct, and later say that it suspects BT ‘may have acted in accordance with the incentives set out above.’ Is that Plain English? Even the title of Section 4 is non-confrontational… referring to the problems of the market, rather than problems with BT. Ofcom's BT statement - Legal Issues Examined

* Annex E is the basic document (the Annexes are here). It is the proposed agreement between BT and Ofcom. It specifies the undertakings. It looks to me like the Access Service Division (ASD) CEO reports to the BT CEO. So, presumably, the BT CEO can terminate the ASD CEO? That’s not exactly ‘separation’. And more importantly, it does not square with the classic definition of a CEO.

* It’s a lengthy document, and I’ve only skimmed it, but the missing element–in my opinion–seems to be a clear dispute resolution / problem solving element of the undertakings. In other words, what happens if BT shirks its duties, or there is a dispute about one of the undertakings. Are the undertakings self-enforcing? I don’t think so. Sections 12 through 17 of Annex E purport to cover this ground, but I think they are vaguely worded. Section 14, in particular, seems to merely allow BT and Ofcom to agree to disagree, and has no real teeth other than Ofcom’s ability to declare BT in breach of the undertakings. But what then? Does Ofcom then have the power to fine BT? I don’t think so – I think a breach would require Ofcom to go to court to secure a remedy… or threaten another referral? So, would communications policy decisions then rest in the hands of a court? Why didn’t Ofcom require BT, as part of its undertakings, to waive court procedures and agree to a schedule of monetary penalties, etc.

* I also recall that Ofcom initially said that third parties would be able to secure relief under this settlement–for their losses caused by BT’s breaches of the undertakings. How does that work? This element of the scheme seems to be completely missing from the documents.

* Finally, what happens if BT merges with another entity to which these undertakings do not apply. I’m confused… Overall, I think the document accomplishes much by way of technically sorting out a way to limit BT’s market power. But from a legal perspective, it needs some more thought.

* * *

This should be an interesting consultation… stay tuned…

Russ taylor is a co-founder of OfcomWatch
Ofcom

HowTo: Play Films on PSP

Watching movies on the road Sony’s PlayStation Portable is a media hub, but unfortunately, apart from games there isn’t really any content available for it (not forgetting unlucky UK citizens who can’t even officially buy one until September).

It’s possible to put MP3’s on to your memory stick (Duo Pro) and listen to them through your PSP, but an iPod is probably a better system for just audio.

What makes the PSP special is its screen, very bright, lots of colours and wide. When Sony release movies on UMD they’ll sell thousands and you’ll get the public transport commuter zombies staring at their PSPs, earphones stuffed in their ears watching the latest blockbuster trying their hardest to escape from the real world.

Become a Zombie now

Though it’s not possible to get UMD movies yet, the PSP will play MPEG4 movies off the memory stick. A 1GB memory stick costs about £100 (~US$177, ~€148) which will hold about 2 full length movies (more, if quality is compromised).

Making movies used to be complicated, but luckily there are programs out there that considerably simplify the process and make it easy.

Watching movies on the road Using an Apple Mac has many advantages and ripping DVDs is one of them. Look for an application MacTheRipper, it does exactly what is says on the tin, and takes the MPEG2 information from a DVD while removing region coding, macrovision and other DVD annoyances and stores the resulting files on the hard disk.

In order to make it PSP friendly, just extract the main title.

Now find a nice utility PSPWARE, which links the Mac with the PSP. It backs-up saved programs from the PSP, but from the Mac to PSP it does a whole lot more, like syncing photo albums, playlists from iTunes but more importantly movies.

PSPWARE just takes the movie directory (produced from MacTheRipper) and magically out pops some MPEG4 files. They take a while to convert, but when the PSP is plugged in, they zap across and just work.

They really do look good and are very watchable.

Watching movies on the road Windows users don’t despair

PSPWARE has just been released for Windows with the same functionality as the Mac version. Unfortunately though there are DVD rippers out there they can be difficult to use.

DVDdecrypter was one of the best (very similar to MacTheRipper) and it’s still available from various sites, but the author has stopped supporting it as he was “put under pressure” from a major corporation.

PSPWARE is available from NullRiver it costs about £8 (~US$14~€11) for a perpetual license (free upgrades).

MacTheRipper is availble from RipDifferent and is freeware.

Windows users will have to do a bit of digging for DVDdecrypter – but it’s out there and free.

NOTE: Incredible as it may seem, making digital copies of films may be illegal in your country, even if for personal use.

MSN IM To Vodafone Handsets

The ability to disconnect from the world has taken a further blow as Vodafone and Microsoft announce a global tied up to offer MSN Messenger IM to Vodafone’s mobile phone customers. People sitting at their MSN Instant Messaging (IM) client on their computers will be able to carry out chats with their Vodafone carrying chums.

The function goes beyond the simple exchange of messages, extending to showing the “presence” of their contacts and exchange instant messages between MSN Messenger on a PC and Vodafone Messenger on mobile phones and vice versa.

It’s the matching of equals – MSN Messenger has 165m customers against Vodafone’s global totally of 155m. Both of them are seeing it as a way to raise additional income – while IM PC-PC is free, this Vodafone/MSN offering will be paid for. Time will tell if the consumers that are the focus of this will be willing to pay for the privilege.

MSN IM To Vodafone Handsets Putting on his best tech-savvy face, Peter Bamford, Chief Marketing Officer for Vodafone glowed, “IM is a growing part of the increasingly important mobile messaging market. By bringing our collective customers together, we’ll deliver more options for staying in touch when messaging. Our agreement will grow IM and SMS, meaning additional revenue for Vodafone.”

This type of PC-to-mobile messaging isn’t new. About nine months ago there was a rash of mobile phone companies announcing PC to SMS messaging, some with more success than others.

Digital-Lifestyles understand that this IM deal will not be unique or exclusive to either party. Vodafone will be working with other IM services and MS will hookup with other mobile phone companies.

The official Vodafone word on the new service didn’t give us any information on pricing of the service, so we went digging.

MSN IM To Vodafone Handsets While we didn’t get to any exact figures, we were able to find out the service will be charged on the basis of each message sent. This will cause current IM users to radically change the way they use IM. No more will they be quickly replying with short witticisms, but will need to become more Bard-like in their compositions – if they don’t want to end up with huge bills at the end of the month.

A finger-in-the-air estimate to the per message cost? A Vodafoner told us it will be around, but under the cost of SMS, which should be made slightly more palatable by bundles being available.

Vodafone Messenger, a form of IM on their mobiles, currently run on Vodafone Live! This WAP-based service is embedded into the latest Vodafone handsets. The new offering will use this, and if it isn’t available, straight SMS will be used.

Trials for the new service will start in July, with the product being introduced in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands in the next two months. Other European countries will follow by the end of the year.

Vodafone Messenger MSN Messenger

BT Gets Botty Smacked By ASA Over ‘Free Calls’ Claims

BT Gets Botty Smacked Over Free Calls Claims Delivering a king size slipper to the ample bottom of BT, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that BT’s PC-based internet telephony service, BT Communicator, does not make “free” calls.

In one of its mailings, the UK telco behemoth had bragged: “BT Communicator – FREE UK Calls for a year” emphasising the freebieness of the deal with the strap line: “The power of BT Broadband to enjoy free calls for a year”.

But a concerned consumer in Kent was having none of it, arguing that by gleefully proclaiming “FREE UK Calls for a year”, BT was pulling a fast one.

BT Gets Botty Smacked Over Free Calls Claims The Kentish complainant pointed out that by using the VoIP service he’d rapidly burn up the 1 gig a month usage limit that BT slaps on its Broadband Basic packages – and once he exceeded that limit, he’d have to start forking out for additional time online.

Hauled in front of the ASA, BT mumbled something about the fact that they “had not intended to charge customers for the service, but they had not fully considered the impact of usage allowances on the ability to make free calls”.

The ASA was not impressed, making a savage sauté of BT’s nether regions: “The Authority was concerned that, although the promotion offered ‘free calls’, those calls depleted the monthly usage allowance that a broadband customer paid for on a monthly basis as part of their broadband package”.

BT Gets Botty Smacked Over Free Calls Claims Smarting from a derriere rouge par excellence, BT was told “not to describe calls that depleted a consumer’s usage allowance as ‘free’ and to state prominently in advertisements for BT Communicator that making telephone calls depleted a consumer’s broadband usage allowance”.

This ruling raises the suggestion that BT hasn’t fully considered the impact of VoiP usage allowances on its services.

With BT ramping up bandwidth-gorging offerings with innovations like video on demand and smarty pants hybrid mobile/landline BT Fusion handsets, the broadband experience of the future may prove to be a mighty expensive one for consumers.

BT Communicator
ASA
BT thrashed for ‘free’ VoIP call claim

Google Adds New Personalised Search Features

Google Adds New Personalised Search Features Google has launched an updated beta version of its personalised search tool that learns from your history of searches and search results you’ve clicked on, shuffling more relevant results to the top of the page.

Here’s how it works: if a mad keen boozer was always searching for man-sized glasses to sup his ale from, Google would learn from his search history with future searches for the keyword “glasses” automatically serving up glass-related results, while ignoring results for the four-eyed variety.

Similarly, if the surfer was a teetotaller with an Elton John-like obsession with spectacles, Google would only serve up spec-related results and links when they searched for “glasses”.

According to Google’s Marissa Mayer, the more users search and build up a search history the better the results will become.

“We need to have a history of the user,” Mayer added. “When people first sign up they may not see results right away, but it will build over time.”

Consumers need to have a Google account for the free service and those using the previous version of the personalised search service will automatically be switched to the new version.

The service only works when the user is signed on to their Google account.

Google Adds New Personalised Search Features Clearly, there could be a shedload of potential privacy concerns here with the search history feature compiling a detailed list of every page you’ve ever searched for, but sneaky surfers hoping for a bit of discrete titillation can sign out of the personalised search service, pause it or remove it through their accounts page.

Furtive track-coverers can also remove individual items from their search history as well.

This latest personalised search beta is a refinement of the previous version, launched in March 2004, which only customised searches after users had manually selected categories of interest.

Like all Google public betas, the new personalised search service is currently sitting in Google Labs, described by the company as an “engineer’s playground”.

Mayer said she could not speculate on when a final version will be launched, adding that Google will not be customising advertisements based on the personalised search.

This latest search development reflects Google’s drive to let users customise their Web experiences, and follows on from the personalised Google home page feature introduced in May.

Google labs

BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband

BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband In a cornucopia of convergence, BT has announced their intention to use the Microsoft TV Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Edition software platform to deliver TV over broadband in the UK. Internally within BT, the project is referred to as Project Nevis.

The Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform lets broadband network operators whizz high-quality video content and services down the wire to their customers using existing and next-gen broadband networks.

The platform delivers cost-effective and security-enhanced delivery of a whole gamut of pay-TV service offerings, including standard- and high-definition channels, on-demand programming, digital video recording, and interactive program guides.

There are extra consumer-pleasing gizmos in the package too, with features like instant channel-changing and picture-in-picture functionality using multiple video streams.

Unlike most consumer pay-TV delivery systems, the Microsoft TV platform allows network operators to integrate the delivery of pay-TV services with other networked broadband services in the home such as PCs, telephones, game consoles, mobile devices and other gadgets.

Gavin Patterson, Group Managing Director of BT Retail slipped on his buzzword moccasins and danced a soft shoe shuffle to his Big Vision:

“BT and Microsoft share a common vision for converged entertainment in the home. TV over broadband services will play an important role in BT’s triple-play offering for consumers. Our approach of over-the-air broadcast and broadband-delivered video-on-demand, interactivity and enhanced support is the perfect solution and complements existing TV propositions already in the UK market. The combination of Microsoft’s best-in-class technology with BT’s 21st-century network will result in an incredibly exciting set of next-generation entertainment and communication services available to consumers across the UK.”

BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband As the sound of mutual backslapping threatened to reach ASBO-generating levels, Moshe Lichtman, corporate VP of the Microsoft TV division gushed:

“BT is a great example of one of the world’s leading network operators choosing Microsoft TV as the software platform for its digital TV and converged entertainment services.”

“We are very pleased to be working with such a well-respected and innovative operator as BT. Microsoft TV IPTV Edition will enable a full suite of integrated entertainment and communication services that will set the bar for what consumers will expect,” he added.

BT plan to start trials of the TV over broadband service in early 2006, with a commercial service expected to start in the summer of 2006.

Microsoft TV
BT