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Yahoo! Launches Go Services
Yahoo is launching a new service aimed at making it easier for users to connect to Yahoo Internet-based services through multiple Web-connected devices, including mobiles and TVs.
Announced by Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the new Yahoo Go service consists of the Yahoo Go Desktop, Yahoo Go Mobile and Yahoo Go TV interfaces,
Each of the interfaces is optimised for the screen of the specific device, with Yahoo Go automatically serving up the appropriate interface.
So long as the device is connected to the Internet, users will be able to access their personal Yahoo content such as photos, email and address books.
Stating the flaming obvious, Semel commented: “We think the Internet is not a Web page or desktop, [but] an infrastructure and delivery vehicle for communication, experiences, entertainment and any kind of data you use on the Internet.”
“The next generation is about ease of use and open platforms that connect the Internet to any device that you all will be manufacturing. Yahoo is in the perfect position to be a great partner to all of you who are working on devices in the future,” he added.
Yahoo! will be rolling out their Go TV service in the next few months, with the service enabling users to access various other Web based services for TVs, including local movie listing search and personalised MyYahoo! functions.
If you’re a heavy Yahoo! user, we can see the attraction of the new Go services, with the universal internet database ensuring that personal info is synchronised across all your devices.
Even better, the remote storage concept means that your data will be safe if a device is misplaced or stolen.
Yahoo! Go.
10 January, 2006
Vodafone and Sony NetServices introduce “Vodafone Radio DJ” (News release)
Back in May 05 we did an interview with two senior Sony execs in Europe, Robert Ashcroft, Senior Vice-President of Network Services Europe and Gregory Kukolj, General Manager for Personal Audio Europe. We explored where Sony was, and where it was planning to go. With todays annoucment in mind, it’s probably worth a revisit – The Future of Sony Network Music and Players: Interview
Today, Vodafone and Sony NetServices are announcing a partnership for the global roll-out of the world’sfirst fully convergent music service – Vodafone Radio DJ – offering interactive, personalised radio channelsstreamed to both 3G mobile phones and personal computers.
With Vodafone Radio DJ, customers have access to hundreds of thousands of songs, both current popularhits and back catalogue, from the world’s largest record companies, and many smaller independent labels.Customers can access streamed radio channels, bespoke collections, and channels defined by customersthemselves.
The key feature of Vodafone Radio DJ is its easy-to-use personalization system, which enables customers to”train” the pre-programmed radio channels to their own personal tastes by simply pressing a button toindicate “like” or “dislike” while listening to a song. If a customer presses ‘dislike’, the music skips to the nextsong.
Through Sony NetServices’ detailed classification of each song in the catalogue – analysing beat andharmonies as well as genre and mood – the radio channels that individual customers receive will featuremore songs that have characteristics in common with songs that are liked, whilst avoiding songs withcharacteristics similar to those that the customer dislikes.
The Vodafone Radio DJ service consists of three elements:
- Pre-defined channels. Customers can select a radio channel based on mood or genre. If the customerindicates that they don’t like the song, the channel skips to the next track within the channel. Customers can also buy any songs that they like and these will be automatically available for download to their phone andPC.
- Personal Channels. By rating songs on the existing radio channels, the customer can create a number ofnew, personal channels corresponding to their desired genres, moods or specific themes.
- Collections. Vodafone Radio DJ also presents programmed collections of songs to the customer on mobilephone or PC. These collections will be created by local music experts around a theme (eg Christmas Hits, orthe Best New Hip-Hop), be updated regularly, and will comprise about 15 songs.
Songs purchased on either mobile phone or PC will be available to download on both devices, with aseparate high quality stereo copy being delivered individually to each. Personal settings and personalchannels created on the mobile phone will also be accessible from the PC.
The Radio DJ service will be offered on the basis of a monthly subscription for unlimited listening to music onboth mobile phone and PC. There will be no extra charge to the consumer for the data traffic needed todeliver the music to the phone or PC.
Vodafone Radio DJ will be launched in six European countries in the coming months, namely UK, France,Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It will then be rolled out to more than 20 countries worldwide over thefollowing twelve months.
“This is the beginning of a new era in portable music. This partnership with Sony will drive Vodafone’sstrategy to become a leading global music provider. Vodafone Radio DJ is a revolutionary new way todiscover personal music, anytime and anywhere, and we anticipate it will have widespread consumer appealamongst our customers”, said Edward Kershaw, Vodafone’s Head of Music.
“Subscribers to Vodafone Radio DJ can listen to all the music they like, and discover new music to love.Vodafone Radio DJ opens a world of music discovery and listening pleasure on both the mobile phone andon the PC”>
9 January, 2006
Google Video Store Announced
Slapping iTunes around the face with their hefty gauntlet, Google have laid down a challenge to iTunes with the announcement of their new video and television Internet service, the Google Video Store.
Announced by Google Co-founder and President Larry Page at the closing keynote address of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the service will let consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from major TV networks, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers.
The rapidly growing catalogue will also include current and archive material from CBS, NBA, music videos from SONY BMG and news and historical content from ITN.
The service promises to “democratise” video sales, letting wannabe Spielbergs sell their movies on Google Video Store, with Google taking what Larry Page has described as a “very low” percentage of the sale cost.
“Google video will let you watch lots of high quality video on the Web for the first time. You can search and browse, and we make it fast and easy for you to watch,” enthused Page.
“For video producers and anyone with a video camera, Google Video will give you a platform to publish to the entire Google audience in a fast, free and seamless way,” he added.
Visitors to the Google Video homepage at video.google.com will be able to shuffle through what’s on offer by searching listings by category or by text search.
Content from Google Video can be viewed on Google’s video player, a free download that includes a “thumbnail” navigation feature that enables users to browse through an entire video, or frames at a time, with a click of their mouse.
iPod and Sony Playstation Portable users will also be able to download and watch specially optimised versions of non-copy-protected content from Google Video.
Google Video Store will shortly be available throughout the world, although premium content will only be available for purchase in the US.
video.google.com
9 January, 2006
ITV: Takeover Rumors, Poss BT
Speculators with a wad of cash might like to consider convert said cash into an ITV plc share holding in the next few days some feel.
Rumors in the city on Friday that BT was seriously considering making a bid for the UK’s top-rated commercial broadcaster have already driven the ITV share-price up. While this particular risk adverse suitor might not make the deal, ITV is looking an increasingly attractive proposition to a variety of companies.
Even without a takeover, ITV has been tipped by financial commentators to outperform the sector having come out the other side of a restructuring process as a more focused media company.
BT, despite having previously stated that it has no desire to enter the content market, needs to consider the competition from both BSkyB and a revitalised NTL. This could force BT’s into making an early move before other predatory companies come out of the shadows but will need to balance this against the cost of such an acquisition.
Google has already done a deal with ITN, part owned by ITV (and its contracted news provider), to access the company’s extensive archives and is busy beefing up an alliance to take on Microsoft and Yahoo.
Away from the ‘Search goliaths’, mobile companies also see an opportunity in DVB-H TV services. This would provide revenues but the mobile operators would be in a position where they’d need to split revenues with broadcasters or content owners. Perhaps they would like to get a hold of a strong broadcaster to pay for those expensive licenses?
Unlike Sky, which is principally a broadcast platform owner and call centre operator, ITV actually has what companies with desires to be fully-grown media giants badly need; content and a fifty year plus heritage of making TV programmes.
Until a financially-pressed Chancellor of the Exchequer looks at the anomaly that is the Channel 4 company (effectively a state owned UK TV company), there’s not a lot else available in Europe that sustains close scrutiny. The UK’s Channel 5 is embedded with RTL and it is unlikely that the BBC will be considered for privatisation until after the next Royal Charter is granted.
In the current frenzy of consolidation, ITV a relative minnow in global terms is sure-fire shark bait to Telcos, mobile operators and Internet giants.
9 January, 2006
Google Serves Up A Bumper Pack Of Software Freebies
Like a pub drunk wanting to take on the entire world, Google have gone over to Microsoft’s table, knocked over their pints and invited them out for a scrap.
Fresh from their beer spilling iTunes slapdown, Google are looking to move onto Microsoft’s patch by offering a package of free personal computer programmes called the Google Pack.
The bumper pack of freebies will include Google’s desktop search feature, the well-regarded Firefox browser, anti-virus software from Norton, Realplayer’s multimedia player and Adobe Acrobat’s document reader.
Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience at Google commented, “The pack has been created to give users a way to painlessly install all the essential software they need – pre-configured in a sensible way – in a matter of minutes. Better yet, users don’t have to keep track of software updates or new programs – we maintain and update all the software for them.”
It’s certainly an impressive package, containing genuinely useful programs like Adobe Reader 7, Ad-Aware SE Personal, GalleryPlayer HD Images, Google Desktop, Google Earth, Google Talk, Firefox, Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition, Picasa, RealPlayer and Trillian.
The package comes with the Google Updater, which intelligently downloads, installs, maintains and updates all the software in the Google Pack.
Josh Bernoff, a media and internet analyst at Forrester, a technology research company, described the move as a “direct action to challenge Microsoft,” adding, “Google is saying, ‘We can manage the browser and other elements of the computer-desktop experience better than you’.”
Although there’s nothing in the Google Pack you can’t get elsewhere, by offering a unified package, Google is clearly wading into Microsoft territory – and we think things may become very interesting indeed if Google later decide to bundle in the “Open Office suite
Google Pack beta runs on Windows XP and is available at http://pack.google.com.
9 January, 2006
Sky Broadband UK Delivery, With Microsoft Surprise
Interestingly, after Sky made a decision to use a non-Microsoft solution for its HD TV service in the UK, Bill Gates has revealed a deal has been done between BSkyB and Microsoft that will enable Sky’s UK subscribers to access a “Video on Demand” service using Microsoft Media Centre”.
The agreement, which will allow Sky content to be made available to subscribers over a broadband connection, is likely to worry the major UK telco, BT, who is also planning a UK video on demand service for 2006.
Mr Gates, speaking in the keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, evangelised the “arrival of the much-trailed ‘digital lifestyle’” (which of course, we here at Digital Lifestyles just loved when Bill started using it at last years CES).
The deal dovetails nicely into Sky’s acquisition of the Easynet ISP and creates a powerful alliance between a content focused Sky and the technology titan Microsoft.
Sky’s asked us to drop by next Tuesday to run through a demonstration of the product and give an outline of where they’re going with it. Expect more details.
6 January, 2006
Palm Launch Windows-Powered Treo 700w Smartphone
Palm have finally announced the launch of their much anticipated Windows Mobile powered Treo 700w smartphone.
Initially available on the US Verizon Wireless’ EV-DO network, this is the first of the hugely successful range of Treo smartphones to run on the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system.
Looking similar to the widely-appreciated Palm OS Treo product range, the Treo 700w runs Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition on a 312 MHz Intel XScale PXA 27x processor, with 128 MB (60 MB user accessible) non-volatile storage memory.
The transition to Windows has, however, seen the TFT screen resolution shrink from Palm’s 320 x 320 pixels to a more miserly 240 x 240 pixels (the same as the Treo-alike HP iPAQ hw6500 series). Early reports suggest that the screen is somewhat washed out compared to the current Palm Treo 650.
The Treo 700w comes with its familiar QWERTY thumb keypad with backlighting, a SDIO expansion slot, built-in Bluetooth 1.2 and 1.3-megapixel camera with video capture.
Notably, the Windows Treo is compatible with SDIO Wi-Fi cards (although we would have preferred built in Wi-Fi), something that the Palm OS Treo failed to deliver on (despite emphatic promises to the contrary at their product launch).
The device is designed for 800/1900MHz CDMA EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) networks, and measures up a pocketable 58 x 113 x 23 mm, and weighs 180 grams.
The removable battery gives up to 4.7 hours of talk time or up to 15 days of standby.
“Customers have long been asking for a Palm Treo smartphone on the Windows platform, and we’re thrilled to say it’s here on the Verizon Wireless network,” said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc.
“The Treo 700w smartphone is powerful, flexible and easy to use, while also being enterprise grade right out of the box,” he added.
If Palm have successfully managed the transition to the Windows platform, we can expect this new smartphone to be a winner, although we do wonder what long-term impact it may have on their Palm OS range.
There’s no news about a UK release yet, but details for US deals can be found at the Palm Website.
Palm Treo 700w smartphone.
6 January, 2006
Media Centre in 2005, What’s Apple cooking for 2006: Teenage Tech Roundup
Digital-Lifestyles is pleased to have Lawrence Dudley writing for us. All too often articles about the things teenagers are interested in are written by people old enough to be their parents. What teenagers are thinking isn’t represented. Lawrence will give you a point of view that you won’t find in other publications. You see Lawrence _is_ a teenager.
Happy New Year!!Since the New Year has just begun, a piece focusing on last year, the one that has just begun and the developments suspected to emerge during it seemed justified.
It’s strange in many ways, to look back on a space of time as long as a year in tech history. Technology evolves so rapidly that a time span of even as little as a week can seem like a month.
2005 was hailed by many as ‘The Year Of HD’: More and more High Definition TVs and displays have become available, and the recently launched Xbox 360 supports HD out of the box. HD promises us richer colours, and most importantly a resolution higher than the abysmal 500×300 or so resolution offered by a lot of standard definition televisions.
The price of HD equipment also dropped by a huge amount. A year ago, I remember seeing prices that one just couldn’t justify for a TV, with £3,000 not being an unusual sum of money to see for a HD television.
Walking into UK Electronics retailer, Dixons, the other day, I came across a set that cost a ‘mere’ £1,000. While a thousand pounds is still a lot of money, it’s a much more realistic price for a television than the three grand of a year ago. As far as I am concerned then, the ‘Year of HD’ was certainly a raging success.
I know a lot of people in technology make all sorts of predictions, and a lot of them turn out to be false, but there is one prediction I am fairly confident in making: 2006 will be THE year of the home entertainment computer.
You might wonder why I am so confident in this prediction: Afterall, Microsoft has been pushing out Windows Media Center for a good few years now, and they still haven’t gained dominance. The deciding factor for this year, I believe, will be the fact that Apple is now in the market.
On 12th October last year, Apple unveiled their first media-oriented computer, the iMac G5 which featured a remote control and accompanying software for watching DVDs, slideshows, playing music and movies. While the product’s reception was great, and the media loved it, nothing much has been heard of it since.
A nice gimmick, sure, but nothing more. It wasn’t about to replace the box under the TV, or indeed the TV itself because it missed one important feature: The ability to watch actual live television with it.
There were of course enhancements that could be purchased which made this possible, but they are awkward and use a different remote control. Never mind having different remote controls for different boxes, this was a case of two remote controls for the same one, and I for one know how frustrating it is to lose a remote. Having two of them increases the chance of losing one. Apart from this it wasn’t a polished affair, and the software to facilitate a media centre-like experience wasn’t mature enough.
What makes me think this will change? One word: Macworld in San Francisco next week. Apple are poised to do to video what they did to music, and I am confident they will pull it off with a rush of brushed aluminum and cool white plastic, accompanied with their usual style.
In the past, Apple haven’t briefed journalists in advance. There were of course all the usual rumour sites, and their fan base has always been prominent on the Web.
However, this has always been on quite specific Mac-related Websites, and not in main stream media.
Over the past few days however, the rumours have increased to such a level that popular news site Digg.com had almost one out of every two stories it carried relating to Apple in one way or another. I got a familiar buzz from this – something must be going on. Imagine my surprise then when I opened the newspaper this morning, only to find a nice big picture of Steve Jobs on the front cover of one of the inserts.
One thing’s for sure, San Francisco 2006 is going to be BIG. Along with a slew of expected Intel Apple Macs (yes, Apple are moving to the Intel architecture), a product is expected that, if released, could transform the way we consume media.
Think of it as an iPod for your living room. It downloads music, videos and films, can display and record television, radio and any other input source and can pipe audio to any room in the house, wirelessly, thanks to the existing Airtunes technology. Whether this is a dream that will soon become reality or not, will be revealed in the next few days.
It may of course be that Apple ship this wonder product later than this, but I have a feeling, only a feeling mind, that it will be at Macworld San Francisco.
So what about competitors? What are Microsoft doing about all this? It seems that Windows Vista will ship with a media center module built-in, meaning that it isn’t necessary to buy a separate Windows Media Center machine to run it on. However, not many details exist about this, and the release date isn’t certain yet, although it is scheduled for sometime in 2006.
There’s not much else to say until it becomes apparent what is released during the year, but I shall be doing a special piece covering the developments from Mac World San Francisco on or around the 12th of January. Here’s to a good year in media and technology!
6 January, 2006
Motorola Ditches iTunes With ROKR E2 Release
Motorola says adieu to Apple and bonjour to Linux as it unveiled its shiny new ROKR E2 phone at the Consumer Electronics Show today.
Adding unlimited song support, a VGA camera and a web browser, the new phone fixes many of the well documented problems of the ROKR E1, the first iTunes phone, jettisoning Apple in the process.
The new phone looks pretty similar to the original E1 phone, but offers several notable improvements including nippy USB 2.0 song transfer rates compared to the sluggish USB 1.1 of its predecessor and the removal of the artificial 100-song limit, with the Secure Digital slot supporting memory cards up to 2 GB.
Running on a new Linux-based operating system, the Motorola ROKR E2 also includes a high-res 320×240 screen, a 1.3 megapixel camera with video recording, a built-in FM radio, Opera Web browser Bluetooth (supporting wireless music streaming to stereo Bluetooth headphones), and joy-of-joys – a standard 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and not one of those ruddy annoying mini sockets that are incompatible with normal headphones.
Competing directly with the likes of the Sony Ericsson W600i and Samsung MM-A900, the new E2 lets users create and manage playlists on the device itself and offers dedicated music control keys placed on the front and side of the handset.
The phone can play “a variety” of music formats (no more info yet), with drag and drop song transfer from PCs.
Motorola’s decision to shun iTunes certainly represents a gamble. The tight integration with Apple’s jukebox service gave the phone a huge lead over its rivals, but Motorola’s well documented tiffs with Apple look to have permanently soured the relationship.
In the absence of iTunes, Motorola intends to push their iRadio Music Service, a subscription music service that uses mobile handsets as the base platform.
The company announced the music service at CES yesterday, with an offering of 435 commercial-free radio channels, which Motorola claims is one of the widest selections of subscription music entertainment available.
Available in black or white, the Motorola ROKR E2 is expected to emerge in mid-2006 with “mid-tier” pricing.
kodakgallery.com/photovoice.
4 January, 2006
BBC Open News Archive Goes Online
The BBC has announced its Open News Archive, making archive news reports freely available to the UK public to download and use for free in their own creative works.
Included amongst the initial offering of around 80 online reports will be footage from important events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beijing’s Tiananmen Square protest, the Poll Tax riots, the Piper Alpha disaster and Nelson Mandela’s release.
Made available under the terms of the recently-launched Creative Archive Licence, the footage can be viewed, downloaded, edited and mixed by UK residents – so long as it’s for non-commercial programming (there’s also several other caveats that budding film makers should read first here.)
The clips will be made available in QuickTime, Windows Media, MPEG1 and MP3 formats to ensure a wide audience, and will cover stories from the past 50 years.
Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News, said: “This trial is an important step in allowing us to share with our audiences the extraordinary news archive which the BBC has recorded over the years. We look forward to getting their reaction.”
Paul Gerhardt, project director of the Creative Archive Licence Group, added, “The BBC’s telling of those stories is part of our heritage, and now that the UK public have the chance to share and keep them we’re keen to know how they will be used.”
The BBC already offer nearly a hundred clips in their Radio 1 Superstar VJ archive, and are expected to be releasing further content over its websites in the coming months.
BBC Open News Archive
4 January, 2006