We’ve now had change to absorb this and ponder its impact
After weeks of frantic speculation that a video-capable iPod was on the way, Apple have sure enough announced the very thing at their event in the California Theatre in San Jose and BBC Television Centre in the UK.
Steve Kennedy has been at the UK event for us. There was no live updating allowed during the event, so updates have been patchy and details were slow to emerge.
Here’s the highlights …
New iMac G5. A bit faster, but the big thing is FrontRow. It’s Apple’s Media Centre-killer. The new Apple Remote, a svelte 6 button remote control that looks like a shuffle, controls any media you have on your iMac. Makes the MS Media Centre 26+ button remote look very wrong – too tech. Simplicity reigns. iSight camera is built in. Parallel output to bigger screen, projector. Price is very tempting starting at $1,299 (17″ £899 inc vat, €1379) (20″ £1199, €1799).
Video-capable iPod. Next gen iPod with 30% thinner than current generation player but with a bigger 2.5″ colour screen. 320×240 QVGA (quarter VGA), but not wide screen as rumoured. Video playback supports MPEG-4 and h.264 playback. 30Gb & 60Gb. S-vdeo out through the doc, but video will appear pixelated on full size TV screen. The 30GB should go for $299 (~£219~€349), and the 60GB for $399 (~£300~€469). They’re on the Apple online Store and will be shipping next week.?
?Not quite the world shattering device that was expected, but from those who have seen it “sexy.”
iTunes 6 – Upgraded again after the 5.0 release of a few week ago. The big change. As expected from our first video of itms, downloadable video. A deal has (~£227~€331) been done with ABC/Disney to let five shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost and three disney shows currently) to be paid for and downloaded the day after they’re on TV – only in the US currently. Is there any co-incidence that the UK launch happened in the BBC TV centre?
“It’s never been done before, where you could view hit TV shows and buy them online the day after they’re shown,” Jobs said. While this may be true that people have not been able to _Buy_ it, but let’s not forget that the BBC has the iMP trial running, where you can get shows straight after they’re shown – but for nothing.
We imagine there’ll be lots of lost sleep in Redmond tonight.
We’ll have a more considered piece on the impact of the announcements once it’s sunk in.
Nokia has announced the Eseries phones, a new range of devices designed for swivel action execs and be-suited business bods. 
The devices are the first in the industry to support remote device management based on OMA DM*, letting IT managers remotely control and protect corporate data on the device and fiddle about with phone configurations. Or just have a good nose about. 
Nokia E61 (right)
Nokia E70 (left)
Like a big flashing sign above the listener’s head saying “Mug Me!” the distinctive white headphones of iPods continue to attract the unwanted attentions of ne’er-do-wells in the street.
Figures from the Metropolitan police revealed that the practice of purloining iPods increased more than fivefold since last November 2004, with incidents rising from ten a month to 52 in May this year.
Sony Ericsson has beefed up its flagship P-series smartphone range with the new 3G P990 phone.
Naturally, Sony are keen to shove their oar into Blackberry’s waters, with the P990 prepared for all major push e-mail clients enabling full e-mail access with attachments.
The P990 will be the first commercially available smartphone to use the enhanced Symbian OS version 9.1 and the UIQ 3.0 user interface, which has been optimised for one handed use.
Keen to get their size nines stamped all over the fast-growing podcasting revolution, Yahoo have launched a spanking new podcast service designed to make it easy for punters to rummage through the zillions of audio files available and find the stuff that interest them.
Surfers will also be able to listen to or subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for individual shows, episodes or entire series.
The service will offer a unique feature that lets users find content quicker by speeding up playback without the the broadcaster’s voice sounding like Mickey Mouse on helium.
Unlike rival Podcast search sites, Yahoo! isn’t bundling in tools for creating podcasts at the moment, although that’s likely to happen in the future, with Joe Hayashi, Yahoo!’s director of product management saying, “This is all about discovery for now. Step One is all about growing the ecosystem.
Anybody who really thinks that T-Mobile is behind the new “Web’n’Walk” offering it trotted out last week, has really not being paying attention. It’s Google Talk, a VoIP service normally available for PC users, now sneakily able to go out over 3G data services.
Officially, the new service gives you the Web in your pocket. This is not new; the Opera press release went out announcing Web’n’Walk back in June! it would only have been in any sense new last month, if we were discussing the “3” Internet service was being leaked, since Hutchison had previously been resolutely adamant that its users would have access only to the “3” web in a walled garden. That news was known to NewsWireless readers back in broke in early September: Hutchison will be opening up its 3G phones to full Internet browsing shortly. 
Can UMTS really compete?
According to a study by IDC, instant messaging in the business world is going bonkers and looks set to continue its huge growth, but experts are warning of security risks.
The growth in the enterprise segment is being fuelled by domestic users of IM tools like MSN Messenger bringing their online chatting habits into the work place and using the service as a business collaboration tool.
IMLogic says that the attacks on the IM clients have reached record values – up 14 times on last year – with the complexity of the attacks also increasing.
Google and Sun Microsystems have come up with a broad, but fuzzy, deal which will see the two companies developing and distributing each other’s technology in a move to challenge Microsoft’s Office suite dominance. 
It’s also expected that the deal will make it easier for freeloading punters to obtain OpenOffice, Sun’s well-regarded, freely distributed office productivity suite which directly competes with Microsoft Office.
Bundling the two products together seems a wise move, increasing the appeal of the Google Toolbar and making Java a more attractive proposition for software developers.
Fashion aficionados concerned that the hue of their laptop may clash awfully with their high fashion clobber will be delighted to learn that Sony is releasing their Sony F-type laptops in four stylish colours.
Carbon Fibre Laptops
The Vaio TX series offer a handy AV mode button which makes the machine available for watching movies or listening to music in just 12 seconds with no need to boot up Windows.
Listen to 
Politically, presenting in Tokyo was an important act – delivering this radical message in the home town of Sony’s head office. 
In the nine months that its been on the market, it’s sold 6m units worldwide, making it, they claim, the most successful portable games machine to date.