Music

DRM-Interchange Alive And Living In Korea
As we’ve been covering for ages, Korea is super forward in many things electronic.
Now they’re leading in their treatment of DRM – making different DRM schemes interchangeable.
DRM systems are used to restrict what people can do with their digital media, normally audio and video. This pleases the content owners considerably, but consumers are finding it frustrating that media they are buying on one service will not play on all of their portable music players – eg music bought on iTunes cannot play on a non-iPod player.
By making DRM system interchangeable, the hope is that everyone remains happy – the content owner, because the content stays ‘protected’ by the DRM and the consumer because they have the freedom to move it to any playing device they have.
The Koreans are achieving this by the EXIM standard for online and mobile music service. EXIM stands for Export/Import which was developed Korea’s Electronic & Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and INKA Entworks. It should be wide reaching as up to 90% of online music sites and 70% of portable music devices deployed in Korea at the moment use DRM solutions based on the EXIM standard.
What differentiates the Korean mobile music market is that all phones sold since 2003 have a USB connector, which is used to transfer music they download via their computers, to their mobiles. This is sometimes called sideloading.
SK Telecom, the largest mobile provider in Korea as finally agreed to open up their handsets and service to allow music from third party services to be used. Until now only content authorised by SK could be loaded onto their phones.
James Ahn, CEO of INKA Entworks, was clearly excited at the prospect, “SK Telecom’s decision to implement the EXIM standard is an important milestone because of its dominant position in the mobile phone services and online music services markets. We’re happy to have SK Telecom as a partner.”
ETRI
INKA
13 December, 2006
Napster Mobile: O2 Ireland Is First
O2 Ireland has become the first European mobile operator to offer Napster Mobile.
Napster Mobile lets people search, browse, preview and purchase content from Napster’s 2.2m+ track music catalogue.
The service is launching on O2’s 3G i-mode handsets with the hope that non i-mode handsets should be available by March 2007 on O2 Active.
From the beginning of next year O2 Ireland customers will also be able to access a copy of their mobile downloads on their personal computers giving them the flexibility of having their music downloads both on the go and at the PC, all from one universally recognised music brand.
One of the difficulties with moving a service like Napster from the large PC screen to a mobile handset could be the restrictions of the screen size. To alleviate the problems of navigating such a large number of tracks, the new Napster Mobile service also features a recommendation engine which makes content recommendations based on each customer’s personal taste in music. Nice.
Waking up to consumers demands, users of the service will also be able to access tracks that they purchase on the mobiles, on their PCs, from the beginning of next year.
Ericsson is powering the backend of the service – an interesting change from Nokia, who normally provide the technology to do this.
O2 has spend a considerable amount of money tying themselves to music, attempting to benefit from all of the ‘cool’ that it can bring. You only have to witness the party they threw at IFA last year to understand how successfully they’ve been with it – it was definitely the best party at IFA, rammed full of young things gyrating.
The service is already running at NTT DoCoMo in Japan (also i-mode), SunCom Wireless and Cingular in the US. Plans for further European operator are being finalised, with Portugal expecting to be the next.
O2 Ireland
Napster UK
13 December, 2006
Study: iPod Users Aren’t Going Va-Va-Voom For Video
Industry analysts Nielsen Media Research have discovered that Apple iPod-toting consumers aren’t going ga-ga for video, with the vast majority preferring to listen to music and audio podcasts rather than watch TV or movies.
Nielsen monitored the activity of 400 iPod users in the US during October and found that videos made up less than 1 per cent of the content played on either iTunes or the device itself.
Things didn’t get much better with video iPod users, with just 2.2 per cent loading up their players with video content.
With many TV shows coming in at 30-60 minutes and most songs hovering around the three minute mark, you’d think that watching video would account for a sizeable proportion of the user’s time.
Instead, Nielsen found that watching video still only accounted for just 2 per cent of total time spent using iPods or iTunes among iPod owners.
Not surprisingly this figure rises for Video iPod users, who were found to spend 11 per cent of their time watching videos.
The figures, contained in Nielsen’s ‘Home Tech Report’, estimates that over one in ten US households (13 per cent) own at least one iPod – that’s around 15 million units – with 30 per cent of those owning video-enabled iPods.
Apple’s own figures put the total amount of iPods shifted so far around at a coffer-boosting 70 million units.
Nielsen’s figures raise questions about whether consumers are going to warmly embrace video on the move as enthusiastically as the manufacturers would like.
We know that we barely ever watch video content on our mobile players, but then we’d imagine the video-playing target demographic is considerably younger than us comparative crumblies (i.e we’re over 20).
Apple, who declined to comment on the study, claimed that their current sales had seen 1.5 billion songs and 45 million videos shifted, and elsewhere Walt Disney recently announced that it had sold around half a million movies.
[From CNet news]
21 November, 2006
Smartphone Sales Soar
Smartphone unit sales are soaring, with sales almost tripling between 2004 and 2005, and increasing a further 50% in the first half of 2006 compared to the previous year.
Figures revealed by the high-tech market research firm In-Stat reveal that the Windows Mobile operating system has now managed to grab an equal slice of the US market share with smartphone big boys, BlackBerry and Palm.
Bill Hughes, an analyst at the research firm says that much of 2005’s soaring smartphone shipment growth was down to a run on Linux-based handset shipments in Asia at the end of the year.
However, he’s a bit sniffy about calling these phones – mainly from Motorola, NEC, and Panasonic – proper smartphones because they don’t possess the same high end functionality seen in Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm OS devices.
Although the Linux-based handsets are capable of running Java-powered applications added by users, Hughes reckons they should really be called ‘feature phones’ rather than smartphones.
Despite the spectacular sales, Hughes advised caution, pointing out that many smartphone users continue to lug around the very devices that smartphones are supposed to replace.
“Also, users have been slow to add new applications to their devices. Most users have only downloaded a few applications,” he added.
Other research by In-Stat found that business users given work phones were three times more likely to carry a second phone for their personal calls than other users.
In-Stat
21 November, 2006
LG VX9900 Smartphone To Launch This Month
LG’s flip-open VX9900 business phone has been scheduled for a November 27th US launch date on Verizon’s network.
The phone, also called the enV, follows the same design lines as Nokia’s innovative Communicator phone, with the case flipping open to reveal a keyboard and screen.
When the phone is opened up, users can experience a full QWERTY keyboard and twin-speaker sound, although the main screen only fills a disappointingly small proportion of the lid.
With the 262k color TFT LCD running at just QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) resolution, we reckon users would have preferred the more capacious 640×200 offered by the Communicator.
The CDMA VX9900 is a fully featured fella though, sporting a 2 megapixel camera with flash and an MP3 and video player, even if all that functionality adds up to quite a portly pocket-filler of a phone.
There’s also a microSD memory card slot onboard for storing music and video files, with support for high-speed EV-DO data networks
LG have gone to town on Bluetooth 1.2 wireless connectivity options, with the VX9900 supporting HSP (headset), HFP (hands-free), DUN (dial-up networking), A2DP (advanced audio distribution), SPP (serial port), AVRCP (audio/video remote control), BPP (printing) and HID (human interface device) profiles.
LG claim a talk-time of 4.5 hours and a standby of more than 19 days, with prices ranging from $320.00 (full price) down to US $149.99 for a two-year contract with Verizon.
LG
20 November, 2006
TA 454 Ultra Portable Personal Media Player
Smaller than a pixie’s pocket plaything, the ridiculously tiny Ultra Portable Personal Media Player and Recorder is quite the teensiest thing we’ve seen for a while.
Sporting a squinty 1.5″ TFT LCD screen, the TA 454 Digital Video Player comes with 256MB of built-in memory and a built-in SD/MMC card slot, with the whole thing barely bigger than a SD memory card.
With a radio and USB connectivity, the device can be plugged into your PC or laptop without drivers and charged at the same time.
Lord knows how they’ve managed to fit it in, but there’s also a speaker onboard too, although we imagine the output must be quieter than a gnat having a snooze.
The mighty midget multimedia widget supports SMV, MP3, WMA, JPG and eBook file formats with the makers insisting that it can handle ‘full motion video.’
We’re not sure how much motion you’d actually get to see on such a Lilliputian device, but we can’t help but be impressed by the miniaturisation skills on offer – even if you’ll need lady-like fingers to operate the thing.
It’s as cheap as chips too, with Gadget Universe offering it for just $80 (£42, €62).
Gadget Universe
13 November, 2006
OverBoard Extreme Pro-Sports Floating Waterproof iPod Case
A UK company specialising in waterproof bags, OverBoard, have widened their selection of waterproof cases to include electronic gear.
As many of you may have found out to your disappointment, electronics goods do _not_ mix with either water or sand where they either short out in the case of water, or start making a horrible grinding sound in the case of sand.
OverBoard already had cases for mobile phones, PSP and various music players including iPod that could be used for “leisure activities,’ such as light swimming or chilling by the pool or knocking around on a sandy beach.
OverBoard tell us that it’s even possible to make a phone call with the case in place.
Not content with just providing their leisure range, they’ve decided to tackle the design problem of a waterproof iPod case for extreme water sports, a range they call pro-Sports. Not only are they more rugged, but float, so your rather expensive music player doesn’t start playing its tunes to the fishes.
I got my hands on them at the WhiteAir Extreme Sports Festival
I’d never seen waterproof ipod cases before and was surprised to see a headphone adaptor pointing out of the bottom of it – quite how else I thought you’d listen to them is anyones guess. The connector is gold to minimise corrosion, but OverBoard recommend washing the unit through with freshwater after use.
Taking the music player in and out of the case is simple. Overboard’s seal on these cases are sliders, so moving these apart gives direct access to the waterproof pouch. Once the headphone plug has been inserted into the player, sealing the bag is just a case of pushing the sliders together again. Controlling the player is simple through the clear section of the case.
The time I had with it gave me the impression that the case is very tough. There’s two leads supplied, a neoprene velcro sports arm strap (for attaching to your arm – in the photo) and a safety break neck lanyard.
Overboard have good a couple of developments underway. The first is a PSP bag which they’re adding a headphone socket to and they tell me that they’re planning on bringing out some waterproof headphones soon.
The Pro-sport range iPod player (black and white) is available from the OverBoard site for £24.99 (€37, $48).
OverBoard Pro-Sport case
OverBoard
Some more photos of the OverBoard cases
10 November, 2006
Universal Music Get Part Of Zune Price
Microsoft is giving the Universal Music Group (UMG) a per-unit fee for each Zune that they sell, in addition to the money that they’ll make out sell music tracks on it too.
There’s only days left until the US launch of Zune, Microsoft’s last hope to get in a strong position with portable music players. The deal with Universal has only just been sealed, so we’d imagine the negotiations with Microsoft haven’t been that relaxed, because, as we all know, a device without content is in a dangerous position.
In our view this deal is lunacy. Giving the record company part of the value of selling the portable music player is like letting them have part of the profit from selling a record player.
Is Microsoft really that desperate to try and make up the huge gap between itself and Apple, that it’s prepared to give away part of the actual device?
It is possible that this a move-of-genius by Microsoft, creating a new ‘standard’ of deal within digital music deal. The reality is that when Apple’s negotiating with the labels, they have the strongest card of all – OK don’t deal with us, and lose access to the most popular music sales in the world.
10 November, 2006
Windows Media Player 11 Released
Confidently billed as “a milestone for music fans and the digital entertainment experience on Windows XP,” Microsoft’s shiny new Windows Media Player 11 claims support for more than 200 portable and home networking devices and hundreds of online music and video services and radio stations.
The upgrade to their popular media player comes with a sleeker, iTunes-esque user interface, better online store integration, improved navigation and updated search tools for larger music libraries.
“Windows Media Player 11 is the first media player to be truly designed with the digital entertainment lover in mind,” purred Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows at Microsoft.
“The fresh, exciting new look, the ability to find songs and videos in an instant, and the enhanced capabilities for syncing with portable devices are not only exactly what customers have asked us for, they’re also a preview of what’s to come in Windows Vista,” he added.
New for Media Player 11 is thumbnail and album art displays; shuffle sync and reverse sync options and a library view backed by simplified navigation capabilities and enhanced shortcut options.
Tabs galore
Along the top of the super-slick, Vista-ready interface are six access tabs letting you jump between the currently playing media, the media library, and tools for ripping, burning and syncing up media.
So far so good until you come to the last pointless tab, which offers instant access MTV’s Urge music store. The result of some lucrative MTV marketing tie-in or another, users will have to put up with this unwanted guest forever as there’s no way of getting rid of the thing.
WMP11 can rip audio CDs in the default WMA format or the more popular MP3 format and there’s also support for the beardy audiophiles preferred format, lossless WAV, along with the ability to easily burn all supported file formats onto CD.
The new player is available as a free download to users with genuine copies of Windows XP – which means you’re going to have to go through a pesky validation palaver to install the program.
Windows Media Player 11
31 October, 2006
Mobile Music Phones Outsell MP3 Players
Mobile phones with built in MP3 music players are proving a massive hit with consumers, far outstripping sales of dedicated music players, say Nokia.
Speaking to Reuters, Nokia’s multimedia unit director, Tommi Mustonen, said the mobile giant aimed to shift 80 million music devices this year, getting on for double last year’s tally of 46.5 million.
“The technology is completely ready, and the change in consumers’ habits has started. The best evidence is our sales number. We are selling huge amounts,” he added.
Nokia’s sales figures certainly dwarf those of Apple, who sold 8.7 million iPods in the last quarter – a high enough figure to keep them at the top of the dedicated music player charts, but still way behind music phones.
Although two out of three consumers with suitable equipped phones are already using them to play music, Nokia insists that Apple is not a competitor (well, not until their highly anticipated iPhone hits the shops).
“The comparison with iPod is wrong; it is a single purpose device, and it is not connected,” Mustonen said, adding that he believes that Nokia’s current rivals are, “companies which make multimedia computers.”
One of their rivals is most certainly Sony Ericsson, currently the world’s fourth-largest handset maker and feeling chuffed with itself after flogging 15 million Walkman music-playing handsets in its first year.
The overall European mobile phone music download market is expanding faster than Mr Creosote at a dinner table too, with Forrester Research predicting that the market is to grow to 674 million euros ($857.5 million) in 2011.
Reuters
31 October, 2006