Content

Content in its shift to become digital

May You Live In Interesting Times, Festival Preview (1/2)
We find it hard to explain how excited Digital-Lifestyles is about ‘May you live in interesting times’, the pseudonym given to the Cardiff Festival of Creative Technology starting in Cardiff on 28.Oct. Karen Price does a great job of capturing the range of events that make it up.
Watch out on Digital-Lifestyles after the event for a series of podcasts from there.
Part two of this preview is also available.
It’s a fact of life – almost everywhere we turn we are surrounded by technology. From mobile phones and digital cameras to TVs and video games. But as well as making our lives easier and providing us with entertainment, more and more artists are now turning to everyday technologies when they create their work.
This will be highlighted during a new three-day festival which is taking place in Cardiff 28th-30th October 2005.
May You Live In Interesting Times – a title taken from a phrase used in a famous speech once made by Robert F Kennedy – is being staged across the Welsh capital as part of the Cardiff 2005 celebrations, and is a major highlight of Cardiff Contemporary, which is promoting the visual arts throughout this month.
Despite being the first event of its kind in Wales, it includes a line-up of international artists, speakers, sponsors and partners who will take part in a series of residencies, commissions, and a two-day conference.
This is all supported by a programme of artists’ projects, outdoor events, screenings, music, performances and projections.
“The event will be held at various sites across the capital and will illuminate the city with dynamic and individual work using a range of new and existing technologies,” said festival co-director Emma Posey.
“The festival will provide a platform for national and international audiences to access the very best works that utilise digital technologies.”
It is already being recognised as a major international event, attracting attention as far and wide as Brazil, Holland, Japan and the USA.
The festival’s Website offers browsers from all over the world the chance to take part online via its live streaming and pod casting.
“We have received lots of positive responses so far both from inside and outside Wales,” said Posey.
“We want to create a vibrant creative technology sector in Wales, with the festival celebrating this every two years.”
The festival’s other co-director Hannah Firth is keen to stress the accessibility of new technology and its use by artists and the public in their everyday lives.
“New forms of technology are commonplace, from mobile phones, computers, digital cameras, videogames and the way we watch television,” she said. “These technologies influence every aspect of our lives, if we like it or not. The festival looks at how artists are using this everyday available technology, not for its own sake, but as an additional tool in expanding their ideas.”
Richard Higlett, Visual Arts Coordinator for Cardiff 2005 added “May You live in Interesting Times is an important addition to the Capital’s cultural calendar and an opportunity to see art made using digital technologies by Welsh and Internationally respected artists. The festival is a reflection not just of the way art is made today but is about art which is resonant, depicting the current condition of society at the start of the 21st century.”
Karen Price is Arts Correspondent for the Western Mail.
Part two of this preview is also available.
May You Live In Interesting Times
Chapter
Bloc
Cardiff Contemporary
20 October, 2005
The Genius of eBay Buying Skype
Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay appears to be justifying eBay’s decision to purchase Skype.
There’s been much talk that eBay overpaid for Skype, at $4.1Bn if they hit earnings targets.
My view is that they actually got a bargain.
Meg Whitman is right that “in the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the ‘Net will trend toward zero,” and she sees that happening “in the next three to six years.” I’m assuming that she means all phone calls, as Net-based calls are currently free and it would be very worrying if she didn’t know that already.
With Skype, they’ve bought the biggest name in VoIP. Not just software-based VoIP (which Skype currently is), but all VoIP.
Whitman’s view? “Our belief is that the winner in this space will be those that have the largest ecosystem. What I mean by that is: the largest number of registered users, the largest number of voice minutes, the largest number of developers who develop the platform, the best product … that users are willing and want to pay for.”
I’ve always admired the genius of Skype, building a telecoms company, the equivalent of BT’s or AT&T’s retail business, but with a near-zero infrastructure cost to them – certainly zero compared with either of the previously named giants. Skype simply piggy-backed on their expenditure.
When I put this to Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s CEO, as I interviewed him in the build-up VON in Stockholm, he smiled wryly. He’s good at that.
While Vonage went the route of building IBM, needing hardware where it was installed, Skype went the Microsoft route, software. We all know who won there.
Skype knew that the hardware would follow as their user numbers became irresistible. Cleverly they would take license fees from the hardware producer, while making their service more attractive.
___What does eBay add?
Well there’s the obvious reasons …
They’ve got huge amounts of cash, as eBay is so profitable, clearly useful, but in the grand scheme of things, so what?
More interestingly they’ve got 168.1m registered users, ideal to grow Skype’s currently 57m registered users.
As I commented at the start of September, eBay’s interest
reflects the company’s quest for new product categories and international markets, or they could integrate Skype into the service, offering purchaser and seller to talk to each other. Another option could be to use Skype’s ability to host group discussions as a way of strengthening communities with the same interests.
This is all good for the short to middle term, growing Skype’s acceptance.
__The killer
I think the killer is slightly further out.
To set the scene – keep in your mind Vodafone, but more abstracted.
eBay own the ‘network’ through Skype.
Skype is a strong brand, with people already talking about Skyping each other. OK, currently it’s not global like Vodafone, but add a bucket-load of eBay cash and that’ll change.
That in itself is strong.
Here comes the interesting part. Search on eBay today for ‘Skype‘ and it brings up 1215 1310 items, mostly USB handsets.
We’ve been watching the market in these add-ons, and have even reviewed a few of them. This market is at a very early stage, but already, we’re seeing design applied to some of these.
When Skype goes beyond being implemented on PocketPC’s it will work without the underlying Operating System. Becomes embedded and significantly cheaper.
What pops out of the end of this is a low-cost mobile handset that speaks a number of wireless protocols and when combined with paid for or free WiFi access (which will be everywhere by then), gives you a serious competitor to a mobile phone.
Hell, eBay/Skype could even create a reference designs or two.
eBay will be in a fantastic position of sitting between the handset makers and the public. Like a global ‘phone shop’ for these devices – collecting a commission for each handset sold – without the shop, stock, support or after-sales care.
It may be that eBay haven’t thinking along these lines, but I’d you’d have to doubt it given the amount of money they’d spent on it.
Update: I’ve not had time to read all around the comments on Skype since the deal, but following writing this, I found an excellent blog on it by Mark Evans. I’d heartily recommend it.
20 October, 2005
Nuvi: Garmin’s Mini Marvel Offers GPS, MP3 And Audio Book
Quickly earning a We Want One Now Please accolade, Garmin have announced the nüvi, a feature packed GPS travel assistant the size of a deck of playing cards.
Packed into its diminutive dimensions (3.87″ W x 2.91″ H x 0.87″ D, 5.1 ounces) is a portable GPS navigator, Audio Book Player, traveller’s reference, and MP3 player.
Songs can be loaded onto the SD card using drag-and-drop.
Sporting a 320 x 240 pixels (3.5″ diagonal) 64k TFT touch screen display, the nüvi’s built in GPS provides automatic routing, turn-by-turn voice directions, and finger-touchscreen control via a built in speakerphone.
For the easily bored traveller, the nüvi packs in an MP3 player, audio book player from Audible.com, JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, and calculator.
Garmin are claiming that the built-in lithium ion battery offers between 4-8 hours of battery life.
There’s also optional language and content support from software packages such as the Language Guide and Travel Guide.
The Language Guide
The Language Guide uses data provided by Oxford University Press and provides a multilingual word bank, phrase bank, and five bilingual dictionaries.
With the guide, travellers can look up and translate more than 17,000 words or 20,000 phrases per language with a text-to-speech interface letting users talka da lingo.
Travel Guide
The optional Garmin Travel Guide has a ton of travel information on tap including reviews and recommendations for restaurants and tourist attractions.
The information is integrated with nüvi’s GPS functionality, so that hungry drivers can be guided to the nearest eatery, with the nüvi’s text-to-speech functionality keeping eyes on the road.
The nüvi comes in two flavours:
nüvi 300
Sold exclusively in Europe, the nüvi 300 comes with approximately 200 MBs of internal memory for storage of supplemental maps, MP3s, and audio books (available from Audible.com). Pricing to be announced.
nüvi 350
This top of the range configuration contains full European mapping and is compatible with the GTM 10 FM TMC traffic receiver, making it easy to calculate new routes to avoid snarl ups.
The nüvi 350 comes with an A/C charger and provides around 700 MBs of internal memory for storage of supplemental maps, MP3s, and audio books.
Garmin have only announced domestic US pricing so far, with the North American versions (pre-loaded City Navigator NT maps of the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico) retailing for the rater precise amount of $969.22 (£555, €810).
Availability is expected sometime in November 2005.
Garmin
18 October, 2005
SD750V, SD350V: Panasonic’s D-Snap MP3 Players Offer Amazing Battery Life
Panasonic has announced a new range of attractive music players with battery lives that make the Duracell bunny look like a fag-smoking sloth in lead boots.
The D-Snap range comes in two designs, each offering two configurations, the SD750V/ SD700V and SD350V/ SD300V (the principal difference being that the higher models offer FM radio and voice recording).
Both use SD carts, which Panasonic are really starting to push hard as we whitnessed at Ceatec in Tokyo, where they were all over their stand. The jury is out as to whether they’ve left is a little late to have it as an all conquering memory format. Sony have after all been pumping their MemoryStick format for ages.
The top of the range SD750V/ SD700V models boast a touch sliding panel, a 7 line LCD display and a battery life up to an amazing 105 hours.
The SD350V/ SD300V models come with a smaller display (5 lines), less fancy navigation buttons and a battery claiming up to 94 hours of SD audio playback.
The devices offer AAC/WMA/MP3 playback, with Panasonic’s Japanese Webpage describing the SD memory cards as ‘Music Sweets.’ Aw.
Seeing as our command of Japanese is on par with our Klingon-speaking abilities we had to rely on Google’s translation services and so can tell you that the players come in four colours, and you can choose “the color which the sea urchin you like, please enjoy.”
The site also bangs on about Panasonic’s “Double drive in side phone” which, apparently, has separate drivers for bass and treble raising, the, err, “shelter density”.
And raising shelters can only be a good thing in our book.
The SV-SD750V/700 measures up at 87.3x46x11mm and 48.4g, while the SV-SD350V/300 is marginally smaller at 87×40.5×10.3mm and 47.9g.
The players look set for a November Japan release, but we’ve no idea if or when a European or US release is scheduled.
Panasonic Japanese site
18 October, 2005
Frans Bauer DVD Debuts On Mobile Before Shops
Call us cynical if you like, but when we get a press announcement trumpeting some kind of ‘world first’ or another from someone we’ve never heard of, our eyebrows tend to arc skywards.
So when we heard that “popular singer” Frans Bauer was slapping up a mobile version of the (ahem) “most breathtaking scenes” from his DVD and making Norris McWhirter troubling noises, a mass outbreak of chin-stroking followed.
Despite being boldly hailed as the “first time that scenes from an as of yet unreleased music DVD will make their debut on a mobile phone,” there were unimpressed noises emanating around Chez Digital-Lifestyles as we suspected the over-eager hand of a hyperbolic publicist at play here.
It is significant that content is breaking on mobiles before it’s in the shops and we’ve no doubt that mobiles will continue to play a greater part in the distribution of music and video, but we can’t really get excited about someone (even if they have got dazzling teeth) releasing a few snippets of a DVD for mobiles and then expecting the Guinness Book of Records to be calling them up.
After all, all they’ve really done is just make the equivalent of a film trailer available a few days before the full release. Big bloomin’ deal.
In fact, we’re so unimpressed that we can’t even be bothered to give you the name of the video, but you can find it somewhere on Vodafone’s Dutch Live TV website, or just click around chirpy Frans’ website.
Whose the winner from this? Well, top marks to the music company who we suspect will be getting a slice of cash from Vodafone NL, as well as getting them to promote the artiste with all of the PR power they can muster, giving tons of free promotion to the new release of a DVD that many of us wouldn’t have heard about otherwise.
The fans of Frans ‘The Teeth’ Bauer will probably also be falling off their Zimmer frames in excitement. There’s no doubt that Frans will be flashing a smile too, but he probably can’t help that.
But this transparent marketing exercise does reflect the growing importance of the mobile music market – and with sales of mobile music surpassing CD single sales this year in terms of volume, we can no doubt expect to be troubled with more attention-seeking press releases.
Vodafone.nl
Frans Bauer
17 October, 2005
Spielberg/EA: 3 Game Development Deal
The world of film and video games come ever closer as Electronic Arts (EA) team up with Steven Spielberg to develop three original video games.
This isn’t a simple ET, the video game idea. Spielberg (and his team we suspect) will be sitting down with EA in their LA offices, hammering out completely new titles, directly working on concept, design, story and artistic visualisation.
Terms aren’t divulged, but we hate to think how much The Spielberg will be pocketing for this privilege.
We’re sure the possibility of this has no bearing on the The Spiels’ flattery of EA, “I have been playing EA games for years and have watched them master the interactive format.” it’s true, they do have a seemingly never ending flow of polished titles jumping on to the market.
The mutual-appreciation society didn’t break up there. EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst, went on, “There is no greater storyteller than Steven Spielberg. In addition to his gift for pleasing movie audiences, he has an innate understanding of games and how to immerse players into a fantastic world of action and characters.”
EA has been, how shall we say, “inspired”, heavily by The S before, as anyone who’s ever played the opening scene of the first Medal of Honor, and heard of a film called Saving Private Ryan may have noticed.
In this crazy, lawyer-driven business world, some are wondering if the similarity was the basis for the start of discussions – rather than sue the pants off us, why don’t we do a multi-game deal? No … that would never happen, would it?
We’ve said it before, and we’ll keep saying it until it becomes true – once video games develop depth of personality and back story for its characters, TV and film is in serious trouble. Why would you want to just watch a film, when you can be in it?
King S clearly thinks the possibility of this is drawing closer. Well done to EA for snagging him.
Steven Spielberg image – thanks to Wikipedia
EA
14 October, 2005
iTunes 6 Tested: Your Next TV Supplier?
Russ takes us those who haven’t got a US credit card through iTunes 6 with the downloading of video and contemplates its impact.
I’m sure by now everyone has heard that the new version of Apple’s iTunes (version 6) permits the U.S. user to download music videos and television shows (the U.K. user gets the music videos, but not the television shows). Apple’s announcement, released yesterday, says:
iTunes 6, the next generation of the world’s most popular music jukebox and online music store, lets fans purchase and download over 2,000 music videos and six short films from Academy Award-winning Pixar Animation Studios for just $1.99 each. Customers can also now purchase and download their favorite television shows from iTunes the day after they air on TV, watch them on their Mac or PC and Auto-Sync them onto the new iPod for viewing anywhere.
So, I tried it today. Here’s a snapshot of my experience and my hastily-drawn conclusions for media and communications policy.
My experience:* I downloaded and installed iTunes6. Takes 5-10 minutes. No big deal. iTunes6 has the same basic interface and purchasing/sampling system as previous versions of iTunes.
* I do not own the new video-ipod. Some of the press coverage makes it sound like the video-ipod is required to enjoy the video downloads. It’s not – you can play them on your PC or laptop.
* The product selection is not bad, for the second day of availability. There were episodes from 5 Disney TV shows available (including Lost and Desperate Housewives) and what looks like hundreds if not more music videos. There were also 6 Pixar films available. I think they are short films. By the way, the ‘Apple Music Store’ is now a misnomer.
* I purchased two items for about $4.00 – a music video (All These Things That I’ve Done, by The Killers) and an episode of Disney’s Desperate Housewives (first episode of season 2). I don’t mind paying $1.99 for a music video (something that I will likely play frequently), but it’s a steep price for a television episode that I might never watch again. I suppose it depends on the product selection and whether sports and news ever make their way on to this service.
* File sizes: Killers video: 20.1 mb; Desperate Housewives episode: 208.6 mb. Both were MPEG-4 video files.
* Both downloads completed in about 2 minutes each. I’m on a high-speed connection, and obviously times will vary depending on what’s under your PC’s hood.
* Both video products were of good—but not great—quality and played in what looks like a Quicktime video window. You can manipulate the screen size, so smaller screen = better quality.
* Unlike the BBC’s interactive media player (IMP), I ‘own’ these videos and may keep them on my PC just like music files for as long as I want. The IMP really seems to serve a different purpose and seems more like a DVR than the Apple product. We’ll see.
Hastily-drawn policy conclusions:* The EC should put off serious consideration of any proposed revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive for at least one year. The EC should see where the market heads before acting. Really, folks, it’s absurd for an intelligent regulator to be developing ex ante rules that may be seriously missing whatever developments occur in the marketplace. Viviane Reding might want to rethink her linear / non-linear distinction if the marketplace offers nothing much by way of linear services, or offers something that is not easily pigeonholed into a category being created at this time. Ms. Reding’s actions may actually have the Oedipus-effect of encouraging IPTV players to avoid linear products. Madness.
* I attended an IPTV conference earlier this year and the focus was completely on telcos offering IPTV service (in a triple play with internet and telephony) that resembles a cable or satellite offering. Well, Apple’s not a telco and iTunes6 does not resemble a traditional multichannel video offering. Same for Major League Baseball, the other important IPTV offering available at this time. Again, we’ll see what happens.
* Broadband, broadband,broadband. The number one priority for policy-makers should be to get faster, cheaper broadband to more areas of the country. With these types of services and free PC-to-PC VoIP, is there any policy goal more important than broadband if you really have the interests of consumers at heart?
* I’m sure there are some underlying copyright / “rip-off Britain” issues at play here. I’m just not smart enough to figure them out. But there is a problem when the popular television shows are not available on iTunes-UK and the same music video is 1.89 GBP or about $3.30 – that’s $1.30 extra for each music video that UK customers must pay.
* Public service broadcasters (PSB) in Europe beware. The ‘quality and universality’ arguments you’ve made over the years to avoid true competition are about to be seriously put to the test.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the Desperate Housewives video had no adverts in it. There appeared to be quick gaps where adverts would normally be placed.
14 October, 2005
iPod With Video; New iMac; FrontRow; iTunes 6: Apple Summary
We’ve now had change to absorb this and ponder its impactAfter 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.
Apple
13 October, 2005
Xara Xtreme Goes Open Source/Cross Platform
UK-based software developers Xara, have announced an update to their sophisticated vector graphics program Xara X, adding new functions and renaming it Xara Xtreme.
Although not as well known as rival programs Adobe Illustrator CS and Macromedia Freehand, Xara has long been our vector program of choice, offering a simple interface, powerful editing tools, a comparatively tiny download (just 21 meg) and the ability to render pages at scorchio speeds that leaves the competition for dead.
Capable of handling photos, business graphics, drawing and illustration needs, Xara keeps the feature set streamlined and focused, offering unrivalled speed at a bargain price.
In this latest version, the Xara Picture Editor has been updated and a new Live Effects tool allows Photoshop and Xara plug-in effects to be applied to photos and vector graphics.
The rendering engine has been tweaked for even faster performance, with improved Illustrator compatibility and import/export tools.
CEO Charles Moir is extremely enthusiastic about the product, “It absolutely knocks the stuffing out of Adobe and the new Microsoft product. In terms of ease of use, shear flexibility and performance. Adobe has tried for 10 years to get close to our performance levels and cannot. Microsoft are not going to be able to either. I guarantee it.”
Linux, Mac and Open Source versions planned
Xara have also announced that they intend to create Xara XTreme for Linux and Mac users in response to customer demand, with an Open Source version in the pipeline.
Moir table-thumped “We’re going to a place that Microsoft and Adobe cannot go. The Open Source world is the acknowledged largest threat to established giants such as Microsoft. We felt it was necessary for us to shake up the graphics world a bit, and making one of the most powerful, easiest to use graphics applications Open Source should do the trick.”
Xara Xtreme is available for Windows now, at just $79 (~£45~€66).
Xara XTreme
12 October, 2005
Samsung Partners Pentax to Make Digital SLRs
With the corporate might and phenomonal R&D budgets of Nikon and Canon continuing to create cameras that dominate the dSLR (digital Single Lens Reflex) market, smaller brands are discovering the benefits of pooling their resources to produce rival products.
Way back in July, we reported on dSLR makers Minolta teaming up with digital compact kings Sony to jointly develop digital dSLR cameras, and today Samsung have announced a similar deal with Pentax.
Both companies are hoping to share their respective competencies to “enhance competitiveness in the burgeoning digital SLR market,” read, Blimey, this markets getting a bit hot, we need scale.
The partnership will draw on Samsung’s digital image processing technologies, brand recognition and digital convergence technologies while Pentax can offer an established dSLR brand with a huge range of interchangeable lenses. It can’t hurt that Samsung currently are one of the biggest players in LCD screens production.
Pentax already have four well regarded digital SLRs under their belts, while Samsung – who announced their intention to become a “top-class Digital Camera manufacturer” in May 2005 – have enjoyed rapid sales growth with attractive products backed by strong marketing.
Samsung’s recent Pro815, an advanced prosumer compact digital camera, attracted praise for its innovation while Pentax’s *ist dSLR range has won many friends, although failing to match the popularity of rival Nikon and Canon products,
Samsung has the No. 1 market share in Korea with a share of around 30% and is one of the fastest growing brands in digital cameras on the planet, with market share doubling in the last year.
Continued growth is predicted for the world-wide digital camera market, with pundits expecting the tally for 2005 to be around 82 million unit sales, soaring to 89 million in 2006.
Falling prices have contributed to the digital SLR market growth rate exceeding the overall digital camera growth rate, with 2005’s expected 4 million unit sales to be surpassed by a predicted 5 million unit sales in 2006.
Samsung
12 October, 2005