Content – Page 111 – Digital-Lifestyles

Digital Music Grabs 60% Of Single Market

Digital Music Grabs 60% Of Single Market BPI, the UK record label industry association has released its third-quarter report revealing that it’s boom time for the Brit digital music industry.

There’s a veritably frenzy of digital downloading going on, with UK single track download sales totalling 25 million since the format launched, with 5.7 million sales in 2004 and a thumping great 16.9 million sales already notched up this year.

According to the BPI, weekly sales regularly top half a million, with digital downloads accounting for over 60 percent of the entire singles market – compare that to the 3.6 percent market share at the beginning of 2004.

Digital Music Grabs 60% Of Single Market Digital is also claiming a bigger share of the Top 75 singles chart, growing from 15.9 percent when the combined chart launched in mid-April to 25.5 percent at the end of August.

But with the Yin of the increased digital music sales comes the Yan of declining retail sales, with the BPI reporting a 21.8 percent decline in physical single sales.

This decline has, however, been more than offset by the hefty growth of digital song purchases – up 288 percent – helping the overall singles market grow by a massive 49 percent. Significantly, these figures do not include subscription sales or paid-for streams.

Digital Music Grabs 60% Of Single Market Once again, the death of vinyl has been exaggerated with the 7-inch physical singles market registering 80 per cent growth with 800,000 sales.

A clearly chuffed BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said: “This year digital made the transition from mere potential to becoming a significant revenue stream. But this is just the beginning.”

Digital Music Grabs 60% Of Single Market “While the record label model of investing in the best new music talent remains the same, the emergence of innovative new digital services means that the record companies can offer consumers even greater choice as to how to access their music.”

The report also highlighted figures from The Official UK Charts Company which suggested that digital punters are taking advantage of increasing consumer choice, with 81% of all download sales being non-chart titles.

Out of the 1.5 million different songs available legally online, around 80,000 different tracks are being sold each week – up from 55,000 last August.

BPI

FinePix Z2: Fujifilm’s Superslim Camera Announced

Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Superslim Camera Announced Fujifilm has announced the Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Zoom, a new member of the superslim Z-series, offering 5.1 megapixel resolution and sensitivity up to ISO 1600.

Declared a “sensitive supermodel that’s naturally slim” by some cheesy PR hack, the FinePix Z ramps up the feature set and improves on its well regarded predecessor, the Z1.

The camera is housed in an attractive wraparound, glossy shell-design body, measuring 90 x 55 x 19 mm (3.5 x 2.1 x 0.7 in) and weighing just 130 g (4.6 oz).

Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Superslim Camera Announced The FinePix Z2 Zoom comes with the same reinforced glass 2.5″ screen, but now boasts a higher resolution of 232,000 pixels, and the camera offers a wider aperture range up to F8.0, improved metering (256-zone, up from 64-zone) and a longer maximum shutter speed of four seconds.

Like several other recently released cameras, Fujifilm have improved low light performance by ramping sensitivity up to ISO 1600, letting users indulge in moody, dimly lit scenes.

Fujifilm claim that their Real Photo Processor will help users create more natural-looking images, without the harsh effects often caused by camera flash or the blurring caused by camera shake or subject movement.

Getting carried away with their self-professed ‘chic’ claims, Fujifilm suggests that the camera’s continuous shooting feature (max 2.2 fps, up to 3 frames) might be ideal for capturing “catwalk catastrophes”.

Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Superslim Camera Announced In the real world, the camera’s 3x optical zoom (36 – 108 mm, 35 mm equiv) means that anyone looking to snap a Kate Moss exclusive will have to be pretty close to the catwalk, with the camera’s slow f3.5 – 4.2 lens meaning that higher (and noisier) ISOs would be needed to capture any drug-fuelled stumblings.

The flash isn’t likely to help much either as it can only muster 0.6m – 2.3m coverage at the telephoto end – about par for the ultra compact market.

Naturally, there’s a movie function onboard, capable of capturing 30 frames per second VGA video with sound.

Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Superslim Camera Announced Adrian Clarke, Fujifilm’s Director of Photo Products, was on hand to talk about irony: “It’s ironic that most ultra-slim cameras struggle where they are most frequently used – in low-light social situations, such as parties. With four times the sensitivity, combined with iconic design, the FinePix Z2 Zoom is a camera that truly qualifies as an evening companion.”

The FinePix Z2 Zoom will be available from UK retailers in white or black finishes from November 2005, with pricing to be announced closer to the date.

Fujifilm

Yahoo Podcast Search Site Launches

Yahoo Podcast Search Site Launches 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.

The beta Yahoo Podcast service aims to let folks search podcasts by keyword, categories or user-generated topic coding (‘tagging’), with the home page flagging up notable podcasts, based on popularity, user recommendations and ratings.

Yahoo Podcast Search Site Launches Surfers will also be able to listen to or subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for individual shows, episodes or entire series.

“We intend to be the most comprehensive source for podcast content,” said Geoff Ralston, Yahoo!’s chief product officer.

Yahoo Podcast Search Site Launches 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.

As Geoff Ralston explained in an interview with PodTech, “You can hear someone and understand someone talking at a much higher speed. The problem is that when you speed it up naturally the pitch goes up, but we done some work to lower the pitch down. So it actually stays relatively normal and much more comprehensible.”

Although Podcast search services aren’t new – companies like AOL, Blinkx, Odeo.com and Podcast.net already offer services – Yahoo’s heavyweight clout make this move significant, with Ralston commenting, “We feel like we are really getting ahead of the curve with this.”

Yahoo Podcast Search Site Launches 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.

With search engines constantly trying to dream up new advertising revenue-boosting services to retain and attract punters, it can only be a matter of time before the other Internet big boys respond with their own Podcast services.

Yahoo! Podcast

T-Mobile Web’n’Walk – Is Google Behind It?

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.

The question to ask is: if Web’n’Walk is all T-Mobile’s doing, why is Google the Home Page of the new service?

Answer: the system is seen, inside Google, as a Trojan Horse to hook the mobile phone companies on VoIP and other Google Web services – and it is really part of the fierce rivalry building up between Skype (eBay) Yahoo (France Telecom) and Google (T-Mobile) to control the nascent “presence” business, with Instant Messenger and voice as the lever.

Exactly why all these people want to be in the presence business is another story – but anybody who knows what is really happening in the advertising business won’t need an explanation. The question, as far as the mobile phone operators is concerned, is whether they will actually end up with the slightest profit.

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.

Indeed, the only real surprise in today’s announcement is the discovery that the Danger-designed HipTop phone, which achieved such fame as the Sidekick in the North American market, will be one of the 3G announcements from T-Mobile later this year (according to Silicon.com).

But 3G phones that can access the Internet are not a T-Mobile invention. There’s no sudden change in the way people use the Internet, and 40 megabytes of data per month isn’t worth £30 of anybody’s money, even with 100 minutes of talk time. As Tim Richardson reported on The Register, it’s hype: “Hyping up the launch of its new service T-Mobile said it believes Web’n’Walk will lead to a considerable growth in total internet usage and, ultimately, more internet traffic being carried by mobile than by fixed line.”

It will do no such thing. What it does, is open up the mobile companies to a cuckoo’s egg; Google Talk, Yahoo! Messengerwith Voice, or even MSN Messenger – not to mention Skype- all on an IP backbone.

The idea that UMTS is a suitable IP backbone will be exposed in due course. Some of the gilt will flake off as soon as next week, when the first nationwide Flash-OFDM technology network will be rolled out by Flarion in a major European capital.

UMTS will work – sort of – but it adds latency to voice which rival systems won’t suffer from – rivals like IP Wireless, like Flash-OFDM, like WiMAX-WiFi mesh networks. Effectively, it turns the expensive mobile data networks into bit pipes, fit for carrying Internet Protocol traffic – at several times the price of rival systems.

Can UMTS really compete?
T-Mobile group CEO Rene Oberman [right] either knows nothing about home broadband, or this is an attempt to bamboozle the market. “T-Mobile will turn on a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network next year that will provide download rates of up to 1.8Mbps” he told Iain Thomson, who reported that T-Mobile appears to believe that the average download speed for home fixed line broadband ranges from under 264KB to 1MB.

In fact, by the time T-Mobile gets HSDPA working for a minority of its 3G users (a tiny fraction of its market) typical cable modem speeds will be ten megabits in the UK, and ADSL2 will be matching that.

Costs of home broadband, however, will continue to be flat rate, not £30 and upwards for no more data than will allow you to transmit a couple of dozen five megapixel photos. And you will only ever get 1.8 megabits out of a 3G HSDPA wireless mast if you are right next to it, and nobody else is trying to use the same cell for mobile data. Let’s not even mention the fact that the upload speed will remain below 64 kilobits per second – slow modem speeds.

What T-Mobile gets out of this deal, is some breathing space. It is making forward-looking pronouncements, and allowing investors to imagine that this will mean “jam tomorrow” after all.

NewsWireless

One In Five Americans Has Never Been Online

One In Five Americans Has never Been Online A new study has revealed that one in five Americans is without home Internet access and have never been online, potentially hindering their access to crucial information and services.

The survey by the non-profit Pew Internet & American Life Project has highlighted the existence of a digital divide running along lines of age, race and income.

American wrinklies are lagging far behind in Internet adoption, with only 26 percent of folks 65 and older going online, compared with 67 percent of the 50 to 64 group.

One in five American adults (22 percent) remain completely untouched by the Internet and have never been online or received an email – roughly the same percentage of the population as in 2002.

One In Five Americans Has never Been Online Not surprisingly, the study also found that people with lower incomes and less education also registered lower percentages of Internet adoption.

Although around 70 percent of white Americans use the Internet, only 57 percent of African-Americans are online, with an emerging divide among those who have high-speed “broadband” Internet access and those on cranky old dial up.

The Pew study found that the majority of those using broadband are affluent and well-educated and that 66 percent of households earning $75,000 (~£42,260, ~€61,825) or more annually have a high-speed broadband Internet service at home.

This compares to just 21 percent of households on low incomes ($30,000 a year, ~£16,900, ~€24,730) possessing a high-speed Internet service.

One In Five Americans Has never Been Online Broadband makes it easier for surfers to whiz around the Web and download music, view videos, enjoy free VoIP calls and access online services and important information on topics like health and finance.

The differences are similar between those who have college degrees and those who have high-school degrees with Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew project, commenting, “What’s starting to emerge … is an elite group of people who are pulling away with what they can do online.”

Fox added that businesses and governments should not forget the needs of the unconnected population and ensure that offline sources for health and government material is made available.

The study estimated that 53 percent of Internet users now have a high-speed connection at home, up from 21 percent in 2004, while a separate report last week by Nielsen/NetRatings, estimated that around 42 percent of the US population has broadband Internet service, up from 36 percent in January.

Pew Internet & American Life Project

3 Announce Mobile Music Video Deal with EMI

3 Announce Mobile Music Video Deal with EMI 3G network operators 3 have announced a partnership with EMI Music UK to supply full-length music videos directly to the company’s 3 million customers.

The deal will let music fans delve into EMI’s extensive back catalogue of music videos as well as download new releases from big sellers like Kylie Minogue, Coldplay, Jamelia, Joss Stone, Norah Jones and Gorillaz.

Material from all of EMIs other labels – including Parlophone, Relentless and Virgin – will also be made available.

3 Announce Mobile Music Video Deal with EMI The tie-up with EMI means that 3 subscribers can access a veritable cornucopia of audio/visual delights on their phones, with the new video material adding to the wireless operator’s bulging music catalogue, which includes full-length video and audio titles from Sony BMG and indie music videos supplied by VidZone.

3 has proved a trail-blazer in the UK for music video on mobile, being the first mobile network to launch full-length music videos over mobile over a year ago and world-premiering a Robbie Williams’ single on their network.

The service has proved a hit too, with over 10 million full-length music videos being downloaded in the 6 months following the launch of 3’s Video Jukebox in August 2004.

Graeme Oxby, Marketing Director 3 UK, was chuffed: “3’s mobile music service is growing every day. Music is one of our most popular services and with this deal our customers can enjoy the latest music videos from top artists like Kylie, Robbie and Coldplay. 3’s expertise in 3G means major record labels like EMI Music UK recognise the strength of a partnership with the UK’s leading video mobile company.”

3 Announce Mobile Music Video Deal with EMI Next up on the back-slap promenade was Dave Gould, Commercial Manager, Digital Media for EMI Music UK: “We’re delighted to bring videos from EMI Music UK’s labels to 3. 3 is a leading network in bringing mobile music to its customers and we’re really excited about working with them to allow fans to catch up with their favourite artists anywhere and at anytime.”

Wrapping up the music industry love-in, Peter Jamieson, chairman of UK record companies trade association the BPI, purred: “The UK recording industry is committed to making music available wherever and whenever the music fan wants it. We welcome the increasing range of repertoire now available on 3.”

3 network
EMI

Bible Converted Into Text For SMS Generation

Bible Converted Into Text For SMS Generation Aussie God squadders looking to get down with Da Yoot have translated all 31,173 verses of the Bible into SMS text-speak.

Although other services have offered daily SMS Bible scriptures in the past, the Bible Society in Australia is claiming to be the first to translate all 31,173 verses of the Bible into text.

Looking, we suspect, like an old uncle in a backwards baseball cap, Bible Society spokesman Michael Chant enthused, “The old days when the Bible was only available within a sombre black cover with a cross on it are long gone.”.

“We want to open it up for people of all ages, backgrounds and interests, and the SMS version is a logical extension of that,” he added.

Salvation-seeking, Bible-bashing SMS fans can access the translated text over the Internet for free and send individual verses to family or friends via text messaging.

The entire new and old testaments were converted to text in just four weeks by one, clearly obsessively dedicated, individual.

Bible Converted Into Text For SMS Generation The translations were based on the Contemporary English Version and remained faithful to the grammar, with just the spellings being altered.

Here’s some examples:

U, Lord, r my shepherd. I will neva be in need. U let me rest in fields of green grass. U lead me 2 streams of peaceful water. (Psalm 23, verses 1-2).

Wrk hard at wateva u do. U will soon go 2 da wrld of da dead, where no 1 wrks or thinks or reasons or knws NEting. (Ecclesiastes, chapter nine, verse 10).

Respect ur father & ur mother, & u will live a long time in da l& I am givin u. (Exodus, chapter 20, verse 12).

Mr Chant felt confident that the text version would appeal to young people, suggesting that it could also be used to encourage, motivate and reassure people in all sorts of situations, with verses sent out daily ‘read like a horoscope.’

“People might want to send a verse to a friend in need, instructors might want to add verses to SMS bulletins to youth club members, or other people might just want to send a daily Bible recording to themselves to meditate on while they’re on the bus or having lunch,” he said.

An article in The Sydney Morning Herald calculated that sending the entire Bible by SMS would take more than 30,000 messages and cost almost £3,440 ($6.080, €5,050) at 10p for each message. You could buy around 1,500 pints of beer for that. We know what we’d prefer.

Trabsl8it text translation
Sydney Morning Herald
other Bible SMS services

SP-700 Digital Camera Announced by Olympus

SP-700 Digital Camera Announced by Olympus Olympus have unveiled the SP-700, a new addition to their new SP series of cameras with a special guide function for beginners explaining what button does what.

The 6.0 million pixel camera comes with a 3x zoom lens (equivalent to 38-114mm in 35mm format) with the company enthusiastically claiming that it’s “the latest gadget to be seen with.”

Churning out of the factories in time for Christmas, the SP-700 is aimed at the mainstream market, offering a barrow load of pre-set scene modes to make it easy for fumbling amateurs to take half decent photos.

Amongst the 24 scene modes on offer, punters can chose from presets like Portrait, Landscape, Landscape and Portrait, Night Scene, Sunset, Fireworks and curiously ‘Museum’.

SP-700 Digital Camera Announced by Olympus We couldn’t find a preset for ‘pub’ or ‘all night rave in a dingy warehouse’, but there’s an underwater mode included too (just so long as punters remember that they’ve got to slap on the PT-013 underwater case before dunking their expensive camera into the sea).

The big selling point is the huge 3 inch, 230,000 pixel screen which all but fills up the back of the camera, echoing the trend for bigger camera screens for composing and viewing pictures.

The camera also boasts a movie mode capable of recording VGA clips at 30fps with sound, a movie digital image stabilisation system, 11 MB internal memory and a Super Macro mode able to focus down to a mere 1cm (not recommended if you’re zooming in on a Sydney Funnel-Web Spider.)

SP-700 Digital Camera Announced by Olympus Olympus is making a big hoo-hah about its ‘Compare and Shoot’ function which lets users check and compare results before re-shooting or adjusting settings if needed.

There’s also some basic image editing functions onboard, including red-eye fix, brightness, saturation, trimming, B&W and sepia, letting users fiddle about with photos without the need to hook up to a PC.

The metal-housed camera measures up at a compact a 3.8 x 2.2 x 1-inches and weighs 4.9 ounces

SP-700 Digital Camera Announced by Olympus The camera is pitched directly in competition with the Sony DSC-N1 which also offers a whopping great 3″ screen, but the Sony comes with photo ‘pocket viewer’ functionality which may just prove more attractive to its target audience.

Pricing may prove to be the decisive factor here, so we’ll have to wait to see what price tag Olympus slaps on the SP-700.

Olympus

Blinkx Builds Free Online Video Library

Blinkx Builds Free Online Video Library Search company Blinkx have launched a free service that lets amateurs and pro filmmakers upload and store their video files to a searchable online library.

The service, called My Blinkx.tv, will make filmmakers’ work available for viewing to Web searchers via a clever conversion process.

Videos submitted to the library are automatically converted into Flash format, with speech soundtracks transcribed and indexed.

Metadata, such as creation date, length, title, owner’s name along with any other relevant information, will also embedded into the content.

Once indexed, uploaded videos can be retrieved and viewed by visitors to My Blinkx.tv via keyword searches.

Blinkx Builds Free Online Video Library Users of the Blinkx.tv service will also be able to create custom channels, based on a specific search term.

Blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake explained that users could, for example, create a channel for all video results from a My Blinkx.tv search for the term, “Hurricane Katrina.”

My Blinkx.tv service would then continue to add new videos matching the search terms in the background, so that returning users would be presented with up-to-date listings.

The system relies on cookies but Chandratillake said that the company would consider using a more reliable logging in system if there’s enough demand for it.

Users will also be able to access their channels without visiting My Blinkx.tv by setting up a “smart folder” on their PCs.

Blinkx Builds Free Online Video Library This will be automatically populated in the background with videos that match a chosen search term, encouraging users to have the occasional rummage around in their smart folder to see what new videos have been added.

Chandratillake said that Blinkx will initially only feature non-commercial videos – mainly from grassroots groups, individuals and amateur video bloggers – but the company plans to cut deals with commercial video producers keen to include their videos in the service.

The service is free for visitors viewing videos, but Blinkx may introduce the option of charging for video views, with revenue split between Blinkx and the content owners.

The company may also consider raising revenue though video advertising.

According to Chandratillake, My Blinkx.tv already features user-generated video from 3,500 to 4,000 sources, with the service competing with video search services from Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Notably, none of these services currently offer My Blinkx.tv’s automatic, continuous streaming video.

Blinkx

Google Maps-Based Toys, Distractions And Timewasters

Oh we like this!

Seeing as we’re nowhere near New York right now, it’s of absolutely no practical use to us whatsoever, but – hey! – that’s no reason to stop us wasting precious time playing about with this brilliant implementation of Google Maps.

NYSee – a Web project by developers alkemis – uses Google’s mapping system to provide up to date traffic news and display traffic cam feeds from in and around Manhattan.

The information is presented via the familiar system of different coloured pins stuck on the map, and clicking on a green pin will bring up a live video feed for the traffic cam at that particular location – great fun!

The locations of the cams can be viewed via the Google maps interface as a map, satellite view or hybrid.

Live cams that aren’t working are – appropriately enough – shown as black pins while gray pins seemed to indicate cams on the blink.

The NYSee map also offers regularly updated traffic news (sourced from Google rivals traffic.yahoo.com) displayed as yellow pins on the map.

If clicking on Web cams in foreign countries doesn’t take your fancy, you can always waste away a few more idle minutes calculating national and international areas using the Google Planimeter.

Google Sightseeing, another Google maps-based site, asks, “why bother seeing the world for real?”, inviting surfers to visit the “best tourist spots in the world via satellite images from Google Maps & Google Earth.”

ViaVirtualEarth uses the MSN map interface to graphically show the location of MSNBC news stories on a world map, while ChicagoCrime lets surfers view the locations of specific crimes from the database of crimes reported in Chicago.

Finally, we took a shine to Found City, a community-generated map of interesting places in New York City, with growing resources for Brooklyn, San Francisco, LA, London, Boston, Chicago and Portland.