Content

Content in its shift to become digital

  • 3 Launches UK’s First Mobile Blogging Service

    3 Launches UK's First Mobile Blogging ServiceUK video mobile network, 3, has announced the first mobile blogging service, letting their 3 million customers share mugshots, arty scenes and video clips captured on their video mobile via the Web.

    The service, called ‘My Gallery’, integrates 3G technology and Web blogging, with pictures or videos sent from a video mobile instantly published to a customer’s unique Web site, hosted by Yospace’s Media Community Platform.

    Customers can choose to share their images with everyone or maintain an ‘invite-only’ blog for friends and family. Visitors to the sites will also be able to interactively “blog” their feedback.

    Earlier this month, David Springall, CTO and founder of Yospace excitedly spoke about his own product: “MMS has yet to reach its full potential. Users need a compelling reason to start sending MMS and blogging is this year’s new media phenomenon. By fusing the two, we have created what we think will be the next major communication revolution. We’ve seen mobile phones, email, instant messenger and blogging. Now it’s time to say hello to mobile blogging.”

    3 Launches UK's First Mobile Blogging ServiceGraeme Oxby, Marketing Director of 3 was also big on the idea: “Video mobile technology is all about immediacy, whether it’s downloading the latest music video on the move or being the first to share the breaking news from Big Brother with your friends. With My Gallery, you can share your antics straight away with your friends and family without being tied to a PC.”

    The service – exclusive to 3 customers – also lets users upload pictures from their home computer, manage their content and invite chums to visit. Each blog can contain up to 10MB of pics and clips

    “3’s My Gallery is set to transform blogging from a ‘geeky’ hobby to a mainstream communication method. The immediacy of this type of web publishing means that people can comment instantly as it happens, on the move” added David Springall of YoSpace.

    3 Launches UK's First Mobile Blogging ServiceThe procedure for 3 customers to set up a My Gallery site is straightforward enough: users simply send a picture or video message to “3333” (this will be charged at a standard rate) and they’ll then be sent a password via SMS to manage their blog site.

    Blogging remains a boom industry with analysts Technorati calculating that the number of blogs in existence has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months.

    With nearly 5 million blogs now estimated to be online, 3’s new service may prove a winner with consumers.

    3 My Gallery
    YoSpace

  • The Future of Sony Network Music and Players: Interview

    Sony StreamMan We sit down with two of Sony’s senior people; one from network music services, the other personal audio; and explore where Sony are with their digital music – content & players – and what their moves will be to recapture their previous crown.

    StreamMan services is that people are listening on the mobile phone and in the morning and in the afternoon and then you see this very strong usage pattern during the working hours in the morning and people are clearly listening to StreamMan over the PC in the office. And Gregory was talking about people streaming music within the home environment so I think what we will see is some of the personalisation aspects of StreamMan brought into the home environment.

    We are definitely working on how we blend the technologies that power them. Since we started out with two services at the same time, what I’d said was “Let’s let them develop independently first and then we will take the technologies that underlie each and make the best combined service offering at the appropriate moment.”

    I think that there is an obvious opportunity within Connect to offer some kind of streaming, some sort of Connect radio service. The user interface of the mobile phone is very simple, it is so small that the like/dislike functionality of the Stream Man. Intriguingly the other environment that would really benefit from that is if you are doing it on your home theatre. Because the television is a sit back device and not a lean forward device; in the middle ground where you are sitting at your PC making your play list, researching the artists, doing this, doing that. I am not sure that the sheer simplicity of the like/dislike is the right way to go. It is a much more passive environment and lo and behold we see people listening to Stream Man in the office. So we are still in the early days of experimenting but in terms of digital lifestyles what we have got to find is what do people want to do, in which circumstance and then make either a combined service offering or separate service offerings depending on what they want. The most important thing for us at the beginning was to develop the services, get them out into the market then we would be able to learn about how people want to use them and then we will be able to package the different solutions according to different market segments.

    It is still early days. It is very exciting to have both projects under the same roof.

    DL: And with the Stream Man where you say people are streaming the content as they are travelling are they? On the mobiles?

    RA: Let’s imagine on the way to work – the journey to work listening to your favourite channel, getting to the office, listening to your channel in the office and later on in the afternoon you are back out and about and have your mobile with you, maybe create a new channel or re-edit an old one or something. It is very clear that there is this office listening pattern.

    DL: When they are portable they have got some bundle deal where they are not paying for the GPRS? or how does that work to make it economically viable for the user?

    RA: Actually that is one of the challenges in the Finnish market because in Finland by law you are not allowed to subsidise the handset; you have to price the data separately from the service so it is a little bit clumsy from the user point of view. We haven’t been able to do much bundle offering a little promotional stuff.

    When we rollout in other environments and we are not subject to those legal constraints then the obvious thing to do is offer different packages that offer you so many hours of mobile, unlimited web, included data charges, just a simple pricing structure. So you can imagine a five, ten, fifty Euro package that gives you different amounts of each. Our market research clearly indicates that that is what people want and we would have done that in the pilot market if we were allowed to, but, they legislate against that.

    DL: That bundle idea is quite interesting we are looking at Napster To Go which I have got a moral objection to the idea of not owning the content. But maybe that is a generational thing, I don’t know. I am not looking for an answer as to whether it is right or wrong, but when I was sent a review (version of Napster To Go) a few months ago and the courier arrived at 4.00 in the afternoon, I had plans for the evening. As it turned out, I completely wiped out the plans I had for the evening and spent five/six hours on Napster To Go downloading stuff, because it was like being on the original Napster again. In those days of you know the passion of discovering new music and being able to play around with it. Is that the way you see Connect service going as well? Having it all in price for access to content?

    RA: I don’t want to speculate about what we might and might not launch, but, it is very obvious that once you have got the delivery engine and if you have got people interested in discovering music in that way then we have got to look at it.

    DL: And ATRAC3 is able to limit the amount of the time that the content can be on a device.

    RA: No that comes through the digital rights management system.

    DL: So ATRAC3 doesn’t . . . . .

    RA: ATRAC3 is just a compression CoDec. The open MagicGate the digital rights management system – the new digital rights management system we are calling MARLIN, it is part of the Coral consortium and will . . .

    DL: I see an ocean theme coming here . . .

    RA: Yes it is, and every member of the Coral consortium will launch its own DRM system but it will be compatible and work with common standards. And that is what consumers want. They want to know that if they buy something here, they can use it there and we are working towards. Now one of the things that obviously we need to do is to be able to do timed out content and at the moment Open MagicGate can’t do timed out content.

    There was a time and you mentioned it that you had moral objections to not owning the music and people do still look at it like that and timed out was an unpopular concept. But when you begin to look at the other way and say “Hey, look what I can do!” and then it becomes quite convenient. So there is this big debate going on “Do people really want to own ones and zeros or do they want access to ones and zeros?”

    DL: What is the answer?

    RA: I don’t know. Actually the answer is both. The answer is that some people want to buy and some people will want to have access. We shall see.

    I think that the key thing is to offer ease of use, high quality, security and Connect certainly does that.

    DL: Good. The EPG I think is a fascinating area. Talking to the Project Manager of the Digital TV trial down in Wales; I am sure you have been keeping an eye on that where they switched off a small area of Wales and converted everyone over to digital receivers. He was saying that one of the interesting things that has come out there is the variations of EPGs and how when you start to have lots of products as we have spoken about already in a digital era, one way to differentiate is through the strength of the interface. What are you doing on that front?

    RA: I am not really in a position to talk about our plans there. Let me just say that I couldn’t not agree with you more. I think that it is vital dimension when we start getting into digital television because we go, not only does digital television add a dimension to the quality and picture, it also adds . . . . . .

    DL: Hopefuly, not always.

    RA: It can, if by Sony.

    DL: (laughs) It depends on the broadcaster as well.

    RA: I understand, but it has the potential and certainly my experience of it was a much more stable and brighter picture. But you really begin to get into the question of “What information can I get and what can I do with my programming?” Particularly when you add DVD recorders or personal video recorders and then you can bring this utility of time-shifting programming; creating your own personalised channels; getting alerts; programming remotely, learning about something and saying “Oh I forgot to programme that” and going to your mobile phone .. . . that there is a whole new world that is beginning to open up and I think that it is going to be a very important consumer expectation in the future.

    Now exactly how we do that and all the rest of it I am not quite yet in a position to discuss to your listeners, but really, very, very important in the future.

    DL: One of the things that has become clear to me here is Sony’s focus on the “cross media bar” across devices. We say it on the PSP on the train; we have seen it on the Qualia devices as well. That seems like something that is EPG but a source-based EPG if you like – you have got have some way of navigating – we are talking about Digital TV and channels now but obviously, we are looking a few years ahead, we are not talking about channels we are talking about many, many sources of content. In an infinite sea of content how the heck do you know what to watch?

    RA: We should reverse roles here.

    I wish you would reverse roles here because that is one of the things that motivates us in all of this because, it is not just your broadcast content, it is going to be your own personal media; it is going to be your stored files; it is going to be your package media and it is also going to be the media that you will access through IP TV because people will begin to see a blend of programme content and search-based content. And I don’t think that people necessarily want on the TV interface to do the kind of lean forward keyword search basis thing that you do on the PC. We have to think on new protocols of search and that is where we get back to some of the things that we are doing with StreamMan.

    The whole idea of that is that you choose according to mood and context. We are just at the very, very beginning of developing a new way of thinking about how you entertain yourself. You can see this if you look through some of the channels on StreamMan, Music for Drivers, you know, party music, relaxing music and then you get a chance to personalise. We are beginning to research “How do you bring that thought process to video and does that provide a new protocol how people get their entertainment?” Because you are certainly going to look at your EPG and see what is on and what are people showing me, maybe I am not interested in that, let’s watch something funny. We are doing a lot of work in that area right now but how do you develop that kind of access to entertainment content and give it the sheer simplicity of the StreamMan interface on the mobile phone. And it is this curious paradox of the very large screen, which is a lean back experience. and the tiny screen of the mobile experience have a lot in common in that people don’t want to have that intensive, you know, you said you spent the evening with your Napster ToGo because you are discovering, your are clicking and you are making playlists and you are looking at the artists, you are remembering “Oh gosh I haven’t heard that for ages, haven’t heard that for ages”, and you make it all up. That is a very intensive interactive experience. It is not how people relate to television, nor to their mobile phone. So we are doing a lot of work in that area and in terms of digital lifestyle, that is exactly where we are going.

    DL: Interesting on the Napster To Go having spent those five hours, I haven’t subsequently used the service. There is that completely intense experience and then “Right OK, well I have got the rest of my life to live now”. So you do have to have – for an ongoing basis of tuning on content, it has to be a much more relaxed attitude.

    RA: Try this like/dislike – it works but the whole idea and the very foundation of the networks services business that I run across the board, is that you have got the great products; you have got what the network can do for you and now how do you imagine new things you can do with the products; new dimensions for competing and it is all about ease of use and entertainment functionality. This is where Sony as an entertainment brand really begins to come to the fore. This is how we think and this is what we do.

    We are really, really confident – we have only just begun to see the beginnings of change in this. We are going to look back in a few years and say “How clunky; how mechanical; how linear”, because now it is so much easier, so much non-linear, so much more mood and entertainment based and so much easier.

    DL: That is interesting that mood based stuff. I was talking to somebody else, I can’t remember who it was, and it was exactly that idea that music is to do with moods. It is quite interesting because they had launched in a certain way and that had been successful for them but then they realised that the mood is really what people listen to. It was MTV and Hell you would think they would understand that from the word go and it is only now that they are starting to change their programming.

    RA: In fact I am going to a lecture this evening in London at the Royal Institution called “Swan Songs” and it is about the relationship between music and Alzheimer. People have been using music to try to unlock . . . .

    DL: Right, because it is so central to the way that people are . . . . .

    RA: Exactly and they start out – there is a project there called “Song Trees” where it is a cross-generational questionnaire with grandchildren being asked to go to their grandparents and say “What was the first song that you remember? What was the first song on the radio that you listened to? Can you remember how you felt about it at the time? What was the context?” And lo and behold it is mood and situation. I came across this with a Professor of Music there of the University of Sussex actually and I showed him the StreamMan interface and he nearly fell off his chair and he said “You have no idea how powerful what you are doing is”. And we started discussing and that is why he invites me to this thing at the Royal Institution this evening and what I unlocked is twenty years of medical research into this; understanding how the brain actually processes auditory signals and the impact that music can have. So we’ve taken the lid of this subject and it’s absolutely fascinating, absolutely.

    DL: Good. On the final question, because you have been very generous and given me a lot of time, I will be quick.

    With the music players, one thing that – I went through a stage of being a little too obsessed with recording stuff, audio, I mean, I am recording now but you can understand why I am doing that. But this idea of recording conversations with people and I won’t get into the privacy discussion because I think that is quite another question and it’s nothing to do with manufacturers – a change in moral code maybe. But I notice that the new player doesn’t have the record ability on there.

    GK: Our products, both hard disc and Flash memory-based devices don’t include an encoder, so you can’t record digitally with it.

    DL: And what is the reason behind that?

    RA: There are two reasons. We cover two other segments of the market which are extremely key for us, and a pure digital recording function which is Minidisc and what we call IC devices using also a chip but purely for dictation function and we have got other plans for the future.

    DL: So sit and wait. Interestingly I have had one of these (Sony k750i) on loan while I am here, what is this, the 750 or I am not sure what it is called but it has audio recording in it as well. So whether it is actually going to mould into the mobile phone as an audio recorder; the quality you get from this isn’t quite what you are getting from 128 (kbps) . . .

    RA: You get it on all the phones today, mostly. What you need to look at also I think is – there are lots of brands like Samsung, for example, or iRiver, Creative, etc who have the encoding function as granted, it is not necessarily coming from a real consumer demand. Because if you look at the young target for example which present today more than 60% of the volumes . They buy a Flash memory player or they buy a Hard disc or they buy an iPod or whatever, because they want to listen to music, so encoding function can be good for certain population At the same time we believe that encoding function needs also to deliver a very high level of sound quality and for this we believe that Minidisc is today the best digital recording device that is on the market.

    It’s the only one to have, for example, to have linear PCM function . . . .

    DL: My view is that people are enjoying receiving media at the moment – where it becomes really exciting is where they are generating it themselves. User generated content, I think, is an area you can’t ignore.

    RA: I am not saying that we won’t do it, but just not yet.

    DL: Great. Thank you both for your time.

    Recording of the interview (38Mb) (41 min)

  • A Teenage Take On Digital-Lifestyles

    We all sit around postulating about what changes the digitisation of media will bring and how that will affect us. We thought it would be a good idea to ask the generation that have grown up with digital media (CD’s) what their view of the news was.

    15 year old Lawrence Dudley has a strong knowledge of technology and digital media, so he’s well placed to reflect on the weeks news.

    PS3 Launching Spring 2006: Sony At E3Games:
    So, it’s come to that time again: The whole “my console’s better than yours” and subsequent scramble for market share between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Although I personally really dislike Microsoft, I have to admit that their console is looking the most tempting so far: It’s the only one that has properly been launched and its feature set is looking more than promising.

    This leaves Sony and Nintendo: Personally, I tend to dismiss most of Nintendo’s offerings out of hand, as I don’t believe that their gear really appeals to me. It’s all so… gimmicky and childish. I mean, who would you rather have? That hot-looking chick from Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, or The Mario Bros.? Answers itself really…

    Xbox 360 SkinI don’t currently own an Xbox, but I have been quite a fan of Sony’s Playstation for a while: I had two of the original Playstations, PS1 and PS2 for various reasons. You might’ve thought that I would’ve been looking forward to the The Worst Foods To Eat Over A Keyboard
    This article brought a big smile to my face: There’s nothing better than watching various Linux zealots argue over which food they ate over their keyboards. Nothing too serious, but you know … gotta have something to do while you’re, erm, doing your homework or something like that =) So which do you think it would be? Pizza? Coke?

    That’s it from me, enjoy!

  • It’s all Gone Pete Tong: First Advert on UK 3G Mobiles

    It's all Gone Pete Tong: First Advert on UK 3G MobilesUK’s first video mobile network, 3, has announced the first advert to be broadcast over a 3G service.

    The 30 second advert promotes a new cinema release and is the result of a video mobile marketing agreement between 3, mobile marketing services provider Flytxt and RedBus Film Distribution.

    3’s customers will be able to download a trailer of the new British cult film “It’s all Gone Pete Tong” – a Toronto film festival award-winner – released in UK cinemas on 26 May.

    Notably, this is the first time that 3G has been introduced into the traditional marketing blitz of TV, online and print media, and may well prove a precursor to future advertising campaigns.

    It's all Gone Pete Tong: First Advert on UK 3G MobilesThe clip will be launched in mid-May and made available via ‘Today on 3’, with the first 100,000 customers able to download the clip for nowt.

    Viewers will be able to view clips from the “hilarious” comedy, and obtain information about the film, the plot and its stars.

    Gareth Jones, COO, 3 energised: “This is a very exciting development; advertisers now have a new and targeted visual medium with which to reach consumers.

    As the UK’s largest video mobile operator, we know what our customers enjoy watching over 3G, we also know the profile of our customers, this means that adverts or paid-for content can be tailored and relevant, so the consumer wins too.”

    It's all Gone Pete Tong: First Advert on UK 3G MobilesPamir Gelenbe, co-founder and Director of Corporate Development, Flytxt was equally chuffed: “We’re delighted to be working with 3, the UK’s leading 3G network on such an innovative approach to mobile marketing and advertising. The advantage for brand owners is that mobile marketing combines the wide reach of TV with the precision of DM and the tracking potential of the Internet. ”

    “It’s All Gone Pete Tong” examines the life of superstar DJ Frank Wilde and has been praised as ‘Sharp, funny and mind-blowingly good’ by those connoisseurs of taste, The Sun TV Mag.

    We’re always up for a bit of free content when we get to choose to download it or not, but the cynics amongst us can’t help suspecting that mobile advertisers might become a little more aggressive in the future, with ‘promotions’ rapidly turning into mobile spam…

    3 (UK)
    It’s All Gone Pete Tong

  • Apple Releases Tiger Patch. So soon?

    Apple Releases Mac OS X v10.4.1 UpdateJust 17 days after releasing its ‘Tiger’ OS X 10.4 operating system, Apple has issued a sizeable bug fix update after growing gripes from customers.

    The hefty 37MB patch delivers upgraded graphics card drivers and fixes at least 35 bugs in the operating system, including problems with bundled applications such as the Mail client, Safari browser, iCal, Mail client, iSync and iDVD.

    Almost immediately after Tiger was launched, customers were posting up on Internet bulletin boards detailing problems varying from networking hassles to applications that would crash under certain circumstances.

    Upgraders weren’t too pleased to discover that Safari would “unexpectedly quit” when right clicking on some PDF files or graphics or that iDVD would commit hari-kari when hiding it while burning a DVD or saving a disc image.

    Apple Releases Mac OS X v10.4.1 UpdateRussians were also most annoyedski to find the iDVD player bombing when the operating system was set to their home language (something that affected a host of other languages too).

    A security fix included in the update disallows files, applications and Web pages from automatically opening at the password prompt, appearing whenever a user wakes the computer from sleep or stops a screen saver.

    Apple’s support site claims the patch also improves the reliability of the operating system’s Active Directory plug-in.

    Talking to vnunet.com, senior analyst Joe Wilcox at Jupiter Research commented: “The quick update really shows how responsive Apple tries to be in respect to its operating system.”

    But there was a sting in Wilcox’s praise, as the analyst pointed out that releasing such a man-sized patch just weeks after the launch revealed a flaw in Apple’s development process.

    Apple Releases Mac OS X v10.4.1 Update“A lot of things [at Apple] are pretty secretive; there aren’t necessarily as many eyes looking over the products as there could be,” said Wilcox, commenting on the company’s decision to use a limited group of beta testers looking at the code.

    “Apple has a developer programme that catches a lot of things, but certain problems won’t be uncovered until a whole lot of people have the software,” he added.

    The 10.4.1 update can be downloaded manually from Apple’s Web site, or retrieved automatically from within the Tiger OS using its Software Update feature.

    About the Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update
    Apple download page
    vnunet.com

  • UK Office Workers: 20% Using IM

    UK Office Workers: 20% Using IMDespite the corporate wires buzzing with office gossips, chatting clerks, bored employees and downloading demons, a survey warns that IM remains unregulated in the workplace.

    An online survey by YouGov, commissioned by security firm Akonix, has revealed that a quarter of users admitted to using Instant Messaging for office gossip, with another quarter admitting that they have used it to send something their boss wouldn’t approve of.

    A further 16% have admitted to sending or receiving sensitive company information via IM.

    Once the domain of hyperactive teens chatting incessantly online with their chums, IM has become one of the most widely deployed communications tools in corporations today with research firm Gartner predicting that the number of IM messages sent will outweigh the number of e-mail messages by 2006.

    IM has grown hugely popular with users aged 18-29 years, with 80% of people in this age group saying they use it to blather away with friends and family at work.

    UK Office Workers: 20% Using IMSome 25% of particularly bored office workers have also used IM to download music and film trailers at work.

    According to research firm Gartner, nearly three quarters of IM services are installed on to office PCs by employees sneakily downloading them for their own purposes.

    Despite Bill Harmer, managing director of Akonix, warning of the risks of letting employees install software that has not been vetted by the IT bods, 62% of firms admitted to having no policy or technology in place to manage or block IM.

    With most instant messaging in the workplace taking place over free, public IM networks, there is a danger that IM systems can open up dangerous security holes in a corporate network.

    Public IM traffic is not encrypted, leaving it susceptible to ‘orrible hackers, identify spoofers and pesky packet-sniffers, increasing the possibility of networks becoming vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks.

    UK Office Workers: 20% Using IMFor example, anti-virus firm Symantec reported a 400 percent increase in IM and peer-to-peer (P2P) networking viruses, worms and trojans over the last 12 months.

    Harmer noted that IM could bring big benefits to firms but it needed policies to regulate its use and technical solutions to ward off spammers and virus writers targeting IM.

    “The findings of this survey should be a wake-up call to UK companies. IM should be embraced but protect your business adequately or the consequences can be severe,” finger-wagged Mr Harmer.

    The YouGov survey found that in addition to its gossiping potential, IM can be an invaluable business tool for improving communications with customers or partners, gathering information or maintaining contacts.

    Worryingly for many an office time-waster, Mr Harmer urged firms to archive all IM messages and be mindful of government regulations that demand that company data be stored for longer periods of time.

    The survey was carried out by online pollsters YouGov with two thousand UK residents taking part.

    MSN Messenger
    YouGov
    You can’t stop IM so learn to love it

  • Llamasoft Visualiser Built Into XBox 360

    XBox360 To Include Llamasoft Graphics SoftwareWooargh! The lights! The shapes…the colours….all that swirling…and moving…have I gone back in time to a chemically assisted squat rave?

    Sadly not: instead, I’m being mesmerised by Jeff Minter’s Llamasoft graphics, a cutting edge music visualisation system designed for Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

    Based on Neon, Llamasoft’s proprietary graphics technology, the Llamasoft Visualiser comes pre-installed on Xbox360s and it’s “capable of generating anything from soothing ambient swirls to strobing multicolour explosions.”

    XBox360 To Include Llamasoft Graphics SoftwareThe mind-melding visual feasts are driven by beat detection or joypad control, letting users take interactive control of the camera, patterns and effect generators, to create their own psychedelic wig-outs.

    The results are pretty damn amazing, with the silky smooth, rock-solid rendering engine creating a brain-troubling swathe of swirling, abstract, multi-layered psychotropic imagery.

    The effect is so convincing, that all you’d need is some 2,000 watt techno blasting out, a floor covered in spent beer cans, a few ‘funny’ cigarettes and you could recreate the perfect rave in your bedroom.

    XBox360 To Include Llamasoft Graphics SoftwareWe’ve liked Jeff Minter’s stuff ever since the days when an Amiga 1200 (RIP) with 4meg of RAM was considered positively ostentatious. Even then his Llamatron was streets ahead of the competition, so it’s great it see the spliff-consuming, loveable hippy still producing such great work.

    “Without giving any secrets away and getting myself into trouble with Microsoft,” enthused Minter, “I can tell you that the Xbox 360 can bring to bear an absolutely staggering amount of computational power on each and every pixel, and never drop below 60 frames a second.”

    XBox360 To Include Llamasoft Graphics SoftwareAnd he’s still got his principles too, writing on his bulletin board: “And we haven’t sold our souls, or our IP, to Microsoft either. We’ve created for them an interactive visualiser for the Xbox360, and we’ll not do a visualiser for the rival consoles for this coming generation. But if someone were to ring me up tomorrow and say “Blimey Yak mate, that Neon’s a bit tasty, any chance of a bit of that for the next “not_a_console_visualiser_app” I could quite legitimately say “abso-smegging-lutely!” and we could be delivering working code in a few weeks. We can use it in games on *any* platform. The engine is small, efficient and portable.”

    Bless him.

    Llamasoft
    Jeff Minter’s forum

  • MSN Search Toolbar Required For MSN Desktop Search

    MSN Search Toolbar With Windows Desktop Search Microsoft has released the final version of MSN Desktop Search, offering new features based on extensive user feedback and boasting extended support for file types.

    Along with Internet Explorer, search toolbars reside in Windows Explorer and Microsoft Office Outlook, with desktop searches available via a toolbar in the Windows taskbar.

    The free 5.5Mb download (in contrast to Google’s 700K) can index over 200 types of files, ranging from Office 2003 documents to Outlook contacts, calendar files and emails including attachments, with add-ins available for specialised files, such as PDF, DWF and ZIP files.

    The new toolbar has ramped up multimedia file support, including GIF, JPEG, Adobe files and MP3, with browser-style “search as you type” input fields to speed up searching.

    It’s now possible to select which items should be indexed, with a dialog box letting users choose specific files and locations.

    MSN Search Toolbar With Windows Desktop Search These advanced indexing options also let users specify file types to be indexed as text, create a list of file types that should not be indexed, decide the location of the index file and boost the priority of the indexing process (although this may cause some PCs to run as slow as a tired sloth on Mogadons, but at least it can be turned off).

    The new version lets users customise how the program sorts different files — by date, size, author or sender etc – with Justin Osmer, product manager for MSN Search, gleefully boasting, “You can really slice and dice the results any way you want.”

    Search results are now accompanied by a preview pane that displays a summary of a selected results with the option to launch the targeted file’s native application.

    As with the beta release, the MSN desktop search application positively demands that the MSN Search Toolbar be installed, with the product parking itself inside Internet Explorer.

    Although users must have MSN Search Toolbar installed to use MSN Desktop search, it’s possible to select which features are enabled on the toolbar, and to hide MSN navigation links to services such as Hotmail, Messenger etc.

    Conveniently, users can also change the default search engine from MSN Search to any other search engine.

    MSN Search Toolbar With Windows Desktop Search As is the norm with search toolbars, there’s a pop up blocker and form-filler installed, although there’s still no Firefox-style tabbed browsing on offer, although MSN says it will be added soon.

    MSN also is launching a new Web site, addins.msn.com, serving up a selection of third-party developer additions to the desktop search toolbar.

    The competition for the desktop search market is getting hotter than Justin Timberlake’s underpants, with Google and Yahoo already off to a flying start.

    Although Microsoft’s offering may not have enough features to tempt those using rival services, it may prove perfect for regular users of Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.

    MSN Desktop Search

  • Digital Listening Grows As Radio Declines

    Digital Listening Grows As Radio DeclinesMore and more people are using computers or portable players for music, even though traditional radio still leads the competition, according to a recent market study.

    The report from market researcher, The NPD Group, revealed that approximately 77.2 million customers grooved to music stored on a computer during March 2005 – up 22 percent from the 63.2 million recorded during the same month last year.

    Online radio stations also enjoyed an upturn in popularity, with 53.5 million listeners tuning in this March, up from 45.3 million a year ago.

    Free streaming of music also saw notable gains, with a rise of 37 percent, to 46 million listeners.

    Traditional radio continues to be the preferred medium, but listening audiences shrank 4 per cent to 194 million, down from 203 million a year earlier.

    “The rise of digital listening and storage for music continues unabated this year,” Russ Crupnick, president of the Music and Movies division at NPD, said in a statement. “Technology companies are providing new tools to consumers in the form of powerful music-enabled PCs and portable music players; music companies are answering the call for more content; and consumers are responding positively.”

    There’s a right royal barney going on in the online music business, with several big names fighting it out for a fat slice of the lucrative download market, currently dominated by Apple’s iTunes store and iPod music players.

    Digital Listening Grows As Radio DeclinesLast week, Yahoo revealed their determination to become big noise in the music industry, unveiling a music subscription service that significantly undercuts their rivals.

    According to the NPD survey, the number of consumers ripping music onto their computers has more than doubled since March 2004, with a substantial (127 percent) increase in music transferred to MP3 players since last year.

    With a 93 percent increase in paid music downloads during the same period registered, online music is becoming increasingly accepted.

    The NPD Group

  • BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In September

    BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In SeptemberBBC New Media is to extend trials of its interactive Media Player (iMP), allowing viewers to download material from 500 hours of its television and radio programming.

    The latest phase of trials for BBC New Media’s interactive Media Player is scheduled to begin in September 2005 and will run for three months.

    The interactive Media Player lets viewers catch up with TV and radio programmes up to seven days after they have been broadcast, with the BBC offering legal Internet download programmes to their PCs.

    The latest road test follows smaller trials last summer where the BBC used a limited number of people and a small amount of rights-cleared programmes to test the concept of using peer-to-peer technology and digital rights management (DRM) to protect rights holders.

    This time around, the BBC is offering around 190 hours of TV programmes and 310 radio programmes, in addition to local programming and rights-cleared feature films.

    BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In SeptemberThe 5,000 trialists will be able to search for programmes they want to watch, filter programmes by channel, select subtitles and, in the case of some series, to collect and watch episodes that they may otherwise have missed.

    Ashley Highfield, BBC director of new media and technology, effloresced with a curious mix of similes: “iMP could just be the iTunes for the broadcast industry, enabling our audience to access our TV and radio programmes on their terms — anytime, any place, any how – Martini Media.”

    “We’ll see what programmes appeal in this new world and how people search, sort, snack and savour our content in the broadband world,” he added.

    Currently, issues with rights, distribution and navigation are limiting the menu, leading to fears that without the necessary killer content to attract audiences, take-up of the service may stall.

    Highfield has stated that the BBC was looking to tackle these issues through services like Creative Archive and iMP, and called on the industry to do the same.

    BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In SeptemberThe pilot will use DRM software to delete programmes seven days after the programme has aired on TV, ensuring that users can no longer watch the content after that time. The digital rights system will also prevent users emailing the files to their chums or sharing it via disc.

    The BBC iMP pilot will use peer-to-peer distribution technology to distribute the content and Geo-IP technology to restrict the service to UK Internet users only, with Siemens Business Services, BBC Broadcast and Kontiki, assisting with the technical and play-out elements of the trial.

    The Kontiki system is already being beta-tested by the Open Media Foundation in trials of a public service allowing controlled peer-to-peer distribution of rights cleared audio and video.

    BBC iMP
    Kontiki