Digital-Lifestyles

Content

Content in its shift to become digital

  • AOL’s New Stand-alone Browser

    AOL are working on a new own-brand web browser just as the browser wars enter a new phase. Recently, Microsoft really has shot itself in the foot – it looked like the once-bitter war was over and that just about everyone had given in to browsing and authoring the web according to Internet Explorer… but then massive security gaffs prompted users to look elsewhere.

    Let’s face it, no-one dumps IE because of a lack of features – Microsoft’s browser supports just about every technology available on the web today. Users migrate to other browsers because they’re sick of having spyware and malicious scripts installed on their PCs through the many still unfixed security flaws in Internet Explorer.

    Microsoft’s loss is Firefox and Safari’s gain, and the forgotten conflict for the top browser spot has been reignited.

    AOL Browser, as it has been imaginatively titled, is based around IE at its core, but introduces a number of new features. Amongst them is the currently fashionable, try it once and you’ll never want to go back, tabbed browsing feature currently employed in Firefox and Safari. Instead of launching a number of instances of the browser to view multiple pages, surfers can keep everything in one window and tab between them – and even tear off tabs to drag into a new window if required.

    The new browser will also incorporate Microsoft’s pop-up blocker, introduced in recent updates. The blocker simply does not execute scripts that launch a new child window unless you specifically click on a link to do so. Power Browsing features let users zoom in and out of pages and use high contrast colours for the vision impaired.

    No doubt AOL’s decision to base their new offering on IE was helped by their right to use Microsoft’s browser without paying royalties for the next six years, as part of a US$750 million (€604 million) anti-trust settlement won by Netscape.

    The browser will not be integrated into AOL’s software, and won’t even be tied to AOL’s internet service and content, it will instead be available as a free download to everyone. This would bring the AOL branding to a much wider audience, and encourage surfers to try out AOL’s services and features.

    Google has recently denied a forthcoming GBrowser, but let’s face it – if they managed to code a secure browser that supported web standards with proper Java and plug-in support, no-one else, Microsoft included, would stand a chance.

    AOL

  • OFT’s Spam Crackdown

    The Office of Fair Trading, a UK government organisation set up to protect consumers, has launched a new initiative to protect internet users from spam and misleading websites. The OFT are promoting global co-operation at a conference in London today bringing together consumer protection, data protection and telecommunications agencies from more than 20 countries.

    John Vickers, OFT Chair, said in a statement: “Spam is not just annoying and intrusive. It gets in the way of legitimate e-commerce, and is often a vehicle for scams and computer viruses. International collaboration by enforcement agencies, the efforts of the computer and communications industries, and smart consumers at home (who take steps to protect themselves) are all needed to combat the internet scammers.”

    To date, the OFT has fought a couple of successful actions against spammers and scam sites – but with a lack of results from other global initiatives, it remains to be seen if this latest conference will have any effect. Global spam traffic increases every week, and the numbers of scam sites, viruses and spyware applications is simply going up, not down.

    The OFT’s main policy at the moment is to educate the public – their site has the usual hints and advice for email and web users, but these are hardly “tips to help you fight back”. A spam filter is not “fighting back” by any definition. Fighting back would be giving the anti-spam laws some teeth, and giving global law enforcement agencies the funding and co-ordination to combat spam at it source.

    The OFT

  • Apple’s Colour Screen iPod by Christmas

    Rumours of a new iPod are appearing – fuelled by a report on macintosh rumour site Think Secret. The new iPod is said to be built around a 60Gb drive and have a 2.2” high resolution colour screen. Users will also be able to view album artwork on the screen whilst listening to their music libraries, so let’s hope Apple have done something about the battery capacity then, because that sounds like about two hours of play time right there.

    Better still, the screen is intended to display colour pictures from digital cameras copied to the the iPod – an extension of the photo storage facility introduced in a recent software update. Additional rumours state that the new player will be able to display pictures on a TV, perhaps even set to music.

    As far as looks go, the casing for the new iPod will follow the design of its predecessors, although 2mm thicker… possibly to accomodate a new, higher-capacity battery.

    There is no official confirmation about the new iPod from Apple, and nor will there be – the company never make statements about forthcoming products. Though some claim they do have a tendency to drop rumours here and there to stoke interest.

    Several factors have combined to add a note of authenticity to the latest rumours: the new PP5020 processor from iPod chipmaker PortalPlayer features support for a colour display and TV output – whilst playing music. Toshiba, disk supplier for Apple’s iPod, has also just announced a new 1.8” 60Gb drive – and let slip that Apple had ordered a large quantity of them.

    If a new colour screen iPod is on its way, then the timing is sure to lead to shortages as fans try to ensure they get on in time for Christmas, particularly at the rumoured price of US$499 (€402).

    Think Secret

  • US Government Sues its First Spyware Merchant

    The US Federal Trade Commission has struck its first blow against spyware manufacturers by shutting down the Seismic Entertainment Productions and smartbot.net.

    Seismic are accused of producing and secretly installing a spyware application that nagged users to buy an anti-spyware product from the company. In effect, the application was creating a problem for the PC user and then require US$30 (€24) for removal. The complaint was brought forward by a Washington-based consumer group, the Centre for Democracy and Technology.

    The individual behind Seismic is Sanford Wallace, who has been accused of illegal practices and pursued by anti-spam authorities for the past few years. He is currently looking for sympathy on his personal website, and has published the following statement:

    “We believe the U.S. government is attempting to enforce federal laws that have yet to be enacted. We feel this is a political move and it is being made at the expense of legal business operations. I am not surprised at all that my companies and I, Sanford Wallace, were picked as the ‘poster boy.’ I find the timing and target of this action to be extremely convenient and painfully obvious. We deny any wrongdoings and plan to pursue all legal protections, remedies and freedoms.”

    Given the number of people he’s upset in the past, he’ll have a tough job, but there is currently no anti-spyware legislation in the US – the FTC moved against Wallace under legislation relating to deceptive business practices.

    FTC’s media advisory on the Wallace case

    Sanford Wallace. Background on Wikipedia

  • Rod Stewart to Webcast Invite-Only Concert

    Little did I know when I woke up this morning that I’d be writing an article about pretend Scotsman and sometime popular singer, Rod Stewart – but then life’s funny that way.

    Rod will be webcasting his next gig – an invitation-only affair at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre – on AOL. The concert will also mark the release of his latest album, The Great American Songbook, Volume III. Some tickets are available through radio station competitions and give aways, and through his fan club also.

    The concert will be webcast live on October 18th at 9pm EST on AOL Music and you can find it using the AOL Keyword “Rod Stewart”.

    Rod Stewart

  • Sun and Kodak Settle Patent Dispute Out of Court – Software Industry Trembles

    Sun and Eastman Kodak have settled a long running patent dispute with an out of court payment. Kodak has been chasing Java creator Sun Microsystems for the past two years, claiming that Sun’s wrtie-once, run-anywhere programming platform violates three patents owned by the film company.

    Kodak, who don’t produce programming platforms, had been after US$1.06 billion (€859 million) in damages – or roughly 50% of Sun’s entire profit from its hardware sales from the three years from 1998 to 2001. Instead, they accepted US$92 million (€74.6 million) from Sun, without Sun accepting or denying Kodak’s allegations. From their behaviour, it certainly looks like they just harassed Sun until they were paid to go away.

    The dispute revolves around three patents that Kodak acquired in 1997 from Wang Laboratories – specifically the way that one program can call another one to assist. This, they say, was similar to the way that Java works. That’s it – there was no identical source code, no dispute over look and feel: it was entirely down to the concept of one program calling another one to help. It’s actually similar to the way that all software works.

    Obviously there are concerns amongst software companies that such vague patent claims might destroy the entire industry as companies turn to each other to extract licensing fees for vague and invalid patent disputes. Even if a claim is eventually thrown out, the entire process can be crippling to companies.

    I believe that Kodak’s behaviour in this case is especially shameful given that the only reason they have a business in the first place is because they have relied upon the innovations and free exchange of ideas – from generous and insightful people who created the industry before Kodak even arrived. Kodak are old hands at this game given that, in the 70s, they themselves infringed seven patents belonging to Polaroid – an action that took five years for Polaroid to win.

    A history of the innovations in photography

    Sun’s statement on the dispute resolution

  • Google Via Text Message

    One last Google announcement this week – US users can now send queries to the search engine via their mobile phones, and get answers back in about a minute. The service is another one of Google’s beta offerings, and as such is currently free, except for standard network charges – they’re just trying it out to see if people would use it.

    Google SMS offers phone directory listings, product prices from Froogle, dictionary definitions … and a calculator. Somewhat strange given that most phones have calculator software in them already, but perhaps useful if it can deal with trigonometric functions. Oh, wait – I have a PDA for that.

    Benjamin Ling, product manager for Google SMS describes the service on his blog: “Google SMS is a handy way to, say, get a listing for a nearby restaurant, find the definition of a word, or look up the price of a product, an area code or Zip code. You can even use Google SMS to calculate a tip. If your phone is enabled for text messages, just send your query to this 5-digit US shortcode: 46645. (It corresponds to GOOGL on most phones.) Your query results are sent as text messages, not links. Learn more about using Google SMS on our help page or by sending a text message with the word ‘help’ to 46645.”

    SMS Google

  • Google Launches Google Print

    Researching things on the web is an essential part of everyday business – but too often books and other printed sources get left behind.

    Google’s aim is possibly one of the the most daring and challenging I’ve seen announced by any company: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” To bring them another step forward, Larry Sage and Sergey Brin announced Google Print, at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week.

    Designed to help people discover books , Google Print allows users to search across the full text of entire books. Sadly, as with Amazon’s own book search facility, users cannot read or download the entire book, but there are links to buy a copy. Printing and image copying is blocked on book pages returned from searches. So you don’t read an entire book for free by doing multiple searches on the same title, Google keeps a watch on the number of pages you’ve viewed from a particular book – though this is not associated with user information, so no one can tell what books you’re looking at online.

    Google is encouraging publishers to send copies of their books to Google for scanning and indexing, free of charge – the company hopes that it will make revenue from advertising on the search pages, and from the links to online book sellers. Currently, McGraw-Hill, Scholastic and Penguin are amongst the first publishers to submit titles for inclusion in Google’s new venture.

    Handy if you’re looking for something that might be contained in a book that’s in print, but what about the many thousands of books that are out of print? There’s no incentive for publishers to put books they don’t intend to reprint online, as there’s no physical book to sell through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Making out of print titles available electronically for a fee really would be a step towards making the world’s information universally accessible as they account for millions of pages of text that is currently hidden from any search engine.

    Try Google Print

  • StreamCast Announce Morpheus 4.5

    StreamCast Networks chose the Web 2.0 conference to announce a major update to their Morpheus peer-to-peer client. Employing a new hash table technology from NEOnet (you know, I’m getting really bored with all these five-year-old Matrix references), Morpheus 4.5 claims more efficient searching and downloads across the major P2P networks.

    If you listen really carefully, you can almost hear the RIAA’s lawyers phoning in yet another order for more champaign and Porches.

    “This is not just another updated application from a technology developer. Morpheus 4.5 is a genuine leap forward in advancing peer-to-peer file-sharing and searching, thanks to the horizonless search capabilities of the NEOnet technology,” StreamCast Networks CEO Michael Weiss said in a statement. “For the first time ever, decentralized P2P technology delivers central server reliability in a completely decentralized architecture to provide a quality of service unparalleled by existing applications.”

    So, what’s a “horizonless” search? It means that the new client will search across all P2P networks at once, all seven million simultaneous users, rather than just clusters of computers – reducing the number of hops that a peer-to-peer client takes before it locates a specific file.

    Ben Wilken, Architect of the underlying technology to NEOnet, explains the benefit: “Morpheus with NEOnet allows users to find that file within three hops or less, significantly reducing the network congestion caused by peer-to-peer usage by up to 600 percent.”

    Since Morpheus does not keep a central database of all files available, it doesn’t break any laws – indeed StreamCast claim it is the only P2P file sharing software ruled legal by US Federal courts. However, if users upload and then share content they don’t hold the copyright to, then they will have committed a crime.

    Other enhancements to Morpheus include integration with users’ antivirus software, anti-spoofing technology (useful for detecting Overpeer’s handy work), parental controls and an integrated media player.

    Morpheus

  • RealArcade Celebrates 150 Million Downloads

    RealNetworks are celebrating the 150 millionth game download through their RealArcade service. Founded in 2001, RealArcade now serves about 1.8 million downloads every week, from a catalogue of over 250 titles. With RealNetworks claiming 45 million downloads of the Arcvade client itself, that means that the average user has downloaded just over three games each.

    RealArcade’s games are aimed at casual, pick up and play gaming – you won’t find any Final Fantasy VIIs there as the company wants to cater to customers who just fancy a quick blast of something. Popular titles on RealArcade include Jewel Quest, Shape Shifter, and the favourite in August, Feeding Frenzy. I might download Insaniquarium Deluxe just for the title alone.

    “Millions of everyday people are experiencing games for grownups because they find casual games to be simple, accessible, friendly entertainment for the whole family to play,” said Andrew Wright, vice president of games for RealNetworks Inc in a statement: “We’ve been able to capture a lot of that growth at RealArcade by offering a product that consumers consistently rank as one of the best on the Web.”

    An internal survey from Real indicates that two thirds of Arcade’s customers are women, and two-thirds of those have children. Almost half of RealArcade’s users say they visit every day, showing that the site is definitely “sticky”.

    RealNetworks quite research from IDC: “Against common expectations, this market isn’t comprised of the ‘typical’ gamer, but rather a diverse spectrum of players who would never consider themselves to be gamers. As a result, this market has grown explosively by successfully tapping into new markets,” said Schelley Olhava, of IDC. “Double digit growth rates in the paid downloadable games space alone will result in U.S. revenues of $760 million (€619 million) by 2007.”

    The RealArcade platform is DirectX-based, making development of new games, and porting existing titles simpler, but limits the platform to Windows PCs only.

    Real Arcade