Category: Web

Mobile vs Web gaming

Games on mobiles are not new, neither are multiplayer games, but Macrospace have teamed up with Certus to go a step further, by allowing players to compete in real-time using their mobile phones with not only other mobile users, but also PC users via their web browser.

Global mobile to mobile, Web to mobile gaming creates a whole new multiplayer dynamic. Designed for the more casual gamers, Macrospace hopes to attract a broad range of people who are already familiar with web-based games, but who may not yet appreciate the gaming potential of their mobile phone. The new games, developed in partnership with Denmark’s Certus, use powerful server-side technologies to create a robust multiplayer platform that is simple for even novice users, and three have been launched for openers.
 
Multiplayer Four-in-a-row challenges you to get four counters in a row before your opponent, while the multiplayer version of the timeless game of strategy, Multiplayer Reversi, allows you to challenge your friends anytime, anywhere in real-time.  Finally, Multiplayer Battle Ocean encourages you to sink your opponents’ fleet of ships before he sinks yours. Players can also chat to each other seamlessly between mobile and Web.

The games can be played across any Java-enabled mobile or Web platform, and they have been specifically designed to work across 2G, 2.5G and 3G technology, using turn-based gameplay that suits the technical limitations of existing handsets and networks.

Most importantly, for player kudos, Macrospace multiplayer games utilise global ranking and high scores, allowing users to view other players’ scores and select opponents of a similar skill level. They can also create a permanent username, circumventing the need to create a new one for every game they purchase. It’s a real virtual community affair as Certus’ technology allows operators and portals to run tournaments and create competition leagues.

People used to miss bus and train stops because they fell asleep or were engrossed in a good book, now it will be because they are preoccupied with multiplayer global intrigue on the tiny screen.

Macrospace
Certus

London Schoolchildren to get Broadband Learning at Home

Soon, too soon for some, there will be no excuse for not having your homework done as London education authorities are planning to install broadband in the homes of London schoolchildren. , This initiative by the London Education authorities is timely in the light of a recent OECD report that identified “Disappointing” the use of ICT (computer & technology) in upper secondary schools, even in the most advanced countries, despite major investment outlays over the past 20 years.

With broadband already in more than 80 per cent of London classrooms, the plan now is to extend the initiative and allow pupils at primary and secondary schools, access to high-speed Internet services at home. That means a portal that supports a million people, who will have a personal log-on, 25MB of space, their own email and of course, access to a cornucopia of online learning materials.

As we’ve previously reported extending learning to the home has been very successful in trials in Kingston Upon Hull in the UK where, using the KIT TVIP service, pupils are able to work on the school’s servers using a keyboard, a Set Top Box and their television.

It looks like there will be very few excuses left for not attending class either, unless you are at death’s door, since the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) has created an education network that shares IT resources through classes held via video-conferencing, virtual field trips and personalised pupil programmes. Virtual field tripe, eh?  Looks like you won’t even be able to say the damp brings on an asthma attack when the tree identification trip can be done from the comfort of that lovely classroom. The personalised learning feature will facilitate a managed learning environment, through online facilities.

When you put the words children and Internet together the result sparks fear in the hearts of many parents, so readers will be relieved to learn that the content filtering and managed access in place on the machines in schools is being extended to the children’s homes.  In fact a service called ‘LGfL at Home’ will filter the home broadband service.  Parents can have a password to circumvent the filtering while children can access the online learning resources.


Last April Digital Lifestyles looked at Kingston Communication’s collaboration with an East Yorkshire school that has led to an exciting project to engage pupils in interactive learning, both at home and in the classroom. (story link)

London Grid for Learning

Collapse-to-Zoom Could Aid Mobile Browsing

It’s the same old problem – a Web page is simply shrunk to fit a handheld screen and you waste time playing ‘blind man’s buff’ with the screen contents because you can’t tell the relevant from the irrelevant tiles.

Browsing large pictures, or simply navigating the Web on a mobile device is as unsatisfactory as trying to watch “The Return of the King” on a portable TV.

Opera have what they call Small-Screen Rendering technology to counter this but Patrick Baudisch and Xing Xie from Microsoft Research, Wei-Ying Ma from Microsoft Research Asia, and Chong Wang of Tsinghua University have provided a workaround to this limitation that will automate the scrolling and navigation of a large picture with a single pen stroke.

It’s called Collapse-to-zoom and offers an alternative exploration strategy. In addition to enabling users to zoom into relevant areas, Collapse-to-zoom allows users to collapse areas deemed irrelevant, such as archive material, or advertising.  When you collapse the irrelevant content all remaining material expands to display more detail, thus increasing your chance of finding what you want. Collapse-to-zoom navigation, explain the researchers, is based on a hybrid between a marquee selection tool and a marking menu, that they’re naming “marquee menu”.  There are four commands for collapsing content areas at different granularities and switching to a full-size view of what’s left on screen.

The system is controlled with pen gestures and are fully detailed in the Technology Review (linked below).  Dragging the pen diagonally downwards from right to left collapses all page content in the rectangular area covered by the pen, and replaces it with a thin placeholder that can be restored by clicking if required. Dragging the pen diagonally upwards from left to right zooms that area into a 100-percent-scale reading mode and collapses everything around the area.

Baudisch, Xie, Ma and Wang will present their work at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2004) next week.

Microsoft Collapse To Zoom paper (PDF)

Technology Review article

Opera for Mobiles

Microsoft and Cisco Announce Security Partnership

Microsoft and Cisco will announce a partnership today to make the security features of their respective range of products compatible. By tying up security at both the server operating system and hardware layer, the two companies hope that they will beat hackers and virus writers, whilst at the same time regaining the faith of corporate customers.

Microsoft and Cisco products hold a particular fascination for hackers, who enjoy exploiting various vulnerabilities in their platforms. Some corporate customers have switched to Linux and Unix as server operating systems on the grounds of security, as there are simply less viruses and malware on those systems.

By ensuring interoperability, customers should have an easier time deploying security policies and integrating products from both companies on their networks.

The next big step for the MS/Cisco partnership will be the release of Longhorn Server in 2007, when Microsoft’s own Network Access Protection scheme will be compatible with Cisco’s own Network Access Control features.

Microsoft will announce the news here later on Monday

Dell’s Anti-Spyware Initiative

Dell and the Internet Education Foundation have launched an new initiative to reach at least 63 million internet users over the next three years – and inform them of the dangers of spyware. 63 million, of course, being the number of broadband internet users in the US.

The Consumer Spyware Initiative (CSI) includes links to spyware removal software and the IEF’s Get Netwise website, and is also planning to recruit other technology companies in the fight against malware. The Get Netwise site also provides information about keeping children safe online and stopping spam.

Dell have a sound financial reason for promoting user awareness of malware and security: they have revealed that most of the support calls they receive regarding PCs are from users afflicted with spyware. A survey by Dell and IEF conducted last month of 742 internet users from a sample of 1000 US citizens indicated that 39% fell less secure than they did a year ago.

“Since January 2004, more customers have called Dell seeking relief from spyware than for any other technical support issue,” said Mike George, vice president and general manager of Dell’s U.S. Consumer business. “We’ve been focused on arming our customers with the information and tools they need to combat this problem. Through this process, we’ve seen that education is our best counter intelligence against the threat of spyware.”

Tim Lordan, staff director of IEF said in a statement:”The Internet is an integral part of our economy and lifestyle, and it is vital to ensure that Internet users are not deterred from going online due to hazards like spyware. CSI will provide Internet users with the knowledge they need to feel secure online, and IEF is proud to sponsor such an important program with Dell.”

Get Netwise

Napster Pre-Paid Cards and Media Room Edition

Napster pre-paid cardNapster, the online music store, has made a couple of key announcements regarding its future business plans. The UK arm of the store has just launched a pre-paid music card scheme, aimed at under 18s and other music buyers who don’t have credit cards.

The scheme is a first for the UK, and will be sold through the Dixons Group of stores. The cards will initially be available in two values – UK£14.95 (€21.65) and UK£56.95 (€83), which works out at UK£0.99 (€1.44) and UK£0.95 (€1.38) per track respectively.

Aside from being good for business, Napster sees a key advantage in making it easier for teenagers to buy music: they’ll be less likely to download it illegally. More music, more stores and more ways to pay mean that people will be less attracted to P2P networks when trying to acquire music that they enjoy.

Napster vice-president and UK general manager Leanne Sharman said in a statement: “The launch of pre-paid cards in the UK is a major development in the evolution of the online music market. Our partnership with Dixons Group broke the mould and gave online music a high street presence for the first time; now the introduction of pre-paid cards takes this one step further and increases accessibility to Napster.”

Napster have also announced a new Media Room Edition of their client software, featured in Windows XP Media Centre 2005. The new version of their software has been designed for easy viewing on a television, allowing users to access their music collection from their sofa, or even buy music that way. Dangerous, given some of the urges to buy music that I get and can’t be bothered getting off the sofa and onto my PC to action them.

Additionally, Napster MRE features an expanded music video collection and enhanced artist photos and album art. The forthcoming Napster to Go portable subscription service will also be included when it débuts this year.

“The Napster Media Room Edition is for the growing number of music fans that want to take digital music beyond the PC and integrate it into their home entertainment experience,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chairman and CEO. “Napster’s expansion from a PC-based experience into the living room and into the home began over a year ago as a feature of Microsoft’s ground-breaking Media Centre PC so we are pleased to continue our legacy of innovation with the most comprehensive and easy to use music experience available.”

Napster

3G Phones in Japan Get Even More Interesting

Twenty four hours is a long time in the Japanese mobile phone market, vividly demonstrated by the three interesting developments I’m going to outline below.

Firstly, KDDI, the second largest mobile operator in Japan will be distributing the new Casio W21CA handset with Opera as its default web browser – this makes Opera the first full web browser to be deployed on the 3G CDMA network in Japan.

Toshio Maki, the vice president and general manager of KDDI’s Service and Product Planning Divisionsaid in a statement:”With a market eager to experience evolved mobile communications, a crucial part of that experience will be how impressively users can browse the Internet and how rich Web content will be. Opera is the ideal mobile Web application to browse the full Web because of its speed, usability, and unique SSR [Small-Screen Rendering] technology, Opera is the best browser to utilize the high-speed access capabilities of the 3G CDMA network.”

Secondly, KDDI are about to launch a new music distribution service whilst introducing new phones that have enough memory to make them genuinely useful as music players. The new music store will launch with about 10,000 tracks, though we’ve not been able to confirm how much a download will cost.

The service will launch at the end of November, and will coincide with new phones from Toshiba, Sanyo and Hitachi. With 40mb of memory, the new Sanyo W22SA will be able to store about 100 minutes of J-Pop with around nine hours of playback.

Lastly, if you’re worried about your phone’s battery life now that it’s your video camera, music player, games console, TV and, errr, phone – then KDDI is hoping to introduce fuel-cell based batteries in the near future, with a prototype expected this year. Conventional batteries are just not up to the sort of energy drain required for all the new 3G services that network providers and phone manufacturers are hoping to seel to customers. The fuel cells are methanol-based and are charged by attaching methanol cartridges. Expect a sudden increase in tramps asking for 10p to make a phone call.

Opera

KDDI

Microsoft Announces Plans for Your Digital Living Room and 22 New Security Flaws in Windows Products

Microsoft began the latest phase of its big push for consumers’ digital lives by unveiling Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 (MCE) and a host of products designed to work alongside it.

Bill G and Queen Latifah demonstrated the most recent features in MCE at an event in Los Angeles, highlighting integration with Windows Media Player 10 and a compatibility with a range of new hardware devices.

To coincide with the do, Microsoft’s main press release describes a hypothetical family and how they might use digital media across the day – from recording TV programmes via their web browser to broadcasting music around the home using a Media Centre Extender.

The company also announced 22 new security holes in its Windows range whilst issuing an update to address them. One of the new flaws managed to affect Macintosh OSX users.

By promoting MCE as a digital hub, the company hopes to show consumers that they can view, share and store their movies, music and pictures around the home and on the move. To reinforce their view of the future, the company also announced a number of devices from partners like HP, Dell and Creative Labs.

Music is a very important part of MS’s plans, with Windows Media 10 and MSN Music receiving another PR boost. Amongst the devices promoted by MS were new Digital Audio Receivers from Dlink, Roku and MoniFi which are designed to play digital music from a central source in any room of the house. Creative, Gateway, iRiver and other also announced new digital media players for the Christmas season, with capabilities ranging from simple music to full video playback.

Will Poole, senior vice president for the Windows Client division at Microsoft said in a statement: “For years, many in the consumer electronics industry have viewed digital entertainment as a field of dreams: if you provide consumers with a solution, they’ll build it into a larger experience – regardless of cost or complexity. Windows XP Media Centre PC and all of these other devices and services make it possible, for the first time, for the average consumer to enjoy digital entertainment anywhere, anytime and in any way.”

Microsoft’s Media experience

Orb Networks’ PC Content Sharing

Next up in the media portal race is a service from Orb Networks. Their technology allows PC users to stream content off their home computer to any other compatible device that’s connected to the internet. This means that you can watch programmes you’ve recorded using your Windows Media Centre PC on a compatible mobile phone of PDA almost anywhere.

To do this, Orbs’s technology takes music or video from the user’s PC and then determines the best format, codec and bit rate for the target device and then streams it from your home internet connection to the device you’ve requested it from.

Orb intend to expand the product beyond PC users – they want PVRs to incorporate the technology also, which will prove trickier. Indeed, TiVo have just had a lucky scrape when they had a similar feature approved by the FCC earlier this year, after criticism from the MPAA over its security.

Tim Bajarin president of Creative Strategies at Orb Networks explains why they’ve produced their media portal: “Many of today’s digital entertainment devices and services place limitations on the amount or type of content consumers can access. People may be able to watch live television remotely from a cell phone or notebook, but are restricted to watching only a handful of stations. Additionally, today’s digital music services often try to lock users into using one particular device and media player. Very simply put, Orb takes away these boundaries giving the consumer what they want – uninhibited, spontaneous remote access to all of their digital home media.”

Content providers media companies don’t want their content going anywhere near the internet – even if you technically have a right to view it when ever you like. Expect Orb Networks to come under fire from the usual favourites when the service launches in mid-November. When available, it’ll cost subscribers US$9.99 (€8.11) a month, or US$80 (€65) a year.

James Behrens, chief executive officer of Orb Networks said in a statement: “Orb Networks has developed a brand new way for people to be connected to their digital media all the time from anywhere in the world. We have found a way to bring consumers what they want – simple access at any time. Consumers can watch live TV on their laptop, schedule a DVR recording through their PDA, or even listen to their music on their cell phone while jogging, biking or shopping.”

Orb Networks

Yell Launch Yell.com Mobile

Yell.com, the UK business information portal styled on the Yellow Pages, has just announced the launch of Yell.com Mobile. The service aims to give access to the company’s information on two million shops and services to mobile phone users through a Java application and even provides colour maps and directions from your location. Yell.com Mobile is compatible with a large range of handsets, and a list is available from their main website. The service, excluding the premium services detailed below, is free – excluding normal network charges.

To use the service for the first time, the applet has top be downloaded by texting “mobile” to 80248. You’ll then receive a message that will prompt the applet download through your GPRS connection.

Once installed, users can search Yell by business type, name, location or browse by categories like “Gifts and Shopping” or “Days and Nights Out”.

Once a business is located, users are offered three premium services, each costing UK0.25 (€0.36): Map, Directions or Business Card. The map is presented at 1:25,000 scale with seven levels of zoom, and directions can be tailored to driving or walking and are based on the user’s current location. The business card function simply copies the full details of the company you’ve searched for to your phone’s address book.

Eddie Cheng, eBusiness director, Yell, said: “Yell.com mobile is a unique service, the most advanced of its kind currently available in Europe. The revolutionary application gives mobile users full access to Yell.com’s business information whilst they’re on the move. Once downloaded, the application sits on the mobile handset with only requested data being transmitted over the air.”

Yell.com Mobile