Computer-Centric

Kodak’s New Easyshare Printers Claim Half Price Prints
Kodak has today announced a new range of All-In-One Inkjet printers promising to reduce the cost of home printing by using pigment based inks and special paper.
The company is claiming that their new printers will be able to output “Kodak lab-quality” photos at home using premium, pigment-based inks for up to half the price of their competitors.
Boldly claiming that their new range will change the inkjet market forever, Kodak boss Antonio M. Perez insists that his company is, “changing the rules in this industry,” giving consumers, “the freedom to print documents and photos frequently, easily and affordably with exceptional quality that lasts a lifetime under typical home display conditions.”
(We can’t help notice the king size caveat about, “typical home display conditions” contained therein. What on earth are they, we wonder?!).
Kodak’s new range starts at $150, with the top of the range 5500 model offering a scanner, document feeder, fax and LCD display for $300.
The inks will cost $15 for the colour cartridge (good for over 100 4×6 prints) and $10 for the black cartridge (which keeps on rocking for 300 pages).
The Kodak Easyshare range
The Kodak Easyshare 5100 All-in-One Printer ($150), offers print, scan and copy capabilities, and can print and copy up to 32 pages per minute in black and 22 pages per minute in colour
Based on the same specs as the 5100, the Kodak Easyshare 5300 All-in-One Printer ($200) bolts on a 3-inch colour LCD display and memory card slots for direct photo printing.
The top of the range Kodak Easyshare 5500 All-in-One Printer ($300) ramps up the feature set, offering all the features of the 5300, plus fax functionality, a 2.4-inch colour LCD display, an automatic document feeder and a duplexer attachment.
The printers will start to appear in US stores from March onwards, with the 5500 shipping in May 2007.
Kodak
6 February, 2007
High-k Metal Gates To Give Major Chip Advance
Both IBM and Intel have announced what they are calling major jumps forward in the design of microchips.
They both centre on building transistors using so-called high-k metal gates, which after almost seven years of industry research in the area, it’s claimed will lead to increases in the speed and power of chips for another decade.
The high-k metal gates reduce current leakage and will be used to replace the polysilicon gate electrode currently in use. It does this because the new material holds its charge longer.
It is understood that Intel is further ahead in the process, with the release of computers based on the next chip types by the end of the year. A most fortunate dovetail with Vista being released, which requires a lot of horsepower to run at usable speeds.
Intel said its new family of chips, code-named Penryn, will have 410 million transistors, using the new materials combined with the 45-nanometer technology manufacturing process. This compares with about 280 million in current chips. Intel also said electrical leakage will be reduced by about 30 percent.
Batting off the Intel claims of it being in products this year, Bernie Meyerson, chief technologist for IBM Systems and Technology Group retorted, “It’s almost meaningless to say I’m going to ship a chip first. Yes, you can do that. It doesn’t mean that you are actually going to put it into a server; there is a ton of work to get to that.”
IBM said they will be putting it “out the door in a product in roughly in the 2008 time frame.”
Intel are trotting out Moore’s law again (the number of transistors on an IC doubles every two years), claiming that these advantages will enable it to be maintained. Many people view this as somewhat of a marketing message by Intel, rather than a law.
It’s understood that the approach of IBM and Intel differ. Intel are mounting the components on top of the silicon, where IBM are mounting theirs inside the silicon. IBM’s approach potentially gives them the advantage of being able to build many levels on top of each other.
What the heck is a High-K material?
Intel’s view of it is that “High-k” stands for high dielectric constant, a measure of how much charge a material can hold. Example of High-k materials are hafnium dioxide (HfO2), zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) and titanium dioxide (TiO2).
31 January, 2007
PC World Says Farewell To Floppy Disks
Electronics giant PC World has announced that it is to stop selling floppy disks once the current stocks run out.
First introduced by IBM way back in 1969 as a big flapping thing, the floppy disk hit mainstream consumers after Sony released the familiar 3.5 inch format in 1981.
From then on, floppy disk became the de facto storage standard right up to the late 90s as its feeble storage capacity (1.44MB) failed to compete with an onslaught of cheap memory storage formats including memory cards, USB keys, rewritable CDs and removable hard drives all capable of holding gigabytes of data.
PC World also commented that the increased availability of broadband and wireless internet connections has more or less consigned small-scale removable storage devices into the technology dustbin.
In decline since the late 1990s, the floppy once ruled supreme, shifting more than two billion units in 1998 – a figure now down to a measly 700 million last year.
Of course, you’ll still be able to pick up floppy disks elsewhere for now, but the end is surely nigh for this long serving piece of technology.
Although we’re tempted to get a bit misty eyed at the fall of the trusty floppy, we still can’t quite forget the long nights spent feeding our Amiga 1200 (and later our PC) masses of floppies containing programs spanned over several disks only to hear the grinding sound of doom right at the end.
Although we certainly got familiar with the “Non-system disk or disk error – Replace and press any key” error message over the years too, we’ll still miss the things – and they were always a satisfying shape to throw around the office when the network went down too.
So farewell, dear floppy. You served us well.
Floppy Disk
Via
31 January, 2007
PCMover Vista: Transfer Your PC Life To Vista
Avanquest Software, makers of the old-faithful LapLink, have launched PCMover to help people transfer all of their PC data from previous versions of Windows on to Vista.
Getting a new machine with a new operating system is both a joy and a pain. The joy is the shiny new OS you have to play with and the likelihood that it runs considerably faster than the previous machine. The pain, is trying to make sure you’ve remembered all of the little bits of data tucked away in forgotten corners, and usually having to reconfigure all of your settings back to the way you had them on your previous machine.
That’s where PCMover comes in.
The software digs deep into your current version of Windows (going back to Win95), rummages around and gathers all files, settings and programs, including those held in the registry, for transfer to a new Vista-equipped machine.
It has mind-settling features such as not overwriting any pre-installed software on the new PC, or alter the old PC in any way and if you feel it’s all gone horribly wrong, there’s an undo function.
The available options to carry out the transfer are extensive. The package comes with a custom USB 2.0 lead which “includes a chipset that allows for a simultaneous, bi-directional flow of information between PCs,” that they tell us enables a faster transfer.
Beyond this, you can choose from a wired/wireless network for top speed, or resort to a USB 1.1 or a parallel cable. There’s also an option to use removable media such as a CD-R or DVD-R.
With the forthcoming release of Vista at the end of the month, there’s likely to be a number of supporting applications to help people switch.
Thomas Koll, Chairman and CEO of Laplink Software feel that they are in a strong position, as he was more that happy to share, “Because our competition can’t move software programs, they don’t offer the same total migration solution that we do.”
PCmover Vista is available now at the SRP of £49.99 from their online shop, or if you like to collect boxes, from selected retail outlets.
25 January, 2007
The Risks Of e-voting: ORG London Event
Clearly we love technology – it would be a bit of rum do calling ourselves Digital-Lifestyles if we didn’t.
Firm believers in technology being used to add something, not being used for the sake of it, we also think there are some areas that technology should stay out of.
One being the counting of votes for elections. Democracy is just too valuable to be fiddled with.
We’ve all heard about the introduction of electronic voting machines in America and the huge number of concerns that has thrown up. Hell, there was even a film made about it – Hacking Democracy.
As we in the tech world know, anything that is on a computer can be manipulated. Removing people, who bring the appropriate check and balances to the process, is a very bad idea.
What does it matter if it takes a little bit longer to count the votes? Who’s hurrying? Let’s not forget that the party elected in the UK is going to be in power for four years, so a couple of extra days to count the vote matters not.
There are just too many risks to let this go ahead.
Well, some bright spark appears to think that introducing computerised voting in the UK and further afield is a good idea.
Luckily the Open Rights Group (ORG) is holding some discussions on the 8th Feb to discuss this very subject.
If you’re near to London, we urge you to attend. This is important stuff.
25 January, 2007
Sky Anytime on PC: One Million Films In A Year
Sky Anytime on PC downloaded its one millionth film on the 14 January neatly marking its first year of operation.
The Sky Anytime on TV service is the renamed Sky By Broadband service, which delivers select Sky’s TV content over a broadband connection to a PC.
Figures for the film downloads could have been larger if Sky hadn’t had to pull the service back in September after their chosen DRM-restriction system, by Microsoft, was cracked.
We’re assuming that the million films that have been downloaded have been paid for, making it a pretty big bonanza, given the films are a wallet-emptying £3.95 each. Once subscribers have paid up, they’re given access to it for seven days, but are restricting to 48 hours viewing window after the first viewing.
Dawn Airey, BSkyB’s managing director of channels and services, was keen to say her piece about it … “We’re delighted that customers have taken to Anytime with such enthusiasm. Sky Movies is the UK’s most popular movie service and we’re able to use broadband to give customers more flexibility in how they watch. The fact that in this first year we’ve already seen 1m movie downloads is testament to customers’ willingness to embrace new technologies and get more from Sky.”
Sky report that the service has gained a quarter of a million registered users in its first year of operation.
24 January, 2007
Big Brother’s DRM Nightmare
Backstory
Forgive me. I forked over money to Channel 4 to become a paying Season Pass sucker for the Celebrity Big Brother live stream.
My dearest, a less-than closet BB fan, persuaded me to watch CBB on the launch night – something made all the more peculilar by the fact that I don’t watch TV anymore (apart from The Simpsons at 6pm on Channel 4, of course).
To be frank, by the end of the program I was grateful to her. The sight of the fantastic disdain of Ken Russell made it worthwhile in itself.
What got me reaching for my credit card was the sheer hilarity of seeing Jade Goody enter the house – post her journey through crowds of frantic screaming BB fans, proceeded by her 50-yard car drive and obligatory press photo pose – to a house with three grumpy, quiet people who didn’t jump up and down when they saw her enter. It couldn’t have been further from her expected truth.
Her face was priceless – well, I thought it was at least worth £5 to see it for a while longer, showing a mixture of confusion and pain.
It appeared that finally Endemol had got a quality production team behind this one, lead by an intelligent director.
Hence my giving money, enabling this rubbish to make huge profits for those concerned.
__Using DRM … it _does_ suck
Once I’d registered and paid for it, the first surprise was not to be sent a direct URL to access the stream. Instead the process is long and painful as you have to drag yourself through the Channel4 site to find the stream.
Here’s a run down of the hoops they get you to jump through …
*Deep breath now* –
Navigating through their home page to the CBB page; click on the “Watch 24/7” link; then the “Already own the pass” link. This pops up a new window with a form requesting sign up detail (despite the link being specific about already owning a pass).
After some searching you’ll notice, at the top of the window, a single word link for Login; which, once clicked, you’ll be asked for your email and password.
Finally the video player appears – hurrah!
Don’t be fooled, the agony isn’t over yet, this is where the DRM pain begins.
Despite having logged in a number of times already, you’re told that you do not have rights to play the content.
Clicking Yes takes you to yet another Web page, grandly entitled License Acquisition. Here you’re requested to login _again_.
Once you’ve bashed the keys in the right order, you’re requested to “wait a moment,” as the licence is “obtained”. Eventually you’re offered to click the Play button.
Finally, finally you get to the steam.
That’s bad enough to do once, but adding insult to injury, the worst of it is that each and everytime you want to watch a stream, you’ve got to go through this bullshit.
Summary – DRM Don’t Work
From the experience above you can see that the current version of DRM – Microsoft’s naturally – just doesn’t work for the consumer.
It’s not from lack of trying on their part either, Microsoft have been plugging away at their DRM solution for many years and, we have to assume, this is their latest as to get to view the streams, there’s a requirement to ‘upgrade’ your Windows Media Player to the latest version.
We also have to assume that Channel4/Endemol and Microsoft worked together to get the Big Brother streaming working. Say what you want about Big Brother, but it’s a high profile TV ‘event’, so important for them to have it working correctly.
Even after all of this effort, the end user experience is truly atrocious, so bad, that you feel anger every time to access the stream, and let’s not forget, people are paying for the privilege of being insulted like this.
With the difficulty of this process, it’s no wonder that people still try to get their content from file sharing networks to avoid DRM.
24 January, 2007
Laptops Outsell Desktop PCs For First Time
Notebooks outsold desktop PCs in Western Europe for the first time, as Acer leapt ahead of Dell to grab second place in PC sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (an area known in da biz as ‘EMEA’).
The figures from research firm IDC show Acer sneaking into second place for the fourth-quarter 2006 sales, with Dell box-shifting activities hit by slow commercial demand and competition from top dog HP.
Michael Larner, IDC senior research analyst, commented that Acer’s growth was fuelled by competitive desktop offerings and surging laptop sales which saw the company retaining its position as the Lord of laptop floggers.
Top overall PC vendor HP enjoyed a successful autumn, with sales expanding by a hefty 62 percent over the quarter.
Laptop sales up
The total PC market in EMEA grew by 10.4 percent during the quarter, although increased laptop sales were countered by desktop sales declining by 5.7 per cent in Western Europe.
Laptop sales totalled 8.4 million during the quarter, against 8 million desktops, but corporate refresh cycles are expected to elbow desktop sales skyward in the second half of 2007 with Windows Vista expected to drive consumer – but not business – sales, as IDC’s Andy Brown explains:
“In general, enterprises are not moving to new operating systems, at least not until the first service pack, so we don’t expect to see a massive impact in the corporate space in 2007. Once issues of application compatibility are sorted, companies will start to consider it.”
Conversely, business desktop sales went up by 10 per cent here in Blighty-land, but IDC reckoned that this was down to the fact that us go-getting Brits tend to go through commercial desktop refresh cycles earlier than our European chums.
IDC
23 January, 2007
My Book Pro 500GB Drive: Review (87%)
Attractively designed in a rounded sleek metal jacket and sporting a funky blue capacity gauge, Western Digital’s MyBook range of external hard drives are aimed at consumers looking for a stylish solution to their storage problems.
The drives can be used horizontally or vertically and come in two sizes – 250GB or 500GB, – and three ‘editions’ offering extra features.
We reviewed the 500GB My Book Pro Edition which offers three ways of hooking up the drive to your PC; FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0.
All leads were provided in the box, and we tested both the FireWire 400, and USB 2.0 interfaces with no problem.
Also bundled in the package is the handy EMC Retrospect Express backup and recovery software, with the drive coming with a 3-year limited warranty.
Setting up the drive was a cinch: we simply plugged the drive into a USB port our Windows XP machine, and the drive utilities were automatically installed.
With the drivers installed, we were able to switch to our preferred FireWire 400 connection and the drive was ready for use.
Blue light fever
As the name suggests, the drive is hardback-sized, and could sit happily on a bookshelf although the glowing blue capacity gauge on the front might look a tad odd amongst the Mills & Boon.
We loved the glowing gauge though: it fades in and out when the drive is turned on and off and does a nice little shimmy when in use.
The outer ring displays the power/activity functions, while the inner ring is split into six sections which illuminate as the space is progressively used up. It’s a nice touch.
Lurking inside the 500GB drive is a 7,200rpm drive with a 16MB cache and a quoted seek time of 8.9ms, and we found it very fast in use and had no problems running video files straight off the disk.
Right now we can’t imagine filling up that 500GB in a hurry, but for drive space demons, Western Digital has recently announced the My Book Pro Edition II, which crams in two 500GB drives in an extended case to give you a massive whopping 1TB of storage – enough for about a zillion photographs (all right, up to 284,000 photos according to Western Digital’s figures).
Although the drive is quiet in use, you can certainly feel it vibrating if you’ve got it on the same surface as your machine, so we recommend lobbing it up on to a shelf.
Conclusion
We loved the My Book so much we went out and bought the thing – so now we won’t have any excuses to not back up our data.
It’s a shame that there’s no networking option, but with an online price hovering around the £180, the My Book drive still represents remarkable value for money.
With a choice of three interfaces, we should have no problem using the drive with a variety of desktop PCs and laptops, and unlike many other external hard drives, this one actually looks nice too.
Our verdict
Features: 75%
Ease of Use: 85%
Build Quality: 90%
Overall: 87%
Specs
Performance Specifications
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM (nominal)
Average Latency 4.20 ms (nominal)
Seek Times
Read Seek Time 8.9 ms
Track-To-Track Seek Time 2.0 ms (average)
Serial Transfer Rate
FireWire 800
Serial Bus Transfer Rate (1394b) 800 Mbits/s (Max)
FireWire 400
Serial Bus Transfer Rate (1394a) 400 Mbits/s (Max)
USB 2.0
Serial Bus Transfer Rate (USB 2.0) 480 Mbits/s (Max)
Physical Specifications
Formatted Capacity 500,107 MB
Capacity 500 GB
Interface Triple Interface
Physical Dimensions
Height 6.780 Inches (Max)- 172.2 mm (Max)
Length 5.630 Inches (Max) – 143 mm (Max)
Width 2.23 Inches – 56.7 mm
Weight 2.60 Pounds – 1.2 kg
Electrical Specifications
Current Requirements
Power Dissipation
AC Input Voltage 100-240 VAC
AC Input Frequency 47-63 Hz
My Book Pro Edition
18 January, 2007
Joost: The Venice Project Renamed
The next-market-to-disrupt target of the Skype/Kazaa founders – TV – has it’s latest news. The Venice Project’s working name has been changed to Joost, continuing their penchant for picking weird names – always a benefit when you want the domains(!).
As to the source/root of the name … ? Well it could be that their massive fans of ’80s video game Joust or perhaps it’s a reference to the German for a friendly ‘goodbye’, Tschüss. Who knows? FYI – It’s actually pronounced Juiced.
We’ve been fiddling with the ~~Venice Project~~, sorry, Joost for a couple of weeks now, since Christopher Wood very kindly sent us an invite to join up.
We whacked it on an older (1.5GHz) machine and found that it really didn’t have the horsepower to run it properly. It’s a pretty greedy little number, even running out of steam on a 2.5GHz. The buzz around us beta testers is that currently, it _loves_ taking power/resources.
Clearly the Joost crew are seeing this as a product for the future (not a bad assumption), that will need to have a current processor to run it on. Queue computer and chip makers cheering and clapping.
A couple of beta testers are pointing and declaring that Joost will be the first failure of the founders. We think that it’s waaaaay to early to be calling that. Be patient my headline grabbing-friend and see how it turns out.
Let’s not forget 1) this is still in Beta, 2) Windows Media Centre was a total dog throughout many of its incarnation, taking years to get to the point where it was even usable.
Joost
17 January, 2007