Control Devices

Volvo Penta IPS: Joystick Boat Control
When it comes to Friday, our thoughts are drawn to life on the sea with the inevitable weekend sojourn to Monte Carlo (doesn’t everyone weekend there?).
Did you know that Yacht owners can be very snooty about those who own motor launches – floating gin palaces is what they call them. I’ve never figured out if this is a class-thing, or jealousy, but I do know that they are dismissed as flash-Harry’s. Yachties take tremendous pride (probably correctly) in controlling their craft, having invested years to learn the fine art. As far as they see, motor boat owners turn up, turn the key and drive off – far too easy, with not enough suffering.
The latest innovation from Volvo Penta is bound to add extra ammunition to the yacht-owners dislike of Motor boats and their owners. It looks like it makes it a doodle of maneuver a boat, with almost super-human skills.
They’ve launched the IPS, complete with joystick, designed to ease the handling of motor boats. The Inboard Propulsion System, to give it it’s full moniker, enables the captain to finely control the boats movements by twiddling a joystick.
They’ve taken the idea beyond simple X-Y joystick movements to incorporate a twisting action and a couple of buttons. X-Y provides the obvious forward/backward, plus an interesting side-to-side action, which doesn’t swing the boat around, but literally slides it sideways – neat.
The joystick’s twisting action rotates the boat, seemingly on a six-pence, in either direction, right or left – again, most impressive.
The joystick is only part of it. The rest of IPS secrets are hidden under the boat using what those in the know would call ‘two forward-facing contra-rotating propellers per unit’. To you and me, that’s a couple of engines that you can point in different directions.
With the engines able to act independently, when combined with the joystick, the IPS provides the ability to maneuver with tremendous precision.
We looking forward to getting our hands on it for a full review and are think which of the Digital-Lifestyles boats would benefit from retro-fitting this.
Volvo Penta IPS
17 February, 2006
Guitar Hero: PS2 Release In Europe
It’s rare that there are inconsistencies in the Digital-Lifestyles clan, but there’s one subject that brings a split consensus. Some of us, me included, think that different forms of controllers for video game is a trend that is just starting – a more natural way of working with the games console is inevitable, like the Reebok CyberRider we reviewed at the start of 2003. Others think they’re just a plain daft idea, to be forgotten in the twitch of a joystick.
Guitar Hero on the PS2 has re-ignited the subject as it features a guitar controller modeled on the classic Gibson SG.
Rock-power-fiends will set their fingers a flyin’ around the five frets, strum-bar and whammy bar. Beyond the buttons, there’s an alignment sensor used to gain extra style points when it’s played vertically. Expect the inducement of dizziness as heads are thrown around in a frenzy.
Gameplay for single players includes a ‘career’ mode, taking you from playing small indie club on your path to the rock-mega-god status of playing stadiums.
With the Multiplayer mode seeing two players facing-off in what are described as ‘an electrifying series of guitar duels’, it’s quite unclear what will happen over artistic differences, or even usages of the power axe (otherwise known as guitar) as there’s only one shipped with the software.
The game format will be familiar to anyone who’s ever played or even seen a game like Dance Dance Revolution. Different coloured objects move down the screen towards you and actions have to be performed to match these object.
Initial previews have been strong and it’s gained from PR boosts with the like The Darkness talking about on MTV Overdrive. It looks like there’s high hopes from this one.
Guitar Hero will be released in the UK in April 2006, priced £49.99 (including SG controller). Rollout throughout Europe will follow shortly.
We’re looking forward to getting our hands on it.
Guitar Hero Games
(There’s a video of The Darkness talking about Guitar Hero on MTV Overdrive, which due to Geo-locations filters, we are unable to see in the UK as ” MTV Overdrive is currently unavailable in” our “territory”>
16 February, 2006
iPod With Video; New iMac; FrontRow; iTunes 6: Apple Summary
We’ve now had change to absorb this and ponder its impactAfter weeks of frantic speculation that a video-capable iPod was on the way, Apple have sure enough announced the very thing at their event in the California Theatre in San Jose and BBC Television Centre in the UK.
Steve Kennedy has been at the UK event for us. There was no live updating allowed during the event, so updates have been patchy and details were slow to emerge.
Here’s the highlights …
New iMac G5. A bit faster, but the big thing is FrontRow. It’s Apple’s Media Centre-killer. The new Apple Remote, a svelte 6 button remote control that looks like a shuffle, controls any media you have on your iMac. Makes the MS Media Centre 26+ button remote look very wrong – too tech. Simplicity reigns. iSight camera is built in. Parallel output to bigger screen, projector. Price is very tempting starting at $1,299 (17″ £899 inc vat, €1379) (20″ £1199, €1799).
Video-capable iPod. Next gen iPod with 30% thinner than current generation player but with a bigger 2.5″ colour screen. 320×240 QVGA (quarter VGA), but not wide screen as rumoured. Video playback supports MPEG-4 and h.264 playback. 30Gb & 60Gb. S-vdeo out through the doc, but video will appear pixelated on full size TV screen. The 30GB should go for $299 (~£219~€349), and the 60GB for $399 (~£300~€469). They’re on the Apple online Store and will be shipping next week.?
?Not quite the world shattering device that was expected, but from those who have seen it “sexy.”
iTunes 6 – Upgraded again after the 5.0 release of a few week ago. The big change. As expected from our first video of itms, downloadable video. A deal has (~£227~€331) been done with ABC/Disney to let five shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost and three disney shows currently) to be paid for and downloaded the day after they’re on TV – only in the US currently. Is there any co-incidence that the UK launch happened in the BBC TV centre?
“It’s never been done before, where you could view hit TV shows and buy them online the day after they’re shown,” Jobs said. While this may be true that people have not been able to _Buy_ it, but let’s not forget that the BBC has the iMP trial running, where you can get shows straight after they’re shown – but for nothing.
We imagine there’ll be lots of lost sleep in Redmond tonight.
We’ll have a more considered piece on the impact of the announcements once it’s sunk in.
Apple
13 October, 2005
Digital Lifestyle extolled by Bill Gates at CES
In what has now become a tradition, Bill Gates opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas extolling the virtues of Digital Lifestyles (thanks for the plug Bill).
In a “casual” interview style, US TV chat show presenter, Conan O’Brien, lead Bill through the wonderful world of digital media.
O’Brien started his shtick with a great joke, “When Bill Gates walks onto this stage in a few minutes, the average net worth of each person in this room will be(come) $128 million.”. He then went on to be reasonably rude about most people in the industry. Of particular note was the “CES – The Movie” spoof casting, where well known characters in the industry were matched up with their acting doubles. It’s worth watching, just fire it up and jump to 11m 30s.
Bill Gates then came on stage to give Microsoft’s view of Digital Lifestyles.
Not surprisingly Microsoft pitches the PC as the centre of it, “The PC has a central role to play, (in that) it’s where it all comes together.”
As has been the case since the public started recognising the iPod and iTunes, Bill and his promotional videos took every opportunity to feature ‘other’ music players, while subtly highlighting the virtues of the Microsoft approach.
This covered “Windows Plays For Sure”, the certification process that labels all devices that are able to understand and adhere to Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. Read as, music in Apple’s format can’t play on other devices except Apples.
For the trend spotters among you, Bill referred to this as a “rights management system”, dropping the Digital prefix.
He also pitched monthly subscription services where you have access to all of the music you desire – another thing that Apple iTunes doesn’t offer. He failed to mention that with most subscriptions services, the ability to play the music you’ve paid for access to, stops when the monthly subscriptions fees do.
Media Centre featured large with Gates announcing that PC manufacturers have sold 1.4 million Media Centre models worldwide so far.
Media Extenders, which enables households with networked homes to pull content from their Media Centres to rooms around the house were also brought up again. Dedicated boxes from companies like LG were mentioned as well as a software upgrade for Microsoft’s xBox to provide the same function. The fact that 6.3 million people had bought Halo 2, was also dropped into the conversation.
The LG example was of note. A dedicated DVR with DVD burner, it featured a cut-down version of the Media Center software that retained the familiar user interface (UI), while offering access to music and photo’s stored on the Media Centre PC. Not only that but content recorded on this dedicated device could be transferred to the Media Centre PC and in turn to a smartphone or Portable Media Centre (PMC).
To easily operate the Media Centre, the “simple, single remote control” was also touted, more than once. Microsoft have formed partnerships with Philips, NiveusMedia and Logitech to produce universal remote controls that work with Media Centre, as well as many other devices. All these remotes will feature a “signature” Green Start button. Bill had previously mentioned that some remote controls will have small colour screens on them, allowing video content to be shown on them.
New content partners also got a nod. Discovery will be creating “unique content” that fits on Media Center, with Yahoo and Fox Sports also getting a mention.
One key item was the launch of the Media Centre as a platform. Not just a means of accessing and playing back content, but of broadcasters creating interactive content specifically for it, that combines broadcast and IP delivered content using Online Spotlight. We feel this is the most important item to come out and will be covered in more detail in another piece shortly.
It’s also worth watching the video, if nothing else then to see Bill looking less than comfortable with the interview technique.
Bill Gates CES – Opening Speech
6 January, 2005
Philips’ Connecting the Community Project
Philips have kicked off a new project in Singapore to bring together content and service providers to equip a sample of households with broadband and connectivity products. Under the auspices of Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority, the project will run for six months and residents will will participate in various ‘e’ services, including, Philips say, e-health, e-learning and e-security.
Philips are particularly interested in healthcare and the company are looking at options for providing services within the consumer’s home via a broadband connection. Applications include pop-up reminders for mediation appearing on TV screens, and the company currently delivers the service through SMS.
“We believe e-health services over broadband is one of the driving forces for establishing connected communities where patients are empowered to manage their health more effectively, and in the process help healthcare providers control costs,” said Andreas Wente, President and CEO of Philips Electronics Asia. “These personalized healthcare services would not only aim to help people with chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure manage their health more effectively, but ultimately help in maintaining a healthy digital lifestyle – for example, delivering weight management or employer health programs via a broadband enabled TV.”
The Connecting Community project is supported by Philips’ own InnoHub test bed facility, which crates a linked environment of communication and home entertainment devices that speak to one another. The InnoHub also will function as an ‘idea management facility’ for exploring the feasibility and commercial potential of innovations.
“This collaboration in Singapore embodies our vision of an emerging Connected Planet since it observes the daily habits and routines of normal families and, more importantly, identifies how their natural behavior responds to the latest state-of-the-art connectivity solutions,” said Cesar Vohringer, Chief Technology Officer, Philips Consumer Electronics. “Through an understanding of how these families interact not only virtually within the home but now through their communities, Philips can further realize its new brand promise by applying these discoveries in the creation of products that are advanced, easy to experience and designed around these consumers.”
Singapore’s IDA
19 October, 2004
GameTrak: Dark Wind Bundle Due for Release
Beat-em-ups have always been a bit of an odd genre for me: the highly kinetic action on the screen – punching, kicking, disembowelment – has always been strangely at odds with the frantic button mashing dictated by the controls. Well, those first two techniques anyway.
Now being beaten by your opponent simply because he saw a button sequence on the internet that you didn’t know about, or thrashed by your girlfriend because she can press the triangle button faster than you can is a thing of the past – now you can throw real punches at your on-screen opponents.
GameTrak have developed a new PS2 beat-em-up, Dark Wind, that will be bundled with their eponymous controller. The game makes full use of the GameTrak hardware to allow players to punch and block with great accuracy.
The GameTrak controller itself consists of two sensors which can be attached to limbs or a prop (like that Samurai sword you’ve always wanted) and can measure with an accuracy of up to 1mm in a 3m cube. The controller can be used with many different genres of games – GameTrak themselves suggest golfing and lightgun games. I just can’t wait to see if it’s compatible with Freak Out. A USB peripheral, the controller may end up being used on XBox and PC games, as well as the PS2. The Dark Wind bundle will cost UK£69.99 or €99.
The controller won the Most Innovative Product award at the Leipzig Games Convention and has certainly stirred a lot of interest in a market that is starting to take notice of different types of games controllers, particularly in the wake of the success Sony has enjoyed with EyeToy.
Exotic controllers have become popular in arcades of late – indeed, when consoles can reproduce arcade cabinets exactly, cabinets are turning to controllers to make them stand out. Modern arcade cabinets now have swords, revolving seats, footballs and denim-clad buttocks as controllers to give an experience that console games don’t provide. Since the first light gun came in to the home, consoles are always quick to adopt what’s going on in the arcade – and the GameTrak will be able to emulate many current controller and game styles. Though I don’t expect to be wandering home with that buttock thing under my arm any time soon.
But I will soon have some bongos, and that’s even better.
GameTrak
5 October, 2004
MPAA Takes Action Against Chip Manufacturers
The Motion Picture Association of America has sued two chip manufacturing companies for selling integrated circuits to manufacturers that produce non-approved DVD players.
The MPAA isn’t happy that the makers of some DVD players deviate from the the agreed standards and produce appliances that do not feature the full range of DRM features. Consequently, the MPAA is suing Sigma Designs and MediaTek for distributing Content Scramble System chips to such companies, and thus breaking their original license agreement to distribute the chips only to other CSS-licensed outfits.
CSS and related DVD technologies are controlled by a technology group called the DVD Copy Control Association, and any manufacturer must agree to their contract terms before they can work with the format.
Dan Robbins, MPAA Chief Technology Counsel said: “Responsible corporate citizens honour the contracts they sign. There is no leniency for irresponsible companies that seek to circumvent the system and operate outside of the law.”
This latest action from the MPAA shows that they are keen to use a variety of techniques to protect their business – this doesn’t revolve around copyright law like previous instances, this is about contracts.
DVD Copy Control Association
24 August, 2004
Japanese Consumers Protest at Broadcast Flag
Japanese television viewers have begun complaining to broadcasters over the sudden removal of editing and copying freedoms they’re experiencing now that the country’s version of the broadcast flag has been rolled out on digital terrestrial and cable channels.
NHK and and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters launched the broadcast flag on 5 April, limiting viewers to a single copy of programmes carrying the signal. As programmes can only be copied once, no editing can be performed either. Within a week NHK and other broadcasters had received 15,000 complaints and enquiries.
This move also means that Japanese consumers will not be able to remove adverts from programmes they have recorded for archiving, or make a backup in case an offline recording is destroyed.
Furthermore, viewers have to insert a user identification card, B-CAS (from the company who manufactures them, BS Conditional Access Systems), into their digital televisions in order to watch broadcasts.
It’ll be interesting to see the scale of protest when America’s broadcast flag system rolls out in just over a year and a month – whilst not requiring an ID card to access broadcasts, the flag will tell all new television sets what can and can’t be done to a signal – right down to preventing any copying whatsoever.
Japan Times coverage
Slashdot debates the issue
26 May, 2004
Embedded Linux All Around You
Linux is appearing in the wild more and more – unbeknownst to most consumers. If you have a Linksys router, it’s the box’s embedded OS. If you have a Volvo, the engine management system is Linux-based. It’s even employed to enable pacemakers to transmit data wirelessly to warn of a heart attack. There’s even a Linux-based watch, but Sesame would kill me.
Linux-based kernels are favoured in these smaller systems for three key reasons:
- they make the most of limited hardware
- Linux is cheap (often free)
- it is well documented and understood, not relying on proprietary code that is protected
We’d like to gather together some links here for you to explore, to find out more about Linux in the devices you use every day.
Linux is not without its problems though – some of the code in the kernel is flaky to say the least, and many things that users take for granted, such as Firewire support and drivers for common hardware, are either nightmarish to enable, or just non-existent. However, kernel support for hardware is improving and much of the more imaginative code is being weeded out rapidly.
Away from the purely embedded side, Sony have had success with the Linux development kit for the PlayStation2 – a product that only demonstrates how flexible the operating system really is. Sony produced the kit to encourage home development for the system – much like the Yaroze version of the PS1. Sadly, though, we can’t remember the last time we popped into Game and bought a title that was written on either dev system – to an extreme with the PS2, the two platforms are enormously complex and hardly the sort of things that bedroom coders will be able to produce a top-flight title with. Oh, bring back the days of Braben and Bell and Elite.
With the number of devices growing daily, Linux seems to be expanding just as fast as the whole Digital Lifestyles world – and we’ll keep you up to date with the pros and cons of this fascinating growth area.
Linux is popping up all over
Embedded Linux – see how many Linux-based items you own but didn’t know about
Building Embedded Linux Systems
31 March, 2004
Sony Announce Location Free TV
Among the many announcements at CES was an interesting portable 12″ LCD TV screen from Sony, that can be carried around a house and have various content delivered to it from its base station, enabling the showing of video from many different sources, as well as playing music, viewing photos and browsing the Internet. Sony calls it LocationFree™.
It is based on a similar device released just in Japan called AirTact and a few TVs. Kunitake Ando, president and group COO at Sony Corp has realised the potential to freeing the screen. At Sony “Dream World” held in Paris, Sept. 2003 was quoted that transforming traditional TVs to “location-free” TV or displays could take the 125 million TV sets sold worldwide and “easily increased to four or five times that number.”
The basestation can have many different sources plugged in to it, including; video, be that TV ariel/cable, DVD, VCR, DV video camera; audio sources; other media files stored on computers via Ethernet. There is a wide selection for possible connections to the network, wirelessly (802.11a, 802.11b (WiFi), or 802.11g) or an Ethernet cable. The content is delivered to the remote, battery-powered 12.1″ LCD touch screen, which can also run from a main source. There are also plans for a pocket sized 5.8″ version. The viewer is free to move around the house while continuing to access the different media sources, selecting them by touching the screen. As yet, Sony has not discussed battery life.
For the first time Sony have brought technology from their high-end TV sets to the LCD display including 3D Y/C separation circuitry for clear, vivid picture and colour blur reduction; angled line correction circuitry for smoothing out jagged lines; motion adaptive I/P conversion circuitry for improving fast moving action scenes; and digital audio amplifier circuitry for crisp sound and minimized distortion.
It looks like Sony have carried out considerable research to find what function user may want. The five pounds screen itself has a lot of connectors includes an Ethernet port, a USB port, Memory Stick media slot, headphone jack, keyboard port and an AV input for connecting to a camcorder. Useful features include viewers being able to “freeze” and save a TV scene by using the “capture” button on the remote screen – saving a mad scrabble for pen and paper where information appears on the TV. Prints of the images or homepage data, e-mail attachments and digital photos can also be made to USB printers connected to the base-station.
While using the screen to browse the Internet, the viewer will be able to watch their choice of TV/video source displayed in a Picture in Picture (PiP) window, but given the screen is 800×600, we imaging this might not be used much beyond demos to friends.
Sony has omitted to give any precise dates for the shipping of Location Free, preferring to say it would be “Later in the year”.
Sony say one of the benefits of the screen being an IP device is that access your media does not need to be restricted just to your own home network. By taking the screen with you on your travels, you can access the self same content through any IP connection, which are increasingly found around the world in offices and hotel rooms. One example cited gives an interesting twist to the product – a person on the road, unable to attend their child’s birthday, has an opportunity to tune in, watching the live video being shot on a camcorder plugged in to the basestation at home. We believe application such as this, which can be used to bring together families distributed over great distances, will be a major driver in purchasing products.
We are excited about this step of remote access to your home media, firewall configuration allowing of course. It could be an interesting early step into a future where your home media server becomes the focal point of your media ownership, with your various remote IP devices having access, via your home server.
At this point it is worth highlighting that hard facts about which protocols are used to transfer content back and forth between base-station and screen. It would be a great shame if the protocols were proprietary. We think there is real potential in this device, and by using open standards; there could be a real potential for a product like this to become a standard for interfacing analog media to an IP device. There is a real need for a device like it and it appears that Mr Ando at Sony Corp is trying to fill it.
12 January, 2004