Europe

IDV Global Media-On-Demand: Chinese Seek US Content
A coalition of government policy makers, technology and broadband companies from China have rocked up to the NAB2005 Media Show in Las Vegas.
They’re in town to invite opportunity-seeking US companies to supply programming and interactive content to the Chinese coalition-backed IDV Global Media On-Demand platform, expected to launch in China early next year.
Developed by California-based IDV, the platform was a top-secret project until premiered at the China Media-on-Demand Coalition press conference last week in Beijing, and reflects China’s eagerness to create new technologies for the Internet and telecom.
IDV-Global Media – headed by ex-Microsoft’s Xbox game console designer, Kevin Bachus – expects the new technology to allow Chinese media companies to securely distribute programs worldwide, direct from publisher to consumer.
Bachus rose to media attention when he left Microsoft to start a rival games console business, Infinium Labs. Their product, the Phantom Game Service, downloaded game content directly over an Internet connection. Digital-Lifestyles has been covering the Phantom since the start of 2004, from its first demo, through the announcement of its launch, to them receiving a $50 million credit investment.
Some of the press had speculate that Bachus had left Infinium. At the start of this week he issued a statement denying that he had left Infinium for IDV Global Media.
Duncan Clark, managing director of the Beijing-based consulting firm BDA China Ltd., warned that IDV-Global Media will need support from a range of participants, including telecoms, media and electronics companies (and the government agencies that regulate them) for the project to work.
“What this initiative claims to attain, aligning the interests of many different players in the value chain, is something that has eluded many a media mogul outside China,” Clark sagely added.
IDV GMOD’s platform is an end-to-end solution that includes a second generation PC with a 3D “platform-on-platform” architecture developed by IDV – the first system to receive certification from China as the standard for second generation PCs.
Content will be delivered to consumers by digital feeds from global sources, including a next generation Internet, based on the IPv6 technology, with revenue sharing arrangements for partners.
This system will supply sports events, movies, TV shows, next gen games and other interactive entertainment direct to private residences or hotel rooms worldwide, with the same interface, in High Definition (HD) quality video.
The wonderfully named Dr Fan Yeqiang, deputy director of the China Institute of Policy Studies (CIPS), said in a statement, “Now US media publishers and distributors have a direct platform on which to earn millions of dollars in incremental revenues from their content in the China market. We are offering a safe, certified delivery system never available to US media companies before.”
NAB2005 Media show
21 April, 2005
Police Hard Drive Sold On eBay Stuffed With Secrets
A hard drive, containing confidential data belonging to the Brandenburg police in Germany, was auctioned over eBay and bought by a student from the city of Potsdam for €20 (us$25/£14) according to a report by Spiegel, a leading weekly German newspaper.
The 20GB hard drive contained sensitive information detailing internal alarm plans on how the Police should handle “specific incidences” like hostage and kidnapping situations.
The drive also contained tactical orders and analysis of political security situations, along with contact names in the ‘crisis management group.’
This strictly confidential material should only be available to top level intelligence staff, the head of police, and the executive group around the Minister of Interior Schönbohm.
Schönbohm immediately banged tables loudly and initiated an investigation to discover how the hard drive ended up being sold over eBay and whether the information was leaked as a criminal act or some sort of inside blunder/employee theft (our money’s on the latter).
This cock up by the Brandenburg Police is not the first time a hard drive sold over eBay has set security bells ringing.
Last year, mobile security specialists Pointsec bought a load of hard drives off Internet auctions like eBay to find out how much sensitive company information they could unearth (and publicise their expertise in the bargain, natch).
Not surprisingly, they discovered that they were able to read 7 out of 10 of the hard drives, with their first purchase revealing the access and login codes to a major financial services group.
Peter Larsson, CEO of Pointsec Mobile Technologies, adopted an earnest face and commented, “Even when companies or individuals believe they have wiped the hard drive clean, it is blatantly clear how easy it is to retrieve sensitive information from them both during their current lifetime and beyond it.”
He added that this week’s exposure of leaked and highly critical information from the Brandenburg police in Germany “reinforces how important it is to never let mobile devices or hard drives leave the office without being adequately protected with encryption and strong password protection – even after they have been discarded.”
Pointsec sagely recommends that unencrypted drives should be re-formatted to within an inch of their lives before disposal (well, at least eight times) or professional “wipe-clean” software used.
Of course, if your drive contains nuclear secrets or damning photos of your late night encounter with an armadillo in stockings, the only way to absolutely guarantee the destruction of the data would be to torch it. And then take a hammer to it. And then stamp on it. And then…..
Out-law.com (via The Register)
8 April, 2005
Nuenen: Netherland’s Largest Fiber-to-the-Home Network Opens
Last week, deputy Director-General Mr Broesterhuizen of the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs officially opened the Netherland’s largest Fiber-to-the-Home (FttH) network in Nuenen, a village in the south of The Netherlands.
The Dutch haven’t messed about here: the entire village is covering 7,500 households, shops, offices, schools, elderly homes, sports clubs, churches, hotels and health institutes.
This provides over 15,000 people with access to super high-speed internet access (up to 100 Mbps full duplex), with several other services (telephony, TV, and unique local services) following soon.
The Nuenen network (try saying that after a few drinks) is part of the Kenniswijk Project, an Dutch government initiative to encourage public and private organisations to start experimenting with and deploying FttH infrastructure and broadband services.
By summer 2005, approximately 16,000 FttH connections will be up and running in the Kenniswijk area, with over “100 innovative services” being developed, of which 50 are already available.
With the Dutch Government having no direct investment in the infrastructure, FttH in the Netherlands is a fully market-driven process.
Previously, companies weren’t too keen to invest their wedge in such untested, large scale ventures, but a new business model was used in Nuenen which made it possible to get this huge project up and running within just 6 months.
The business model works by individual households joining a cooperative society – “Ons Net” (Our Network) – which pays for and owns the network.
This ensures a high degree of user commitment and an extremely high degree of active users (a whopping great 97% in Nuenen).
These impressive figures have shown housing corporations, banks and the money men that it is a relatively safe and worthwhile investment, thus easing potential financial bottlenecks in the large-scale deployment of FttH elsewhere.
The success of the scheme has created a blueprint for FttH projects in the rest of the Netherlands, with lots of other countries expressing a keen interest in the ‘Ons Net solution’.
Ons Net has also led to the development of innovative local broadband services, ranging from video consultations by family doctors to church services and sports broadcasts, offering interesting examples of how the internet can benefit communities.
Kenniswijk Project
30 March, 2005
Vodafone Access Control: Mobile Porn Block Offered To Dutch
As of early May, Dutch Vodafone customers will be able to say ‘nr!’ to saucy adult content offered via Vodafone live! from their mobile phone.
A new ‘Vodafone Access Control’ service created in partnership with De Kijkwijzer allows sleaze-allergic customers to customise their mobile needs by allowing them to block adult content.
But who the chuffin’ Nora is De Kijkwijzer, do we hear you ask?
A quick rattle of the keys at babelfish tells us that De Kijkwijzer means “Look indicator” and their Web site reveals that it is a “classification system to advise and warn parents and educators about the possibly harmful influences that children may experience from a programme or film.”
This classification is carried out by suppliers of audiovisual productions for the Dutch market, including both public service broadcasters and commercial broadcasting organisations.
With hand-rubbing porn-shifters keenly eying up a growing – and lucrative – mobile multimedia market, it makes sense for telcos to be able to reassure parents that young Timmy’s new handset isn’t going to become a mobile gateway into the portals of smut.
With this in mind, Vodafone will only be offering sexually explicit content to its ‘postpaid’ customers, a service only provided for over 16s.
Using ‘Vodafone Access Control’, customers wanting to avoid titillation will have the ability to block access to the saucy stuff by simply calling Vodafone Customer Services.
The service will only be offered in Holland, but we expect other telcos to follow suit.
Vodafone
De Kijkwijzer
30 March, 2005
Windows XP Home Edition N: MS and EU Finally Agree Nomenclature
Microsoft has agreed – with all the enthusiasm of a child being made to eat spinach – to adopt all the “main changes” requested by the European Commission to its new version of Windows without Media player components.
The company were found guilty by a court in 2004 of breaking EU monopoly laws, with the ruling compelling Microsoft to sell a stripped down version of Windows XP without all the embedded Media player widgets.
“Earlier today we contacted the Commission and have informed them that we have accepted all the main changes they have requested we make to the version of Windows without Media Player,” grumbled Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s associate general counsel for Europe.
According to Gutierrez, Microsoft will make several modifications to the OS including technical changes to registry settings, removing references in product documents and packaging that warn certain products won’t work without Media Player and creating a software package allowing consumers to replace the absent media files.
In what some may think was a deliberate move to make the reluctantly-created product sound as appealing as last night’s kebab, Microsoft wanted to call the new version of Windows XP “Windows XP reduced Media Edition”.
The Commission was having none of it, forcing the software giant to use the name, “Windows XP Home Edition N”.
Horacio Gutierrez, a lawyer for Microsoft, was clearly not too happy, telling Reuters that the company has “some misgivings about the chosen name, as we fear it may cause confusion for consumers about the product, but we will adopt the Commission’s name in order to move forward and accelerate the pace of the implementation process.”
Gutierrez added that the new version would be available to European consumers within a “matter of weeks”.
Microsoft hasn’t finished battling with the Commission, as they are yet to comply with another part of the EU judgment which stipulates that the company must open up access to server protocols.
Lawyers are wrangling over terms of the license which was prohibitive to open source software makers.
And there’s more! Microsoft are also in disagreement with the EU over plans to appoint a trustee to monitor Microsoft’s compliance (or the complete lack of) – if the company fail to comply with the Commission’s decisions, they could face a daily slapdown of up to US$5 million – the equivalent of a cup of coffee in Bill Gates’ world.
Microsoft
EU
29 March, 2005
Cell ID: Orange Claim ‘GPS-Beating’ Location Service
Mobile operator Orange has announced a GSM-based tracking service which it claims is both cheaper and easier to use than GPS technology.
The service – snappily entitled Cell ID – gives the developers of location services details of the Orange GSM network.
When this data is combined with their own location application and other data, Orange claims that it will allow location service providers to offer much more accurate location based services.
Orange has high hopes for the product, boldly predicting that by next year more than 40,000 devices will be tracked using its Cell ID service.
These devices could include farm machinery, train carriages, vending machines and even boats being driven off by drunk holidaymakers.
Melissa Jenkins, M2M product manager at Orange Business Solutions, said Cell ID doesn’t use special antennas or need to be able to see the sky like a GPS system.
“If you are using a Cell ID-type of solution you can chuck it in anywhere and as long as you can get GSM you can get a location. You don’t have the complexity of deploying it – you can use it in much lower cost solutions,” Jenkins said.
The system helps pinpoint devices by their location in relation to mobile phone cells.
“You can see the device is 500 metres from cell A and 800 metres from cell B and work out approximately where it is,” Jenkins explained.
Electronic Tracking Systems (ETS), makers of battery powered security tracking devices under the mtrack brand, is one of the first to pilot the product.
Angela Harvey, Director, Electronic Tracking Systems (ETS), explains how the company is using the service:
”With Cell ID we are able to track assets to within 550m, whereas previously the average distance was around 4.5km and could range up to 11km. As a result our rate of recovery improved from 96% in 2004 to 100% so far this year – that’s around £2m of recovered stolen goods.”
“Cell ID has significantly reduced the time recovery personnel need to spend searching for a missing item, lowering costs and helping us return stolen property faster. It has also given our customers and distributors increased confidence that we will retrieve their stolen items.”
Orange
24 March, 2005
CeBIT Exhibition: Anticipation And Our Coverage
The world’s leading technology tradeshow, CeBIT, starts this Thursday in Hannover, north Germany with pundits expecting the show to reflect the recent stellar growth in the $2 trillion technology industry.
After three slow years, net exhibition space is up from last year at over 316,000 square meters and the organisers are expecting the number of visitors to exceed 510,000 people.
Naturally, Digital-Lifestyles will be there on the ground too, so watch for updates from the show as they happen.
Signs for the industry have been good over the last year with mobile phone unit sales up 30 percent last year and computer shipments rising 15 percent, spurred on by customer-wooing new features such as wireless Internet access, built-in radios and high-quality digital cameras and price cuts.
CeBIT is one of the largest electronics exhibitions in the world – so big, it’s close to frightening. As a guide, there are 6,117 companies from 72 countries taking part this year.
Within the 27 hanger-sized halls, visitors can expect to find a veritable Aladdin’s cave of the latest technologies and services that may well become standard features in a few years time.
Amongst all the technological marvels on display will be Samsung’s humongous 102-inch plasma display panel TV – the world’s largest – LG Electronics’ world’s first 55-inch LCD television, and a 3D monitor display from the German Fraunhofer Institute that allows objects to be manipulated by gestures recognised by bio-sensors.
Naturally, the telecom industry will be out in force, showcasing DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) phones, 3rd generation camera phones, 3D game phones and a clutch of mega-pixel camera phone.
As VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) continues to gain in popularity, there’ll be dozens of companies showcasing devices to make free calls as well as displays of corded and cordless Skype phones by Siemens, Motorola, Good Way Technologies and Greatwall Infotech.
Sony Ericsson will unveil its first phone with a built-in Walkman while Nokia, Samsung and Motorola will be showing off their latest designs.
Naturally, the place will be awash with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices so, in theory, we’ve no excuse for not getting our reports out to you on time!
CeBIT
8 March, 2005
Jens MP-120: Better Than iPod shuffle?
Jens of Sweden has unveiled its latest cool digital music player which they reckon will give iPod Shuffle a run for its money.
The midnight black, cigarette lighter-sized MP-120 music player can squeeze in 300 tracks (depending on track compression) and a features a USB 2.0 port.
It is available for SEK 1344 including VAT (US$194/£102/€148), which the cheeky Jens claims will undercut the iPod Shuffle by a massive one krona (£0.07/US$0.14/€0.11).
“Steve Jobs claims users prefer to be served random tracks than choose from among hundreds of their own tunes. We don’t agree which is why we offer a player, that besides random tracks, also allows users to see and choose exactly what they want to hear. Given today’s prices I’m convinced we can sell more MP-120 than iPod Shuffle in Sweden, despite Apple’s advertising budget,” says Jens of Sweden chief executive and founder Jens Nylander.
We admit we’re fans of Jens. We used to have a Jens MP-130 which we dearly loved – using it to listen to music, carry data and record interviews with broadcast-quality clarity. Everyone we showed it to was wowed by it and we would in turn enthuse about it at every opportunity. How many products can you say that about?
Then some low-life nicked it when we were at the AtHome conference in Nice at the end of last year. It broke our hearts. If this player is anything like as good as our dear MP-130, it’s going to be a contender.
The iPod shuffle has a fundamental weakness that Apple tried to turn around as a benefit. It has no display. In our experience, when you’re randomly listening to selection of tracks from a large music collection or a collection of podcasts, you want to know the name of the tracks you like and the ones you hate. The MP-120 has a display.
Jens of Sweden’s earlier MP-400 player was offered in seven colours – as well as 24-carat gold – and with the MP-120 model, it is taking customisation one step further by allowing customers to choose their own headphones.
The MP-120 can function as USB file storage memory, and also has an OLED screen and dictaphone.
It supports MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG Vorbis music files, and the built-in lithium battery should give users about 22 hours’ playing time.
While we don’t think Steve Jobs will be losing sleep over this, we think this will have a ready market with those who don’t want to conform to the Apple mentality.
The MP-120 is now available on Jens of Sweden’s Web site.
Jens of Sweden
25 February, 2005
Italian DJ Gets Huge Fine For Copied MP3s
A “well known” Italian DJ could be hit with a record-breaking fine of up to 1.4 million euros ($1.8 million, £968,000) for using thousands of pirate music files in a nightclub near Rome, police said on Wednesday.
Police in the town of Rieti, near Rome, said they raided a popular nightclub earlier this week as part of a king-size crackdown on piracy and seized 500 illegally copied music videos and more than 2,000 MP3 music files.
The get-tough operation, targeting radio stations and clubs around the region, was led by the Fiscal Police (Guardia Di Financa, that deal with financial crime), who also seized a large quantity of “audiovisual material” and software.
There are a lot of inaccurate reports floating around about this and we wanted to get the full story, so called up the FIMI in Italy. They told us that the copyright law in Italy dates back to 1941 but was most recently updated a year ago. Under the law the DJ was fined 100 Euro ($130, £69) per copied track, this figure was then doubled to 500,000 Euro. Only if the fine is not paid within 60 days, will it increase to 1.4m.
The reason for the doubling was unclear. Under Italian law, the precise details of the case are not made public until the case comes to court.
The DJ is free to appeal against the fine. Once the fine has been finalised, the money can be paid off monthly.
“For the MP3 files, which were kept on the DJ’s personal computer, the DJ has received a fine of 1.4 million euros,” Rieti finance police said in a statement (the fine is subject to administrative recourse). The DJ may also be subject to further criminal sanctions.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said the fine was the biggest ever slapped on an individual for unlawful music copying and the use of copyrighted music in the MP3 format.
“We are pleased with the fine imposed by the Rieti Fiscal police,” said Director of the Italian Recording Industry Association (FIMI) Enzo Mazza.
He continued, “This deejay was touring clubs and making money out of the music he played – while those who had invested time, talent, hard work and money into creating the music in the first place did not get a cent. We hope this precedent will serve as a deterrent for those who are thinking of doing the same.”
Seeing as venues already pay money to the collection societies for public dance licenses we find the size of this fine a little baffling.
It could certainly be argued that DJs can act as ambassadors for new music (and therefore the music companies) with some high-profile DJs having a considerable influence on the record buying public.
After all, why else would record companies ply DJs with endless vinyl/promos and other inducements in the hope of getting their tunes played?
Perhaps now that times are more lean for the record companies, they’re cutting back on the freebies.
It appears the line between theft and promotion can sometimes be a blurred one, and we’re not convinced that punishing DJs with such enormous fines is the way the record industry should be protecting their sales…
17 February, 2005
Siemens offers TV on mobiles and Voice over WiFi at CeBit
Siemens are planning to make a big splash at the upcoming CeBit in Hannover, Germany.
Along with Skype-capable M34 USB that they’ve already released, they’re planning to go the whole hog and show a Voice over WiFi handset (Gigaset S35 WLAN). On the telephone-plus-TV front they’ve announced a new concept handset, offering DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast for Handheld Devices) compatibility, which – in theory – will let users pick up around half a dozen digital TV and about 30 digital radio channels.
The ‘DVB-H Concept’ can pick up digital TV signals beamed across 3G networks using a modified version of the existing DVB-T terrestrial digital TV. Adapted for battery-powered terminals, the DVB-H broadcasts in bursts, allowing the receiver to power-down whenever possible, and thus boosting battery life.
DVB-H trials are underway in the UK, US, Germany and Finland, and if all goes to plan, UK residents will be able to wander about the streets watching Coronation Street on their phones in about a year. Not surprisingly, Digital TV phones are already huge in Japan and Korea.
Details are still a bit sketchy, but it will definitely feature a VGA screen and stereo sound. If they can also wedge a hard disk into the phone for recording programmes (and for storing your video clips transferred from PCs) this could be next year’s must-have technology.
The omens are good: the lucky citizens of Japan and Korea are already enjoying TV mobiles and it’s not hard to imagine sleep-deprived Brits shelling out hard cash to tune into every mumbled utterance of popular shows like Big Brother.
This marks another strange twist in the Siemens story. Not long ago, strong rumours were circulating around the net that they were looking to flog off their mobile phones division. This announcement – along with two other new phones (the Gigaset S35 WLAN, a Voice over WiFi and the M75, a chunky military style handset) suggests that no one’s told their tech bods yet.
Siemens (UK)
Siemens (USA)
4 February, 2005