Category: Geographic

UK Gov Opens Door to Open Source

Gerald M. Weinberg, author of The Psychology of Computer Programming, came to an interesting conclusion back in 1971 – “If builders built houses the way programmers built programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilisation.” So who do government departments trust when it comes to creating software? The proprietary software giants or the open source software alternative?
The UK government’s central procurement agency, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), recently field-tested open-source software in the public sector with results that will please Tux lovers everywhere. The open-source pilots were run at various government agencies using software from IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. The subsequent report cites progress in desktop products, such as OpenOffice and Sun Microsystems Inc.’s StarOffice, for routine, low level work, but not for “knowledge” or “power users” who require more advanced capabilities.

The softening in attitude towards open source comes not only from an acceptance of its maturing functionality on the desktop – it’s been around a while now, it also comes down to cost. Open-source software requires less memory and a slower processor speed for the same functionality offered by the proprietary applications that are always demanding hardware upgrades to work to their full potential. So, if open source were taken on board soon it would delay expensive hardware replacement.

The report comes just as the OGC is finalising a three-year extension to its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Microsoft Corp., which has basked in the warmth of a long and cosy partnership with the UK government. Now that cash strapped government departments all over the world start taking a closer look at open-source alternatives, companies like Microsoft have to be a little worried.

Could OGC have just been hoping that Microsoft would cut its licensing costs? Hardly, you wouldn’t conduct a major study just for that. Although Microsoft did recently launch a major advertising campaign, ‘Get the Facts’, to repudiate the idea that open source has a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) than proprietary software.

WiFi Pricing in Europe is Over Complex

At the IBM sponsored Wi-Fi Business Development Summit in Paris, consultancy BroadGroup has warned providers to pull back from complex pricing systems for Wi-Fi services, while it also warned major industry players to increase marketing emphasis on monthly subscriptions.

In simpler language – more transparency is needed. The more schemes and user choice on offer, the more complex pricing structures become it would seem, and BroadGroup define the current schemes as being ‘too finely segmented’. Using source material based on two recent European surveys of 122 Wi-Fi service providers and 83 GPRS operators, BroadGroup said that the findings suggested Wi-Fi is trending towards tariff structures that would leave users unable to comprehend what they were being charged. Whether this is the intent of the WiFi operators isn’t clear.

But what alternative is there for WiFi service providers if differentiating offerings is the only way to drive marketing strategies, the current mix leaving users with 365 tariff schemes across 28 countries – one for each day of the year.

It’s true, when you are bamboozled with too many price-saving schemes and special offers you end up being so confused that you just opt for the one you understand the best, and not the one that necessarily cuts your bill. And this is borne out by the fact that BroadGroup provided examples showing that if users did not know how many MB they consumed each month, they could be penalised by selecting an inappropriate tariff.

Furthermore, most Web sites did not provide an interpretation of MB usage anyway. Even if they all did, you’d wonder how many customers would actually have enough time to study them in detail. BroadGroup is currently conducting a study of business travellers in Europe to provide insight into data usage and what users understand as mobile data.

BroadGroup research also found that average pricing in the most popular timebands – 1 hour, 24-hours and 1 month had remained largely unchanged over the last 18 months. 24 hour pricing is now offered by 58% of all service providers in Europe with an average price of €15.08. However in a market where prepaid methodologies now dominated, the consultancy believed there was a need to concentrate on the promotion of monthly subscriptions to sustain business growth.

The consultancy also noted that European Wi-Fi prices continued to be more expensive than the US and Asia.

BroadGroup

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

China Issues Digital TV Licenses

China’s government has issued digital television broadcasting licenses to four companies, ending the state monopoly. The move is also intended to increase competition and innovation in China’s nascent digital broadcasting industry.

However, the move is not as open as first appears – the four companies are themselves state owned. The companies are CHC Home Cinema, China Broadcast Network Company, Shanghai TV, and a five company consortium including China National Radio.

By opening up digital broadcasting in this way, the government hopes to create more opportunities for private and foreign-funded ventures, though foreign companies are not allowed to hold broadcast licenses. Regulators have approved a small number of overseas channels for broadcast on cable in Guangdong and hotels, though much of the overseas investment is likely to take the form of creating content, developing platforms and infrastructure.

A recent project in Qingdao converted 600,00 homes to digit television, with 60 government channels. China is expected to have 30 million viewers by 2008.

Digital TV in China

China: 300 Million Mobile Users by 2005

The Chinese Ministry for Industry has released new figures which demonstrate the vast scale of the mobile market in China, and its potential for growth.

Although the percentage of mobile phone owners in China will still be relatively low at just 24.5% of the population in 2005, this will still mean 300 million subscribers. In contrast, approximately 65% of Europeans own a mobile phone, with the US catching up at 50%.

Currently, China’s 295,700,000 mobile phones account for half of all money spent communications. There are still another 800 million potential customers to reach, though the barriers of bringing access to rural areas and the cost of services must yet be dealt with.

Chinese mobile users send 300 million text messages a day – accounting for one third of the World’s total 510 billion of SMS sent every in 2003. Not bad for something that was tacked onto GSM as a afterthought and costs network operators virtually nothing to handle.

China Mobile

First Reviews of Nintendo IQue Player Arrive

Back in September this year, Nintendo announced they would be creating a home games console that would sell exclusively in Chinese market. Initially to be sold in Shanghai, Guanzhou and Chengdu, this will be the first games console to be sold in China.

As details emerged of the IQue Player (rough translation, God’s Playing Machine), we realised that its form would be a handheld games controller that plugged directly in to the TV, doing away with the box under the TV. Based on N64, which at its original launch in 1996 was one of the most powerful consoles available, Nintendo clearly plan to leverage its large amount of licensed game content to run on it – very clever when you consider it is currently just sitting earning nothing. It also has hardware-emulation of Nintendo’s pre-N64 console, the Super Nintendo, enabling it to play the enormous library of games that were available for it. The games will be converted to Chinese language and, to minimise piracy often perceived as a problem in China, games will be loaded on to the 64Mb Flash-based memory cartridges at local retailers and will be, at least to Western standards, very cheap.

Time and thinking has moved on a long way from the N64 and the IQue Player benefits from a number of innovative features. It will be launched with one full game and four other demonstration versions of titles will be preloaded on to the cartridge, that will last for between one and ten hours of playing before removing themselves. As touched on above, the new software will be distributes electronically to shops located around China and will be loaded on to Flash memory cartridges at the shops. The operating system, dubbed UOS, is automatically updatable when new games are bought and installed, this may well be to ensure they stay ahead of hackers attempts to copy games.

The IQue Player has now been released in China priced at 598 Yuan (~$72, ~€59, ~£41) slightly above the originally expected 498 Yuan. The games sell for a very competitive, at least to Western eyes, 48 Yuan (~$6, ~€5, ~£3.50).

Two site have now published the first European reviews of the IQue Player, one in English and another slightly more technical one in German.

The video games and content worlds will be watching the progress of this platform in China, not just to get a grasp of the level of enthusiasm for gaming in China, but also for the success of the anti-piracy measures and to see if they are prepared to pay for reasonably priced content.

UK Telco, BT Group Move Towards TV

There were two pieces of news today about the UK incumbent telecom provider, BT, getting closer to broadcast television. One, an official announcement that they will joint market UK Freeview (UK Free-to-Air Digital TV) receivers, the other in today’s Financial Times, that they are set to announce plans to enter the pay-per-view TV market with the launch of a new BT-branded digital TV and Internet service. It is possible that they are both the same story.

The financial markets response to BT previous discussion of getting involved with broadcast back in January 2003 was not positive, with their shares price dropping.

The FT Telecoms Correspondent, Robert Budden, reported that BT are in discussion with two companies that currently make Freeview boxes, SetPal and NetGem, with an aim to retail the STB’s for £129 when the service formally launches in the summer of next year. The exact details of the services are not know, but Time Shifted, PVR-type functions are expected as a minimum. It should also be noted that BT was granted a licence to broadcast back in March this year.

BT have realised that providing just the DSL connectivity to peoples houses will become a commodity – a utility in effect. With this area only become more competitive, it is not where the money will be made.
BT shares rose 1.62% today.

FT – BT piece

SetPal

NetGem

Service to locate UK mobile phones

A new service has been launched in the UK to enable willing participant to have the position of their mobile phone tracked. mapAmobile is currently working on the Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile networks.

It works by monitoring the strength of signal from aerials and triangulating between them. They claim accuracy within 50 metres but this will vary depending on the density of aerial, so rural locations will be less accurate.

Priced as ~£30 for a year for one phone, there is a charge of 30p each time the service is used, which is slightly strange given they’re selling it as an alternative to texting or phoning the person. Registration is either online or a voucher can be bought at Carphone Warehouse.

On signup, the target-tracked phone is sent an SMS asking for approval to be tracked, as well as regular reminders. The location can be interograted either online, via SMS or telephone and will be given as ‘Fred is in the vicinity of Bow Street, London WC2’ together with the date, time and accuracy of the location. You will also have the option to see a map showing street names and points of interest.

mapAmobile

Autonomy to buy Virage

Autonomy have announced that they will be buying video and audio search company, Virage. They plan to pay $1.10 per share, valuing Virage at around $24.8 million, but given Virage’s expected cash balance of $11.5m, Autonomy are only really paying $13.5m – around $0.60/share. It’s not surprisingly this is a far cry from the head days of Jul 2000 when they peaked at $26 a share.

Virage has been around since 1995 when they starting off by offering the indexing of video content. Users were initially able to search for words spoken during a video, which was later expanded to include close captions text, and later on, even the ability to find instances of a person from a library of user-defined faces. They went on to expanded their offering to include streaming encoding and Webcasting services.

Their offering was always thought of as a bit hollow, but their profile always remained high, backed up with a huge spend on marketing. It appears that this formula has continued as total year revenues to March 2003 were $12.9 million and its net loss was $18.1 million.

Autonomy say their are primarily buying them for their customer base.

DVDs rentals outstrip VHS tapes in the US

It’s not a great surprise that DVD rental has now exceeded VHS rental in the US, six years after DVD was introduced.

The US Video Software Dealers Association has reported consumers rented 28.2 million DVDs compared to 27.3 million VHS cassettes during the week ended June 15.

While there has been advantages for the consumer, the benefits for the trade have been significant. The distribution and storage of DVD’s is significantly cheaper, as are the production costs. DVD are also more robust, being less prone to damage while playing.