Geographic – Page 53 – Digital-Lifestyles

Resident Evil x 2 on Wii: European Details

There have been mutterings for a while about the classic, long-running gore/terror-fest, Resident Evil, coming to the Nintendo Wii in Europe.

Resident Evil x 2 on Wii: European Details Official confirmation of the European release has this morning been announced – and it’s to arrive in two flavours.

The first, on 29 June, will be Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, which is a “re-mastered version” of the game, utilising the all-new motion sensitive controls that make the Wii what it is.

Resident Evil 4 has already been on the GameCube, PlayStation2 and PC is confusingly the sixth instalment of the Resident Evil series.

Coming “later in the year” will be Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, which looks to us like it’s been designed to appeal to those who are long-in-the-tooth Resident Evil players.

It’s a brand new title for Wii that allows players to gain a greater insight than ever before into the back story behind the outbreak. Capcom, the developers of both titles, describe it as an “action/shooter hybrid,” which has locations from Resident Evil 0, 1, 2 and 3 as well as new never-before-seen locations, such as Umbrella’s stronghold. Woooo!

One enterprising site has even mocked up a version of how they think the Wii-mote might be used to play Resident Evil.

The Umbrella Chronicles has been designed to use gun controllers – shooting is a large part of Resident Evil after all. Those in the frame are the yet-to-be-released Wii Blaster gun and possibly the now-selling JoyTech Sharp Shooter.

Nokia’s WiMAX Phones To Hit The Shelves Next Year

Nokia's WiMAX Phones To Hit The Shelves Next Year The world’s top handset maker Nokia has announced that it expects to start shifting mobile devices using the WiMAX Internet technology by early 2008.

WiMAX (or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access if you’re a spoddy type) lets laptops, phones and other suitably equipped mobile devices access the Internet at Billy Whizz speeds.

The technology uses a licensed spectrum to offer long-range (we’re talking kms), point-to-point connections to the web from the service provider to the end user, with Nokia saying that they plan to bring their first WiMAX enabled mobile device to market in early 2008.

Nokia's WiMAX Phones To Hit The Shelves Next Year Nokia’s numero uno handset rival, Motorola, has announced that it fancies a piece of the WiMAX action too, saying that they’ll also be bringing a WiMAX enabled mobile phone to market in 2008.

Intel, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola are all feeling the love for the open-standard WiMAX. The technology can be used as an alternative wireless broadband Internet connection for 3G users, which is handy because net access on 3G mobile networks can slow right down if networks fill up with yakking voice callers.

WiMAX should considerably reduce the cost of wireless broadband – up to 10 times cheaper than current third-generation cellular telephony networks – but the technology isn’t apparently too hot for handling wireless voice calls.

WiMAX looks good when it comes to pricing: the radio spectrum for WiMAX networks is rented out at cheaper rates by regulators than the 3G mobile phone spectrum, and WiMAX equipment vendors reckon that infrastructure and handheld devices work out cheaper than 3G systems too.

WiMAX forum
WiMAX on Wikipedia

City of London Wi-Fi To Become Europe’s Biggest Hotspot

The City of London is due to become the biggest Wi-Fi hotspot in Europe next week, as we trailed last year.

City of London To Become Europe's biggest hotspot A planned rollout will veritably bathe the City in luverly Wi-Fi rays, letting around 350,000 workers wander all over the Square Mile with uninterrupted wireless access.

The system comes courtesy of wireless network big boys, The Cloud, and dishes up continuous wireless access thanks to ‘mesh technology’ and a series of base stations strategically located throughout the area.

Although there’s something like 2,000 conventional Internet hotspots scattered around London, virtually all of these require users to keep on logging every time they walk into a new zone. The new City system means that users will only have to log in once and then be able to retain access at locations throughout the city.

“This is the biggest hotspot of its kind in Europe as far as we know and is unique as users keep the signal wherever they are,” enthused Niall Murphy, chief strategy officer at The Cloud.

City of London To Become Europe's biggest hotspot “We have been meeting a lot of the big financial institutions in the area and have even found that the network is available in a lot of their boardrooms, so we think there will be a corporate use for it as well,” he added.

Perambulating freeloaders hoping to nab some free City-based Wi-Fi access action will be disappointed though. Unlike the mile long wireless freebie served in uptown Islington, users will have to shell out around £12 per month for unlimited access – quite a drop from the £5/hour they spoke about in February last year.

With its infrastructure able to support secure public and private applications concurrently, The Cloud are targeting consumers and municipal workers, although there’s also support for telemetry, traffic surveillance and security systems.

The Cloud say that they plan to extend coverage into Soho and eventually extend the infrastructure across all of London.

The Cloud

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 3/3

With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.

Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).

Over three parts, we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.

The two previous pieces gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK; and LLU Penetration in the UK and the (un)Economics of it.

OpenLLU
The operators should have joined forces and built a single LLU infrastructure between them and then competed on service. This would have meant a second national network to compete with BT’s 21CN allowing operators to compete with BT on their own terms.

Wales First For BT's 21CN Next-Gen Network Rollout Also a single network would have meant it could go to many more of the 5,600 DLEs than the 1,200 everyone’s competing for at the moment.

Unfortunately competition is so fierce between the telecoms operators it will never happen – much to their joint detriment.

Broadband Competition
BT is still the biggest player by far and they’ll try and increase market share when they launch their 21CN. Many operators are underestimating the effect of BT’s 21CN and how quickly BT can launch it.

When they do launch, they are trying to get back to a situation whereby everyone else once again becomes a BT reseller.

Virgin Media have around 4m customers, but they have little money for expansion and are likely to use LLU in future to provide broadband services. They’re stance is even worse now Sky have pulled their basic channels, which is likely to cause customers to migrate to Sky and if enough go, then Virgin Media may be in a sticky situation (the city won’t look kindly on a reduced customer base).

Wireless is the next big hope
Unfortunately there’s very little spectrum available for wireless broadband in the UK, though 2.5GHz is going to be made available for auction later this year, but it wont be cheap. It was reserved for 3G use, so there may be bids from 3G operators but it’s also bang in the middle of the frequencies WiMAX can use (BT have already said they’re interested in bidding for it).

Other companies who do have spectrum are: –

* PCCW (UK Broadband) who have a national 3.4GHz license.

* Pipex Wireless who have a national 3.6/4.2 GHz license.

It’s not clear whether the recent Pipex sale announcement covers the wireless side or not.

Future
Content will be key, access will just be a delivery channel for content and broadband will just be a commodity item (making it even more uneconomic to roll-out).

There’s going to be even more consolidation in the industry and BT will win either way (more LLU customers mean BT get more customers, if it fails, BT Wholesale get more customers).

BT will also dominate when they roll-out their 21CN, they want to be the Sky of fixed networks i.e. use them to deliver the content and they take a big chunk for the customer charge for doing so).

The future’s bright – but only for BT.

Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation

Last time we looked at one of Ricoh’s upmarket cameras, the Ricoh GR, we went all Victor Kyam and liked the camera so much we went out and bought the thing, and Ricoh’s new GX100 has got our wallet hand twitching again.

Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation Never a company to run with the pack, the new Ricoh Caplio GX100 serves up an innovative feature set, with a super wide 24 to 72 mm wide zoom lens (35mm film equivalent), a fast F2.5 aperture and 10.01 Megapixel CCD sensor.

Billed as the successor to the popular Caplio GX8, the GX100 has inherited some of the features of the GR, including the fabulous two mode dial system which makes up what Professional Photography magazine recently described as the ‘best control system of any compact camera’ (once you get used to it, Canon and Nikon compacts seem clunky in comparison).

Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation Another innovation that has set photo-nerd hearts a-fluttering in Chez Digi Lifestyles is the optional removable electronic viewfinder.

This clips on to the hotshoe (yes, it’s got one of them too) and offers a high resolution LCD display including all the necessary exposure information. If they get the quality right, this will be as close as you can get to a real street shooter experience in a camera this size.

Architecture and landscape fans will also like the optional ultra-wide-angle 19mm lens for those big panoramic shots, with spot-on exposures guaranteed via a host of manual and scene modes and RAW file recording.

Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation As with the GR, macro focussing goes all the way down to a frankly ridiculous 1 cm (any closer and you’ll be burrowing into the subject), with a built in CCD shift method offering vibration reduction.

Ricoh claim that their ‘Smooth Imaging Engine II’ image-processing engine will keep the noise down, but with so many pixels packed onto such a small sensor, we expect the processor will be kept busy.

Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation With the Ricoh Caplio GX100 measuring up at just 25mm, this looks to be a great carry everywhere camera, and with a claimed battery life of 380 exposures, this looks to be a very, very interesting camera.

European pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but a Japanese site is quoting a retail price of 80,000 Yen (approx $670, 500 Euro, £340).

Specifications:

CCD Effective 10.01 million pixels (total 10.30 million pixels ), 1/1.75-inch primary-colour CCD
Lens Focal length f=5.1 to 15.3 mm (equivalent to 24 to 72 mm for 35 mm film cameras)
Aperture (F value): F 2.5 – F9.1 (Wide-angle) , F4.4 – F15.8 (Telephoto)
Lens structure 11 glass elements in 7 groups
Shutter speed 180, 120, 60, 30, 15, 8, 4, 2, 1 to 1/2000 sec. 1/30 – 1/2000 sec.
Picture modes F (Fine) / N (Normal) / RAW *2
Exposure adjustment TTL-CCD Metering Method: Multi Light Metering (256 segments),
Centre-weighted Light Metering, Spot Metering
White balanced Auto, Fixed (OUTDOORS, CLOUDY, INCAND., FLUORES., MANUAL) / White Balance Bracket
Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation Memory SD Memory Card ( 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 MB, 1, 2 GB), SDHC Memory Card (4 GB),
Multi Media Card, Internal Memory (26 MB)
Recording modes Still image modes (Still Image, CONT., S-CONT, M-CONT), Program Shift, Aperture-Priority,
Manual Exposure modes, Scene modes (Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Nightscape,
Skew correction, Text, Zoom macro, High Sensitivity) , Movie mode, My setting 1&2
LCD 2.5-inch Transparent Amorphous Silicon TFT LCD (approx. 230,000 pixels)
Dimensions 111.6 mm (W) x 58.0 mm (H) x 25.0 mm (D) (excluding projections parts)
Weight Approx. 220 g (excluding batteries, Memory Card, strap), Accessories: approx. 30 g (battery, strap)
Battery Rechargeable battery (DB-60) x 1, optional AC adaptor (AC-4c), AAA battery (alkaline/oxyride/NiMH) x 2
Shooting capacity Conforms to CIPA standard: using the DB-60, approx. 380 pictures
(Using AAA alkaline batteries: approx. 35 pictures *4)

Ricoh GX100

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2

Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).

Over three days we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.

Yesterdays piece gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK.

LLU Penetration
All the large operators are going into around 1,000 DLEs (those being the most densely populated), since there are only around 1,200 of them, all the operators are targeting the same DLEs and there’s a lot of overlap.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2 Since the operators all want to get into the same exchanges, there’s overcrowding and BT have to install new hostel space (the space where operators can put their own equipment into) which causes delays. It can take more than 6 months from when an operator puts an order in to being granted access to an exchange.

LLU (un)Economics
When LLU was announced it was prohibitively expensive, mainly due to Ofcom (or Oftel as it was then) allowing BT to set the pricing models.

Over time the economics have become fairer to operators, with BT being forced to set-up BT Openreach which looks after the physical infrastructure. If they hadn’t formed Openreach, it’s likely Ofcom would have pushed for a split of BT.

Ofcom then made BT not reduce wholesale pricing for their broadband services to give LLU operators a chance to gain a foothold. BT would have to maintain their pricing until April 2007 or 1.5m unbundled lines, whichever came first.

In Dec 2006 there were 1,000,000 unbundled lines and last week Ofcom announced that 1,700,000 unbundled lines had been reached (there was no distinction between Option 2 and 4). BT Wholesale has over 9m broadband customers.

Also Carphone Warehouse (CPW) released their interim results showing they had 2.31m broadband customers, 700,000 utilising LLU.

So out of the 1.7m unbundled lines, CPW have .7m which means there’s 1m split between the rest (mainly the big players, Wanadoo, C&W, Easynet Pipex and Tiscali).

As a rough model that’s 1.7m lines, spread over 1,000 DLEs which makes 1,700 lines unbundled per DLE. There’s 6 big players which means around 280 customers per operator per exchange.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2 Unfortunately the economics of LLU only work if there’s a lot of customers per exchange i.e. massive scale.

Now that the milestone of 1.5m unbundled lines has been reached, BT Wholesale will be allowed to reduce their pricing (which they’ve said they want to do) which will make the economics even worse.

To get the scale, further consolidation will occur which means fewer LLU operators in the future (Pipex has already put itself up for sale with CPW rumoured to be the front-runner for buying them). They need to do this in order to get the customer penetration per exchange.

The next and final section will cover the possibility of competition to BT and what could happen in the future

Images are courtesy of wb-internet and the BBC, respectively.

24/24 Video By Orange France Gets Paramount Deal

Orange France have picked up a deal with the US studio Paramount Pictures, to distribute their content in France.

24/24 Video By Orange France Gets Paramount Deal It’s not just old content that will be available, but new productions from Paramount including DreamWorks titles, which will be among the latest films available.

Orange France customers with a broadband digital television package or a High-Speed Internet package will be able to enjoy a Video-On-Demand programming schedule including the studio’s latest releases, such as Mission Impossible III, Over the Hedge and World Trade Center, among others.

There’s over 2,500 films, in French or original language versions with subtitles, available on the 24/24 Video service currently, which costs from 3 Euros to rent for 24 hours. Usual features such as unlimited viewing, pause functions and fast forward and rewind are available.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK

Over the next three days we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK What is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU)?
LLU is the ability to put equipment into BT exchanges (know as DLEs – Digital Local Exchange) and take over the copper line into the premises.

There are two forms known as Option 2 (metallic path facility as BT call it) and Option 4 (shared metallic path facility).

Option 4 characteristics: –

Operator takes over the line and only offers broadband services (of course they can offer services on top of the basic connectivity).
BT retain control of voice services.
BT send out the “Blue Bill”, this includes line rental and voice traffic which means they can still market their services to the customer.

Option 2 characteristics: –

Operators takes over the line completely.
No BT blue bill.

Once the operator has put the equipment into the DLE, then they have to connect it back to their own network. BT can provide this using BES (Backhaul Extension Services) or the operator can use their own connectivity solution. Most operators don’t have the coverage to provide their own connectivity solutions.

DLEs
BT have around 5,600 DLEs across the UK (i.e. telephone exchanges) and these have customers connected to them. Around 1,200 are in densely populated areas, another 800 or so with medium populations and the rest in rural areas.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Any operator wanting to offer broadband (and possibly voice) has to put their equipment in these DLEs. However there is a cost to unbundling an exchange (around 100,000 including backhaul) which means operators are only targeting the most densely populated ones.

LLU Operators
Operators who have unbundled exchanges are: –

Any operator with a “-” after has been acquired by another player.

* AOL (UK) Ltd – CPW
* Be Unlimited – O2
* Bulldog Communications Ltd – Users to Pipex, LLU C&W
* Cable and Wireless Ltd
* Computacenter PLC
* Easynet – Sky
* Eaton Power Solutions
* eXstream Networks Ltd
* Groestar Ltd
* Kingston Communications (Hull) Plc
* Lancaster University
* Leanwood Communications Limited
* Lumison
* Nestor Electronics Ltd
* Opal Telecom (CPW)
* Pipemedia Ltd
* Pipex Internet Ltd – who knows, up for sale
* Tiscali
* T-Mobile
* UKBB
* Unisys Ltd
* Updata Infrastructure UK Ltd
* Videonetworks Ltd – Tiscali
* Wanadoo
* WB-Internet Ltd
* Zen Internet Limited

Some of the smaller players are conducting trials and some are just offering private services (like Updata who offer connectivity solutions to councils etc).

Tomorrow, the penetration of LLU in the UK and the economics of it.

Frontline Wireless: US Analogue TV Spectrum Raising Much Interest

There’s a scramble for US spectrum by a collection of big-time venture capitalists.

Frontline Wireless: US Analogue TV Spectrum Raising Much Interest In the same way that UK frequencies are being freed up by analogue TV going digital, a big chunk of valuable frequency will also be coming up for grabs in the US too. The big difference is that the US one is coming up a lot sooner, with the US government having mandated that their analogue switch off occurs on 19 Feb 2009.

Once freed-up, it is to reallocate the frequencies to public-safety organizations and commercial broadband networks.

According to the IHT, one of the contenders is a company called Frontline Wireless, which was formed at the start of this year to try to utilise the 700-megahertz band – by fulfilling both public-safety usage and commercial usage simultaneously.

A key part of their technical solution is the use of Software Defined Radio (SDR), which allows the same device to operate on many different frequencies, using the same chipset, switched by software.

Frontline Wireless: US Analogue TV Spectrum Raising Much Interest The 700-megahertz frequency is highly favoured as it has a significant capacity, good range and can easily penetrate buildings and other structures.

Frontline has a number of advantages on their side. Not only does it have Reed Hundt, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman acting as Vice Chairman, but the company’s first public investor was K. Ram Shriram, an early Google investor known for his investment acumen. Venture capitalists L. John Doerr and James Barksdale, originators of Netscape, have also jumped on board.

They plan to offer to the public-safety network free of charge, while monetising the commercial side of the network. It’s estimated that they’d spend over $8 billion building out the network.

Frontline Wireless

SanDisk ‘Connect’ With Yahoo For Wi-Fi Music Service

Flash memory maestros Sandisk have announced that they’re hooking up with Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go to provide a service that lets music fans fuel up their music players wirelessly.

SanDisk And Yahoo Team Up for Wi-Fi Music Service After connecting the Sansa Connect media player to the Internet via Wi-Fi, users will be able to listen to LAUNCHcast Internet radio, rummage through Flickr photos and check out what Yahoo Messenger friends and nearby Sansa Connect owners are grooving to.

Meandering music fans will also be able to access Yahoo’s free music services or connect to Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go subscription service to download tunes to their players, without the need to connect it to their home PCs.

SanDisk And Yahoo Team Up for Wi-Fi Music Service “We see this as a very strong partnership with Yahoo,” purred top SanDisk marketing bod Eric Bone, adding that he saw his company progressing from “fast-follower mode to a technical-leadership mode” in a market still dominated by the ubiquitous iPod.

The attractive 4-gigabyte palm sized player comes with a bright 2.2″ screen, a tactile scroll wheel, a microSD slot and a built in mono speaker for sharing the music with (quiet) friends. There’s also a slightly strange looking stubby antennae for the wireless connectivity.

SanDisk And Yahoo Team Up for Wi-Fi Music Service As well as wirelessly connecting to Yahoo’s Music service, the Connect supports MP3s and DRM WMAs provided by other services like Rhapsody, but you’ll have to get out Ye Olde cable to transfer the music from your desktop.

The Sansa Connect is set to retail for around $250 in the States. We haven’t heard any news about UK pricing/release dates yet.

It looks like it’s a beauty and we’re looking forward to getting out hands on it.

SanDisk Sansa Connect MP3 Player