Geographic

Orange Unique/Unik Offers Converged VoIP/Mobile Telephony
Orange has launched, nay unleashed, the Unique phone, its first converged service using a single handset that connects via WLAN in the home and then switches to the regular mobile network when the user goes walkabout.
Initially rolling out in the UK and selected European countries, the phone promises unlimited free VoIP calls from home to other Orange mobiles and landlines.
Calls can be seamlessly switched between the Orange mobile network and VoIP, with screen icons keeping customers constantly informed of the network connection.
Interestingly, calls started from home remain free, even when the user has wandered out of their front door and out of range of their Wi-Fi network, causing the phone to switch to the mobile network.
To use the service, customers must get an Orange Livebox which lets users connect to the Orange network via Wi-Fi.
Households can have up to six Unique phones, although there is a limitation on their use, with only three users allowed to use the Internet or make calls at any time.
So far, only the Motorola A910, the Nokia 6136 and the Samsung P200 can be used with the service, but more phones will be launched in 2007.
Two price plans are currently on offer; the Canary 50 (offering 600 minutes per month) and the Panther 65 (1,200 mins), priced at £50 and £65 respectively.
A broadband connection is bundled in free with the convergence-tastic deal, with the setup offering clear benefits to users, who’ll now only need one phone, one number, one address book, and one bill from Orange.
The service will be available from November, although punters keen to be hip with the convergence crew can pre-register their interest here: www.orange.co.uk/uniquephone
26 September, 2006
US Web Half-Yearly Advertising Revenue Hits $8bn
U.S. Internet advertising revenue has hit a new record high of nearly $8 billion for first six months of the year, increasing by a money-spinning 37 per cent, according to a new study.
The figures from a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, suggest Internet advertising revenue has continued to surge, despite a recent warning by Yahoo that new media ad spending could be slowing.
Yahoo pointed to weaknesses in two key sectors in marketing – automobile and financial firms – although some analysts think that the claimed slowdown is more about Yahoo’s own business declining and is not symptomatic of an industry-wide trend.
“The latest results reaffirm the Internet’s growing importance for marketers to integrate online advertising into their overall media plans,” commented David Silverman, Partner, Entertainment & Media Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“While search advertising remains the largest format in terms of revenues, we expect to see new formats like video ads to continue to emerge as advertisers seek to leverage the branding opportunities afforded by the growing installed base of broadband users,” headded.
The IAB/ PricewaterhouseCoopers figures show that Internet advertising revenue totalled nearly $4.1 billion in the last quarter, representing a thumping a 36 percent increase over the same period last year, and up a healthy 5.5 percent over the first quarter of 2006.
The study also reports that search-related advertising rose 40 percent in the first half of 2006, with classified advertising rising 20 percent.
“With the seventh consecutive quarter of growth behind us we are confident that the Internet will continue to reconcile the imbalances between its share of media consumption versus its relative share of total advertising spend,” enthused Pete Petrusky, director, Entertainment & Media Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Elsewhere, the Online Publishers Association (which includes CNET, iVillage and Reuters), forecasted a rosy future for its members, saying that it expected online advertising grow about 28 percent for the third quarter, with most of its members “seeing strength in all advertising categories with no areas appearing to slow down.”
[Via Reuters]
26 September, 2006
THUS Preferred Supplier For HSBC
THUS, the communications provider that owns the Demon brand has announced it has become the preferred supplier for HSBC in the UK. The contract is expected to be around £50m plus over 5 years.
The contract covers connectivity for all their branches, ATMs etc (2,200 UK sites).
THUS recently sold off Demon Internet in the Netherlands to KPN, which means they have paid off most, if not all, of their debt and puts them in a very positive position compared to many UK telecoms providers.
THUS also recently acquired Your Comms (a business telco based in the North of England) and Legend, a smallish ISP with a portfolio of VoIP products. Other acquisitions must be on their mind.
Consumer Broadband is free, concentrate on business services
The consumer broadband market is rapidly becoming commoditised, which is good for the customer, though margins are extremely low, so providers need to find other revenue streams to make services pay for themselves.
Though Demon in the past have had lots of consumer customers, they have wisely concentrated on the business markets. Business broadband can still command premiums, as it allows customers to utilise services such as VoIP. Customers who want quality of service can even use broadband to connect to THUS’ backbone MPLS network so allowing teleworking and VPN’s to be securely provisioned.
THUS isn’t as big as several other telcos (in terms of customers or revenue), and in the recent past, they may have looked like a buy-out opportunity, however as they’ve concentrated on services that make them real revenue the tables may have turned with them becoming a threat to other bigger players who could be acquisition targets themselves.
22 September, 2006
PDT Eye-Theatre Head-Mounted Multimedia Viewer
If you’ve admired the look of that bloke in Star Trek with the funky sci-fi specs, then maybe the Eye-Theatre glasses might be just the thing for you.
PDT’s Eye-Theatre is a head-mounted multimedia viewer that promises to deliver an “immersive audiovisual environment” – that sounds a bit like what you get after a plateful of magic mushrooms, so we’re already interested.
The headset lets you watch movies in NTSC/PAL/SECAM formats, with the Eye-Theatre employing twin TFT LCD screens to display 320 x 240 video resolution – perfect for the video iPod’s output (you can plug the unit straight in).
While they’re not the first to do this, the makers claim that the display creates a similar effect to watching a big 50″ screen from around 2.5m with your eyes tricked into focussing at the same distance, so you’re not going to start suffering eyestrain.
There’s a pair of high-quality stereo earphones incorporated in the design, and to keep the unit secure on your noggin, a variety of nose-pieces promise a good fit, from kids to adults.
Weighing just 78g, the Eye-Theatre should be good for eight hours between charges (USB charger supplied), and anyone desperate to get that cyber-berk look can pre-order their video glasses from PDT’s website for £149.99, with the launch expected in mid-October.
The unit is also compatible with other video devices such as the new Microsoft Zune, TV,VCR,DVD, video gaming systems, camcorders any any other video source with Video-Out.
Eye-Theatre
20 September, 2006
Sky Broadband DRM Woes Halt Films
Sky has hit the pause button on delivering films (known by some as movies) and sport via their Sky By Broadband service, due to cracks in Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM software.
Sky has put an announcement on their site,
In order to make an essential update to the Sky by broadband security system, we are sorry that access to all movies and some sports content has been temporarily suspended. This does not affect your computer and content can still be bookmarked for future use. We will keep you posted on progress and apologise for any inconvenience.
Clearly being a big bash for the service, it must be of great embarrassment for all concerned. Content owners from around the world – especially those within the News International family, Fox, etc – will be throwing a dizzy fit, having bought the technologies companies long-lasting pitch that DRM is essential for the survival of the content biz. You see, most of them feel their clients are not to be trusted with the content,that they’re so used to having.
Background
A couple of weeks ago, a little software app called FreeUse4WM appeared, that stripped the Digital Rights Management (DRM) from any content, be that audio or video, held in the Windows Media format.
Following this, Microsoft threw people at fixing the problems – they had to, as it laid bare all of the content that it was supposed to protect. Sitting back with a smug look on their faces (we imagine), they must have choked on their latte’s when version 1.2 of FreeUse4WM came out, cracking the DRM and exposing the content again. It’s understood that Microsoft are working on the fix for v1.2.
Security of all sorts is just a game of cat and mouse, with no absolute guarantees – security company created protection
12 September, 2006
WordWeb Review: Free English Thesaurus/Dictionary (90%)
A long time favourite of the Digi-Lifestyles crew, WordWeb is a free, cut-down version of the WordWeb Pro software, and includes a comprehensive English thesaurus and dictionary with the ability to look up words from within external programs.
Originally an add-on for the Crossword Compiler application, WordWeb has developed into a formidable stand-alone product, regularly updated with new words and senses.
Once installed, the program lurks in your Windows system tray and can be activated from within almost any program.
Simply highlight the word you need a definition for and either click the system tray icon or use the default keyboard shortcut of CTRL+ALT+W.
Quick as a flash, WordWeb pops up with a dictionary definition of your highlighted word, often supplemented by a sample sentence demonstrating the correct usage of the word.
Minger
Seeing as we haven’t got over our childish habit of typing in naughty words into dictionary, we tried it out with the British slang word, ‘minger:’
1. (slang) a physically undesirable, smelly, or ugly person
“It wasn’t ’til we woke, the next morning, that I realised quite what a minger she was. I left pretty damn sharpish before she asked for my phone”
The program can also be used to look up word definitions and alternative synonyms or antonyms – you could, for example, look up “tree”, click on the “Types” tab and you’ll be presented with a list of different types of tree.
Click on “Part of” and the program will tell you that a tree can be part of a “forest” or “wood” (in case you weren’t sure).
Clicking on the “Replace” button will let you swap the highlighted word in your document with a listed synonym or you can keep on exploring alternatives by clicking on words to view more synonyms and definitions.
The WordWeb database boasts more than 156,000 root works and 124,000 synonym sets and is based on Princeton’s WordNet project, with the developers making “many thousands of corrections and additions to this base.”
The program – which comes in regionalised flavours – can also access the web to offer a web search of the highlighted word or link to a site with translation capabilities.
The $19 Pro version adds 6,000 more definitions and offers extra features like wildcard word search, full text definition search, custom glossaries and optional word lists
Notably, the UK-developed WordWeb is also one of the very few references that works with screen reader software for the blind – kudos to the authors.
Features: 85%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 85% (100% for freebie version!)
Overall: 90%
Free WordWeb 4.5 for Windows 95/98/2000/NT/Me/XP
WordWeb Pro
11 September, 2006
Huawei: “Who are We?” If You’re In Comms, You’ll Be Finding Out
In 2004 the networking giant Cisco sued a little-known Chinese company called Huawei for IP (Intellectual Property) theft. Some two months later the case was dropped and settled out of court. Huawei promised to modify their designs, change their software and manuals. Rumours circulating at the time alleged that the Chinese government got involved and told Cisco that if they wanted to operate in China, they should leave Huawei alone.
Huawei was started by People’s Liberation Army officer Ren Zhengfei in 1988, specialising in the research and development of communications systems.
In the west the initial push has been towards core networking equipment for carriers and ISPs (markets which have historically been dominated by Cisco). In this market, Cisco’s normal approach was to offer a base product, then charge extra for additional software feature sets. Huawei’s approach is …. more generous, they include the all of the ‘extras’, while pricing the system around 60% of what Cisco charges for the base platform alone.
Support – throwing people at it
Low, all-inclusive pricing isn’t Huawei’s only winning approach.
If a large customer of Cisco reports a problem, it goes into their tracking system and the customer might be lucky if it’s looked at in a few days. If it’s identified as a bug, it might take a few weeks to isolate and fix.
In China engineering talent is relatively cheap and their universities produce very high class students (and lots of them). This brings Huawei another advantage – huge manpower. When bugs are passed to Huawei, they go to their pool of, something like, 20,000 engineers, leading to the faults being tracked and fixed extremely quickly.
The Big Boys are buying Huawei too
Slowly Huawei started to make big inroads into the high-end markets. BT has even selected them as part of their 21st Century Network, (21CN). It’s rumoured in the market, that this will lead to the demise of Marconi (who failed to be selected, even though they’d been a partner of BT for decades).
Cisco – that’s just the start
If you’re in any form of communication business, don’t kick back and think, “Well Cisco needs a competitor. We should be OK.” Huawei’s plans extend far beyond merely eating Cisco’s lunch.
If you get a chance to wander into Huawei’s showroom in China, you may be lucky enough to get taken into a hangar the size of a football field. In one small area there’s the ISP/Telcocore kit, we’ve mentioneed. The rest of the space is filled with other technologies such as IN (Intelligent Network – the brains behind telco voice networks), GSM, GPRS, Edge, 3G, NGN (Next Generation Networks i.e. IP-based voice and data networks like BT’s 21CN), xDSL (both end-user and network), optical (driving fibres), routers and LAN switches and of course consumer devices for it all.
Huawei are currently supplying all sorts of companies. Ever wondered who makes the new USB 3G datacard for Vodafone (the USB one that works on Windows, Mac and Linux)? Huawei.
Initially Huawei picked a ‘small’ market to concentrate on, but now they’re ready to attack the bigger ones. They have the equipment, and the resources to make a huge dent into the existing players markets of all sorts. It won’t just be Cisco suffering.
Huawei
7 September, 2006
$15 itunes Movie Price Judged Too High By Majority Polled
According to new research from The Diffusion Group, only 14% of broadband households would be interested in an iTunes online movie download service for use on PCs or portable devices if titles were priced at $15 each. This compares to total interest of 23% at $10 per download – a 64% decline in interest when increasing the cost per title by only $5.
On the Viability of an iTunes Movie Download Service, a two-part report series produced by TDG, states that movie studios originally demanded that Apple accept a pricing scheme of around $20 per download, similar to the prices charged by current online movie services such as CinemaNow and Movielink. But according to Michael Greeson, founder and principal analyst with TDG, Apple demanded download prices of around $10 for even new titles, half that of existing services. “It would seem, then, that the two parties simply split the difference. All things equal, this appears to make sense.”
However, TDG’s research found that the net loss of demand from increasing the price from $10 to $15 is almost four times the gain in demand from lowering the price from $20 to $15. In other words, at $10 per title, demand would have been optimized yet profits would have suffered, while at $20 per title both revenue and profits would have been optimized with little loss in demand.
Speculation regarding Apple’s entry into the online movie space heated up in advance of the early August Worldwide Developers Conference, but nothing materialized. As Apple’s September 12 public launch event nears, the rumor mill is again churning and has this time attracted pundits from the mainstream business press. Of course, Apple continues to decline comment.
Regardless of whether the iTunes movie download service is announced this month or later this year, Greeson believes that the time is right for Apple to enter this market space. “Although current services such as CinemaNow and Movielink continue to languish, Apple is aware that the conditions are now suitable for extending iTunes to include full-length movie downloads. Consumer awareness has improved; video-over-broadband is now viable; studios are now making movies available for online download to DVDs; portable video platforms are improving qualitatively with each new generation; and Apple’s brand awareness and credibility are at all time highs. As well, CinemaNow and Movielink’s experience, while insightful, is of limited value to Apple, who continues to enjoy the fruits of being a market-maker in portable digital electronics and online media services.”
One challenge faced by today’s online movie download services that will still haunt Apple is the fact that movie downloads are still being viewing on the PC or portable devices – scenarios that do not reflect the video consumption behavior of the majority of US consumers. Connecting these services to the living room TV (either directly via a broadband-enabled set-top box or indirectly via a digital media adapter) is imperative to expanding the online movie market beyond the earliest of early adopters and to helping move Apple into the living room (the primary battleground for future-thinking PC and CE vendors).
For these reasons, TDG commissioned a June 2006 consumer study to evaluate consumer interest in and price sensitivity toward two types of Apple iTunes-branded online movie services – the first involving movie downloads to the PC and portable devices and the second involving movie downloads to a iTunes-branded set-top box or digital media adapter connected to the primary home TV. Researchers examined consumer receptivity to both of these scenarios across a variety of prices points, identified the core group of consumers most likely to adopt these services, and profiled this segment across a number of characteristics.
Both of these reports are now available for purchase on TDG’s Website..
6 September, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista Prices Leaked
Prices for Microsoft’s much-anticipated update to their Windows operating system, Vista, have leaked out onto various Websites, including an official Microsoft site.
Retail prices for the four different versions of Vista (priced in Canadian dollars) briefly appeared on various sites before vamoosing in double quick time.
The top dog Windows Vista Ultimate Edition was spotted carrying a hefty price tag of $499 Canadian dollars ($450, £237) while the Home Premium version was listed at C$299 ($270 or £142).
The Vista Ultimate Upgrade was priced at C$299 ($270 or £142) with the cheapest option being the Home Premium Upgrade for C$199 ($180 or £95).
Vista on Amazon
As the scheduled release date grows ever-nearer, prices are popping up elsewhere, with Amazon’s ‘pre-order’ pricing advertising Windows Vista Ultimate Edition at $399 (£210) and Home Premium at $239 (£126).
Upgraders could get the Ultimate and Home Premium versions for $259 (£136) and $159 (£84) respectively (these prices seem to have varied, depending on the site).
Availability was listed as from “January 30th, 2007.”
As we reported earlier this year, there will be no less than six different versions of Vista, all in 32 and 64-bit flavours.
Users who like to live on the edge, can download Windows Vista pre-RC1 ISO file from here, but be quick – there’s only 100,000 downloads available!
Microsoft Vista
30 August, 2006
Spiralfrog Offers Free Universal Music Downloads
Vivendi Universal, the biggest music group on the planet have signed a deal with Spiralfrog to let surfers download the contents of its man-sized music catalogue for free.
The New York based company Spiralfrog will be launching the new service offering Universal’s songs for download in December – but in US and Canada only – bah!
As some old bloke in the pub used to tell us, “You don’t get nuffink for free in the world, no way, not ever,” and for once he was right – surfers wanting to gorge themselves on all that luvverly free music will have to endure tons of adverts, presumably of the targeted kind.
The dreadfully named Spiralfrog are looking to take on the mighty iTunes, and have high hopes that punters will be quick to switch loyalties when download prices of nuppence are whispered in their shell-likes, compared to Apple’s current rate of 99 cents per song in the US.
“Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling,” enthused Spiralfrog Chief Executive Robin Kent said.
Making it pay
With an estimated forty dodgy downloads to every legal download over the Internet, Spiralfrog could attract the huge number of users currently risking prosecution from pirate file-swapping services, making their money by sharing income from advertising with content partners like Universal.
Amongst the music industry cognoscenti, a few eyebrows have raised about the practicalities of the new service, with music industry specialist Josh Lawler telling the BBC: “The Internet is very much a viable media, but the trick is going to be getting it off the ground in the first place”.
“Spiralfrog will have to find a way to pay artists from the advertising dollars they are generating. But they’re not necessarily going to know how many advertising dollars there are and so some artists are going to be hesitant about it,” he added.
If Spiralfrog does get it right, the company could seriously shake up a market that saw 60 million MP3 players sold and 420 million single tracks downloaded last year.
Spiral Frog
29 August, 2006