Geographic

IT Staff Top Stressed-Out League
IT workers who spend all day battling with clueless idiots who have just deleted critical OS files because they looked ‘messy’ already know it, but now it’s official: people who work in IT are the most stressed folks on the planet.
Surging ahead of traditional stress leaders like medicine, engineering and education, a survey conducted by research firm SWNS for online learning provider SkillSoft found that a staggering 97% of IT workers claim to find their life at work “stressful on a daily basis”.
The poll – involving more than 3,000 people – also discovered that four-fifths of IT consultants felt stressed “before they even enter the workplace”, while around a quarter were so crushed by the “enormous pressure to perform at work” that they’d taken time off suffering with stress.
One poor techie sod who responded to the survey blubbered into his Coke can, “I spend most of my day fielding calls from people who don’t even have a basic knowledge of computers and printers. It is amazing the amount of time I spend teaching people where the on-off button is. And when I do actually find a technical problem to solve, I have my manager breathing down my neck wondering why I have a backlog of complaints.”
Meddlin’ managers
Interfering managers were also found to be a source of extra stress, with a third of IT professionals saying that pesky meddling managers made it difficult for them to get their jobs done.
The survey unearthed the main stress factors for people at work (why not see how many you can tick off?!) and these include deadlines, workload, feeling undervalued, having to take on other people’s work, lack of job satisfaction, lack of control over the working day and having to work long hours.
The survey insists that employers should take the problem of stress seriously, citing the Health & Safety Executive’s research that puts stress as the biggest cause of working days lost through injury or ill health [an estimated 12.8 million lost days each year].”
In case you’re wondering about the other stressful jobs, here’s SkillSoft’s top ten stressful jobs
IT
Medicine/Caring Profession
Engineering
Sales and Marketing
Education
Finance
Human Resources
Operations
Production
Clerical
Skillsoft
Top tips to avoid office frazzle Elsewhere, an “office stress” study conducted by CareerBuilder.com found that more than three quarters of respondents felt “job burnout”, while over half felt under a “great deal of stress.”
Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder.com‘s vice president of human resources insisted that “high-pressure work environments are taking their toll on workers’ morale,” adding that the stress “can be detrimental to both workers, whose health and career progress may suffer, and employers, who pick up the tab in higher insurance costs and lost productivity.”
Happily, ol’ Rosie babe kindly offered some four top tips to help reduce office stress:
– Organize and prioritize by taking care of the more difficult and important tasks early in the day.
– Manage expectations so that you can achieve your goals and deliver on promises to others.
– Set aside a period of time dedicated to responding to e-mail and voicemails.
– Lastly, take care of yourself. A healthier you is more productive and happier.
We’d give that a go ourselves, but we’re busy with some idiot on the line and he’s… making…us…. chuffing…crazy… grrr…..
18 May, 2006
MTV and Microsoft Take On iTunes With ‘Urge’
Apple’s hugely popular iTunes music download service looks set to face some mighty competition in the coming months.
Although many contenders have tried to take on Apple’s market leading music download business, all of have left with a bloody nose – but the arrival of a new service by a powerful pair of rivals could be Apple’s biggest battle yet.
The new ‘Urge’ service sees industry titans Microsoft and music video monsters MTV Networks teaming up to offer a heavyweight contender to iTunes.
Unlimited downloads
Like Apple’s service, buyers will be charged 99-cents per song download, but there’s an added twist: users subscribing $9.95 a month will be able to download unlimited songs from Urge’s 2-million-song catalogue to their personal PCs.
Users wanting to transfer songs onto portable music players can subscribe to the $14.95 service, with tunes protected by anticopying software from Microsoft.
Hoping to succeed where Napster, Yahoo, RealNetworks’s Rhapsody and even Microsoft’s own MSN service have failed, the partnership of the world’s biggest software company and the marketing might and ‘cool’ of MTV could prove a formidable challenge to iTunes.
“They are probably the strongest contender to come into the market for some time,” commented Phil Leigh, a senior analyst for Inside Digital Media, in Florida.
Geoff Harris, product unit manager for Windows Media Player at Microsoft, pointed out that although that other music subscription services have millions of songs on tap, that didn’t help listeners discover new tunes that they might like.
Noting that consumers have embraced satellite radio because it features dozens of channels with music chosen by experts, Harris reckoned that this could prove a real advantage to the Urge service.”You’ve got the experts in music here from MTV doing programming across a whole bunch of genres,” he commented.
As well as music files, subscribers to Urge will be able to download video streams of MTV Network programs, including shows from MTV, VH1, and CMT, a country music video channel. Yee-hi!
Sod the iPod
But there is a serious fly in the MP3 ointment for the new Urge service: crazily, its music downloads won’t be playable on the Apple iPod, despite the player hogging around 70 percent of the market for portable music players. Instead, users will have to invest in rival players like those from Creative Technology.
Although Harris admitted that the iPod incompatibility issue was “a hurdle that we have to get over” (an understatement, we reckon!), he added that, “there’s a long way to go in this market,” pointing out that the zillions of iPods sold still represent a fraction of the potential audience for music downloads.
Jason Hirschhorn, MTV Networks’ chief digital officer, insisted that Urge wasn’t interested in taking on Apple.’It’s not about beating Apple, it’s not about beating Rhapsody,” he said, pointing out that MTV has already teamed up with Apple elsewhere to flog some of its TV shows as downloads on the iTunes site.
We believe you, Jason.
Windows Media Player 11 beta
Although Urge is wholly owned by MTV Networks, Microsoft has committed ample resources to the service, embedding the software in its new Windows Media Player 11 beta, a spruced up upgrade to its media software offering iTunes-like integration.
The new player adds browsing by album cover and a search box to find media as well as offering improved content management, with less clicks needed to burn a CD, for example.
Urge will only be available initially in the United States, with the beta player linked to US-only music stores until the final version of Windows Media Player 11 is released.
Jonathan Arber, a research analyst with Ovum in London has high hopes for the service, “I think there’s a real chance we will see them become the top of the second tier below Apple.”
Assuming the thing is stable and doesn’t come with a zoo-full of bugs, of course.
Urge
Windows Media Player 11
17 May, 2006
BT To Create 12 Wireless Cities In UK
BT has today announced its plans to set up wide-area Wi-Fi networks in 12 cities, giving perambulating folks access to high-speed Internet and telecoms services.
The first phase will see BT installing Wi-Fi hotspots covering large areas in Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool and London’s Westminster area, with services scheduled to be running in all 12 metropolitan areas by February next year.
“We have been thrilled with the overwhelming response of local authorities and businesses wanting to be part of this wireless revolution,” enthused BT’s chief of converged services, Steve Andrews.
“This first phase of 12 cities is just the start. We are already negotiating with many other cities,” he continued.
Lovely, lovely Cardiff was the city chosen for the first roll out of the Wireless City scheme, with BT Openzone hotspots being installed in many locations in the city centre.
Meanwhile, the bustling heart of Westminster has already seen a dedicated high-bandwidth wireless network being installed, now in the process of being extended.
Sadly, the Wi-Fi service won’t be free to Joe Public, but BT says it intends to develop a range of information and public services for the local authorities and split costs and revenues for such services.
BT is also looking to use the service to promote a Wi-Fi version of its BT Fusion mobile phone services which will be launched later this year.
The Fusion phone currently uses Bluetooth but the updated version will allow consumers to switch from a mobile network to a cheaper Internet network when the phone comes within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot.
BT Fusion
17 May, 2006
CNN VoD On Homechoice In UK
Homechoice have just done a Video on Demand (VoD) deal with CNN to carry their content. It’s the first VoD deal that CNN International have done, meaning the first outside the US.
CNN’s popular feature programmes, Quest, Living Golf, CNN Business Traveller, Global Office and Art of Life, as well as CNN documentaries, will be available on the service, with new episodes added regularly.
CNN, like many other content creators are starting to ramp up their alternative channels for output, thinking beyond the POTV (Plain Old TeleVision). Last week they announced a deal with Telewest to deliver an interactive text-based version of the CNN news service.
We love Homechoice, they’re triers and they’re dogged with it too. They’ve been plugging away since well before people understood that TV could come via any other means than through the air. They’re been really ramping up their content selection since their new team came on board – like their recently announced super-niche African Movie Channel.
Homechoice
CNN Pipeline
16 May, 2006
Guy Kewney, News 24 And The ‘Other Guy Kewney’
As you’re no doubt aware, Guy Kewney is a contributor to Digital-Lifestyles. His old-school journalism is well-informed and his experience with technology is extensive. He’d been a journalist hero of ours since we were knee high to a PDP-11, and were over-joyed when he signed up to do pieces with Digital-Lifestyles.
This prestigious background lead BBC News 24 to want him in the studio to give-forth on the outcome of the Apple vs Apple court case last week.
He was all lined at the studio ready to go on, when to his surprise he saw ‘Guy Kewney’ being interviewed on screen. You’ll find it hard to believe the whole story, but I do encourage you to read it on NewsWireless – it is hilarious.
It’s taken Guy a while to track down the footage of the event, but with some help he has.
You must watch the video footage, as the ‘other Guy Kewney’ looks like he can’t believe he’s in a TV studio being interviewed.
Below is the latest section of the story/farce as told by Guy on NewsWireless.
I have spent some effort trying to get the video of “Guy Kewney” the cab driver lecturing on the BBC’s news 24. Until today, the closest I could get, was to listen to the audio only – when recording the interview for the Radio 4 programme Broadcasting House. So kudos to the dogged reporters of the Daily Mail, and Mail on Sunday, who got the complete video!
According to one paper this morning, the BBC has deleted the entire damning video. Untrue, I suspect; but even if true, the clip has circulated widely enough that it would be futile. And now that the Mail has done the deed and published the complete clip, you can actually download it.
It’s worth it. You don’t get to see my “white, bearded, professorial” face, but you can watch the classic moment, where the cab driver realises that he is on air, and being mistaken for someone else, here. It’s beyond classic: it’s priceless.
Watch his incredible recovery, and his determination to show that this may be a complete surprise to him, but that he can out-Kewney any darned NewsWireless Editor if he has to.
15 May, 2006
Home Wi-Fi Usage Soars
The space-age wireless house is coming ever-nearer with new figures from Strategy Analytics revealing the growth of Wi-Fi networks amongst the sofas, dining tables and four poster beds of the home.
The study found that a fifth of broadband subscribers in the US and Europe-land now use Wi-Fi to share Internet connections between their PCs, laptops and other wireless devices – adding up to a total of 19 million connected homes.
When it comes to wireless connectivity in the home, 7 percent of all households are now buzzing with wireless networks.
The Americans were found to be leading the world with 8.4 percent penetration, followed by the nippy Nordic region with 7.9 percent.
As we reported back in January, Brits have been slow to embrace Wi-Fi, and this latest survey found that wireless usage in the UK still lags below average at just 6.1 per cent.
Surprisingly, Germany was found to be even less enthusiastic about having a box of blinking lights in the house, with just 5.1 per cent penetration.
Mind you, seeing as the survey only asked 2,000 home Internet users in the US, France, Germany, UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden we’d recommend taking all these figures with a large slab o’salt.
“Rich people have more electronic gadgets” shocker!
To the surprise of, well, no-one with half a brain, Strategy Analytics’ study also found that consumers in the highest income groups were three times more likely to use WiFi than those in the least affluent income band. Well, I never.
Early adopters love Wi-Fi
“WiFi has become the preferred networking technology for affluent early adopters,” commented David Mercer, Principal Analyst at Strategy Analytics, as he sagely puffed on an over-sized pipe.
Mercer added that rising ownership of laptop PCs and other portable Internet devices will soon make Wi-Fi the dominant home networking choice for most broadband subscribers.
Actually, we made that bit up about the pipe.
Strategy Analytics
11 May, 2006
UK e-Shoppers To Spend £26bn In 2006
UK shoppers are set to spend an average £1,000 each online in 2006, according to the yearly report by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).
The ‘industry body for e-retailing’ has forecast that mouse-clicking Brits will shell out £26bn online in the UK in 2006, as online shopping goes stratospheric.
According to IMRG’s figures, online shopping has grown by 2,600 percent over the last five years, with the £2bn sales notched up in November and December 2005 representing a hefty 50 percent rise the same period in 2004.
Moreover, IMRG predicts that 2006 will see ten percent of all purchases being made online.
The explosive rise in Internet shopping is seen as a result of more consumers having broadband and retailers making better use of the Internet, but the report warned of online retailers still facing challenges.
According to IMRG’s own research, usability, customer retention, and interactive marketing were cited as the biggest concerns by over half of their members, with e-crime and delivery fulfilment seen as high-priority issues by around a third.
IMRG
Why-aye Big Spender!
Elsewhere, web testing firm SciVisum’s recent research on regional e-commerce spending found that consumers in the north east of the UK spent the most online, and were also the most likely to fork out for high-value goods.
The survey found that a third of consumers in the NE spent between £50 and £100 per month and had no qualms about dishing out sums as large as £5,000 for a single online purchase.
Compare that to stingy shoppers in the south who said that they’d spend no more than £50 per month online, and wouldn’t dream of shelling out sums as high as £5,000.
Not surprisingly, the most popular online purchases were books and CDs, purchased by three quarters of shoppers.
Around fifty per cent of shoppers said they would buy holidays and electrical goods online, while a quarter do their grocery shopping and finances online.
SciVisum
10 May, 2006
BBC Hots Up High Definition (HD) TV: Starting May
The BBC is making its first steps into the super-crisp world of high definition television (HDTV) with transmissions of Planet Earth and Bleak House in the new format at the end of this month.
The transmissions – the first free-to-air HDTV shows in the UK – will be available to satellite and cable viewers armed with an HD-ready television set and a decoder (or set top box).
Cable company Telewest are already screening hi-def BBC shows, but things should heat up in the summer when Auntie Beeb starts to tempt sports fans with HDTV transmissions from this summer’s football World Cup and Wimbledon championships.
HD TV broadcasts can also beef up the whole big match experience by incorporating 5.1 surround sound and displaying the (Rooney-less) stadium action in widescreen.
The BBC will limber up its HD programming by broadcasting a promotional preview for users of Sky’s electronic programme guide on 11 May, with Bleak House and part one of Planet Earth following on 27th and 29th May.
“These are small but exciting first steps in the BBC’s ambition to offer the option of high definition to all in the future,” said Jana Bennett, BBC director of television.
“We really feel that high definition will be the standard definition of the future,” she added.
Although high definition broadcasts contain four to five times as much picture information than a standard television signal, BBC research has found that you’ll need a giant sized screen (28 inches/69cm and up) to really notice the difference – so there’s not much to be gained by watching it on your dinky portable TV.
Q&A: High-Definition TV [BBC]
HDTV [CNet]
10 May, 2006
Judge Harry Edwards Attacks FCC Broadband Wire-Tap
EFF-fans and electronic freedom groupies have a new poster boy who comes from an unlikely profession. They’re normally attracted to open-source code-a-holics, or white hat hacker, but this one’s a judge.
On Friday, Judge Harry Edwards tore a few strips off the associate general counsel, Jacob Lewis, representing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He was one of three judges at a hearing of the federal appeals court, investigating whether the US government have the same right to tap VoIP phone conversations as they currently have with ‘normal’ phone lines.
The quotes that Reuters are reporting are pretty choice. In a response to hearing their arguments, he replied, “This is totally ridiculous. I can’t believe you’re making this argument.”
He didn’t stop there, later letting them have it with both barrels.
“Your argument makes no sense,” Edwards told Jacob Lewis, an associate general counsel with the FCC.
“I’m sorry I’m not making myself clear,” Lewis said.
“You’re making yourself very clear. That’s the problem,” Edwards replied.
Wow, that is cutting.
The ride wasn’t so rough from the other two judges, with the second, David Sentelle, appearing to side with the FCC, especially for Internet phone services. The last, Janice Brown kept her thoughts to herself.
We await the T-shirts flooding the market.
FCC
EFF
8 May, 2006
Pixar And Disney Wed
A quick catchup. We’ve been covering the Pixar/Disney, will they/won’t they get together for a while now and see that it’s finally come to pass that the Pixar board have voted to join Disney.
In the all-stock transaction, 2.3 Disney shares will be issued for each Pixar share. The most senior Pixar people will be taking interesting, senior roles at Disney reporting directly to Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer Disney. Jobs will be joining the Disney’s Board of Directors as a non-independent member.
As we’re sure you know, Pixar has been providing Disney with computer-generated (CG) masterpieces for 11 year.
It all got going when Steve Jobs, after getting kicked out of Apple by John Sculley, the man he brought in to ‘take Apple to the next level’ (who in fact nearly killed it), bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilms in 1986 for a cool $10m.
Initially Pixar survived by making adverts such as the boxing Listerine bottle, picking up a hamper of awards in the world of CG.
Big things started to happen in 1995 when Pixar simultaneously went public in the US, raising $140m, and their first film with Disney, Toy Story, hit the cinema. It became the highest grossing film of 1995 taking $362m worldwide at box office alone. We’re sure you all remember the masses of merchandising, making Disney huge amounts of extra income.
In 1998 A Bug’s Life came along also bringing $362m in worldwide ticket sales, 1999 saw Toy Story 2 ($485m). The following years saw Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles all do very well, sealing Pixar as _the_ CG animation stuido.
Pixar and Disney had a very public spat where Pixar said that they wouldn’t supply their films to Disney exclusively. Disney played it all cool, effectively saying ‘see if I care?’ We can plainly see from the purchase that they did actually care quite a lot.
Pixar
Disney
8 May, 2006