UK – Page 42 – Digital-Lifestyles

Virgin Media Boosts XL Broadband to 20Mbps

Virgin Media have announced that they are to boost the top speed of their ‘XL’ cable broadband offering from 10Mbps to 20Mbps, starting in May.

Virgin Media Boosts XL Broadband to 20Mbps The upload speed will also be upped to 768Kbs, not exactly setting the uploading world alight, but better than a poke in the eye with a stick, non?

While getting people excited about this, they’re also raising the price of their top service by £2 to £37/month.

They’re claiming it “will make the XL broadband service the fastest (widely available) home internet connection in Britain,” which is questionable, depending on your definition of “widely available.”

UK Online and Be Unlimited have been offering 22Mbps and 24Mbps broadband services (respectively) around the UK since the end of 2005, although Virgin Media has a wider reach than them. Both UK Online and Be Unlimited rely on their equipment being installed at the telephone exchange.

To us, these speed increases make it sound like they’re getting ready to start offering other IPTV/VoD-type services.

Whitehaven Digital TV Switchover Process Details Emerge

The details of how Whitehaven will switch over from Analogue to Digital are starting to come out.

It’s quite an interesting approach that’s worthy of a little attention, especially as this will form the basis for the approach for the rest of the UK.

Lots of local press have already become involved in informing local residents about the forth coming changes.

This will be added to by sending a letter to each of the 25,000 households in the Whitehaven area to give them details. In there will be details of the Help Scheme for the over-75s, those with disabilities, and blind.

Those qualifying will benefit from a one-off subsidised fee of £40, unless the households receive income-related benefits, in which case assistance will be free.

Starting in May, the awareness of the TV watching residents of Whitehaven will be further raised with captions appearing on their current analogue channels, warning them of the impending switch off of the analogue channels and the need for them to change their equipment if they want to continue watching TV.

As announced, analogue BBC2 will be switched off on 17 October between 2-4 am, freeing up a chunk of analogue frequency for digital use.

The process is slightly more complicated than first appears, although the effect of the actions will remain the same.

Whitehaven Digital TV Switchover Process Details Emerge

Analogue ITV1 will be switched over to the frequency currently used by analogue BBC2, which will become unavailable.

This will leave ITV1’s frequency available to be used by the first digital mux, which will provide three full time stations BBC1, BBC2, BBC News 24, with CBBC and BBC Three sharing the same frequency, switching between the two at 7pm daily.

Summary – For the price of one analogue TV channel (ITV1), four digital TV channels will work in its place.

(BTW we think DigitalUK should be ashamed with themselves at referring to the date as October 17, they are after all a UK Government body. This is the UK and dates are referred to with the date _before_ the month. The UK isn’t the US)

During this time, ITV1 will slip a little from button 3 on their remotes to button 2 – previously occupied by BBC2. A possible source of some confusion for Whitehaven residents, but reducing it to a minimum.

Four weeks later, the other analogue channels will switch off, making space for ‘at least’ 18 channels including ITV2, E4, BBC Four and some digital radio channels all via their TV aerial. There are a number of channels that are available in other parts of the country that won’t be making it to Whitehaven (detailed three paragraphs in).

We’ll keep our eyes and ears open to monitor the success of the process.

Whitehaven Digital TV Switchover Date: 17 October 2007

(Update: Details of the switch over process)

Today the date of the start of switchover to Digital TV of the first English town was announced as 17 October 2007. Being cautious types, they’re only going to be switching off one analogue channel to start, BBC 2, with BBC1, ITV and Channel 4 going dark over the rest of the month.

Whitehaven Digital TV Switchover Date: October 2007 Back in June last year, we heard that Whitehaven was going to be the first town in England to switch off their analogue signal to be replaced by a purely digital service.

Whilst the majority of the channels, including all of the public service ones, will be available via DTT (Freeview), there are a number that won’t. Film 4 won’t be available, but Film 4 +1 (the same, but delayed by an hour) will be – no great loss there. Other missing channels will be a number of shopping and adult channels – a loss for some.

Whitehaven follows analogue switch off which started in Wales, specifically Ferryside and Llanstephan, back in March 2005 and four months later was judged to be a success.

Whitehaven, Cumbria, has similar characteristics to the previous Welsh site – pretty self-contained with the sea to its left and a jolly big mountain on to its right. Areas like this (Google Maps) are chosen to minimising the impact on the surrounding areas.

The official figures for preparedness do present a few hurdles for them. Only 73% of the Wighthaven households have the equipment to let them receive Digital TV – be that via Sky or Freeview. That leaves over a quarter of them still exclusively on analogue.

Photos of Whitehaven

Nearly Half Of All UK TVs Digital-ised: Ofcom

The number of UK TVs connected to digital devices – ones that can receive digital TV signals – has increased to 48.5% reports Ofcom.

Nearly Half Of All UK TVs Digital-ised: Ofcom The quarterly report snappily titled, Communications Market: Digital Television Progress Report, covering the fourth quarter of 2006 (October-December), shows the figures are up from 39% in the same period the previous year, and also from 44.7% in the Q3 2006.

The run up to Xmas is traditionally a time where many more new TVs are bought, in a desperate attempt to increase the ‘enjoyment’ of Xmas by numbing their brains watching ‘entertainment’ on TV. It appears no different this year as a further one million UK homes acquired digital televisions for the first time.

Previously, Ofcom used to highlight the number of UK households that were digital-TV-enabled, which has now reached 77.2%. This figure received a fair degree of criticism as, although it sounded impressive, didn’t give a true reflection of what the impact of switching off analogue would be for UK TV watchers.

There’s been an interesting announcement in the US, where the American households will be offered up to two $40 vouchers to switch to digital TV. The UK government has actively discouraged thinking like this in the UK.

As ever, there’s a huge pile of numbers that will be poured over by those in the industry who get quite excited about this type of thing. We’re normally in this category, but for some reason were not too excited about this quarter.

Communications Market: Digital Television
Progress Report, Q4 2006

Online Bloke’s Mags See Traffic Soar

Online Bloke's Mags See Traffic Soar Blokes are generally an easily pleased bunch when it comes to magazines – just shove in loads of high tech gadgets, big cars, some football, lots of wobbling booby babes, video game reviews, pics of dangerous sports and perhaps a page or two on cooking to show off their sensitive side – and they’re as happy as a pig in dirt.

Of course, now that they can get most of the above (and more) all over t’internet, mens print magazines have had to set up their own web presences to keep the ol’brand loyalty going and new figures from Nielsen//NetRatings show that the blokes are digging the concept.

Their stats show that Maxim is currently most popular UK online men’s lifestyle mag, Bizarre the fastest growing with Monkey enjoying the most loyal audience.

Online Bloke's Mags See Traffic Soar The phwoaar-tastic Loaded site apparently has the “greatest affinity” with men, with 88% of visitors to their site being of the geezer persuasion, followed by Nuts (83%) and Zoo (81%).

GQ is almost a girly mag in comparison with more than half (55%) of their online audience being laydees (or ‘foxy chicks’ as Loaded might put it).

Market leaders Maxim managed to notch up 479,000 Unique Visitors in January 2007, putting it 27% ahead of second-placed FHM (378,000), although visitor loyalties seem to easily switch: FHM was the most popular site in October 2006, while Monkey ruled supreme in November and December 2006

Online Bloke's Mags See Traffic Soar “The last quarter has seen the big three online men’s lifestyle magazines – Maxim, FHM and Monkey – vying for top spot. On its official launch in November 2006, Monkey climbed straight to the top of the tree but the last two months have seen a slight, if steady, drop in popularity to fall behind Maxim and FHM,” commented Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, commented:

Dennis Publishing were responsible for the three fastest growing online men’s magazines, with Bizarre scoring a 255% UA growth, Maxim (124%) and Monkey (99%) between October 2006 and January 2007.

The soaring online figures are in contrast to tumbling print figures, reflecting the importance of the online space to traditional publishers.

Via

Scoopt Citizen Journalism Service Snapped Up By Getty

With ‘citizen journalism’ being one of the loudest buzzwords in the bright shiny Web 2.0 world, it’s no surprise to see the big media agencies looking for a slice of the action.

Citizen Journalism Service Scoopt Snapped Up By Getty Major news agencies made great use of public camera phone footage after the London 7/7 bombings, with several images making the front page of newspapers.

The citizen journalism photo agency Scoopt currently offers a service that lets users text or email any newsworthy photos and video footage, which the company then endeavours to flog on to the international press on their behalf .

Acquiring the company for an undisclosed sum, Getty Images is looking to fully integrate this service into the output of their pro photographers.

The small print

Camera phone snappers uploading imagery to Scoopt keep their copyright but agree to grant the agency a 12-month exclusive license that lets them re-license the work to one or more publishers, with a 50/50 split on the moolah.

Citizen Journalism Service Scoopt Snapped Up By Getty With Getty’s well established media network, amateur snappers should expect increased prospects of shifting their work, although Getty hasn’t commented if the payment share is to remain the same.

The company has also said that it intends to invest in technology upgrades and introduce further enhancements to make the Scoopt site more accessible to punters.

“New technology has made it easier to capture and distribute imagery, leading to citizen photojournalism that is increasingly relevant to the news cycle,” commented Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images.

“While this genre will never replace the award-winning photojournalism for which we’re known, it’s a highly complementary offering that enables us to meet the evolving imagery needs of a broad customer base,” he added.

Via

How to take good camera phone pictures

Scoopt’s site also provides a handy photo taking guide for wannabe citizen journos, and here’s their top ten tips:

1 Hold the camera steady.
2 Concentrate on the subject.
3 Be aware of what is happening around you.
4 Try to connect with your subject but stay slightly detached to look for the best time to take a picture.
5 Go the extra mile to get the picture — but don’t take risks and don’t break the law.
6 Keep looking and snapping even when you think you have the scoop.
7 Don’t be put off by bad light/rain/snow/a duff viewpoint. Sometimes these elements can add to a picture.
8 Be VERY patient.
9 Be single minded. Getting the picture is your objective. Think in terms of images
10 Hold the camera steady! (Did we mention that one already?)

They Want Your Pod! Brixton On iPod Alert

Although some may already feel that walking around Brixton is akin to taking a stroll around another planet, we began to think we might have been transported to a parallel universe when we spotted bright garish yellow billboards appearing all around town exclaiming, “THEY WANT YOUR POD!”

The signs were appearing everywhere – on lamp posts, railings and street furniture – warning the denizens of Brixton that large dark silhouetted shapes were hell bent on taking their “POD.”

Fearing a Day of the Triffids-like invasion of Coldharbour Lane, we took a closer look and saw that the boards were illustrated by a large black blob of a humanoid facing up to a thinner humanoid sporting the trademark white cable of the Apple iPod player.

They Want Your Pod! In smaller text underneath the screaming headline, “BEWARE” the sign goes on, “Street robbers are targeting persons using mp3 music players in this street!”

It turns out that far from warning visitors of an impending alien pod-snatching mission, the signs are part of the ‘Safer Lambeth’ initiative by the Metropolitan Police.

They Want Your Pod! Although the sign doesn’t actually tell you what to do to prevent being ‘jacked’ (© Richard Madeley ), we guess the iPod imagery is a way of advising music listeners ecstatically flailing their limbs a la iPod advert that they should show a little more discretion on the mean streets of Brixton.

Of course, being Brixton, it was only a matter of hours before the sign was joyfully subverted, with stick-on labels in the same colour and typeface altering the message to read:

“THEY WANT YOUR POD – BECAUSE YOU TOOK THEIR SOUL.”

BT Try To Vary Payphone Pricing

In their constant pursuit for higher profits, BT have put a request into the UK uber-regulator Ofcom, to allow them to charge different prices for phone calls depending on where the phonebox is located, claim TelecomTV.

BT Try To Vary Payphone Pricing BT is under a legal obligation to provide phone boxes up and down the length of the UK, which they claim numbers 63,795. BT say that 40,500 of these phone boxes are unprofitable.

BT is attempting to negotiate a three-year deal that would let BT “determine the acceptable pricing of pay-phone calls.”

Try to get out of their obligations is not really playing the game is it? It’s not like their obligation to payphones is news to them.

It’s got the ring about it along the lines of charging for directory enquiries. When BT was allowed to start charging for calls to directory enquiries, it was only ‘normal’ landlines that were effected. Calls to find out phone numbers were free from Payphone, as BT removed the printed telephone directories from them. A few years later BT had the rules changed and started charging from payphone, despite not returning the printed directories.

BT claim that calls from payphones have dropped off by 40% in the last four years, no doubt due to the considerable rise in uptake of mobile phones.

Digital-Lifestyles thinks this doesn’t make it right that people who live in remote locations should have to pay inflated prices for using the same payphone and connecting to the same phone network as everyone else, just because BT wants to make more profit.

(via)

New Media Classification System For UK

New Media Classification System For UK Gordon Brown has announced that a new labelling system for media content is in the works, designed to help parents protect their children from dodgy digital content.

The idea is that a system similar to cinema classifications would be introduced to classify content on websites, video games, TV shows and other media content.

Backed by industry regulator Ofcom, Brown intoned that the system would offer practical help to parents concerned about their little darlings being exposed to new media outlets seemingly stuffed to the brim with violent imagery, drugs and hot, hot sex.

Commenting on the veritable torrent of filth that virtually seeps out of every child’s PC as soon as they connect to the web, Brown said that it is an “issue we must address with practical proposals to address the challenges we face.”

“We want to promote a culture which favours responsibility and establishes boundaries: limits of what is acceptable and unacceptable.”

“We can’t and shouldn’t seek to turn the clock back on technology and change. Rather we need to harness new technology and use it to enable parents to exercise the control they want over the new influences on their children,” he added.

New Media Classification System For UK As part of the scheme, Ofcom will introduce common labelling standards covering cinema, TV, radio, computer games and the internet.

These will be backed up by an awareness campaign advising parents about content filtering software for PCs, and information about TV set top boxes which can limit what can and cannot be seen by little Timmy and Tabatha.

Brown added that they’ll also be looking at persuading technology manufacturers to provide better information on software to block content unsuitable for children, as well as investigating new methods to restrict access to saucy and violent content shared over the t’web.

Brown recognised that it’s a fat look of good trying to implement restrictions on just a national scale, pointing out that agreements need to be struck at the international level.

“We need to support all those broadcasters and providers doing a huge amount and of course we need to recognise there are global markets where we need international agreement,” he said, somewhat understating the importance of worldwide standards.

Of course, many companies and public institutions already use web filtering software but their methods can often resemble a 300 ton sledgehammer cracking a dwarf-sized peanut.

Scunthorpe. Arsenal. And Sex

The denizens of Scunthorpe and fans of Arsenal football club have already famously fallen foul of none-too-smart naughty word blockers, and many sites have complained about being blocked for the most spurious of reasons, with very little chance of retribution.

Some sites about UK counties have also found themselves banned from libraries and internet cafes because the word ‘sex’ has appeared in their domain name – even though the sites are about subjects as unerotic as Sussex, Essex and Wessex.

More about word filtering mistakes here: The Scunthorpe Problem

[From: Brown unveils classification system for new media]

BBC and YouTube Partner

Another day, another content deal as the UK National broadcaster, the BBC, sign a deal with YouTube/Google to make a selection of their content available on YouTube on an non-exclusive basis.

BBC and YouTube Partner Two deals have been done, one with the BBC, the other BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC. Financial terms of the deal aren’t being discussed at all.

There will be three YouTube ‘channels’ under the deal. Two of them are live already, BBC and BBCWorldwide, with BBCWorld to follow ‘shortly.’

BBC is very much in the YouTube model, full of rough camcorder diary pieces, and behind the scenes shots giving an ‘insight’ into the workings of the BBC. Currently there are 31 pieces going back one month.

BBCWorldwide is labelled as “The best of British TV” and currently has 78 video pieces on it and contains a ton on Top Gear, Attenborough and a smattering of comedy shows like The Mighty Boosh and Catherine Tate. Will also “include a limited amount of advertising.”

BBCWorld isn’t up and running yet, but when it is, will only be available to YouTube viewers outside the UK. It will be advertising-funded.

Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, likes the project, “The partnership provides both a creative outlet for a range of short-form content from BBC programme makers and the opportunity to learn about new forms of audience behaviour.

What’s it like?
Surprisingly for the BBC the quality of the video isn’t what it could be. Quite a change from the days when quality was everything.

Interestingly, fans of BBC content are barred from showing their fav ditties on any other sites as “Embedding disabled by request.” If the BBC has requested this, or YouTube isn’t clear. It’s more likely given they’ve paid the BBC for their content, and we imagine that they damn well want viewers visiting their site to see the videos.

This is great for the BBC as they get to distribute their content widely (fitting their remit) while not having to spend any money on distribution of the content, in fact receiving payment for the privilege.