UK

eBay Opens Doors To Blue Peter Badge Cheats
The BBC are reporting that they are suspending a Blue Peter badge scheme. Why? Cheeky blighters are buying them on eBay and presenting them as if they ‘earned’ them and claiming the benefits.
Non-BBC readers may be confused as to the relevance of the Blue Peter badge. Blue Peter is a British institution. The late afternoon TV show for children, which every child in the UK has watched, awarded badges to children who hard work and appeared on the show. Back in the 70’s they were highly prized items – the sort of thing that people would place under their pillow when they slept.
In the thirty or so years since then they may have got a little slack with their distribution because people are now selling them on eBay. Heresy in the old days. It’s be like chucking out your Jim’ll Fix It badge.
This may not be news to owners of the hallowed Badge, but apparently Blue Peter has a deal with over 100 venues around the UK that gives free entry.
Some rotters have clearly come to learn this and have been pursuing on eBay. The £30-odd that they are paying for them more than balance the amounts of money they have saving by getting in free to the locations.
Having become aware of this, the BBC say that they have been forced in to reconsidering if the free access to venues will continue.
A spokesman said: “The BBC investigations unit has been monitoring eBay over the past few months and has noticed badges being sold in large numbers by individual sellers.”
Blue Peter
29 March, 2006
Sanyo Xacti C6, World’s Smallest Camcorder
Sanyo have just launched what it’s claiming is the world’s smallest, thinnest and lightest solid state digital camcorder, the Xacti C6.
So small and cute you want to pat it on the head, the X6 measures up at just 2.7 ? 4.2 inches by 0.9 inches wide and barely troubles the scales at 159g when fully loaded with memory card and battery.
Compact enough to slide into your shirt pocket, the distinctive looking camcorder employs the same vertical ‘gun’ style seen throughout the Xacti range, featuring a swivelling 2-inch trans-reflective 2 inch, 210k colour LCD screen.
Saving space by recording straight to a SD card instead of using conventional tape, recordable DVD or hard disk, the Sanyo can grab an hour of VGA resolution (640?480 pixels) video at 30 frames-per-second on a 1 GB card using the “TV-HQ” mode (MPEG-4 bit rate: 2 Mbps).
The Sanyo’s six megapixel CCD sensor captures still images in standard JPEG-format with the camcorder claiming the world’s first 60 fps (frames-per-second) TV output, delivering playback quality that would rival a baby’s bum for smoothness.
There’s also a 5x optical zoom, 12x digital zoom and a Digital Image Stabiliser for correcting any wobbles, with the CCD sensor using 9-pixel mixing technology to record brighter and clearer video in low-light situations.
Available in three colours – gold, black and red – the Xacti has already whipped Steve’s Digicams into an enthusiastic froth, and should be available on the High Street any minute now for around £450 ($788, E652).
Sanyo
28 March, 2006
Google Grabs 75 Percent In UK
With a leather-gloved stroke of the company white cat, Google’s mastermind cackled loudly as new figures revealed that their plans for UK domination are nearly complete, with almost three out of every four searches in the UK using their search engine.
During February, 2006, Google referred a whopping average of 74.67 percent of all U.K. visitors to other sites on the web – streets ahead of their nearest competitor Yahoo, who could only muster a comparatively feeble 9.3 per cent.
The figures were released by analysis company WebSideStory, who used a fancypants-sounding “statistical barometer” featuring “techno-graphic trends” (weren’t we dancing to that last night?) to reveal Google’s near-total domination of the UK search market.
It looks like the Brits have taken a particular shine to the San Francisco-based search giant, with February’s search referral stats outperforming Google’s US average for the the month (55.39 percent) and their global average (62.4 percent).
“Even more so in the U.K. than in the U.S., when people think of search, they think of Google,” commented Rand Schulman, Chief Marketing Officer for WebSideStory.
“This has large implications for U.K. marketers, whose search engine marketing and optimization strategies should be Google-centric,” he added.
Looking down to the sorry gang of search engines trailing several laps behind, we can see Yahoo at 9.30 percent, MSN at 5.46 percent, AOL with 4.21 and a coughing, spluttering Ask (Jeeves) with just 2.28 percent.
27 March, 2006
MySpace Looks to Build In Europe
It is being reported that MySpace-owner, News International, is looking to expand its presence in Europe with its focus being London.
MediaBulletin claims MySpace are opening offices in London, while expanding their connections into the entertainment businesses in the UK capital. They hope to grow the number of UK users beyond the estimated 2m that currently use it.
MySpace considered
Why has it been such a popular thing?
It’s a clever, cut down version of what anyone can do on the Web for themselves using separate software tools and service, but it offers the tools in one place. The unkind are calling it GeoCities 2.0, which isn’t too far from the truth.
Importantly it also has social/network effects built it. This works both for the creators, as they grow their links to their friends – real and imagined; but importantly for MySpace’s income, the network effect for browsers is huge. As a browser looks at the original site, they split off in a myriad of different directions as they distract themselves, exploring the music taste and hobbies of linked friends.
Looking around it is addictive, and engrossing, but it’s ultimately an unrewarding empty experience.
Getting to here
The way MySpace has ended up has been very fortuitous. Whether this is intentional or if it’s due to a number of happy coincidences is unclear.
MySpace originally was swamped by children and teenagers when it started two years ago – possibly attracted by its relative safety and that their mates were on it.
It’s expanded beyond this now and has now reached the point where record companies feel bands _must_ have their own presence on MySpace, even if they’ve got their own Web presence – witness sons of Ventnor, The Bees.
The hard-nosed commercial reality is that bands would be foolish not to be on MySpace. With 35m active users is claimed, the potential audience is too huge to ignore.
Here comes the competition
Other companies are well aware of the value of shared spaces like this – their attention focused by the $580m the News International paid for MySpace. This was highlighted by Microsoft spending a fair bit of cash at SXSW try to get the music companies interested in being on MSN Spaces – their looky-likey offering.
With the media footprint that News International has, it’s highly likely that they’re going to be able to make best value from what appears to be a considerable purchase price. Already there’s been reports their UK tabloid, The Sun, is to being brought onto MySpace using MySun.
With the backing of Murdoch, MySpace _will_ become more of people lives than it is now, and they’ve reached such a point of saturation that the likelihood of them being displaced is low, at least in the short term. If reports of expansion are correct, UK and European residents can expect to be hearing a lot more about MySpace.
24 March, 2006
BT Vision – IPTV Service Named. Registration Opens
You’ll probably remember that we broke the story back in September about the release date of BT’s then unnamed IPTV plus Freeview service. Today we learn that it’s to be called BT Vision – and that it’s release may have slipped slightly, from the ‘late summer 2006’ quoted by Andrew Burke to Autumn.
As we know … all new services like to claim a level of uniqueness, BT have latched on to it being the “world-first, combining access to digital-terrestrial channels through the aerial with broadband-powered video on demand” – translated? It’s got a Freeview tuner built in.
BT’s also confirming that the box that will do all of these things is to be call the BT Hub. Its will use a software platform powered by Microsoft and that the set-top box is to be made by Philips.
Those interested in the service also have a chance to register at the BT Vision site.
BTW – Straw poll around the office. They’d better turn out some better content on BT Vision than that horrible Flash vision that accompanies the site. Argh – not exactly inspiring.
20 March, 2006
Wales Aims For 100% Broadband Coverage
The Welsh Assembly has announced today that they’ve selected the BT Group to provide the broadband infrastructure for the remaining exchange areas in Wales.
Nothing particularly exciting about that of course, except that the agreement is a major step on the way to Wales becoming one of the few countries in the world to offer 100% broadband coverage.
With much of lovely, lovely Wales being rural, the Assembly’s Regional Innovative Broadband Support Scheme (RIBS) was set up to connect up parts of Wales described as ‘broadband blackspots’.
The new scheme with see around 10,000 households and businesses receiving access to at least first-generation (512kbps to 2mbps) broadband services at prices comparable with urban areas of Wales.
Once completed, virtually every single household in Wales will be able to join in with the broadband revolution and get stuck into video conferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and other business and entertainment uses.
Andrew Davies, Minister for Economic Development and Transport and eMinister for the Welsh Assembly Government swivelled into spin mode: “Currently, around 99% of the Welsh population can access broadband technology – a remarkable achievement in its own right. However, the Assembly Government is committed to ensuring that virtually every single individual and business in Wales has the opportunity to benefit from the advantages offered by this technology.”
Broadband uptake in Wales has almost doubled over the past 12 months, underlining the country’s economic transformation from industrial to a dynamic, knowledge-driven economy.
Compared to some other European countries, Wales’ achievement is significant; in Ireland, for example, only about 18.0% of the population have broadband connections.
The Welsh Assembly has been proactive in ensuring that the country achieves its 100% coverage target, as Ann Beynon, Director BT Wales, explains, ” BT, like the Welsh Assembly Government, is contributing to the cost of enabling these final exchanges and without the Assembly’s assistance, the upgrading would not have been commercially viable.!
Work to equip the remaining BT exchange areas with broadband is scheduled to start immediately.
BT Wales
Broadband Wales Observatory
16 March, 2006
National Express Coaches Offers WiFi To Cambridge UK
We’ve already run several stories about WiFi being made available for some passengers, sorry customers, on the UK’s rail network, but until now coach users have been left unconnected.
That’s all set to today, as travellers on the 010 National Express London to Cambridge coach service will be able enjoy free wireless Internet access via their Wi-Fi enabled laptops, PDAs and other handheld devices while on the move.
Coaches on the service will use Telabria’s mSystem MobilAP-3G radio system, which combines an 802.11b/g access point with a 3G receiver, letting bored passengers surf while stuck on the M11.
With real world 3G speeds hovering around 384kbps, connection speeds are unlikely to impress passengers used to nippy home broadband connectivity but hey! What do they expect for free?!
Of course, connection speeds will vary depending on the amount of passengers using the Wi-Fi – and how many tailgating cars may be lurking behind the coach, keen to take advantage of the free Internet access.
With luck, the free trial may give the rail companies currently charging hefty prices to use their Wi-Fi a well-deserved kick up the buffers.
London to Brighton Wi-Fi commuters, for example, may be able to shuffle around the Web at true broadband speeds but it’s at a painful price: £23.50 a month for unlimited access or £5 for just an hour’s use.
Gerry says
National Express chief engineer Gerry Price was ready to puff on the well-chuffed PR pipe: “We are very excited about the potential of this trial and the benefits it will bring to our customers, particularly those on busy commuter routes who increasingly see the value of staying connected before they reach their place of work and after they leave.”
“But it’s not just the business community who will benefit. Mobile communication is increasingly being seen as a pre-requisite by a wide variety of travellers on the move,” he added.
National Express
GNER Promises Wi-Fi On All Trains By 2007
14 March, 2006
Wireless Voice Chat First: Metroid Prime Hunters on Nintendo DS
At eTech last week I pleasantly surprised to see a hard-core of Nintendo DS users with the majority of them running Animal Crossing at breakfast, to ensure their lands were set up for the day.
This news, literally just in, extends the DS to include wireless voice chat – a significant change that will enable another channel of free voice communication between people that probably like chatting quite a lot.
IN SPACE NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM… -At least not until now! Metroid Prime Hunters launches with wireless voice chat technology –
13th March 2006 – The wait for the interstellar bounty-hunters, and gaming’s toughest heroine is finally over as Metroid Prime Hunters launches across Europe on 5th May 2006. This game features touch-screen controls, Wi-Fi game play, a fully-fledged single player 3D first person shooter mode as well as an extensive online multiplayer first person shooter mode. For the first time on a Nintendo DS game, Metroid Prime Hunters include wireless voice chat technology allowing players to talk with friends before and after battle, whilst using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and microphone, wherever they are in the world.
Raised by an ancient alien race, Samus is the galaxy’s top bounty hunter, utilising her advanced Varia suit to give her near super-human powers and using an arm mounted cannon to blast her way past any opposition. Now Samus has been hired by the Galactic Federation to recover powerful alien artefacts before deadly bounty hunters get their hands on them. In space there’s no law and no back up, Samus will have to use all of her skills to return alive.
Featuring some of the most advanced 3D graphics for a held-held system, playing Metroid Prime Hunters brings you the great graphics seen in Metroid Prime on Nintendo GameCube with the added benefit of it being on a portable handheld system. The vast single-player mode in Metroid Prime Hunters is among one of the most exciting seen on a hand-held console to date and the game can also proudly claim to be the first multiplayer first person shooter to grace a hand-held system. While playing, the fast-paced seamless levels are displayed with perfect clarity on the top Nintendo DS screen, while a map and radar showing enemy locations is visible on the bottom.
The gameplay possibilities that the Nintendo DS can offer really allows Metroid Prime Hunters to stand out from the rest. Players use the Nintendo DS d-pad to walk around while the stylus is used to look about the area and aim their weapon, much like a PC based First Person Shooter. The stylus control allows players to turn and target with pinpoint accuracy. Icons strategically placed on the touch-screen also allow players to switch weapons and convert Samus into her Morph Ball form with ease.
The fun doesn’t stop there either! You might have proven yourself against intergalactic bounty hunters in the game’s single player mode, but there is still much more to experience with the game’s expansive multiplayer modes. Metroid Prime Hunters features numerous online and offline multiplayer modes, allowing players to compete locally with friends using the Nintendo DS wireless link and then battle people across the globe thanks to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service.
Players without access to Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection service can use Single-Card Play to enter battle in a selection of arenas with three friends, using only one cartridge. Or if all players have copies of the game, they can engage in one of the game’s seven multiplayer modes in Multi-Card Play with a selection of seven characters and ten arenas to choose from.
Playing Metroid Prime Hunters using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection allows players to take their newly honed skills and show them off to players around the world for free* using their home broadband connection or one of Nintendo’s public Wi-Fi hotspots. Players can select Find Game to play against opponents from across the globe, chosen by their skill level or battle friends from the list saved on their Nintendo DS in Friend’s and Rivals mode.
Prepare for the ultimate space mission as Metroid Prime Hunters goes on sale across Europe on 5th May 2006 at the estimated retail price of around £30.
13 March, 2006
Vodafone To Trial High Speed 3G Broadband, All Major UK Cities – News Release
- Customer trials starting in early April ahead of mid 2006launch
- Vodafone UK HSDPA network roll out on track
- All major UK towns and cities to have high speed Vodafone 3Gbroadband by end 2006
Following successful testing in Newbury, Vodafone UK will start customertrials on its live HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) network fromApril.
With 100 business users testing Vodafone UK’s HSDPA-enabled Mobile ConnectCards across central and greater London, the trials represent an importantmilestone in the evolution of the company’s 3G network.
Tim Miles, CEO Vodafone UK said: “The start of our high speed 3G broadbandtrial marks our relentless commitment to offering the best possibleexperience to our customers. We have seen high demand for 3G since itslaunch two years ago and our customers are hungry for the improvements thatHSDPA will deliver. These important trials are part of a continuing driveto lead the UK through superior network performance and a customerexperience that is second to none.”
HSDPA will deliver a faster mobile broadband experience to Vodafonecustomers in the UK from mid-2006, initially offering the mobile transfer ofdata from the internet and intranet at roughly four times faster thancurrent 3G speeds. It will also deliver greater capacity (three times thatof current 3G levels) meaning that more people in the same location at thesame time can benefit from a superior experience. In addition, HSDPA offersimproved latency, giving faster access to web-based content. As a result,customers will be able to work faster and download larger documents, such asPowerPoint presentations and email attachments, more quickly.
“HSDPA offers a win-win opportunity for both customers and Vodafone – itdelivers on the promise of 3G to provide broadband-like services whilst onthe move,” comments Michael Ransom, Research Director for Wireless atCurrent Analysis.
He continues: “With higher HSDPA-driven wireless performance, Vodafone willenable business customers to move beyond mobile email and become mobileenterprises.”From mid-2006, Vodafone will phase in the introduction of a high-speedmobile broadband service. Customers within the M25 will be the first tobenefit with coverage rolling out across all major UK towns and cities bythe end of 2006.
9 March, 2006
BT Beefs Up Broadband With Boosted Speeds
BT has announced that some of its users should be able to obtain broadband speeds of ‘up to’ 8 Mbps by the end of March.
Following successful trials, Britain’s largest telecom company confirmed that the BT ADSL Max and BT ADSL Max Premium broadband services will start rolling out across the country from March 31st.
It’s going to be a big job for the BT boys and girls, with the new services requiring the upgrading of more than 5300 exchanges, which together serve more than 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses.
All good news you’d think, but the new connectivity comes with a bag full of caveats related to physical factors, with only those lucky enough to live or work close to their local telephone exchange able to scoop up the maximum 8Mbit/s speed.
BT explained that an estimated 78 per cent of BT phone lines should support broadband at line rates of 4Mbit/s and above, with 42 per cent offering 6Mbit/s and above.
Paul Reynolds, BT’s Wholesale chief executive, was keen to big up his company’s commitment to broadband availability in the UK “Thanks to BT’s continued investment in the broadband network, the UK now boasts the highest level of broadband availability in the G8. We’re now building on those efforts in becoming the first operator in the UK to commit to a national service which is capable of broadband speeds of up to 8Mbit/s.
Although BT will be making the faster broadband speeds available to service providers for new orders from the end of the month, existing customers may have to wait “several months” until their lines are upgraded. In other words – loyal customers can go to the back of the queue.
BT’s line checker at bt.com/broadband is also being updated to show the expected speeds available for individual lines.
6 March, 2006