UK

TheyWorkForYou.com Improves. Keep Closer Tabs on MP’s Performance
Politicians, eh? Despite electing the slippery blighters, it can be next to impossible to work out what they’re doing – or not doing – on your behalf.
Thanks to the wonderful folks at theyworkforyou.com, you’ve been able to check up on their activities and find out if your local Member of Parliament has been delivering on their promises or skiving off down the pub.
To find out what your MP has been up to, simply type in your postcode and you’ll be presented with a detailed homepage for your local MP.
From here you can check on their performance data (how often they reply to faxes, Parliamentary attendance records, voting record etc), read their latest wafflings in the House, peruse their declared ‘member interests’ and even have a look at their expense claims.
But the meat’n’potatoes of the site is their online, searchable database of Hansard (in case you didn’t know, Hansard is the Parliamentary publication which records every mumbled utterance of MPs in the House of Commons). This lets you access and search everything said in Parliament since 2001. Not only that, but you can place your comment against each of the phrase uttered.
Since its June 2004 launch, the site’s feature list is constantly updated. One of the recently additions is to have the system alert you, via email, whenever your MP speaks – driving the information to you, rather than you having to check the site.
You can also now search through all your MPs speeches and be notified whenever an issue of interest to you is raised in the house. And if you don’t like what they’re saying, you can use an online form to mail your MP a piece of your mind. Fantastic stuff!
The not-for-profit site was launched last June and is maintained by twenty or so volunteers who have declared their belief that it should be really easy for people to keep tabs on their elected MP, and to be able to comment on what goes on in Parliament.
Their mission statement explains:
“For all its faults and foibles, our democracy is a profound gift from previous generations. Yet most people don’t know the name of their MP, nor their constituency, let alone what their MP does or says in their name.
br> We aim to help bridge this growing democratic disconnect, in the belief that there is little wrong with Parliament that a healthy mixture of transparency and public engagement won’t fix. Hence this website.”
The team have an impeccable background, developing and running some of our favourite Web sites: PublicWhip.org.uk, FaxYourMP.com, PepysDiary.com, Haddock.org, Byliner.com, B3Ta, DowningStreetSays.com, MySociety,
They were also responsible for the highly-accessible ‘re-versionings’ of the National Rail Timetable and the Odeon Cinema websites (the latter was sadly taken offline as a result of legal threats by the Odeon).
Although there’s no denying that the digitisation of music and films is a more sexy subject for some, this site is a great example of how technology can be used to really make a difference and make the democratic process more accountable.
Please use it!
TheyWorkForYou.com
22 February, 2005
Burglar Caught on WebCam Jailed
A 19-year-burglar is now enjoying an eleven month stretch at Her Majesty’s Pleasure after he was photographed burgling a house by the owner’s Webcam.
Software engineer Duncan Grisby, 30, set up the movement-activated surveillance system following a previous burglary three years before.
The Webcam was set to start filming once it registered motion, with images of the hapless burglar being safely transferred from the computer to a remote server.
The Webcam captured every movement of Benjamin Park, 19, including a handy close-up when he stared straight in the Webcam before going on to steal the computer and other equipment worth £3,719 ($7,000, Euro 5,300).
When 30-year-old Mr Grisby returned from holiday this month, the pictures were handed over to police, who instantly recognised Park, a very naughty boy already on bail for an attempted burglary in Ely.
Police tracked down Park, who was already boasting 33 previous convictions for theft, to a block of flats in Cambridge, where he was arrested as he tried to leg it from the long arm of the law.
Travers Chalk, the chairman of the Cambridge bench, sentenced Park to 11 months in prison after he admitted the offences. “You have a record which is awful, dreadful,” the magistrate told him.
Understandably, Mr Grisby wasn’t too chuffed with what he felt was a lenient sentence for a serial burglar, saying, “It is a rather pathetic sentence to hand someone like that, a career burglar.”
Although photographs of the burglar in action have been published by the police, one piece of footage that hasn’t been available was the look on Park’s face when Det Sgt Al Page, who leads the Cambridge burglary squad, showed him the Webcam shots.
Burglar snared by computer Webcam (more pics)
18 February, 2005
Envisional Report:: UK Biggest Downloaders of Copied TV Shows
We may not win many things these days, but when it comes to downloading pirated television, us Brits can puff out our chests and proudly declare, “we’re number one!”
The UK has emerged as the world’s biggest market for downloading pirated television, driven by tech-savvy fans unwilling to wait for popular U.S. shows such as ’24’ and ‘Desperate Housewives.’
Britain’s status as the big cheeses, head honchos and numero unos of TV downloading was revealed on Thursday in a study by UK technology consultancy Envisional.
The report could pose problems for UK broadcaster BSkyB, which is counting on high-profile US shows such as the new “24” series to draw new subscribers and entice advertisers to its satellite TV service.
According to Envisional’s report, devilish Brit downloaders account for nearly one fifth of TV downloads through file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent and eDonkey. In second and third place were Australia and the United States.
“Because there’s such a demand for US TV, the UK is going to be the main downloader,” said Envisional research consultant David Price.
The downloading frenzy has been driven by the consumer-annoying practice of releasing popular US TV shows such as “The West Wing,” “The Sopranos” and “Friends” months after they’ve been seen by our American cousins.
Broadband-connected UK fans keen to get the latest fix of these shows have – not surprisingly – elected to download the programs instead, with episodes of popular shows like ’24’ showing up on the popular file-trading network BitTorrent minutes after airing in the United States.
According to Envisional, a typical ’24’ episode is downloaded by about 100,000 users, with “The Simpsons,” “The OC” and a host of sci-fi programs including “Stargate SG-1” and “Enterprise” also being firm favourites with the UK pirates.
Other TV networks airing large amounts of US shows are monitoring the growing popularity of online TV downloads, although insiders feel that the level of technical knowledge required will keep it a minority interest.
For now.
Of course, in the US, Hollywood is already putting in the boot, with the Motion Picture Association of America dishing out lawsuits like they were going out of fashion.
Several sites providing links to movie and TV download sites have already been closed down, with LokiTorrent being a major scalp last week.
The broadcast industry’s failure to learn from online music sharing means that without a legitimate TV download service, consumers will continue to use file swapping sites while lawyers get fatter.
Envisional
Motion Picture Association of America
BSkyB
18 February, 2005
T-Mobile Use WiMax and WiFi on UK Trains and Double WiFi Coverage
T-Mobile has unveiled ambitious plans to further expand its global Wi-Fi footprint, aiming to install 20,000 hotspots across the world by the end of the year, including trains.
Clearly mindful of the huge growth in VoIP traffic and the corresponding loss of revenue, the network is hoping to ‘own’ a large slice of the WiFi action and keep raking in the profits, no matter how many consumers disconnect from its telephone and cellular networks.
Already a big cheese in the world of Wi-Fi, T-Mobile currently has over 5,300 hotspots in the US and over 7,000 hotpots across Europe.
As part of their uber-expansion meisterplan, T-Mobile (Deutche Telecom’s mobile brand if you didn’t know) is offering WiFi hotspots on trains and what they claim is the first “truly broadband Wi-Fi service” on trains in the UK. We learnt this with some surprise, as GNER have been running a Satellite-powered WiFi service on their trains since April 2004.
Currently trialing on the busy London to Brighton route run by Southern Trains in the UK, the T-Mobile commercial service will launch in Spring. The selection of the route makes perfect sense, with this train line being the physical embodiment of the Information Super Highway, taking Nuu Media types between the two UK centres of online culture.
Naturally, there’s some cunning technological shenanigans involved in keeping Internet connections open while trains plunge into long tunnels, and T Mobile has solved this problem by running a WiMax network running alongside the tracks.
WiMax is a fixed-wireless technology based on the 802.16 standard, and in this instance allows for high speed connectivity of up to 32 Mbps bi-directionally to and from the train. WiMax can run up to 70Mbps. Wi-Fi antennae are then used to distribute the signal within the carriages.
The service will allow commuters an additional 55 minutes of online time in each direction, letting them liven up their journey with remote office work, Web surfing and the ability to email their loved ones to say that they’re stuck in a tunnel somewhere near Gatwick.
If you’re fed up with five pounds an hour WiFi access, you’ll be pleased that T-Mobile is also bringing down its once-eye-wateringly expensive Wi-Fi tariffs to something comparable to US rates. A new “all you can eat” WiFi tariff in the UK offers unlimited wireless access for £20 + VAT per month. This includes train-based access.
Germany appear to get a rougher deal with a time-based, ‘all-bearer’ tariff in Germany priced at 35 Euros for 10 hours. With this customers can download or upload as much data as they like on these schemes via 2.5G, 3G or Wi-Fi over the 10 hours.
T-mobile
17 February, 2005
RAJAR announces results of Audiometer Validation Test
Arbitron Portable People Meter and Eurisko Media Monitor selected for further field testing RAJAR(Radio Joint Audience Research) has announced the results of its pioneering Audiometer Validation Test which took place in November 2004.
Of the three audiometers which took part in the test, two have been selected for further fieldwork tests: the Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM) and the Eurisko Media Monitor.
The Audiometer Validation Test, designed in conjunction with the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), was set up to determine how well the audiometers could identify up to 33 different radio services (both music and speech-based) under as wide a variety of real life situations as possible.
The three audiometers, the Arbitron PPM, the Eurisko Media Monitor and the GfK/Telecontrol MediaWatch, were all subjected to the same listening conditions over the course of a weekend in November 2004.
To make the test as thorough as possible, hundreds of unique listening environments were generated, with RAJAR specifying several criteria which the audiometers should fulfil – these included the ability to identify all formats equally, whether music or speech, against a variety of extraneous background noises, when played at differing volume levels and regardless of whether the wearers were stationary or in motion.
RAJAR wasn’t anticipating 100% accuracy from any or all of the audiometers on test, but they hoped to be able to identify listening correctly across FM, AM and DAB in a variety of day-to-day conditions.
Sally de la Bedoyere, managing director, RAJAR, commented on their results:
“RAJAR has selected the Arbitron PPM and the Eurisko Media Monitor meters following analysis of the Test results, which showed that, despite using different techniques, both audiometers identified very similar numbers of listening sessions. Their level of correct identification was in line with that anticipated when designing the test.”
She added that their decision was based “solely on the needs of the UK market, where monitoring AM, FM and digital broadcasting is highly complex.” and described the tests as “Another momentous hurdle has been crossed in our journey to achieving the objectives of the Roadmap by 2007.”
As radio continues to fragment, the ability to measure small audiences becomes ever more vital to the survival of stations, with advertisers needing solid proof that they’re not investing their precious advertising budget into tumbleweed stations.
This has added significant pressure on RAJAR to produce reliable measuring systems, with the threat of lawsuits always hanging in the air (see: RAJAR defeat TWG Audience Court Case
Digital-Lifestyles was present during the testing last year and we can vouch that it was very comprehensive – and quite possibly the largest world-wide trial to date.
14 February, 2005
Commodore is back! With ancient games! In a tiny box!
The most successful gaming computer of the 80s is back – this time in a teensy weensy new ‘Direct to TV’ (D2TV™) unit.
In a move sure to get thirty-something gamers blubbering with nostalgic tears of their lost youth, the new C64 D2TV™ box recreates thirty of the most well known games from the Commodore 64 home computer range, including games from legendary developers Epyx, the Bitmap Brothers and Hewson.
The chunky two-tone beige Commodore box of the 80s has been replaced by a small joystick-toting, handheld unit, which happily spares users the ‘go out for a bite’ long loading times of the original computer.
The C64 DTV™ was created by DC Studios in conjunction with Ironstone Partners and Mammoth Toys and has already proved a big hit in the US, with over 250,000 units being sold since Thanksgiving 2004. Such was the enthusiasm for the product that 40,000 boxes were shifted on the launch day alone.
Now Europe is to finally get its own custom version, specifically designed for European territories.
The DTV contains the classic games: Alleykat, California Games, Championship Wrestling, Cyberdyne Warrior, Cybernoid, Cybernoid II, Eliminator, Exolon, Firelord, Gateway to Apshai, Head the Ball, Impossible Mission, Impossible Mission 2, Jumpman Junior, Marauder, Maze Mania, Mission Impossibubble, Nebulus, Netherworld, Paradroid, Pitstop, Pitstop 2, Ranarama, Speedball, Summer Games, Super Cycle, Sword of Fargoal, Uridium, Winter Games and Zynaps.
Unfortunately, two of the finest Commodore games ever created are notable by their absence: the horribly compulsive Elite and Sensible Soccer, arguably the best football game ever invented.
Even with these omissions, a new generation looks set to enjoy the chunky graphics, pixellated screens and compelling gameplay that rightly made Commodore one of the true innovators of computer gaming.
4 February, 2005
Live TV Streamed Worldwide to Reporters Phones by GMTV
Video streaming specialists, Forbidden Technologies have announced a deal with GMTV to stream the breakfast programme live to its network of field reporters on location across the world.
GMTV trialled the broadcast application during the US elections, with international correspondents watching the show live via a standard (but secure) Web browser.
With the new streaming application offering the precise camera angles and comments made by studio guests and presenters, on-location correspondents can tailor their own pieces to reflect the mood in the studio.
This solves the problem of foreign correspondents having to deliver reports ‘blind’ to the debate in the studio, and should increase the consistency of reporting.
The technology uses Forbidden’s ground breaking FORscene live compressor, that utilises advanced digital compression techniques to deliver a live video feed to PCs, Macs and laptops via the Web.
The technology also allows news camera crews in the field, to hastily compress and publish digitised content directly onto the Web, in a matter of seconds – definitely useful if you’ve got some mad bloke with a gun coming your way demanding you hand over the tapes.
Nestled up like a pair of love birds, Forbidden and GMTV are full of praise for each other and have pledged to work together during 2005, with their union bringing forth “new innovative streaming projects”.
Forbidden Technology
GMTV
4 February, 2005
Siemens offers TV on mobiles and Voice over WiFi at CeBit
Siemens are planning to make a big splash at the upcoming CeBit in Hannover, Germany.
Along with Skype-capable M34 USB that they’ve already released, they’re planning to go the whole hog and show a Voice over WiFi handset (Gigaset S35 WLAN). On the telephone-plus-TV front they’ve announced a new concept handset, offering DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast for Handheld Devices) compatibility, which – in theory – will let users pick up around half a dozen digital TV and about 30 digital radio channels.
The ‘DVB-H Concept’ can pick up digital TV signals beamed across 3G networks using a modified version of the existing DVB-T terrestrial digital TV. Adapted for battery-powered terminals, the DVB-H broadcasts in bursts, allowing the receiver to power-down whenever possible, and thus boosting battery life.
DVB-H trials are underway in the UK, US, Germany and Finland, and if all goes to plan, UK residents will be able to wander about the streets watching Coronation Street on their phones in about a year. Not surprisingly, Digital TV phones are already huge in Japan and Korea.
Details are still a bit sketchy, but it will definitely feature a VGA screen and stereo sound. If they can also wedge a hard disk into the phone for recording programmes (and for storing your video clips transferred from PCs) this could be next year’s must-have technology.
The omens are good: the lucky citizens of Japan and Korea are already enjoying TV mobiles and it’s not hard to imagine sleep-deprived Brits shelling out hard cash to tune into every mumbled utterance of popular shows like Big Brother.
This marks another strange twist in the Siemens story. Not long ago, strong rumours were circulating around the net that they were looking to flog off their mobile phones division. This announcement – along with two other new phones (the Gigaset S35 WLAN, a Voice over WiFi and the M75, a chunky military style handset) suggests that no one’s told their tech bods yet.
Siemens (UK)
Siemens (USA)
4 February, 2005
Gran Turismo 4 day – 22 February US, 9 March EU
The anticipation around the release of Gran Turismo 4 has been, to put it mildly, huge. Sony are hoping this Playstation2 only game will be their Halo2 type blockbuster.
Sony has announced that it will be releasing it in the US on 22 February. Europe will have to wait until 9 March, but will gain from having an additional 10 cars on top of the 700 or so that are in the Japanese version, which launched on 28 December last year. We’re not sure that an extra 10 cars will actually make up for the delay.
The Gran Turismo series has to date sold more than 37 million and this will be the first version that has networked play, which is one of the reasons we’re covering it. At release it will come with LAN play, the ability to play it between a number of machines on the same network. This will be followed ‘later’, possibly late 2005, by the full network play, letting people play across the world. This was knocked back after Sony experienced difficulties with inter-country gaming.
Reaction so far has been that it looks stunning, easily the graphically best title to appear on the Playstation 2.
You can tell that a game is going to make a big impact – and have a significant marketing campaign behind it, when a company like Nissan decides to launch a special version of a car to coincide with the launch. The 350Z Gran Turismo 4 Edition will be limited to 700 cars in Europe and feature things like extra power in the engine and specific wheels. The features we’d really like to see on this very quick car – a pause or reset button, if you get in to trouble when driving it – are unlikely to be provided.
Gran Turismo 4
Nissan launch 350Z Gran Turismo 4 Edition (PR)
3 February, 2005
Tim Berners-Lee Wins Greatest Briton Award
It’s gradually becoming more common knowledge that the inventor of the Web, and what many people think of as The Internet, is an Englishman.
Tim Berners-Lee worked up the idea when working at CERN in 1989 and has now received another award, the first Greatest Briton awards.
Following the world changing invention, Berners-Lee consciously took the decision to give the idea away and not patent it, sharing it for the good of society.
To many this highlights the difference between the US and the UK, and possibility the US and the rest of the world. The idea of inventing, then freely sharing the idea, rather to only release the idea when they have figured out how to commercially exploit it. They view Berners-Lee generosity in stark contrast to events since the Web’s invention, with the rise of software patents. The opposing view is that those in the UK really don’t have the first idea about how to make a business from a good idea.
As one of the awards panelist, David Starkey said, “He chose not to commercially exploit his invention. He gave it away almost wilfully. If he had fully exploited it, he would make Bill Gates look like a pauper today.”
Tim now holds the 3Com Founders chair at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the overall Director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), an open forum of companies and organizations with the mission to lead the Web to its full potential.
Tim Berners Lee
28 January, 2005