Platforms

Hitachi To Boost Output Of Small Hard-Disk Drives
Hitachi has announced that it will ramp up its output of consumer hard drives this year as it strives to take advantage of the soaring storage demands of MP3, PVR and mobile phone markets.
The move, in response to faltering enterprise demand, will see Hitachi target three key consumer segments – MP3/personal media players, digital video recorders and mobile phones.
As part of its strategy for the consumer market in 2005, Hitachi will open five Hitachi Design Studios worldwide, each one specialising in helping partners to integrate hard drives into consumer electronic devices.
The new centres – called the Hitachi Design Studios – will be scattered all over the globe (Fujisawa, Japan; Havant, UK; Rochester, Minnesota; Shenzhen, China and Taipei, Taiwan) and will open for business in April.
Hitachi intends to thrash their workers to an inch of their lives and get them to treble their output of 1.8-inch drives (used in Dell DJ music players), and double the production of 1-inch drives, as used in Apple’s iPod mini.
A smaller version of the current 1-inch drive, code-named Mikey, comes out later this year, with capacious 2.5-inch drives – holding up to 500GB – being targeted at makers of DVRs and home servers.
Hitachi, the world’s second-largest maker of hard disk drives after Seagate, shipped 1.3 million 1.8-inch drives and 3.9 million 1-inch drives in 2004, although posted an operating loss of 4.4 billion yen (US$42.08m/€32.06m/£22.02m) in calendar 2004, after being battered by sharp price declines.
“Hitachi`s strength in hard drives provides a strong basis from which to accelerate our CE [consumer electronics] business in 2005,” said Bill Healy, senior vice president, product strategy and marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.
“Hitachi’s intensified focus in the CE segment hard drive will mean good news for end-users as we work on developing smaller, high-capacity hard drives that are more rugged, require less power and cost less.”
Hitachi’s promise of churning out smaller, cheaper, more capacious hard drives may impact on a whole host of consumer electronic devices, with its high capacity drives offering bags more storage space for video/DVD convergence units.
Hitachi
2 March, 2005
Towerstream Successfully Tests Roaming WiFi VoIP Tests
TowerStream, a US provider of fixed-wireless broadband services has announced the successful completion of Mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) over a WiFi network.
The company recently completed a one-month trial near its Middletown, Rhode Island, headquarters that allowed VoIP traffic to pass seamlessly between WiFi access points without dropping the call.
It’s now rolling out a beta test program in New York, where users will use the company’s high-speed network to ensure that TowerStream’s network provides seamless roaming and connections with VoIP, cellular and landline users.
“With VoIP’s accelerated acceptance and growth, combined with recent commitments from handset makers to include WiFi and VoIP capabilities, TowerStream will give these technologies a home to roam on,” said Jeff Thompson, President and COO of Towerstream.
“The tests we have completed demonstrate seamless hand-offs across WiFi access points and pre-WiMAX base stations combining standards-based technology to create cellular-like coverage.
Using advanced handsets, consumers will soon have access to high-speed data capabilities and enhanced voice features never seen on a mobile phone before.”
TowerStream currently delivers T1 and 100Mbps services to city businesses and intends to leverage its dense coverage to offer additional mobile services to consumers.
With no infrastructure tied to the phone company, the company boasts that its fixed wireless offering can deliver faster installations, more features and cheaper rates than wireline broadband services.
Users with any VoIP WiFi-enabled device or notebook will be able to utilise TowerStream’s network for free and make phone calls.
Consumers in New York City will soon be able to sign up for a free Beta trial of the service at http://www.towerstream.com/voip.
Towerstream
2 March, 2005
Skype Handset, Siemens M34/S440 Competition Winner
At last, (if not a little behind schedule) …
Congratulations to Bernard Herbert of Belgium, as he has won the Skype-friendly Siemens USB adaptor and Handset combo in our recent readers competition. When we spoke to Bernard, via Skype of course, he was delighted, “It’s going to be of help every day,” he enthused. It’s currently not available in Belgium, so Bernard will have a one-off.
You may remember that we also got quite excited about it in our exclusive review. We’re going to miss this baby at the Digital-Lifestyles offices. It’s become part of our daily tech toolkit.
Many thanks to everyone who filled out the survey. We really appreciate the feedback.
We’ve had a lot of people contact us asking when the Siemens kit will be available in their country. The official word from them is they’re “in discussions”>If you’re interested in the combo, drop us a quick note to Siemens.Skype(at)Digital-Lifestyles.info. We’d be happy to pass them on to Siemens, with the vague possibility that it might hasten their introduction in your country.
Simon Perry
2 March, 2005
Frontier Silicon Raises $28m For DAB And Mobile TV Chip Tech
Frontier Silicon, the British company that makes chips for mobile digital television and digital radio products, has completed it US$28 million (€21m/£14.5m) investment round funding.
Irish venture capital firm ACT led the US$28 million investment in Frontier Silicon, with other participants in the venture funding round being Apax Partners, AltaBerkeley Venture Partners, Quilvest and Bluerun Ventures (formerly known as Nokia Venture Partners).
Frontier Silicon has developed two new products, the Apollo chip and Kino chip, which allow mobile phones to receive and record television programmes on their mobile phones, electronic organisers or MP3 players.
Anthony Sethill, founder and chief executive of Frontier Silicon, said that the money raised would be used for product development and marketing purposes.
He boldly predicted that half of all mobile phones would be capable of receiving television programmes within a year or so at an additional cost to the user of under $50 (€37/£26).
Frontier Silicon currently employs 60 people between its English, Hong Kong and Chinese operations and boasted a turnover of more than $30 million (€22.7m/£15.6m) in 2004.
“This latest investment allows us to aggressively target and drive market share in the emerging mobile digital television market in the same way that we have established our chips in over 70 percent of DAB digital radios,” said Anthony Sethill.
Frontier Silicon produces chips for DAB digital radios, with its customers including such industry heavyweights as Bang & Olufsen, Grundig, Hitachi, Philips and Samsung.
The company also delivered the world’s first complete system-on-chip designs for DAB digital radio as well as the world’s first Combined Digital TV and Radio Chip.
Frontier Silicon
1 March, 2005
Sony Ericsson W800: Walkman Phone Launched
When Sony start slapping the world famous Walkman mobile music brand on their products, you know that they mean business, and their new Sony Ericsson W800 has been proudly trumpeted as the first mobile phone to combine a high-quality digital music player and a 2 Megapixel camera.
The W800 will come equipped with a two-megapixel camera, GPRS data access and a digital music player compatible with MP3 and AAC music file formats. As is the case with several comparable music phones, song playback can be paused as users take phone calls.
The music player is operated with a Direct Music button that plays, pauses and stops tracks. Conveniently, the player and phone can be used independently of each other, so that users can still playback tunes when on a flight, for example.
Some music fans may be dismayed to see Sony resolutely sticking to their proprietary Memory Stick Duo, with the phone being supplied with a 512MB memory card, enough storage for around 150 music tracks, or 10-12 full length CDs.
Pundits expect the initial focus being on consumers shifting their CDs onto the device, with Sony expected to announce the ability for consumers to download tracks from “open standards music services” later in the year.
Steve Walker, Sony Ericsson head of product marketing has described the move to the phone-as-music-player as “a new lifestyle behaviour” (whatever that means) and suggested vendors will have to start finding new ways of describing multimedia mobiles.
Sadly, we’re going to have to wait a while before we can start adjusting our lifestyle behaviour – the release of the Sony Ericsson W800 is not scheduled until the third quarter of 2005
The mobile music market is growing exponentially, with Juniper Research calculating the music download and ring tones market to generate a whopping great US$9.3bn (€7.05bn/£4.8bn) globally by 2009.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the Sony Ericsson W800 is another step in the accelerating convergence between phones and multimedia devices, and we wonder how long it will be before someone brings out an iPod-type device integrated with a phone, video player and high res camera (an ‘iPodPictureVideoPhone, if you will!).
We’d like one just as soon as you’re ready, techies!
Sony Ericsson
1 March, 2005
Hironobu Sakaguchi Snagged By Microsoft Xbox Shock
Microsoft is teaming up with one of Japan’s hotshot video game developers to create games for its next-generation video game console, XBox2 – a sure-fire sign that it’s determined to grab a fat slice of the Japanese market.
Having created compelling games for both Nintendo and Sony in the past, renowned Japanese video game developer Hironobu Sakaguchi has been signed up by Microsoft in the hope that he’ll sprinkle some fairy dust over their next-generation Xbox system.
Sakaguchi’s new company, Tokyo-based Mistwalker, will work with Microsoft’s game studio in Tokyo to make the games.
“This is a shot across the bow that we are serious about the Japanese market,” said Peter Moore, corporate vice president of worldwide marketing and publishing at Microsoft. “This is but the first salvo in what is going to be an interesting year.”
Things haven’t worked out too well for Microsoft’s XBox so far in Japan: disappointing sales followed its launch in 2002, with just 1.7 million units being shifted in all of Japan and Asia Pacific, placing it a distant third behind market leaders Sony and Nintendo.
Microsoft hopes that the collaboration with Sakaguchi’s game development studio, Mistwalker, will send sales soaring.
“Lately, we’ve seen only sequels released on the domestic game market,” Sakaguchi said. “I want to create something gamers can immerse themselves in and recall for a long time afterward by offering a new type of fun that only next-generation machines can provide.”
A founding member of former video game software developer Square Co., the 42-year-old is famed for creating the role-playing series, ‘Final Fantasy’, which has shifted more than 60 million copies to date.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Sakaguchi however. His attempt to cross into film with a US$210 million (€158m/£109m) movie using state-of-the-art computer animation to create lifelike human characters didn’t hit pay dirt.
Released in 2001, “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” proved to be a box office flop and Sakaguchi resigned from Square as a result.
Microsoft is hoping that Sakaguchi’s experience in both role-playing games and high-end animation could provide the leverage to persuade gamers to upgrade to its next system, which will support high-definition TV formats and improved computer graphics.
“Sakaguchi has taken role-playing games – traditionally a niche market – and introduced them to a broad and diverse audience across the globe,” Peter Moore, corporate vice president of worldwide marketing and publishing at Microsoft, said in a statement. “We are ecstatic to work with Sakaguchi.”
The industry remains rife with rumours about when the XBox2 might finally launch, with some suggesting that it may try to surprise the gaming world by showing its Xbox 2 console well before this May’s E3 show in Los Angeles.
According to online sources, the Redmond software giant has an Xbox 2 conference of ‘significant importance’ slated for some point in March 2005.
xbox2-news
Microsoft
Mistwalker
“Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”
28 February, 2005
Smartball May Help Football Goal Decisions
The International Football Association Board has agreed to trial microchip technology, which can determine whether a ball has crossed the goal line.
Football’s law-making body, comprising the four British associations and four members of world soccer’s governing body FIFA, has authorised FIFA to experiment with the system at the world under-17 soccer championships in Peru, from 16 September to 2 October, 2005.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a strong opponent of video evidence in matches, welcomed the experiment while remaining adamant that it was not the first step on the road to introducing video replays being viewed by a fourth official.
“The board have tried to keep football with a human face and the possible errors and the only technology where the board has said yes is for goal-line technology,” Blatter said. “Now for the World Cup 2006 such a system could and should be applied when and if the results of our test are conclusive.”
Known as the “Smartball” system, the technology involves placing a microchip sensor in a ball which sends a signal to the referee whenever the ball crosses the goal line
Developed by Adidas, together with German company Cairos AG and the German Fraunhofer Institute, the Board agreed to the trial after a successful test run between Nuremburg and Nuremburg Reserves near Adidas’s headquarters.
Adidas spokesman Thomas van Schaik explained: “We are convinced in the quality of the system but we have to prove the 100 per cent accuracy of it, so that the entire football family is convinced. If not, we should not rush things.”
Goal line disputes have formed the basis of many a pub argument, with the most famous being the Geoff Hurst goal in the 1966 World Cup final – despite endless replays and lengthy analysis, it’s still impossible to be sure that the ball crossed the line.
More recently, the highly publicised Spurs ‘goal’ at Manchester United has brought the issue to the fore. Despite it being apparent to half the world and his wife that the ball had crossed the line by a metre, the referee waved play on.
Although a video replay system (like that used at cricket and rugby) would have made it abundantly obvious that the goal should have been given, football has long resisted the technology, with both fans and the governing bodies expressing the fear that it would slow the pace of the game and damage the spectacle of the sport.
Football hasn’t resisted all technological advances though, and referees currently employ a special armband, which vibrates when the linesman (or referee’s assistant, as they are more commonly known) raises his flag to signal that a player is in an offside position.
The flag and armband communicate by radio, ensuring that the referee won’t have to miss any of the action when looking for the linesman’s signals.
Although some football traditionalists will be frothing into their real ale at the prospect of new-fangled, electronic wizardly playing a part in the Beautiful Game, such innovation seems inevitable in the increasingly corporate world of international football where huge investments can hang on the balance of referee’s decisions.
International Football Association Board
FIFA
Adidas
28 February, 2005
Jens MP-120: Better Than iPod shuffle?
Jens of Sweden has unveiled its latest cool digital music player which they reckon will give iPod Shuffle a run for its money.
The midnight black, cigarette lighter-sized MP-120 music player can squeeze in 300 tracks (depending on track compression) and a features a USB 2.0 port.
It is available for SEK 1344 including VAT (US$194/£102/€148), which the cheeky Jens claims will undercut the iPod Shuffle by a massive one krona (£0.07/US$0.14/€0.11).
“Steve Jobs claims users prefer to be served random tracks than choose from among hundreds of their own tunes. We don’t agree which is why we offer a player, that besides random tracks, also allows users to see and choose exactly what they want to hear. Given today’s prices I’m convinced we can sell more MP-120 than iPod Shuffle in Sweden, despite Apple’s advertising budget,” says Jens of Sweden chief executive and founder Jens Nylander.
We admit we’re fans of Jens. We used to have a Jens MP-130 which we dearly loved – using it to listen to music, carry data and record interviews with broadcast-quality clarity. Everyone we showed it to was wowed by it and we would in turn enthuse about it at every opportunity. How many products can you say that about?
Then some low-life nicked it when we were at the AtHome conference in Nice at the end of last year. It broke our hearts. If this player is anything like as good as our dear MP-130, it’s going to be a contender.
The iPod shuffle has a fundamental weakness that Apple tried to turn around as a benefit. It has no display. In our experience, when you’re randomly listening to selection of tracks from a large music collection or a collection of podcasts, you want to know the name of the tracks you like and the ones you hate. The MP-120 has a display.
Jens of Sweden’s earlier MP-400 player was offered in seven colours – as well as 24-carat gold – and with the MP-120 model, it is taking customisation one step further by allowing customers to choose their own headphones.
The MP-120 can function as USB file storage memory, and also has an OLED screen and dictaphone.
It supports MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG Vorbis music files, and the built-in lithium battery should give users about 22 hours’ playing time.
While we don’t think Steve Jobs will be losing sleep over this, we think this will have a ready market with those who don’t want to conform to the Apple mentality.
The MP-120 is now available on Jens of Sweden’s Web site.
Jens of Sweden
25 February, 2005
Apple/TiVo Bid Rumours Considered
Rumours pointing at Apple as a potential bidder for TiVo have given the digital video recorder company’s shares a healthy boost – and got people wondering whether the deal would be a good fit.
TiVo’s technology which allows viewers to skip ads breaks and to pause and rewind live television made it a must-have gadget, although some of the competition is catching up.
As of 31 January this year, TiVo had a subscription base of 3 million (the majority of them from DirecTV), and said it’d added around 698,000 subscriptions during its fourth quarter. And the company has said it is not for sale.
But for some, a tie-up between Apple and TiVo would be a marriage made in gadget heaven, bringing together some of the coolest gadgets – and brands – the industry has thought up in the last few years. And it is possible to see a few areas where it would make sense.
With Apple’s stock running at such a high price and TiVo’s suffering, the purchase of TiVo (the whole company is currently valued at under $400m), could be easy – almost a rounding error.
Nearly every media and technology company is aiming at the living room now, either with Media Centre-style PCs or other digital hubs to spread content such as video and music around the home.
For Apple, bringing video to its massively popular iPod would certainly be an understandable step, perhaps allowing users to dock the iPod with the TiVo and download favourite shows. But it is hard to see how popular this would be in the short term.
Neither TiVo nor Apple are commenting on the rumours. Other media giants have been floated as potential buyers for TiVo as well, and financial analysts remain split on whether any deal is on the cards.
Tivo
Apple
25 February, 2005
Sony Clie PDA: End Of The Line
Sony has announced that it is to end production on its Clie line of PDAs in Japan.
The move comes eight months after the company said it would stop developing new Clie models for the US and European markets, to concentrate on Japanese users.
First launched by the Tokyo company in mid-2000, Sony’s Clie handhelds gave an almighty kick up the backside of PalmOne and stirred up the market with a series of dazzling innovations.
Their last two European models, the TH55 and UX50 were both highly regarded, offering a full suite of connectivity options (Bluetooth, wi-fi, infrared) supported by Sony’s proprietary software and the huge Palm back catalogue.
In Japan, Sony had the top share of the domestic PDA market in 2003 at 32%, followed by Sharp (19%) and Casio (16%), according to information and technology industry researcher Gartner Japan Ltd.
Sony’s total retreat from the PDA market was considered a serious blow to PalmSource who have yet to match Sony’s ground-breaking designs.
This latest announcement looks like another nail in the coffin for the PDA – as mobile phones, portable media players, and even gaming consoles sport ever-expanding PDA-like capabilities, the PDA market seems to be ever-shrinking.
In an interview with PC World, Sony spokesperson Aki Shimazu said, “There won’t be any new Clie PDAs but we are not necessarily exiting the PDA business”. She also added that the company may collaborate with other companies for future devices.
Our guess is that they’re going to focus their energies on ramping up the feature list on Sony Ericsson smartphones, developing the PlayStation Portable and finally producing the iPod killer they so desperately need.
Loyal Clie users still wailing into their beers at the prospect of losing a much loved product line (that’ll be me) can draw the tiniest scrap of consolation out of the news that Sony will keep providing parts and repair services for at least another six years or so.
Shareholders at Palm will probably have even longer faces after losing such a vital licensee for their operating system. Could this be the beginning of the end for Palm?
Clie PDA
24 February, 2005