Services – Page 41 – Digital-Lifestyles

Google Video Search Adds 14 US TV Channels

Google continues to sink its teeth into the potentially lucrative TV search business, with the announcement that it has added 14 new channels to its Google Video service.

The search titans are yet to declare the full line-up, but Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Discovery Health Channel, and CNN are among the new channels covered by the service.

Google Video archives television content by searching the closed captioning text of TV programs and returning a selection of still frames with matching dialogue excerpts.

Due to unsettled licensing terms, Google cannot provide full transcripts or video clips, although their website teasingly suggests that we “stay tuned” for news.

Although the service is in beta, Google have said that programming will be expanded internationally when work is completed in the U.S. television market.

Development of the TV indexing service is being developed at the same time as Google’s new ‘video blogging’ distribution platform.

This lets video makers upload their videos to Google’s servers and maintain control over distribution rights, ultimately letting users search, preview, purchase and play videos through Google.

Naturally, Google’s arch-nemesis Yahoo is also competing for a slice of the juicy TV and video search pie, offering a similar service that indexes the text surrounding video links, including metadata.

Google Video

Toshiba Quantum Key Server To Secure Video

Toshiba Demos Quantum Secure Video The clever-clogs at Toshiba Research Europe have announced that they have been successful in applying quantum cryptography to the transmission of video and voice over IP.

This means that it will be next to impossible for hackers to “tap” into voice and video files streamed over the net.

White coated boffins at Toshiba’s Cambridge UK labs demonstrated their Quantum Key Server system, which involves encoding bits of encryption data onto particles of light (photons).

This ultra secure technology looks set to revolutionise digital security by replacing the current distribution methods for keys, which are needed to decrypt secure messages.

Toshiba Demos Quantum Secure Video Toshiba’s quantum video link increases the security of communication systems by encrypting every single video frame with a unique digital key – so cracking one frame of a video would be useless unless all the other frames were cracked too.

The secrecy of each of these keys is ensured by quantum cryptography, an ultra-secure key distribution method.

Dr Andrew Shields, head honcho of the Toshiba group developing the system, said, “Corporate networks are increasingly vulnerable to the theft of keys from the desktop, either by hacking, Trojans or fraudulent employees. The Toshiba Quantum Key Server mitigates this risk by allowing frequent key refresh.”

“The Toshiba Quantum Key Server can be used to enhance the security of not just video and speech, but also a wide range of other high bandwidth data communications, ranging from sensitive legal documents to medical and tax records.” he added.

Quantum cryptography also allows the key distribution link to be monitored for tapping and other skulduggery, and although we can’t pretend to understand half of what the good Doctor is on about, we liked this bit:

Toshiba Demos Quantum Secure Video “Imagine if you received a letter, you opened that letter and read it, there is no way of telling if someone has read that letter en route. When you encode the information on single particles, the letter self destructs whenever someone else reads it.”

“I sometimes say it is like the messages in Mission Impossible,” he added, “If anyone tries to read the messages, they self destruct.”

Toshiba has so far received “good feedback” from government and financial institutions shown the demonstrations, although commercial implementation looks to be some years away.

Toshiba Europe Research

Yahoo’s My Web Upgrades Personal Search Tools

The battle between Google and Yahoo continues to heat up, with Yahoo ramping up the feature set of its ‘My Web’ suite of personal search tools.

My Web is a personal search engine that lets users save, recall and share resources with others using a selection of Yahoo tools, such as email and IM (instant messaging).

“Yahoo Search is focused on providing innovative, useful technologies that enable people to find, use, share, and expand knowledge,” boomed Salim Mitha, director, Yahoo Search, UK & Ireland.

“My Web is the next step in our vision of integrating search, personal search and community by providing users an easy way to have their own personal web search experience that incorporates the best of the Web and what matters most to them.”

Yahoo claim that their service is “better than bookmarks”, with users able to save an exact copy of a page along with the link, so that saved content will always be there when users return to the page.

Users can store thousands of pages, with tools allowing users to organise and search the content and access it from any computer.

Shared pages can be published using RSS (Rich Site Summary) with users given the option of creating public links pages.

My Web users will soon be able to share data with the Yahoo 360 social network, which allows users to share pictures, music and other data.

Yahoo’s search history tool bears more than a passing similarity to the one released by Google last week and reflects the fierce competition between the two companies.

Yahoo are hoping that these new features will send people flocking to their portal services and thus generate lots and lots of lovely advertising revenue.

UPDATE: Thanks to Steve Rioux for getting in touch, telling us of a very similar service he started almost a year ago called “Smart Note”. You can find it at Klogger.com

Yahoo My Web

Treo 650 Smartphone: UK PalmOne Launch

Treo 650 Smartphone: UK Launch PalmOne has formally launched its Treo 650 in the UK – more than six months after jammy Americans got their mitts on the keenly anticipated smartphone.

We’re not quite sure what ‘formally launched’ means, because there’s still no UK telecom networks offering them and you can’t officially buy them anywhere.

There was, however, a man from Orange at the press launch, wildly enthusing about the Treo’s capabilities. When pushed for an actual, real-life release date on the Orange network, the best we could get out of him was “Soon.”

It’s all rather frustrating because the presentation had thoroughly whetted our appetite for the Treo.

The updated version of the hugely successful Treo 600 offers a higher-resolution 320×320, 65,000-colour screen, a removable battery, 312MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor, 32MB of Flash memory (21MB available to the user), Palm OS 5.4 ‘Garnet’, an enhanced VGA digicam and – finally – Bluetooth.

Treo 650 Smartphone: UK Launch The handset includes useful quad-band GSM/GPRS connectivity for voice and data, with the bundled VersaMail email application supporting a single Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 ActiveSync account and multiple IMAP and POP accounts.

Anyone who’s ever battled with the complexities of hooking up email services on a mobile will appreciate the mass of preloaded server settings for local ISPs and other email providers built into the Treo. So long as your ISP is listed, setting up a new account takes a matter of seconds.

One thing noticeable by its absence was WiFi. Although palmOne offers an optional WiFi SDIO card for some of its Tungsten PDAs, it currently doesn’t work with the Treo 650.

I asked François Bornibus, vice president for palmOne EMEA, about this oversight, and was told that “drivers were being written” for the Treo, although he couldn’t give me a definite release date.

He also said that a Treo with a fully integrated WiFi “was on the roadmap”, although he wasn’t mindful of giving me a peek at this map.

Treo 650 Smartphone: UK Launch Even with WiFi, Treo users will still be missing out on the killer VoIP application, Skype, so I asked if there were any plans to introduce a version for the Palm platform.

With a Gallic shrug, Bornibus suggested that it would be up to Skype themselves.

(PalmOne’s Senior Systems Engineer, John Walker, later told me that the current WiFi SDIO Card doesn’t have VoIP functionality anyway, so Treo users can forget all about joining in with the VoIP revolution for a while.)

Finally, I told Bornibus about the countless rumours of a windows-based Treo (sometimes called the Treo 670) that had been circulating around the Internet and asked him if there was such a device in the pipeline.

With an enigmatic smile, he answered, “Anything is possible” – make what you will of that!

Treo 650 Smartphone: UK Launch Despite attending an official product launch, I left none the wiser as to when the Treo will actually be available or what other network carriers (apart from Orange) will be offering the phone. Naturally, there wasn’t a peep about pricing plans either.

Despite the somewhat UK shambolic release timetable, reviews across the Atlantic have generally been very enthusiastic, and as soon as we finally get our grubby mitts on a Treo, we’ll be posting up a full review.

Treo 650

AbbiTalk: UK VoIP Operator Claims Challenge To BT

UK VoIP Operator AbbiTalk Challenges BT AbbiTalk, a West Sussex-based provider of Voice Over IP (VoIP) telephony services, is talking tough about its cut-rate broadband call packages, that offer customers extra telephone lines with discount local and UK call charges and no line rental.

Boldly claiming to be “giving BT a run for its money”, AbbiTalk claim that its customers will “generally” save £90 over the cost of using BT phone lines in year one and a further £110 in subsequent years (dependent on the package concerned).

Paul Perrin, director of AbbiTalk is – perhaps – getting a little carried away here: “Within 18 months, we believe most telephone calls in the UK will be free and the only rental payment will be for a broadband connection. Many international calls will also be free. BT is running scared, and we’re doing the chasing!”

Customers using AbbiTalk’s broadband service pay the installation charge for their chosen VoIP deal to gain access to competitive call rates: free calls to users of AbbiTalk and other UK and international SIP services, 1.2/min to UK BT phones and less than 2p/min for calls to the USA, Australia and China.

UK VoIP Operator AbbiTalk Challenges BT Prices start at £149 for “AbbiTalkBasicOne”, which provides one extra phone line, a unique number with Pre Pay phone account, an adaptor and a DECT digital cordless phone with digital answering machine.

Other packages include “AbbiTalkTwo”, which provides two phone lines with a single, unique number shared across both, a router/hub, digital cordless phone with digital answering machine and an additional digital phone and “AbbiTalkTwoPlus” which offers two extra phone lines, two separate numbers and two DECT digital phones with digital answer machines.

The top package, forgettably entitled “AbbiTalkTwoWF”, adds WiFi networking of the customer’s computer.

New customers can use their existing broadband connection to adopt the service, or plump for AbbiTalk’s own broadband.

UK VoIP Operator AbbiTalk Challenges BT No line rental is charged and there’s no need to use a computer to make the calls as these are accomplished through the standard cordless handsets.

AbbiTek’s MD, Keith Gardner, got all historical in his statement: “VoIP is now widely recognised as the next ‘disruptive technology’. Historians claim that others were Bell’s original telephone, Marconi’s wireless, the internal combustion engine, etc., so big changes are on the way.”

“We have subscribed to this view for some time, hence our core business, Abbitek, focuses on VoIP services for enterprises. Through AbbiTalk, our customers can access the latest VoIP products. When configured, these enable us to deliver all the benefits of VoIP to domestic, small business and home workers: our simple and affordable packages have something for everyone. Initial reactions have been positive.”

AbbiTalk

Nokia 5140i: Mobile For Fitness Enthusiasts

Sporty Nokia 5140i Mobile For Fitness Enthusiasts Sweatband-toting sporty types will be pleased to learn that Nokia has introduced a new handset for active-minded consumers, the Nokia 5140i camera phone.

The beefy looking triband phone is housed in a dust and splash resistant casing and is described as “an ideal outdoor training partner” (personally I’d rather have Kate Moss jogging alongside me, but each to their own).

Tomi Paatsila, Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia, wound up his PR machine and let rip: “The Nokia 5140i offers active consumers a mobile phone that complements their on-the-go lifestyle. With its strong feature set and messaging capabilities, the Nokia 5140i enables outdoors and fitness enthusiasts to stay connected whatever their interests are – during hard-core training or just a leisurely hike.”

Sporty Nokia 5140i Mobile For Fitness Enthusiasts Water-bottle clutching joggers will appreciate the ‘Fitness Coach’ application, offering an ‘always-on’ personal trainer that (apparently) “encourages users to go the extra mile or finish the last set.”

The phone also offers easy connectivity to Polar Electro’s top of the line wrist computers, designed for fitness, running, cycling and outdoor enthusiasts, letting sweaty users view a graphical display of their performance on handset’s display

The Nokia 5140i interfaces with a variety of other Polar Outdoor Computers, such as the Running Computer S625X, Cycling Computer S725, Polar AXN 500, the Polar AXN 700 and the upcoming Fitness F55 heart rate monitor.

Naturally, the phone comes stuffed with all the usual widgets to keep ‘resting’ athletes entertained, with support for MP3 ring tones, a built-in FM radio and Push to talk (PTT) functionality.

Sporty Nokia 5140i Mobile For Fitness Enthusiasts The phone also includes the Nokia Xpress audio messaging functionality, which enables users to record and send a voice message to others over the GPRS network

Currently warming up on the touchlines, the Nokia 5140i is expected to take off its tracksuit and take to the field some time in the second quarter of 2005 with an estimated retail price of €200 (£136/US$260).

Nokia

Google Introduces Local Search To UK

Web search goliaths Google have delivered a large size nine up the rear end of their fierce rivals Yahoo by being the first to launch a local search service in Britain.

Like its popular US counterpart, Google’s local search service will offer maps and driving directions, and is their first such offering in Europe.

Now in public beta, the service is offered in partnership with the UK commercial telephone directory company Yell, who provide the business phone numbers and addresses.

Users can find local services by simply typing in their query into two boxes, labelled, “what” and “where”.

For example, typing in ‘cameras’ and ‘W1’ will produce a list of camera shops in the London W1 area, complete with addresses, phone numbers, a map flagging up the locations and a clickable link for more info.

“It’s the first time we’re bringing local search to a country outside North America,” said Kate Burns, ad sales and operations manager for Google in Britain, declining to give details about launches elsewhere in Europe.

The cooperation with a telephone directories company is unique to Britain, Burns said.

Frustrated Frenchmen and befuddled Belgians were left to mull over their fate with this enigmatic statement: “We take our European audience very seriously, (but) we’ve got nothing to announce this time.”

Local search is the big hot potato for Web search providers, who are salivating at the prospect of a nice new advertising niche opening up.

Global search advertising revenue is already sending cash tills into overdrive, with US investment bank Piper Jaffray estimating spending to rise to US$7.9 billion (£4.1BN/€6bn) in 2005 from US$5.5 billion (£4.1bn/€4.2bn) in 2004 – with most of the growth coming from international expansion and higher volume.

Google has also unveiled its Google SMS (Short Message Service) in the UK. This service enables users to send queries as text messages from a mobile phone and get information local business, driving directions and dictionary definitions. There’s also a facility to compare online product prices with high street ones.

Phone users will be charged with normal SMS text tariffs for the service.

Google local
Google SMS.

BBC THREE Trials New Multi-Screen Application

BBC THREE Trials New Multi-Screen Application BBC Three viewers will be able to schedule their own Sunday night viewing in a pioneering multi-screen application trial starting on 1 May 2005.

The service will work like a stripped down Video On Demand (VoD) service without the need for a dedicated infrastructure or additional consumer boxes.

From 9.00pm on Sunday nights, digital satellite viewers will be prompted to bash the red button on their remotes and be rewarded with a choice of three BBC THREE programmes, in addition to the channel’s live transmission.

The programmes will be categorised under Dramatic, Funny and Real, with the first night’s offering serving up the first two episodes of Nighty Night; the first and second episodes of the second series of Twisted Tales; and the first and second parts of the second series of Little Angels.

Stuart Murphy, Controller of BBC THREE, explains: “The ‘Best of Three’ multi-screen trial is a bold and ground-breaking new application which offers viewers more control and greater access to the wide range of programmes on BBC THREE.”

“In the future we believe viewers will want to watch their favourite show when they want it and not wait until a scheduler decides to transmit it.

“It’s a key stepping-stone to true video on demand in a free-to-air digital environment, and shows that we are serious about BBC THREE being the country’s most innovative digital channel, which evolves as fast as the audience’s tastes and needs.”

BBC THREE Trials New Multi-Screen Application Emma Somerville, the BBC’s Head of Interactive Programming, added: “Interactive TV can really help our audiences engage with the BBC’s TV channels.”

“The ‘Best of Three’ multi-screen will test new ways of giving viewers more flexibility over when and how they want to enjoy our programmes.”

Viewers will be encouraged on air to try out the new service and the trial will last for six months.

The BBC hopes that the service will prove a showcase for the multi-genre offering of BBC THREE content and enable them to get more value from the full range of programmes that the channel broadcasts.

If all goes to plan, viewers will be encouraged to sample programming that normally wouldn’t whet their tele-whistles and also use the service to watch programmes that they might have missed.

If the trial is a hit, the BBC plans to roll out this application on Freeview and digital cable.

BBC Three

BBC Radio Times Partners With Gemstar Guide Plus+ EPG

Radio Times Partners With Gemstar For EPG Old school TV listings magazine The Radio Times, has announced a partnership with Gemstar, the Murdoch-owned electronic programme guide (EPG).

The deal – the first TV listings partnership of its kind – allows the Radio Times to provide listings, contents and reviews to the subscription-free, seven day Guide Plus+ EPG.

Gemstar will be building its EPG into a number of electronic devices such as digital TVs and DVD recorders. The EPG will allow consumers to browse and select their TV viewing for the next seven days.

Users will have access to seven-day listings, programme recommendations and a database of 24,000 film reviews with star ratings, with the service being compatible with all major channels on the terrestrial, cable, satellite and digital terrestrial platforms.

Simon Adams, deputy-managing director of Gemstar-TV Guide’s European division, said the move would benefit users by providing a “quick, easy, and free way to intelligently navigate what is an increasingly complex entertainment environment”. Radio Times Partners With Gemstar For EPG This partnership kicks the Radio Times firmly into the new digital age of television, with the company selling advertising on Guide Plus+ and boosting awareness of the EPG by plugging it relentlessly in its print magazine.

All concerned plan to expand the offering, with on exmaple given as onscreen adverts might eventually include clickable ads for programmes, letting viewers jump straight to the selected broadcast.

It is hoped that this synergetic partnership will expand what choca-mocha-latte supping advertising execs call the “brand heritage” of the Radio Times, which currently shifts over 1.1 million printed copies a week.

The BBC owned brand – the UK’s oldest radio and television listings magazine – has a presence across a range of media, with their website attracting nearly 600,000 unique users per month, and a text messaging service which allows readers to access listings. Radio Times was named as Britain’s “most reliable” media brand back in 2002.

Radio Times Partners With Gemstar For EPG Gill Hudson, editor of the Radio Times, declared: “There is now no format not covered by Radio Times – you can access RT via mobile, your PDA, online, and now the Guide Plus+ EPG.”

The Radio Times recently spent £1m (€1.44m) on a marketing campaign to promote the magazine in the face of a price war between the UK’s best-selling title, What’s on TV, and rival TV Choice. Clearly, the BBC hopes that this move into digital listings will provide a competitive edge.

Radio Times
Radio Times named Britain’s “most reliable” media brand

Google Unveils Mobile Local Search

Google is making its local-search service available to mobile-toting users, offering maps and driving directions optimised for the wee screen.

The nifty service – currently being publicly tested – lets nomadic users find local restaurants, stores and other businesses using their Web-enabled mobiles/PDAs equipped with suitable XHTML (Extensible HTML)-enabled browsers.

Using the service is simplicity itself, with a simple interface offering two boxes to enter “what” and “where” search terms, a search button and a link to get driving directions.

If you’re gasping for a Budweiser beer in Brooklyn, simply type ‘bar’ in the first box and the area’s zip code in the second and you’ll be presented with a helpful list of ten hostelries, with a ‘next’ button offering more locations.

Each search result offers the name, address and phone number of the bar and the distance from your location (sadly the service is currently only available for US and Canadian services).

As with Google local search results, clicking on the link for a result takes you to a page offering more detail about the business (there’s not much there at the moment, though).

Telephone numbers are displayed as a hyperlink, and if the users’ phone supports the facility, clicking on the link will dial the listed telephone number (unlike some local search services, there is no additional charge for this).

At the top of the page, a small map shows the locations of the bars listed, with each marked with a pushpin-like icon. A set of text links below lets you zoom in and pan around the local area.

Basic driving instructions can also be obtained by inputting your start and end addresses.

Naturally, such a genuinely useful service suggests a host of revenue earning possibilities, but Georges Harik, director of product management for Google declined to discuss future plans for sponsored listings, pay-per-call advertisements or other potential enhancements to the local mobile service.

Instead, the cryptic chappie stated that Google “plans to do whatever would be useful” for users of the service.

Local search services are set to be the big hot potato of 2005, with the Kelsey Group reporting that local search ad spending hit US$162 million (£85m/€125m) in 2004.

The local advertising market is predicted to reach US$5.1 billion in the United States by 2009, with local search advertising accounting for about two-thirds of the spend.

With Google’s arch-rivals, Yahoo, already offering a mobile search service, we can look forward to a glorious bun fight as the search engine giants ramp up the feature sets to woo customers. Bring it on!

Google Mobile
Google Local
Yahoo Local