Category: Software

Software

Yahoo Brings Audio and Video Together in Searches

Google is trialling an image search function, AltaVista had an image search for years before it added its video and MP3 search functions – now Yahoo is looking to bring it’s own powerful multimedia search engine to the internet.

Yahoo will be kicking off with some great content, including the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and audio files from National Public Radio.

The company is looking to make money by charging commercial content providers for including their material in its database; non-commercial entities can submit their content free.

Microsoft are working on their own multimedia search engine, and that should be interesting given how much they like tampering with search results to suit themselves – try doing a search for Xfree86, an open source window system for UNIX and UNIX-based systems on MSN.

Google Image Search

AltaVista – useful, but different media types are not searchable from the same page

XFree86 on MSN

Sony: PSX, PSP, PS2 Will Connect

Speaking in the Mainichi Daily, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan confirmed that the forthcoming PlayStation Portable (PSP) will have connectivity features with the new PSX home media centre, and the venerable PlayStation2.

Fumiya Takeno went on to say that Sony would be using the PSP’s Universal Media Disk (that’s right – yet another media format) to bring new, and as yet not elaborated upon, experiences to users: “I’m planning to create software that no-one is even thinking of right now – something free from the existing concept of ‘a game’”.

But how will this connectivity manifest itself? As the iLink/IE1394/Firewire connector has been dropped from the PSX and later PS2s, the only hardware options left are either using the optional ethernet adapter on PS2s or one of the two USB1.1 ports.

GameSpot

Sony news at Mainichi Daily

October 19: Earthquakes, Car Jacking, Random Shootings, Ice Cream Vans

Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto series will no doubt break sales records and cause outrage in October this year when another instalment, set in San Andreas and featuring an interesting earthquake game mechanic. The Edinburgh-based developer is owned by Take Two Interactive of New York, and with joint sales of 23 million copies for the previous two titles, you’ll no doubt be thoroughly sick of seeing this one by the time Christmas comes.

If you live in the US, the publication date is the 19th October; if you live in Europe it’s the 22nd – either way you might want to stay out of Game until the mobs subside. Expect the usual tabloids to run the same articles on video game violence in the hope of selling more newspapers.

Rockstar North – Sex, Violence, Deep-fried Mars Bars

Google: Ban+this+sick+game

Microsoft Rethinks Japanese Contracts

Microsoft has announced changes to its contracts with PC suppliers in Japan after its Tokyo offices were raided in the middle of the week.

The part of the contract that the Fair Trade Commission was so concerned about related to a clause preventing manufacturers from suing Microsoft over patented technology. If manufacturers did not agree to the clause, then they could not sell PCs with Windows preinstalled.

Microsoft’s statement

Microsoft’s Tokyo Offices Raided

Microsoft (MS) received a visit from fifteen members of Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) at 9am Tokyo time. The FTC are looking for evidence of unfair and monopolistic practices in the company’s dealings with PC suppliers in Japan. It’s actually their second visit – the FTC last knocked on MS’s doors in 1998, when they confiscated documents relating to their OS range, browser and office suite.

This second raid isn’t too surprising – over the months Microsoft has had the same thing happen in the US and Europe, and its operating system and software bundling deals with PC hardware manufacturers have long been regarded as anti-competitive in Japan. After a slow start, the country is now the third largest market for PCs in the world, with annual sales of about 13m units.

In Europe, Microsoft could face millions of Euros in fines in March when it reaches an agreement with officials over the way that Windows Media Player is tied to its range of operating systems. Microsoft claims its legal bills for such cases came to US$1.55bn in 2003, though the recent US Department if Justice settlement is regarded as ineffective by many in the industry.

The BBC on the Raid

More details of BBC iMP revealed – All content DRM’d

More details of the intriguing BBC interactive media player, iMP, first made public at IBC 2003, were revealed this evening at a AIGA meeting in London. Sara Watkins, Executive Producer, Broadband, BBC New Media gave the audience further details of what iMP will do and importantly, what it will not.

The most significant revelations were concerning the protection of the content. All content will be DRM’d, only available for a limited period time, once downloaded. As expected, it will also only be available to UK broadband users. In a break with the BBC’s long-standing support of Real, Microsoft DRM will be used for the technical trial, but it appears that no final decision has been made.

Sara started by running a video giving an overview of what the BBC hope the iMP will be and where it might go.

As was known previously, the EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) will cover fourteen days; seven looking forward and seven backward. The programs that have been broadcasted will be downloadable to the computer simply by clicking on them. A preview of a piece can be watched before committing to download a complete show.

Although it was not mentioned in this presentation, in previous discussion we have had we understood that upcoming programs could be selected to download, once they have been broadcasted.

People will also be able to recommend programmes it to friends.


The iMP, originally envisaged by BBC man Ben Lavender, will be a PC-only application that will be downloaded from the BBC website.

Further into the future they are looking forward to having the content on other devices, such as portable music players and even further forward, towards mobile phones. This portable content will initially be limited to audio, as the rights to these programmes are nearly all owned solely by the BBC.

Running through the demonstration version of the product, we were shown the player would have four sections

_Library area

A list of the content residing on the computer will be shown, as you would expect from any filing system. A new revelation was that the rights information for each show would be displayed on the right hand side of the screen.

Each separate show will be capable of having its own DRM setting, primarily how many days it will reside on your machine and therefore, how quickly you will need to watch the show before it become unavailable.

The examples given were

Eastenders (most popular UK soap) might be available for two weeks
An episode of Blue Planet (recent super budget natural history programme) might be available for two days.

The amount of compression applied to each piece of content will vary, so the video quality will vary. More popular programmes will be lower quality but programmes that would benefit from better quality will receive it, such as Blue Planet.

_Traffic area

As per standard peer-to-peer (P2P) packages – showing what is being transferred to and from your machine at any time.

It was reiterated that P2P file sharing technologies would be used to automatically exchange content between broadband-connected computers running iMP, thus saving the BBC a considerable amount of money on individually serving each files.

_TV and radio guide areas

No real details were given about this.

Stages of development

The BBC plan to carry out an internal technical trial, where they will work out the logistics of how to get the content from its original source (tape, etc), how to will be encoded, archived and make it available.

Later in the year, possibly around Easter, a closed network of users will be given the product to test it. During this phase they hope to understand how effective the interface design is.

Following these stages they will enter a product development mode – taking all of the learning and re-polishing the product. No date was mentioned for a public release.

During the Q&A session another interesting revelation concerning the Greg Dyke’s idea floated at RTS Edinburgh 2003, the Creative Archive. The content that makes up the Creative Archive will be downloaded using a similar application, but will not be restricted by DRM enabling people to re-edit it, or use it to make other programmes. Importantly it will not be the complete BBC archive, the examples given was – it will be nature programmes but it will not be show such as Dad’s Army (An old very popular comedy show first show in the 1970’s).

AIGA London

Transcript

Nokia Boss Admits N-Gage Below Expectations

Jorma Ollila Nokia chairman and chief executive, admitted to the Financial Times yesterday that the N-Gage, their gaming platform, has not been the success they had hoped for, in his words “The sales are in the lower quartile of the bracket we had as our goal.”

The original aim was to sell 9 million units within its first two years, but many feel that the €300 (£200, US$380) is too expensive when compared with other gaming-only platforms such as the Nintendo GameBoy. It has also been criticised for its lack of game support and difficulty in operating it, in particular requiring the removal of the battery to change the game. The cracking of their game copy protection method last year has also not helped them with game publishers.

Ollila said he plans to wait until November 2005 to decide if it has been a success or failure.

Telewest Float Surf & Sniff Smell Generator

It being Friday and we thought we would bring you a light-hearted piece.

UK cable company, Telewest, has suggested that they may release a computer add-on that generates aromas that can be controlled software. Sound like an urban myth/joke, but it is not without precedent. The first time a computer-controlled device was suggest was in 1999 by a start-up called DigiScent. Prior to that it was on the grander scale of whole cinemas, when in the last 50’s two similar ideas, AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision, were introduced to US cinemagoers.

AromaRama used the theatres ventilation system to get their scents out and Smell-O-Vision far more expensive approach was to place units under each cinema seat.

DigiScent was a serious, scientific approach to the subject that was started by two Stanford graduates that had made some serious fortunes from software for genetic databases.

One of the founders, Joel Lloyd Bellenson looked into previous scientific research around the subject to discover how humans perceived smells. His explanation was detailed in an article by Wired at the time.

“The explanation for this proved relatively simple. When odour molecules drift into the nose, each of them binds with a particular protein on the surface of a neuron. There are about 1,000 odour-matching proteins, each with a slightly different configuration, scattered across a human’s 10 million odour-detecting neurons. (By comparison, a mouse has about 1 million neurons of this type, while a pig boasts 100 million.) When the shape of an odour molecule matches the shape of a protein, the molecules lock together, triggering the neuron, which sends a signal that the brain recognizes as a smell. DNA is relevant because its instructions – its genes – tell the body how to build the proteins that receive odour molecules and activate the neurons. ”

Calling on his previous software experience, Bellenson wrote software to simulate the binding of odour molecules with proteins. By using this he felt he could generate billions of odours simply by selecting different proportions of 100-200 “scent primaries.”

DigiScent’s business was to licence its software to the creators of  other media, to synchronise aromas with them. Web pages would be able to trigger them, as would TV shows, video games and films. The scent generators would be plugged into the serial port and sit on the desk – Reekers, instead of speakers.

Like many ideas around 1999, sadly DigiScent is not around anymore. One possible reason for that could have been is the name they chose for their product – iSmell.

Telewest say they have tested the idea in their labs, calling email using the device ‘ScentMail’, or on a wider scale, ‘Aromanet’. They plan to bring out a domed device that plugs in to the serial port of a computer or set top box, that takes dispoable cartidges to generate the aromas. They say the intial range of smells will be around 60 by mixing the palette of 20 oringial aromas.

Appearing to be designed to get them a few column inches for their broadband service, it is not clear how serious Telewest are about it. When discussing the cost of the dome they are less than exact, ‘Hardware for a surf & sniff set up might cost around £250 for the basic equipment’. We are sure Telewest is not trying to create news during the time their managing director, Charles Burdick, has left the company to “pursue other opportunities.”

Telewest corny press release

Wired 1999 article on DigiScent

Phantom Games Console – Round Up

In the past year or so, there has been a lot of speculation about the Phantom console. The name doesn’t help much, it has to be said. The console was announced early in 2003 and then everything went a bit quiet – no prototypes were seen, the platform itself seemed a bit vague and many regarded Timothy Roberts’, the man behind Infinium Labs, involvement as a bad omen.

For some months, the only images of the console were 3D renders, and no games developer has yet admitted to having signed up for the platform.

The console was finally unveiled at the last CES, and we’d like to gather what is known about Phantom to clear up some of the mystery.

[1] What’s in it?

Infinium state that the console is PC-based and features a custom N-Force motherboard. The processor is listed as “up to AMD XP 3200+”, though whether that this implies that the box is customisable or upgradable, or they just haven’t finalised it yet, no-one knows. The really important part, the graphics chipset is around the GeForce FX5700 mark. Interestingly, the console does not feature an optical drive, but will feature a hard drive up to 320gb in size.

[2] What does it run?

The Phantom runs on a modified Windows XPe kernel.

[3] What will it cost?

We’ve seen figures for between ~US$400 and ~US$700, which places it firmly in the “cheaper than a PC for playing games, but considerably more than a console” bracket.

[4] What can you play on it?

The Phantom will come with pre-installed games. Some reports have said as many as fifty. Other games will be available for download through the PhantomNet GameService.

Given the hardware/software platform, the games will be modified versions of PC games.

[5] What is PhantomNet GameService?

The console is unique in that it requires a broadband connection to function – players will be able to download new games or activate licenses for those already preloaded on the hard disk. Presumably, the service will also provide other functions as seen on Sony’s Central Station and Microsoft’s Xbox Live.

[6] Does it stand a chance?

Well, that remains to be seen. Xbox and Playstation2 are obviously dominating the market (and so will their offspring), and we’ve seen previously unassailable leaders like Sega and Nintendo get badly burned with hardware. However, the Phantom is a essentially a PC (and even more of a PC than the Xbox isn’t), so isn’t entirely proprietary like the GameCube and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Dreamcast. And remember, everybody laughed at Sony in 1995.

One of the problems we can see is the implication that consoles will be built to order, making standardisation a problem. However, new games can be published to the format without too much redevelopment and, given the absence of an optical drive, piracy will be difficult.

This could be a terrific distribution channel for games publishers who can’t get space in big retailers, or can’t afford the heavy discounting that’s endemic in the market. It could also be a great service for buying games on impulse, when even Amazon isn’t fast enough.

Given the dramatic increase in broadband subscriptions, the console could be right on time – but given that many games now have installers measuring 500 mb to 2 gig in size, perhaps popping down the shops to buy Half Life2 might be quicker than downloading it, although that didn’t put someone off in the past.

[7] What next?

Curiously, Infinium are reluctant to tell the press much at this stage, even though the project is reportly in advanced stages. They have, however, managed to raise a not inconsiderable amount of venture capital (at least ~US$25 million) on the back of this idea – despite not having really shown anyone anything.

We’ll keep you posted.

Wired on the Phantom

HardOCP on Infinium’s patchy history

Infinium on the Phantom

DVD-Jon Officially in the Clear

Norwegian computer programmer, Jon Lech Johansen will be relieved to hear that his countries state prosecutor that handles computer crime, ØKOKRIM, today that they will not appeal the court ruling clearing him of wrong doing on 22.Dec.03.

His alleged crime was that he circumvented the copy protection scheme on his film DVD. His plea was that he wanted to play his legally purchased DVD on his Linux computer, and as there was no software that enabled him to do this, we wrote deCSS that removed the protection enabling him to play it. This is not normally something the general public would hear about, but DVD-Jon, as he became known as, uploaded the software to the Internet enabling others to use it.

In January 2000, he was awarded the Karoline Prize, a prestigious national prize in Norway, given annually to a high school student for academic excellence and making a significant contribution to society outside of school for deCSS.

When he turned 18, ØKOKRIM Chief Prosecutor Inger Marie Sunde indicted Johansen for violating Norwegian Criminal Code section 145(2), which outlaws breaking into another person’s locked property to gain access to data that one is not entitled to access. The US MPAA gave considerable support to ØKOKRIM.

On 22 December 2003 the Norwegian courts came to the decision that DVD-Jon could not be held accountable or punished for others’ use of his program and that “DVD is so vulnerable to damage that the purchaser must be entitled to make a copy, for example of a movie he is particularly interested in preserving”. Today ØKOKRIM confirmed that they would not be appealing the decision to a higher court.

Hollywood will not be pleased with the outcome of this. It will be seen as a now legal “leak” for their DVD content in Europe.

Aftenposten report

ØKOKRIM