Digital-Lifestyles

Digital-Lifestyles pre-empted and reported thousands of articles on the then-coming impact that technology was to have on all forms of Media. Launched in 2001 as a research blog to aid its founder, Simon Perry, present at IBC 2002, it grew into a wide ranging, multi-author publication that was quoted in many publications globally including the BBC, was described by the Guardian as 'Informative' and also cited in a myriad of tech publications before closing in 2009

  • Google Car License Plate: Sweden

    Google Car License Plate: SwedenNews reaches us from Helsingborg, on the gorgeous west coast of Sweden, that some sneaky chap has registered their car license plate as G O O G L E.

    Joakim Jardenberg, the clever fellow who thought up the jolly wheeze, has also blogged the adventure (for those of you who read Swedish!).

    He raises some interesting points about brands and by extension, individuals registering trade marks as car registrations, while pointing out that “one of the highest valued brands in the world, Google, is now my number plate.”

    Anyone for “adPlate or plateSense,” japes Joakim, who is a development manager at the newspaper, Helsingborgs Dagblad (who have the super cool short domain name hd.se).

    Google Car License Plate: SwedenWhat’s Google reaction?
    Rather amusingly, Joakim’s been on to Google Sweden and has had a response from Maria Göth, their PR manager.

    Google have made a statement about … not making a statement, which reads

    We cannot make a statement before we know exactly what has happened. The persons at “Vägverket” (The authority which is responsible for the roads and car regulations) who handles personal number plates is on vacation but we shall contact them on Monday.

    We await further news with bated breath …

    Many thanks to Anders Olausson, long time chum on Digital-Lifestyles for the pointer.

  • BT Launch Winter Range In Style

    BT Launch Winter Range In Style
    Kudos to BT for putting on an impressive launch for their new range of techie goodies coming out for the winter season.

    The launch was 34 floors up near the top of London’s landmark building, the BT Telecom Tower (still known to old folks as the GPO Tower or the Post Office Tower), with the press launch taking place inside the revolving restaurant.
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  • Retouching Service Turns Pageant Children Into Plastic Freakshows

    Retouching Service Turns Pageant Children Into Plastic FreakshowsWe’ve seen some mighty weird things on the Internet over the years, but this American- based Profes- sional Pageant Photo retouching site easily has to be one of the spookiest things to appear on our screens for a long time.
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  • How To Kill A Joke With TTS

    How To Kill A Joke With TTSText to Speech (TTS) processing has come on leaps and bounds from the early days of jerky, rough renditions of robotic-type chatter yesteryear.

    A lot of the quality is truly amazing – very life like – but it appears that some systems still really doesn’t know how to deal with jokes.

    Just now a friend (I assume) sent me an SMS joke, but sadly they misdirected it to my landline, not the mobile.

    BT have a service in the UK where text messages can be sent to landlines and read out over the phone.

    So you all have the joy of listening to the joke, I recorded it, just so you can enjoy the flat humour of it.

    I found it took a couple of times of listening to it to actually understand what the joke was!

    [audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/tiger-woods-joke.mp3]

  • 24-7 Football: Sky Offer To Mobile UK

    24-7 Football: Sky Offer To Mobile UKAs we’re not fans of football, we’re constantly amazed at how keen people are to watch the game that involves people kicking a pig’s bladder around an oblong section of grass. Ho, Hmm.

    Never one to not take the opportunity of cramming more football into people lives, Sky TV has teamed up with a load of other ‘newspapers’ owned by media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, to create 24-7 Football.

    It’s a new on-demand service that will offer video highlights and goal clips from the Barclays Premier League and UEFA Champions League on mobile phones.
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  • Torchwood Sells to HDNet

    Torchwood Sells to HDNetThe BBC Dr Who Spin-off, Torchwood, set and shot in Cardiff, Wales, has been sold to US TV network HDNet.

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  • TreeHugger.com Sells To Discovery

    TreeHugger.com Sells To DiscoveryThe all-things-eco Website, Treehugger, has sold to US TV network Discovery.

    Treehugger and it’s UGC site, Hugg.com, will fit into Discovery’s initiative called Planet Green, which has committed over $50m to spread the Green message, including the aim to introduce the first 24Hr Green TV Channel.
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  • Tape 2 PC: Ion USB Cassette Deck: First View: UPDATED

    We popped off to the Firebox “Xmas in July” do last week and we saw loads of goodies that they’ll be bringing out between now and christmas.

    Tape 2 PC: Ion USB Cassette Deck: First View

    The first that we’ll bring to you is the Ion Tape2PC. We all know about the Ion Audio USB turntable and how popular they’ve been.

    Not one to stay still Ion have now moved on to capturing other digital media.
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  • Some UK Teachers Want YouTube Closed Down

    Some UK Teachers Want YouTube Closed DownYesterday the UK’s Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) demanded sites such as YouTube to be closed, for encouraging CyberBullying.

    Proposed by Kirsti Paterson at the national conference held in Harrogate, the motion was “Conference deplores the very real problem of cyber bullying in schools and demands the closure of sites encouraging such behaviour.”
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  • Philips SoniCare FlexCare: First Look: UPDATED

    Philips SoniCare FlexCare: First LookIf you thought that your sonic toothbrush gave you the ultimate teeth clean, you haven’t heard about the latest sonic brush from Philips – the SoniCare FlexCare.

    Philips have worked hard to try and improve on, what felt for us to be just about as clean as it was possible to get. The new handset has got 80% less vibration, it’s 30% smaller, 16% lighter and has an impressive 77% reduction in energy consumption when compared with the Philips Sonicare Elite.

    This thing is bonkers. When we gave it a go recently, we could not believe the pure zing we felt in our mouths post-brush. You’ll find that once you”ve used it, it will be hard to go back to anything less.
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