Digital-Lifestyles – Page 153 – 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

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

DeskStar 7K1000: Hitachi 1Tb Hard Drive Reviewed
There’s a common thought that Moore’s Law in relation to processing power has now become irrelevant, due to the now-attained high processing speeds. In it’s place is a form of Moore’s Law for storage and how important it’s rapid growth is.
In proof of this new Law, Hitachi have released the first 1Tb (1,000 Gb) hard drive named the DeskStar 7K1000. Tom’s Hardware have been running tests on the new drive and have recently reported on it.
There’s 9 pages of the review which reach the conclusion that in terms of the cost per gigabyte it’s not the best value hitting around £230 / €330, which clearly doesn’t compare well with £100 / €150 that 500Gb drives now give.
The reviewers, Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos, feel that having a single 1Gb drive will be easier to handle, but as a data drive rather than one to run the operating system from.
Their view is to hold on for a little while until other manufacturers get their 1Gb drives out, such as Seagate, which will come with a five year warranty, that is lacking in the Hitachi.
DeskStar 7K1000
Tom’s Hardware review
19 April, 2007
Miglia Introduce TV To The MAX
Miglia who are known for their TV dongles have introduced two updated models, TVMini Express and TVMax+ which are really the same as the TVMini and TVMAx but with new software.
Bye Bye Elgato EyeTV
The products used to ship with EyeTV but this has now been dropped in favour of their own software. Miglia say this is due to Elgato not supporting their real time encoding on the TVMax (i.e. EyeTV takes in a video feed, stores it and then converts it, while TVMax supports hardware encoding to a variety for formats).
The new software works with all the Miglia decoders and offers similar functionality to EyeTV.
TVMini Express
This is a standard USB 2.0 DVB-T tuner, the software now bundled is known as “The Tube”. It can play and record Freeview channels and also works with the Apple Remote.
The price has been dropped to £39.95.
TVMax+
The box is around the same size as a Mac Mini or AppleTV and is in the same white and aluminium sides. It has a TV tuner (with aerial and cable connectors) but also video and s-video connections so it will work with a DVD or other video source.
It connects back to a Mac using USB 2.0.
Various video formats are supported including MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and DivX. Since compression is performed inside the box using hardware it will save to disk immediately in the right format without having to go through a software compression phase.
The software also works directly with iTunes so stored video will appear on any connected AppleTVs.
Current price is £149.00.
H.264
This is the MPEG-4 variant that iPods and other devices use. Miglia are coming out with a USB 2.0 dongle that does hardware compression. This will work with Miglia software, but should also allow other developers to utilise it for their own software, so a DVD could be ripped and on-the-fly converted to H.264 for use on an iPod.
Unfortunately details on this are scarce as it hasn’t been released and only a prototype (in black rather than Miglia’s normal white) was seen.
Verdict
The TVMini has always been a useful DVB-T tuner, it needs a good signal and the supplied aerial isn’t much. The new software works but as it was only briefly demo’ed it’s hard to tell how well it compares to EyeTV. The price drop is welcome though.
The TVMax+ is a new product, again only briefly demo’ed but the new software will make a huge difference as it utilises the hardware compression in the TVMAx itself, cutting down the time it takes to make an iPod or AppleTV compatible video.
The H.264 hardware dongle will be very useful when released.
19 April, 2007
Wii Warm-up!
The London Times has a piece the drags up the now-old idea of the Wii being bad for you physically, with them highlighting “aching backs, sore shoulders and even “Wii elbow”.”
We’ve recently been playing the Wii intensively for two weeks and did find that our right (playing) wrist aching, but that’s probably because we haven’t used it for much besides mousing-around for the last couple of years.
At the bottom of the ‘we’re out to bash the Wii’ piece, there’s something that we can’t work out if this is meant as a joke or not – a Wii Warm-up.
Here it is, just in case you’re concerned about your Wii-age.
Tim Hutchful, of the British Chiropractic Association, gives a guide to a pre Wii warm-up:
1 Shoulder shrug — slowly shrug your shoulders towards your ears. Hold for two to three seconds, then relax. Repeat three times. Because it is easier to relax a muscle after you have tightened it, you will relax the muscles in the shoulder and allow the blood to flow into the arms.
2 Wrist stretch — slowly stretch the wrist backwards, hold for two to three seconds, then slowly stretch it forwards and hold for two to three seconds. Repeat three times. This exercise prevents tightening of the wrists.
3 Make a fist — hold the arm at right angles from the elbow. Make a fist and tense it, and the whole of your arm. Hold for two to three seconds, then relax and let the arm flop to your side. Repeat three times. This will help the blood flow and tone the muscles.
4 Neck muscle stretch — try to make a double chin, to stretch the muscles at the base of the neck. Hold this position for two to three seconds and repeat three times. Always stretch very slowly.
5 Lower back loosen — standing with your feet a shoulder-width apart, slowly circle your hips five revolutions to the right and then five revolutions to your left.
18 April, 2007
Kate Modern: Bebo’s English LonelyGirl
Bebo have signed the team behind YouTube LonelyGirl.
YouTube watchers will be well aware of LonelyGirl 15 and her eventual unveiling as the product a small drama-writing team, rather than a troubled fifteen year old.
When that all came out (as it was eventually bound to), many thought LonleyGirl15, or Bree as she’s named would fade away, but the pretense of the story was kept up and ‘her’ video pieces have continued, in fact her channel remains the most subscribed channel of all time on YouTube.
Well, the 31 million member strong social networking site Bebo, have got the LonelyGirl team onboard now to create Kate Modern for them – an English LonelyGirl.
This time they’re being upfront from the start that Kate Modern isn’t real. There will be video pieces and posts made to her Bebo profile.
Mashable reported that it will all be going live in July with the episodes will be aired multiple times per week on Bebo.
The Times spoke to Miles Beckett, a San Diego medical studies drop-out who co-created Bree, to get the background, “Kate Modern is a 19-year-old university student in London. She wants to fit in with her friends and has problems with her parents — but yes, Kate is fictional and will be played by an actress.”
As The Times points out in their coverage
the innocence of LonelyGirl has been replaced by hard-nosed commerce. Joanna Shields, Bebo’s international president, said: “Kate Modern is a great proposition for advertisers and brands. Bebo users average 41 minutes per session and that can’t be ignored.”
Bebo
18 April, 2007
Resident Evil x 2 on Wii: European Details
There have been mutterings for a while about the classic, long-running gore/terror-fest, Resident Evil, coming to the Nintendo Wii in Europe.
Official confirmation of the European release has this morning been announced – and it’s to arrive in two flavours.
The first, on 29 June, will be Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, which is a “re-mastered version” of the game, utilising the all-new motion sensitive controls that make the Wii what it is.
Resident Evil 4 has already been on the GameCube, PlayStation2 and PC is confusingly the sixth instalment of the Resident Evil series.
Coming “later in the year” will be Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, which looks to us like it’s been designed to appeal to those who are long-in-the-tooth Resident Evil players.
It’s a brand new title for Wii that allows players to gain a greater insight than ever before into the back story behind the outbreak. Capcom, the developers of both titles, describe it as an “action/shooter hybrid,” which has locations from Resident Evil 0, 1, 2 and 3 as well as new never-before-seen locations, such as Umbrella’s stronghold. Woooo!
One enterprising site has even mocked up a version of how they think the Wii-mote might be used to play Resident Evil.
The Umbrella Chronicles has been designed to use gun controllers – shooting is a large part of Resident Evil after all. Those in the frame are the yet-to-be-released Wii Blaster gun and possibly the now-selling JoyTech Sharp Shooter.
18 April, 2007
Netvibes Universe Offers Personalised Web Portals
We’ve been feeling the love for the Netvibes aggregator for some time, and we look to be cuddling up a bit closer now that the company is letting users publish their home pages as personal Web portals – for free.
In case you haven’t already hooked up to this Web 2.0-tastic, AJAX-fuelled marvel, Netvibes is a customisable home page that lets you add and configure a personalised page to include live news feeds, Last.FM players, blog updates, weather reports, text, image and video search tools, email inboxes and a ton of other stuff.
The Paris-based company is now hoping to sock it to The Man by letting users publish their own standalone portals, and steal a march on the big Internet playaz like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.
“The portal is dead. Long live the portal,” air-punched Tariq Krim, Netvibes’ founder and chief executive.
Mix’n’matching the webThe power of the Netvibes portal means that users can mix and match email accounts from the likes of Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, and add whatever content they fancy, regardless of the source.
The Web based interface is a marvel of modern web technology too, letting users drag and drop ‘modules’ around the page without any need to delve into the dark world of coding.
The new Netvibes Universe service lets users design their own homepage and slap it on the web in minutes via the Netvibes Ecosystem. These pages can be configured to include personalised feeds such as videos, photos, podcasts, news, e-mail and eBay auction notifications.
Netvibes has also signed up over 100 publishing partners, including pop stars and media companies like Time, USA Today, and the Washington Post, who will offer their own versions of Netvibes homepages.
Welcome to the world of Web 2.0
“Netvibes provides open access to the world of Web 2.0 content,” said Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li. “Traditionally, you had to ask each company permission to do this on any Web site. Now you can read Gmail alongside Hotmail and Yahoo Mail,” she added.
Li reckoned that even folks working in Google and Yahoo felt that the big boys should give up trying to stop surfers from using competing products, as the shiny Internet of the Noughties means that services need to live side-by-side with competitors.
“With Web 2.0, no one can own the whole space. In the past, you wanted everyone to come to your site. Right now, you need to figure out how to distribute your content to the widest number of platforms,” said Netvibes’ Krim. “We try to be the glue between all these Web services,” he continued.
Netvibes Universe goes live next Monday.
CNet
18 April, 2007
Nokia 6120 Phone Packs HSDPA
With more and more mobile punters accessing the web to download music, watch video, browse the web or grab emails, Nokia are hoping to persuade some wallets to creak open for their new 6120 classic phone offering the faster HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) connectivity.
Claimed to offer downloads “up to 10 times faster than over usual WCDMA networks,” the Nokia 6120 bigs up its multimedia credentials sporting two cameras. The first is a basic, low res affair slapped on the front for video calls, while the main camera serves up 2-megapixels worth of picture-grabbing, 4-times digital zoom, a built in flash and a panorama mode.
Powered by a Symbian Series 60 OS, the 6120 looks very similar to its slower 3G predecessor, the 6233, with all the gubbins enclosed in Nokia’s familiar candybar form factor and a bright QVGA-quality display with 16-million colours dominating the front.
There’s Bluetooth on board for wireless streaming of stereo sounds, a built-in FM radio, support for MP3/AAC/MPEG4 tuneage and a micro SD card slot for slapping in some more memory capacity.
To help fumbling newbies and floundering technophobes, the 6120 comes with bundled How-To Guides and a Set-up Wizard for setting up email, messaging and Internet connection, with Data Transfer apps helping users shuffle all their contacts, calendars, photos, videos and files over from their old Nokia handset.
With the phone purring along on the S60 OS, there’s ample scope for users to download third party apps and customise the phone to their heart’s desire.
Here’s Peter Ropke, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia to whip us into a frenzy of expectation for the phone, “With the HSDPA technology, S60 operating system and the wide range of features of the Nokia 6120 classic, consumers will be able to make their daily lives more manageable.”
The Nokia 6120 classic (no relation to the 6120 they released in the 1998!) should start shimmying on to shop shelves in the summer for around 260 Euros (around £175) SIM-free.
Nokia
17 April, 2007
Phantom Back In News
The company behind the Phantom console is back in the news.
Word of the Phantom games console started way back in February 2004, when the industry couldn’t work out if it was real or an elaborate hoax.
In May 2004 it was ‘made flesh’ and was shown at E3 and we heard about them gaining $50m credit investment.
It was all quiet for about a year, then there was an interesting twist in the story as it appeared to be re-born as a content console, as the Chinese coalition-backed IDV Global Media On-Demand platform. At that time we were told that it was expected to launch in China early 2006.
Since then, we can’t recall hearing about it, until today, when we hear that the renamed body, Phantom Entertainment, has signed a deal with Ione Technology to manufacture the Phantom Wireless Lapboard and Wireless Laser Mouse under Ione’s brand name throughout Asia and through Ione’s distributors in the US and Europe in return for royalty and design fees.
Greg Koler, President and CEO of Phantom Entertainment, said Ione plan to “begin production and distribution of the Ione wireless lapboard and Ione wireless laser mouse in the third quarter of 2007.”
Where’s the console?
From what we can tell, the Phantom console itself has hit the dirt – it’s not listed under their products on the Web site, but the Phantom Game Service does look like it’s alive.
The fate of Kevin Bachus, founder of Phantom and ex-Microsoft Xbox game console designer, is unknown as he doesn’t appear to be on the list of the companies officers.
The Phantom Lapboard
17 April, 2007
Joost Invite Winners
After the great response to your Joost Invite posting last week, we’re pleased to announce the winners. Sorry we didn’t get around to posting this yesterday, but better late than never, eh?
We’ve noticed that a few people had laid their hands on invites in the intervening period, like Sano.
It was tough to choose between all of the other entries, so we thought it would be best to let geographic distribution be the decider given Joost offers different content in different parts of the world.
Reese in the US is getting because he gave up TV a long time back and it will be interesting to hear his perspective … and he gets bonus points because of the “Ricky Gervais & The Serpent” posting on his blog.
Rogerio in Brazil for his corny joke and gs because it’ll be interesting to have the Taiwanese dimension.
We’re looking forward to their reviews.
Thanks to everyone for the comments and sorry you didn’t get one this time. Stay tuned, and when we get some more, we’ll let you know.
17 April, 2007
Nokia’s WiMAX Phones To Hit The Shelves Next Year
The world’s top handset maker Nokia has announced that it expects to start shifting mobile devices using the WiMAX Internet technology by early 2008.
WiMAX (or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access if you’re a spoddy type) lets laptops, phones and other suitably equipped mobile devices access the Internet at Billy Whizz speeds.
The technology uses a licensed spectrum to offer long-range (we’re talking kms), point-to-point connections to the web from the service provider to the end user, with Nokia saying that they plan to bring their first WiMAX enabled mobile device to market in early 2008.
Nokia’s numero uno handset rival, Motorola, has announced that it fancies a piece of the WiMAX action too, saying that they’ll also be bringing a WiMAX enabled mobile phone to market in 2008.
Intel, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola are all feeling the love for the open-standard WiMAX. The technology can be used as an alternative wireless broadband Internet connection for 3G users, which is handy because net access on 3G mobile networks can slow right down if networks fill up with yakking voice callers.
WiMAX should considerably reduce the cost of wireless broadband – up to 10 times cheaper than current third-generation cellular telephony networks – but the technology isn’t apparently too hot for handling wireless voice calls.
WiMAX looks good when it comes to pricing: the radio spectrum for WiMAX networks is rented out at cheaper rates by regulators than the 3G mobile phone spectrum, and WiMAX equipment vendors reckon that infrastructure and handheld devices work out cheaper than 3G systems too.
WiMAX forum
WiMAX on Wikipedia
17 April, 2007