Digital-Lifestyles – Page 154 – 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

Toshiba Introduces First 200GB USB 2.0 Portable Storage
To old school computing bods like us, it doesn’t seem that long ago that floppy disks were the main way you lugged your data around.
With its feeble 1.44MB storage space, that often meant you had to cart around great boxes of the things.
And with its gnat-like storage capacity, installing programs like Photoshop meant a lengthy spell sat by your machine, patiently feeding in a vast amount of grinding floppies and hoping that the last one in wouldn’t display a dastardly disk error.
Come 1994, the hi tech hotshots around town were sporting Iomega Zip drives, which served up a comparatively capacious 100MB of storage space (rising to 750MB in the final versions).
Although we felt the love for the increased capacity, the drive was quite a bulky beast, the disks weren’t cheap and folks lived in fear of suffering the dreaded click of death.
By the late 1990s, recordable CDs, cheap flash memory and external hard drives had become the modus operandi for portable storage users, although bigger and bigger files meant that the things soon filled up.
With this in mind, Toshiba – the world’s fifth-largest hard drive manufacturer – has decided to elbow its way into the portable drive market with its 2.5-inch USB 2.0 portable external hard drive offering a positively palatial 200GB of storage space. That works out at 57,000 digital photos, 52,000 MP3 songs or 88 DVD videos all wedged into its slimline case (approx 6″x4″x0.9″).
Claimed to offer the highest capacity of any backup solution in the compact 2.5-inch hard drive class, the 200GB beastie comes clad in a sleek vented black aluminum exterior, backed by a patent-pending shock mount system for extra protection.
The USB 2.0 drive also comes bundled with the NTI Shadow software which makes it a cinch to set up a back up schedule.
The full range of drives come in 200GB, 160GB, 120GB and 100GB capacities and the pricing looks good too, with suggested retail prices running from $229.99 (£115) for the 200GB model down to $129.99 (£65) for the 100GB.
Toshiba
17 April, 2007
Intel Preps Linux Powered UMPCs
Intel is getting ready to release its own version of the mini-tablet, with CNN reporting that it will be announcing a new Linux-based ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) platform at this week’s Intel Developer Forum in Beijing.
Dubbed a ‘Mobile Internet Device’ (MID), the devices will sport 4.5 to 6.0 inch screens offering resolutions up to 800 x 480 and 1024 x 600 pixels, with the target audience described as “consumers and prosumers” and not mobile professionals.
There’s clearly some work to do on the platform name, with the devices currently codenamed ‘McCaslin’ while teams of whiteboard scrawlin’, flipchart flippin’ brainstormin’ types work on a more user friendly name.
Expected to be released next year, the UMPCs are tipped to be an extension of the successful Centrino mobile brand, with the CPU components (codenamed Stealey) packing dual-core processors clocked at 600-800MHz.
Although capable of running Windows XP and Vista, Intel is looking to kit the devices out with an embedded Linux OS supplemented by a mix of open-source and proprietary code.
Who’s it for?
Intel’s new gizmo is looking to woo punters with a seductive mobile mix of email, web, entertainment, information and location-based services, including the trusty Google Maps application and Web-based “office and enterprise applications.”
Connectivity will come in the shape of Wi-Fi and 3G HSDPA.
Interface
The new MID tablets will offer a simplified “finger-friendly” user interface, tweaked for big fat fingers on diddy screens. Based on the Gnome desktop, the OS will come with a “master user interface” desktop layer developed by Intel.
Developers will be given a peek at the first MID-specific OS next week (an updated version of China’s RedFlag Linux known as RedFlag MIDINUX), and slides of the interface have already made their way on to Engadget
17 April, 2007
City of London Wi-Fi To Become Europe’s Biggest Hotspot
The City of London is due to become the biggest Wi-Fi hotspot in Europe next week, as we trailed last year.
A planned rollout will veritably bathe the City in luverly Wi-Fi rays, letting around 350,000 workers wander all over the Square Mile with uninterrupted wireless access.
The system comes courtesy of wireless network big boys, The Cloud, and dishes up continuous wireless access thanks to ‘mesh technology’ and a series of base stations strategically located throughout the area.
Although there’s something like 2,000 conventional Internet hotspots scattered around London, virtually all of these require users to keep on logging every time they walk into a new zone. The new City system means that users will only have to log in once and then be able to retain access at locations throughout the city.
“This is the biggest hotspot of its kind in Europe as far as we know and is unique as users keep the signal wherever they are,” enthused Niall Murphy, chief strategy officer at The Cloud.
“We have been meeting a lot of the big financial institutions in the area and have even found that the network is available in a lot of their boardrooms, so we think there will be a corporate use for it as well,” he added.
Perambulating freeloaders hoping to nab some free City-based Wi-Fi access action will be disappointed though. Unlike the mile long wireless freebie served in uptown Islington, users will have to shell out around £12 per month for unlimited access – quite a drop from the £5/hour they spoke about in February last year.
With its infrastructure able to support secure public and private applications concurrently, The Cloud are targeting consumers and municipal workers, although there’s also support for telemetry, traffic surveillance and security systems.
The Cloud say that they plan to extend coverage into Soho and eventually extend the infrastructure across all of London.
The Cloud
16 April, 2007
SxS Memory Cards From Sony And Sandisk Announced For Camcorders
If you’re the kind of person that thinks to themselves, “Hey, I’ve already spent hundreds of pounds on a load of different proprietary memory formats, and I’d love some new ones,” then you’ll be cheered by today’s announcement from Sony and Sandisk.
The two companies have revealed details about their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop a new SxS memory card format for professional camcorders.
Designed to replace the long serving CF card, the SxS memory cards are half the size of their predecessors (width: 34mm, height: 5mm, length: 75mm), can hold much more data – up to 16GB so far – with Sandisk and Sony optimising transfer protocols up to a blistering 800 megabits per second.
So comparing the two formats is a bit like putting Torquay United up against Man United then.
This SxS technology is basically a PCI Express memory card using flash memory with the card connecting directly to computer systems through the high-speed PCI-Express bus.
Although the card is too much of a heffalump to fit into digital compact cameras, it may appear in some high end medium format still cameras and other specialised snappers.
For camcorder users owning laptops with PCI Express memory card-compatible slots, we can see the SxS cards being a real boon as they’ll be able to whip the memory out of their camera and slap it straight into their lappie.
Sony is expected to adopt this high-speed SxS memory card specification for its XDCAM EX series professional camcorders, with the memory cards available later in 2007.
16 April, 2007
Apple Final Cut Server Launched
Apple has also announced the summer release of Final Cut Server, a cross-platform (Mac+PC) piece of software designed to serve the Final Cut’s 800,000+ users, alongside its announcement of Final Cut Studio 2.
We think that given the Mac OS is based on a form of Unix, and Apples dislike for Microsoft, it’s surprising that Apple hasn’t released a Linux-based server.
The software automatically catalogues large collections of assets and lets editors collaborate and share videos with each other, supported by keyword searching of video clips, access controls and workflow templates.
This is an aggressive move by Apple into the area that has until now been dominated by highly specialised video editing packages.
Final Cut Server will cost $999 (£649) for a 10-user license or $1999 (£1,299) for one server and unlimited concurrent users.
It is expected to be released in Summer 2007.
Apple Final Cut Server
16 April, 2007
Apple Final Cut Studio 2 Announced
Apple has released a significant upgrade to its Final Cut Studio package, a high-end bundle of video editing applications for pros and rich enthusiasts alike and Final Cut Server.
The Final Cut Studio 2 package includes Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4.2 and a new app called Color, described as a, “professional colour grading and finishing application.”
Also new is ProRes 422, a new full raster, 10-bit 4:2:2 post production format that produces stunning HD quality at “SD file sizes,” with Apple claiming that industry heavyweights like Panasonic, Sony and RED are also feeling the love for the format.
Motion 3 now offers a 3D environment, paint and new drag-and-drop camera behaviours, vector based paint tools, and a match moving tool for mapping images or effect to the path of any other object.
The Soundtrack Pro 2 audio editor adds tools for multitrack editing and surround mixing with a new Conform tool which makes it easier to precisely align effects and dialogue with footage.
Apple’s encoding tool, Compressor 3 offers a more streamlined interface with a simplified workflow, and extends support for codecs such as MPEG-2 and H.264 with presets for television, Web, iPod, Apple TV, DVD and mobile phone delivery.
Finishing off the package is DVD Studio Pro 4.2 which takes care of SD and HD DVD authoring.
In line with its professional status, Final Cut Studio costs a ruddy packet, retailing for a whistle-inducing £849 (current version users can upgrade for £329, otherwise it’s £449 for all other Final Cut Studio users).
Apple Final Cut Studio 2
16 April, 2007
Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 3/3
With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.
Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).
Over three parts, we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.
The two previous pieces gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK; and LLU Penetration in the UK and the (un)Economics of it.
OpenLLU
The operators should have joined forces and built a single LLU infrastructure between them and then competed on service. This would have meant a second national network to compete with BT’s 21CN allowing operators to compete with BT on their own terms.
Also a single network would have meant it could go to many more of the 5,600 DLEs than the 1,200 everyone’s competing for at the moment.
Unfortunately competition is so fierce between the telecoms operators it will never happen – much to their joint detriment.
Broadband Competition
BT is still the biggest player by far and they’ll try and increase market share when they launch their 21CN. Many operators are underestimating the effect of BT’s 21CN and how quickly BT can launch it.
When they do launch, they are trying to get back to a situation whereby everyone else once again becomes a BT reseller.
Virgin Media have around 4m customers, but they have little money for expansion and are likely to use LLU in future to provide broadband services. They’re stance is even worse now Sky have pulled their basic channels, which is likely to cause customers to migrate to Sky and if enough go, then Virgin Media may be in a sticky situation (the city won’t look kindly on a reduced customer base).
Wireless is the next big hope
Unfortunately there’s very little spectrum available for wireless broadband in the UK, though 2.5GHz is going to be made available for auction later this year, but it wont be cheap. It was reserved for 3G use, so there may be bids from 3G operators but it’s also bang in the middle of the frequencies WiMAX can use (BT have already said they’re interested in bidding for it).
Other companies who do have spectrum are: –
* PCCW (UK Broadband) who have a national 3.4GHz license.
* Pipex Wireless who have a national 3.6/4.2 GHz license.
It’s not clear whether the recent Pipex sale announcement covers the wireless side or not.
Future
Content will be key, access will just be a delivery channel for content and broadband will just be a commodity item (making it even more uneconomic to roll-out).
There’s going to be even more consolidation in the industry and BT will win either way (more LLU customers mean BT get more customers, if it fails, BT Wholesale get more customers).
BT will also dominate when they roll-out their 21CN, they want to be the Sky of fixed networks i.e. use them to deliver the content and they take a big chunk for the customer charge for doing so).
The future’s bright – but only for BT.
16 April, 2007
Palm Releases Backup Program For Treo Users
Palm has unveiled a new beta app for Palm Treo users letting them back up their data over the air to Palm’s secure servers, without the need to connect to a desktop computer.
The Palm Backup Beta service can be downloaded from here and lets users back up data from the core handset applications; Contacts, Calendar, Memos, Tasks, Blazer (web browser) bookmarks, quick dials and the call log.
Once the app is downloaded on to the Treo (a 300k .prc file), users are prompted to open a new account with Palm, and select their resident country (only the US and Canada were listed as being currently available, so – sssscch! – we lied and still managed to set up an account with no problem).
An activation letter is sent to your email account, but you can start the back up on your Treo straight away (but you must activate your Palm account within 7 days otherwise your account will be closed).
The first screen asks you how often you want to schedule your Treo back ups (daily/weekly/monthly or manual) and at what time of the day or night.
A back up of your data will then be saved to Palm’s secure server as scheduled – so long as there is wireless data coverage available (if it fails to find a connection, it will try again at the next scheduled time).
Palm warns that if your Treo is stuffed full of data, the initial back up might take quite a while – something we discovered with the process taking something like 20 minutes over GPRS – but then we have over nine years worth of contacts, calendar and memo data filling up our much-used Treo 650. Subsequent backs up should be quicker.

Note that with all that data flying about, you’ll need a generous data allowance with your mobile service provider otherwise you might face hefty bandwidth bills.
With its obvious benefit to business users, this new backup service reflects Palm’s determination to start clawing back sales from high flying competitors like Blackberry and Windows Mobile.
Palm Backup Beta service currently supports Palm Treo 700p, Treo 680 and Treo 650 and there’s no news yet about release date or pricing.
Palm Backup Beta service
13 April, 2007
Ricoh GX100 Digicam Packs In The Innovation
Last time we looked at one of Ricoh’s upmarket cameras, the Ricoh GR, we went all Victor Kyam and liked the camera so much we went out and bought the thing, and Ricoh’s new GX100 has got our wallet hand twitching again.
Never a company to run with the pack, the new Ricoh Caplio GX100 serves up an innovative feature set, with a super wide 24 to 72 mm wide zoom lens (35mm film equivalent), a fast F2.5 aperture and 10.01 Megapixel CCD sensor.
Billed as the successor to the popular Caplio GX8, the GX100 has inherited some of the features of the GR, including the fabulous two mode dial system which makes up what Professional Photography magazine recently described as the ‘best control system of any compact camera’ (once you get used to it, Canon and Nikon compacts seem clunky in comparison).
Another innovation that has set photo-nerd hearts a-fluttering in Chez Digi Lifestyles is the optional removable electronic viewfinder.
This clips on to the hotshoe (yes, it’s got one of them too) and offers a high resolution LCD display including all the necessary exposure information. If they get the quality right, this will be as close as you can get to a real street shooter experience in a camera this size.
Architecture and landscape fans will also like the optional ultra-wide-angle 19mm lens for those big panoramic shots, with spot-on exposures guaranteed via a host of manual and scene modes and RAW file recording.
As with the GR, macro focussing goes all the way down to a frankly ridiculous 1 cm (any closer and you’ll be burrowing into the subject), with a built in CCD shift method offering vibration reduction.
Ricoh claim that their ‘Smooth Imaging Engine II’ image-processing engine will keep the noise down, but with so many pixels packed onto such a small sensor, we expect the processor will be kept busy.
With the Ricoh Caplio GX100 measuring up at just 25mm, this looks to be a great carry everywhere camera, and with a claimed battery life of 380 exposures, this looks to be a very, very interesting camera.
European pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but a Japanese site is quoting a retail price of 80,000 Yen (approx $670, 500 Euro, £340).
Specifications:

CCD Effective 10.01 million pixels (total 10.30 million pixels ), 1/1.75-inch primary-colour CCD
Lens Focal length f=5.1 to 15.3 mm (equivalent to 24 to 72 mm for 35 mm film cameras)
Aperture (F value): F 2.5 – F9.1 (Wide-angle) , F4.4 – F15.8 (Telephoto)
Lens structure 11 glass elements in 7 groups
Shutter speed 180, 120, 60, 30, 15, 8, 4, 2, 1 to 1/2000 sec. 1/30 – 1/2000 sec.
Picture modes F (Fine) / N (Normal) / RAW *2
Exposure adjustment TTL-CCD Metering Method: Multi Light Metering (256 segments),
Centre-weighted Light Metering, Spot Metering
White balanced Auto, Fixed (OUTDOORS, CLOUDY, INCAND., FLUORES., MANUAL) / White Balance Bracket
Memory SD Memory Card ( 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 MB, 1, 2 GB), SDHC Memory Card (4 GB),
Multi Media Card, Internal Memory (26 MB)
Recording modes Still image modes (Still Image, CONT., S-CONT, M-CONT), Program Shift, Aperture-Priority,
Manual Exposure modes, Scene modes (Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Nightscape,
Skew correction, Text, Zoom macro, High Sensitivity) , Movie mode, My setting 1&2
LCD 2.5-inch Transparent Amorphous Silicon TFT LCD (approx. 230,000 pixels)
Dimensions 111.6 mm (W) x 58.0 mm (H) x 25.0 mm (D) (excluding projections parts)
Weight Approx. 220 g (excluding batteries, Memory Card, strap), Accessories: approx. 30 g (battery, strap)
Battery Rechargeable battery (DB-60) x 1, optional AC adaptor (AC-4c), AAA battery (alkaline/oxyride/NiMH) x 2
Shooting capacity Conforms to CIPA standard: using the DB-60, approx. 380 pictures
(Using AAA alkaline batteries: approx. 35 pictures *4)
Ricoh GX100
13 April, 2007
Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2
With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.
Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).
Over three days we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.
Yesterdays piece gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK.
LLU Penetration
All the large operators are going into around 1,000 DLEs (those being the most densely populated), since there are only around 1,200 of them, all the operators are targeting the same DLEs and there’s a lot of overlap.
Since the operators all want to get into the same exchanges, there’s overcrowding and BT have to install new hostel space (the space where operators can put their own equipment into) which causes delays. It can take more than 6 months from when an operator puts an order in to being granted access to an exchange.
LLU (un)Economics
When LLU was announced it was prohibitively expensive, mainly due to Ofcom (or Oftel as it was then) allowing BT to set the pricing models.
Over time the economics have become fairer to operators, with BT being forced to set-up BT Openreach which looks after the physical infrastructure. If they hadn’t formed Openreach, it’s likely Ofcom would have pushed for a split of BT.
Ofcom then made BT not reduce wholesale pricing for their broadband services to give LLU operators a chance to gain a foothold. BT would have to maintain their pricing until April 2007 or 1.5m unbundled lines, whichever came first.
In Dec 2006 there were 1,000,000 unbundled lines and last week Ofcom announced that 1,700,000 unbundled lines had been reached (there was no distinction between Option 2 and 4). BT Wholesale has over 9m broadband customers.
Also Carphone Warehouse (CPW) released their interim results showing they had 2.31m broadband customers, 700,000 utilising LLU.
So out of the 1.7m unbundled lines, CPW have .7m which means there’s 1m split between the rest (mainly the big players, Wanadoo, C&W, Easynet Pipex and Tiscali).
As a rough model that’s 1.7m lines, spread over 1,000 DLEs which makes 1,700 lines unbundled per DLE. There’s 6 big players which means around 280 customers per operator per exchange.
Unfortunately the economics of LLU only work if there’s a lot of customers per exchange i.e. massive scale.
Now that the milestone of 1.5m unbundled lines has been reached, BT Wholesale will be allowed to reduce their pricing (which they’ve said they want to do) which will make the economics even worse.
To get the scale, further consolidation will occur which means fewer LLU operators in the future (Pipex has already put itself up for sale with CPW rumoured to be the front-runner for buying them). They need to do this in order to get the customer penetration per exchange.
The next and final section will cover the possibility of competition to BT and what could happen in the future
Images are courtesy of wb-internet and the BBC, respectively.
13 April, 2007