Digital-Lifestyles – Page 192 – 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

Pure EVOKE-1XT Marshall Edition Released. Let’s Rock!
DAB radio pioneers, Pure Technologies, have released information about a forthcoming DAB radio, styled as a Marshall Amp.
To rockers and heavy metal fans alike Marshall Amps rule, so this is likely to appeal to head banger who remember the days of AC/DC when an adult dressing up as a school boy was actively encouraged.
EVOKE-1XT Marshall Edition is wrapped in black vinyl, just like a Marshall amp, with solid wood construction, brass-effect control panel and a black metallic speaker grille.
Pure tell us that it has a bass reflex port for enhanced bass performance alongside a custom designed 3″ drive unit and active-filters to provide a natural ‘direct-from-the-studio’ sound. Let’s Rock!
You to can fool yourself that you’ve turned your bathroom into the Monster of Rock playing Donnington by buying this beauty.
Pure clearly have a sense of humour as the volume goes up to 11 (tm Spinal Tap).
It’s going to sell for 1p under £100.
Pure
2 November, 2006
No Protection For Online Gambling Bosses: Caborn
UK sports minister, Richard Caborn, has said that Britain would not protect online gaming executives from extradition requests if they took Internet bets from countries in which they were illegal. These won’t be welcome words to the people running the gambling companies, who have already taken a hit with the arrest of two execs in the US earlier this year.
Caborn was speaking at a summit, ironically held at the Ascot horse racing course in Berkshire, discussing and agreeing a draft framework of regulation to protect consumers and prevent underage gambling and gambling addiction.
“We now have in place a road map that will lead to better regulated remote gambling across the world,” he said.
It’s been reported that Caborn has plans to make Britain a “world leader” in Internet gambling, when internal Whitehall documents were leaked around the start of October.
(via Reuters)
1 November, 2006
Boss Micro BR, The ‘World’s Smallest Pro Studio’
Musicians today, eh? Spolit rotten.
Back in the day, whenever the creative muse struck, songwriters would have to write down their ideas on the back of a fag packet or strut around with a bulky cassette recorder which recorded more hiss than a steam train parade.
Thanks to music gear company Boss, all that’s set to change, with their stunning new pocket-sized gizmo letting musicians go one further than just recording basic ideas; with this baby they can record entire songs on the move!
Their new Micro BR – billed as the World’s Smallest Pro Studio – offers a phenomenal amount of power in a package barely bigger than an iPod.
The pint sized marvel offers four simultaneous playback tracks (plus 32 V-Tracks), MP3 compatibility, onboard multi-effects, built-in rhythm patterns, a tuner, USB connectivity and SD expansion card slot.
There’s also a dedicated guitar input for ambling axemen, time-stretch and centre cancel features, 293 rhythm patterns for whipping up a groove and a built-in microphone for ‘laying down’ your ‘vox trax.’
Despite its teensy-weensy dimensions 136.0 mm x 81.0 mm x 21.4 mm (5-3/8″ x 3-3/16″ x 7/8″), there’s a full complement of controls on the device, with a dozen buttons, nine knobs (for that all important ‘tweaking’) and a bundled 128MB SD card, offering 65 minutes of mono audio recording.
The Micro BR is essentially is a four-track studio with four simultaneous playback tracks and two simultaneous record / input tracks, but with each of the four main playback tracks having eight companion V-Tracks, users can record multiple takes and then pick the killer version for the final mixdown.
MP3 files can also be loaded up, with the ability to slow down the tempo without the pitch changing – handy for trying to learn those super fast guitar licks!
Due to start shipping at the end of the year, the price looks pretty competitive too, with one US site offering it for just $230 – a price that wouldn’t even buy you a half-decent drum machine back in our day (mumble, moan, ‘kids have it too easy these days,’ etc etc zzzz).
Boss
1 November, 2006
Google Buys JotSpot Wiki Company: The Why
Google has bought Palo Alto, CA-based Wiki/collaborative working company, JotSpot for an undisclosed amount.
With this move Google continues its habit of buying companies that produce high-quality, hosted Web-based application, before the rest of the market realises that they should be getting involved with it. JotSpot was founded in 2004 by Excite.com co-founders Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer.
JotSpot is a king amoung Wikis with a very easy to use AJAX-driven interface, providing incredibly smooth editing. A large leap from where most Wikis are, which are clumsy text command driven beasts that require the mastering of strange syntax’s to get working.
JotSpot was built by some of the best known names in the AJAX business, including Digital-Lifestyles chum Alex Russell, one of the people behind the increasingly popular Dojo toolkit.
With the release of JotSpot 2.6 back in May this year, making “editing is as fluid and natural as reading,” by using AJAX components wrapped into a Dojo widget.
Wikis provide the ability for many people to edit information on Web pages, and generally for the editing to be carried out by anyone. The philosophy behind the Wiki is the sharing of a collective knowledge. The best known example is Wikipedia, where anyone can start a page on Wikipedia about any subject with the knowledge that they have on that subject, this can then later be added to and amended by those who also have supplementary information on it.
Not Just Wikis – JotSpot Tracker
JotSpot isn’t just about Wikis, it’s about sharing information live on the Internet. Released at the end of last year (Dec 2005), JotSpot Tracker give users real-time editing of spreadsheets on the Internet, without the need for Excel.
Watching the video they made available when they integrated it into Salesforce, will give you some idea of the power the idea, and how components like this will make Google the online working company that Microsoft is trying to be with its Windows Live product.
JotSpot
1 November, 2006
Sony Unveils The World’s Lightest Notebook PC
Sony has announced that it will be launching what it claims is the world’s lightest notebook computer in December in Japan.
Aimed at the swivel-action, besuited business crowd, the carbon-cased Sony ‘type G’ Vaio lappie weighs in at a fluffy-cloud like 898 grams, with Sony’s boffins still managing to fit in a 12.1-inch LCD screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a mighty battery life.
Looking closer it appears that they’ve also managed to wedge in a fingerprint reader too.
Sony claims that their new laptop will keep on rocking for 12.5 hours on a single battery charge in Stamina mode – long enough for even the longest haul commuters.
There’s no optical drive onboard, although there’s also an optical drive version available, weighing a pixie-untroubling 984g.
The new lightweight range will be powered by a range of three CPUs (Celeron, Core Solo U1300 and U1400), backed by 512MB of RAM and 40-80GB hard disk drives.
From what we’ve seen of the press photos, it seems that the laptop will be available in grey, blue and carbon finishes, all of which look delightfully natty to us.
Sony said that it currently has no plans to sell this featherweight beauty overseas (which is a real shame because our hearts are a-pumping at this little fella), but has announced that they will be knocking out for about 220,000 yen in Japan ($1,881, £985).
Sony [Japan]
1 November, 2006
Zend To Help PHP Run Faster On Windows
Microsoft have finally woken up to the fact that people aren’t using their Web server product, Internet Information Server.
Un*x-based Web servers rule the roost with the majority of commercial hosting companies, for a couple of reasons.
First is cost – Apache is free, as is Linux that it runs on, where as the Microsoft option requires a copy of Windows Server which retails for around $1,000.
Another is that many of the applications that are run on the Internet, and are freely available, use the programming language, PHP – twenty-two million Web sites currently. PHP is widely know as running slowly on IIS.
Microsoft have now signed a deal with Zend Technology to get PHP running faster, more reliably and increasing its stability. The deal covers Windows Server 2003 and the upcoming version Windows ‘Longhorn.’
To get the PHP working efficiently on their Server products, Microsoft will develop a version of FastCGI them. They will give away.
Microsoft will be excited with the comments of Andi Gutmans, co-founder and chief technology officer at Zend, “Since our preliminary work with Microsoft, we have already seen a better than 100 percent performance gain with some PHP applications on Windows Server 2003.” Good start.
Clearly this is great for Zend, a major mover in the PHP-world, as we suspect that they’ll be getting bundles of money for their troubles. Actual details of the financial arrangements were not disclosed.
As to whether anyone will actually choose to run PHP on Windows Server, when they can get it running for free on Linux – What do you think?
Zend
1 November, 2006
Nintendo Wii: Video Clip Shows Controller In Use
Nintendo’s Wii is holding a controllers for video games and the controller is central to the Wii. While the xbox 360 and playstation 3 have gone for sheer processing power, the Wii is definitely going for the fun, sociable gaming side. Differentiating like this could make it a winner.
In the run up to the pre-xmas release of the Wii, there’s a number of promotional video popping up. We saw this one today and it’s a good indication to the type of applications of the controllers and games that will be possible.
31 October, 2006
Windows Media Player 11 Released
Confidently billed as “a milestone for music fans and the digital entertainment experience on Windows XP,” Microsoft’s shiny new Windows Media Player 11 claims support for more than 200 portable and home networking devices and hundreds of online music and video services and radio stations.
The upgrade to their popular media player comes with a sleeker, iTunes-esque user interface, better online store integration, improved navigation and updated search tools for larger music libraries.
“Windows Media Player 11 is the first media player to be truly designed with the digital entertainment lover in mind,” purred Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows at Microsoft.
“The fresh, exciting new look, the ability to find songs and videos in an instant, and the enhanced capabilities for syncing with portable devices are not only exactly what customers have asked us for, they’re also a preview of what’s to come in Windows Vista,” he added.
New for Media Player 11 is thumbnail and album art displays; shuffle sync and reverse sync options and a library view backed by simplified navigation capabilities and enhanced shortcut options.
Tabs galore
Along the top of the super-slick, Vista-ready interface are six access tabs letting you jump between the currently playing media, the media library, and tools for ripping, burning and syncing up media.
So far so good until you come to the last pointless tab, which offers instant access MTV’s Urge music store. The result of some lucrative MTV marketing tie-in or another, users will have to put up with this unwanted guest forever as there’s no way of getting rid of the thing.
WMP11 can rip audio CDs in the default WMA format or the more popular MP3 format and there’s also support for the beardy audiophiles preferred format, lossless WAV, along with the ability to easily burn all supported file formats onto CD.
The new player is available as a free download to users with genuine copies of Windows XP – which means you’re going to have to go through a pesky validation palaver to install the program.
Windows Media Player 11
31 October, 2006
Mobile Music Phones Outsell MP3 Players
Mobile phones with built in MP3 music players are proving a massive hit with consumers, far outstripping sales of dedicated music players, say Nokia.
Speaking to Reuters, Nokia’s multimedia unit director, Tommi Mustonen, said the mobile giant aimed to shift 80 million music devices this year, getting on for double last year’s tally of 46.5 million.
“The technology is completely ready, and the change in consumers’ habits has started. The best evidence is our sales number. We are selling huge amounts,” he added.
Nokia’s sales figures certainly dwarf those of Apple, who sold 8.7 million iPods in the last quarter – a high enough figure to keep them at the top of the dedicated music player charts, but still way behind music phones.
Although two out of three consumers with suitable equipped phones are already using them to play music, Nokia insists that Apple is not a competitor (well, not until their highly anticipated iPhone hits the shops).
“The comparison with iPod is wrong; it is a single purpose device, and it is not connected,” Mustonen said, adding that he believes that Nokia’s current rivals are, “companies which make multimedia computers.”
One of their rivals is most certainly Sony Ericsson, currently the world’s fourth-largest handset maker and feeling chuffed with itself after flogging 15 million Walkman music-playing handsets in its first year.
The overall European mobile phone music download market is expanding faster than Mr Creosote at a dinner table too, with Forrester Research predicting that the market is to grow to 674 million euros ($857.5 million) in 2011.
Reuters
31 October, 2006
Virgin Mobile Lobster 770TV: Review
The last 18 months have seen a growing crescendo of excitement in the content and mobile phone worlds about the possibilities of delivering TV to mobile phone. The ideas been around a lot longer than that, but it’s the smell of money that has heightened senses.
Virgin Mobile have been keen to show the pace in this area and BT Livetime).
The handsets are now in pre-production and are getting into the hands of a few people.
James Cridland, Head of New Media Strategy at Virgin Radio has had a pre-production Virgin Mobile Lobster 770TV in his hands for a while and has written up a review of it, complete with the four TV services and 49 radio stations.
Built by HTC, its guts are an Orange SPV C600 but the protrusion on its right hand side holds the DAB chippery. James reports that the headphones are better than SPV600, which the 770TV is based on. They also act as the aerial for the DAB receiver.
James goes into a lot more detail about the handset, but let’s get down to how it performs as a TV.
The content
The four TV channels he had were BBC One London, Channel 4 Shortcuts, E4, and ITV-1 (only available in London). It sounds like the programming on the commercial channels hits a few interruptions due to ‘rights.’
BBC One London is in full and free. E4 and ITV-1 generally shows a simulcast of the main channels, but at some times of the day you get a notice that the current programme is unavailable for ‘rights reasons’ – which, at the time of writing, includes all of E4’s daytime music programming, all advertising, all of GMTV, and quite a few other programmes too: it’s unusual to be able to get all four channels in full, in my experience. Channel 4 Shortcuts shows short clips of Channel 4 shows.
Using it
Starting to watch TV couldn’t be easier, just hitting the TV button, which brings up the TV Guide, which he describes as a fairly comprehensive EPG (electronic programme guide), interestingly updated over-the-air on DAB.
The quality of the service doesn’t sound amazing currently.
Clicking on a channel name opens a screen with a larger logo and a Windows Media ‘buffering’ sign, which disappears fairly quickly to be replaced with a passable picture. The framerate appears quite low – probably no more than 10 frames a second – and the picture quality does break up in fast movement; this isn’t picture quality to write home about, but conversely it is pretty good at coping with variable signal quality – on occasion, you can sometimes lose the picture but keep the sound. Watching live television in a moving taxi is an interesting experience, but works very well.
Radio service
James is significantly more impressed with this Lobster as a DAB radio, finding “the reception quality is rather better than I’ve experienced with an FM radio,” indeed, “it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the best hand-held DAB Digital Radio that I’ve ever had.”
Given his role at Virgin Radio, he’s a man who knows a thing or two about radio too.
Conclusion
Despite liking the other functions of the Lobster, it appears James won’t be chucking out his TV anytime soon, finding the current channels available not good enough.
I can’t see too many people sitting down for half an hour of Coronation Street on this thing; and it would seem to me that the television offering needs changing – to offer more grazing-friendly programming. Sky News or BBC News 24 would be a great addition. The absence of GMTV on the phone shows what disarray the commercial broadcasters are in – why cede peak commuting time to the BBC alone?
Clearly early days in this fledgling area.
Full details are over on James’ blog
Photo credit: James Cridland
31 October, 2006