Digital-Lifestyles – Page 193 – 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

Full GNER Train Fleet Goes WiFi
UK rail operator GNER (Great North Eastern Railways) has now completed the installation of Wi-Fi on all is trains, with the company claiming that they now own the world’s largest Wi-Fi fleet.
Pushed forward from its original completion date of strong demand from passengers, the service uses a roof-mounted satellite connection and a 3G/GPRS uplink, supplied and fitted by Swedish company Icomera.
The Wi-Fi service was first trialled along the 580-mile Inverness to Kings Cross East Coast mainline service in July 2004, and a £3.2 million investment has seen its entire 41-strong fleet become wireless-enabled.
GNER reckons it will recoup the cost of installing its Wi-Fi service through increased passenger numbers, with the company confident that they’ll be able to tempt car users onto the trains from major metropolitan areas like Leeds, Newcastle and Darlington.
The service is priced at £2.95 for a 30-minute internet session, £4.95 for an hour or £7.95 for three hours for ~~second class~~ standard class ~~passengers~~ customers, with access free for first class travellers.
Wi-Fi has been proving a hit with passengers, with a host of train operators getting in on the act: passengers travelling from Brighton to London have been able to connect wirelessly for some time, while Virgin Trains is set to add Wi-Fi to their West Coast mainline fleet in 2007.
“Wireless Internet has immense potential for both business and leisure users, and we’re very encouraged by the usage levels and positive feedback from passengers,” said Jonathan Metcalfe, GNER’s chief executive officer.
One thing Metcalfe may not be so encouraged by is the rather parlous state of GNER’s parent company, the Caribbean-based Sea Containers.
The company filed for protection against bankruptcy in the USA a fortnight ago, although this shouldn’t – in theory – affect the UK company.
However, GNER warned the UK government last week that it needs to renegotiate its operating licence or it’ll throw all its toys out of the pram when it gets smacked down with a thumping great penalty clause for not meeting the year’s performance targets.
GNER Mobile Office
30 October, 2006
NetGames 2006
30-31 October, 2006 The NetGames workshop brings together researchers and developers from academia and industry to share ideas and present new research in understanding networked games and entertainment and in enabling the next generation of online games. This year’s workshop will be hosted by Interaction and Entertainment Center, Singapore. This years joint-conference chair is Dr Adrain David Cheok, who we have huge respect for with his exceptional work at the Mixed Reality Lab, Singapore Interaction and Entertainment Center, Singapore http://www.netgames2006.org/
30 October, 2006
ippr: Give Music Copying Rights To Consumers
The influential UK thinktank, Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), announced on Sunday that they thought that UK copyright law should be updated to include a “private right to copy,” clause to legalising the personal copying of CDs to portable music players. They also recommend that there should be no extension to the current 50-years copyright term.
At present, people copying music or films from CDs or DVDs that they have bought, to their computers or portable devices for their own use is against the law. According to research carried out in May this year by the National Consumer Council, the majority of British citizens (59%) had no idea that by copying content they were breaking current copyright laws.
There is a upcoming review in the UK, Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, set up by Chancellor Gordon Brown and chaired by Andrew Gowers, which ippr says is an ideal opportunity to carry out the update to the 300 year old copyright law. The ippr believes the update would legalise the actions of millions of Britons without any significant harm to the copyright holders.
The report, Public Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age, also recommends that:
The Government should reject calls from the UK music industry to extend copyright term for sound recordings beyond the current 50 years. The report argues that there is no evidence to suggest that current protections provided in law are insufficient.
The Government should act to ensure that Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology does not continue to affect the preservation of electronic content by libraries. The British Library should be given a DRM-free copy of any new digital work and libraries should be able to take more than one copy of digital work. It also recommends that circumvention of DRM technology should stop being illegal once copyright has expired.
ippr news release
30 October, 2006
LG White Chocolate Phone Launches
After the success of LG’s Chocolate slider phone (aka the LG KG800), the company have released a new White Chocolate version.
The super-slick snowy white version offers the same feature set as the original, which means that users get a slidy-out phone with GSM 900/1800/1900 network coverage, backed by Bluetooth (with A2DP), Infrared and Wi-Fi connectivity.
There’s also a 1.3 MP camera with 2X zoom and a sizeable 176×220 262K-colour LCD screen and the same funky heat sensitive touch control keys for controlling the main functions.
These keys glow red in a suitably high tech manner when active, and fade into the background colour when they’re not being used.
The new white look is apparently designed to appeal to the laydees and it looks like LG are trying to sprinkle some of that iPod fairy dust on the thing.
Music playback support comes in the shape of WMA and MP3 support with micro-SD memory expansion up to 2GB.
Despite the hefty 128MB of memory onboard, function fans may be a little unchuffed to discover there’s no radio and speakerphone included – a curious omission if you ask us.
The phone also comes with a WAP 2.0 compliant browser, measures up at 95x48x15mm and weighs a pocket-untroubling 83 grams.
Battery life is listed as 3.5 hours talk / 8 days standby and is available on Amazon US for $375.
[From New Launches]
30 October, 2006
Nokia 330 Auto Navigation Announced
Nokia has announced its first dedicated personal navigation device covering all of Europe-land, the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation.
The Nokia 330 includes full Europe coverage, sports a large 3.5 inch colour touch screen, spoken directions and comes with a raft of multimedia widgets to keep le continental traveller ‘appy.
Featuring an integrated GPS receiver, the Nokia 330 device comes bundled with a 2GB memory card containing the preinstalled Europe-wide map data aling with detailed travel information.
The Nokia 330 uses the ROUTE 66 Navigate 7 application and views can be flipped between 2D/3D and day or night views, with options to change the language or volume of the spoken guide.
To help stave off boredom in Brussels and ennui in Eindhoven, the Auto Navigation also includes a music player, photo viewer and video player (but don’t go watching Rocky V when you’re driving folks! Well, we wouldn’t recommend you watch it any time, but that’s a different story).
And now some corporate guff
“Consumers are increasingly eager to use personal navigation devices while driving and we are delighted to introduce the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation device to meet this demand,” purred Razvan Olosu, vice president, Multimedia Enhancements at Nokia.
“Nokia 330 Auto Navigation complements the recently announced GPS and navigation solutions from Nokia.”
“Finding your way across Europe is simple with this comprehensive navigation package, including an integrated GPS receiver and European maps,” he added.
The Nokia 330 Auto Navigation is expected to turn up in “select channels” in Europe during the fourth quarter 2006 for around EUR 360 – £240 (sans le taxes).
Nokia
30 October, 2006
Woz Spills The Beans On Apple
Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder and genius hardware builder, is currently on a book tour around the UK promoting …. not surprisingly, his book, iWoz. As you probably know, he’s commonly referred to as Woz.
The most revealing one-on-one interview was carried out by Digital-Lifestyles pal Bobbie Johnson of the Guardian.
Woz revealed that what got him started creating computers was the desire to build a videogame, then wanting to get on to Arpanet
it got me into wanting to do it so badly that the only way to do it for free was to build my own device. So I built my own device that could now put words on the TV set from a computer and type of a keyboard.
Woz confirmed that Jobs did rip him off in the early days when Jobs got him to redesign the circuit board for the classic arcade game, Breakout. After Wos had spent 72 hours straight getting the system boards chip count down by around half. Jobs told him he’d give Woz half of what he got, $700, but Jobs had actually received $7,000.
On the iPod and its expected longevity, Woz pins it, “Will the iPod always remain that large? Walkmans seemed to come and then go away. I think Apple’s making the most out of the lifespan.”
Other controversial comments that have come out during the book tour include him thinking that Apple wasted their money when they bought NeXT, as it wasn’t needed at that time. There had been a lot of complaints around that time about the stability of Apple’s OS 7. After some investigation Woz discovered that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been the cause of the problems.
Woz
27 October, 2006
VideoJug And The Sun Does Video Content Deal
Video howto site VideoJug has signed a deal with UK tabloid, The Sun, to provide ten video clips to them weekly.
This will be a big traffic boost for VideoJug who has been publicly available for the last two and a half months.
The owners of The Sun, Rupert Murdoch, has been embracing video and bring it together with his other publications like MySpace is now well known.
Background on VideoJug VideoJug’s strap line is Life Explained on Film and have been labelled “YouTube for HowTos,” and was launched in August.
Much of the production of the video is carried out in Spain where they aim to produce up to 500 clips per month. They are also soliciting members of the public to upload their videos to add to the pile.
The clips cover from the useful (How to Make a Hangover Juice) to the frivolous (How To Pull A Tablecloth From Beneath A Dinner Service). They can be viewed either from the VideoJug site or downloaded to portable video players like iPod or PSP.
One neat addition to other services is the option to print out instructions.
VideoJug
The Sun
27 October, 2006
Mission Impossible 3: Parallel Mobile and DVD Release on Nokia N93
Nokia is to have Mission Impossible 3 released on memory cartridge in parallel with its releases on DVD – making it the world’s first mobile premiere.
The complete film will be on a 512Mb miniSD card, running at 25fps and be exclusively available with the N93. As of next week purchasers of the N93 will get the film included.
Given the gadget fest that M:i:III is, it’s pretty appropriatte.
It’s a European deal between Nokia and Paramout Pictures, making it available in the UK, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. The content will be protected, so it cannot be watched on a PC or transfered to another memory card,
Nokia has been trying very hard to its launch, this is the first deal to link it with watching films.
Tuula Rytilä-Uotila, director of Multimedia at Nokia buzzed, “With this package, we want to highlight that the Nokia N93 is not only a fantastic movie-making device, but that it is also a portable video player, allowing users to enjoy movies wherever, whenever.”
27 October, 2006
London Media Summit 2006
27 October 2006 New technologies are undoubtedly changing the way we produce and consume content. Today an unprecedented range of entertainment and information is available on a multitude of formats, each supported by unique business models and revenue streams. However, one key question remains unresolved: what content will consumers truly value in this brave new world? Presenting at the Media Summit in 2005Are consumer tastes evolving in line with the advancements in distribution? Are the big content brands transferable across multiple channels? Who will be the primary generators of content in the future? Will there be a power shift from traditional media companies to smaller niche producers, or even to users themselves? In a world where free content is becoming ubiquitous, what bastions of premium content will survive? Are traditional content packages such as music albums, feature films and radio shows set to be replaced by single tracks, video clips and podcasts? On October 27th, senior executives, investors, consultants and thought leaders in the media industries will come together at the annual London Business School Media Summit to debate these and other issues. http://www.londonmediasummit.com/
27 October, 2006
UK Digital Radio Figures Up Again
The latest digital radio listening figures have come out in the UK. Everyone involved in the DAB radio business as they’ve all gone up.
The digital reach is up 17% from the previous year and the number of hours listened to has gone up 15% from last year.
Something rather pretentiously called the “Digitally Enabled Universe,” ie the number people who fall within the DAB radio reception, has stayed at 54% of the UK population.
The percentage of adults who own a DAB set at home remains at 15.3%.
DRDB chief executive, Ian Dickens, says: “This is great news and proves that digital radio continues to grow in popularity with listeners. Rajar’s research bears out our own findings which show that people who buy a DAB digital radio enjoy the new stations it offers and value the added choice that comes with digital listening.”
The BBC has five national DAB radio station, four of which have increased their listenership. The most popular commercial radio station is Emap’s The Hits with 1.182 million listeners.
Rajar
27 October, 2006