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

  • Spoof David Cameron Video Brouhaha

    Spoof David Cameron Video BrouhahaSome MP’s are trying to create brouhaha (fuss) about a spoof video put out by labour MP Sion Simon mocking the first video of Conservative party leader, David Cameron on his Webcameraon site.

    If you’ve not seen Cameron’s first piece, which was put out in advance of the Tory party conference, take a trundle through – it’s only just over a minute long.

    When we saw it, we found it pretty contrived, with “Dave” just about to do the “washing up” – clutching his Ecover washing-up liquid (look how green I am), without rolling his sleeves up!

    Sion Simon’s video repost parodies Cameron’s “hey, I’m just like you” approach and can be seen below can’t been seen on YouTube anymore as someone has pulled the video. To see it now, you’ll have to watch it via the BBC.

    The criticism of Simon is being lead by Peter Luff and given Luff’s comments, it appears that he’s not too secure in his position, “When you go over the top like this, you bring all of us in politics into disrepute.” If you’ve watched the film I think you’ll agree that the video is hardly over the top, just gently mocking.

    Criticism of the video isn’t just restricted to the opposition. Labour MP Stephen Pound said he thought Mr Cameron’s wife Samantha would be “hurt and insulted” by remarks made by Simon, referring to his comments suggesting that Cameron would be fine with people sleeping with his wife.

    It’s not just MPs that are creating spoof videos. Someone calling himself WebCameraOn has created a number of videos pocking fun as well.

    Cameron is playing the “am I bovvered” card. 2:49 minutes into this piece, Cameron mentions that there had been a number of spoofs of his piece, calling them “The greatest form of flattery, imitation.” Bizarrely Cameron also says, “Hope that you people are enjoying the Web site,” “You People”?

    Cameron – or at least someone in his team – has clearly seen that he now has the ability to bypass the media and the filter that they apply to his comments.

  • Palm Treo 680 Affordable Smartphones Announced

    Palm Treo 680 Affordable Smartphones AnnouncedPalm has introduced a new range of quad-band Palm Treo 680 smartphones, running the tried and trusted Palm OS.

    Backed by a $25 million marketing campaign – their biggest marketing campaign in half a decade – Palm is hoping that the lower priced Treos will attract customers beyond their traditional business base.

    The GSM/GPRS/EDGE phones will be offered in a range of attractive colours (Graphite, Copper, Crimson and Arctic), weighing 23g lighter than the last PalmOS Treo, the 700p, and measuring up at 6mm longer and 3mm thinner.

    Like the Windows-powered Treo 750w released earlier this year, the Treo 680 comes without the pocket-bulging, iconic chunky antennae, something which Palm thinks will have a positive impact on the European market.

    Palm Treo 680 Affordable Smartphones AnnouncedThe Treo comes with a large and bright 320×320 screen and the well regarded full QWERTY keyboard, with a raft of multimedia functions including an integrated digital camera, Bluetooth 1.2 , MP3 player, video recorder and player.

    Onboard, there’s 64MB of user-available storage – nearly three times the capacity of the original Treo 650 smartphone – with expansion card support up to 2GB.

    Although the Treo 680 is still lagging behind with the latest technology – there’s still no W-CDMA or Wi-Fi support – its superb user-friendly interface still puts it streets ahead of some higher spec’d phones.

    Software
    Like its Palm OS predecessors, the 680 displays text-messaging conversations as IM-like “threaded chats,” a fabulous feature that should be introduced by law on all phones.

    The phone also lets users respond to calls by firing off a preset text message (“bog off weird stalker person”), and there’s support for three-way calling.

    Palm Treo 680 Affordable Smartphones AnnouncedAlong with the usual bundled applications for e-mail, Web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar and contacts, there’s a special version of Google Map for the Treo.

    Billed by Google as,”the fastest, slickest version yet,” the application offers real-time traffic reports, detailed directions, integrated search results (search for cafes/bars etc, get addresses and call them with one click), satellite imagery and fast-downloading detailed, draggable maps with translucent pop-up balloons.

    Sadly, us in Britland will have to wait for a while as the program currently only offers maps for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the US.

    Palm Treo 680 Affordable Smartphones AnnouncedPalm has also announced that it will be partnering with several media companies, including Yahoo, Google and blogging firm Six Apart, to make their products available on the new device – these will join the enormous back catalogue of commercial and free software that’s already available for the OS.

    Availability
    Palm head honcho Ed Colligan said he expects the new smartphone to be available around the world by the end of June, 2007, “competitively priced with comparable smartphones in the marketplace,” with the price rumoured to be around the $200 mark.

    Palm 680

  • Orb MyCasting on Nokia N80 In US

    Orb MyCasting on Nokia N80 In USOrb MyCasting has been grabbed by Nokia to be bundled in with the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, in the US only.

    When US N80 owners are swanning around, they’ll be able to watch live TV, videos, listen to music and podcasts and video images on their PC. Not just that, but they can set programs to record on their PC from their mobiles.

    The TV and media companies have not, to say the very least, been particularly keen on letting people do this. We’ll see if they come out against Nokia.

    Back in August this year, Orb MyCasting were keen to “share”, that 19 months after the service was launched, they’ve had over 1.5m hours of digital media transfered over their service – equivalent to 125 years of media-idge. Interestingly up to 45 minutes per user per day, on average.

    Orb has similar deals with companies such as AMD, Vodafone, Hauppauge, Intel and Creative Labs.

    Programming video recordings is not unique – Sky TV has been offering this since July this year through their Mobile Sky+ Programming

    Orb Networks

  • Writely and Spreadsheets Combined By Google

    Writely and Spreadsheets Combined By Googledocs.google.com is the new destination for Google’s Web-based Writely word processor and their companion spreadsheet.

    Given both of the apps are Web-based, anyone with a Web browser can use these apps, no matter where they are. It’s not surprising that Google also offers extensive searching within the documents that are created.

    Just how long the Writely name will survive, now it’s being referred to as Google Docs?

    Google bought Writely back in March and got to work with bringing it into Google-dom.

    Back in June, Google let it be known that they’d matched Writely with a spreadsheet, causing waves of discussion as to them treading on Microsoft’s toes.

    One of the nifty features is the ability to collaborate with other people in your Google address book and choose to share the documents in an area created with anyone on the Web. Once created, the authors can attach tags to the content to locate them again.

    This is great for Google, not just because they are knocking one on the chin for Microsoft, but because they’re giving people tools to generate content … for them to search on Google. Pretty cyclical init.

    Google Docs & Spreadsheets

  • Parliament And The Internet

    12.Oct.06 The Parliament and the Internet Conference will bring together leading figures from Government, Parliament, academia and industry to discuss and debate the most pressing policy issues facing the internet The Conference will centre on a keynote speech from William Dutton, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and six workshops which will each consider a major policy issue facing the internet. Topics for discussion will include consumer protection issues, UK competitiveness in the digital age and next generation services. Each session will be led by an MP or senior industry figure. Portcullis House, London http://www.parliamentandinternet.org.uk/

  • Sony NW-S700 Walkman: Noise Cancelling

    Sony NW-S700 Walkman: Noise CancellingSony have released the latest of their Walkmans – with the added bonus of having noise cancellation built in. It’s the first for a portable music player.

    Over recent years Bose has done very well from their noise cancelling headphone, particularly from regular plan travellers attempting to negate the horrid din.

    The headphone that comes with the NW-S700 Walkman, named 13.5φEX, have built-in microphones that capture, examine and then neutralises the surrounding noise. They call it Clear Audio technology.

    The neat little player comes in 1Gb, 2Gb and 4Gb capacity and has a stunning charge to playback ratio. For all of you with soooper busy lives, a 3 minute charge will give 3 hours of playback. Those who are more relaxed, a maxed out charge will give 50 hours of playback.

    There’s built-in audio encoding, letting you record for an analog source directly and it comes in violet, black and pink.

    One of the options that you’ll be able to get for it, is a Bluetooth Audio Transmitter, letting you send the music via stereo bluetooth to your ears. Expect to see lots of this feature soon.

    It’s going to sell for £189 starting in November – just in time for you little cousin’s xmas present.

    It sounds like a great idea, that we can’t wait to get our hands on.

    SonyStyle Euro site

  • NEC’s Chip To Play Blu-Ray And HD-DVD

    NEC's Chip To Play Blu-ray and HD-DVDThe almighty ruck between Blu-ray and HD-DVD could have found a bridge for the consumer.

    The clever sticks at NEC have come up with a chip that will play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks.

    A smart move for NEC, this could save the consumer having to make a choice between the two formats they have little or no knowledge of, but are being told that they simply must have.

    The difference between the two standards is pretty considerable, not just in the capacity of the disks that Blu-ray has tried to make much of – as they saw it as a competitive advantage. One of the major differences is the interactivity, with Blu-ray going the route of Java, giving them both a considerable processing overhead in the machines that need to play it and huge flexibility in the depth of interactivity that can be achieved.

    It’s not the first time that bringing together the two formats has been suggested. Over a year ago Samsung said that they’d produce a dual format player. Mysteriously they’ve dropped this idea, and gave a serious amount of umm-ing and ahh-ing when asked about it at IFA this year.

    NEC is telling all those who will listen that the chips should be shipping from April 2007 onwards.

  • Ofcom Should Force Sky To Open Its Platform: Opinion

    Ofcom Should Force Sky To Open It's Platform: OpinionIn an ideal world, waiting near the top of the new OFCOM boss Ed Richards’ in-tray, there should be a folder marked ‘Sky Monopoly’ and on it a brightly coloured post-it with the words anti competitive clearly inscribed.

    Digital Television is a standards based system with the majority of the world using a system called DVB (the Americans have something called ATSC but that’s a story for another day), the UK’s Sky TV uses the DVB standard in most respects.

    Pay TV operations rely on a system of Conditional Access (CA) where channels are encrypted, viewers with a suitable viewing card can decrypt the services they subscribe to, those who don’t subscribe don’t get.

    To enable the pay services to operate with the use of ‘viewing cards’ the DVB system has a standard, the standard allows for different viewing cards to co-exist and for TV services to be encrypted by more than one encryption method at a time, the so called Simulcrypt (Simultaneous encryption, get it?).

    Ofcom Should Force Sky To Open It's Platform: OpinionThe area where Sky has decided not to use DVB is for its Conditional Access encryption.

    Sky TV which is controlled by News Corporation, the large multinational media company with Rupert Murdoch at the helm, uses a special tailored version of Conditional Access a variant of Videoguard which is produced by a company called NDS that is in turn, majority owned by News Corporation.

    Now you might be curious to know why this matters, well as the majority of UK householders who watch digital TV, watch via a Sky TV satellite ‘digibox’ and to have a channel that can be easily received via Sky TV the channel must contract with Sky TV to appear on the Sky Electronic Programme Guide, commonly referred to as the EPG.

    Ofcom Should Force Sky To Open It's Platform: OpinionIf that TV service then wants to charge the subscribers to their service they have to use that special version of Videoguard CA.

    So what can be done about it? Well OFCOM can and should mandate Sky TV to open up its platform to other DVB CA systems and new entrants can then offer smaller niche services and a new competitive platform to Sky should emerge.

    The BBC has for some time been promising a Freeview alternative to the UK’s dominant pay TV operation Sky Digital, but with it’s struggle with the government to secure a long term above inflation licence fee settlement and its desire to start a High Definition TV service, this cause has been relegated to the back burner.

    As the government ordained switchover date looms ever closer, viewers who can only receive digital TV by satellite should be able to choose a non Sky alternative even at the risk of upsetting a powerful media mogul.

  • Microsoft Vista Reaches Final Beta

    Microsoft Vista Reaches Final Beta It’s been a long, long wait, but it looks like the release of Microsoft’s new operating system, of Windows Vista is finally set to happen soon.

    The company has just released Release Candidate 2 (RC2) – or build number 5744 if you’re counting – and the Redwood boys are sounding chirpy that this will be the last beta version of Windows Vista before the product is unleashed for manufacturing.

    The previous test release of Vista, RC1 was tested by no less than three million users, with the company claiming that it received “excellent feedback.”

    Microsoft Vista Reaches Final Beta With Microsoft now saying that just has to add the finishing touches to the overall quality and performance of the eagerly awaited operating system, the company looks set to meet it targets.

    Vista has a scheduled roll out date for business customers next month, with consumers getting to play with the new desktop in January 2007.

    Microsoft has already missed several release deadlines, although leading financial analysts like Rick Sherlund of the Goldman Sachs Group reckon that things are looking good for an on-time release:

    Microsoft Vista Reaches Final Beta “We had been sceptical of the launch schedule after Beta 2 shipped with problems in May, but the team seems to be making great progress in addressing issues of performance, reliability and compatibility,” he wrote in a research note.

    Sherlund also noted that he expects Microsoft to start dishing out Vista discount coupons to customers who buy new PCs capable of running the OS in the run-up to the release.

    Already, fanboy websites are buzzing with screen shots of the shiny, sleek new OS and we have to say the new desktop looks mighty purdy to our eyes…

    You can check to see if your system wil be able to handle all the whizz bang glitz here: windowsvista.com/getready

  • BBC Use Digital To Pressure Government

    BBC Director-General Mark Thompson is back on again trying to justify to the British government why the BBC should be allowed to increase their licence fee above the Retail Price Index (RPI).

    Thompson’s main thrust for the increase is the cost of going digital. It’s a clever approach as the UK government has publicly committed itself to switching off analogue TV in favour of digital. Thompson also knows that once the analogue spectrum is freed up, the government may make bucket loads of cash from making that spectrum available.

    Thompson ratcheted up the pressure on the Government to comply, by reminding them the risks of digital transition, “If it is under resourced it will fail. It’s as simple as that – and the failure will impact on many millions of households.”

    The UK public has for a long time been told, primarily by the BBC, that Digital will be amazing and their lives will somehow become increasingly glorious once they get a Digital TV. Only now are they starting to understand that it’s going to cost them more to have.

    Until today, Thompson was asking for an increase in the licence fee of RPI plus 2.3%. today it’s dropped to +1.8%. Under the adjusted figures, the license fee would be £149 in 2013/14 by today’s prices. The reduction has been helped by Ofcom making the decision to no longer charge the BBC a spectrum tax.

    Being publicly funded, this kind of argument discussion is very important to the BBCs future ambitions – digital and otherwise. The license fee is payable by all UK residents who have a TV.

    Mark Thompson speech today