8-26.May.06 Cybersonica is back. Now in its 5th year, the festival is a celebration of audiovisual performance and sonic arts – a meeting point for digital artists, musicians, software developers and anyone interested in contemporary audiovisual experimentation. Cybersonica presents the most exciting approaches to creative interactivity – moving beyond the ‘screen, keyboard, mouse scenario’ to works that respond to physical input, proximity, sound, kinetics, elapsed time and the surrounding environment. The 2006 festival is being supported by the Arts Council England and will feature 5 newly commissioned sonic artworks. These will be presented alongside existing pieces from emerging practitioners, in a two week exhibition at the Vinyl Factory Gallery (Phonica Records, Soho, W1), from Monday 8th – Saturday 20th May. Details of the exhibition will be announced from 10th April. Further details about the call for work are below. www.vinylfactorygallery.co.uk Two days of FREE talks and workshops will be held at Science Museum’s Dana Centre – an ambient and acclaimed bar and café in the heart of South Kensington dedicated to discussing contemporary science, health, medicine and technology in a cultural context – on Friday 19th and Saturday 20th May. Presentations from Soundtoys.net, Trampoline’s Radiator festival, Threshold and Toplap are already confirmed. London & Bradford, UK http://www.cybersonica.org/
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
Vodafone Pre-Empts Viviane’s EC Rip-off Roaming Action
She’s got a mission to eliminate mobile phone roaming rip-off charges. She’s Commissioner Viviane Redding of the EC, and today, Vodafone took PR action to keep itself out of her sights, by promising to “cut roaming by 40%” by this time next year.Vodafone’s announcement says: “Average European roaming costs for Vodafone customers will be cut by at least 40% by April 2007, when compared to last summer.”
This, it says, “will benefit over 30 million Vodafone customers who roam every year, and will see the average cost of roaming in Europe fall from over €0.90 to less than €0.55 per minute.”
Ironically, Vodafone is probably not highest on Commissioner Redding’s hit list. It’s certainly possible to pay over the odds for Voda phone calls when overseas – pick the wrong contract! – but amongst the giants, Voda actually scores quite well on fair use, especially if you’re a Passport subscriber.
Arun Sarin, Chief Executive, Vodafone, said: “Customers want simplicity and value for money when they’re travelling abroad. They get it with Vodafone Passport, which we launched last year, allowing customers to take their home tariff abroad with a small additional per call fee. Today Passport provides savings of at least 30% for more than 6 million Vodafone customers.”
But like many of the giants, Vodafone is suffering from the cost of providing phones. All the European operators, traditionally, subsidise handsets; they give them away, or sell them for a fraction of their cost, in the expectation of making substantially more out of phone call charges – and it works.Unfortunately, we’re changing our phones too often. It’s mostly the shops that do this, because they are incentivised to do it by the networks.
The networks all pay a premium to a phone shop who “steals” a customer from a rival network. At the same time, paradoxically, they’re trying to make contracts longer: 12 months minimum, 18 months or even longer, as standard.
So the trend is to pay as you go phones – which tend to be paid for. And it’s PAYG agreements which most heavily penalise you when roaming. That is, assuming that your PAYG phone even makes it possible to use it overseas; many don’t.
Sarin said: “The success of Passport shows the demand for simple, great value roaming in Europe and today we’re showing that Vodafone will continue to lead the industry in providing it.”
What he probably means, is that Passport needs to be able to compete with PAYG, and Vodafone sees no harm in ingratiating itself with the Commissioner for Information Society and Media while doing so.
NTL, BT Nowhere In Premier League Football Bids
There had been some excitement, well amongst UK media analysts at least, that BSkyB might loose its dominance of the control of UK football’s Premier League.Today we learned who the winners were.
Following pressure from the European Union (EU), who had stated that all matches couldn’t be controlled by the same broadcaster, the games for this round of bidding were split into six packages of 23 games each. The EU threatened legal action against the Premier League if their will wasn’t complied with. Not surprisingly, they did.
Clearly BSkyB bid. Having exclusive right to the football was one of the cornerstones that built the success of Sky in the UK.
Other bidders included NTL, fronted by the bearded-wonder – Richard Branson, who had been acting the big I AM, threatening to out bid Sky for the available six packages. BT made some noises too.
Finally the other company, Irish broadcaster Setanta, had thrown its hat into the ring, originally saying they were going to bid for two of the packages. Those not in the broadcast world wouldn’t necessarily know who Setanta are, but most people will know of their 40% owners, Benchmark Capital.The results of the bidding? Sky got four of them and Setanta the other two. With only six on offer, the other pretenders got nothing.
For the UK Football Association, it’s a giant payday with the total amount paid rising from £1Bn three years ago, to £1.7Bn covering the next three years. Not bad work if you can get it. Expect many more overpaid footballers and lurid stories in the tabloids. The Cristal champagne will be flowing tonight.
OpenStreetMap Isle Of Wight
5-7 May
Armed with their GPS devices, a band of enthusiastic amateurs hope to overthrow a UK government agency. Well, the Ordnance Survey mapping part of it anyway. Everyone is welcome in this public created mapping extravaganza. More details at their Wiki Isle of Wight http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OSM_Workshop$8Bn US Ad Income At Risk From PVRs: JupiterResearch
JupiterResearch have released research that indicates that 53 percent of Digital Video Recorder (DVR)/PVR users in America have used their DVRs to skip commercials.Amazing isn’t it? What are the other 47% doing? Have they still left the DVR in the box, yet to plug it in? Why would anyone with a DVR not want to skip through the adverts unless they weren’t in the room; had some medical condition where they weren’t able to operate the remote control; didn’t know that they could skip through adverts; worked in the advertising industry and loved it so much they wanted to see all of the advert possible; were asleep while watching TV (this is likely given the quality of what’s shown); or a handful of other implausible reasons?
Jupiter claim that there’s a potential to threaten $8 billion out of the $74 billion US TV advertising market. This is like being at the birth of TiVo all over again – but this time for the people who weren’t there/listening/believing the first time.
Quick recap on events last time – the TV companies, advertising agencies and anyone else with a vested interest then poo-poo the idea, saying it will never catch on. You may even remember some later research from Sky TV in the UK laughably saying that their research found that people watched more adverts when using their Sky+. Yes you read that right, more adverts. Clearly it was designed to stop mass panic among their many advertisers.
Now where we’re united with Jupiter is that people watch more TV when they’ve got a DVR. That is the experience of the vast majority of PVR/DVR users.Their report The DVR Dilemma: Managing Consumer Behavior found that the ad-skippers watched 18 hours of television, over the normal 17 of the DVR-less. Given they’re skipping the adverts, chopping around 15-20 mins of adverts out per hours, that’s a considerable amount of more ‘entertainment.’
Is it likely that the advertising world will come back and deny it again? Probably not, just you can never tell with those wiley old birds can you? I’d expect some sort of counter spin.
Live Football And Cricket on Vodafone 3G Mobiles
This weekend marks the start of Vodafone UK offering live coverage of international cricket and the Football League Playoffs from Sky Sports to their 3G customers.They’re keen to point out that this is the first time in the UK, live football matches will be shown simultaneously live on mobile and on TV.
It’s not like this is going to be a trickle of content. There’s over 100 hours of coverage scheduled in the first month, with fifteen live football matches and three live Test matches. The cricket will continue with live coverage until the final Test against Pakistan in September.
Don’t think there’s going to an extra financial penalty to pay for this. The coverage will be available at no extra charge as a bonus service for subscribers to Sky Mobile TV’s News, Sports and Factual Pack.
Having said that the packages aren’t what you’d call cheap. Each Sky Mobile TV pack (detailed below) is and extra £5/month.
Sky has been actively putting its content over different platforms for quite some months now, following the announcement in January of Sky by Broadband which delivers some of Sky’s content to PC’s over a, you guess it, broadband connection.
Bizarrely, Sky specify that the content is for Personal use only. Errr … it’s on a mobile phone Sky. It’s not like you’re going to get the throngs in the pub crowding around watching it on a tiny screen. That is until someone comes up with a huge magnifying glass that the phone sits behind.The packs that are available are
- News, Sport & Factual Pack: Sky News; CNN; Bloomberg; Sky Sports News; At The Races; Discovery Mobile Factual; National Geographic Channel; The History Channel.
- Entertainment Pack: Sky One; Sky Movies; Living TV; Discovery Mobile Lifestyle; Nickelodeon; Paramount Comedy; Cartoon Network; Bravo; The Biography Channel and MTV Trax and MTV Snax.
- Music Pack: MTV Trax, MTV Snax, The Box, Smash Hits, Kiss, Kerrang, B4, IMF and IMF 2.
Most of these don’t run live but are made up of dedicated ‘made for mobile’ channels, featuring regularly updated blocks of programming.
A Gadget Lover’s Day Out In The Countryside
With the weather warming up and the great outdoors beckoning, here’s our selection of must-have gadgets for technology addicts heading off for a day strolling over heath and heather.Snapping the scenery: Ricoh GR Digital
Fast, pocketable and with enough controls to grab perfect exposures in the trickiest of conditions, the Ricoh GR is our fave take-anywhere camera.With its panoramic 28mm, f2.4 lens this small, rugged and highly versatile beauty is perfect for capturing dramatic, sweeping landscapes.
Attach the optional 21mm superwide angle lens for capturing the
entire pub interiormajestic mountain vista with one shot or get up close to weird crawly things and strange flower-like growths using its 1cm macro lens.
Smartphone: Treo 650
The Palm Treo packs in enough functionality to keep you in touch with the cricket scores, send off emails, write texts and perhaps pen a short, moving poem to the Great Outdoors using its WYSIWYG keyboard.If you prefer strutting to the sounds of Wolfmother rather than hearing the gentle rustle of Mother Nature, you can slap in a MP3-stuffed 2GB card and rock your way through the countryside.
And if the weather turns bad, you can shelter under a tree and pass away the hours playing the annoyingly addictive BeJeweled game.
Where the chuffin’ ‘eck am I? GPS and Memory-Map
Although an Ordnance Survey map and a trusty compass are more than ample for finding your way around, that’s clearly waaaay too lo-tech a solution for a full-on gadget freak.Gizmo-lovers should instead load up their GPS-enabled Pocket PC PDAs with Memory-Map and head to the hills.
This mapping software uses real OS colour maps and offers waypoint-to-waypoint directions, bearing and distance indicators, real-time positioning and a tracklog to see how far you’ve shuffled.
There’s also a velocity vector for projecting your current course/speed so you can work out how far it is to the nearest boozer.
Keeping track of time: Suunto X6 Pro
Naturally, when it comes to watches, a mere pair of hands giving you the time won’t be enough for hard core tech heads, so we recommend the Suunto X6.With this baby strapped on your arm you’ll have no need to look at the countryside around you, as the display offers a far more interesting display including an altimeter, barometer, thermometer and compass.
Armed with all the kit above (and suitable weatherproof clothing and boots, natch) you should be ready for anything the countryside can throw at you.
Just don’t forget spare batteries for your bag full o’gadgets and your bus fare in case you get tired lugging all those gizmos about.
Butler For The Palm OS Review (85%)
Butler is a hugely popular selection of nifty utilities for the Palm Treo smartphone that manages to fix many of the minor shortcomings of the phone in one fell swoop.Billed as “The Essential Tool for the Treo 650 & 600”, Butler offers a suite of tools to help you set up the Treo the way you like it and introduce productivity-boosting extras.
Accessed through a rather basic looking interface, Butler offers repeating alarms with ringtones/MP3 playback, nagging alerts, extra security options, navigation enhancements, LED controls, keyguards and more.
Launching apps
We particularly liked the Keylauncher feature which lets you fire off specified programs from any other application just by holding down a specified key.Another option lets you specify different modes for the external volume buttons on the Treo; as ‘back’ and ‘forward’ controls for moving through recent opened applications used; a ‘select key,’ or as scroll bars (particularly useful for reading e-books).
Lights out
The Treo is one of those phones with a multicolour LED that is constantly broadcasting its status.Butler lets you take control over the colours and flash rates, and includes an option to set the hours the LED will do its flashing thang (handy if you don’t fancy an all night disco show).
You can also set a specific colour to remind you of outstanding voicemails.
Onguard!
An improved keyguard lets you override Palm’s functions, offering control over the lock time (from 1-30 seconds) and the ability to disable the touchscreen, space, delete and return keys when incoming calls are received or in progress – so if you’ve got Spock-like pointy ears you won’t be inadvertently ending calls.Oy! You!
To absolutely, categorically guarantee that you’ll know all about a missed appointment, incoming call, SMS, alert or voicemail notification, the “Attention Grabber” feature can nag you into submission, with options to keep on reminding you once every 10 seconds to every 15 minutes, from 5 to 1000 times.Reminders can be assigned MP3, vibrating alarms or ring tones, and custom LED notifications set up with an option to set time periods when the program shuts the feck up.
Butler also offers a straight alarm feature that lets you set up to 6 repeating alarms, complete with customised messages and the option to assign a program to open after you’ve cleared the alarm.Nuke ’em
The trouble with smart phones is that you by carting around all that personal information there could be serious consequences if it gets lost or stolen.To protect your data, Butlers offers a set of SMS-triggered security functions.
By sending your missing phone a pre-configured text messages, Butler can carry out a variety of security operations from simply turning off and locking your device to the Armageddon option which wipes the SD card and RAM clean.
We would have liked it if it hurled taunting abuse at the thief as the data was being deleted or even blasted out a massive electric shock, but I guess that would be too much to ask. And possibly illegal too
Wrapping up the feature set is a “Hide SMS popup” option which stops you being bothered by SMS screens, an option to beam your business card by holding the phone button down and a useful “Keep Exchange Manager Clean” utility which addresses the annoying ‘preference loss’ bug seen on the Palm OS.Conclusion
Butler is a fantastic set of utilities for fine-tuning your Treo, richly deserving its place in Palm’s Best Seller list.The interface isn’t the easiest to get your head immediately around, however, and sometimes things may seem a little confusing when first exploring the options.
It’s worth persevering though because it won’t take long before you begin to wonder how you ever coped without Butler on your Treo – and at just $14.95 (£8.20,€11.90) it’s something of a bargain!Features: 85%
Ease of use: 70%
Value For Money: 85%
Overall: 85%IFA Berlin CE Show Yearly From Now On
Last year took ourselves to Berlin to attend IFA. Being the first time we’d attended we were _totally_ blow away at the size of the place – it’s massive. Every side of the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry was covered, from the smallest to the largest with the later building their own houses (Siemens, Deutsche Telekom).Previously it’s been on every two years and, acknowledging the speed that the CE world is now moving, the German CE trade body, gfu and event organisers, messe-Berlin have now realised a year gap between shows is impractical. IFA 2006 will mark the start of them moving to a yearly show, frankly so they don’t become obsolete – oh and there’s the benefit of all of that extra income, so course.
Dr Christian Göke told us he was “convinced that there would be an increased difference between work and home in the future,” and that this would be one of the reasons that IFA would continue in its position as the second largest CE show in the world.
Asked why IFA was so loved by trade visitors, his answer was simple, “We treat them as VIP’s. Nothing is too much and they feel very special.” Sounds like a recipe for success to us, one that could easily be learned by many other shows around the world.We understand that exhibition space has been selling like hot Strudel, with over 80% gone already. They also spreading their wings to include companies like mobile giant o2.
One of our major gripes last year was that with us being linguistically-challenged (being English ‘n’ tha’) some of the press conferences were held only in German. Reasonable being it was in Berlin, but not great for attracting an International audience. From now on they’ll all be held in English. Hurrah!
So if you fancy joining us, get yourself over to Berlin, 1-6 September.
Opera Mini 2.0 For Mobiles Released
Nordic browser kings Opera Software have released Opera Mini 2.0, a spanking new version of their tiny Web browser that runs on almost all mobile phones.Building on the success of the first version – which has already notched up 2.5 million users since its January 2006 release – Opera Mini accelerates mobile surfing by using compression and reformatting techniques.
The latest version of the Java-powered browser adds a selection of tweaks and refinements, including the ability to download multimedia content, like images and MP3s, directly to the phone.
There’s also a selection of new skins available to customise the look of the browser, and a natty new multisearch feature, letting users select extra search engines for the home page.
Also new for version two is a speed dial widget, which lets surfers call up bookmarks by assigning shortcut key combinations.“Opera Mini has kick-started real mobile Web browsing by enabling non-smartphone owners to surf the full Internet on their phones, just as they do on their PCs,” purred Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.
With Opera Mini supporting mobile commerce via SMS, users can directly buy ringtones, games and other content for delivery as an SMS.This system lets the seller set the price with charges appearing in the phone bill as an SMS.
The new browser is compatible with a host of phones, smartphones and PDAs (including Sony Ericsson, Pocket PC and Palm handets) and can be downloaded for free by typing in http://mini.opera.com into your WAP-tastic browser or by delivery via SMS download for a small fee.
She’s got a mission to eliminate mobile phone roaming rip-off charges. She’s Commissioner Viviane Redding of the EC, and today, Vodafone took PR action to keep itself out of her sights, by promising to “cut roaming by 40%” by this time next year.
But like many of the giants, Vodafone is suffering from the cost of providing phones. All the European operators, traditionally, subsidise handsets; they give them away, or sell them for a fraction of their cost, in the expectation of making substantially more out of phone call charges – and it works.
There had been some excitement, well amongst UK media analysts at least, that BSkyB might loose its dominance of the control of UK football’s Premier League.
Finally the other company, Irish broadcaster Setanta, had thrown its hat into the ring, originally saying they were going to bid for two of the packages. Those not in the broadcast world wouldn’t necessarily know who Setanta are, but most people will know of their 40% owners, Benchmark Capital.
JupiterResearch have released research that indicates that 53 percent of Digital Video Recorder (DVR)/PVR users in America have used their DVRs to skip commercials.
Now where we’re united with Jupiter is that people watch more TV when they’ve got a DVR. That is the experience of the vast majority of PVR/DVR users.
This weekend marks the start of Vodafone UK offering live coverage of international cricket and the Football League Playoffs from Sky Sports to their 3G customers.
Bizarrely, Sky specify that the content is for Personal use only. Errr … it’s on a mobile phone Sky. It’s not like you’re going to get the throngs in the pub crowding around watching it on a tiny screen. That is until someone comes up with a huge magnifying glass that the phone sits behind.
With the weather warming up and the great outdoors beckoning, here’s our selection of must-have gadgets for technology addicts heading off for a day strolling over heath and heather.
Smartphone: Treo 650
Where the chuffin’ ‘eck am I? GPS and Memory-Map
Butler is a hugely popular selection of nifty utilities for the Palm Treo smartphone that manages to fix many of the minor shortcomings of the phone in one fell swoop.
Launching apps
Lights out
Butler also offers a straight alarm feature that lets you set up to 6 repeating alarms, complete with customised messages and the option to assign a program to open after you’ve cleared the alarm.
Wrapping up the feature set is a “Hide SMS popup” option which stops you being bothered by SMS screens, an option to beam your business card by holding the phone button down and a useful “Keep Exchange Manager Clean” utility which addresses the annoying ‘preference loss’ bug seen on the Palm OS.
It’s worth persevering though because it won’t take long before you begin to wonder how you ever coped without Butler on your Treo – and at just $14.95 (£8.20,€11.90) it’s something of a bargain!
Last year took ourselves to Berlin to attend IFA. Being the first time we’d attended we were _totally_ blow away at the size of the place – it’s massive. Every side of the Consumer Electronics (CE) industry was covered, from the smallest to the largest with the later building their own houses (Siemens, Deutsche Telekom).
Asked why IFA was so loved by trade visitors, his answer was simple, “We treat them as VIP’s. Nothing is too much and they feel very special.” Sounds like a recipe for success to us, one that could easily be learned by many other shows around the world.
Nordic browser kings Opera Software have released Opera Mini 2.0, a spanking new version of their tiny Web browser that runs on almost all mobile phones.
Also new for version two is a speed dial widget, which lets surfers call up bookmarks by assigning shortcut key combinations.
With Opera Mini supporting mobile commerce via SMS, users can directly buy ringtones, games and other content for delivery as an SMS.