Digital-Lifestyles – Page 259 – 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

BT Media And Broadcast Division Set For Part Sale
We understand from good sources that BT is set to announce the name of the buyer for a major slice of its Media and Broadcast operations.
As we revealed in January, BT’s Media and Broadcast (BT M & B) is looking to jettison its unprofitable OU operations. It has let interested parties know that a cash buyer would be welcome for its fleet of Transportable Satellite link vehicles.
We now hear that the sale is going to cover more than just the Occasional Use business.
BT, which since Post Office days has been working with the broadcasting industry, has been persuaded to include its profitable multiplexing business in the sale. This uplinks (ground to satellite) many of the Sky digital TV services and, we understand, it’s possible that part of the ITV network, that it is also responsible for, would also be included.
In the frame for the buyout, which is likely to involve the transfer of over 100 employees, is the Australian-backed Arqiva and a major UK bank.
The sale will ensure that existing contracts are honoured. Shedding it is symptomatic of the burden a heavily-unionised BT carries in making units perform profitably and it strikes at M & B’s ambitions to be a powerhouse in the evolving IPTV world.
Insiders have doubts that media and broadcast will continue an operating unit for more than 12 months.
As soon as we have the details on the decision it’ll be here on Digital Lifestyles.
23 February, 2006
CEDIA Electronic Lifestyles Forum
23-25 Feb CEDIA has announced an inaugural event bringing together professionals from the architectural, design, and residential technology industries. Electronic Lifestyles ® Forum 2006 is the preeminent event focusing on how technology affects ergonomics and anthropology. With the support of the American Society of Interior Designers, this forum will open doors for discussion, and the sharing of ideas of how technology is changing the way we live, and how it affects the design professional’s thought process. Keynote Speakers: Nicholas Negroponte – one of the foremost futurists on the international scene today!
William McDonough – world-renowned architect, designer, and winner of three U.S. presidential awards! Palace Hotel, San Francisco http://www.cedia.net/el_forum/
23 February, 2006
Samsung Helix XM2go Portable Satellite Radio/MP3 Player
Announced at the CES 2006 show earlier this month, the Samsung Helix XM2Go has now appeared for pre-orders on Amazon.com (US).
There’s been quite a lot of excitement about the Helix, which comes with an alluring feature set, offering a portable satellite receiver and mp3 player/recorder in a highly pocketable package.
The big news about this unit is its ability to receive XM satellite radio transmissions, letting users combine live XM radio with their personal digital music collections (MP3s and WMA).
XM Satellite Radio may not mean a lot over here in Europe-land, but in America it’s the country’s most popular satellite radio service, offering 160 digital channels, including news, sports, talk and entertainment, traffic & weather with “the deepest playlist in the industry” covering over 2 million titles.
The good news is that the service is commercial free – the bad news is that it’s a subscription service, with plans starting at $12.95 a week.
The Samsung Helix XM2Go lets users record up to 50 hours of broadcast on its built-in flash memory, with users able to build their own playlists on the device, mixing XM radio content with their own digital music.
A handy built-in memory buffer lets listeners save an entire XM radio song even after the song has already played halfway through, and a built-in FM transmitter means that music can be beamed to any FM radio frequency, making it easy to listen to XM content on any home or car stereos.
The Helix offers a neat TuneSelect feature, which alerts users when one of their favourite artists or songs is being played on an XM channel and there’s also built-in support for the XM + Napster music service.
This lets users ‘tag’ a song they hear on the XM radio, and then buy and download the tune song via Napster.
The attractive looking device measures a cutesy 3.7 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches, weighs in at a lightweight 4.5 ounces, with a large 2.2 inch 180 x 180 TFT colour screen dominating the front of the unit.
It’s not cheap at $399.99, (~e335, ~£229) but that’s the sort of price early adopters can expect to pay for such a cutting edge gizmo.
Shipping is expected in early April, with the optional YA-CP100 car kit retailing for $69.99 (~e58, ~£40).
Amazon
XM Radio
22 February, 2006
2 Mch SMS GIVz U RSI (Click To Translate)
According to a new survey from Virgin Mobile, mobile telephone text messaging has become so popular in the UK that millions are complaining of injuries to their thumbs and fingers.
With more than 93.5 million text messages sent every day, there’s a whole load of keyboard action going on all over Blighty, and all that button pushing has led to a massive growth in the number of people suffering RSI (repetitive strain injury).
The survey found that thirty-eight per cent more people suffer from sore wrists and thumbs than half a decade ago, with 3.8 million people complaining of text-related injuries a year.
Despite the agony, it seems that Brits are prepared to go through the pain barrier to keep bashing out their texts, with more than twelve per cent admitting to sending 20 text messages a day – with a seriously obsessed ten per cent blasting out as many as 100 texts a day!
You probably missed it – we certainly did – but yesterday (Feb 21) was apparently National Text Message Injury day in the UK.
Designed to highlight the very real problems of RSI, Virgin have sponsored a very useful site, practisesafetext.com which comes with useful tips and advice on how to keep your textin’ digits in full button-pushin’ order.
British Chiropractic Association (BCA) spokesperson Dr Matthew Bennett offered a few tips of his own, advising texters to change hands if it starts to hurt, vary the hands and digits used and don’t text for more than a few minutes without a break.
As a recent sufferer of RSI (brought on by long hours sweating over a hot Logitech as I try to bring you, dear reader, the latest stories), I strongly recommend you try out some of the exercises.
You might look a bit of a berk while you’re doing them, but anything that keeps your pint-holding hand in good shape can surely only be a good thing.
Headline Translation – too much texting gives you RSI.
22 February, 2006
Ofcom VoIP Consultation Announced For UK
Ofcom has just announced another consultation on Voice over IP (VoIP) use in the UK as a follow up to their last, which they called New Voice Services: A consultation and interim guidance, and released on 6 September 2004.
We feel this is sufficiently important to instantly flag up, so now only cover the key points. More details will follow.
Ofcom estimate is that there’s around 500,000 VoIP users in the UK, we can only assume that this is both software (Skype, gTalk, etc) and hardware (Vonage, etc). Sounds low to us and at the time of writing, Ofcom hasn’t responded to our request for clarification.
Subjects for discussion/debate –
The obvious of 999 emergency service comes up, but the use of language is pretty interesting. Ofcom say they want to ‘increase the incentive for VoIP services to offer 999 access,’ so potentially no insistence. VoIP providers will love this, as they’ve tripped up in other countries with this.
The scope _does_ appear to cover number portability which is good for the consumer.
As yet unclear, but in our view important. Will there be a move to enforce interoperability between different providers of the service? It would be very pro-consumer, but would put the noses-out-of-joint for quite a few VoIP providers, especially Skype.
Any comments in response have to be with Ofcom by 3.May.06. They’re not going to rush themselves in making their views on the process know in a big rush, they plan to make a statement in August 2006.
Ofcom – Consultation Documents on Regulation of VoIP Services
22 February, 2006
Sport1, Film1: First HDTV channels in Holland
The World Cup In Germany this year is going to be the big opener for HDTV in Europe.
When I was in Berlin mid-last year there was a lot of talk about it, and with the annoucment below, it’s clear that that HD mania isn’t going to just be restricted to Germany, as Holland follows suit.
Sport1, a new pay-TV channel will be the first HDTV channel in Holland and on the back of it they’ll be launching Film1 – no prizes for guessing what they’ll be putting on that.
Dutch Sport1 and Film1 to launch HDTV channels with World Championship football
News release follows
Amsterdam, 21 February 2006 – New Dutch pay-TV service Sport1 will air the World Championship football in Germany in the HDTV (High Definition Television) format to kick off the first Dutch HDTV channel fully dedicated to sports. A Sport1 HDTV channel will launch early June, driven by the start of the World Championship on June 9, and will also show matches from the main European football competitions as well as a wide variety of international sports in the HDTV format. Launching at the same time in early June, a Film1 HDTV channel will show the latest Hollywood movies in the HDTV format.
The launch of these two channels is an important step forward in making the superior HDTV broadcasting available in the Netherlands. chellomedia, the owner of Sport1 and Film1 in the Netherlands, has concluded an agreement to this effect with the digital cable platforms of UPC, Essent, Multikabel and CaiW. These Dutch cable operators are currently preparing their technical infrastructures for the launch of HD services. Digital cable is optimally suited to HDTV transmission due to the very high capacity of the cable infrastructure.
chellomedia, which bought the film and sports rights for the Netherlands from Canal+ last year, first concentrated on the launch of Sport1 and Film1 as a digital pay-TV service. The main goal was more content and more channels for the consumer at a lower price. The launch of HD channels for Sport1 and Film1 is a logical next step in the strategy to become the leading provider of sport and film content in the Netherlands. Another step, in advance of the launch of the HDTV channels is the change to broadcast Film1 and Sport1 in the anamorph widescreen format (16:9), coming from the older 4:3 screen format related to analogue television (as far as the content allows for this).
HDTV: far better picture and sound
Jeroen Bergman, Managing Director of chellomedia Benelux added: “A growing number of consumers are buying high quality flatscreen TV systems for their homes, with which they enjoy a better viewing experience. HDTV transmission here provides a huge improvement of picture and sound quality over current standards of transmission. HDTV offers television viewing of the future. There has not been such a technological revolution since the move from black and white TV to colour. We are proud to be among the initiators of the future of a new standard of television viewing.” Consumers need a HDTV ready TV set and HDTV ready digital decoder for viewing in the HDTV format.
Film1 and Sport1
Film1 and Sport1 are Dutch pay-TV services of chellomedia, the European content and digital services division of Liberty Global, Inc. Film1 boasts four movie channels and broadcasts first-rate films that are making their first appearance on Dutch television. These vary from blockbusters to independent and art house films.
Sport1 is a 24-hour sports channel with an extensive range of live sports. This channel can be extended to maximally eight sport channels, enabling viewers to decide for themselves what matches to follow. Sport1 televises all the major European soccer leagues, as well as the UEFA Champions League, the English FA Cup and the Copa Libertadores, as well as hockey, basketball, baseball, darts, golf and tennis.
21 February, 2006
City of London Gets Blanket WiFi
The City of London is to get blanket Wi-Fi, with city slickers able to access the Web anywhere within London’s famous financial district, the Square Mile.
The scheme, run in partnership with London-based WiFi vendor The Cloud, is set to go live in the next few months and provide Wi-Fi access on streets and in open spaces throughout the City.
The Cloud’s unique open network concept lets different service providers offer WiFi services to its customers and supports high speed internet access, rich email access, music, video and other entertainment services, as well as the all-important VoIP services
The City network will comprise around 150 WiFi network “nodes” lurking inside lampposts, closed-circuit TV poles and street signs, offering connectivity to an estimated 350,000 Londoners as well as the hordes of tourists who regularly tramp through the area.
“This will allow people to have continuous online access, whether in a taxi or an open area, across the financial centre,” said Peter Bennett, a spokesman for the Corporation of London.
Unfortunately, unlike the free Wi-Fi service a few miles away in Islington, north London, the service won’t be free, with online access rates dependent on the rates charged by service providers.
Roaming Wi-Fi enabled punters without a provider will have to fork out a fairly hefty £5 ($8.70 US) per hour to use the service.
Michael Snyder, the chairman of the City of London’s Policy Committee, said that the network would help the City maintain its position as the world’s leading financial centre, letting city workers and visitors to stay in touch with their office via handheld devices while on the move.
“The City is a fast moving environment and we are responding to the increasing time pressures faced by workers by providing the technology for them to stay up to date, wherever they are in the Square Mile,” he added.
The move follows an announcement that The Cloud would be installing network hubs and rolling out WiFi in nine cities across Britain, including Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Liverpool.
Three other London boroughs are also scheduled to go wireless in the next few months, which should help the UK keep its number two world ranking for wireless hotspot locations
According to figures from the Wi-Fi Alliance, the UK – along with the WiFi-tastic US – accounts for nearly half of the planet’s 10,800 wireless locations.
The Cloud
City Of London
21 February, 2006
AOL Set To Battle Skype, Google And MySpace
America Online is about to come out of its corner fighting as it gets ready to slug it out with Internet heavyweights such as MySpace, Skype and Google.
Ignoring shouts from the crowd that ‘they’re a big organisation but they’re out of shape’, AOL CEO Jonathan Miller told USA Today that they’re ready to KO the opposition with a salvo of killer punches.
New video search tools
First up is a new video search tool which integrates with the innovative Truveo technology which AOL bought in December.
The company claim that by using Truveo’s “visual crawlers”, they can now find and index high-quality video on the Web that traditional search engines can’t see, and will include AOL Hi-Q Videos (DVD-quality) in their video indexes.
The 1.8 million videos already indexed through Truveo will be added to AOL’s existing archive of 20,000+ original and licensed videos, along with the 2.5 million Web videos indexed through Singingfish.
Come mid-March, AOL will also be making 14,000 Warner Brothers-owned classic TV shows available for free (but supported by advertising), as part of its new In2TV service.
Mashing up MySpace
With 43 million active users signed up to their AIM messaging service, AOL is hoping that with their substantial music and video offerings, they’ll be able to mount an effective challenge to the immensely successful MySpace social networking community.
Seeing as they already operate the world’s most popular messaging service, AOL should be in a strong position to take on Murdoch’s company.
As Miller points out, with so many people already using Buddy Lists to chat with others, “the barrier to getting people to use it would be very low.”
With the new service, subscribers could simply click on a name in a Buddy List and be taken directly to that person’s personal website.
Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research, reckoned AOL’s plans made perfect sense, adding: “The key is making a strong link with AOL Music. Part of the reason MySpace works so well is it has music.”
Stalking Skype
Miller also revealed plans to turn AIM into a full voice platform which would compete directly with Skype.
Although Google and Yahoo instant message services already offer VoIP calls, AOL’s market dominance could quickly establish them as a force in cheap Internet phone calling.
Expected to should roll out in late spring, AOL also intends to open up the new AIM voice service to outside software developers.
No doubt AIM users will be hoping that this may finally produce long-overdue tools to let them chat with users of other messaging services.
AOL
21 February, 2006
Cornucopian Cavalcade Of Canon Cameras Confirmed
Canon have unleashed a veritable avalanche of new cameras today, with no less than ten new models being announced ahead of the PMA 2006 show.
Canon EOS 30D
Top of the pile is the 8.2 megapixel Canon EOS 30D, which is something of a minor tweak of the EOS 20D, offering a slight body redesign, 3.5% spot metering, selectable continuous shooting speed, 100,000 shutter cycle life and a larger LCD monitor.
Sporting a wide 100-3200 ISO range, the camera offers the same sensor and image processor as the EOS 20D but comes in at a slightly lower price than its predecessor (EOS 30D body only, €1,399, £955)
Link
Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Next up is Canon’s third generation ‘super zoom’ compact, the 6-megapixel PowerShot S3 IS.
The successor to the popular S2 IS, the camera offers the same monster 12x optical zoom, with new features including a larger 2.0-inch vari-angle screen and an increased sensitivity range going up to ISO 800.
Decked out in a mean looking gunmetal gray, the PowerShot S3 IS digital camera will be available in May for an estimated selling price of $499.99 (~£286, €420).
Link
Canon PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH (European name: IXUS 800 IS)
Proudly touted as the new flagship of the range, the 6 million pixel Canon PowerShot SD700 IS comes with an optical Image Stabiliser, a 4x optical zoom, ISO range up to 800 and a large 2.5-inch LCD.
This is the first ever ultra-compact from Canon to feature built-in image stabilisation, and with a host of auto, scene and manual modes looks to be a very versatile camera.
The camera will be available in April for an estimated selling price of $499.99 (~£286, €420).
Link
Canon PowerShot SD600 and SD630 (European name: Canon Digital IXUS 60 / IXUS 65)
Looking down the range, Canon have rolled out two more additions to their Digital ELPH / Digital IXUS range, the PowerShot SD600 and SD630 cameras.
Both these 6-megapixel cameras feature a 3x optical zoom and High ISO Auto and ISO 800 settings and seem identical apart from the lack of an optical viewfinder and bigger 3.0 inch LCD screen on the SD630.
The SD600 comes with a smaller 2.5-inch screen and will be available in March for around $349.99 (~£200, €295). The PowerShot will be available in April for an estimated selling price of $399.99 (~£230, €336).
Link
Canon Powershots A700 and A540
Turbo-boosting its ‘A’ series range of compacts with gusto, Canon has announced no less than five new models.
Keen photographers might like the look of the PowerShot A700 and A540 cameras which offer 6 million pixels, full photographic control, 2.5-inch screens and the option to add conversion lenses.
The $349.99 A700 comes with a substantial 6x optical zoom, optical viewfinder and ISO sensitivity up to ISO 800, while the $299.99 A540 offers a 4x optical zoom, viewfinder and ISO 800.
Both should be available in March.
Link
Canon PowerShots A420, A430 and A530
Taking the lift down to the bargain basement, we find three new entry level cameras, the Canon PowerShots A420, A430 and A530, all sporting a 1.8-inch screen and optical viewfinder.
The 4-megapixel A420 serves up a 3.2x zoom and 5-point AiAF auto focus, the 4-megapixel A430 has a 4x optical zoom and 9-point AiAF auto focus while the A530 ramps up the resolution to 5 million pixels, a 4x zoom and ISO 800.
Link
Did we ever mention that we think DPReview is great?
Canon
21 February, 2006
Exilim Zoom EX-Z850 Digital Camera From Casio
A shiny new 8 megapixel digital camera has just rolled of Casio’s well-used photographic slipway, the Exilim Zoom EX-Z850.
The EX-Z850 offers 8.1 megapixel photos, a 3x optical zoom with both manual aperture and shutter speed priority AE options for advanced users who aren’t afraid to delve about with exposure options.
There’s a sizeable 2.5″ Super Bright 115k pixels LCD onboard and the EX-Z850 includes the latest version of the EXILIM Engine, featuring the software-based Anti Shake DSP to reduce the risk of blurred shots.
Although effective, this is never as good as a proper optical stabilisation system, and relies on ramping up the ISO and shutter speed to freeze action – so you often get sharp pictures at the expense of increased image noise.
Operation looks to be pretty fast, with the Casio boasting a one-second power up, 0.005 second shutter lag and high-speed picture playback of approximately 0.1 seconds interval.
An intriguing Zoom Continuous Shutter feature creates a “shot within a shot”, with the user selecting an area of an image to zoom into and the camera then taking two images with a single press of the shutter.
We’re not quite sure what that means or how the effect is achieved, but we hope it doesn’t involve digital zoom.
The camera’s got a decent battery life capable of notching up 440 shots on a single charge, with the camera sporting three new flash functions:
Rapid Flash blasts out three flash photos in only one second, Soft Flash prevents overexposure of subjects photographed up close and High Power Flash reckons that it can illuminate subjects up to 12.1 metres away.
Casio have also included its Revive Shot, which claims to “refresh faded colours of old photos by bringing them back to life in digital format.”
Apparently it does this by “automatically adjusting for obliquity even when photos are shot while still in the album” – whatever that means.
The camera looks nice enough but without proper optical stabilisation and extended ISO performance, we reckon Casio are going to have to offer a really competitive price to make this one stand out from the pack.
EX-Z850 SPECIFICATIONS
Sensor 1/1.8 ” Type CCD, 8.1 million effective pixels
Image sizes 3264 x 2448, 3264 x 2176 (3:2), 2816 x 2112, 2304 x 1728, 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480
Movie clips 640 x 480, 320 x 240
File formats Still: JPEG (Exif 2.2)
Movie: AVI (MPEG-4)
Lens 38-114mm equiv, F2.8-5.1, 3x optical zoom
Image stabilization Anti Shake DSPDigital zoom up tO 8x
Focus Contrast type AF (selectable between spot, multi), 9-point Multi AF
Exposure Modes Program AE, Shutter Priority AE, Aperture Priority AE
Focus Macro mode, Infinity mode, Pan focus, Manual focus
AF assist lamp Yes
Focus distance Normal: 40cm to infinity, Macro: 10 to 50cm, Manual: 10cm to infinity
Metering Multi-pattern, Centre weighted, Spot
ISO sensitivity Auto (Max ISO1600 when using ‘Anti-Shake’ or’ High Sensitivity’ BEST SHOT modes)ISO50, ISO100, ISO200, ISO400
Exposure compensation +/-2EV in 1/3 EV steps
Shutter speed
Program AE: 1/2 to 1/1600 sec
Shutter Speed Priority and Manual Exposure AE: 60 to 1/1600 sec
Aperture Priority AE: 1 to 1/1600 sec
Aperture
Program and Shutter Speed Priority AE: F2.8-8.0 (Autoswitching)
Manual Exposure and Aperture Priority AE: F2.8/4.0 (Autoswitching)
Connectivity USB 2.0
Storage 8MB internal memory, SD / MMC compatible
Power NP-40 Lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Weight (no batt) 130 g
Dimensions 89 x 58.5 x 23.7 mm
Casio
21 February, 2006