Digital-Lifestyles – Page 263 – 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

TomTom To Use Mobile Phone Location Tech With Applied Generics Takeover (news release)
Location-based mobile services, such as tracking your child at the playground, finding a friend at a sporting event or managing a fleet of delivery drivers, may be a step closer to reality with TomTom’s recent acquisition of Applied Generics. The Scottish company has developed a system deployed over mobile networks that provides real-time data on the location of mobile users. While TomTom will use the system to improve the traffic information on its personal navigation devices, sharing the data with mobile network operators and third-party service providers could also open up a promising new revenue stream for the company.
TomTom relies mainly on the location coordinates from satellite systems to pinpoint its customers. Through its acquisition of Applied Generics in January 2006, TomTom gains access to technology that uses low-level signalling data from mobile networks to determine the location of mobile devices and their users. If TomTom successfully deploys this Geographical Information System (GIS) with mobile network operators, TomTom can offer real-time information on the location coordinates of a population that reaches far beyond the size of its current customer base.
TomTom’s main motive for the acquisition was to gain access to Applied Generic’s flagship software RoDIN24. The system analyses mobile network data anonymously for high-quality and real-time traffic information. Through the acquisition, TomTom hopes to increase the quality of TomTom Plus, its road information service. The company is interested in collecting the traffic data for its own use as well as selling on the information to third parties.
In addition to traffic information, Applied Generics markets systems for tying the location of mobile phones with the mobile user identity. Demand for subscriber location data like this is expected to grow significantly over the next few years and will quickly become a key building block for offering digital connectivity services. Revenue projections by Telecompaper suggest true potential for mobile location-based services, with uptake by a small, but high-usage group of customers able to already generate significant revenues. While TomTom acquired Applied Generics primarily for the traffic information, the company offers a good starting point if TomTom decides to develop location-based mobile services and broaden its revenue sources. The company is in a good position to steal the limelight in this emerging market, helped by good momentum in its core market for navigational devices, the fruits of its successful IPO and its international market focus.
Barriers still need overcoming: this market will not be taken quickly. Mobile network operators may be hesitant to share their data on subscriber locations, while privacy issues may form a concern among end-users. The technology may address quality concerns of existing road information services, but may not be the key to offering relief from road congestion. The revenue possibilities however make it a promising bet for both TomTom and mobile network operators.
TomTom
9 February, 2006
BBC TV Plus – The Apprentice Comes To Broadband
‘The Apprentice’ TV show has been a smash hit in the UK, much the same as it was in the US. The BBC now plan to use it as the ‘first extensive broadband experience,’ as part of the BBC TV Plus project.
While the series is being shown on TV , the episodes from that series will be viewable on demand via broadband, as will ‘must see clips’, ie promo clips from forthcoming episodes. Sorry non-UK readers, all of this is only viewable in the UK.
This broadband-video advance will be supplemented by the now-to-be-expected blog, this time by a fiery (other would say mouthy) contestant from the last series.
BBC Two Web site – Now Broadband-enabled
All of this is accessible via the heavily reworked BBC Two Web site. The Beeb have taken a big step forward with the new site, really embracing the concept of what a broadcasters Web site can be in a broadband age.
Arriving at the page brings you a quick-to-start video of the latest show they want to promo, leaving the rest of the page is uncluttered. When video previews are clicked on, a new window is launched showing the preview with a very neat feature – moving the mouse pointer off the window, dulls supporting text, so the focus is on the video – as it should be.
Why’s it taken the BBC so long?
Initially looking at these advances it’s easy to get excited, but when looked in context of how long it’s taken, a frustrations come to the surface.
Ashley Highfield, BBC New Media & Technology uber-miester, has been banging-on about the potential of broadband for years, but has taken ages to get from talk to action, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent between him joining and now.
There have been blips of excitement. Back in April 2003 we gave a strong thumbs up to the first strong use of broadband we’d seen by the BBC, under bbc.co.uk/broadband. The site has changed considerably since then – thank goodness, it was nearly three years ago – so our comments from then won’t bear direct relevance. What was really impressive then was the synchronisation of text and graphics with the video’s timeline, something that’s not supported by this project.
(Funnily enough, after reading that article the person responsible for the project contacted us and it turned out to be someone whose previous work outside the BBC we’d been very impressed with.)
The talent behind these type of advances don’t often get name checks, so it’s great to be bale to correct this
The development of BBC TWO’s new-look site has been led by Kate Bradshaw (Executive Editor) and Dominic Vallely (Channel Executive Broadband), project managed by Zillah Myers, with design by Julie Dodd, Tim Bleasdale and Audrey Rapier.
The website and player have been produced by New Media Production & Development, led by Victoria Felton (Executive Producer, Editorial).
New look BBC Two site
The Apprentice
bbc.co.uk/broadband
9 February, 2006
Bluetooth’d Films On London Underground
The easy way of getting “content” into a mobile phone, would be just to print 2D barcodes. However, Viacom Outdoor has started a rather more challenging experiment, fitting London Underground posters with Bluetooth transmitters.
The main reason Viacom has to do this, is that there’s no cellphone coverage in London’s deep-level underground railways – the Bakerloo, Victoria, Northern, Piccadilly and Central lines.
The network is said to be permanent, and was promoted as “Meet today’s underground filmmakers” with FourDocs on Channel 4 television. The initial posters are in the inner city, and there are fifteen Bluetooth “jacks” built by Wideray.
Anybody within range can request a download of a four minute documentary.
The project was put together by PosterScope and we understand that Viacom has opened up the project to advertisers.
Guy Kewney write extensively, and quite brilliantly, in lots of places, including NewsWireless.net
9 February, 2006
1Gb Nano iPod Debuts As Apple Cuts Shuffle Price
Keen to further expand their vice-like grip on the portable digital music market, Apple have unveiled a cut-down 1GB version of their turbo box-shifting iPod Nano player.
Apple are hoping that their new 1GB Nano iPod will lure in yet more punters with a wallet-tempting price tag of just $149 (~£86, ~€125), $50 less than the cheapest Nano currently available, a 2-gigabyte model.
The new 1GB Nano can hold up to 240 songs or 15,000 photographs and comes with all the usual Nano features, including the colour display and docking connector.
The company have also announced price cuts for their entry level model, the tiny, screen-less iPod Shuffle which has been reduced to $69 (~£40, ~€58) for the 512MB model, and $99 (~£57, ~€83) for the 1GB model.
Apple are the undisputed lords of the US digital music device market with an estimated 70 percent market share, and these latest price cuts will no doubt have some rival product execs reaching for the bottle in desperation.
As Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, put it: “Apple is selling a $69 MP3 player with the best software. How do you compete with that? It’s tough.”
“In the US market they have already won,” he added, estimating that Apple currently has something like 40 percent share of the worldwide market.
The iPod range continues to be an outrageously successful money spinner for Apple, with around 32 million iPods shifted last year, including 14 million during the holiday season.
iPod Nano
8 February, 2006
2006 Media Summit
8.Jan.06 – 9.Jan.06 The 2006, Media Summit New York is the Premier International Conference on Motion Pictures, Television, Cable & Satellite, Broadband, Wireless, Publishing, Radio, Magazines, News & Print Media, Advertising and Marketing. Each session will be a roundtable of 5 or more speakers.McGraw-Hill Building, 49th St. & 6th Ave., New York City
http://www.digitalhollywood.com/MediaSummit.html
8 February, 2006
Sony VAIO VA1 Series Wireless Home Entertainment PC
Sony has announced the new VAIO VA1 Series, a wireless home entertainment desktop computer.
Looking like it was knocked out by designers in a hurry to get home, the chunky machine seems to lack Sony’s usual flair for design, but underneath the less-than-glamorous exterior lurks a novel hybrid machine, boasting analogue and digital TV tuners, a DVD rewriter and capacious hard drive.
The display is a big Sony 20″ screen with true 16:9 aspect ratio, X-black technology and double lamp illumination, with a nippy 2.8GHz Pentium D 820 processor powering the PC.
Graphics are taken care of courtesy of an ATI Mobility Radeon X700 with 128MB RAM, with the integrated TV tuner offering both analogue and digital channels, with built in Freeview.
Running on Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition, there’s a high capacity 250GB hard drive inside and a dual layer DVD DVD±RW rewriter, capable of recording up to four hours of DVD-quality TV in one go.
High definition audio is provided by Sony’s Direct Stream Digital (DSD), a technology developed by Sony in conjunction with Philips.
Despite its all-in construction, some expandability options are provided with space for a second hard disk and slots for more RAM.
In line with its home entertainment pretensions, the machine includes a wireless keyboard with built in touchpad, a wireless mouse and remote control.And to keep things neat and tidy, the whole caboodle uses a single plug. Nice.
Full details, comprehensive specs and product photos are (as you can see) somewhat thin on the ground as we went to press, but we’ve heard that the Sony VA1 should be available from February, priced at around £1,500 ($2,620, €2.185).
8 February, 2006
BSkyB Moves Execs, To Enter ‘Adjacent Areas Of Business’
Sky has announced three of its top Exec will be altering roles, we suspect, as they prepare to become more than just a satellite TV company.
Using its best management speak, the UK Satellite-overlord is “aligning its organisational structure to support sustained growth towards its target of 10 million direct-to-home customers in 2010.”
The favoured three will be stepping it up a gear, and far beyond having the key for the executive toilet, we suspect they’ll be getting a whole suite of bathroom facilities.
- Dawn Airey, who has been Managing Director of Sky Networks since 2003, becomes Managing Director, Channels and Services with overall responsibility for Sky’s multi-platform content strategy. The existing Sky Networks structure will be joined in the Channels and Services group by an enlarged interactive team that brings together all of Sky’s new media content on interactive TV, online and mobile platforms. She’ll assume additional responsibility for Sky’s joint ventures, wholesale distribution arrangements with cable companies and commercial relationships with third-party channels on the satellite platform.
- Mike Darcey, who joined Sky in 1998 and is currently Group Strategy Director, becomes Group Commercial and Strategy Director with extended responsibility for a new group that combines Sky’s Strategy, Future Technology, R&D and Business Development teams. In addition, he’ll take on a further responsibility to manage and develop Sky’s major commercial relationships in support of the company’s strategic goals
- Jon Florsheim, who joined Sky in 1994, becomes Managing Director, Customer Group in addition to his existing title of Chief Marketing Officer. The Customer Group brings together all of Sky’s expertise in sales, marketing and customer operations to create a seamless brand, product and service experience for customers. This team will lead the continued development and implementation of Sky’s multi-product strategy, including the launch of the company’s broadband offering in the second half of calendar 2006.
We think Mike Darcey sounds like he’s going to have the most fun, and certainly the most toys to play with.
James Murdoch, Sky’s Chief Executive, touches on where BSkyB is planning on going, as they “exploit content on multiple platforms and expand into adjacent areas of business.”
With the strength of BSkyB’s relationships with their customers, fear will be struck into the heart of many execs in many industries by the words “adjacent areas of business.”
8 February, 2006
UK Ad Authority Slaps T-Mobile Web’n’Walk Advertising
T-Mobile was told to see the headmaster and returned with a derrier rouge after making exaggerated claims about its “web’n’walk” mobile Internet service.In a wave of PR-driven hyperbole last October, T-Mobile claimed that their Service – which let customers access the web from their mobiles – would “redefine the mobile Internet market” letting people access the net “Internet wherever you are”. (You may also remember that at the time Guy Kewney wondered if Google were behind the service).
Arch-rivals Orange clearly didn’t like the look of this new service and lobbed a sizeable spanner in the works, lodging an objection with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the grounds that T-Mobile had overstated the availability of the service.
Orange gleefully pointed out to ASA that with T-Mobile only managing 86 per cent coverage in the UK, the advert was giving a false impression about the availability of the service.
T-Mobile had a valiant stab at a defence, arguing that their advert was all about making the distinction between Ye Olde Crappe WAP and their new, full Internet-access, web’n’walk service, adding that they had included the line, “subject to coverage”.
The ASA was having none of it, despatching T-Mobile’s team with a plague of fleas in their ears, firmly pointing out “the unconditional and geographical nature of the phrase, ‘the Internet wherever you are’.”
As heads lowered amongst the T-Mobile team, the ASA statement continued: “We considered the use of such unconditional language to be contradictory to the qualification stated in the coverage disclaimer.”
To the sound of a salvo of slapped wrists, the statement concluded that the ad, “was misleading because readers were likely to interpret the claim to refer to geographical network coverage. We told T-Mobile to avoid making such unconditional claims in future advertising.”
(PS. Don’t tell Orange, but T-Mobile’s website is still making the claim, “Stay one step ahead with web’n’walk and access the Internet wherever you are.”)
Elsewhere, big-boy ISP Wanadoo also felt the harsh crack of ASA leather as it was criticised for ads promoting its “up to 8Mb” service which were seen to fall far short of its claims.
T-Mobile Web’n’Walk
8 February, 2006
Get Free Entry to iTunes Music Store Billion Songs Countdown
Apple have announced a competition to become the downloader of the 1 Billion th music track on iTMS.
Just over a year ago we put out a brief piece expressing our frustration at Apple making a PR splash every time it sold another 100m tracks. Our plea … don’t worry about telling us until the next figure was significant.
Well it looks like that day is fast approaching.
At the time of writing, we see on the live track count that they’ve sold just short of 950,981,000 tracks.
The prize for the 1Bn th track is well worth winning
1 x 20-inch G5 iMac
10 x 60GB iPods (5 white/5 black)
1 x U.S. $10,000 iTunes Music Card (good for any media type)
On the back of the billionth hoopla, is the plan to reward track purchasers every time a 100,000 song is hit, which provides
1 x 4GB black iPods nano
1 x US $100 iTunes Music Card
which is also not to be sneezed at.
You know we like to save you money when we can and for those with sharp eyes, you’ll see near at the bottom of the page in light grey (thanks Apple), “*No purchase necessary to win. Click here to submit a free entry form.” Following the link takes you to the form telling that you can indeed make up to 25 free entries a day. We’re not sure on the US rules for competitions, but we know in the UK that free entry is essential when there’s no skill involved with entering the competition.
Best of luck – and let us know if you win!
iTunes Billion Songs Countdown
Free entry form – iTunes Billion Songs Countdown
7 February, 2006
M600 Handset Announced by Sony
Sony Ericsson have announced their new M600 handset, a tri-band (900/1800/1900 plus UMTS 2100 for 3G data outside the US) jobbie, with Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 operating systems.
Measuring a pocket unruffling 15 mm thick, the 3G-capable communicator sports a Blackberry 7100x style dual function QWERTY keyboard and a large, touch-sensitive, 2.6-inch 240×320 262K colour display.
The dual function thumb-board offers continuous spell checking and word completion, with input aided by a 3-way jog dial and handwriting recognition.
Touted as a “fully-specified email tool and mobile phone”, the handset offers true multitasking, so a user can, for example, browse the Internet while chatting away on the phone.
The onboard push email applications and remote synchronisation options should please the swivel-action office crowd, with support for AlteXia, Ericsson Mobile Office (EMO), iAnywhere OneBridge, Intellisync, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, RIM – BlackBerry Connect , Seven, Visto and standard email.
For road warriors and shuffling suits, there’s the facility to read and edit PowerPoint, Word and Excel documents and Adobe PDF files on the move, with the popular Opera 8 browser provided for surfing the Internet.
For storing email attachments and multimedia content, there’s 80MB of internal memory, with Sony bundling in an additional 64MB Memory Stick in their new, teensy-weensy, bound-to-lose-it-in-seconds Micro M2 card format.
The built in media player offers support for MP3, AAC, ACC+, E-AAC+ and m4a, streaming audio and video playback 30 fps with Stereo Bluetooth support.
In line with its business focus, there’s no built in camera, and Wi-Fi is an unfortunate omission too.
For some reason we kept thinking of a Spectrum ZX-80 when we looked at the phone, but I guess that’s no bad thing.
Sony Ericsson will be making the new phone available in Granite Black and Crystal White from Q2 2006.
Sony Ericsson’s M600i, A First Look [All About Symbian]
7 February, 2006