DAB radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is really taking off in the UK.
Sales figures for the all important christmas period are now in. How many do you think were sold? Get ready for it – a gnat’s whisker short of 500,000! That’s just in the UK in December. Close to a third of all DAB sets sold that years.
As at the end of December there’s over 2.7m DAB sets having been sold so far. It’s not hard to see that the hockey stick curve is really getting considerably steeper.
When DAB sets like the new Asono DAB1 are becoming available, it’s hardly surprising that people are getting encouraged to make the switch. What a lovely bit of kit
We thing that the sheer quality of BBC radio, 4 in particular, is a major reason why the UK is being seduced by DAB.
Referring to the competition from the increasing popular digital music players, in particular the iPod, DRDB (Digital Radio Development Bureau) chief executive, Ian Dickens said: “Christmas on the High Street was a tough proposition this year. DAB digital radio was once again a shining light with independents, the multi-nationals and especially the mass-merchandisers enjoying strong sales right through the holidays and into January.”
The continued growth of DAB is hoped to receive a further boost as uber-regulator, OfCom, plans to release further, new DAB-able spectrum.
You may have heard about yesterdays launching of the latest UK warship – HMS Darling (its ninth incarnation), a Type 45 Destroyer.
As well as all of the killing parts, it’s also got a cuddly side, which frankly is the side that interests us more. The 230 crew will be treated quite unlike any other Navy.
If you’re interested in buying one, do let 
Inga Chernyak, until recently, had a legal clerk job at an IP law firm in New York City. On the 26 January she was called in to the firms HR department and fired.
There may be those who think that it’s pretty obvious that is you work in an IP firm; wanting to train as an IP lawyer; you hold views that IP law is over restrictive; then have your name and photo featured in an article that starts by describing how to circumvent CD DRM protection and are a founder of NYU chapter of the Free Culture movement – you’re going to end up in trouble said IP law firm. 
BBC World have been busy bunnies of late, signing distribution deals all over the globe.
The video streams include the adverts that would be shown if BBC World were being shown on the TV in the region. As yet, BBC World aren’t charging their advertisers any extra to splash them on mobile screens – they’re seeing it as added value for them
In the 3/Hutchinson Australia deal, the subscribers are being asked to pay Au$4/month for unlimited access, Au$2/day or Au$0.50/two minutes.
They’ve been bustier than Jock McHasty in a rush at i-mate, as the PDA/smartphone vendor releases another addition to their range, the i-mate PDA-N – the company’s first GPS PDA.
The front of the slim device is dominated by a 2.83″ 240×320 pixels transmissive TFT-LCD screen supporting 64k colours, with a row of four buttons and a joystick below.
According to I-mate, the PDA-N notches up a rated battery life of 5 hours in GPS mode and 8 hours playing a looped video.
Battery: Removable rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery, 1,100mAH
Four months after releasing their first iTunes-enabled mobile phone, the disappointing Motorola ROKR E1, Motorola have had another stab at creating the perfect music phone.
The biggest complaint was the laughably feeble memory on the ROKR that could only hold a maximum of 100 iTunes songs – regardless of memory capacity – and a treacle-slow song transfer rate.
In a flurry of arty waffle, Steve Lalla, vice president and general manager for mass-market products at Motorola, explained that the, “L7 is really in what we call our ‘self-expression portfolio,’ where design and style is the key premise behind the product”.
International men of mystery, jet setters, globe-trotters and drug smugglers might just be the niche group targeted by Carpoint’s world-spanning navigation system.
Called the XRoad Paris (but, thankfully, no relation to the cash-rich, time-rich airhead of the same name) the device can guide users through nation after nation in a choice of seven languages.
We assume the two chunky buttons each side of the screen are for making onscreen selections and scrolling through the map, but seeing as babelfish packed up mid-way through our attempt at a Korean translation, I guess we’ll never know.
We can’t think of any over-riding reason why anyone would need a GPS unit stuffed full with half the world’s maps, but it’s certainly a well styled model and its encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s cities might come in useful in a pub quiz at the very least.
It won’t be long before kids think that “going to the chemists for some prints” is some kid of euphemism for scoring drugs, but with the onslaught of cheap digital cameras and high quality printers, the writing’s on the wall for the print developing business.
Images can be read from a built in CD-R drive for printing, with high quality scanning afforded courtesy of a 3200 x 6400 dpi MatrixCCD scanner scanner.
Users can monitor what’s going on through a high definition (256 ppi) 2.5 inch colour LCD preview monitor, with a USB port for backing up data on to external storage devices (such as CD-R/Zip drives).
A week ahead of its scheduled launch, smartphone bigwigs i-mate have revealed details of their latest model, the JAMin.
Switching from a 416 MHz Intel processor to a 200 MHz TI processor (we know it sounds like it must be slower but they’re not directly comparable), i-mate have stuck with the JAM form factor, adding a different button layout and twice the ROM.
Also known as the HTC Prophet (and O2 XDA Neo), the phone shouldn’t stir it up in the pocket department, measuring a compact 10.8 x 5.8 x 1.8cm and weighing 150g. Memory expansion is taken care of courtesy of a SD IO slot
Several thousand rural surfers across Europe suddenly found themselves sans le Internet after European-based satellite broadband provider Aramiska unexpectedly slammed shut its operations with just five hours’ notice.
The Community Broadband Network (CBN) is organising efforts to help Aramiska customers find an alternative satellite broadband supplier, with their director, Adrian Wooster, commenting, “The Aramiska issue totally caught our members unaware, and is causing many problems for rural businesses beyond simple connectivity; the Aramiska service was also hosting many Websites and has been offering file storage capabilities for businesses.”