A great shame to hear that ZipTV has had to enter receivership.
ZipTV launched in July 2004 with high ideals. Their original aim was to take on the mighty power of Sky and create an interactive advertising channel running in parallel to Sky TV’s programming.
They way it worked was, as the punters were watching ‘normal’ TV and an advert from one of ZipTV’s clients was shown, a press of the Red button on the remote control (the UK standard for interaction), would take the punter away from the ‘normal’ TV show, to a dedicated TV channel. This gave the advertiser the opportunity to show an 8 minute video advert, but just pay for a 30-second spot-ad to get them there.
A very neat idea, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Taking on Sky, especially their income-generating advertising is … well, brave to say the least. If you were contemplating it, it’s the sort of thing you check with your lawyer, bank manager and then frankly, your psychiatrist before doing. We’re not sure if ZipTV did any of these.
You see Sky, and it’s very competent employees and owner, Rupert Murdoch don’t muck around. If they see some bright young things coming along with a super wheeze they will drain their income – it will get their attention – and not in a good, cuddly way.
In advance of launching, ZipTV gathered some of the biggest advertisers around, including Honda, BT and Unilever, but some were lots prior to their launch.
Not surprisingly Andrew Howells, founder and joint managing partner at Zip TV, said, “Having a genuine alternative to Sky is a necessity. There is only room for one alternative and it needs to be an independent one.”
It was with great disappointment and a heavy heart that we heard that Google had compromised their search results in China, excluding results the Chinese government didn’t find acceptable. In effect becoming the government’s censor.
It’s not that we think that people will stop searching on Google, it’s just that they won’t trust Google implicitly any more
For emotionally insecure types needing the reassuring sparkle of ostentatious bling around their neck, the new gold-plated deluxe MP3 player from Jens of Sweden should be a Godsend.
The player can also display pictures and text documents transferred over its USB port.
Perhaps mindful of the torrent of complaints that met Apple’s super scratchy Nano player, Nylander added, “The display is sharp and the player is both smaller and more resistant to scratches or blows than hard disk-based players.”
Sony has announced the Japanese release of two new laptops featuring the Intel Duo Core processor.
The new super-skinny SZ series (0.9″ wide) comes with either a 945GM Express or the GeForce Go 7400 graphics card which offers an unusual SPEED/STAMINA switch.
Sony F TV Series
According to Sony Japan’s website, the laptops will be available in a range of configurations and made available in Japan over the next few weeks.
MobiBlu’s soon-to-be-released DAH-1900 MP3 Player (256mb/512mb/1gb) claims to have the longest battery life of any MP3 player in the entire known universe.
The display can be used to stream song lyrics for pub-like solo singalongs, courtesy of an editable Auto Lyric system.
For nippy transfer of files from a PC, the DAH-1900 offers a High-Speed USB 2.0 interface at up to 40 Mbps transmission speed.
Available colours
Panasonic has unveiled its new ultra-zoom prosumer digital camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7.
Inherited from Panasonic’s high end Lumix LX1 compact is a new ‘joystick’ control affording fast, easy access to settings such as ISO, image size & quality and white balance.
Like the LX1, the camera also offers a vast array of exposure options, including Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and fully manual, backed up by an exhaustive set of ‘scene’ options covering the useful (‘sports’) to the bizarre (‘soft skin’).
Specifications:
Opera Software have announced the worldwide release of 
As a result of the compression technology, users can surf the Web faster – and those paying for their data traffic can dramatically reduce their bandwidth costs.
“With Opera Mini most people can start surfing the Web with the mobile phone they have today,” purred Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.
Opera Mini can be freely downloaded by pointing your phone’s WAP browser in the direction of 
Not content with having a café on every street corner in the known universe, Starbucks has announced that it’s considering expanding its entertainment business to offer a MP3 download service at their stores.
Starbucks have already stuck their espresso-scented tentacles deep into the music business and established themselves as a major CD outlet, shifting around 3.5 million CDs in their fiscal year ended 30 September.
Last year, HMV Canada refused to stock Alanis Morissette’s records (good move anyway, we say!) in protest at the wallet-stuffing exclusivity agreement she’d signed with Starbucks.
If the Starbucks service takes off, we can expect more pressure on artists and record companies to conform to their wholesome values – and this can only be bad news for music fans.
Mobile operator 3 has launched an innovative service that, for the first time, pays customers to receive calls and texts.
Designed to boost usage of data services, 3 also hopes that the cash-back scheme will prove attractive to new punters and tempt customers from other networks to switch.
The WePay top-ups come as all-cash vouchers available in £10, £15 and £20 denominations, with no expiry date. However, the WePay cash credits are only valid for 30 days.