Digital-Lifestyles – Page 284 – 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

Google Local For Mobile: Not Just The USA
For those who have better thing to do with their lives than fanatically watch every twist and turn of online technology, or if you’re living outside the US of A, you may well not have been using Google’s recently launched Google Local For Mobile (GLM)- or even have heard of it.
Here’s the heads-up – it’s a service that runs through a downloaded Java application on a number of mobile phones, giving on-the-move mapping, route planning and local information.
As with their browser-based mapping services, you can view either a map, satellite view or a overlaid combination of the two.
Superimposed on this is local business information, currently, but we can see that with Google’s penchant for adding advertising to everything, this may be soon added to.
Yesterday we revealed how GLM has GPS hidden inside, but isn’t currently enabled and it was while playing around with this, we discovered another interesting undocumented feature.
Google are telling everyone that it just covers the US. Quoting from their FAQ
Does Google Local for mobile work everywhere?
Not yet. Local for mobile is currently available in the US only. We’re working to increase its availability as soon as possible.
We found that with a little playing around, you can investigate around Europe and plot routes using the click to select mapping.
So, how do you explore Europe?
Here’s how we discovered it, there may be other ways.
- Download the app to your mobile using the ‘Other’ mobile provider option
- Select a handset close to your own (we’ve found that it doesn’t need to be your exact handset)
- Download and run the app
- Shift to satellite view and you’ll see the whole of the USA
- Scroll right towards Europe
- Zoom in to your desired Euro location
- Select 2 (Directions) to find route
- Use ‘Select point on map’ to select the starting point, then finishing point
- The route will be calculated
- Click 3 to start stepping through your route
- Have fun
More detail than the browser version
The discovery doesn’t end there. After chatting further to Cristian Streng, we now also realise that there’s detail on the Mobile version that isn’t available via the ‘normal’ Web-based Google Maps.
To illustrate it, he sent us some screen grabs showing mapping data of Germany that is currently only available in GLM.
If you fancy having a look around too, but want to save the mobile phone data charges, we’ll pass on a tip from Cristian. He very sensibly did his investigation using a PC-based Java Virtual Machine rather than spending money on GPRS charges. Smart.
If you didn’t know it already, this makes is clear that software is there to play with, and if you do, you may find lots of areas and features that you’re officially told aren’t there. So, go, explore.
Google Local For Mobile
Cristian Streng Mobile GMaps app
10 November, 2005
Vodafone Licenses Intertrust DRM
Intertrust must have though that all of the xmases came at once on the day Vodafone confirmed their licensing deal. It’s not every day that the World’s largest mobile operator signs a deal like that with you.
The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) specified DRM (Digital Rights Management)contains what they refer to as, the essential patents – the minimum required to run the very basics of the content/rights protection.
The Vodafone deal goes well beyond these basics and licenses all of the technologies and patent that Intertrust have available.
When we asked which of the Intertrust pieces of technology they were planning to use, Vodafone became unusually very shy, explaining that they didn’t have definitive plans as to which parts would and wouldn’t be used.
Both Vodafone and Intertrust declined to reveal the value of the transaction, but given the need for separate deals with the handset companies, it may be here that Intertrust make most of their money. This will not be optional if the handset manufacturers want to be on the Vodafone service and offer content.
The length of the deal has been loosely described as ‘Long-term licensing’, but Vodafone didn’t reveal how long this was by the time we went to press.
Intertrust
Vodafone
10 November, 2005
HD, Or The Lack Of It, Could Hit UK Commercial Broadcasters
Following the BBC confirmation of High Definition Television (HD) trials for 2006, all of a sudden it feels like there’s a plethora of High Definition services and trials in the UK next year.
At an event held in London earlier in the week, under the auspices of the Royal Television Society, Pat Younge from Discovery USA provided news of his experiences. The bad news for commercial UK broadcasters is it costs more; doesn’t bring any extra revenue from advertisers; and it doesn’t increase viewing hours … but if you don’t have it, viewers will seek it out and they’ll end up watching you competitors.
The BBC is, as usual, unwilling to be left behind in new developments. With the expectation of World Cup Soccer in High Def on D-Sat (Digital Satellite) next year, the UK commercial broadcasters, ITV; Channel Four; and Five need to be on HD, but will try and ride on the BBC’s coat tails.
Speaking at the same event, Richard Freudenstein, CEO, BSkyB, was careful not to mention what the monthly subscription will be for HD on Sky when it launches. He spent his time talking up the platforms’ HD bouquet that will include Sky One, sports and movies with an HD Sky Plus box and plenty of storage capacity.
DTT (Digital Terrestrial TV) in France (quaintly abbreviated in French as ‘TNT’) will be MPEG 4 capable and is HD-ready from go, but finding capacity on the MPEG 2 Freeview platform in the UK is going to be more of a challenge. The BBC’s Jana Bennett, Director of Television is tasked with making the UK trials a success and wants to see the offering across all platforms. She hopes that, as well as cable and satellite, broadband will be a route into the home.
Confusion still reigns
Although the industry know they must go to HD, it’s clear that they’re far from having a strong hold over it. From listen to the snippets of conversation in the halls before and after the main event, it’s clear that there also remains broadcast industry confusion over the strengths of the various picture standards. This was given away with phrases like “I think 1080 refers to the number of lines” coming from the lips of one ‘expert.’
The equipment people have to buy for their homes is still an area of confusion, not helped by the next-gen DVD industry not agreeing their standard (Blu-ray, HD-DVD).
Once they do and this combines with the widely-predicted, continuing reduction in price, those exciting big displays labeled ‘HD-ready’ will really start to fly off the shelves.
Until then it’s a case of buyer beware – if you can resist the fantastic picture.
10 November, 2005
GPS Discovered In Google Local For Mobile
Despite their emphatic denial, Google appear to be planning to bring GPS to the recently announced Google Local For Mobile.
Clever clogs, Cristian Streng has been digging around in his Google Local For Mobile .jad, the downloaded binary file for his Nokia 6600 and he found the following “GpsEnabled: false.” Well I never.
Just to refresh you, here’s what Google say in their FAQ
Does Google Local for mobile use GPS to figure out where I am?
Google Local for mobile doesn’t use any GPS technology, even if your phone has a built in GPS location device.
It looks like v2.0 could well be different.
Currently the users of the service have to key in or select the desired starting and destination points, and press a key to mimic their progress in the real world. Using GPS eradicates the need to tell the system where you are, or update the system to your progress.
With GPS Google’s service becomes a huge threat to many of the companies that already sell handheld navigation system like TomTom and Navicore. The disadvantage of Google’s approach is that the phone must be connected to the network, racking up data charges for the mobile owner. This disadvantage vanishes when the phone user had an all inclusive data rate.
The GPS feature could well be waiting for a second release of the service, or waiting for next-gen handsets with aGPS built into them, to become more widely used.
Google isn’t alone in their desire to provide mapping services to mobiles. Guy Kewney tells us that there have been mutterings about Yahoo Maps linking up with mobile phone companies too.
Google Local For Mobile
Cristian Streng Mobile GMaps app
9 November, 2005
RFID’s Are Go: Ofcom Extends UK Frequency Range
Ofcom, the UK uber-regulator, has today announced that they have removed the licensing restrictions on the frequency that radio frequency identification(RFID) tags use.
The currently spectrum available is limited to the range 869.4 to 869.65 MHz. The new position will make the range much wider, stretching between 865-868 MHz range.
The extension isn’t a great surprise as, for a number of years, there has been great excitement in industry as to the possible uses of RFID. The much used example is to improve the efficiency of handling goods in a warehouse, where items within a crate are wirelessly read, and their number deducted from the known stock list automatically as they leave the warehouse.
Many have voiced concerns about the privacy problems of information being remotely read about a person, using RFID, without their knowledge, or complicity. Their oft cited, but basically harmless example is of each item of clothing that a person is wearing being read as they walk into a shop.
Ofcom say that when coming to their decision, they considered two main issues. The first, the potential of interference from RFID devices, concluding that current legislation of output levels covered this. Secondarily, the economic costs and benefits. We quote
Ofcom conducted an impact assessment which found that the potential net benefits to businesses (through better inventory management and improved security) and consumers (if savings were reflected in lower prices) would be £100 – £200 million over 10 years
Benefits are clear for business, as efficiency is improved, by removing employees from the equation. Those to the consumers are less clear, as we can see Ofcom effectively acknowledge in their bracketed ‘if savings were reflected in lower prices’. Given what we know about the pursuit of profit, we see this as a very large If.
Perhaps the revealing section in Ofcom’s announcement is that they “seek to deregulate in order to increase the amount of licence-exempt spectrum used by businesses to bring new technologies and services to the market.” (Our stress).
It could be argued that Ofcom are losing site of their statutory dutiesunder the Communications Act 2003 – to look after the interests of the public. Specifically, quoting from the Ofcom site (again our stress).
3(1) It shall be the principal duty of Ofcom, in carrying out their functions;
(a) to further the interests of citizens in relation to communications matters; and
(b) to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition”
The above is listed on the ‘about section’ on Ofcom’s site .
Ofcom’s full statement (PDF)
Wikipedia RFID
9 November, 2005
WM1185-T: Accton’s Skype-Embeded WiFi Phone
Accton Technology has unveiled a Skype-enabled Wi-Fi phone, the SkyFone WM1185-T in Tokyo.
The big difference with this handset is that it uses an embedded version of Skype, meaning that the handset can operate without the need for a PC, as other current handsets do. Accton is one of the first companies to do so.
It’s been reported that the handset has a 4 hour talk time and around 20 hour standby. It is expected to retail for $150 (~£86~€127).
Accton plan to ship 5,000 handsets in December to Skype’s business partners and wireless broadband service providers worldwide for testing.
This is exactly the type of deal that we thought that Skype would be doing and fits perfectly into our thought of The Genius of eBay Buying Skype, where Skype turns in to the next Vodafone and eBay becomes the largest phone shop in the World, sitting between the third-party handset producers and a world of customers.
Prior to this, Accton have been producing other WiFi VoIP handsets like their VM1188B (see top), but they ran SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) not Skype.
If you’ve never heard of Accton, you’re like the vast majority of people, even those specialising in keeping a close eye on this sector. They’re a Taiwanese company better known for producing network equipment, recently reported a pre-tax profit following seven quarters of loss.
Accton consumer electronics
9 November, 2005
Blue Bsh-100: Anycom’s Bluetooth Headset With Mic
It has taken the Bluetooth headset industry a remarkably long time to twig that we don’t want to use one headset for listening to music, and then frantically rip it off to use another Bluetooth headset for answering the phone. Anycom has the one… at a price.
The company has announced the blue bsh-100 headset [right] which, at first sight, is just another of those “hang-on-both-ears” stereo headsets for iPod users. Except for the little black bit jutting out of the right earpiece. That’s the audio input device, or microphone. [see left]
It’s described as “a wireless unit that offers multiple settings for hi-fi stereo headphone for digital audio, Bluetooth headset with attachable microphone for use with mobile phones and PC peripheral using a USB Bluetooth adapter for gaming, chat and VoIP.”
And (if it works as described) the best feature will undoubtedly be its ability to connect to your PC and your phone at the same time. If a call comes in while you’re listening to streaming audio, it will switch to the phone. Of course, this won’t work if you don’t also have a Bluetooth transmitter on your PC, and so you may have to buy one.
And the icing on the cake: a Bluetooth audio gateway. Without further details (actual hands-on reviews!) this is probably going to seem more wonderful than it can in reality be: but what we’re hoping it will do, is allow you to plug several audio inputs into it, and switch between them – from landline phone to Skype, from Skype to iPod, from iPod to mobile phone.
Price in the US has been announced at $120 (~£68~e102) for the headset, and $29 (~£16~e24) for the audio adapter.
Guy Kewney write extensively, and quite brilliantly, in lots of places, including NewsWireless.net
Anycom
9 November, 2005
Amazon UK Straightens Out Tesco Via The ASA
The commercial rivalry between two UK online retailers has spilt over into the world of advertising, or more precisely the heady world of UK advertising adjudication, run by the Advertising Standards Authority.
Amazon.co.uk complained directly to the ASA that Tesco has sent out an email for DVDs and CDs, that attempted to seduce purchasers as follows, “Did you know our chart CDs and DVDs are cheaper than Amazon.co.uk and Play.com?* Visit Tesco Jersey and see for yourself … *Refers to Tesco Jersey, Amazon.co.uk and Play.com delivered prices”.
This put Amazon.co.uk’s nose right out of joint on two counts. Firstly some of the chart DVDs from Amazon Jersey were available from less money than Tesco Jersey, secondarily they felt it mislead readers as Amazon order over £19 included delivery.
The ASA batted the first complaint aside, but felt the second held water despite Tesco putting up the follow argument. Their long winded thinking can be cut down to … As no single CD or DVD was priced over £19 (thank goodness – our addition), to qualify for the Amazon free delivery, it entailed ordering more than one item.
Well, yes, true. We follow that. The ASA also did, but found it irrelevant.
How did Tesco aim to put this right? First by stating that they didn’t think the ad was misleading, then with a swift call to their internal legal department by the looks of it. They fine tuned their terms and conditions of the price comparison on their Website.
We’ll save you from all of the details, but to us the pertinent part of it was “Comparison excludes multiple purchase or free delivery offers.”
But this jiggery pokery didn’t get them off the hook and the ASA found against them.
What terrible fate awaits Tesco? The ASA told Tesco to make clear in future that the claim referred to single item purchases and excluded their competitor’s multiple purchase discounts. We bet the collective boots of Tesco shook.
It’s a funny old world isn’t it?
Well what can we draw from this? It shows that the online market is sufficiently tough – and potentially profitable – that Amazon is employing people that read through their competitors emails looking for the smallest detail that they can try and call them on.
We have no doubt that Tesco would do the same to any other company that it felt threatened by.
Given the outcome, we suspect that neither Amazon with be cracking the champagne in celebration, nor Tesco will be drowning their sorrows.
The world continues to turn and the happy came of capitalism continues to fight another day.
Amazon
Tesco
8 November, 2005
RangeMax 240: Netgear steps up the speed of WiFi
Netgear have released a new wireless access points with claimed speeds of up to 240Mb/s, beating that of wired networks of 100Mb/s (though modern Ethernet wired networks can now go up to 1000Mb/s or 1Gb/s and faster).
Actual speeds are likely to be much less, especially as more devices are added to the network as each to a degree will compete for bandwidth. However 100Mb/s speeds are potentially achievable, which is suitable for streaming music and video around the house (even High Definition/HD TV).
In order to achieve these high speeds, ALL the devices in the (wireless) network must use the RangeMax 240 system, though it will interoperate with older RangeMax and 802.11b/g systems.
Speed gains using clever encoding
The RangeMax kit uses an underlying technology known as MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) which uses many aerials on the base station to “steer” the beams to the particular client. Each beam can use different frequencies. This allows data resilience and as different frequencies will travel differently through walls etc, this means the system works better than straight 802.11b/g systems. Using multiple beams means more bandwidth (each beam can handle X amount of data, so two beams mean 2X data), however as multiple frequencies are used, there’s actually a greater increase (each frequency also can transmit a certain amount of data). This all gets very complicated, but is known as Spatial Multiplexing and adaptive channel expansion. RangeMax also uses adaptive channel selection to avoid channels (frequencies) that are being used by other systems.
Though these clever encoding techniques do offer big advantages in terms of throughput and resilience they are also totally proprietary to Netgear, so won’t work with other manufacturers kit (unless in standard WiFi mode, which won’t give major speed enhancements).
The IEEE (the body that sets the 802.11 standards) are working on the next phase of standards which will incorporate MIMO and other techniques, but they are not due for a while and it will take manufacturers a while longer to then make systems that conform to those new specs. There are no guarantees that any kit now will be upgradeable to those new standards.
Buying now may give instant gratification but there’s a good chance that Netgear will be your only choice of equipment in the future.
NetGear
8 November, 2005
Grokster U-turns And Closes Service
Grokster, the online music sharing service, much legally embattled, has decided to shut the service and pay $50 million to settle claims against it.
Visitors to their site will now see the following message
The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal.
Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners.
There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service is not one of them.
Quite a turn around from their previous stance and not exactly expected.
AP is reporting that the settlement
permanently bans Grokster from participating, directly or indirectly, in the theft of copyrighted files and requires the company to stop giving away its software.
You would think that this would pretty much be the end of them, but no.
There is a plan to launch a service that they say will be a “safe and legal service” under the name Grokster 3G.
As you would expect with such a massive turn around, the record industry is pretty happy. Mitch Bainwol, Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) explained their position, “As the Court articulated in no uncertain terms, there is a right way and a wrong way to conduct a business. This settlement makes clear that businesses are well aware when they are operating on the wrong side of that line.”
The fallout from this sudden turn-around by Grokster is far from clear. They were originally one of the strongest proponents of the right to run a P2P service without restricting the content that is exchanged on it.
Certainly, it will put significantly more pressure on StreamCast Networks Inc., which distributes Morpheus, and Sharman Networks Ltd., which distributes Kazaa, who were co-defendants of the original court case.
What is not certain is if Grokster will be able to pull any of their current users over to their new Grokster 3G service – effectively ‘doing a Napster’. We suspect that it’s highly likely that many of the current Grokster’s will feel betrayed by their change around.
Grokster
8 November, 2005