Digital-Lifestyles – Page 289 – 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

SD430: Canon PowerShot Adds Wi-Fi
Canon are trumpeting that they are “bringing IXUS style and performance to the wireless age” with the release of their PowerShot camera.
Essentially a Powershot SD450 with Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) bolted on, the compact camera comes with a 5.0 Megapixel CCD sensor, 3x optical zoom, 2.0″ LCD display and 14 shooting modes for creative experimentation.
The addition of the Wi-Fi gubbins means the SD430 offers direct printing to any to any Canon PictBridge compatible printer courtesy of the supplied Wireless Printer Adapter (WA-1E).
An Auto Transfer mode automatically transfers images to a nearby PC (with Canon’s software installed) while the Wireless Remote Capture lets users fire off snaps from their PC – great fun for candid party shots and capturing scampering squirrels in the garden. If that’s your bag, of course.
The camera can be registered with up to 8 target devices including wireless access points via a secure communication system to prevent eavesdropping or interception of your photographic masterpieces.
As well as industry standard WEP, the SD430 employs WPA-PSK with TKIP/AES encryption for enhanced data security.
“With wireless technology extending beyond the office to personal home networks, Canon expects Wi-Fi support to be the next big trend in the digital photography market,” insisted Mogens Jensen, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging Europe.
“The Digital IXUS WIRELESS delivers freedom and ease-of-use that consumers expect from wireless devices,” he continued.
Although we naturally warm to the convenience and sheer ‘techiness’ of Wi-Fi enabled digital cameras, we remain to be convinced that the technology has reached maturity yet.
After all, firing off images wirelessly is no quicker than using a standard USB dock, there’s no built in browser or infrastructure for shifting images when you’re away from home (or at a photo printing lab, for example) and, of course, all that WiFi-ing is going to give your camera’s batteries a slapdown.
We speak from some experience here too, after foolishly being seduced by Sony’s innovative – but frankly pointless – Bluetooth feature on its 20002 DSC FX77 camera.
After an eternity of fiddling about with Bluetooth settings only to see images crawling onto our PCs, the novelty soon wore off and the thing was dumped straight back on to its USB cradle.
Mind you, it was fun taking photos from a PC in the next room until the Bluetooth connection went tits up.
Back to the SD430, we can also add that it comes with an all-important cool blue light, offers manual and auto shooting modes with stitch assist, and weighs in at 130 g (4.6 oz) in a pocketable 99 x 54 x 22 mm (3.9 x 2.1 x 0.9 in) case.
Pricing to be announced.
Canon
25 October, 2005
Apple Sued Over Scratchy iPod Nanos, Motorola Miffed
More details about Jason Tomczak’s class action against Apple for releasing defective iPod Nanos have emerged on The Inquirer’s site.
In the action, started in a San Jose district court, Tomczak alleges that the iPod Nano’s easily-scratched screen renders the display unreadable and thus breaches state consumer protection statutes.
Tomczak alleges that Apple kept on shifting the Nanos even when they knew that there were problems with the design and by failing to recall the MP3 players, the company “passed the expense, hassle and frustration of replacing the defectively designed Nanos along to class members”.
The plaintiff alleges that with Steve Jobs whipping the Nano out of his pocket in a TV advert, Apple led consumers to believe the machine was durable.
Tomczak argues that even this simple act could lead to a scratched screen, claiming that the resin used in the product was not as thick and strong as in previous iPods.
The plaintiff wraps up his case by alleging that Apple knew about the dodgy quality problems before release but, “fierce competition on the digital music industry” compelled them to release it anyway.
Motorola miffed at Nanos
Things aren’t looking too happy-clappy for the Motorola’s iTunes music phone either, with analysts Bloomberg reporting that it may not be performing as expected.
American Technology Research analyst Albert Lin noted that as many as six times more customers are returning the Rokr phones than is normal for new handsets, and Motorola Chief Executive Officer Ed Zander said he is disappointed with the phone’s marketing and plans to fix it.
“We got off to a little bit of a rough start”, Zander said last week, “People were looking for an iPod and that’s not what it is. We may have missed the marketing message there”.
Ironically, things haven’t been helped by the iPod nano appearing on the scene straight after the phone’s launch, with the ultra-small pocket rocket holding 10 times the amount of songs for half the price
You can’t blame Zander for being a bit miffed after Apple invited his company to be the first to launch an iTunes phone and the immediately stole their thunder with the Nano announcement.
Pocket-lint.co.uk reported that he exclaimed “Screw the nano!” in a previous statement which was later receded.
Motorola is reported to be launching a new series of phones to tailored around music in the future.
Pocket Lint
The Inquirer
24 October, 2005
Sky/Easynet Purchase: Analysis
As we reported last week, Easynet has been bought by Sky – as long as they get shareholder approval, but since Sky have offered a premium on Easynet’s shares, this should be a done deal.
This is the first broadcaster (in the UK) to take control of the telecom’s infrastructure required to deliver a triple-play of voice, Internet and video, though it’s likely Sky will use the broadband piece to complement its satellite delivery channel. This does give them the much need backchannel that has been elusive so far (requiring dial-up to access SkyActive and other services).
This could be a major blow for THUS who provide telecoms services for Sky as well as hosting various services (THUS developed parts of the WapTV service with Sky). Sky accounts for around £30m of THUS’s revenue (about 10% of their total) which could potentially go to Easynet which would make a huge dent in THUS’s revenue figures, though a lot of it is very low margin.However it might put THUS in a poor financial situation when viewed by the city.
Even though Sky are buying into LLU, Easynet only cover around 250 exchanges and currently all the voice goes to BT (Easynet use the shared metallic path LLU option), while Sky are likely to want to take the phone service as well (they already have a SkyTalk package using CPS provided by THUS). Sky will need to invest to make this a reality as well as increasing Easynet’s coverage. They have said they want to go into around 1000 exchanges, so that’s a build out of around 750 – which won’t be cheap (probably another £100m’ish at least).
For Sky that may be enough as it will cover all major city centres and that’s a big plus for Sky who estimate they can’t reach 20% of their potential audience due to issues with coverage (i.e. no satellite line of site due to buildings in the way, or no way to mount a dish, multi-tennant buildings etc). LLU will give them the means to reaching these people.
It still begs the issue of what’s going to happen when BT roll-out their 21CN and attack all 5,600 local exchanges and also offer a triple-play, but at least Sky will have a lead on them and already have the content ready to roll. BT are likely to be the winners longer term, but at least Sky may have a fighting chance in urban areas.
If all the LLU players aggregated infrastructure and competed on services, they could build a 21CN of their own now. LLU competition is going to be fiercely competitive with Wanadoo, AOL, Sky and even Be offering a triple-play – all competing for the same customers. – as well as BT (who will have nationwide coverage) and not ignoring NTL/Telewest who are also going into LLU.
The LLU operators have got maybe a 2 year window before BT get their act together, if they don’t do something co-operative now, in 2 years a lot of them will just be passing memories.
Easynet
Sky
24 October, 2005
May You Live In Interesting Times, Festival Preview (2/2)
The first part of this preview was published last week.
The festival has been developed by Bloc (Creative Technology Wales) and Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. They have managed to accommodate a large number of complex yet accessible projects. This collaboration is all the more impressive in its scale when you realise that both organisations have their own projects running concurrently (Bloc are developing Northern and Southern pilot projects in Wales with accompanying seminars; Chapter are hosting the first UK showing o the artists Olaf Breuning).
The festival will be based at Chapter but will spill out into the streets of Cardiff and various venues and unique spaces. Contemporary artists are increasingly engaged with, or inspired by, digital technology and such public spaces.
The public and communication technologies are attractive to artists because of their user friendliness and their massive global reach.
Artists tend to situate such work somewhere between public art and street culture. Digital technology is often claimed to go beyond physical limitations such as cyberspace, but it is always embedded in real spaces and places such as the home, the workplace and the street whether this is an individual user, or as part of a larger ever extending network.
These spaces in Cardiff include the Millennium Stadium, where Tim Davies’ Drumming will be shown on the giant digital billboards above the pitch. This shows the frenetic beating of a snare drum as a call to arms. The drumming echoes out throughout the stadium and beyond, echoing the roar of 70,000 Welsh fans.
If you see a number of futuristic-looking people being pursued down Cardiff’s Queen Street, don’t worry, that will be Blast Theory.
Renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, Blast Theory come to Cardiff to present the award-winning chase game Can You See Me Now?
Online players are dropped into a virtual Cardiff while Blast Theory runners, tracked by satellites in the real city, pursue you.
To join in you can access a number of computer terminals at the National Museum and Gallery or at one of the festival hubs at Chapter or g39 (cor). If you are unable to visit you can play from your own computer.
A number of residencies have already taken place across Wales, such as Jen Southern and Jen Hamilton who have been working at Creative Mwldan in Cardigan.
They have been setting tasks for locals and tourists while tracking their movements through GPS systems.
The evidence they collect will then be relocated to Cardiff, where they will be taking visitors on a boat trip in Cardiff Bay.
Grennan and Sperandio will be based in Cardiff, where they are keen to meet anyone interested in any aspect of gaming, from bridge clubs to computer game enthusiasts. They will be creating an online and actual card game based on interactions with historians, language experts, game enthusiasts as well as people from all walks of life in Cardiff.
Artists from Wales were encouraged to develop new work. Stefhan Caddick will be placing a portable digital road sign near Cardiff’s Old Library.
Usually used to display traffic information, viewers are asked to text their own messages which will be then displayed on screen.
Andy Fung’s work will be displayed on an advertising billboard on Leckwith Road near Cardiff’s Football ground.
The artist group Second Site will be displaying new video works in the windows of a empty bank on Bute Street, while Chris Evans will project his interactive game onto St John’s Church in the centre of Cardiff.
Canton Labour Club becomes the ideal venue to host a series of discussions based around ideas of community and broadcasting.
The two-day conference will explore the themes of the festival, including the use of locative media, such as GPS systems and mobile phones. There will also be a look at the use and influence of video gaming.
With so many creative technologies on offer, it seems that we do indeed live in interesting times.
Karen Price is Arts Correspondent for the Western Mail.
The first part of this preview was published last week.
Chapter
Bloc
Cardiff Contemporary
24 October, 2005
Portable Games To Exceed $2 Bn In 5 Years: Yankee
The portable game business will be worth a thumping great $2.3 billion in four years, according to a report released today by research firm, The Yankee Group.
Their ‘US Portable Entertainment Forecast’ report also found that half of all portable music players will be phone hybrids by 2009, yet mobile MP3 players will only account for only one-third of the portable music service revenue.
The Yankee Group predicts that dedicated digital audio devices like iPods and Walkmans will continue to be used more exclusively for their single purpose, while gaming hand-held devices and phone hybrids are both expected to grab revenue around the $2.3 billion mark by 2009.
With the line between wireless handsets and portable CE devices continuing to blur, the Yankee Group used data from both their Video Capable Device Survey and the Mobile User Survey to come up with what they describe as “the most comprehensive view into the portable device market.”
The US Portable Entertainment Forecast discovered that the convergence of wireless handsets and CE devices will force mobile manufacturers to both compete and partner with consumer electronics manufacturers.
“Within this new market dynamic, it will be crucial for companies to have a firm grasp of consumer behaviour and the competitive landscape,” said Mike Goodman, Yankee Group, senior analyst, Media and Entertainment Strategies.
“The major players must understand who will lead and who will follow in order to successfully plan future strategy and appropriately target their investments,” he added.
Yankee Group
24 October, 2005
Podcasting is Dead! Long Live Podcasting!
Marc Freedman of The Diffusion Group (TDG) makes good points here about Podcasting, including the now slack usage of the term to describe any audio that is downloaded from a Website.
We even thought it was good enough to leave in the ‘alternative marketing value,’ otherwise known as a plug (tip of the hat to Andy).
I come not to bury podcasting but to praise it. It is the creation, and victim, of its own success. It captured the imagination of the press and public with a hip pedigree and a huge wave of media hype. It will exit with a permanent mark on the media landscape.
Podcasting remarkably rose from inception to million users of users in less than two years. According to TDG’s (yes, our) recent analysis, Podcasting as an Extension of Portable Digital Media – Fact, Fiction, and Opportunity, more than five million US consumers will partake of podcasts by the end of 2005, growing to more than 60 million in 2010.
Many in the industry scoffed at TDG’s predictions. Other research firms put forth podcasting forecasts significantly lower than TDG’s, arguing that podcasting will never move beyond the technological elite or “chic geeks” that gave podcasting its early buzz. But these same research behemoths were the ones that first said podcasting wouldn’t break the five million mark by 2010, only to triple their forecast in less than two weeks. Fair enough – they’re indecisive.
To be fair, TDG analysts simply see the world a little differently (and in this case more accurately). In the past two months alone, AOL, Yahoo, and Apple have integrated podcasting into their web sites and software. It is only a matter of time until podcasting is integrated into all major media players, much like other media technologies, such as Internet streaming and web music guides. Due to the widespread availability of podcasting services and the proliferation of portable digital audio devices, podcasting will enjoy rapid growth over the next 12 months as these services and products build upon one another in holy union.
Technology is a multiphase cycle of standalone development, integration, disaggregation, and resynthesis. At the moment, podcasting is its integration phase, arising about two years ago with application-specific search engines, directories, players, and other software (solutions that are now integrated into the online offerings of both legacy and new media firms).
Podcasting is in fact not one phenomenon but three. The first is its name. Mother Apple came to claim the child it midwifed when it folded podcasting into iTunes. Apple has successfully ridden the digital music rocket by staying at the forefront of technology. It ensured the future integrity of the iPod brand, as well as the podcasting name, when it added video to the iPod.
Despite widespread publicity, however, podcasting itself remains unfamiliar to most US consumers. According to TDG’s recent research, 64% of Internet users are not familiar with or have not heard of podcasting. Making matters worse, many music and audio publishers refer to their downloadable content as “podcasts” even though they are not tagged or do not provide subscriptions. Lastly, because Apple is so closely associated with the iPod, anyone that promotes podcasting is in essence promoting the Apple brand. Yes, the iPod has become the Kleenex of its time: it is more than just the brand of a particular product – it is now a product category in itself. That said, no doubt the podcasting name will be further diluted with time, competition, and new technologies, much like Internet broadcasting, streaming, and radio are often used interchangeably today.
The second phenomenon is mobile audio distribution. Podcasting was driven by the need to take advantage of the vast vacant space found on iPods and many other portable digital music players. Yes, mobile audio made podcasting. However, podcasting will itself become less about MP3 players and more about consuming subscription-based audio programming on desktop PCs, laptops. PDAs, and even cell phones.
The third phenomenon is media subscriptions. The automatic downloading of new content has returned as an essential form of consumer media distribution both for connected and mobile devices.
No doubt the name “podcasting” will fade as new forms of digital media distribution enter the fray, but the technology and tenets of podcasting will be permanent. The underlying technologies and the concept of subscription-based digital audio distribution will survive through many generations of consumer platforms and services.Podcasting’s ultimate legacy may in fact be the addition of ‘Subscribe’ to the typical media distribution options of ‘Find,”Play,’ ‘Rip,’ ‘Burn,’ and ‘Stream.’
– Podcasting: RIP 2007 –
21 October, 2005
BSkyB to Buy Easynet: Official
UPDATEDSky has today confirmed that it is offering £211m to buy publicly listed UK ISP, Easynet. This follows a period of general speculation, after Easynet issued an official statement on Monday past that they were subject to a possible offer.
Sky are offering 175p per share, around 81% above Easynet’s market price of a week ago.
Not surprisingly, the current Easynet price is now up 44% at 171p.
With this purchase, Sky buys straight into broadband in the UK, gaining a foothold in the Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) market, with 232 unbundled exchanges already under Easynet’s belt.
Importantly Sky have bought into Easynet’s expertise at unbundling exchanges, which, when combined with Sky’s financial clout, will lead to serious competition to the, (in our eyes), feeble rollout of DSL by BT. We also imagine that there will be sweaty brows at Telewest/NTL, the UK cable company over morning coffee.
Sky will gain income from broadband subscription and possibly entice further subscribers to their TV service taking them to their stated aim of 10m. Far more important is a new channel to deliver content through – one they have total control over. They like that.
This move puts BT’s broadband IPTV service on a less secure footing, which, as we broke at the end of September, plans to launch in Summer 2006. At the very least, BT won’t have it all their own way.
Sky has been talking for a while about broadband-delivery ambitions as well as other paths, indeed Sky COO, Richard Freudenstein confirmed as much just over a month ago.
Brace yourself. The news is going to be awash with opinion pieces second guessing what this all means to the future of broadcast and broadband in the UK …
Easynet
Sky
21 October, 2005
Skype Integrated Into Eniro, Swedish Phone Directory
Eniro, the Swedish equivalent of Yellow pages and the phone directory have integrated the Skype URL, callto:, in to their online directories.
This boon for Skype users, gives browsers the ability to simply click on the targets details to use Skype to open a voice call with them.
Currently the only examples we could find used ‘normal’ phone number, so clicking on them connects your Skype to their phone number, using your SkypeOut minutes – much to the joy of Skype we’d assume.
MSN and ICQ ID can also be listed, but these don’t have the same simple click to use functions.
“It’s important for us to add all types of contact information and that makesadding Skype to that logical”, says Cecilia Geijer-Haeggström, VP ofproducts and market at Eniro.
This is currently only available for contacting individuals, but it is planned to offer the same through Yellow Pages for companies.
We also understand that they’ll be printing the Skype ID’s in the printed directories for a small fee.
Many phone directories are owned by the countries incumbent telco, making it highly unlikely that they would offer similar services, as it ‘steals’ call revenue out of the pocket of their telco owners.
The Swedes are as high tech as you like, but we suspect that the fact that Skype CEO, Niklas Zennstrom is from Sweden somewhat smoothed this deal.
Eniro
Skype
21 October, 2005
Wi-Fly; ISS Falling; i-Tunes 6 – Teenage Tech News Review
Wi-Fly
BBC news is reporting that BT is testing wireless broadband. What was that I heard? Been done already? Ah well, this is a new twist on a relatively old concept: These guys are using a balloon flying at 24km of altitude to send and receive wireless internet signals. This could mean a new way of accessing data: Although there are currently a number of ways of accessing the Internet on a laptop while on the move, these involve either overpriced GPRS connections over mobile networks, or few and far between Wi-Fi access points, which are not necessarily free either.
What this technology might enable, if it takes off (sorry, bad pun), is to enable laptop users to be finally able to use an affordable data service on the move that doesn’t suck speed-wise and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to use.
Guess what else? The team doing the initial research on the project are from my local university, literally five minutes down the road!
Is it a bird, is it a plane…
…No, it’s the ISS falling from the sky. ITAR-TASS reports that the latest ship to dock with the ISS has failed to boost it’s altitude, as it’s rockets failed after burning for only 3 minutes.
The ISS floats at around 350km above the earth, and at this point in space, there is still a significant amount of drag caused by the earth’s atmosphere. What this means when it’s at home, is that the atmosphere causes friction on the ISS, which means that the space station is constantly losing altitude. What prevents the ISS from falling from the sky are occasional boosts from visiting spacecraft. There is a graph of the ISS’ height and it is clearly visible that it is currently at the lowest that it has ever been at. If the space station’s height deteriorates lower than 300km, it is easily possible that it will fall out of the sky and land on earth, or burn up in the atmosphere.
Although the ISS is kinda cool, I do still have my doubts as to it’s usefulness: What the hell is it actually good for? This is the view of a lot of people in the scientific community, and a lot of people think that it might as well be de-orbitted and the money spent on it every year spent on a better cause. Imagine if the $6.7 Billion that NASA is spending annually on the ISS and the shuttle program went to better causes. Imagine what impact that money would make.
Besides, I want a space elevator, dammit!
Oooh Aaargh, ‘cos we’re pirates!
A few days ago, Digital-Lifestyles covered the new video enabled iPod and accompanying iTunes 6 software. iTunes 6 allows you to download selected TV shows and other content for a fee from the iTunes music store. What if you want to add other recording and stuff to your iPod? Hack-a-day has an article on how to automatically download TV shows via Bittorrent.
They also have an article up on how to use the Tivo To Go software which accompanies the Tivo to transfer Tivo recordings to your iPod.
These hints should help all you cheap skates out there to enjoy a nice, free, iPod video viewing experience. Of course, it also means that it will be possible to watch shows on the iPod not yet available for purchase from the iTunes music store.
Enjoy!
21 October, 2005
Possible Impact Of Sky Buying EasyNet
Sky have been mulling about an IPTV service for a while. They were in discussions with THUS who provide the telecoms back-end for their SkyTalk service and helped Sky with their WapTV services, they were talking about doing an IPTV trial with THUS, but THUS pulled out of the LLU arena due to lack of cash. They were looking at spending £20m+ on just a trial.
Though Sky have 7.3m+ subscribers, they estimate around 20% of households (in the coverage) areas cant get Sky due to dish or coverage problems (including multi-tennant buildings). City centres tend to be problematic due to high buildings obscuring the satellites. There’s also a major problem if the building is in anyway listed.
Sky have got the resources to bolster a depressed telecoms market and put the necessary cash into a company to achieve a reasonable roll-out. Of course they also have the content that consumers want. If another “triple-play” broadband provider wants to get into the game (including BT Retail), Sky can make it very difficult for them by not licensing Sky content (of course Ofcom may force them to, as they have done in the cable industry).
Sky have also been talking to other high-speed broadband providers such as Be who also want to offer a triple-play.
If Sky do purchase Easynet, it’s likely they’ll move all their telecoms and Internet activities to them too, which will put THUS in a difficult position as a large ammount of corporate revenue comes from the Sky account.
Sky are also in an odd position as they’ll probably utilise MPEG-4 as the coding system, which means they’ll have to modify (or supplement) their existing transmission systems which are all based on MPEG-2. They’ll also have to introduce a new IP based set-top-box. However they’ll have to be carefull as to not make it too feature rich compared to existing STB’s used to decode the satellite transmissions or existing users will want to migrate to the broadband version – which will cost Sky a huge ammount as the exisitng boxes are considerably subsidised.
Whatever route they go, Sky moving into triple-play will have a major impact on broadband and LLU in the UK.
21 October, 2005