Digital-Lifestyles – Page 295 – 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 Maps-Based Toys, Distractions And Timewasters
Oh we like this!
Seeing as we’re nowhere near New York right now, it’s of absolutely no practical use to us whatsoever, but – hey! – that’s no reason to stop us wasting precious time playing about with this brilliant implementation of Google Maps.
NYSee – a Web project by developers alkemis – uses Google’s mapping system to provide up to date traffic news and display traffic cam feeds from in and around Manhattan.
The information is presented via the familiar system of different coloured pins stuck on the map, and clicking on a green pin will bring up a live video feed for the traffic cam at that particular location – great fun!
The locations of the cams can be viewed via the Google maps interface as a map, satellite view or hybrid.
Live cams that aren’t working are – appropriately enough – shown as black pins while gray pins seemed to indicate cams on the blink.
The NYSee map also offers regularly updated traffic news (sourced from Google rivals traffic.yahoo.com) displayed as yellow pins on the map.
If clicking on Web cams in foreign countries doesn’t take your fancy, you can always waste away a few more idle minutes calculating national and international areas using the Google Planimeter.
Google Sightseeing, another Google maps-based site, asks, “why bother seeing the world for real?”, inviting surfers to visit the “best tourist spots in the world via satellite images from Google Maps & Google Earth.”
ViaVirtualEarth uses the MSN map interface to graphically show the location of MSNBC news stories on a world map, while ChicagoCrime lets surfers view the locations of specific crimes from the database of crimes reported in Chicago.
Finally, we took a shine to Found City, a community-generated map of interesting places in New York City, with growing resources for Brooklyn, San Francisco, LA, London, Boston, Chicago and Portland.
4 October, 2005
Japan’s Ceatec Show Opens Today
Japan’s largest annual IT show, Ceatec (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies), opens today and will feature around 700 companies, according to the organisers.
Last year, the show – the largest international exhibition in Asia for the technology and electronics sectors – attracted 182,000 people with greater numbers anticipated this year.
Naturally, Simon Perry – the Digi-Lifestyles big cheese – is at the show, so you can expect hot news and updates from the floor over the next couple of days.
Running from Tuesday until Saturday at the Makuhari Messe convention centre, Chiba, just outside Tokyo, the show is designed to provide a platform for Japan’s technology vendors to display their latest gear and showcase prototype products.
The anticipated unveiling of rival HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players could prove to be a show highlight, and there’s great interest in the eagerly awaited new high-definition TVs.
Sharp is expected to show off a hard-disk drive-based digital recorder that is capable of recording two HDTV programs at once, with the machine ready to roll just one second after being switched on.
Toshiba has promised to display a super-slim 12.7 millimetre high drive designed for laptops which can read HD-DVD discs and read and write DVDs and CDs.
Naturally, there’s loads of activity on the mobile phone front, with new products and technology on offer, including portable fuel cells from network operator KDDI.
The company has been working with Hitachi and Toshiba to develop fuel cell-based chargers for cell phones, with the first commercial products expected on sale before the end of March 2006.
As well as shiny new consumer boxes, Ceatec also showcases the products of component makers, with Matsushita showing off a flexible optical circuit board and Seiko Epson displaying a flexible memory chip for use in flat-panel displays.
Born out of a merger between Japan Electronics Show and Com Japan, Ceatec attracted 172,053 visitors in its debut year in 2000, rising to 182,490 visitors last year.
Ceatec
4 October, 2005
Beware the “Next Big Thing”: Mobile TV
We saw it with the Internet in the late 90s and iTV in the early noughties, now mobile TV is the disruptive technology du jour.
All this year’s major TV industry gatherings – MipTV in Cannes, August’s Edinburgh International TV Festival and the RTS in Cambridge – have showcased mobile.
And in recent weeks, Sky, ITV and Channel 4 have all announced plans for mobile video content.
It’s easy to be swept up in the hype, and persuasive arguments abound.
At last week’s inaugural mobile TV Forum, the atmosphere was upbeat. BT, Arquiva, Fremantlemedia and Universal all gave impassioned presentations suggesting mobile TV is just around the corner.
BT’s Emma Lloyd (left) said the mobile video “Livetime” service would be UK-wide on Digital One’s DAB network by June 2006.
Claire Tavernier from Fremantlemedia (right), owner of Neighbours and Baywatch, said “Fremantle TV” would launch on US mobile networks before the end of the year.
And Cedric Ponsot from Universal (below left) reported on “Label Studio TV” – a mix of ten different mobile music channels – which launched on France’s SFR 3G network in July.
“We’re combining two of the most consumer products of all time” said Arqiva’s Hyacinth Nwana (below right) in his keynote – the underlying subtext was: how can we go wrong?
But is the industry is in danger of death by over-sell before it’s even arrived?
Forecasters are predicting untold riches. A recent report from Informa estimates the global mobile entertainment market to be worth £24bn by 2010. Venture capitalists are already expressing an interest in mobile TV projects. (At the forum, Justin Judd of i-rights was one such example, saying he had “unlimited funds” available for the right idea.)
This is all sounding very familiar – we’ve been here before. As with the early days of the Internet and iTV, business models are unclear. Hurdles include lack of appropriate content – including rights clearance on existing properties, lack of spectrum and unproven consumer demand.
At the forum, BT’s Lloyd revealed she’d had to fully-fund the content channel, Blaze TV, to complete the offng for current trials. “We need to kickstart content development” she admitted.
While advertisers were mooted as one possible source of funding, Fremantlemedia’s Tavernier thought they were “scared to invest” in mobile TV, “because of lack of consumer research and lack of structures in place”.
Tavernier also talked about rights, revealing that although Fremantlemedia owned worldwide TV rights to Mr Bean and The Benny Hill Show, both Rowan Atkinson and Benny Hill’s widow had said no to mobile distribution.
Eirik Solheim from NRK (left), the Finnish public service broadcaster, admitted that every so often their mobile TV broadcasts had cut to video of fish swimming in a tank – as not all programme rights had been cleared.
The most telling figures came in the final session of the conference: “Viewers don’t see their mobile as an entertainment device” said Enpocket’s Jeremy Wright (right). “They see it first and foremost as a communicator.”
Wright pointed to figures from a recent Enpocket survey showing that sharing photos of family and friends was the number one multimedia option; videocalls with family and friends were number two. Mobile TV came bottom.
As traditional broadcast models deteriorate, and the rise of the semantic web places social software at the centre of everything, the service I would back would be completely user-generated.
But the smart money will be watching from the sidelines.
3 October, 2005
DSC-N1 Digital Camera From Sony Offers Huge 3″ Viewing Screen
Sony’s new digital compact camera, the DSC-N1, cunningly attempts to combine the functions of a digital camera with a ‘pocket viewer’.
Sporting a gargantuan 3.0 inch, 230k touch screen LCD, the camera’s display is designed to act as both camera control and photo viewer, with a wide viewing angle making it easier to show off photos to gangs of chums.
Based on the software first seen in the innovative Cybershot M2 stills and video camera, the DSC-N1 records and internally stores up to 500 VGA (640×480) copies of every image taken on the camera.
These low resolution photos stay on the camera after the full size images have been transferred, so folks can carry a personal photo album around with their camera.
Stored images can be played back individually or as a slideshow, complete with options to add transitions, pans, wipes, fades and zooms, cheesy themes and background music.
For compulsive dabblers, the DSC-N1 also comes with a paint function letting users draw symbols or words on photos onscreen using their finger or supplied stylus.
“Since the introduction of compact cameras with large LCDs, consumers have increasingly been using their cameras to not only capture moments, but also share and show them immediately on the LCD screens,” said James Neal, director of digital imaging products at Sony Electronics.
“The combination of these functions makes the N1 ‘more than just a camera’, because it takes sharing to a whole new level.”
The slimline (22.7mm) DSC-N1 is aimed at the point’n’shoot crowd, with eight pre-set Scene Selection modes, including Twilight, Snow and Beach functions as well as a few limited manual controls.
The brushed aluminum metal body packs a sizeable eight megapixel 1/1.8″ CCD sensor, Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x optical zoom (38 – 114mm, F2.8 – F5.4) and sensitivity from ISO 64 to ISO 800.
Naturally, there’s a built in movie mode, capable of recording at 640 x 480 @ 30 fps (Fine).
Although the camera can only record stills in JPEG format, dpreview.com reports that it is the first camera to feature ‘Clear RAW NR’, a process which appears to carry out noise reduction on the RAW data before it is converted to JPEG.
The DSC-N1 is expected to retail for around £285 (~$499, €420).
Sony
3 October, 2005
NTL Announces $6 Billion Telewest Buy Out
Britain’s biggest cable operator, NTL, has agreed to shell out an eye-watering $6 billion (~£3.42bn, ~€5bn) for Telewest Global.
This new uber cable company should provide more effective competition with BT and create a powerful rival for pay-TV leader Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, which currently has more television customers in the U.K. than the two cable providers combined.
At the end of March this year, BSkyB had 7.70 million television subscribers compared with NTL’s 3.19 million and Telewest’s 1.82 million.
According to a statement – which ends three years of speculation about the merger – Simon Duffy, NTL’s chief executive, will lead the combined company.
“While the combined entity could potentially pose a longer-term competitive threat to BSkyB, the merger of the two companies could give BSkyB a short-term competitive boost in that it may distract the cable companies from external growth as they merge their networks,” said UBS AG analyst Aryeh Bourkoff.
Both sides are currently keeping Mum about the mixture of cash or shares involved, although a large cash component is believed to be involved.
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that executives at Telewest are set to rake in obscene amounts of filthy lucre for their stock options and other options if the NTL deal goes ahead.
Chairman Cob Stenham can expect his bank balance to increase to the tune of $20m (~£11.4m, ~€16.77m) while chief executive Barry Ellison will no doubt cackle wildly with joy as $17m (~£9.7m, ~€14.25m) rolls into his coffers.
And there’s more, with finance director Neil Smith scooping $3.5m, CEO Eric Tveter getting $9m (~£5.13m, ~€7.54m) and seven non-executive Telewest directors holding 230,000 shares receiving a total of $36.4m (~£20.75m, ~€30.5m) in total from selling their stakes as part of the takeover.
Good work if you can get it, eh?
Telewest
NTL
3 October, 2005
Paramount To Offer HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc Movies
As the next-generation DVD wars between HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc grind on, Paramount Home Entertainment has employed a time-honoured fudge and announced that it will be offering movies in both formats.
High-definition versions of Paramount’s movies will be released in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc, the company said yesterday.
Viacom subsidiary Paramount is the first major content provider to announce support for both high-definition video-disc formats, and follows a similar line of thinking as Samsung’s dual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Player which we reported on last month.
Both formats serve up far more storage capacity than current DVD discs, with HD-DVD offering 15GB or 30GB and Blu-ray Disc 25GB or 50GB, depending on the disc.
Unfortunately, the two formats remain incompatible with each other, something that’s sure to hold back consumers with less than fond memories of the VHS vs Betamax battles of the past.
Paramount was one of the first major content players to back the Toshiba/NEC-developed HD-DVD format, with other major backers including Warner Home Video, HBO, New Line Cinema, Universal Pictures and Sanyo Electric, followed by Intel and Microsoft last week.
Blu-ray enjoys far greater support from electronics companies like Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic), Samsung, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Philips, with an impressive line up of Blu-ray supporting content providers including Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Universal Music Group.
Influential in Paramount’s decision was the PlayStation 3’s support for Blu-ray Disc.
“After a detailed assessment and new data on cost, manufacturability and copy-protection solutions, we have now made the decision to move ahead with the Blu-ray format,” Paramount said.
Paramount
3 October, 2005
Google Is 7; Asteriod Impacts; Blackberry 8700 – A Teenage Tech News Review
Happy Birthday!
Here’s a news item that probably slipped through the mesh, as it was quite low-key: Google is now 7 years old! This came as a bit of a shock to me in a way, and it probably will to you too: Nowadays, I would find it impossible to live and work as I do without Google. In fact, this one corporation has a pretty good monpoly on my life. I use Google on my mobile to find anything from street directions to the meaning of the word “vehement”. I get my email from them, and of course I use it to browse the Internet. It’s hard for me to imagine, then, that seven years ago, people managed to survive without Google.
I found a screenshot of what Google used to look like on the Internet archive, and although it does obviously look a little old-school, it’s still much the same interface-wise as it is today:
That was at a time when Google was still hosted on the Stanford University servers and had a staff of two. All I can say is that they’ve come a long way.
For me, this is a reminder that I am a part of the generation that has grown up at the same time as consumer technology: The children of tomorrow will grow up taking things like Google and the Internet for granted, and will never be able to experience a world without technology, and so will never fully appreciate it. I personally don’t think that technology will continue to evolve as fast as it has done so far, simply because I don’t think that there is anywhere for it to go. Off the top of my head, there isn’t anything that I can think of that I would really like, but can’t have, because it’s simply not technically possible. Still, time will tell, and I suppose in 70 years time I will be the one saying to a group of grandchildren while they mock me: “In my day, we had to look through books to find what we wanted you know!”
There’s a fascinating history of Google available on their corporate history page here.
It’s in Space, it’s got to be cool. Oh, actually, no nukes, so forget it
In a development reminiscent of the movie Deep Impact”, scientists have revealed a few ideas about what to do in case of an imminent asteroid impact. Their ideas just aren’t as cool as those in the movie though in my opinion: I mean, come on, you need a few nukes in there to make it look cool! Ah well, never mind, I just hope that in case of there being any danger of an impact, the scientists responsible will find some way of saving us. There have, afterall, been a fair few objects that have come close in history, and the dinosaurs can surely (or rather not) testify that sometimes, these things do actually hit Earth.
“Batman’s Blackberry”, but I still want one!
The story on the new Blackberry 8700, due to be released “in the neighborhood of December of this year or very early 2006,” hit this week. Having previously reviewed a Blackberry 7100v, I am very keen to have a play with the new phone. Apparently, it sports a 312mhz processor, which will hopefully make the browser a viable option for browsing anything but the most minimal of Web pages. We shall see, now all I have to do is get my hands on one ;-)
Admittedly, the styling does remind one of a phone tailor-made for Batman, but then it’s kinda cool anyway, and the screen looks like it’s going to be great! The screens on the 7100 and the 7200 were already some of the best seen on mobile phones, and so I have high hopes for the 8700. I bet Robin’s already got one, lucky sod! The rest of us will have to wait until December.
30 September, 2005
Playstation: Emmy Awarded
Sony’s Playstation has been awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Technology and Advanced New Media for pioneering the 3D polygonal-based gaming experience, by the US National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).
Now for those who don’t know, there are a ton of Emmys – and why not. The entertainment industry is not only massive and expanding, but there are a huge number of people involved in the creation process, many of whom would go unnoticed without awards like this by those outside the industry, as so much attention is paid to those who appear on screen. The PlayStation’s award falls under the Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, being presented in Princeton today.
You can imagine that the awarding of this will make steam come out of the ears of those on the Xbox team at Microsoft
“Emerging technologies in digital media play an important role in the way in which people consume in-home entertainment, and gaming in particular has been a consistent source of innovation in recent years,” said Seth Haberman, Chair of Video Gaming and Technology Awards panel for NATAS. “We felt that the advent of PlayStation exemplified a significant shift in the direction of the gaming and are pleased to recognize Sony Computer Entertainment for its contribution.”
Many of those who’ve been playing games on the PS & PS2 will wonder why it’s taken so long for something as significant as the Playstation to come to the attention of this Academy. The PS is, after all, ten years old.
Is it only the cynical that would think that the timing of this award has anything to do with the wider entertainment business (read film) getting more closely involved with creation of film license games? Or even that they’ve finally woken up to the fact that the amount of money spent on video games out-sizes that spent on film.
Our long held view is that both TV and film are in big trouble when games develop to the point where their characters are given ‘back stories’ and the intelligence to apply them to during interaction in game play. Why would you want to watch TV when you could be in it?
A big congrats to all those involved in the creation of the Playstation. Ken Kutaragi must be a very happy man.
30 September, 2005
Mobile TV’s Business Case Yet To Be Proven
Industry experts at the inaugural mobile TV show in London today couldn’t agree on the best way forward for this emerging technology.
After two days of debate, the jury’s still out.
While yesterday’s event focused on infrastructure, today’s focused on content, and how to pay for it.
Claire Tavernier, Fremantle Media, (pictured right) thought it most likely that content producers would launch their own channels rather than go with pay-per-view clips or advertiser-funded models.
Hyacinth Nwana, (pictured left) speaking for Arqiva, and Jeremy Wright of Enpocket, both saw advertiser funded content – whether programming or entertaining video ‘spots’ – to be the key driver.
Riccardo Donato, Channel 4, said the broadcaster was hedging its bets, with branded content available via both mobile operators’ portals and Channel 4’s own ‘off-portal’ wap site.
Some speakers reported on recent trials.
Eirik Solheim of Finnish state broadcaster NRK, (pictured right) said their mobile TV trials had seen some success with pay-per-view.
BT Livetime’s Emma Lloyd, whose ongoing trials with Virgin Mobile and Digital One started in July, said peak consumption came when participants travelled to and from work (not surprisingly). Users were watching an average 10-15 minutes per sessions.
It was revelaing that throughout a day filled with many case studies, not a single speaker would reveal revenue figures.
Clearly it’s early days in this fledgling industry, but with such shyness of the financials, it doesn’t bode well.
30 September, 2005
Samsung Go Memory Mad, Investing $33Bn
Blimey, Samsung have announced that they are planning to invest $33 Billion in memory chip production over the next 7 years, Reuters is reporting.
By expanding its production lines in its main semiconductor fabrication site near Kiheung, and its seperate site at its Hwaseong semiconductor plant, by eight fab lines and one R&D, it should reach its target by 2012.
Samsung currently a major supplier of memory chips to much of the industry including Apple, for their iPod, Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Portable and Dell. This move marks confidence in their increase in demand as more devices become user memory storage over hard disc.
Earlier this month Samsung got a lot of attention when they announced a 16G-bit NAND flash memory chip that will lead to removable memory cards of up to 32Gb, when 16 of them are gathered on a single card.
Samsung originally entered the semiconductor business in 1974, and with this move they are hoping to reach $61 billion earnings from total semiconductor sales by 2012.
Reuters report
Samsung
29 September, 2005