Digital-Lifestyles

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

  • Ubiquitous Viewer – Phone Access to PC from Toshiba

    Toshiba Ubiquitous ViewerToshiba has announced software to remotely execute programs on a PC, via a mobile phone. They call it Ubiquitous Viewer.

    Software that gives remote access to your computer from another has been available for years, with a particular favourite within the Digital Lifestyles offices being the open source VNC (Virtual Network Computing).

    The way these packages used to work, was by an application running on the host (remote) computer and another on the client (local). Keystrokes and mouse movements are read from the client, sent over a communication line (dialup/IP) and executed on the host. Graphical changes to the screen on the host machine are collected, compressed, sent down the line and replicated on the client.

    While this approach is basic, it has the advantage that any software application could be run.

    The details of Toshiba’s Ubiquitous Viewer are still sketchy, but what we do know is it’ll allow users to open productivity software, such as the MS Office suite, and to read and modify files. It also supports access to PC-based e-mail, Internet browser and other PC applications.

    Internet browsing through a phone to your PC? This is the only one we find a little bizarre, it’s a bit like reading a book through a telescope.

    Given the support for “other PC applications” and the photograph, the Ubiquitous Viewer looks like it works on the same principles as the old-school solutions.

    To access the remote machine, a password must be entered once. The transfer of data is over a secure connection, as it uses the Web standard secure socket layer (SSL) encryption

    The service will initially be released at the end of March 2005 in Japan on KDDI’s service using CDMA1X mobile phones. Following this, they intend to take it other countries.

    Quite what the experience will be like on a mobile screen is unclear and frankly this type of solution will only be used in desperation when you must have access to some information that you’ve forgotten.

    It is a good example in our view of the future – no matter what the restrictions of the device, any that provides access will be acceptable, until you can move to a location or device that is superior.

    Toshiba

  • Centrino Chips Get Updated by Intel

    Today Intel release information about their new Centrino range of chips, aimed at notebook computers.

    The release of the code-named “Sonoma” chip has been delayed for several months as Intel ironed out some problems they had been having with the chips. Intel hopes it will further bolster their current 85% dominance of notebook chips.

    Such is the keenness of the laptop manufacturers to bring the machines to market that Sony have already released their FS range and Toshiba the less than catch-ly named Dynabook VX 470LS notebook. It is understood that 80 laptops with the new chippery will be available from today, with that number growing to 150 by the end of the year.

    Intel have been very crafty with the Centrino range, which includes microprocessor; wireless; and supporting chips providing sound and graphics, as the Centrino brand cannot be used unless the entire bundle of chips is bought from Intel.

    As is always the case with the introduction with a new range of chips, the new models will come in at about the same price of the previous high end chips and the current offering will slide down in price. Expect some bargains.

    Intel

  • ntl On Demand Brings VOD to Glasgow

    ntl VOD BBC Pick of the weekToday ntl turned on its much-anticipated Video On Demand (VOD) service in Glasgow.

    Accessible to all Glaswegian ntl subscribers who have the digital TV service, it features free and paid for content including advertiser-free children’s programmes, a ‘Pick of the Week’ option showing a selection of top shows from the previous seven days, a film service, a music video jukebox service, and adult content.

    No new equipment is needed at the subscriber’s house, as the software in their current Set Top Box (STB) is automatically updated.

    The content is accessed either by pressing the On Demand button on the remote control or by pressing the Red button while watching one of the promotional channels.

    The Pick of the Week channel will be provided by the BBC in a six month initial trial. The editorial decision of what is included will rest with the BBC, and it’s expected that a range of shows will be available, including favourites (not ours) such as Eastenders. Each show will be available for seven days from its transmission and it’ll be free to access.

    The viewer will have the option to pay for content too, giving then 24 hours access to the content. The cost of the items will be added to their monthly bill.

    The film service is supplied by FilmFlex, a separate company run by On Demand Management in a joint venture with Sony and Disney, with “Hundreds of titles, current and classic” films available from 50p to £2. Out of general interest, On Demand applied for the FilmFlex trade mark back in September 2004.

    Over 30 hours of Children’s advertiser-free programming is on offer for 20p-50p. Music videos can also be paid for (range 20p-£1.50) with over 35 hours available.

    The high price ticket at £7 and largest number of hours of content (over 50) available goes to the Adult content supplied by Playboy.

    Coincidentally, Glasgow was also the city chosen to launch ntl’s digital TV service back in May 2000. We imagine that the number of subscribers is manageably low (we did ask for actual numbers but, “this isn’t broken out”), giving ntl a chance to observe the performance of the system and gather feedback, before spreading it around the UK.

    ntl are saying they plan to roll it out regionally over the UK during the next two years and all of their 1.4 million Digital TV customers will be able to receive the service. When we asked about the number of non-digital customers, we were told it was in the single percentage figures, possibly as low as 2-3%. Although asked, they decided to keep the order of the planned rollout cities to themselves.

    In a statement Simon Duffy, Chief Executive Officer of ntl, said, “VOD is TV the way it’s meant to be.”

    Telewest also launched a VOD service today, Homechoice have offered VOD in London and KIT have also been providing VOD in Kingston-upon-Hull for a number of years. ntl
    On Demand management

  • Ofcom Strategic Review of Telecommunications Gets UK Parliament Inquiry

    The UK House of Commons launched an inquiry into Ofcom’s Strategic Review of Telecommunications (SRT) yesterday.

    Ofcom, the uber-regulator that among other things, oversees telecoms in the UK, started its SRT in January 2004. It was long overdue in the eyes of many, as it was the first comprehensive strategic review of the UK telecommunications sector for 13 years.

    Now the UK House of Commons, Trade and Industry Committee will be looking into the workings and results of the SRT, in particular how it relates to the “extensiveness and competitiveness” of broadband in the UK.

    The SRT is divided in to three phases; Current position and prospects for the telecommunications sector; Options for Ofcom’s strategic approach to telecommunications regulation; and Proposals; the first phase was published at the end of April.

    Ofcom identified two key problems in Phase One; an unstable market structure in fixed telecoms, dominated by BT and with alternative providers that are, in the main, fragmented and of limited scale; BT’s control of the UK-wide access network hadn’t been addressed to date. They then posed some questions; primarily about the future of BT.

    Phase Two was published in November 04 and used some relatively strong language (pretty diplomatic in the normal, non-Quango world), which we summarised as “Ofcom to BT: Equivalence or else”. It’s still open for public consultation until 3 February 2005.

    Yesterdays announcement from the Trade and Industry Committee, said in the light of the Committee’s Report on the UK Broadband Market, the inquiry will be looking into OfCom’s STR process to date, the interim conclusions reached in the Phase Two document, and the direction of the remainder of the Review. They’ll be paying particular attention how it relates to the competitiveness of the broadband market in the UK, including local loop unbundling, and the “functional separation of British Telecom”.

    A spokeperson at OfCom told us that they “had already briefed the Committee” and “welcomed their interest” in the SRT. When we asked about the previously expected Spring delivery of SRT Phase 3, we were told that they “still planned” to meet it. Frankly they were playing their cards pretty close to their chest.

    We called the office of the Committee, but given the 21 enquiries they have on currently, no one was available for comment at the time of publishing the story.

    If you have any view on the area covered by the Committee, they’re asking for written evidence on these or any other related issues by Friday 18 February 2005 via email ([email protected]). If you do write please CC ([email protected]) us in, we’d be interested in see the issues raised.


    Alerted by OfcomWatch
    Trade and Industry Select Committee
    Ofcom – Strategic Review of Telecommunications

  • HD Radio – More Channels or Music Sales to Bring Income?

    The US radio industry is looking to make additional income from music downloads, we’re told by Reuters – while listening to the radio, they’ll be able to select the playing track for paid download.

    The piece announces the catch-all snappy name of HD Radio, that’s iBiquity Digital’s offering, which digitised the FM and AM bands. European readers will be well aware of equivalent FM services under the banner of DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) which has been available for a considerable period of time, and the currently lesser known drm (Digital Radio Mondial, not Digital Rights Management) which offers FM-quality listening on the AM frequencies.

    The benefits brought by HD Radio/DAB/drm are digital compression of the audio, enabling more radio stations to be broadcast on the same amount of frequency. As the broadcast is digital, additional information can be distributed with it, such as the name of the artist and track playing.

    As with all things compressed for digital distribution, there is a balacing act between number of stations and the audio quality of those stations. Digital doesn’t have to equal quality. The quality of the audio isn’t assured – the amount of the compression directly controls the quality.

    US “terrestrial radio”, as it is being called by some to differentiate it from its satellite-delivered competitor, is under pressure from numerous sources; satellite radio (XM AND Sirius); Nokia’s Visual Radio; Internet-based radio stations; digital music player; podcasting, and don’t appear to have acted that quickly to respond.

    The current cost of radios to receive HD radio are in the range of $500-$1,000 (~€382-€764, ~£270-£540), but as we’ve seen in the UK with DAB, it’s just a matter of time before these drop to the £49 (~€70, ~$91) levels, as more efficient chip sets become developed and a mass market is formed.

    We found the comments by Jeff Littlejohn, executive vice president of distribution development at the dominant US radio station company, Clear Channel, the most illuminating, “We don’t think the business model associated with downloads is nearly as attractive as adding additional audio channels.”

    In Clear Channels view there’s still more money to be made from advertising revenue than from music downloads, not least because they don’t have to share the revenue raised with the record companies – who are not known for their willingness to take small proportion of sales.

    Radio Broadcasters Mull Digital Music Stores: Reuters

  • Youth Gym Usage Up 15% After PS2 Games Installed

    Liverpool Gym PS2Back at the tail end of last year, Liverpool City Council installed gym equipment with Sony Playstation games consoles fitted to them, in an effort to induce the local youth to come to the gym.

    At the time, Councillor Warren Bradley, Executive Member for Leisure was quoted as saying “By fitting television screens and games consoles to the equipment, we will be able to show children that they can combine their favourite activity with exercise. And by teaching children about the positive benefits of exercise.”

    Why are we mentioning today? The Sun, a well known tabloid “newspaper”, is running a brief story and editorial comment about it today, deriding Liverpool council spending money on Playstations in an attempt to encourage children into gyms.

    Over the two years since we first discovered the Reebok CyberRider, we’ve written about devices that connect games consoles to exercise machines and have been keen on them. The connection of physical input to video games seems like a great area of growth and it’s certainly true that in those two years there have been lots of interesting developments. Sony and Nike MotionWorks have got together recently to bring EyeToy Kinetic to market in autumn 05, combining the camera add-on for the PS2 with fitness software.

    We spoke to Donald Hurst, Operations manager of sport and recreation service at Liverpool City Council to get the accurate details on the story.

    The equipment that they’re using, supplied by TechnoGym, includes running a treadmill, rowing machine, and cycle. The four machines that they have working at each of their Lifestyles fitness centres at Peter Lloyd, Everton Park and Garston have been particularly well received, both by the children and adults.

    It appears particularly popular at the Garston centre, which has 2,000 members and is their busiest site, with the staff receiving quite a number of positive comments from children’s parents.

    Keen children are given an introduction session which runs between 4 – 5:30 daily and are then free to choose from a selection of 30 games supplied by the venue. Hurst said they’ve made the decision to currently not let the children bring in their own games, so they have some control over the type of game being played. Once the game has been selected it has to be setup by the fitness instructor.

    Hurst put some comparative usage figures together for us that show usage by young people has gone up by 15% over the same period last year since the Playstation had been introduced. He also told us that there is a growing interest from adults to use the equipment as well.

    While Liverpool hasn’t yet gone the whole hog of direct connection between physical input and the games, we think it’s a good start. The increase in attendance figures also point in that direction.

    Liverpool City Council

  • Intel Reshuffle Around Platforms

    Sensing the changes in the micro-electronics industry, with the growth of tech/media convergence, Intel are to reorganise themselves around Platforms.

    The new groups of interest are Mobility; Digital Enterprise; Digital Home; and Digital Health.

    Mobility will deal with, surprise surprise, portable devices such as notebook PCs, handhelds and communications devices. A major focus will be getting the expanding numbers of mobile devices working better together using, we assume, wireless networking.

    Focused on living room entertainment applications and consumer electronics devices, the Digital Home group will focus on developing computing and communications platforms for consumers.

    Digital Enterprise Group will cover end-to-end solutions in businesses. With digital delivery of content, this is becoming more and more important to content owners/current broadcasters and an area that IBM is putting a lot of effort into try to capture.

    One of the big areas of excitement for the connected home is its use of health sensing. Intel are jumping on this with the Digital Health group.

    This is a clear illustration of the growth of the electronics business away from its business focused roots, maturing in to a new phase, one where technology will be everywhere.

    Intel

  • Chernin Hints News Corp. to Buy into Video Gaming

    News Corp., the media giant built by Rupert Murdoch is reportedly looking to get into the games business.

    The FT is running a story today that Peter Chernin, News Corp. chief operating officer, told a conference in Phoenix, Arizona that they were “kicking the tires of pretty much all video games companies,” as “We see as a big business and would like to get into it.”

    Normally used to buying huge companies like Fox, News Corp is clearly looking for the best value company, but finding a big disparity between the largest, Electronics Arts (EA), and the rest of the video games companies. “We are struggling with the gap between companies like Electronic Arts, which come with a high price tag, and the next tier of companies. These may be too focused on one or two product lines.” Chernin said.

    There are many reasons why a move into gaming would make sense for News Corp. Numerous studies have shown that people, particularly the young, are moving away from watching television to play video games and the next generation of Set Top Boxes (STB’s) have considerable power. Using News Corps. satellite distribution platform, such as Sky and DirecTV, to distribute games to these STBs makes total sense.

    We imagine there is a state of confusion at EA, if not the whole of the games industry, switching between a state of high excitement and nervousness. As the many corporate corpses that litter in the trail of News Corp. attest to, when they do it, they do it big.

    News Corporation

  • Motorola and Oakley Form JV for Wireless Products

    Motorola and Oakley to form a new venture to fuse Motorola’s latest Bluetooth technology with Oakley’s glasses. First designs are expect mid-2005.

    The details are thin on the ground at the moment but lots of phrases that could mean anything are being bounded around by both sides. Here’s a couple; “enabling seamlessly mobile wireless communications anywhere and everywhere consumers want to be” – Motorola; “expanding the possibilities for our new electronics category” – Oakley.

    Perversely the Oakley Safe Harbor Disclaimer is about twice as long as the information provided.

    Back in September Oakley released their MP3-player sunglasses, the Oakley Thump, which have been well reviewed, despite their high cost for not much storage.

    Motorola have of late (and to some effect) worked hard to try and recapture their position in the mobile phone market, having lost out to other phone companies considerably. They’ve designed products that they hoped would be more appealing to the youth market and have spent extensively on marketing.

    This deal with Oakley looks like another step in that direction, as it brings with it ‘cred’.

    Cos Lykos, Vice President of Business Development said “Oakley’s engineering team now has an expanded technology arsenal to develop new and innovative electronic products.” So it’s highly possible that some interesting products could come out of it.

    Motorola
    Oakley

  • Ofcom Release Ultra Wideband (UWB) Document

    Ofcom released a consultation document today on ultra wideband (UWB) in the UK.

    Given Ofcom’s statutory duties under the Communications Act 2003 to ensure the optimal use of the radio spectrum under its management, they should be keen on UWB.

    The strength of UWB also causes its problems. By simultaneously transmitting over a wide range of frequencies (around 3.1 – 10.6GHz, if you’re interested), UWB is able to achieve higher data transfer rate than other wireless technologies.

    By spreading over these frequencies it has the possibility of interfering with services that currently operate in or around these services, such as 3G, broadband fixed wireless access and radio astronomy.

    Back in May 2004, Ofcom commissioned Mason Communications and DotEcon to produce an independent report in to UWB. Delivered in December 2004 (Read the final report, all 218 pages of PDF fun), it looked at the advantages to the UK economy of allowing UWB applications and the disadvantages of increased interference to existing radio spectrum users.

    The report focuses on the use of UWB to create a Personal Area Network (PAN) with examples of usage being; providing wireless connections between DVD players, displays and speakers; and using them for high speed wireless links between digital cameras and computers.

    While acknowledging interference is likely, it’s clear that Ofcom feels this should be weighed carefully against UWB’s potential benefits. To check this interference, the suggestion is to use a technical ‘mask’, controlling the amount of power that could be used at different frequencies, in an attempt to reduce the impact of interference.

    The US regulator has already authorised UWB on a licence-exempt basis, but Ofcom consider the US specification to be inappropriate for the UK. Their proposal is that if UWB is allowed, it should be on a licence-exempt basis, but be limited to the same in-band power levels as permitted in the US, but have tighter out-of-band limits.

    Ofcom point out that there is a need to come to a decision soon, fearing US-built UWB devices could be imported in to the UK.

    All of these add up to a big pressure on the frequency users that would be affected. It will be interesting to see what their reaction will be during the consultation period which closes 24 March 2005.

    Ofcom Ultra Wideband consultation document
    Mason Communications and DotEcon final report