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

  • VisiFone, Ojo: Videophones Come Home

    Viseon-VisiFoneEvery few years there are a number of announcements about the launch of new video phones. For decades the public have been told that this revolution is just around the corner.

    For most of those years the means of transferring the speech and video information has been via a telephone line, initially a PSTN, then in the ’80’s, ISDN. Due to the limitation of the amount of bandwidth, using them was a pretty unsatisfactory experience with the video being ‘choppy’.

    As broadband became more available, the bandwidth that video requires started to be come more widely installed in peoples homes and other places.

    For quite a while this has been available to the technically savvy using software solutions available on desktops and laptops. By simply plugging in a cheap USB camera and installing some (often free) software, people have been able to chat and watch each other.

    One instance sticks in my mind. When I was organising the Digital Lifestyles conference theme day at IBC 2003, one of the speakers, Stuart Cheshire, Ethernet Guru at Apple recounted his connecting to home. He had his hotel broadband connection, connected up his Apple iBook, slotted in an Apple iSight and, for the equivalent cost of a long distance call from Amsterdam to the US, he was able to chat to his family for as long as he wanted, with the added benefit that both he and his family where able to see each other, seeing the facial cue so important in a face-to-face conversation.

    Now that broadband is an established fact for a large number of western households, there is a new wave of broadband, consumer-friendly devices that don’t require PC’s to function – and that’s going to make them usable by a range of generations.

    Viseon used CES to launch it VisiFone, labelling it the Digital Home Telephone. They claim by keeping the communications digital from end-to-end, the free standing unit provides CD-quality audio and TV-quality video.

    They claim one of the secrets to their success is their use of the latest chips from Texas Instruments (TI) specifically; TI’s newest IP phone system-on-a-chip, the TNETV1050, which provides enhanced digital voice quality and conferencing; and the DSP-based TMS320DM64x digital media processor, offering high quality, multi-channel video.

    Viseon’s business approach is to sell the unit via broadband service providers. The first they have announced is a deal with well known VoIP provider, Vonage, who run services in the US, Mexico and of last week, the UK.

    Another offering at CES was Ojo from Motorola, which they label the Personal Video Phone. It works on a similar principle of a screen and embedded camera on a stand. The Ojo’s large colour screen is 5.6-inch, 9 x 16 format, which they say frames the face better.

    It uses an advanced MPEG-4 coding standard (H.264), which enables transmission of 30 frames-per-second video with synchronized audio at data rates as low as 110 Kbps.

    Ojo differs from VisiFone in that it can also handle phone calls over ‘normal’ phone lines using its cordless handset.

    Ojo should be available in the US from Spring 2005 at $799, plus an as-yet-undisclosed monthly service charge.

    How long it will be before we have Video phones on the street, a la Blade Runner is unclear, but finally things appear to moving in the world on consumer-friendly videophone.

    Viseon VisiFone
    Motorola Ojo

  • Gizmondo beef up with Disney and Sega

    Since we first brought news of the Gizmondo gaming console to you in June 2004 it has been coming on leaps and bounds.

    Not only is the Gizmondo a handheld games platform, but it’s also able to play music and video; has GPRS, Bluetooth and GPS built-in to it; works as a wireless email and SMS client; and has a digital camera built in. All for an expected $399 in the US or £229 in the UK.

    While this is all very lovely, it’s common knowledge that what keeps a gaming machine alive beyond the spec sheet is the games it runs. Tiger Telematics, who have developed and sell the Gizmondo, are developing their own original software, having bought two software developers Indie Studios and latterly Warthog Games in October 2004, but they are also wisely doing deals with other companies.

    The fruit of these now-combined studios, renamed Gizmondo Studios, will be nine titles; City; Colors; Johnny Whatever; Sticky Balls; Fallen Kingdoms; Momma, can I mow the lawn?; Milo and the Rainbow Nasties; Furious Phil; and Future Tactics.

    A three year deal with Disney should bring their games to the Gizmondo platform. The initial fruits of the deal will be Tron 2.0. Developed in-house by Gizmondo, the contract also “envisions for four additional titles to be determined by mutual agreement”. The agreement has the Gizmondo paying a minimum guarantee totalling $100,000 for the Tron 2.0 property over three years. Four other titles could also be developed under the deal.

    Tiger Telematics have also signed a letter of intent with Taiwan-base Digital Media Cartridge Ltd, hoping to bring many of the classic Sega video games to the platform. Currently this deal looks a little less certain that the Disney deal, but the games being discussed include Sonic the Hedgehog, Outrun, Golden Axe, Altered Beast and Shinobi.

    As an icing on the cake, our friends at CNET declared the Gizmondo a finalist in the Next Big Thing awards.

    The Gizmondo soft launched by taking pre-orders in the UK in October 2004, and should be in UK shops in February 2005 priced at £229. The online capabilities will be provided using a Gizmondo-branded Pay As You Go (PAYG) service.

    Gizmondo

  • Vonage UK VoIP Service Opens

    Yesterday there was a very quiet launch of something significant to UK telecoms.

    Vonage has been providing Voice over IP (VoIP) services in the US since 2001 and over this short time has become somewhat of a run away success. They’ve now opened up shop in the UK.

    Vonage call themselves the fastest growing telephony company in North America, but with an impressive 400,000 lines in service and having carried over half a billion calls, it could be justified.

    There are two UK offerings from them; Residential Unlimited, for £9.99/month (~$18.60, ~€14) providing unlimited phone calls within the UK and Ireland; and a Small Business Unlimited Plan for £18.99 (~$35.50, ~€27) which included the same unlimited calling but with the addition of a free dedicated fax line with 500 minutes of outgoing traffic.

    Once you have signed up, they give you the required equipment and all that is required, is to plug in a normal telephone handset and you’re away. There is no minimum length of service.

    The cost of calls to “non-normal” numbers are detailed on their site, but it’s worth noting that the rates to UK mobiles are charged at 15/10/5p during day/evening/weekends, no matter which mobile network is called. International rates appear very reasonable, certainly significantly lower than normal BT prices.

    It is free to call any other Vonage customer, no matter where they are in the world.

    Beyond cost, there are other advantages of VoIP phone services over a normal phone, such as the ability to take your phone number with you as you travel around the world, simply by plugging your adaptor into a broadband connection.

    If you have friends or business colleagues abroad, Vonage offers phone numbers in cities around the world for an additional £2.99/month (~$5.60, ~€4.30). All of these numbers will route back to your single phone line.

    We were taken aback to see that emergency services calls are supported as this has been a source of a debate in the US. As the Vonage phone can be plugged into any broadband connection in the world, having an emergency operator doesn’t make too much sense given your location cannot be identified in the same way a landline can.

    Dialling 999 or 112 on the Vonage UK service will connect you to the UK emergency operator who will then route your call to the appropriate emergency agency. In the list of emergency agency you’ll be offered, we were amused to see Mountain Rescue and Cave Rescue. Strange given you need to have a broadband connection to use the service.

    Last year we were surprised when BT launched a VoIP service, Broadband Voice, in the UK. It initially felt a bit like cannibalisation of their landline business.

    It was only when we saw their pricing did we understand why it wouldn’t be a threat. They’re nearly the same as their landlines prices!

    They too have two packages. Unlimited UK (Local and National) weekend and evening landline calls costs £6.50/month. Strangely BT limit the free calling to an hour, beyond this additional minutes are charged 1p/min. Daytime calls are 3p/min.

    Their Anytime plan gives unlimited UK landline calls up to an hour per call at anytime for £14 a month.

    Rates to mobile on the BT service vary depending on the mobile operator, some of them lower than Vonage.

    After a quick look at the International rates, it appears that BT prices are more expensive, for example, a call to New York would be 2p/min on Vonage but 4p/min with BT Broadband Voice.

    The level of BT’s prices doesn’t surprise us. Their usual tactic is to only lower their prices when competition comes into the market – so welcome to the UK Vonage.

    We’ve been trying to get our hands on the Vonage service since it was first introduced in the US. We figured that it was a geographically independent (global) service, so they should be able to sell anywhere, but they weren’t thinking the same way at the time. We’ll be reviewing the service as soon as we can.

    Vonage UK
    BT Broadband Voice

  • Sims 2 Get Hacked Off

    Sims 2 Telescope alien AbductionWe’re constantly amazed by the world of online gaming. It’s a fascinating, deep and engrossing world. Some at the Digital Lifestyles offices are big fans, others are scared of it. The latter worry that if they start to get involved, they will be sucked in to the games vortex, never to reappear.

    SlashDot pointed us to an interesting story that SecurityFocus ran about the alterations to items in the Sims 2 that are spreading around the game with unexpected results. If this world is new to you, it’s well worth a read.

    There are many site, like mod the sims 2 that contain hacks such as Expensive Telescope Abduction Hack v1.0, mentioned in the article, that guarantees that your Sim will be abducted by aliens if you look through the telescope between the hours of 7pm and 2am.

    Hacking online PC games isn’t new. Ever since the days of Doom, hackers have been making modifications to give themselves the advantage of seeing through walls, or infinite ammunition – anything to give themselves an advantage. Indeed one of the advantages that Microsoft listed at the launch of the Xbox was that “unauthorised” code couldn’t be run on it (others saw it as restricting the platform), so games wouldn’t be ruined.

    We attended the Edinburgh International Games Festival last year and sat in on a debate about the virtual currency within games be sold in the real world for real money. The Electronic Arts representative (EA sell the Sims 2) attitude to it was very relaxed to it, claiming that it wasn’t something that bothered them.

    It looks like pressure from Sims 2 players has moved EA into action in this case, they’ve written software that acts in the same way as anti-virus software, scanning for alter objects and removing them.

  • 8GB USB Drive Shown at CES

    i-Disk_II-8GB-USB-DrivePretec Electronics have announced an 8GB USB drive, that they’re calling the i-Disk II, at CES today. Currently it’s the highest capacity key chain drive and the second to market.

    Along with the 4GB that they’re simultaneously releasing, it provides high speed access by using what they call “dual channel technology” providing read / write speeds of 16MB / 12MB per second.

    Both USB drives come bundled with the FlashMail, MobileLock, and SecretZip software. Flashmail provides email access from any machine simply by inserting the USB drive into a Windows machine.

    The 4GB is now available and Pretec say the i-Disk II 8GB USB flash drive will be delivered by Q1 2005. It’s not cheap, being priced at $999 (~€755, ~£531), but it’s a huge amount of solid state storage.

    BUSlink released the first 8GB drive, which is physically slightly bulkier, but has a slower read/write rate, 10MB/9.2MB. The bigger downside is it costs, $1,799.99 (~€1,360, ~£956).

    Pretec’s other claim to fame, is as the company that brought iDisk Tiny, the smallest USB flash drive, to the world in 2003. They have now updated this with an even smaller version called the CU-Flash.

    We’re big fans of USB flash drives and see them extending beyond the current “Here’s my power point presentation” corporate usage to becoming totally mass market as the public come to realise that they can be used to hold their identity data and provide access to their personal information and email. At these capacities they also become practical for holding private collections of audio and video media.

    Pretec
    BUSlink

  • Samsung 102-inch TV shown at CES

    Samsung 102-inch PDP TVSamsung is showing a 102-inch Plasma Display Panel (PDP) TV at CES. Currently standing as the worlds largest TV, they’re upping the ante of their own 80-inch screen they announced back in January last year.

    The gargantuan 102-inch screen is currently just for demonstration, but Samsung plan to start shipping their 80-inch PDP and 57-inch LCD screen in the US this year. The original costs spoken about for the 80-inch, the HPR8072 which planned for a May release, were a heart stopping $45,000 (~€34,000, ~£24,000). The 57-inch, LNR570D, will cost $17,999 (~€13,700, ~£9,600) and come out in June.

    If you hadn’t guessed it from the dimensions, you can see from the photo that this 102-inch baby is large.

    Samsung are putting serious effort into become recognised as a leader in TV screens of all technologies. They’re also showing a slim line Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) at CES and at the start of this week they announced a high resolution 21-inch single-panel, Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display.

    Samsung

  • Digital Lifestyle extolled by Bill Gates at CES

    In what has now become a tradition, Bill Gates opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas extolling the virtues of Digital Lifestyles (thanks for the plug Bill).

    In a “casual” interview style, US TV chat show presenter, Conan O’Brien, lead Bill through the wonderful world of digital media.

    O’Brien started his shtick with a great joke, “When Bill Gates walks onto this stage in a few minutes, the average net worth of each person in this room will be(come) $128 million.”. He then went on to be reasonably rude about most people in the industry. Of particular note was the “CES – The Movie” spoof casting, where well known characters in the industry were matched up with their acting doubles. It’s worth watching, just fire it up and jump to 11m 30s.

    Bill Gates then came on stage to give Microsoft’s view of Digital Lifestyles.

    Not surprisingly Microsoft pitches the PC as the centre of it, “The PC has a central role to play, (in that) it’s where it all comes together.”

    As has been the case since the public started recognising the iPod and iTunes, Bill and his promotional videos took every opportunity to feature ‘other’ music players, while subtly highlighting the virtues of the Microsoft approach.

    This covered “Windows Plays For Sure”, the certification process that labels all devices that are able to understand and adhere to Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. Read as, music in Apple’s format can’t play on other devices except Apples.

    For the trend spotters among you, Bill referred to this as a “rights management system”, dropping the Digital prefix.

    He also pitched monthly subscription services where you have access to all of the music you desire – another thing that Apple iTunes doesn’t offer. He failed to mention that with most subscriptions services, the ability to play the music you’ve paid for access to, stops when the monthly subscriptions fees do.

    Media Centre featured large with Gates announcing that PC manufacturers have sold 1.4 million Media Centre models worldwide so far.

    Media Extenders, which enables households with networked homes to pull content from their Media Centres to rooms around the house were also brought up again. Dedicated boxes from companies like LG were mentioned as well as a software upgrade for Microsoft’s xBox to provide the same function. The fact that 6.3 million people had bought Halo 2, was also dropped into the conversation.

    The LG example was of note. A dedicated DVR with DVD burner, it featured a cut-down version of the Media Center software that retained the familiar user interface (UI), while offering access to music and photo’s stored on the Media Centre PC. Not only that but content recorded on this dedicated device could be transferred to the Media Centre PC and in turn to a smartphone or Portable Media Centre (PMC).

    To easily operate the Media Centre, the “simple, single remote control” was also touted, more than once. Microsoft have formed partnerships with Philips, NiveusMedia and Logitech to produce universal remote controls that work with Media Centre, as well as many other devices. All these remotes will feature a “signature” Green Start button. Bill had previously mentioned that some remote controls will have small colour screens on them, allowing video content to be shown on them.

    New content partners also got a nod. Discovery will be creating “unique content” that fits on Media Center, with Yahoo and Fox Sports also getting a mention.

    One key item was the launch of the Media Centre as a platform. Not just a means of accessing and playing back content, but of broadcasters creating interactive content specifically for it, that combines broadcast and IP delivered content using Online Spotlight. We feel this is the most important item to come out and will be covered in more detail in another piece shortly.

    It’s also worth watching the video, if nothing else then to see Bill looking less than comfortable with the interview technique.

    Bill Gates CES – Opening Speech

  • 6 PSP Games Due from EA

    SIRIUS SportsterToday Electronic Arts (EA) used CES to announce its line-up for the US launch of Sony’s handheld entertainment system, the PSP due in March.

    The six games are FIFA Football and MVP Baseball, (only available in the US and not in the UK) along with four previously announced franchise greats; Need for Speed Underground Rivals, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, NBA STREET: Showdown (working title) and NFL STREET 2: Unleashed.

    EA say each game has been specifically designed for the PSP, as they found that trying to port the games didn’t work visually and they wanted the handheld titles to take advantage of the unique PSP functions such as WiFi head-to-head game play. To create the games, EA created the very dramatic sounding Team Fusion.

    More details of the games are on their dedicated PSP site. It has some screen shots of the games which looks most impressive.

    EA’s dedicated PSP site

  • SIRIUS to Satellite Children’s TV to Cars

    SIRIUS SportsterSIRIUS Satellite Radio announced today that it will be providing 2-3 channels of premium video content, designed primarily for children, in the second half of 2006, to be beamed into moving vehicles. They will be working with Microsoft to develop the service.

    Although initially pitched as a TV-on-the-move service, they clearly have ambitions beyond this, as hinted at by Amir Majidimehr, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft “We will further work together to enable consumers to experience SIRIUS video whether on the go, or at home — from the initial mobile service in vehicles to the PC and home entertainment devices.”

    While it’s possible that content could be streamed down live to the cars, it may be more likely that content will be trickled down to hard disk devices in the car for on-demand playback. This would avoid cries of “Oh Dad” from the back of the car as TV pictures freeze due to drop out problems when driving through areas of low reception, like tunnels. More importantly for a satellite company, bandwidth requirements would be reduced from a full broadcast stream.

    This is further backed up by careful reading of Chief Executive Officer, Mel Karmazin’s statement “We will take the DVD experience to the next level, offering the best content easily available to families and consumers.”

    If they do go for live TV delivery the video channels will take significantly more bandwidth than their current audio offering. Whether SIRIUS will be closing some of their current radio stations or adding more satellite capacity is unclear.

    If the content offering from SIRIUS is just on-demand, they could face some serious competition from in-car media centres that wirelessly “recharge” their content while parked in their garage overnight.

    Reuters are reporting that they were originally told of the TV channels by the ex-CEO of Sirius, Joseph Clayton, as far back as February 2004.

    Today’s news follows an announcement on Tuesday that Ford have committed to offering Sirius radio as a factory-installed option in up to 1 million vehicles over two years beginning this summer. XM, who also offer a US wide satellite radio service, currently have 3.1m users’ verses the 1.1m SIRIUS currently has.

    SIRIUS Satellite Radio

  • HDTV Support in HP Media Hubs

    CES is coming. Prepare yourself for the flood.

    In an effort to get heard above the noise of CES, HP has this morning announced a couple of products that will be capable of receiving and storing High Definition TV (HDTV).

    The first is an extension to their current Digital Entertainment Center (DEC) range that will add high-definition ATSC (Advanced Television Standards Committee) tuning capabilities. Two models are expected to ship this spring with different storage, graphics card and tuning options.

    The second is the industry’s first HDTV media hub which comes with dual-tuners and expected for release in autumn 2005. It will handle all of the now-expected digital photos, music and videos and act as a digital video recorder (DVR). While HD tuning cards have been available for some time, this is the first time that a mainstream company has announced a HDTV product.

    We contacted HP for further details about the products support for the US Broadcast Flag, but as yet they were unable to provide it. Given the release date of the product is after the July 2005 compulsory support date, and that it’s a US-focused product it is highly likely that the equipment will support the Broadcast Flag.

    Given HP partnership with Philips in the Video Content Protection System (VCPS), an FCC-approved technology designed to restrict the copying of video content to DVD, it is highly likely that this will be included too.

    Of particular interest is HP’s inclusion of an “intuitive Electronic Programming Guide” designed by them to “allow consumers to easily find and record the content they want.” There are no details of this being a free or fee service.

    We see this as HP’s move to become the gateway to access on-demand content of all sorts. This is further demonstrated by their mention of delivering “upgrades the device with new services.” It’s a smart move, placing themselves in this pivotal position before someone else gets in there to provide a service.

    It’s not just computer-based equipment that HP is offering in HD world. They’ve also announced plans to introduce a full line of 17 new HDTVs and home theater projectors based on HP-developed “visual fidelity” technologies.

    One of these is the spectacularly named “wobulation” technology, a patent-pending method to provide twice the resolution of digital projection displays without increasing the cost.

    HP
    ATSC
    VCPS