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

  • UK GBA SP price will drop to £69

    Nintendo have just announced they will be dropping the UK price of the Gameboy Advanced SP (GBA) by £20 to £69. There will be a price drop in Europe, which is expected to be 99 Euros, this follows the US drop to $79 that happened at the start of the month.

    Clearly designed to make the most of gamers friends and relatives who are stuck for Christmas present ideas, they will be boosting its uptake with two special edition versions. Zelda Limited Edition Pak which will include Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and launches on 12th November 2004; Mario Limited Edition Pak containing Mario vs. Donkey Kong along with a unique Mario themed GBA SP will launch a week later on 19th November 2004. Both promotional packs are expected to sell for £89.

    To date over 4 million GBA SP have sold Worldwide.

  • Oakley Release MP3 sunglasses

    Oakley Thump MP3 sunglassesOakley sunglasses wearers may soon be able to see music as digital music eyewear is launched. Back in July rumours were circulating that Oakley would produce the new glasses but it wasn’t until September that details emerged online. 

    The Oakley Thump is the world’s first digital music eyewear. The wireless device has optics forged with an integrated, state-of-the-art digital audio engine. The new addition in technology means that people are able to listen to music virtually anywhere. A High Speed USB connection allows music to be transferred quickly and easily. The integrated speakers sit by the ears of the person wearing the glasses and they can be adjusted in three directions to balance music with outside noise.

    The company are selling glasses in seven colours with polarized tinted lenses. The new digital music eyewear delivers over 60 tracks or about 4 hours of music directly without cables or wires and looks set to be a popular trend. The official specs: USB 2.0, 128MB/256MB of storage. The glasses are lighter than an empty CD case and weigh only 50 grams.

    The glasses vary in price with the 128 MB model costing  $395 (£276, €324) and the 256 MB range with polarized lenses cost $495  (£276, €406).

    Oakley Thump

  • TouchTunes patent links gaming machines to jukeboxes

    This week TouchTunes, a provider of digital-downloading jukeboxes across the United States, announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued another patent (# 6,775,744 ) in its favour.

    The new technology patent covers a “Communication device and method between an audiovisual information playback system and an electronic game machine”.  Unable to reach representatives of TouchTunes, we have scanned the patent to try to get an understanding of the patents relevance and have come up with –

    • transferring payment from the video games machine to the jukebox
    • selecting the music on the juke box from the games machine
    • transferring the points won in the video game to be used as credits on the Jukebox
    • transferring information from the games machine, through the jukebox at the premises to the remote server

    The company already has a portfolio in excess of 16 patents granted in both the US and Europe. It has continuously filed for intellectual property (IP) protection in areas relegated to their business model and products.

    Speaking about the new patent John Perrachon, President & CEO of TouchTunes’ commented; “TouchTunes has been working diligently to develop world-class music-on-demand products and has developed interesting technical innovations it felt needed to be protected. These patents recognize the unique proprietary intellectual software and hardware inventions developed and implemented for its music-on-demand products.”

    Developing technology since 1993, the company is a pioneer in digitally downloading music for music-on-demand systems and applications.

    Dan McAllister, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for TouchTunes said; “This addition continues to demonstrate our commitment to distribution in the coin-op market.”

    TouchTunes has signed agreements with key industry players including Sony, EMI, BMG, Universal, Warner and their music subsidiaries. They have also signed agreements with various independent labels including Jive, Beggars Banquet and Epitaph Records.

    US Patent 6,755,744

    TouchTunes

     

  • Now 55% of UK Homes are Digital: Ofcom

    Ofcom, the UK super regulator, has just announced that as at 30 June 2004, Digital Television penetration had reached 55% of UK households, up 2% from the previous quarter. The total figure now stands at 13,704,459 households.

    The Free To Air (FTA) service, Freeview, usage increased 12.1% to nearly 4m households. This percentage increase dwarfs the growth from the dominant digital TV delivery service, the satellite service Sky, which increased at around 1% over the same quarter adding 76,000 to reach 7,032,000. We note that Ofcom doesn’t give the Sky growth as a percentage, perhaps as it sounds small.

    Ofcom estimate that the total number of free-to-view digital homes is now almost 4.2 million, an increase of 13.4% from the previous quarter. Taking the information from various sources, they say the figure comprises the number of viewers using Freeview, those using satellite ‘Solus’ cards and ex-Sky subscribers, who continue to use their satellite box for viewing free-to-view channels. Digital Cable accounts for nearly 2.47 million households.

    While these figures will be encouraging to all, they measure households, not the number of TV related sets (TV, video, etc) in the UK. The biggest outstanding issue for household that need to change to digital receive will be replacing the non-primary TV (the UK has an average of 2.5 sets per households) and VCR. It is thought that the replacement of VCR’s could be the big boost for Personal Video Recorders (PVR) that would change the market.

    These figures come in the same week that Ofcom annouced analogue switch off to occur in 2012.

    Ofcom Digital Television Update Q2 2004

  • Games for the Health

    When thinking of ways to improve health and fitness many people reconsider their eating habits or spending more time in the gym as opposed to playing computer games.

    Healthcare experts are currently teaming up to contemplate games technology across different healthcare fields. Yesterday saw the start of the First Annual Games for Health Conference 2004 in Madison, Wisconsin, which has been studiously blogged by Ian Bogost, an academic game researcher, games designer and educational publisher.

    The first ever gathering of game developers, researchers, and healthcare experts are discussing applications of games and how it can aid health and fitness.

    The event was developed by the Serious Games Initiative, the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab at the University of Wisconsin System in Madison, and the Federation of American Scientists’ Learning Federation Project.

    According to industry experts interactive games and emerging game technologies could improve consumer health education, and professional clinical practice, including disease and injury prevention, service delivery, and professional education and training.

    Yesterday James Rosser of the Beth Israel Medical Center, highlighted the need to surround new students with interactive, fun environments to learn, whilst Debra Lieberman of UC Santa Barbara demonstrated how games produce health outcomes. She spoke about enhancing Self-Concepts where a main character in a game could have a condition such a diabetes and asthma to promote a role model, or a signature character.

    The conference comes prior to the release of a new software title, Yourself!Fitness, which will hit the PC and Xbox in a couple of weeks. While it is intended as a virtual personal fitness trainer for women, thousands of gamers could stand to benefit. The product combines tailor made, interactive and goal-oriented gaming experiences focused on health and fitness. By tracking the gamers heart rate and effort, the digital trainer Maya is able to alter the course and difficulty of a workout as it progresses to match the gamers personal needs for the day.

    The new exercise regime will be far from boring, as unlike a Body Combat session at the local gym, no two workouts will be the same. Each day, Maya builds an individual routine based on the users progress and commitment level. Coaching includes Yoga, Pilates, Cardio Fitness, Strength Training, Flexibility Exercises and Targeted Weight Loss routines. Avoiding the smell of sweat and visions of sticks on treadmills, users are able to workout on an island or in an Alpine Retreat. 

    Ian Bogost coverage

  • Games For Health 2004

    Games For Health, The Academic ADL Co-Lab, and Room 130, announce the First Annual Games for Health Conference which will take place September 16-17, 2004 in Madison, Wisconsin.

    This first ever gathering of game developers, researchers, and healthcare experts will spend two-days discussing applications of games, and game technologies to a variety of healthcare fields.

    Applications for direct patient care, therapy, will be shown as well as health education, policy, and management ideas.
    Madison, Wisconsin, USA http://www.gamesforhealth.org/events.html

  • XM Radio Launching Music Online

    The Washington, D.C.-based satellite radio operator’s new service – XM Radio Online – will launch early next month and will be free from commercials. The latest announcement comes just 24 hours after Internet portal Yahoo!’s cash acquisition of online jukebox provider MusicMatch for $160 million (~€132m, ~£89.5m).

    XM is yet another company to compete in the increasingly competitive digital music market place, against the likes of Apple Computer, RealNetworks and Napster.  Earlier this month Microsoft launched MSN Music. EBay and Virgin have also announced plans to open online music stores.
     
    It has been trial and error for XM in the fast paced music world. Last year, the company introduced its XM PC Receiver, which connects to the majority of home computers and tunes in broadcasts from XM’s two satellites and over 100 stations. It was scrapped as it could be used with third-party software to download music from its radio stations onto home computers.

    As part of the launch, eligible Dell customers who purchase Dell Inspiron notebooks and Dimension desktop computers will receive a special 30-day trial offer for the new online music service. “We are very excited to be making our commercial-free music line-up available on the Internet through XM Radio Online,” explained Hugh Panero, President & CEO of XM Satellite Radio.

    It will be a waiting game for XM Radio as they monitor the success of their one-month trial. XM will normally charge $7.99 (~€6.58, ~£4.47) per month for unlimited listening and offer a discount rate of $3.99 (~€3.28, ~£2.23) to subscribers of its existing radio services.

    XM Radio

  • Vodafone Launch BlackBerry 7100v – With New Form

    Vodafone BlackBerry 7100vVodafone have today announced a new form of BlackBerry, the 7100v. It has been designed with the BlackBerries creator, RIM (Research In Motion) and will be the first release of a new form factor.

    I’d seen BlackBerries around but had dismissed them as a suits tool, and frankly had looked down on them a little. I saw them as used by people who didn’t know better, just getting them out to show off.

    While I was in Amsterdam for IBC, there were a couple of occasions where a BlackBerry saved the day. In one, a speaker arrived in Amsterdam without knowing where his hotel was, fortunately I had sent him an email as he landed at the airport – he picked it up on his BlackBerry and we were able to sort things out quickly.

    Now having studied them in detail, I can see they are about the most efficient use of space a text input device could have – a thumb-able keyboard and compact screen.

    The new model from Vodafone differs from the ‘normal’ BlackBerry approach of full QWERTY keyboard and large screen. Vodafone’s new 7100v takes its design cue from a mobile phone handset. It has a slightly expanded numeric keyboard, taking it from three keys across to five.

    To maintain the ease of input of text, the 7100v uses the RIM-developed SureType. It appears to be very similar in function to T9, but it has only two possible characters on each key, rather than up to four with T9. Paul Stonadge, Data Solutions Executive at Vodafone UK, told us the best way to get acclimatised to it is to “get into the mind set that it is a QWERTY keyboard”

    It has a built in library of 35,000 words that can be user-expanded. Another smart feature is the automatic reading in of the contact address book, leading to all your contact names being included in the typing dictionary – very smart.

    Vodafone have also taken the opportunity of heavily branding both the handset and the interface – it will be clear to the user that they’re using a Vodafone.

    Vodafone previously released BlackBerries, the 7230 and slightly larger screened 7730 were aimed at medium to large enterprises. They are aiming this at the SME and SoHo market – a smart move considering how often small business people are away from their desk and how vital it is form them to stay in touch.

    One of the winning features of the BlackBerries has been that email was pushed to the handset rather than the normal method of repeatedly asking the mail server if it had anything new. To use the push feature, the BlackBerries originally needed to run in conjunction with MS Exchange and Lotus Domino servers – the Enterprise solution, as they labelled it. This changed a while back to allow mail to be picked up for the widely spread POP servers.

    It is due for release on 1 Oct in the UK and will vary in cost depending on the call plan, ranging from free on the higher call plans to £82 (~$146.56, ~€120.60) on the Anytime 100. The email charge will be on top, varying from £8.51 (~$15.21, ~€12.51) for a heavy voice plan to £15.74 (~$28.13, ~€23.15) if it is only used for email.

    We’ll be testing in October, so stand by for a review.

    BlackBerry 7100

  • US FCC: High Speed Internet and television

    Yesterday, Michael Powell, U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman said that technology and telecommunications companies are working on ways to develop pipe television shows to consumers’ homes via high-speed Internet lines.

    Telephone companies like SBC Communications, are competing against competition from cable television companies that offer their customers a comprehensive package of products, including phone and Internet service.

    Stateside it would appear that the majority of major phone companies have an initiative underway to provide broadband-delivered Internet protocol (IP) television. However, at present, it is unclear as to whether there would be any regulatory obligations that would apply to television via the Internet. 

    According to Powell, TiVo Inc., famous for its digital television recorders, was joining up with online DVD renter Netflix Inc. to provide films to the home by high-speed Internet, or broadband lines (see our coverage).

    This week, in another indication that television via the Internet was gaining momentum, the largest U.S. local telephone company, Verizon Communications, appointed Terry Denson, formerly of Insight Communications to manage entertainment content and marketing.

    The company has already begun an ambitious fibre-to-the premises (FTTP -) programme to deliver broadband services over optical fibre directly to homes and businesses. It expects to pass 1 million homes by the end of 2004 and an additional 2 million homes next year.

    Qwest Communications International already operates a small IP television service in Arizona, and the other three large local telephone companies are actively planning to compete. As part of their voice and Internet packages the other four carriers already resell satellite television services from DirecTV and EchoStar Communications

    FCC

  • CLIE PEG-VZ90 marks Sony’s start of Mass Production of Full Colour Organic LED’s

    Sony has announced that they will start the mass production of full-colour Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays. They see the OLED displays as a possible replacement for LCD screens, but with the added advantages of not needing a back-light, giving quicker screen response times and providing wider viewing angles. Response times will drop from 16mil sec on current Sony LED’s to a stunning 0.01mil sec and viewing angles will improve from around 130 degrees on LCD to 180 degrees in both horizontal and vertical planes.

    By adding their own magic ingredient to OLED’s, called Super Top Emission technology, Sony claims they will get significant improved brightness (1000:1 vs 100:1 LCD) and a great range of colours (gamut) (~100% vs ~40% LCD). They claim it will rival the performance of Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT).

    Since their introduction, one of the big problems for LCD-equipped portable media players has been the impossibility of seeing their displays outdoors when the sun is strong. It sounds like Sony’s approach could not only save the batteries of portable devices, but also fix the sunlight problem.

    The CLIE ‘PEG-VZ90’ will be the first Sony device to benefit from the production run.

    Sony