Author: Ian

DigitalOutbox Episode 66

DigitalOutbox Episode 66
In this episode the team discuss Back to the Mac, Google and Apple quarters, Amazon Kindle and those pesky Canadians.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
1:21 – Google Profits
– http://mashable.com/2010/10/14/google-mobile-display-youtube-business/
– Third quarter revenues jumped 23 percent to $7.3 billion. Net income was up 18 percent to $2.2 billion. On a non-GAAP basis, earnings per share rose slightly faster to $7.64. This blew away the consensus estimate of $6.67 among Wall Street analysts.
– Google ended the quarter with with $33.4 billion in cash and 23,300 employees (300 of those came from acquisitions). Paid clicks were up 16 percent on an annual basis. Cost per click was up 3 percent.
– Non-search revenues for the quarter (which includes Google Apps for Enterprise) were $254 million, up 35 percent for a year ago, but slightly down from $258 million in the second quarter.
– Display advertising: The company’s annualized run rate for display ad revenues is approaching $2.5 billion, according to Rosenberg. Google called it its next billion dollar business, and that it’s already here. Much of Google’s display ad business comes from its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.
– YouTube: While Google didn’t reveal specific revenue numbers for YouTube, the company did say it is monetizing 2 billion views per week, up 50% from last year. Recent reports suggest that YouTube is approaching $1 billion per year in revenue.
– Mobile: The annualized run rate for Google’s mobile business is $1 billion this year. That means, if things stay on track, mobile will become yet another billion-dollar business for the search giant. As a note, this is really more about Google’s mobile ad business and less about Android, which is free for companies to use.
8:05 – Plan to store Britons phone and interned data revived
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/20/internet-phone-data-plan-revived
– The government is to revive a plan to store every email, webpage visit and phone call made in the UK, a move that goes against a pledge made by the Liberal Democrats ahead of the election.
– The interception modernisation programme, proposed under Labour, would require internet service providers to retain data about how people have used the internet, and for phone networks to record details about phone calls, for an unspecified period.
– The government says police and security services would be able to access that data if they could demonstrate it was to prevent a “terror-related” crime.
– The revival of the programme is buried in the strategic defence and security review, which was published yesterday. The review says the programme is required to “maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do, to protect the public”.
19:45 – Back to the Mac
-Headlines:
– Updates across all iLife products. Free on new Mac’s. Upgrade about $50
– iPhoto upgrade looks very nice
– Facetime available in OSX
– A seperate desktop app for iChat – can now chat phone to Mac – Had serious security flaw which is now fixed
– OSX Lion announced (release next year Summer)
– Desktop App store (will also be avail in Snow Leopard soon) – 90 days
– Controversial
– Many dev’s can’t afford to avoid
– Another goldrush
– Flight Control already announced
– So many limitations
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples_guidelines_revealed_apps_you_cant_sell_in_the_mac_app_store.php
– Mission Control (icon grid for desktop) – Combines existing expose/spaces/dashboard as well
– Full screen apps
– New Macbook Air(s)
– 13” model updated + new 11” version
– Unibody design – wedge shape.
– SSD drives only.
– 5 / 7 hour battery life (11” / 13”)
– Also mentioned:
– Tweak to Macbook range – updated clock speed.
– Bla bla bla sold frickin gergillions of products.
– So, OSX is getting a fusion of some iOS features.
35:09 – Windows Phone 7
– First impressions appear to be positive start.
– Fun and slick to use.
– Minimal interface
– Some good features
– Gripes being
– App store is too busy (includes music in searches)
– Sometimes minimal interface gets in way of achieving goals
– Early days mean missing key apps.
– Definitely behind the curve – better than early Android and iPhones BUT we’re a long way beyond early versions of these platforms now. How long will the version iterations happen and how advanced will point releases be in catching up?
38:56 – Nokia N8
– First phone to use Symbian 3
– Unfortunately, doesn’t seem up to snuff
– Good enough hardware – responsive and good 12mp camera
– Sounds like operating system is main drawback with difficult to use and understand – clunky
– Is Nokia losing the battle?? Are they still king in the standard handeset market – and just not relevant in Smartphone market now…? (Nokia cutting 1800 jobs)
41:05 – MS Office 365
– Microsoft have officially announced their web based office product as Office 365.
– It’s a subscription based service. For consumers, the base product is $6 per month.
– Enterprise will have options from $2 – $20 per month.
– Distinct push to the cloud in everything MS is announcing at the moment. Also, a subscription based model is also a new step for consumers. Are we ready? How does $6 per month sound?
43:42 – Ray Ozzie Resigns
– Ozzie became an employee of Microsoft in 2005, following its acquisition of Groove Networks. He became the company’s chief software architect in 2006, after Co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates stepped down from the role to spend more of his time on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — which he began doing full-time in 2008.
– In October 2009, he founded the FUSE Labs (Future Social Experiences) division within Microsoft to develop more social, web-based products, such as social aggregation tool Spindex. He also been credited with driving many of Microsoft’s software products, such as Microsoft Office, to the cloud.
46:08 – Boxee Box
– Nov 12th in UK
– £200
47:29 – Fable 3
– Fable III will feature a one off redemption game card in each game box to unlock DLC…
– Essentially, you need to buy a new game in order to gain all features of game… In this case, they seem just innocent, non-game changing features and additions.
– However, with EA also releasing game codes that are designed to scupper 2nd hand game sales, are we seeing a worrying trend?
– PS looking forward to it anyway 🙂

Picks
Chris
Kindle 3G

– Purchased on the spur of the moment… it’s just about in the price range to do this.
– Only had it a few days – but glad I got it! Plenty of free “classics” available. Prices seem to have settled down and you can get some good deals.
– Button only navigation feels old fashioned but seems well laid out.
– Has in-built browser, although very clunky, might work ok for simple RSS feed type websites. Does try with more complex websites but essentially won’t offer any compelling browsing experience.
– Allows you to play MP3 files – podcasts/songs if you want.
– Reads books out loud (if publisher licences this) and computer voice is acceptable… but I imagine would detract from anything other than blog reading.
– Possible to import your own PDFs.
– Screen is great. Love the fact that when you turn it off, it displays a picture – and it’s kind of spooky at how much it looks like paper and ink… I’ve become so used to seeing screens with a viewing angle – that when you don’t have one, it feels alien!
– Problem of DRM and lack of EPUB support are biggest downsides.
– Tiny keyboard is not ideal.

DigitalOutbox Episode 65

DigitalOutbox Episode 65
In this episode the team discuss Google, Facebook and its Back to the Mac.

Playback
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Shownotes
3:54 – Google Developing Automated Cars
– goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.
– So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.
– use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.
– Our cars are never unmanned. We always have a trained safety driver behind the wheel who can take over as easily as one disengages cruise control. And we also have a trained software operator in the passenger seat to monitor the software. Any test begins by sending out a driver in a conventionally driven car to map the route and road conditions. By mapping features like lane markers and traffic signs, the software in the car becomes familiar with the environment and its characteristics in advance. And we’ve briefed local police on our work.
7:16 – Google OS out in November
– Want it….
8:59 – Google Goggles hits iOS
– Part of Google Mobile App
– Works very well – take a pic or barcode and search results returned
– Quick too
– Noogle Noggles launched too – from Delicious Monster
– Powered by Google Goggles, dif interface, free
12:55 – Sony Google TV
– All 1080p devices except the 24”, built in wifi, 4hdi, 4usb
– Also announced internet enabled Blu-Ray device
– Uses Google Chrome as browser, has the search features already announced, doesn’t have some of the video features of the logitech device
– Surprise is price – $100 more than similar specced internet enabled Bravia devices
– Keen, keen pricing – only Google enabled TV this year
– No news on pricing or availability in uk
17:34 – Sony Google TV Remote
– WTF
– So thats where the original Kindle designers went to work
– Looks truly awful – fisher price make better looking tech
19:30 – Facebook frees your data
– One of the complaints on Facebook, whether you like it or not, was there was no option to take your data from Facebook – now there is
– Can download data in a zip file
– People own and have control over all info they put into Facebook and “Download Your Information” enables people to take stuff with them
– you can access the “Download Your Information” feature from your account settings, hit the download button (see above) and Facebook will allow you to download everything off your profile, including your friends list, events, all of your messages, wall posts and all of your photos into a zip file
– Photo’s include photo’s you’ve been tagged in
– HTML, not xml or other easy to use machine readable file
– Doesn’t delete, just download
– Great, great, great – should be able to own and move/store your data
– Also launched dashboard to see how applications connect to your data – gives single view of the apps you’ve authorised and how they use your data
24:11 – Facebook Overhauls Groups
– http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=434691727130
– Each group controlled by all members
– There’s group chat, group doc editing, and other apps that can be used within these groups
– Groups have an icon and logo
– Don’t replace friend lists, but may replace twitter lists – http://scobleizer.com/2010/10/06/facebook-does-twitter-lists-right-they-dont-enforce-a-power-law/
– Looks ok but nothing ground breaking…although is this really a simple Google Wave?
27:36 – Bing Likes Facebook
– Starting today, if you do a search on Bing, it will try to recognize your Facebook account through instant personalization, and you will automatically start to see links that your friends have “liked.” These will appear in a separate module, with related social links called out.
– The example Microsoft gives is if you are searching for San Francisco steak houses and one of your friends liked Alexander’s Steakhouse in San Francisco, that would appear as a result along with the name of your friend.
The same thing could happen for movie results or news articles.
– Along with adding Facebook likes into search results, Bing is also using Facebook data to do better people search. When you start looking for a person, Bing will analyze the people you know and the people they know through Facebook and return those who are most closely linked to you socially.
30:48 – Skype 5
– Version 5 launched for Windows (not Mac – boo but it is ‘coming soon’)
– Group video chat
– Cleaned up interface
– Facebook integration – facebook feed inside Skype
– For facebook friends with hone numbers you can call directly from skype
– Will next step be Skype integration in Facebook? Facebook to buy Skype?
34:54 – Windows Phone 7
– Coming Oct 21st to UK
– 10 new phones in America….10!!!!!!
– HTC HD7 looks pick of the bunch – top spec smartphone
– Is there something thats compelling though to tempt people from Android, iOS or Blackberry
– Gut feel is it’s a solid to good first release but it’s 2 years too late – will it get aggressively updated like Android and iOS?
42:17 – App Hall of Fame
– Hard to find good apps, so this is another attempt to promote ‘the best’ apps
– Launched on Oct 11th with 12 apps
– Every month, at most 12 new app’s added
– Good’ish idea, but will it help only new users?
44:01 – Back to the Mac
– October 20th, Apple holding back to the mac event
– Mac OSX 10.7. Lion? Touch integration? Big upgrade?
– New Macbook Air?
49:50 – Lovefilm on PS3 and Apple
– Rumour is that Apple is trying to do a deal with LoveFilm before releasing Apple TV stock
– Lovefilm streaming will be coming to UK-based PS3 owners sometime this autumn, with a wealth of search options available and free trials promised for those who’ve yet to buy into the outfit’s services
– Shown on video on Sony youtube channel which has since been pulled
– Lovefilm is UK’s Netflix
50:48 – GT5 Delayed Again
– We sincerely apologize to GT fans for the delay, however, creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience, and we are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches

Picks
Ian
TED for iPad
– Free
– Great way of watching TED content
– Can highlight your favourites
– Can store videos for offline viewing

Cut the Rope
– Great game for iOS
– Addictive and makes good use of touch

DigitalOutbox Episode 64

DigitalOutbox Episode 64
In this episode the team discuss broadband, 3D and Google TV.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:47 – Trio of Updates
XMarks – not dead after all
– http://blog.xmarks.com/?p=1945
– Surprised by feedback and volume of interest in company
– Setup a pledgebank to gauge interest on premium service – http://www.pledgebank.com/XmarksPremium
– Charging wasn’t original strategy
– Freemium models discouraging
– 1-3% pay in freemium model – 2% at evernote
– Xmarks costs over $2 million a year to run
– Free alternatives – but there isn’t!!!!!!!!!!!! Ah – 75% of their users are Firefox only
– Got to question Xmarks motives – CEO looking pretty lame in my opinion
– Surely this could have been avoided?
– BT Calls for Halt on Piracy Trials
– http://www.telecomseurope.net/content/bt-calls-halt-piracy-trials
– BT is calling for a freeze on legal requests for customer data from prosecutors of piracy cases, after hundreds of customer details were leaked online.
– A UK court has approved the telco’s request to hold off providing customer data in light of the scandal, and BT says it will challenge any further requests for information until a test case concludes. The case was due to be heard this week, but following the injunction is now scheduled to commence in January 2011. Comes on back of firm sending user details to ACS:Law via an unencrypted spreadsheet
– The firm is also reticent about providing private information on its users until it can be assured the data will be safe.
7:31 – Star Wars in 3D
– Starting with Phantom Menace in 2012, lucas to release all 6 movies in franchise
– One a year, same time each year
– Allegedly waiting for enough cinema screens before doing this
– With blu-ray editions next year, and 3d over the next decade…how many times does George Lucas want us to buy the same films? Joke.
9:56 – 3D TV Channels
– Skys 3D channel launched
– Virgin offers 3D movies on demand
– Opinion?
14:07 – Nintendo 3DS
– Predicted price point – £199
– Games market struggling in UK?
– Game profits down, shutting another 70 stores
– A lot of duplication out there though
17:15 – Virgin Increase Upload Speeds
– XXL – Up to 50mb down, Up to 5mb up
– XL – 20, 2
– M and L – 10, 1
– As part of the roll-out and in order to ensure fair usage of available capacity Virgin Media will be rolling out a new traffic management system at peak times, designed to adapt to network conditions to ensure time-sensitive and interactive uses – such as surfing or streaming high-definition video – remain unhindered by non-time-sensitive traffic such as peer-to-peer and newsgroup activity, reducing the possibility of annoying buffering that can occur when trying to watch TV online at peak times. Using smart network monitoring, the system will reserve at least 75 per cent of network resources for time-sensitive traffic, adjusting dynamically to overall network usage to ensure consistent performance for more customers.
– This needs updating 🙂 – http://www.virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia/traffic-management-table.php
22:02 – BT Seeks Fibre Hotspots
– Communities that are keen to obtain fibre-based broadband are being asked to publicly declare their desire for high-speed net access.
– BT will log responses to a website to get a better idea of the potential demand for fibre-based services.
– BT said it would commit to wire up the five exchanges showing the highest demand for fibre.
– Demand is defined as min of 1000 votes and then exchange compared on the % of premises served
– Surely smallest communities, those most affected by lack of bb, will only show a small demand
– story for smaller exchanges is not entirely pessimistic as BT are saying that where 75% of premises express an interest in fibre broadband they are happy to engage in discussion
25:09 – Google Blacklist
– Words that Google Instant doesn’t like
– Google Instant is erring on the side of caution, protecting the searcher from seeing something they may not want to see
– Search for my blog – ian dick blog – put space after dick and bang – no results – press return and you get results so what are they really protecting?
27:59 – Facebook Upgrade Photos
– hi-res photos, photo-download links, bulk tagging options and an elegant lightbox interface for viewing images from anywhere on the site.
– Lightbox similar to Flickrs
– Adverts on pages
– Threat to Flickr?
31:52 – Google TV
– Search web, channels and app’s from one place
– Full internet via chrome
– Apps! – Twitter, Pandora, Netflix, Amazon, Napster etc – dev access from next year
– Use phone as a remote control
– Customisable homepage mixing web, apps and channels
– Record, dual view, easy to use via Sony TV or Logitech set top box
– Looks really good – Apple TV, Boxee, Roku and Google TV – sport the trend?
36:03 – Fifa Woes
– Team play is broke on 360
– Biggest feature of Fifa, advertised everywhere and it’s broke
– Even one on one is a bit ropey
– Get more info from lead dev’s twitter stream than official website and forums
– EA don’t get it – people still quit games – you get the win but punish them for ruining the experience, people still repeatedly pause, or slow the game down hoping you’ll quit
– Bungie do – http://www.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=28998
– Weekly updates, cheaters being dealt with, new playlists this week fixing issues and changing playlists based on user voting

Picks
Henry
iAlertU
– Free
– Great alarm clock for Mac

Ian
HimmelBar
– Application launcher for Mac
– Searches app folders, presents apps to launch
– Can filter list so only certain apps are presented
– Can setup custom folders, with custom apps in each folder
– Free, fast, helpful

DigitalOutbox Episode 63

DigitalOutbox Episode 63
In this episode the team discuss Facebook Outages, ACS:Law, Xmarks and sex with goats.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
1:42 – Facebook and Sex with Goats
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/26/dont-click-the-wtf-link-on-twitter-unless-you-do-like-sex-with-goats/
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/sep/27/twitter-facebook-charles-arthur
– Facebook suffers worst downtime in 4 years
– 2.5 hrs outage
– Like buttons across 350,000 websites vanish
– Did anyone care?
– Another twitter dodgy link involving goats
– Stop using twitter!
– Watch out everyone!
– Fixed, messages removed
– Twitter – it’s the news network- it tells you what’s going on around the world, or within your sphere of interest; it helps for bouncing ideas around, for staying abreast of what you have to know. Twitter creates its own little cities of specialism and knowledge which don’t (unlike Facebook) require you to “befriend” the other person; you can follow pretty much anyone you like.
5:32 – Google and boss sued in France
– Paris court has convicted US search engine giant Google and its chief executive Eric Schmidt of defamation over results from its “suggest” function, a French legal affairs website has revealed.
– The new function, which suggests options as you type in a word, brought up the words “rapist” and “satanist” when the plaintiff’s name was typed into the search engine, legalis.net reported.
– The court ordered Google to make a symbolic payment of one euro in damages and take measures to ensure they could be no repeat of the offence.
– The plaintiff in this case had been convicted on appeal to a three-year jail sentence for corruption of a minor, a conviction that was not yet definitive, when he discovered the results on entering his name in a Google search.
– The court concluded that the search engine’s linking his name to such words was defamatory.
– The court ruled that Google had not showed its good faith in the matter and ordered it to pay 5,000 euros (6,700 dollars) towards the plaintiff’s costs.
– A Google spokesman told AFP by email that they would be appealing the ruling
7:59 – ACS Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails
– September 25th
– Earlier this week, anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law had their website taken down by a 4chan DDoS attack. Adding insult to injury, owner Andrew Crossley was harassed at home in the middle of the night by prank phone calls.
– Anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law, who send out tens of thousands of letters demanding cash-settlements from often innocent Internet subscribers, became the new target. The company, which is headed up by lone principal Andrew Crossley, is widely hated among file-sharers and innocents alike and with 4chan’s Operation Payback now in full swing, payback is the operative word.
– Now, through a fault with his website, hundreds of megabytes of private emails have been exposed to the public and uploaded to The Pirate Bay
– Their site came back online [after the DDoS attack] – and on their frontpage was accidentally a backup file of the whole website (default directory listing, their site was empty), including emails and passwords,” a leader of the attacking group told TorrentFreak. “The email contains billing passwords and some information that ACS:Law is having financial problems.
– Worse was to follow
– It turns out the e-mail archive contained unprotected xls files listing thousands of Sky, BT, Plusnet, customers who had downloaded files illegally
– Protected files of O2 and BE customers but only an xls password
– Detail – 5300 sky customers – file, IP address, date time, full name, address and postcode – unprotected xls – Sky response – they are concerned – http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-news-announcements/39349-statement-sky-acs-law.html
– Further 8000 sky customer details revealed today, music related, including setlement
– BT, Plusnet – 133 Plusnet – file, IP address, date time, full name, address and postcode – unprotected xls
– O2 – 1800 copyright infringments but with no names or addresses, just IP, title etc
– Finally breaks into mainstream news – BBC
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11425789
– Potential breach of Data Protection Act – leaking of an unencrypted document – that lists the personal details of more than 5,300 BSkyB Broadband subscribers alongside a list of adult videos they may have downloaded and shared online
– UK’s Information Commissioner (ICO), speaking after the initial leak, told the BBC that ACS:Law had a number of questions to answer.
“The question we will be asking is how secure was this information and how it was so easily accessed from outside,” said Christopher Graham.
– Mr Graham told BBC News that while he did not have the power to put ACS:Law “out of business” a large fine could have serious repercussions for the firm.
“I can’t put ACS:Law out of business, but a company that is hit by a fine of up to half a million pounds suffers real reputation damage,” he said.
– Think about it
– ACS – not giving a toss about security of peoples data, site down and provider put a copy of thei mail file, or at least gave enough info for someone to guess/reverse engineer password
– BT and Plusnet – sending customer details to ACS via unprotected excel files over e-mail – names, addresses, filenames – then asking that ACS keeps this data secure
– ACS themselves admitting in internal mails that the evidence being used to prosecute is flimsy at best
– They’ve sent letters to people who haven’t infringed
– Lots of people who do download illegally will never hear from them or be punished n any way
– Is that fair?
22:29 – Windows Live Space replaced by WordPress
– Microsoft and Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, announced today that the Windows Live Spaces blogging service will be phased out in favor of WordPress.com.
– Users of the service will have the ability to transfer their blogs via a new migration utility beginning today.
– Over a six month period, beginning today, Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to move their blogs to WordPress.com. To make this possible, we’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com. New Windows Live users will also be offered a WordPress.com blog when they choose to create a new blog.
– WordPress.com – 14 million blogs, Windows live Spaces – 30 million blogs
29:49 – Kindle for the Web
– Preview books on the web without any Kindle desktop software
– Can change font size, line spacing, background etc
– Can embed free chapters on your website
– Fondled a new Kindle last week – gorgeous device – bargain
– If i had come out in that form factor a couple of years back, market would be totally Amazons
32:03 – Blackberry Playbook
– 7” Tablet
– Early 2011 for America, 2nd quarter rest of the world
– Multitasking, flash playing, uncompromised browsing
– Supports 1080p video – output only as screen is 1024*600
– There’s Micro HDMI and Micro USB connections, along with a 3MP front and 5MP rear-facing camera. That HDMI connection can even output video to dual displays. There’s no doubt that the PlayBook rocks some impressive hardware, but that’s only a small part of what makes a tablet great. Its future lies in the hands of what seems to be a totally revamped OS.
– Price – unknown!!!
– Who are they targetting?
36:50 – Apples outrageous share of the mobile industrys profits
– Apple sold 17 million mobile handsets in the first half of 2010, compared with 400 million handsets sold by Nokia (NOK), Samsung and LG
– Yet it pulled in 39% of the industry’s profit during that period, more than the 32% earned by the world’s three largest handset makers combined.
– Does marketshare really matter? Statistics, eh?
39:38 – Apple TV
– Now shipping
– The restore firmware has been posted by Apple and can be downloaded
– It is a version of iOS 4.1
– It’s keys have been decrypted – http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/1197198297/shattered-ipod-touch-4g
– Hacktastic – already jailbroken
42:19 – iEducation
– More than 500 medical students at the University of Leeds are being issued with iPhones which can access online text books.
– The smartphones have applications providing students with reference material and prescription guidelines.
– The university, claiming a first for UK medical schools, says the phones will also be used to keep in contact with students training in hospitals.
– The devices will have to be returned when students graduate.
– All fourth and fifth year medical students at the university are going to be given iPhones.
– Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland moved to iPads, ditching paper and pens
– http://speirs.org/blog/tag/theipadproject
– http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2269043/scottish-school-rolls-shifts
– Originally planned to move to iPod Touch – iPads gave so much more and resolved many issues with the Touch
– He said that the results have already been quite dramatic. Student engagement has vastly improved, but working out how it affects attainment will take some time.
“Even though we’re not teaching new subjects – we’re teaching the same material – but we’re teaching it in a new way.
“It strikes me that it just makes sense to the kids. They deal with information electronically and so we’re doing things in a way that suits them. We find kids are engaged for so much longer than they were with just pencil and paper – it’s remarkable,” he added.
47:07 – Xmarks to close
– Started out as a firefox plugin
– Matured into the only cross browser, cross platform bookmarks syncing tool
– Will close in 90 days time
– Gutted
– Couldn’t find a way to monitse platform
– 2 million users, 5 million desktops – and they can’t make a business out of it
– Tried some search options, none grew to be interesting enough for businesses/investors
– Rumours of Google being interested in buying, looks to have fallen through
– Ian – I’d pay for this, £10 a year to make life easy – bargain! Looking at options, there are ones that are free but only within the same browser – http://www.xmarks.com/about/shutdown
– Alternative – LastPass expressing interest in filling gap
– http://lastpass.com/features_roadmap.php
– Diigo
– http://www.diigo.com/
– Bookmarking plus a whole load more
55:37 – Segway Owner Dies
– The flamboyant former miner at the head of the Segway scooter company has died in a freak accident by sliding on one of the miniature two-wheelers off a cliff.
– Jimi Heselden, who latched on to an international craze for the upright, motorised “green commuter machines”, was testing a cross-country version when he skidded into the river Wharfe which runs beside his Yorkshire estate.
– Heselden bought the Segway company in January this year, after commissioning a financial analysis of its success in the US, where it was invented. The scooter has been heavily marketed as a “green commute” but buyers are warned to take a string of safety precautions, including wearing a helmet.

Picks
Chris
Toggl
– time / project tracking web app. Clients / Projects / Tasks. Browser timer to track as your day goes on – or post entry screens if you want to do it at end of the day. Displays breakdowns nicely and if you have a team, shows what tasks are killing productivity and allows direct assessment of whether some projects prove worthwhile!
– There is a free option and a subscription “pro” option that allows clients to have hourly rate applied and more in depth assessment of money side of business. Accounts for individuals and teams alike.
– Applications also available on all major handsets for time away from desk.

Ian
Google New
– Google has over 100 blogs
– Hard to keep track of new announcements
– Not anymore with Google New
– a 20 percent project that a few Googlers worked on to better showcase what the company is doing as a whole

DigitalOutbox Episode 62

DigitalOutbox Episode 62
In this episode the team discuss Twitter and the Tokyo Game Show.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:40 – Twitter Updates
– Seeing massive growth – 370,000 new signups per day
– 90 million tweets per day, 25% contain links
– Twitter.com is the biggest Twitter client
– Announcement: Today we’re launching a new Twitter.com — faster, easier, richer. Ev is playing a video to help explain/promote it. It shows pictures in the stream. You can click on a tweet and pull up more information on a person, on a n image, on a tweet, etc. YouTube videos are supported
– Looks similar to iPad app with slide out panel
– The mini-profile has arrived. You can bring up information on a user in the timeline, follow users, etc.
– 16 partners – Vimeo, Ustream, TwitpIc, Flickr, Justin.tv and others.
– Flickr set – tweet a link and the full set images and slideshow viewable from twitter
– No more ‘more’ button – endless tweets
– Keyboard shortcuts just like Google Reader, GMail etc
4:48 – Twitter Hijacked
– At the root of the problem is a cross-site scripting vulnerability that allows users to post JavaScript code – in this instance onMouseOver – inside tweets.
– Some using it for fun and games… but plenty of malicious users spreading porn sites, malware sites etc around.
– Rolling over a link (no need to click) re-directs user to the website and also re-tweets the message to spread the mal-link further.
7:13 – Facebook Places
– Finally launched in the UK
8:17 – HTC Mobiles and Services
– dashboard connected services for backup, security and handset control
– Can locate the phone from website and ring it
– Backup contacts, text etc
– New/updated Sense UI
– HTC Desire Z – qwerty slider – great first impressions
– Desire HD – EVO for the rest of the world
– 4.3 inch screen, blah, blah, blah – October
12:28 – iOS 4.2 Beta
– Now out for developers
– Also announced is AirPrint
– AirPrint automatically finds printers on local networks and can print text, photos and graphics to them wirelessly over Wi-Fi without the need to install drivers or download software. HP’s existing and upcoming ePrint enabled printers will be the first to support printing direct from iOS devices.
14:49 – VLC on the iPad
– Multi codec support
– Basically – play any medi file on that closed iPad
– To Apple developers the VLC approval is as symbolic as Google Voice was a couple of days ago. You can’t get more open than the free VLC which comes with a bunch of Codecs so you can basically play anything, and is open source meaning that developers can build on top of it. Giddy off of their newfound Apple seal of approval, Apptitudes, the company behind the app, holds that they plan on making an iPhone version soon.
– Brave new world?
– Google voice apps now available, Basic is a feature on the C64 emulator
19:28 – Google Brings 2 Step Authentication
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/three-million-businesses-have-gone.html
– Google is announcing that it’s bringing the security feature to its millions of users: the feature will be rolling out first for Google Apps Premiere, Education, and Government edition customers, with plans to bring it to all Google users (even those who aren’t using its Apps suite) in the next few months.
– More secure systems are common in large businesses, and often require both a password and a physical card or dongle to login — these are called ‘two-factor’ systems, because they require both your password and another key, and are far more secure because a hacker probably isn’t going to have that physical token. Unfortunately these security systems are generally quite expensive. But Google is bringing one to the masses.
– Google’s system doesn’t require a physical keycard. Instead, it relies on your mobile phone. First, you need to activate the optional feature from your settings page (again, this is only available to certain Google Apps customers at first). Then, when you go to sign in to your Google account, you’ll first be asked to enter your password as usual. Next, you’ll be brought to a screen asking for a verification code (see the screenshot above).
– Could this be the start of the end of RSA and SecurID’s? http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=1156
– Also, Google Docs editing FINALLY coming to iPad and Android
24:29 – IE9 Beta
– UI – less is more – streamlined
– Pinned sites
– Enhanced download manager and tabs – can tear them off now
– Search in the address bar – thanks Chrome
– Hardware acceleration
– Standards – big step up from IE8, lots of HTML5 support
– First impressions (not mine) – fast and clean
– Can also pin pages (and web apps) as apps in Windows 7
27:44 – Tokyo Game Show
– http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/ps3-firmware-update-3-50-coming-september-21-adds-3d-blu-ray-su/
– PS3 to get 3D blu-ray support on Sept 21
– Already supports 3D games
– http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/gran-turismo-anywhere-brings-the-web-more-features-to-gt5/
– Gran Turismo Anywhere
– ” a new web portal for the racing sim. Features of GTA – actually, let’s just call it Gran Turismo Anywhere – include My Home, which includes message boards, photo sharing, and the like, as well as Remote Races, which isn’t real-time racing over the web, but rather a racing team management simulation.
– Last Guardian – Holiday 2011
– http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/ico-shadow-of-the-colossus-collection-revealed-not-only-hd-bu/
– ICO / Shadow of the Colossus HD remakes coming to PS3
– Spring 2011
– Also supports 3D

Picks
Ian
Halo Reach
– Ultimate Halo
– Auto mute, bans players temporarily if they leave early too often
– Stats
– 31,000,000 games have been played since launch.
– 98,000,000 player games have been recorded.
– 8,214,338 Daily Challenges have been completed.
– 255,996 Weekly Challenges have been completed.
– 78,499,560,895 total credits have been earned.
– 953 years have been spent in match-made games.
– 1,365 years have been spent in campaign.
– 854,107 files have been uploaded.
– 577,804 recommendations have been sent to friends.
– 4,619,455 files have been downloaded.

Withings WiFi Body Scale

As my current scales had become slightly inaccurate, it was the perfect excuse to pick up a Withings scale – the first wifi body scale. I’d been itching to get it since I first heard about Withings at the turn of the year but the main reason had always been the fact I had a perfectly good set of scales already. Also they cost a pretty penny – I paid £107 including shipping. Ouch. I’ve now been using them for over a week and it really is a lovely gadget.

So as scales go, they look good but the really nice feature is that they are wifi enabled, automatically uploading your weight, fatty mass and BMI to the Withings website. The weight tracking works for up to eight people from one set of scales so your whole family should be covered. The website is Flash based and lets you track your weight and add notes when certain events (curry!) have impacted on your weight. So far, so good. There’s also a free iPhone and iPad app that allows you to track your weight from the comfort of your iOS device. These are pretty straightforward but give you everything you need to know.

As it’s all automatic it means I can track my weight daily. Total overkill but it’s part of the new weight strategy – track all inputs and outputs. Track weight, exercise and calorie intake. Withings also make sharing information really easy with a number of options available. I can publish my data on the web via a link or an iFrame. I can also share my data with other users who can access via an e-mail address. I can also link Withings to a number of other accounts – Google Health, Runkeeper, even WeightBot on the iPhone. Finally, I can auto tweet my weight after each weigh in. No where to hide 🙂

It had to be done – a new twitter account has been setup just for my weight. Special. I’ve also hooked Withings into RunKeeper. I track all my hill walks on RunKeeper and also now track my efforts on the bike. Having all that info in one place plus the weight is really nice. Also, I’ve paid for one years access to RunKeeper elite which gives me more detailed graphs, stats etc.

The final piece of the jigsaw is to now track calorie intake. Couple of iPhone app’s are worth considering and I had myfitnesspal.com recommended so I’ll give those a try. The up shot of all that is that I’m a couple of kilo’s heavier than a year ago which isn’t too bad as I’ve not been doing the same amount of exercise this year. I’ll be stepping that up between now and Christmas so hopefully I’ll lose a little in the next couple of months – not long until Santa’s here now.

As for Withings – great gadget, expensive and a bit over the top but I love it.

DigitalOutbox Episode 61

DigitalOutbox Episode 61
In this episode the team discuss Google Instant, Apple U Turn, iOS 4.1, Boxee Box and Halo. Woot.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:16 – Google Instant
– In past few months have passed over 1 billion users on Google each week
– It takes a user on average around nine seconds to enter a search query into Google. Serving results takes around 300 ms from Google, plus 800 ms total in Network time. Takes around 15 seconds to select a result. A search takes 25 seconds.
– At Google we think we have a faster way. Google Instant Search. And that’s what we’re launching today. Gets search results as you type so search is interactive the whole time you’re typing. Google Instant looks like normal Google search. But as you start typing, you see results — you don’t have to hit enter. You can hit ‘tab’ to complete a word.
– Type w – Glasgow 5 day weather forecast appears, first link is mountain weather forecast, second bbc, third met office – impressive
– We estimate this will help Google users save two to five seconds per query. That adds up across all users. “11 hours saved. Each second.”
– Instant results, Scroll to Search, Predictions.
– Only on google.com web page – browsers, mobile – next few months
– Instead of making first page, now about making first letter!
– End of SEO? Does being on page 2 or lower half of page kill your brand?
– Here’s what this means: no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick – and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimisation work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviours.
9:07 – Apple U Turn
– https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html
– http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf
– Short statement from Apple – we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.
– In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.
– Now, was that so hard? Dev’s crying out for this for a couple of years now
– So Flash could be used to create app’s.
– Why now? Android? Realising they were wrong? Pressure from dev’s and large dev studios? FTC probe?
– Most interesting – the guidelines
– Written by a human, almost common sense text – Steve?
– We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don’t work unless the parents set them up (many don’t). So know that we’re keeping an eye out for the kids.
– We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps. If your app doesn’t do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted.
– If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you’re trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.
– We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.
– If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.
– This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this.
– Lastly, we love this stuff too, and honor what you do. We’re really trying our best to create the best platform in the world for you to express your talents and make a living too. If it sounds like we’re control freaks, well, maybe it’s because we’re so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products. Just like almost all of you are too.
– Adobe – great news for developers – http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html
– Adobe’s Packager for iPhone – The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.
– This is great news for developers and we’re hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store. We do want to point out that Apple’s restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.
– Another developer that has been affected by the rule change is Google. The search giant’s advertising arm, AdMob, was another part of development that was banned back in the original April rule set, but has now seen those rules relaxed. Writing on the AdMob blog, vice president of product management Omar Hamoui says “We’re pleased that Apple has clarified its terms,” adding: “Users will benefit from more free, or low cost, apps that can now more readily be supported by advertising.”
17:24 – iTunes 10
– Faster
– Cleaner
– Ping
– horrible
– feels old
– invite by e-mail
– no Facebook/twitter integration
– drive sales for Apple?
– Where’s my wireless syncing? iOS 5?
– If I search for artists I want links to listen to their music not their muesli. Should be like Spotify/Lsst.fm
20:44 – iOS 4.1 is Out
– Gamecentre
– HDR photo’s
– bug fixes
– anything else?
– MDM – enterprise feature to manage various aspects of the left to 3rd parties to implement. As consumers we might not care, but as more and more enterprises are not just allowing employees to use their own smartphones, but actively encouraging it as a cost cutting exercise, managing those devices is an IT managers nightmare and this is a welcome addition.
26:43 – Amazon hit back
– Not just apple except
– This is for download, not streaming – same content, same price, one you own, one you stream for a limited time
– Cable/sat providers…your time is up
– available in the uk?
30:47 – Plex comes to LG
– Plex – needs a mac to run
– Potentially expensive
– working with LG Electronics (the second largest TV manufacturer in the world) to integrate the Plex platform into their 2011 lineup of Netcast™ connected TVs and Blu-ray devices. So early next year, when you buy an LG Netcast™ TV or Blu-ray player, you will have Plex functionality built-in. Specifically, it will connect to a cloud version of the Plex platform for online content, and, if you happen to have a Plex Media Server running anywhere in your house (after all, who doesn’t have a computer in their house?), you can access your local and online content, in a rich interface, with full metadata
– This is a BIG deal
– My new Sony comes with iPlayer, 4OD, Youtube, podcasts etc
– But a tv with plex built in is a seriously powerful device
35:27 – Boxee Box
– Pre-order in America
– Out in November (UK too)
– Now with Intel inside, not Nvidia
– $229, not $199 although Amazon selling for $199
– UK Price £199
– http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/361132/boxee-arrives-in-europe-at-twice-the-price-of-apple-tv
– The UK version of the Boxee Box will include
– free and paid-for TV content from a number of local broadcasters, including the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV.
– V-friendly access to services such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.
– Intel Atom CE4100 processor]
– 802.11n wireless and Ethernet connections
– HDMI port to deliver Full HD video
– 2 USB ports
– SD card slot
– offers support for Flash, MP3 and Divx formats
– Full Qwerty remote control
43:52 – Twitter for iPad
– Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad’s fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons.
– Panes: Tapping on a Tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that Tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another Tweet. You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like to.
– Media: When you tap a video link or open a web page with an embedded video, you can play that video inline. And, let’s be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load. The panes in Twitter for iPad let you look through your timeline while a video is loading, and then you can just swipe back to the video when it’s ready to play. You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen.
– Gestures: You can pinch on a Tweet to quickly view details about the author and to take actions on a Tweet, such as reply or retweet. Put two fingers together and pull down on a Tweet to peek at the replies, showing the entire conversation leading to that Tweet.
– Bold and unexpected – eats the other twitter clients
– Wheres Tweetie 2 for the Mac! Hibari is nice, but tweetie still feels better but missing new functionality of twitter – http://hibariapp.com/
44:54 – Samsung Galaxy Tablet
– First true iPad competitor
– the GT-P1000 model has a 7-inch TFT-LCD WSVGA screen (with 1024 x 600 pixels), and is powered by a Cortex A8 1.0GHz processor and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU—the same one used in their Galaxy S phone-and runs with 512MB of RAM.
– As expected, the back-facing camera is a 3MP affair with auto-focus and an LED flash, and the forward-facing one (for video conferencing) has a 1.3MP sensor.
– Two storage capacities are on offer, either 16GB or 32GB, with both models allowing for a further 32GB memory expansion via the card slot.
– Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 3.0, and 3G support (Vodafone has been signed up from the get-go, Three from October but unsure if right away)
– As we saw in the leaked video last week, there’s a 30-pin connector port, similar to what Apple uses for its gadgets.
– It’ll run Android 2.2 (Froyo)
– Rumour – Samsung Galaxy Tab reported to retail at €699 and €799 in Europe – iPads offer double the storage for same price
48:29 – Everything Everywhere
– Orange and T-Mobile to offer customers access to both networks at no extra cost as first benefit of newly merged company Everything Everywhere
– Orange and T-Mobile customers invited to sign-up to get access to both networks to make calls and send texts in more places at no extra cost
– As well as continuing to benefit from their existing network, Orange customers will be able to make calls and send texts on the T-Mobile network and T-Mobile customers will be able to do the same using the Orange network
– Customers who sign up for access to both networks will benefit free of charge, with no changes to their existing tariffs or call or text charges. Once registered, should a customer lose signal on their existing network, they will then automatically pick up the signal from the other network where it’s available, meaning that they can make and receive calls and texts in more places than ever before.
50:24 – Bloglines to Close
– Will finally close Oct 1st
– Killed by Google Reader and switch to twitter/facebook – realtime streams
– Sad in some ways but it quickly fell behind Google
– and it was a bit broken
– Off course, many say that RSS is dead etc
– Really – http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/09/welcome-and-look-back.html

Picks
Chris
TechSmith Camtasia Studio
– The ultimate screen recording, editing and distribution product.
– Millions of options. Easy to use and control. Plenty of output options. Record your mic, webcam, screen, specific application, video, pictures, title-screens. Stitch them all together on the timeline. £220

Ian
Withings Scale
– Wifi scale
– Expensive
– Can set up to tweet your weight
– Supports up to 5 users
– Love it – very geeky but awesome

Henry
Monkey Island 2
– Awesome game originally on PC now for iOS
– Only £0.69

DigitalOutbox Episode 60

DigitalOutbox Episode 60
In this episode the team discuss iPods, iTunes, Apple TV and Google goodies.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:05 – Apple Keynote
– Apple selling lots of stuff
– Lots of people going into store to buy their first mac
– iPods
– Brand new range
– iPod shuffle – tiny with buttons again
– nano – tiny with touch screen
– iPod touch – mega thin – has cameras. Facetime. Gamecentre. Retina display.
– Gamecentre
– XBOX Live for iOS
– Achievements
– Invites
– Co-op
– 4.1 out in 1 weeks or so.
– HDR Photos – Creating high dynamic range photos has been a popular photographic technique that combines three exposures to create a single image with a greater amount of detail in the highlights and shadows. Apple’s added HDR photography to the iPhone’s camera in 4.1, letting you create HDR images automatically without any of the hard work in post.
– HD Video Upload Over Wi-Fi – Previously, apps were required to upload HD video from the iPhone. Apple’s made the change in iOS 4.1 to allow HD video uploading over Wi-Fi, removing the annoying cap that required sending your HD video in standard definition.
– TV Show Rentals – TV shows have always been available for purchase in iOS devices, but now you can rent them to save a little money and storage space on your device.
– Game Center – Like the XBOX Live of iOS, Game Center provides APIs for developers but is also a new app on the iPhone (available soon via the App Store). You can play with friends, inviting them with a push notification, or be randomly assigned to other players when your friends aren’t available.
– iOS 4.2 out in Nov
– All iOS stuff but for iPad as well.
– Wireless printer mother fucker
– AirPlay – Formerly AirTunes, AirPlay is taking over wireless streaming on iDevices and will let you stream audio, video, and photos over Wi-Fi. Along with the new Apple TV, you’ll also be able to shift streams between your devices so you can, for example, finish watching a TV show or movie on the go.
– iTunes 10
– New icon
– Ping – social for music.
– 150m users ready to go…
– Artists / Users. Follow. Think Facebook stream but for music purchases / gigs.
– Apple TV
– Not iTV!
– No storage – all streaming.
– Netflix integration if you’re American…
– No purchases – only rentals.
– Movies on DVD release date = $4.99 rental (Reducing over time)
– TV shows streamed – 99c a pop. Only 2 studios on board (FOX and… Ummm can’t remember)
– No announcements for UK.
– Coldplay’s Chris Martin sang… quite badly.
– End
22:53 – Plex 9
– http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/Plex-9-Media-Center-Rocks-Our-World.html
– http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/08/30/exclusive-hands-on-with-plex-nine-for-mac-os-x-and-plex-app-for-ios-devices/
– New version launched that splits library from front end – decentralises – playback and resume from any device, only need to manage one library – awesome
– It’s a .0 release so expect bugs but can run alongside Plex 8
– Scanners much improved, some of the new front end skins look great
– Data on removable drives handled much better – now marked as offline rather than deleted
– Menu’s and storage much more sensible – can create your own libraries – Kids Movies for example rather than just everything in movies
– Also brings hardware acceleration for video playback
– Plex for iOS also announced
– £2.99
– Acts as a remote for Plex
– Allows you to browse content on your Mac as well – movies, TV shows, music, and plugins fully supported
– Stop watching a movie in your living room, and continue right where you left off on your iPhone or iPad. All of your ratings, viewed status and more is kept perfectly in sync.
28:48 – Digg Update
– Updated Digg launched
– you’ll see a stream of recent stories filling up most of the page, with ten top stories in a sidebar on the right. But there’s one key difference: each of these stories has been Dugg by one of your friends (or sponsored by an advertiser). Likewise, the stories on the right hand side of the screen represent the stories that have been dugg most by your friends over the last day or so.
– More relevant, based on your social group
– Is Digg still relevant though?
– Hardcore users hate the changes – http://mashable.com/2010/08/30/users-revolt-against-new-digg
33:36 – GMail gets Google Voice and Priority Inbox
– If you are a Gmail user in the U.S., you can now make free Web-based phone calls to any phone in the U.S. and Canada right from the Gmail interface. You can also make International calls for fees starting at $0.02 per minute.
– To use this new feature, you will have to install the Google Talk plugin, which is available here for Windows, Mac and Linux
– If you are a Google voice user, your Google Voice number will appear as the outbound called ID number on calls made from Gmail. You can also opt to receive inbound Google Voice calls from inside the GMail interface.
– (Don’t know if this is still relevant, but if you update your google account location to US, you can try out the features. There wasn’t IP address blocking in place.)
37:07 – Youtube Free Movie Channel and Google Realtime
– selection of Bollywood, action, horror, comedy and animated films for unlimited free streaming over the web and mobile phones.
– launch comes in the wake of deals struck with US film studios, including Sony Pictures, and UK movie and television streamer Blinkbox.
– While the catalogue isn’t exactly sparkling, there are a few hidden gems in among the muck. There are plenty of Jackie Chan movies, Google’s own Life In A Day project, Fritz Lang’s 1927 Sci-Fi masterpiece Metropolis and the original Heidi. Robe Lowe and Jodie Foster’s bizarre Hotel New Hampshire is in there too.
– http://www.google.com/realtime?esrch=RealtimeLaunch::Experiment
– Appears in left menu of normal search.
– Twitter / Social conversations
41:32 – Games Channel coming to the UK
– http://www.ginx.tv/
– The team behind Bravo TV show GameFace plan to launch their new UK channel dedicated entirely to games reviews this November.
– On Sat and Cable
– In a presentation this morning Ginx CEO Michiel Bakker said that his firm was aiming at ‘light’ gamers.
– Early programming will cover and rate new releases – but in time will expand to include documentaries looking at celebrities and gaming.
– Fail?
– Games market is so unrepresented on UK TV
44:17 – Xbox Live Prices Increase
– UK increase only affects 1m signup. 12months unaffected at moment. – however, US increase across the board – we’re going to see more in the future i’m sure.

Picks
Chris
Risk Factions
– Great presentation on top of a classic game
– Can play classic version or tweaked version.
– Not being game aficionado – don’t know what’s changed.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is a great tool for landscape photographers. Using the tool you can pick a location anywhere in the world and work out not only the sunrise and sunset times but also the angle of the sunrise/sunset so if your wanting to plan a sunrise across a river or a mountain range you can work out the best time of year to do the shot.

Photographer’s Ephemeris is free and is an Adobe Air application so is multi platform. It’s easy to install and use and the results are great. Alongside the Air application a version has been written for iOS devices. This however is not free, currently retailing for £5.49 in the UK. This version is iPhone only at the moment but an update is coming which will move the application to being universal with iPad support.

The application is similar to the desktop version but I find it easier to use via the touch interface. Like the desktop version moonrise and moonset angles/times are also included alongside the ability to find out when the sun will appear from behind a hill – ideal for scouting out locations prior to a shoot.

It’s app’s like these that I find so compelling on mobile devices. Focussed, simple to use but very helpful.

DigitalOutbox Episode 59

DigitalOutbox Episode 59
In this episode the team discuss Gamescon, Facebook Places and naughty BT.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:38 – BT and Net Neutrality
– “[A]t the moment with our TV service, BT Vision, we deliver entertainment content, video, at peak time to consumers via our network and we prioritise the traffic in order to be able to do this.”
– Jon Hurry, the commercial director at BT Retail speaking to BBC click
– it’s making it clear that its own online television service gets prioritised at the expense of its rivals
– After a call to the BT press office I wasn’t much clearer. I was told that Mr Hurry had perhaps not made the best choice of words in talking of prioritising traffic. What he meant was that BT Retail bought a product from BT Wholesale – there is an arms length relationship between the two divisions – which gave it an “assured quality of service” for BT Vision.
– It was described to me as a kind of internet bus lane, which meant that users even on a 2Mbps line would get a reliable television service without the buffering and freezing that you can experience with web video. BT insists that this does not affect other web users in any way – although in my experience a bus lane always means a slower ride for other traffic – but also says that other web video operators are free to pay for a similar service.
5:53 – Wired Declares the death of the Web
– Say we don’t use the web anymore but spent all our time on the internet
– Skype, Xbox, video, mobile app’s but no web
– Even has funky graph to prove it…but
– http://m.boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html
– doesn’t account for the increase in internet traffic over the same period. The use of proportion of the total as the vertical axis instead of the actual total is a interesting editorial choice
– between 1995 and 2006, the total amount of web traffic went from about 10 terabytes a month to 1,000,000 terabytes (or 1 exabyte). According to Cisco, the same source Wired used for its projections, total internet traffic rose then from about 1 exabyte to 7 exabytes between 2005 and 2010
– So web hasn’t slowed at all, indeed it’s increased, rather it’sbeen joined by even more explosive growth in file-sharing and video, which is often embedded in the web in any case
– This isn’t the first time Wired has declared the web’s death – 1997 – http://web.archive.org/web/19980207164310/www.wired.com/wired/4.04/features/wipeout.html
– Still, it achieved it’s aim by getting everyone talking about it – biggest surprise is Wired is still going in paper and digital formats – will it still be here in 5 years time?
9:49 – Chrome Web Store launches October
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/19/chrome-app-store-google/
– Gaming portal 1Up.com has detailed a presentation given by Google developer advocates Mark DeLoura and Michael Mahemoff at GDC Europe that contains new details about the Chrome Web Store — a feature first announced at Google I/O that will allow users to purchase web applications from their Chrome web browsers
– Store will probably launch late October
– when the Web Store was first announced, Google VP of Product Sundar Pichai indicated that there would be a standard 70/30 (developer/Google) split — the same as on Apple’s App Store and Android Market. However the fee is actually 5% plus an additional 30 cents per transaction — which obviously represents a more significant chunk if your app is only selling for $1.99. Also note that the minimum price here is $1.99, not 99 cents as it is on the App Store. However, you don’t have to use Google’s integrated web store payments — you’re free to integrate another payment system into your app.
– There’s also a one-time fee of $5, which is meant to help cut back on fraudulent activity. And yes, you can sell apps for free.
– Also interesting: the web store will completely replace Chrome’s themes and extensions galleries when it launches, and it will allow developers to distribute and sell themes and extensions (in addition to the aforementioned apps).
– Google may make less money from this in the short term, but if it helps the web win out over native apps then it’s a decision that will pay off for Google in a big way.
– ore will launch with support for free trials, subscriptions, and other in-app payment platforms. At launch you’ll be able to purchase apps from anywhere in the world using Google Checkout, but only with US dollars (multiple currencies and in-app transactions are slated for the first half of 2011).
– applications will be auto-approved and published “most of the time” (the report doesn’t indicate what the exception to the rule might be). Each application profile will include customer reviews including those left by your friends.
14:39 – Twifficiency
– Exploded on twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday
– Annoyed many as it auto tweeted your twitter efficiency
– Then rumours spread it grabbed passwords etc
– Turns out developer was a 17 year old scot – James Cunningham
– Was using this to learn oAuth
– Many people annoyed by it, seeing it as spam – https://www.businesszone.co.uk/blogs/dan-martin/dan-martin-editor039s-blog/twifficiency-hard-lesson-how-business-news-travels-fast
– But a few were impressed by the creativity and ingenuity
– Interviewed by Time – http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/17/twifficiency-by-james-cunningham-better-than-a-college-diploma/
– Now updated with checkbox and traffic still growing – check the server logs below
19:07 – Facebook Places
– Help you share where you are, help you find where your friends are, and discover new places around you. It launches on mobile devices (web) and in the company’s new iPhone app tonight.
– Check-ins are part of the platform. So is adding places. One difference between it and Foursquare is that Facebook doesn’t just show you nearby places, but places it thinks are relevant to you.
– Place Pages on the web. It has maps and who’s checked in…more on it in a moment
– Photo tagging has been taken to places. You can “tag” friends that are with you at a specific location. Thus, everybody doesn’t have to check-in on their own. Tagging seems to be a selling point of the platform, but does this present a privacy issue?
– There’s a “not now” feature to not broadcast your location.
– You can remove any check-in, settings are defaulted to friends only. “Here Now” is on after you check-in. Tagging only lets you tag your friends and notifies you whenever you’re tagged. You can always remove any tag.
– You can report a place on the iPhone if it’s inaccurate or don’t want it on the system (say your home, for example).
– Now the company is talking about the API and developers. There’s a Read API for reading check-ins and learning more about check-in pages. There’s a Search and Write API for making check-ins and searching through them. Gowalla and Foursquare building alongside Facebook. Yelp the same – when you check in you can share with Facebook.
– Rolling out in the US first
– There will be obvious privacy concerns – friends creating places like your house, auto checking you in when you don’t want to.
– First step – change your settings to stop friends checking you in- http://gizmodo.com/5616338/the-first-thing-you-should-do-with-facebook-places-dont-let-other-people-tag-you
25:21 – iMac Touch Patents
– Patent filed by Apple in January explains how future iMacs could switch between keyboard and mouse and touch interfaces.
30:32 – Windows Phone Xbox Live Titles
– Castlevania, Halo: Waypoint, Star Wars, Crackdown, and Guitar Hero, alongside a handful of newer properties like the ultra-cute ilomilo, produced in-house by Microsoft Game Studios
– will launch with over 60 game titles, with new offerings appearing every week in the Xbox Live Marketplace
– Live on WP7 will allow for full avatar integration (we’re talking fully rendered, interactive avatars) along with customization (clothes, accessories, and more). The company has even crafted an avatar-centric version of familiar phone utilities like flashlight apps and levels, adding some whimsy to what would normally be pretty staid affairs. Additionally, messaging, friend lists / status, achievements, and leaderboards (with friend comparisons) are all here as well, making for a pretty complete mobile Xbox Live experience
– Can demo all games before you buy
– Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst, the game utilizes Bing maps to create levels (not unlike the PSN title The Last Guy), and logic in the software is able to recognize things like roads for enemies to make their way down. Tower defence game using Crackdown assets
– Unfortunately, for the launch of Windows Phone 7 there won’t be any true multiplayer options besides turn-based games, though Kevin seemed to indicate that head-to-head gaming (whether over a local or wide network) was in the roadmap. It only makes sense considering this is Xbox Live we’re talking about, and it seems like something that would have been baked in from the beginning.
– Though we didn’t get to see a lot of titles (we particularly would have liked to see something like Castlevania), the polish and speed of the games we played was definitely competitive with iPhone or Palm Pre gaming.
36:50 – Gamescon Roundup
– GTA5 – Nov 3rd in EU, looks like 5th in the UK
– Will have track/course editor – generate their own courses based around a complex scheme of parameters and share them with the wider community. There are four themes to choose from and a dizzying array of settings to tweak, including the number of turns, track length, weather, topography and speed of sectors.
– Karts!
– A-Spec – driver, B-Spec mode – Racing Simulator RPG – you are a team manager
– Fifa 11 – released October 1st
– will include 11 vs 11 online – goalkeepers fully controllable
– video editing, new career mode, more customisable
– PES 2011 – released day before on Sep 30th
– Halo Reach – Sep 16th
– Medal of Honour – Looks pretty awesome, but most games do at this stage
– 2 new PS3’s – 160GB replacing 120 and a 320GB
– ITV Player, it’s tv catch up service, will be available on ps3 by end of the year
– Portal 2 – Feb 2011
43:59 – Realtime Worlds Goes Bust
– 250 jobs at risk after poor take up of APB.

Picks
Chris
Jungle Disk
– Lets be store files in my own Amazon S3 account
– Schedule whatever files for backup – anything from monthly, weekly etc down to every 5 mins.
– Only does bit change updates – ie. only uploads part of file that’s changed
– $2 per month plus Amazon storage costs – about $0.15 per gig per month
– Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an online storage web service offered by Amazon Web Services. Amazon S3 provides unlimited storage through a simple web services interface. Amazon launched S3, its first publicly-available web service, in the United States in March 2006[1] and in Europe in November 2007.

Henry
Prezzi
– online presentation app.
– Free version and annual subscriptions from $59

Ian
The Photographer’s Ephemeris
– £5.49
– The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) is a tool to help with the planning of all types of outdoor photography, but particularly landscape and urban scenes.
– It is a map-centric sun and moon calculator: see how the light will fall on the land.