Category: Podcast

DigitalOutbox Episode 5

DigitalOutbox Episode 5
In this episode the team discuss the Pirate Bay, iPhone app’s, game news and a bit more on Mobileme.

Playback
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Shownotes
– Pirate Bay Sold
– http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sold-to-software-company-goes-legal-090630/
– https://thepiratebay.org/blog
– http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-closes-its-tracker-removes-torrents-090630/
– http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-peter-sunde-discusses-the-sites-future-090630/
– You can buy shares in the company
– New trackers – originally closing tracker but then moving to new tracker tech
– Monitisation options
– Potentially massive implications – TBP tracker contains over half of all torrent users
– We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site
– Talking to the BBC, Pandeya said that he plans to make legal file sharing (which is what The Pirate Bay will be focused on from now on) more attractive than illegal file sharing by paying the users for sharing files. He also plans to pay the content providers that provide the files, and he plans to raise money from the ISPs by reducing their traffic overload.
– “Let’s say a popular song comes out. Rather than a million downloads from a site – which would cause a considerable strain on that ISP – we can take that song and put it out on P2P,” he says.
– Spokesman for Global Gaming Factory X said they would remove all illegally hosted content – but Pirate Bay has none according to their legal argument, no?
– Sounds like Napster 2………but is it bull? PirateBay do like to play games.

– One size fits all mobile charger in Europe
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_8124000/8124293.stm
– Phones won’t come with charger, buy one if you need one
– MicroUSB to be standard
– Not legal, voluntary
– Under the accord, the companies, including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Apple, Motorola, Research in Motion and Samsung, are committed to developing the charger.90% of euro market

– News
– Poor Palm Pre build quality: http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/188040-horrible-build-quality.html
– Palm Pre coming to O2
– XHTML2 is officially dead, HTML5 is the new king
– http://gdgt.com/ – Gadget site – review/wikipedia for gadgets, users control specs, review, aggregator – already a big community
– That Microsfot ad – http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/02/microsoft-makes-users-sick-pulls-ad/

– iPhone/Mac
– Steve Jobs officially back at work
– Birdfeed: yet another Twitter app for iPhone, £2.99, caching
– iPhone 3GS jailbreak with PurpleRa1n
– Augmented reality using 3GS compass
– Pocket Universe
– http://web.mac.com/john_kenn/craicdesign/index.html
– http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=306916838&mt=8
– Plot position of planets, stars, constellation outlines
– Nearest Tube
– http://www.acrossair.com/apps_nearesttube.htm
– Still to be approved
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fZk0HaIs4s
– Another giant robot in Japan, Wakamatsu park will get a Tetsujin robot in October http://www.kobe-tetsujin.com/
– F-22 Raptor photographed going super sonic http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=73057

– Games
– Fable III ? rumours
– Worms 2 – Fantastic update
– Battlefield 1943 – Wed 8th July, 7 years since 1942, three maps with 4th released once 43 million kills have been registered

– Mobileme
– Do you use
– Whats good and bad
– Ease of use
– Calendar sync
– Contacts
– Bookmarks
– iDisk
– Photo Gallery
– Online tools
– Application sync
– Back to my mac
– Find My iPhone
– Alternatives
– Costs?

Picks
– GeekTool – http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/
– GeekTool is a PrefPane (System Preferences module) for Panther or Tiger to show system logs, unix commands output, or images (i.e. from the internet) on your desktop (or even in front of all windows). Use File mode to monitor MacOS X activity with /var/tmp/console.log or /var/log/system.log, or Shell mode to launch custom scripts or commands like “df” to check space left on filesystems, “uptime” to monitor load of your machine… FInally, Image mode helps you monitor bandwith usage, CPU loads, memory availability of your server, via tools like MRTG or RRD.
(closest Windows equivalent – Rainmeter http://code.google.com/p/rainmeter/)
– Flogr – http://code.google.com/p/flogr/

DigitalOutbox Episode 4

DigitalOutbox Episode 4
In this episode the team discuss the iPhone 3GS again, Michael Jackson, some other phone news and a little bit on games. A digital smorgasbord. Listen out for the Fighting Talk homage!

Playback
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Shownotes
– iPhone Sales
– 1 million in 3 days – http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/06/22iphone.html
– Steve Jobs quoted in press release – he’s back
– YouTube mobile uploads increased by 400% one week after 3GS launch
– issues with icons since 3.0 upgrade?
– some apps displaying icons from other apps
– sometimes app icons not displayed, get a grey box placeholder instead
– 3GS uses more powerful PowerVR SGX 535 GPU. Pre uses 530, 3G uses 520
– for comparison:
520 = 7 mill polys
530 = 14 mill polys
535 = 28 mill polys!!!!!!!
– Sony designing mobile/PSP (again!) to give iPhone better competition?
– if they can provide a quality, user-friendly interface then with power of PSP it could work
– cos they already have a huge back catalogue of games
– BUT, iPhone is a success mainly due to apps, not just games
– where does XMB, Sony’ baby, fit in to this?
– designing a phone around a console doesn’t quite work. Apple got it right by giving us a phone with good enough hardware for supporting games, which came later once the hardware had already become established
– form factor – current PSP just not suitable, again Apple got it spot on, not too small not too big, durable(ish)

– New MacBook Air
– slower than previous model despite clock speed increase?

– Windows 7 prices
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8118749.stm
– Microsoft is in the middle of another epic battle during its long war with the European Commission over the alleged abuse of its monopoly position. This time the issue is the bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, the subject of complaints from rival browser makers. Earlier this month Microsoft came up with a ploy it thought might satisfy the Commission, promising that Windows 7 would be released in Europe without any browser.
Today we learned that this would mean that European users who wanted to upgrade would have to install the full version – if they’d been offered the simpler upgrade, that would have simply imported their existing browser, almost certainly Internet Explorer, into their new setup.
But Microsoft says it’s giving European users that full version for the same price that it would normally charge for an upgrade – £79.99 in the UK.
But here’s the problem. You upgrade from XP or Vista to Windows 7, and then find you’ve got no browser. No problem, I hear you say, you just go and download one – say Firefox, or Chrome, or Safari or maybe Internet Explorer 8. Using your browser. Ahh…right.
Microsoft told me “we will have some answers” to this issue, but admitted there were “challenges and complexities” involved. But the company pointed out to me that the vast majority of Windows 7 users were likely to be people buying new computers, and the manufacturers were likely to pre-install a browser on those machines.
– America – Those with Windows XP or Vista already installed can start pre-ordering Windows 7 upgrade discs, costing $50 for Home Premium and $100 for Professional. Those deals are for a “limited time,” with no specifics given, from Microsoft directly and most computer retailers, and Ultimate may or may not see an upgrade pre-order deal. Vista and XP users will need to pony up $119.99, $199.99, or $219.99 on October 22 to score their Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate upgrade, and those of you who want a full retail disc will need to roll up with $199.99, $299.99, or $319.99

– Google Voice
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_voice_is_opening_up_today_here_is_what_you_can_expect.php

– Vodafone Access Gateway
– http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=templateCClamp&pageID=PPP_0061
– Gives you a great 3G signal through your house
– Need a broadband line and Vodafone gateway
– makes use of femtoecll technology
– Offloads calls onto broadband network
– Hits your broadband performance?
– Interference with other femto cells?
– 1st July Launch – £160 to buy outright, or for monthly fee as part of a plan

– Safari 4/Firefox 3.5
– Safari 4 is very fast, like Top Sites and Coverflow for history is nice but….
– Ian – crashy, Google Reader failures, can’t connect to local router
– Couldn’t customise toolbar, changes wouldn’t be saved, home/library/preferences and delete com.apple.Safari.plist file. Then it worked.
– Looks like a rushed release.
– Using SAFT to get more out of Safari – http://haoli.dnsalias.com/Saft/
– Firefox 3.5 RC3 out this week, proper release rumoured for this coming week
– Improved speed, support for HTML5, private browsing mode, Location Aware browsing, tear tabs off and move them from one firefox window to another, history – recently closed tabs and windows, downloadable fonts
– http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/firefox-3.5.html
– Just hope it’s more stable on Mac

– HTC Hero
– http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/overview.html
– 3rd android phone
– Looks a bit fugly
– Too many buttons
– Uses own UI called Sense – won’t be available on other android platforms
– T-mobile and Orange in the UK next month, no prices yet
– Teflon coating on the back which is seemingly very good at keeping the phone clean
– Has flash support – love the adverts – take that Apple fanboys

– Michael Jackson/Iran Uprising
– Massive impact on social sites – twitter, facebook, google etc
– News as it happens – BBC relying on twitter and youtube for much of it’s Iran coverage
– How do we know it’s true? Volume doesn’t lead to accuracy
– Jeff Goldblum death for example – http://searchengineland.com/jeff-goldblum-is-not-dead-despite-what-google-says-21588
– MJ music dominates iTunes music downloads
– currently 8 albums in top 10
– Jackson’s death impact:

– Spotify
– planning on introducing 320kbps Ogg Vorbis streaming for subscribed user. Could this be the biggest challenge to the ‘purchase and download’ business model for music? £9.99 a month,

– Quickies
– Zune HD 16/32GB due September
– Tekken 6 wireless arcade joysticks from HORI $150
– http://www.gamecriticsawards.com/winners.html
– Uncharted 2 – best of show
– PlayStation
– Final Fantasy VII on PSN store
– Original Final Fantasy coming
– Zen pinball coming in May
– Firmware 2.8 soon, nothing special

Picks
– DropBox
– XLD – http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html – Lossless audio decoder for Mac OS X
– (Ogg) FLAC (.flac/.ogg)
– Monkey’s Audio (.ape)
– Wavpack (.wv)
– TTA (.tta)
– Apple Lossless (.mp3) [10.4 and later]
– AIFF, WAV, etc

DigitalOutbox Special Edition – iPhone 3GS

DigitalOutbox Episode 3
In this episode the team discuss the iPhone 3.0 release and also discuss the iPhone 3GS.

Playback
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Shownotes
– iPhone OS 3.0
– Features?
– MMS
– Cut, Copy, Paste
– Spotlight
– Voice record
– Push Notifications
– peer to Peer for gaming
– Landscape keyboards
– Testing – forward, multiple recipients
– Tethering
– In app purchases
– Shake to shuffle
– Youtube – account support
– Note syncing
– Find my iphone
– Media scrubbing: 30 secs repeat
– Speed
– Safari much improved
– Speed
– Autofill (need to enable)
–
– Verdict?

– iPhone 3G S
– Early thoughts
– Performance
– Camera
– Video
– Compass and Maps
– Voice Control
– Mains adpater

– O2
– Better sales than 3G – more stock surely – http://dnc.o2.co.uk/home/2009/06/iphone-3g-s-o2-launch.html

Picks
– Paper Toss
– Real Racing

DigitalOutbox Episode 2

DigitalOutbox Episode 2
In this episode the team discuss Digital Britain, Virgin Media, Windows 7, Project Natal and Steve Jobs all without mentioning the iPhone. Almost.

Playback
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Shownotes
– Mobile Phone Privacy – New UK directory of mobile phone users – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/09/mobile_phone_directory/
– http://www.118800.co.uk/
– http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article6459097.ece
– You can become ex-directory by texting the letter ‘E’ to 118800 from the mobile phone that you want to be made ex-directory. Standard network charges apply. Or you can call us on 118 800 or 0800 138 6263 from the phone you want to be made ex-directory. But remember that 0800 calls will be charged by your mobile phone company. The first time 118 800 contacts you please note that you will be sent an SMS reminding you about how to become ex-directory. Please allow 4 weeks for your details to be made ex-directory

– E3 Round-up
– Sony
– PSP Go
– Motion Controller – very accurate, imagine God of War with two of those in your hands
– God of War 3, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, Agent (Rockstar exclusive), The Last Guardian, Assassins Creed 2, Mod Nation Racers (LBP for racing?), Final Fantasy 14, Gran Turismo 5 – still no release date!
– Nintendo
– Mario Galaxy 2
– Vitality add-on for Wii
– Metroid from Team Ninja
– Very tired compared to Sony and Microsoft

– Palm Pre
– great reviews, appstore lacking – http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/palm-pre-review/
– Some real world issues – http://sanford.blogspot.com/
– No on screen keyboard – want to type in horizontal you need to rotate – clumsy
– Touchstone – slow charging, also gets hot in use
– Based on reviews, a great alternative to iPhone
– Windows 7 – Oct 22
– WWDC
– New Macbook Pro 15″
– Built in battery like 17″
– Typical user – 5 years of use – 1000 charges before degradation
– SD card slot instead of expresscard
– You can get up to 3.06 GHz Dual Core 6MB Level 2 Cache, Up to 8GB of memory, 500GB hard drive. Or 256GB SSD
– Starts at $1699 (2.53 ghz) – $300 less than current starting price
– $2000 to get 9600M GT
– 13″ Macbook and 17″ Pro updated also
– 13″ gets integrated battery and SD slot as well
– New screen also
– FW 800
– $1199, now called Macbook Pro
– OS X
– Attacking Windows 7 – fundamentally it’s just another version of Vista
– Rewritten 90% of Leopard – bug tastic
– Gain 6GB of disk space by installing SL
– Expose built into dock – answer peek features of windows 7
– Safari 4 released today
– Focussing on performance improvements in SL
– Quicktime – major improvements, back end and UI, frameless – looks gorgeous
– All major system apps in SL – 64 bit
– Grand Central Station – better thread management with multiple cores, Open CL – basically faster and more powerful O/S
– Exchange support in SL built into Mail, iCal, Address Book
– Out in September for $29. Wow. Family pack – $49. People will still pirate! Developer preview out today
– iPhone
– 50,00 app’s in the app store, SDK download > million times, more than 40 million iPhones and iPod touches
– OS 3.0
– Major update – 100 new features
– Cut/Copy/Paste
– Landscape keyboard in all key apps
– MSS app
– 29 carriers out of 79 countries will support MMS on launch of 3.0 – O2 logo at the keynote – how much?
– Spotlight search across all app’s, including mail on server, launch apps from spotlight
– iTunes – rent and purchase movies from the phone + tv shows, audiobooks, music videos
– Better parental control
– Tethering with mac or pc, usb or bluetooth, 22 carries in 42 countries, not at&t
– Faster javascript, better media streaming
– Autofill – remember username and passwords for websites (turn on keylock)
– HTML 5.0 support
– Find my iPhone, MobileMe customers only, lose phone, log into browser, tells you where it is, from browser send a message or sound to phone whether it’s in silent or not so if in the home it will sound out until you find it, if it is lost/stolen you can send a remote wipe, find later – plug in and restore from backup
– 1000 new API’s, App Purchase – make financial transactions from within the app, mag subscriptions, same money cut as app’s
– Peer to Peer for games
– Accessories now supported via dock connection
– Push notification
– App’s demo’d – Gameloft – Asphalt 5, Airstrip – Airstrip CC – remote monitoring of patients, Scrollmotion – books and magazines bought from the app, Tom Tom – with optional hardware attachment enhancing GPS – handsfree calling – powers phone – summer, ngmoco – Stardefense – featurepacks – launch today with update for 3.0 around time of 3.0 release, pasco – remote sensor monitoring, zipcar – zipcars available in your area – embedded maps, line6 + planet waves – connect iphone to guitar amp and add effects and control amp
– OS 3.0 – Free, $9.95 for touch, out on June 17th
-iPhone 3GS
– Same form factor
– 2-3 times faster (app loads and web pages)
– Open GL ES 2.0 support, HSDPA (7.2Mbps)
– 3 megapixel auto focus camera
– auto exposure, auto light balance
– tap to focus
– auto macro
– captures video
– 30fps, audio, auto focus
– Videos shown alongside pictures, can edit videos on the phone
– share videos – e-mail, MMS, MobileMe, Youtube
– Voice dialing
– Voice Control
– Digital compass
– Voiceover
– Nike+ support
– Improved battery
– $199, $299 for 32gb
– black and white
– iPhone 3G 8gb – $99
– Out Jun 19th

Picks
– Wired magazine
– Macbites

DigitalOutbox Episode 1

DigitalOutbox Episode 1
In this episode the team discuss E3, Windows 7, the Palm Pre and WWDC.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
– New iPhone specs – http://theappleblog.com/2009/05/19/rumor-has-it-leaked-iphone-specs-describe-big-improvements/ http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/the_next_iphone
– iPhone launch mid july?,32gb on t-mobile austria, end of life notice in australia
– Palm Pre – http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/24/plethora-of-palm-pre-interface-videos-emerge-from-leaked-emulato/
– http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/26/palm_pre_o2/
– New Zune – iPod touch rival? M$ Project Pink iPhone killer??
– E3
– No new console hardware – two years ago many thought 2010 would be time for new xbox – not any more
– PSP next version, why no mobile Xbox – could it be Zune HD is a game player? – http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/30/sonys-psp-go-leaks-out-before-e3-is-obviously-a-go/
– PS3 – Fat princess, wipeout hd update – at last, uncharted 2, heavy rain, gran turismo
– Microsoft E3 Conference – Rock Band Beatles, Tony Hawks, Modern Warfare 2, ffxiii, crackdown 2 (infamous made me play crackdown again – what a great game), left 4 dead 2 – nov this year – great news, splintercell conviction – fall 09, forza 3 – oct 09, halo 3 odst – sept 09, halo reach – 2010, alan wake – spring 2010, last.fm on xbox live – didn’t see that coming – free for gold members, sky Player on Xbox 360 – http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/first-look-sky-player-on-the-xbox-360-603323 (no new hardware required), zune video – 1080p instant on – doubling countries (uk?) – compression – pixelation – bull?, facebook on the 360 – send game screenshots to your facebook account – tiger woods first to support, twitter on xbox live, last.fm – twitter and facebook – very smart moves by ms, metal gear solid on xbox – mgs rising, Project natal – motion controller where you are the controller – new camera – detects sounds too – facial recognition to sign you into xbox – minority report style navigation of menus – wii style games demo’d – dev kits issued today – no dates though?, really strong keynote from microsoft, who’d have thought they would have beatles on a keynote before apple and got speilberg on stage, mgs and also nintendo’esque type innovation
– Will we see more on the streaming services – OnLive, Gaikai