DigitalOutbox Episode 48

DigitalOutbox Episode 48
In this episode the team discuss Android and iPad pricing.

Playback
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Shownotes
2:47 – Be Careful What You Tweet
– Fines £385, costs of £600
– The Tweet he sent to his 600 “followers” in the early hours of 6 January said: “Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”
– The court heard he had now lost his job because of the prosecution.
– Be careful what you tweet
– Ridiculous
5:37 – Pirate Bay Offline
– several Hollywood film studios won an injunction against its bandwidth provider CB3ROB via a court in Hamburg
– It has no internet connection
– A Pirate Bay source told TorrentFreak that it is already working on a backup solution to bring the site online; the servers themselves haven’t been touched (or moved) rom their well-guarded – and highly secret – location; they simply need to be routed through another provider.
– Might not be that easy – running out of friends as movie and music industry pursue it
7:02 – Android OS pulls ahead of iPhone in smartphone market
– slips into second place behind RIM
– RIM 36%, Android 28%, iPhone 21%
– possibly to do with 2-for-1 sales at Verizon???? (Chris disagrees ;P )
– having a variety of handsets from different manufacturers obviously helps
– http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/10/android-os-pulls-ahead-of-apple-in-smartphone-market/
– Apple spokesperson responds by adding in ipod touches to the iphone sales figures and says “So what?” – http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100511/apple-on-npd-android-outselling-iphone-claim/?mod=ATD_rss
Chris – I think the impact of an upcoming new iPhone, plus people now buying iPad as well. Plus some VERY compelling Android devices that are now fairly ahead of the curve and maybe (just maybe) some backlash about Apple approach.
12:22 – Google stops selling Nexus One direct online
– U-Turn for search giant.
– Store “not lived up to expectations” people like to try before they buy with phones apparently.
– Customer service issues perhaps? Or simply a lack of marketing $ spent promoting Nexus one?
17:44 – Google WiFi collection blunder
– Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted wi-fi networks.
– came to light after German authorities asked to audit the data the company’s Street View cars gathered
– These snippets could include parts of an email, text or photograph or even the website someone may be viewing.
– As soon as we became aware of this problem, we grounded our Street View cars and segregated the data on our network, which we then disconnected to make it inaccessible
– Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and in this case we fell short. So we will be:
– Asking a third party to review the software at issue, how it worked and what data it gathered, as well as to confirm that we deleted the data appropriately; and
– Internally reviewing our procedures to ensure that our controls are sufficiently robust to address these kinds of problems in the future.
– In addition, given the concerns raised, we have decided that it’s best to stop our Street View cars collecting WiFi network data entirely.
– Henry’s just waiting for the lawsuits
22:27 – UK iPad Pricing
– Best for light/irregular 3G usage: Orange’s 5p/MB pay as you go tariff
– Best for regular 3G usage: Orange’s pay monthly £15 for 3GB
– Best for heavy 3G usage: Orange’s iPad Monthly £25 for 10GB
– Best for light/irregular 3G and wi-fi usage: O2’s £2 a day/500MB offer (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)
– Best for regular 3G and wi-fi usage: O2’s £10 a month for 1GB offer (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)
– Best for heavy 3G and wi-fi usage: O2’s £15 a month for 3GB (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)
– O2’s unlimited wi-fi offering makes its offer best for customers who expect to use their iPad on the go.
– http://electricpig.co.uk/2010/05/17/ipad-uk-apple-approved-routes-to-an-ipad-discount/
– In a complete failure of foresight, Henry’s prediction of a network subsidised ipad looks increasingly unlikely.
– Henry is clearly rubbish at this prediction lark… 🙂
– Co-Pilot for the iPad!!! Stick that bad boy to the car windscreen!
30:50 – Get your eBook in the iBook store
– Lulu is a certified aggregator – will allow you to publish your book to iBook store – wow
– Must be valid epub file and have an ISDN number – Lulu will assign for free and convert to epub
– Pricing – 80% of profit after Apples cut – On a $9.99 book, for example, you will receive $5.60 .
– Apple can decline content – only one so far out of hundreds
34:28 – BT extend broadband rollout and OnLive
– Originally its fibre services, offering speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps), were due to reach around 40% of the population by 2012.
– A £1bn investment will see the project roll out to a further 20% of the population by 2015.
– Secretly OnLive has been operating a test site in Europe from a BT (British Telecommunications plc) data center in Wales since 2009. And I’m happy to report, that over the European Internet infrastructure, OnLive is AWESOME. We’ve tested OnLive across all of Western Europe spanning from the UK to Italy and from Scandinavia down to Spain.
– Today we are announcing that BT, the largest broadband operator in the UK, has formed a partnership with and has made an investment in OnLive. We’ll be working together with BT to bring the OnLive Game Service to the UK, such that it operates reliably and with high quality over the UK’s Internet backbone to BT’s broadband customers. BT has an exclusive right to bundle the OnLive Game Service together with their broadband service offerings in the UK, although UK gamers will also be able to order the OnLive Game Service directly from OnLive to run over any UK ISP.
– Once we get the US service up and running, we’ll be sharing more details, including when we’ll be starting a UK public Beta (with UK postcodes, no less). One thing I can say is when we do launch in the UK, gamers will have the benefit of everything we’ve learned from the US launch, as well as the latest OnLive features. Also, unlike the US launch, where we are ramping up with PCs and Macs, then introducing the OnLive MicroConsole™ HDTV adapter later, the UK will launch on PC, Mac and HDTV from the get-go. BT say later this year in UK
– BT has also taken a 2.6 percent stake in the company.
41:01 – Used Games Tax
– EA introduce $10 online pass
– Comes included with game
– Sell game, new owner has to pay $10 to get online
– Sneaky.
44:59 – Red Dead Redemption
– reviews starting to trickle out – Game Informer: 9.75/10, Games TM: 9.00. IGN 9.8/10. Eurogamer 8/10 (!losers)
– http://ps3.nowgamer.com/reviews/ps3/9197/red-dead-redemption – 9.3/10
– metacritic – 96 (based on 16 reviews)
– looks awesome
– My pre-order is being processed 🙂
46:20 – Nintendo – Apple is the enemy of the future
– Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata says battle with Sony is over, Apple is the ‘enemy of the future’
– this is a month after semi-transformed-Hulk Reggie Fils-Aime stated iPhone OS wasn’t a viable platform for game development
– battle with Sony is a “victory already won”

Picks
Chris
Friv
– A plethora of flash games… Some bad. Some good. Some great.

Henry
Fish Text
– cheap international txts iphone app

Ian
Steam
– steam for mac….and pc.
– Front end on Mac is pretty poor
– 63 games at launch incl Civ 4, Braid, Portal
– Portal free until May 24th for both platforms too
– Downloading…slow….

DigitalOutbox Episode 34

DigitalOutbox Episode 34
In this episode the team discuss Apple Tablet predictions, Google, Youtube and Open Data.

Playback
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Shownotes
1:16 – Apple Tablet and Event
– Apple Event Confirmed for 27th
– What could it mean?
– Creation? Canvas? Slate? iPad (Apple files request to take iPad trademark from Fujitsu)? iTablet? I guess it will be in colour
– iLife 10?
– iPhone OS 4 – multitasking, revamped interface
– Some gaming sites get invites – IGN, Kotaku
– Media will be major focus – harper collins, new york times, e-book/reader
– (There’s a sizable part of me that would absolutely love this to be a launch of some new iPhone colours – Chris)
– (Or indeed for this to be a new iPhone rather than be what everyone expects. Something radically different perhaps. Knock everyone sideways.)
– WSJ – Virtual keyboard, NYT, Conde Nast, Harper Collins, EA, best of TV service, also mentions Bing in iPhone, + Bing maps, itunes.com in June,
27:39 – Amazon Running Scared
– Gives away kindle for free – http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/20/amazon-kindle-free/
– Specific accounts, heavy readers. Buy a kindle, if you don’t like it ask for refund
– They’ll refund the money but let you keep the kindle
– Developers, developers, developers – http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/amazon-cracks-open-the-kindle/
– Kindle Development Kit – http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=1000476231
– Already made available to select partners – EA for example
– Limited beta starts next month
– Same revenue share as iphone and they must pay for wireless costs – 15cents per mb
– How actively will Amazon police what makes it into the Kindle store? “The guidelines are what you might expect,” said Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman. On the forbidden list: Internet voice-calling software, advertising, offensive materials, the collecting of customer information without consent, and the use of the Amazon and Kindle brands.
– You don’t think Apple’s announcement next week is making them sweat?
29:54 – NY Times Paid Model
– From 2011, pay to access NYT
– Free access to set number of articles per month
– After that, time to pay
– Is that it? Is that what all the fuss was about?
30:48 – Google vs China Fallout
– The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.
– Wow.
– Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.
– However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe.
– However, Graham Cluley of anti-virus firm Sophos, told BBC News that not only did the warning apply to 6, 7 and 8 of the browser, but the instructions on how to exploit the flaw had been posted on the internet.
– France warns too
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8465038.stm
– Last week was Google vs China, this week Microsoft vs EU, next week Apple takes on…..
– Certa, a government agency that oversees cyber threats, warned against using all versions of the web browser.
– UK Govt Response
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/20/uk-government-internet-explorer
– Government departments have been issued an alert on how to deal with this particular incident and to mitigate against vulnerabilities in relation to particular versions of IE.
– A government user, operating on government systems, such as the GSi (Government Secure Intranet), will benefit from additional security measures, unlikely to be available to the average home computer user. These include tools which actively monitor for evidence of any malicious attacks
– Even though MS declared their browser secure (enough), they patch it anyway…
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8469632.stm
– “Out-of-band” update (update issued outside of normal schedule) issued to patch IE.
– MS say only exploits were made on IE6 and urge users to upgrade.
– In the mean time, web analytics company StatCounter say the Germany/France warnings and the news around this story has seen Firefox grab 40% market share to IE’s 45% and even overtake in certain regions (e.g. Germany and Austria)
– Google postpone phone launches in China
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8467491.stm
– 2 Android phones, due to launch with China Unicom, have been postponed following the hacking of human rights activists GMail accounts.
– Strained Relations between US and China
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8472683.stm
– Hillary Clinton’s speech calling for China to investigate the attacks and make the results open has not been received well in China…
– China sayng it could harm ties between the two countries
35:24 – Youtube Moves to Pay per view and Movie Rentals
– Only US to start with towards end of Jan.
– Users will be able to pay (around £2.50) to give themselves a 48hr period in which to watch the movie stream
– This is likely to expand to include pay-per-view events etc going forward.
– Trialling HTML5 too
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/20/youtube-html5/
– Today, YouTube is taking steps to let users work it into their everyday browsing experience: you’ll now be able to watch some of the site’s videos without a plugin, using the video and audio playback support included with HTML5
– Activate in Youtubes testtube – http://www.youtube.com/testtube
– Unfortunately, this isn’t being rolled out to all videos. You can only watch videos that aren’t being monetized and that haven’t been annotated (obviously YouTube hasn’t implemented overlays in its HTML5 player)
– Also cleaner new look – nice
– Vimeo also rolls out HTML5 support – death to flash!
– Indian Cricket to be streamed live, worldwide (except USA) on YouTube
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/20/youtube-live-indian-premier-league
– YouTube has bought the rights to the IPL and will stream live games to a world-wide audience (Apart from USA).
– Advertising and sponsorship revenue generated will be split between YouTube (Google) and IPL
40:12 – UK Govt launches Open Data
– Just under 3000 datasets available
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/20/tim-berners-lee-free-data
– People who have seen early versions of data.gov.uk say that it contains tools that make it “much easier for [government] departments to produce structured, linked data”. Harry Metcalfe, an independent developer who has developed and worked on a number of sites that use government data to produce public information, commented that “this is such an encouraging thing to see. No expensive procurement exercises for clunky, bespoke sites: instead we have the right tools for the job, joined together … this is how government IT should work
– Shadbolt said the underpinning principle was simple. “We believe that the government should establish the principle that all the public services should publish in reusable form all the objective factual non-personal data on which the public services run and are assessed and on which public decisions are based, or which is collected or generated in the course of public service delivery.”
– The UK has become a world showcase for open government data, with the launch today of a government website hosting 2,500 public data sets – more than the best-known rival, data.gov in the US.
– However…..
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/22/number_10_paf_database_petition/
– PAF will remain with Royal Mail and be charged for
– 24 hours after the much heralded launch of data.gov.uk, it slams the door in the hopes of many that the PAF would be available for all, or at least non profit and charatable organisations
42:38 – Dont Joke on Twitter
– Robin Hood airport is closed, You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!
– A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat.
– After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation
– He has been banned from the Doncaster airport for life.
– The civil libertarian Tessa Mayes, an expert on privacy law and free speech issues, said: “Making jokes about terrorism is considered a thought crime, mistakenly seen as a real act of harm or intention to commit harm.
– “The police’s actions seem laughable and suggest desperation in their efforts to combat terrorism, yet they have serious repercussions for all of us. In a democracy, our right to say what we please to each other should be non-negotiable, even on Twitter.”
45:28 – BT Fibre to Cabinet Pricing
– There will be a £50 connection charge for the basic package, which will upload at up to 2Mbit/s and a 20GB per month usage allowance.
– The other package, costing £24.99 per month, will be connected for free, upload at up to 10Mbit/s and have no data cap.
– Both require an 18-month contract and come with a free Home Hub.
– In reality, because it uses existing copper and aluminium wires into premises, BT’s service is typically likely to offer 20 to 30Mbit/s downstream. For most its performance is likely to rank between to Virgin Media’s 20Mbit/s “XL” package, which costs £20 per month, and the 50Mbit/s “XXL” at £28 per month.
– Rollout – http://www.buckconsult.co.uk/fttx/
– I’m live!!!!!!!!!!!
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/22/bt_infinity_p2p/
– P2P will still be throttled – BT has now also conceded that its traffic management equipment will restrict the bandwidth available to peer-to-peer protocols on both Infinity packages, as on its existing ADSL services.
– 4pm to 00:00 weekdays, 9am to 00:00 weekends
50:03 – Nokia launches Ovi Maps
– Free turn-by-turn navigation is now available for roughly 20 million Nokia handsets around the world.
– Maps are stored locally, and no continuous data connection is needed
– Traffic Information in 10 countries
– Lane assistance, speed trap warnings
– Pedestrian mode, including shortcuts only possible on foot
– Free Lonely Planet/Michelin travel guides
– Smart. Nokia in catchup mode.
52:49 – Chinatown Wars hits the iPhone
– Plays well
– Touchscreen controls a bit fiddly
– $9.99
54:27 – PS3 Motion Controllers Delayed
– The wand is now looking for an “Autumn” release date.
– Jump lost on Netal? Certainly looks interesting for Christmas 2010
– Even now, the PS3 appears to suffer it’s own design. The PS4 HAS to address development issues?
55:50 – Spotify Viral Marketing
– 5 best ads get free premium subscription for 3 months
– Comments suggest some users think the prize isn’t very generous.
– (but all the blurb is in French so I could just be making this up!)

Picks
Ian
HuffDuffer
– podcast aggregator
– bookmarklet
– popular
– tag driven
– search
– add rss of stuff you’ve huffduffed to itunes
– find new content that previously you’d miss or wouldn’t know was out there

Henry
Smack Talk
– iPhone app
– hours of fun talking like a hamster

Chris
Acer Aspire Timeline 1810TZ
– Netbook form factor but with good power under bonnet
– 11.3″ Screen
– Windows 7 Home Premium
– HDMI out
– Good keyboard.
– Ultra Low Voltage Dual Core processor
– 8 Hours battery life (6 full on media – 10 wi-fi/internet)
– Webcam
– Olympic edition due to have 4Gig RAM, 500Gig HD, Blue Tooth (64Bit) £550
– Standard edition 3Gig RAM, 250Gig HD £450

DigitalOutbox Episode 19

DigitalOutbox Episode 19
In this episode the team discuss Web security, backups and Broadband news for the UK with lot’s of edits. Cheers Skype!

Playback
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Shownotes
2:12 – Web Security
– Phishing scam used to target Google & Hotmail accounts. Account details leaked online. 30,000 accounts.
– How are people still being soooooo stupid as to give out their details to phishing emails?
7:22 – Cloud Issues
– Microsoft/Danger loses all T-Mobile Sidekick customer data
– Statement: Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.
– Where was the backup?
– Shows danger of relying on cloud – what happens if service drops, access restricted, data removed?
– As in local data, you should always have a backup
9:52 – Napster Evolves Again
– Cheaper unlimited download service on offer £5 per month – including 5 permanent downloads every month.
– 8 millions songs to choose from.
– Reaction to Spotify threat?
14:00 – Windows Mobile 6.5
6.5 brings a handful of great features to the same old mess that was Windows Mobile
– very small amount of system has been converted for ‘touch’, mainly the home and start screens
– need to use stylus for everything else ie typing, everything other than launching an app etc
– you CAN type with finger but it’s “like trying to sew with your feet”
– huge IE overhaul …. but still sucks
– pages render incorrectly or stall
– “designed by someone in 2002”
– 6.5 is nothing but a spit and polish job on 6.1
18:33 – UK Mobile Coverage
– Ofcom looking at ensuring consumers who don’t get the coverage they need are not locked into contracts.
21:19 – AT and T Allow VOIP over 3G on iPhone
– Due to FCC investigation?
– What about O2, Orange, Vodafone?
– Skype likes this – http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2009/10/good_move_att.html
– Google Voice rumoured – it’s not VOIP
23:19 – Adobe Flash EveryWhere except
– No surprise but is it an issue?
– Adobe do show app’s developed via flash and packaged for iPhone
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/05/adobe-shows-off-flash-apps-for-iphone-yes-you-read-that-right/
– Could increase app volume even more and bring more dev’s to the platform
– More app’s of the wrong type?
27:19 – BT push fibre
– BT announced one and a half million copper lines into homes and businesses will be joined by optical cables, initially offering broadband at 100Mbit/s downstream and capable of delivering 1Gbit/s.
– BT had previously only publicly committed to one million FTTP installations on building projects where the civil engineering costs of laying fibre would be low.
– The wider deployment means BT plans to run fibre to two and a half million premises by 2012. A further seven and a half million line will be upgraded to fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) services, delivering up to 40Mbit/s downstream.
– Competitors will be able to buy access to the fibre, although BT will have greater control over pricing than it does over ADSL.
– Virgin Media – will it allow access? Does VM want it? comparitively expensive and it’s running its own 50Mbit/s trials with copper from home to new cabinets and new fibre to rest of network http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/08/vm_cornwall/
– No news on areas to benefit
– My exchange – FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) should be in service form 04/01/2010
– http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/news/productbriefings/nga/nga04309.do
– Up to 40Mb down, up to 10mb up – £88.08 annual rental. What will retail offer? What price?
32:44 – O2 Starts to Throttle
– introduction of management for peer to peer and newsgroup applications will only affect those O2 broadband customers who are not on the firms own unbundled network.
– Par for the course
37:15 – VMWare Fusion 3
– $80, October 27th
– Designed for Snow Leopard, supports 64bit kernel, allows for virtualisation of 64 bit O/S
– Supports Snow Leopard and Windows 7
– Finally add’s aero support – first tool to do so
43:12 – iPhone 3.1.2 Update
– aims to resolve some of the recent issues reported by users
– sporadic issue that prevents iphone from waking up from sleep mode
– occasional crashes when streaming video
– intermittent cellular service interruptions
45:13 – New Tablet Rumours
– 10.6″ panel
– geared towards e-book functionality
47:48 – Kindle Comes to UK
– As expected, the Amazon Kindle will be coming to Europe, including UK.
– Access via 3G – unspecified carrier at this stage.
– No web browsing but the device should roam happily around 99 countries.
– £175
52:33 – Microsoft Mouse Labs
– Some real innovation
56:56 – Eigenharp
– It’s a Theremin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin (as used by Bill Bailey) crossed with a Tenori-on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenori-on (as used by Little Boots)
– Much cheaper are the http://www.smule.com apps on the iphone – leaf trombone and ocarina, plus numerous Tenori-on wannabee apps.
– Never been a better time to inflict your musical talent on the world through digital instruments. We’re a long way from Rolf Harris’s Stylophone http://www.stylophone.com/

Picks
Ian
Tweetie 2
– The best twitter client for the Mac

Chris
Portal T-shirts
– Hopelessly / tragically /desperately geeky but just brilliant!
– T-shirts with in-built cameras and TFT screens come in Portal Orange and Blue pairs and transmit your cameras picture onto the other persons t-shirt – so creating the look of portals!

Henry
Fission
– MP3 splitter
– $32
– Mac only