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DigitalOutbox Episode 47

DigitalOutbox Episode 47
In this episode the team discuss Facebook, iPad and HTML5.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
3:31 – Facebook Privacy Mess
– In an attempt to reduce concerns about user privacy, Facebook has inadvertently opened a security hole that let 3rd parties view your friend requests and your private messages sent through the chat system.
– In trying to do the right thing… they still get it wrong!
– And they believe ignorance is bliss for their users
– Ethan Beard, director of Facebook’s developer network – Facebook Blames Riot Over Privacy On Media, Says Users “Love” The Changes
– “the reason that people use Facebook is to share information with their friends and to connect with things that are important to them.”
– My biggest issue is that there is no way to extract your information from facebook and the speed of privacy changes has happened too fast for people to keep up to date.
– There has been a change of stance to a default of locked down, to an assumption of openness.
– If something is made public by a policy change, you do not have the any option to completely remove previous content. Event “De-activating” content does not remove it. Facebook have also made changes so that whereas content was time-limited in the past, they now have the option to keep all content for as long as they want, regardless of whether you want to de-activate or not.
– Evolution of privacy on Facebook – http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/
10:09 – Microsoft Cancels Courier
– At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The “Courier” project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.
– Gutted.
11:55 – HP Kills Slate
– Hewlett-Packard has killed off its much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.
– HP may also be abandoning Intel-based hardware for its slate lineup simply because it’s too power hungry. That would also rule out Windows 7 as an operating system.
– Wow
– Surely not – only site to report this and HP Slate was shown to investors after Palm acquisition
– iPad and Android the only real options?
– Chrome OS
– Other Linux mashups designed for different form factors.
– Can Linux react quick enough to offer a controlled tablet/touch focused interface?
15:16 – UK iPad Priced
– pre-order May 10
– release May 28
– £429/£499/£599 for WiFi
– £529/£599/£699 for 3G.
– Orange pricing
– http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/32979/orange-reveals-ipad-3g-rates
– Pay as you go, daily, weekly and monthly. With the PAYG option, each MB will cost 5p, up to a maximum of £40 in a month (so 800MB in total). This will appeal to users who will only use their iPad for emails or a bit of light surfing when out and about.
– Next up is the daily option at £2 for up to 200MB worth of data for you to use before midnight, this can be bought on an ad-hoc basis. The weekly option takes this limited data plan a bit further – £7.50 for 1GB’s worth of 3G data. It might be an idea to try out these plans before deciding whether you need to opt for the final option – the monthly plans.
– Orange has put two packages in place – Monthly 15 and Monthly 25, naturally costing £15 and £25 per month respectively. The major difference between them is either a 3GB limit or a 10GB limit, but both also grant access to 750MB Wi-Fi when away from home via BT’s Openzone
– Importantly, the iBook store will also be there for the May 28th launch
23:41 – Google Flurry
– Google Editions book
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10098111.stm
– Google book store
– Not tied to single device
– To date Google has scanned over 12 million books, both in-print and out-of-print, giving it a greater selection of material than either Apple or Amazon.
– Works on any web enabled device
– books will be purchased directly from Google and also from retailers who will keep the majority of the money earned.
– Out in the summer
– Google buys BumpTop
– http://gigaom.com/2010/05/02/google-buys-bumptop-3-d-multi-touch-tablet-interface-on-the-way/
– For Android tablet?
– I tried it and didn’t like it as an interface
– However…for a touch driven device…maybe
– Looks nice. Some nice interface ideas. But surely power hungry for a tablet/touch device? Reminds me of Microsoft Surface.
– Google brings back Gmail to the UK
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10096107.stm
– Bye bye Googlemail.co.uk, hello gmail.co.uk. Long dispute finally resolved with uk owner of gmail.co.uk. Originally wanted £27 million from Google but no details of how much Google finally coughed up.
– Google Search changed
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/spring-metamorphosis-googles-new-look.html
– Streamlined
– Flattened logo
– Left hand side navigation – mostly hidden
– Also applies to mobile site
– Chrome Update
– http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/05/pedal-to-chrome-metal-our-fastest-beta.html
– Another speed jump
– Not only bookmakr sync, preference sync as well
– HTML5 features – geolocation, file drag and drop
– First beta to have Flash baked in and updated via auto-update mechanism
– To finish off, IE falls before 60% market share
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/internet_explorer_market_share_decline/
– 15 months to drop 10%
34:19 – Microsoft Stands with Apple on H264
– Microsoft said Thursday that Internet Explorer 9 will support the variety of Web video Apple built into Safari but not the one embraced by Firefox and Opera.
– “In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only,” Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog post.
– His reasons for the support: the format is widely used in the computing industry, from video cameras to Google’s YouTube, it benefits from hardware decoding support that improves performance, and there are questions about the rights to use H.264’s chief rival today, Ogg Theora.
– Google’s Chrome supports both H.264 and Ogg Theora.
– The lack of one format being used across all formats undermines the move from Flash, costs website hosts and devs more cash
– But H.264 patent encumbered and is licensed by the MPEG-LA, with Apple and Microsoft members with patents in the patent pool so it’s in their financial interest to promote H.264. Licences don’t transfer downstream which may be a real problem for consumers in future.
40:36 – Scribd scrapping Flash moving to HTML5
– Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: “We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page.”
– Documents will simply become very long Web pages. A new bookmark feature will help you keep your place in especially long documents. Scribd’s documents will be especially iPad friendly.
– Instead of downloading a book from Apple’s iBooks store or Amazon’s Kindle app, you can see if an electronic version is on Scribd and read it in your browser. Pinch and zoom to make the text bigger. No download necessary. The books and other documents are stored on the Web. They can be shared via Facebook and Twitter, or sent to a mobile phone.
– Documents and video moving away from plugin, especially Flash, dependancy
– Flash won’t die – just be less widely used, focussing more on interface, games, interactivity which it should do
– http://www.scribd.com/documents/30964170/Scribd-in-HTML5 – test page
43:10 – Dropbox API
– Android app
– Native iPad app
– Mobile API – Dropbox Anywhere – Desktop API later this year
– Dev’s could integrate DropBox into their app’s via API – very exciting for mobile dev’s
– Why didn’t Apple include this – every iPhone/iPad owner gets 2GB of web space?
46:06 – Skype 5 Way Video Calling
– Within next week
– Windows first, Mac later this year
– Free for first three to four months, they paid for
– Great for our podcast 🙂

Picks
Ian
Halo Reach
– Fantastic update
– Single player and co-op is good
– Multiplayer is quite awesome

Henry
Cupidtino
– Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products!
– Find the apple fanboy/girl of your dreams.

Chris
Movie Peg
– £5 a lot for a bit of plastic for sure… still.
– Like the idea.

DigitalOutbox Episode 18

DigitalOutbox Episode 18
In this episode the team discuss why we’ve grown to 3 1/2 people.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:25 – Google Wave
– Biggest news of the week – trending topic on twitter for a couple of days
– EBay auction for an invite going for £20-£60! Madness!
– IM on steroids or really the future for communicating online?
3:17 – ICANN and UK Broadband
– The US Government has relaxed its hands on control of the internet
– Specifically giving ICANN – the body responsible for regulating the internet – autonomy and opening it up to global comment.
– The move recognises the global nature of the Internet and eases worries about impartiality in the EU and other regions.
6:53 – Internet Overtakes TV advertising Money
– The UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.
– 4.6% year-on-year increase
– The internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising money spent in the UK, while TV ad spend accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets.
– TV advertising fell about 17% year on year in the first half, to about £1.6bn
9:05 – Freeview Retune
– The freeview retune has meant that more people can now receive channel 5 – but many have lost ITV 3 and 4…
– 20,000 or so older boxes expected to break completely.
– Retune needed to enable Freeview HD.
– Advice is for people to try and re-tune again to see if the channels come back.
14:34 – Microsoft Security Essentials
– guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software
– Free as long as you’ve bought Windows
– XP, Vista, Windows 7
17:35 – Bing Bust?
– Search market share slipped in September in USA and Globally – now 3.3%
– Google – Gained 2% to 80% of US market, 90.5% of global market
– Competition is good – look at the products and innovations from Google in the last 1-2 months
– Better search options in Google
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/01/google-adds-new-options-to-make-search-more-timely-less-spammy-and-more-personal/
– http://mashable.com/2009/10/01/google-search-options/
– IE 7 & 8 are only there thanks to Firefox! Need competitors to Google.
21:21 – Spotify allows downloads
– Download playlists for offline listening
– Will they be DRM’d?
– Is this really needed?
25:01 – Apple buys PlaceBase
– Is this as protection against Google?
– Will future iPhone OS replace Google maps?
– Whats about the app’s that have been developed using Google Map’s through API’s?
26:58 – iPhone coming to Orange and Vodafone
– No tariff, price or dates yet
– Orange say they will be cheaper than O2, not sure if that’s handset or monthly tariff though
– Orange, which has had 65,000 reservations for the handset in just a couple of days, claims wider, faster 3G coverage than O2, with 93% of the population, compared with O2’s 80%.
– http://www.vodafone.com/start/media_relations/news/group_press_releases/2009/iphone_uk_ire.html
– http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/iphone-3gs
– Vodafone say early 2010 for them to start selling 3G and 3GS
– Virgin Media want iPhone too
30:44 – New iMac’s and Mini’s?
– New iMac’s and Mini’s all but confirmed?
– Further orders of iMacs and low cost Mini will go unhonoured
– Plus, new touch based mighty mouse???????
– http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/02/new-apple-bluetooth-keyboard-arrives-at-the-fcc-new-mouse-rumor/
– New keyboard and mouse
– Adverts released early point to new hardware
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/03/apple_ads_hint_at_thinner_imacs_lighter_macbooks_cheaper_mac_minis.html
– John Gruber bets on new keyboard/mouse showing alongside blu-ray imacs.
– http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/02/engadget-keyboards-mice
37:48 – Tablet and TV Rumours
– Will be announced on or before Jan 19th, released May-Jun 2010
– Currently a 10.7inch screen – 2 models, one with 3g, one without
– Display around 720p
– still has to receive final approval from Steve Jobs, something the source claims only has about an 80 percent chance of right now.
– Apple in discussions with print publications … oo-er – shak
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/30/apple_contacted_print_publications_about_tablet_report.html
– possible new use/reason for the Tablet
– apple reaching out to print publications about releasing content on iTunes
– Tablet been through several iterations and project reset by SJ while Apple decided how people would use the tablet – as we’ve discussed many times
– eventual goal – possibly hybrid content drawing from audio, video, interactive graphics – the next gen of print content??
– Apple TV Update – Rumour Alert!! – shak
– According to Boy Genius Report’s tipster thinks an updated Apple TV could be in development accompanied by a touch screen remote control.
– same tipster who correctly reported on iPhone homescreen organisation and social networking components in iTunes 9
– http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/09/29/apple-working-on-a-touchscreen-remote-for-upcoming-apple-tv/
45:50 – iPhone Appstore – 2 billion downloads
– 9 months to hit 1 billion – number of downloads accelerating
– Just over a year to deliver 1.5 billion, 76 days for the next 1/2 billion
– Issue now is discovery and breaking your app in the store – difficult
– http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-everything/
47:19 – Dropbox for iPhone
– Gives access to your Dropbox account
– Fast, can browse folders, open files, images, music, video
– Can fav files to access them offline
– Can share a file from the app – generate an e-mail to send to friends
– Take photo’s and video’s and store in dropbox
48:00 – PCalc Profanity Filter
– No more boobbies
– From TLA Systems and James Thomson, Glasgow based iphone developer
– believe it when you see it

Picks
Shakeel
Droplitz
– iPhone game
– Addictive, £0.59

Ian
Canabalt
– iPhone game – £1.79
– Based on flash game of same name
– Simple, stylish with great music – perfect

Chris
Xtranormal
– Make movies just by typing in a script. Virtual actors / scenes.
– Seen some great funny vids already.
– Save / share / upload to youtube.

Dropbox – online storage

Dropbox is a brilliant and extremely useful online storage service. Online storage services aren’t anything new and what makes Dropbox special is it’s ease of use, speed and how it seamlessly integrates with your host operating system.

Basic account registration is free and you get an instant 2GB storage. Invite your friends and every friend that joins earns you (and your friend) an extra 250MB up to a maximum of 3GB in addition to your initial 2GB.

Pro 50 account provides 50GB storage and costs $9.99 per month or $99 annually. Pro 100 account provides 100GB storage at a cost of $19.99 monthly or $199 annually.

The service can be used as a simple online storage tool via a web browser, to upload files from one computer and then access those files via a browser from another computer. But Dropbox is much more than that – it can be used to share files/folders with other people, keep your data synchronised between multiple computers and easily create online photo albums.

The best way to use it is to install it on your computer, where it seamlessly integrates with Finder/Explorer. Once installed, it can be used just like a regular folder and you can add sub-folders and files to it. When a file is added, it instantly starts to synchronise with the online service, freeing the user to carry on working on other tasks. This is a brilliant tool for users with multiple computers, who want to keep certain data files synched. Store such files in your Dropbox folder and you don’t have to concern yourself with uploading files from one computer and then downloading to another. It all happens automatically without any user intervention.

Files added to the special Public sub-folder can be shared with others – just right-click on the file, copy the public URL and send the link to whoever you want to share the file with.

If you’re working on a project, create a shared folder for storing documents and invite collaborators to share this folder. Uploaded changes are instantly visible to other project members. As soon as one collaborator modifies the contents of the shared folder, the changes are automatically pushed to other collaborators’ Dropbox folders instantly, brilliant! Accidentally deleted files can be easily recovered.

Another really nice feature is that any images added to the special Photos folder are automatically created in to simple photo albums, with public URLs available for sending to friends and families.

Have a look at the tour for full details and explanation of the service. There is also a screencast available which clearly shows all the major features.