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DigitalOutbox Episode 92

DigitalOutbox Episode 92
In this episode the team discuss Newsbin Blocked, UK Copyright Laws Updated, Google Patent Issues, trouble for Nintendo and Sony handhelds and don’t mess with Duncan Bannatyne

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:42 – Police charge Scottish Teen over SOCA attack
– UK police have charged an 18-year-old with hacking the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s (Soca) website as part of an ongoing investigation into the infamous LulzSec and Anonymous hacktivist crews.
– Jake Davis, who allegedly used the online nickname Topiary and acted as a spokesman for the groups, will face five computer hacking charges at a hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.
– The rap sheet includes a charge related to participating in denial of service attacks that floored Soca’s website in June.
– Davis, who was arrested in the Shetland Islands last week, is the second person to be arrested over attacks on Soca’s website, following the arrest of Ryan Cleary, 19, of Wickford, Essex, last month. A 16-year-old teenager from South London was arrested and questioned by police around the same time as Cleary’s arrest and bailed to return in late August, pending further inquiries.
4:39 – BT Ordered to block links to Newzbin 2
– A High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies.
Newzbin 2 is a members-only site which aggregates a large amount of the illegally copied material found on Usenet discussion forums.
– The landmark case is the first time that an ISP has been ordered to block access to such a site. It paves the way for other sites to be blocked as part of a major crackdown on piracy.
– In his ruling, Mr Justice Arnold stated: “In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin 2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes.”
– He continued: “It knows that the users of Newzbin 2 include BT subscribers, and it knows those users use its service to receive infringing copies of copyright works made available to them by Newzbin 2.” BT and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which brought the case, will be back in court in October to work out how the blocking will work. BT said it will not appeal the ruling.
– Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed – which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse – to block Newzbin 2. In an email interview before the verdict, Newzbin 2 threatened to break BT’s filters.
– “We would be appalled if any group were to try to sabotage this technology as it helps to protect the innocent from highly offensive and illegal content,” said a spokesman for BT.
– The Internet Service Providers’ Association has been a fierce critic of web blocking. It said that using blocking technology designed to protect the public from images of child abuse, was inappropriate.
10:46 – UK Proposing changes to Copyright and Website Blocking Rules
– Plans to block websites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped by the government. Website blocking was one of the key provision contained in the Digital Economy Act. Internet Service Providers had objected to the idea that copyright owners could compel them to cut off some sites.
– Speaking to the BBC, Vince Cable appeared to suggest that the Newzbin2 case had opened up other legal avenues.”We’ve discovered that the drafting of the original laws, which took place a year or so ago, were not tight.
– The government’s decision to drop the DEA’s blocking provision was criticised by UK Music, the body which represents musicians and record labels in the UK. Its chief executive, Fergal Sharkey said: “Who wants to tell the 80% of music businesses that employ fewer than five people, and the thousands of artists who self-finance the production of their own albums, that to enjoy the protection of the law, all they need now is to have millions of pounds and spend years in court to protect their work.”
– Mr Cable also announced a raft of measures intended to update the UK’s copyright laws. The changes are based on the Hargreaves Review which was set up to examine current legislation’s fitness for purpose in the digital age. One of the most significant recommendations that the government plans to implement is the legalisation of “format shifting” – where users rip content from CDs or DVDs for their own personal use.
– “Bringing the laws more up-to-date to have a proper balance which allows consumers and businesses to operate more freely, but at the same time protect genuinely creative artists and penalise pirates.” The business secretary said the economy would benefit by £8bn over the next few years by updating the legislation.
– Millions of people regularly convert movies on DVDs and music on CDs into a format that they can move around more easily, although most do not realise that it is technically illegal. “The review pointed out that if you have a situation where 90% of your population is doing something, then it’s not really a very good law,” said Simon Levine, head of the intellectual property and technology group at DLA Piper.
– Legalising non-commercial copying for private use would bring the UK into line with many other nations and also meet the “reasonable expectations” of consumers, said the government.
– Could also include fair usage and re-use clauses so that fan fiction, remixes etc are now legal and can be published online without threat of takedown
16:21 – Smartphone Watershed in the UK
– for the first time, smartphone sales outstripped sales of regular mobiles in the first half of this year as the enormous demand continues to rise. Just over half of the total 13.6m mobile sales from January to June 2011 were smartphones, according to research by GfK Retail and Technology UK.
– Of the new generation of smartphone users, 60% of teenagers classed themselves as “highly addicted” to their device, compared to 37% of adults.
– “Our research into the use of smartphones, in particular, reveals how quickly people become reliant on new technology – to the point of feeling addicted. As more and more people acquire smartphones, they are becoming an essential tool in peoples’ social lives whether they are out with friends socialising or using Facebook on the move.”
– Facebook remains far and away the most popular website for mobile users, with users spending almost four times the amount of time socialising online than using Google or any other website. Unsurprisingly, multi-tasking teenagers said they were less likely to read books if they owned a smartphone. But they also said that owning a smartphone made them more likely to ditch games consoles like the PS3 and the computer, in favour of their pocket-sized handset.
– The huge boost in smartphone sales has led to a 67% increase in mobile data use as phone users watched videos and sent emails on the go. Mobile operators, such as O2 and Vodafone, have been put under huge strain by the new load. But Thickett said the carriers are coping with the enormous demand.
– Over half (51 per cent) of adults and two thirds (65 per cent) of teenagers say they have used their smartphone while socialising with others, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of adults and a third (34 per cent) of teenagers have used them during mealtimes and over a fifth (22 per cent) of adult and nearly half (47 per cent) of teenage smartphone users admitted using or answering their handset in the bathroom or toilet.
19:56 – BBC Launches Global iPlayer App
– The BBC is launching an international version of its on-demand video service, the iPlayer, for Apple iPad users.
– Customers who pay a monthly subscription will get access to a range of current and classic programmes. The app will have one feature not available in the UK – the ability to download content and watch offline.
– The project is being run BBC Worldwide– the corporation’s commercial arm – which said that money earned would help supplement licence-fee income. Initially, global iPlayer will be available in 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
– It will cost 6.99 euro per month (£6.14), with the option of an annual subscription priced at 49.99 euro (£44). According to BBC Worldwide, the international product will look and feel similar to the UK iPlayer, but function in a different way.
– Rather than a seven-day catch-up service, it will offer a showcase of BBC shows, old and new. Examples given include Fawlty towers, Only Fools and Horses, Sherlock and Doctor Who.
– It is possible that may provoke questions from viewers in the UK who do not have access to older shows.
21:14 – Amazon App Store – Rotten to the Core
– Amazon’s biggest feature by far, has been their Free App Of The Day promotion. Publicly their terms say that they pay developers 20% of the asking price of an app, even when they give it away free. To both consumers and naive developers alike, this seems like a big chance to make something rare in the Android world: real money. But here’s the dirty secret Amazon don’t want you to know, they don’t pay developers a single cent.
– Did the exposure count for much in the days afterwards? That’s also a big no, the day after saw a blip in sales, followed by things going back to exactly where we started, selling a few apps a day. In fact Amazon decided to rub salt in the wounds a little further by discounting our app to 99 cents for a few days after the free promotion. All we got was about 300 emails a day to answer over the space of a few weeks, that left us tired and burnt out. For all we know most of the people who wanted our application, now have it. To add insult to injury Pocket Casts relies on a server to parse podcast feeds (allowing instant updates on your phone), and all these new users forced us to buy more hardware just to meet demand. Hardware that we are going to have to support indefinitely at our own cost.
– But that’s not our only beef with Amazon:
Lengthy review times of anywhere up to 2 weeks (I’ve lost count of the amount of emails from people asking why our Google Market app is newer)
Amazon gets to set the price of your app to whatever they want, without any input from you, or even the chance to reject their price
Amazon re-writes your description, and in ours they even made up things like ‘add up to 100 podcasts’. No idea where on earth they got that number from
Amazon don’t provide error reports like Google do making it hard to fix errors
They don’t yet support Google’s new multiple APK initiative
Amazon pays far later than Google does, and to date we haven’t received any cheques from them, even though we are listed as being ‘payed’
US Only
Much less real-time sales information than Google
Update: (and this one surprised us) you can’t remove apps from their store! You have to ask them for permission via an email. Every other store lets you remove apps from sale.
28:09 – Trojan risk for Android phones
– A mobile application for Google’s Android smartphones can secretly record users’ phone calls and transmit them to malicious hackers,security researchers have found.
Once downloaded by a user, the app – which the researcher has not named, but seems to have a name relating to “System Messages” – surreptitiously stores a recording of the user’s incoming and outgoing calls to the phone’s memory card, according to the New York-based security experts CA Technologies.
– In a blog post unveiling the finding, researcher Dinesh Venkatesan said the so-called “Trojan app” is one of the most invasive they have ever uncovered. He also warned that there is an increasing trend targeting smartphones using Google’s Android software, which allows developers to submit apps with little vetting.
– Google had not returned requests for comment at the time of publication.
– Venkateskan wrote on the researcher’s official blog: “In one of our earlier blogs, we have demonstrated how a Trojan logs all the details of incoming/outgoing calls and call duration in a text file.
– “This Trojan is more advanced as it records the conversation itself in ‘amr’ format [which is optimised for recording speech]. Also it has many other malicious activities that we have seen in many of the earlier malware incidents targeted for Android platform.”
– The app, which was not named by the researchers for security reasons, asks users’ permission to intercept outgoing calls and record audio before it is installed. Once downloaded, all calls the user makes will be logged on the phone’s memory – which can potentially be accessed by the app’s makers. The sound is filed in a folder called shangzhou/callrecord, suggesting that its author is Chinese.
30:39 – Nortel Patent Argument Continues
– Remember the group of tech companies that bought the Nortel patents for $4.5 billion – Microsoft, Apple et all?
– Google is still smarting – In a post just put up on the main Google Blog, Google SVP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond takes shot after shot at Google’s competitors. By name, he calls out Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle. What’s this all about? What else? Patents.
– “I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on,” is the way Drummond kicks off his post. He goes on to lay out what he believes is a “hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.”
– While Drummond says that their rival’s “anti-competitive strategy” is driving up the price of patents on the market to insane levels, he believes the law will eventually prevail and “this patent bubble will pop”.
– “In this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it,” he notes, going on to say that the Department of Justice is currently looking into if Apple and Microsoft’s acquisition of the Nortel patents was for anti-competitive means.
– “We’re also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio. Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices — and fewer choices for their next phone,” is how the post ends.
– Typical Google – painting themselves as the white knight in amongst these big bad companies who are out to destroy, not innovate…yawn. Post also doesn’t mention that Google bid over $4 billion as well.
– A couple of hours later…“Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no,” Brad Smith, Microsoft General Counsel tweeted out in response.
– Just in case that wasn’t enough, Frank Shaw, Microsoft Head of Communications, followed up with the real heat-seeker. “Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. tweeted, referring to another Google SVP and General Counsel. Attached to that tweet was the picture of an email Walker apparently sent to Smith on October 28, 2010. It reads as follows:
Brad –
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you — I came down with a 24-hour bug on the way back from San Antonio. After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one. But I appreciate your flagging it, and we’re open to discussing other similar opportunities in the future.
I hope the rest of your travels go well, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
– Kent
– While it’s only one instance, this really does undercut Google’s entire argument. Google was attempting to set up a pattern of Microsoft teaming up with other Google rivals to damage them. But the first instance listed was actually the result of Google turning Microsoft down, as the email shows. That doesn’t not look good for Google.
– Love this – Google are pussies – http://brianshall.com/content/google-are-pussies
39:44 – Push Pop Press acquired…by Facebook
– Now we’re taking our publishing technology and everything we’ve learned and are setting off to help design the world’s largest book, Facebook.
– Although Facebook isn’t planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories. With millions of people publishing to Facebook each day, we think it’s going to be a great home for Push Pop Press.
– Al Gore’s Our Choice will remain available for purchase, and we’ve decided that our future profits from the book will be donated to The Climate Reality Project. There are no plans to continue publishing new titles or building out our publishing platform that was in private beta. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and expressed interest in Push Pop Press.
– Both Push Pop Press and Facebook share a passion for improving the way we share and explore ideas and we couldn’t be more excited about what the future holds.
– Good for them, sad for everyone else? Good talent acquire by Facebook but that future of digital publishing that worked so well for Our Choice and promised so much has now gone. However Mike Matas, lead at Push Pop Press, was part of the iPhone UI team at Apple. Rumours of Facebook phone still around and there’s no doubting hat Facebook UI as they move into HTML5 is in need of help.
42:49 – Vita in Europe…next year
– Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai has today been quoted as saying that the portable console will not be available in the US or Europe until “early next year.” Japan, he hastens to add, is still on track for the “holiday season” release window we’ve been hearing since the PlayStation Vita’s first announcement under the NGP moniker.
– So import if you want it this year looks to be only option
44:22 – Nintendo 3DS Price Drop
– Price to drop by around a third
– Trying to kickstart poor sales
– Additionally, Nintendo Europe plans to offer an exclusive Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Programme to consumers who have purchased the Nintendo 3DS at the original launch price.
– The programme will enable these Nintendo 3DS owners to download ten NES games and ten Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games for free.
– To register for this programme, Nintendo 3DS owners need to connect to the Nintendo eShop before the 12th of August. The free software will then be made available at a later stage.
– Currently, the machine has a recommended retail price of £269.99, which retailers have already eroded to a street price of £199.99 with a game bundled in. But from 12 August, presuming that retailers resist the urge to increase their margins on the 3DS, we can anticipate a new RRP of around £170 – equating to a street price of between £130 and £140.
– Why is it struggling – EA results – http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=594196
– iPad is fastest growing platform and consoles used to account for 80% of sales…now 40%
47:49 – EA launches Sports Season ticket
– $25 or 2000 points a year
– It will grant full access to digital versions of games three days before their retail launch, offer a 20-percent discount on DLC, and enable “free premium web content” and brand you as a paying customer (i.e. “membership recognition”).
– However…”The digitally downloaded game will time out when the game is available at retail and consumers have the option to purchase the same full game on disc at retail.” If we’re reading that correctly, it means you get to download the game three days early, but you still have to go to the store to actually buy it.
– What?
– 5 games supported – Madden NFL 12, along with NHL,FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR golf and NCAA Football
51:05 – Don’t Mess With Duncan Bannatyne
– The Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne has been forced to delete tweets after offering a £50,000 reward for anyone who broke the arms of a man who used Twitter to threaten his daughter.
– Someone going by the name of Yuri Vasilyev tweeted Bannatyne three days ago, saying: “I’m looking for a £35,000 investment to stop us hurting your Hollie Bannatyne. We will bring hurt and pain into your life. We are watching her. She is very attractive. Want photos?”
– After revealing that police had been informed of the threat, Bannatynetold his 371,653 Twitter followers: “I offer £25,000 reward for the capture of the coward who calls himself @YuriVasilyev_ Double if his arms are broken first.”
– Got lots of criticism on twitter
– The criticism appeared to bring about a change of heart, and Bannatyne deleted the offending tweets and amended his offer to “£30,000 reward for info leading to his arrest”.
However, he kept up the pressure, telling his followers he had tracked the alleged criminal to an internet cafe in Moscow.
– “@YuriVasilyev_ My people are getting closer to you every minute, run and hide you little coward in Moscow,” he tweeted. “Go home to your mum and cry we are closing in on you little boy.”

Picks
Henry
Tilt
– Still developing and updating… may have debugging purpose but really it just looks cool.

DigitalOutbox Episode 89

DigitalOutbox Episode 89
In this episode the team discuss Apple, Lulzsec and Google Search.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:24 – Apple loosens grip on subscription terms
– Apple has lifted the conditions on in-app pricing.
– Significantly, these have now been replaced by a term that says publishers can include content that consumers have paid for elsewhere. So if a newspaper subscribers has paid the paper directly for a year’s online and in-app access, then Apple won’t take a piece of that payment because it was processed outside the App Store. The same applies for services including Spotify, or Netflix.
– Previous terms had insisted that in-app subscriptions were to be the same price or cheaper than subscriptions elsewhere, and also that external subscriptions had to be made available within the app.
– It means publishers can choose whatever price point they like for subscriptions wherever they are, and won’t have to include what might be irrelevant external subscription offers in the Apple apps.
– Apple blinked
4:11 – Apple antes up in Lodsys developer lawsuits
– Apple has made its move in support of theseven small app developers sued by Lodsys over in-app purchases in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas on May 31, filing a motion to intervene in the proceedings on June 9 according toFOSSpatents’ Florian Mueller. If granted, Apple would be added to the Lodsys suit as a defendant and counterclaim plaintiff.
– Mueller believes that even though Lodsys may oppose Apple’s motion to intervene, the Mac maker is likely to be admitted as a defendant, in which case it has already submitted its answer to Lodsys’ complaint of infringement, and its counterclaim. Apple also cites a number of other precedent-setting similar cases where tech companies were allowed to intervene in patent disputes, which back up and strengthen its motion. If Apple joins as a defendant, Mueller thinks it’s very likely it will take on any legal costs incurred by its developer partners.
6:48 – iTunes in the Cloud not until 2012 for the UK
– The music storage part of the iCloud, due to launch in the US around September time, will not be coming to the UK until at least quarter one of 2012.
– A spokesman for the Performing Right Society (PRS), which ensures that composers, songwriters and music publishers are paid for their work, told The Telegraph, that negotiations with Apple about ensuring rights in the UK had started but were at a “very early stage”.
– “The licensing team at the PRS have started talks with Apple, but are a long way off from any deals being signed…It is very much the early stages of the negotiations and is similar to the launch of iTunes – which began in the US and took a while to roll out to other countries,” they said.
– A music executive at one of the major record labels, who wished to remain unnamed, said: “Tentative talks have begun between the major labels and Apple in the UK. However, all talks are at the really early stages and no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012.”
– Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, said: “Apple’s cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time… For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.”
– Quicky – Final Cut Pro X, Compressor 5 Motion 4 available on Mac App store from Tuesday 21st as well as 3TB Time Capsule and updated Airport Extreme
13:14 – Nokia and Apple Settle
– Nokia and Apple have agreed a technology licensing agreement that ends the long-running legal dispute between the two firms.
– “The agreement will result in settlement of all patent litigation between the companies,” Nokia said. Nokia sued Apple for patent infringements in 2009 and extended the action in December last year. Apple had countersued, accusing Nokia of infringing its patents.
– Nokia said Apple had agreed a one-off payment, the value of which was not disclosed, and ongoing royalties to use its technologies. Apple said the deal covered both companies’ patents.
15:30 – Google Search Updates
– Google Search on the Desktop
– We first offered speech recognition on mobile search, but you should have that power no matter where you are. You should never have to stop and ask yourself, “Can I speak for this?”—it should be ubiquitous and intuitive. So we’ve added speech recognition into search on desktop for Chrome users. If you’re using Chrome, you’ll start to see a little microphone in every Google search box.
– English only initially, beta version of Chrome soon
– Search by image
– Next to the microphone on images.google.com, you’ll also see a little camera for the new Search by Image feature. If you click the camera, you can upload any picture or plug in an image URL from the web and ask Google to figure out what it is. Try it out when digging through old vacation photos and trying to identify landmarks—the search [mountain path] probably isn’t going to tell you where you were, but computer vision may just do the trick. Search by Image is rolling out now globally in 40 languages. We’re also releasing Chrome and Firefox extensions that enable you to search any image on the web by right-clicking.
– Google Instant: Instant Pages
– Instant Pages can get the top search result ready in the background while you’re choosing which link to click, saving you yet another two to five seconds on typical searches. Let’s say you’re searching for information about the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, so you search for [dc folklife festival]. As you scan the results deciding which one to choose, Google is already prerendering the top search result for you. That way when you click, the page loads instantly.
– Next beta version of Chrome will have this feature
– It’s the borg!
– Sorry officer, I have no idea why my computer was downloading THAT page. 🙂
23:11 – iCann greenlights expansion of web domains
– Icann has decided to allow the number of internet “domains” to expand enormously in one of the biggest changes ever to the internet’s method of naming sites.
– New website suffixes should start appearing late in 2012 and could be categorised by subjects including industry, geography and ethnicity and include Arabic, Chinese and other scripts.
– A special meeting of Icann’s board approved a plan to expand the number of possible internet domain name endings from the current 22 – such as “.com”, “.org” and “.net” (which are separate of the country-specific domain endings such as “.uk”) – to allow domains “in any language or script”, according to Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive of Icann.
– Icann will receive applications for new domain names for 90 days from 12 January 2012. The fee is $185,000, and the form for application is 360 pages long. It will also begin an awareness campaign pointing out that it has introduced the new scheme.
26:08 – Mobile phone firms develop wave and pay system
– Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile announced plans on Thursday for a joint venture that would allow shoppers to pay for goods and services with their phones rather than cash or cards.
– Consumers will be able to pay for sandwiches, drinks and train tickets by placing their phones close to a reader similar to the Oyster card system on the London Underground. In the future the technology might even allow you to unlock your front door and start your car.
– Kevin Russell, chief executive of 3, the UK’s smallest operator, hit out at his larger rivals for leaving 3 out of the project. “We would want and expect to be a part at the heart of a cross-industry development like this and are more than a little concerned that, as a core competitor, we have not yet been invited to be part of this joint venture,” he said.
– Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere said the service would be open to all retailers, banks, ticketing companies, advertisers and other mobile companies, including 3, Tesco and Virgin Mobile.
– The trio said they would inject significant capital into the project and would each own one third of the equity. The service is expected to go live early next year, subject to regulatory clearance.
29:36 – O2 will not sell the Playbook
– Blackberry Playbook which launched on Jun 16th won’t be sold by O2 in the UK
– The telco emailed interested punters that RIM’s 7in, QNX OS-based slate will not be available after all, saying it had issues with the “end to end customer experience” offered by the gadget
31:17 – HP Touchpad Pricing and Launch
– HP wants £399 for the 16GB model, £479 for the 32GB version – exactly what Apple is asking for the equivalent iPads 2s.
– Both are driven by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and sport 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a 1.3Mp webcam too. 9.7” screen
– The 240 x 190 x 14mm gadget weighs 740g and ships in July.
32:16 – Sky Go Launches July 4th
– Sky Player and Sky Mobile TV, the two services for watching Sky away from your telly are being combined to form Sky Go — and it’s free to all Sky customers.
– Sky Player lets you watch Sky online, and Sky Mobile TV lets you watch on your phone. With the introduction of Sky Go there’ll be just one service for your phone, tablet, laptop and computer, which is free to all Sky subscribers.
– Sky Go will show live programmes and catch-up TV from across the board of Sky channels. That includes all five Sky Sports channels, ESPN, Sky News, Sky Movies, Sky News, Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts, MTV, Disney, GOLD, Nickelodeon, NatGeo, History, Eden and ESPN.
– On your computer or laptop you can choose from 30 channels to watch on the go. Tablets and smart phones are limited to slightly fewer stations, but can get all the Sky Sports channels, ESPN and Sky News. More channels will be added to the phone and tablet line-up over time.
– You can register two devices to watch Sky Go, whether it’s your laptop in bed or your phone on the bus. Sadly you won’t be able to watch when you’re on holiday, as rights issues prevent overseas streaming.
– Sky Player and Sky Sports on the iPhone were previously subscription options so great to have these free for Sky subscribers
– In August, Sky Go will become available to non-Sky TV customers for a monthly subscription price ranging from £15 to £40. Sky Player will remain available on Xbox Live and Freeview service Fetch TV, but will rebrand as just ‘Sky’.
35:46 – PR firm busted
– Redner Group stated:
– Too many went too far with their reviews…we are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom,” the company tweeted. “Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews…that’s completely different,” another tweet read.
– That was on companies official twitter feed…but has since been removed and an apology tweeted out as well
– Everyone kind of expects it…but still not good to see
– Currently, Duke Nukem Forever has a Metacritic score of 49 on the Xbox 360
40:26 – Dropbox Left User Accounts Unlocked for 4 Hours Sunday
– Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom could have logged into an account without the correct password. As a precaution, we ended all logged in sessions.
– We’re conducting a thorough investigation of related activity to understand whether any accounts were improperly accessed. If we identify any specific instances of unusual activity, we’ll immediately notify the account owner. If you’re concerned about any activity that has occurred in your account, you can contact us at support@dropbox.com.
– This should never have happened. We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again.
– If you were affected then you will have been e-mailed as review is complete
– Worried – check your event log – https://www.dropbox.com/events
– For those who are seeking a service similiar to Dropbox, but with more security, Wuala and SpiderOak encrypt data on users’ devices, not on a central server.
43:01 – WordPress.org Password reset
– Noticed suspicious commits to several popular plugins (AddThis, WPtouch, and W3 Total Cache) containing cleverly disguised backdoors. We determined the commits were not from the authors, rolled them back, pushed updates to the plugins, and shut down access to the plugin repository while we looked for anything else unsavory.
– To use the forums, trac, or commit to a plugin or theme, you’ll need to reset your password to a new one. (Same for bbPress.org and BuddyPress.org.)
44:25 – Lulzsec and Anonymous Declare Open War Against All Governments and Fat Cats
– Lulzsec and Anonymoushave just declared full open war against all governments, banks and big corporations in the world. They are calling all hackers in the world to unite. Their objective is to fully expose all corruption and dark secrets
– This is getting tiring…..and dangerous. Real change ala wikileaks is powerful but hacking user accounts and throwing them online for individuals to be damaged…is childish
– Trying to be characters like robin hood?
– Net may be closing in – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/21/lulzsec-hacker-group-who-belongs
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13859868 – 19 year old arrested in UK
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/22/ryan-cleary-charged-lulzsec-hacking
– Charged with 5 offences of computer hacking
51:05 – Microsoft launches Kinect SDK for Windows
– Embraces hacking community by launching official SDK for Kinect on Windows
– This will allow users to create games, UIs, and apps with Kinect’s 3D sensing technology including 3D scanning, audio tracking, and the creation of 3D wireframes in real time.
The three major features include, Raw sensor streams, Skeletal tracking, Advanced audio capabilities
52:41 – Popcap bought for $1 billion
– Huge news in the gaming world: PopCap Games, the company behind such hits as Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled, is in the process of being acquired — and we’re hearing from multiple sources that the price is over $1 billion.
54:29 – iOS Apps
– Bungie Mobile
– http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/14/bungie-releases-free-ios-app/
– Free app from Bungie
– Track your Halo stats
– Login with Bungie ID and enable blue flames!
– Discovr Apps and Music
– http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/14/discovr-launches-awesome-tool-to-find-and-discover-new-apps-think-interactive-graphs/
– Great apps for discovering new apps and music
– Graphically shows related apps or music, then details more on the app or artist
– Both £0.59 but very nicely written
– Order & Chaos
– http://toucharcade.com/2011/04/27/order-chaos-online-goes-worldwide-lets-take-over-the-arcadian-forest-server/
– Gameloft MMO – rip off of WOW
– Monthly sub but at the moment it’s £0.59 for 3 months gameplay
– Pretty amazing to have this running on iPhone/iPad
– Exfm
– Great music discovery app out today
– Get the chrome plugin to understand what it’s about
– Follow friends, industry leaders, music blogs etc
– Great way of finding new music
– Free!
59:02 – Lytro Light Field Cameras
– Introducing a light field camera this year
– Amazing demo – take a photo and in post you can change what is in focus
– Light field means capturing all the light moving in all the directions in the view of the camera
– A real step change in photography…
1:04:47 – Facebook – Spartan and iPad App
– Project Spartan is the codename for a new platform Facebook is on verge of launching. It’s entirely HTML5-based and the aim is to reach some 100 million users in a key place: mobile. More specifically, the initial target is both surprising and awesome: mobile Safari.
– Yes, Facebook is about to launch a mobile platform aimed squarely at working on the iPhone (and iPad). But it won’t be distributed through the App Store as a native application, it will be entirely HTML5-based and work in Safari. Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control (or mostly control).
– Facebook iPad app

Picks
Chris
SlideIT
– Android Keyboard. Like HTC sense.
– Drag your fingers over the keys rather than pressing individual ones. Magically your words appear. Clever stuff.
– Trial – or buy full versoin £3.99
Ian
Reeder for Mac
– Reeder for Mac – £5.99 from Mac App Store
– The best feed reader for Mac
– Great Google reader integration
– Fast and it looks great too

DigitalOutbox Episode 86

DigitalOutbox Episode 86
In this episode the team discuss Ryan Giggs suing Twitter, sleazy Facebook, Apple Malware and Sony woes.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:30 – Footballer Sues Twitter
– A footballer has launched legal action against Twitter after a number of the microblogging site’s users purported to reveal the name of the player who allegedly had an affair with model Imogen Thomas.
– The footballer’s legal team began the legal action at the high court in London on Wednesday, in what is thought to be the first action against the US social media firm and its users.
– The lawsuit lists the defendants as “Twitter Inc and persons unknown”. The latter are described as those “responsible for the publication of information on the Twitter accounts” in the court document, according to reports.
– Earlier this month, an unknown person or individuals published the names of various people who had allegedly taken out gagging orders to conceal sexual indiscretions on a Twitter account. The account rapidly attracted more than 100,000 followers.
– Twitter declined to comment.
– The lord chief justice, Lord Judge, on Friday said Twitter and its users were totally out of control when it comes to privacy injunctions and court orders.
– Thousands tweet player name on Friday and Saturday – everyone knows who it is
– Sunday Herald publishes a picture of player with his eye’s blacked out – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/22/scottish-newspaper-identifies-injuction-footballer
– They don’t publish story online – only in the actual paper
– “Today we identify the footballer whose name has been linked to a court superinjunction by thousands of postings on Twitter. Why? Because we believe it is unsustainable that the law can be used to prevent newspapers from publishing information that readers can access on the internet at the click of a mouse.
– “Because we believe it unfair that the law can not only be used to prevent the publication of information which may be in the public interest but also to prevent any mention of such a court order. The so-called superinjunction holds no legal force in Scotland where a separate court order is needed. We should point out immediately that we are not accusing the footballer of any misdeed. Whether the allegations against him are true or not has no relevance to this debate.”
– MP eventually reveals Gigg’s name in the House of Commons
8:46 – Patent Troll targets iOS Developers
– a Texas-based company called Lodsys said it has four patents relating to in-app purchases, interactive online ads, online help and subscription renewals.
– Instead of suing Apple or any of the big companies like EA, it’s chasing small indie developers
– One claim was served on Friday by hand on James Thomson, a Glasgow-based developer who wrote the apps PCalc and DragThing. Another who received the couriered legal package was Matt Braun, a developer based in Toledo, Ohio, author of the best-selling iPhone kids game MASH who runs a mobile app development company, Magnate Interactive. Patrick McCarron of MobileAge, based in Chicago, has also received a demand.
– Developers have raised this with Apple legal hoping for some assistance – they are leveraging tools and API’s delivered by Apple
– May 23rd – Apple respond to developers and Lodsys – we have licenced your patent, our app developers aren’t in violation – do one you trolls
13:26 – Apple Malware
– A fake security program for Apple computers called MACDefender has racked up a significant number of victims.
– Hundreds of people who installed the software have turned to Apple’s forums for help to remove it.
– The program’s tactic of peppering screens with pornographic pictures has made many keen to get rid of it.
– MACDefender seems to have been successful because of the work its creators did to make it appear high up in search results.
– Has to be downloaded and then users supply username and password to install
– Note – the vast majority of malware that Sophos and other security firms see is aimed at Windows users. About 100,000 novel malicious programs for Windows are detected every day, he said.
– Joel Esler of the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team, who hasanalysed the attack, told the Guardian that when users visit a page with an infected ad or link, the download – called “mac-antivirus.zip” – is started automatically by Javascript. Because Apple’s Safari defaults to a setting of “open files after download”, the program – which contains an application package wrapped in a zip archive – is first unzipped and then triggers the installer program.
Users are then presented with a dialog asking for their administrator name and password so the installation can proceed. If they do, the program installs itself in the /Applications folder and adds itself to the user’s login items, and puts a menu item in the top right of the menu.
– Apple eventually issues a support doc – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650
– Update to become available for OS X which will delete all instances of the malware and also warn against future downloads
– New version of malware released – doesn’t need admin password – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385?tag=mantle_skin;content
– Nothing to fear at the moment for Apple users but Apple can’t be complacent, which I don’t think they are being
19:50 – iPad Explosion
20:35 – Facebook Apps Leak User Information
– Symantec said that, until recently, Facebook apps have inadvertently been leaking user data to third-party developers. In response, Facebook said the problem has been fixed and that no unauthorized Facebook data was shared with third parties.
– In a blog post, Symantec’s Nishant Doshi said that third-parties, mostly advertisers, have “accidentally” had access to Facebook user information like profiles, photographs, and chat.
– “Fortunately, these third-parties may not have realized their ability to access this information,” Doshi wrote. “[But] we estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.”
– Facebook said it worked with Symantec to rectify the issue, but took issue with how it characterized the situation.
– “We’ve conducted a thorough investigation which revealed no evidence of this issue resulting in a user’s private information being shared with unauthorized third parties,” Facebook said in a statement. “In addition, this report ignores the contractual obligations of advertisers and developers which prohibit them from obtaining or sharing user information in a way that violates our policies.”
– At issue is the permissions-based app menu to which users must agree when installing an app. Facebook has been working to transition from a legacy Facebook authentication system and HTTP to the more secure OAuth 2.0. In the wake of the Symantec investigation, Facebook said Tuesday that it will require all sites and apps to migrate to OAuth 2.0 and obtain an SSL certificate by October 1.
22:57 – Facebook exposed in Google smear campaign
– It has been revealed that Facebook embarked on a smear campaign against rival Google.
– The social network has admitted that it hired a PR firm to plant anti-Google stories related to user privacy.
– The details came to light when one blogger approached by PR firm Burson-Marsteller published the e-mail exchange. Burson had been touting stories on behalf of an unnamed client about the Google service Social Circle. Blogger Chris Soghain did not want to pursue the story and later released the e-mails he had exchanged with Burson.
– When the e-mails were published there was a mass of rumours about who the client could be, with Microsoft and Apple in the frame.
– It was down to US-based news website, the Daily Beast to uncover that the client was in fact Facebook.
– Facebook has confirmed that it used Burson-Marsteller to expose things which Google was doing that “raised privacy concerns”. Burson told Mr Soghain, among others, that “the American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloguing and broadcasting every minute of every day – without their permission.”
– A Facebook spokesman later told the Daily Beast that it resented Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social networking service.
27:56 – Windows Phone 7.1
– 500 new features
– Says MS: “The smartphone experience can be complicated by a sea of disconnected apps and accounts.”
– Its solution: integrate as much as possible. But not too far – it doesn’t want to dissuage developers from writing software for the platform, of course. But don’t think ‘apps’ so much as ‘plug-ins’ as MS “sees the promise of apps in how they can be integrated directly into the core experiences of the phone”.
– This approach will be aided by Mango’s improved multitasking and the ability to present more live information in WinPho’s main-screen tiles.
– Expect too SMS, Facebook and IM chats to be merged into a single thread, and a single inbox for all your email accounts. MS promised “deeper social network integration” and the ability to group contacts into a single tile. Built in Facebook and Twitter
– The browser will be based around IE 9. Fast – on a speed reading test it was way faster than anything else demo’d
– Search far more powerful than seen before – smarter – best demo yet seen on a mobile deice?
– Free update this autumn – Nokia phone this year?
– Very quickly MS have caught up with features on iOS and Android…but they have neither market or mind share
31:21 – LTE UK Trial
– BT & Everything Everywhere staging LTE trial in Cornwall, England’s most southerly county, which will last from the 1st of September through to the end of December.
– Connection speeds could scale as high as 40Mbps, though the typical rate is expected to be closer to 10Mbps.
– Volunteers are now being sought to participate in the trial, though they have to reside (or be willing to move, we presume) in the pretty tiny 4G coverage area near Newquay
33:27 – Mobile Money arrives in the UK
– The mobile wallet has arrived in Britain, in the form of a Samsung phone and a joint venture between Barclaycard and Orange.
– UK is years behind many Asian and African countries
– On the Orange Barclaycard phones you will only be able to spend a maximum of £15 a time, so you’re unlikely to decide you can afford to leave your credit cards behind when you leave home in the morning.
– But other operators will follow Orange, and once NFC becomes a standard feature of new phones, it’s possible that mobile payments will become commonplace too.
36:43 – Google Wallet
– Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.
– Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You’ll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.
– Working with 15 major partners
– With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.
41:33 – YouTube Turns 6
– YouTube says global daily views have gone up 50 percent in thepast 12 months, which means they currently handle a whopping 3 billion views per day.
– Also worth noting: YouTube says it has exceeded over 48 hours of video uploaded to the site every single minute (which, they add, represents a 100 percent increase year over year).
42:45 – Sony gets PSN back online
– Download new firmware
– Reset password on signing in
– Gaming, Home, Video rental playpack and Qriocity back online
– Store will come later with…
– Welcome back pack
– All existing PlayStation Network members will be able to access the following from PlayStation Store*:
Two PS3 games from the following list:
LittleBigPlanet
Infamous*
Wipeout HD/Fury
Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty
Dead Nation*
– For those with PSP accounts, you will also be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list:
LittleBigPlanet PSP
ModNation PSP
Pursuit Force
Killzone Liberation*
– 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PS Plus subscribers*
– Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will be given 60 days free subscription.
– For existing Music Unlimited subscribers, you will be given 30 days free subscription.
– We are working on a Welcome Back offer in PlayStation Home and will share that when it is confirmed.
– EU Identity Theft Protection Programme
– http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/17/details-of-snee-scees-identity-theft-protection-programme/
– That said, we are pleased to advise that Affinion International Limited, a leader in identity protection products in Europe, will be offering a comprehensive service that covers a significant proportion of PSN users free of charge for the first 12 months.
Affinion International Limited will be offering the following identity theft protection service and insurance through their fraud protect programme for the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
The fraud protect proposition cover three key areas:*
Personal Information protection
Monitoring and Alerting Service
Personal Information Protection Software
Help / Assistance and guidance
Dedicated helpline
Victim of Fraud support
Financial Protection
Insurance that covers the expenses incurred in identity restoration following identity fraud
Card Monitoring and Alerting Service
– Just when you thought it was safe
– http://kotaku.com/5803070/sony-playstation-network-password-reset-page-exploited-customer-accounts-potentially-compromised
– Sony’s PlayStation Network password reset system-the one just put in place after the PSN hack-has been compromised, allowing hackers to change a PSN password if they know your email and date of birth. Exactly the sort of information that was released in the original hack.
– Sony has taken the password reset system offline.
– Fixed within 24 hours
– If you were affected you would receive an e-mail about the reset
– Announce massive loss too
– In the lead-up to its fiscal year 2010 earnings report this Thursday, Sony today released a revised forecast — forewarning a $3.2 billion loss (yowzah!) — for the twelve months ending March 31, 2011. Having occurred in late April, the PlayStation Network attack and subsequent data theft and outage fall outside of that period, but the company nonetheless addressed “the impact” of the event during an investors call today, “since there have been so many media inquiries about this incident.”
49:30 – Mobile Minecraft
– Hit game Minecraft is being developed for iOS and Android
– First platform will be Android, specifically Sony Ericsson’s PlayStation-certified Xperia Play.
– Xperia Play version will feature customized controls that utilize the phone’s PlayStation-styled slide-out buttons.
– Strange to launch on brand new platform against all the millions of other Android phones not to mention iOS
51:06 – BBC News hits Android
– BBC News App finally available for Android
– 6-8 months on from iOS release
– Ability to share a story via email, SMS or social networks
– If your phone is running Android 2.2 or higher, BBC News can also be live-streamed using Flash.
51:58 – Dell make thinnest 15 inch laptop
– Noted in passing: advert for the Dell XPS-15, containing the phrase
Finally, the power you crave in the thinnest 15″ PC on the planet*.
– Wow, the thinnest? But wait, what’s the asterisk?
– Small print time: “Based on Dell internal analysis as at February 2011. Based on a thickness comparison (front and rear measurements) of other 15″ laptop PCs manufactured by HP, Acer, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, MSI. No comparison made with Apple or other manufacturers not listed.”

Picks
Henry
Splashtop Remote
– Control your pc or mac from your iPad
– Fast and secure
Ian
Fantastical
– Easy to use Mac calendar
– Runs from your task bar
– Add events easily via natural language

DigitalOutbox Episode 80

DigitalOutbox Episode 80
In this episode the team discuss Twitter threatening dev’s, IE9, iPad 2 and bye bye to the Zune.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:06 – Twitter – Don’t compete with our apps
– Twitter has taken some time today in their developer forum to talk a bit about the state of the ecosystem and give some guidance.
– Platform lead Ryan Sarver notes that Twitter views a “consistent user experience” as very important to them. And it’s something they’re going to hold third-party developers to a very high standard to maintain. But they don’t want them to mimic Twitter’s own experience with their native apps in order to do this. They’ve updated the API Terms of Service to reflect all of this.
– “Developers have told us that they’d like more guidance from us about the best opportunities to build on Twitter. More specifically, developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience. The answer is no,” Sarver writes very matter-of-factly.
“If you are an existing developer of client apps, you can continue to serve your user base, but we will be holding you to high standards to ensure you do not violate users’ privacy, that you provide consistency in the user experience, and that you rigorously adhere to all areas of our Terms of Service. We have spoken with the major client applications in the Twitter ecosystem about these needs on an ongoing basis, and will continue to ensure a high bar is maintained,”
– So if your a developer what are Twitter happy with you developing:
– Publisher tools. Companies such as SocialFlow help publishers optimize how they use Twitter, leading to increased user engagement and the production of the right tweet at the right time.
– Curation, Realtime data signals, Social CRM, entreprise clients, and brand insights, Value-added content and vertical experiences.
– This hasn’t gone down well – Craig Hockenberry points out what Iconfactory’s Twitterrific brought to the Twitter platform – http://furbo.org/2011/03/11/twitterrific-firsts/ – First use of tweet, first use of bird icon, first native mac client, first char count, first to support replies and conversations (with help from Twitter engineering), first native iPhone client
– Twitter killed my app – http://aaron.vegh.ca/2011/03/twitter-killed-my-app/
– Some twitter stats to show you size (where’s identica?)
– http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/14/new-twitter-stats-140m-tweets-sent-per-day-460k-accounts-created-per-day/
– It took 3 years, 2 months and 1 day from the first Tweet to get to the billionth Tweet. In a given week, users send a billion Tweets. Users are now sending 140 million Tweets, on average, per day, up from 50 million Tweets sent per day, a year ago. The all-time high in terms of Tweets sent per day was 177 million sent on March 11, 2011.
– In terms of Tweets per second, the all time high was 6,939 Tweets per second after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day. This compares to the previous record of 456 Tweets per second when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009.
– Twitter says that 572,000 accounts were created on March 12, 2011, with 460,000 new accounts per day over the last month on average. Mobile users are up 182 percent over the past year. And Twitter currently has 400 employees, up from 8 in January 2008.
10:25 – ISPs to Provide Better Traffic Management Info
– BSkyB, BT, O2, TalkTalk, Three, Virgin Media and Vodafone have all agreed to provide better information on traffic management, which should help customers understand why connection speeds vary.
– While such information is already available in many cases, in order for consumers to have a better handle on the data, the indicators must be understandable, accessible, comparable and verifiable. The info will therefore be published in a ‘Key Fact Indicator’ table that summarises the practices in a standardised format. These will be available on the ISPs’ websites by the end of June.
– The tables can be accessed directly by the consumer, but also used by price comparison websites and the like to inform potential customers of the best options available to them.
– Antony Walker, head of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, which facilitated the move, reckons it “will not only help to ensure consumers are better informed about the services they buy and use, but will also provide a clearer picture for policy makers of the way in which traffic management is actually used in the UK market”.
14:00 – Facebook Comment Box Plugin
– Facebook updates it’s comments box plugin – comment via Facebook account or Yahoo
– Forces people to use real name – deter spamming?
– Improved moderation tools
– Can send comments to wall, get notifications when others comment – fine on low traffic sites – comment on Techcrunch though and boom – spam tastic
– No Google or Twitter sign in available but it was rumoured
– Facebook marches on
– http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook-comments
– Techcrunch – less quantity, better quality
– Less anonymity = less trolls
20:06 – Google – Hide sites directly in search
– Similar to Chrome plugin launched a few weeks ago
– Click on block site to remove site from your search results
– Saved to your Google account so follows you around
20:52 – Google Maps Navigation now routes around traffic
– Google Maps Navigation has added traffic re-routing to it’s Android app
– Will take account of current and historic traffic levels when calculating best route
– Free!
– Traffic data is crowd sourced from other users to try and work out best available route
24:00 – Adobe Launches Wallaby
– Wallaby, a system it is launching today to convert basic Flash files — such as animations and banner ads — into code that will work on iOS.
– an AIR program that allows you to drag and drop a Flash file into it, at which point the system analyzes the file and outputs a sequence of HTML-friendly files that produce the same effect. By using HTML, CSS and SVG, the company says most simple Flash files can be recreated in ways that will work on Apple mobile products.
– I spoke to Adobe’s Tom Barclay about the launch, who said that the project had a specific purpose — to make Apple’s Flash ban less painful for developers — but pointed out that it was still very much experimental.
“There’s still room for improvement, but I think we’ve addressed a very specific use case for banner ads on iOS,” he told me.
– While it can port over simple animations and transitions, there’s a lot of information that it can’t handle: notably ActionScript instructions (which are used to program inside Flash) don’t convert, although Barclay suggested that they may come into the picture further down the line. Similarly, some of Flash’s higher-end features — such as filters and blend modes — aren’t being ported through Wallaby yet. And it doesn’t convert audio and video because HTML5 has its own dedicated tags for those.
26:29 – Conde Nast UK invests in iPad publishing
– Wired UK will release monthly app editions for iPad starting with its May issue, with British GQ making its tablet debut on the App Store with its July issue. Meanwhile, Vogue UK is to receive more “special edition” iPad issues throughout the year.
– For now, the publisher is focusing on iPad and iPhone only, although its thoughts are turning to other devices such as the raft of Android tablets about to go on sale, and RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook.
– For now, the pricing model will remain one-off purchases, too. Apple’s recently introduced subscription billing system is also on Condé Nast’s agenda, but only if the terms are right, according to Read. “We’re in discussions with Apple in the US about how we might reach a subs arrangement that suits both sides.”
– The publisher will also launch 21 iPhone apps across seven of its magazine brands this year, including GQ, Glamour, Vogue and Wired.
29:52 – Apple Updates
– iOS 4.3
– iTunes 10.2.1
– Safari 5.0.4
– XCode 4 – Released – free for developers who pay $99 yearly or $4.99 on app store for non developers
– Benchmarks for iPad2 are very impressive – http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked
– Online backlog – 4-5 weeks now for delivery, physical stores sold out
– One More Thing
– Jon Bon Jovi
– Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it..
– God, it was a magical, magical time…I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’ Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.
38:54 – App Updates
– Flipboard – faster, instagram support
– Instapaper – faster, more social in that you can find liked reads from your twitter connections, can share to more places including Pinboard, can now search sync’d content – one of my fav apps just got better
41:14 – IE9 now released to mainstream
– Ars calling it the “most modern browser there is”
– Doesn’t work on anything before Vista.
– I’ve not had a chance to use yet. Speed graphs look good. Standards support looks much improved. Certainly a good thing. And with IE trying hard to now kill off IE6 – fingers crossed, those will move straight up to the latest version and save lots of development headaches!
44:09 – Kinect is record breaker
– Kinect officially fastest selling consumer electronic device ever… Guinness certified.
– “Fastest selling consumer electronics device in 60 days…”
45:38 – Zune Player is no more
– End of hardware. Software and service still live.

Picks
Chris
Droid@Screen
– Recently used to do my blog post on Android OS. It’s a desktop java app that can output your Android screen in a window! Fantastic! OK, you have to jump through a few hoops. You need to have the Android SDK and also the debug USB driver, but once that’s all up and running, you just load the .jar file and off you go.
– Used in conjunction with Camtasia/Jing you can then record the window.
– FPS is an issue – 30fps is fastest it offers and that’s not to say that you get 30 updates of the screen every second! It’s jerky at best but as a way of showing how Android works, I couldn’t find a better option out there at the moment.
– It’s also delightfully geeky!
Ian
Zite
– Magazine app for the iPad
– Displays content based on twitter followers, google reader and what you read as you use the app
– Like the front end, slower than Flipboard but not a dealbreaker

DigitalOutbox Episode 69

DigitalOutbox Episode 69
In this episode the team discuss Net Neutrality Threat, Don’t Joke on Twitter, Facebook Messaging and Kinect.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:59 – Google Rewards and Punishes
– Gives all employees $1000 extra bonus
– Also increases all salaries from 1st Jan by 10%
– And…
– “We’ve heard from your feedback on Googlegeist and other surveys that salary is more important to you than any other component of pay (i.e., bonus and equity),” the memo reads.
– “To address that, we’re moving a portion of your bonus into your base salary, so now it’s income you can count on, every time you get your paycheck… Thank you for all that you do, and for making Google a place where magic happens.”
– But they weren’t happy that the actual memo got leaked so….
– Within hours, Google notified its staff that it had terminated the leaker, several sources told CNNMoney. A Google spokesman declined to comment on the issue, or on the memo.
– Offer engineer $3.5 million to not join Facebook
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/google-offers-staff-engineer-3-5-million-to-turn-down-facebook-offer
– We’ve confirmed today that a staff engineer at Google being heavily romanced by Facebook was offered a jaw dropping $3.5 million in restricted stock by Google (this means Google is handing over stock worth $3.5 million based on its value today, and that stock will vest over time). He quite wisely accepted Google’s counter offer. Facebook lost this one.
– Also up to 30% increase for top execs
– Stories that Google may be planning “G-Town” – A town for Google employees to live, work and play! OMG. We said that Google had the cash of a small country… now they might have the infrastructure.
5:24 – End of Net Neutrality?
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11773574
– http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4475-government-rocks-the-net-neutrality-boat-by-avoiding-regulation.html
– Culture minister Ed Vaizey has backed a “two-speed” internet, letting service providers charge content makers and customers for “fast lane” access.
– It paves the way for an end to “net neutrality” – with heavy bandwidth users like Google and the BBC likely to face a bill for the pipes they use.
– Ditching net neutrality could lead to websites paying ISPs to ensure their content gets priority.
– Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are supposed to treat all web traffic equally – serving only as a one-size-fits-all pipe for whatever data is passing from content providers to end users.
– But some traffic management, where traffic from one source is favoured over another, is likely to be allowed, with a ruling due next year, Mr Vaizey suggests.
– In his speech, he argues that the continued quality of internet services in the UK is under threat due to the rapid expansion of mobile and wireless networks and the “massive investment” it needed.
– As a result, ISPs had to be free to experiment with new ways of raising revenue – provided customers were clear about what they were buying.
10:52 – Stop the Broadband Con
– http://www.virginmedia.com/information/richard-branson-broadband-honesty.php
– Why are services advertised as up to 20 or 24mb when average speed is just 6.5Mb – The average download speed received for ‘up to’ 20/24Mb DSL packages was 6.5Mb according to Ofcom’s 2010 UK broadband speeds report
– Virgin Media is already delivering the fastest broadband in the UK and it’s prepared to be open about the exact broadband speeds it delivers. It’s the first ISP in the UK to publish the typical real world speeds its customers receive each month.
– They want other ISP’s to sign up to this campaign
– Virgins typical speeds for October – http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/about-virgin-broadband/speed-matters.html?buspart=6469
13:47 – HM Government EMail
– Response to petition regards not disconnecting file-sharers.
“It is clear that online copyright infringement inflicts considerable damage on the UK’s creative economy including music, TV and film, games, sports and software. Industry estimates place this harm at £400m pa.
– The Digital Economy Act includes a number of measures to tackle the problem and we expect these to be successful in significantly reducing online copyright infringement. However this is an area of rapid technological change and developing consumer behaviour. The Act therefore includes a reserve power to introduce further “technical” measures if the initial measures do not succeed. These technical measures would limit or restrict an infringers’ access to the internet. They do not include disconnection.”
– Loving the subject of another email this week – from Adobe
– “Why explore new Acrobat X? It’s magic.”
16:34 – Facebook Messaging
– “This is not an email killer. This is a messaging experience that includes email as one part of it,” Zuckerberg said. It’s all about making communication simpler. “This is the way that the future should work,” he continued.
– To do that, Facebook has created three key things: Seamless messaging, conversation history, and a social inbox. Essentially, they’ve created a way to communicate no matter what format you want to use: email, chat, SMS — they’re all included. “People should share however they want to share,” engineer Andrew Bosworth said.
– All of this messaging is kept in a single social inbox. And all of your conversation history with people is kept.
– Alongside the product on Facebook.com, this is going to work on their mobile applications as well. An updated iPhone app is launching shortly. It’s important that you can keep messages going while you’re on the go, Bosworth noted.
– But you don’t need an app. It’s important to note that this can work with SMS too.
– And yes, everyone can get an @facebook.com email address if they want. But they don’t need to get one — you can use any email address. And yes, IMAP support is coming soon too (but not just yet)
– This messaging system will be rolling out pretty slowly over the period over the next few months, Zuckerberg said.
– He said that 15 engineers have worked on this product — remarkably, this is the most that have ever worked on a single Facebook project.
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_integrates_microsoft_office_web_apps_into.php
– Also be able to view office attachments without leaving Facebook using MS Office Web apps
23:09 – Twitter joke trial: Paul Chambers loses appeal against conviction
– The man convicted of “menace” for threatening to blow up an airport in a Twitter joke has lost his appeal.
– Paul Chambers, a 27-year-old accountant whose online courtship with another user of the microblogging site led to the “foolish prank”, had hoped that a crown court would dismiss his conviction and £1,000 fine without a full hearing
– But Judge Jacqueline Davies instead handed down a devastating finding at Doncaster which dismissed Chambers’s appeal on every count. After reading out his comment from the site – “Crap! 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!!” – she found that it contained menace and Chambers must have known that it might be taken seriously.
– He was also saddled with a legal bill three times higher than his original £384 with £600 costs, as the court ordered him to pay a further £2,000 legal bill for the latest proceedings.
– Stephen Fry offers to pay for fine
– Twitter campaign to raise funds for appeal
– I Am Spartacus
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/12/iamspartacus-campaign-twitter-airport?CMP=twt_gu
– Twitter users angered by the conviction of a man who threatened to blow up an airport in a Twitter joke showed support for him in their thousands today, thumbing their noses at the law by republishing the words that landed him in trouble.
– Under the hashtag #IAmSpartacus – a reference to the film in which Spartacus’s fellow gladiators show their solidarity with him by each proclaiming “I am Spartacus” – thousands of people have copied Chambers’s original message.
– As a result of the show of support for him, #IAmSpartacus was the most popular worldwide subject being referred to on Twitter at the time of writing.
– Even Daily Mail think it’s absurb – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330049/Paul-Chambers-Twitter-bomb-joke-trial-thats-blown-justice-bits.html
– But as Paul said this morning – “Support from The Daily Mail is like kissing your sister. Essentially it’s the same, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
27:29 – Tory councillor arrested over Alibhai-Brown Stoning Tweet
– Police in Birmingham today arrested a Conservative city councillor who sent a Twitter message saying that the newspaper columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown should be stoned to death.
– Alibhai-Brown said last night she would report Gareth Compton, a councillor for the Erdington district, to police following the tweet
– The Conservative party said Compton had been suspended indefinitely over the alleged tweet.
– The message – now apparently deleted – said: “Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.”
– Alibhai-Brown, who writes columns for the Independent and the London Evening Standard, said last night she regarded his comments as incitement to murder. She told the Guardian: “It’s really upsetting. My teenage daughter is really upset too. It’s really scared us.
– “You just don’t do this. I have a lot of threats on my life. It’s incitement. I’m going to the police – I want them to know that a law’s been broken.” She added that she regarded Compton’s remarks as racially motivated because he mentioned stoning.
30:13 – Twitter and Ping
– Like a track in iTunes Ping and it will auto tweet for you
– Set it up and it defaults to tweeting everything you like (can be changed)
– Click on link on Twitter and in side panel track is listed and can be previewed – click again to buy in iTunes
– Awful – nothing about social, like last.fm, and all about commerce
– Noise in my twitter stream
– Don’t cross the streams!!!
32:13 – Google TV Being Blocked
– Fox has finally made a decision, following the other major networks, Hulu and several cable channels by opting to block streaming video on its website from Google TV devices
– Blocking by Flash ID is the order of the day and takes simple browser workarounds out of play, so unless users want to go the PlayOn route, there’s large swaths of legitimate video on the web that’s now inaccessible. This same type of blocking is likely to affect other devices like the Boxee Box
– It’s the old empire logic again. Even though you can view the content online, because this is being delivered on a TV, it MUST BE STOPPED…. we’ll see more of this as the lines blur between tech.
35:06 – Beatles on iTunes
– Finally Beatles available on iTunes
– Great, just….
– In some cases double the price of cd’s that can be bought online and shipped to you by couriers – physical media!!!
– or that Apple grossly over hyped the event as contractually they probably had too
– “Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget. Check back here tomorrow for an exciting announcement from iTunes.”
– Ringo Starr added: “I’m particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes.”
– They do have exclusive digital rights that extends into 2011…and they’ve made some adverts for it so they think it’s a big deal
– Steve thinks he’s the fifth Beatle
38:11 – Google Voice App Finally hits App Store
– US only and it only took a year or so
– This is Apple saying sorry for all the Beatles shit.
39:13 – Gingerbread will have NFC
– Near Field Communication will be in next Android release
– New Android phones will have a chip that let you tap your phone against special sensors to complete an action
– Payments – hook up credit card to phone
– Location – sign in
– This was a rumoured feature of next iPhone – Google look to be beating Apple
– Coming…within a few weeks
– Also, Schmidt Schmidt has finally made it clear what differentiates Google’s Android OS from the soon-to-be-released Chrome OS: keyboards.
– That’s a rather simplified expression of the bigger picture, but ultimately, Google sees Chrome OS as the operating system for traditional computers, such as PCs, netbooks and laptops, which may include touch interfaces but always include keyboards; and the company sees Android as an operating system best suited to mobile devices, which may include keyboards but almost always include touch interfaces.
– Chrome OS – next few months for release (rumoured to be November)
43:33 – Edit Google Docs on your Mobile Device
– Google now rolling out editing of docs on your iOS (version 3.0+) and Android with Froyo (version 2.2) devices over next few days
– Great for iPad users
– Works for docs and spreadsheets
44:23 – GT5 Release Date
– Finally announced – Wed November 24th
– Will have…1000 cars
– Lots of tracks and modes
– 800 “standard” cars and 200 “premium” cars (premium cars have deformation, standard, just get scratched)
46:57 – COD Black Ops Breaks Records
– $360 million revenue in…..24 HOURS
– Avatar – $232 million in its opening weekend
– UK – £58 million day one sales ($93.5 million) – 1.4 million units
– $650 million in five days – first patch now out

Picks
Chris
Kinect
– I weakened like Ian at an Apple store.
– For all the jibing it has solicited, I love it.
– Of course early days. Honeymoon period, but this turns an xbox into something else. I know it’s not for all, but it’s like getting a new console. The games even come in a purple box rather than green.
– Played multiplayer yesterday, and it’s all good.
– Technology is impressive. It works. It does track behind, but this doesn’t really affect as the games don’t require pixel perfect precision.
– It does indeed need a lot of room. For 2 player, the start of the play area is about 6ft and the back of the play area is about 12ft. Need 6ft sideways as well.
– It costs. Sure. But it will come down in price. I also have confidence that it will have its killer game next year some point.
– Already 1m units sold. I am not alone.

Ian
Boxcar for iPhone
– Notification app for iOS
– Instant push notifications for your social networks, email accounts, RSS feeds and more.
– Receive super fast notifications when someone comments, updates or messages you.
– Buzz, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, Growl
– Track when someone else tweets

DigitalOutbox Episode 68

DigitalOutbox Episode 68
In this episode the team discuss Kinect, Virgin, Digital Britain, RockMelt and Sheep Wars.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
2:27 – Times Paywall Fail
– Persuaded 50,000 people to pay for The times
– Analysts estimated that the initial annual revenues generated from digital would be about £5m.
– The Times charges £2 a week – the “paywall” – for access to its digital content, after customers pay an inital £1 for a 30-day trial. Customers can also pay £9.99 a month to sign up to a dedicated edition for the Apple iPad, although only about 10,000 chose to pay for this version only.
– All we know is that “around half” of the total are monthly subscribers. They will be composed of people taking advantage of News International’s 30-day £1 introductory offer to the website itself and people who have paid £9.99 for The Times’s iPad app.
Similarly, that comment in News Int’s statement about “many” of “the early adopters” living in the UK does not give a geographical breakdown. How many of the total come from inside and outside Britain?
– It is no surprise that they are “relatively affluent”, of course. That message is clearly aimed at advertisers. But ad agencies will surely want to know the British audience numbers.
Most importantly, there is no clear breakdown of the 105,000 total figure to show how many people have subscribed monthly, weekly or daily.
– They did have a figure of 30 million impressions at one point – nothing like that now
– None of their content is shared either – nothing can go viral
6:31 – SkyFire
– SkyFire can convert Flash videos — which the iPhone normally cannot display — into HTML5 on SkyFire’s servers, making it possible to view said videos on the iPhone after a short delay
– Browser approved by apple, selling for $2.99 or £1.79 in proper money
– Needs fast connection, doesn’t always work, wont work with games and is blocked by Hulu
– Hours after launch it was pulled from the App Store
– Not by Apple….by developers due to overwhelming demand
– Stunt? It worked – $1 million in revenue i first weekend
8:11 – Virgin announce TiVo Boxes
– Virgin Media has revealed the first details about its new TiVo-powered set top boxes, including a massive 1 Terabyte of storage and web applications for the TV screen.
– Later in the year, the cable operator will launch the new platform, along with a TiVo-powered set top box capable of storing 500 hours of programming.
– When coupled with Virgin Media’s existing video on-demand service, the receiver will give users access to more than 4,600 hours of TV shows, movies and music videos, including HD and 3D content.
– Underpinned by Virgin Media’s fibre optic broadband network, the new box will also feature a dedicated internal modem for delivering bandwidth-heavy services without impacting the user’s main broadband connection.
– That also means the TiVo service will bring a wide range of internet services and digital applications to the television screen.
– No specific details were given on the apps, but it’s likely that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will be available, along with other digital services.
14:17 – XMarks Saved
– Free and premium options
14:53 – Google Get Knuckles Wrapped
– no punishment though
– Google has also been ordered to delete the data it collected from users’ Wi-Fi networks by its Street View cars once legally cleared to do so. The culture minister, Ed Vaizey, last week announced the Metropolitan police had dropped its investigation into the breaches.
– He added that the technology giant would now be subject to an official audit of its data protection practices in the UK.
15:37 – Skype 5 Hits the Mac
– New UI
– Integrates with address book
– Group video chat
17:19 – Ministry of Sound Suspend File Sharing Action
– Ministry of Sound is suspending plans to send warning notices to more than 25,000 BT broadband customers suspected of illegal downloading, claiming that the internet service provider has deleted their details.
– BT had agreed to retain the personal details of 20,000 of its customers earlier this year, so that Ministry of Sound could pursue them once an injunction on the court order was lifted. However, the record label today said that BT had “failed to preserve” the details.
– A BT spokesman responded: “We’re surprised at this claim since we provided a similar number of customer details to comply with a court order earlier this year for Ministry of Sound and there was no suggestion then that this was a problem for them.
– “All such information is automatically deleted from our systems after 90 days in accordance with our data retention policy; the Ministry of Sound and its solicitors are well aware of this. Upon request from Ministry of Sound we saved as much of the specific data sought as we reasonably could and any not preserved must have been too old. Our door remains open to Ministry of Sound and any other rights holder who wants to enforce their rights in a fair way through an established legal process.”
21:10 – Queen joins Facebook
– First Youtube, then Twitter, then Flickr now Facebook
– Not an individual account but an official page
22:36 – Sheep wars…
– Blacksheep is a firefox addon that scans open networks for Firesheep snoopers and alerts the user.
– Available for download on the Zscaler website (http://www.zscaler.com/blacksheep.html)
24:56 – RockMelt
– Social browser that lives in the cloud
– Built on Chromium it uses Facebook to authenticate and sign in
– See friends on left hand side of browser
– Can easily post content to them, chat, mail etc from browser
– Bookmarks on right hand side alongside tweets but these are favourite sites whch ping you when new content is added
– All stored on cloud – same browser experience wherever you login to browser
– Isn’t this Flock 2.0?
– Limited beta for the moment
32:34 – Kinect Launches
– The Kinect is out in shops. £130
– And the amazing thing? That the first reviews are almost universal in saying that it’s an impressive piece of tech.
– Other than a couple of howlers, most launch games are around the 7 mark.
– You can’t ignore the fact that all reviews say there are some glitches along the way and that you need a good amount of space to use but most are convinced that this is a game changer (not for your average gamer – but for casual).
– Finally, all reviews are looking forward to the defining games for the tech which will no doubt come next year…
– I’m tempted…
– Oh’ and there’s a bounty out for people to hack and get working on PC – looks like someones already managed it at rudimentary level.
38:39 – Dev Builds Bot to Buy Cheap Stuff Online
– Started with a strip from xkcd – http://xkcd.com/576/
– Hunkin wrote a Python script that would scrape certain categories on the site for cheap, buy-now items with free shipping. The script is optimized to search for rare, esoteric items, as well. The bot gets $1 added to its savings every day, and all purchases are deducted from the savings.
– Not only does the bot buy these treasures on Hunkin’s behalf; it also shares its finds with the world via Twitter: – http://twitter.com/#!/trademe_xkcd576
– If the bot doesn’t find any items that meet its parameters, it simply tweets that it’s putting its dollar into savings.

Picks
Ian
COD Black Ops
– Great update
– Multiplayer is good
– Single player more of the same, with some pretty controversial scenes

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 63

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

Playback
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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.

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.