DigitalOutbox Episode 407

Chris and Ian discuss CES and Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard

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Shownotes

DigitalOutbox Episode 38

DigitalOutbox Episode 38
In this episode the team discuss Windows Phone 7 Series, Google Buzz and ChatRoulette. Plumbing the depths.

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0:58 – Windows Phone 7 Series
– Brand new UI
– Fresh, fun, colourful, connected, customisable
– Different to everything else
– Zune HD is similar
– very little visual flair besides clean typography and transition animations
– I love it – makes iPhone look old (Ian’s comment by the way)
– I really like but do wonder about the battery life on something that active and connected
– dictating rigid specs for 7 Series devices (a specific CPU and speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button configuration)
– doing away with carrier or partner UI customizations such as Sense or TouchWiz
– Looks like they have started from scratch – great move
– The app’s are clean, stripped down, minimalist
– Zune intergrated for music and radio
– Xbox Live
– No games to demo but
– Will have games
– turn based games supported
– Friends list
– Messages
– Achievement points
– Avatars
– Dev opportunities mentioned in videos
– Social networking
– Status updates from friends across social networks
– Really nicely done
– Apps – old apps won’t work
– 6 months until this phone launches
– Outlook looks really nice!
– Serious competition to iPhone
– I’m using an old phone!
– Game on. Three way fight – Apple vs Google vs Microsoft
14:24 – Google Buzz
– Google Buzz is a grass
– Automatically shows your followers, even those ones auto created based on your e-mail habits
– http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-buzz-start-up-experience-based-on.html
– Will suggest followers rather than automatically creating them
– Will no longer auto connect to picasa and google reader shares
– Tab allowing you to show/not show buzz or disable completely
– Lots of Buzz users and improvements already
– Privacy issue – now more visible option to not show followers/people you follow on your public profile
– Ability to block anyone who starts following you
– More clarity on which of your followers/people you follow can appear on your public profile
– Noisy, can’t see easily whats new
– At least google are responding quickly to the privacy concerns
20:19 – New Google Products
– Google Goggles Translation
– http://mashable.com/2010/02/17/google-goggles-translation/
– At Mobile World Congress Google demo’d experimental Android visual search app that can translate the text in captured images.
– German – English only at the moment.
– Expected uses – street signs and menu items. So know when travelling in Germany with your Android phone, you’ll know exactly what kind of sausage you’re ordering.
– Chrome for Mac
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/bringing-extensions-to-google-chrome.html
– Now supports extensions in the beta release
– Also supports bookmarks sync
– Fast!
– Could replace Firefox as my cross platform browser
25:34 – BBC to release iPhone apps
– BBC have announced they will be developing smartphone apps to deliver it’s news and sport content
– Text, images, sound and video content.
– Not going down well with Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) – say it will cripple a developing market.
29:04 – Wired coming to iPad
– Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson announced at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference on Friday that the publication would be releasing its content for the iPad by summer.
– Readers can sift through the contents horizontally and when they find an article they want to read, touch and drag their finger on the first page vertically to browse through the pages up and down.
– They can also turn the device horizontally to take advantage of the automatically-rotating display to view two pages side by side like a magazine and zoom out to see thumbnails of the content all at once.
– The device allows for integrated media so readers can read a product review and touch a photo to jump into a video of the product. Advertisements can also be interactive. Clark touched a Camaro ad to flip it around 360 degrees.
– Will this be cheaper than paper?
– Despite all the Apple/Adobe hate, the app was created on Adobe Air and migrated to ipad with Adobe tools.
34:52 – Fisher Price iXL
– Starting ’em young. It’s tech for kids aged 3-6.
– When I were a lad we got the the fisher price radio or record player – if we were lucky. Kids these days don’t know they’re born with their kindle/iPad like things.
36:12 – Sony exist OLED Market
– Stops selling in Japan – still active in EU and USA
– 2 years after 11″ OLED it’s ow pulling out audio
– Is OLED really the future, long term at least?
– 11″ is still £3500
– LG – big screen OLED in 2012
– 7 years until they fall to todays LCD values
41:11 – PleaseRobMe
– Site aggregates public check-ins form foursquare and twitter that say they have left home
– Got a lot of press but they aren’t out to help robbers
– Trying to show dangers of sharing so much locational information online and how it could be abused
– i.e. service knows your home and knows you’ve left…not smart
– They’ve now removed the ability to search by location and username
43:31 – ChatRoulette
– All the bizarre of the internet in one place

Picks
Ian
Quix
– Extendable Bookmarklet
– http://quixapp.com/help/#basic-commands
– Works well in safari (cmd 1 to open) and in chrome and firefox with right extension – not so hot in IE
– Can extend it with your own commands

Chris
Baby Head Swap Images

DigitalOutbox Episode 23

DigitalOutbox Episode 23
In this episode the team discuss …not much really. However, new title music is fabby and our first listener review!

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Shownotes
1:59 – Intel In Trouble
– Further to a European ruling that fined Intel $1.5bn earlier this year, a further suit has been brought in US
– Centres around Intel paying manufacturers $m’s (some years $bn’s) to use Intel chips exclusively. Also, withdrawing funds from manufacturers seen to be collaborating “too closely” with chip competitors.
4:37 – Democracy Live
– New site from the BBC that lets you search, fnd and watch the debates that interest you
– It brings together for the first time in the BBC, live and on demand video coverage of proceedings in our national political institutions and the European Parliament
– Democracy Live gives you the ability to search for a specific word or words spoken in the proceedings and the results will give you links to the points in the video where they were spoken. The ability to home in on the passages which are of direct interest and relevance to you is at the heart of Democracy Live’s purpose. Our search is powered by a speech-to-text system built by two companies called Blinkx and Autonomy which create transcriptions of the words spoken in the video.
7:33 – iPlayer Omnipresence
– iPlayer is due to get a closed beta across Freesat. Starting late November.
– Uses the Ethernet cable standard for Freesat boxes.
– No word on when this beta opens up wider or a potential launch date but it’s great news.
– Freeview HD box specification also comes with an Ethernet port and will also feature the service in future.
– Now we just need Xbox360 to integrate.
11:11 – Skype Is Safe
– A long running story resolves itself. Skype owners, eBay, have confirmed that the issues surrounding the use of underlying technology have all been resolved.
– As widely expected, the original Skype founders, Joltid, now have a 14% share in Skype and this means Skype now own full rights to use the technology as they wish.
– The consortium buying a majority share of Skype from eBay can now go ahead and complete a deal.
15:23 – Orange iPhone Pricing
– Almost same as O2
– Unlimited internet…apart from the 750MB fair usage clause – nasty
19:53 – O2 Allows iPhone Unlocking
– O2 will allow customers to unlock their iPhones once Orange begins selling the iPhone on November 10th assuming your contract has finished
– When asked why O2’s 3G network was struggling, Key made these comments. “The O2 network has seen an 18-fold increase in data carried over the network in the last year and traffic continues to double every three months…”…”We are investing more than £30 million to address capacity issues in London alone between now and Christmas and I’m confident that we’ll see much improved levels of service as a result.”
23:35 – 100,000 Apps
– When it launched on July 10, 2008, Apple’s iTunes App Store held just 552 apps. Today, it boasts more than 100,000 in 21 categories (click on image below) that have been downloaded a total of “well over” two billion times.
– Is this a good thing?
26:31 – Apple TV Service?
– $30 a month
– All you can eat TV
– Pick the content you want, not just whats on
– Fully on demand
– New and old content available
– Not just Apple TV – through iTunes
– Worth it?
33:02 – Parallels 5
– win 7 compatible with AERO support and optimised for Snow Leopard
– £59.99 or £34.99 for upgrade (Free upgrade if you bought V4 after 1st October 2009)
– VMWare Fusion users can competitively upgrade for £34.99
– Some users reported problems with Version 4 when it was launched so might be worth waiting to see how V5 is received.
38:31 – Droid is Milestone?
– HSDPA 3G and……..
– Multi touch!
– Ships with 8GB SD, not 16GB as in US
– And no turn by turn navigation… (at launch)
41:34 – LG looks to OLED Future
– 20″ coming in 2010. 30″ 2011. 40″ 2012 – With huge prices attached – but by 2016 they’ll be in line with current LCD prices.
– Great news – shame it’s not sooner!

Picks
Shakeel
Comics
– comic reader for iPhone
– lots of free comics, but only seems to be first or so issues of a series, remaining issues paid for
– very nice transitions between cells
– Marvel comics available but currently only in USA

Ian
Secrets
– Find hidden Mac settings

Henry
Macheist
– 6 free Mac apps including Twitterific
– also – http://www.onefingerdiscount.com/
– 20% a range of software for 5 days

Chris
SwingVine
Machinarium