DigitalOutbox Episode 74

DigitalOutbox Episode 74
In this episode the team discuss Apple and Steve Jobs, Google and Eric Schmidt, UK Gaming news and Rim.Jobs

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
1:13 – Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave
– Team,
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.
I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.
Steve
– Perfect timing – take leave on a holiday, earnings results on the Tuesday
– Apple in safe hands though as proven over last few years
– Shares drop 5% on Tuesday
3:30 – Apple Quarterly Results
– Apple: $26.74bn revenue, $6bn profit, 4.1m Macs (+23%), 16.2m iPhones (+86%), 7.3m iPads, 19.45m iPods (-7%).
– Best Mac quarter but analysts expected more due to Air
– Best quarter ever for iPhone
– Lots of Touches sold – more than half of all iPods, 27% growth
– iPad popular 🙂 Total iPads sold since April – 14.8m
– Mac revenues were 20% of Apple’s total. iOS were 75% (13% iPod, 5% other music, 39% iPhone, 17% iPad), with peripherals at 2% and sw/ 3%
5:47 – Google Quarterly Results
– Google has once again posted optimistic growth this quarter boasting $8.44 billion in revenue, and increase of 26% compared to fourth quarter of 2009 in which revenue was $6.67 billion.
– Google also announced that co-founder Larry Page will be replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO of the company. This transition will take place on April 4, Google says.
Schmidt will take the role of “Executive Chairman” and will focus on “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership,” the company says. He will also continue to act as an advisor to Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin.
– Speaking of Brin, he’ll be working on “strategic projects, in particular working on new products,” the company says. His title will remain “co-founder”. So it sounds like no big change there.
– Perceived loss of edge at Google – lost out on a few deals recently, Facebook seen as the big new shiny – reason for change?
9:00 – Google Clarifies h.264 Stance
– It’s all about HTML5 – nobody will ever agree that H.264 will be baseline codec, hence their decision to drop H.264 and push on now with WebM – short term pain for long term pain
– What this means is that Flash (or Silverlight) is required to playback H.264
– Google will also supply plugins via WebM project team for Safari and IE9
– They will also be re-encoding all YouTube videos to WebM
– Who wins? Flash. Way to go.
– http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2011/01/video-debate-cutting-to-the-chase.html
– Crazy post from John Dowdell
– Safari is non standard and is doesn’t allow extendability via plugins?
– But then a draft for HTML5 does say that browsers need to support plugins
11:59 – Instant Pop
– Sony & Universal to makes songs instantly available
– David Joseph, the chief executive of Universal Music, said: “Wait is not a word in the vocabulary of the current generation. It’s out of date to think that you can build up demand for a song by playing it for several weeks on radio in advance.”
– Songs used to receive up to six weeks radio airplay before they were released for sale – a practice known as “setting up” a record. But the success of selling the winner’s single immediately after the X Factor final has made record bosses think again.
– Google and YouTube searches were peaking 2 weeks after songs started airing
– Also demonstrating to government that they are willing to change in face of piracy
14:46 – Amazon buys LoveFilm
– Amazon today took full control of DVD rental and online video company Lovefilm, in a deal to buy the 58% of the business that it does not already own for an undisclosed sum.
– Lovefilm remains a leading player in DVD rentals since launching in the UK in 2004, and has 1.4 million subscribers across Europe. The company tripled its sales in 2009 to almost £100m, and in March last year launched its digital streaming service, enabling viewers to rent and watch movies over the internet.
– Within the past 12 months, Lovefilm has stepped up its movie streaming business, while leaving its physical DVD rental service to continue its growth. In 2009, Lovefilm declared that online was now its “primary” business – despite online rentals representing a 10th of DVD and Blu-ray rentals.
– Lovefilm customers can now also stream films over a number of internet-connected living room devices, including Sony and Samsung TV sets, and the PS3 games console.
17:00 – Cheap PC’s to reduce digital divide
– Race Online 2012, which aims to “make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web”, estimates that of the more than nine million adults in the UK who are currently not online, four million are socially and economically disadvantaged.
– The cheap computers will run open-source software, such as Linux, and will include a flat-screen monitor, keyboard, mouse, warranty, dedicated telephone helpline and delivery. Prices will start at £98 for a refurbished PC.
– The packages will be sold through 60 UK online centres which offer IT training and Remploy, an organisation that specialises in helping disabled and disadvantaged people find work and which runs the computer recycling scheme e-cycle.
– Race Online 2012 has also negotiated cheap internet packages using a mobile dongle, costing £9 a month or £18 for three months, to help people access the web.
– The 12-month trial is part of the Race Online 2012 scheme, which aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults in the UK who are currently offline.
– Distributor Remploy hopes to sell 8,000 machines in the next 12 months.
19:09 – iPlayer Growth
– BBC’s iPlayer clocked in a record 145m programme requests in December 2010.
– That total is up 27 per cent on December 2009’s total, but only just under three per cent on November 2010’s total of 141m requests.
– Interestingly, requests TV programmes hit just 89.7m, showing that almost 40 per cent of requests – 83.1m – were for radio shows. The internet is perfect for radio, which is far less bandwidth-sensitive than the telly stuff.
– The BBC said Virgin Media viewers asked for 23.9m programmes to be played back. PlayStation 3 owners made a further 7m requests
21:56 – XBMC on iOS Devices
– Full XBMC for these iOS devices – not remotes – the full thing
– Need to jailbreak device but…
– Apple TV2
– Full XBMC install, this is not a remote or thin client streamer.
– No longer is your AppleTV2 chained to iTunes.
– Who wants transcoded video anyway?
– Share files on your network your way.
– Full hardware decode for 720p/1080p movies.
– Everything else you know and love about XBMC.
– iPad/iPhone
– You guessed it, this is full-blown XBMC. Not a remote.
– Launch XBMC like any other app.
– Drag and drop media from your computer, or share it on your home-network
– Also fully hardware accelerated for most formats.
– Works on iPhone4, though it’s currently frustrating to use.
– Challenge: Who will be the first to create a gesture-driven skin?
– Video demo -http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/20/xbmc-comes-to-the-new-apple-tv/
24:30 – 10 Billion Downloads
– App Store is about to hit 10 billion downloads
– If you download the 10 billionth you win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card
– Handy for the Mac App Store 😉
25:57 – OneNote hits iOS
– Onenote
– Makes sense
– America only at the moment
– App is free but for limited time
– Text audio and picture notes
– Sync with Windows Live Skydrive
– Where’s the iPad version?
– Many get (including me) a login error – MS says it’s due to high demand – just keep trying or download Evernote.
27:52 – Games Sales Slip in 2010
– Games market in 2010 was worth £2.88bn – a significant drop from the £3.31bn recorded in 2009.
– Console consumption was on the up, though, with growth for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Sony and Microsoft combined shifted 2.3m units. The Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 in 2010, just, with sales of £232m to Sony’s £229m.
– In total, UK consumers bought 63m console and PC games – more than one for every man, woman and child in the country.
30:35 – Nintendo 3DS Release Date and Prices Announced
– March 18th or 25th
– RRP seems to be £249
– Games – £30
– Super Streetfighter iV and Pilotwings – look really good but not enough to buy
– Also does 3dtv – http://www.digitaltveurope.net/news_articles/jan_11/20_jan_11/eurosport_and_bskyb_to_provide_3d_tv_to_nintendo_3ds
– Nintendo has struck deals with a number of partners to deliver video content, including a two-year, pan-European deal with Eurosport, and a deal with Aardman Animations who will provide a series of original Shaun the Sheep short movies in 3D. It has also stuck a UK-only deal with Sky, who will deliver 3D content from its new Sky 3D channel, which is likely to include sports events.
32:26 – Minecraft Sells A Million Copies
– Game has just hit beta and already has this many sales
– It’s like lego without the restrictions…and with monsters
– YouTube is awash with Minecraft video’s
– It’s very addictive
– Single or multiplayer
34:39 – Most Inappropriate URL Ever
– RIM register rim.jobs domain as a quick URL to their career pages
– Someone somewhere is having a right old giggle within RIM

Picks
Ian
Alfred
– Productivity App for OS X – similar to Launchbar but thats ¢25 but does a lot more
– Launch app’s with shortcuts, instant access to web searches, bookmarks
– Browse and play music
– Perorm actions like email, moving files
– Reduces mouse reliance
– Speeds up activity
– Free on App store

Mac Mini Media Centre – XBMC

Welcome to the seventh of a series of posts on setting up a Mac Mini Media Centre. This post will look at the daddy of open source media centre app’s, XBMC. When reviewing Plex and Boxee I mentioned that both were forks from XBMC, or Xbox Media Centre to give it it’s full title. In 2004 Xbox Media Centre was born out of another well known app – Xbox media Player. Both app’s were designed as media playback applications for Microsoft’s first console, the Xbox.

When I say Xbox, of course I mean a chipped Xbox. Chipping the Xbox and installing software like XBMC really showed the potential of a games console to act as a media centre device. No restriction on codecs, a great community constantly upgrading the software meant my chipped Xbox was untouchable for quite a few years. In fact it’s still a great media player today except the chip on the original Xbox couldn’t handle HD which for me is a deal breaker. So what does XBMC offer compared to the forked products?

On first pass you can see that Plex and XBMC are very similar products. They share many of the same menu’s, options and skins which in some way isn’t a surprise although Boxee is very different in use than XBMC. In fact when you install the correct skin in XBMC you could be forgiven in thinking that XBMC is exactly the same as Plex. Almost. If you want to read about the functionality that XBMC offers, re-read the Plex review. There are a few differences though. Media shares are easier to add to XBMC and I found the menu’s generally a bit easier to use and follow in XBMC.

TV and Video’s are also browsable using the same rich content that the scrapers bring to Plex (unlike Boxee) but Music doesn’t integrate with iTunes in the same way as Plex. In fact the biggest difference I could see is that Plex has the Plex media Server which acts as a bridge between Plex and your locally stored media. It’s this that lifts Plex above XBMC in day to day use.

XBMC can also be extended via scripts and plugins. These aren’t as well organised as in Plex or Boxee but there is arguably a wider variety that allow you to access online content not only via audio and video but also via torrents and newsgroups which can integrate into XBMC. This won’t be for everyone though and I again prefer the easier to use accessibility of Plex and Boxee when it comes to installing and using plugins. With full skin support and some great skins available the look and feel is really down to personal preference and there are more skins available than in Plex which does have ports of the popular XBMC skins.

There are two iPhone app’s that work with XBMC. XBMC remote (opens in iTunes) is similar to the Boxee remote in that it allows for full control of XBMC from the iPhone. It has two modes – standard which controls XBMC via buttons and gesture which again I found a bit fiddly to use. It costs £1.79 but if you like XBMC it’s cheap for the features it gives you. Another app of more interest is XBMC Music Streamer (opens in iTunes) which allows you to stream music from XBMC to your iPhone. Again the app is £1.79 and although I’ve not tried it myself it’s got good reviews on the App Store an on other web sites so looks a good choice if you ned to stream your music collection.

Out of the three Media Centre tools I’ve used XBMC probably has the most active forums/developments but some of the developments are also in fairly obscure area’s. With a fully set-up XBMC and Plex it can be hard to tell the difference but for day to day usage I prefer Plex and will be sticking to that as my media player of choice. If you want to dabble with scripts and get into the guts of your media software then XBMC is the better choice. Either way, your spoiled for choice.

The next post in out Mac Mini series will look at other useful media applications that you will find useful alongside Plex, Boxee or XBMC. Until then, happy viewing.