DigitalOutbox Episode 11
In this episode the team discuss Sony PS3 Slim and Apple.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
- Android
- Developers finding switch from iPhone development to Android .. lacking .. severly – http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity
- the Android state-of-the-art is today further behind the iPhone state-of-the-art than it was when the G1 debuted last October
- must do better
- iPhone needs decent competition to benefit everybody
– Layar – Augmented Reality Browser
– http://mashable.com/2009/08/18/layar/
– On android, iPhone coming soon
– Data layed on top of real world
– Shopping, finding places, games, house prices, restaurant reviews, find friends, geo-tagged images, tours
– Imagine translation layer – foreign country and the phone translates

- Twitter
– Geolocation API
– http://blog.twitter.com/2009/08/location-location-location.html
– Tweets near you
– tweets about a location – trending places?
– Users can connect locally – on the web site etc
– Retweet rework
– http://blog.twitter.com/2009/08/project-retweet-phase-one.html
- did this need to be re-worked?
- Business accounts
– With analytics and other metrics to help businesses

- Windows Mobile OS – 2 “current” versions next year?
- It’s looking likely that MS will run with 2 mobile operating systems concurrently
- WM 6.5 as an incremental upgrade over the current 6.0 edition
- WM 7 as a radical overhaul to for high end, touch based devices which MS will work in collaboration with manufacturers.
- MS have said they know they have been slow to respond (Version 7 has been in development or a long time) but they are solving this.
- With hardware development ramping up across the board and with Android / Windows Mobile development being focussed on – can Apple keep up? Do they want/need to?
- Could the same thing happen to phones as happened with MP3 players? I.e. iPod wasn’t the best player available but best infrastructure locked people in… This isn’t an issue whilst the iPhone remains the best phone on many levels but that’s not going to last forever(?!).

- Video adverts in print media!
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8211209.stm
- Slim-line screens, roughly size of mobile screens, sat in traditional paper magazines.
- Chip can hold up to 40 mins of video!
- Pepsi and CBS first to advertise in US based Entertainment Weekly magazine.
- Wowsers! Feels like something out of Minority Report.

- Apple
– FCC Inquiry
– AT&T – not involved in Google Voice rejection
– http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/21/atandt-tells-the-fcc-it-had-no-role-in-removing-google-voice-fro/
– Apple – http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/
– Not rejected, still looking at Google Voice app’s
– Says it has not rejected the Google Voice application and “continues to study it.”
- Apple’s concerned Google Voice alters “the iPhone’s distinctive user experience” and “disables Apple’s Visual Voicemail.”
– “The iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways.” [Doesn't Mac OS X do this when it syncs Address Book to Google? What's the issue? -- ed.] GV Mobile, GVDialer, and VoiceCentral all have the same issues.
– Says its “covering new ground and doing things that had never been done before,” and that “many of the issues we face are difficult and new.”
– Apple did not consult with AT&T about whether to approve Google Voice, and Apple alone makes the final decision on whether or not to approve iPhone apps, although part of the AT&T / Apple contract forbids Apple from approving VoIP apps that run on the cell network.
– “Most of the review process is consumed with quality issues and software bugs.”
– SlingPlayer Mobile was “initially rejected because redirecting a TV signal to an iPhone using AT&T’s cellular network is prohibited by AT&T’s customer Terms of Service.” [That's pretty much the opposite of what AT&T promised us. -- ed.]
– There are more than 40 full-time trained iPhone app reviewers, and at least two different reviewers go over each app. There’s also an App Store Executive Review Board that meets weekly to determine procedures and sets policy for the review process, and also reviews apps that are escalated to the board because they “raise new or complex issues.” [Hello, Phil Schiller!]
– Apple gets 8,500 new apps and updates a week, and it claims only 20 percent are not approved as originally submitted.
– Googles Response
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/21/googles-response-to-the-fcc/
– Redacted content
- What will happen? I think Google Voice will soon become an accepted app
– Apple are lying – they told the other Google Voice developers that their was rejected – not what they’ve said here
– App Store is changing – Qik now can upload over 3G, Obama art app which was rejected is now accepted with an expedited route through approval, developer of C64 emulator contacted by senior Apple rep and told him big news is coming soon

- iPhone 3GS best selling phone in Japan!!!! Reason? it’s free!!!

– iPhone to become most popular camera on Flickr
– http://mashable.com/2009/08/17/iphone-flickr/
– Despite poor image quality
– Watch it boom if iPod touch and nano come with camera
– iPhone, the number 1 camera on Flickr – surprise? I think so …

– TomTom GPS car kit will work with iPod Touch and other 3rd party S/W apps (CoPilot?) http://gizmodo.com/5339070/confirmed-tomtoms-gps-car-kit-will-work-with-ipod-touch-third-party-apps

– Event scheduled for Sep 9th?
- http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090817/apple-event-scheduled-for-wednesday-sept-9-music-only-no-tablet/?mod=ATD_rss
– iPod’s, iTunes, no tablet
– Beatles – how many times have we heard this now?
– What is the massive data centre Apple is building going to be used for?

– Twitterific 2.1 update
- video recording and uploading
- updated contact sheet for better viewing
- numerous bug fixes and tweaks

- Gadgets n’ Games
- Sony Gamescom news
- PS3 slim unveiled – http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=221475
- launched first week of September worldwide
- €299 worldwide, $299 in US, £249 in UK
– Talk of shortages from retailers but denied by Sony
- 30% lighter, 32% smaller, 34% less power consumption
- current PS3 to get price cut
- looks like a matte finish (less of a dust magnet)
- hi-res pics here http://www.joystiq.com/photos/playstation-3-slim/2216305/full/
– $24 for a stand! Slim can’t stand vertically without another peripheral
– Faster gaming (improved chip speed?), supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream output to your receiver
– HDD is removable – http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/21/video-another-look-at-ps3-slim-and-its-removable-hdd/

- PS3 video store to launch in in Eur in Nov
- rent or buy SD/HD videos
- PS3 firmware 3.0 out on 1st Sept
- animated themes – hurrah
- “What’s New?” section
- BBC iPlayer
- ‘other’ interface tweaks
– PS3 Home 1.3 this september
– http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/08/19/playstation-home-v1-3-coming-this-september/
– Universal Game launching form within Home
– From Home to Start menu of game without signing out of home
– In store item previews
– Additional portable Objects
– Everyone will get a free camera – snap from 1st or 3rd person view, photo’s saved to photos in XMB
– More to come like…a bubble machine
- More gestures and poses for your avatar
– PS3 drops price immediately – £249
- LBP to get water levels – maybe time for me to dig it out again
- New Heavy Rain trailer reveals new character and ‘love’ theme
- New Uncharted 2 video looking as amazing as before – cannot wait for this
- Stunning GOW III in-game images from Gamescom http://www.joystiq.com/photos/god-of-war-3-gamescom/2217198/full
- more motion control goodies to be revealed at TGS in September
– PSP GO buyers in first 10 days of release to receive GT for free (register your PSP GO before Oct 10)
- PSP mini games available on PSN from Oct
- limited to 100MB each
- low dev costs
- iPhone inspired ??
– Fieldrunners, Hero of Sparta, Tetris and MiniGore and others successful on the iPhone will appear as mini games
– 50 titles by year end

- Dante’s Inferno trailer looking promising ..
- Pre-order Guitar Hero 5 from Amazon, get GHWT (game only) for FREE!!!! (game is £70 with guitar)
– PixelJunk Shooter looking awesome

– XBox360 Arcade to get £30 price hike? http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=221412
– Fable 3 in 2010
- Fable 2 goes episodic this year
- Logitech G27 steering wheel – looks awesome but £329.99. http://www.trustedreviews.com/peripherals/news/2009/08/18/Logitech-G27-Steering-Wheel-Debuts/p1

- Batman Arkham Asylum – played demo, rather bloody enjoyable, great atmosphere, detective mode is very cool, can be a button basher though

– Do UK Retailers Limit Game Market?
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8210622.stm
– US market also depressed – http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24837
– Exchange rate and pricing structure makes it difficult to break into UK
– Second hand market hurting game companies, restricting innovation
– Madden 10 – Online franchise needs code from within the pack when bought – second hand have to pay $10/800 MS Points to join
– Madden also has VIP lobbies, game type and server access – $4.99 or 400 points – I can understand the server access but not an increased difficulty.
- Digital Distribution the answer? Kill of Game etc?

- Your average hard-core gamer is no longer a teenager, but a 35 year old, over-weight, sad bastard http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/gamers-are-sad

– Sony stalling mass production of OLED displays due to recent losses they’ve sustained

- James Cameron’s Avatar – looks fantastic
- District 9 – a most welcome, low budget, low hyped spectacle. compared to the usual Hollywood, high-budget bores dished out by the ton

Picks
- Shakeel – PS3 Media Server
- no nonsense, free, easy to use media server for PS3
- best feature – streams MKV’s, allowing use of subs and DTS, all on the fly
- no encoding required
-

http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

- Ian – BrowserLabs
– http://browserlab.adobe.com/
– Compare a web site in a variety of browsers without launching them OR booting into a different OS
– Firefox 2.0 – XP, Firefox 2.0 – OS X, Firefox 3.0 – XP, Firefox 3.0 – OS X, IE6 – XP, IE7 – XP, Safari OS X
– Not extensive but easier to hit this than use parallels or multiple machines
– Compare side by side or onion skin – overlap two browsers
– Chris – Sumo Paint & Pixlr
- http://www.sumopaint.com/
- http://pixlr.com/
- Wowsers! Online alternatives to Photoshop?
- Serious pieces of Flex coding. These kind of applications make you realise that we could one day spend life in the cloud.