DigitalOutbox Episode 19
In this episode the team discuss Web security, backups and Broadband news for the UK with lot’s of edits. Cheers Skype!
Playback
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Shownotes
2:12 – Web Security
- Phishing scam used to target Google & Hotmail accounts. Account details leaked online. 30,000 accounts.
- How are people still being soooooo stupid as to give out their details to phishing emails?
7:22 – Cloud Issues
- Microsoft/Danger loses all T-Mobile Sidekick customer data
– Statement: Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.
– Where was the backup?
– Shows danger of relying on cloud – what happens if service drops, access restricted, data removed?
– As in local data, you should always have a backup
9:52 – Napster Evolves Again
- Cheaper unlimited download service on offer £5 per month – including 5 permanent downloads every month.
- 8 millions songs to choose from.
- Reaction to Spotify threat?
14:00 – Windows Mobile 6.5
6.5 brings a handful of great features to the same old mess that was Windows Mobile
- very small amount of system has been converted for ‘touch’, mainly the home and start screens
- need to use stylus for everything else ie typing, everything other than launching an app etc
- you CAN type with finger but it’s “like trying to sew with your feet”
- huge IE overhaul …. but still sucks
- pages render incorrectly or stall
- “designed by someone in 2002″
- 6.5 is nothing but a spit and polish job on 6.1
18:33 – UK Mobile Coverage
- Ofcom looking at ensuring consumers who don’t get the coverage they need are not locked into contracts.
21:19 – AT and T Allow VOIP over 3G on iPhone
- Due to FCC investigation?
– What about O2, Orange, Vodafone?
– Skype likes this – http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2009/10/good_move_att.html
– Google Voice rumoured – it’s not VOIP
23:19 – Adobe Flash EveryWhere except
- No surprise but is it an issue?
– Adobe do show app’s developed via flash and packaged for iPhone
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/05/adobe-shows-off-flash-apps-for-iphone-yes-you-read-that-right/
– Could increase app volume even more and bring more dev’s to the platform
– More app’s of the wrong type?
27:19 – BT push fibre
– BT announced one and a half million copper lines into homes and businesses will be joined by optical cables, initially offering broadband at 100Mbit/s downstream and capable of delivering 1Gbit/s.
– BT had previously only publicly committed to one million FTTP installations on building projects where the civil engineering costs of laying fibre would be low.
– The wider deployment means BT plans to run fibre to two and a half million premises by 2012. A further seven and a half million line will be upgraded to fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) services, delivering up to 40Mbit/s downstream.
– Competitors will be able to buy access to the fibre, although BT will have greater control over pricing than it does over ADSL.
– Virgin Media – will it allow access? Does VM want it? comparitively expensive and it’s running its own 50Mbit/s trials with copper from home to new cabinets and new fibre to rest of network http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/08/vm_cornwall/
– No news on areas to benefit
– My exchange – FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) should be in service form 04/01/2010
– http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/news/productbriefings/nga/nga04309.do
– Up to 40Mb down, up to 10mb up – £88.08 annual rental. What will retail offer? What price?
32:44 – O2 Starts to Throttle
– introduction of management for peer to peer and newsgroup applications will only affect those O2 broadband customers who are not on the firms own unbundled network.
– Par for the course
37:15 – VMWare Fusion 3
- $80, October 27th
– Designed for Snow Leopard, supports 64bit kernel, allows for virtualisation of 64 bit O/S
– Supports Snow Leopard and Windows 7
– Finally add’s aero support – first tool to do so
43:12 – iPhone 3.1.2 Update
- aims to resolve some of the recent issues reported by users
- sporadic issue that prevents iphone from waking up from sleep mode
- occasional crashes when streaming video
- intermittent cellular service interruptions
45:13 – New Tablet Rumours
- 10.6″ panel
- geared towards e-book functionality
47:48 – Kindle Comes to UK
- As expected, the Amazon Kindle will be coming to Europe, including UK.
- Access via 3G – unspecified carrier at this stage.
- No web browsing but the device should roam happily around 99 countries.
- £175
52:33 – Microsoft Mouse Labs
- Some real innovation
56:56 – Eigenharp
- It’s a Theremin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin (as used by Bill Bailey) crossed with a Tenori-on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenori-on (as used by Little Boots)
– Much cheaper are the http://www.smule.com apps on the iphone – leaf trombone and ocarina, plus numerous Tenori-on wannabee apps.
– Never been a better time to inflict your musical talent on the world through digital instruments. We’re a long way from Rolf Harris’s Stylophone http://www.stylophone.com/
Picks
Ian
Tweetie 2
- The best twitter client for the Mac
Chris
Portal T-shirts
- Hopelessly / tragically /desperately geeky but just brilliant!
- T-shirts with in-built cameras and TFT screens come in Portal Orange and Blue pairs and transmit your cameras picture onto the other persons t-shirt – so creating the look of portals!
Henry
Fission
- MP3 splitter
- $32
- Mac only
16 Comments
Poor Shak, hope he is feeling better soon. I missed his Apple fanboy enthusiasm
You need to sort out Henry's audio. It sounded like he was working in a server room and there was a lot of background noises too.
What no chapters this week
re. Packet Shaping.
I see this as a very bad thing. I pay for a service and expect to receive that level of service at all times. Today it is peer-to-peer and torrents but what will it be in the future? If we are really going to move to cloud computing, if iPlayer and the like are to become the norm, if online on demand gaming is to take off, then we must have an infrastructure and services that are capable of supporting them.
re. VMWare Fusion
As a recent Apple convert, and as someone who is still in the process of switching, I have found it invaluable. Unity mode is awesome and provides seamless integration. I am looking forward to v3, is that wrong?
Henry actually has the best gear amongst us….but he forgot to switch his mic on and spent half an hour trying to get it all working. DOH! Made me chuckle.
Bugger. I did all the chapters as normal in Garageband – no idea why they didn't come across properly. I'll check tonight and upload a new version.
So annoying as I really like the chapters for skipping through Chris when he's banging on about Windows or competition
Agreed. I still think we'll move to a model of paying £x for basic broadband. Want online gaming, add £w. Music streaming, add £x. Video over IP – £y etc etc. Want all that and also no packet shaping – add all that together and double it. Our infrastructure doesn't cope now if we're being honest, hence the packet shaping.
I'd love to see how fast the interweb's would be if, just for one day, there was zero peer to peer torrenting or newsgroup downloads.
You're right tamiaras – I was on overtime in the server room. It's the only way to get paid to appear on digitaloutbox.
Didn't switch on my mic? Half an hour trying to get it working? I wouldn't be so inept. Don't listen to Ian…
Tam – thanks again for the heads up on this. Turns out there is a bug in Snow Leopard with Garageband – an ampersand in a chapter title can stop chapters being written to the file – http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3020
I've re-uploaded the file so anyone still to download will get the chapters. Something for me to keep an eye on while I await a patch from Apple.
Although I'm with you Tam on the packet shaping front, I do see it as inevitable to some extent whilst we have a network with such high levels of contention across the board. A free for all has already proved to be impossible to sustain, with the connections of many being unfairly affected by the actions of a few.
ISPs are having to react to a rapidly changing market and they aren't all coping very well. They were all set up for pretty basic levels of email/web browsing, with the occasional user who downloaded the odd video/game. However, we now see even basic users utilising great services such as iPlayer, 4OD and Spotify as well as uploading tonnes of content to social sites. The casual user today is probably consuming as much data as the hardcore user of yesterday.
So, should we just have a free for all and everyone fight it out for their share of the bandwidth – or should certain time-critical net traffic be prioritised (e.g. online gaming, live video/radio streams)?
In many ways, a well managed packet shaping system on your ISP should actually benefit you – but I think packet shaping should be used as a temporary fix to the larger problem of bringing the contention ration of users down to a far far more realistic level. I have a fear that it won't be used like this however and will instead be used as a solution.
As I said on the podcast, I would like to understand where all the money everyone pays for transfer goes and why sending a packet of information down a pipe that already exists costs quite as much as is does.
Henry has the best gear?? Are you kidding? Surely my “Rock Band Microphone” can't be outdone?
You mean to tell me that our Apple Tablet story would have been different if Shak had been around?
Although I'm with you Tam on the packet shaping front, I do see it as inevitable to some extent whilst we have a network with such high levels of contention across the board. A free for all has already proved to be impossible to sustain, with the connections of many being unfairly affected by the actions of a few.
ISPs are having to react to a rapidly changing market and they aren't all coping very well. They were all set up for pretty basic levels of email/web browsing, with the occasional user who downloaded the odd video/game. However, we now see even basic users utilising great services such as iPlayer, 4OD and Spotify as well as uploading tonnes of content to social sites. The casual user today is probably consuming as much data as the hardcore user of yesterday.
So, should we just have a free for all and everyone fight it out for their share of the bandwidth – or should certain time-critical net traffic be prioritised (e.g. online gaming, live video/radio streams)?
In many ways, a well managed packet shaping system on your ISP should actually benefit you – but I think packet shaping should be used as a temporary fix to the larger problem of bringing the contention ration of users down to a far far more realistic level. I have a fear that it won't be used like this however and will instead be used as a solution.
As I said on the podcast, I would like to understand where all the money everyone pays for transfer goes and why sending a packet of information down a pipe that already exists costs quite as much as is does.
Henry has the best gear?? Are you kidding? Surely my “Rock Band Microphone” can't be outdone?
You mean to tell me that our Apple Tablet story would have been different if Shak had been around?