Month: March 2010

DigitalOutbox Episode 42

DigitalOutbox Episode 42
In this episode the team discuss iPad, politics, paywalls and the 3DS.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:50 – Google Shuts Down Chinese Search
– Chinese search shutdown, redirected to Google Hong Kong
– Users are being redirected for Google web, news and image search to the Hong Kong site, which sits outside of the Chinese firewall.
– Users are also being presented with simplified Chinese in addition to traditional Chinese and English results.
– Dashboard showing status – http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en
– China then blocks certain searches/results, so back to square one – Google is still censored as it was before, no?

– Gmail has that email attachment thingy! I.e. write “attached” in a document and don’t attach a file and it will warn you!
– It will also now warn you if it thinks you’ve been hacked. Bases this on if your account has been accessed in two different countries over a short time-period.
8:39 – Times and Sunday Times to charge from June online
– The Times and Sunday Times newspapers will start charging to access their websites in June,
– Users will pay £1 for a day’s access and £2 for a week’s subscription.
– Both titles will launch new websites in early May, separating their digital presence for the first time and replacing the existing, combined site, Times Online.
– The two new sites will be available for a free trial period to registered customers. And payment will give customers access to both sites.
– James Harding, editor of The Times, agreed that NI’s paywall strategy was a risk. “But it’s less of a risk than just throwing away our journalism and giving it away from free,” he told the BBC.
– Rebekah Brooks said the decision to charge came “at a defining moment for journalism… We are proud of our journalism and unashamed to say that we believe it has value”.
– Sun and News of the World next
– Privately they acknowledge they will lose 1000’s of regular readers and millions of casual readers but hope the cost is small enough to entice many
15:22 – Best Buy coming to UK
– Best Buy opens its first UK outlet, a superstore with with a 50,000 sqft shop floor, in Lakeside in May
– June for Southamption and Merry Hill, West Midlands, and later this year for Aintree, near Liverpool, and Croydon.
– 80 stores in UK over next 5 years
17:53 – iPad
– WSJ – $17.99 a month
– WSJ print is $29 a month
– But what about flash
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/29/brightcove_converts_time_nyt_flash_video_to_html5_for_ipad.html
– Brightcove’s partnerships with The New York Times and Time magazine will allow HTML5 to seamlessly replace Adobe Flash video content on the publications’ Web sites for compatibility with Apple’s iPad
– Brightcove Experience for HTML5, a framework for publishing and delivering interactive and advertising-supported Web video. The platform is available free to the more than 1,000 Brightcove customers in 42 countries.
– Monday’s announcement means it’s possible that video in the Adobe Flash format could be converted to HTML5 automatically for high-profile Web sites, perhaps as soon as the device’s April 3 U.S. launch. The company said its clients can now use the tool to build iPad-ready Web sites, and in the next year the platform will be expanded to support customization and branding of the player environment, advertising, analytics, social sharing and other capabilities.
– Magazines – same price as print version or cheaper – non add version of esquire for $2.99, $2 less than paper version
– http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/26/ipad-app-store-reveals-launch-apps-top-seller-lists-app-details/
– iPad App Store shows many titles with ‘HD’ added or ‘for iPad’
– Also shows increased price point for many app’s – will that be an issue? $50 for omnigraffle for example
– http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/29/first-look-kobo-for-ipad/ – nice book app for iPad
– http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/
– iTunes 9.1 this week?
– Just got 10.6.3 on Mac’s – support for iPads?
37:44 – BBC iPhone Apps Delayed
-BBC Trust asks for delay on BBC iPhone app after industry representation
– industry think it abuses BBC’s dominant position in news.
39:33 – Gifting iPhone Apps
– You can now gift app’s in iTunes
– Can only gift to people in same country but apart from that, same as gifting music
40:49 – A night at the Opera
– A lot of talk this week about whether Opera will get their browser approved into the App Store
– I would call the majority saying “No way”.
– Opera seem weirdly optimistic though.
– My call? Rejected – duplication of core functionality.
– We may well know by he time of the next cast!
43:47 – Nintendo 3DS
– New handheld system from Nintendo
– we know the system will use two screens, will have some sort of 3D, won’t require any sort of special glasses, and will be backwards compatible with current DS and DSi games.
– rumours are that the 3d will use camera’s to tracks your eyes position in relation to screen angle – very clever
– Maybe 720p screens, accelerometer for tile controls, possible 3g chip
– Released between now and March 2011
47:24 – Microsoft Game Room
– Now launched on Live for Xbox and PC
– Free download
– Design arcade rooms
– 30 games available now that cost – 260 points for game on one platform, 500 for game on pc and xbox
– Friends can visit your arcade
– Time warp facility to rewind back a game
– No better than mame really
48:48 – PS3 No More Linux
– April 1st update will remove ‘Install Other OS’ option form older PS3’s
– Newer slims can’t do this anyway, but will disappoint Linux fans surely…
– Security concerns is the reason, but it is optional…
– The consumer electronics giant said that the update will be optionally, but it cautioned that failure to upgrade will lock users out of the PlayStation Network. They will also be prevented from playing DRM-encumbered videos stored on a media server, and from viewing any Blu-ray Discs or PS3 games that require firmware 3.21.

Picks
Henry
Scrivener
– The best app for writing books or long form material
– Great research options
– Track content via outliner, index cards
– Mac only

Ian
Auto Smiley
– A computer vision application that runs in the background while you work.
– The software analyzes your face while you are working and if it detects a smile it sends the the ascii smiley face letters “: )” as keyboard presses to the front most application.
– Auto Smiley has many uses from just straight up convenience to enforcing honesty in your online communication 🙂

DigitalOutbox Episode 41

DigitalOutbox Episode 41
In this episode the team discuss Digital Economy Bill, IE9, CashGordon and the iPad cometh.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:55 – Digital Economy Bill Rushed Through Lords
– What is this? Covers broadband, dig radio, spectrum etc
– Clause 17 – enable govt to change copyright law without parliamentary approval – now scrapped
– Ammedment 120a – Lib Dems – Gives high court ability to serve an injunction against web site or ISP to stop serving copyrighted material
– DMCA in America enables takedown of content – the UK amendment takes down the whole site!
– Now Lib Dems want to change it and govt also want to make their own changes to the amendment
– Next stop commons
– Being rushed through
– Labels already know that this won’t be debated in commons
– http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/label-bosses-warn-debate-could-cost-the-disconnection
-[MPs] will have minimum input … from this point on. … John Whittingdate MP [DCMS committee] … has said this week it [the Bill] could be lost if enough MPs protest at not having the opportunity to scrutinise it. Whist true in constitutional terms, the hard politics of the situation makes it seem unlikely … Come the week of 29th March the main political focus is likely to be on the … Budget”
– This will allow all the decisions to be made in dirty last minute deals behind closed doors between the party whips in what they call “wash up”.
– This way, disconnection penalties could be agreed with no democratic scrutiny whatsoever.
– No debate.
– The memo, published by Cory Doctorow, shows BPI lobbyist Richard Mollett, who hopes to become a Labour MP at the next election, telling music bosses that if MPs do their job and debate the Bill, the BPI’s disconnection proposals may face defeat.
– E-petition – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/?
– Panorama this week – http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rl4dl/Panorama_Are_the_Net_Police_Coming_for_You/
6:19 – 02 condemns lawyers targeting alleged file sharers
– O2 condemned the attempts “by rights holders and their lawyers to bully or threaten our customers”.
– The row centres around UK law firm ACS:Law and its client DigiProtect, a anti-piracy firm which represents a series of content owners.
– The firm is in the process of contacting thousands of alleged UK pirates and offers them the chance to settle out of court for around £500 per infringement.
– 02’s broadband customers are among those sent letters. “Where we are legally obliged to provide information and the correct paperwork is presented, we will comply with the law,” said an O2 spokesman. “But we prefer the ‘win-win’ approach of encouraging the development of new business models that offer customers the content they want, how they want it, for a fair price,” he added.
– ACS: Law says it has so far identified around 60,000 different UK IP addresses, which reveal the identity of individual computers. Expects to get 400 actual physical addresses for every 1000
– Experts argue that an IP address cannot be used as evidence in court because it is not proof that the owner of the PC was actually responsible for the downloading.
– Hundreds of people have complained to consumer watchdog Which?, saying that they have been wrongly accused, including pensioners who claim they don’t know how to download content. It has caused distress to some of the accused, particularly as some of the content they are accused of downloading is hardcore pornography.
– Law firm declined to identify any of the clients represented by DigiProtect, beyond saying “there are a variety, some in music, some computer games and some in adult content movies”.
9:55 – CashGordon
– http://www.flickr.com/photos/meg/4453821027
– Tories launch a campaign – tweet with the tag ‘cashgordon’ and it will appear on our homepage
– Now, what could possibly go wrong…
– Flickr image tells the story…
– Now spinning that CashGordon was hacked by Labour stooges….in the Telegraph
– http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100030915/cashgordon-com-is-hacked-by-labour-stooges-the-online-election-gets-nasty/
– Wasn’t hacked, just poorly implemented as it didn’t block HTML or Javascript
14:29 – Windows Phone 7 Series
– Silverlight, XNA, Blend
– Developer tools available now
– Future looking really bright for MS with this updated platform
– But wait…….
– No copy and paste
– LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
– Suck it Windows fanboiz – http://blog.chrisgran.de/post/455131811/paul-thurrott-on-windows-phone-7-series
– Paul Thurrott on iPhone 1.0 on 2007 – And what’s up with the lack of cut/copy and paste? This is a basic OS feature that Apple included in the first Mac OS almost 25 years ago. It’s inexplicably missing from the iPhone, unavailable in any application or the wider system itself. Unreal.
– Windows Phone 7……There have been weird complaints this week, and you can almost feel the anti-Microsoft brigade chipping away at the patina of perfection that Microsoft has tried to erect around its new baby. The multitasking is limited. Users will only be able to get apps from the Marketplace, and not from third parties. Gasp! Is it true that there’s no copy and paste?
– No matter. Windows Phone combines those very few things that were right about Windows Mobile—primarily some business functionality—with a much wider set of new functionality that is exciting in both scope and possibility.
18:22 – IE9
– http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/news/ie9-may-actually-be-a-great-browser/
– Focus on performance and wait for it….HTML5
– Platform preview available today
– CSS3 features such as opacity, rounded corners, and selector APIs. SVG is now supported, something of a surprise given the company’s efforts to promote its Silverlight plug-in for rich graphics in the browser. It is not yet clear, however, whether the Canvas element is supported.
– Support for the audio and video tags is also promised, though it is not in the current preview. Microsoft showed H.264 720p video running directly in the browser.
– Same as chrome and safari – firefox video support of ogg theora only is looking like an isolated stance
– New javascript engine – better than Firefox, slightly behind other 2
– 6 times better than IE8
– IE9 also makes full use of hardware acceleration, speeding up HTML and graphics rendering, including that for the new SVG support.
– Throwing dev code, resource and testing behind JQuery
– MS supporting open source and open standards. Nice. Well played MS
– One more thing……
– No XP support
22:20 – Germans Running out of Browsers
– German government has issues warning that people shouldn’t be using Firefox…
– Browser security issue has come to light that Firefox are currently fixing.
– Following similar advice regarding IE, Germans are a little short of options for browsing!
24:05 – Opera Downloads Doubled
– Opera says their browser downloads have doubled since MS introduced the browser selection screen
– Not just Opera….
– http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L1KE20100322
– IE down 1% in UK, Italy by 1.3% and France 2.5% in March compared to Feb
25:25 – Google TV
– Google, Intel and Sony working on Google TV
– Bring web to living room through set top box
– The partners envision technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications
– Google intends to open its TV platform, which is based on its Android operating system for smartphones, to software developers.
– The three companies have tapped Logitech, which specializes in remote controls and computer speakers, for peripheral devices, including a remote with a tiny keyboard.
– Imagine a version of google TV setup to auto download, unpack and move to the correct folder TV and Films
29:03 – iPad is coming
– Kindle for iPad…exept it’s Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers including the ipad
– Won’t be ready for April 3rd
– Will allow for browsing/buying books from Kindle store
– Supports read on one device, continue on another
– Bookmarks, notes, annotations
– Customise screen fonts, brightness, layout etc to suit your needs
– Barnes & Noble also coming to iPad, and many magazines too
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_looks_magazines_on_the_ipad.php
34:11 – Football Real Kick
– Plays football by blowing air out of the iPhone
– Hilarious!
35:28 – 17 Month Old baby using iPhone
– Even a 17 month old baby can use it

Picks
Ian
LastHistory
– visualizing last.fm listening history

Mac Mini Media Centre – What Else?

Our last few posts on using a Mac Mini as a Media Centre device have focussed on using Media Centre software like Plex and Boxee to playback locally stored content. While this is my main reason for buying a Mini there is a lot more you can do with it – listen to radio, stream audio and video and play games.

Radio
There are many way to listen to radio via the Mac. The most obvious is via iTunes which comes preloaded with hundred’s of stations. However searching is limited, the streams don’t contain many popular stations and it feels like a tacked on option. If you are serious about your radio there are two options that really stand out

Radioshift can be thought of as a PVR for radio. At the heart of the application is the Radio Guide. Using the guide you can search for stations or individual shows and subscribe to them in the application. The big plus is seeing individual radio shows. You can use Radioshift to subscribe to a show and listen to it live but more impressive is that the application can record the show just like Sky+ does for TV. Radioshift will record multiple shows at the same time and even wake the Mac form sleep so it never misses a show.

The guide is impressive and had a lot of UK content although some of the local stations didn’t have a show list. You also get to see what is popular now and filter stations by genre, location or by full text search. Playback is simple via the application which will also install any missing plugins to maximise the amount of stations it can support. There is no built in audio editor but Radioshift can hand off editing to any installed editor. You can also export audio into iTunes making it easy to listen to recordings on your iPod or iPhone.

Another option for radio is Snowtape. This is a very similar application to Radioshift but with a slightly slicker front end. Snowtape uses an online directory to make radio shows available although I’ve found it to be less complete than the guide in Radioshift. Also, Snowtape includes a built in editor unlike Radioshift. Either app will act as a great recorder for radio so you can’t really go wrong but despite Snowtape being a slightly stronger app I’d choose Radioshift for it’s greater guide.

Streaming
There are many streaming music options now available online. The most obvious one is Spotify. Download the client and over 6 million tracks are available for free. There is a premium option available that improves the audio quality and removes the adverts…which aren’t too obtrusive although the client has got very busy with the random adverts that appear on it. I look forward to the day that Remoteless, an iPhone app that offers full control of Spotify from the iphone, supports a Mac helper app as it’s Windows only at the moment. When that day comes I can switch off the TV and the front end of Spotify and use the iPhone to control my music. Bliss.

Another streaming option is last.fm. More well know for music scrobbling and keeping stat’s on what you and your friends listen to, you can also setup a custom radio station and stream music for free, or stream what your friends are listening to. Grooveshark is a more US centric streaming site which is Flash based and free as long as you don’t mind adverts. Similar to last.fm, you can build up playlists and it has a pretty comprehensive library.

AirVideo
AirVideo is an app for the iphone that will display streamed video from your Mac or PC. Once the server app is installed you can add local video sources which can then be accessed from the iPhone. The app will also access video content from iTunes meaning all video located on your Mac Mini will be accessible on your iPhone, no matter what size phone you have.

In practice I’ve found the streaming to work extremely well on video formatted for the iPhone. Playback is smooth and the application responds quickly. This is of course locally over wi-fi but if you setup your router correctly you can access your content from anywhere in the world. However playback is a little more pixelated with this method and buffering, as expected, takes longer too.

One other feature of Air Video is that it will convert video to an iPhone friendly format. Many formats are supported – mp4, m4v, mov, avi, wmv, asf, mpg, mpeg, mkv, 3gp, dmf, divx, flv – and conversion takes place live. Locally the converted video was quite pixelated but it was acceptable. It also took a while for playback to start but considering that I was converting an mkv then it was to be expected. This is a great add-on for the Mac Mini and makes your video content truly portable.

Gaming
One of the area’s I wanted to explore was game emulation, specifically MAME. MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an application that tries to recreate the hardware of old arcade machines in software. Using MAME you can then use ROMS to play thousands of arcade games from yesteryear. I have a lot of ROMS so I was keen to setup MAME. There are two main versions of MAME for the Mac. Mame OSX is a port of MAME, is easy to install and run and presents games in it’s gui window. While this worked fine I found a better option in SDLMAME.

SDLMAME can be run as a 64 bit binary but what I like the most is it runs full screen, making the most of the ROMS and recreating more accurately the feel of the old arcade. The front end though needs a keyboard to search and find ROMS. The keyboard is also needed to play the old games. Thats whats let’s it all down – the lack of an old controller.

Well, there’s an app for that. More accurately, there’s a driver for that. If you’ve a wired 360 pad then installing this driver will allow the 360 pad to work and control the Mac. This is great and makes a big difference to MAME. The driver also has one more trick up it’s sleeve.

The driver has support for the Mad Catz Arcade FightStick. With this and SDLMame it feels like an arcade machine from yesteryear. What a great combination! Of course there are many other emulators out there including SNES, N64 and PS-X which all work well and support the 360 pad.

There are some good resources online for getting SDLMame up and running. I used the forums at ShoRyuKen to find out the best Mame options on the Mac. Brian also pointed out this Youtube tutorial for compiling SDLMame using Xcode. Finally there’s a board just for SDLMame on the Emuversal bulletin board that also has links to M+Gui which provides a GUI front end to many Mame tools and works well on the Mac.

Conclusion
I’ve covered a few other suggestions for making the most of your Mini but one obvious omission is broadcast TV. I’m not using the Mini for live TV but there are some great solutions from Elgato for watching, recording and also streaming content to your iPhone. If there is any other software that makes sense for the Mini then please leave a comment with your suggestions.

The next post will focus on content. How to make it from DVD’s and CD’s, where to find it on the internet and how to build your own low maintenance Tivo using your Mac Mini.

DigitalOutbox Episode 40

DigitalOutbox Episode 40
In this episode the team discuss Steam on Mac, Facebook vs Daily Mail, MIX10 and more Google news.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:58 – Facebook to Sue Daily Mail
– I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you
– however the author didn’t use Facebook, and advised Daily Mail not to say facebook
– The following day Daily Mail apologised in print and online and changed the title
– However they didn’t change the URL which is used by search engines….changed later in the day
– Facebook still considering action
– Doubt it
– Scare mongering Daily Mail – they love this type of stuff – Feb 2009 – Using Facebook rasie risk cancer – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-Facebook-raise-risk-cancer.html
– Nazi’s!!!!!!!!!
5:23 – Google Apps Marketplace
– App Store for enterprise app’s
– Built your app, not necessary to use app engine
– Sell app in Marketplace
– One time fee of $100, not per app, just a one time fee
– 20% revenue share – one of the lowest in the industry
– Currently, 25 million users, 2 million businesses using google
– Step closer to cloud O/S, especially for corporations
– 50 launch partners including Zoho – very interesting
10:10 – Google Maps Improvements
– US only – 150 cities, 12000 miles of bike routes
– Also, 95% of Britain now available on streetview
13:41 – A Place for Porn
– ICANN are reconsidering the dot.xxx domain for pronography.
– In a move that was previously dropped due to outraged American conservatives, ICANN will once again consider offering up .xxx domains for sites delivering sexual content.
– No news on whether it is going ahead yet and past experience has shown that there will be stumbling blocks.
– Only a voluntary scheme – but sounds like a sensible scheme to me.
15:53 – MIX10
– Some big launch partners – Associated Press, Citrix, EA Mobile, Foursquare, Namco, Pangeonce, Pandora, Seesmic, Shazam, and Sling
– Very iPhone in running
– Seesmic, which is the same Silverlight code that runs on Windows and the Mac. Again, it’s very similar to what you’d expect, just wrapped up in the WP7S UI.
– http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/15/microsoft-tells-its-windows-phone-7-series-developer-story/
– Silverlight and XNA at it’s core
– Microsoft is kicking things off on the right foot by offering a free package of developer tools to would-be WP7S coders that includes both Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone and the Silverlight-focused Expression Blend for Windows Phone, pretty much everything you need to start building apps in preparation for the platform’s anticipated launch toward the latter part of the year.
– Developers are going to be treated to a host of must-have services out of the gate, including accelerometer support, location-based APIs using Microsoft’s own Location Service, a newly-announced Microsoft Notification Service for pushing notifications regardless of whether an app is running (sound familiar?), hardware-accelerated video with integrated DRM and support for Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming tech, multitouch, and camera / microphone access.
– The Marketplace has evolved from an app store to a content “destination,” housing apps, casual and premium Xbox Live games, music, and customized carrier stuff in one spot
22:43 – ITV1 HD
– ITV1 on April 2nd on Virgin, Sky and Freeset on a normal channel instead of red button
– In time for world cup
– Also means Scottish viewers get to see a greater choice of TV – nice one
24:59 – iPhone Gaming
– GDC this week, iphone has it’s own summit separate to mobile gaming
– 16 panel discussions specifically on the iPhone – most important mobile gaming platform?
– Doodle Jump now surpassed 3 million sales
– 1 million in mid-december, now another 2 million in just over 2 months!
– Streetfighter and Tekken soon available on iPhone
28:48 – Steam coming to the Mac
– It’s officially official: Valve will bring its Steam online distribution service and titles from its massive library of hit games to the Mac this April
– Steam is the pre-eminent digital distribution platform for PCs. With more than 1,000 games and 25 million user accounts, Steam is by one estimate responsible for more than 70 percent of digital game purchases. Bringing the service to Macs means wider selection, quicker updates and more episodic content for Apple’s traditionally game-deprived computers.
– If players already own the PC versions of Valve games, they’ll get Mac versions at no extra charge through a feature called Steam Play.
– By using the Steam Cloud feature that the company introduced in 2008, players can save in-progress games online, then call up those saved games no matter which version they’re playing. If you’re playing Half-Life 2 on your home PC but then head out on the road with your MacBook, you can continue your game-in-progress.
– “We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, director of Steam development, in Monday’s press release.
– “We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac and the Xbox 360,” Cook said. “Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”
– Portal 2 will be Valve’s first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows, the company said.
– Fantastic news
33:01 – On Live Launching
– Launches June 17th
– $14.99 a month, then users will purchase games and rentals on an a la carte model on top of that. You’ll be able to purchase multiple months at a time to get a discount on the service
– Mac, PC only
– TV adaptor later this year
– International announcements….later this year
39:17 – Playstation Move
– Sony announces name of motion controller – Playstation Move
– 20 titles supported by year end
– PS3 console + move bundle will launch plus a starter pack will launch with Playstation Move, Playstation Eye + game for under $100
– There’s also the subcontroller – an additional peripheral for use with more hardcore titles like SOCOM, which benefit from analogue stick input i.e. the nunchuck!

Picks
Ian
Air Video
– Stream videos to your iPhone
– Works for almost any videos
– Saves having to convert to suitable format

DigitalOutbox Episode 39

DigitalOutbox Episode 39
In this episode the team discuss BBC cuts, broadband…plus our best pick ever!

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:31 – BBC Cuts
– Websites to half – online budget cut by a quarter
– Six Music and Asian network – six music is great!
– Cut on import spending
– Max spend on sport events of £300m
– Link out to newspapers, pull out of teen market, appease commercial rivals
8:00 – Google Bosses Convicted
– Italian court has convicted three Google executives in a trial over a video showing an autistic teenager being bullied
– The Google employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video to be posted online.
– Google removed the video within hours of being notified of its existence
– Convicted on privacy violations
– The UK’s former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a “bad name”.
– David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google and one of those convicted, said he was “outraged” by the decision.
– “I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent,” he said.
“If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability,” he added.
– Ramifications inevitable
– Scan content before allowing viewing? Impossible. (20hrs every minute uploaded? 1200 employees would be needed just to keep up and that wouldn’t cover the privacy issues raised in this case.)
11:57 – Google Streetview Fight
– Europe wants Google to refresh google streetview images every 6 months instead of every 12
– They also want Google to tell people they will be taking pictures ahead of them doing it
– Switzerland is suing Google, asking for images of walled gardens and private streets to be deleted
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/04/street_view_eu/
– Google says if EU gets it’s way “it would consider whether we want to drive through Europe again, because it would make the expense so draining”.
16:21 – Facebook News Feed Patent
– The world’s largest social network now own the patent for the news feed.
– Abstract: A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.
– How can this be patented for something that was launched in 2006
– Flickr – news stream 2004, activity stream Jan 2006
– Twitter – July 2006
22:34 – Google Granted Location Based Advertising Patent
– Google was awarded last Tuesday a patent for location-based advertising, the potential bread and butter of a number of emerging mobile applications.
– covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad
– Now, companies like Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla and BrightKite have to be wondering what this means for them, as do some of the established big-time players, like Facebook and Apple.
24:11 – Apple Goes After HTC
– Apple has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the cell phone manufacturer.
– The suit involves “20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware
– We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.
– Why HTC and not Android?
– But that was from press release – actual lawsuit is…
– certain mobile communication devices including cellular phones and smart phones, including at least phones incorporating the Android Operating System (collectively, “the Accused Products”).
– It’s Google and Android and patents mention multi-touch
– Not for money…
– But the fact that the lawsuit was filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) as well as in a U.S. District Court in Delaware suggests that Apple is really going for the jugular. “The ITC does not award damages,” says Peter Toren, a patent lawyer with New York City law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman. The only remedy the ITC can award is an order to stop the importation of the infringing product. HTC is based in Taiwan.
– Looks like Google may get involved. This may call Apple’s bluff. HTC getting the money of Google behind this lawsuit could lead to interesting results.
– Minority Report was out before the iPhone right? Seen as nearly all the gestures we use come from this concept (and no doubt other places before) they can go take a jump.
– This modern trend for patenting every single sneeze that happens during development is getting ridiculous – however the fact that US appear willing to grant the patents on those sneezes is even more farcical. It’s a waste of money and time and we end up paying for it by more expensive products and also for a delay in tech innovation.
30:13 – App Store Crackdown
– 5000 app’s and counting removed from AppStore
– Apple has changed policy on app’s, removing an app if its overtly sexual
– Seeing as there is an age rating feature on the iPhone, why do this now?
– 7 new rules
– http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/21/apples-7-commandments-of-app-sex/
– I have spoken with Apple, and the following are the new rules:
No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)
No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)
No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs
No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned
Nothing that can be sexually arousing!!
No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)
– From developer of Wobble
– Probably a good move as more adult content could be found in lots of categories
– Phil speaks!
– “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see”
– “When asked about the Sports Illustrated app, Mr. Schiller said Apple took the source and intent of an app into consideration. “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said.”
– Now wi-fi detectors are being removed
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/04/wifi_stumbling_iphone/
– Wi-Fi detection is something of a niche: there were never more than a handful of such applications in iTunes.
– But now even those have vanished as Apple decided they were using a “private framework”, and has pulled them off the shelves without explanation or apology.
– This is complete bullshit
– Why do Playboy and Sports illustrated get a pass but 500 other app’s don’t?
– Why do things like comics and other app’s get a 17 warning and Mobile Safari doesn’t?
– Fix it so that these app’s don’t appear if your parental settings prohibit it
– I don’t care about buying these app’s, it’s the hypocrisy and the app store built on moving sand
– Apple are getting themselves into tricker and tricker waters. Other main platforms all have better solutions.
– Android – free for all
– Win Mo 6.5 = controlled app store but anything goes if you want to install from other locations.
– Soon, they will control the sites you can visit on the internet. Then control the views you’re allowed to have. Exclude people from using the products who aren’t worthy. Where does this stop? They’re as bad as China.
38:50 – iPad News
– April 3rd in US
– Pre-order wi-fi and 3G from March 12th but pick up wi-fi only from 3rd
– Late April in UK
– With sterling crashing, £400+ is expected price now
– WSJ a lock in for iPad
– http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/04/penguins-ipad-formatted-books-shown-off-making-waves/
– Penguin books show options for iPad – future of books?
43:03 – We7
– Another music streaming option for UK
– £4.99 a month for advert free, higher quality streaming of music
– Millions of tracks
– £9.99 – iPhone app support (which is free), Android coming soon
– Similar to Spotify – offline playlists, 192kbps, no adverts
44:08 – Browser Choice
– From 1st March millions of Windows users in Europe will get to choose their default browser
– Choices are: Avant
Chrome
Firefox
Flock
Green Browser
Internet Explorer
K-meleon
Maxthon
Opera
Safari
Sleipnir
Slim
– Only guaranteed to see it if IE is default browser
– Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer browsers are randomly ordered on the first section of this screen.
– Lots of bitching still. Some complaining about sideways scroll to see lesser known browsers. Others complaining that 5 of the browsers use Trident (IE based renderer) 3 use Gecko 1 webkit and one opera based so not as much choice as it appears…
47:43 – Virgin to offer 100Mb in 2010
– Virgin Media to offer 100Mb/s by end of 2010
– No word on pricing
– Virgin currently offers three broadband packages: 10Mb/s, 20Mb/s and 50Mb/s, priced at £20, £30 and £38 per month on a broadband-only subscription.
– Also extending 200mb/s trial to Coventry
– Virgin Media’s chief executive, Neil Berkett, said: “There is nothing we can’t do with our fibre-optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100Mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience.”
– Ian – got my first BT Infinity Mail Shot – up to 40Mb, 2Mb up, 20GB limit, throttling in place, £50 activation, 18 month contract
50:17 – PS3 – The Fat Death
– We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.
– One day later…fixed
54:00 – iPhone Competitor from Sony
– Sony set to launch Sony Online Service to take on iTunes and provide games, music, films to PSP, Sony Ericsson phones and they’re also planning a PSP phone and a tablet.
– Hopefully better than the PSP Go, and is it too little too late anyway?

Picks
Henry
Attachment Scanner for Mail.app
– Don’t you just hate it when you send an email referring to an attachment, but forget the attachment?
– That never need happen again with this mail plugin for OS X. It scans your email for words like attach, attachment, attached etc and if there’s no attachment in those emails, it simply pops up a message box asking if you still want to send the message anyway.
– Simple, invisible, free.

Shakeel
Words with Friends
– £1.79 or Free
– turn based Scrabble type word game
– over 500,000 players
– 20 simultaneous games
– Push notifications tell you when it’s your turn
– invite friends through Facebook and Twitter
– very addictive
– some dirty sneaky cheaters cheesing me off though

Ian
Plants vs Zombies
– Superb game for iPhone
– Perfect pick up, play, stop 20 mins later…or 2 hours
– 300,000 copies sold in……………..9 days!
– More than $1 million in sales
– Current fav games