Category: Podcast

DigitalOutbox Episode 34

DigitalOutbox Episode 34
In this episode the team discuss Apple Tablet predictions, Google, Youtube and Open Data.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:16 – Apple Tablet and Event
– Apple Event Confirmed for 27th
– What could it mean?
– Creation? Canvas? Slate? iPad (Apple files request to take iPad trademark from Fujitsu)? iTablet? I guess it will be in colour
– iLife 10?
– iPhone OS 4 – multitasking, revamped interface
– Some gaming sites get invites – IGN, Kotaku
– Media will be major focus – harper collins, new york times, e-book/reader
– (There’s a sizable part of me that would absolutely love this to be a launch of some new iPhone colours – Chris)
– (Or indeed for this to be a new iPhone rather than be what everyone expects. Something radically different perhaps. Knock everyone sideways.)
– WSJ – Virtual keyboard, NYT, Conde Nast, Harper Collins, EA, best of TV service, also mentions Bing in iPhone, + Bing maps, itunes.com in June,
27:39 – Amazon Running Scared
– Gives away kindle for free – http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/20/amazon-kindle-free/
– Specific accounts, heavy readers. Buy a kindle, if you don’t like it ask for refund
– They’ll refund the money but let you keep the kindle
– Developers, developers, developers – http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/amazon-cracks-open-the-kindle/
– Kindle Development Kit – http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=1000476231
– Already made available to select partners – EA for example
– Limited beta starts next month
– Same revenue share as iphone and they must pay for wireless costs – 15cents per mb
– How actively will Amazon police what makes it into the Kindle store? “The guidelines are what you might expect,” said Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman. On the forbidden list: Internet voice-calling software, advertising, offensive materials, the collecting of customer information without consent, and the use of the Amazon and Kindle brands.
– You don’t think Apple’s announcement next week is making them sweat?
29:54 – NY Times Paid Model
– From 2011, pay to access NYT
– Free access to set number of articles per month
– After that, time to pay
– Is that it? Is that what all the fuss was about?
30:48 – Google vs China Fallout
– The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.
– Wow.
– Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.
– However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe.
– However, Graham Cluley of anti-virus firm Sophos, told BBC News that not only did the warning apply to 6, 7 and 8 of the browser, but the instructions on how to exploit the flaw had been posted on the internet.
– France warns too
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8465038.stm
– Last week was Google vs China, this week Microsoft vs EU, next week Apple takes on…..
– Certa, a government agency that oversees cyber threats, warned against using all versions of the web browser.
– UK Govt Response
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/20/uk-government-internet-explorer
– Government departments have been issued an alert on how to deal with this particular incident and to mitigate against vulnerabilities in relation to particular versions of IE.
– A government user, operating on government systems, such as the GSi (Government Secure Intranet), will benefit from additional security measures, unlikely to be available to the average home computer user. These include tools which actively monitor for evidence of any malicious attacks
– Even though MS declared their browser secure (enough), they patch it anyway…
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8469632.stm
– “Out-of-band” update (update issued outside of normal schedule) issued to patch IE.
– MS say only exploits were made on IE6 and urge users to upgrade.
– In the mean time, web analytics company StatCounter say the Germany/France warnings and the news around this story has seen Firefox grab 40% market share to IE’s 45% and even overtake in certain regions (e.g. Germany and Austria)
– Google postpone phone launches in China
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8467491.stm
– 2 Android phones, due to launch with China Unicom, have been postponed following the hacking of human rights activists GMail accounts.
– Strained Relations between US and China
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8472683.stm
– Hillary Clinton’s speech calling for China to investigate the attacks and make the results open has not been received well in China…
– China sayng it could harm ties between the two countries
35:24 – Youtube Moves to Pay per view and Movie Rentals
– Only US to start with towards end of Jan.
– Users will be able to pay (around £2.50) to give themselves a 48hr period in which to watch the movie stream
– This is likely to expand to include pay-per-view events etc going forward.
– Trialling HTML5 too
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/20/youtube-html5/
– Today, YouTube is taking steps to let users work it into their everyday browsing experience: you’ll now be able to watch some of the site’s videos without a plugin, using the video and audio playback support included with HTML5
– Activate in Youtubes testtube – http://www.youtube.com/testtube
– Unfortunately, this isn’t being rolled out to all videos. You can only watch videos that aren’t being monetized and that haven’t been annotated (obviously YouTube hasn’t implemented overlays in its HTML5 player)
– Also cleaner new look – nice
– Vimeo also rolls out HTML5 support – death to flash!
– Indian Cricket to be streamed live, worldwide (except USA) on YouTube
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/20/youtube-live-indian-premier-league
– YouTube has bought the rights to the IPL and will stream live games to a world-wide audience (Apart from USA).
– Advertising and sponsorship revenue generated will be split between YouTube (Google) and IPL
40:12 – UK Govt launches Open Data
– Just under 3000 datasets available
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/20/tim-berners-lee-free-data
– People who have seen early versions of data.gov.uk say that it contains tools that make it “much easier for [government] departments to produce structured, linked data”. Harry Metcalfe, an independent developer who has developed and worked on a number of sites that use government data to produce public information, commented that “this is such an encouraging thing to see. No expensive procurement exercises for clunky, bespoke sites: instead we have the right tools for the job, joined together … this is how government IT should work
– Shadbolt said the underpinning principle was simple. “We believe that the government should establish the principle that all the public services should publish in reusable form all the objective factual non-personal data on which the public services run and are assessed and on which public decisions are based, or which is collected or generated in the course of public service delivery.”
– The UK has become a world showcase for open government data, with the launch today of a government website hosting 2,500 public data sets – more than the best-known rival, data.gov in the US.
– However…..
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/22/number_10_paf_database_petition/
– PAF will remain with Royal Mail and be charged for
– 24 hours after the much heralded launch of data.gov.uk, it slams the door in the hopes of many that the PAF would be available for all, or at least non profit and charatable organisations
42:38 – Dont Joke on Twitter
– Robin Hood airport is closed, You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!
– A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat.
– After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation
– He has been banned from the Doncaster airport for life.
– The civil libertarian Tessa Mayes, an expert on privacy law and free speech issues, said: “Making jokes about terrorism is considered a thought crime, mistakenly seen as a real act of harm or intention to commit harm.
– “The police’s actions seem laughable and suggest desperation in their efforts to combat terrorism, yet they have serious repercussions for all of us. In a democracy, our right to say what we please to each other should be non-negotiable, even on Twitter.”
45:28 – BT Fibre to Cabinet Pricing
– There will be a £50 connection charge for the basic package, which will upload at up to 2Mbit/s and a 20GB per month usage allowance.
– The other package, costing £24.99 per month, will be connected for free, upload at up to 10Mbit/s and have no data cap.
– Both require an 18-month contract and come with a free Home Hub.
– In reality, because it uses existing copper and aluminium wires into premises, BT’s service is typically likely to offer 20 to 30Mbit/s downstream. For most its performance is likely to rank between to Virgin Media’s 20Mbit/s “XL” package, which costs £20 per month, and the 50Mbit/s “XXL” at £28 per month.
– Rollout – http://www.buckconsult.co.uk/fttx/
– I’m live!!!!!!!!!!!
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/22/bt_infinity_p2p/
– P2P will still be throttled – BT has now also conceded that its traffic management equipment will restrict the bandwidth available to peer-to-peer protocols on both Infinity packages, as on its existing ADSL services.
– 4pm to 00:00 weekdays, 9am to 00:00 weekends
50:03 – Nokia launches Ovi Maps
– Free turn-by-turn navigation is now available for roughly 20 million Nokia handsets around the world.
– Maps are stored locally, and no continuous data connection is needed
– Traffic Information in 10 countries
– Lane assistance, speed trap warnings
– Pedestrian mode, including shortcuts only possible on foot
– Free Lonely Planet/Michelin travel guides
– Smart. Nokia in catchup mode.
52:49 – Chinatown Wars hits the iPhone
– Plays well
– Touchscreen controls a bit fiddly
– $9.99
54:27 – PS3 Motion Controllers Delayed
– The wand is now looking for an “Autumn” release date.
– Jump lost on Netal? Certainly looks interesting for Christmas 2010
– Even now, the PS3 appears to suffer it’s own design. The PS4 HAS to address development issues?
55:50 – Spotify Viral Marketing
– 5 best ads get free premium subscription for 3 months
– Comments suggest some users think the prize isn’t very generous.
– (but all the blurb is in French so I could just be making this up!)

Picks
Ian
HuffDuffer
– podcast aggregator
– bookmarklet
– popular
– tag driven
– search
– add rss of stuff you’ve huffduffed to itunes
– find new content that previously you’d miss or wouldn’t know was out there

Henry
Smack Talk
– iPhone app
– hours of fun talking like a hamster

Chris
Acer Aspire Timeline 1810TZ
– Netbook form factor but with good power under bonnet
– 11.3″ Screen
– Windows 7 Home Premium
– HDMI out
– Good keyboard.
– Ultra Low Voltage Dual Core processor
– 8 Hours battery life (6 full on media – 10 wi-fi/internet)
– Webcam
– Olympic edition due to have 4Gig RAM, 500Gig HD, Blue Tooth (64Bit) £550
– Standard edition 3Gig RAM, 250Gig HD £450

DigitalOutbox Episode 33

DigitalOutbox Episode 33
In this episode the team discuss Google vs China, MS Word Banned and Apple Rumours.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
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Shownotes
0:45 – Google vs China
– “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on their corporate infrastructure that occurred last month.
– The attack originated in China and resulted in the “theft of intellectual property from Google.”
– Attack, as confirmed by MS, was through IE (one of the vectors) and MS is working with Google and partners and developing a patch for the hole
– In light of the attack Google is making sweeping changes to its Chinese operations
– The company says that a minimal amount of user information was compromised, but has come to the alarming conclusion that the attacks were targeting the information of Chinese human rights activists
– In light of the attacks, and after attempts by the Chinese government to further restrict free speech on the web, Google has decided it will deploy a fully uncensored version of its search engine in China.
– This is a major change: since January 2006, Google has made concessions to the Chinese government and offered a censored (and highly controversial) version of its search engine at Google.cn.
– Should the Chinese government decide that an uncensored engine is illegal, then Google may cease operations in China entirely
– Huge, huge step. Massive corporate switch in strategy
– Should be applauded – too often corporations chasing the lucrative untapped chinese market have made concessions to the regime that they would never contemplate anywhere else
– Was this done, as some blogs are stating, due to google losing in China? Google says no – best quarter ever was the latest quarter
– One more thing…..Google hacked the hackers – PC in Taiwan, gathering evidence the attacks originated from mainland China, possibly orchestrated by the government. Hacked 33 other companies including Adobe.
6:08 – Nexus One Support Issues
– It seems that Google / T-Mobile (America) / HTC don’t really know who is supporting the Nexus Phone.
– Google have no dedicated support line and are only offering support through a forum and via email.
– Good product but bad support = fail.
– Google have said they are now working with their partners to offer support via a number of channels.
– Early termination cost greater than cost of full hardware cost. (Google claim back as do T-Mobile…)
11:45 – GDrive but not in name
– soon upload any file type at all to Google Docs, not just the dozen or so Office formats that the service allowed as of yesterday. Video files. Images. Audio Files. Even Zip files. As long as those files are 250 MB or smaller, you’re good.
– The new feature will roll out over the next several weeks, says Google.
– Like other documents in Google docs, files can be kept private, made public or shared with a few users.
– Google Viewer can be used to view many file types, with the notable exception of video.
– Regular users have 1 GB of free storage and can purchase more for $0.25/GB.
– Enterprise customer pay higher prices, starting at $17/year for 5 GB. There are no bandwidth charges.
15:38 – MS banned from selling Word and Office
– The US courts upheld the initial judgement that MS has infringed i4i’s “Custom XML” patent in their Office suite and Monday 11th saw that start of the ban on selling the products.
– As it happens, MS has now produced a version that no longer violates the patent and so “This process will be imperceptible to the vast majority of customers”.
– MS also had to pay i4i damages of £183m.
– MS are planning to appeal further.
22:56 – Free laptops for low income families
– A new scheme to give free laptops to some 270,000 pupils from low income families has begun.
– The Home Access Scheme will follow similar eligibility criteria to those offered free school meals and will see a grant for a computer and also funding for a broadband connection for 1 year.
25:05 – OINK Admin Acquitted on fraud charge
– Alan Ellis, 26, was the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing.
– He operated the site, called Oink, from his flat in Middlesbrough from 2004 until it was closed down in a police raid in October 2007.
In that time Oink facilitated the download of 21 million music files.
– At the end of the two week trial the jury returned a unanimous verdict (12 to 0). Alan Ellis is not guilty of Conspiracy to Defraud the music industry. He walked out of Teesside Crown Court a free man today, his name cleared.
– The verdict cannot be appealed and Ellis can finally put the past behind him and move on.
– So, crack on with torrenting then….
28:59 – Blippy goes live
– Social network for your spending
– Hook up your iTunes account, Amazon account, audible, godaddy, netflix, blockbuster, credit card or bank account
– Blippy will then broadcast your purchases
– People can follow you and see/comment on your purchases
– Step too far?
– It’s got lots of investors – I just don’t feel comfortable putting my accounts into this service.
35:14 – Marks and Spencer Netbook Range
– What the hey!
36:36 – Binged.it
– URL shortener
– Longer than bing?
39:38 – Tablet Rumours
– Orange exec confirms it and a built in webcam….then denies it
– Lots of 10.1 inch oled screens ordered,
– Gruber – no camera, webcam or otherwise on The Tablet
41:25 – iPhone Rumours
– oled, video chat, removable battery, twice the battery life and mobile tv
– touch sensitive back ala magic mouse – why – does that solve the game controller problem Chris mentioned?
– go figure
– Question – what would you want in os 4.0?
47:29 – Vodafone launches sat nav app
– Vodafone Navigation
– The application promises turn-by-turn navigation, with voice instructions and speed camera alerts, for any location in the UK.
– While the application is currently free, at the end of April 2010, customers can decide to keep the application for the length of their contract for just £3 a month, or choose to take it month by month for £5 a month.
– Only works with iPhone and a Vodafone SIM card
– They also sold 50,000 iPhones on first day

Picks
Ian
Readability
– Cleans up cluttered pages
– Great for reading long form stories – run through readability first then store to Instapaper or Evernote

Henry
Appzapper 2
– The uninstaller that Apple forgot
– Easy to use – keeps your mac clean of old apps

Chris
Dragon Age:Origins

DigitalOutbox Episode 32

DigitalOutbox Episode 32
In this episode the team discuss Nexus, Apple Tablet and some CES discussion.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
2:21 – London Datastore
– More than 200 data sets detailing life in London are to be put online by the capital’s governing body.
– Opens on Jan 29th
– Information about planning decisions, crime rates, abandoned vehicles, house prices, road accidents and many other metrics will form the London datastore.
– Those who come up with the most innovative ways to harness the data could get a substantial grant to help them bring their idea to life.
– 4iP, Channel 4’s Innovation for the Public Fund, said it would back the best ideas with a £200,000 cash pot.
– Data list – http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/data-packages-launch
5:13 – Project Canvas Approved
– Internet access for the TV via set top box
– BBC Trust has given the go-ahead for the corporation to push on
– The consortium of six firms is now looking for “expressions of interest” for other partners to join the platform
– Project Canvas now includes the BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Channel 4 and Talk Talk. Sky is likely to vocally object to the Trust’s apparent approval – its press office was unavailable at press time.
– “By seamlessly converging broadband and broadcast content, Project Canvas can help secure the future of free-to-air broadcasting and create an open platform that gives online services a route to the TV set.
6:57 – Videogames Bigger Than Film
– More money was spent on video games than on films – including both trips to the cinema and films on DVD – figures compiled for The Daily Telegraph indicate.
– In the twelve months to the end of September 2009, £1.73 billion was spent on video games, according to the data company GFK Chart-Track.
– According to the UK Film Council exactly £1 billion was spent at the British box office during the same period, with a further £198 million spent on film titles released on DVD and Blu-ray
– Only television – including DVDs of television shows, along with the cost of the license and satellite subscriptions – and music are bigger forms of entertainment.
– Industry figures show there the number of games consoles being used in Britain has shot up from 13.5 million in 2008 ago to well over 25 million earlier this year, with enough consoles for nine out of every ten households in the country to have one.
9:32 – Orange to launch HD Calls
– Orange will begin trials of the new and improved, 3G-facilitated service early in the new year
– fully roll it out along with a “range of handsets” before the end of the year.
10:27 – Nexus One
– Jan 5th launch
– http://gizmodo.com/5436673/rumor-nexus-one-will-be-530-unlocked-180-with-t+mobile
– 3.7-inch OLED display, HVGA (480 x 800) — deep contrast. 1GHz Snapdragon
– Trackball with multi-color notification LED
– Ah, so those contact points enable inline remotes and mics. Inline noise cancellation: two mics, front and back, which enables nose suppression. Custom engraving on the lower bezel!
– Live wallpaper – looks pretty junky to be honest
– Voice – any text box – demo – spoken english, server based translation to text – it worked! Voice looked amazing, as do all voice demo’s
– Google Earth demo
– www.google.com/phone – buy Nexus 1 plus other devices ‘soon’ – was this really the big announcement?
– Nexus One unlocked and without service: $529. Buy it with service from T-Mobile for $179.
– Will be shipping to UK from today + Singapore & Hong Kong
– On Vodafone in the UK in a ‘few short weeks’
20:03 – Apple Tablet
– Apple has reportedly scheduled a media event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Wednesday Jan. 27, 2010, for a major product announcement.
– Selected app developers asked to make sure their app’s work…full screen
– 10″ screen is seemingly the size but lots of sites reporting 7″ too
– APple have owned iSlate domain since 2006/7 – iSlate?
– Is it tablet or high res iPhone?
– 5MP camera’s also rumoured
24:08 – Microsoft at CES
– Power cut – classy start
– Lame introduction – Crazy Steve Balmer ain’t no Steve Jobs
– Xbox – first up and sales looking good
– Bing – good year, growing market share – can’t argue
– Car – growing market
– Zune doing well, Windows Mobile – more next month
– Windows 7 – fastest selling OS in history, 94% satisfcation rating, 300M pc’s shipped, 4 million windows applications – there’s an app for that
– Some of the laptops looked…interesting
– Software – Blio, e-book reader, Office demo – snore, Bing maps again, Recording 4 HD streams – demo, Media everywhere – nice demo of media on tv, comp, phone, xbox – Microsoft Mediaroom – demo’d and talked about IPTV so many times – still not taking off
– Slate pc’s – ugggghhhhhhh – would Steve have said slate if the Apple rumours weren’t so rabid?
– Touch demo on slate fails 🙂
– Xbox – Mass Effect 2 – Jan, Splinter Cell Conviction – Feb, Spring – Mod War 2 expansion packs exclusively first on Xbox, Fable 3, Crackdown 2, Alan Wake – physiological action thriller – episodic with more episodes on Xbox Live, Halo Reach – demo not streamed due to intellectual property – Fall 2010, multiplayer demo in Spring
– Game Room – Personal Arcade, games in original cabinets, 30 original arcade classics from Spring, invite friends to custom arcade and let them try your collection, 1000 games coming!
– Natal – coming this year, holiday 2010, works with current 360, uses 10-15% of 360’s processing power
35:18 – Sony at CES
– 3D TV’s a go-go – top end come with two glasses and transmitter
– Using SD in camera’s!
– BDP-S770 – 3D blu-ray player, wi-fi, netflix and a free iphone app controller
– Sony Dash – 7inch, $199 running Chumby OS, not portable
– 24.5 inch OLED…getting bigger
– PS3 will play 3D movies through 3D Bravias
– PS3
– Heavy Rain – Feb 26th
– God of War III – March in Japan
– No mention of GT5!
40:54 – Skype goes HD
– 720p from Windows
– HD Camera’s coming
– Directly form TV’s – LG and Panasonic
42:21 – Boxee
– Plays everything the normal Boxee software does
– Under $200
– Powered by the Tegra 2 (T20) — a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU
– NVIDIA Graphicsthat can play 1080p video from locally stored content and stream HD content
– Utilizes Adobe Flash 10.1, meaning HD and web content should play back smoother and require fewer resources
– RF remote (so you can hide the box behind a cabinet)
– 802.11n
– No hard drive, no IR
– Remote looks great with chatpad on the back – I want for my Mac Mini
– Boxee Beta software now available to download – http://blog.boxee.tv/2010/01/07/boxee-beta-goes-public-download-now/
44:29 – Kindle DX On Sale Worldwide
– On sale on 100 countries
– $489, ships Jan 19th
– Includes wireless deal, get content wirelessly wherever you are
45:03 – Chrome OS Netbook Specs
– According to IBTimes, the Google netbook will house an Nvidia Tegra platform with an ARM CPU. If the rumors hold up, it will also have a 10.1″ multi-touch screen that supports HD, come with a 64GB SSD, 2GB of RAM, and other standards like Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, a webcam, and so on. Not surprisingly, the netbook will run Chrome OS and come pre-installed with a suite of Google Apps.
– The rumors also indicate that the netbook will be available by holiday season 2010 for a subsidized price of under $300, which is impressive for the type of hardware they’re talking about. It would sold directly from Google’s website, and they may partner with a network operator to sell it as a bundled 3G plan. – If previous experience is anything to go by, the data-bundle costs will no doubt be pretty crippling – especially for a device that is online only. Does the device need all the power to simply run web applications…
46:11 – iMac Woes Continue
– Resolves graphic card flicker
– The 27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update applies to the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or the display to flicker.
– If your screen remains black after applying the updater or if you continue to experience image corruption or display flickering after successfully completing this update, contact AppleCare or an Apple Authorized Service Provider
– So not only does Cupertino seem to be blaming ATI for the issue, it’s not actually promising to necessarily fix anything with this update, either
– Couple of days after the firmware release, the flickering still continues for many – OUCH!
47:42 – Unreal 3 Engine on the iPhone
– It’s using a modified Unreal Tournament level previously shown off at GDC. A virtual thumbstick on the left side of the screen controls your movement, while tracking your thumb in the lower right corner of the screen controls the camera. Just tap the screen to shoot. Mark said this is a tech test bed and they’re experimenting with several different control schemes including ones with tilt.
– OpenGL2 only so 3GS or 3rd gen iPod touch
48:03 – AppStore – 3 Billion Downloads
– From 2-3 billion downloads in 3 months, 1 week
– Wowsers
48:22 – Apple Store Madness
– Apple stores don’t have “no smoking” signs. Legally they need them but they “ruin the design of the store”, so for every apple store in the UK they pay £50 a day to keep their windows sign free

Picks
Ian
Unison 2
– newsgroup app for mac
– looks amazing

Chris
Beautiful People
– The 5000 people who were kicked off of beautifulpeople.com for getting too fat over Christmas!
– To you I say… WAHHHHHHHHHH!

DigitalOutbox Episode 29

DigitalOutbox Episode 29
In this episode the team discuss Snow and Swine Flu.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:33 – 4G Network
– First speeds on 4G dongle – 42.78Mbps over a wireless data card, 5.3Mbps upload and 37ms ping
– TeliaSonera bundles the 4G service with 30GB of data for just 599kr (85$) per month
– Why mobile?
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/morgan_stanley_mobile_internet_market.php
– Mobile Internet market will be “at least 2x size of Desktop Internet,”
– Apparently, O2 4G trial also happening in Slough!
7:25 – Facebook Privacy Concerns
– Unfortunately, the truth is that almost everything is accessible to quiz authors.: Even if you have your profile information and content set to “private,” quizzes can see almost everything that you share with your friends on Facebook: your politics and religion, embarassing photos, comments you leave on your friends’ Wall. It doesn’t seem like a quiz developer has any reason to poke around in your profile, but it’s temptingly easy to do so.
– What info about you can a quiz see when your friends take a quiz? Nope – once again, the correct answer is: Almost everything on your profile. Yes, that’s right: when your friend takes a quiz, the quiz maker gets access to your information! So even if you’re being careful, if you haven’t changed the right privacy settings, your information could be collected by anyone who writes a quiz that your friends take!
– Developer’s aren’t vetted
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/15/facebook-lie-terms-of-service/
– Facebook suggest lying about your hometown and profile picture to protect yourself
– That in itself is against Facebooks T&C’s
Court Action Looming?
– 10 US based privacy groups have filed complaint to the federal trade commission over facebooks new privacy settings.
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8420431.stm
16:50 – Windows Mobile 7 Delayed
– Microsoft UK head of mobility Phil Moore addressed the thorny subject of Windows Mobile saying: “We’re still playing catch-up. When Apple came on to the scene a couple of years ago, it threw away the rulebook and reinvented it. We unfortunately don’t have that luxury. It’s true, Apple caught us all napping. It launched something that was very iconic, new and unseen with a very good user interface.”
– “It has been put back until late next year but it is definitely coming.”
19:46 – Palm Ares Beta
– Ares is the first complete set of integrated mobile development tools hosted entirely in the browser
– features a drag-and-drop interface builder, a robust code editor, a visual debugger, and built-in source control integration. Ares dramatically lowers the barriers for web developers to jump into mobile development and makes building webOS apps even easier and faster than before.
– drag-and-drop UI creation and the ability to deploy to your device from the browser (albeit so long as you’ve got the Mojo SDK installed).
21:59 – iMac Delays
– Flickering and other graphic card issues forcing 27″ iMac delays
– According to resellers, graphic cards are being replaced
– Lots of feedback in discussions on the website – http://imac.squeaked.com/
24:50 – Apple wins court battle against Psystar
– Judge bans Psystar from:
– Copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple
– Intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting or encouraging any other person or entity to infringe Apple’s copyrighted Mac OS X software
– Circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers
– Playing any part in a product intended to circumvent Apple’s methods for controlling Mac OS X, such as the methods used to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers
– Doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X
– Rebel EFI software not specifically included in the ruling, because Psystar avoided describing specifically what the software does. However it is unlikely Psystar would be able to sell the software without finding itself in contempt if investigated again.
– It was reported earlier that Psystar was totally shutting down, but it has now emerged that is not the case
28:10 – Kindle App on Appstore
– Buy and read digital books
37:02 – BluRay 3D Spec
– Will work with PS3
– First, that the Blu-ray Disc Association has chosen the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec to store 3D, so that even though it is now providing a full 1080p frame for each eye, it will only require about 50% more storage space compared to the 2D version, and all discs will be fully backwards compatible, in 2D, on existing players
– Better than backwards compatibility, the PlayStation 3 will be forwards compatible with the new discs — a new HDTV setup (the spec promises to work with plasmas, LCDs or projectors equally well) with IR emitters and glasses will still be necessary
40:21 – PSP Digital Comics
– Launched on Wed 16th
– Marvel, IDW, Titan, iVerse and 2000AD
– http://playstationcomics.com
– Interesting – may need to charge up the PSP
41:27 – Gran Turismo Time Trial
– Dissapointing
– 1 track, tuned and ord version of car
– Handling….iffy – car difficult to control with joypad
– Aiming for wheel market? All fastest times by those with a wheel – forums reckon wheel trims 1-2 seconds from lap time
– Graphically underwhelming too – even saw a few stutters
42:55 – PSN Subscriptions
– Seems inevitable

Picks
Shakeel
Guardian App
– Guardian app hits the app store
– £2.39 so a bit of a stink from people saying that the website is free so why pay for the app?
– Writing in his blog about the application, The Guardian’s mobile product manager Jonathon Moore answered criticism of the decision to charge for it. “At an early stage we decided to set the bar high, which hopefully means the app has been planned, designed, tested and developed to offer a truly engaging experience,” he said. “The investment involved in this requires us to ask a small fee in return,” he said.
– The app offers an offline mode which allows you to stay in touch even if you don’t have a signal;
– easy access to audio and podcasts (including ‘download for listening later’);
– elegant personalisation;
– a topic-based search engine;
– the ability to follow all your favourite Guardian authors and contributors, and superb picture galleries

Ian
360 Live
– Great app for checking Xbox Live friends list
– Was paid for, now free
– So much better than other app’s – delve into frineds details, games played etc
– Can message from app as well

Perian
– Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.
– Do away with need for VLC

Chris
Doodlejump
– bouncy dude.
– Keep him bouncing on platforms and everything will be fine!
– Use the tools – like jet packs, springs, helicopter hats to help you on the way.
– Avoid black holes and shoot the baddies on the way.
– Fantastically simple. Annoyingly addictive. 59p.

DigitalOutbox Episode 28

DigitalOutbox Episode 28
In this episode the team discuss Google, JooJoo, Boxee and Tweeting during sex.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:56 – Google Search Event
– innovations combining these trends and mobile phones. Search by sight. Search by location, and search by voice.
– Near Instant Voice Translation
– showed a demo of “talk in English, run voice recognition, translate into Spanish, then do voice synthesis in Spanish.” So basically a Babel fish
– bake location into the Google.com homepage. New feature: “Near me now” on Google.com mobile. Hit Near Me now and it shows you nearby restaurants, coffee shops, Bars, ATMS. Hit the down arrow, and it will show all the locations nearby.
– Today we have a new version of Google Mobile Maps for Android. Among new features are What’s Nearby feature. Longpress on a location hit What’s Nearby, and it has a list of nearby POIs.
– Google Goggles
– Take a picture of an item, and use that picture as the query. Say you have a bottle of wine to see if it’s any good. Take a picture. Looks it up, shows it has hints of apricots, etc. It’s in labs for two reasons. It’s nascent. Works in certain types of objects in certain categories. We want to be able to do any image. Today you have to frame a photo. In the future, just have to point at an object. We’re a long way from that. But today marks the beginning of that journey.
– Crap name
– How long before face recognition search?
– Great demo – http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/07/google-goggles-video
– Currently android only but will come to iPhone
– Google Real-Time Search
– http://google.com/trends / http://google.co.uk/trends
– http://www.google.com/search?q=google%20goggles&hl=en&gl=us&esrch=RTSearch&rtfu=1260216053&usg=9073
– Does a query for “Obama” into Google, results page comes up. Latest results for Obama streaming in. There is a widget on the standard results page, with results sliding by. They’re nested in the standard results page. This is the first time any search engine has integrated real time web into the results page. Google’s Matt Cutts just tweeted something, and it immediately showed up in the search results. This is huge.
– This is the first time we are presenting real-time web on the results page. What you see in this realtime section. Is a scroll bar to the right. You can scroll back and go forward. Shows the source (twitter.com). This is a comprehensive real-time web. With Tweets. News Articles, blog articles.
– New link under search options. “Latest results”. In addition to old ones, “Past hour, past 24 hours, past week, past year”. Available today. iPhone and Android
– Google trends is also leaving labs today.Rolling out real time search product over the next couple of days. You can always go to Google.com/trends page and clicking on a hot topic will show Google’s real time results.
– Two huge new partner announcements. Facebook will be providing us with a feed from Facebook Pages (shared publicly, obviously). Appearing in Google’s real time results. The second is MySpace.
– Q: How much real-time data are you crawling?
A: We’re crawling a lot of content ~1 billion pages a day. Many sources. Both new sources, and if a company announces a new product and does a release, we get that. And new blog posts. So we’re casting a very wide net. The key here is comprehensiveness of realtime integration.
– Q: How do you prevent spammers from taking advantage of real-time search results.
A: We have the best systems in place to prevent gaming of the system. Our spam lead out here (Matt Cutts) runs the best spam prevention team that there is out there. We have had experience with this for so long. We’ve developer algorithms so we can counter things almost before they happen. Real-Time is moving from minutes to seconds.
7:26 – Broadband Tax Details Revealed
– Alistair Darling in pre-budget report. £6 a year for all fixed line phone users so that people in Wales can have Broadband.
– Superfast broadband to 90% of the country by 2017… 2 0 1 7!!! In technology time-scales that’s just plain ridiculous.
– “It is estimated that the broadband tax would raise around £170m a year, which is some way short of BT’s estimate of £5bn needed to provide super-fast fibre services to every UK home.”
– Apparently, the Conservatives have pledged to scrap the tax if they win the election next year… So we should probably just ignore this until it goes away? But is there a need for this tax?
10:12 – Web Firms Oppose Digital Britain Clause
– Facebook, Google, Yahoo and eBay
– Want removal of clause 17 that gives any future Secretary of State powers to change copyright law as they see fit.
11:06 – Postcode Data to be free in 2010
– Currently organisations that want access to datasets that tie postcodes to physical locations cannot do so without incurring a charge.
– Following a brief consultation, the postcode information is set to be freed in April 2010.
– As part of this push, the government said it would start “consulting on making Ordnance Survey mapping and postcode datasets available for free reuse from April 2010.”
– The dataset that is likely to be freed is that which ties postcodes to geographic locations. Many more commercial organisations use the Postcode Address File (PAF) that ties post codes to addresses. Currently access to either data set incurs a charge.
– Harry Metcalfe, who helped sites get at postcode data, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the decision to open up the OS data sets.
“If the right data is released in the right way, this will be a positive development,” he said.
– Unlikely to be the PAF – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/10/ordnance_survey_data_postcode_paf/
– Woo hoo – just hope it’s released without strings.
12:50 – US Games Company sues British Blogger
– In an internet defamation case that lawyers say could set an “extraordinary precedent”, an American games company is suing a British blogger in the Australian courts.
– Evony, an online games company registered in the US state of Delaware, is suing Coventry-based blogger Bruce Everiss for libel over a series of allegations made on his website. In a bizarre twist, however, Evony has decided not to pursue its case in Britain or America, but 10,000 miles away.
– A hearing in Sydney on Monday will determine whether or not the supreme court of New South Wales has jurisdiction – with the potential to set a precedent for the way defamation laws are applied to the online world.
– Evony’s owners, who boast that the game has more than 11 million players worldwide, have accused Everiss – a 30-year veteran of the computer games industry – of damaging their reputation with a series of claims made on his blog. Among the allegations that Evony is objecting to are claims that the game is exploitative and has links to another company that is already being sued for fraud by Microsoft.
– Evony’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment, but have previously said that the company intends to seek worldwide damages – a move believed to be a first in a case of this kind.
– The blogger himself, who does not intend to make an appearance in Sydney, has responded angrily to the action and accused Evony of libel tourism.
– He has suggested that if the case is allowed to proceed “it will create a precedent and open the floodgates for anyone to litigate anywhere against anyone they don’t like”.
15:44 – Facebook Changes Privacy Controls
– Facebook has rolled out its long touted updates to the privacy controls. Great.
– They are fine grained and allow you to control many aspects. They are clear and well implemented.
– But why the heck does it default to fully open!
– As a user, you are presented with a box informing you to update your settings.
23:15 – Tweet During Sex
– Best man rigs bed to tweet while couple are having sex – start time, end time, frenzy rating
– http://twitter.com/newlywedsontjob
26:03 – Google Chrome Beta for Mac
– Finally comes to the mac
– No extension support (there is in dev build) – in fact bookmakrs manager, app mode, task manager and gears support missing
– No flash blocker!
– Very fast though, faster than safari, for me anyway
– Needs xmarks support before I can use it seriously
– Also announced Extensions (previously dev only)
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/08/chrome-extensions-live/
– https://chrome.google.com/extensions
– Rem The Milk, Xmarks, Adblock etc etc – happy days
30:16 – UStream Live Recorder
– Live video streaming finally comes to iPhone
– 10-20 secodn delay but quality is fine
– App is free
– record videos right to the web, and allow others to watch them as they’re being recorded. These videos can also be archived so that people can watch them later, if they choose.
– easy to automatically tweet out when you go live, as well as to do things like share the videos on Facebook and YouTube. The live broadcast can also send out your location, if you’re into that sort of thing. The app also allows for chatting with viewers, and yes/no polling.
33:46 – Tesco iPhone Pricing
– For the 3Gs, £20 x 12 months + £407 = £647 or £60 x 24 months + £50 = £1,490
– Highest cost per month on 3GS or 3G but appealing 12 month contract instead of 18 or 2 years
– £60 – unlimited but limited by Fair Usage Policy…which is 1 TB of data!
– £20 – low minutes and texts
– Different but a bad different from current UK deals
– http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49304500,00.htm?s_cid=82
– cnet uk analysis implies that when you compare like for life cost of ownership over the same period, Tesco deals are best out there.
38:07 – Apple Sues Nokia
– Nokia sued Apple in Nov for 10 patent infringements
– apple now sues Nokia for 13 patent infringements
– “Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours.” That was the only official Apple statement we’ve yet seen on the matter, by Bruce Sewell, Apple’s General Counsel and senior vice president.
44:47 – Boxee Beta and Boxee Box
– private beta with a new and improved look
– users are greeted by a dashboard with three columns in the form of a newsfeed, featured content and a program queue
– newsfeed offers starred content and comments from Boxee, Twitter and Facebook friends
– center column is reserved for featured community content
– the program queue lets you to keep track of your Netflix queue and latest Boxee-related TV subscriptions
– In the past users were asked to differentiate between their local and web files. Boxee Beta mixes local and web content in recognition that users simply want to watch their favorite programs regardless of the formats or location of files
– plan to open up the Beta to the public on Jan 7th (at CES) – Over the next 4 weeks we will gradually release invitations to our early access users
– Also announced Boxee Box
– http://mashable.com/2009/12/07/boxee-box-dlink/
– Hardware partner is D-Link
– Wi-fi enabled, SD slot, HDMI, SPDIF and RCA Audio connections, plus two USB ports – full specs in Jan
– $200
– Design is pretty unique – height of a coke can
– But would your money be better spent on a laptop/mini-desktop that you can install the software on and use for other purposes?
50:50 – Google Phone
– A Google branded android phone which, if rumours are true, will be sold unlocked
– Game changer
– Android dogfood – http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/12/android-dogfood-diet-for-holidays.html
– The phone itself is being built by HTC, with a lot of input from Google. It seems to be a tailored version of the HTC Passion or the related HD2 (Unlocker scored some leaked pictures back in October which are of the same phone).
– From tweets: Yeah, it’s a hot, sexy mess. And I mean that in a good way. Similar form-factor to the iPhone, but with a smooth-brushed-metal-looking shell instead of a glossy one. And perhaps a smidgen lighter. Super fast, speech-to-text in EVERY app, awesome “live wallpapers” in the background that respond to touch in really beautiful ways. Like water ripples that emanate out from a touch.
– Rumours of January launch, but is it not just a rebrand of another phone?
– Called the Nexus One, It’s built by HTC, Google put a lot of effort into tweaking the stock Android interface, they’ll sell the phone direct online, and you’ll BYO service plan
55:43 – Milestone Sells Out In UK
– Retailer eXpansys is reporting that the just-launched Droid clone for GSM became “the fastest selling gadget in the website’s 11 year history, even more successful than the iPhone” when it sold out inside of three hours on its site on top of the roughly 1,000 preorders they had taken prior to the 10th.
– Expansys is a reasonably big seller in the UK, but only the geeks know it exists.
– The general public in the UK haven’t a clue what a milestone/droid is.
– It is only with Expansys exclusively for 2 weeks. From 21 December Play.com will also have it and from next year, it should be sold at phone shops from different networks
58:48 – Crunchpad is now the JooJoo
– Is available as pre-order (shipping within 8-10weeks) on thejoojoo.com – $499. Desktop stand $30.
– Boot to the internet in 9 seconds – fastest out there
– Could deliver HD on the go (Although it only mentions HD YouTube, Hulu and other Internet sites… screams – NOT 720p to me.)
– It’s a web browser with a touch interface – too dear, people will wait for Apple, damaged goods. (But what if Apple device does cost rumored $1000)
– After a long background story about how and why he partnered with Arrington on the Crunchpad (”I guess I had him at hello”), Rathakrishnan got down and dirty: “Unfortunately, Michael was unable to deliver. Michael was completely unable to deliver.” Rathakrishnan also criticized Arrington’s Internet-celebrity approach to talking up the Crunchpad before its launch. “Publishing pictures of an unfinished product on a blog … is not a recipe for success,” he said. In Rathakrishnan’s version of the story, Arrington spent his time blowing hot air about what he was going to do, while Fusion Garage did all the work to finish the design and build the product.
– Chris – But this clearly worked as there has been more buzz around this than plenty of other MID’s.
– http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-10410960-250.html
– First hands on – good, fast to boot, no app’s, no storage, web browser and touch screen – too focussed, too expensive

Picks
Shakeel
Beat It
– Part beat machine, part rhythm (re)creation, totally addictive
– http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/beat-it/id335583964?mt=8
– listen to a track, lay down the beats, match the beat
– super retro 8-bit pixel-art graphics
– http://games.glu.com/game/beat-it

Ian
TuneChecker
– Find the cheapest price of music on the web
– Doesn’t compare quality of the music though so mileage may vary
– Also highlights free tracks
– Developed by moneysavingexpert.com

I Love Stars
– Sits in menu bar and shows you rating, lets you rate iTunes tracks
– Flash or play sound 3/4 way through playback of unrated song
– Supports keyboard shortcuts
– Free

Chris
Acrobat
– Adobe’s online suite. Includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation apps.
– Online PDF creation.
– Online meetings – whiteboards, webcams, mics, screen sharing and even screen control.
– Online repository for files.
– All run from Flash player.
– Free account limited to 5 PDF creations per day and 3 people limit in meetings. (Premium subscriptions available to raise limits.)

Tam
Free-OCR.com
– Free-OCR.com is a free online OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tool. You can use this to perform OCR on any image you supply.
– This service is free, no registration necessary. We also do not need your email address.
– Just upload your image files. Free-OCR takes either a JPG, GIF, TIFF BMP or PDF (only first page).
– The only restriction is that the images must not be larger than 2MB, no wider or higher than 5000 pixels and there is a limit of 10 image uploads per hour.
– Supported by ad’s but a nice way of getting some OCR done quickly, for free without installing software

DigitalOutbox Episode 27

DigitalOutbox Episode 27
In this episode the team discuss Apple Lala, Google gaga.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:29 – Johnston Press Charge for Online Content
– The Johnston Press websites will either ask users to pay £5 for a three-month subscription to read the full articles, or direct them to buy the newspapers for 6 regional newspapers
– Sites in the pilot scheme include the Worksop Guardian, the Ripley & Heanor News and the Whitby Gazette. The Northumberland Gazette is also included in the trial. In Scotland, the Carrick Gazette and Southern Reporter are taking part. They own The Scotsman that does similar. FT also charges
– Johnston, which owns more than 300 papers across Britain and has suffered from a drop in advertising revenues, says the introduction of “paywalls” is an experiment to assess the impact of charging for content.
– Once you start restricting access on the websites, if you have content that can broadly be found somewhere else, then you really restrict the number of people coming to websites,” the Guardian’s director of digital content Emily Bell told the BBC. “I think it’s great that people are experimenting with lots of different models because undoubtedly we need to find more money in the market,” she added.
5:40 – Google Changes News Service
– Google limits access to free news
– Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google
– Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.
– Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages.
– Change to spiders and robot – can index only preview pages – first couple of para’s only, subscribed content locked away
– If a publisher chooses to have spiders crawl their articles in this manner, they will be labeled with “subscription” within Google News
– Google blinked
8:46 – Google Public DNS
– Google launches DNS resolver
– http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
– Easy to change
– According to Google’s FAQ, the company will only keep temporary logs and erase all the information it collects through the public DNS service within 24 to 45 hours. The company promises not to keep any information that is linked to IP addresses in its permanent logs.
– I’ve switched – it’s fast but any faster than opendns?
– test via this site – http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-alternative-google-dns-rocks/403/
– test shows opendns still faster, for me in the UK at least
16:05 – Google Dictionary
16:37 – Google UK Property Dimension
18:10 – Bing Maps Beta
– Needs Silverlight
– Street View (Street Side in Bing), Photosynth, Apps
– Nice animations, slick but hate the need for plugin
– Many of the features are US only at the moment
– Google search event this Monday – isn’t competition great
24:13 – Apple buys Lala
– Lala, unlike Apple’s iTunes, lets users play the music they own from the Web — or in tech industry parlance, from the cloud.
– Is it buying the company or the engineering talent?
– Lala’s engineers have built a service that music enthusiasts say is very easy to use. Lala scans the hard drives of its users and creates an online music library that matches the user’s collection, making it painless (and free) for people to get their music in the cloud.
– is this what the massive data centre that Apple is building is for?
– 2010 – the year of streaming wars
27:36 – iTunes 12 Days of Christmas
– 26 Dec – 6 Jan
– Free song or music video, app, TV episode or film
– Offer runs for 24 hours each day
28:55 – Square
– Let people quickly and easily accept physical credit card payments from their mobile phone
– small device attaches to the phone via the headset/microphone jack
– Device is free, works on iPhone and Droid
– Receipts via e-mail, sms
– Sign with your finger on iPhone screen
– Associate photo with account so vendor can check it is actually you
– Looks awesome – quick and a great way to pay
32:39 – End of the Crunchpad
– It’s no more – another mythical tablet bites the dust
– Breakup of the team, grubby takeover attempt by hardware partner – they got screwed basically.
– Looks like it was days/weeks from demo/launch
– Now to be settled in court – this will run and run
– Only one side of the story at the moment
– Could someone not step in and save it? Something smells fishy.
– Media event planned for Monday – Chandrasekar “Chandra” Rathakrishnan, founder and CEO of Fusion Garage, (who arrington blamed for killing the crunchpad) will speak to reporters (give his side of the story) and demonstrate “the device” both in a video call and in private briefings scheduled for later Monday at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco
37:12 – GT5 Time Trial Demo
– Dec 17th, Time Trial Competition
– participants will be able to race a Nissan 370Z around a new Gran Turismo 5 circuit. The fastest times recorded in each of the 20 participating countries will be advanced to a national final. An elite group of 20 drivers will then secure a place at the GT Academy.
– Still on track for March 2010 release
39:20 – World Cup shot in 3D
– Up to 25 games shot in 3D
– Using Sony tech
– No announcements on broadcasting – in the coming months more will be announced
– selected games will be broadcast live at “Fan Fest” locations in seven cities around the world: London, Berlin, Mexico City, Paris, Rio De Janeiro, Rome, and Sydney
– World Cup in 2006 saw many jump on the HD bandwagon – will 3D see same take up?

Picks
Ian
Click 2 Flash
– safari
– Block evil Adobe Flash
– Displays nice grey background allowing you to click if you want to use it
– Improve cpu, better battery life
– Higher quality YouTube, Play videos in QuickTime (H.264), not Flash

Chris
TrueCrypt
– The mother of all encryption
– Creates an encrypted drive that, once mounted works on the fly.
– Can encrypt a whole drive. Can encrypt a whole system. Can create mini encrypted areas (mount them as drives.)
– Can even create a “false bottom” drive if you want.
– PC, MAC & Linux

DigitalOutbox Episode 26

DigitalOutbox Episode 26
In this episode the team discuss Pirates of Westminster.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:36 – News Corp and Bing
– De-index from google
– Paid (assumption) to index exclusively with Bing
– Rumoured by a few prominent technologists last week but now reported in FT
– However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.
– Minus point – Fragmentation of search, exclusive indexing – stinks
– Plus point – competition for Google
– Microsoft is not afraid to buy search market share, which is what it’s doing with the Yahoo search deal and even its Cashback program. But with these latest talks, it is literally trying to buy the news, or at least exclusive access to the news.
4:40 – Pub fined for copyright infringement
– Client of The CLoud
– A pub owner has been fined £8,000 because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over their open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.
– fine had been levied in a civil case, brought about by a rights holder, “sometime this summer”
– If you were a business why would you sign up to something like the cloud – would put the fear into any business
8:00 – Lawyers target thousands of illegal filesharers
– ACS:Law will send out 15,000 letters in the new year
– Offer chance to settle out of court for a few hundred pounds
– “A lot are accused of downloading pornography,” Jaclyn Clarabut of Which? told BBC News. “People find it distressing or embarrassing and pay up.”
9:53 – Virgin Trialling CView
– Virgin Media will trial deep packet inspection technology to measure the level of illegal filesharing on its network, but plans not to tell the customers whose traffic will be examined
– The system, CView, will be provided by Detica, a BAE subsidiary
– The system will look at traffic and identify the peer-to-peer packets. In a step beyond how ISPs currently monitor their networks, it will then peer inside those packets and try to determine what is licensed and what is unlicensed, based on data provided by the record industry.
– In the pitch document, Detica said that as well as aggregate data, CView could be used to categorise filesharers and apply technical measures against them, or target them to be sold legal alternatives. Virgin Media’s spokesman said it has no plans to use such features.
– Interesting story following on from similar ones we’ve done – my only issue is that it involves BAE which is a bit of a conflict for me. Paranoid. Me?
14:12 – Google Image results hit the headlines
– Racist, highly offensive doctored image of Michelle Obama appeard at no.1 of image results
– Was temporarily removed when the host was found to have malware but them re-instated when it moved to a “clean” host.
– Problem exasperated with blogs linking their indignation.
– Google posted advert above the result explaining why it’s not their place to sensor results.
– Image since been removed from original website and no longer at top of results.
– Google shows related search: michelle obama ape – how is that related to me searching for michelle obama
18:26 – New Apple Worm
– Serious this time
– specifically targeting people in the Netherlands who are using their iPhones for internet banking with Dutch online bank ING
– worm changes the root password from the default of “alpine” that Apple set in the factory firmware, making it more difficult for users to secure their devices
– recommended method to remove this malware from your iPhone is to restore the Apple factory firmware using iTunes.
– This worm, like the others, only attacks jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch devices.
20:18 – iMac Woes
– Cracked screens or DOA’s
– Not good, quite widespread looking at the forums
– Urban myth…alway avoid 1st gen Apple models
23:18 – iPhones coming to Tesco
– Price war, or at least some price cuts?
– Jointly owned by O2 and Tesco (Tesco Mobile that is)
26:09 – iPlayer App Coming to iPhone
– The BBC has posted a monthly press pack which includes iPlayer imagery for what appears to be a future version of the iPlayer for iPhone.
– In the image it’s clear that there is a downloads option and what appears to be a live stream option. The iPhone in the image is connected to a Wi-Fi network indicating that the Wi-Fi restriction for the current iPlayer website could still be in place.
– No comment from the BBC
– Would be their first iPhone app
27:59 – Tivo back in the UK
– Tivo to return to UK on Virgin Media’s new HD box
– TiVo is set to develop a converged television and broadband interactive interface – which will be the tech that powers Virgin Media’s next gen, high-def set-top boxes.
– Very exciting – their software is often regarded as ‘the best’.
– At the same time Tivo is dying in america – 8% of active DVR’s in America – same level as 2004, ouch!
30:34 – iPlayer on the 360
– According to sources close to the BBC’s Future Media and Technology department, a deal between the two parties has still been unable to be reached because Microsoft’s strategy of charging for all content on its Xbox Live platform is incompatible with the BBC’s public service remit
– Microsoft only wants to offer its users access to platforms it can charge for as this is the model it is pursuing.
– The BBC cannot charge the British public for access to the iPlayer as it is already included in the licence fee
– Barmy
– When do I pay for Facebook or twitter?

Picks
Ian
Handbrake
– DVD ripping utitlity and also acts as a video convertor
– Free
– Now 64 bit for Leopard and Snow Leopard (only 10% perf improvement)
– Over 1000 updates in latest version
– Improvements especially around h.264 encoding

Hans Rosling
– Makes statistics interesting
– Gapminder – over 200 indicators of global development mapped over time – fascinating
– Can make your own – Google bought the tech behind gapminer and you can use the Google Gadget called Motion Chart. It allows everyone to make a Gapminder-like bubble graph that you can publish on your web-page or blog.

Chris
Browsershots
– THE mother of all cross browser page checks.
– Type in a URL and select from tonnes of browser/operating system combinations across Linux, Mac and PC. (I counted 82 combinations available)
– Sit back and wait for the cue to run through and deliver back the screen grabs.
– Not interactive but as an overall comprehensive check, it can’t be beaten.

Down For Everyone or Just For Me?
– Another “Does exactly what it says on the tin.”
– Type in the URL and check whether the site you’re trying to view is down for everyone or just with you!