DigitalOutbox Episode 393

Chris and Ian discuss Uber, Boradband and Games

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DigitalOutbox Episode 248

Chris and Ian discuss Ross Ulbricht, Windows 10 and Privacy

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Picks
Ian
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
– £3.99
– Fast and fun shooter
– Virtual sticks but doesn’t bother me
– Includes classic modes from Geometry Wars 2
– Great on iPad, bit small on the iPhone

DigitalOutbox Episode 208

DigitalOutbox Episode 208
DigitalOutbox Episode 208 – Xbox Changes and EU says you can be forgotten

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0:58 – Deal to combat piracy in UK with ‘alerts’ is imminent
5:21 – Tech world stunned as court rules Oracle can own APIs, Google loses copyright appeal
8:43 – EU court backs ‘right to be forgotten’ in Google case
18:07 – Twitter introduces mute feature on Android, iPhone, and the Web
20:23 – Google Maps just became a one-stop shop for UK public transport data
21:27 – Dixons and Carphone Warehouse shares drop on merger
24:28 – Microsoft to unbundle Xbox One and Kinect
28:33 – Microsoft brings free Games with Gold to Xbox One, drops Gold paywall for apps in June
31:21 – The new Unreal Tournament will be free, moddable and developed with players

DigitalOutbox Episode 145

DigitalOutbox Episode 145
DigitalOutbox Episode 145 – Piracy, Google Maps hit iOS and Filters, Filters, Filters.

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1:34 – BPI Chase Pirate Bay Proxies
4:17 – Legit Promo Bay is blocked
5:20 – Nook Video launches in the UK
6:51 – BBC Launch Red Button 2.0
7:19 – BBC iPlayer – focus on Android
9:44 – The Daily shuts down
10:51 – Times Nexus 7 Offer
11:56 – Daily Mirror moves to free on the ipad
13:16 – UK Internet Monitoring Bill to be rewritten
15:27 – EE to roll out 4G to another 17 cities and towns
17:44 – Instagram makes Twitter look worse
19:52 – Twitter adds filters to photos
20:52 – Flickr says me too
23:46 – Yahoo updates mail
26:06 – GMail for iOS version 2
27:50 – Google launch Maps for iPhone
33:10 – Google Kills Free Google Apps For Business
35:30 – 2012
38:08 – Last.fm launch Scrobbler for iOS
40:02 – Sony ceases production on cassette player/recorders

Picks
Ian
1Password 4
– Universal iPad and iPhone
– Faster syncing, cleaner app, better in built browser
– £5.49 for limited time then £10.99

DigitalOutbox Episode 40

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

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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

StreetStats – Broadband speed checker +

For my pick this week, I’m choosing a broadband speed checker. This doesn’t exactly sound that interesting – but this speed checker comes with a twist – and a good one at that!

http://www.top10-broadband.co.uk/speedtest/

speedcheck

The pretense being that you carry out your speed test as normal (you know the drill – watch a rev counter representation of your download and upload speed and get a result that your mildly disappointed with.)

results

But there’s an additional step with this checker, that being you can geotag your result with your postcode it is added to an ever growing map of all users speed results.

Been fobbed off about your download speed based on distance to the exchange? Well now you’ve got the tools to confirm this or repute it. If you’re only getting 2Mbs download but your neighbors ares getting 8Mbs then you know somethings amiss.

The information is all integrated into a Google Maps application on the website

streetresults

You can move around, zoom in and out, look at different areas. Each result is presented with the provider and you can chose to display upload or download speeds. Perhaps a great tool if you’re looking to move into an area? If you want more information on a result, this is also possible by just clicking the result.

streetresultsdetail

With all this data, they have also put together some nice graphs of provider speed trends over time. Not just for standard Broadband but also mobile/3g broadband as well.

bbspeeds

3gspeeds

Nothing revolutionary about these graphs or speed tests but the website presents the information well and the geo-tagging of data and the fantastic mapping tools offered by Google have produced another great mashup.