Tag: piracy

DigitalOutbox Episode 104

DigitalOutbox Episode 104
In this episode the team discuss MegaUpload, Is Google Evil, Acta and Apple’s record quarter.

Playback
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Shownotes
1:12 – MegaUpload Shutdown
The FBI has indicted MegaUpload on racketeering and criminal copyright infringement charges, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The FBI apparently got help from law enforcement authorities around the world, as MegaUpload’s servers have been taken down. The WSJ is also reporting that four people have been arrested in New Zealand.
– Kim Schmitz, who has recently been calling himself Kim Dotcom, is amongst those arrested. Schmitz used to live in Germany, but relocated to New Zealand a few years ago. The FBI has said in a press release that it and other law enforcement agencies have executed 20 search warrants in eight countries, seizing $50 million in assets and taking down MegaUpload’s servers.
– Never used it, but always assumed it was 99% illegal content
– News on Radio 1 – 5 or 6 people furious as they used it to share legit files?
– Anonymous not happy – http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/anonymous-megaupload-department-of-justice/
– the group claimed responsibility for taking down the Universal Music, RIAA (the record industry’s lobbying arm), MPAA (the movie industry’s lobbying arm), and Department of Justice websites, among others. The group also claimed that the current attacks were “the largest attack ever by Anonymous,” with 5,635 participants. And it looks like the campaign is ongoing — Anonymous says it’s going after the FBI’s website next…which they did
– Sends jitters through industry – http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-ecosystem-shocked-as-big-players-take-drastic-action-120123/
– Over the past 48 to 72 hours, the operators of many prominent cyberlocker services have been taking unprecedented actions that can not simply be explained away by mere coincidence. The details in the Megaupload indictment clearly have some players in the file-hosting world spooked.
– Filesonic, a top 10 player in the file-sharing world with a billion pageviews a month, not only withdrew its affiliate rewards program, but also banned any third parties downloading files. Simply put, users can now only download files from the service that they uploaded themselves.
– But according to reports, there’s no guarantee of that. Account owners report that their files are being mass deleted, that’s if their entire account has been banned already.
– Fileserve, another leading player, also ended its affiliate program this weekend. Additionally, this morning TorrentFreak received news that Fileserve has now joined Filesonic in banning all 3rd party downloads.
– Uploaded.to banned all US IP addresses in what appears to be an effort to distance itself from US jurisdiction. Its affiliate program is still listed as operational but the same cannot be said about those run by some of its competitors.
– VideoBB and VideoZer have both reportedly closed their rewards program and according to reports have also been mass deleting accounts and huge numbers of files.
– Other sites closing their affiliate programs and/or deleting accounts/files includeFileJungle, UploadStation and FilePost.
– Smaller host UploadBox calls it quits. “All files will be deleted on January 30th. Feel free to download the files you store with UploadBox until this date.”
– Another host, x7.to, shuts down.
– FileJungle and UploadStation have disabled all 3rd party downloads.
– 4shared cancels affiilate program.
6:29 – Google user data to be merged across all sites under contentious plan
– Google is getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.
– Contentious with privacy campaigners
– “If you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering, Alma Whitten, wrote in a blogpost.
– After the new policy comes into effect, user information from most Google products – such as YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Google+ and Android mobile – will be treated as a single trove of data, which the company could use for targeted advertising or other revenue-raising purposes.
– An article in the Washington Post raised concerns about details of people’s private meetings, health, politics and finances becoming part of their digital dossier kept by Google. Confidential discussions via Gmail of a meeting location might be transferred to Google Maps without the user’s consent, for example.
– “There is no way anyone expected this,” Jeffrey Chester, executive director of privacy advocacy group the Centre for Digital Democracy, told the Washington Post. “There is no way a user can comprehend the implication of Google collecting across platforms for information about your health, political opinions and financial concerns.”[see update]
Google said it expected to roll out the revised guidelines on 1 March, consolidating more than 70 privacy policies covering all of its products.
– I think this is great to be honest – shorter, clearer and to be honest I expected data to be shared amongst my Google profile
– One issue – if you say no you can’t access your gmail or documents – people are forced to accept this really
9:54 – Focus on the user
Google search changes rumble on
– This proof of concept was built by some engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in consultation with several other social networking companies. We are open-sourcing the code so that anyone may use it or make it even better.
– How much better would social search be if Google surfaced results from all across the web? The results speak for themselves. We created a tool that uses Google’s own relevance measure—the ranking of their organic search results—to determine what social content should appear in the areas where Google+ results are currently hardcoded.
– All of the information in this demo comes from Google itself, and all of the ranking decisions are made by Google’s own algorithms. No other services or APIs are accessed.
– When engaged, this “Don’t be evil” bookmarklet does one simple thing: It turns back the hands of time, and made Google work the way it did before the integration of Google+ earlier this month.
– Its a very elegant hack, using a number of Google’s own tools – including its “rich snippet” webmaster tool and its own organic search listings, to re-order not only the search engine results, but also the results of the promotional Google+ boxes on the right side of the results, as well as the “typeahead” results that now feature only Google+ accounts (see example below, the first a search on my name using “normal Google” and then one using the bookmarklet).
– Video is well worth watching – https://www.focusontheuser.org/video.php
– Extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari available
15:37 – Apples Record Quarter
– Apple more than doubled its profits: to $13.06bn (£8.35bn), compared with $6bn for the same quarter in 2010. The result easily beat analysts’ forecasts, taking pressure off the chief executive, Tim Cook, handpicked by Jobs as his successor. Last October Apple shares recorded their biggest single-day dollar drop after iPhone sales missed their forecast.
– Cook said he was thrilled the company sold a record 37.04m iPhones in the final quarter of 2011, a 128% rise on a year ago. “We could have sold more if we’d had more supply,” he said. The recently launched iPhone 4S proved to be the company’s best seller in the quarter. “We could not be happier,” said Cook.
– In record sales across nearly all product categories, Apple sold a record 15.43m iPads over the quarter, more than double a year ago. It sold 5.2m Macs during the quarter, a 26% unit increase.
– 2nd largest quarterly earning of all time – http://parislemon.com/post/16436735313/this-is-actually-the-craziest-chart-about-apple
– Other 20 are all oil companies
– Sitting on $97 billion – isn’t that a bit obscene?
– http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
– Why the iPhone is made in China
22:08 – RIMs CEOs step down
– BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has said its co-chief executives, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, have bowed to investor pressure and resigned.
– The pair, who together built Lazaridis’s 1985 startup into a global business with $20bn in sales last year, have weathered a storm of criticism in recent years as Apple’s iPhone and the army of devices powered by Google’s innovative Android system eclipsed their email-focused BlackBerry.
– “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognise the need to pass the baton to new leadership,” Lazaridis said in an interview at RIM’s Waterloo headquarters in Ontario.
– “Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now.” They have been replaced by Thorsten Heins, a former Siemens executive who has risen steadily through RIM’s upper management ranks since joining the Canadian company in late 2007.
– Too little too late – company is in a mess. Should jump on Windows or Android
– http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/23/2727096/rim-open-to-licensing-BB10-blackberry-ceo
– But they are open to licensing BB10
23:48 – UK signs ACTA
– The UK and 21 other European Union member states have signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, better known as ACTA – also known as right to be forgotten law
– The countries signed the treaty, which aims to harmonise copyright enforcement across much of the world, in Tokyo on Thursday. However, the signatures of the EU member states and the EU itself will count for nothing unless the European Parliament gives its approval to ACTA in June, and digital activists have urged citizens to lobby their MEPs against voting yes.
– However, five EU countries did not sign, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia. Many other countries, such as the US, Japan and Australia,signed the document in September.
– Although ACTA is primarily concerned with the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), its designation as a trade treaty meant it could be negotiated behind closed doors. This lengthy process, led by the US and Japan, was exposed in a series of leaks — some via Wikileaks — that revealed what was going on.
– The final version of ACTA is very different to earlier drafts, which would have forced countries to disconnect internet users if they were found to be repeatedly sharing copyrighted content. The EU rejected this proposal, and other ideas, such as criminalising the use of a mobile phone camera in a cinema, also fell by the wayside.
– Problem is understanding what it actually means which will hopefully come out over the next few weeks and months
– http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120126/11014317553/european-parliament-official-charge-acta-quits-denounces-masquerade-behind-acta.shtml
– European parliamentary official asked to investigate ACTA resigned over it today
– I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.
As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens’ legitimate demands.”
Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.
This agreement might have major consequences on citizens’ lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.
29:06 – Use pcAnywhere – disable it
– Symantec has confirmed that the hacker group Anonymous stole source code from the 2006 versions of several Norton security products and the pcAnywhere remote access tool.
Although Symantec says the theft actually occurred in 2006, the issue did not come to light until this month when hackers related to Anonymous said they had the source code and would release it publicly. Users of the Norton products in question are not at any increased risk of attack because of the age of the source code and security improvements made in the years since the breach, but the vendor acknowledged on Tuesday night that “Customers of Symantec’s pcAnywhere have increased risk as a result of this incident.”
– Symantec pointed customers to a white paper that recommends disabling pcAnywhere, unless it is needed for business-critical use, because malicious users with access to the source code could identify vulnerabilities and launch new exploits. “At this time, Symantec recommends disabling the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks,” the company said.
30:37 – O2 Share your mobile number
– O2 has apologised for an error that shared users’ mobile phone numbers with the websites they visited.
– An experiment set up by Lewis Peckover, a 28-year-old web systems administrator, called attention to the problem last night.
– Peckover showed that O2 was providing websites with the mobile number of users who visited. The numbers were included as plain text in the header information sent by the phone to the website.
– As well as being a potential breach of the Data Protection Act, this raised the prospect that unscrupulous website owners could collect the phone numbers and send spam SMS or marketing calls.
– O2 admitted that the problem began on January 10th and said it was the “unintended effect” of some routine maintenance that the network carried out earlier this month. They said the issue was fixed this afternoon.
– In a statement, the company said: “We investigated, identified and fixed it this afternoon. We would like to apologise for the concern we have caused.”
– The company added: “The only information websites had access to is your mobile number, which could not have been linked to any other identifying information we have about customers.”

Picks
Ian
Snapseed
– Easy way t enhance photo’s
– Great effects can be added
– New for Mac’s, coming soon for Android
– iOS – £2.99, Mac – £13.99
Henry
Muvizu for PC
– 3d animation software
– free for non-commercial use
– based on unreal 3d engine
– from Digimania in Glasgow

DigitalOutbox Episode 100

DigitalOutbox Episode 100
In this episode the team discuss New New Twitter, Spotify App’s, new iOS apps and make some predictions.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
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Shownotes
2:32 – New New Twitter
– Redesign web and mobile clients
– As a company, create the simplest, fastest service in the world that will allow us to reach every person on the planet. Went through entire service. Mobile, web, got it down to four key elements.
– Home Timeline (browser-style “home” icon). First navigational element. Simple, clean, universe of tweet is now contained within the tweet on multiple platforms. Web site, iPhone, Android, HTML5 mobile, Tweetdeck, etc. Retweets, favorites, etc. all right there. Additionally, click on tweet, copy embed code, stick in the story. Everything follows it in. Wasn’t just a change in the interface. Not just adding a couple features to Twitter. Product engineers, infrastructure engineers focused on making it as fast as possible.
– Connect (@ symbol). We wanted to create the easiest way to reach others. Enter username. Or retweet. Where you’re being mentioned. Any conversations that you have. Everything that you’re doing socially on Twitter is in here.
Discover (# symbol). The newest navigation element. When people see a hashtag on a billboard, can click on the symbol, enter the tag they say, and relevant conversations will surface. Come to Twitter and want to see what’s happening in your world. More than 250 million tweets per day, we’ll surface whatever seems relevant to your world. Discover experience is personalized, so the more you engage, the more personalized they’ll become. Activities. What tweets are my friends following. Who are friends following.
Me (profile outline icon). We wanted to group everything that happens about you in one specific area. Favorites, media, tweets. Wanted to tell more compelling stories. Profile pages for individual users much richer. Media: pictures, videos, etc. Best place to represent yourself on the internet. Also for brands.
– Also providing bigger branding pages
– Twitter for iPhone and Android also available right now. Downloading app unlocks new version on web site. Roll out new version to 100% of users in the next few weeks.
– Tweetdeck also rewritten for Mac – native and no longer written in Adobe Air but missing many of the power features of Tweetdeck
8:04 – Spotify Apps
– Not a pivot, but Spotify is adding apps
– Spotify is letting third party developers expand on its functionality using its API and offering the results to users in a new HTML5 app directory, CEO Daniel Ek announced today in New York.
– Developers have already have already built apps with features like the ability to find and purchase concert tickets, a way to display a song’s lyrics on-screen through TuneWiki and deeper Last.fm integration for better music recommendations.
– Rolling Stone cofounder and publisher Jann Wenner took to the stage to sing Spotify’s praises, just before Ek unveiled the application that Rolling Stone built to work within Spotify. It takes publication-curated playlists to a new level with a rich HTML5 interface and more room for editorial content.
– The move attempts to rebrand Spotify as more of a platform, much as Facebook once did when it opened up the ability for developers to build applications on top of the social network. It’s a wise move for Spotify, which faces a rapidly-expanding user base and only a limited capacity to roll out new features itself. By opening up its platform to developers, Spotify allows for more rapid innovation without distracting itself from the core product.
– Other available apps include SongKick, The Guardian, Billboard and Soundrop, presumably with plenty more to come. Any developer can code apps for Spotify but they do have to be approved by the company before appearing in the directory.
– Loving this – great playlists – really helps with discovery
– Brought me back to Spotify…but don’t know for how long
11:39 – Super Connected Cities coming to the UK
– The government will take £100m from the £5bn national infrastructure investment pot over the course of this Parliament in a move to speed up broadband networks in selected urban areas. Rural areas, meanwhile, have been passed over. George Osborne announced the extra cash that the likes of BT and Virgin Media will be able to bid for in his autumn statement today.
– “The government will invest £100m to create up to 10 ‘super-connected cities’ across the UK, with 80-100 megabits per second broadband and city-wide high-speed mobile connectivity,” said the government in its National Infrastructure Programme report, which was published immediately after the chancellor finished his mini budget speech in the Commons today.
– “There will be a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and strategic employment zones to support economic growth. Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and London will all receive support from this fund, and a UK-wide competition will decide up to six further cities that will also receive funding.”
– That investment comes on top of the £530m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds already dished out by the government to local authorities and Scotland.
Over the government’s next fiscal year (2012-2013), £20m will be allocated to help fun “super-connected cities”. In 2013/14 a further £60m will be spent, then in 2014/15 the final £20m left in that pot will be used.
– But, surprisingly, no extra cash was set aside by Osborne today for rural areas that are crying out for investment in broadband.
14:58 – Ofcom 2012/2013 Plans
– The auctioning off of the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrums for 4G internet is coming as soon as the British FCC has booted off the remaining TV services that still use ’em.
– It’s will open an online complaints site (for when the Saturday evening show of your choice offends you), crack down on slow broadband speeds and keep the airways clear for the Olympic Games.
19:12 – Carrier IQ
– Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone. Numbers called, text messages, websites visited, passwords – everything. Shudder.
– Android only…..so everyone thought
– On Blackberry and iOS too
– But then a lot of carriers said it wasn’t installed – certainly not in the UK
23:52 – Jawbone UP
– Released recently but having charging and bricking issues
– Jawbone is offering consumers who have problems a full refund, no questions asked, even if they choose to keep their $99 device. Or they can ask for a new device. Consumers can request their refund starting Dec. 9 here. People who received an UP as a gift will also be able to participate in the refund. As an alternative to the refund, Jawbone is also offering users credit toward a purchase of another Jawbone product.
– The company said it will resume taking orders once the issues have been fixed. And it will continue to push out software updates.
– Finally, Fitbit can be bought in the UK – £79.99 – from end of December
26:33 – Netherlands Anti-Piracy Group caught Pirating
– Anti-piracy group BREIN is caught up in a huge copyright scandal in the Netherlands. A musician who composed a track for use at a local film festival later found it being used without permission in an anti-piracy campaign. He is now claiming at least a million euros for the unauthorized distribution of his work on DVDs. To make matters even worse, a board member of a royalty collection agency offered to help the composer to recoup the money, but only if he received 33% of the loot.
29:53 – RIM take a charge
– announced it will book a $485 million write down on its large PlayBook tablet inventory in the company’s fiscal third quarter.
– The struggling Canadian device maker said it shipped around 150,000 PlayBooks to its channel partners during Q3, but sell-through to end users over the same period was higher than that amount, indicating retailers had leftover inventory. By comparison RIM shipped 200,000 tablets during its fiscal second quarter, and half a million in Q1 when the PlayBook first went on sale.
– In a statement RIM said it will require “an increase in promotional activity” to drive sales to end users, blaming weak demand on the competitive tablet market and the delay in the release of its PlayBook OS 2.0 software update.
31:52 – Web OS is Open Sourced
– HP to open source Web OS
– Say’s that new HP hardware will use Web OS
– Says they will make updates to it
– Reality is it’s dead? Android is the open source winner in the mobile and tablet space – can’t see it ever getting traction
33:08 – Facebook buys Gowalla
– Talent buy or killing a rival?
– Won’t buy app or data
– Service will wind down in January – plan to provide a way of exporting data
35:43 – Path v2
– For iOS and Android
– Private social network – quite lovely – so many novel design features
38:15 – Flipboard
– Really well done implementation of the iPad app
39:41 – iPlayer Update
– Now for iPhone, iPod Touch
– Also supports Airplay
– Streaming over 3G
– The Android version of the app remains restricted to wi-fi connections for the time being, but the BBC said a web version of the software would support 3G streams soon.
– The BBC said it had worked closely with network operators, but analysts fear it could put their systems under strain.
40:20 – Micorsoft release iOS Apps
– Skydrive – simple cloud app
– Kinectimals – good version of Xbox game
41:44 – GTA III for iOS and Android
– High end devices only
– Dec 15th – $4.99
– iOS: iPad 1 and 2, iPhone 4 and 4S, iPod touch 4th Generation
Android Phones: HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, T-Mobile G2x
Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive
– Virtual controls will be awkward?
42:44 – Skyrim
– Don’t look too close, and it’s absolutely beautiful – and soooo atmospheric.
– Personally find it quite hard but a fantastic time-sink.
– Only scratched the outer surface but impressed.
– Paul has got totally consumed by this game – which is extremely unlike him.
44:06 – XBox Dash Update
– New look – Metro UI
– New features – cloud storage of profile, Windows Phone app, iOS app – big surprise, voice search via connect, beacon
– Better?
– BBC not available until 2012, still not sure what will actually appear

Predictions
Ian
– Best Tech – iMac, Airport Extreme, Fitbit, Halo Reach
– Worst Tech – PS3
– 2012 Predictions
– iPad 3 – retina display iPad – will be buying
– See the new Xbox
– New Wii a flop compared to previous Nintendo consoles
– Apple growth slows – reaching a saturation point on iOS
Chris
– Best Tech – iPad 2 is a great bit of kit that has seeped into my daily routines. Love my Blue Yeti Pro mic.
– Worst Tech – Not so much worst tech – but annoyance that some of the biggest moves have been “US Only” this year. Kindle Fire is now rumoured for UK in new year… but still no announcements on content deals. iCloud ahead of the curve of peoples internet connections. No tablets taking it to Apple yet. PS hate the magic mouse. I know it’s not a “this year” thing! But I detest it that much, this one spans the ages.
– 2012 Predictions
– I will lose some of my life to rFactor 2,Looking forward to Mass Effect 3 and surely new Ghost Recon will be out! PS3/XBOX rumours will ramp up – if one gets announced, the other will be hot on the tails. Believe that they want current boxes to last till 2013 though. Surely iPlayer WILL make it to XBOX this year!!!
– Siri to iPad 3. Apple need some bigger (less incremental) products to herald the “post Jobs” era. Return of the “One more thing”. A lot of Bull Crap will be spread about iPad 3 and iPhone 5 that never materialises.
– Haven’t seen the “next big thing” that I see killing it next year… guess that’s the state of the economy… So an evolution year likely. Tweaks rather than revolution.
Henry
– Best Tech – iPad 2, trello.com
– Worst Tech – NFC – not so much bad tech as just not delivering on promise.
– 2012 Predictions
– Samsung to become #1 mobile manufacturer by market share
– Apple will not release a TV

DigitalOutbox Episode 91

DigitalOutbox Episode 91
In this episode the team discuss Lion, Quarterly Numbers and the new Macbook Air and Mac Mini’s.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:11 – The Hackers Get Hacked
– Looks like hacker group LulzSec is back in action, this time redirecting the homepage of the Murdoch-owned The Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/) to a fake story about Murdoch’s death from a drug overdose located on the Murdoch-owned URL used to broadcast theLondon Times’ redesign http://www.new-times.co.uk/sun. After the amount of requests caused a 404 failure on the Times site, the group then redirected The Sun’s homepage to the @LuzSecTwitter account. (The original page is archived at http://freze.it/pX)
– From what I can see the fake story was meant to mirror an actual The Sun story about the latest development in the messy Murdoch/New Corp/News of the World scandal, “Ex News of the World journalist found dead.” After about 10 minutes of being up (and I swear the real Sun homepage was redirecting) the fake story was pulled from the UK Times site.
– E-mails also grabbed
5:13 – Apple Earnings
– Cupertino just reported its best quarter ever, with earnings of $7.79 per share, revenue totaling $28.57 billion, and a net profit of $7.31 billion. We know you’re probably more interested in sales figures, however, and as you might expect, Apple’s continued to ship iPhones and iPads at a steady pace, with 20.34 million smartphones and 9.25 million tablets sold last quarter. It’s also shipped 3.95 million Macs — a 14 percent jump over Q3 2010’s numbers. Fewer iPods made it out the door this quarter, however, totaling 7.54 million compared to the 9.41 million Apple sold in Q3 2010.
7:26 – Google Earnings
– “We had a great quarter, with revenue up 32% year on year for a record breaking over $9 billion of revenue,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “I’m super excited about the amazing response to Google+ which lets you share just like in real life.”
– £3.5 billion in profit
– 550,000 android activations per day
13:30 – Microsoft Earnings
– The US technology giant Microsoft said its annual revenues hit a record of $69.94bn (£43.4bn).
– Sales of the company’s Xbox 360 videogame console and its Office software helped fuel the growth.
– Net income at the world’s biggest software maker jumped 23% to 23.15bn for the year.
– The figures, which beat forecasts, showed final quarter revenues reached a record high of $17.37bn, leading to profits of $5.87bn.
– Sales rose 8% to $17.37 billion, a boosted chiefly by sales of Office, Xbox and server software behind Microsoft’s push into cloud computing.
– Microsoft’s business division, which sells the Office suite of programs, including Outlook, SharePoint and Excel, was the company’s biggest seller in the quarter, increasing sales by 7% to $5.8bn.
– The company’s online services unit, which runs the Bing search engine and MSN internet portal, increased sales by 16.5% to $662m, but saw losses increase to $728m as it struggles to fight competitor Google.
– One weaker spot was sales of its widely-used Windows product, which are slowing as tablet PC sales eat into demand for traditional PCs.
16:43 – Nokia Earnings
– The Finnish phone-maker Nokia crashed to a loss for the second quarter as its smartphone and mobile business collapsed, leaving it in third place in the sector behind Samsung and Apple, and with no clear sign of any improvement in the short term.
Overall the company made a loss of €368m despite receiving a one-off payment of €430m from Apple to settle a long-running patent dispute. Revenues fell overall by 7% to €9.3bn.
– The company’s mobile revenue, normally the stalwart of its business, fell by 20% year on year to €5.47bn and made a loss of €247m, as the number of phones sold dropped by the same amount, to 88m – both figures not seen since 2006. Its existing Symbian smartphone business, which it has said that it will phase out in favour of phones using Microsoft Windows Phone from later this year, fell by 30% year on year to just 16.7m.
– The Navteq mapping and Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) businesses offered no comfort either, both racking up operating losses of €58m and €111m respectively, although sales at NSN were up by 20%.
20:11 – Lion
– Out for £21
– Digital download only
– Ian – speedier, like Mission Control, restore, versioning and some nice touches but overall a bit meh
– Ian – love Mail – hateful design choices on iCal and Address Book
– Ian – gestures is very nice, full screen turning to a Space is good…but OTT on a 27” iMac
– Ian – natural scrolling – disabled as use windows so much – too much adjustment
– August – available from Apple stores on USB stick
– http://www.apple.com/macosx/recovery/
– Lion has Recovery options and new Air and Mini can be recovered from the Internet
– iTunes 10.4 – 64 bit, Cocoa, Full screen
– iWork – updated to support full screen and versioning
– Xcode – 4.1 now free on the app store
37:19 – New Apple Hardware
– Airs – double the speed, more ram, better chip, backlit keyboard and thunderbolt – same price – lovely
– Mini – thunderbolt, better chip, no drive – cheaper – £650 down to £525
– White Macbook – dead
– The 27-inch Thunderbolt Display has an LED-backlit, 2560-by-1440 pixel, 16:9, in-plane switching (IPS) screen, which Apple says has a brightness of 375 cd/m2 and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. A single two-ended cable attaches to a Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro or Air, one lead going to the notebook’s MagSafe power port, and the other to its Thunderbolt port.
-The display has three powered USB 2.0 ports, plus one FireWire 800 and one Gigabit Ethernet port, all connected to its Thunderbolty host – MacBook Pro or Air, Mac mini, or iMac – through that single Thunderbolt cable. The display also has its own Thunderbolt port so you can daisy-chain up to five more Thunderbolt devices
– The display also has Apple’s FaceTime HD camera – an upgrade from the earlier iSight camera – and a 2.1 speaker system with 49 watts of oomph. There’s also an ambient light sensor that’ll adjust display brightness based on the level of lighting in its surrounding environment.
– £900
44:40 – Apple updates International App Store Prices
– Apple update international pricing
– Uk – £0.59 is now £0.69
– Apple’s iWork apps now cost £13.99, up from £11.99, on the Mac App Store in the U.K., while the popular iOS versions have jumped from £5.99 to £6.99.
– Most rises around 10-15% – £1.19 per issue will now pay £1.49 – a 25 per cent price rise
– No warning – magazines running adverts caught out
– Lion price of £20.99 should have been a clue of impending changes in price points
– Certainly interesting that no pre-warning!
46:37 – HTC (Android) Infringes two Apple Patents
– ITC judge prelim judgement finds in favour of Apple – HTC infringes Apple in two areas…
– Decision needs ratifying by a panel.
– Will outcome be ban of product? Damages? Technology Licence?
– And now HTC are willing to negotiate with Apple
50:19 – Fake Apple Stores in China
– Fake stores, look real, sell real products
– Same branding, staff where same brands
– Staff even thought it was real
– Apple are aware…and China are now shutting them down.
51:52 – Illegal Film Downloads up 30% in UK
– The number of illegally downloaded films in the UK has gone up nearly 30% in five years, new figures suggest.
– That research, from internet consultancy firm Envisional, indicates that the top five box office movies were illegally downloaded in the UK a total of 1.4 million times last year.
– Film industry bosses say it is costing £170m every year and putting thousands of jobs at risk.
– But it’s not just illegal film downloading that’s on the rise – research suggests people are illegally downloading more TV shows too.
– The top five most popular shows were illegally downloaded a total of 1.24 million times in the UK last year. That’s a 33% increase from 2006 figures.
– Surely that just reflects the larger capacity broadband that we’re all now getting our hands on (well, some of us at least). Again – the end game is surely that better legit delivery methods need to be put in place. This takes time – so no doubt we’ll see more letters being sent in the mean-time.
53:15 – Cheaper broadband for rural users
– Up to 3m homes and businesses in rural parts of the UK could receive better value broadband services by the end of the year, following an Ofcom decision to force BT Wholesale to reduce the amount it charges other internet service providers (ISPs) to use its networks.
– The communications regulator has ruled that BT must reduce its charge to ISPs each year, by a rate of at least 12 percentage points below inflation. For example, if the RPI inflation rate is 5%, BT will have to cut its charges by 7%.
– The ruling is to take effect by mid-August 2011 and remain in force until 31 March 2014, and paves the way for cheaper broadband prices for millions of consumers and businesses in less densely populated areas across the UK.
– The rural areas set to benefit from the change include parts of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as Norfolk, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumberland, the south-west of England and other areas. These are predominantly areas lacking in competition among ISPs.
55:12 – Govt releases more data
– Following their pledge and success of data released so far, Cameron has announced another set of data that will be published and available to public and devleopers
– NHS, Education (single portal to compare schools), Crime (more detailed local crime maps), Transport (rail data will be hot), Govt financial transactions – every spend above £500
57:11 – Google detects and warns on malware
– “Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or “malware.” As a result of this discovery, today some people will see a prominent notification at the top of their Google web search results.”
– Windows malware only
58:43 – Google to kill labs
– Google just announced it is ending its Labs program, in an effort to focus more on its existing products, For many of Google’s hard-core or even medium-core users, certain labs features have become essential tools to personalize the apps to their needs.
– a Google spokesman said that Gmail Labs, Calendar Labs and other Labs will not be shut down, merely the Labs program that brought us such applications as Google Goggles and Google Reader. There are still cool affected apps, but it’s not the end of my personal world.
– 20% projects still exist though
1:00:42 – Think with Google
– The new online channel will feature each new issue of Google’s Think Quarterly along with Think Voices, which showcases the shared experiences and insights of marketing leaders, digital influencers and academics. The content is filled with bite-sized TED-like videos for inspiring ideas on topics like the latest in digital technology, the future of marketing and how to channel innovation to inspire your business decisions.
– add link to youtube channel

Picks
Henry
Halftone
– Halftone goes beyond typical “photo filter” apps to give images a unique, vintage style that makes them look like they came from an old comic strip.
– Easy to use
Comic Life
– Make comics on teh iPad
– Again easy to use with lots of effects that can be added to images

Ian
Conquist 2
– Great strategy game for the iPad
– Lots of singleplayer options – variations on Risk
– Now includes multiplayer

DigitalOutbox Episode 21

DigitalOutbox Episode 21
In this episode the team discuss Windows 7 and new Apple hardware. Game on.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:20 – Google Audio
– announcement next Wednesday 28th
– downloads? streaming? subscription? – unknown
– partnered with iLike, LaLa
– iLike = social music discovery service, available on Facebook, helps people share music recommendations, playlists
-LaLa = music streamed from browser (US only service)
– service to be integrated into Google Search
– US only (initially?)
3:11 – Twitter real time search deals
– Bing integration
– http://www.bing.com/twitter/
– Microsoft’s new integration with Twitter is essentially integrating Twitter search within Bing. It updates in real-time. Here’s the kicker though: you can search tweets by not only recency, but by relevancy.
– Microsoft is using information such as the number of retweets, captions, the quality of tweets, and keywords in order to sort tweets by relevancy.
– Bing will display the “hottest” (trending) topics on Twitter in the form of a tag cloud
– Google announcement – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/rt-google-tweets-and-updates-and-search.html
– Google also announced Social Search
– Coming in labs soon
– The bottom of search results will soon have social networking information from your friends, like their Flickr photos or their status updates. It’s a blended search integration, similar to seeing news or image results.
– These are pulled from social networks connected to your Google Profile. The more that are connected, the more social information that will appear in search results.
– They have also improved searching for images using social networks. Images become more relevant using social networking data.
– Bing also announce Facebook data in search results coming soon
6:02 – Flickr introduces people tagging
– Allows you to tag people in photo’s
– people can be flickr members or non members
– lot’s of control around who can tag, whether you can be tagged etc.
– profile page updated to support this feature
7:48 – Windows 7
– breaks Amazon pre-order volume record
– more sales in first 8 hours of pre-order availability than total Vista was able to do
– The launch of Windows 7 has superseded everyone’s expectations, storming ahead of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as the biggest grossing pre-order product of all-time at Amazon.co.uk, and demand is still going strong.
– Launch – http://gizmodo.com/5387614/live-from-the-windows-7-launch
– Amazon multi-touch Kindle app for Windows 7—full color photos, pinch zooming to enlarge text, looks awesome. Could be a much-needed killer app for Windows 7 tablets. Maybe. Sign up here – http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311
– Streaming to 16 different screens from one Windows 7 PC using Play-To feature is actually kind of impressive.
– Noteworthy Features
– Taskbar – more intuitive, can pin to taskbar, reorder app’s you have open, no more quicklaunch (quick launch still in – but hidden away.)
– Aero – hover over taskbar icon and window appears with content – aero peek, drag window to top – maximise – drag left or right to snap to half the screen – aero snap, throw cursor to bottom right – show desktop – just like expose
– Well done to MS on the interface – makes windows much better to use, focus on tasks, easier to use – a great upgrade to the interface which is welcome and puts it on a par with mac – needs an expose rip-off and it would be better than mac interface for usability
– libraries – virtual grouping of files and folders, folder can be on any computer or drive on home network – very powerful
– media sharing – stream to other computers on home network (or external network if credentials applied both ends)
– better search (5 seconds to index new files)
– quicker is debatable looking at many of the reviews – boot time’s on par with vista or worse
– ie8, media player, control panel aren’t really that good and haven’t changed much – probably use alternative browser and media player
– feels like a service pack with a new theme and a new app controlling desktop
– UAC can be customised. Default setting down one step on Vista (only asks for confirmation when app wants to make a change to computer, not when you make changes). Possible to step it down a couple more steps, firstly doesn’t dim (i.e. lock out) the computer awaiting confirmation and final step turns it off, not recommended by MS.
– Microsoft store
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Hk0ZCqRxg&feature=player_embedded
– It’s an Apple store…selling windows
– Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
– New Mac ads
– http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/#
– Broken Promises is actually pretty funny
– It’s boring, arrogant, twatty and flies in the face of tech buzz, therefore sounds out of touch. It was funny 3 years ago when MacOS was a huge step above – it is no longer funny or true… – Chris
26:59 – New Apple hardware
– Clearly waited until resident fanboi Shak was well enough to return to Digitaloutbox before releasing New Hardware.
– New Hardware – shak
– Mac Mini
– http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mini
– Speed bump
– Double the RAM
– £499, 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 160GB hard drive
– £649, 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB memory, 320GB hard drive
– £799, 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB memory, Dual 500GB hard drives, Snow Leopard Server
– Macbook
– http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook?mco=MTA4MTY5NzU
– 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 memory, 250GB hard drive
– 7 hour battery (built in)
– 13inch LED screen
– Glass multitouch
– £799
– iMac
– http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?mco=MTA4MTU3NzI
– Bigger screens, true HD 16*9 ratio’s, backlit LED
– Can also act as a screen for other devices – consoles, blu-ray players etc. A first for the iMac
– SD card slot below superdrive
– First quad core option for an iMac
– Magic mouse
– Speed bump, higher disks, higher ram, lower price, new remote
– £949, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 21.5″ 1920 x 1080 resolution, 4GB, 500GB
– £1,199, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 21.5″ 1920 x 1080 resolution, 4GB, 1TB
– £1,349, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo , 27″ 2560 x 1440 resolution, 4GB, 1TB
– £1,599, 2.66GHz Intel Core i5, 27″ 2560 x 1440 resolution, 4GB, 1TB

– Has Ian ordered one yet?
– Price is amazing for what you get – http://www.marco.org/222434049
– Magic Mouse
– http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MB829?mco=Nzc1MjM2OQ
– £55
– It loses the scroll ball found on the Mighty Mouse, but adds support for scrolling gestures. This mouse is also wireless, using Bluetooth, and has a four month battery life.
– no buttons at all and sports a “seamless multi-touch surface.” which roughly translates to “awkward in the extreme”.
– Remain unconvinced of it’s usefulness compared to my logitech revolution
– New remote (fugly?), airport extreme and time capsule now 802.11n, not draft n, 50% better performance, 25% better range
46:43 – Psystar
– sells Rebel EFI software on website allowing intel based PC’s to run OS X – Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, i7 or Xeon Nehalem
– 8MB download – $89.99 but currently listed with $40 discount
– requires 38 steps for installation
– Free to try with limited hardware functionality and 2 hours run-time
49:26 – Piracy and the App Store
– %age of pirated scores submitted in first week 80-90%
– Now most pirates will tell you that they just like to try before they buy. If it’s a good game, then they’ll buy it. Well, from this data we can conclude that 0% of pirates think the game is worth buying
– Apple not doing much
54:03 – Apple Slate?
– Off the record comment:
– If you look at the transcript of his chat, or the 8:20 mark in the video, you’ll see him refer to delivery of journalism to mobile platforms, and then he mentions the “impending Apple slate.
– Now on video
55:32 – Motorola Droid
– Android 2.0, same processor as iPhone, physical keyboard
– Advert takes it to Apple – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPYM-XTqcec
– First proper competition to iPhone?
1:00:43 – Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm on the 360
– Preview program – dash update then download individual packages
– Work like separate app’s n the 360
– Last.fm – nice, visuals alongside music – scrobbles tracks, can’t play in background
– Twitter – simple interface, can tweet, see trends, see recent tweets from friends, can’t click on links or view pics
– facebook – clunky at first but it’s ok – nice way of browsing friends pictures
– Add’s functionality but not wow

Picks
Shakeel
Superhero Squad
– Free online comic creator
– create a quick 3 panel comic strip or a multi-page comic book
– use predefined assets to create your design: backgrounds, characters, objects, sound f/x, speech bubbles
– good fun

Ian
Amazon on the iPhone
– allowing users to shop using their phone
– Among the features of the application, which is free from the Apple Store, is the ‘Amazon Remembers’ service. Users can take a photo of an item using the iPhone and email it to Amazon. The retailer will try and find an item like the one in the photo and email a list of suggestions to the user.
– Customers can also access more than one million Amazon.co.uk products using the phone. They are also able to access wishlists, payment details and use One Click ordering for products.

Chris
Broadband Speed Checker
– Broadband speed checker that places your result plus provider on map and lets you look around. Are you getting a good service in your area?

DigitalOutbox Episode 12

DigitalOutbox Episode 12
In this episode the team discuss this weeks tech news.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:06 – UK Stance on Illegal File Sharing
– ISP’s angry at Government stance that repeat offenders could be cut off from net
– Seems that accusations alone could be enough to cut off someone’s connection.
– Proportional punishment? You can be a hacker, spamer, fraudster or other criminal and still have access to the internet. Seems if you share a Myley Cyrus track over the internet – someone whom clearly adds immense value to the creative landscape of modern culture…. Mmm – you can have, what is in effect, an essential service cut off.
– Where is the balance of proof? What about people who share an IP? What about parents who have no idea that their child is sharing files?
– Mandelson ordered an amendment to the digital Britain report – an unelected member of parliament throwing his weight around. Proposals are:
– Blocking access to download sites
– Reducing broadband speeds
– Temporarily suspending the individual’s Internet account as a last resort
– Most downloaded TV (4% is uk) – http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/08/28/heroes-tops-file-sharing-list/
– Top 10 Worldwide TV Torrents
– Heroes; 54,562,012 (2.18 million UK)
– Lost; 51,151,396 (2 million UK)
– 24; 34,119,093 (1.4 million UK)
– Who would police this? Can evidence and proof be 100% guaranteed?
6:44 – Pirate Bay Takedown
– The court ordered the site’s major bandwidth supplier, Black Internet, to disconnect TPB from the Internet or face penalties of 500,000 kroner ($70,600). The ISP complied, saying that it had no choice but to uphold the law.
– Shares in GGF suspended
– GGF chairman resigned
– Owed money to taxman
– Goodbye, it was fun whilst it lasted. Next.
– Alternative pirate bays already appearing… plus it’s not as if this was the only site out there anyway. Closing one site will not remedy the problem.
8:12 – Nokia Ovi and Netbook
– Ovi
– Appstore for Nokia
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nokias_ovi_to_compete_with_iphone_app_store.php
– Applications for all 75 of it’s handsets – challenging
– Booklet 3G
– http://mashable.com/2009/08/24/nokia-laptop-booklet-3g/
– Their first pc – Netbook – wifi, 3g, bluetooth, sim card slot
– 10.1 inch screen
– 12 hours battery life – wow (if true)
– Windows 7
– Looks quite nice!
– Fingers crossed for a sensibly priced, sensibly specified data bundle
12:30 – Bing and Wolfram
– Microsoft has apparently struck a licensing deal with Wolfram Alpha to include some of Wolfram’s search results within Bing.
– No comments yet from either MS or Wolfram.
– MS really do appear to be chasing the search market hard… with Yahoo taking the large majority of ad revenue you’ve got to question why? Longer term I expect they want to cash in on the Google billions that they collect through paid for advertising once the Yahoo agreement is over
14:14 – Microsoft Suck At Photoshop
– Polish version of photo has black head removed replaced with a white head but keeping the black hands
– What were they thinking?
– But this probably happens a lot
16:16 – Microsoft STILL amending prices for Windows 7
– From 1st Sept, no longer upgrade price for full version.
– There are now separate prices for upgrade and full
– Have now confirmed the family pack for install on 3 machines
– Doesn’t affect those already pre-ordered
– SORT IT OUT!
19:19 – Facebook Changing Privacy Policy
– Facebook has agreed to change its privacy policy in response to recommendations made by courts in Canada.
– Existing policy is in violation of Canadian law – specifically its holding onto users data for an indeterminate length of time
– Amends will be put in place that allow users to not only suspend their accounts but offer an easy option to delete their account and permanently delete data.
– However, Facebook has said this could take 12 months to implement… REALLY… 12 MONTHS!!! Facebook must really respect users privacy and the Canadian courts for it to be so high up their development schedules to only allow it to be rolled out in 12 months.
– Facebook 3.0 released on the appstore
– very nice update
– much more refined interface, easy to use and logical
– create your own iPhone-like pages
25:14 – Apple News
– Apple Care about your apps…
– http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303437,00.htm
– Apple’s App Approval Team spend, on average, 6 mins per app to make a decision to approve/reject if Apple’s figures are to be believed.
– This process is carried out by 2 people, therefore a total of 12 mins per app.
– Victim of their own success? Stretching their staff a little thin?
– Yelp
– First augmented reality app
– Hidden option – shake three times and a dialogue appears offerring to enable ‘monacle’
– Once enabled, see reviews as you spin around iPhone – 3GS only
– Awesome 🙂
– Spotify
– annual subscription increased to £119.88
– adds social networking – share your music on Twitter, Facebook, Delicious
-iPhone app approved
– should be available to download soon
– will be interesting to see how it performs over 3G and wifi
– App is free but you need to be premium member to use the app to stream. (£10 month)
39:24 – Xbox Price Drop…and increase!
– XBox price cuts anounced
– Arcade = £159.99; Elite = £199.99
– No HDMI cable in Elite box.
– Possibly new Xbox Super Elite in October. 250GB HDD, includes 2 wireless controllers + Forza 3?… going to be an expensive bundle.

Picks
Shakeel
Your camera and the Law

Ian
TripIt
– Itinery planner
– E-mail travel e-mails to plans@tripit.com
– So far all my travel plans have imported well – if there is a mistake then you edit
– Free tripit iphone app to view all travel details, booking numbers and contact phone numbers – no paper required
– Stats on how much you’ve travelled and where each year – geeky but nice
– Social too – friends can see your travel plans, where your staying etc
– share plans via iCal feed, rss, linked in, blog etc
– Other app’s can import data automatically

Chris
Let the “Internet” decide what music you should listen to!
– Dynamically generated Spotify playlist generated by wearehanted.com by trawling as many social networks, blogs etc as possible to see what music people are talking about most at any time.
– List of about 99 tracks.
– Like this for the mashup aspect as well as the fact that the tracks I’ve heard through it have been good – and different from the char
–