Year: 2010

DigitalOutbox Episode 62

DigitalOutbox Episode 62
In this episode the team discuss Twitter and the Tokyo Game Show.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:40 – Twitter Updates
– Seeing massive growth – 370,000 new signups per day
– 90 million tweets per day, 25% contain links
– Twitter.com is the biggest Twitter client
– Announcement: Today we’re launching a new Twitter.com — faster, easier, richer. Ev is playing a video to help explain/promote it. It shows pictures in the stream. You can click on a tweet and pull up more information on a person, on a n image, on a tweet, etc. YouTube videos are supported
– Looks similar to iPad app with slide out panel
– The mini-profile has arrived. You can bring up information on a user in the timeline, follow users, etc.
– 16 partners – Vimeo, Ustream, TwitpIc, Flickr, Justin.tv and others.
– Flickr set – tweet a link and the full set images and slideshow viewable from twitter
– No more ‘more’ button – endless tweets
– Keyboard shortcuts just like Google Reader, GMail etc
4:48 – Twitter Hijacked
– At the root of the problem is a cross-site scripting vulnerability that allows users to post JavaScript code – in this instance onMouseOver – inside tweets.
– Some using it for fun and games… but plenty of malicious users spreading porn sites, malware sites etc around.
– Rolling over a link (no need to click) re-directs user to the website and also re-tweets the message to spread the mal-link further.
7:13 – Facebook Places
– Finally launched in the UK
8:17 – HTC Mobiles and Services
– dashboard connected services for backup, security and handset control
– Can locate the phone from website and ring it
– Backup contacts, text etc
– New/updated Sense UI
– HTC Desire Z – qwerty slider – great first impressions
– Desire HD – EVO for the rest of the world
– 4.3 inch screen, blah, blah, blah – October
12:28 – iOS 4.2 Beta
– Now out for developers
– Also announced is AirPrint
– AirPrint automatically finds printers on local networks and can print text, photos and graphics to them wirelessly over Wi-Fi without the need to install drivers or download software. HP’s existing and upcoming ePrint enabled printers will be the first to support printing direct from iOS devices.
14:49 – VLC on the iPad
– Multi codec support
– Basically – play any medi file on that closed iPad
– To Apple developers the VLC approval is as symbolic as Google Voice was a couple of days ago. You can’t get more open than the free VLC which comes with a bunch of Codecs so you can basically play anything, and is open source meaning that developers can build on top of it. Giddy off of their newfound Apple seal of approval, Apptitudes, the company behind the app, holds that they plan on making an iPhone version soon.
– Brave new world?
– Google voice apps now available, Basic is a feature on the C64 emulator
19:28 – Google Brings 2 Step Authentication
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/three-million-businesses-have-gone.html
– Google is announcing that it’s bringing the security feature to its millions of users: the feature will be rolling out first for Google Apps Premiere, Education, and Government edition customers, with plans to bring it to all Google users (even those who aren’t using its Apps suite) in the next few months.
– More secure systems are common in large businesses, and often require both a password and a physical card or dongle to login — these are called ‘two-factor’ systems, because they require both your password and another key, and are far more secure because a hacker probably isn’t going to have that physical token. Unfortunately these security systems are generally quite expensive. But Google is bringing one to the masses.
– Google’s system doesn’t require a physical keycard. Instead, it relies on your mobile phone. First, you need to activate the optional feature from your settings page (again, this is only available to certain Google Apps customers at first). Then, when you go to sign in to your Google account, you’ll first be asked to enter your password as usual. Next, you’ll be brought to a screen asking for a verification code (see the screenshot above).
– Could this be the start of the end of RSA and SecurID’s? http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=1156
– Also, Google Docs editing FINALLY coming to iPad and Android
24:29 – IE9 Beta
– UI – less is more – streamlined
– Pinned sites
– Enhanced download manager and tabs – can tear them off now
– Search in the address bar – thanks Chrome
– Hardware acceleration
– Standards – big step up from IE8, lots of HTML5 support
– First impressions (not mine) – fast and clean
– Can also pin pages (and web apps) as apps in Windows 7
27:44 – Tokyo Game Show
– http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/ps3-firmware-update-3-50-coming-september-21-adds-3d-blu-ray-su/
– PS3 to get 3D blu-ray support on Sept 21
– Already supports 3D games
– http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/gran-turismo-anywhere-brings-the-web-more-features-to-gt5/
– Gran Turismo Anywhere
– ” a new web portal for the racing sim. Features of GTA – actually, let’s just call it Gran Turismo Anywhere – include My Home, which includes message boards, photo sharing, and the like, as well as Remote Races, which isn’t real-time racing over the web, but rather a racing team management simulation.
– Last Guardian – Holiday 2011
– http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/ico-shadow-of-the-colossus-collection-revealed-not-only-hd-bu/
– ICO / Shadow of the Colossus HD remakes coming to PS3
– Spring 2011
– Also supports 3D

Picks
Ian
Halo Reach
– Ultimate Halo
– Auto mute, bans players temporarily if they leave early too often
– Stats
– 31,000,000 games have been played since launch.
– 98,000,000 player games have been recorded.
– 8,214,338 Daily Challenges have been completed.
– 255,996 Weekly Challenges have been completed.
– 78,499,560,895 total credits have been earned.
– 953 years have been spent in match-made games.
– 1,365 years have been spent in campaign.
– 854,107 files have been uploaded.
– 577,804 recommendations have been sent to friends.
– 4,619,455 files have been downloaded.

Withings WiFi Body Scale

As my current scales had become slightly inaccurate, it was the perfect excuse to pick up a Withings scale – the first wifi body scale. I’d been itching to get it since I first heard about Withings at the turn of the year but the main reason had always been the fact I had a perfectly good set of scales already. Also they cost a pretty penny – I paid £107 including shipping. Ouch. I’ve now been using them for over a week and it really is a lovely gadget.

So as scales go, they look good but the really nice feature is that they are wifi enabled, automatically uploading your weight, fatty mass and BMI to the Withings website. The weight tracking works for up to eight people from one set of scales so your whole family should be covered. The website is Flash based and lets you track your weight and add notes when certain events (curry!) have impacted on your weight. So far, so good. There’s also a free iPhone and iPad app that allows you to track your weight from the comfort of your iOS device. These are pretty straightforward but give you everything you need to know.

As it’s all automatic it means I can track my weight daily. Total overkill but it’s part of the new weight strategy – track all inputs and outputs. Track weight, exercise and calorie intake. Withings also make sharing information really easy with a number of options available. I can publish my data on the web via a link or an iFrame. I can also share my data with other users who can access via an e-mail address. I can also link Withings to a number of other accounts – Google Health, Runkeeper, even WeightBot on the iPhone. Finally, I can auto tweet my weight after each weigh in. No where to hide 🙂

It had to be done – a new twitter account has been setup just for my weight. Special. I’ve also hooked Withings into RunKeeper. I track all my hill walks on RunKeeper and also now track my efforts on the bike. Having all that info in one place plus the weight is really nice. Also, I’ve paid for one years access to RunKeeper elite which gives me more detailed graphs, stats etc.

The final piece of the jigsaw is to now track calorie intake. Couple of iPhone app’s are worth considering and I had myfitnesspal.com recommended so I’ll give those a try. The up shot of all that is that I’m a couple of kilo’s heavier than a year ago which isn’t too bad as I’ve not been doing the same amount of exercise this year. I’ll be stepping that up between now and Christmas so hopefully I’ll lose a little in the next couple of months – not long until Santa’s here now.

As for Withings – great gadget, expensive and a bit over the top but I love it.

DigitalOutbox Episode 61

DigitalOutbox Episode 61
In this episode the team discuss Google Instant, Apple U Turn, iOS 4.1, Boxee Box and Halo. Woot.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:16 – Google Instant
– In past few months have passed over 1 billion users on Google each week
– It takes a user on average around nine seconds to enter a search query into Google. Serving results takes around 300 ms from Google, plus 800 ms total in Network time. Takes around 15 seconds to select a result. A search takes 25 seconds.
– At Google we think we have a faster way. Google Instant Search. And that’s what we’re launching today. Gets search results as you type so search is interactive the whole time you’re typing. Google Instant looks like normal Google search. But as you start typing, you see results — you don’t have to hit enter. You can hit ‘tab’ to complete a word.
– Type w – Glasgow 5 day weather forecast appears, first link is mountain weather forecast, second bbc, third met office – impressive
– We estimate this will help Google users save two to five seconds per query. That adds up across all users. “11 hours saved. Each second.”
– Instant results, Scroll to Search, Predictions.
– Only on google.com web page – browsers, mobile – next few months
– Instead of making first page, now about making first letter!
– End of SEO? Does being on page 2 or lower half of page kill your brand?
– Here’s what this means: no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick – and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimisation work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviours.
9:07 – Apple U Turn
– https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html
– http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/app-store-guidelines.pdf
– Short statement from Apple – we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.
– In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.
– Now, was that so hard? Dev’s crying out for this for a couple of years now
– So Flash could be used to create app’s.
– Why now? Android? Realising they were wrong? Pressure from dev’s and large dev studios? FTC probe?
– Most interesting – the guidelines
– Written by a human, almost common sense text – Steve?
– We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don’t work unless the parents set them up (many don’t). So know that we’re keeping an eye out for the kids.
– We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps. If your app doesn’t do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted.
– If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you’re trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.
– We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.
– If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.
– This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this.
– Lastly, we love this stuff too, and honor what you do. We’re really trying our best to create the best platform in the world for you to express your talents and make a living too. If it sounds like we’re control freaks, well, maybe it’s because we’re so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products. Just like almost all of you are too.
– Adobe – great news for developers – http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html
– Adobe’s Packager for iPhone – The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.
– This is great news for developers and we’re hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store. We do want to point out that Apple’s restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.
– Another developer that has been affected by the rule change is Google. The search giant’s advertising arm, AdMob, was another part of development that was banned back in the original April rule set, but has now seen those rules relaxed. Writing on the AdMob blog, vice president of product management Omar Hamoui says “We’re pleased that Apple has clarified its terms,” adding: “Users will benefit from more free, or low cost, apps that can now more readily be supported by advertising.”
17:24 – iTunes 10
– Faster
– Cleaner
– Ping
– horrible
– feels old
– invite by e-mail
– no Facebook/twitter integration
– drive sales for Apple?
– Where’s my wireless syncing? iOS 5?
– If I search for artists I want links to listen to their music not their muesli. Should be like Spotify/Lsst.fm
20:44 – iOS 4.1 is Out
– Gamecentre
– HDR photo’s
– bug fixes
– anything else?
– MDM – enterprise feature to manage various aspects of the left to 3rd parties to implement. As consumers we might not care, but as more and more enterprises are not just allowing employees to use their own smartphones, but actively encouraging it as a cost cutting exercise, managing those devices is an IT managers nightmare and this is a welcome addition.
26:43 – Amazon hit back
– Not just apple except
– This is for download, not streaming – same content, same price, one you own, one you stream for a limited time
– Cable/sat providers…your time is up
– available in the uk?
30:47 – Plex comes to LG
– Plex – needs a mac to run
– Potentially expensive
– working with LG Electronics (the second largest TV manufacturer in the world) to integrate the Plex platform into their 2011 lineup of Netcast™ connected TVs and Blu-ray devices. So early next year, when you buy an LG Netcast™ TV or Blu-ray player, you will have Plex functionality built-in. Specifically, it will connect to a cloud version of the Plex platform for online content, and, if you happen to have a Plex Media Server running anywhere in your house (after all, who doesn’t have a computer in their house?), you can access your local and online content, in a rich interface, with full metadata
– This is a BIG deal
– My new Sony comes with iPlayer, 4OD, Youtube, podcasts etc
– But a tv with plex built in is a seriously powerful device
35:27 – Boxee Box
– Pre-order in America
– Out in November (UK too)
– Now with Intel inside, not Nvidia
– $229, not $199 although Amazon selling for $199
– UK Price £199
– http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/361132/boxee-arrives-in-europe-at-twice-the-price-of-apple-tv
– The UK version of the Boxee Box will include
– free and paid-for TV content from a number of local broadcasters, including the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV.
– V-friendly access to services such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.
– Intel Atom CE4100 processor]
– 802.11n wireless and Ethernet connections
– HDMI port to deliver Full HD video
– 2 USB ports
– SD card slot
– offers support for Flash, MP3 and Divx formats
– Full Qwerty remote control
43:52 – Twitter for iPad
– Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad’s fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons.
– Panes: Tapping on a Tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that Tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another Tweet. You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like to.
– Media: When you tap a video link or open a web page with an embedded video, you can play that video inline. And, let’s be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load. The panes in Twitter for iPad let you look through your timeline while a video is loading, and then you can just swipe back to the video when it’s ready to play. You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen.
– Gestures: You can pinch on a Tweet to quickly view details about the author and to take actions on a Tweet, such as reply or retweet. Put two fingers together and pull down on a Tweet to peek at the replies, showing the entire conversation leading to that Tweet.
– Bold and unexpected – eats the other twitter clients
– Wheres Tweetie 2 for the Mac! Hibari is nice, but tweetie still feels better but missing new functionality of twitter – http://hibariapp.com/
44:54 – Samsung Galaxy Tablet
– First true iPad competitor
– the GT-P1000 model has a 7-inch TFT-LCD WSVGA screen (with 1024 x 600 pixels), and is powered by a Cortex A8 1.0GHz processor and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU—the same one used in their Galaxy S phone-and runs with 512MB of RAM.
– As expected, the back-facing camera is a 3MP affair with auto-focus and an LED flash, and the forward-facing one (for video conferencing) has a 1.3MP sensor.
– Two storage capacities are on offer, either 16GB or 32GB, with both models allowing for a further 32GB memory expansion via the card slot.
– Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 3.0, and 3G support (Vodafone has been signed up from the get-go, Three from October but unsure if right away)
– As we saw in the leaked video last week, there’s a 30-pin connector port, similar to what Apple uses for its gadgets.
– It’ll run Android 2.2 (Froyo)
– Rumour – Samsung Galaxy Tab reported to retail at €699 and €799 in Europe – iPads offer double the storage for same price
48:29 – Everything Everywhere
– Orange and T-Mobile to offer customers access to both networks at no extra cost as first benefit of newly merged company Everything Everywhere
– Orange and T-Mobile customers invited to sign-up to get access to both networks to make calls and send texts in more places at no extra cost
– As well as continuing to benefit from their existing network, Orange customers will be able to make calls and send texts on the T-Mobile network and T-Mobile customers will be able to do the same using the Orange network
– Customers who sign up for access to both networks will benefit free of charge, with no changes to their existing tariffs or call or text charges. Once registered, should a customer lose signal on their existing network, they will then automatically pick up the signal from the other network where it’s available, meaning that they can make and receive calls and texts in more places than ever before.
50:24 – Bloglines to Close
– Will finally close Oct 1st
– Killed by Google Reader and switch to twitter/facebook – realtime streams
– Sad in some ways but it quickly fell behind Google
– and it was a bit broken
– Off course, many say that RSS is dead etc
– Really – http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/09/welcome-and-look-back.html

Picks
Chris
TechSmith Camtasia Studio
– The ultimate screen recording, editing and distribution product.
– Millions of options. Easy to use and control. Plenty of output options. Record your mic, webcam, screen, specific application, video, pictures, title-screens. Stitch them all together on the timeline. £220

Ian
Withings Scale
– Wifi scale
– Expensive
– Can set up to tweet your weight
– Supports up to 5 users
– Love it – very geeky but awesome

Henry
Monkey Island 2
– Awesome game originally on PC now for iOS
– Only £0.69

DigitalOutbox Episode 60

DigitalOutbox Episode 60
In this episode the team discuss iPods, iTunes, Apple TV and Google goodies.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:05 – Apple Keynote
– Apple selling lots of stuff
– Lots of people going into store to buy their first mac
– iPods
– Brand new range
– iPod shuffle – tiny with buttons again
– nano – tiny with touch screen
– iPod touch – mega thin – has cameras. Facetime. Gamecentre. Retina display.
– Gamecentre
– XBOX Live for iOS
– Achievements
– Invites
– Co-op
– 4.1 out in 1 weeks or so.
– HDR Photos – Creating high dynamic range photos has been a popular photographic technique that combines three exposures to create a single image with a greater amount of detail in the highlights and shadows. Apple’s added HDR photography to the iPhone’s camera in 4.1, letting you create HDR images automatically without any of the hard work in post.
– HD Video Upload Over Wi-Fi – Previously, apps were required to upload HD video from the iPhone. Apple’s made the change in iOS 4.1 to allow HD video uploading over Wi-Fi, removing the annoying cap that required sending your HD video in standard definition.
– TV Show Rentals – TV shows have always been available for purchase in iOS devices, but now you can rent them to save a little money and storage space on your device.
– Game Center – Like the XBOX Live of iOS, Game Center provides APIs for developers but is also a new app on the iPhone (available soon via the App Store). You can play with friends, inviting them with a push notification, or be randomly assigned to other players when your friends aren’t available.
– iOS 4.2 out in Nov
– All iOS stuff but for iPad as well.
– Wireless printer mother fucker
– AirPlay – Formerly AirTunes, AirPlay is taking over wireless streaming on iDevices and will let you stream audio, video, and photos over Wi-Fi. Along with the new Apple TV, you’ll also be able to shift streams between your devices so you can, for example, finish watching a TV show or movie on the go.
– iTunes 10
– New icon
– Ping – social for music.
– 150m users ready to go…
– Artists / Users. Follow. Think Facebook stream but for music purchases / gigs.
– Apple TV
– Not iTV!
– No storage – all streaming.
– Netflix integration if you’re American…
– No purchases – only rentals.
– Movies on DVD release date = $4.99 rental (Reducing over time)
– TV shows streamed – 99c a pop. Only 2 studios on board (FOX and… Ummm can’t remember)
– No announcements for UK.
– Coldplay’s Chris Martin sang… quite badly.
– End
22:53 – Plex 9
– http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/Plex-9-Media-Center-Rocks-Our-World.html
– http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/08/30/exclusive-hands-on-with-plex-nine-for-mac-os-x-and-plex-app-for-ios-devices/
– New version launched that splits library from front end – decentralises – playback and resume from any device, only need to manage one library – awesome
– It’s a .0 release so expect bugs but can run alongside Plex 8
– Scanners much improved, some of the new front end skins look great
– Data on removable drives handled much better – now marked as offline rather than deleted
– Menu’s and storage much more sensible – can create your own libraries – Kids Movies for example rather than just everything in movies
– Also brings hardware acceleration for video playback
– Plex for iOS also announced
– £2.99
– Acts as a remote for Plex
– Allows you to browse content on your Mac as well – movies, TV shows, music, and plugins fully supported
– Stop watching a movie in your living room, and continue right where you left off on your iPhone or iPad. All of your ratings, viewed status and more is kept perfectly in sync.
28:48 – Digg Update
– Updated Digg launched
– you’ll see a stream of recent stories filling up most of the page, with ten top stories in a sidebar on the right. But there’s one key difference: each of these stories has been Dugg by one of your friends (or sponsored by an advertiser). Likewise, the stories on the right hand side of the screen represent the stories that have been dugg most by your friends over the last day or so.
– More relevant, based on your social group
– Is Digg still relevant though?
– Hardcore users hate the changes – http://mashable.com/2010/08/30/users-revolt-against-new-digg
33:36 – GMail gets Google Voice and Priority Inbox
– If you are a Gmail user in the U.S., you can now make free Web-based phone calls to any phone in the U.S. and Canada right from the Gmail interface. You can also make International calls for fees starting at $0.02 per minute.
– To use this new feature, you will have to install the Google Talk plugin, which is available here for Windows, Mac and Linux
– If you are a Google voice user, your Google Voice number will appear as the outbound called ID number on calls made from Gmail. You can also opt to receive inbound Google Voice calls from inside the GMail interface.
– (Don’t know if this is still relevant, but if you update your google account location to US, you can try out the features. There wasn’t IP address blocking in place.)
37:07 – Youtube Free Movie Channel and Google Realtime
– selection of Bollywood, action, horror, comedy and animated films for unlimited free streaming over the web and mobile phones.
– launch comes in the wake of deals struck with US film studios, including Sony Pictures, and UK movie and television streamer Blinkbox.
– While the catalogue isn’t exactly sparkling, there are a few hidden gems in among the muck. There are plenty of Jackie Chan movies, Google’s own Life In A Day project, Fritz Lang’s 1927 Sci-Fi masterpiece Metropolis and the original Heidi. Robe Lowe and Jodie Foster’s bizarre Hotel New Hampshire is in there too.
– http://www.google.com/realtime?esrch=RealtimeLaunch::Experiment
– Appears in left menu of normal search.
– Twitter / Social conversations
41:32 – Games Channel coming to the UK
– http://www.ginx.tv/
– The team behind Bravo TV show GameFace plan to launch their new UK channel dedicated entirely to games reviews this November.
– On Sat and Cable
– In a presentation this morning Ginx CEO Michiel Bakker said that his firm was aiming at ‘light’ gamers.
– Early programming will cover and rate new releases – but in time will expand to include documentaries looking at celebrities and gaming.
– Fail?
– Games market is so unrepresented on UK TV
44:17 – Xbox Live Prices Increase
– UK increase only affects 1m signup. 12months unaffected at moment. – however, US increase across the board – we’re going to see more in the future i’m sure.

Picks
Chris
Risk Factions
– Great presentation on top of a classic game
– Can play classic version or tweaked version.
– Not being game aficionado – don’t know what’s changed.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is a great tool for landscape photographers. Using the tool you can pick a location anywhere in the world and work out not only the sunrise and sunset times but also the angle of the sunrise/sunset so if your wanting to plan a sunrise across a river or a mountain range you can work out the best time of year to do the shot.

Photographer’s Ephemeris is free and is an Adobe Air application so is multi platform. It’s easy to install and use and the results are great. Alongside the Air application a version has been written for iOS devices. This however is not free, currently retailing for £5.49 in the UK. This version is iPhone only at the moment but an update is coming which will move the application to being universal with iPad support.

The application is similar to the desktop version but I find it easier to use via the touch interface. Like the desktop version moonrise and moonset angles/times are also included alongside the ability to find out when the sun will appear from behind a hill – ideal for scouting out locations prior to a shoot.

It’s app’s like these that I find so compelling on mobile devices. Focussed, simple to use but very helpful.

DigitalOutbox Episode 59

DigitalOutbox Episode 59
In this episode the team discuss Gamescon, Facebook Places and naughty BT.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:38 – BT and Net Neutrality
– “[A]t the moment with our TV service, BT Vision, we deliver entertainment content, video, at peak time to consumers via our network and we prioritise the traffic in order to be able to do this.”
– Jon Hurry, the commercial director at BT Retail speaking to BBC click
– it’s making it clear that its own online television service gets prioritised at the expense of its rivals
– After a call to the BT press office I wasn’t much clearer. I was told that Mr Hurry had perhaps not made the best choice of words in talking of prioritising traffic. What he meant was that BT Retail bought a product from BT Wholesale – there is an arms length relationship between the two divisions – which gave it an “assured quality of service” for BT Vision.
– It was described to me as a kind of internet bus lane, which meant that users even on a 2Mbps line would get a reliable television service without the buffering and freezing that you can experience with web video. BT insists that this does not affect other web users in any way – although in my experience a bus lane always means a slower ride for other traffic – but also says that other web video operators are free to pay for a similar service.
5:53 – Wired Declares the death of the Web
– Say we don’t use the web anymore but spent all our time on the internet
– Skype, Xbox, video, mobile app’s but no web
– Even has funky graph to prove it…but
– http://m.boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html
– doesn’t account for the increase in internet traffic over the same period. The use of proportion of the total as the vertical axis instead of the actual total is a interesting editorial choice
– between 1995 and 2006, the total amount of web traffic went from about 10 terabytes a month to 1,000,000 terabytes (or 1 exabyte). According to Cisco, the same source Wired used for its projections, total internet traffic rose then from about 1 exabyte to 7 exabytes between 2005 and 2010
– So web hasn’t slowed at all, indeed it’s increased, rather it’sbeen joined by even more explosive growth in file-sharing and video, which is often embedded in the web in any case
– This isn’t the first time Wired has declared the web’s death – 1997 – http://web.archive.org/web/19980207164310/www.wired.com/wired/4.04/features/wipeout.html
– Still, it achieved it’s aim by getting everyone talking about it – biggest surprise is Wired is still going in paper and digital formats – will it still be here in 5 years time?
9:49 – Chrome Web Store launches October
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/19/chrome-app-store-google/
– Gaming portal 1Up.com has detailed a presentation given by Google developer advocates Mark DeLoura and Michael Mahemoff at GDC Europe that contains new details about the Chrome Web Store — a feature first announced at Google I/O that will allow users to purchase web applications from their Chrome web browsers
– Store will probably launch late October
– when the Web Store was first announced, Google VP of Product Sundar Pichai indicated that there would be a standard 70/30 (developer/Google) split — the same as on Apple’s App Store and Android Market. However the fee is actually 5% plus an additional 30 cents per transaction — which obviously represents a more significant chunk if your app is only selling for $1.99. Also note that the minimum price here is $1.99, not 99 cents as it is on the App Store. However, you don’t have to use Google’s integrated web store payments — you’re free to integrate another payment system into your app.
– There’s also a one-time fee of $5, which is meant to help cut back on fraudulent activity. And yes, you can sell apps for free.
– Also interesting: the web store will completely replace Chrome’s themes and extensions galleries when it launches, and it will allow developers to distribute and sell themes and extensions (in addition to the aforementioned apps).
– Google may make less money from this in the short term, but if it helps the web win out over native apps then it’s a decision that will pay off for Google in a big way.
– ore will launch with support for free trials, subscriptions, and other in-app payment platforms. At launch you’ll be able to purchase apps from anywhere in the world using Google Checkout, but only with US dollars (multiple currencies and in-app transactions are slated for the first half of 2011).
– applications will be auto-approved and published “most of the time” (the report doesn’t indicate what the exception to the rule might be). Each application profile will include customer reviews including those left by your friends.
14:39 – Twifficiency
– Exploded on twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday
– Annoyed many as it auto tweeted your twitter efficiency
– Then rumours spread it grabbed passwords etc
– Turns out developer was a 17 year old scot – James Cunningham
– Was using this to learn oAuth
– Many people annoyed by it, seeing it as spam – https://www.businesszone.co.uk/blogs/dan-martin/dan-martin-editor039s-blog/twifficiency-hard-lesson-how-business-news-travels-fast
– But a few were impressed by the creativity and ingenuity
– Interviewed by Time – http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/17/twifficiency-by-james-cunningham-better-than-a-college-diploma/
– Now updated with checkbox and traffic still growing – check the server logs below
19:07 – Facebook Places
– Help you share where you are, help you find where your friends are, and discover new places around you. It launches on mobile devices (web) and in the company’s new iPhone app tonight.
– Check-ins are part of the platform. So is adding places. One difference between it and Foursquare is that Facebook doesn’t just show you nearby places, but places it thinks are relevant to you.
– Place Pages on the web. It has maps and who’s checked in…more on it in a moment
– Photo tagging has been taken to places. You can “tag” friends that are with you at a specific location. Thus, everybody doesn’t have to check-in on their own. Tagging seems to be a selling point of the platform, but does this present a privacy issue?
– There’s a “not now” feature to not broadcast your location.
– You can remove any check-in, settings are defaulted to friends only. “Here Now” is on after you check-in. Tagging only lets you tag your friends and notifies you whenever you’re tagged. You can always remove any tag.
– You can report a place on the iPhone if it’s inaccurate or don’t want it on the system (say your home, for example).
– Now the company is talking about the API and developers. There’s a Read API for reading check-ins and learning more about check-in pages. There’s a Search and Write API for making check-ins and searching through them. Gowalla and Foursquare building alongside Facebook. Yelp the same – when you check in you can share with Facebook.
– Rolling out in the US first
– There will be obvious privacy concerns – friends creating places like your house, auto checking you in when you don’t want to.
– First step – change your settings to stop friends checking you in- http://gizmodo.com/5616338/the-first-thing-you-should-do-with-facebook-places-dont-let-other-people-tag-you
25:21 – iMac Touch Patents
– Patent filed by Apple in January explains how future iMacs could switch between keyboard and mouse and touch interfaces.
30:32 – Windows Phone Xbox Live Titles
– Castlevania, Halo: Waypoint, Star Wars, Crackdown, and Guitar Hero, alongside a handful of newer properties like the ultra-cute ilomilo, produced in-house by Microsoft Game Studios
– will launch with over 60 game titles, with new offerings appearing every week in the Xbox Live Marketplace
– Live on WP7 will allow for full avatar integration (we’re talking fully rendered, interactive avatars) along with customization (clothes, accessories, and more). The company has even crafted an avatar-centric version of familiar phone utilities like flashlight apps and levels, adding some whimsy to what would normally be pretty staid affairs. Additionally, messaging, friend lists / status, achievements, and leaderboards (with friend comparisons) are all here as well, making for a pretty complete mobile Xbox Live experience
– Can demo all games before you buy
– Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst, the game utilizes Bing maps to create levels (not unlike the PSN title The Last Guy), and logic in the software is able to recognize things like roads for enemies to make their way down. Tower defence game using Crackdown assets
– Unfortunately, for the launch of Windows Phone 7 there won’t be any true multiplayer options besides turn-based games, though Kevin seemed to indicate that head-to-head gaming (whether over a local or wide network) was in the roadmap. It only makes sense considering this is Xbox Live we’re talking about, and it seems like something that would have been baked in from the beginning.
– Though we didn’t get to see a lot of titles (we particularly would have liked to see something like Castlevania), the polish and speed of the games we played was definitely competitive with iPhone or Palm Pre gaming.
36:50 – Gamescon Roundup
– GTA5 – Nov 3rd in EU, looks like 5th in the UK
– Will have track/course editor – generate their own courses based around a complex scheme of parameters and share them with the wider community. There are four themes to choose from and a dizzying array of settings to tweak, including the number of turns, track length, weather, topography and speed of sectors.
– Karts!
– A-Spec – driver, B-Spec mode – Racing Simulator RPG – you are a team manager
– Fifa 11 – released October 1st
– will include 11 vs 11 online – goalkeepers fully controllable
– video editing, new career mode, more customisable
– PES 2011 – released day before on Sep 30th
– Halo Reach – Sep 16th
– Medal of Honour – Looks pretty awesome, but most games do at this stage
– 2 new PS3’s – 160GB replacing 120 and a 320GB
– ITV Player, it’s tv catch up service, will be available on ps3 by end of the year
– Portal 2 – Feb 2011
43:59 – Realtime Worlds Goes Bust
– 250 jobs at risk after poor take up of APB.

Picks
Chris
Jungle Disk
– Lets be store files in my own Amazon S3 account
– Schedule whatever files for backup – anything from monthly, weekly etc down to every 5 mins.
– Only does bit change updates – ie. only uploads part of file that’s changed
– $2 per month plus Amazon storage costs – about $0.15 per gig per month
– Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an online storage web service offered by Amazon Web Services. Amazon S3 provides unlimited storage through a simple web services interface. Amazon launched S3, its first publicly-available web service, in the United States in March 2006[1] and in Europe in November 2007.

Henry
Prezzi
– online presentation app.
– Free version and annual subscriptions from $59

Ian
The Photographer’s Ephemeris
– £5.49
– The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) is a tool to help with the planning of all types of outdoor photography, but particularly landscape and urban scenes.
– It is a map-centric sun and moon calculator: see how the light will fall on the land.

Devour

YouTube is great as is Vimeo and all the other video sites on the web, but finding the good stuff in amongst the dross isn’t easy. For example, 25 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute so what chance have you got? That’s where Devour steps in. They hand pick what they class as the best videos of the day and link to them from their site.

The site is simple to use – visit, click on a screenshot and watch the video. Customisation is limited in that you can change the background although in future you can tweak the layout to support lists or a full screen grid. All video’s selected are in HD too. This was an instant bookmark for me, not only on my desktop, but on the iPad and iPhone as all video’s work on iOS devices too. Awesome.

DigitalOutbox Episode 58

DigitalOutbox Episode 58
In this episode the team discuss Net Neutrality and Chris buys a Mac.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
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Shownotes
0:54 – Pc vs Mac
– Some people didn’t like the Mac vs PC ad’s – arrogant, untrue (not really) but I think the bit that annoyed PC users was that they were on average pretty funny, especially for Mac users, that tiny 5-6% of the desktop market
– Microsoft just couldn’t let it go, so they’ve done a campaign – Deciding between a PC and a Mac
– Some of this stuff is just complete bullshit 🙂
– You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, memory stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless
– Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC. For example, the mouse works differently.
– If you use Apple’s productivity suite, sharing files with PC users can be tricky
– Most of the world’s most popular computer games aren’t available for Macs. And Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360. PCs are ready to play. Umm…yes they can 🙂
– With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network (It’s one fucking checkbox)
– Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points.
– What the buzz is about, which looks like a live twitter feed, is actually a carefully selected list of tweets, that’s the same no matter when you visit the page.
7:29 – Net Neutrality
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/10/google-verizon-net-neutrality-reaction
– http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/08/10/internet-schminternet/
– http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/why-google-became-a-carrier-humping-net-neutrality-surrender-monkey/
– http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/08/a-paper-trail-of-betrayal-googles-net-neutrality-collapse.ars – fact based rather than opinion based
– One of the biggest, important topics of the next couple of years
– Google and Verizon announced a 7 point proposal on net neutrality
– However, they controversially agree that neutrality and regulation of the home broadband market shouldn’t happen BUT
– Mobile internet…and anything new – that’s fair game and according to Google and Verizon, should be subject to restrictions and tiering
– My take on net neutrality – the fear is that if a deal is put in place then video from Verizon or Google say, will be streamed at 1 mb/sec, and video from everywhere else would be subject to throttling (management) and delieverd at 200k/sec
– Obvious advantage, and the end of the open internet as we know it today
– Couple of interesting points – everyone expects mobile to be the future of internet delivery, with many thinking that wireless is the only way to reach all consumers – easier and cheaper than laying miles and miles of fibre (or copper!!!)
– So I could watch a video at home, but then want to watch it out in the car and I can’t?
– Or I could watch a video at my house but visiting a friend who has wireless only, I can’t?
– Or some new technology comes along that the telco’s don’t like…so it’s instantly constrained, and I don’t mean pirate material, but anything that could be seen as a competitor
– Biggest surprise is Google – why did they sign up to this? What happened to ‘Do no evil?’. http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality_letter.html – Times are a changing.
– Android is the biggest seller, telco’s love Android because it is free, and Google needs the telco’s. Played the Apple is closed, you will like us card, now they are biggest seller, need to protect and side with telco’s. Stinks but like I said with Apple, it’s just business. See through the bullshit.
– It’s attempts to break down the carriers failed – Nexus One etc
– My fear is that where America leads, the rest of the world does tend to follow
– Google Responds – http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/facts-about-our-network-neutrality.html
– Myth and Fact 🙂
– Goggle says the compromises are good
– Myth – don’t be evil
– Fact – show me the money
– Shouldn’t overlook the FCC’s lack of action on this matter. They have the power to set rules and haven’t managed to do so. This agreement can be superseeded and it’s up to the FCC to find that agreement. There is an underlying problem in America in the faith of a market free from regulation – in the US, where there are only few large players, this is worrying. In Europe, there are more, smaller players and also a fragmentation between ISP’s and infrastructure.
16:44 – Trade ADSL Download for Upload
– Missed this last week – Bt offering “Annex M”. Basically, adjusting to 85% of download speed to allow higher upload rates.
– BT charges ISP’s £7 per user (Not sure monthly?)
– Only available on LLU or 21Century network and only on good quality lines.
– Could see uploads increased to 2.5Mbs for close exchange lines. More like 1
17:38 – Oracle sues Google
– Is this why they bought Sun?
– In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.
– Claiming that Android competes with Java as “an operating system software platform for cellular telephones and other mobile devices” and that the Android stack employs Java apps running on a Java-based framework, Oracle says that Android and the Android SDK infringe on its patents, and it wants to see some cash for its unwitting involvement in the mobile OS’s success.
– Oracle also says Google has known about these patents since the middle of the decade when the latter company hired several Sun Java engineers.
19:20 – Jump or Push
– Hardware chief, Mark Papermaster, leaves Apple. No comment from Apple for reasons.Obviously sparked rampant internet speculation over reasons for leaving.
– According to John Gruber, although his background at IBM was semiconductors he was known at Apple as ‘the antenna guy’
– Also seemingly didn’t fit in with the Apple culture
– Is it the Antenna, the white iPhone delay or just a convenient way of getting rid of someone who hadn’t embedded well and can take the hit, without anything being said publicly?
– Sacrificial lamb
– Antenna Guy title smacks of being created after he left… like Antenna Gate.
21:21 – Apple Plug Security Hole
– A hole was uncovered on the iPhone operating system that could allow unauthorised code to run.
– Relates to the phone auto-loading PDF files (think it might be the reason you can jailbreak just by visiting a website…)
– Apple have come out quickly and plugged the gap with 4.0.2.
– Hate these updates – 5-600mb for a few lines of code
– 3gb for Xcode updates – get a grip – must cost them a fortune in download costs never mind our time
– This was why I could run the jailbreak last week…
– Which after two days I swapped back
– App’s a bit crashy and system as a whole more unstable
– Cydia’s ‘make my life easier – sending my unique Apple ID to some server…somewhere to do…something…what?
– Just not compelling enough for me
26:47 – Android News
– Google Voice Recognition in Android allows you to now send texts and do other things via voice commands
– Voice Actions can send emails. “Send Email to Hugo Barra: I just booked a scuba diving trip to the turks and caicos for September!” You can even add onto the message after it’s been written. Saying “smiley face” also inserts the smiley emoticon.
– go to popular websites with Voice Actions. “Go to Wikipedia
– 10 actions, available now for Android 2.2
– Interesting – the voice recognition takes place on Google servers
– Voice on iPhone is a far simpler version of this
– Chrome-To-Phone
– extension allows you to take a page you’re currently viewing on your web browser and send it to your Android 2.2 device
– if you’re looking at a map and want it on your phone, you can just click the ‘Chrome to Phone’ button in your browser, and your phone will immediately open that map in the Maps application
– Closest on iphone is Prowl but it doesn’t have the same action contexts that Android does – http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/08/10/prowl-push-websites-from-chrome-to-iphone/
– Tasker
– http://tasker.dinglisch.net/
– Tasker is an application for Android which performs Tasks (sets of Actions) based on Contexts (application, time, date, location, event, gesture) in user-defined Profiles, or in clickable or timer home screen widgets.
– change phone settings by
application: long screen timeout in a book reader
time: screen brightness lower in the evening
location: ringer volume high at the office, turn off ke yguard at home
– take a time-lapse photo series (possibly ‘secretly’)
– make a regular backup of a file on the SD card
– track your phone location via SMS in case of theft
– sounds wonderfully geeky
33:33 – Camera+ Pulled from iStore
– This was Ian’s pick from a couple of weeks back
– Great app, version 1.3 was submitted and included an option for using the volume buttons as a camera button – easier and far less camera shake
– Apple rejected – it will confuse the users
– Taptaptap then revealed via twitter that current version had option – type camplus://enablevolumesnap into safari to enable
– 24 hours later, app gone – Apple removed? Hidden features, breaking rules?
– Biggest well known publisher to get into difficulty I think
– Before we get all fanboyish, Google does the same with their app’s
42:30 – iTV
– Apple TV to be rebranded iTV which is actually it’s original name
– releasing a $99 version of the set top box, similarly sized and packed with internals akin to that of the iPhone 4 (A4 CPU, 16GB of flash storage), and will introduce new iTunes streaming services the box could take advantage of
– Get this – 720p only – no 1080i or 1080p
– the device will be getting apps and presumably an App Store entry, though it’s unclear if there will be cross-pollination between iPad and iPhone / iPod touch offerings and new Apple TV applications.
– Seemingly ITV are ‘furious’ and will vigorously defend their ttrademark
– Apple spokesman – denied the names will be too similar
44:01 – News Fail
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/11/elyse-porterfield/
– Telegraph report on girl that quit via a whiteboard
– Pretty funny
– Not the story, but the reporting – it’s a hoax
– Techcrunch revealed all the details
– Don’t believe what you read…

Picks
Chris
FamFam Silk
– Free
– Great icons for web development

Ian
Devour
– Devour sifts out the best videos and posts the well-curated collection every weekday. Fewer cute kittens, fewer skateboarding nutshots, fewer tween heart throbs, and lots more awesome.
– Hand picked (on Youtube there is 25 hours of video posted….every minute)
– every single video on Devour.com is in HD
– every single video plays on the iPhone and iPad
– Left out on thing – comments

DigitalOutbox Episode 57

DigitalOutbox Episode 57
In this episode the team discuss the new Kindle and Phones, Phones, Phones.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:17 – Virgin Making Strides
– Adds customer base, increases profits
– Broadband grows – 43% of its broadband subscribers now take packages of 20Mbps or 50Mbps. Broadband growth was five times that experienced last year, with 28,100 net new customers added over the quarter
– Virgin Media has also confirmed plans to launch its 100Mbps broadband service by the end of the year, along with its first set top boxes enabled with technology developed by US DVR giant TiVo.
– will launch its first set top boxes featuring a new television and broadband interactive User Interface (UI) created by American firm TiVo.
– The new UI is designed to seamlessly blend linear TV and on-demand content, along with opening up a range of online functionality, such as recommendations engines and social media functions.
4:49 – Sky Soars
– Almost 10m subscribers
– 400,000 new HD subs
– 30% of its 9.86m customer base now takes Sky+ HD
– 50 HD channels by Christmas
– Average revenue – £508 per person
– £1bn profit in year to June
– The firm added 119,000 broadband customers in the second quarter to bring its total base to 2.6m. The service also reached profitability for the first time since it launched in 2006.
– 3D channel launches on Oct 1st for home users
– Only in pubs, hotels so far
– Films and sport the drivers
– Ryder cup in 3D
– Premiership football
9:51 – New Amazon Kindle
– The new handheld — slated to be released on August 27th — is 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter than the previous model
– has a 20 percent faster refresh rate on its E Ink
– graphite and white
– £109 wi-fi only and £149 for 3G version (free 3G from Vodafone)
– Smaller, faster, cheaper
– Jeff Bezos
– For the vast majority of books, adding video and animation is not going to be helpful. It is distracting rather than enhancing. You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets,” adding later, “there are going to be 100 companies making LCD [screen] tablets… why would we want to be 101? I like building a purpose-built reading device. I think that is where we can make a real contribution.”
– Amazon predicts they will sell more ebooks than paperbacks by end of 2011
– Surpass hard and paperback combined sales shortly after
– I think that looks really nice, especially compared to original version
– http://mashable.com/2010/08/05/kindle-store-uk/
– UK Store now launched
– features more than 400,000 titles (compared to the U.S.’s roughly 650,000)
– customers can purchase e-books in pounds, most of which range from
about £3 to £11
– UK shoppers can now read e-book reviews from fellow countrymen, and see which e-books are selling best locally, rather than across the Atlantic
16:31 – Google Cleared
– The “pay-load” data collected by Google’s Street View cars did not slurp up “meaningful personal details”, the UK’s privacy watchdog concluded today
– the company hadn’t grabbed information that “could be linked to an identifiable person.”
17:43 – Wave Goodbye
– Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked.
– We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.
– Wave has taught us a lot – yep – stop releasing products with no real world use case
20:44 – Jaibreak Me
– http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/browser-based_jailbreak_available_for_almost_all_i.php
– Works for all iphones, iPads, iPod touches
– The jailbreak works by navigating to the site in Apple’s default browser Safari and “sliding to jailbreak.” The process can take as little as a minute to download, declare that it’s added itself to the home screen, and tell you to “Have fun!”
– relies on the exploitation of an unpatched mobile Safari vulnerability
– Jailbreaking will void the warranty on a device, Apple says. However, the action is easy to undo by resetting a device to factory settings (and will be undone by downloading any new version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS).
– Some reports of bricks!
– Some users are reporting that this jailbreak interferes with Facetime and Multimedia Messaging on the iPhone 4.
– What’s so different with this jailbreak – sooooo easy
22:39 – iPhone Loses to Android in first half of the year
– With a margin of 27% to 23% of the US market, Google Android platform has shown continues rapid growth and has has edged past the Apple iPhone platform with new subscribers.
– So more people bought android phones in the first 6 months
– Android now sells 200k a day – http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/05/googles-schmidt-boasts-200k-android-devices-sold-daily-waxes-i/
– 21 phones, 4 providers against 1 phone and 1 provider
– Stolen/lost iPhone 4 probably killed iPhone 3GS sales
– Inevitable
– Move along, nothing here to see
24:56 – Blackberry Torch
– Too little, too late
– The Torch seems sluggish, underpowered, and dated from a hardware design standpoint, and BlackBerry 6, despite its new features and polish, still feels woefully behind the curve. To call the Torch the “best BlackBerry ever” wouldn’t be an understatement, but unfortunately for RIM and the faithful, their best isn’t nearly good enough.
– Android = Windows
– iPhone = Mac
– Blackberry/Windows Phone 7 = Corporate – Sun/IBM
29:48 – Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003
– Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.
– “The real issue is user-generated content,” Schmidt said. He noted that pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.
– Naturally, all of this information helps Google. But he cautioned that just because companies like his can do all sorts of things with this information, the more pressing question now is if they should. Schmidt noted that while technology is neutral, he doesn’t believe people are ready for what’s coming.
– “I spend most of my time assuming the world is not ready for the technology revolution that will be happening to them soon,” Schmidt said.

Picks
Chris
Astraweb Hosting
– Pay as you go – topsmart $25 = 180Gb – doesn’t expire. ($10 25Gb)
– Perfect.
– You can have monthly sub if you want – but why would you.

Ian
Sabnzbd
– Open source newsreader
– Fast, feature rich
– Great for my mac mini
– Controlled via web client, easily extendable

DigitalOutbox Episode 56

DigitalOutbox Episode 56
In this episode the team discuss Wikileaks, Apple and Microsoft Quarters and Flipboard.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
2:36 – Broadbands Broken Promises
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/ofcom_broadbands_broken_promis.html
– No surprise to UK broadband users, ofcom’s report is pretty damning
– Its analysis of broadband speeds in the UK shows that, for some services, 97% of consumers do not get the advertised speed.
– It also shows a growing gap between the claims ISPs make for broadband and the speed being delivered.
– average residential broadband speed in the UK has risen in the last 12 months from 4.1Megabits per second (Mbps) to 5.2Mbps
– Virgin closest – 8.6 to 9 Mbps for it’s 10meg service
– Best adsl – O2, 4.3 to 5 Mbps for it’s up to 8 service
– the advertising of broadband speeds in Britain is scandalously misleading
– BT’s copper is incapable of delivering decent speeds
– Virgin Media is showing that fibre is the future
– the digital divide between town and country is bound to get wider
– Whenever I’ve looked at BB packages, I would say that they have been pretty clear that they would connect at the fastest possible speed up to a maximum possible. Also, BT offer an estimated line speed that other sites hook into. I don’t think it’s particularly misleading.
7:23 – Wikileaks Afghan War Diary
– 90,000 leaked coalition documents from the Afghan war
– Biggest leak ever
– Quote from Julian Assage, Wikileaks founder:
– This situation is different in that it’s not just more material and being pushed to a bigger audience and much sooner … but rather that people can give back. So people around the world who are reading this are able to comment on it and put it in context and understand the full situation. That is not something that has previously occurred. And that is something that can only be brought about as a result of the Internet.
– Old reports, not future plans
– The Afghan War Diary was simultaneously given to reporters from The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel several weeks in advance so those reporters could study the documents and provide context with their public release. It was also given to those three publications so that no one national government could censor it.
– WikiLeaks removed data that could implicate its sources, but the U.S. military already has an alleged WikiLeaks source in custody: 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who The Guardian says is suspected as the source of the video that depicted U.S. soldiers killing civilians. So far we’ve seen no evidence for or against any connection between the Afghan War Diary and Manning.
– Guardian has mapped the 300 major incidents – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-events
– Created a glossary for understanding those pesky TLA’s
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/2010/jul/25/wikileaks-afghanistan-war-logs-glossary
– Every IED attack with co-ords – map and spreadsheet – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/2010/jul/26/wikileaks-afghanistan-ied-attacks
– US says it is irresponsible- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10758578
13:25 – EFF Victory Against DRM
– US only but major major legal victory
– Electronic Frontier Foundation had applied to the Copyright Office to grant exemptions permitting the cracking of DRM in three cases
– “jailbreak” a mobile device, such as an iPhone, where DRM is used to prevent phone owners from running software of their own choosing
– allow video remix artists to break the DRM on DVDs in order to take short excerpts for mashups posted to YouTube and other sharing sites, as long as it’s use is non-commercial or educational
– EFF got the Copyright Office to renew its ruling that made it legal to unlock cellphones so that they can be used with any carrier
– So apple and others can say your voiding your warranty, but they can’t say your breaking the law..but, thats not what the ruling says. the ruling says your not violating copyright law
– So still might not be legal…yet
– Of course, Apple isn’t very happy with this
– Biggest is probably the mashup ruling – fair use of material you have bought, but of course it will be ‘you can legally jailbreak your iphone’ that will be most reported as that drives traffic – see leak of iphone 4 and antennagate for example
– in theory, should put a stop to many of the DMCA (1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act) removal requests sent to services like YouTube
17:03 – Android Updates
– Sales of Android-based phones more than quadrupled in the UK during the most-recent quarter.
– According to GfK, Android’s share of UK smartphone contract sales sales was a mere three per cent in the first three months of 2010, but skyrocketed to 13.2 per cent in the second quarter.
– Apple, conversely, saw its UK market share decline from 75 per cent to 64 per cent during the same period. And it wasn’t only Android phones that took a bite out of Cupertino: RIM’s UK share rose from two per cent to seven per cent from January through April.
– Samsung S is the new hotness in Android phones
– Were sending out free phones to twitter users complaining about iPhone dropped calls
– Also running Facebook competition
– Best mobile add for a while
22:25 – Apple Quarterly Results
– Boom
– Over 3 milllion iPads – almost outsells Macs, and that was their biggest Mac quarter ever
– Great sales for iphones which is only 2 days of iPhone 4
– They made billions…
– Can’t make enough iPhone 4’s and ipads – LG can’t make enough iPad screens – says it will do better
– Few days later, white iPhone 4’s are delayed again, just a few days after saying end of July:
– White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.
– Coupled with September 30th limit on free bumper, iPhone 4 ver B later this year?
– Creating a version B probably raises more questions than answers… if it fixes aerial, won’t all “version A” users want one?
29:46 – Microsoft Quarterly Results
– Boomer
– revenues were up 22 percent, to more than $16 billion
– bigger quarter than Apple
– Strong Windows 7 sales + Office 2010 and a strengthening economy helped
30:57 – Facebook Hits 500 Million Users
– To celebrate, we’ve put together a collection of stories you’ve shared with us about the impact Facebook and your friends have had on your lives.
– We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world.
– 5 1/2 months since they hit 400million – around same time to go from 300 to 400 million
– Details of 100m Facebook users collected and leaked
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10796584
– The personal details of more than 100 million Facebook users have been harvested and published on the net.
– Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a simple piece of code to collect the data from Facebook.
– The list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID.
– In a statement to BBC News, Facebook said that the information in the list was already freely available online.
– “People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want,” the statement read.
– “In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook.
– “No private data is available or has been compromised,” the statement added.
33:54 – Flipboard
– Personalised social magazine
– It turns your Facebook and Twitter account into something that looks like a magazine.
– It also lets you build a custom magazine, either by choosing from Flipboard’s pre-built curated “boards” or by importing Twitter lists.
– You can also turn a single person’s Twitter account, or a single brand’s Twitter account, into a Flipboard. For instance, you can follow Techcrunch on Twitter with it and it will turn Techcrunch into a beautiful magazine-like interface that’s easier to read than any other reader.
– Massive buzz, unusabale (for Ian) on day one. Creating invite system to manage demand. Sigh.
– iPad killer app?
– Why does it need to sign into Facebook and Twitter via their own servers?
– May be controversy over how they deliver content – not using RSS, scraping from source websites – http://gizmodo.com/5594176/is-flipboard-legal
– Revenue not from users but from content owners
40:24 – Skype
– http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/07/iphone_multitasking_3g.html
– Supports calls over 3G
– More importantly, works in background – you can now receive Skype calls, and instant messages, while running any other application.
– Even more importantly – scrapped their planned move to charge for calls over 3G
41:32 – BBC News App Launched
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/july/mobile_apps.shtml
– iPhone News and Sports app’s approved
– Launched on Friday 23rd
– News will add regional news in future
– News will come to blackberry, android and other devices later in the year
– Looking at findings, why did this take 3-4 months to review?
– To appease “industry”? Doesn’t matter though, correct consumer decision.
43:44 – Daily Star Lies
– The Daily Star has today expressed its “fury” at news that a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto is in production.
– Apparently “gaming websites” (though obviously not the ones we read) have shown the cover of “a version of the XBox hit Grand Theft Auto”, supposedly called GTA Rothbury, that’s based on the recent Northumberland shootings that dominated the news earlier this month.
– “It is sick – it’s blood money,” the sister of Moat’s ex-partner Samantha Stobbart told the paper. “The game is beyond belief.”
– Journalist, Jerry Lawton, defends his story
– http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40124/Journalist-defends-GTA-Raoul-Moat-story
– “Baffled by the fury of adult gamers,” he wrote, as reported by Destructoid. “These are grown (?!?) men who sit around all day playing computer games with one another who’ve today chosen to enter the real world just long enough to complain about my story slamming a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto!
– “You would think I’d denied the Holocaust!!! Think I’ll challenge them to a virtual reality duel….stab….I win!!!”
– Cue Apology
– http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/145880/Rockstar-Games-Grand-Theft-Auto-An-apology/
– Grovel grovel grovel
– We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.
– It is now accepted that there were never any plans by Rockstar Games to publish such a game and that the story was false. We apologise for publishing the story using a mock-up of the game cover, our own comments on the matter and soliciting critical comments from a grieving family member.
– We unreservedly apologise to Rockstar Games and we have undertaken not to repeat the claims again. We have also agreed to pay them a substantial amount in damages which they are donating to charity.

Picks
Chris
Limbo
– Limbo is a truly stunning looking (and feeling) game. Xbox Live Arcade.
– Eerie, dark, mysterious, funny, scary, frustrating, satisfying.
– No colour, very little sound, no dialogue, largely silhouettes

Ian
Camera+
– Great camera app for iPhone
– Faster than built in app with a lot more features
– Filters, borders etc
– Now my goto app for taking pictures – can also share on the Camrera+ website or to flickr, e-mail etc