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forenoon filings

shiny, oh so shiny

mid october round-up

Monday, October 24, 2005
A round up of recent snippets that has caught my eye:

Firefox related developments continue, but Firefox spin off is gearing up for a fully fledged stand-alone release. Flock is a Mozilla based browser that is loosely based on the Firefox browser. Key features include full integration with del.icio.us and Flickr as well as quick links within the browser to publish blog content. This is being dubbed as a ‘social browser’ - the idea being that sharing of resources such as photos, bookmarks and others should be made easier by being made a part of the browser; the developers assure us that further similar services will be made available for full integration. Flock is being released as a developer's pre-release state - this may be some time off. One to watch for the future (or download now if you're feeling brave!)

One feature of Safari that has always been lacking – is the lack of ability to customise the quick search window. Although this is something that may have been overlapped if you get to use the quick search tool within Quicksilver – it led to a search of search enhancements that can be plugged into Safari. The Inquisitor tool is a (mainly) Safari plug-in that achieves this – by allowing the assignation of quick searching shortcuts and additionally applying a Spotlight type indexed search as you type your queries. Use of this plugin doesn’t seem to affect the app running or speed and suggested matched searches seem to be sensibly accurate.

psp v2.5 firmware

Saturday, October 15, 2005

The PSP firmware has been recently updated to version 2.5, and the most notable addition to the the feature set has been the support of Location Free TV. This is a Sony product that allows (with a Location Free base station) the content from your TV or DVD player, to be streamed wirelessly over a local or wide area network. While the hardware hasn't been made available in the UK yet, the concept is one that seems interesting and slowly Sony's disparate family of product are seeming to be able to be used in conjunction more easily.

Other minor tweaks include the ability to save the display settings within the web browser (how such a glaringly necessary feature like this got missed out from the original v2.0 is anyone's guess); alongside the usual security hardening measures (an AES compliant implementation of WPA encryption is now supported).

a broadcasting shake-up looming?

Thursday, October 13, 2005
Now that the dust has settled on the big announcements from Apple yesterday - regarding the media centre reinvention of the iMac; the video enabled iPod; and the new Front Row/Apple remote combo - it has given us time to ponder how being able to buy video online through the iTunes Music Store will change traditional broadcasting.

Viewers and broadcasters alike have developed a relationship where program content is broadcast to the viewer and it is up to the viewer to choose what they wish to watch. This model often gives rise to high fees for subscribing to or receiving a particular channel (a hot topic in the UK at the moment).

However, being able to individually select programmes for direct download will mean this delivery model will need to change.

Maybe you liked two or three episodes of a particular series? In the current broadcast model, this means you watch or record those particular episodes when it is broadcast or gain access to the DVD boxset (renting or buying). In both cases a large amount of program content is discarded and remains unviewed from that viewer’s perspective; yet you are still paying the subscription for that channel or have paid the price for the full DVD series.

Serving program content digitally means that this waste is reduced, and the cost to the viewer is reduced. Viewers would only watch, receive and (more importantly) pay for the content they want – probably not such a driving reason for many broadcasters to champion this idea! It is no secret that Apple is in talks with many leading broadcasters (most notably the BBC in the UK), so the amount of programme content will only grow in future months.

But how will this affect the monthly or annual subscription or license fees that many viewers pay for now currently? Many established channels will need to realise that the traditional broadcast model cannot be sustained in the coming years, once digital distribution becomes more widespread (which is becoming more widespread with digital TV services).

This counts as another step towards a model of empowering viewers to select the content they wish to receive and pay for. Against the current model of paying a fixed fee for channels which in reality you only consume a tiny percentage of – it is a step that will be very welcome.

sony ericsson works on mac shock

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Nice to come across a Mac friendly phone such as the W800i or K750i that supports many of the OS X's publicised connectivity features straight out of the box. There are a few others that require a little coaxing to get going many of which can are helpfully catalogued on Mobile Feisar.

It's pretty straight forward to get Bluetooth pairing going and and once done, your calendars and contacts can be kept orgainsed with iSync.

However some holes are evident in the way these phones integrate with OS X. Wireless net surfing, using the phone's built in Bluetooth modem, requires some work as the necessary modem control scripts aren't supplied. Once you are able to locate the correct modem control scripts then it will be necessary to set this up in System Preference's Network configuration windows (Initial tests prove successful - however, ensure that your network has granted you access to a GPRS user and password.

If you ever find yourself connecting either the K750i or W800 to a Mac, it is here that the difference between OS X and Windows workings will become apparent. If you use it with both operating systems, you will notice that Mac will store temporary 'DS_Store' files (which are usually invisible) in each directory you access. While not a problem on Mac, this will potentially cause some unexpected behaviour on Windows, or even render some files invisible once the phone is disconnected. The freeware application FinderCleaner performs the necessary filesystem ablutions to remove these files before your phone is unmounted.

While we are on the subject of disconnecting and unmounting, brings the biggest flaw of this SE pair to the forefront - on a standard USB unmount, this will bring the whole OS X come crashing down in an unceremonious heap! Quite a serious software flaw here - there are workarounds hosted on Mobile Feisar, but to think that one of the leading mobile phone manufacturers have managed to ship two flagship products with such glaring software flaws make us despair of the levels of QA that have been applied...

will they, won't they...?

Thursday, October 06, 2005
Speculation has been running rife about the contents of the upcoming special media event that has been announced to take place on 12th October by Apple.

Early rumours suggested such a possible unveiling of a video iPod, but close examination shows that these are very likely to be elaborate hoaxes.

There is quite a large demand for a video capable iPod but it doesn't appear to be the right time to launch such a product.

The problem really boils down to content, storage and delivery.

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of the original iPod was the chance it gave most people to carry around their entire CD and audio collection in their pocket. This innovation rivalled (some may say even surpassed) the impact of the original Sony Walkman - in the way it changed people's listening habits.

So why can't the same be done for video? Even at the best compression rate, a full length 2 hour DVD will still weigh in at a little under a gigabyte. Doing the maths, its easy to see that it wouldn't take much to fill most portable hard drives with files this size. The test for Apple and other rivals would be whether a portable video device would cater for large quantity of storage (which would in turn increase the unit size lessening its portability. On the other hand another approach would be to have a smaller storage capacity but encouarge higher compression - in which case, such a device would be hard pressed to store twenty or even thirty full length DVDs at current iPod sized hard drive capacities.

Another difficulty that stands in its way is ease of transfer. The beauty of audio CD to MP3/AAC conversion, is that most applications can handle this through a one-touch operation. However, DVDs require tiresome amounts of compression, resizing and formatting before they would be playable on a portable device. Let's not forget the time it takes to do this: hours (DVD) vs minutes (CD). If such a device would be successful in the mass market, it would need to easy to transfer content to and fast to fill.

This is not to say portable video players won't take off - (Sony's PSP is proving this - although they have gone the proprietary route); it's just that the internet infrastructure isn't at a speed to support mass online distribution, and portable storage isn't at a size to allow media companies to sell the idea of "all your movies in your pocket".

some comic relief

Saturday, October 01, 2005
Almost every variation of the "changing lightbulb" joke.

vending machines for everything

Quite amusing to see that Japan really does live up to it's reputation as a society where they have vending machines for almost every type of item you can imagine!


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