July 27th, 2007 | Posted in Audio, Other | 
7 Comments
Thursday evening, as my friend and I drove to the theater to see an opening night 12am screening of “The Simpson’s Movie,” we were forced into an unusual technological corner.
Usually, all the music in my buddy’s car is supplied via his iPod — on which resides an overwhelming list of thousands of songs. But with his iPod somewhat broken (at least, it only supplies sound to the left channel), we opted to dig out his old Sony minidisc player for our traveling music.
July 27th, 2007 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | 2 Comments
Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.
Top digital lifestyle news
Joost co-founder, Niklas Zennström, revealed that the Internet TV service now has one million Beta testers, and is on track to fully launch by the end of the year. Speaking at a Skype press event, Zennström also acknowledged the challenge of scaling the peer-to-peer video platform, and stressed that the company’s main priority was ease-of-use. Continue reading »
July 27th, 2007 | Posted in Other | 3 Comments
To coincide with the start of Comic-Con 2007 yesterday, Microsoft announced that it will lower the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player to $179 on August 1st, a drop of $20. Additionally, anyone who purchases a player before September 30th will receive five free HD DVD movies. The company also unveiled new exclusive content for the Xbox Live Marketplace:
Xbox LIVE will offer “300” on demand in HD starting Aug. 14, and is working with Warner Bros. at Comic-Con on a Bringing It Home campaign featuring “300” and other Warner Bros. properties. In advance of the street date for the “Heroes: Season 1” HD DVD boxed set, Xbox LIVE members will be able to download for free the show’s pilot episode in high definition for a limited time.
July 27th, 2007 | Posted in Video show of the week | 5 Comments
I have to write a positive review about the video podcast “Ask A Ninja“, or I will be attacked, maybe killed by a silent sword-wielding Ninja. My family will never be safe. Even the dogs will be threatened.
It’s a good thing I love “Ask A Ninja”.
“Ask A Ninja” is the clever award-winning (YouTube’s best series of 2006) creation of two Los Angeles improvisational comedians, Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine. Sarine is the man in the Ninja mask and assassin attire who karate-chops his way through an email-a-show question from viewers on subjects such as Ninja training, Ninja skills, Ninja love, how to kill a ninja, Ninja recipes, and non-ninja subjects like podcasting, Net Neutrality, Pop!Tech, and reviews of the movies “Pirates of the Caribbean 3” and “Blades of Glory.” Continue reading »
July 27th, 2007 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | 2 Comments
Sony Europe and News Corp-owned Sky have announced the formation of a Joint Venture company which will deliver video-on-demand content to PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners in the UK and Ireland.
Focusing exclusively on delivering video content to the PSP, the Joint Venture will initially provide a wealth of video and film content to the more than 2.3 million PSP owners in the UK and Ireland. The two companies are already in discussions with entertainment content providers across Europe to facilitate future introduction of the service to European PSP owners.
The new venture follows a recently announced partnership between BT and Sony which will see the two companies bring voice calls, video conferencing, and IM functionality to PSP users across Europe. Continue reading »
July 26th, 2007 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | 8 Comments
The iPhone is far from perfect, but it has potential to change the U.S. mobile-phone market unlike any smart phone/PDA/cell phone I’ve used.
Whether you like the iPhone or not isn’t important. What Apple has done is succeed in wresting an unprecedented amount of control from a carrier — in this case AT&T — in designing the device, determining its applications and mindset of use, and how to price the phone and service. At a minimum, the iPhone could impact future design for all phone manufacturers as they offer more features and functions — and a new platform — based on the way people are living their digital lives. At the extreme, the iPhone could inch the powerful carriers in the U.S. mobile-phone industry to update their 1980s business models, sort of like what the iPod is doing to the music industry.
Apple, Nokia, and Google are already working toward breaking down barriers. Continue reading »
July 26th, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | 4 Comments
With the BBC’s Internet TV service, iPlayer, set to launch in open Beta tomorrow, the public service broadcaster is facing mounting criticism because the application runs on Windows-based computers only. An e-petition on the UK government’s own website is calling for the iPlayer to be made compatible with computers running the Mac OS and Linux, and has so far collected over 10,000 “signatures”, prompting the BBC to reiterate its claim that a version which supports other operating systems will be made available “as soon as possible”. Continue reading »
July 26th, 2007 | Posted in Other | 22 Comments
When it comes to companies, there aren’t many bigger than Microsoft; they have over 75,000 employees in over 100 countries and more than $50 billion in annual revenue. While Microsoft’s product focus is definitely software, they do compete in a number of other markets such as gaming consoles, consumer hardware like mice and keyboards, and media and content such as MSNBC. Less visible is the product experimentation that goes on at Microsoft. You’re more likely to hear about Google employees tinkering with ideas and side projects (thanks to the company’s “twenty percent” time) but the fact is, Microsoft employees are a creative bunch.
You’ve likely heard all about the successful experiments. Not just the “big bets” as Gates likes to call them, or the interesting things that happen at Microsoft Research, but projects that almost never made it to market, like J. Allard’s Xbox. But what about the flops? As our exploration of Microsoft’s Internet TV initiatives proved, the company is certainly not afraid to experiment, taking the good with the bad. And Microsoft has had its fair share of bad. Let’s look now at some of the company’s more interesting “digital lifestyle” flops. Continue reading »
July 25th, 2007 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | 44 Comments
One thing about the iPhone. After nearly a month on the planet, there are already hundreds — thousands! millions! — of aggregators, blogs, critic and user reviews, tips and tricks, hacks, applications, podcasts and video podcasts about the little phone that could.
I’m overwhelmed. I’ve been on safari, hunting resources on the iPhone, and I’ve collected a few links and applications of interest along the way.
This list, like others I’ve seen, is far from complete as new sites and applications are added daily. Please feel free to jump in and add your own favorites to the comment section.
Here goes.
July 25th, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | 2 Comments
Joost co-founder, Niklas Zennström, has revealed that the Internet TV service now has one million Beta testers, and is on track to fully launch by the end of the year. Speaking at a Skype press event, Zennström also acknowledged the challenge of scaling the peer-to-peer video platform, and stressed that the company’s main priority was ease-of-use.
While the numbers are impressive — as Mike Arrington notes, that’s a lot of Beta testers — the way the application has been marketed through a viral invite-only strategy, combined with a disproportionate amount of media coverage (compared to rivals such as Babelgum), I’m not that surprised that they’ve persuaded 1 million users to sign-up. However, trying the application once, and actually using Joost as a regular source of ‘television’, are two completely different things. My experience, and anecdotal evidence from friends, is that there simply isn’t enough compelling or unique content available yet (especially in Europe) to warrant regular use. To that end, it may well be that the chosen launch date won’t be based on technical considerations, but on securing enough new content to satisfy a major marketing blitz.