Author: Daniel Sung
The Royal Wii – Queen receives gold Nintendo
Games company THQ has sent a gold-plated Nintendo Wii to Buckingham Place for HRH and pals to use at, and for, their leisure. It’s all a PR plan to promote the launch of the BIG Family game and it’s worked because a) it’s funny and b) I’m writing about it. So many levels.
There’s a lot of gags here about the Queen and her golden Wii, and I’m going to crack them by saying that I’m not going to crack them. Consider them cracked. Thankfully the 24 games in Big Family include golf, tennis, ladder golf, lawn darts, horseshoes, bocce (whatever the hell that is) and not swimming, otherwise I might have to start making comments about the use of Her Maj’s new toy for water sports. See where I’m heading with that?
Not likely that you and I will ever be able to bag ourselves one of these Nintendos but you can pick up the BIG Family game whenever it comes out. Soon, I should imagine.
(via Pocket-Lint)
Gmail turns babelfish with auto-message translator
The addiction that is gmail has added yet another feature to its burgeoning tool kit in the shape of an automatic translator. “Yay,” I hear you cry, “now, I can read about cheap VIaGra in all the languages I can possibly be spammed in.” Thanks gmail.
If you’d like to sample this dawning of a new age, you’ll have to switch on the Google Labs feature to enjoy it. It’ll automatically translate whatever e-mails arrive in your inbox in Johnny Foreigner’s tongue and put them into Google’s version of your own land’s language.
Naturally, it’s bound to produce large piles of unintelligible nonsense whenever it has a go at proper nouns or anything approaching an idiom, so it could be worth it just for the craic. And the VIaGra.
(via Shiny Shiny)
Hulu hitting the UK in September?
The Hulu that they do so well over in the States could be coming to the UK in a deal that would bring 3,000 hours of US TV to our virtual shores. The free to view VoD service is looking to buddy up with the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 in providing an internet platform where all their content can be viewed together in exactly the same way the Kangaroo couldn’t.
But there is a but – two, actually, if I write it like that. There’s issues with how Channel 4 and ITV wish to hold their advertising inventory around the player for their content and, with the Competition Commission lurking round the corner, there’s a horribly familiar feeling in the air that yet another good thing for the consumer could hit the bricks.
I was just about to say that Sky is bound to have a whinge about it, just as they did with Kangaroo, but maybe not so this time. Hulu is backed by News Corp, and News Corp owns Sky. So, maybe this thing does have legs after all.
Still a hell of a lot of teasing out of agreements to do in terms of rules and regs as well as the advertising issue, doubtless, but, fingers crossed, we might actually get what we want this time. Just a shame we needed an American company to come in and sort it out for us.
(via Telegraph)
Kerchoons KBox – pocket-sized vibrating speaker
We’ve seen these things before; vibrating units that turn whatever surface they’re on into giant speakers. The advantage with the amusingly named Kerchoons KBox is that it’s not shaped like a butt plug.
This time, what we’re looking at is a USB-charged device with around 20 hours of battery life and it’s about the size of an iPhone. Do I stutter?
It delivers a slightly bottom heavy frequency response of 40Hz – 20KHz, which isn’t massive, but, then, it does only cost £39.99 plus a fiver in the post. It plugs into just about anything you like and uses a patented gel on the underside to make whatever surface it touches vibrate and create the sweet sounds.
Probably not one for the audiophiles but certainly fun, if nothing else.
KBox
WIN! WIN! WIN!: 30 Kingston 4GB microSD multi-kits to give away
I just hate those competitions with one big prize. Don’t know about you, but I never win. So, when the good people of Kingston Technology offered a whopping great memory card kit to give away, I said, “no.” Instead, we have a whole 30 of the suckers as competition prizes except just a little smaller.
The Prize
30 x 4GB Kingston Multi-Kits. Only one kit can be won per person and that kit includes:
- 4GB microSD card
- SD card adaptor
- mini-SD adaptor
- USB reader
How to win
Good question. I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Send your entry to our Tech Digest competitions email, I can tell you that much. And, as for the question…hmmm…tricky…ah, yes! I have it. The question is this:
The Nokia N97 is coming out very soon indeed and it looks like it’s going to have more memory potential than an other handset so far. So, exactly how much memory could the N97 possibly have at its highest as of what is commercially available today? Not as easy as it sounds, that one. So, do your research and let me know.
Get your answers over to me before the first light of day on Wednesday 3rd June and I’ll pick 30 e-mails out of the hat at random. Make sure you include your name and address, so I can send out your prize should you be chosen. Ts & Cs over leaf.
Terms and Conditions
1. The prize is 30 x 4GB Kingston Multi-Kits (one prize per person)
2. Only open to UK residents, over 18 years old.
3. One entry per person.
4. Promoter reserves right to disqualify any entrant deemed to breach T&Cs.
5. Prize subject to availability and at the discretion of Promoter.
6. Promoter reserves right to cancel/amend prize draw at any time without prior notice, or substitute prize with that of equal/greater value.
7. Prize non transferable.
8. No cash/credit alternative will be offered.
9. Taxes, insurances, travel and other expenses unless stated by the Promoter, are winner’s sole responsibility.
10. By entering the winner agrees to take part in event publicity upon request, including use of name, address, image and audio/audio visual recordings.
11. If you don’t wish to be added to the Tech Digest mailout please write DON’T SUBSCRIBE in the subject header.
BT & 3 wage war with mobile termination rates
BT and 3 are asking us to “terminate the rate”. The rate in question is the mobile termination rate (MTR) of 4.7p/min that customers must pay when calling a number on a different mobile telephone network, and the two companies have come together to launch a campaign to get Ofcom to drop charge to 1p/min or to ditch it entirely.
At a press conference this morning, 3 CEO Kevin Russell spoke of a “price floor” in the industry keeping consumers from the benefits of “truly unlimited call packages” both with BT and mobile operators across the board. They’re asking the public to visit the campaign website to understand this hidden charge they’ve been paying for all these years and sign up to make sure that reforms are made.
MTRs were initially put in place to help the mobile companies pay for the set up of their infrastructure. The cost would be incurred by BT, with the majority of calls coming from landlines all those years ago, and subsequently passed on to us. But the masts have long been built and the Big Four mobile operators well established. They don’t need the 4.7p/min any more but they certianly enjoy its benefits.
Last year, they collected a total of £750m in MTRs – money directly from our pockets and money, according to the Federation of Small Businesses, that could have been spent on low cost items in UK shops helping tradespeople weather the recession.
The European Commission asked Ofcom to look at the termination charges on 7th May this year and by supporting Terminate the Rate you can help apply the pressure.
BT currently chargers the mobile networks just 1/15th of that 4.7p/min in return and 3 paid £200m in MTRs to the Big Four over the last three years. On the one hand, it should be no surprise that it’s they who are championing this campaign, but, when the real cost of handling calls from another network is closer to less than a penny, it’s really in all users’ interests to stop the con.
So, head on over there – just as soon as the site has a little more to say than “OK” – and do the right thing, and in the mean time vent your spleen in the comments below. How does it make you feel?
RUMOUR: New iPhone specs and release date
Word has broken webside of the dates and specs on the next generation iPhone. This time it’s from a friend of a friend of friend of one of the Apple hardware team and the specs are certainly consistent with the murmurings so far.
- 32GB and 16GB to replace current capacities
- $199 and $299 price-points to be maintained
- 3.2 Megapixel camera
- Video recording & editing capabilities
- Ability to send a picture & video via MMS
- Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
- OLED screen
- 1.5X The battery life
- Double the RAM and processing power
- Built-in FM transmitter
- Apple logo on the back to light up
- Rubber-tread backing
- Sleeker design
- Built-in compass
- Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, and Google maps to identify photo and inform about photo locations.
- Turn by turn directions
- July 17th, 2009 release date
As to whether it’s true, we’ll have to wait and see, but I like the sound of that OLED screen and subsequent battery life. The only question left is: To Jailbreak or not to Jailbreak?
(via Apple iPhone Apps)
eBay scammer told to cough up £102,000…
An eBay fraudster has been ordered to pay back £102,000 of money he scammed on the internet auction site by Preston Crown Court.
Jonathan Hartley sent out bogus electronic goods all around the world from 11 separate accounts making a total of £140,000. So my first question is, what about the other £38,000? So, does he get to keep that?
Just in case anyone has decided that that means that crime does indeed pay should note that Mr Hartley has already been sent down for 18 months for the crime and faces a further 12 months slapped on if he fails to come up with the cash.
He was clever enough to use a string of fake names and addresses while operating out of his parents’ place in Nelson, Lancashire, but after 1,600 complaints and evidence from 640 victims the police were able to bring Mr Hartley to trial.
Judge Simon Newell has set aside £927 compensation for each of the known victims of the fraud. Worth looking to see if the names are all anagrams of John Hartley.
(via The Citizen)
Nero lets comsumers BackItUp & Burn with simplest software yet
Nero has taken an interesting step, today, a little away from media software specialist to more of a home IT solution package with the launch of BackItUp & Burn.
The idea is to provide an incredibly simple way for people to copy and save their data without having to think or know too much about what’s going on – or remembering to do it for that matter. Nero has minimized the footprint as much as possible and kept the interface design in a similar vein to well known Windows products like Outlook to promote whatever warm glow that may bring.
The software allows you to back up to HDD, CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, FTP, memory card and online too as well as synchronising files and folders and scheduling activity along with all the norms you’d expect.
It’s available for a very reasonable £29.99 for the downloadable version and, provided you actually buy software, that’s pretty hard to argue with even if you only use the package for burning. Definitely worth a look.
Panasonic go pocket sized with SD10 & TM10 camcorders
Tiny little HD camcorders are two a penny this year and today is the turn of Panasonic’s two with there being around 50,000 pennies in this case.
The HDC-SD10 and HDC-TM10 are a pocket sized 227g, shoot at 1080p resolution and give you a very nice 16x optical zoom to play with. The only difference between the two is that the SD10 allows you to record to SD/SDHC cards only whereas the TM10 gives you an 8GB HDD on top of that.
No word on the stills ability of these palm-sized pieces with just a 1/6″ MOS sensor and a measly sounding 1.17-megapixel resolution but they do have scene modes plus an intelligent auto function (iA), so expect the same kind of usability you’d find in the Panasonic
