Author: Paul Lamkin
Five given HD freeview slot
Ofcom has provisionally awarded Five a HD slot, allowing the network to broadcast in HD over the Freeview network when the capacity becomes available.
Five follows in the footsteps of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, who have already been awarded their licenses. It was believed that Channel 4 was vying for a second licence in order to broadcast their E4 channel in HD.
Ofcom has stated, however, that the agreement with Five relies on them meeting “certain key criteria” by 31st December 2009. They also confirmed that Five’s HD output would only be at peak times.
This is good news for fans of shows like CSI:Miami, The Gadget Show and Bones. Bad news for fans of The Wright Stuff, Wordplay and House Doctor.
Freeview HD is expected in 2010, but when you’ll actually be able to get it really depends on where you live. Ofcom say the north-west will be first to receive Freeview HD after its switch-over. Everyone should be able to get the full Freeview HD package by 2012.
(via Brand Republic)
Denon introduces AH-C710 high-end earphones
The AH-C710’s feature a new ergonomic design, complete with soft foam earpieces which mould to the shape of the user’s ear, and a radial cascade damper which reduces the vibration noises that can occur when moving around – which people tend to do whilst wearing earphones. They also contain an acoustic optimiser that promises a clear and dynamic sound.
The earphones come in the swanky silver and crystal design, as pictured, or in simple black. They come packed with three different sized in-ear buds, an 80cm extension lead and a special case to stop you getting your cable tangled up.
For £140, they are a bit pricier than any of the earphones we featured in our headphones week but we’ve been impressed with Denon’s audio offerings in the past.
Buy them direct from Denon.
Sky News HD from next year
Sky will be launching a HD version of their popular news channel, to be broadcast alongside the current, standard definition, version from Spring 2010.
To coincide with the launch Sky will be updating their studios and production facilities, so expect an even more Starship Enterprise looking set with an ever increasing, and seemingly unneeded, array of computer graphics.
Sky HD currently has over a million subscribers and has been aggressively promoting the service in recent months. They are currently offering the box to new customers for a mere £49, free set-up, plus £50 worth of Tesco’s vouchers. It costs an additional £9.75 a month to subscribe to the HD channels, but it’s still pretty good value. Sky may even drop this additional subscription price in the future, as they did with the Sky+ fee.
The announcement will also put a bit of pressure on Freesat, who currently only offer two HD channels – BBC and ITV. Sky in comparison, have over 30.
In America, the big networks, like Sky’s cousin Fox, already broadcast their news in HD, sort of. Everything in the studio is HD but films taken outside, which could be argued is the news, is not always filmed in HD. Sky are planning to make all of their coverage, wherever possible, HD.
Sounds like exciting stuff, although the thought of Eamonn Holmes in HD at 7.30 in the morning is enough to put me off my Weetabix.
(via Broadcast Now)
Grab yourself a MacBook bargain
Did you watch Phil Schiller announcing the new range of MacBooks on Monday and die a little bit inside, knowing that you’ll never be able to afford the latest MacBook?
Well, you may not be able to afford the latest MacBook, but you may well be able to afford one of the slightly older, but still brilliant range.
Apple stores are getting rid of the ‘old’ range by slashing prices of all models. Bargains include:
- MacBook 13.3-inch, 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive – was £719 – now £679.
- MacBook Air, 13-inch, 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 128GB SSD – was £1,761 – now £1,299.
- MacBook Pro, 17-inch, 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive – was £1,949 – now £1,699
These are just three of the models to illustrate the price drops and these quotes were courtesy of the Apple store in Birmingham’s Bullring. Make sure you call ahead to your nearest Apple store first to check availability and prices.
And remember, it doesn’t make you any less of a person to have a slightly older Mac. It just makes you slightly less cool.
BT hits back in iPlayer throttling row
You may remember last week, we published a post regarding BT’s apparent throttling of its users broadband connections. Well, the telecom giant has hit back, going public with its condemnation of online video services like the BBC’s iPlayer and YouTube.
Basically this is how the row has unfolded: The BBC releases a story accusing BT of slowing down broadband connections at peak time – to less than 1Mbps between 5pm and midnight – when users should be getting up to 8Mbps. BT responds by sending an email to BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours stating that content providers “can’t expect to continue to get a free ride”. They also go public with this stance.
The Beeb have responded today, via their blog, saying that BT’s move was a “forthright call for cash” and that the row could end with net neutrality becoming obsolete.
What this means is that ISPs, who currently make no differentiation between types of internet traffic, could begin to charge content providers for their output, particularly bandwidth hoggers like the iPlayer.
The row illustrates how much the net has evolved over the last few years. With the mass introduction of high-bandwidth streaming service like the iPlayer, Spotify, YouTube and the like, the pressure on ISPs to provide a fast and consistent service to their users has increased dramatically.
Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review is due next week and should call for broadband at high speeds and low prices. It might just be that content providers are going to have to come to a compromise with the ISPs to make that happen.
Whatever the outcome, the end users should not be the ones who are penalised. If an ISP advertises up to 8Mbps broadband with unlimited data allowance then that is exactly what they should provide. They shouldn’t promote a service if they are going to struggle to provide it.
(via The FT)
UPDATE: Last.fm founders quit
Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones, the three men who founded last.fm in East London in 2003, have today left the company.
Last.fm has been owned by American media conglomerate CBS since May 2007 after they bought it for £140million, netting the trio around £19million each at the time.
Rumours are bound to circulate that their departure has got something to do with the US blog TechCrunch’s recent posts, claiming that CBS had possibly handed over last.fm customer data to the RIAA without the site’s agreement.
It might also be worth noting that it is almost exactly two years since the trio agreed the deal with CBS. It might therefore be possible that there was a two year handover period in place. Details of the departure should be coming clearer in the coming days.
What is clear is that Stiksel, Miller and Jones’ idea has played a major role in the dramatically altered landscape of music distribution. With streaming music become more poplar and more commercially viable with services like Spotify, it is fair to conclude that these three developers will be remembered as pioneers of digital music.
Plus, they’ve all got millions of quid in the bank, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
(via Music Ally)
Nav-Mat: the latest superhero?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s….the Nav-Mat – the latest “crime-fighting device”.
This is one of the strangest satnav accessories that I’ve come across. Its makers claim that “tell-tale sucker marks on windscreens” are one of the major reasons for satnav theft.
So they’ve come up with the Nav-Mat, which basically looks like a beanbag for your satnav. It sits on the dashboard, therefore preventing those “tell-tale sucker marks”. Apparently “the contoured and weighted, anti-skid underside stops the device from sliding and, unlike traditional window mountings, leaves no suction marks on the windscreen”.
It’s available here for a bargain £19.99 (plus £5 p&p). Alternatively, buy some window wipes here for 99p.
Logitech releases Ultimate Ears 4 Pro headphones
We’ve looked at some of Logitech’s impressive Ultimate Ear range a few times before on TechDigest and we’ve liked what we’ve seen.
If Logitech’s previous is anything to go by, the Ultimate Ears 4 Pro custom monitors should appeal to any aspiring rock stars or even some less aspiring audiophiles.
Let’s start with the price, which should give you some impression of what we’re dealing with here. £429.99, plus an extra £45 for an optional ambient noise feature.
So what do you get for nearly £500?
For starters, these aren’t your usual monitors. Each one is personally shaped to exactly fit the user’s ear. However, this requires an additional cost of visiting a qualified audiologist to create your ear impressions.
They come with “dual-armature, a patented dual-bore design with passive crossover which delivers reference-quality, evenly balanced frequency response for more detail, accuracy and versatility”. If you know what this means, you really should own these headphones.
The product is essentially aimed at performers. Logitech claim that 75% of the world’s top touring artists use Ultimate Ear products. They go onto state Leona Lewis is one of these artists, thus devaluing their statement somewhat. However, the fact remains that Ultimate Ear are the choice for the pros.
They also claim that the Ultimate Ears 4 Pro custom monitors will “fit better than even your favourite pair of jeans”. For nearly £500 I should hope so. My favourite jeans haven’t fitted me in months.
Grab yourself a pair direct from Ultimate Ears or via hand held audio.
iPhone 3.0 firmware available already on torrent sites
As soon as Apple announced that the iPhone 3.0 firmware was immediately available to developers at the WWDC on Monday we knew it wouldn’t be long before torrents appeared online.
So, if you’ve got itchy fingers and you just can’t wait another week to be able to send an MMS or do some copying and pasting with your iPhone, get yourself over to The Pirate Bay, or any other torrent indexer for that matter, and get hold of the torrent.
Do so at your own risk, however. If you want to play it safe, just wait until the official launch in seven days time.
Reports have been pretty positive so far, in so much as it seems to work.
My advice would be to wait until official launch day. Then again, I am a fairly dull and boring individual. Others may advise you to live for the day. Just don’t come crying to me if you manage to balls it up.
Mobile phones and gadgets to charge themselves?
What if you never had to plug any of your gadgets in to charge them ever again? No stray wires running around your walls, no need to remember to pack numerous chargers when going on holiday and of course there are the financial and ecological benefits as well.
Well, this could well become a possibility. Nokia has got their boffins in Cambridge working on a technique whereby a phone can remain in standby mode and effectively charge itself using just ambient radio waves.
I’m no scientist, but I’ve done the research and I understand it as thus:
Waves in the air, such as Wi-Fi, radio, television and so forth can be harnessed and converted into enough juice to power your gadgets.
The system needs a bit more developing though, currently the boffins are only able to gather between three to five milliwatts of power and they need this figure to be more like 50 milliwatts in order for it to work in practice.
If they do manage to master this system, the possibilities are pretty immense. On the flip side, how scary is it that, potentially, there is enough electricity floating about in the air to charge mobile phones? How our brains don’t get frazzled remains a mystery to me.
(via NokNok)
