Tag: Download
RUMOUR: PSP2 won't use UMDs, and will be out in the Autumn
Didn’t Acclaim’s chief creative officer, David Perry, pay any attention to the World War II aphorism “Loose Lips Sink Ships”? He’s been mouthing off about the PSP. He reckons it’ll come out in the autumn:
“I spoke to a developer who is working on it right now, I know this developer is already working on it, so that means they have a prototype. That would sound like a fall release to me.”
Also of interest is that the device would be free of the PSP’s proprietary UMD disc format, and would instead rely on digital downloads and connectivity with your PC for games. There’ll be space for a memory card, though, so retailers could sell games pre-loaded onto those.
It’s expected that all current PSP titles would appear on an online store, much like Nintendo’s download channel. The idea makes a lot of sense, but consoles are primarily marketed by their games. What will happen if Sony lose all the shelf space currently dedicated to the PSP?
(via Kotaku)
Download festival considering cashless wristbands for beer purchases
Wet festivals suck, especially wet rock festivals. If you’re deep in a mosh pit, and suddenly your wallet comes out of your trousers and falls into the mud, then you’ve essentially lost all your cash, cards and anything else you keep in it. Absolutele nightmare.
So Live Nation UK, which runs Download Festival, are experimenting with a form of cashless wristband that you ‘charge up’ in advance at the start of the festival, and then simply swipe your wrists over a scanner to buy food and drink, etc. I suspect there’d also be some form of top-up station, too – like an Oyster one, for when you overspend on the first day and run out of cash.
It’ll be great for preventing theft (for both stall owners and punters) as well as helping combat drugs problems onsite – dealers aren’t likely to have scanners. Any lost wristbands can be cancelled and replaced immediately with a new one with the same amount of cash on it.
Download Festival (via CMU Daily)
Skype 4 for Windows now available
Skype has just announced “the most distinctive new release” of its communications software for Windows.
Version four claims to offer far better full screen video calling as well as optimising itself depending upon your PCs specifications. Those with at least a dual core processor, fast broadband connection and Skype-certified video webcam can get up to 30fps high quality video.
More importantly for many will be improved audio quality. Thanks to a new codec, there’s wideband audio quality but using 50% less bandwidth than in previous versions. There’s even super wideband audio for those with compatible headsets and fast broadband…
Top 10 Tuesday Wednesday: Free, Legal, Music on the Internet
I’m going to take a break from gadgets today, like Dan did yesterday for Technology Deathmatch, to tell you about some of my favourite sources of free, legal music on the internet. It’s entirely possible, contrary to what major record labels would have you believe, to live completely free of paying for recorded music.
Not all offer downloads that’ll work on your MP3 player – some just stream – and not all these sites are going to be around forever, due to the turbulent nature of the digital music market around now, but if you can live with both those caveats, then click over the jump for my top ten sites where you can get free, legal, music.
YouTube trying out video downloads?
If you’ve ever enjoyed a YouTube video and then thought “I want to take this with me wherever I go”, then prepare to be mildly pleased. YouTube appears to be experimenting with offering downloads of videos. The first to gain this feature have been the videos on Obama’s ChangeDotGov YouTube channel.
The videos come in a decent format – MPEG4, using the H.264 codec. That’s the same as the same videos that you get on the iPhone portal. The capability to download video has been offered by competing sites like Vimeo for ages, but YouTube has avoided it – presumably to quieten the intellectual property issues involved, though anyone can download YouTube videos with a simple Google search.
It’s likely that content owners will soon see an option as to whether to allow downloads of their videos or not. I hope that many do, and that those who don’t begin to feel the pressure to allow it. Just don’t expect to be able to download a million music videos tomorrow.
YouTube (via Ars Technica)
Related posts: YouTube shoots self in foot – mutes all video with ‘unauthorized copyrighted music’ | Upload video instantly from your camera to YouTube with new Eye-fi cards
RUMOUR: Sky launching its music subscription service in April
Many have tried to make the all-you-can-eat subscription model work for music, but it’s never taken off due to incompatibilities between different portable music players and the lack of any big companies really getting behind it. Well, we’re hearing a rumour that Sky will finally launch its previously-announced subscription service in April.
Last we heard, we were promised a mix of both streaming and downloadable tracks. Over Christmas, pricing was allegedly leaked – unlimited free streams, plus a set number of MP3 downloads each month. £5.99 for 5 downloads, £7.99 for 10 and £9.99 for 15.
I’ve asked Sky for more details, and I’m waiting to hear back. I, for one, am convinced that it’s not only possible for a subscription service to work, but it’s actually the future of mass-market music consumption. There’s too many people who don’t care about anything beyond the top 40 for that not to be the case.
Related posts: NOISE GATE: Why music subscription services will eventually work | Sky and Universal Music partner to launch subscription music streaming and download service
Average UK broadband speed is 3.6Mbps – and you're probably only getting half the speed you're paying for
Ofcom, the communications watchdog that’s in charge of making sure everyone’s phones work and no one’s getting ripped off too badly by the ring tone companies, has revealed the results of a massive survey it conducted into the UK broadband scene.
As you might expect, we’re not getting what we pay for – as anyone who spends most of their evenings conducting broadband speed tests and sighing at the results will already know…
Merry Christmas extremely bored men – Windows 7 beta hits the torrent sites
If you haven’t already had ENOUGH of BLOODY WINDOWS after having Vista forced down your throat and onto your hard drive, you may now start worrying about driver incompatibilities anew – Windows 7 has been leaked.
The Beta 1 build of the next MS OS, which has been reviewed very favourably by a man here and is scheduled for a much wider beta test early next year – has popped up on Bittorrent for downloading. A good 20,000 or so users are currently nicking Windows 7 off Mininova, with a similar number taking it just because it’s there and is a nice thing to have from The Bay.
Those links are for information purposes only, by the way…
Apple giving away music and downloads during the iTunes 12 Days of Christmas
Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas campaign is eating away at 2008’s profitability figures by giving away one free iTunes download a day between December 26 and January 6th.
The songs and TV shows, some of which may be by people you’ve even heard of and are interested in, will pop up on the site each day, along with some interesting facts about the material in question, which may come in handy if you’re planning on attending a Christmas pub quiz.
You don’t get a choice. Today’s is ‘Video EP’ by Jason Mraz.
The idea is no doubt meant to promote edgy new artists you otherwise wouldn’t bother listening to on the radio for free…
Prevx develops Internet Explorer 7 fix for latest threat
Anyone who ignored this morning’s warning to abandon Internet Explorer 7 (and let’s face it, there are better things to be doing over lunch than changing your web browser) can instead rejoice that the first patch for the problem has been released by Prevx.
The web site states:
Prevx have developed a utility that users can run to enable and disable Microsoft’s suggested workarounds. This utility will allow you to disable the affected component of Internet Explorer until Microsoft release a patch via their windows update software.
