Tag: Europe
Europe funding Bittorrent-like internet TV standard
You know Bittorrent? The evil scourge of the media world? Well, it’s being pursued by the EU as a possible standard for distributing TV online throughout Europe. Bittorrent’s going LEGIT.
The hope is to establish a Europe-wide standard for online delivery of telly, based around the Bittorrent format, which will provide access to stored archive material and streamed live events – and the P2P nature of it all will help stop the servers crashing on Eurovision night or when Manchester United plays Barcelona…
Sony Europe introduces "Product, Process and Planet" environmental commitment
Sony Europe has just recommitted itself to lessening its environmental impact, with the introduction of the “Product, Process and Planet” initiative.
The “Product” part of the initiative relates to Sony’s efforts to make its consumer electronics goods more environmentally friendly.
TV products currently account for around 76% of Sony’s overall CO2 emissions, but the company has reduced the power consumption of its LCD TVs, and in recognition of this was awarded the Sustainable Energy Europe Award by the European Commission and the EISA Green TV Award last year.
Euro operators cut roaming data charges. Well, some of them…
I’m off to Barcelona next week for the Mobile World Congress trade show, but I certainly won’t be firing up my mobile web browser while I’m there. Even small data consumption when overseas is outrageously expensive under current tariffs. Thankfully, the European Commission is on the case, pressuring operators to cut data roaming costs.
Grand Theft Auto IV – coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 29
Finally, the game the world has been waiting for has an official release date – GTA IV will arrive on April 29, and it’s such an important game it’s getting a simultaneous worldwide release.
Coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it was thought for a few worrying months that GTA IV might end up getting re-delayed back to the autumn, after it missed its Autumn 2007 original launch and was sent back to Spring 2008…
Meet HECToR – the UK's fastest computer
HECToR is that room full of 60 cabinets to the left there. The cabinets are all linked up. Together they make one of Europe’s fastest supercomputers.
HECToR apparently has the power of 12,000 standard desktop PCs (or 250,000 if you base it on the one I’m using at the moment) and is now officially the UK’s fastest supercomputer. So as well as getting Crysis running at a really good frame rate…
All across Europe, people are sniffling over the sold-out LG Viewty
We’ve all heard about the Viewty handset from LG, and it’s reputed iPhone killing skillz, why, I bet we’ve all heard the story about when the two met in that dive bar down in Hackney and the carnage caused by the spec’d up Viewty. Well. It appears the general public thinks the phone is pretty special too, as it’s sold out in Europe in less than a month.
All 200,000 units…
Nobody bothers recycling broken MP3 players
This is news that isn’t really news, as anyone with two broken phones and two broken MP3 players in a drawer, plus a carrier bag full of abandoned chargers under the stairs will know only too well.
According to an EU report put together by the United Nations University, only a quarter of “medium sized” appliances are recycled…
HD DVD owners buy more movies than Blu-ray owners, in Europe at least
Another week, another unsubstantiated series of boasts from HD format makers.
This week it’s the turn of HD DVD to do a bit of claiming about how well its doing, with the group saying European buyers buy more discs on HD DVD format than on “other” HD formats. Apparently, owners of HD DVD players have bought an average of 3.8 movies each, compared to an abysmal 0.7 attach rate…
VWFE: Live-blogging 'the future is blurred: social networking meets virtual worlds'
Now this is the panel we’ve all been waiting for! Featuring Meg Pickard from The Guardian, Corey Bridges the Co-founder of The Multiverse Network, Aleks Krotoski from The Guardian Games Blog, Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing, and Giff Constable from the software business unit at the Electric Sheep company.
First question out of the gate is whether social networking sites are any different to virtual worlds. Meg Pickard claims that it’s pretty much the same thing, “they’re exploring, they’re creating, they’re dominating or trying to succeed”, and above all, engaging with other users or friends.
Aleks Krotoski, who is also doing a PhD in virtual worlds, also agrees with Meg, but says the only real difference is that social networking sites generally connects people who know each other already offline, whereas…
VWFE: Live-blogging 'From e-tail to v-business: are virtual goods an entirely new category?'
Virtual worlds thrive on money, after all, it’s what keeps the servers running, and the gamers happy. But how does a company create revenue, through sales of virtual goods? How can this sector continue to grow, when sites like Facebook have seen free gifts application hacks made available, so paid-for gifts are no longer necessary?
These questions, and more, are due to be asked in the upcoming panel, where the Senior Editor at Harvard Business Review, Paul Hemp, Professor Michael Hulme from the Centre for Study of Media, Technology & Culture, David Orban CEO of Questar, Mat Small, CEO and Founder of Millions of Us, and Peter Edward, Director at Home Platform Group for Sony Computer Entertainment will attempt to answer this questions.
Adam Pasick is once again moderating this panel, and asks Peter from SCEE about their virtual goods use within the Home Platform. He explains that virtual goods allow you to decorate your avatar, show your…
