Archive for Technology
Too high a price to pay for free wireless?
October 8th, 2007 • Technology
Tags: Technology, wireless
Yes, yes, yes… er, no. Still, at least it was a brief thrill.I spend a few seconds in a state of euphoria, delighted at the thought of free wi-fi in virtually every High Street in the UK. Imagine: my new iPod touch instantly comes a step closer to emulating the iPhone - on tap connection on every corner.Then I get to the line where it explains that the supplier of this gratis wireless goodness will be McDonald’s. Stares at camera in the sky, yells ‘Noooooooooo……’Mickey-D’s to serve up WiFi in the UK, tips hat to iPhone - Download Squad
Apple may have iFlopped, but don’t be too quick to judge
September 26th, 2007 • Technology
Forbes examines the poor sales of the Apple TV, reflecting on the less-than-elegant launch, and the fact that Steve Jobs has now referred to it as a ‘hobby’ (CEO-speak to ’something that I wish would go away’).
Six months later iTV is a flat-out iFlop. Renamed Apple TV upon launch, the ballyhooed box has sold perhaps 250,000 units–far behind the 1 million sold for the iPhone, which was priced twice as high and has been on the market less than half as long.
Of course, Forbes has every right to expose the little box’s poor sales. But I’d be cautious before throwing the earth on the box.
I’m aged enough to remember the launch of the Mercedes A-Class, the prestige marque’s first stab at a diddy car. It was dragged over shales by the press, and I recall a chat at the time with a British car maker’s chief suspension guru, who spent half an hour explaining why Merc didn’t have the know-how to shape a brilliant ‘mini. Today, we accept that Mercedes has a range of cars that extends far beyond its traditional remit.
That’s my rather roundabout way of saying that breaking into new markets is rarely a roaring success at the first attempt. The real issues are vision, will and capital: Apple has all three, with some to share.
XBox to become your TV and cinema?
September 9th, 2007 • Technology, Television, Video
Tags: TV, Video
You can understand why the television and movie industries are in such a fluff. Their businesses are changing in front of their very eyes, and the film and TV execs are not necessarily in control of their own destinies.For example, who would have imagined five years ago that games consoles could eventually outstrip cable and analogue as the main means of movie and show delivery? Yet this year, Microsoft plans to unleash its on-demand video service on an unsuspecting Europe, using the XBox 360 as its Trojan horse.There’s absolutely no reason (bar dumb pricing and marketing) why this shouldn’t succeed: there are an awful lot of 360s under an awful lot of HD-ready tellies in the UK. And thanks to the huge popularity of XBox Live, a lot of those consoles are already connected to networks. As Bink.nu points out, Redmond is already courting the content suppliers:
MICROSOFT is courting the BBC as it plans to launch its digital television and video service in Europe. The software giant is intent on turning its Xbox 360 video-games machine into a digital entertainment hub offering films, TV shows and high-definition programmes. It already offers video content in America via its Xbox 360 video-games console.
Silverlight breaks cover
August 6th, 2007 • Internet, Technology
Microsoft’s Silverlight makes major league debut
Wanna see something rather cool? The world (well, my world anyway) has been in hushed silence, waiting for Microsoft’s Flash-trashing Silverlight technology to be used on an actual, living website.
That day has come. The home of Major League Baseball today relaunched, using honest-to-goodness Silverlight. As Infoworld reports, you’ll find Silverlight being used as the player in this news story.
And what’s so exciting about all this. Well, I know of one developer who sees Microsoft’s newcomer as the saviour of mankind. In particular, he’s thrilled about the fact that Google can actually see the content within a Silverlight player, which it cannot do with Flash.
If you want to see it in action, you’ll need to grab the plug-in for your browser from the Silverlight site.
Ballmer does the iPod dance
July 30th, 2007 • Life, Strange, Technology
[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIk4qTKmKzE]
Remember Steve Ballmer’s ‘Developers, developers, developers’ moment of madness from last year? Here’s the Apple remix…
Sony on the up, despite PS3 woes
July 29th, 2007 • Gaming, Technology
NEWS: Profits up for Sony, despite PS3 problems
See? Put a bit of effort into making your TVs the best on the market, and you don’t have to worry so much about the odd glitch - like your superstar games console being overpriced.
I’ve worked with the good folk at What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision for some years, and trust their analysis implicitly. The test team had been raving over the quality of the new Sony Bravia LCD range, and that praise has clearly made its way through to buyers: the screens have been selling like hot cakes. So much so that the PS3’s problems have been off-set by the popularity of the rest of the range.
Man tattoos Blue Screen of Death onto arm
July 28th, 2007 • Life, Strange, Technology
Wait until you see the OSX kernel panic his arse…
Apple TV gets new lease of life
July 28th, 2007 • Life, Technology
At last: the hack is out: I can now give my AppleTV the capacity it should have come with out of the box. I was fairly bitter that Apple upped the size of the internal drive to something decent only weeks after I bought my 40GB model.
But now I can upgrade without having to rip open the box (oh, hold on - I need to ‘enable ssh’… which looks like I’ll have to open the box anyway). Already downloading, and getting ready to give it a try. Follow the link below…
After numerous delays, we present you the USB patch that you guys have been waiting for. You can find the link to the patch at the bottom of this blog entry.
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