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  Chris Till 9:56 pm on September 30, 2006 Permalink  

  Zune preview 

  I have to say the wireless sharing ability is definitely something that Apple can learn from. I hope that for things other than music you can choose to keep the content on your Zune rather than losing it after three days / three plays though. Things like photots or word docs aren’t likely to be copywritten so I can’t see the harm in people sharing them.

  Another feature that may well give Apple something to think about is the screen of the Zune. It’s pretty big. Although it’s not widescreen it is wider and bigger than the iPod video’s one and plays videos landscape placing the buttons to the right.

  

  Finally it has the radio built in which iPod doesn’t. I don’t think this is a major thing but it is something that possibly some people (who aren’t biased towards Apple) may take into consideration along with the other couple of differences between the Zune and iPod when deciding on which one to buy.

  But then saying this, Apple could be about to announce a whole load of new stuff just prior to the christmas shopping season so who knows. This would hopefully include a new iPod and the updated MacBooks.

  Get the video of a demo of the Zune’s sharing features here.

   

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  Chris Till 2:12 pm on September 29, 2006 Permalink  

  Fresh from the feeds 

  Mark Cuban has criticised YouTube for being a haven for copywritten material. He added that anyone willing to buy youtube is a moron because of the hazzards of getting sued by the owners of the material being broadcast for free. Plus I guess there’s the fact that youtube has been losing more money than it’s been earning for a long while now.

  Apple are said to be on the verge of releasing updates to Airport extreme and the iSight external camera. Plus there’s always the more eagerly anticipated core 2 duo macbook / pro range and that widescreen video iPod that keeps getting mentioned around on the tech blogs.

  And lastly, finally admitting there might be a slight issue with their batteries, Sony have joined everyone else and recalled laptop batteries for replacement.

   
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  Chris Till 2:01 pm on September 29, 2006 Permalink  

  HP buys VooDooPC 

  I havn’t seen much of VooDooPC before now. I looked at their site once to check out what they had to offer. What it looked like to me was a company that sold high end pc’s catering to gamers (with very deep pockets). I’m not sure exactly if I’m right in saying this but I think they even edge over Alienware’s prices which is pretty hard to believe.

  

  So Dell and Alienware, HP (still digesting compaq) and VooDooPC. This should make the market more interesting and hopefully more price competitive.

  I’m actually surprised though that anyone buys VooDoo Notebooks over MacBook Pro’s. You pay more money for a computer that lacks in the style department when compared to the macbook range, has an inferior operating system and less good software bundled with it. Well it does have a tatoo design on it so that must be what makes it so exclusive.

  Have they heard of stickers?

   
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  Chris Till 12:28 pm on September 29, 2006 Permalink  

  Zune won’t undercut Apple’s price 

  

  I really thought Microsoft would undercut the 30GB iPod by 10 or 20 dollars. The fact that they havn’t seems in my opinion at least to be market suicide. I mean iPods sell because they do the job and they have the cool factor which Zune, although is one of the best products Microsoft (or Toshiba) have produced, MS have always struggled with their image, never appearing as a cool company.

  So as far as I see it, it’s Apple 2 – Microsoft 1 where the iPod wins in the cool stakes. Then again, it probably wins hands down on available content, ease of use of hardware and software, minimalistic looks etc. I just can’t see it becoming the new fashion statement to have a Zune. Despite the fact that the Zune has built in wi-fi and an FM radio I can’t see that bridging the gap enough for them to outsell Apple this holiday season.

  

  You can find it on November the 14th for $249.99 in the US.

   
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  Chris Till 10:29 pm on September 27, 2006 Permalink  

  The problem with most computer makers 

  The issue I always seem to find with most pc makers is that they have overloaded product lists. They have so many diferent variations of similar models that it makes the choice between even models from one brand difficult, nevermind from a number of brands.

  Seing as I blog a lot about Apple here is where you would expect me to commend them for having a simpler product line. I need to be less predictable. But still, it’s true. MacBook, MacBook Pro, I don’t know anyone else who make it as simple as that.

  When you look at Sony’s vaio notebook range it isn’t as easy by a long way. The A series is their top model with blu-ray and a big 17 inch screen. Then you have the FE and FS which look slightly slimmer, both with 15 inch screens. Then the new S series which looks nice and has a 13 inch screen. These would seem like enough to satisfy most people to me, but Sony don’t see it like that. They have a whole load of models which include: SZ, TX, N, C and BX series’s, not forgetting the ones I already mentioned

  

  These laptops are unique and do look cool so I’ll have to cut Sony some slack on them at least, especially since they were created to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Vaio.
  I think in this area PC laptop manufacturers can learn a lot from Apple who just keep things simple.

  I do like other makes apart from Apple. the problem is getting windows as standard which at least until vista comes out isn’t too much fun. Then Ubuntu isn’t really ready to be used by the vast majority of people yet anyway. It needs work with functionality like wireless and ease of installing software.

   
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  Chris Till 5:35 pm on September 27, 2006 Permalink  

  Open Source your Wi-Fi with FON 

  

  That’s what I think anyway. What would happen if everyone shared their broadband connection with their router. Well some people already do and they don’t need a FON router (la fonera) to do this. They just don’t set up WEP security on theirs. This is ok, but what if you want to share but also want to have a private network to share files with computers in your house?

  Well there might be a way to do it with an ordinary router, but FON makes it simple. You get given two networks by default, one is the private one for local filesharing and gaming between pc’s. The other is the FON sharing network which only FON members can use.

  Here’s what they say about security on the FON site’s FAQ:

  La Fonera offers you two wireless network signals (SSIDs), a private and a public one. The private signal is encrypted and offers you complete privacy.The public signal will be accessible to Foneros only. This signal is the one that turns your broadband connection into a FON Access Point.Furthermore, all Foneros connecting to the public WiFi signal within the FON Community are registered users. They need to identify themselves by a username and password.Running an Access Point with La Fonera is not only secure but also easy to control. You can choose the amount of bandwidth you want to share.

  FON – What is La Fonera?

  There are three types of Fonero’s, see pic:

  

  Most people will be LINUS’s with a few aliens (who don’t share but pay low costs for day passes to the FON network). Bill’s are the ones who make money from their FON router enabled wi-fi connection.

  After a few teething problems my Linksys router is now FON compatible although I think to be able to take advantage of all the features of FON you may be better off buying la fonera from the fon site. Especially if you don’t already have a router.

   
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  Chris Till 10:40 pm on September 22, 2006 Permalink  

  Does DRM hurt iTunes? 

  So would iTunes be bigger and more successful than it is now (they havn’t done too badly) if they didn’t use digital rights management to prevent people from accessing the music on more than five pc’s / mac’s?

  I guess inevitably it would benefit from not using DRM. The one thing I don’t get is why they do it at all since it’s easy to just burn the music to a disk and rip it back to get it DRM free forever.

  I guess the thing is they are under pressure from the music companies that want them to do it because they don’t believe people are clever enough to think of that, even though apple express the importance of backing up to CD when you finish downloading anything from the store. I guess you could argue backing up is backing up and not creating a drm free copy to a lot of users.

  If they didn’t have DRM, like eMusic don’t then they would also be limited to just the independants because the big record companies won’t have any of it. I’m sure if Apple had a choice in the matter they would ditch DRM in an instant.

  The only reason they should keep the technology (but not the DRM itself, and only if it is this technology that enables it) is to allow the functionality that enables iPods to recognise itunes accounts on another pc and upload content from the iPod to the computer.

   
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  Chris Till 4:01 pm on September 21, 2006 Permalink  

  Virgin to help out the environment too 

  

  Sir Richard Branson is to donate $3bn (£1.6bn) to fight global warming.

  The Virgin boss said he would give all profits from his travel firms, such as airline Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, over the next 10 years.

  One of the UK’s best known entrepreneurs, he made the announcement at a news conference in New York.

  Worth an estimated £3bn, Sir Richard started his career in the record industry before moving into everything from mobile phones to credit cards.

  “We are very pleased today to be making a commitment to invest 100% of all future proceeds to the Virgin Group from our transportation interest, both our trains and airline businesses, into tackling global warming,” he said.

  BBC NEWS | Business | Branson makes $3bn climate pledge

  Richard Branson has pledged to give all profits of his Virgin transport businesses (airline and trains) up to 2010 to charity to help fight global warming. Great stuff although.

   
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  Chris Till 10:13 pm on September 20, 2006 Permalink  

  The latest way to tackle global warming 

  Suing the car companies is what the state of California is doing to help protect the environment.

  I have to give it to Arnie for being pioneering and doing something bold to help the situation. I’m just not convinced it’s the right thing to do. Because although it makes them money and annoys car makers I can’t see it making any difference whatsoever. People will still buy cars, and petrol and drive them around, and no amount of money taken of the car makers will make any change to that because they are massive and to them it’s pocket change.

  So what would be a better solution?

  If you have a car and live in Californaia don’t hate me, but I think it would be far better to discourage people from using their cars as much as they do by taxing petrol more. Or better yet to encourage more walking to places within walking distance, not just using cars because they’re there rather than actually needing them.

  It’s sort of like the conjestion charge in the centre of London, people hate it but it works. It’s not what people want but for the sake of the planet things need to change at some point in the near future.

   
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  Chris Till 2:40 pm on September 20, 2006 Permalink  

  Napster for Mac! ….. oh wait, nevermind 

  

  Downloads from Napster in .wma format only? What planet are these guys on?

  I used to think Napster was cool and the ultimate in legal downloading when they first came back but now they’re eclipsed in my estimation by pretty much everyone else. Especially iTunes and more recently eMusic.

   
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  Chris Till 7:57 pm on September 19, 2006 Permalink  

  Apple are sticking it to Amazon 

  

  Well, I don’t know maybe Amazon have sold more, but I was just looking at the image for a title.

  Anyway, click here for details on Apple / Disney selling 125 thousand movie downloads in one week since the movie store’s opening. (via AppleInsider).

   
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  Chris Till 1:43 pm on September 19, 2006 Permalink  

  iPod Nano 2nd Gen review 

  I just got my new iPod Nano yesterday. I thought it was about time to upgrade from my old iPod Mini I bought in 2004. The new nano may look like a sized down version of the mini but that’s about where the similarities end.

  The new nano has the same capacity (4gb) as the old one but seing as my music collection adds up to around 2.3 gb its not a massive concern. The capacity may be the same, but the storage medium has changed dramatically. The Mini, like the iPod had a small hard disk that would whirr away wasting battery life constantly which wasn’t ideal looking back. Now the nano has flash memory (no moving parts) which speeds things up and allows it to use less power.

  It has a colour screen which looks really nice and allows you to view album art either small next to the track info or larger on it’s own but pressing the middle button a few times. You can view pictures on the small screen in surprisingly good quality which is a nice feature.

  I’m not really bothered about the lack of video on the nano which is one reason I bought it over the iPod. The second reason would be the fact that it costs significantly less than the Mini did, £129 compared to £169 for the mini back a couple of years ago.

  Finally, the most obvious reason for upgrading is the difference in size. The nano is so small and light it makes the mini feel like a brick in comparison. The mini was considered small and light enough to not feel it in your pocket (which was true). However, the nano truly is small and light enough to forget your carrying it. It’s a true marvel of engineering and build quality from Apple. I’d advise anyone to go and grab one. Especially people with a mini or earlier ipod.

   
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  Chris Till 12:11 pm on September 19, 2006 Permalink  

  MacBook Family to get some new additions 

  

  Core 2 Duo MacBooks / Pros expected in time for Christmas, according to AppleInsider.

  Apple Computer plans to update both its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines of Intel notebook computers in time for the holiday shopping season, but may take some time before it does so, AppleInsider has learned.
  People familiar with the matter say development of Core 2 Duo versions of all three models — the 13-inch MacBook, 15-inch MacBook Pro and 17-inch MacBook Pro — are now complete and all that’s left is for Apple marketing to pull the trigger.

  But those same people indicate that precise launch dates for the respective models remain fluid and Apple customers should expect the updates to arrive anytime between now and the time Thanksgiving rolls around in late November.

  Similarly, it’s unclear whether Apple will launch the new consumer MacBooks and professional MacBook Pro models simultaneously, or if it will space the releases to assure it maintains enough of Intel Corp.’s Core 2 Duo processors to properly facilitate each launch.

  AppleInsider | Apple to update MacBook lines in time for holidays

  Via Digg

   
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  Chris Till 10:13 am on September 19, 2006 Permalink  

  Toshiba recalling huge number of laptop batteries too. 

  Apparently Toshiba also used sony batteries in their laptops. This can’t be good. Dell, Apple, now Toshiba. So how come Sony havn’t recalled any of their laptop batteries, unless Sony don’t use Sony batteries, or have I missed something?
  

   
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  Chris Till 10:01 am on September 19, 2006 Permalink  

  iTV Brainstorming 

  Some cool names for iTV that aren’t names of TV broadcasters.

  • iVision
  • iView
  • AirPort TV
  • AirPort Vision

  Well that’s about as far as my brain will allow me to get. Any ideas?