Wednesday, November 11, 2009 14:30
How can London out-weird Beijing's 'bird nest' stadium from the 2008 Olympics? One possibility is this slightly bonkers creation from the MIT – a 400ft tall 'digital cloud' that would hover over the Olympic Park and act as a display for projected images and Tweets.
The design is an entry to a competition set up by Boris Johnson to find an Olympic landmark. And it's pleasingly techy too, with Google – one of the project's supporters – suggesting that it could act as a display for 'a custom feed of searches made by Londoners during the Olympics to give a real time barometer of the city's mood'. And possibly its 'eccentricities' too.
The images released by the team behind 'The Cloud' suggest it's still firmly in the concept stage – cyclists are depicted hurtling down a ramp filled with pedestrians, and the construction could prove an interesting 'challenge' for London's City Airport (only six miles away).
But a fundraising site called raisethecloud.org is already live, with the idea that it'd be 'a monument to crowd-sourcing'. In other words, London hasn't got enough spare change from the Olympic stadium to build a Beijing-beating monument, so get donating.
via
BBC/
Londonist
Monday, November 02, 2009 11:44
According to figures released on Friday by App Shopper, there are now 100,000 approved apps on the iTunes App Store. Last month, Apple sent me the latest official figures from September: 85,000, up from 65,000 when I spoke to them in the summer. This graph is starting to look pretty steep - and it's only Apple's approval process that's stopping it for going exponential.
Well over 2 billion apps have been downloaded, which works out as more than 20 for every single iPhone and iPod Touch sold. This is more than just a passing fad: this is proof that apps are the new gadgets.
Perfectly priced for a post-crunch era, these deliciously disposable chunks of software are the new virtual toys for grown-up kids. Toys we don't have to feel guilty about when we grow bored with them. And while they require hardware for their existence, it's the apps themselves that are causing so much excitement and keeping Apple's 3-year-old iPhone ahead of the pack.
Back at the turn of the millennium, a design revolution turned millions of technophobes into rabid digital consumers almost overnight. Sales of iPods, phones and flat-screen TVs shot up (as did sales of Stuff). Now something similar is happening in the world of apps, as techno-refusniks are being turned on to smartphones when they come across apps that exactly correlate with their real-world interests: star maps that know where you're looking and help you name the constellations; wildlife guides that have recordings of birdsong so you can identify your garden's feathered visitors; cooking apps that provide a step-by-step guide from shopping list to tabletop. These personal appiphanies are driving sales of smartphones - which are expected to grow 17% this year in Europe - while sales of dumbphones stagnate.
Of course, Apple's the big winner so far. Its smartphone rivals all have their own app stores now but, with the exception of Android, the shelves are looking terribly empty. Sure, you can have a Facebook app on your Blackberry - but you're not going to find a spirit level or augmented reality app that shows you which houses on your street are for sale.
But then the Blackberry is a messaging device that's struggling to embrace the smartphone world (sadly the touchscreen Storm 2 is stimied by its antiquated operating system). Nokia's OVI is similarly hamstrung by the limitations of Symbian. Palm's Pre is app-friendly but unlikely to achieve the sort of critical mass necessary to sustain an enaged developer community. Which leaves a three-way punch-out between iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. And Windows is only on the list because you know Microsoft will keep throwing money at it until they get it right - which certainly won't be before version 7 of the Windows CE/WinMob/Windows Phone OS is finally released in 2010.
Android, on the other hand, is shaping up to be a true iPhone rival. The HTC Hero scooped Stuff's Gadget of the Year not just because it was the first phone that came close to the iPhone's tactile appeal, but because it showed Android was already a powerful platform. The soon-to-be-released version 2 of the Android system will include free voice-controlled, turn-by-turn navigation - an announcement that sent TomTom's shares tumbling - plus opportunities for developers to integrate social media into applications, and use multi-touch controls.
The poster boy of Android v2 is the Motorola Droid, out imminently in the US (but with no UK launch announced). Sony Ericsson is soon to release its first Android phone. And HTC is sure to have a Hero 2 waiting in the wings. Great gadgets, all, but they're really just faceless slabs until you turn them on and dive into the apptastic world that awaits within.
Further reading:
Motorola Droid announced for the States
Android 2 coming to HTC Touch
iPod Touch 64GB review
Apple iPhone 3G S review
HTC Hero review
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 17:22
Not a company to be upstaged, Apple chose to announce
its new range of consumer Macs in the same week as
the auld enemy launched Windows 7. And so, just minutes after leaving the Windows 7 press launch, I was whisked to Apple's central London HQ to for a whistlestop tour of the new products.
iMac 27inThe iMac 27in is big. Huge, in fact - and as if to exaggerate that feeling, Apple's shipping it with a smaller Bluetooth keyboard, sadly shorn of numeric keypad. Like the new 21.5in version, it has a true widescreen 16:9 display (as opposed to 16:10 of the old iMacs). Apple says it's using 'premium' screen technologies - LED backlighting, IPS technology for better colour and a 179degree viewing angle.
The 27in's resolution is 2560 x 1440 - which means it can display 3MP photos at full resolution, and is better-than-HD. In fact, it has almost the same resolution as Apple's 30 cinema display. The 21.5in version is Full HD, with only 10% less pixels than the old 24in version. What this means, in both cases, is incredibly sharp graphics. Shame there's no Blu-ray drive.
Inside, you have the option of quad-core processor and up to 16GB of RAM. And because it has four memory slots, it's much cheaper to upgrade the RAM from the standard 4GB to 8GB (because 2GB memory modules are much cheaper per GB than 4GB ones).
There's a couple of other cool features, too - an SD card slot and a display port input (27in only) so you can use it as a monitor for your laptop or a display for your Blu-ray - or prehaps your Windows 7 netbook. Hell, why not?
The iMac's design has been refined, too, with glass around the screen reaching right to the edges of the display, a smaller non-display area underneath the screen and a full aluminium back instead of a plastic one.
In summary, the new 27in iMac is truly beautiful, and not ridiculously overpriced, either - it starts at £1349 with a quad-core, 8GB version for £1599. I desperately, desperately want one. If only I can find some way of justifying upgrading my 18-month old 24in iMac.
Magic MouseApple's
mouses have come in for a fair amount of criticism: for only having one button in the early days (when IBM offered three); for being cripplingly puck-shaped in the early iMac era; and more recently for having uncleanable scrollwheels.
The new wireless Magic Mouse is bound to have its detractors, too - it has the same invisible buttons as the Mighty Mouse, and it offers little in the way of palm support. But it's hard not to love the graceful design - which is reminiscent of Beijing's Olympic stadium and pleasingly ergonomic - and sophisticated multitouch capabilities. You can stroke the top of the mouse to scroll in all directions, or swipe two fingers to move forward and backwards between web pages. Genius.
Some trackpad gestures are missing - there's no pinch-zoom, for example - but this is nonetheless an important evolutionary step for mouse design; and it comes on the same day that HP and Sony are busy showing off their lovely but slightly mucky Windows 7 multitouch all-in-ones. Touching stuff. Seems like that old computing rivalry is good news for us gadget addicts.
We'll have full reviews of the new iMac and Magic Mouse next week.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 13:35
I've just sat through Microsoft's press launch of Windows 7, a low-key event suffused with a quiet confidence. It was a far cry from the glitzy Vista launch at the British Library in 2007, which included a guest appearance from Bill Gates but was - tellingly - more notable for the lack of review copies for journalists. They arrived too late, just like Vista itself.
Today's event starless but well stocked with software. And despite a couple of technical hitches, Microsoft will be happy - because the hard work had already been done before this event was even planned. Developers and manufacturers have been given time to make their products compatible, and users have had a chance to test the OS out and feed back on changes.
Unlike Vista, the buzz around Windows 7 is already positive - and not just from journalists - some 15million people used the beta version of the operating system (8million who signed up legitimately and 'a further 7million who got it somehow', as Microsoft's VP of Windows Experience Julie Larson Green proudly revealed).
Of course, because so many people have seen Windows, there's little new to report from this event, aside from the fact that Sky Player will be available through the Media centre interface (though we had to take Sky's word for this as the God of Demonstrations decided to destroy the press event's internet connection). No matter: the gathered journalists know that Windows 7 is a vast improvement on Vista, cutting away the devastating bloat so that the new OS can run on quickly on notebooks as well as high-specced games machines.
But as the world reels from recession, will all this positive buzz turn into sales? And can Windows 7 stop Microsoft's market share from being squeezed by Apple at the top end and Google's new operating system - which launches late 2010 - at the bottom?
At the moment, things are looking good for Microsoft. DSGi, owners of PC World, used today's even to announce it had sold more copies of Windows 7 in the 3-week pre-order period than Vista sold in its entire first year.
And the new Windows kit looks good, too, from the big multi-touch all-in-ones from HP and Sony to the tiny Samsung N310 netback - not to mention the
MacBook Air-bothering Sony X-series laptop, which is astonishingly light (and expensive). Apparently 97% of people will get Windows 7 through a new PC, which makes I suppose makes whining about the dodgy wipe-and-install upgrade from XP a little churlish.
Won't stop me whining about the lack of a downloadable or flash-drive version of Windows 7 for installation on netbooks, though - it seems like an astonishing oversight.
I'm now off to Apple, who coincidentally have a press event on the same day as the Windows 7 launch, to check out the new 27in iMac and Magic Mouse to see how they stack up. Then I have to figure how to install Windows 7 on a my Asus Eee PC without buying an external DVD drive. Any ideas?
Monday, October 19, 2009 11:43
Google's Android operating system is cropping up in all sorts of unexpected places. As well as smartphones, Android is being used to power
portable media players,
netbooks… and now eBook readers.
Meet Alex, from Spring Design, an eBook reader that supplements its monochrome electronic paper display with a secondary colour screen that 'livens up text' with multimedia links. In other words, it makes reading books and newspapers more like reading the web - perfect for those of us whose attention spans have been destroyed by technology.
Alex offers full web broswing over Wi-Fi and 3G (or EVDO/CDMA in America), but the idea is that publishers embed links in the text - creating live footnotes for further reading. Web content can be cached onto the device's internal memory, and swapped to the monochrome screen to preserve battery life.
Until now, eBooks have been something of a mystery to me: while I like the idea of making reading more gadgety, I struggle to find the time to read novels these days. I can't help agreeing with @rojblake's tweet on the subject: "l start reading books when I've finished reading everything on the internet." Well, now we can do both. Simultaneously.
Alex apparently has 'full smartphone cabilities', too, but we'll have to wait for its release 'by the end of the year' to find out if that includes voice calls.
Follow Tom Dunmore on Twitter
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 18:37
FM radios might be about as futuristic as WAP, but that hasn't stopped rumours abounding that Apple is ready to release an iPhone app that will awaken the currently dormant FM chip in the iPhone and iPod Touch.
According to 9to5Mac, the FM receiver from the two devices' Nike+ functionality will be switched on by the app, with the delay apparently down to Apple's desire to build in a feature that lets you download songs you hear on the radio. How this will work is unclear, but a mixture of the tagging feature seen on the iPod Nano and Shazam-style wizardry have been mooted.
It all sounds interesting, but we think having Magic FM on tap as an alternative to internet radio streaming will be a bigger draw for most. True to form, Apple is keeping schtum on the rumours – but we'll bring you the news if and when it's announced.
via
9to5Mac
Monday, October 12, 2009 13:11
While Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Ukraine ended in a disappointing 1-0 defeat for England, it's being heralded as a great victory for internet TV.
For me, it was a score draw. Yes, I'm pleased that the new internet streaming technology worked. But that doesn't negate the fact that old broadcast TV technology was better suited to the task.
Of course, the match was only an online exclusive because Setanta, who held the TV rights to the game, no longer operates in the UK. So online sports specialist Perform were chosen to stream the game on a pay-to-view basis, with tickets costing £4.99 in advance or £11.99 at the weekend - or totally free if you opened an account with bet365.
For the sake of quality, Perform announced that no more than a million connections would be accepted. Today, the company trumpeted the success of the broadcast to "nearly half a million" viewers. It was, said Perform, "Britain's biggest internet pay-to-view sports broadcast." It's unclear whether visitors to Odeon cinemas and British military bases - which were also showing the match - were included in the final figure.
Figures from Perform's post-match survey are certainly impressive:
"…an average of 87% felt the picture quality was satisfactory or better and 93% were satisfied with the customer support. In a positive sign for future events, 87% said the match offered value for money and 89% would purchase another live sports event online."
And yet I can't help feeling that the whole idea of streaming live sporting events is counter-intuitive: why use an interactive, one-to-one medium like the internet, for a large-scale broadcast? Why clog up with internet with half a million streams when the airwaves are better suited for the job? In a post-match survey of a terrestrial broadcast, I'd hazard that figures for picture quality would be higher, and customer support issues wouldn't even be relevant.
There's no doubt in my mind that TV-over-internet is the way of the future: iPlayer's 2.2m daily streams are testament to that, and the Canvas set-top-box will soon bridge the gap between television and web. But the reason that internet TV is so exciting is that it's on-demand: the user gets to call the shots, not the scheduler.
For live TV, and especially big sporting events, it makes sense to stick with existing satellite and terrestrial TV systems - freeing up the web for sport-o-phobes to do some lag-free browsing at the same time.
Friday, October 09, 2009 15:21
Camphones have been one of the big tech stories of 2009, with the Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung Pixon 12 both hitting the 12MP mark.
But as any discerning Stuff reader knows, camera performance isn't all about megapixels – a sentiment Nokia seems to share, as it's only just released its first 8MP camphone, the N86 8MP (above).
With this in mind we thought it'd be interesting to have a chat with Damian Dinning, who is Concepting Manager for Nokia's N82 and N86 8MP, about where he thinks camphones are headed. Here's what he had to say:
What advantages do you think the Nokia N86 8MP has over other camphones?The thing we really focused on with the N86 8MP is low light performance, particularly without the flash. Mobile flashes only work up to 3 metres, and there are plenty of situations where it's just not appropriate to use them.
It took us two years to develop. There are two big improvements on the N86 8MP – we used the biggest pixels available, and the aperture is much larger than on other camphones.
We also put in a true 28mm wide-angle lens, and improved the latencies – which means taking a photo now takes half the time as there's very little shutter lag. The N86 8MP is definitely Nokia's best camphone yet.
What's your opinion on the camphone megapixel arms race? Will Nokia be joining Sony Ericsson and Samsung with a 12MP camphone?There are still a lot of people who believe that megapixels are everything, but there's also now a growing number of people who think the opposite. Some people may argue that Nokia is late with the N86 8MP, but we wanted to wait until the right technology was available.
Nokia has had a lot of firsts in the camphone market – the first globally available camphone with the 7650, the first 1MP and 2MP camphones – but it was never our intention to lead the megapixel race. We're not planning to be first for the sake of it.
Do you think camphones will ever be true compact camera replacements or will they always be compromised by size constraints? There's actually a big argument that compact cameras are the ones that are compromised now. They generally take a picture and don't do much else.
Other than the select few who enjoy the capturing process, most people want to take a photo and share a story – and camphones are taking this to a new level with features like Twitter and Facebook integration.
But size constraints are certainly a big challenge for camphones to overcome. Every component in a phone – the GPS, Wireless LAN, 3.5mm jack – is fighting for space, and we've been working closely with Carl Zeiss to make sure the space that the N86's camera takes up is 10% smaller than on other camphones.
What do you think will be the next big breakthrough in camphone technology?I think augmented reality is very interesting, but on a personal level I was interested to see that Canon's new prosumer cam (the G11) has a lower number of megapixels than its predecessor. It's a very brave move, and I think that's great.
I think we'll start to see the industry upset the megapixel race – for too long cameras have been based on legacy, and I think we'll start to see camphones get moved into all sorts of new directions from companies with little or no imaging background.
---
Read our
Nokia N86 8MP review, and check out our
Top 10 camphones.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 11:38
Spotify has has so much media attention over the past year - including
winning a Stuff Award for its music streaming service - that it's easy to forget that Napster has been running a similar subscription service for years (though notably without a free service in the UK).
Well, now Napster has struck back.
First, anyone in the UK will now be able to access Napster Lite to buy songs a la carte in DRM-free MP3 format (well done guys, only
16 months later than Napster US and every other music store).
Second - and more significant - subscribers to the £9.95 a month Napster Unlimited service will now get 12 MP3s to download and keep every month. Which means you can use Napster to sample all the songs you want to listen to from its 8 million-strong catalogue, and then keep your favourite album of the month. Seems like a pretty good deal for the price of a CD. (Remember CDs?)
Of course, there are two significant problems facing Napster: the service only works on Windows, and if you want to use a mobile device you have to pay £14.95 - a hefty price which, bizarrely, doesn't seem to include those 12 free MP3s.
We have
reason to believe that Napster clients for Mac and iPhone are in the works. But until they appear - together with a new pricing model, and an ad-funded free streaming service - it's hard to believe that Napster will recapture ground lost to Spotify.
Which is a shame, because the original, illicit incarnation of Napster could have been a massive commercial success - and saved the music industry - if only the labels had engaged with it to provide a Spotify-type service at the beginning of the decade. Oh the irony.
Follow Tom Dunmore on Twitter
Monday, September 28, 2009 12:53
IMHO: iPhone deal puts Orange back on the map
Today Orange announced that it will start selling iPhone 3G and 3G S in the UK later this year, ending O2's exclusive deal. It's a great day for iPhone users who have been unimpressed by O2's patchy 3G network.
It's also a great day for Orange, which seems to have finally plotted a course out of the gadget wilderness.
Back in 2000, when O2 was dull old BT Cellnet and the Millennium Dome was still a white elephant, Orange was the unchallenged network of cutting-edge cool. I was a newbie at Stuff, and stunned to be the recipient of an Orange Videophone. I didn't have anyone to call of course - these were the days before 3G - before GPRS, even - and the £1200 Videophone used some fancy technology known as HSCSD to deliver speed of about 30kbps. Not really enough for video, but that didn't stop Orange's boffins from trying. And we loved them for it.
It's hard to pinpoint where it all went wrong for Orange, but I put it somewhere in between making terribly annoying cinema ads and refusing to offer all-you-can-eat 3G access. But just as important was O2's rebranding, its music venue sponsorship, and its snagging of the iPhone exclusive - which made it network of choice for the yoof (or at least the ageing 'middle youth' who don't think twice about splurging £45 a month on a mobile contract.)
Not that Orange has disappeared. It's quietly built the best 3G network in the UK - just
compare OFCOM's 3G maps for O2 and Orange (NB this link is a PDF download).
Of course, a 3G connection is more important to iPhone users than most, because the internet is so central to the iPhone experience - whether you're checking email, browsing or just downloading another app you'll never use.
Now, with the iPhone to hook up to its network, and a merger with T-Mobile on the cards, Orange looks set to leapfrog O2.
Size isn't everything, of course. Fortunately, Orange still has enough of that Videophone DNA left to satisfy those avant-gadgeteers concerned by the iPhone's tedious ubiquity. Fancy something different? Try the iPhone's best rival, the graphite
HTC Hero - or the ridiculously cool (or simply ridiculous?)
LG GD910 watchphone. Both Orange exclusives (of sorts) - and proof that Apples aren't the only fruit.
Friday, August 28, 2009 18:05
Earlier in the week, the Stuff team
went down to the Science Museum Lates evening to show off some futuristic gadgets to the museum-goers.
If you've never heard of the Lates nights, you've been missing out. Once a month the Science Museum opens up its doors in the evening to give adults a kid-free look around the exhibits and displays, as well as puts on some extra events as well.
Mic, Will and Simon took down the LG GD910 watchphone and the Fujifilm Finepix Real3D W1 to see what the visitors thought, and which they preferred. Watch the video below to find out, and let us know which is your favourite below.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:09
We're starting to wonder if Nokia is actually going to have anything to announce at Nokia World next week. Following on from the leaking of a seemingly official picture of the N900 internet tablet yesterday, the same website has outed an official snap of the N97 Mini.
There's not many surprises here, as we've seen the phone crop up in a number of spy shots, but the website
begeek.fr is also suggesting the phone will sell for "no less" than €170 (£150) cheaper than the N97.
If you
missed the leaked specs yesterday, you can pretty much expect a smaller body all round, including a smaller screen (from 3.5" to 3") and keyboard, smaller on board memory, down to 8GB from 32GB, and the lack of lens cover on the camera.
We're expecting more at Nokia World next week, so keep it locked to Stuff.tv where we'll be bringing you the latest from Stuttgart as it happens.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 10:58
Last month, the government published its Digital Britain report, which recommended - among many other things - that the best way to keep file-sharing in check was to give more powers to the communications watchdog Ofcom, and ISPs, to release the identities of file-sharers to the music industry.
The idea was that the worst offenders would be warned and - if they didn't stop - could have their internet throttled (ie slowed). And extreme circumstances, file-sharers could be sued.
Turns out that these proposals weren't strong enough for the Business Secretary Lord Mandleson, who is believed to have personally intervened to toughen up measures. The likely result: serial file-sharers could see their broadband terminated completely.
In this age of Spotify and Last.fm, there's little excuse for illegally downloading copyright material. But access to information on the internet has become such an important part of our daily life that denying us the access could be seen as an infringement of our human rights - that's certainly what the French supreme court decided when they struck down a similar measure in France.
After all, there tends to be one broadband connection per household - which means one person could seriously damage a whole family's access to information. Need to research something for your homework? Sorry, your mum downloaded a few too many Metallica classics.
And that's not the only problem with the proposals. When you're browsing the web through Wi-Fi, it's the router that can be recognised by its IP address, not your computer. Which means you could be liable for the actions of any random stranger who joins your network. And don't think a password is going to protect you - just Google 'Wi-Fi crack' if you don't believe me.
What's more, by no means all file-sharing is illegal. Plenty of peer-to-peer services (like Sky Player and Spotify) are totally legit. And even dubious networks and torrents are still used to legally distribute software, music and movies. Which means ISPs are won't be able to just monitor amounts of traffic - they'll also have to open up each packet of data to find out what's inside. That's some jigsaw puzzle.
Finally, there's the fact that around 7million people are believed to have illegally downloaded music in the UK. According to the Office of National Statistics, there are 16.5m broadband-connected households in the Great Britain and Ireland. Which means that, at its most extreme, the ammended Digital Britain report - with its stated aim of encouraging the uptake of broadband - could be suggesting that we unplug 40% of all our broadband connections. And that's plain dumb.
Follow Tom Dunmore on Twitter
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:48
The
LG BL40 Chocolate aka the LG Chocolate 2 has broken cover in a video from Mobiles.co.uk.
The clip (which you watch above) shows the phone's mad 4in 21:9 aspect ratio touchscreen in action.
We've got our mits on
the LG BL40 and the while it was a pre-production model, it was clear that video and movies on the mega-mobile will look fantastic. Viewing web pages in widescreen is also a big plus.
The LG BL40's accelerometer appears pretty quick in the video while the inclusion of multi-touch gives it similar skills to the iPhone.
The phone is rumoured to be hitting the UK in late August but LG remains tight-lipped about when exactly we can feast on the tasty new LG Chocolate.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 16:50
We've heard plenty of
rumours that the next generation of iPods, set to be announced at an Apple keynote in September, will feature built-in cameras. Now a short and slightly suspicious video has emerged on the blog of US radio hosts Covino and Rich.
The brief clip appears to show an iPod Touch (note the shiny aluminum back) with a camera reminiscent of the one built-in to the iPhone. The video is very short and could well be a fake – why would Apple allow a prototype out of its high security labs and into the hands of a pair of Chris Moyle style radio jocks?
Covino and Rich's blog claims the slightly battered prototype was rescued from the rubbish by a recycler who didn't realise its significance.
What do you make of the video? Is this just a stunt by a pair of DJs after publicity? If it is, looks they got it! And do you want your next iPod Touch to come toting a camera too?
(via
Covino and Rich)
