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Next-gen OLED screens to have touch built-in

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:15:00 GMT

OLED-display.net is reporting that German scientists have created a new type of OLED display with touch sensitive technology built in.

Researchers from the high tech Fraunhofer IPMS Institute will be unveiling the screen at the fabulously named 4th Global Plastic Electronics conference in Berlin later this month.

This is big news because unlike the current touch screens found on iPhones or sat navs, the new touch OLED doesn't need an additional touch-sensitive layer: the touch controls are built in to the display itself.

A touch exaggerated

OLED screens are already the favourite choice to replace LCD technology, thanks to their faster response time, lack of viewing angle restrictions and not needing a heavy, power-hungry backlight. OLEDs can even be made into flexible, transparent screens.

The new development promises to enable everything from ultra-lightweight laptops to cheap touch-sensitive mobile phones.

Jörg Amelung, head of organic materials and systems at the Fraunhofer IPMS is particularly excited: "The touch function generates a completely new feeling of light. It´s like magic: turning on the light simply by a hand movement."

Er, calm down, Jörg. It's a nice advance but not really the subject for a prime-time, one-hour TV special starring David Blaine. Unless perhaps it features Blaine being force-fed crushed up touch OLEDs until his stomach ruptures. We'd watch that on a fuzzy old CRT.

LG Wirewize untangles home cinema cabling

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:16:00 GMT

Connecting your brand new Blu-ray player to your old projection telly can be a nightmare, especially when many components still don't ship with cables in the box.

Today, LG in the US launched a website to help you untangle your rat's nest of AV cabling with a step-by-step guide to connecting your home cinema system.

Wirewize (www.wirewize.com) lets you choose individual components, then shows what cables you need to hook them up and how to do it - including illustrations of the back panels of each device.

The website is aimed at a US audience so some of the names are unfamiliar, but it does seem to have a fairly wide selection of current and older models from all the major electronics brands (not just LG). If you can't find a specific model number for your aging telly, you can always choose 'generic device'.

Obsolete options

One downside is that Wirewize seems a little of date. You can select tape decks and VHS recorders but there are no MP3 players, PMPs or media streamers listed on the site at launch - often the trickiest devices to get working with older kit.

The site then recommends a selection of cables (with links to purchase online) and gives a 1-2-3 guide of how to plug them in. The cable choice makes sense, with the site choosing HDMI over component and only resorting to analogue connections when necesary.

However, some back-panel photos are missing from the site, even for popular LCD and plasma tellies

Overall, Wirewize is a good site for anyone struggling with getting their system to work - and definitely worth trying before you spend time and money on customer support or tech call-out services.

Electrolux fridge keeps students' food safe

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:42:00 GMT

The winner of Electrolux's Design Lab 2008 competition is Flatshare, a stackable fridge for houseshares that consists of a base station and up to four stackable modules.

The modules allow each person in a house to have his or her own chilling space and can be customized with colourful skins as well as with add-ons like bottle openers - and locks, presumably.

Handles on the side make it easy to transport the modules when the rent cheque bounces.

Flatshare is the brainchild of Stefan Buchberger, from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He noted "There is nothing more disgusting than a dirty fridge in a shared flat," before adding wisely, "It gets filthy because no one person feels responsible for cleaning it."

Spaced Lab

Electrolux's annual Design Lab contest sees design students come up with a range of concept white goods that might just make it into future production.

It's well worth heading over to the Design Lab photo gallery on Flickr, where the Flatshare is shown stocked with orange juice and eggs. Today's design students are clearly a healthy bunch: when I was at college, fridges were all about half-eaten takeaway curries, boxes of German wine and jars of mysterious pickle.

Other bonkers products in the showcase include a kinetic-powered cooler bag, a Wi-Fi laundry hamper (for wireless bras?), a santizing clothes rack, a toaster that burns headlines on your wholewheat and a social networking recipe generator ("now with electronic tongue!").

For his efforts in de-grotting the student lifestyle, Stefan wins a six-month internship at an Electrolux global design centres and Euros 5000 (£3950), which should keep him in eggs and OJ throughout his work placement.

News round-up: 10 October

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:54:00 GMT

For a Friday, the TechRadar team were decidedly chipper today.

The same couldn't be said for our sister website T3 who were bleary eyed after its celebration of all things tech, the T3 Gadget Awards.

The smell of alcohol on their collective breath must have been contagious, however, as Editor (news) Patrick was drunk with excitement after he managed to get out of Microsoft that the company wants Surface in the UK this year.

But then again, he was also excited after speaking to the founder of Digg Kevin Rose, and asking him, among other things, about his scariest moment on the site.

And it wasn't just Patrick who was in a tis, as Gareth cried tears of joy that China has started producing OLED TVs, mainly because he wants one right now.

Another object of desire this Friday was a yacht that costs just 22 Euro. Well it does if you make a mistake on an online auction site.

Blu-ray had a bit of an up and down day in the news. Netflix sullied the format, saying it hasn't been that profitable for them, while Microsoft deny it is to produce a Blu-ray deck for the Xbox 360… again.

There were also birthday celebrations today as Amazon UK turned 10, while The Pirate Bay were celebrating as its site won a court case in Italy – a court case of such significance that you might one day view the story in ITN's massive online news archive. But only if you are a university student.

Have a great weekend and do remember to keep popping back to your favourite tech news site.

ITN '100 year' news archive goes online

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:30:00 GMT

ITN has brokered a deal with universities in the UK to make some of its archive footage available online.

The clips, which date back 100 years, will be available to students as of this week under the banner NewsFilm Online, and can be found at nfo.ac.uk.

Chief executive of ITN Mark Wood said about the project: "This great video content brings the events of the past century to life.

"The NewsFilm initiative is yet another example of the rapidly expanding use of video content at all levels of education."

Subscription based

The amount of footage available adds up to 3,000 hours, which is around 60,000 stories. And it's not just video, either, with ITN adding 25,000 programme scripts to the website.

Footage includes the 1969 Moon landings, and news about the death of Princess Diana.

Students need to be in a university that subscribes to the service to view the content. The project is being funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), ITN, Reuters and the British Universities Film & Video Council.

Man has to sell yacht for €22.50 after auction snafu

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:21:00 GMT

The German courts have ruled that man who sold his yacht for €22.50 on an online auction site after failing to set a minimum bid must go through with the transaction.

A Cologne court ruled that the man must indeed flog his 6-metre yacht for the fee after deciding that his claims of 'technical problems' with AllesAuktion.de didn't, ahem, float.

Speaking to English language, German news site The Local – court spokesman Hubertus Nolte said: "The standard laws of business transactions also apply to internet auctions.

Make good

"Now the seller must make good on his offer. He can't say after the fact that he didn't want to sell.

"I remember a similar case that involved an tractor that should have been auctioned for a minimum of €60,000, but went for €51 when the owner forgot to set a minimum bid.

"The bidder won the court case in this instance too."

The man in question was told that unless he handed over the boat he would have to pay the €12,000 legal fee.

He probably wishes that he'd noticed his mistake earlier, but that ship – it seems – has sailed.

The Pirate Bay Italy block deemed illegal

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:12:00 GMT

The Pirate Bay has seen a block on its website in Italy overturned by a judge.

The website was censored in Italy back in August when an Italian prosecutor managed to get the majority of ISPs to stop their customers from accessing the site.

After an appeal by the website, however, this decision has been overturned, and better yet deemed illegal by the Court of Bergamo.

This change of tact may set a precedent for the access of foreign websites in Italy, mainly that no foreign website can be blocked for having content that allegedly infringes copyright.

No provision for copyright infringement

Pirate Bay's lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi spoke to Torrent Freak about the decision and said: "Under Italian law, this is possible only for child porn and for unauthorized gambling, but there is no such provision for copyright infringement.

"We have to make sure that no legislative bill promoting such filtering provisions will be passed in the future.

"At the European level, many authorities pointed out the need to find a balance between the enforcement of alleged copyright infringements, users' rights, and privacy issues."

Should ISPs protect us on the net?

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:32:00 GMT

An anti-virus software company has called on ISPs to protect their customers, rather than leaving it to consumers to do themselves.

With the House of Lords debating internet security, F-Secure's UK and Ireland manager Richard Hales has insisted that it is not the government or the consumers that should look after security, but the internet service providers.

ISPs are currently doing their utmost to be seen as merely conduits to the internet, meaning the active monitoring of people's downloads and browsing would not only be a massively unpopular breach of privacy but also ramp up their responsibility.

Stronger control

However, Hales insists that the government should assert stronger control over ISPs and make them provide 'security' as part of the package.

"The Government is right when it says consumers should not manage their own Internet security. Many people do not realise how vulnerable their personal information is and many rely on outdated security software or even worse, none at all," said Hales.

"In contrast to other members of the EU with much tougher restrictions, the Government has been slow off the mark in dealing with Internet crime. In a perfect world, the consumer would be completely removed from the equation with internet service providers taking responsibility.

"This would mean that Internet security would be a de-facto addition to any and every Internet connection, security-as-a-service offered by ISPs protects customers much more effectively."

Escalating internet threats

He continues: "Our own experience of 175 ISPs globally shows that in cases where security is part of the package, in excess of 70 per cent of consumers make use of the service.

"By asserting stronger control over ISPs and introducing industry-wide security standards, users will be better protected from escalating internet threats.

"It is also the responsibility of the security industry to work with local Government and international law enforcement agencies to report Internet crime and bring criminals to justice."

Of course, should this happen and ISPs opt for companies other than F-Secure, Hales' comments could well come back to haunt him.

Symantec to send comp winner into space

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:22:00 GMT

We at TechRadar don't often publish details about competitions because, well, they're not very tech-related, but the latest one from the makers of Norton Anti-Virus is a humdinger.

As the press release says, less than 500 people have ever been into space, but one lucky virus-fighter will get the chance to join that exclusive club in the sky (no, not that one... apparently you need harnesses for that in space).

Three competition winners will be first invited for a zero-gravity flight on the 'Vomit Comet', where they can experience weightlessness and all the fun that brings, then one of these will ascend to the final frontier.

Fit

We're not sure how Symantec plans to choose the grand prize winner, who will spend around five minutes in space before being brought back down (we know it's a short amount of time, but it's space. Come on).

We assume they'll be assessing those winners to make sure they won't have a heart attack or something on the way up... you know, sensible things like that, and not a simple fight to the death kind of competition when weightless.

The competition is meant to represent the fastest software from Norton's new software, which can blah blah blah, we don't care about the reasons, we're going to register on the website four billion times (if we're allowed) to get a chance to see the great firewall of China from the sky.

Netflix: Blu-ray has had little effect on business

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:19:00 GMT

The chief financial officer of Netflix has played down suggestions the future of video rentals is in hi-def, after he said Blu-ray will have little effect on the company's business this year.

Speaking to Home Media magazine, CFO Barry McCarthy explained that for 2008 the format won't really bring in money, stating that "It may grow after the holiday selling season, if sales are slow and prices are cut more aggressively."

The company also recently revealed, according to the magazine, the percentage of people renting HD discs was in single figures.

Price rise

The comments come after news Netflix is to make its membership more expensive to make way for unlimited rental of Blu-ray discs. The price of a monthly membership is being upped by $1 dollar (60p).

This will happen 5 November. Those who do not want to rent hi-def titles must adjust their membership via Netflix's website.

Channel 4 abandons radio

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Channel 4 has canned its radio projects, in a cost-cutting move reportedly saving the broadcaster £100 million.

Fifteen jobs are to go immediately, with a question mark over the future of former head of BBC Radio 5 Live Bob Shennan, who joined to head up C4's radio projects last year.

The broadcaster was to launch a series of radio stations, including a competitor to BBC Radio 4, and youth music channel E4 Radio, as part of a second digital radio platform that would carry a host of other new channels.

Planned stations included E4 Radio, the Radio-4-a-like Channel 4 Radio, and music station Pure4.

No more, unfortunately

The move follows GCap Media's canning of its own DAB stations earlier this year, including TheJazz.

Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan, said: "We've taken this decision very reluctantly.

"We've pursued our radio plans in good faith and continue to believe DAB has a strong future and that we could make a return from radio in the medium term.

"Frustratingly, our plans have been overtaken by a drastic recent downturn in our revenues and we will have to forgo this future profit stream."

Exclusive: Rose wants key Diggers to keep influence

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:18:00 GMT

Kevin Rose has told TechRadar that he wants to make sure that the Diggers who pick out the most popular stories continue to have a major influence in the site – despite the steady move into a more personalised experience.

TechRadar had the chance to talk with Rose at the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference in London – where he was keen to point out the ways in which Digg was evolving.

"I think that some people will always prefer to surf rather than contribute, but I think that a lot of people want to get involved," said Rose.

"It's based on their participation; if they Digg something it isn't just about the popularity thing but about the fact that they are explaining to the recommendations engine what they are interested in so their experience is better overall – and that's massive.

"We start making recommendations after one Digg, but it's a process that takes a lot of time. People have to Digg and continue to fill the system in order for it to make the right connections."

On Digg's front page not becoming too personalised:

"The front page is always the default for people who aren't logged in right? That means that anyone can come to the site and see what the zeitgeist is for people at one time.

"What we want to do with personalisation is give people a better slice of that data so they can view what's going on in terms of what's most important to them.

"I think that's the most important thing in terms of niches. I totally get that people's interests change depending on what's happening.

"We'll start looking at the amount of time you spend in these niche areas and making the recommendations based on that as well.

"Just because you dugg one story on a health topic doesn't mean that we're going to fill your inbox with loads of health related news.

"If you haven't dugg in a topic for some time then the system will realise and start to move that down in your preferences."

On making it easier to Digg:

"We have to lower the barrier to Digging," explains Rose. "At the moment you might see a button on a remote site, click it which opens up a new window, then you have to log into your Digg account and then you fill in the details.

"That's quite a big hurdle for a lot of people so we're trying to make that whole process easier.

"Connecting with services like Facebook that allows you to login and bring that whole social graph with you which means you don't have to recreate the whole login process again is a big deal.

"Getting that all working is huge for us."

On making sure good stories get in front of influential Diggers:

"I don't think it's true to say that if the wrong person Diggs something then it has less chance of success, regardless of how good that story is," says Rose.

"With the recommendation engine, it's dependent on who that story is connected to, so if someone Diggs it and they are connected to five users in the same topic bucket then it will spread out to those people.

"I can't get into intimate details about how the recommendation engine works, but we wanted to make sure there was a diverse pool and just by Digging a few thousand stories isn't going to make someone more powerful in terms of influence.

"Otherwise you'd just end up with people Digging everything so that they form thousands of connections in every topic bucket.

"We look at a whole bunch of things and eventually if you Digg things that become more popular then your influence will grow. If you are Digging stuff that is getting buried then you won't be a strong recommender in that topic.

"If someone has never dugg anything and has no friends then obviously it relies on someone else finding it and digging it – it's where a Digg button on a site helps!

"If Digg number two comes in and it's from a good recommender then it soon finds its way."

On Digg not always reflecting his own interest

"I was really just trying to build the best tech news site that was out there - which is what we launched with and it became very clear early on that people wanted to submit everything," continues Rose

"So we were coming on and finding people submitting non tech stories which were being buried because people said 'this isn't tech'.

"Digg always been its own monster and the users push for things that they want to see on the site.

"I log in and look at political section – and to be honest it's a little too much politics for me. There's stories here I wouldn't necessarily read.

"In the early days, for the first six months I'd wake up in the morning and just think, 'what the hell's on the front page?' and start freaking out.

"Sometimes I'd say, 'wow good content and other times 'oh my god'. You never know what it's going to be."

On where Digg ranks in his own importance list:

"I still spend 95 per cent of my time on Digg," insists Rose. "I do the podcast every other week and then Pownce is just like a weekend hobby.

"I do go rock climbing, which I do a lot of – but aside from that there's not a lot in terms of hobbies, apart from drinking tea.

"I actually took a week off the internet recently for the first time in years and that was kind of nice.

"Of course when I got back I was straight on the top in seven days [on Digg] to see what was going on!"

Microsoft denies Xbox 360 Blu-ray in production

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:17:00 GMT

While the Blu-ray on Xbox 360 rumours gained ground again over at the Tokyo Game Show this week, Microsoft's Xbox production boss has flatly denied that the company has any plans to adopt Blu-ray into the Xbox experience.

Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg denied that his company has any plans to add Blu-ray to Xbox 360.

"We have no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience," Microsoft's production boss told Major Nelson , following recent rumours that a contract has been awarded to Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp to produce an external Xbox 360 Blu-ray player.

The future's digital

Greenberg told the Major, in no uncertain terms: "We believe that we shouldn't force people to pay for things they don't want. We also believe that the future's digital, and that's why we've invested in a massive library of entertainment content, that's why we're bringing things like Netflix to members in the US, that's why we're growing our library in Europe, that's why we're adding all type of entertainment experiences around the world."

"And Blu-ray: who knows? I'll tell you one thing: if you look at retail sales and availability, there's not a lot there, and what is there is at a premium," said Greenberg.

"It's pretty clear it's not the next DVD" he added.

"I went to Sony's booth, and it used to be that their whole booth was Blu-ray. It just keeps shrinking down. Now it's just this little corner and there's no one there and it's like, there's a heart sign and it's got 'Blu-ray' and some movies. It's interesting."

TechRadar has contacted the Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp. directly in Japan for further comment. We will update this news the second we hear back from them.

Exclusive: Kevin Rose: My scariest moment at Digg

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:15:00 GMT

Kevin Rose has told TechRadar about his scariest moment as founder of Digg – the day when the site's community would not take no for an answer over publishing the HD DVD crack.

The so-called HD DVD 'revolt' saw users go to great lengths to publicise the code on Digg after the original item was taken down, with founder Rose caving in to his audience's demands and posting a now famous blog concluding: "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."

TechRadar caught up with Rose at the Future of Web Applications conference in London, and he admitted that it was a worrying time, although the potential repercussions failed to materialise.

Plane talking

"I was on a plane to LA and I took off kind of just as the HD DVD thing was starting to explode," explained Rose, who also discussed politics and the future of Digg.

"When I landed I took my cellphone off flight mode and it was 'ding, ding, ding' and I had about 15 text messages.

"I'm like 'this can't be good'. They all said that the entire front page was filled with stories digging the HD DVD code and said 'call us right away'.

Scariest day

"That was definitely my scariest day at Digg. I don't know, it must have been extremely scary and a little eye opening for the attorneys that serve the cease and desist orders as well.

"I think they thought they could erase this string of 16 characters that from the internet."

"We had people recording the code to music, putting it on YouTube and saying 'you can't take this down it's just a song.

"That was my favourite; that and the people who took the digits and converted them into Klingon!"

Sony F200

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:04:00 GMT

Sony's 2.1-channel solution looks effortlessly classy behind its cool glass fascia.

The secret of its slim size lies with the massive S-Master sub that takes care of all the amplification and cabling, leaving just a sleek DVD player and dinky speakers on show.

Superior user-friendliness

The upright design saves table space and provides easy access to the slot-loading DVD player on one side and USB Host port on the other.

The disc-spinner is compatible with most audio and video formats, although not Sony's own Super Audio CD, and the USB port can record as well as play. Unlike the fancy LED displays on some of its rivals, this one is quite calm, with just track info and a clock displayed most of the time.

The onscreen display is more impressive, making use of Sony's legendary easy-to-use GUI. A decent remote control helps the F200 win full marks for user-friendliness.

Setup is straightforward, with colour-coded cables running to the sub and an HDMI lead to the TV. From this you get pin-sharp pictures from the DVD in standard-def 576p mode and even better results when you upscale to 720p. It'll go all the way to 1080p, in fact, and there's no grain or video noise at all here, just vivid pictures.

Stereophile system

Put on a CD like Paul Weller's Changing Man and the worryingly slim desktop speakers manage to pull a remarkably broad and descriptive sound out of the bag. The stereo soundstage projects well and is superbly sweet and open in the higher frequencies.

It's a similar story with DVD in stereo, too; atmospheric music and crisp dialogue. But the F200 falls ﬂat in surround mode. Sony uses a 'virtual' system to conjure up the illusion of rear speakers, but it doesn't really work.

It sounds overly processed and makes the sub bass seem disembodied from the two
speakers. I soon found myself switching back to stereo mode and being content with the wide two-channel soundstage.

Unconvincing surround sound

It might not manage real 5.1 surround, but there's lots to like about the Sony F200. It's classier than Keira Knightley and just as thin, and CDs sound great.

The user interface is slick too, so you'll actually enjoy putting discs in. It just doesn't pull off a convincing 5.1 surround soundtrack with its two skinny speakers. It seems you can't have everything.

Amazon UK is 10 today

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:01:00 GMT

The UK leg of Amazon's website celebrates its 10-year birthday today.

Although the American side of the company started back in 1994, when founder Jeff Bezos launched the site as an online book-seller, the UK version took another four years to go live.

Since then, the company has grown from small-time bookseller to big-time electronics retailer, taking a dip into musical waters with the launch of its music store and looking to the future of reading with its (US only) Kindle.

10 Amazon facts

To celebrate the fact that Amazon has hit a landmark age, here's 10 things you may not know about the website…

1 The UK software development plant for the company is based in Ricky Gervais' favourite town, Slough.

2 In 2008, the website has been clocked at attracting 615 million visitors annually.

3 IMDB the online movie Bible is owned by Amazon.

4 Amazon's logo has an arrow pointing to the A and the Z. This is meant to represent that the site sells a lot of products.

5 Amazon has branched out into film production and will be releasing its first film The Stolen Child in conjunction with 20th Century Fox.

6 Amazon's 10th anniversary in the US was celebrated with a sing-song from Bob Dylan and Norah Jones.

7 Amazon paid £1,950,000 for a hand-written copy of The Tales Of Beedle The Bard. The Author? JK Rowling.

8 Amazon's original name was Cadabra.com.

9 Amazon has its own product line, titled Pinzon.

10 In 1999 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was named Person Of The Year by Time magazine.

To read more about Amazon, just check out our 20 Websites That Changed The World feature.

T3 gadget award-winners announced

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:17:00 GMT

Last night's annual T3 Gadget Awards, hosted by James Nesbitt at London's Intercontinental, Park Lane, managed to sift the gadget wheat from tomorrow's landfill chaff, with the teams from T3 magazine and T3.com celebrating the great and good of tech and gadgets from the last year.

So who won the coveted Gadget You Can't Live Without, Gaming Gadget and the much-coveted Gadget of the Year awards? Read on and we'll let you know.

11 of the 16 T3 Gadget Awards are not picked out of a hat by the editorial team, but democratically chosen by over 54,000 votes from readers in order to pinpoint winners in each categories.

Apple FTW!

Apple deservedly scooped four prizes – including Gadget of the Year, which was awarded to the Apple iPod Touch - while Activision's Guitar Hero scooped Toy of the Year.

In eco-friendly tech terms, car manufacturer Honda won the Green Gadget category, with its innovative Civic Hybrid, while TomTom's awesome GO930 SatNav was named Gadget You Can't Live Without.

Cream of tech

"The Garmin T3 Gadget Awards 2008 really do reflect the cream of this year's tech," says Michael Brook, Editor of T3 magazine.

"And this is thanks to the T3 readers who voted in their thousands to sort the men from the boys. It's been important for us to have our readers involved in so many of the categories, since they are the ones using these products day in, day out, and can tell the hottest kit from the hype."

Full list of winners…

Gadget of the Year: Apple iPod Touch

Best Music Gadget: Apple iPod Touch 32GB

Best Imaging Gadget: Nikon D60

Drop Dead Gorgeous: Audi R8

Best New Media: BBC iPlayer

Gaming Gadget: Wii Fit

Toy of the Year: Guitar Hero

Commuter Gadget: Apple iPhone

Gadget Candy: MacBook Air

Retailer of the Year: Dixons.co.uk

Innovation of the Year: Sony XEL-1 OLED TV

Green Gadget: Honda Civic Hybrid

Home Gadget: Sky HD

Hi Def Award: Sony PS3

Gadget you can't live without: TomTom GO930

Vodafone rejected Storm, says RIM CEO

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:09:00 GMT

RIM's CEO Mike Lazaridis has said the first idea for the BlackBerry Storm, RIM's first touchscreen handset, was rejected by Vodafone for being too basic.

Speaking to pocket-lint, he said: "I thought that when we put Quadband EDGE and GPS and a powerful CPU and high-performance graphics cards on one tiny board – I figured that that was enough of a breakthrough and Vodafone sent me packing!"

Driven by Vodafone

It's been widely reported the concept for the Storm was driven in part by Vodafone and Verizon, the main carriers for the device around the world.

But it's made the journey from a concept RIM had lying around to fully functioning device in just over a year, ready to compete with the other bevy of touchscreen handsets on the market.

And given the comments of Jens Schulte-Bockum from Vodafone, which state he believes "will capture imaginations", it seems the new version might have met with approval.

Haptics

The innovative new touchscreen technology, which ditches buzzing signals in favour of a proper 'click' has been heralded by Lazaridis as the way forward after he believes haptics have failed thus far.

"Touchscreens before have confused the act of navigating with the act of confirmation, or selecting. What we did is we is combined a state of the art multi-touch capacitive touchscreen and put in a sub-system underneath that allowed us to add the dimension of pressure.

"It's far better than haptics. Haptics didn't work", he added.

Updated: Virgin Media: speedtests don't tell the truth

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:07:00 GMT

Virgin Media has told the leading online speed checkers that it will be publishing its own monthly data to show the discrepancies in their results – but also that it is happy to work with them to ensure that accuracy is improved.

Presumably worried about the potential fall-out from people testing the speed of its new 50MB service – which is already being trialled in the UK – Virgin Media is keen to ensure that high-end packages are tested fairly.

Currently, ultra-fast broadband (over 20MB) apparently does not get the accuracy in online tests that lower end packages get.

Increasing reliance

Jon James, Director of Group Strategy at Virgin Media said: "Customers increasingly rely on speedtest comparisons to choose their broadband provider so we are working with speedtest sites to help them accurately measure all broadband services, including our new superfast offerings.

"We will also be helping customers to understand the accuracy of the speedtest information available to them - so they can make well-informed choices."

We spoke to online speed checker Broadbandchoices.co.uk earlier in the week ahead of Virgin Media's announcement and Michael Philips conceded that they are already working on a more accurate way of testing the high-end packages.

"If you look at results then you will see that most of the online checkers are broadly in line, so accusing one of being inaccurate means that all of us are," Phillips told TechRadar.

Duty to check

"Saying that, it's our duty to continually check the algorithms that we use and we, for one, are currently undertaking a project as we speak to make sure our results for the high-speed broadband packages are accurate.

"In the meantime we will not be publishing our monthly results until we get to the bottom of it. We expect everything to be resolved inside the next two weeks."

Accuracy key

The grumble from the online speed checking sites seems to be that they think ISPs conduct their research in ideal conditions, but the disparity between other high-end providers' results is a cause for concern.

For the public, it is clear that accurate results are of paramount importance in seeing if they are really getting value for money from their ISP.

Virgin's data will apparently be anonymised so that the public cannot see which checkers are most out of line on its test - but appears to be hoping to illustrate that there are problems, and offering to help make them better.

Which can't be a bad thing.

UPDATE:

Broadband Choices' MIchael Philips has now responded to the news, adding: "Speed testing is usually an accurate and useful tool for consumers to check that they are getting what they are paying for.

"However, the new super fast 50Mb product Virgin Media is launching is ahead of current testing technology. Consumers come to us for reliable information and we share Virgin Media's desire to improve the accuracy of the 50Mb speed testing.

"We will work with Virgin Media to explore ways that we can develop our testing methodology for high speed services as they near the launch of their upcoming 50Mb product."

Sennheiser rocks the Xbox

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:54:00 GMT

Rock Band 2 is out soon, with German audio specialist Sennheiser inking a lucrative deal with MTV Games and Harmonix Music Systems to let gamers sing through their virtual microphones, perform at sponsored virtual events, and use its branded virtual accessories.

EA has still to confirm the release date for the Xbox 360 version of the game, which TechRadar hopes and prays will be out in time for Xmas. As for the PlayStation 3, well, the less said about the apparent delays of that version the better…

Sennheiser's Kristy Jo Winkler is "thrilled to partner with Harmonix Music Systems," though not as thrilled as TechRadar will be when we finally get to play the game, when we can buy up a bunch of virtual Sennheiser kit with our virtual in-game money in the virtual Rock Shop.

Girls Aloud?

The in-game mics on offer are apparently used by the likes of The Foo Fighters, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and (*cough*) Girls Aloud.

EA expects that the Rock Band downloadable music library will feature more than 500 songs by the end of 2008.

Rock Band 2 is out. Soon. We hope!

Humax PVR9300T

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:45:00 GMT

Freeview+ should be considered a must-have for those without Sky TV, as it offers all the recording ﬂexibility that the satellite broadcaster (and Ross Kemp) has been boasting of.

The Humax PVR9300T twin-tuner Freeview+ PVR isn't the cheapest machine around, but in my opinion it's currently the best, with a generous 320GB HDD for up to 200 hours of recording; a CI slot; basic editing of recordings; and an upscaling HDMI port.

Just plug it in, and the PVR9300T ﬁnds all of the available channels for you.

Handy 'find' function

Recordings can be scheduled from the 7-day EPG. Supported Freeview+ features include split-programme (handy for ITV, which has a habit of shoving news bulletins into movies); recommendations of alternative showings if there's a timer 'overlap'; and automatic recording of complete series.

There's also auto-tracking, which compensates for schedule changes. Naturally, this only works if broadcasters update EPG data on a regular basis, so you might want to instead use 'padding' to add minutes to the start and end times. Annoyingly, doing so disables series recording.

An EPG feature worth its weight in gold is 'ﬁnd'; enter a keyword, and all of the programmes with that word in their name are listed.

Crisp Freeview pictures

The twin tuners facilitate all sorts of wizardry – you can record two channels simultaneously while watching an existing recording, if you really want to. And, as the Humax is always buffering the currently-viewed channel to its HDD, you can use the handset's review and cue buttons to ﬁnd the part of the programme you're after.

Pausing of live TV is offered, sports and movie fans will appreciate the slow-mo and instant replay functions, and archivists will be cock-a-hoop at the prospect of permanently preserving chunks of the buffer as recordings.

The PVR9300T supports digital teletext – and it's fast and responsive here. Indeed, the same can be said of every other aspect of the machine's friendly user interface. There are separate VCR and TV Scarts – both support composite or S-video, while the TV one also offers RGB.

Pictures through the latter are superb; they're crisp, clean and capable of beautifully-vivid yet accurate colour.

Minor quibbles

But don't get the impression that the PVR9300T is perfect. Firstly, although it's capable of good results, the HDMI output only offers 576p and 720p settings. Why no 1080i/1080p?

The onboard cooling fan on our sample was rather noisy, too, although Humax has said that an over-the-air software update is now in place that reduces noise signiﬁcantly.

And a ﬁnal weird point: our review sample had a rear-panel USB port that didn't function. It transpires that the USB port on the previous PVR9200T was being used so little that Humax has done away with the little blighter – later PVR9300Ts won't have a port at all. So if you ﬁnd one on the back of yours, ignore it!

In Depth: 20 websites that changed the world

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:39:00 GMT

first ever website If there was one site that would change the world for ever, it would be the , created by internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee.

It went online on 6 August 1991 offering people help with using the brand new 'World Wide Web', rather modestly described as a "wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents". It's now archived at www.tinyurl.com/3apuu.

If Berners-Lee had known what was to come, he might have added: "This is going to be awesome!"

2. GeoCities

Fascinating as it was back then, the web wasn't a whole lot of fun and after four years of pages created by scientists and academics, David Bohnett and John Rezner, who ran a web directory called Beverly Hills Internet, turned their company into GeoCities, giving anyone the ability to create their own site for free.

"There was a time when half the internet seemed to be on GeoCities and I don't think that this can be underestimated," says Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda, founder of Slashdot. "GeoCities made it possible for anyone to put something online for nothing. This was a huge deal."

3. Blogger

GeoCities made it easy for anyone to build their own site, but in August 1999, Blogger made it even easier. Now anyone could post a diary of what they had for dinner or why they hated their parents. Acquired by Google in 2003, Blogger continues to enable everyone to document their lives without needing to get their hands dirty with HTML. As does WordPress, TypePad, Tumblr and a million other services that have since appeared. GeoCities was purchased by Yahoo! in 1999 and lives on as Yahoo! GeoCities, though we've never heard anyone say "Check out my Yahoo! GeoCities page."

4. Yahoo!

One thing that Yahoo! will be remembered for, though, is its search directory, without which most of us would never have found GeoCities in the first place. Founded by Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994, Yahoo! was a manually compiled directory of sites. "Remember when you bookmarked Yahoo! indexes because they were actually comprehensive sources on a subject?" says Rob Malda. "Good times."

But those good times weren't to last. Computer-compiled search listings from AltaVista and, later, Google, were to rise in popularity, leaving Yahoo! behind, perhaps distracted with building its community features such as chat rooms, email and message boards. "They were an early leader but went down a path of being more marketing- oriented than technology-oriented," says Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. "I hope they recapture the idea of pushing the forefront of technology."

5. The internet-connected coffee machine

When you're chatting with friends on your webcam, who'd have thought you owe all that to a coffee pot? The internet-connected coffee machine from Cambridge University went online in November 1993, so university staff could check on whether there was coffee in the pot before walking down several flights of stairs.

A year later, student Jennifer Ringley installed a webcam in her dorm, giving viewers a regularly updated window into her life on the JenniCam. Usually mundane, but not shying away from appearing nude or having sex, Ringley attracted an estimated three to four million viewers, some of whom were paid subscribers. But on 31 December 2003 Ringley shut her site down to lead a quieter life, out of the public eye.

Cambridge University's coffee machine is also living a more private life these days, but you can read more on its history at www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html.

6. Danni's Hard Drive

So the early 90s were an innocent time, but that all changed when, in the spring of 1995, model Danni Ashe created Danni's Hard Drive. Ashe started out in newsgroups after hearing her pictures were being posted there and soon after that she hired some programmers to build her site.

Not satisfied with the result, Ashe studied HTML and built her own site, which she ran single-handedly for over a year before bringing in extra staff. Ashe went on to become the Guinness World Record holder of the title 'Most downloaded woman on the Internet', in December 2000, when it was confirmed that her image had been downloaded over a billion times.

7. MP3.com

It wasn't just photos that we'd be downloading, though. In 1998, along came MP3.com, without which there would have been no Napster, and no iTunes. MP3.com was to popularise the MP3 format of digital music, offering downloads of unsigned bands, which people would have downloaded and transferred to their iPods, had the iPod actually been around at the time.

"I remember downloading my first few MP3s from MP3.com while ripping my own CDs. It took something like eight hours to rip and encode a single CD," says Slashdot's Rob Malda. "A year or two later, tiny devices like the Rio paved the way for the iPod. I can't tell you how powerful it felt to browse what felt like an infinite number of songs."

8. eBay

In September 1995, programmer Pierre Omidyar founded AuctionWeb, later renamed eBay. It's been responsible for turning stay-at-home mums into successful businesswoman, and lists Damon Albarn, Gordon Ramsay and Meg Matthews among its sellers. It's also known for a decommissioned nuclear bunker and the image of the Virgin Mary in a decade-old toasted cheese sandwich.

Brian Groth, product manager for Windows Live at Microsoft is a fan: "Not many sites can claim to have created and ridden their own zeitgeist, but eBay did – and it still is! Its simplicity is its genius and the feedback system is a shining example of how seamlessly self-regulating internet communities can work. A further testament to its success is that it's the only website on this list that's created a viable new career choice – the professional eBay trader." eBay was ahead of its time, adds Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales. "It really was Web 2.0 before Web 2.0 was cool. eBay is all about having ordinary people contributing the vast majority of what's going on at the website."

9. Amazon

Another company that was Web 2.0 before the term was coined is Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Bezos had originally planned to call the site Cadabra, until in a moment of clarity he realised it sounded uncannily close to 'cadaver'. And so Amazon was born, initially offering books but now selling everything from watches to lawnmowers. Not only did it popularise online shopping but its focus on user reviews paved the way for sites such as TripAdvisor and Epinions.

Match.com's Jason Stockwood says of Amazon: "Many people had huge reservations about using the internet, and even more about ecommerce. Amazon led the charge, and continues to play a crucial role in encouraging a wider demographic to feel comfortable surfing."

10. Boo.com

Not every site was as successful. Boo.com was set up at the end of 1999 selling branded fashion clothes, but went into receivership just six months later, after burning through more than £100 million. The site was big on Flash, with its 3D views of clothes and virtual shop assistant Miss Boo. 56k modems weren't ready for it and shoppers stayed away in their droves. But perhaps Boo was just before its time: does a 3D view of the product you're browsing really sound so ridiculous now?

11. Wikipedia

If Amazon championed user reviews, Wikipedia was to take user-generated content to another level, with an online encyclopedia anyone could edit. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but where errors or downright lies appear, they're quick to be corrected by the site's users. "Yes, the information is imperfect," says Jason Stockwood, "but the rigidly democratic nature of the site means that Wikipedia is a true embodiment of what the internet revolution originally promised."

12. Slashdot

If you'd rather comment than review, then you owe a debt to Slashdot, a site where people submit news stories for discussion. Created in September 1997 by Rob Malder, it continues to be a must-read destination for anyone interested in technology. Drew Curtis followed up with FARK.com, and Kevin Rose with digg.com. Commenting on stories has become so widespread that it now seems odd to arrive at a site where there are no comments.

13. The Drudge Report

It's hard to believe now, but it used to be that the mainstream media was where you went for serious, trusted news and the web didn't get a look in. But on 17 January 1998 The Drudge Report was to change that, when it broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the public after Newsweek decided not to publish the story.

Reporting on the event on 25 January 1998, BBC News said, in what sounds obvious and naive all these years later, "In the future, academics, politicians and journalists aren't likely to dismiss the internet so quickly."

Now news is regularly broken by specialist blogs before you read about it in the morning paper. That's assuming you even buy a morning paper any more.

14. YouTube

And where do you watch your TV? Started in a garage by three former PayPal employees, one site went on to shake up the TV industry, and was acquired by Google for $1.6 billion. All that for a company that's less than four years old. You've probably heard of it: it's called YouTube.

"You used to find a text search result for every keyword you could think of," says Torsten Schuppe, marketing director at eBay. "Now you find a video for every keyword you can think of! I've been told people upload 10 hours of video content every minute – that's huge!"

15. Gabocorp

Until Flash came along in 1996, the web was much like Ceefax, with a few animated GIFs and PC-crashing Java applets thrown in. But the arrival of Flash was to herald a new era in web design. The sign of things to come appeared in 1997 in the form of Gabocorp (archived at thefwa.com/flash10/gabo. html). Suddenly the web was no longer static.

"This was the equivalent of TV going colour," says Rob Ford, founder and principal of Favourite Website Awards. "Gabocorp made us realise we could now make things move, add sound and generally be far more creative than the days of blue hypertext links that turned purple on-click. Animated GIFs took a body blow while lake applets took the knockout punch. Gabo Medoza, for me, is a true web pioneer: we all owe his creativity and vision for where we are today."

16. Legal & General

On the accessibility front, an encouraging early example of accessible web design produced by a commercial company was that of Legal & General.

Julie Howell, director of accessibility at digital agency Fortune Cookie explains: "Legal & General were concerned that their website was needlessly excluding disabled people, so undertook a site refresh that took into account the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0). While the company's main intention was to make the site easier for disabled people to use, the business returns were quite astonishing and proved that accessible design can be good for everyone: conversion increased by 300 per cent, maintenance costs reduced by 66 per cent, natural search listings improved by 50 per cent and page load time reduced by 75 per cent. If Legal & General can do this, what excuse do other companies have for not doing it?"

17. Hotmail

Free email for all, accessible anywhere – that was the promise of Hotmail. Founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, it was launched in 1996 and sold to Microsoft in 1997 for around $400 million.

18. Classmates.com

Hotmail helped us keep in touch with people we knew, but Classmates.com, launched in 1995, helped us get back in touch with people we hated at school and never kept in contact with. Four years later, the UK followed suit with Friends Reunited, which made the mistake of charging a fee to get in touch with old school pals. Then Facebook stepped in, offering the same service for free – and now we can all see that the person we fancied at school isn't quite so hot any more.

19. Match.com

Having exhausted old school friends for potential mates, where to turn? Match.com opened the entire internet community up for grabs. Going live in 1995, it was the first popular online dating site, and is also notable for being one of the first sites to persuade internet users to part with their cash for a subscription. Today, online dating is rapidly becoming the new, natural way to meet and (hopefully) fall in love.

20. HotWired

And finally, if you haven't fallen in love, how about something to hate? In 1994, web magazine HotWired pioneered banner ads. Bastards.

LG 32PG6000

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:18:00 GMT

LG's 32PG6000 plasma is merely HD Ready – not Full HD – but almost everything else about it is spot on.

Its 1024 x 720 resolution panel is graced by a gorgeous design; hardly frameless, as LG claims, but featuring a single pane of glass that covers the entire front of the TV.

So clutter-free and quiet is the design that I'm not sure why other brands haven't followed suite. Then again, not many others put four v1.3 HDMI inputs on a 32in telly, either.

Clean pictures

Other connectivity includes RS-232C and USB 2.0 ports, the latter dealing in either MP3 or JPEG ﬁles.

Despite its lack of 1080 lines, the 32PG6000 produces a ﬁnely detailed and judder-free picture from Blu-ray. Its Dual XD Engine helps create colours that are well saturated, and while it doesn't deliver the deepest blacks I've seen on a plasma, it does a better job than any existing LCD TV this size.

Ditto fast-moving pictures, which look fluid and free from blur. Sound, too, is meatier than most, though its SRS TruSurround XT mode does nothing of the sort.

Jagged images

The 32PG6000 does, however, have two significant problems. Static graphics displayed for more than a few minutes imprint onto the panel for a short period. This minor screenburn won't trouble casual users, but gamers and BBC News 24 addicts should steer clear.

Its other letdown is jagged edges. Anything containing diagonal lines can suffer from a 'stepped' look, as well as a loss of resolution as the camera pans across. Freeview pictures, however, are smooth and clean.

The lack of a Full HD resolution will give the LG 32PG6000 a limited appeal to purists. But it offers tremendous value, and could save many from having to sit in front of blurry TVs.

OLED production begins in China

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:17:00 GMT

Tsinghua University in China and Visionox, a display manufacturer, have teamed up to open China's first OLED production line.

Building the line began in 2005, when the future for OLED technology looked less uncertain, especially with some Asian companies involved in its development folding.

But thanks to a recent upturn in interest for the technology, the new line will help boost the country's display output.

Smaller screens

Although the line will only be focusing on smaller screens, for devices like mobile phones and GPS systems, it signals another move for the country into next-gen technology, after the RMB 500 million (£46m) investment in the line.

This is the first of multiple lines from Visionox, which was partly set up by Tsinghua University. The next OLED line will be coming in 2009, when other companies should have entered OLED production on the region.

Universal Display Technology also bought OLED production equipment last year, and will also begin producing screens likely next year.

Exclusive: Microsoft wants Surface in UK by end '08

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:53:00 GMT

Microsoft is hoping to bring its exciting Surface technology to the UK within 2008 – confirming to TechRadar that the device is going through governmental red tape at the moment.

Surface has garnered huge publicity since it was launched by Microsoft – bringing table-top multi-touch and shape recognition.

TechRadar has already had a hands on with Surface – which has launched in the US – but we got another look at the Future of Web Applications conference in London and managed to glean some UK information.

Coming soon

"I can't give you an exact date but it will be fairly soon," said Microsoft's Dave Brown – who has the brilliant job title of architecture evangelist.

"I hope it will be this year but I'm not entirely sure. It's going through the relevant bodies for emissions testing and electrical safety and all that sort of stuff but it will be launching soon.

In the UK already

"We've got partners in UK building apps for this with a view to launch as soon as it is available.

"There are devices in UK that our partners have so they can build apps and obviously get the proof of concept stuff ready for launch.

"So you will see apps ready when it does launch but you won't see any in a live environment yet."

UK price?

The Surface technology is very much pitched at businesses in the short term – with a hefty price tag ensuring that the average Joe will not be rushing to his nearest Comet to pick one up.

"They've gone into mass production," added Brown. The cost in the US is $15,000 but obviously what that will translate to in pounds I don't know. Probably a lot at this rate!

"I'm sure price will come down eventually as production costs come down as more people buy them. With all of these things it's higher price when it first appears."