DigitalOutbox Episode 111
In this episode the team discuss Encyclopedia Britannica, BBC, Yahoo Sues Facebook and homeless wi-fi transmitters
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1:29 - BBC Boss confirms Pay Download Service
- BBC director general Mark Thompson has confirmed plans for aniTunes-style download service that will allow viewers to buy programmes minutes after they have finished on TV.
- Thompson said the proposal, called Project Barcelona, would allow viewers to "purchase a digital copy of a programme to own and keep [for] a relatively modest charge".
- Thompson was not specific about the timescale or pricing, but sources said it was hoped that programmes would be available to buy at the same time as they go on the iPlayer. Early speculation put the price at £1.89 a show.
- Anticipating criticism that viewers were being made to pay twice for the same content, Thompson said: "This is not a second licence-fee by stealth or any reduction in the current public service offering from the BBC – it's the exact analogy of going into a high-street shop to buy a DVD or, before that, a VHS cassette.
3:47 - DrawSomething is a hit
- In just five weeks, the pictionary-like game has been downloaded 20 million times.
- That's more users than 3-year-old Foursquare has. That's almost as many users as 1.5-year-old Instagram.
- Draw Something is one of the fastest growing mobile apps of all time.
- CEO Dan Porter tells us the game is generating 6-figures per day. His company has generated more revenue from the game in five weeks than the entire company generated last year. He hasn't spent a dime on marketing since the app's first week.
- Of the 20 million downloads, Porter says 12 million are active users.
5:46 - Game warns investors
- officially warned investors that it is on the brink of collapse.
- The company said it had put itself up for sale but warned that "it is uncertain whether any of the solutions currently being explored by the board will be successful or will result in any value being attributed to the shares of the company."
- Game desperately needs cash before the end of the month to pay its quarterly rent bill. If it fails to pay up it could be pushed into administration, putting 10,000 jobs at risk and wiping out any shareholder value. The warning sent the shares, which have already lost more than 95% of their value over the past year, crashing a further 65% to 1.2p, valuing the company at just £4.3m.
- At a conference in New York this weekend John Riccitiello, EA's chief executive, said: "It was a risk a month ago. Now it looks like a fact, although we're still praying for the lenders to get rational and keep them in business. You probably know who I'm talking about."
- Diablo III Finally Dated
- http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/15/diablo-3-emerges-from-hell-may-15/
- Diable III launches May 15th - PC & Mac
- Blizzard also took a moment to remind everyone that you can still snag a free copy of Diablo 3 by signing up for a World of Warcraft annual pass. The deal expires on May 1.
- Diablo II came out in.....2000!
9:38 - Everything Everywhere should be allowed to offer 4G
- The UK's largest mobile phone company, Everything Everywhere, should be allowed to offer its 27 million customers a 4G superfast broadband connection this year, Ofcom said on Monday.
- The telecoms watchdog said it was inclined to approve an application from EE, which owns the Orange and T-Mobile networks, to launch a 4G network ahead of its rivals.
- "Ofcom has considered whether allowing Everything Everywhere to use this spectrum in this way would distort competition, and provisionally concluded that it would not. And given the benefits this would bring to consumers, Ofcom is minded to allow this change of use."
- There will be a consultation, which closes on 17 April. Ofcom could grant approval during the second quarter, allowing EE to have its 4G service running by autumn. The company has not said where it intends to make 4G available, although it will be trialling the technology and is likely to target major cities including London.
- This will give EE a significant first-mover advantage over rivals. The UK's other operators, Vodafone, O2 and Three, are unlikely to be able to create their own 4G networks until they buy more spectrum from the government, and the auction is not due to conclude before the summer of 2013.
11:16 - Virgin Media chosen to bring wi-fi to London Underground
- Virgin Media has been selected to deliver Wi-Fi to 80 tube stations on the London Underground in time for the Olympics, with 120 locations to be live by the end of the year
- Free during Olympics
- Pay as you go post Olympics
12:30 - Yahoo sues Facebook
- Yahoo is filing a lawsuit against Facebook claiming infringement of patents covering advertising, privacy controls and social networking, following through on a threat it made last month.
- In a court filing , the former web giant - which has been reduced to a shadow of its former self as internal strife and the rise of
DigitalOutbox Episode 164
DigitalOutbox Episode 164 - Google I/O
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Shownotes
1:45 - Google I/O
- Just one keynote this year....that lasted for 3 ½ hours
- Notable absence - no new hardware. Unlike previous years there were no hardware announcement, but all attendees did get a Chromebook Pixel. There was however plenty of new software and services (but nothing on Google TV and no new version of Android). Key announcements...
- Google: 900 million Android activations to date, 48 billion app downloads
- Google announces Play game services, Android's cross-platform answer to Game Center
- The platform will support cloud saves, thereby allowing users to save their progress or game state and pick it up on a separate device, as well as achievements and leaderboards using Google+.
- API will enable both turn-based and real-time multiplayer
- Google Play game services will be supported for titles on Android, iOS and the Web - truly cross platform
- Google Play services updated with new location, Google+ sign-in, and cloud messaging APIs
- 3 new location API’s including Geofencing and Activity Recognition API that will help users track their physical activity
- Android Studio
- It’s an IDE based on IntelliJ.
- This tool has more options for Android Development, making the process faster and more productive. A “live layout” was shown that renders your app as you’re editing in realtime.
- Tools to support beta testing and language translations
- Google takes on Spotify with Google Play Music All Access subscription service
- web and mobile interfaces feature millions of songs you can play instantly, recommendations, charts and playlists, and instant radio stations. The Spotify competitor launches today in the US for $9.99 a month, comes with a free trial month, and sign-ups before June 30th get it for $7.99.
- Everything from your Google Music locker is automatically pulled into Google Play Music All Access. Beneath the content you own, everything else an artist has ao All Access is automatically listed and plays at a tap. More countries will get Google Play Music All Access soon.
- Google redesigning Play apps and Play Store on the web
- Google turns the Samsung Galaxy S4 into a Nexus phone, coming June 26th for $649
- Unlocked
- Vanilla Android - no Samsung crapware added
- Should get quick updates of new Android releases
- Google takes on Apple in schools with Google Play for Education
- Play store for education - currently trialling now
- Google+ completely redesigned with new cards-based interface
- 41 new features
- Multi column stream (Like Facebook or Pinterest)
- Auto tag posts
- New features for hangouts and photos
- Photos
- automatically enhance the tonal distribution in an image, soften skin, sharpen certain parts of an image and remove noise – and all of those computations happen in the cloud.
- system can now analyze your images and kick out blurry photos, duplicates, images with bad exposure (which it will try to fix). It can also recognize good images with certain landmarks, for example, and detect faces and see if people are smiling and/or of those people are in your Google+ circles. It will also try to make some decision based on aesthetics. What used to take hours of work, Gundotra said, now happens automatically in the cloud and take seconds.
- Now that Google offers everybody 15GB of free storage, users an also upload 15GB worth of full-size images to Google+ Photos. In addition, the autobackup feature provides unlimited storage space for photos at sized under 2048px.
- “Awesome” – can automatically detect when an image is part of a series and stitch it together in one image or an animated GIF. “If we detect that you took a series of photos, in burst mode or otherwise, we can stitch them together,” Gundotra told us. To recognize these images, the system does a bit of analysis to make sure the background hasn’t moved.
- This is about more than animated GIFs, though. This new feature – which Google calls “auto awesome” – can also automatically create a group photo from a series of photos and pick the one where everybody is smiling. It can stitch together landscape photos to create panoramas and create HDR images from a series of photos where it detects bracketed exposures. All of this happens extremely fast, too, thanks to the power of Google’s data centers.
- Google unveils Hangouts: a unified messaging system for Android, iOS, and Chrome
- replaces the numerous Google services that currently help you have real-time conversations with other users, such as Google Talk, Google Voice and Google+ Hangouts.
- It will launch on most major platforms later today, including iOS, Android and the Web. (iOS works well, Android - doesn’t support Nexus 7)
- Conversations can either be one-on-one or in larger groups; the new Hangouts app can do both.
- As with many other apps, such as WhatsApp or even iMessage, conversations support multimedia content, including high-resolution photographs.
- Video chats as well
- Text, emoji, photos, video, see who’s typing, read receipts
- The service’s Google+ integration is one of the best features in the entire product: every photo that you or a friend posts is automatically saved in a private, shared album on Google+.
- One flaw - doesn’t bring in SMS, so not fully unified - Google confirm that SMS is coming soon
- Google adds button-free voice search in Chrome: just say 'OK Google'
- You should, according to Google, be able to ask it when your upcoming flight is, and where your package might be in transit.
- Search ge
DigitalOutbox Episode 163
DigitalOutbox Episode 163 - Adobe MAX and Windows Blue
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Shownotes
1:17 - Windows Blue
3:33 - Microsofts Gates iPad Users Really Just Want a Surface
8:22 - Google's decision to recognize Palestine could undermine peace efforts, Israel says
10:47 - Flipboard Brings Personalized Magazines To Android
14:18 - Adobe MAX
21:45 - Project Mighty smart stylus and Napoleon ruler
25:20 - BT offers free Premier League football in BSkyB battle
27:50 - EA confirms 10 percent of staff laid off in major restructuring
29:38 - 100 websites Capturing the digital universe
Picks
Ian
OneTab
- Whenever you find yourself with too many tabs, click the OneTab icon to convert all of your tabs into a list. When you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once.
- When your tabs are in the OneTab list, you will save up to 95% of memory because you will have reduced the number of tabs open in Google Chrome.
Chris
GeoGuessr
- Random streetview, guess the location, answer shown and points awarded
- Easy but fun....and smart
DigitalOutbox Episode 162
DigitalOutbox Episode 162 - Google Now hits iOS and shady Path
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Shownotes
3:05 - Google Now comes to iOS
6:48 - Monotype deal helps Google's fonts escape the Web
8:52 - Google adds remote desktop to Hangouts, lets users simultaneously video chat and troubleshoot
10:28 - Microsoft launch Skype for Outlook.com
12:09 - Digg Owner Betaworks Buys Instapaper To Go Big On Social Reading And Discovery
16:11 - Path texts user's entire address book at 6am
20:17 - BlackBerry Q10 is fastest-selling ever at Selfridges as corporates snap it up
23:18 - Games Company Releases Version For Pirates That Forces Them To Fail Constantly, Irony Lost On Pirates
DigitalOutbox Episode 161
DigitalOutbox Episode 161 - Apple Doomed, Twitter Hacks and Long Live Clegg.
Playback
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Shownotes
1:38 - Microsoft introduces two step authentication for its user accounts
2:42 - Dow drops 100 points over a tweet
5:44 - Apple is doomed
10:15 - The Bearer of BadNews
12:46 - Google offers clearer search labels after EU probe
15:57 - Nick Clegg kills off Tory hopes of swift deal on revised 'snooper's charter'
18:10 - Virgin adds 21 new channels to its TV Anywhere service, confirms an Android app for later this year
19:14 - First UK 4G service EE reaches 318,000 LTE customers 5 months after launch
20:26 - Samsung S4 Reviews
22:51 - Nintendo posts annual loss of $366m for 2012, as its 3.45m Wii U sales fall short of 4m target
24:23 - Microsoft to unveil next Xbox at event on May 21st at its Redmond campus
26:51 - Apple auction the most exclusive cup of coffee
Picks
Ian
iPlayer Radio for Android
- Great Android app - not just an iOS port
- All the BBC radio stations and all the BBC podcasts too and on-demand content from the last 7 days
- Marks tracks as favourites as you listen, share them too
- Links to Radioplayer app so you can listen to the BBC’s competition. How civil.
DigitalOutbox Episode 160
DigitalOutbox Episode 160 - Twitter music, Google Glass and 5 Picks. 5!!!!
Playback
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Shownotes
1:48 - Twitter Music
6:16 - Google Glass No advertising allowed, developers told
12:27 - Leap Motion Controller Tech To Be Embedded In, And Bundled With, Future HP Devices
15:43 - O2 Refresh
19:43 - Wordpress website targeted by hackers
22:39 - Guardian launches platform for user-generated content
27:07 - Ev Williams acquires long-form journalism project Matter
30:26 - LinkedIn buys Pulse
33:26 - Gov.uk wins Design of the Year award
Picks
Chris
PointerPointer
- Just try it
Google Remote Desktop
- Why have I not heard about this yet!!
- Brilliant in browser VNC type solution for any computer you set up through Chrome App Store and your Google ID.
Ian
Instashare
- Airdrop for iOS
- Run client on Mac, run app on iOS device
- Easily share files - it just works
- Free, IAP for £0.69p to remove adverts
Macheist
- Macheist Bundle
- 8 apps for $10
- xScope, Clarify, Path Finder, Fantastical + Totals, iStopMotion, Clean My Mac, Little Inferno
- Bargain
Yahoo Weather
- iOS
- Free
- A really slick free weather client, which integrates with Flickr
- Finally making use of Flickr elsewhere in Yahoo software
- App animations are sweet too
