Developages - Development and Technology Blog

There’s a bit of a feeding frenzy going on in the mobile broadband sector right now with both Virgin Mobile and ̘ pushing cheaper offerings to get you online, on the go. Virgin Mobile has slashed the cost of its mobile offerings by offering ‘unlimited’ broadband from 30p a day, claiming it’s “up to 3 times cheaper than most other networks”. Starting from Dec 8th, it certainly is cheap, bringing the cost of a week’s surfing to just over £2 and £9.30 for a month. There are cheaper packages if you are willing to tie into a long contract. Be aware though that the *unlimited* bit has a fair usage policy of just 25MB a day so don’t even bother trying for big downloads or you’ll be broke before the New Year with additional ‘per MB data′ charges.̘ has launched its new pay-as-you-go Mobile Broadband Pay & Go, throwing in its USB modem for £30. This service will better suit those with bigger download appetites but who don’t really want to be tied into lengthy 12-18 month contracts. The packages start at £2 per day for 500MB and go up to £15 per month for 3GB. The company partners with The Cloud so subscribers get free Wi-Fi access at more than 6,000 hotspots around the UK.-Martin Lynch broadband mobile phone

Original post by nafiz

You might hear a lot about super-fast broadband coming online in the UK but for the average consumer, the broadband experience is less than advertised. The latest report from the Office Of National Statistics (ONS) reveals that 42.3% of all broadband connections are still slower than 2Mbps. This figure is in stark contrast to the figure from market regulator Ofcom last year that claimed “the average headline speed has doubled in a year to reach 4.6Mb/sec”. The fact that the ONS figures are based on headline speed and not the actual throughput speeds means that the percentage of folk slumming it in the sub-2Mbps Slow Lane could be higher. Jump now to see a chart outlining what kind of broadband UK consumers are getting - and how speeds are increasing very slowly indeed. There has been some improvements, according to the ONS, with higher speed connections on the rise. In September, 57.7% of broadband connections had a speed of over 2Mbps, up from 55.8% in June. Are you getting what you paid for?-Martin Lynch [PC Pro & ONS] broadband online internet

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Whether its shopping for bargains, downloading music, ogling babes, Facebooking or gaming like a obsessive compulsive, UK surfers are more addicted to the Net than anyone else in Europe. Brits spend an average of 839 minutes each week online - almost 14 hours - compared to 794 minutes for the French, with the German’s a long way back in third with 573 minutes. Only the US has a higher weekly online presence with 913 minutes. The figures form a small part of Ofcom’s latest communications report. Within the online surfing stats, Brits are also among the most social, with half of UK surfers using sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo - up 11% on last year. Uploading photos onto the Net is the most popular networking activity, with 43% of surfers doing it. And don’t even get us started on how Brits are addicted to texting - if you want to see how you stack up to the rest of Europe [and others], jump now. Minutes per week spent online: UK - 839 France - 794 Germany - 573 Italy - 523 USA - 913 Spain - 449 Percentage of social networkers: UK - 50 France - 27 Germany - 34 Italy - 32 USA - 40 Canada - 55 Japan - 33 Text Messages sent per person per month UK - 81 France - 25 Germany - 23 USA - 107 Canada - 26 Poland - 108 Spain - 24 Netherlands - 31 Sweden - 45 Ireland - 154 Even at 81 texts per month though, the Irish text more than anyone else with a whopping 154 per month. Factors explaining UK online fever can be attributed in part to cheaper broadband and higher penetration rates (60%) compared to the other 12 industrialised nations in the report.-Martin Lynch [Telegraph] internet UK news

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I’m not sure if you’ve ever nurtured an inner hippie, or Zelda, urge to play an Ocarina but iPhone owners can get their musical kicks now thanks to a new app. The unsurprisingly named Ocarina app actually turns the iPhone into a full-blown wind instrument since you have to blow to get it working. Place your fingers over the four virtual holes on the iPhone screen and then blow gently into the microphone hole to create incredibly realistic ocarina notes. Also, the notes, which can be altered with tilting the device, are not pre-generated but created by the software on the fly so it can sound subtly different all of the time. Above, you can see a pretty solo performance and, if your hippie ass hasn′t been kicked around the tube station by roaming neanderthal Chavs, you can get together with other iPhone Ocarina dudes to play some very cool Led Zeppelin, like in the video below. Sweet.-Martin Lynch [Source] iphone music

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Everyone likes their tunes but it’s fair to say that not even your favourite Tom Jones’ track is worth dying for. A study presented in the US to the American Heart Foundation has stated that the little earphones commonly bundled with MP3 players can cause interference with pacemakers and defibrillators. Earlier this year Apple’s iPod was cleared of being a danger to those with pacemakers but it seems that audio tech is back in the firing line - and that includes the earbuds distributed with the iPod too. It’s the strong little magnets inside the earphones that are causing concern. Around 25% of 60 patients in the test found that the earphones, when placed within 1.2ins of the pacemakers or defibrillators, interfered with their normal working to a noticeable degree. The incidents were twice as high with defibrillators. So, if you have a dodgy ticker with some internal tech hooked up, just keep the buds away from your chest.-Martin Lynch [Source] music health ipod

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Edifier has recently released a particularly sleek looking 2.1 portable speaker system in the MP300 Plus. It comprises of an aluminium tube 9W subwoofer and two full-range satellites which are magnetically shielded so you don’t need to worry about where to put them. Edifier has won design &amp engineering awards in the past for its audio products and its team is led by an ex researcher for the BBC’s loudspeaker department, so you can be sure they’ll be of good quality Designed for use with a notebook, MP3 player and digital telephony systems, they should certainly offer an impressive alternative to internal speakers, though you won’t find a remote control supplied so will have to operate power and volume from controls on one of the terminals. It is available pretty cheaply though, £49.95 from John Lewis to be exact, you’ll find a link below along with more information from the official site.- Paul Lester [JohnLewis] [Edifier] Edifier speakers 2.1

Original post by nafiz

Hands up if you’re tired of Sony launching new disc formats [I’m typing one-handed here]? OK, Blu-ray may have won the day but what about the PSP’s UMD movie format, MiniDisc (MD) or SACD? Today, the company is announcing ‘Blu-spec CD’ and yes, you guessed it, Sony has figured out a way of bring some of that Blu-ray magic to music CDs. It also allows it to name something else with the heading ‘Blu’.Right now all we have is a dodgy Google-translated Japanese-to-English release to go on but it seems that Blu-spec CDs will have far better sound than typical CDs and, despite the fact that Blu-ray discs require devices with blue lasers to read them, the new CDs will be compatible with CD players that use red lasers. Just don’t ask how. The company is launching 60 ‘classic’ CDs in the Blu-spec CD format for Christmas including Mile Davis’ A Kind Of Blue, The Byrd’s Mr Tambourine Man and ELO’s Discovery. And they won’t be cheap either - surprise, surprise - with prices ranging from £19 to £26 - and that’s before they get the usual UK price bump.-Martin Lynch CD music blu-ray

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Of the seemingly endless supply of iPod Docks on the market, a large proportion of them are cheap, tacky-looking, poor quality or a combination of the three. Not so in the case of Revo’s new Blok, which holds distinct aesthetic charm with its hand crafted wooden cabinet carved from natural materials, something which it claims is a contributing factor towards the excellent sound. Audio is apparently of a ‘hi-fi’ standard with 2⻴W of output from the twin full-range speakers capable of a frequency response of 55Hz to 20kHz. There are a full range of iPod adaptors available for the perfect fit and a particularly snazzy remote control which it calls the ‘Kontrol’. Yep, see what you did there. Still, we think it looks great in either of the American Walnut or Black Oak colour options and though it’s fairly pricey at £200, this is an occasion where it certainly looks like you’re paying for quality. - Paul Lester [Revo] Revo iPod speaker

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PURE has launched a new flagship DAB/FM radio, the Evoke-2S, to replace its award-winning Evoke-2XT model. The new model has had some nice cosmetic tweaks but now adds Clearsound Technology, the company’s own digital end-to-end audio subsystem. This uses an integrated high-performance switch-mode power supply, Class D amplifiers, digital audio shaping technology and custom-tuned speakers. Expect much improved dynamic audio and with 30W RMS power, the Evoke-2S should be able to rock out while retaining its green, low power consumption ratio.The 2S includes ReVu to pause and rewind live DAB radio, Intellitext and textSCAN, improved alarms and sleep timer functions and more presets. The OLED display is bright and viewable from any angle, and sports both manual and automatic brightness controls. There’s also an input for an iPod/ MP3 player and it can be upgraded via USB. You can run the 2S off the mains or use the optional ChargePAK rechargeable battery which offers up to a week [or 20.5 hours] listening. Shipping next month, it will cost £170.-Martin Lynch [PURE] radio DAB news

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I have problems parting with anything over £30 for a Bluetooth headset, never mind £50,000. Plantronics though has created this one-off, a blinged up Discovery 925 headset called ‘Jewel’. Made from 18k gold and festooned with diamonds and pearls, it was created by designer Phoebe Coleman who was, in turn, inspired by vintage lace. There are 40 diamonds in all along with 31 natural pearls, making this just about as much ear candy as any ear deserves. It was showcased to well-heeled celebrities at the recent MOBO Awards because maybe someone there can afford it and will not be embarrassed to wear it in public. With bodyguards.-Martin Lynch [Source] audio phone gold

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If you don′t use your mobile for listening to to your music but still want to be able to take calls when you’re rocking out on your MP3 player, then check out the Philips GoGear Luxe. The Luxe MP3 player comes with in-built Bluetooth and dual mics, which means that you can also use it like a mobile headset. Just pair it with your phone and, even though Metallica are doing their best to make your ears bleed, any calls you receive on your phone will mute the tunes while you take the call. The little LCD display will even throw up the caller’s number so you can decide whether you want to chat to them or let Metallic thrash on with the ear-bleeding. The 2GB player [a bit weeny, I know] is styled like some precious stone, or some ‘out-there’ 1970s living room, and it also sports an FM radio, 10-hour playback time and a claimed 100-hours of standby, It is shipping in Singapore first and comes in silver or red for around £50.-Martin Lynch [Source] music mѣ mobile phone

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Last week we had a lot of politically correct oddness going on and it looks like Apple is planning to give us all another dose. iTunes UK has started censoring song titles so that supposedly offensive words like ‘pussy’, now appear as p***y, making innocent tunes like Richard Price’s The Owl & The P***y Cat sound very devious indeed. You′ll also get no joy if your song title contains the words whore, snatch, s**t and f**k. But, bizarrely you′re good to go if the song has the words beaver, f***ing and f***ed. We’re not sure exactly what Apple’s intentions are here and maybe this is all some terrible f***ing mistake but if people are allowed to buy and listen to these songs from iTunes, what exact harm is there in reading the title? Hell, even Dick Van Dyke [above] gets a few *** in his surname. Check out the silliness yourselves and feel free to report on some of the stupider censored tune titles. -Martin Lynch [Thanks to Giz US for the great pic] music itunes censorship

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HMV has been in the news a lot recently, rolling out gaming centres and offering second hand games for sale in its stores . It now wants a piece of the music pie and seems particularly keen on getting people up off their arse and into a shop. Plans for a ‘next-generation’ store, which will open at the Westfield Shopping Centre in White City, London on October 30th, focus on offering an online and gaming experience to customers through interactive digital kiosks.People will be able to preview, purchase and download MP3 files which can be stored on USB sticks or memory cards from here, and it’s also planning to offer ‘interactive games hubs′ where customers can sit around on comfy chairs playing the latest console titles. It’s an interesting idea but we think the size of an audience who A) Don’t have access to a gaming console at home or a friend’s and B) don’t have access to the internet at home or a friend’s would be pretty small these days. Can’t blame it for trying though, and hey, perhaps it’ll price digital downloads cheaply enough to make it worth your while venturing in. - Paul Lester [Billboard] HMV gaming music

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There are quite a few ways to enjoy digital media files on your television that don’t involve waiting for companies to build support straight into the set. If you’re looking for a dedicated solution you’re left to choose between a media streamer or media jukebox and if you don’t want to leave your computer on all the time are best off going for the latter. Most of the ones we’ve seen so far have been a little uninspiring but Lacie’s new ruggedised device at least looks pretty snazzy. It’s called LaCinema and is basically a hard drive housed in a case that offers an HDMI output to connect it to your HDTV and can also upscale content 1080i. There’s a decent, though not exceptional, range of format support that includes AVI, XviD and the ability to rip DVDs directly, along with the ability to play back photos and audio. To complement the beefy design it includes internal anti-shock absorbers and rubber ‘bumpers’ so you can kick it around a bit without affecting playback. The LaCinema is available now in three sizes from 250GB to 500GB but annoyingly Lacie has done what most other companies do and placed an unreasonable premium on higher capacities. The 250GB costs £139 but the 500GB will set you back £219. Since when did 250GB of extra hard drive cost £80? - Paul Lester [Lacie] Lacie digital media HDTV

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Can’t decide whether you’re a bit of an angel or an evil little devil? Then maybe the funky Angel & Devil earphones from Greenhouse can help with your dilemma by placing one of each at your disposal. The earphones sport different colours, while one has a little halo and the other sports some little horns. They are certainly a bit different from your regular bland black fare and a clever updating of the old images of a little devil or angel perched on someone’s shoulder whispering helpful advice or cajoling you into some devilment. The earphones have a frequency response of 20Hz - 20kHz, impedance of 16? and output of 5Mw. They’ll be available in 5 colours and are coming out in Japan first [Grrr] next month for around £6.-Martin Lynch [Newlaunches] music earphones gadgets

Original post by nafiz