Technology News

By Dave Wilby

Vista under fire from all angles

It's been a tough week for Microsoft's Windows Vista team, fending off accusations and criticisms from every area of the industry. First up was research firm Gartner Group, which claimed that Vista might now be delayed further, until at least the second quarter of 2007. "Microsoft's track record is clear," one analyst told ZDNet. "It consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least the second quarter of 2007, nine to 12 months after Beta 2." Microsoft of course responded saying that everything was on track for Q1. Next came accusations from Google over the anti-competitive nature of IE7, the browser that will be bundled with Vista on launch. Google has now complained to both the European Commission and the US Justice Department claiming IE7 unfairly funnels users to Microsoft's MSN search engine.

And lastly in a busy week which also saw Microsoft finish its lengthy anti-trust case with the EU, Apple has begun cashing in on the much-publicised problems for Vista, making fun of the delays to the new OS in its first television ad campaign for some time, while promoting Apple's user-friendly reputation.

Skype unveils Beta release VoIP conferencing

Devotees of Skype, the desktop darling of the brave new VoIP world, began downloading Skype 2.5 Beta on Wednesday, trialing a host of new features, including new chaired group calls for up to 100 users. Although SkypeCasts are initially aimed at consumer social networking applications, including online party calls, the possibility of businesses exploiting this latest Skype feature as a free teleconferencing service is an obvious one. SkypeCasts are live, chaired conversations allowing groups of up to 100 people from anywhere in the world to talk to one another, and according to Skype will target existing social communities from sites such as MySpace and LiveJournal. Skype 2.5 Beta is quicker to register than previous versions, and paves the way for VoIP's big move into mobile phone territory with the addition of a paid text message facility from Skype to any mobile phone.

Faster, Wi-Fi! Kill! Kill!

The expected next-generation super-fast Wi-Fi standard hit a big obstacle Tuesday, sending a strong signal to consumers and business customers alike that they should wait until the final draft before buying 'compliant' kit, reports PCMag. The new 802.11n standard should eventually let users connect wirelessly at much faster speeds than available with 802.11g, but sadly Draft 1.0 of 802.11n did not win the necessary 75 per cent approval by the IEEE this week, needed to move ratification to the next stage. Some manufacturers, like Broadcom, have already begun selling products based on Draft 1.0.

Vast majority of heavy DVD users not interested in new formats this year

According to Reuters, a survey of high-volume DVD users by online DVD trading company Peerflix has revealed that only about one in five are thinking of buying high-definition DVD players or discs in 2006. Peerflix surveyed over 1000 users buying an average of five DVDs and renting an average of seven DVDs per month, about how likely they are to buy a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player or discs in 2006. However, Computerworld thinks the adult film industry may ultimately decide the battle of the formats just as it did in the 1980s, when Betamax and VHS video formats fought for supremacy. The adult film industry, which generates an estimated $57 billion (£31bn) in annual revenue worldwide, has always been a leader when it comes to the use of new technology, the magazine said this week.

HD goes Sky high

Satellite broadcaster BSkyB claims it has now signed up 40,000 customers to its heavily marketed high-definition television service launching at the end of this month, according to The Times. Sky is charging an initial £299, plus £10 a month, as it tries to boost revenues through enhanced services likely to appeal to existing customers.

AOL haemorrhages close to a million subscribers

Time Warner's increasingly marginalised internet arm AOL lost 835,000 subscribers and saw its operating profits dive by 17 per cent in the first quarter of the year, reports The Times. Shares in Time Warner fell nearly two per cent on the news, even as the company announced that a strong performance by its cable division had boosted net income by 59 per cent in the same quarter. The media group said that total net income in the quarter was $1.46 billion (£790m), compared with $915 million (£495m) in the same period in 2005. Revenue was nearly flat at $10.46 billion (£5.65bn), compared with $10.36 billion (£5.6bn).

And finally...

Mathematicians are claiming that the cloaking devices that make spaceships invisible in science fiction books and blockbusters could actually work in reality! According to the BBC, two maths geniuses (and no doubt Star Trek freaks) have outlined their concept in a new research paper published in one of the UK Royal Society's scientific journals. Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton believe that placing certain objects close to a material called a 'superlens' could make them appear to vanish, although things start to get more complicated when they add that the process would rely on an effect known as 'anomalous localised resonance'. Apparently (uh-oh...) the phenomenon is similar to a tuning fork being placed next to a wine glass. The wine glass will start to ring with the same frequency; it resonates, and similarly the cloaking effect would exploit a resonance with light waves rather than sound waves. Try finding out more online with a few searches, and knock up your own cloaking device! It's what the Web was born to do!

Marketing News

By Sally Forge

Think again

Television marketing body Thinkbox has invested a quarter of a million pounds in a website redesign featuring more content and greater functionality, reports Revolution. Thinkbox.tv has doubled its content, offering an extensive database of TV ads and programming trailers, as well as case studies, industry directories, interviews with industry experts, research data and a library of downloadable resources. The site also now offers improved multimedia features.

The future for Orange is Underwired

Orange has appointed digital agency Underwired to handle online marketing for its business arm. The agency won a three-way fight for the business, and has now been briefed to create email campaigns, online newsletters and microsites for the business-to-business service. Its first task will be to support a revamp of Orange's business tariff, which was first announced back in February.

Bebo in the face of MySpace

Social networking website Bebo could overtake MySpace as the most popular online community destination in the UK, according to new internet usage research from Hitwise UK. Bebo ranked third most popular destination with UK internet searches in the research for the month up to 29th April, compared with MySpace, which ranked a lowly 24th in the table.

Media Update

By Annie Kasmai

Emap's £12m "Project Jackie" women's weekly magazine will be called First when it launches on 17th May with a mix of sleb, real-life and mainstream news. The magazine is targeting a more mature audience than readers of Closer, and requires a circulation of between 150,000 and 300,000 within a year. The usual sweeping Emap sampling campaign will hit the streets next week, so be vigilant. First follows Emap titles of a similar ilk such as Heat in 1999, Closer in 2002, Zoo in 2004 and Grazia in 2005.

Trinity Mirror has seen advertising revenues slip by almost 12 per cent in the first four months of the year, according to the Media Guardian. Ad revenues fell by 11.8 per cent between January and April, excluding the effect of acquisitions. Worst affected titles included Trinity Mirror's three UK nationals - the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the People - where ad revenues were down 15.7 per cent.

BBC Magazines has sold 14 of its non-BBC branded magazines to a management buyout team. The titles sold were all acquired when the BBC purchased Origin Publishing in February 2004. The BBC had moved these specialist titles into their own division, renamed BBC Origin. The team buying the magazines is led by BBC Origin managing director, Andy Marshall and the new company will again take the Origin name. The titles that were sold recently include Hair Ideas and Cross Stitiching. However, in the short term the BBC will still retain a minority stake in Origin.

Emap Advertising has given TV sales director Darren Khan greater responsibility by expanding his remit to include a new role as head of radio at Emap², the company's cross-platform division. Khan is now also responsible for all radio sponsorship and TV sales at Magic, Mojo radio, Heat radio and on TV stations Q, The Box and The Hits. The promotion of Khan follows the departure of sponsorship and promotions head Adam Roland in March.

Virgin Mobile has launched a 'Summer of free texts' promotion. It will be giving away up to 20bn text messages to customers until September. This offer means that Virgin Mobile's existing and new customers can send up to 1000 free text messages a month to any other Virgin Mobile number.

NME.com has launched a new social music network. Users can legally search and share entire music collections through a new service called MyNME Radio. MyNME Radio listeners will be able to access user-contributed music catalogues as well as being able to browse and listen to music from other users' libraries. They will not be able to download the music. This service will be available from June and will be free for all NME.com's users.

This week, Nic Fildes started at The Independent covering the telecoms and technology sectors.

Prompt Guide to Corporate Doublespeak

By Lance Concannon

Power-Nap

Adding the word 'Power' to anything automatically makes it sound more dynamic and impressive.

While normal people might skive off for half an hour in the afternoon to grab a little shuteye in the stationery cupboard, high-level management gurus take 'Power-Naps' to re-energise themselves. Quite often they need to do this after an intensive Power-Lunch which might well have involved a certain degree of Power-Drinking.

Executive types are completely enchanted by the P word, and you can use this to your advantage. If your boss catches you downloading pictures of monkeys wearing amusing hats instead of enthusiastically getting stuck into whatever drudgery you're paid for, simply explain that you're Power-Slacking and they'll probably promote you.

Other useful Power-Phrases you can exploit include, Power-Smoking (sneaking out for a ciggy), Power-Snacking (sneaking out for a Twix) and Power-Bluffing (lying on your CV).