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Technology Update

By Sean McManus and Lance Concannon

Free wireless internet for Manchester

Manchester city council has announced plans to roll out a city-wide wireless network, providing citizens with free internet access. The scheme is still in the discuss phase, but the council says it plans the network to cover 90% of Greater Manchester, reaching up to 2.2 million people. The scheme is part of a bid to win £3 million in funding from the government's Digital Challenge Initiative, although the council claims that the plan is not dependant on winning this funding.

Disabled users still blocked from internet

Poor website design is still stopping many disabled people from being able to use the internet, according to new research from accessibility agency Nomensa. Using assistive devices such as Braille displays and specially adapted keyboards, users with physical impairments often find that they can regain their independence online. Websites need to be designed considerately though, and many fall foul of their moral obligations as well as the obligations they may have under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Nomensa tested the leading websites for travel, retail, banking, government and media in 20 countries. Only three, including the UK Prime Minister's website, achieved minimum standards of technical accessibility. For advice on buying an accessible website, we recommend reading PAS78, published by BSI and now available for free. Surveys like this are published regularly and it's disappointing that after several years of accessibility campaigning, businesses and governments still do not take the issue seriously.

ISO publishes Open document format

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published a standard for office documents. The Open Document Format (ODF) is already supported by Google's online office applications and by OpenOffice, Microsoft's leading open source rival for office applications. Microsoft has reportedly said it would support ODF via a plug-in. The standard will help to ensure continued access to data over time. Some software companies are believed to have used control of their closed document formats to force users to upgrade.

Software to spot killers

A criminologist and statistician at the University of Pennsylvania is developing a software system designed to help authorities identify people who are more likely to commit violent crime. The software uses sociological models to identify offenders with a high likelihood of committing violence so that probation officers can more efficiently dedicate their resources to supervising high risk individuals.

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Consumer Technology Update

By Dave Wilby

MySpace finds worm in Apple

Upstart startup MySpace.com showed it could play with the big boys this week, when it asked that old fogey Apple to update its QuickTime media player software so that it can't be used in malicious attacks on the funky young social-networking site. According to CNET, the request followed a security breach last weekend which saw a worm in the form of a rigged QuickTime movie manage to change members' MySpace profiles.

The worm apparently spread through a vulnerability in QuickTime's support for JavaScript code. The dodgy clip, quickly named Quickspace* by Finnish security specialist F-Secure, adds itself to users' MySpace pages and redirects profile links to phishing sites. Apple is now working on an official patch, but third-party temporary solutions were available from various sources early this week.

(*By the way, does anyone else remember the 90s post-grunge band Quickspace fronted by Faith Healers' Tom Cullinan? Just me then...)

BT Vision kicks off with first major content deal

BT has struck a major broadcasting deal with Setanta Sports, even before the dust had settled from last week's launch of the BT Vision broadband television service. BT's deal with Setanta Sports, the Irish pay television broadcaster, will allow it to show 46 live Premiership football matches from next summer, a major coup in the battle for viewer hearts and minds.

BT is now weighing up plans to bid for further live football rights, either with Setanta once more or on its own, in the next round of media rights auctions in 2009. The Setanta content deal is one of 25 negotiated by BT as it seeks to accumulate 'pay-television-free' homes, reports The Times. Other partners include Dreamworks, Warner, Disney and National Geographic. BT Vision customers paying for a BT broadband connection and a £90 installation fee can then download films and music-on-demand, pause and rewind live television, and access over 40 Freeview channels.

Zelda feels better after Wii

Now Nintendo's flagship title, the revamped 'Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' takes all this physics a step further, forcing gamers to fling nunchucks, slash swords, battle on horseback, ride rodeo, fire crossbows and um, fish and herd goats. It's all here, check out the massive selection of videos, and remember never to let anyone film you if you ditch your Playstation this Christmas and go for a Wii instead.

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Marketing Update

By Elissa Fry, Lisa Facinelli and Sally Forge

iPod+Nike kit could aid stalkers

According to CIO Tech Informer, researchers from the University of Washington have found that the Nike+iPod sport kit could facilitate privacy invasion. The kit was originally designed to transmit workout data, such as distance traveled and calories burned, from the Nike shoe to the runner's iPod. However, that same signal can be detected by other receivers, providing anybody with the means of tracking and following you.

As innovative and useful this kit might be to dedicated runners, it has the potential to also be used by stalkers reports Tech News world. With the ability to track users, it begs the question of how many stalkers will roam heavily populated areas with concealed receivers set to intercept Nike/iPod signals.

If that wasn't alarming enough, researchers have found that there were simple techniques that could have been employed to increase privacy. With technology constantly evolving companies will have to give greater consideration to consumer safety.

Microsoft bullish over Zune sales

Microsoft is confident that sales of its Zune personal music player, launched in November to rival the iPod, will pick up in 2007. The Zune had a mixed reception at launch, but Microsoft predicts sales will reach one million units by mid-2007. The Washington Post reports that Microsoft plans to spend millions of dollars marketing and developing the Zune, in a long-term strategy, and is not expecting a quick return on investment. Over 70 million iPods have sold since 2001 and Apple holds 70% of the MP3 player market, while Zune held 9% of the market a week after launch, its share has now reduced to 2%.

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US Media Report

By Heather Lynch

After an intense search this week in the below-freezing Oregon wilderness for the stranded and lost James Kim, a senior editor at popular technology site Cnet.com, authorities found his body on Wednesday. Kim, 35, and his family had been missing for 11 days after their car became stuck in the snow, stranding them on a remote forest road.

His wife and two daughters were rescued on Monday from the car where they had stayed for warmth and safety, while Kim had gone in search of help two days earlier. The search and rescue effort involved strategically dropped care packages, and searches conducted with snowmobiles, helicopters, river rafts, and by foot.

Kim had covered digital audio for Cnet, hosted a weekly podcast for its gadget blog Crave, and was writing a book on Microsoft's Zune. News of Kim's death brought floods of tributes on technology blogs and discussion forums.

The Wall Street Journal will cut its paper size down to the standard dimensions in January, affording 10% less space for news. The "What's News" section will now take up almost half of its front page, with room to begin three to four articles according to rival paper The New York Times. The reduction in format comes after the paper's decision earlier this year to allow advertising on its front page. The WSJ is the second most widely read daily paper in the U.S. behind USA Today.

UK Media Report

By Annie Kasmai

City AM, the daily freesheet distributed in Central London, will be running a series of supplements to coincide with City workers receiving their Christmas bonuses. The supplements will focus on ideas for how City workers can spend or invest their extra money. Jeremy Slattery, sales director of City AM, said that these supplements have been created to capitalise on the predicted 30% increase to the total amount given away in City bonuses this year in comparison to last Christmas.

Richard Ellis, deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, is now the executive director of editorial for the Telegraph Media Group.

Susannah Herbert, editor of The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, is leaving to join The Sunday Times.

Philip Thornton, economics correspondent at The Independent, is leaving in January 2007 to pursue a career in freelance journalism.

Jemima Kiss, formerly news editor at Journalism.co.uk, is now the new media reporter at Guardian Unlimited.

CNBC has re-launched its website with the aim of focusing on video content for its worldwide bureaus. The website now includes more than 15,000 videos and 75 new clips posted every day and now aims to air up to eight hours of live programming daily. The website is free to use but there is a premium service, CNBC Plus, which gives users live access to CNBC's Business Day programming in the UK, Asia and Europe.

Web 2.0 Watch

By Fiona Blamey

Pirates Not All Bad

Gordon Brown pledged to crack down on music piracy in his pre-Budget report this week, saying that prison sentences of as much as ten years could be introduced for persistent online and offline sellers of illegal music.

But while the music industry claims it is losing 20% of its annual revenues through piracy, its relationship with the pirates is far from clear-cut. The big record labels may not like to see dodgy copies of the latest James Blunt album being flogged at car boot sales, but many smaller labels see some pirates not as enemies, but as friends.

Take the explosion of 'mp3 blogs', written by music fans about their favourite artists. Every post includes one or more mp3s that the bloggers upload for readers to download - free of charge, and in infringement of all known laws of copyright and distribution.

While a few mp3 bloggers have received cease-and-desist notices from music industry lawyers, many more are receiving more welcome correspondence in the form of preview albums and tracks, and implied licence to make these tracks available free of charge to their readers.

mp3 blogs are becoming an important - and free - marketing channel for the 'long tail' of non-mainstream artists and indie record labels, by promoting them further and wider than each individual label's marketing budget could possibly achieve.

For the moment, record labels and mp3 bloggers exist in symbiotic harmony, but this may soon change with the increasing popularity of 'mp3 blog aggregators' like Hype Machine, which let people search the entire mp3 blogosphere for free music. Hype Machine is starting to look more like the old Napster every day, and that can't be a good sign for either the music industry or the mp3 bloggers.