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Consumer Technology UpdateBy Sean McManus and Dave Wilby Everest to host world's highest telecomms PR stunt Mountaineer Rod Baber is preparing to make the world's highest mobile phone call from the north ridge of Mount Everest, according to the BBC. The record-breaking PR stunt will be possible because a base station in China has line of sight to the mountain. The mobile phone company sponsoring the endeavour wasn't named in the BBC's coverage, but is likely to be happy with the branding in the photograph. There was no indication as to who would receive the phone call, but we have a rough idea of how it'll go: "Hello! I'm on a mountain!.. Oh, you know… A bit chilly… No, they're not really up for snowmen around here… A bit windy… Better go then… Bye!" This week, the BBC also reported that residents in the Devon village of East Prawle can only get a mobile phone signal by standing on a specific public bench. The parish council has come up with a splendid low-tech solution: it will give them a block to stand on instead. Fancy a new MacBook? Apple revealed its new consumer MacBook range Tuesday, featuring slightly faster processors, a bit more memory and some bigger disks. Choose from a white one with a 2GHz or 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo CPU or a more serious looking black one equipped with the faster chip only. Each comes with 13.3" widescreen display, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM expandable to 2GB, 4MB L2 cache, a built in iSight video camera, AirPort extreme WiFi, USB and Firewire connectivity, plus all the usual bundled multimedia apps, including iLife and what-not. Amazon to launch MP3 store Amazon has announced plans to start selling music downloads in the customer-friendly MP3 format. MP3s can be played on any device and copied without any technical restrictions. The company claims to have agreements to sell music from 12,000 labels, but it's probably defining a record label as an imprint rather than a company. EMI announced in early April that it would make its vast catalogue available for retailers to sell without copy protection, but we don't expect to see any sales until late this year. Our previous website of the week Emusic has always sold MP3s, mostly sourced from indie labels. Acquiring a catalogue of major label artists could give it the boost it needs, although Emusic sells at a much lower price than the majors can stomach. Amazon will have an advantage over both iTunes and Emusic because it can cross-sell downloads to shoppers browsing CDs, and cross-sell new and second hand CDs to downloaders. That could help it become a one-stop music shop for price-sensitive shoppers, who might buy one good track instead of a whole album one week, and choose a second-hand CD over more expensive downloads the next. Halo 3 In the year 2552 humanity is still at war with the terrifying alien civilisation known simply as The Covenant. In Autumn 2007 Microsoft Xbox360 players in the familiar guise of Master Chief will be able to resume the fight to obliterate the destructive halo artificial worlds vital to the Covenant war effort in Halo 3. Sadly this week thousands of gamers were obstructed in their efforts to continue the good fight against evil thanks to technical issues at developer Bungie halting the download of the Halo 3 beta program. Fortunately, the testing period has now been extended over the weekend, so suit up quickly and play your part. |
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Web 2.0 WatchBy Fiona Blamey If Vietnam was the world's first media war, Iraq is our first social media war. But developments this week highlight the US Army's deeply divided view of the suitability of social media platforms to communicate the conflict in Iraq. On Monday, the US Department of Defense informed soldiers that they would no longer be able to access YouTube, MySpace or nine other social-networking sites from DoD computers. The Pentagon said the block was necessary in order to free up network bandwidth, but there is a widespread belief that the US military fears the loss of control that comes from allowing troops to publish their own words, videos and photographs online without supervision. It's not difficult to understand the army's concerns - unmonitored blogging, social networking, and video and photo sharing can easily compromise military secrets, whether intentionally or not. Few people would have been surprised last month when the US Army ordered military personnel to stop posting to blogs, message boards and chat forums without clearing the content first with a superior officer. But there is more at stake than military secrets. With the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war, the army is fighting to maintain its reputation as much as anything else. On this score, it sees social media platforms as a useful ally - as a means to portray the 'reality' of the conflict independently of mainstream media bias. So even as it bars troops from accessing YouTube, it continues to promote its own YouTube channel showing footage of military life in Iraq. And while some in the military believe that social network sites represent a threat to security, others are aware that banning online contact with friends and loved ones will further knock the morale of an already beleaguered army. The sheer newness of social media means that for the US Army - as for many companies trying to get to grips with the new landscape - the relationship between risk and reward is still very unclear. Expect to see more deeply contradictory behaviour before the Iraq conflict draws to a close. |
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Tech Toon
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Welcome to another edition of the Prompt Communications newsletter. A single erroneous post on a popular technology blog this week resulted in Apple's share price diving dramatically over the course of a few hours. There can be no clearer evidence of the growing impact that blogs have on the business landscape and the importance of monitoring what bloggers are writing about your organisation.
Rupert Murdoch has increased his campaign to woo the Bancroft family, which owns the controlling shares in Dow Jones & Co. The letter, sent on 11th May, stated that Murdoch promises to set up an independent editorial board and to give them a seat on the board of News Corp.
Amy-Mae Elliot has been appointed news editor at Pocket-lin.co.uk. Elliot was previously the reviews editor at Boys Toys. In her new role she will be covering hardware, consumer news, business news, phones, software and gadget news.
US Address: Prompt Communications LLC, 124 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge MA 02138, United States.