Jumping on the HD bandwagon
HD is getting a lot of press at the moment, especially with the launch of the new Freeview HD service, which I've written about elsewhere.
The UK gets left behind.
Monday morning, back in the office after a two week holiday. You may know how it feels. After reading 1,000 emails and deleting about 900, I finally have time to write a blog post.
I've spent the last fortnight in Hong Kong, and in addition to having much nicer weather than the UK at this time of year, I was amazed at how much better the technology infrastructure is. Most noticeable was the metro (MTR) system - cleaner and more efficient than the London Underground, with no stations closed due to engineering works. You can also use your mobile on the tube. This might seem like an extravagence to some, but in many countries it would seem bizarre that you can't use a mobile on the underground. Of course, that means having 3.5G data connections as well, making it easy to catch up on email on your way in to work. Is it really too expensive for the UK to install a mobile infrastructure in underground stations and on trains?
There were also lots of people, young and old, playing on handheld games consoles. People playing on either a Playstation Portable or a Nintendo DS were everywhere, noticeably more than in the UK.
The Octopus Card, Hong Kong's equivalent of our Oyster Card, allowed you to do far more than just pay for train tickets. In all 7-11 shops, you don't need to hand over any cash to pay for groceries, a simple swipe of your Octopus card will do. This exact thing has been talked about in the UK for a while but you have to wonder why it's taking so long to move beyond talking and become reality.
The Computer Arcade, a giant market where many small computer vendors peddled everything from cheap USB memory keys, to netbooks, games consoles and desktop PCs was something you dont see in the UK. Big name brands like Samsung and Dell weren't to be found there, but the majority of equipment on sale was from Chinese manufacturers, and the prices were considerably lower.
One item that caught my attention was a fake iPhone. It looked almost identical to the real thing, from the interface to the Apple logo on the back. The touch-screen display didn't work quite so well, it was laggy and less precise, but at the top of the phone was a small antenna to pick up TV (and this also worked in some metro stations too). The use of the Apple logo would of course, make the device completely illegal.
Broadband is also far more advanced. My friend had a very modest connection - 30Mbit/sec downstream and 10Mbit/sec upstream. He said that if you want it, a 1GBit/sec connection is alreader available. Considering we have to wait until 2012 for 100 per cent broadband coverage, and then only a guaranteed 2Mbit/sec, it's fairly obvious the UK is lagging behind in this area too.
Of course, there are important differences between the UK and Hong Kong. Our greater landmass means ensuring broadband coverage everywhere is more difficult, and our underground system is much older, and therefore more difficult to keep updated. However, the real difference was to do with the attitude towards new technology, and it seems the UK has shied away from the required investment for far too long.
Let's get physical
You would have thought, after over a decade of people grabbing music and video via the internet, that companies would have realised that there is a benefit in downloads. And one of those benefits is surely that digital versions of products can be cheaper. You'd think.
Is Apple slowly preparing us for its tablet launch?
The end of O2's exclusive iPhone contract this week is a sign of major change in Apple's product lineup. The addition of the smartphone to the product catalogues of Orange and Vodafone is sure to start a price war between the three networks that will carry it. Apple's flagship money spinner is certain to become cheaper, but if it finds its way into even more people's pockets, it'll also lose some of it's appeal.
Part of the phone's desirability comes from its relatively high price. Human psychology dictates that we see a more expensive product as higher quality, and the iPhone has always carried a larger price tag and longer contract period than more bog-standard phones. Two years and 25 million worldwide sales later, the phone doesn't cause quite the same buzz it did when it launched. Apple's lineup is now missing a single, ultra-desirable product, worth camping for in a queue outside their store for weeks on end. But if the rumours turn out to be true, and Apple is poised to release a lightweight, touchscreen tablet PC, the throne of desirability which the iPhone once occupied wont be empty for long.
Although Apple hasn't actually confirmed that it is to produce a tablet PC, analysts and Apple followers are certain it will. There are unconfirmed reports from some who claim to have already used it. Engadget has mentioned a rumour that Apple spoke to some US magazine publishers about possible formats for e-publishing, a sign that the company could offer Ebooks for the device alongside its music on iTunes, hoping it to be the 'killer-app' that sells the device. Of course, Ebooks haven't quite taken off in the same way digital music has, so if the Apple tablet proves popular, it could be the device that sell Ebooks to the general public, rather than the other way around.
Converting to the cloud, one app at a time
Unusually for a gadget-obsessed tech writer, I can be something of a stubborn luddite at times. It took a good few years for me to completely abandon my ISP's POP email in favour of using webmail as my main point of contact. Until now, I have made every effort I can to avoid using Google Docs over Microsoft Word. I prefer the interface in Word, I'm comfortable with emailing files ending in .doc between my email accounts or to copy editors, or putting them on a USB stick to take home with me.
However, yesterday I decided to take some quick notes about a website I was looking at. I jotted them down using the Stickypad application built into Windows 7, and as they were just notes, needed no formatting or really even a proper spell check, which are two things I think Microsoft Word does better than Google Docs.
However, I wanted to send those notes to a friend, and while I could have copied, pasted and emailed what I had written to him, instead, I pasted the entire thing into a new document in Google Docs. Then with the handy "share this" icon in the top right, I just emailed it to him. This process requires less clicks than the usual way in Outlook, where I select File -> Attach then locate my document on my hard disk.
The fact that I use gmail, and therefore I can view my documents by clicking a single icon in the top left makes it even easier. So much so, that I now use Picasa so I can access my photo collection by clicking another link in the top left. I will soon convert my spreadsheets to Google Docs and I can see myself eventually using a Google cloud app for anything I might have previously done on my local machine.
All this makes Google's Chome OS even more intriguing. While I staunchly argue that an OS that makes use of the power available in modern computers is better than one that would turn my quad-core into a dumb terminal, my usage habits are naturally leaning that way. I may change my mind before long.
Don't blame the W3C
It's not their fault. Really.
Living with 50Mbit broadband
Welcome to the future. Yesterday afternoon I had my cable broadband internet speed upgraded to the fastest available in the UK - 50Mbit/sec. This is a lot of bandwidth, 100 times faster than my first 512Kbit/sec broadband connection that I was using nine years ago and over 10,000 times faster than the best dial-up speeds.
I like it a lot. Knowing I have (practically) unlimited bandwidth changes how I use the internet completely. If a large file is downloading in the background and I want to watch an HD video on Youtube or Vimeo at the same time, I know that the video will still play without any stuttering, something not always possible on even a 10Mbit/sec internet connection. If a trial application or game demo looks interesting, but the file is a few gigabytes in size, previously I would have had to think twice before clicking the download link. Now, it doesn't matter, even if the software is naff. A 3GB file takes less than ten minutes to download.
Many of my colleagues have questioned Virgin Media's ability to deliver this speed, especially when other ISPs are facing criticism for not being able to deliver the 8Mbit/sec speeds they advertise. The connection is absolutely capable of 50Mbit/sec, which translates to 6MB/sec. However, a server that can deliver such speeds is rare thing. A test download of drivers from Nvidia's website gave me 4.5MB/sec, while other sites were even slower. Often, the only way to get the full speed is by using software (such as Get Right) that opens multiple connections to a server.
Coincidentally, yesterday Microsoft pushed its update to the Xbox 360's operating system, which adds (apparently exclusive) support for Netflix HD video streaming to the console. Sadly this service is limited to Xbox 360 owners in North America.
HD video-on-demand services are touted as one of biggest potential applications for superfast broadband speeds. Even smaller 720p HD video will push most slower broadband connections to their limit, and I definitely wouldn't want to try using such a service with a 2Mbit/sec connection, which the Government seems to think is a satisfactory target for its goal of 100 per cent UK broadband coverage by 2012.
However, there aren't that many other applications I've found that really take advantage of it. The monstrous connection usually sits unused, as if I find something I want to download, it's done in a matter of seconds.
I'm the only heavy internet user in my house though, and if I had a large family, I would certainly want a connection like this. It could easily cope with lots of videos being played, files downloading and standard web surfing concurrently, which is not uncommon when multiple family members are online at the same time.
As the internet is more pervasive than ever, with multiple PCs and gadgets in the average family home that can go online, the ability to share a fast connection between users could be the driving force behind superfast broadband, rather than any single application.
Lets have a technical support hotline disco
Great news, for me at least. I'm finally getting Virgin Media's 50mbit broadband installed in my house. I can really put my friends to shame when I mention how big my pipe is.
An interesting anomally I noticed while on the phone to Virgin is the music they now use to keep you entertained while you wait for the next available operator - The Greatest Hits of Michael Jackson, played at extreme volumes.
It first struck me as a slightly cynical move. Michael Jackson, The King of Pop, has died. There is a lot of public interest in anything Michael Jackson related at the moment, so Virgin got in there quick, struck a deal to license his back catalogue, and hey presto, you get Thriller while waiting twenty minutes to find out why the TV doesn't work. It's a clever tactic: the initial rage when first calling a technical support line is abated thanks to the sweet and nostalgic memories conjoured up by hit songs of the 1980s.
Then I was thinking of a great theme for a party. Put your telephone on speaker mode and dial a technical support number, and let your guests dance around to the holding music. One call to Virgin Media and your entire evening's entertainment is sorted. You may be able to mix and match songs with other organisations' holding music. Call Greenpeace for a bit of Earthsong, Barclay's Bank for Smooth Criminal, The Body Shop for Man In The Mirror.
Be careful though, many technical support numbers still mistakenly believe that Enya is a great way to calm irate callers, and Orinoco Flow simply isn't good party music.
Storm clouds gathering over MMO games
Some disappointing news this week, at least for rabid gamers and fans of science fiction. Sony Online Entertainment, publishers of the ambitious massively multiplayer online RPG, The Matrix Online, has announced the game is to close.
It isn't the first MMO to close this year, as Tabula Rasa, the over-hyped project of Richard Garriott, had only celebrated its first birthday before NCSoft pulled the plug. Two other promising MMO titles released last year - Warhammer Online and Age of Conan - have both seen dwindling subscription numbers and the developers have had to reduce the number of servers to ensure the game world remains populated.
While nearly every recently released MMO is struggling to survive, the venerable World of Warcraft continues to pick up subscribers, having passed the 10 million milestone, while other games are lucky to retain 100,000 subscribers six months after launch. Its publisher, Blizzard, has made more than a few gold coins from the title and its recent merger with Activision makes it the largest games company in the world.
So what's the problem? The Matrix is a great science fiction license, with a trilogy of extremely popular films under its belt, and a legion of fans. The game promised to continue the Matrix storyline after the third film, with plenty to whet the appetites of fans, including live events where the player would interact with famous Matrix characters, whose roles would be played out by real people, employed by the game's publishers. There's an excellent insight into how these events panned out by Steve Williams, one of the original gamesmasters.
Ever since I first played Planetside, a massively multiplayer first-person shooter, I've consistently argued that persistent game worlds with dynamic content are the future of gaming. However it seems more difficult than ever to produce an MMO that works. There are plenty of factors involved, each of which could provide enough subject material for a lengthy essay. Most of these boil down to MMO projects being simply too expensive, in the face of a PC games market that's becoming dwarfed by the consoles, which are not a good platform for persistent-world gaming. WoW is the single example of a blockbuster-selling PC MMORPG, a large part of its success being down to lower system requirements, while the experience of playing many other games is hampered if you haven't spent £1,000 on a high-end PC in the last six months.
Two highly anticipated new MMORPGs are due to hit the PC soon, based off what are undoubtedly the two biggest film licenses ever. Star Trek Online has fans of the series dusting off their uniforms, stroking their portrait of a bearded Commander Ryker that hangs over the fireplace, while repeatedly practicing the immortal phrase "make it so" in front of the bathroom mirror. You can see why they're excited: the screenshots of the game look gorgeous, and could finally give fans the game they've dreamed about.
Meanwhile Star Wars is going to receive its second MMO incarnation, with The Old Republic, an MMO game set long before the events of the films, and produced by Bioware, a company with plenty of classic PC RPGs under its belt.
However, whereas I once would have bet the keys to my house on the success of these two games, I'm adopting a wait-and-see approach for now. Games in general are becoming more expensive to produce each year, and MMOs require a great deal of continued investment after they hit retail. The more ambitious the design, the more expensive the game is to run, and without enormous numbers of subscribers, most MMOs simply aren't viable. If the game design is flawed, with gamers becoming frustrated, they simply leave, or (ahem) return to WoW.
Is it time to change how broadband speed is advertised?
Ofcom's latest report into Britain's broadband speed, released today, reveals no surprises. Virgin Media's cable service takes the top spot, beating other ISPs, including BT, Tiscali and AOL, in some cases by a large margin. Ofcom has used the report to slam some ISPs because customers are receiving far less than the 'up to 8Mbit/sec' service they are paying for.
The figures only tell a small part of the story though, becuase broadband speeds are affected by many factors, some of which are under the control of ISPs, and some aren't. The two biggest reasons someone may not be receive the full speed their Internet connection is capable of are the quality of the line between them and their ISP, which includes the wiring not just in their house but also in the streets all the way to your telephone exchange, and contention with other users in the local area who are trying to access the Internet at the same time. A third is server load, since during busy times, a web server may have trouble handing out pages fast enough to everyone at once. Another is whether a broadband provider has placed a cap on download speed, which normally comes into effect once someone downloads a set amount of data over a given time period.
These issues aren't going away any time soon. The issue of line quality is the reason Virgin Media's cable service can deliver faster broadband than any other provider. ADSL is limited because it uses phone lines, many of which still use copper wiring, and in some rural areas of the country these were installed a long time ago. Until these are replaced, ISPs will never be able to provide the full advertised speed to all their customers all the time, and future speed reports will continue to look remarkably like this one.
Contention is an issue that can affect cable broadband as much as ADSL broadband, as it arises from an ISP not having enough network capacity in a given area to satisfy all its users. The issue can be resolved by an ISP digging into its pockets and upgrading its network and equipment. However, some ISPs cannot afford this, as retail prices for broadband have been driven down by cut-throat competition and price wars. Would people pay more for a service that can deliver advertised speeds more often than a cheaper provider? No, not everyone.
In truth, we're stuck with most of these problems for now, at least until fiber-optic cabling is installed to every home in the country, by which time we'll all have a few extra gray hairs, and the London Olympics will be a distant memory.
So if the problems cant be completely solved, a change in thinking may be better, and ISPs should sell and advertise packages that better reflect what they can actually provide rather than what they would like to. Why sell an 8mbit/sec service in an area where such a speed simply isn't possible? Why should someone living in that area who only gets half the advertised speed pay the same amount, for the same advertised service, as someone who does get the full speed in another part of the country?
The simple solution is to stop advertising speeds altogether. Perhaps pricing could be based on how much data you consume (like our electricity, gas and water supplies) rather than speed. Charge a small amount for light users, who may download email, surf the web and view a few videos. Power users who want to download considerable amount of data should be able to continue paying more for unlimited services. In all cases, the emphasis on speed in marketing literature should be changed. Is it beyond ISPs to simply tell you the estimated average speed for a given postcode area, and not be tied to this legally, rather than dangle the carrot of unattainable download speeds in front of your face?
By simply selling 1, 10, 50 or unlimited gigabytes of data per month, without explicitly saying whether that data will arrive at 'up to' 8Mbit/sec or 2Mbit/sec, ISPs will no longer be advertising something they cannot provide. Allow customers to top up their balance if they go over their limits, in a simple and affordable way, so they dont wake up one morning without access to email. Importantly, raise the speed caps (eliminating them probably isn't an option) and let the network infrastructure decide how fast data arrives. It does that anyway after all, which is why Ofcom became upset in the first place.
However this is unlikely to satisfy everyone, least of all me. I wouldn't dream of using any Internet service where my broadband is limited to a few gigabytes a month (a single game patch that downloads in the background would use my entire quota)
