Richard Giles Blog

I’ve been thinking recently that I should be branching out and reading some new blogs. I have a collection of XML feeds that I read using NetNewsWire Lite everyday, and often supplement those with other sites and blogs (like William Gibson’s, soon to be retired, blog) that don’t use RSS.

So, if you have a blog that you have recently started I’d love to know the URL, and promise to be a regular reader for a while. Either post a comment, or send me an email. I’m happy to post a link on my blog to help you along.

The major complaint that international Apple users have about iTunes4 and the new Music Store, is the restriction to U.S. billing addresses only. Although I realise that this is bound to be as legally complex as Michael Jackson’s medical law suits, I share the frustrations of Ben Hammersley.

If your in a similar state of mind, swing over to the Apple Features for International Users and join the growing collection of undersigned.

David A. Basskin, President of the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency explains the legal reason for the issue on Ben’s blog comments.

“The reason why the Apple iTunes Music Store isn’t yet available outside the US is because Apple hasn’t made arrangements to obtain the rights outside of that country (this is called “clearing the rights” in the music business).“

The ever busy Cory Doctorow (of Boing Boing) has written a short fiction story for Business 2.0. The article, Six Technologies That Will Change the World, discusses several of the more far out technologies that some companies are working on. An organ/tissue printer, sociable robots, supersonic jets (I guess this means economically viable ones), solid fuel batteries, electronic paper, and dust sized intelligent sensors.

Cory’s short story wraps all this up into a futuristic situation, bringing the ideas to life. It’s clever, and although it’s very short, is a neat read.

The story can be found at the bottom of the fourth page.

How’s that for bad timing. Last week Griffin Technology announce the availability of their long awaited iTrip. This plugs into the iPod and allows you to tune radios in the vicinity to the portable player. It’s similar to other products on the market, but is much sexier and matches the iPod design. Only problem is that it doesn’t fit the new iPods which was just announced by apple yesterday.

From Griffin’s web site :
“The new iPods and the iTrip: The currently shipping iTrip supports the original iPod with the Firewire port on top. Information about a new iTrip that supports the just announced iPods will be released shortly.“

I hope they announce soon. I’m planning on buying a new iPod in the next month, and would like to place an order for an iTrip at the same time.

Update (10 May 2003) : iPoding, in their iTrip review, mentions that the new iTrip model will be available in June 2003. I’m wondering if that will be the announce date with general availability soon after.

I just spent a good part of the last two days recreating the look of my blogs. I like it, hope you do to.

The new Matrix movies are to be remastered as Imax movies, according to an article at Yahoo!, max Says Matrix Film Deal A ‘Watershed Event’ >IMAX.

“Although “The Matrix Reloaded” will open in Imax theaters two or three weeks after its general release May 15, “The Matrix Revolutions” will open Nov. 5 in both conventional and Imax cinemas, marking the first time that a live-action Hollywood film is released concurrently in both large- and standard-sized formats, known in the industry as a day-and-date release.

Now if only my home town would reopen the only Imax theater.

Here is my last entry regarding the Matrix, The New Matrix Reloaded Trailer, with a link to a high quality trailer.

From C|Net’s article, Wi-Fi, camera focus of new Palm devices.

“The Tungsten C joins Palm’s business product line and, for the first time, brings wireless 802.11b-based connectivity to the Palm family of devices, allowing it to connect to so-called hot spots and share network resources. Hot spots are public places that give people wireless access. The Zire 71 is the latest addition to the Zire consumer line and is the first device from Palm to have a built-in digital camera.“

More interestingly,

“Osborne said that Palm has been working to improve the prospect for Wi-Fi on handhelds. The company has been working with a third-party developer to bring a voice over IP (Internet Protocol) program to the Tungsten C by the first half of the year and has been working with hot-spot aggregators to ensure that the device will soon be able to work on their networks.“

Om Malik has an article at MIT Technology Review, Wi-Fi Goes Hi-Fi, about my latest passion, as any regular reader will know.

“Networked audio players are going to be the killer app of this year,” says Tim Shaughnessy, director of solutions marketing and alliances at Netgear in Santa Clara, CA. Like rival Linksys, Netgear has plans to launch one of these network audio players later this year. However, rivals such as Prismiq of Santa Barbara, CA, are going one step further: they are enhancing their devices with video-streaming features.

Prismiq’s MediaPlayer is a Linux-based device that resembles a DVD player and is designed to connect to a television or home entertainment system using standard audio-video cables; a Wi-Fi card connects MediaPlayer to a PC. The company is negotiating partnerships with consumer electronics manufacturers.

Prismiq’s CEO, Ken Goldsholl, believes that initially most consumers will use such devices to stream music. The widely used 802.11b wireless standard, which transmits data at 11 megabits per second, is not fast enough for streaming video. But as the 54 megabit-per-second Wi-Fi versions-802.11a and 802.11g-make their way into the market, video streaming will become a viable option.

Last Friday I couldn’t wait for this type of device any longer. I worked on my P.C. that had been stuck in the corner of the study since I bought my PowerBook. It has an Asus 7100 GeForce2 MX with a T.V. receiver onboard, 1GHz AMD CPU, Soundblaster 128 sound card, DVD, CDRW and a couple of disk drives. I updated some applications for recording TV on XP, and almost got it working. I still haven’t got the sound from the TV receiver, which I’m sure is a driver issue, but I figure it is just a proof of concept. I then rammed, literally, the stripped case (see image, and click for close-up) into my T.V. cabinet in the lounge room. It’s not bad, with 800×600 resolution the UI is a bit hard to see but it’s great for recording video.

The next step is to add a Wi-Fi PCI card, and start streaming the MP3s I have on the PowerBook. The added advantage will be Internet on the TV, for which I will then add either an infrared or wireless keyboard and mouse.

If I can’t get the audio going under XP, I have Freevo up my sleeve. In all honesty it may be a better option. Here in Oz we don’t have Tivo, and I love the idea of downloading a TV program and selecting the programs I’d like to record.

C|Net has an article on datacasting, the technology that Disney are using with there Movie Beam product. The article, Riding the airwaves, goes into a little detail on Datacasting’s history, and why new technology such as digital tv is introducing new applications because of the increased bandwidth.

It mentions how some are considering using the Internet for similar applications. I found it interesting that we currently see a difference in the technology. Soon the two will be connected. It won’t matter what part of the spectrum, wireless or wireline, is used, just so long as the bits of data get to the right place at the right time. Transparent connectedness.

The new Hulk Trailer is out.

Go Eric.