Apple TV + iPhone = games console?

As Wired's recent article on the fierce rivalry between leading gadget blogs Engadget and Gizmodo illustrates, no-one likes to be pipped to the (blog) post. So, it was with some frustration that I fired up my feed-reader this morning to discover that Daniel Langendorf from ReadWriteWeb spin-off last100 had posted an op-ed piece entitled 'What if Apple re-enters the console gaming market through the iPhone?' covering much of the same ground as a post that has been kicking around in my drafts folder for the past couple of months entitled 'Will Apple's next play be gaming?'.

However, whilst Langendorf joins the dots on Apple's likely play for mobile gaming with the iPhone / iPod Touch (check out the video of SEGA demoing Super Monkey Ball for iPhone if you've not already seen it) and speculates that they might follow it up with an "integrated game console for the living room - either a new product or the next iteration of the AppleTV", he doesn't connect the two, which in my mind is where the really interesting play is.

What the iPhone lacks as a domestic gaming platform is a big screen and what Apple TV lacks is an appropriate controller. Put the two together, connected via WiFi, and you've potentially got a Rolls Royce Wii (admittedly, with a price tag to match and you probably wouldn't want to throw your iPhone around the living room the way you do your Wiimote). That said, the potential of the iPhone as a controller for a secondary console is pretty interesting to my mind, combining the accelerometer of the Wiimote with the touch-screen of the Nintendo DS to theoretically provide a motion-sensing two-screen experience (e.g. tilt device to steer plane, stroke screen to target missile). Multiplayer would just be a matter of your mates whipping out their iPhones, selecting your WiFi network and joining the game, with information relating to the status of their on-screen avatar displayed privately on their iPhone.

So, do I think this is likely to happen? Er, probably not. Despite his well-earned reputation as an innovator, Steve Jobs is a 'softly softly catchee monkey' man at heart, as his initially cautious approach to introducing video to the iPod demonstrated. That said, he's due another bite at the gaming cherry after the Apple Pippin... In the unlikely event that it does come to pass, you heard it heard first ;-)

MacBook Air review

It's just over 3 weeks since I purchased my MBA (that's a MacBook Air, not a Masters in Business Administration - I've not succumbed to the spammers ;) which feels like enough time behind the wheel trackpad to post some early thoughts.

First things first (and the question everyone's been asking me, once they've finished stroking the chrome): why did I decide to shell out almost £1,200 of my hard earned cash (no, work didn't pay for it) when I already have two perfectly good Mactops (a 12" PowerBook and a MacBook)? Good question...



What I've been telling everyone (including myself) is that it was primarily a health consideration - I've been ferrying my MacBook to and from work in a shoulder bag for almost a year now and it's doing my back no good whatsoever - and you can't put a price on your health, right? Right...?

A more likely explanation is that I've fallen victim to the genius of Apple's product release strategy (see Charles Arthur's recent Guardian piece), failing to carefully evaluate the product and being seduced by Steve Jobs and his manila envelope.

And seduction is the right word, because the Air is aesthetically gorgeous. I've not got it out of my bag yet without a flurry of admiring gazes and comments and I still haven't stopped marveling at the design achievement of making a laptop, which is actually almost 2cm deep towards the rear, appear super-model thin. The question is (to paraphrase The Temptations' 1966 hit single) is the MBA's beauty only skin deep?



My first three weeks with the Air certainly haven't been without frustration or disappointment, the first of which was weight. Despite having read the tech spec on the Apple site, which correctly states its weight as 3 pounds (1.36kg), I was surprised by how heavy it felt when I first lifted it out of the box. It just looks so insubstantial that you can't help expecting something feather-light, even though you know there's a fully featured computer inside. Whilst 1.36kg is still relatively light for a laptop, it's only fractionally less than my ancient Toshiba Portege 3110CT (which weighs in at 1.4kg) and significantly more than the ASUS Eee PC (0.92kg).

The paucity of ports and the absence of an optical drive have also been minor frustrations. Pre-purchase, I didn't think only having one USB port would be a big problem but not enough of my peripherals (mouse, printer, scanner, camera etc.) are wireless for there not to be a fair amount of hot-swapping (or the use of an ungainly USB hub). Similarly, the world hasn't quite dispensed with physical media yet and whilst Remote Disc worked fine when installing my printer drivers, it wasn't able to cope with a Parallels' installation of Windows, which required a trip to the Apple Store to purchase an MBA SuperDrive (below).



Mercifully, my fear that my hotel (in Austin for SXSW) would only have a wired internet connection proved unfounded but it reminded me that the Air's lack of an Ethernet port could also potentially be super annoying.

Other disappointments include battery life (which doesn't live up to the claimed 5 hours even when optimised for better energy savings) and the appearance of the kernel panic dialog box on more than one occasion (although I think a Parallels conflict is probably to blame).



It's not all bad, however. The screen is arguably Apple's best laptop display to date and the keyboard is nicely responsive (and glows in the dark!). I'm less sold on the multi-touch trackpad (although I haven't taken the time to properly suss it out yet) and the mouse button feels a bit too skinny and needs a really firm press to register.



Performance wise, the Air's 2GB of RAM ensures it's a fairly smooth ride when using Leopard. I made the mistake of installing Vista using Parallels which runs like an absolute dog, even with the RAM available to the Guest OS jacked up to the max - it'd probably work okay using Boot Camp but I'll personally be steering well clear of Vista for the foreseeable.



Part of the challenge for the MBA is that we're so used to the superlative functionality of the MacBook and MacBook Pro that we're inclined to take all of that stuff for granted and just focus in on the stuff which has been stripped out to lighten the load.

Whilst the MacBook Air is a decent and unquestionably attractive laptop, it's not an iPhone-type game-changer/paradigm shift and I think it ultimately under-delivers on the promise of a fully-featured lightweight laptop. Still, I'm not going to be returning mine to the store anytime soon...

Related fabric of folly posts:
And the winner is... the iPhone
Round-up of best made-for-iPhone web sites/apps
How I learned to stop worrying and love the PSP

(there's also a post in my drafts folder entitled 'Why using Apple products is like a bad relationship' which I wrote in a fit of pique whilst waiting for a slot at the Genius Bar which I may revisit and publish soon).

Video streaming and ISP traffic shaping

The above chart shows the data transfer usage for my broadband connection over the past month. The noteworthy change from the same usage chart for November? Over 2GB of peak-time streaming. The culprit? BBC iPlayer. Why significant? Because my ISP (PlusNet) uses traffic shaping to discourage/penalise peak-time usage, which I've been doing a whole lot of ever since my colleagues in BBC Future Media & Technology added a streaming component to the iPlayer in December. As a result, my "up to 8Mb" connection has been throttled to a painfully slow 125.87 Kbps (according to thinkbroadband's Speed Test) during peak hours, rendering web browsing tortuous and streamed video unwatchable (which is how it will remain until the end of this month's billing period).

PlusNet has a helpful page explaining traffic prioritisation (presumably so-called because it sounds slightly less sinister than traffic shaping), which contains the obligatory layman's metaphor:

"Think of it this way, the broadband network is like a motorway. When the traffic is light, all vehicles can move at the national speed-limit. Some lanes of the motorway have been reserved for important traffic, such as buses or emergency vehicles. During rush hour, most vehicles are forced to slow down. However, the traffic on the reserved lanes can continue to travel at their full speed."

The interesting word here is 'important' - an inherently subjective term (surely streaming video is important to me if that's what I happen to be doing? I don't want to be stuck in a bandwidth traffic jam if I'm trying to watch BBC THREE live or catch-up on the Six Nations). What ISPs are really interested in, unsurprisingly, is limiting bandwidth-intensive activities such as video streaming and P2P downloading which eat into their profit margins.

Until relatively recently, ISPs had a handy justification for traffic shaping: that the vast majority of video streaming and P2P downloading was illegal. This is becoming less true as more and more legitimate streaming and download offerings emerge (the BBC may have taken most of the heat on the bandwidth implications of iPlayer, but ITV, Channel 4, Five and Sky all offer similar services). Add new entrants Joost, Zattoo, Vuze, Babelgum, Jalipo, Veoh, Brightcove and Democracy (all reviewed here) into the mix and you're looking at a burgeoning market for legal downloads and streams.

So, what's an online telly addict to do? One option would be to change ISPs, although as David Meyer points out in a comment on ZDNet, "Any ISP which says it doesn't use traffic shaping at all is lying, unless it simply doesn't have enough subscribers to fill up its pipes". Part of the problem is that in the race to offer cheaper and cheaper (and in some cases free) broadband, profit margins have been squeezed to the point where a high-bandwidth user is no longer an economically viable customer. Unfortunately, that category of high-bandwidth users looks sets to grow exponentially as streaming and P2P downloading become increasingly mainstream.

One possible scenario, suggested in a typically polemical piece on The Register, is a return to metered pricing. Whilst this may feel slightly counter-intuitive, it is consistent with the idea of broadband as utility. I'm happy to pay for my water, gas and electricity on the basis of how much I use - why not my broadband? Personally, I think this is pretty unlikely. Most people were so delighted to see the back of metered dial-up access that it feels implausible that they'd accept a return to a pay-as-you-go model. A more likely scenario is that slightly more expensive, higher-bandwidth packages will increase in popularity for heavy users who (like me) would happily pay a bit more not to have their streams endlessly buffer.

My short-term solution is to return to off-peak downloading using Azureus, with its handy Speed Scheduler plug-in ensuring that it only downloads between the hours of midnight and 4pm (hence no purple in the Peer-to-peer bar). Not my preferred solution, not least because it requires me to decide in advance what I want to watch rather than sampling on a whim (which I've been doing a lot more of since iPlayer introduced streaming). I'm now back to thinking 'do I want to watch this programme enough to download a 600MB file?' to which the answer's often no.

Longer term I think I could well be shopping around for a package with a more generous bandwidth allocation and/or less severe traffic shaping. Any recommendations welcome.

Disclaimer: I work for the BBC. The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the views of my employer.

Related fabric of folly posts:
Broadband as utility
Interesting times for the BBC online
Round-up of Internet TV services

QR Codes - not just big in Japan?

Until a couple of weeks ago QR Codes were very much on the periphery of my attention radar. Then some of my colleagues working on the BBC Programmes BETA hit on the ingenious idea of automatically generating a QR Code for every BBC programme (just add /qrcode to the end of any programme page URL to view - more from Tom Scott).

Since then, QR Codes seem to be everywhere I turn. First I caught up with the news that The Sun newspaper has notched up 11,000 registered users for its mobile QR service, launched on the 5th December in The Sun's inimitable style (see below image). Then, today, Silicon Valley Insider revealed that Google is planning to sell newspaper ads with QR codes. Whilst only a fraction of handsets currently have the requisite decoding software installed, Google have a convenient Trojan horse in the form of Android (The Sun is directing readers to download the i-nigma reader).

You can generate your own QR Code of a URL, phone number, SMS or using free text (up to 250 characters) here. The above QR Code is of this blog's URL.


Image: The Sun

And the winner is... the iPhone

A few weeks ago I asked the great blog reading public to vote on which mobile phone I should upgrade to, embedding a PollDaddy poll with a choice of five possible handsets and an 'Other' option (although this reportedly didn't work).

Well, the people have now spoken (results below) and 41.94% of them said those magic words 'Apple iPhone'. Not one to ignore the outcome of a democratic vote, I dutifully went out and purchased one :) After the obligatory tussle with Vodafone over getting them to give me my PAC in a timely fashion (isn't it time Ofcom knocked some heads together on this one?) I now have an operational iPhone and it's fair to say that a new love affair has begun.




As a contented owner of an iPod Touch I wasn't expecting to be blown away by the iPhone but I wasn't counting on Apple's attention to detail, for the iPhone is more than just an iPod Touch with voice calling bolted on. Below are five reasons why the iPhone edges it (no pun intended) over the iPod Touch.

1. Email - a wholly more satisfying email experience than my Blackberry, the iPhone offers seamless integration with the major third-party webmail clients (both Yahoo! Mail and Gmail worked right off the bat) and great handling of inline images and attachments (including PDFs and Word/Excel docs).

2. SMS - text messaging is an unexpected joy on the iPhone thanks to the excellent touch-screen QWERTY keyboard and the way in which it displays message threads as conversations (à la Facebook) - so simple yet so effective, it seems extraordinary that all mobile interfaces don't render SMS in this way.

3. Google Maps - it was during the demo of Google Maps that my jaw really hit the floor whilst watching the iPhone Guided Tour. The ability to key in two locations and get step-by-step illustrated directions between the two, including up-to-date traffic info, particularly rocked my world, as did typing in my postcode followed by the word 'pizza' and seeing 10 pins appear in the map :)

4. Speaker - ok, so it's not going to have Bang & Olufson worried, but it's the first iPod to have an integrated speaker and it performs pretty well for something so tiny. At a stroke it makes the iPod a much more social device (or anti-social depending on the context), enabling you to share a tune without also sharing earwax.

5. Headphones - the headphone's built-in microphone and remote control (one click to play/pause, two clicks to skip a track) is a mini design classic, laughing in the face of all those chunky remotes and cumbersome Bluetooth headsets.

My only gripe (along with every other iPhone owner) is the coverage and speed of the EDGE network. Any chance of a 3G upgrade in time for my 30th birthday Steve...?

Round-up of best made-for-iPhone web sites/apps

Whilst the iPhone and iPod Touch cope admirably with displaying regular websites, arguably leapfrogging Opera Mini (no mean feat) to provide the best small screen browsing experience to date, there's nevertheless a healthy appetite for sites and apps tailored specially for the iPhone / iPod Touch. Below is a round-up of fifteen of the best.

Remote Buddy AJAX Remote
http://www.iospirit.com/remotebuddy/ajaxremote/



This kind of has to be seen to be believed, transforming, as it does, your iPhone / iPod Touch into a fully featured virtual remote which which to control a bewildering array of your Mac's functions. Unlike the Roami (see below), the Remote Buddy doesn't just interface with iTunes but over 95 other applications including PowerPoint, Firefox, DVD Player, EyeTV and Joost, enabling you to operate presentations, watch video and live TV and take photos remotely using the iSight camera. Simply awesome. Available as a free 30-day trial. €19.99 to buy.

Roami
http://spahk.com/



Nowhere near as sophisticated as the Remote Buddy AJAX Remote, but far simpler to operate as a result, Roami enables you to turn your iPhone/iPod Touch into a remote control for iTunes. A 3.6MB download to your Mac desktop provides you with a URL to type into your iPhone address bar which displays 'now playing' information and enables you to remotely select playlists, skip, pause and restart tracks, adjust the volume and toggle shuffle on and off. Free 14-day trial, $9.95 to buy.

BBC Podcasts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/ip/



A personal favourite (disclaimer: I work at the BBC), this simple but slick beta app provides almost instantaneous access to the BBC's growing portfolio of podcasts, using progressive download to play the MP3s in Quicktime. The podcasts can be navigated by A-Z, genre or radio station (an option which beautifully showcases the new station logos). More on the BBC Radio Labs blog both here and here - see also below video.


BBC Podcasts (beta) on iPod Touch - demo from Dan Taylor on Vimeo.

JiWire Wi-Fi Finder
http://iphone.jiwire.com/



Anyone who's spent time wandering the streets of a major conurbation in a fruitless search for wireless internet access will appreciate the potential value of this little app which searches for details of nearby Wi-Fi access points against a city name or postal/zip code. It defaults to searching for free hotspots, although you can broaden the scope to include paid-for if needs be.

TextOnPhone
http://textonphone.com/



Never mind Amazon's Kindle, if you're wanting to read books on a mobile device then you could do a lot worse than TextOnPhone, which provide access to more than 20,000 titles, including classics such as Catcher in the Rye and Animal Farm. 'Turning the page' is as simple as tapping the screen and up to 50 pages can be downloaded for offline reading if you're planning to be without signal. It's also possible to create reading lists and add and share personal notes on any page.

TV Forecast
http://www.bigbucketblog.com/webtv/



A neat little app for keeping tabs on when your favourite TV shows are next being broadcast. The transmission times are for the US - frustrating if you're stuck with waiting for the programme to get an airing on UK TV, but a godsend if you're wondering when the torrent is likely to be available for download (I would imagine).

Tubes
http://mindtheapp.com/tubes/



At a glance status information on all the London Underground lines - like a pocket-sized version of those magnetic whiteboards you get by the ticket barriers. Designed by Utku Can - a 20 year old Computer Science student. Great URL too.

iPhit Fitness Tracking
http://www.i-fitnesscenter.com/iphone/iphit.php



Provides easy access to your Nike+ iPod running data (the main Nike+ website requires Flash, which iPhone Safari doesn't currently support). You will of course need a separate iPod nano to actually capture the data in the first place...

Twitter on Thincloud
http://twitter.thincloud.com/



Save yourself from the endless SMS messages with this big button app. Covers all the main functionality and nicely mimics the iPhone version of iTunes with four shortcuts along the foot of every page, providing one touch access to Recent Posts, Update Your Status, Direct Replies and Browse Friends.

WeatherBug
http://iphone.weatherbug.com/iphone/



Another app which appropriates the iTunes-style shortcuts along the foot of the page, although in this instance there are five on them (Conditions, Forecast, Radar, Camera and Weather). Conditions shows a simple thermometer and wind gauge; Forecast provides a six-day outlook; Radar shows an infrared satellite image of the continent; Camera shows a local webcam and Video plays the most recent (US) WeatherBug forecast in Quicktime.

Netvibes Mobile
http://iphone.netvibes.com/



Slick reversioning of the popular personalised startpage service, providing access to all the same modules, but arranged vertically to enable easy scrolling.

Yeah. No, Totally.
http://www.yeahnototally.com/iphone/



Another great URL and another neat site, 'Yeah. No, Totally.' provides quick access to a bunch of the web's most commonly used sites including Google, Wikipedia, Technorati, Flickr and BBC News (via its RSS feed). The only kicker for UK users is the US/SanFran focus, which renders the Shopping and Webcams section redundant.

Only2Clicks
http://www.only2clicks.com/iphone/



A visual bookmarking site with the aspiration (as the name suggests) 0f getting you to your desired destination in just two clicks. The site enables you to arrange your bookmarks by category (the defaults categories are Home, Shop and Social), displaying a cached thumbnail of each site. It's also possible to add search boxes for some of the web's main players.

Tomatometer
http://www.bigbucketblog.com/webtomatometer/



Stripped down window onto the Rotten Tomatoes movie reviews database, showing you a percentage score and top reviews for individual titles. Unfortunately search is the sole means of navigating the site so its only really useful if you know what film you're looking for.

iActu
http://www.widgetinfo.net/iphone/



Displays (half) the front page of six national newspapers (in the UK it's The Times, The Guardian, The Herald, The Telegraph, The Indie and The Current Bun) with a click-through to read the top headlines.

US TV networks wake up to distributed distribution

It's been interesting to chart the major US TV networks' evolving approach to online video distribution over the last couple of years. Below is a rough timeline of activity from 'the big four' (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) which shows the shift from paid-for iTunes downloads and broadcaster-hosted streaming services in 2005/06 to increasingly distributed models in 2007. This change is also reflected in recent proclamations by some of the networks' big cheeses (pasted below the timeline) who seem to have finally woken up to the fact that the internet is a network and that big audiences in this space come from allowing wide distribution of your content, not forcing users to come to you (although as Jeff Jarvis points out on the excellent BuzzMachine, these noble sentiments don't always translate to actions).

12th Oct 2005 - ABC shows made available for download (for $1.99) via iTunes
5th Dec 2005 - NBC shows made available for download via iTunes
1st May 2006 - ABC launches free (ad-supported) video streaming service
4th May 2006 - CBS launches 'innertube', free (ad-supported) video streaming service
9th May 2006 - Fox shows made available for download via iTunes
8th Jun 2006 - CBS shows made available for download via iTunes
1st Oct 2006 - NBC launches 'NBS Rewind', free (ad-supported) video streaming service
22nd Mar 2007 - NBC and News Corp announce what will later become Hulu.com
18th Apr 2007 - NBC creates the National Broadband Company to distribute video
12 Apr 2007 - CBS announces its 'Interactive Audience Network', distributing shows through numerous partners
18 Jun 2007 - Fox partners with Brightcove to offer streamed, embeddable video
31 Aug 2007 - NBC ends contract with iTunes
4th Sep 2007 - NBC shows to be made available via Amazon Unbox
19 Sep 2007 - NBC launches 'NBC direct', free (ad-supported) download service
20 Sep 2007 - ABC begins free (ad-supported) streaming via AOL
21st Sep 2007 - Fox gives away free seasons premieres via iTunes

“If we really want to compete with big aggregators like Yahoo and Google, we need our video in as many places as possible,” (Randy Falco, president of NBC, quoted in the New York Times, September 2006)

“We can’t expect consumers to come to us. It’s arrogant for any media company to assume that.” (Quincy Smith, president of CBS, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, May 2007)

“It is critical that we embrace the Internet as a distributed medium that promotes engagement with users, wherever they are on the Web” (William Bradford, senior vice president, content strategy at Fox, August 2007)

The digital water cooler

One of the oft-presumed casualties of the digital, on-demand era is the 'water cooler moment' - that totemic discussion of the previous night's (normally televisual) entertainment, nominally carried out around the office water cooler. The Scotsman recently ran a piece headed 'Last chance to share a TV moment' in response to the launch of Sky Anytime on TV and bloggers are also starting to warm to the theme.

However the advent of digital isn't actually precipitating the death of the water cooler moment. To the contrary, it might just be its saviour. Whilst the explosion in choice that characterised the first era of digital has undoubtedly contributed to diminishing audiences for live linear TV, the second era of digital, focused around greater control for the user, is helping the water cooler moment evolve and adapt to the new media landscape. Below is a discussion of some of the key characteristics of the new digital water cooler.

Asynchronous/Synchronous

One of the false assumptions of those decrying the death of the water cooler moment is that synchronous viewing is a prerequisite for water cooler moments. The Scotsman article references the Only Fools and Horses episode where Del Boy falls backwards through the bar. Whilst those lucky enough to catch this comedy gem live would no doubt have eagerly joined the water cooler discussion at work the following day, those who missed it would have had to wait till the BBC decided to schedule a repeat or include the clip in an compilation programme. Had that episode first aided in the digital era, it would have been all over YouTube within the hour and been emailed around offices up and down the country the following morning. Thus, the water cooler discussion is no longer limited to those who caught the programme live (you can view the OFAH clip here).

Another erroneous assumption is that the discussion also has to be synchronous. Pre-digital, the water cooler moment tended to happen just once, the day after the programme's first broadcast. If you were off sick the day after JR got shot then you would would probably have missed your chance to contribute to your colleagues' forensic dissection of events. The Internet enables those conversations to continue as new people discover the programme. Sites such as TV.com, Television Without Pity and Tape If Off The Internet create separate discussions around thousands of individual episodes, enabling you to join the discussion around whichever episode you've most recently watched.

In addition to enabling asynchronous water cooler moments, digital is also facilitating new types of synchronous viewing and discussion. YouTube recently starting trialling a feature called Streams, which enables users to set up a 'YouTube room' where they can watch and interact with other users in real-time whilst sharing videos. Sites such as Justin.tv and Ustream.tv are taking this further with user-generated content, whilst new and established broadcasters are also starting to dip their toes in the water (e.g. NBC's Heroes Two-Screen Experience and Joost's chat widget. Factor in the increasing amount of unsolicited viewer conversation that goes on via SMS and Instant Messaging whilst people are watching TV and you start to realise that the communal viewing experience is being reinvigorated, not destroyed, by digital technologies.

Macro/Micro

Another key way in which the digital water cooler moment differs from its analogue predecessor is that the conversation can be a whole lot bigger. The Internet's fundamental disregard for territorial boundaries means that anyone with a broadband connection can access a programme premiered on a US television network either live or soon after broadcast and then instantly join the online debate. The water cooler has gone global.

As well as the macro conversations around the latest episodes of Lost and 24, the digital water cooler is also facilitating the most micro of water cooler moments. Asking around the office to see if anyone caught that interesting Tetris documentary on BBC Four last night is likely to be met with blank stares, but go online and you are sure to find groups of people having their own virtual water cooler moments about that very programme.

The challenge for broadcasters is to help facilitate water cooler moments of all shapes and sizes and in all locations (both real-world and virtual). Interestingly, Channel 4 has created a Water Cooler Moments page on it's News site although its disappointingly free of video and appears to be editorially determined rather than based on what users are actually talking about/rating/linking to. A more genuine gauge of water cooler moments are sites like ViralVideoChart.com which scans several million blogs a day to see which online videos people are talking about the most. It's interesting that the second most viewed video on the BBC's domestic YouTube channel to date is an 8-second clip of Dr. Who kissing Martha - a classic water cooler moment which became so before it was broadcast on TV.

The aforementioned Scotsman article contains a choice quote from one of their television critics, Paul Whitelaw: "While I think services like [Sky Anytime on TV] are a good idea in theory, I think it's a shame that watching television has become such an insular thing". An insular thing? What Paul is missing is that the advent of digital is broadening out the water cooler moment beyond its traditional temporal and geographical boundaries to create an ongoing, global debate around must-see video. Not, in my opinion, something to be sad about.

In defence of PowerPoint

Only two contributions seemed to meet with widespread audience approval at last month's MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit. One was Lord Puttnam voicing his concern over the educational deficiencies / moral vacuity of video games (somebody buy that peer a copy of Everything Bad Is Good For You); the other was Emily Bell's promise that the day would be "practically PowerPoint free". Whilst only the former elicited a round of spontaneous applause, the latter certainly prompted a sigh of relief from a roomful of seasoned conference attendees.

What struck me about the audience reaction to these two contributions is just how easy it is to fall into the trap of blaming the medium for the message. Neither games consoles nor Microsoft PowerPoint should be held responsible for the proliferation of poor quality content. They are simply two forms of media which (like the the printing press, the television, the Internet and, for that matter, all other forms of media) can be used to create products of wildly varying quality.

On the basis that video games aren't short of articulate defenders, I will focus on the not inconsiderable challenge of speaking up for PowerPoint, for which the knives appear to be well and truly out. It's been bubbling along under the surface for a long time (see Wired's 2003 polemic PowerPoint is Evil) but the PowerPoint backlash is now in full swing. You could of course argue that the products of a multi-billion dollar software giant neither need nor deserve to be defended but I'm a firm believer in everyone receiving a fair trial (or maybe it's just a perverse desire to defend the indefensible).

The nub of my argument is that bad PowerPoint presentations are the fault of the creator and/or presenter not the software. Put simply, most of us don't know how to use PowerPoint effectively. One of the most elementary errors is replicating the content of the verbal presentation in textual form (usually as bullet points but sometimes, dear God, in full). This was highlighted by a recent piece on The Register, Official: PowerPoint bad for brains, which reported the findings of a team of Australian researchers that the human brain is ill-equipped to process the same information presented verbally and visually at the same time. What is extraordinary is that, like much research, we already know this (by virtue of having sat through such tedious presentations ourselves) and yet show little sign of implementing that knowledge.

Of course, reading out your slides is just one of a litany of common PowerPoint misdemeanours, which include wildly inappropriate use of clip art, illegible font sizes and gratuitous animation to name but three. So, what's to be done? A few years back I ran a training session at work called 'How To Sex Up Your PowerPoint' which included some tips for avoiding death by PowerPoint. Below are my '8 golden rules'. It's notable that they are mostly just common sense (PowerPoint seems to engender a curious leave-taking of senses amongst even the most intelligent of presenters). So without further ado...

The 8 Golden Rules of PowerPoint

1. Plan your presentation before opening PowerPoint

The first thing most people do when they hear they have a presentation to give (after the weeks of procrastinating), is to fire up PowerPoint and start knocking out some slides. This tends to result in 84-slide presentations without any discernible structure. Force yourself to write down answers to these two questions:

- What is your objective for the presentation?
- What key messages do you want your audience to take away? (ideally 3, but definitely no more than 7 as people can only hold 7 things in their brain at once)

It might seem ridiculous but you'd be surprised how often you get half way through creating a PowerPoint presentation and forget what you're trying to achieve with it.

2. Exploit your colleagues

Not in a general sense of course, but when it comes to sourcing images, audio, video or facts and figures don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you've taken the time to plan the presentation you'll know roughly what assets you're going to need and can fire off a few emails asking people for their help in finding them well before the presentation is due. Don’t be afraid of reusing slides or assets (yours or other peoples). If someone has already made a slide which illustrate your point, don’t reinvent the wheel. It’s easy to feel that PowerPoint presentations are like wedding outfits – you have to have an entirely new one for every occasion. You don’t – at the very least you can wear those shoes again. That said, you mustn’t forget Rule number 3…

3. Be ruthless

From when you are first planning the presentation to when you do your final run through, ask yourself "does this slide enhance my point?“. If it doesn't, change it so it does or get rid of it all together. Visuals can be distracting, especially when the alternative is listening to someone talk, so don't use them for their own sake or because it took you ages to build. Chances are they’ll come in handy later on.

4. Be consistent

There are few things more disconcerting in a PowerPoint presentation than fonts which change size, colour and location for no particular reason. Keep your headings the same size and in the same place. The easiest way of doing this is to copy and paste a slide and change the text. If you have a series of screengrabs, keep them the same size and in the same place. Using templates can also help consistency as can the Slide Master.

5. Keep it simple

Chances are you will know a great deal more than your audience about the subject on which you're presenting and its easy to misjudge the amount of knowledge you are assuming or the amount of geek-speak. A very complex presentation can actually be more boring than a simple one. Visually, try to use a little text as possible on the slides and avoid using text smaller than 28-point as your audience won't be able to read it. Don't be afraid of continuing a series of bullet points over two slides (assuming you've already edited them down as far as possible). If the second greatest PowerPoint crime is reading out verbatim text to an audience then the greatest is pointless animation. Try and avoid using animation unless it illustrates your point. We've all sat through presentations where all you can focus on is the hideous slide wipes.

6. Illustrate your points

They say a picture paints a thousand words and they may just be right. An image can make a point more simply and more effectively and be more memorable. However visuals can also be distracting so be sure to apply Rule 3 (Be Ruthless) to your use of images. Also consider using audio or video - a well chosen piece of media can be very powerful. Also, it breaks the monotony of one person talking. Try to use examples which will resonate with your audience, which brings me onto Rule 7…

7. Talk to your audience

Be sure to tailor your presentation to your audience. It’s easy to reach for an off-the-shelf presentation that you’ve used before but your audience will usually be able to tell. Of course, it’s not only what you say but also how you deliver it. Try to talk to your audience not your PowerPoint. It may feel a bit weird at first. Use prompt cards if necessary. If you are going to give out handouts, do so at the end.

8. Rules are there to be broken

The final golden rule of PowerPoint is that rules are there to be broken. Having said earlier on that a presentation should only aim to convey no more than 7 messages, I’ve just tried to give you 8. So, I guess they’re more like guidelines than rules, but 'golden guidelines' doesn’t have the same ring to it…

Postscript: In an attempt to put my PowerPoint where my mouth is, embedded below is a presentation which I created to accompany my post on Key technology trends for 2007. Unfortunately the font (Cooper Black) got lost in the uploading...

Online video reaches TV via Wii

Getting online video content off the small screens in people's bedrooms and studies and onto the big screens in their lounges is a nut that a whole bunch of big media companies have been spending a lot of time and money trying to crack.

Microsoft was one of the first out of the blocks with Windows XP Media Center, launched way back in October 2004. More than two years on and Bill Gates' dream of a Media Center PC under every TV is still just that, a dream. Put simply, not enough people were willing to shell out for a dedicated media hub to sit in their front room. Whilst the integration of Windows Media Center into Vista (Premium and Ultimate editions) will massively increase the number of Media Center PCs in the market, most of them will be sat on a desk rather than beneath a TV screen.

Apple took a different approach, bundling Front Row with all Macs from October 2005 onwards but waiting until January 2007 to finally bridge the PC/TV gap by launching a set top box (cunningly named Apple TV) capable of wirelessly streaming video (and audio) from your computer to your television. The obvious shortcoming of Apple TV (apart from the fact that it's still not shipping) is that it only works with iTunes.

So, if Windows Media Center and Apple TV aren't yet delivering online video to people's television sets in serious numbers, what is? The answer is the latest generation of game consoles, which are increasingly looking like the trojan horse of the digital home, delivering so much more than small Italian plumbers and hyperactive blue hedgehogs.

One such trojan horse is Nintendo's Wii, which, having sold 4.5 million units in its first three months of launch, is now the fastest-selling console in history. The launch of a (free) Wii-specific beta version of the Opera web browser (a.k.a. Internet Channel) last December turned those 4.5 million Wii's into potential conduits for online video. Whilst the browser can successfully render most webpages, it wasn't long before sites specially designed for the Wii began appearing. Below is a quick compendium of some of the best Wii-specific sites for accessing online video and music.

What's noticeable about these sites is how well designed many of the interfaces are. The limitations of the Wii controller and the likely distance of the user from the screen have forced the designers to come up with bold, simple interfaces which in many cases outshine their web-based cousins (compare the FineTune Wii Player with the regular FineTune site).

Wii video sites

MiiTube
http://www.miitube.co.uk



As the name suggests, MiiTube is specially designed for watching YouTube videos on your Wii. The homepage pulls in YouTube's 'featured videos' and there are separate pages for 'recently added', 'top favourites' and a selection of 'most viewed' charts (i.e. daily, weekly, all time) plus a 'viral chart'. For a site whose USP is accessibility on the Wii, some of the text could do with being a bit larger and there's no option to increase the video size (which you can do on the regular YouTube site).

Rating:

WiiToob
http://wiitoob.com/



Another Wii-friendly window on YouTube, with an infinitely swisher interface, WiiToob's homepage is dominated by a dynamically updating list of recently viewed videos, an alarming proportion of which are not suitable for the office. You're better off heading straight to the 'most viewed' or 'most discussed' lists. Giant font sizes and a visual style which successfully apes Nintendo make WiiToob a joy to navigate.

Rating:

SofaTube
http://www.redkawa.com/sofatube/



RedKawa certainly thought outside the box when developing the interface for SofaTube, using search rather than lists as the main mechanism for finding videos and deciding to present the featured videos as a jumble of Polaroid-style tiles which can be dragged, dropped and bought to the front. It's a neat idea which almost works but ultimately feels a bit gimmicky.

SofaTube's key differentiator from MiiTube and WiiToob is that it indexes videos from Revver as well as YouTube (although you can't search the two together and I wasn't actually able to get the Revver videos to play). Another niggle is that the search results don't fit on the screen (horizontally or vertically) which feels frustrating when the site has just accurately detected what browser I'm using.

An innovative approach let down by poor implementation.

Rating:

Wii music sites

FineTune Wii Player
http://www.finetune.com/wii



The FineTune Wii Player is a big-button version of the Pandora-esque online music service, FineTune (reviewed on this blog a few weeks back), offering streamed playlists/radio stations themed around artist or tag. It boasts a gorgeous interface and enables you to log on to your online profile to access your saved playlists, artists and tags.

Rating:

WiiHear
http://www.wiihear.com



Besides a pun-tastic name, WiiHear offers genre-based streaming radio stations (85 stations across 15 different genres at the time of writing) and supports the three 'R's of Web 2.0 sites (reviews, ratings and recommendations). The interface isn't a polished as FineTune's with too much small text, although there are a few nice touches, such as the 'past tracks played' lists which accompany every station.

Rating:

The number of Wii-specific video and music sites is sure to mushroom over the coming weeks and months (keep an eye on Wiidesigned.com) and will no doubt soon be joined by an array of sites tailored specially for Sony's PS3 (which launches in the UK on March 23rd and features a built-in browser). Opera has also indicated that Wii web widgets are on the cards, which could be very interesting.

As suggested in my earlier post on key technology trends for 2007, the converged digital media hub is arriving by stealth. The next trojan horse looks likely to be the set-top box, which are getting smarter and more connected by the day.

First impressions of Joost

So I managed to get Joost up and running on my PC (turns out I'd left Hardware Acceleration switched off after taking some screengrabs in Windows Media Player) and I'm inferring from the availability of screengrabs on the site "that anyone can use to illustrate stories or blog posts about Joost" that its now cool to write about it (I'm sure their lawyers will let me know if not).

For the uninitiated, Joost (formerly known as The Venice Project) is a peer-to-peer TV distribution technology from Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa), currently in closed beta. Interestingly the keyword here is not peer-to-peer, or for that matter distribution, but TV, for Joost's real innovation is not one of technical delivery but of interface design (or, more specifically, interface hybridisation).

Prior to Joost, almost all online distributors of TV content adopted a very web (or in some cases, desktop) focused approach to presentation (i.e. the applications looked and behaved like web/desktop applications). What Zennström and Friis have done is salvage the baby from the bathwater in appropriating some of the best things about broadcast TV and then adding on layers of web-enabled goodness.

For example, the first thing that strikes you when you fire up the app is that it immediately starts playing full screen video. There are no option screens to plough through, no wizard to explain how everything works. You just switch it on and it starts playing. Like a TV.

You move the mouse to the top of the screen in search of a menu bar. Guess what? No menu bar. Just four graphical elements along each of the screen's 'hot edges' (see below grab). Along the bottom is 'The Controller', a navigational panel comprising familiar transport controls (Pause, Restart current programme, Skip to next programme), a volume control and a channel changer. Ok, you think, it's like a TV/DVD remote. I get it. Although hang on a minute, isn't that a Search box? On my TV remote? You panic and press the Standby button. The image shrinks to a white dot in the centre of the screen...



The extent to which Joost borrows the behavioural and iconographic characteristics of TV is initially disconcerting, then strangely reassuring as you realise that they've mostly taken the good bits. 'My Channels', which is located on the left-hand hot edge, is essentially an EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), showcasing the available channels (28 at time of writing) with a few navigational/promotional aids (e.g. Staff picks, Most interactive, New channels).



However, Joost also capitalises on the inherent strengths of the Internet and layers web-enabled elements over the top of the broadcast TV environment. The right-hand hot edge features 'My Joost' which offers a selection of semi-transparent widget overlays (they call them plugins) which float over the top of the TV image. At the time of writing there are only half a dozen plugins to choose from, although that will no doubt increase as the beta progresses. These range from the really rather ordinary (Clock, Notice Board, News Ticker) to the potentially quite disruptive (Instant Messaging, Rate It, Channel Chat). It's surely only a matter of time before a Skype widget arrives, enabling your friends to talk over your favourite programme remotely.



The potential of the 'Interactive programme information' hot spot, at the top of the screen, hasn't yet been fully realised with just two programmes (the unlikely pairing of 'Lassie' and 'The World's Strongest Man') offering any degree of interactivity, although its only fairly basic browsable text and video content which might just about pass muster as an interactive TV app but seems inadequate when you're sat in front of a net-connected PC.

So, what of the actual viewing experience? The video and audio quality are really pretty impressive with a refreshing absence of discernible artifacts. How long you'll spend watching is more dependent on the quality of the content, which is the application's real $64,000 question. At this early stage Joost still essentially feels like a technological proof-of-concept, albeit a very compelling one. Whether it succeeds in changing the way the world consumes TV, as it's founders clearly hope, now depends on the quality of the content. Saying no to user-generated programming is an obvious differentiator from YouTube et al. but also a clear marker in terms of where Joost hopes to position itself on the quality spectrum.

Whether or not Zennström and Friis are able to secure the content and advertising deals they'll need to make this thing fly (the smart money says yes), it remains a fascinating example of hybridisation, combining some of the best elements of broadcast TV (an intuitive interface, high production values, a scalable distribution model) with some of the most compelling uses of the net (on-demand delivery, social networking, long tail economics).

I can't help feeling that there's a lesson here for other market sectors attempting to translate established industries into successful online propositions; namely, don't try and reinvent the wheel when you can create something far superior by adopting a magpie approach, plundering the existing model for the elements which work, disregarding those that don't and cherry-picking from the smorgasbord of new net-based technologies.

Having spearheaded revolutions in both music distribution and telephony, the dynamic P2P duo look all set to repeat the feat with TV. The question is 'what next?' I'm thinking distributed gaming, although Joost is likely to keep them busy for a good while yet.

The best compact superzoom in the world?

Before heading off down under last month I decided to treat myself and replace my ageing Pentax Optio S4 (which has an erratic flash, a dead USB port and a failing zoom) with something a bit more fit for purpose. Top of my list of priorities was a decent zoom. The problem was that I didn't want the bulk (or the expense) of an digital SLR like the highly rated Canon EOS and Nikon D series but I couldn't find a compact camera with an optical zoom to write home about. That was until I stumbled upon the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1. Boasting a 10x optical zoom (equivalent to a focal length of 35-350mm) the DMC-TZ1 is still only 4cm deep. This is due to the application of "folded optics technology" which allows the zooming to occur horizontally within the camera. Factor in Panasonic's Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) technology, a Leica lens, a 2.5 inch LCD display, a High Sensitivity mode with a fastest speed of ISO 1600 and a widescreen (16:9) option and the decision was made. I ordered the DMC-TZ1 from purelygadgets.co.uk for a bargainous £158.75 (it's £299.99 from Panasonic's own eshop) and have been delighted with the results. I won't write a full review of the camera as that's been done by far more knowledgeable folk than me. What I will do is post some photos from my trip which give an idea of how the DMC-TZ1 performs in real-world conditions.

Macro mode:



Widescreen mode:



Optical zoom:



Fireworks mode:



Capturing movement:

Key technology trends for 2007

Writer and management guru Peter F. Drucker once said that attempting to predict the future is "like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window". A touch hyperbolic perhaps but the litany of wildly inaccurate past predictions, particularly in the field of technology, is testament to the difficulty of anticipating future trends.

Will that stop me from attempting to forecast next year's key technology trends? Hell no. But before I get on to the folly of future predictions, here's a quick round up of some of the key technologies that 'tipped' in 2006.

Key technology trends for 2006

Web 2.0
Whilst no-one can agree on exactly what it means (the best definition I've read is Paul Graham's which boils it down to Ajax, democracy and not maltreating users), there can be little doubt that Web 2.0 encompasses some of the defining technology trends of the past year. Whilst the term itself and many of the sites it describes have been around for a couple of years now, 2006 has been the year that the sites which most epitomise Web 2.0 really went mainstream as the below chart from Alexa illustrates.



Online video sharing
YouTube was the runaway online success story of 2006. Founded in February 2005 (but only officially launched last December), modest growth quickly gave way to an avalanche of traffic which culminated in its sale to Google in November 2006 for a cool $1.65bn. Dozens of pretenders to the YouTube throne have now entered the market (see earlier post) although the big YT still commands a whopping 64% of the UK online video market.

Betas
Not so long ago, beta referred to the final stage of software development where applications were made available to a closed group of testers for a limited period so any bugs could be identified and ironed out before the public (gold) release. Not any more. The web is now awash with sites labelled beta with seemingly very little correlation to their state of development. Of course it was Google who pioneered the perpetual beta with the likes of Google Catalogs (in beta since 2001), Froogle (since 2002) and Gmail (since 2004) to name but three. However it wasn't until 2006 that betamania really took hold (check out the 2000+ betas listed at The Museum of Modern Betas). Whilst in part this is a legitimate reflection of a shift away from release-based development towards more on-going iterative development, the beta label has also become both a universal disclaimer and a strange Web 2.0 badge of honour. Flickr (another pioneer of the perpetual beta) is only too aware of this and has playfully re-edited its logo to indicate that the site is now in 'gamma'...

VoIP
With UK broadband connections passing the 11 million mark in 2006, Voice over IP was a technology whose time had come. Sure enough, the introduction of mass-market VoIP services mushroomed in 2006. Skype led the way, signing up 100 million users by April 2006 and joining Google in the elite club of online services that have become so synonymous with an activity as to become verbs (e.g. skype me at...). A range of increasingly attractive handsets followed as did services from the major UK Telcos.

Wikis
The wiki is another web technology which has been around for a while (WikiWikiWeb, the first ever wiki, went live in March 1995) but which really came of age in 2006. Whilst the daddy of the wikis, Wikipedia, passed 1.5 million English-language articles last month and trebled its traffic over the course of the year (see above graph from Alexa), the real breakthrough was the explosion in grass-roots wikis (WikiIndex now lists 3,638) and the emergence of WYSIWYG wiki creation sites like PBwiki, Wetpaint and JotSpot (acquired by Google in October) which significantly lower the barriers to entry by taking the technical know-how out of setting up a wiki. Special mention must go to Lostpedia - a Lost themed replica of Wikipedia - which has clocked up over 40 million page impressions since it launched last September.

Multi-core processors
It's six years since IBM launched the first dual-core module processor (the POWER4) but its only now that multi-core processing is starting to hit the mainstream, most notably in the guise of the XBox 360 (which has a triple-core CPU) and the PlayStation 3 (whose Cell processor has an 8 core design). The new range of Apple Macs are also furnished with multi-core processors (the Intel Core 2 Duo). Whilst its difficult to quantify the impact this has on the end user, multi-core processing will definitely mean more powerful processors in the future with as yet undreamt of applications. Intel has apparently developed an 80-core processor prototype, which it says will be released within the next five years.

Now it's time for some wild speculation...

Key technology trends for 2007

Widgets
As previously posted, widgets look destined to be big next year, not only on the desktop and on the web but also on mobile phones.

Virtual worlds/online avatars
Building on the burgeoning success of immersive online environments like World of Warcraft and Second Life (see earlier post), 2007 is likely to see a lot more of virtual worlds. I also anticipate that the two-dimensional rendering of MySpace pages will gradually make way for more 3D expressions of people's personalities and interests. One site which is ahead of the curve on this is IMVU which has the tagline "beyond instant messaging". The site invites you to create your own 3D avatar which you can then use to chat to your friends in 3D scenes (see below screengrab).



Personal Video Recorders
Despite the zealous evangelism of owners, the PVR has thus far stubbornly refused to go mainstream in the UK. TiVo launched in the UK way back in 2000 and Sky+ followed in October 2001 (TiVo has since withdrawn from the UK market) but subscriber numbers have remained relatively low. That all looks set to change as the drive towards analogue switch-off gathers momentum and DTT PVRs start tumbling in price, aided by the Freeview Playback initiative. The launch of BT Vision may also help espouse the joys of PVRs.

Wi-Fi
Like many of the above technologies, the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard has been around for years. However, it's been slow to take off in the UK. In May 2006, Strategy Analytics published a study suggesting that just 6.1% of Britains use wireless. So what will precipitate a change in 2007? The biggest factor is likely to be the integration of Wi-Fi into an increasingly broad range of devices, from mobile phones (enabling free calls over VoIP) to digital cameras, from HDTVs and PVRs to digital radios. Philip Solis, senior analyst at ABI Research, has said that they expect the number of Wi-Fi integrated circuits sold into consumer electronics to grow from 6.6 million units in 2004 to over 70 million units in 2007. All three of the seventh generation consoles support Wi-Fi (the PS3 and the Wii natively, the Xbox 360 by means of an adapter) and Windows Vista promises much better wireless support. The falling costs of laptops, which increasingly come with wireless as standard will also increase the number of Wi-Fi capable devices in the market.

The other side of the equation is access points, which look set to becoming increasingly ubiquitous as 2007 progresses. BT's Wireless City project aims to bring city-wide coverage to 12 UK cities and the success of free community networks in Bristol and Norfolk has prompted Manchester City Council to draw up plans for a similar network there. In addition, the number of local hotspots in cafes, airports and other public spaces looks set to rocket as businesses cotton on to Wi-Fi as a selling-point. Home networks will also become more commonplace as broadband packages increasingly come with Wi-Fi routers as standard and home media servers start dropping in price.

Finally, the adoption of the 802.11n standard (due for final approval in July 2007, but already supported ) will offer data transfer speeds of up to 540 Mbit/s and should make wireless sending high-definition video around a home network a reality.

RFID tags
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is another technology which has been around for donkeys years but is only just starting to hit its stride. Traditionally used for the secure identification of people, vehicles and animals, prices of passive RFID tags (which don't require a battery) have fallen dramatically in recent years opening up a whole new range of possibilities. Recent applications include Transport for London Oyster cards and the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit (which has raised some interesting privacy questions). Expect to see RFID appearing in increasingly bizarre and scary places like in your passport and mobile phone and even under your skin.

Music on mobiles
The quality gap between the once untouchable iPod and mobile music phones is narrowing all the time and after the disappointment of the Nokia N91 (the first mobile with a 4GB hard drive), its only a matter of time before one of the handset manufacturers puts out a truly desirable music phone. That assuming that Steve Jobs doesn't get there first, of course. Rumours of an Apple iPhone have been circulating for years although the smart money does now seem to be on a January announcement.

Remote storage
The concept of remote storage has gradually permeated the collective consciousness over the past few years. Most of us are now content that the majority of our written correspondence is stored on a remote email server and not saved locally or printed out and filed. A similar thing is starting to happen with music, film and photography although these media are still primarily stored locally. 2007 is likely to see a significant shift towards remote storage as we increasingly come to expect all of our digital stuff to be available regardless of our geographical location. One service which is prepared for this nascent demand is Box.net which offers 1GB of free storage. Another is Orb which is specifically geared towards media storage (see earlier post). Of course it's not just data which is becoming increasingly remote, applications are also making the move to 'the cloud' (e.g. Google Docs & Spreadsheets.). The final piece of the puzzle is the operating system which will one day also be stored remotely - something Microsoft is already giving quite a bit of thought to.

Digital home hubs
The converged digital media hub has been a 'next big thing' for a long time now, but it was never going to take off whilst it depended on people shelling out a grand on a dedicated media centre. In 2007, a growing number of consumers will purchase another item of consumer electronics (e.g. games console, computer, set-top box) and find that they've effectively got digital hub functionality bundled for free. A few products which are going to prove key in this process are Windows Vista, the PlayStation 3, Apple's iTV product and BT Vision. Whilst there's clearly a long way to go on the interoperability front thanks to the quagmire that is DRM, the converged digital home hub is finally started to become a reality.

Personal GPS/location aware applications
You can now buy a mini GPS receiver for under £100 which can communicate your geo-coordinates to your mobile phone via Bluetooth which can in turn be uploaded to the web. A whole crop of Web 2.0 apps are springing up to take advantage of this new data set (e.g. Plazes, Everytrail, Socialite). Even without GPS data there are location based services to suit, relying on other methods to ascertain your whereabouts, such as triangulating the mobile phone signal (e.g Dodgeball, ZoneTag). Location aware applications could just turn out to be the mobile internet's USP.

RSS
Really Simple Syndication is seemingly constantly on the brink of crossing over into mainstream. The signs are certainly all there for 2007, with IE7 integration taken care of, aggregators like Bloglines and Google Reader going great guns, podcast usage slowly catching up with the hype, and the ressurgence of the personalised homepage (see earlier post). I expect alot more people to be regularly accessing content via RSS next year whether they know they are or not.

TV on demand over IP
Sky Anytime, Channel 4 on Demand and BT Vision are all now live and the BBC iPlayer is expected to launch next year (pending the outcome of the Public Value Test). The $64,000 question is just how many people are ready to consume TV in this way and whether the technology can live up to their expectations.

Whilst I'm here, I may as well also take a punt on what some of the key tech trends are likely to be moving into 2008...

Key technology trends for 2008

Ultra-wideband - UWB could potentially sound the death-knell for all those messy USB cables around your computer and the SCART lead connecting your TVR to your PVR.

Wi-MAX - A strong contender for Ofcom's proposed spectrum auction, potentially joining the Wi-Fi dots and providing 'last mile' connectivity for those unable to get broadband via cable or ADSL.

Mobile TV - Whilst almost all the UK mobile operators have dipped their toes in the mobile TV water, there is unlikely to be a truly compelling consumer offering up and running before 2008 when flat-rate data tarifs may make streaming via 3G a viable option or one of the competing broadcast technologies (e.g. DVB-H, DAB-IP, DMB, MediaFLO) emerges as a clear winner.

HDTV - High Definition TV is a technology which is available in the UK today (from Sky or Telewest) but is likely to take a number of years to mature. Despite a successful trial this summer, capacity for high definition broadcasts on terrestrial television (Freeview) will be very limited until digital switchover.

Fuel cells - Some of Japan's leading consumer electronics companies have been working on developing DMFCs (direct methanol fuel cells) which are small enough to function as a mobile phone recharger.

2007: the year of the widget?

Widgets, gadgets, call them what you will - mini modular applications are starting to look suspiciously like the next big thing, not only on the desktop and the web but also increasingly on mobile devices. The inaugural Widgets Live! conference in San Francisco was a sell out earlier this month and attracted sponsorship from four of the biggest players in online media (Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL). The W3C has released a draft standards doc. Widgets have even spawned their own 'pedia' (widgipeida) - an intriguing new barometer of online buzz (e.g. Lostpedia, Wookiepedia).

So why now? Konfabulator first launched over three years ago and its been a good eighteen months since Apple released Dashboard as part of Mac OS X Tiger. Below are half a dozen key factors that have contributed to the breakthrough of the widget.

1.) Increased broadband penetration

A large proportion of widgets rely on an always-on broadband connection to drip-feed dynamic content to them. Increased broadband penetration means more people capable of running widgets. Higher spec computers and the development of operating systems which cope better with running multiple applications simultaneously have also helped cultivate a more widget-friendly environment. Like the personalised homepage (see earlier post), the widget has come of age thanks to technology finally catching up with the ambition. What was the Active Desktop (bundled with Windows Desktop Update way back in 1997) if not a widget engine let down by immature technology?

2.) The widespread adoption of AJAX

Thanks to AJAX, web widgets now behave more like desktop applications. They are more responsive, they can b