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Exclusive: Microsoft / Nokia ‘Mokia 7650′ Windows Phone 7. Well, perhaps not…
Exclusive top-secret footage of Nokia’s newest Windows Mobile 7 toting handset the ‘Mokia 7650′. Honest guv.
At this point I should add that this video is decidedly and deliberately a hoax to coincide with Nokia’s announcement earlier today that it will be collaborating with Microsoft to bring the Windows Phone 7 operating system to its handsets, elbowing aside both Symbian and MeeGo.
Nokia’s hardware platform has traditionally proven itself more reliable and sturdy than most (as the video above featuring the 9-year-old Nokia 7650 that we’ve featured before here at techspot.tv testifies) and the integration of Microsoft’s much-lauded new mobile operating system could prove a real winner for both parties.
Personally, I can’t wait to see what the partnership brings. Like many, I find that I have a fondness for Nokia that transcends its poor showings of the last half-a-dozen years, at least partially due to handsets like its 7650, 7110 and 7280 which were every bit as exciting and groundbreaking back in 2002 as the HTC and Apple handsets are today. The inclusion of Microsoft’s slick and visually appealing software platform onto Nokia’s hardy handsets may help the Finns to re-engage with some of their recently defected customers.
As for the ‘Exclusive Footage’ above, the Windows Phone 7 images were simply sent by MMS from an iPhone and then displayed in full screen mode on the 7650 to create a ‘Mokia’ mash-up video.
Video Review of the Parrot AR.Drone
In November 2010 the team at the NFTS asked if I would review Parrot’s ground-breaking new boys’ toy, the AR.Drone, for their live at 5 magazine show, The Loft. Never one to shirk a tech challenge, I accepted.
Armed with nothing more than my trusty iPad, here’s how I got on.
Plug-in and Power-up: 1985 Compaq Deskpro 8086
25 years after it first hit the shelves, and 10 years since it was last switched on, we plug-in and power-up this vintage Compaq Deskpro 8086 IBM Compatible PC complete with original green screen monitor, 20MB Winchester Hard Disk Drive, 300 baud modem and even a real-time clock card.
In the video we find some interesting educational software installed – green screen strip poker anyone…?
This system has since been donated to the kind chaps at the Centre for Computing History where it will enjoy many more years of tender loving care – you can see its entry in their database here, along with further photographs and detailed system specifications.
Nokia Nostalgia – Nokia 7650 Cameraphone (2002), a smartphone ahead of its time
*** UPDATE May 2011 ***
Click below for an exclusive Techspot.tv ‘Retro Review’ video of the Nokia 7650:
Still recovering from the torrent of mobile telephone tech unfurled at Nokia World earlier this week? Calm yourself, put down those paracetamols and take some deep breaths because here at the Techspot.tv Surgery we have concocted the perfect antidote…
Back in the heady days of 2002, Japan and Korea hosted an enthralling football World Cup, Tom Cruise’s hit Minority Report inspired a generation of user-interface design, and the all-conquering Nokians from Finland were at the top of the mobile pile with their four digit handhelds.
Nokia 7650 in action
Amongst Nokia’s headline acts was the 7650 which introduced a number of ground-breaking features to the consumer mobile market: it was the first Nokia camera phone (in fact Nokia was one of the first consumer mobile makers to combine phone and camera), one of Nokia’s first colour screens, their first Symbian OS phone and the first in a long tradition Series 60 devices still going strong today.
We’re suckers for a spot of tech nostalgia here at techspot.tv, and with Nokia attempting to rock the world with their tempting new releases, we had all the excuses we needed to dust off, charge-up and power-on the vintage Nokia 7650 to see how it compares with the current crop of smart phones. A day’s use down the line, and this is how it fared:
Features – undoubtedly, this handset was way ahead of its time. Aside from featuring a camera (heralding a new age of MMS bullying and citizen papping) which could record and send both still snaps as well as movies (which Apple’s God-phone didn’t get around to until 2009), it also featured downloadable applications and a multitasking OS. Above all, the Symbian S60 operating system made – and still makes – it a pleasure to use.
Battery Life – surprisingly good: still sporting its original battery, after an overnight charge it lasts all day having made a few calls, taken a few snaps and played a few games of the timeless classic Snake.
Pocketability – it is a tad bulky, but no more than many of Nok’s newer smarties; the compact slide-out keyboard stows away tidily and, despite the lack of touchscreen, many functions are fully accessible when the keys are hidden.
Killer Apps – “What do you mean, your phone has a camera? It’ll never catch on.”; Snake.
Eight years on and the Nok's still got a solid slide
Multimedia – A let-down by today’s standards, its Achilles heel being its proprietary headphone socket and a meagre 4MB of RAM. But perhaps this isn’t surprising: Creative’s DAP MP3 player was still niche in 2002 and Apple’s iPod was still Mac/FireWire only, so solid state music hadn’t captured the public imagination quite yet.
Connectivity – Bluetooth, Infrared and GPRS GSM; unfortunately 3G wasn’t yet a feature on phones of 2002 (and still isn’t on some Blackberrys of today) and Wi-Fi was just beginning to gain acceptance. It is email capable but web-browsing was courtesy of a the hapless WAP. Nevertheless, it featured both Bluetooth and data-cable tethering to a PC via the Nokia Data Suite, along with phone backup, syncing etc.
Screen – retina display it ain’t, but a bold bright and colourful display it is, blowing away the mostly monochrome mobile market of the time.
Cool Factor – the phone benefitted from being promoted in one of the top-grossing sci-tech films of the year, Minority Report, and its quirky retro-future looks still imbue it with gallons of geek chic.
We’ve loved having this phone out and about for the day. No, perhaps it’s not the all-singing, all-dancing and all-enveloping mobile experience to which we’ve slowly grown accustomed but, perhaps surprisingly given its age, in many areas it can still stand proudly on its own as a remarkably capable smart-phone. We look forward to seeing if the newest bevy of smart phones announced by the Finnish wizards earlier this week will still fare as well in another 8 years’ time.
Do you have an old mobile sadly gathering dust in the cupboard that could give some of today’s super-phones a run for their money? Leave a comment below and let us know…
Like this:
Apple iOS 4.1 update promises relief to Bluetooth headset and car-kit users
Meet Mr Bluetooth. He’s a long-established personal area network wireless standard who promotes cross-platform and cross-device compatibility, famed for both his hands-free convenience and his fist-clenching fiddlyness. He’s also responsible for more annoying flashing blue lights than a Glasgow derby. In spite of that he’s a friendly sort of chap who gets on with almost everyone; that is except for Master Apple, whose friendships with Dr Wi-Fi and Prof 3G have also been rather strained of late – come to think of it, Master Apple hasn’t been getting on very well with anyone from Wireless Avenue recently.
Since the release of iPhone OS3 last summer, users of Bluetooth headsets and car-kits have complained of their functionality being stripped away: either some functions (e.g. Play/Pause) or their entire devices stop working altogether. The release of iOS4.0 earlier this summer ensured that most remaining Bluetooth functional car-kits also stopped working, much to the chagrin of many Parrot ‘Made for iPhone’ Bluetooth car-kit owners.
Thankfully, Apple’s iOS 4.1 – released today – promises to mend at least the Bluetooth relationship without recourse to a Relate councillor.
The latest Supported Bluetooth Profiles article on the Apple website boasts A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth support, the latter (re-)enabling the play/pause, next/previous track buttons in many devices. Furthermore, the iTunes library reorganisation introduced with iOS4 which put paid to many Parrot Bluetooth streaming devices is also due to be reworked.
So far, we’ve only been able to test the Sony DR-BT21G Bluetooth headphones (originally tested here) against iOS 4.1 and we’re delighted to report that full-function has once again returned to these headsets with full play/pause next/previous control. Watch the Parrot forum for an update on iOS4.1 compatibility with the Parrot MKi9200 and its associated iPhone-friendly Bluetooth streaming car kits – we’ll also be testing one over the next few days.
Getting naked with the Dell Streak
Anyone would think we’ve been taking too many tablets again here at techspot.tv. As if disinterring a 2006 Samsung Q1 tablet PC and comparing it with a sprightly 2010 Apple iPad wasn’t enough madness for one month, last week we found ourselves snatching the sexy Dell Streak from its cradle and prodding it violently with a sharp implement. Naughty techspot. First announced at CES earlier in the year and finally released to the public last Friday (4th June 2010) the new Dell Streak marks the first of Dell’s highly-anticipated forays into the ‘new’ consumer tablet market and something of a departure from their otherwise staple corporate laptop, desktop and server-focused sales. We were fortunate to pin one down for a hands-on just before O2 snaffled them up and put them up for sale on the high street. Naughty O2.
Dell Streak - even with its clothes off, there's not much to see.
So, what’s the Dell Streak tablet computer (or the DellPad as we found ourselves calling it) all about then? Well, it’s an Android-toting portable device sporting a 5-inch touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Micro SD support and 5MP camera with LED flash. A plastic case it may have, but in fact she’s a very sturdy little beast, its chaperone taking great pleasure in stabbing its Gorilla Glass screen with a pencil to demonstrate just how hardy this little slab is.
It has to be said that the screen is a thing of beauty, enough to flatter even the grainiest YouTube video: colourful, clear and scratch-proof are a winning combination. However, its biggest asset is also its biggest downfall as, frankly, 5 inches just isn’t enough. The Streak feels rather like a slightly porkier iPhone, but not at all on the same scale as the ‘Honey I Blew Up The Blower’ iPad’s 10-inch screen. With its tablet monicker, comparisons with other tablets such as the iPad are inevitable, but we feel its size alone pitches it instead more against the iPhone.
There are further similarities between the Streak and the iPhone, in particular the frustrating lack of Flash support, although this is promised as an over-the-air update later on this year. The Streak is also fully functioning phone via its SIM card, although a hands-free kit might be preferred here to avoid the tedious Dom Joly comparisons.
However, the it’s in the overall user experience where there are the most differences to iPhone. Whilst Android has gained significant traction in the market over the last 12 months, on the DellSlab it’s a shame that Google’s operating system seemed inexplicably clunky and reluctant to perform in spite of its snappy Qualcomm core. A prime example was one of Google’s own flagship apps, Google Maps, which lacked any of the smooth tactile joy experienced on the iPhone and elsewhere. We also had a surprising amount of trouble tapping out a quick message on its keyboard, possibly due to its small size or perhaps because its intelligent keys were outsmarting us; either way, prodding away was a real chore and particularly unintuitive, certainly requiring something of a steeper learning curve than most would hope.
So, who will this device ultimately appeal to? Straight out, if you already have an iPhone or iTouch then the Dell Streak isn’t for you: apart from a couple of extra inches of screen estate and a flashier snapper there are few other compelling reasons to double-up. However, if you are stuck to a corporate contract with a Blackberry or with a boring talk ‘n’ text Nokia and are looking for a pocketable personal phone or portable media player to help while away the scrum on the Circle Line every morning then the Streak could make a great non-Apple option.
Pocketable and palmable but just not typeable.
Dell have promised in the near future to upgrade the Streak’s operating system to the latest Android version 2.2 and to include Adobe Flash support. These software improvements, together with a hardware upgrade to a 7 or 10-inch screen and increased onboard storage will certainly ask more questions of its main rivals. However, for now there’s just not quite enough ‘wow’ in the Streak to tempt those unsure of the tablet form factor into buying, or to convince those already converted away from Apple’s devices.
Tablet Supertest: 2010 Apple iPad v 2006 Samsung Q1
Picture the scene if you will: an impassioned nation gears up for a World Cup, armed with “the best team since ’66″; an excited tech community gets hot and frothy about a ‘new dawn of tablet computing’. That’s right folks, the year is 2006. How times change.
Four years ago Intel and Microsoft’s ‘Origami Project‘ promised – much like Sven-Göran Eriksson’s England football team – to be easy on the eye with some swish moves and quality goals, but in reality it pretty much folded in the group stages. Just like major sporting tournaments, it seems as though tablet computers come and go every four years leaving us disappointed with what could have been.
But wait: as Apple’s latest signing finally makes its entrance from a brief pre-season stint in the US, and only a matter of days before South Africa hosts its continent’s first World Soccerball Fest, will Team Jobs’ latest addition to his squad be a match-winner? Or, just like in 2006, will poor penalty performance mean an early shower?
To get some perspective on the iPad’s cup-clinching potential, we’ve taken inspiration from years of television football punditry by carting out an ex-player from a previous campaign who thinks he can still do better…
The Only Q1 ‘ere in the Village
Hands on a Samsung Q1
Much has been written about the iPad in 2010, but in 2006 the Samsung Q1 was one of the Origami Project’s fanfare tablet PCs heralding a new age of portable but powerful computing, the fêted form-factor bridging the thriving PDA and throbbing laptop markets. All well and good, except that approximately nobody seemed to want buy one. In spite of the tablets answering almost universal prayers for increased portability, what seemed like a ‘really neat idea‘ at the time never really caught the public’s imagination. Nobody’s, that is, apart from ours (as we wrote about here) and after having a good play around we bloody-well loved it.
So, having had an extensive run out with both the 2006 Q1 and the 2010 iPad here at Techspot Towers, how do we think they measure up to each other? Does the old-school Samsung still have some tricks up its sleeve to show up an Apple a mammoth 4 years – a lifetime in PC-tech terms – its junior? Well, yes, perhaps it does:
Sex Appeal
Without a doubt both tablets are pretty damn sexy in their own right: Samsung’s recent partiality for shiny black slabs of plastic is in evidence even in 2006, but the industrial sleekness and economy of the iPad’s design is certainly more pleasing to an average 2010-er’s eye.
However, pure aesthetics aside, the iPad must be laced with that same potent pheromone as the rest of the Apple stable which renders their hardware utterly irresistible to anyone within a couple of mouse clicks of an Apple Store.
Operating System
Apple’s OS is built around the touch-screen input – the fundamental essence of a tablet – whereas Microsoft Windows XP, even in its Tablet Edition incarnation, simply isn’t. What Windows gains in flexibility, customisation and general fiddleability in comparison to Apple’s prudish portable OS, it loses in ease of access and execution. Windows XP is a proven operating system, but very much more geared towards pointer and keyboard use.
Portability
Both tablets pack a surprising but pleasing heft when held aloft and in terms of physical size there’s not an enormous deal to choose between them, the Q1 being the smaller but fatter of the two. It does come supplied with a handy slip-case and cloth, and one feels relatively confident that carrying the Samsung around in a busy backpack all day won’t result in a dented, smashed or scratched screen or body. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take away and throw the iPad into a rucksack, but we’d be pretty worried about it getting it dented and bented without a sturdy case guarding it.
However, a less-obvious portability issue is that the iPad does require a full-fat ‘mothership’ PC to whose iTunes it will sync. For some this is a deal-breaker, particularly anyone who thought they’d be able to live with just their iPad and do without a desktop/laptop PC altogether.
Apple iPad Hands On
Connectivity
The Q1 is equipped with a plethora of connectivity options. The inclusion of a Compact Flash slot hints a little at the Q1′s age, but a VGA D-sub, Firewire and USB ports aplenty can’t be argued with. The iPad is a comparative closed door, with its single Apple iPod connector, however flexible, pretty much summing up its connectivity credentials. Both sport Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but only the sportier iPads integrate a 3G modem – although, as ugly as it might look, the same could be perfectly achievable with the Q1 with the insertion of a 3G dongle into one of its USB ports.
Keyboard
In a fundamental oversight, both Apple and Samsung forgot to attach a keyboard – d’oh! Fortunately for us (and them) that they both provide on-screen virtual keyboards. The Samsung’s thumb-tastic ‘dial-keys’ was a valiant but flawed effort, the resistive touch-screen just not up to reliable finger-tapping. However the iPad’s keyboard is second to none, briskly whisking out URLs and emails with both accuracy and intelligent suggestions to spare our fat-fingered typos. Both units accept Bluetooth keyboards, only the Samsung accepting a standard USB connected device, but there is an Apple keyboard that connects via the iPad’s standard 30-pin connector.
Screen
The iPad wins hands down with a glorious capacitive XGA fingerprint-resistant touch-screen that is rich in colour and resolution. The Q1′s resistive touch-screen is dull by comparison, and really shows how far screen technology has progressed in the last few years.
Battery Life
Once again, in the battery life stakes it’s the iPad that wins outright claiming an astronomical 10 hours’ use – reinforced by real-life usage. The Q1′s battery is pretty poor by comparison, with any time over an hour and a half a bonus.
Apps
Apple introduced us to the App Store model and with its iPhone/iTouch-compatible back-catalogue of games, shopping list utilities and fart-noise-creation applications it is hard to beat. Windows itself boasts an enormous heritage of software for all tasks imaginable, but on the whole not software that has been designed for use in a touch-screen environment, and almost certainly not all marshalled, catalogued and presented neatly onto the shelves of a single super-department-store ready to take away instantly.
Accessories
Whilst the economy of several small countries is probably now based-around the continuation of Apple’s 30-pin dock connector, arguably more innovation has been possible thanks to the USB standard: USB fans, torches, battery chargers, memory sticks, robots, cameras, disk drives, remote controlled cars, rabbits – not all useful, but mostly fun.
Verdict
Clearly, the iPad is an entirely more desirable object than the Q1, as evidenced by the distinct lack of queue or Stephen Fry at the launch of the Samsung tablet. But whilst the iPad is no mere empty bragger when it comes to technical specifications, the Samsung Q1 still stands up in many ways to its junior, not least in terms of connectivity. However, as Apple’s iPhone has shown when placed against some technically superior handsets from HTC, its merit is in its smooth and friendly overall user experience – the customisation and expandability that a relatively small proportion of power-users crave could, if implemented, come at the expense of the ease of use and reliability sought by the wider user-base.
The iPad – Jobs a good’un.
Why I’ll be checking-out of Foursquare for good.
Location, location, location.
Faster than you can say ‘negative equity’, the age-old adage of the property business that ‘location is king’ now rings as true online as it does on the pavement. SXSW Interactive (the annual love-in in Austin, Texas for web entrepreneurs and start-ups, which launched the likes of Twitter in 2007) this spring became a battleground for two new location-based services, Foursquare and Gowalla, with the former already topping one-million users and the subject of a speculative $125 million bid from Yahoo Inc., which suggests that pinning-down our virtual identities to physical locations could be big business.
As Robin might exclaim, ‘Holy location-targeted advertising potential, Batman!’ – and he’d almost certainly be right.
But aside from the obvious business benefits to advertisers, why would I want to reveal my location to all-and-sundry randoms on the internet? What’s in it for me? And do I have any choice?
Foursquare
Not only does my camera remind me where I over-exposed another perfectly good photograph, but now Twitter has also taken to geo-tagging each of my tweets. As if that wasn’t enough, for the last few months I actively ‘check-in’ to venues I visit with Foursquare. In the same way that a gamer unlocks achievements on Xbox Live, Foursquare offers ‘badges’ to users who, for example, check-in to more than 25 venues or more than 4 nights in a row (the ‘bender’ badge). I’m still trying to figure out ways to snag the ‘I’m on a boat’ badge. What’s more, with frequent check-ins you may get to become a venue’s ‘mayor’ – but risk being toppled from your perch if others check-in more times than you (and it hurts, let me tell you). Before long, I’m mindlessly checking-in almost everywhere I go trying to satisfy my competitive streak (and, most importantly, trying to regain the mayorship of Mortlake Train Station from my arch-nemesis, ‘Alen M’).
However, in embracing the location-based social networking fad, I’m aware that the boundaries between my virtual and physical social networks are becoming increasingly blurred. And I’m not at all sure I’m completely comfortable with it. Recently I came up against an example of where my virtual and real existences very nearly crossed over, an experience that may make me a little less prolific with Foursquare.
From time to time, just out of sheer curiosity, I like to check out tweets that have been posted near to where I live – call it being a virtual nosy-neighbour, if you will (it’s certainly more discreet than the altogether less-virtual curtain-twitching approach my actual neighbour employs). On one occasion I saw some interesting tweets from somebody who works in the same industry as I and decided to follow them on Twitter, to which they duly reciprocated. We occasionally commented on each others’ tweets and generally carried on living the Twitter dream. A few weeks later I discovered they were also a Foursquare user, so we duly added each other to our respective networks and, alongside all our other followers and followees, we innocently kept up to date with where we were checking-in.
Then one Friday night, as I was making my way back home from another check-in at my local train station, a notification eagerly popped up on my iPhone telling me that this very same virtual buddy had, at that very moment, checked-in to a bar. No big deal, except that it was a bar outside which I coincidentally found myself standing.
Surely this was social networking nirvana, a triumph of Web 2.0, geo-locationary interaction? Wasn’t this the whole point of location services like Foursquare and Gowalla, to discover new venues and meet new people? All I had to do was to stride confidently into the bar, find my virtual chum and say ‘Hi’ and, um…
Get Crunked with Foursquare
I carried on walking home.
For me it was all just a bit too spooky. The thing is this: I’m a married man with a three month old baby and this ‘virtual friend’ was (and indeed still is, at least I think) a woman. In spite of my being a socially brave sort, randomly appearing in a bar and going up to a woman who I’ve virtually, but never physically, met and saying what fundamentally amounts to, ‘Hi, I just saw your profile on the internet and wanted to say hello’, all felt just a little bit too sleazy.
Perhaps I simply want my virtual friends to remain virtual, and I’m as scared to encounter rejection and disappointment in my virtual social networks as I am in my real-life ones – the key difference is that ultimately I’m much more in control of my online interactions, and mixing the two might be akin to some Matrix-style revelation. Which is a shame really, as it’s exactly this breaking down of virtual boundaries that Foursquare is out there for – that is until Yahoo, Google or some other advertising powerhouse get hold of them, begin mining our every movement and pumping us with even more targeted advertising.
So, I guess I’ve failed you Foursquare, maybe it’s time I checked-out instead. But only once I’ve knocked that pretender to the throne Alen M. off of his smug mayoral perch at Mortlake Station…
Check out the battle for the Mayorship Mortlake Train Station by checking in here.
mflow seeks its Stephen Fry, instead finds God.
Described as a mixture of iTunes and Twitter, mflow is the latest in a steady stream of online music services originating from the UK. After spending several months refining itself in a private beta available to about 15,000 invitees, mainly music industry-types and journalists, it finally opened its arms to the general public’s ears last week with a slightly muted fanfare.
NME are one of the first to go with the mflow
Dubbed ‘Twitter – The Musical’, mflow aims to combine the best bits of tweeting with the best bits of, um, iTunes-ing. Fundamentally, how it works is that, like Twitter, you follow people in whose tastes you’re interested and listen to the music that they recommend (or “flow”, to use the mflow lingo). You get to listen each flowed track once in its entirety, but if you want to listen to it in full again then you’ll have to buy it – mflow tracks set you back around the same as iTunes’ at about 79p to 99p or less when sold as part of an album.
But here’s the unique bit: should you buy a track that’s been recommended (sorry, flowed) by somebody else then they get a cut (currently 20%) of the money you spent. To keep the money where it matters, this money must be spent within mflow. It’s an intriguing double-whammy that plays on your both your esteem and your pocket: when flowing not only do you get that warm fuzzy feeling that your followers like the tracks you’re recommending so much that they’re buying them, but you’re also making a tidy bit of credit on the side.
Music taste is highly personal and emotionally-driven and mflow’s model intelligently plays on this to the full. It’s a clever, potentially self-sustaining eco-system that we reckon could work, and its plans to integrate into existing social networks like Twitter and Facebook mean that it’s sure to get some good further exposure with people who’re most likely to ‘get’ it.
Other online music services have tried in the past to create a sustainable business model but Apple’s bite of the pie might just be too big. Services like Last.fm and Spotify may have offered much to the music consumer but they’re still not turning any profits for their owners (Last.fm has been trying since 2002) and there’s huge debate as to whether they’re actually supporting the artists who make the music in the first place. Only last week it was revealed that Lady GaGa and her track Poker Face – a big hit with over a million plays on Spotify and one of the most popular songs on the site – received a cheque for a miserly $167. Informtion Is Beautiful recently published a stunning graphic answering the question, “How much do music artists earn online?” revealing that, in order to earn the same sum (a minimum monthly wage of £1,160) as 150 CD albums sold by an online retail site such as CDBaby.com, they’d have to sell just over 1,200 album downloads on iTunes. Quite a hike. But to achieve the same earnings on Spotify would require a staggering 4.5 million plays of a track. If this is the future of music then there won’t be quite so many musicians, or half as much music choice, for listeners to enjoy.
For mflow, its longer-term success might depend upon two key things:
- for sure its music catalogue and whether they are able to sign-up either the volume or the right market of artists and labels that its prospective users want keep on listening to, recommending and buying;
- almost certainly mflow’s ability to find its very own Stephen Fry, a special someone who can do for this fledgling service what Britain’s favourite Tweeter almost single-handedly achieved for Twitter when it first hatched.
Why sacrifice valuable Sunday morning hangover time when you can follow God on mflow?
During the private beta period the guys at mflow tried to sign-up as many potentially influential people as possible, presumably with the intention of creating some of these musical beacons for new users to follow. Chatting with the mflow team the day before the launch last week they were very keen to point us in the direction of some shining lights – Phil Jupitus, Island Records and The NME all have high-profile channels, as does Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs and God (I’m not kidding, whoever he – or she – is has thousands of followers). mflow also have their own channels, each dedicated to specific genres of music – follow these channels and you’ve a pretty good idea of the kind of music you’re going to be flowed.
But as yet there’s still no single standout figure who represents, champions and epitomises mflow. Perhaps this is asking too much from a single man. Whilst many of us may have been a tad bored of Stephen Fry’s tweets long before his self-imposed Twexile, ignoring his (or anyone else’s) 140 character missives is pretty straightforward. However, choosing to ignore 3 or 4 minutes’ worth of music that makes your skin squirm is another matter (of course, ‘next track’ buttons are available within mflow).
In fact mflow may need several Stephen Fry-like pioneers to appeal to the various musical genres it represents.
Or perhaps mflow just needs a God. Oh, it has already, and as it happens he is currently flowing “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (Album Version)” by Queens of the Stone Age. Who’d have thought…
Want to follow the author’s flows? Find him on mflow at ‘bigdavemac’. Find out more about mflow at http://www.mflow.com/
Finally: Xbox 360 Sky Player hands-on and first screen shots
Over a week since an embarrassing and very public launch failure, Sky TV and Microsoft appear eventually to have uncrossed their wires to provide the Sky Player to Xbox 360 users in the UK. After seven days of less-than-patient anticipation, earlier this evening the Sky Player software was finally available to download from the Xbox 360 dashboard – we were there, camera in hand, to show you what it looks like step by step.
Xbox 360 Sky Player Installation and Set Up
Figure 1. Sky Player on Xbox 360 Dashboard
Telly-hungry gamers have been facing cautious and somewhat unspecific statements on the Sky website suggesting a gradual roll-out of the service since last week, but only now are they beginning to be sated as the option to download the elusive Sky Player software onto their Xbox becomes available (figure 1).
Figure 2. Downloading Sky Player Software
Simply selecting this gives you the option to download the ‘app’ (figure 2).
After starting the application, you’ll need to sign-in before you can watch any Sky content (figure 3). The credential you supply is your Sky Player login (the login you’d normally use for the Sky TV website and where, presumably, you’ll have signed-up for Sky Player – if not then visit the Sky Player Sign-Up page) – figure 4.
Figure 3. Accounts & Settings Menu
Figure 4. Entering Sky Player Account Details
If your sign-in is successful, some Sky magic will happen and your Xbox 360 will now be registered with your Sky Player account (figure 5) to ensure that only one Xbox 360 can be used to view Sky programming. Darn it, those Sky dudes think of everything.
Figure 5. Xbox is registered with your Sky Player account
If you get this far, then you’re pretty much good to go and can begin exploring the Sky Television content that’s available to you, depending upon your subscription with Sky. If you have a standard single set-top box Sky subscription then you’ll be able to watch on-demand content from channels within your subscribed channel package and also live Sky News. However, if you’re already subscribed to one of Sky’s multiroom or unlimited broadband packages then you’ll able to watch live telly, but only a subset of Sky’s normal gazillion channel line-up (24 at the time of writing).
Xbox 360 Sky Player in Use
The Sky Player is, unsurprisingly, a dream to use given the Xbox treatment. Microsoft have fine-tuned the 360′s user interface to a tee and, wisely the Sky Player mostly sticks to its design and navigation principles (figure 6).
Figure 6. Sky Player Navigation
However, one area where Sky’s similarly class-leading UI does make an appearance is the TV Guide EPG when navigating live television channels (figure 7).
Figure 7. Sky Player TV Guide
When attempting to watch a programme that is outside of your subscription pack, Sky don’t miss a trick and will offer you the chance to upgrade or perhaps even the opportunity to rent the programme – most notably at prices that don’t seem particularly unreasonable (figure 8).
Figure 8. Upgrade Package or Rent a Programme
Sky Player Gripes
Overall, the service is smooth – there’s a minimal amount of pre-view buffering (no more than 5 seconds for the programmes I watched through an 8Mb broadband connection), and the adverts are kept short and sweet (at the moment, of course this may/inevitably will change).
However, I was disappointed with Sky Player on a couple of fronts:
The picture quality was generally pretty poor. Aside from all of the Sky Player content being delivered in standard definition at the moment, the compression applied to the video is particularly lossy and even fairly static scenes displayed with significant blockiness. Scene with quick cuts faired even worse. Perhaps picture quality has been a concession amongst the capacity issues which forced the service offline hours after its initial launch.
Some of the on-demand content seemed less-than-current. For example, whilst Sky News offered daily updates going back nearly a week, a look at the sports channels offered quite a different view (figure 9) where there appeared to be about a six week lag – quite why anyone would want to watch Burnley v Sunderland live is almost beyond my comprehension, but watching it nearly two months after the event suggests devotion beyond sanity.
Figure 9. On demand sports late to the plate
Conclusions
As an existing Sky subscriber making extensive use of the Sky+ set top box and its legendary PVR, I’m struggling to recall the last time I actually watched anything live on TV apart from sport: live TV is so 20th century. With this in mind, the live streaming feature of Sky Player on Xbox 360 doesn’t interest me in the slightest, particularly given the reduction in picture quality, and even less so as I’d have to pay extra to receive it. The only possible application of this as an existing Sky subscriber might be in a genuine multiroom setup, or when using the ‘watch with friends’ party feature – this last feature does sound like it could be a lot of fun, but again is probably best suited to sharing verbal abuse when watching live sport.
However, access to the on-demand programming is much more compelling and surely is the real killer application of Sky Player: whilst not yet as comprehensive as other on-demand offerings such as BBC iPlayer, it still gives the welcome opportunity to browse programmes that you missed watching when live or didn’t record on the PVR.
One trick that Sky perhaps has missed is the integration Sky’s standard TV Guide EPG (see figure 7 above) with the access to on-demand content – a single timeline could provide the ability to go back in time with the EPG as well as forward, showing which programmes are available on-demand as well as live or to watch later.
That being said, unless there’s a particular programme that I know I’ve missed and want to watch on-demand, the bottom line is that I simply can’t see myself preferring to watch telly on my Xbox over my Sky box, but then perhaps this Sky Player platform isn’t for me: for many without existing Sky subscriptions who won’t or can’t have a satellite dish but would still like access to Sky’s programming it does present an interesting option, but perhaps one I’d like to trial for a month before signing up to a 12 month contract.
Alternatively, if you happen to have an Xbox but no Sky TV but you do have a friend/parent who does subscribe to Sky, there may be opportunities for a (cough) reciprocal arrangement to get your Sky on the cheap(er) – ideal for son/daughter in digs at University without Sky dish but with internet. I’ll leave you to figure it out the details, but remember: you didn’t get the idea from me.
