Tag: news

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MySpace to be upgraded

Changes are afoot at MySpace, as they try to attract new and keep old users.

BBC’s Newsbeat says:

MySpace is preparing a major redesign next week as it tries to attract more casual users and increase the amount of time its members spend online.

With the popularity of other social networking sites such as Facebook, sites such as MySpace need to change and alter in order to retain and keep users.

From an e-learning perspective, such changes can cause confusion for learners, and if features are removed or deleted, then it can impact on learning activities and scenarios which use such social networking sites.

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iTunes Movies in the UK

Great news for all iTunes Store users in the UK, we can now buy and rent movies.

From the Apple press release:

Apple® today announced that movies from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM), Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate UK are now available on the iTunes® Store in the UK (www.apple.com/uk/itunes). Movie purchases and rentals feature iTunes’ legendary ease of use, which makes discovering and enjoying movies as simple and easy as buying music on iTunes has always been. The iTunes Store in the UK features over 700 films available for rent or purchase, with titles available for purchase on the same day as their DVD release, including favorites such as “Hitman,” “I Am Legend,” “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets” and “Into the Wild.” iTunes Movie Rentals also features over 100 titles available in stunning high definition, perfect for viewing on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®.

I am very pleased with this, and I suspect I may use it a fair bit.

I am even now seriously considering getting an Apple TV just so I can watch the movies on my TV, well I guess I can use the iPod nano in the meantime.

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Why typewriters beat computers…

Got a computer?

Well you should have got a typewriter according to an article on the BBC News website.

They’re clunky, dirty and can’t access the internet, yet every year thousands of people buy typewriters when they could probably afford a computer. Why?

Old typewriter

Photo source.

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Are you selfish?

BBC reports on the annual report into web habits by Jakob Nielsen.

Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research.

The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online.

Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.

Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.

So are you a “selfish” web user or are you just busy?

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Video killed the internet… or will it!

Ten years ago most of used the net for usenet, e-mail and browsing was in the main text with a few pictures.

Today the internet is a much richer in terms of content, and video is a big part of this, anyone for YouTube?

However will this growth in video be the death of the internet?

The BBC reports on this very issue:

There is no doubt that video is big on the net. But is it getting too big?

Ask AT&T and it will answer – yes.

Speaking in London in late April, Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s vice president of legal affairs, said the burgeoning amount of video would consume all the net’s bandwidth in two years.

So will the interent collapse under the weight of a new richer internet, well I think not!

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Blog back up and running…

The blog is back up and running after my hosting service moved their servers from the UK to Germany!

Apologies for those who were trying to access the blog.

We’re back…

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Mac mini is dead, well possibly not, okay no it isn’t…

Rumours of the death of the Mac mini have been greatly exaggerated as various rumour sites backpedal on their missives of doom on the Mac mini.

Mac mini

Applesinsider say:

Last Memorial Day, AppleInsider cited sources in reporting that it appeared to be the end of the line for the itsy-bitsy Mac, which had seen limited adoption and an uncertain role during the first 24 months on the market.

They then say

For the first time in nearly a year, however, people familiar with the matter tell AppleInsider there’s new life in the Mac mini department, where a small team of engineers have recently been tasked with gutting the diminutive desktop and applying fresh internals.

So it is looking like that we may well see a new faster, better Mac mini.

I do like the Mac mini, it works well as a little Mac for testing and trying things out as well as introducing people to the Mac. I also have used it in the past as a server for various web services and for limited use it works really well – probably would not be too happy if it was a production server.

I did try it as a TV computer, in other words connected to my TV, but I never really used it, in the main as it was an old G4 PPC model and was rather slow for recording and capturing video from an EyeTV USB device. The newer Intel models have the advantage of remote control and faster processors and graphics better suited to video.

I am interested to see where Apple goes with a new model and I may just have to get one.

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The end of an Odyssey

British-born science fiction author Arthur C Clarke has died in hospital in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.Clarke had been in and out of hospital since his 90th birthday in December and had breathing difficulties, his aide Rohan de Silva said.“Sir Arthur passed away a short while ago at the Apollo Hospital,” Mr de Silva said.

Clarke, who foresaw communication satellites in 1945, wrote more than 80 books.

He was most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was made in to a film by controversial director Stanley Kubrick.

Clarke was Sri Lanka’s best-known resident guest and has a scientific academy named after him.

AFP

Though I believe that 2001: A Space Odyssey was first a film collaboration with Kubrick, for which he wrote the book as an exercise in working out the storyline for the screenplay.

Sad news indeed.

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Microsoft licenses Flash Lite and Adobe Reader LE for Windows Mobile Devices

Adobe have announced that:

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced that Microsoft has licensed Adobe® Flash® Lite™ software, Adobe’s award-winning Flash Player runtime specifically designed for mobile devices, to enable web browsing of Flash Player compatible content within the Internet Explorer Mobile browser in future versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile phones. Microsoft has also licensed Adobe Reader® LE software for viewing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) documents including email attachments and web content. Both Adobe products will be made available to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) worldwide, who license Windows Mobile software.

Read the full press release here.

This is interesting when you consider the Nokia – Silverlight deal and the lack of Flash on the iPhone.