http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/index.cfm?forumid=26 en-US FuseTalk Standard Edition 3.2 Build 80405 Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52419 2013-05-09T15:38:06 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52419#comments 0
Dolby Atmos allows cinemas to present movies using sound that, not only is available on channels left-to-right at the front and at the sides, but allows them to add an array of speakers above the audience for a more immersive experience.

I was invited to view the technology by Dolby Labs and Empire Cinemas at their flagship cinema in Leicester Square - the only cinema in the UK that currently has the new surround system.

Screen 1, The Empire in Leicester Square has a rich personal history for me. This was the first Cinema where I saw my very first summer blockbuster in 1978 - when Star Wars was first released in the UK. Who can't forget the small Rebel Alliance ship being chased across the vast galaxy far away by the monolithic Empire Cruiser?

Sound played a huge part in that experience. This screen was built for an immersive sound experience. It's designed like a crisp cathedral and the sounds bounce off each wall with a reverbing echo. The actors' voices were like gods speaking from the heavens.

So imagine that same Empire battle cruiser today emerging from the top of the colossal screen with the thunderous roar of the ship tractoring the small fleeing vessel into its belly. You won't have to for much longer as when the 3D version is released, the sound will be remastered in Dolby Atmos.

Whereas surround sound in cinemas was a massive step forward in sound mixing technology in cinemas, this is an incremental step. This probably explains why there are still only a handful of cinema screens in the world that incorporates the new sound mixing technology.

However, unlike other technologies such as the THX, it is unlikely to make its way into homes in the near future. It is simply impractical to expect home owners to place speakers in the ceilings of their living rooms.

I quite like it the idea that cinemas have something that you cannot get at home. It means that going to the cinema may remain something special.

If you liked this, you might want to read this

Star Trek: the real-world holodeck technology today

Sci-Fi on a shoestring
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52376 2013-05-07T14:55:31 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52376#comments 6
Anyone who has ever witnessed Steve Ballmer at the keynote pulpit kicking, screaming and raving about the latest new innovation from Microsoft can't be surprised that he has overseen a strategy of dragging windows users kicking and screaming into the second decade of the 21st-century.

This is because Microsoft, facing a PC slump that would have adversely affected its sales of its flagship Windows operating system, decided to create a one size fits all operating system that would be equally at home on the desktop PC and the tablet format as well. Windows 8 hasn't been well received.

Unfortunately, this meant that Microsoft had to sacrifice its much heralded Start button - launched in 1995 - that sent Apple sales plummeting in the business market, and almost led to that company going bust.

The Start button works perfectly in a user interface environment when using a mouse as the controller. But it's clunky when using it with a touch screen device. Therefore, creating a single operating system that would work across multiple device formats simply was going to be fraught with usability issues.

This isn't a U-turn by Microsoft. It's just a backtrack and I doubt it will be launching a separate operating system for tablets any time soon. Microsoft, throughout its history, has always to its credit admitted when it's made a mistake. They've done this fairly quickly. The FT comparisons with Coke and New Coke are unfair.

Compare this with many other tech companies who often don't admit mistakes until years after the original plan has obviously not worked out as they originally wanted it to. For example, when Apple launched the first version of Apple TV, it didn't acknowledge that they had got the market and the product wrong until they released an updated version over a year later.

The Metro interface looks good on tablets and is far more intuitive than Android user interfaces. Microsoft engineers didn't try to slavishly copy Apple - which they should be praised for. They did something that was unique. Ballmer has created a culture within his organisation where ideas are encouraged, nurtured and more readily released to the general public.

Needless to say, meeting the needs of both tablet users and PC users is always going to be tough. But Microsoft has good form in meeting the needs of diverse markets. Windows is still the market leader for both consumer and business PCs. I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with some tweaks that eventually not just creates a compromise between the two market sectors, but improves the user experiences of both
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52373 2013-05-07T13:21:30 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52373#comments 0
We knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later. But it still came as shock to many software users of Adobe's Creative Suite applications when the company announced this week at its Annual Developer Conference that it was to discontinue the paid-for software version of and concentrate on its cloud-based subscription service, Adobe Creative Cloud.

So it now seems increasingly unlikely that we will be able to own software in the future. Most likely, we will be renting it from the software companies.

This year, I bought a new Mac. I wanted Adobe CS5 software. I bought another second hand Apple computer which included a pre-installed version of CS5 Master Edition. It virtually came free with the second-hand Apple Computer.

Since I also had the original certificates and the original owner receipt. I transferred the license to my name. I then sold the Mac for the same price that I bought it for. I won't be able to do that any more.

Clearly, having a service such as creative cloud has many online storage and collaboration capabilities that standalone software doesn't have. Certainly, in the future Adobe plans to extend the services so that as well as being able to synchronise content across different computers.

In the future, a great deal of the processing that is currently taking place on their customers own computers will now be able to be done on more powerful servers. This is the strategy for Adobe and many other software companies. Autodesk, Microsoft and other companies are also heavily promoting the subscription model.

Here are the pros and cons of each type of payment model

Subscription

Security. With constantly updated software, you can be sure that any security breaches are far more quickly patched - that's the theory.

New features. With a subscription-based service, when the software company launches a new version of its product, you will not have to pay an upgrade fee to get them. This can be a huge price shock when you need to upgrade or get a new version to keep up with the Joneses.

Spreading Cost. There are many advantages to being able to pay for your software on a monthly basis. The obvious one is that you don't have to worry about saving up for finding £500 or more for a new version when it comes out.

Cloud Networking and Collaborative Services. Many software companies that are moving to the subscription model are enticing customers with bolt-on services such as cloud storage, synchronisation and server side processing. This will be welcome for many customers which might mean you won't have to upgrade your hardware as often - and when you do, you will be able to transfer your software and your settings far more easily.

Ownership

Inflexibility. You will have to pay the subscription which might be monthly or annually. If you miss a payment, you will lose all your software. This means that even in during the lean times, the software that you invested earlier on by buying it outright, is still there for you.

Transfer Of Ownership. With the licensed software that you own outright, it is possible to transfer the ownership of that software to somebody else. This is not the case if you subscribe to it as a service.

No Need To Upgrade. Many users are quite happy with their existing software even when upgraded versions are available with the extra bells and whistles. There's always the chance that if you upgrade your software, it might not work with your existing hardware. Therefore, sometimes it might be worth while not upgrading. If you subscribe rather than own the software, you may not have the choice.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52011 2013-04-12T15:43:06 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=52011#comments 0
The U.K.'s office of fair trading (OFT) announced today that is going to look into the video games industry's much criticised practice of allowing in-app purchases, which could put children under unfair pressure to pay for additional content. But parents themselves have to 'shoulder' part of the blame.

Certainly, over the past few months there has been a great deal of publicity relating to one particular case of schoolboy Danny Kitchen, who managed to rack up charges of more than £1,700 while playing the Zombies Versus Ninjas game on his parent's iPad.

But read further down and you will note that his parents had given him their password. Are mums and dads really that naive that they do not realise how irresponsible it would be to give their children access to this? It's akin to giving a four year old a credit card and PIN to run amok in a toy store. Luckily, this is likely to cause less financial damage because it would be evident that the person with the credit card isn't the owner - assuming the store doesn't have self-service.

This is a problem that Apple has known about for quite some time. In fact, in March 2011 - more than two years ago - the company enabled password verification for in-ap purchases by default.

But this investigation is welcome because the video games developers know exactly who they are targeting and also no that the money originates from their parents bank accounts. Sadly the law is there to protect vulnerable people - stupid and ignorant people fall under this category.

This morning on the BBC, an 'expert' was explaining how children can easily find out their parents passwords by just watching carefully what their parents are doing when they use their iPad or iPhone. Are we really to believe that we are raising a nation of shoulder surfing toddlers who are stealing their parents passwords to buy virtual coins, gems or other virtual items to speed their progress through levels of Angry Birds?

Two-step verification, which has been introduced by a number of online service providers - such as Google, is an easy way to resolve this matter. No doubt, I'm sure Apple has a team working to implement this as soon as possible. However, I doubt - if the example of Google or dropbox is to go by - that this facility would be turned on by default. It will be up to the parents themselves to go into the settings and to turn on this facility. I daresay that this would be too much to ask of some parents.

However, if a parent receives an automatic SMS notification that an in app purchase had been requested and the automatically generated pin would be required to complete the purchase, this would ensure that children would be up to buy these add-ons without express permission. No doubt, some children will still nag their parents and some of these parents will probably give in to their children's demands.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51748 2013-03-27T15:39:20 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51748#comments 0
As part of these plans, the government has announced a £9 million package to help local authorities get feed network schemes up and running in towns and cities across the UK. Additionally, £1 million will be dedicated to the cities of Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield and Nottingham to help them develop heat networks.

Essentially, the UK government wants to promote the use of combined heat and power (CHP) systems in the UK - an area where the UK is lagging far behind virtually every other developed nation. Considering the increasing intemperate nature of our climate, this makes sense.

A few years ago, I experienced at first hand the benefits and problems of a combined heating and power systems work when I visited Estonia on a press trip. One one morning, there was no hot water. I asked the hotel's receptionist if there is another shower that I could possibly use. The receptionist kindly told me that all the hotels showers were affected. But it was the entire city of Tallinn without hot water because the distributed heat system had meant that everyone in the city had no hot water that morning.

However, this is an exceptional case - and the system was up and running within a couple of hours again for everyone.

What is more common in the UK is for the typical domestic boiler to break down frequently when there is a cold spell. My gas boiler was installed on 9 March 2004 - and during the last nine years - it has failed several times - particularly in the last couple of winters. Each time it has often taken several days to get a service engineer out to fix it.

Therefore, overall, a CHP system is far more efficient - not just in green terms, but in maintenance terms as well. Imagine if a small CHP system, serving 500 homes, costs around £25,000 to commission. The cost to each household is only £500 - compared to average costs to change an individual gas boiler of £3,000.

Yet what the government's putting towards these new schemes is paltry when you consider that only 1% of UK consumers benefit from CHP systems. This compares very unfavourably with Estonia, where 52% of the population benefit from this type of scheme. In fact, much of Eastern Europe leads the world with this type of system.

There are two factors for this. Firstly, the Eastern bloc tends to have a colder climate than Western European countries - and this makes it much more economically viable. Additionally, with a central planning, commissioning of these types of systems was far more straightforward.

Examples of CHP systems in the UK are few and far between. Whether the £10 million, which the government announced yesterday to kick-start many more of the schemes would be enough, has yet to be seen. But I for one would welcome not having to worry about the maintenance a gas boiler and waiting at home for a service engineer.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51553 2013-03-19T16:59:01 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51553#comments 0
I'm not really focused on the reseller side of the business, but I am aware of the main distribution companies, but I rarely write about them. These organisations do not manufacture and they don't sell direct to the general public but, as middlemen, maintain an important role.

You would think that with the way many companies are moving direct to the consumer, and the global nature of the consumer electronics industry, it would be very easy to reach the consumer without these middlemen.

But with the decline of high-street sales and tight margins, the services of a well curated range of products offered by a distributor offers many advantages for manufacturers who would benefit from the special relationship built over the years with the likes of Amazon, Dabs - and not least the Apple Store. Little did I know, until today, that CU fulfills much of the products on the shelves in the Apple Stores and on the Cupertino based companies

But according to Alan Clarke, group commercial director for Computers Unlimited, 'ranging', as it is called in the business, is an important service for retailers - of any size.

"There are approximately 60 or so APRs [Apple resellers] in the UK and we work quite closely with them." Clarke explains that in the current cut throat market, many companies want to remove the risk of stocking innovative and functional products by turning to distributors such as CU.

But CU's special relationship with Apple probably make them almost as important a partner as Foxconn in the supply chain. Being the main supplier and distributor for Apple Stores gives Clarke an insight into the Apple accessory market that very few other companies can boast.

"Many companies such as Philips will offer the Apple Store exclusivity for a number of months because its such a great marketing tool when they open up to other resellers," explains Clarke.

This is exactly what Philips has done with its tuneable, wifi and app operated range of LED lighting - which currently is only available directly from Apple. With the number of APRs at this event, the product looks like it is going to be more widely available very imminently - assuming a deal can be struck.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51461 2013-03-15T13:35:37 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51461#comments 0
Finlux - a company that I haven't had any dealings with for at least a couple of decades, has invited me to their booth today as they have recently relaunched in the UK.

This is a former subsidiary of Nokia. But now the company is a subsidiary of a Turkish ODM (original device manufacturer), which most consumers wouldn't have heard of, but they would be surprised that this company has almost a 20 percent market, share in sales of flat screen display televisions in Europe.

Although Finlux is still headquartered in Helsinki, the parent company's main base of manufacturing is in Turkey.

As an ODM, most of its flat screen displays are badged with other brands. This has enabled it to grow fast as consumers are looking for a good deal on flat screen displays - an area which has been dismal in recent years.

Margins are tight. A well-known department store spokesperson recently told me that his company's profit margin, after costs, is just 2 percent. You can only survive on that type of margin if you sell at volume, like Supermarkets, or package it with after sales warranties, like Currys.

Consumers aren't stupid. They know that one flat screen with black gloss or silver bezel is pretty much a commoditised product. Relaunching a brand in this background is tough.

"We're currently shipping a million TVs a month," says Andreas Adamides, the head of Finlux Direct in the UK.

Adamides is confident that it can punch through the dominance of Samsung, LG, Sharp and Sony by adopting the direct to consumer model. It has an impressive array of products that feature in products that you would normally expect to retail at a price slightly north of what is being offered here today.

In addition to iPlayer, Youtube, the company hopes to expand the amount of apps that are available on its Linux based Smart TV platform.

Despite this impressive foray into smart, the company is cautious about the prospects of 4k display, but plans to launch something towards the end of this year - when there is likely to be more 4k content available.

It sometimes does pay-off to be the tortoise.

Follow me on Twitter]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51428 2013-03-14T11:20:40 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51428#comments 0
Therefore, I and many of my fellow tech journalists are culpable, in part, for the failures of Best Buy UK, Comet, HMV and Jessop's. In the words of the recent advertising campaign for Dixons online: "Get off at the fashionable end of Oxford Street, drift into the achingly cool technology Hall of London's most happening department store and viewed this year's must have a plasma courtesy of the sound and vision technologist in the Mark Jacobs sandals then go to Dixons.co.uk and buy it."

I doubt they were referring to the pimply cretin behind the counter at Currys. But the advertising campaign displays the fact that consumers like the shopping experience when it is presented to them in a pleasurable way. But, even stores like John Lewis find it difficult to have the expertise in their stores - and the problem is going to get even worse.

How can retailers compete with the breadth of knowledge of consumer devices on the World Wide Web? They simply can't. They have to embrace this knowledge.

The worst thing a retailer can do, from this customer's point of view, is to pretend to know the answer to every question that a customer would ask. There have been times when I have been in stores and asked the question and some trainee bar room bore would start reeling off answers which I know to be rubbish.

How refreshing it is when an assistant simply says: "I'm sorry sir, I don't know the answer to that but let me go and find out for you." But this is seen as a sign of weakness.

It would be better if the retailer were able to allow their staff to access information about products - perhaps linked to the barcode on the product - which they would access on tablet or other mobile devices.

Not only would it ensure that the customer has the correct information, but it would also mean that staff would constantly improve product learning and knowledge.

Some retailers have launched apps that allow customers to access more detailed information about products with their smart phone.

The availability of consumer electronics online has really tightened margins. On flat screen TVs, for example, they could be as tight as 2%. It's hard to pay for rent, business rates and wages when competition from online is so harsh.

But there always will be a place for retail. But consumers will have to get used to not getting the best deal from the high Street or the shopping mall. Superior customer service and after-care is the only way for the high street retailers to survive.

Follow me on Twitter

]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51377 2013-03-12T10:53:05 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51377#comments 0
For instance, the constant hissing patter of noise radiating from badly designed earphones used to irritate. But since Apple package all their portable devices with the cheapest earphones imaginable, it is so prolific that I am not fazed by it. I have managed to tune it out. Perhaps, if speakerphone was used more regularly then I would probably manage to tune this noise out as well.

I utilise a technology that currently isn't widely used yet in offices, and as a result, it could be occasionally difficult for colleagues to tune-out. I do my best to be a good neighbour and, in common with many organisations, we have a good neighbour policy in place in our open plan office.

I'm talking about voice recognition technology here. This isn't a new technology, but the incremental changes have finally resulted in an effective dictation tool and I 'write' features faster using this method than typing.

I am a very fast typist. I have recorded my speeds as high as 80 to 90 words per minute. The advantage of dictating, as any shorthand reporter will tell you, is that when you talk (even quite slowly), it is impossible for any written notetaker or typist to keep up.

Court stenographers are highly trained. They take years to operate those stenographic machines and even they carry recorders as a backup - so that they can check the accuracy of their work afterwards.

But despite these advances, the biggest obstacle to the take-up of voice recognition is the etiquette of talking publicly in a machine all the time. It used to be the case that when you wanted to speak to somebody we would primarily use the telephone. I have noticed that in the past decade or so, that most individuals don't dial but email. This is even when your colleague might be a couple of desks away.

Offices tend to be far quieter places. Perhaps Yahoo's CEO had a point when she wanted to encourage more jaw-jaw within her organisation. Obviously, this is greatly helped if people are in the office at the time.

But there doesn't appear to be a great deal competition. The main player is a company called Nuance - makers of Dragon Dictate for the Mac and Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows. They have bought out dozens of other companies who were also working in this area and they could become the Google of speech recognition.

This is surprising, because there are so many potential applications that it ought to have got the attention of other tech companies. Instead, companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and many others have chosen to work with Nuance to develop voice recognition applications based on their engine.

For instance, Apple's Siri technology is based on Nuance. Mobile devices are seen as an ideal platform for using voice recognition - mainly because, when you're using your smart phone, you can use your hands to do other things - a great advantage when you're out and about.

Although smart phone processor power has advanced significantly, voice recognition still requires a great deal of heavy lifting and therefore Apple (along with Microsoft and others) have chosen to use cloud technologies to offload to servers to do most of the processing.

Controlling vehicles is likely to be another growth area. Ford's Sync technology, which has been developed in collaboration with Microsoft, also uses Nuance's technology as its speech recognition engine. However, this is not used for anything mission critical. It is mainly used for controlling multimedia, in car entertainment and other non-essential functions.

For speech to control the driving functions of a car, accuracy has to be improved vastly. Currently, voice recognition can claim close to 99% accuracy. I can attest to this. But you will need 99.999% accuracy for it to be applicable to control a motor vehicles brakes.

But it is still taken seriously for controlling a vehicle's primary systems. The US military and several aerospace companies are researching the use of speech recognition to control an aircraft. In theory, this will be faster than using a joystick or wheel.

Television is possibly another growth area. Samsung is already experimenting with voice recognition technology in some of its high-end smart TVs. The reason being is since we are now increasingly time shifting our content, to sift through all the available content in a multichannel, time shifting environment, you need to equip a TV with a sophisticated search function. This is very difficult to control using the 50-year-old TV remote technology - which hasn't changed much in that time.

It's been speculated that when Apple releases its solution for the TV interface problem, it may use voice recognition (Siri) as its main interface. It's unlikely to be perfect on the first attempt - but it will be worth getting used to. Time to open the pod bay doors.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51178 2013-03-01T13:47:40 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51178#comments 0
But many were expecting Sony to display what the new console would actually look like. It appears that the final design and hardware engineering decisions have yet to be finalised.

This meant that the presentation was more-or-less a teardown analysis by the company itself. We now know what the processor and GPU is going to be - and AMD investors finally have something to cheer about.

We also know that it will have more memory available for games. These changes have been designed to curry favour with games developers who have criticised the PS3 as being difficult to develop games for. Software companies like to develop on platforms where there is a great deal of familiarity - which there is on a PC type architecture. The Xbox has this, but is this really necessary?

Last year, Arm Holdings announced the rollout of 64-bit designs in the pipeline for 2013 - The Cortex A-50. Significantly, AMD are one of the companies who announced that they would be manufacturing chipsets based on this architecture.

Windows has now been ported to ARM. These chips are now the standard for the most ubiquitous computing device, the smart phone. Since these are very same developers who are writing software for iOS devices and Android devices, why would it be any more difficult to write code for a console using the not too dissimilar hardware architecture?

It's most likely that the development of the 64-bit arm architecture has come just a little bit too late to be considered for the PS4. After all, Sony's new console would have been in development for quite a long while now. Making a massive change to the hardware engineering would delay its launch well past Christmas 2013.

But I would be cautious before suggesting that any future, console beyond the generation that will be launched by the end of 2013, will feature this type of architecture because it's likely by then that the current era of console dominance will have passed.

It's already on the wane with the increase of games being developed for tablets and smart phones. Adding to this, most of the main TV manufacturers have launched Smart TVs.

Games developers have never had it so good with the amount of platforms that wish to court them. This is the real reason why their power is on the ascendancy at the expense of console manufacturers.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51125 2013-02-27T10:11:15 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=51125#comments 0
They have all explained to me why they were motivated in bringing Raspberry Pi to a generation of schoolchildren whose experience so far of computing is limited to browsing the World Wide Web, using a smart phone, or playing video games console.

There was a time when most children would have to type a line of code to even load a computer game. This was the 1980s. Ah jumpers for goalposts - my childhood era. We bought computer magazines where BASIC programming code was printed at the back and you would sit for hours at teatime, after-school and type in this line code.

You couldn't avoid, through osmosis, learning this BASIC programming language. For some of us, it was worth the carpet burns on our knees and the pins and needles in our feet to learn this a valuable skill. I wouldn't be doing the job that I'm doing now, if my parents didn't buy me a Commodore Vic 20 in 1982 and a BBC Micro Model B in 1984.

But the truth of it was that we had no alternative. Children today do not have to be exposed to the skills of programming code if they do not want to. The Raspberry Pi Foundation will have do build an engaging ecosystem and culture around the project.

This is something, after its launch last year, which it has begun to do in earnest. At embedded world in Nuremberg, which I visited yesterday, Peter Lomas, one of the Raspberry Pi founders and trustees told me that they were hoping to break the 1 million sales mark by the end of this month.

Naturally, he was reticent about stating that this would definitely occur. However, the founders are confident that the millionth unit would be shaped at some point in the first half of this year.

The Foundation, which has just opened its first independent offices in Cambridge, is busy recruiting permanent staff to share the load that currently sits on the shoulders of the trustees - who give up their time voluntarily.

So far, with permanent staff such as Robert Bishop - one of the Foundations most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the project - they have managed to bring on board the education establishment. OCR, the examination board, has already integrated Raspberry Pi into its curricula.

Also, one cannot discount the contribution of the many hobbyists. For example, I've learnt that it's now possible to use Raspberry Pi with Lego mind storms because the hobbyist community has programmed an interface to allow this.

Additionally, there are a number of expansion boards created by third parties - such as the Pi-Face, a sensor interface, which neatly sits on top of Raspberry Pi; and the Guert Board, which has a variety of inputs and outputs that can even support small motors.

Hopefully, this momentum will build. I await with anticipation what Raspberry Pi model C will bring us.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50990 2013-02-20T11:29:17 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50990#comments 0
When I reported on the 3G auctions over 10 years ago, the process was far more transparent. Anyone could look at the progress of the auction in real-time with a website that updated every 10 minutes when the latest bids were in.

This time the process was conducted slightly differently. It was still an auction process, but it was conducted behind closed doors. Unless you were an active participant, i.e. bidder, you weren't privy to the bids as they were being made.

The then Conservative opposition criticised the results of the 3G auctions as being detrimental to the U.K.'s competitive position when it came ti the rollout of data services on mobile devices. Clearly, it would have been very difficult for the current Conservative led coalition to conduct an auction using the same process that it had vehemently criticised in the past.

But have we moved too far in the opposite direction? Has the mobile phone industry paid far too little this time around? Possibly.

Firstly, the infrastructure costs for rolling out 3G were far greater than the projected cost of rolling out 4G services - primarily because 3G required a great deal of new transmitters being built.

Nobody, at the time, had yet figured out how to make money from data services on mobile devices. Phones were not smart, there was no market for apps and cloud services had no silver lining for the mobile phone industry.

This time around, the environment is very different. There is a ready market for broadband services on mobile devices. Virtually every mobile device is 3G compatible and most people use 3G in some form or another. In fact the market for broadband services is very rosy.

The infrastructure costs that the industry faced when moving from 2G services to 3G services does not exist to anywhere near the same extent because 4G transmission is pretty much a fairly easy patch to existing transmission infrastructure. In fact the only major cost is upgrading the backhaul. EE proved this when they were readily able to upgrade to 4G fairly quickly.

Clearly, the UK government has not experienced the windfall that Tony Blair's government experienced. But does that mean that consumers will experience a dividend because the cost of providing these types of services is far smaller than the experts originally envisaged?

This is unlikely in my opinion. Shareholders of mobile phone companies are going to be the main beneficiaries in the medium to long-term. Prices will be set by what consumers are willing to pay.

In fact, mobile broadband is fast becoming a necessary utility service - just like voice telephony services are. You may think this is a strange view, but think of how many personal and business affairs you conduct using an app in your downtime rather than your free time. This trend is likely to continue.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50705 2013-02-05T12:38:55 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50705#comments 0
Tony Blair's government was about to implement its computers for school programme. I had a specific role given to me by the board of governors to look into the implications of this programme. We set up a subcommittee comprising myself, representatives from the teaching staff and representatives from the parents.

Parents were generally supportive of the idea of increased ICT investment in schools. My impression was that the parents were influenced by their experience of having computers on their desks in the workplace. However, teachers on the subcommittee were more sceptical - even alarmist - about the programme.

15 years later, and schools open down to the country have been transformed by the implementation of numerous ICT programmes over the years. It's hard now to find a secondary school in the UK that doesn't have an interactive whiteboard display, for example.

At the Bett 2013 educational technology show this year, I was invited by Smart Technologies, a leading manufacturer of interactive whiteboard displays, to see their technology in action at Crown Woods college which has benefited from the now defunct Building Schools for the Future programme implemented by the outgoing government of Gordon Brown.

The questions I wanted to have answered are: how true were the claims made about the benefits of this expensive programme; and how could the benefits be replicated but far cheaper in the current economic climate?

The school principal reeled off a list of impressive statistics listing the improvements in academic achievements since the students moved into the new school buildings kitted with the new equipment. We visited several classes and were given a tour by the students themselves of the facilities.

Certainly, this school appears to be a very happy place. The students took pride and appear to appreciate their fortunate position. Equally, the teachers were happy and communicated this atmosphere in the classroom. The benefits of multimedia appear to generate the improved results in this school.

But since the Building Schools for the Future programme has been scrapped, how are we to replicate these improvements in those schools that missed out on this massive capital expenditure? The answer lies possibly with the technology that many secondary pupils already have or aspire to owning - the smart phone.

Certainly many parents who work in offices will be familiar with the Bring Your Own Device culture. But this would require a sea change in attitudes to bring this phenomenon to the classroom. The key to making it work and pacify the critics would be careful management of classroom technology.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50594 2013-01-30T13:58:44 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50594#comments 0
Actually I think the original decision by the Chinese authorities was quite enlightened. The concern at that time was that too many children, teenagers and young people were spending hours playing videogames.

The videogames industry is skewed to developing games for consumers that keep them in front of the TV screen for as long as possible. Video games manufacturers and games developers have a vested interest in this because it affords them the opportunity to sell through additional add-ons such as character augmentation, scenarios, etc.

Furthermore, the videogames industry is relentless in targeting all age groups. A recent UK magazine aimed at younger children (under the age of 11) featured many pages of display advertisements for adult video games. They broke no law is all regulations as seems of a violent or sexual nature were not displayed in these advertisements.

Consumers have been voting with their feet - or in this case their thumbs - and have opted for more family oriented games on portable devices. These don't take hours to play. You can easily pick up a device and play Angry Birds and put it down after a few minutes. I've never heard of anyone saying that their hobby is playing Angry Birds, but sadly I have heard of people who say that their hobby is playing World of Warcraft all the latest first person shooter.

Some of these more adult video games that take ages to play have crossed over to other platforms such as tablets and mobile devices. This trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as more of us use these devices to play games.

Recently, Lenovo tried to get round the ban on video consoles by classifying its latest device which features a Kinect style sensor as an education and entertainment device. Clearly, there is pressure from Chinese manufacturers to lift the ban.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50560 2013-01-29T10:28:12 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50560#comments 0
Today, we don't have to remember telephone numbers, but now our hippocampus has to cope with dozens of passwords and PINs.

Last year, Matt Honan, a Wired.com reporter was hacked and the hackers decided to 'nuke' his digital life. The takedown of his Twitter, Gmail, Apple ID and online life demonstrates how easy it is to gain access with just a little bit of information gathered using various social grooming methods. This isn't hacking, this is social engineering.

Many of these methods involve pretending to be the person whose identity you are trying to steal. It is remarkably easy. The reason being is that there are no strict standards on online verification with many commercial companies.

In this particular instance, the identity thief was able to phone up Apple's technical support line and merely provide the persons billing address and the last four digits of the user's credit card details - which they were able to obtain by pretending to be the same user from another Amazon.

Certainly, two-step verification would have helped. When Dropbox had a serious security at about the same time, it implemented a two-step verification process. Google also has a two-step verification process.

However, as Google has attempted to socialise its Google identities by allowing various third-party apps to access the Google identity, this does mean that a number of organisations will still have access to your Google identity.

Two-step verification works, as the term implies, by making the user authenticate themselves using an additional method. In the case of Google, if the user logs on to a computer which they haven't logged onto for a while, or indeed never before, then an automatic text message or email will be sent to the user which they would have to tap in before accessing their account.

No system could possibly be completely secure. I've yet to see a system that can promise this. As the victim points out in his blog post, he signed up for an iTunes account initially just to download songs at $.99 a time. Now, that identity is a gateway to a significant portion of his online and digital identity.

This demonstrates another trend - companies are expanding the services which they offer to their customers and these new services often involve the storing of sensitive and personal data. What many companies haven't done, to the same degree, is to increase the sophistication of their ID security.

Many web companies fear that by increasing the complexity of their authentication process may put off current and potentially new customers. This is certainly true. But what will put off customers is a highly publicised hack or security breach.

Dropbox has suffered this reputional buttressing. Our editorial office, for many years, used an external FTP provider to allow us to share graphics, images, and video files with picture agencies, PR agencies, external freelance contributors and other parties that we regularly work with.

It was very expensive and didn't provide the level of security, flexibility or storage capacity that we really required. At the same time, Dropbox launched an enhanced business product called 'Dropbox for Teams.'

However, our IT department had initial concerns about us using this service - citing the recent breach in security that occurred on Dropbox. However, this breach occurred before the company introduced its two-step verification process. In fact, the introduction of the two-step verification process was a direct result of the adverse publicity that the start-up received it due to the hack.

The concerns were valid. Our IT department is doing its job when it questions the implementation of the service where potentially confidential and sensitive data could be placed on an external server outside of the control of the IET. Once we communicated that the information that we were storing on this service would not be confidential or sensitive they were more supportive.

Personally, I have about 100 passwords stored securely on my mobile phone using a password locker app. I think this is unusually high, but it is something that we will all have to get used to in the future because computers are getting more powerful. 64-bit and 128 bit encryption simply doesn't cut the mustard any more. You will need at least 256 bit encryption and passwords of at least nine letters, numbers and characters (a combination of all three).

This is the ultimate trade-off relating to the convenience of never having to remember persons - even a very close persons telephone number. We now have to store and recite passwords instead.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50505 2013-01-25T15:06:53 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50505#comments 0
Has he made any mistakes? Certainly he is executing 'the plan' admirably. But Apple's long-term strategy has its limitations. Whether it is media players, computers or mobile devices - Apple has aimed squarely at the top five or ten percentile of the population in terms of income or aspiration when it comes to purchasing consumer technology.

To expand below that upper percentile, Apple will have to launch products aimed squarely at the great unwashed masses. Will this fit comfortably with the company's famed perfectionism when it comes to launching new products? I can't see Apple launching a netbook competitor in the near future.

Certainly many Apple pundits have scrutinised the company's mobile phone product launch timeline. Whereas the likes of Samsung, LG, HTC and others have a family of mobile phone products, Apple just has the iPhone which it more or less updates annually.

Clearly, Apple will feel the pressure to launch either a cheaper version of the iPhone or an even more expensive version of its flagship mobile product. The precedent has already been set when Apple launched the iPad Mini. Although having a larger roster of products may increase market share, it may adversely affect the companies manufacturing cost base. There is also the issue of cannibalising its own sales to consider.

Profit per unit is struggling. Already the iPhone doesn't have the same cachet that it used to have. This means that Apple cannot extract the same amount of money from mobile operators and consumers that it used to.

Also, it's likely that many of Apple's most vehement cheerleaders are also the companies stockholders. How much cheerleading are they likely to do when they see the value of their investments wither away?
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50433 2013-01-22T12:44:17 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50433#comments 0
No doubt he has observed the pain that HP is currently undergoing to transform its global operations and also the various pains that IBM went through when it went through a similar transformation.

Yet Dell Corporation is a very different beast to be the other two organisations. Both IBM and HP are true innovators in the fields of computing. Dell, on the other hand, is an efficient manufacturer that their products have never been differentiated from the dozens of other PC manufacturers as they have been dependent on the innovations of the likes of Microsoft and Intel.

Michael Dell has to realise for his company to truly transform itself a great deal of effort and investment has to be put into research and development and creating truly innovative computing products and services.

Another company that is very much dependent and driven by the whims of the stock market is Apple Corporation. Its quarterly results are due to be announced tomorrow afternoon UK time. It's possible that it may announce another bumper result, but in recent months its share price has waned in value.

There is the sneaking suspicion that the recent ramping up of new models - for example, the launch of the iPad Mini - is driven by the numbers game and increasing sales the short-term. Apple has always prided on the fact that it had a small but compelling product family. As their product range expands, will it lose its unique cachet amongst its enviably loyal fan base?

There is a strong rumour that Apple will launch its next iPhone in June of this year. This will be less than 12 months since the launch of the iPhone 5. This has been driven by the mobile operators. But will these short-term measures to satisfy investors, mobile operators, and some consumers harm the brand in the future?
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50309 2013-01-15T13:48:02 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50309#comments 0
Comet Superstores was the first company to announce bankruptcy; followed shortly after by photography specialists Jessop's.

HMV had a recent strategy of moving away from audio and video sales - which are moving online and into consumer electronics hardware sales. Much of this revolved around the gaming market. Unfortunately for HMV, this market also had a difficult time in the run-up to Christmas.

Apart from the recent Nintendo Wii you, there hasn't been a major launch of a games consoles for several years. Both Microsoft and Sony are due to launch new games consoles in 2013. Obviously this is too late for HMV.

However, there are some retailers in the consumer electronics space who are bucking this trend. Most notable is the hardware and audio department of John Lewis. Another notable example is Apple's retail arm which continues to open several stores in the UK.

These retailers are successful are successful in part due to the emphasis they give to staff training. The reality is that much of consumer electronics spending is moving online and the high-street cannot compete with the online retailers in terms of price, but they can compete in terms of quality of customer service. In an area where consumers require expertise and advice, they will pay a little bit more for this expertise.

This has been proven time-and-time again. However, if you are an existing consumer electronics retailer, you will find it very difficult to train existing staff with entrenched attitudes. Curry's has been trying to deal with this for several years, but it's partly their fault, as they have always incentivised their staff to sell financial services - such as extended warranties to customers whether it was in their customers best interest or not.

When Circuit City in the US tried to change this ensconced mind set, their answer was to fire all their retail staff. Unfortunately this didn't work it was too little too late. I fear that it may be too late for Currys as well.]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50237 2013-01-11T15:50:43 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50237#comments 0
Samsung unveiled a prototype phone with a flexible display that it claims can be folded almost like paper. The flexible phone uses a super thin plastic that means it is bendable unbreakable. The device was demonstrated at Samsung's keynote and ran Windows Phone 8 rather than Android.

It had a big display attached to a box containing the processor. The phone is pliable without any major distortion to the colours or icons. The company has been working on flexible displays for a number of years and earlier in the show demonstrated a display that is also flexible.

But the march of the Androids seem unstoppable with an unexpected move into kitchen appliances. Kitchen appliance maker, Dacor, demonstrated an oven called with a Discovery IQ controller that offers interactive cooking guides recipes and all other things related to cooking. However, as its android-based you will still be able to install more standard apps from the Google place store. Thus offering the possibility of playing angry birds while cooking the Sunday bird.

Robots haven't grabbed the headlines at this year's show. In previous years holidays as emotional robot was very popular amongst visitors at CES in Las Vegas - lthough I have never seen it shuffle a deck of cards.

Naturally, iRobot demonstrates its robot vacuum cleaners again (yawn). Other companies such as LG also demonstrated similar products. But by far the most impressive robot has to be the Dreambots massager. This is a $69 massage robot which crawled over your back offering different levels of massaging with a rotating caressing finger - which although it may look odd but supposedly feels very relaxing. It has sensors to keep it rolling off a person's back and if you sit up straight it will crawl up to your shoulder so that you can pick it up and take it off.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50181 2013-01-09T13:24:25 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50181#comments 0
For example, Panasonic has launched a 4K Windows tablet. It's huge at 20 inches and features an OLED display. I think it's highly unlikely that this is going to be popular in the consumer space. It's not a product that exists just yet - although prototypes are on display at this year's show. It has more use in the professional graphic arts market or perhaps maybe even the CAD/cam market.

Parrott, the makers of the AR Drone, (a very fun gadget), Has also launched the Flower Power sensor device for gardeners who have the opposite of green fingers. It uses Bluetooth 4.0, a very low power version of Bluetooth, to send sensor readings to a user's smart phone to let them know how well their plants are reacting to the outside weather conditions. Again, this isn't an actual product that exists yet for sale, but the company does say that it's likely to be available at the end of the year.

The HAPI fork is a fork with a brain and sensors - I've heard of a number of different products with Smart prefixed to them that never heard of a smart fork. The idea is that it measures how often and how quickly you elevate the fork to your mouth to measure how many bites you eat and how fast you eat. The main objective is to encourage you to eat more slowly - useful when you're mother isn't around to nag you I suppose.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50178 2013-01-09T12:05:30 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=50178#comments 0
Companies such as Arm Holdings are the brains of virtually every smart phone in the world. But it's not the only UK company in town that is making waves imagination Technology is another UK semiconductor company that has gained a great deal of publicity recently due to its recent bid to buy the intellectual property business of rival MIPs. This would make it the brain of virtually every smart TV and set top box in the world.

Also, due to a nationwide TV commercial campaign by UK vacuum cleaner company Dyson-James Dyson is as well known on this side of the Atlantic as he is in the UK. The chiselled features James Dyson with a black roll-neck top and a 'proper' English accent has enamoured many American consumers. He has even been on the cover of a number of tech magazines including wired US.

Another company, Pure, the consumer subsidiary of Imagination Technologies is also gaining a great deal of traction with its networked radio and audio products.

But he electronics accessory market is no doubt the most aggressively competitive in their consumer tech sector. One UK company, Gear4, has grown significantly in this space. They have struck licensing deals with the likes of Angry Birds developers Rodeo to market branded goods around the globe.

This company's humble beginnings was as a distributor of accessories from the far east. Now it employs engineers and industrial designers and is truly innovating in this very competitive market.

UK trade and investment always sends a large contingent of UK companies to exhibit on their stand at CES in Las Vegas. This year they have been spoilt for choice. Consumer tech is clearly a bright light in an otherwise dimmed UK economy.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=49866 2012-12-21T16:43:35 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=49866#comments 1 1. Your second hand iPad/iPhone, etc

So you're one of those fan boys or girls who have to get a new mobile device every year. Get this - Apple launched three iPads in 2012 and the only reason why because they know that idiots (including me) will always want the latest - for purely professional reasons of course!
But don't foist your cast offs on to someone else - particularly when the resale value is so great on ebay for Apple gadgets. In fact, they hold their value far more than many other consumer brands. Conversely, will it be as appreciated if you gave your old iPad to a loved one? Sell it and get them something really original with the proceeds.


2. Google Chromebook

When Google announced the Chromebook, it was going to be a budget net ready laptop for the masses. The reality is that they're one of the most pricey items in the white elephant store. These were meant to be the budget option for those wanting a second laptop. But you'll find it very difficult to get a decent one for less than £300. For that price (and cheaper) you could even get a laptop with proper storage for the same price.


3. GHD curlers from a market stall

Luxury consumer beauty products can be expensive - but if the deal is too good to be true...as the saying goes. The UK is flooded with fake GHD products. Let's face it, a fake Gucci bag is naff but it never injured anyone. Stay safe cheapskates.


4. Nintendo Wii/Xbox or Playstation

The Nintendo Wii has already been superceded and by this time next year, the other two consoles will also be obsolete (as far as your kids are concerned). Go on, make a rod for your own back and build in the certainty that it's going to be replaced in 12 months.


5. Any tablet when the request was specifically for an iPad

Dads. Remember when you asked for a Walkman and got a Toshiba instead? Get with the programme. iPads are cooler.


6. A blu-ray disk without checking if they have a player

The CD is 30 years old and is still going fairly strong. DVDs are a format that refuses to die. Blu-rays are the slightly better format - and as such most of us have still to upgrade our players to Blu-ray. So check before purchasing. It's only worth it when they release Morecambe and Wise Christmas Specials on the format.
[IMG]http://www.theiet.org/staticfiles/images/blogs/26/BluRay_Logo.jpg[/IMG]


7. Festive gadget accessories

Great - an accessory that I can only use until the 6th of January.


8. Anything pink (because she's a lady)

So you're dating one of R'n'Bs most inspirational Diva sensations, Mariah. No? Think again.


9. A laptop table

These are just TV dinner tables regurgitated. Laptops are for laps - as are TV dinners.


10. A DAB Radio

I will not have any aspersions cast on my favourite station, Smooth FM. There are still a few DJs there who haven't been helping Yewtree detectives with their investigations. But I can't get it streamed higher than 96 kbps! Simply Red was destined to be streamed at 256 at least. But I'm one of the lucky ones. 7% of the population can't get DAB at all still.


11. A Sat Nav

Nothing says I love you more than saying: You don't know your ***** from your elbow. But there's another good reason why you shouldn't get a dedicated sat nav - research shows it won't get updated as often as the GPS software on your smartphone - which is why every local minicab driver in East London always turns left from Leytonstone High Road down a dead-end rather than follow the one way system that was introduced in 1998.


12. Hear Muffs

John Lewis is my favourite department store. They're staff are knowledgeable and polite. But why are they pushing these on their customers like street corner drug dealers? These are the antithesis of bling - which probably what appeals to some. Dr Dre, see what you've done?

]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=48817 2012-10-17T12:08:51 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=48817#comments 0
Woman. Not girl, chick, babe or any other infantilising epithet.

These haven't been uttered by men, but by other women in technology field who think that referring to women by these terms will make our industry 'sexy' to women.

I don't think that women enter the tech sector seeking a Sex and the City lifestyle. They're hear for the very same reasons that men are - they like invent and create.

Needless to say I won't be buying this year's calendar.

PINK GADGETS

As a bloke, I am more likely to buy something if it's brushed steel, aluminium or black gloss. Probably, but functionality is the most important criteria. I still won't buy pink.

As a woman, you're likely to buy pink, pink and more pink - only to stop your husband or boyfriend borrowing your stuff and not because you like the colour.

A WOMAN WHO INSPIRES

A friend at college who graduated 20 years ago in civil engineering and despite many of her peers leaving, had remained and flourished. You know who you are.

]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=48363 2012-09-12T11:56:05 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=48363#comments 0
Apple is known for not compromising on physical design - which many other consumer tech companies still don't understand the importance of.

The new iPhone will be taller. This makes sense from an ergonomic perspective because most consumer's pockets are physically deeper rather than fatter. Also, Apple don't want to upset runners like myself who wouldn't use an iPhone that wouldn't fit comfortably in an armband.

It will have a faster processor and better energy management, but consumers may feel slightly put out by the smaller dock to accommodate a slimmer design (although the iPod Touch is slimmer and functions quite well with the current dock connector).

It will have 4G capability - like the current iPad, although Apple should be more cautious about marketing this to a global audience unless they are certain that it will work on the range of spectrum that 4G and LTE will run on.

The other design challenge is the redefined Apple launch event. The announcement of the new iPad in Spring was a qualified disaster - with spokespeople and audience members confused and baffled about what to call the new product; and the company hailing the 4G capabilities with dreary promotional video spots - which it later emerged wouldn't work on most of the planet (Apple quietly changed their marketing outside of North America).

Tim Cook, was then the understudy who finally was given his break, but had to read a script written for the recently departed Steve Jobs. Will this launch be designed around him? Will we see Team Apple with Tim, 'Sir Ive' (sic) and other senior executives sharing the limelight in matching black rollnecks?

What CEO, Tim Cook has inherited from his mentor, Steve Jobs is monumental arrogance - if recent statements from him are to go by. He ought not to revere this quality from Jobs.


]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=47164 2012-06-25T12:42:23 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=47164#comments 0
Apart from the 'eau de charcoal' sweeping through the neighbourhood, these lads tend to put their stereo on in the house very loud so that it can be heard outside on the patio. An annoyance. I haven't spoken to them about it yet. I was always told that if you have a complaint, its always useful to be armed with a solution.

I recently wrote about streaming audio and video around the house (Smart Special - Smart Home Tech). I mentioned two competing systems, Sonos and Apple's Airplay. Since I already have an Apple TV and one Airplay compatible device, I thought that I would flick the switch. Now, although you can send music through multiple speakers on several devices, Apple makes no claims to be able to broadcast around the home in sync. But on my network it does.

There's nothing special about my set-up. It's a standard 802.11n wifi network with powerline networking to the TV devices. The advantage of this is that if I want to put a few tunes on, I don't have to blast it from one end of the house to be heard at the other. I can 'distribute' the sound evenly around the building.

The advantage is that the audio does not travel far from my boundaries - which my neighbours will be very happy.]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=47109 2012-06-20T15:24:34 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=47109#comments 0
When the current UK government took the reins of power, they instructed Ofcom to cede consumer adjudication to a non-statutory body, Ombudsman Services Ltd citing a need to cut red tape in the sector. All telecommunications companies have benefitted by this framework. It's not compulsory for a broadband provider to join - but most have.

The industry has been given more responsibility to regulate itself, and just like the media, is occasionally failing to do so appropriately and the big companies are often the worst offenders. Despite some impressive statements about commitments to standards of service, forcing broadband companies to live up these commitments is very difficult. All companies have an internal complaints procedure which they have to adhere to - but forcing them to do so is another question.

You have to wait eight weeks - yes eight weeks - for the company to resolve the matter first before approaching the ombudsman. For most cases, this is far too long. Would you expect to wait two months if your gas supply wasn't working properly?

When you take your case to the Ombudsman, you don't have any right to examine (let alone cross-examine) the information held by the other side. It's a system that is designed to be opaque as possible for the consumer.

Scrutinising the organisation, there is very little oversight. There was a consumer panel, but that has now been disbanded. Other than the independent assessor, there is no consumer champion - although Ombudsman Services Ltd says that they are about to appoint somebody.

This represents a problem for anyone who has exhausted the complaints process with their supplier or who have reached a deadlock. 'Should I trust in this system or should I go to the courts?'

It may still be advantageous to use the ombudsman rather than resort to legal filings - firstly, the ombudsman service will cost you nothing. Also if the system genuinely tries to be fair. Otherwise the cosy arrangement may suffer the mild indignity of being gummed by Ofcom.

In my particular case, I genuinely believe that there is a public interest argument for this miscarriage of packetised data transfer to be heard in the courts. Although I appreciate that the public will not be interested in my little dispute.
]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=46863 2012-06-01T14:24:57 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=46863#comments 0
Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have the capability of creating an interactive graphic of all the data on a Google map - which is what I wanted to create at the time.

However, I've now managed to dip my toe in the Google puddle and have created one using Google Fusion.

You can view the map here: http://tinyurl.com/clc6wrw

The original A-Z of fakes feature is online here: http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2012/01/a-z-a.cfm]]> Kris Sangani http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=44579 2012-01-09T15:15:45 00 http://www.theiet.org/forums/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=405&threadid=44579#comments 0
Therefore, the authorities tried him for forgery. Although initially convicted, the case was thrown out on appeal.

Yet with the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, Governments are trying to do the same by conflating the moral panic surrounding counterfeit goods, such as alcohol, drugs and dangerously manufactured goods with piracy. Counterfeits can kill, but the only potential method where someone could lose their life through online piracy is if they showed a torrented version of Two Girls One Cup to their grandmother with a heart condition.

There is a genuine concern about counterfeit alcohol. My research published in E&T Magazine and picked up by The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Mirror clearly demonstrate that a trade agreement covering counterfeit is in dire need. But this agreement is tainted. Already there is widespread opposition by civil rights groups against ACTA.

This is likely to grow. I predict there will be widespread legal challenges brought in several jurisdictions. In the meantime, the international counterfeit trade will continue to sneak dangerous goods and components while the politicians ponder the legal arguments.]]>