Go go gadget plaything
Once we found fun things to do with computers sold as serious machines. Now gadgets are marketed as nothing but toys
The Magic Piano iPad application probably won’t come in that handy in the office. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/AP
As a boy I managed, after much persistence, to persuade my parents to buy me a Sinclair Spectrum 48K+ (the one with the black, concave keys). To do this I had to convince them it was not merely a machine on which to play games but an important tool that would teach me computer programming and aid my schoolwork. It did nothing of the sort, of course, making my own name appear repeatedly and inelegantly (10 PRINT “Saptarshi Ray”; 20 GOTO 10) was all I achieved other than spending hours playing the likes of Jet Set Willy and Gunfright. Read more…
Coca-Cola considers dropping agency behind Facebook ‘porn’ campaign
Soft-drinks giant reviews relationship with firm that created Dr Pepper campaign featuring ‘offensive’ Facebook status updates
Mark Sweney guardian
The Facebook campaign for soft drink Dr Pepper was dropped following complaints. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian
Coca-Cola is considering cutting ties with the agency that created a Facebook campaign that parents accused of targeting children by using references to a notorious pornographic movie.
The soft-drinks giant, which has come in for heavy criticism after running a racy Facebook campaign for the Dr Pepper brand, has told the agency that it must stop all advertising work on Coca-Cola brands until a decision is reached on whether to terminate the relationship.
“We have stopped all our ongoing work with [digital agency] Lean Mean Fighting Machine and are currently reviewing our relationship with the agency,” said a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola GB. Read more…
John Lydon’s rotten politics
PiL’s frontman has betrayed punk’s ethos by embracing greed and disregarding the plight of the Palestinians
It amazes me that people don’t get the opportunity of me,’ John Lydon told the Guardian. ‘I sell.’ Photograph: Country Life Wire/PA Wire/PA Photos
Johnny Rotten has cheated on me. OK, I don’t expect that statement to elicit much sympathy. But I can’t have been the only one to feel queasy reading the interviews John Lydon gave ahead of this week’s British tour by his band, Public Image Ltd (PiL). The erstwhile Rotten believes that now his ads have boosted sales of Country Life butter, he should be courted incessantly by marketing executives. “It amazes me that people don’t get the opportunity of me,” he told the Guardian. “I sell.” Read more…
Pay Per Click Versus Organic Search Who Wins ?
Preview of the new BBC News website
Preview of the new BBC News websiteThe BBC News website editor, Steve Herrmann, runs through the changes – new stories flagged, a shift in navigation and possible Facebook integration
The restyled BBC News website
With bubblewrap being slowly lifted away from the new-look BBC News website, its editor, Steve Herrmann, has given a sneak preview of what he calls “the biggest rethink of the design of the site since 2003.”
Here’s what’s new:
More space for news The left-hand navigation is moving to drop-down menus at the top, leaving enough room for the top three stories to have sub-linked related content. Immediacy push Recently published stories will be flagged as “New” on the homepage. Facebook integration? Herrmann didn’t mention this in the post, but Edelman’s eagle-eyed director of digital, Robin Hamman, spotted that one of the single post screengrabs told us “John Day and two of your friends recommended this.” Bigger, better video “Better quality” video gets a more prominent spot on the front page. The video page also gets a refresh, now looking a bit like the Sky News equivalent. Story pages Context-adding features to single posts will be placed within and at the bottom of stories, moving from the right-hand column. Clearer labelling Read more…
Retailers stop sales of analogue TV sets as digital switchover approaches
Death of the analogue TV set officially confirmed today nearly 85 years after John Logie Baird held his first public display
Tara Conlan
A family around the television, circa 1950. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty
The death of the analogue television set was officially confirmed today, nearly 85 years after John Logie Baird held his first public display of the capabilities of the box in the corner of the living room that has tranformed our lives.
All the major high street electronics retailers have now stopped selling analogue sets after quietly running down their stocks in recent months, in preparation for the switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) by 2012.
Last month, for the first time, there were no sales of analogue TV sets in the UK, according to figures published today by the organisation responsible for helping viewers switch, Digital UK.
With 5 million homes now transferred to a DTT-only signal and 11 million more due to switch by the end of 2011, new analogue TV sets are of little use to viewers.
And even though the process of turning off the analogue terrestrial television signal region by region across the UK will continue for two more years, in practice switchover has already nearly been achieved.
Out of 26.8 million UK TV homes, 23.8 already have digital – via DTT (Freeview), satellite (Sky, Freesat), or cable (Virgin Media) – according to figures from TV ratings body Barb. Read more…
How good is the iPhone for the mobile web economy?
Apple iPhone 4 - good for Apple, bad for Apple PR, bad for mobile operators, good for HTML5 developers. And the customers? Well they’re not exactly fully paid-up members of the Apple fan club either, according to a new report on the mobile web.
Photo by Sroown on Flickr. Some rights reserved
The unique selling point of the iPhone - it’s App Store - will dwindle in appeal within two years as HTML5 becomes the standard for browsers and mobile web applications become increasingly feature-rich, says the 2010 Mobile Web Usage Forecast by mobile internet firm Volantis. And it will be gaming and social networking that provide the biggest pull towards the mobile web, the YouGov poll of over 4,000 US and UK consumers aged 18+ found.
Fifty-five percent of UK-based respondents said social networking would encourage them to use the mobile web more, while 17% were keen to access games on their mobiles. Those findings certainly correlate with this year’s GSMA Mobile Media Metrics report which found that Facebook accounted for almost half of the 4.8bn minutes UK folk spent browsing the mobile web in December 2009. Over a third (38%) of all respondents felt that an iPhone was inconsequential as part of having a good mobile web experience, with just one in ten Americans thinking that an iPhone was essential to enjoy the mobile internet.
Volantis chief executive Mark Watson said the findings were good news for developers turned off by Apple’s more restrictive approach to mobile apps: “The arrival of HTML5 will release developers from the constraints of Flash, making the user experience more varied and allowing the development of entertainment, lifestyle and business apps which are optimised to provide the same experience across all devices. Freeing developers from having to focus on either ‘Apple’ or ‘Other’ applications will further drive the mobile web market. Read more…
Breakup of single currency would blight Europe, says Dutch bank Ing
Knock-on effect on global economy would dwarf aftermath of Lehman Brothers collapse, analysts warn
Jill Treanor guardian
Inflation in Spain and Portugal could soar towards double digits while Germany would suffer deflationary shock, ING researchers said. Photograph: Corbis
January 2012. A cold winter has settled across Europe while the hard freeze gripping the economies of countries that once made up the eurozone is spreading across the globe. European Monetary Union is over. The stresses and strains caused by the bailout of Greece and the problems that enveloped other peripheral countries has made the euro a distant memory.
This is the scenario explored by economists at Dutch bank ING who have produced one of the first financial models of what might happen if the single currency falls apart during 2010. In a bleak assessment, entitled “quantifying the unthinkable”, they warn that in the first year alone, so by the start of 2012, output would fall between 5% and 9% across various member states, while their new national currencies would fall by 50%.
The 16 countries that ditched their own currencies a little over a decade earlier have dusted down the printing presses to try to introduce new domestic notes again. They are doing battle with a crisis that dwarfs the one caused by collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
While Spain and Portugal are grappling with near double-digit inflation, Germany and other core countries are gripped with a deflationary shock, one that has also begun to infect the US which is flirting with a full blown recession. In Britain, the economy is struggling with a double-dip recession inflicted by the euro crisis. With share prices falling and house prices plummeting, governments are facing the prospects of bailing out banks that have been crippled by bad debts caused by corporate defaults. Read more…
Amazon snaps up ‘bags of crap’ retailer Woot.com
Amazon takes over ‘one day, one deal’ rival Woot
Dallas-based online retailer to be independent subsidiary
Andrew Clark in New York guardian
Amazon has snapped up the ‘one deal one day’ online retailer Woot. Above, Amazon warehouse, Nevada. Photograph: Scott Sady/AP
The US shopping website Woot.com breaks every rule in retailing. It offers a choice of just one item each day. It labels products as “bags of crap”, jokes that it hopes to be profitable by 2043 and has a Ryanair-style disdain for complaints. Yet Woot’s cult success prompted a takeover yesterday by the online empire Amazon.
In a blog posting, Woot announced that it was being snapped up for an undisclosed sum by Amazon, the Seattle-based internet emporium best known for books that nowadays sells anything from shoes to groceries. The TechCrunch technology blog reported that the price was $110m (£73m) in cash.
“Holy crap! Woot has signed an agreement with Amazon – yes, THE Amazon – to become an independent subsidiary of the e-commerce colossus,” said Woot’s company blog. “More details forthcoming after we pick our eyeballs up off the floor.” Read more…
Google tries new approach in China
Search giant ends automatic redirection to Hong Kong site for mainland web users in effort to placate Beijing authorities
Google has been redirecting Chinese users to its Hong Kong homepage to evade strict censorship laws. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP
Google today sought to placate the Chinese authorities by ending the automatic redirection of mainland users to its uncensored Hong Kong site, saying officials had warned they would otherwise refuse to renew the firm’s licence.
Several industry analysts suggested the last-ditch move – made only a day before Google’s permit to provide content expires – signalled the end for the google.cn service following the search giant’s battle with the censors.
The company began diverting users of the site to google.com.hk in March, having said it was no longer willing to censor search results as required under Chinese law.
Today, it said it had introduced an extra step, redirecting users to a landing page with a link to the Hong Kong site. Read more…
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