UK Going For Technology Golds

The UK Government appear to be determined to raise the internet bar to win gold medals for the UK. Culture minister, Jeremy Hunt, claimed that the UK will have the "fastest broadband of any major European country by 2015. Like the Olympics the government is obsessed with speed and records and have released a further £300 million of funding. He claims some golden Olympic moments:

·         700GB/s were delivered from the BBC website delivered 700GB/s when Bradley Wiggins won gold.

·         On a peak day, 2.8PB (petabytes, over 2.9 million gigabytes) were downloaded.

·         Nearly a million people watched Andy Murray win gold online, with nine million following coverage on their mobiles.

·         London2012.com received over 20 billion views.

Mr Hunt has also stated intent to break the one gigabit speed barrier by supporting private firms in delivering fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) from 2016.

The mobile market is also to get faster. From October Orange and T-Mobile, which is the UK’s biggest mobile operator, with some 27% market share, will rebrand under the name Everything Everywhere (EE) in October. From the end of the first quarter 2013 the Orange and T-Mobile brands will be dropped and all existing customers will be migrated to EE. More importantly it will also launch 4G superfast mobile internet this year ahead of its rival UK operators.

4G is seen by many as vital for the further development of video, gaming and downloading and EE has been allowed to use its existing 1800 MHz spectrum to enable them to deliver first to the market. Its rivals have to enter into a 4G at the end of this year, which will then enable virtually everyone with the appropriate devices to be able to access to the faster network.

Amazon: Fiction Prizes, Japan and KF8

Another day and that great river Amazon keeps on flowing. Today three disjointed pieces of news demonstrate why Amazon continues to chart its own course and is a significant publishing force.

First the fairly insignificant news that France Telecom Orange is co-developing its own ebook store as an alternative to Kindle. Orange intend to partner with rival French cellco SFR and the French Library Union and aim to develop a digital library. They believe that they can achieve their Kindle competing goals by a hosting a wider range of French titles than Amazon and will offer users the ability to pay via the mobile bill. Orange investment is claimed to be around €5m and although the French market may be seen by some as parochial, it is already getting crowded with Kobo teaming up with Fnac. We doubt Orange will make it to prize ceremony, but believe they will help raise the ebook profile in France. Forget the Orange 2011 winner,Téa Obreht and her debut novel, 'The Tiger's Wife', some would give the Fiction Prize to Orange itself.

Whilst Kobo are setting their sights on France and the UK and Orange are planning to ‘tango’ the Kindle in France, Amazon is rumoured to be entering the Japanese e-book market and to set up an online e-book store this year. The rumour is supported by claims that Amazon is in contractual negotiations with publishers such as Shogakukan, Shueisha, Kodansha, Shinchosha and PHP Institute Inc is expected to provide about 1,000 digitized titles to Amazon.

Japanese publishers have been reluctant to provide content to Amazon over concerns that the retailer will sell e-books at a discount. Although the Japanese e-book market in 2010 was estimated at only 65 billion yen ($846.9 million) the print book and magazine market is worth about 2 trillion yen. One could say the Amazon presents a clear replay of the US Black Ships that opened up Japanese trade. It is easy to see this as a clear strategic step for Amazon whilst others scrap and try to play catch up in easier markets.

Finally Amazon has unveiled its next-generation file-format for Kindle books. Kindle Format 8 (KF8) will replace Mobi 7, and it brings support for HTML5 and CSS3. Obviously this is not epub 3.1 and some would say is somewhat behind that standard, but it may be a significant and more timely route for many and better tuned to the market.

KF8 will obviously enable publishers to create better-looking books with richer formatting, which could include fixed and floated elements, embedded fonts and drop-caps, text on background images, numbered and bulleted lists, and much more. Children’s books could now “set on Fire” with imagery, fixed layouts and pop-ups; comics and graphic novels could benefit from ‘Kindle Panel Views’; reference books could be made more attractive by superior diagrams and cookbooks and travel guides cold start to come to life.

Some will say that isn’t enough, but it enables the Kindle Fire to display the enhanced ebooks in play today and if encourages more publishers to develop the content, then it may be a far smarter move than developing standards and expecting everyone to merely adopt them. Amazon’s KF8 formatting capabilities are outlined in full on its website.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet will be the first to support the KF8 with them predicting support on its latest generation of e-ink Kindles “in the coming months”, along with its free Kindle apps for other platforms.

Finally, Amazon are planning enhancements to its Kindle Publisher Tools through KindleGen 2 which will create Kindle content from sources such as HTML, XHTML, and EPUB. This will be complimented by Kindle Previewer 2 which will provide publisher previews on how titles will look on Kindle devices and apps.

The Amazon keeps flowing and appears to be still one step ahead in their planning and execution.

Apple Open Up UK iPhone Market

Following the news that UK network operator Orange was to sell both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS and effectively end the exclusive UK arrangement between O2 and Apple, which has been in place since 2007, Vodafone have now announced that users can register an interest online, with the handsets becoming available to customers from early 2010.

So the exclusive madness looks to be ending and leaves only the likes of 3Mobile outside the party. However, we believe that could soon also follow suite and some customers have already been offered deals.

iPhone Goes Orange in the UK

Orange is to sell Apple's iPhone in the UK. This move which has been widely expected clearly ends the exclusive deal Apple had with O2 which has been good for O2 but some would argue bad for Apple.

If the planned merger between Orange and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile goes through and creates a 28.4 million customer business and becomes the UK's largest provider, it certainly would open the flood gates to many more iPhones being taken up.
It is estimated that some 75% of the UK market would be able to have an iPhone and with the Pre and other competitors struggling to catch up the iPhone could become a category killer in the UK.

It has also been announced today that the iPhone app store has just clocked up its 2 billionth download. It is only a few months since they announced that they achieved 1 billion! The others are clearly way back in the dust.

The other interesting thing to watch is the reaction of the other non iPhone carriers who are already struggling to offer exciting models and now find themselves squeezed by the big boys. Some suggest you will be able to get an iPhone through the other carriers on a ‘special deal’ and that these exist already. Whatever the case the iPhone could be the phone most people are using this Christmas and New Year to phone friends and family.

iPhone Goes Orange in the UK

Orange is to sell Apple's iPhone in the UK. This move which has been widely expected clearly ends the exclusive deal Apple had with O2 which has been good for O2 but some would argue bad for Apple.

If the planned merger between Orange and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile goes through and creates a 28.4 million customer business and becomes the UK's largest provider, it certainly would open the flood gates to many more iPhones being taken up.
It is estimated that some 75% of the UK market would be able to have an iPhone and with the Pre and other competitors struggling to catch up the iPhone could become a category killer in the UK.

The other interesting thing to watch is the reaction of the other non iPhone carriers who are already struggling to offer exciting models and now find themselves squeezed by the big boys. Some suggest you will be able to get an iPhone through the other carriers on a ‘special deal’ and that these exist already. Whatever the case the iPhone could be the phone most people are using this Christmas and New Year to phone friends and family.

Have They Been Tango-ed?

Do you change your name when you get married or stick with the one everyone knows? Do you create the new double barrelled name so loved by some circles?

Today we see a huge media marriage in the UK between Orange and T-Mobile. Shall they call themselves Orange or T-Mobile? After all they have both built good brands and invested heavily in brand building. No decision is likely on the brand issue until the merger gets full clearance from EU regulators. With 28.4 million customers or 37% of market share the new marriage will overtake the likes of O2 and Vodafone. It will result in redundancies in the workforce and obvious tagets are call centres, high street retail stores and a welcome reduction in mobile phone masts (some 5,000 less).

So do we like; Orange Mobile, T-Orange, Torange, Tango (we think that one may be a problem)?

Mobile UK News

From 1st May anyone with a Skype friendly handset on the 3 network can make as many Skype calls and speak as long as they want. We already have used the service for the last two years and talk every day to India, the US and Australia for free. 3’s attitude towards VOIP and Skype is a breath of fresh air and even if you aren’t a 3 customer you can buy a 3 sim card for a £1.99 for a compatible unlocked handset, download the Skype client and you are connect to everyone on Skype around the world!
These moves are important as they turn the VOIP pressure on others and act as clear differentiator to anyone who makes lots of international calls or whose friends use Skype.

Another UK operator, Orange, has unveiled the UK's cheapest touchscreen smartphone for unbelievable price tag. The Vegas is sold as a pay as you go handset and available either in black or in pink, is one of the lightest and smallest smartphones weighing only 84g and looks very, similar to the HTC Touch, which interestingly costs a lot more. It has a 2.4-inch touchscreen with a 1.3-megapixel camera, MP3, integrated FM radio, a built-in browser and compatibility with microSD cards up to 4GB to complement the 64MB onboard memory. Yes and all for £49!

The downside is that the Vegas doesn't support 3G but at £49 does that really matter?

After its big launch, MusicAlly claims that Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ has only attracted 23,000 subscribers for the free music download service. So what is the issue after all Nokia is the biggest mobile manufacturer, the music is free and all you need is a 5310 and N95 8GB handset. Nokia is having a hard time and maybe Comes With Music isn’t a the issue. Maybe its Nokia and the old units chosen to use the service. If they widen the units who can use the service it may pick up but it can hardly be breaking even on the money that Nokia thas to pay for the licences and to run the service.

The LG GD900 Crystal will be available from July. It has a new design - a see-through tempered glass keypad design with 'cool glow' and the keypad also transforms itself into a laptop style mouse pad that offers easy web browsing and navigation and tops this with a handwriting recognition feature! LG is also offering its 3D-style interface and is hoping it can create a new design buzz.

BBC take one step back and Two Forward

BBC has announced plans to simulcast on handsets at the same time as they are broadcast on traditional television. Live TV is under beta testing enables all handsets with a WiFi connection to view BBC channels which have been optimised to play on small screens and hear radio broadcasts but their owners will need to hols a full colour TV licence.

Some programmes with licence restriction will be unavailable but the service is planned to grow enabling it to be enjoyed not just on the Nokia N series and TMobile G1 but on an expanding number of handsets. The BBC already enables some mobile phone users to access its catch-up television service, BBC iPlayer, through their handsets, but this will be the first time it has streamed live broadcasts to phones at the same time as they are being shown on television.

Also the joint broadcasting TV venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 that was hypocritically squashed by the competition regulator may be rescued by network operator Orange.

Project Kangaroo, the video-on-demand joint venture is being eyed up by Orange who see it as complimentary to their television over the internet serviceIn November, Orange, which runs a television over the internet service in France, said it was considering different options for a launch in Britain.

Two Smart Smart phones

We said to Watch Barcelona!

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is certainly living up to the expectations we had of it. Already we have seen significant announcements such as those we wrote about earlier from Adobe now we have the expected mobile jockeying from the smartest smartphone.

Sony have thrown down the gauntlet to all camera freaks with their Idou which has a built-in 12.1-megapixel camera. Why do you need a digital camera when they can deliver to this specification in a mobile?

The Idou will also have a 3.5in widescreen touch-screen and powerful flash for high quality photos. The symbian driven device has all the usual music and video features of their Walkman range of phones and users will be able to download extra software and applications to their device.


The LG Touch watch phone we raved about earlier this year is coming to the UK via the Orange network 'later this year' . The Touch watch phone is a radical step, eye-catching and certainly will tick the gadget novelty box for all would be James Bonds. But it is no slouch on the functionality side, offering HSDPA connectivity, video calling (alongside audio), media playback, web browsing (if you've got the eyes for it) and to protect your investment, a water-resistant shell and tempered glass.

We must have one!!!!

Another Day, Another eReader

Having failed miserably to master the basics of German at school we must thank the Bookseller for the translation of the German report in The Spiegel on Germany's Deutsche Telekom’s development of a portable e-reader. It appears to be primarily aimed at the newsprint sector with a launch later this year. They also also reported that France Telecom’s Orange is developing a a similar product called “Read&Go”.

We recently visited an ebook specialist company in San Diego and were amazed at the 3rd party devices they were testing that littered their labs. Yesterday we wrote about the potential explosion of Smartphone applications. Chip technology is changing, screen technology is changing, integration and interoperability are becoming key words so what do we really believe is the short term and long term future of readers?

We strongly believe in the ‘one armed bandit’ image which we wrote about earlier this year. It is essential that format, DRM and device are aligned. If we extend this simple approach to Smartphones there are more ‘cherries’ to be aligned but the principle is the same – you have to have all the cherries in a line to win. So we now have the new potential entrants from other sectors; Adobe, Sony, Google, Apple, Nokia being joined by an increasing number of player Deutche Telekom, Orange and many, many more. The market will choose the winner or winners and this will be based not on technology alone but more importantly on a combination of the Right Content, at the Right Price, on the Right Device, at the Right Time.

The next big question is how do publisher control the distribution of the digital content and contextual information to a rapidly expanding market and maximise their sales opportunities whilst retaining control of their asset?