Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video

No, it’s not that 700MHz spectrum, but the $2.5 billion sale of the airwaves to AT&T from private firm Aloha Partners could have implications as large as Auction 73’s massive, open-access Block C itself. Given that Aloha’s Hiwire trials for DVB-H-based mobile TV have been playing in the 700MHz arena, we suspect this could spell doom for the whole project — and on the heels of Modeo’s collapse, very likely spells doom for DVB-H on the whole in the US. Though that’s great news for Qualcomm and DVB-H competitor MediaFLO, it’s awful news for the prospect of a global mobile TV standard, closely (if not eerily) following what happened years back with the European Union’s selection of GSM and the rise of CDMA in North America. For its part, AT&T says it’s going to use its newfound airwaves — which cover 72 of the top 100 US markets — for “broadcast video or for two-way communications such as voice, data or multicast content.” Admittedly, the “broadcast video” part of that leads us to believe that Hiwire could somehow survive the change in ownership, but with AT&T’s selection of MediaFLO last year as its standard of choice, it sure ain’t likely.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

We’ve just got off the blower with Apple’s Greg Jozwiak, vice-president of worldwide product marketing for iPod and iPhone.

The new launch today of a 16GB iPhone and 32GB Touch has raised some serious questions about how often Cupertino is outing updated products, leaving first adoptors to rue the day they lashed out on a new piece of Apple flavoured kit.

Here’s what he had to say when we took him to task over today’s shock news.

T3: So, first and foremost, it’s been three months almost to the day that the 8GB iPhone was launched in the UK. Are people going to be annoyed that a better model has been released so soon?

GJ: No, I don’t think so. The price remains same for the existing 8GB model and while the price decreased dramatically in the past (8Gb reduced to 4Gb prices – Ed), we’re offering an additional option to the existing model.

T3: Will existing 8GB iPhoners get a compensatory upgrade?

GJ: No. We’re releasing a brand new model with a brand new price. The original 8Gb price is still the same – we’re just offering a different option.

T3: Why hasn’t Apple launched a 32GB iPhone? Memory technology is available, as proved with today’s iPod touch announcement.

GJ: Different things are happening in both products. We’re offering choice.

T3: Is it really a 16GB capacity? How much space is gobbled up by the OS?

GJ: Not a whole lot is taken off. Jump into the settings and you’ll be able to tell.

T3: It’s no secret that lots of the UK mobile phone crowd won’t buy an iPhone until 3G appears. When can we expect it?

GJ: We don’t talk about future products. We have the most sophisticated platform for a mobile device. The ability to add to features as and when is phenomenally compelling.

T3: Will 8GB iPhone users quickly find themselves out of memory with the impending raft of apps from the SDK-ers?

GJ: There’s still quite a bit you can do with the existing model. A higher capacity model can obviously hold more but we try to be clever and efficient in iTunes to meet the needs of both.

T3: Right, so how many 8GB iPhones sold have been sold in the UK?

GJ: We’ve haven’t made any decision to announce sales figures.

T3: Finally, this bigger storage size should merit more visual media, so what’s holding back iTunes movie rentals in the UK?

GJ: Yeah, we’re interested to get that up and running and expecting to bring them to the UK this year.

Microsoft has announced it’s getting into bed with music giant Sony BMG and MTV, in order to bulk up its somewhat wanting MSN Video channel.

The site already offers a cleaned up, ad heavy, alternative to YouTube, but it seems these latest deals are part of the Big M’s growing efforts to stifle Google’s web domination.

The move comes only a few days after Gates and co put in a not-too-shabby $44 billion offer for Yahoo, something which Google says raises issues about competition online.

The new deal will see the likes of tiresome Beadles About wannabe show Punk’d and, erm, Pimp My Ride, head onto the channel.

There’ll also be room for videos by up and coming and existing Sony BMG artists.

As for whether this’ll take on and beat YouTube, we doubt it. But it’s pretty clear that Microsoft won’t give up easily on its grand web plans.

Hold the phone folks. Following loads of web talk, Apple has officially confirmed its outing a 16GB iPhone and a 32GB iPod Touch.

The Apple store was down in the States for over an hour, with bloggers suggesting some O2 stores have already taken delivery of the beefed up Jesus phone. You can go and grab one right now.

It’s going to cost £329 over here, the same as the new 32GB flash iPod. The latter is a major surprise and something we weren’t expecting for a while. The touchscreen ‘pod is also yours now if you fancy.

For now, the phone remains on the EDGE network rather than getting a bump to 3G, so if you haven’t splashed out, maybe you should keep your hands in your pockets for now

We’ve got some exclusive one on one time with Apple’s Greg Joswiak coming up, so keep it here for news as we get it.

Beadle’s About and You’ve Been Framed, iconic television nuggets of the eighties which we swear led to peeps buying camcorders. How often did you whip out the old cammie at every birthday, wedding and nativity play vying for that all important crying Joseph or a drunk wise man? If only Beadle was here to see this the disgo video plus, we’d all be getting 250 smackers for our home videos.

The disgo Video Plus is as simple as a camcorder can get. It’s compact, so fits in your pocket or your bag. Switch on and you can start capturing your ‘rents doing the lindy hop or your gran the can-can. With a 1.5 inch flip out screen you can even record yourself miming along to any old song or those priceless You Tube moments for all you Micah Richards out there (anyone?).

Controls on the camcorder do look similar to those on a Fisher Price control car though, with a forward button, a back button and a big red one for recording.

Picture quality on the camera is average, but good enough for the web. With a measly 2x digital zoom we don’t think Spielberg will be quaking in his Indiana Jones boots. There’s 60 minutes recording time and an additional 4 hours recording available if you slap in a SD/MMC card. And with the inbuilt speaker, you can check that you’ve done your make up right before the big debut.

Now for the clever bit on this cammie. There’s no need for any software, no downloading no waiting for that status bar that says 4 seconds that means 5 minutes. Slip out the inbuilt USB arm (although we thought of another part of the anatomy), plug it into your computer and its all there.

Once you’ve plugged in you can view your vids, edit them and send them. The editing is as easy as the recording, but the number of changes is limited: the only edit you can actually do is crop the start and end of the video. We don’t know why either?

This cammie is a clever piece of kit, easy to use, simple controls and you can share you’re home videos quicker than Beadle could say “Next time the star of the show could be you”