Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Category: Technology

Shiny gadgets and clever computers

  • Could shutting down Pandora open Pandora’s box?

    An interesting post on Broadstuff about Pandora, the web-radio service whose extremely high royalty payments may force it out of business:

    it’s clear that Pandora and its ilk will live – it’s far too good to lose – [so] it will just go to the P2P freenet if this practice continues, thus hurting the Industry even more in the medium term. If ever there is a case study of a short sighted tactic to shoot yourself in the foot strategically, this is it.

    The problem is that Pandora doesn’t pay the same royalties as other forms of radio, as the Washington Post reports:

    Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies.

    Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.

  • iPhone 3G: never mind “it just works”; have you tried turning it off and back on again?

    As I mentioned earlier, O2’s 3G network has gone to crap today in my bit of Scotland – but talking to customer services, they were very keen to send me a checklist for 3G problems anyway. “We’ve sent this to a lot of iPhone customers”, the rep told me. Here’s the checklist exactly as it was emailed (hence the crap formatting).

    Turn Airplane Mode on, wait 15 seconds, and then turn Airplane Mode off
    again.  This resets all of iPhone’s wireless connections.

    2.Try restarting iPhone
    To turn it off, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the red
    slider appears. Slide your finger across the slider to turn off iPhone.
    To turn iPhone on, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple
    logo appears.
    Does iPhone appear frozen or stuck?  Try pressing and holding the Home
    button for 6 seconds to close a frozen application. Then try restarting
    iPhone again.

    3.Reset the SIM
    To remove the SIM card, insert the end of a small paper clip into the
    hole on the SIM tray.
    Insert the SIM card using the same method.

    4.Check APN
    Select settings, then general, then network, then cellular data network. Please make sure the following info is there:
    APN – mobile.o2.co.uk
    Username – vertigo
    password – password

    5. Try the sim in another handset
    Remove sim, put into another handset. If you receive 3G or EDGE coverage while doing this, then the issue is with your handset. If your sim still does not work in another handset then your sim card may be faulty.

    6.Try restoring iPhone using iTunes.
    Connect iPhone. When it appears in the Source list, click on Restore in
    the Summary pane.
    Note: This will delete all media and data. All settings will be reset
    as well. If possible, sync iPhone with iTunes before restoring to back
    up your most recent settings.

    If none of the above works, please call 2302 from your iPhone to arrange either a replacement handset or sim

    Hmmm. That O2 has a checklist for iPhone customers suggests that they’ve had a lot of queries from iPhone 3G owners whose 3G isn’t behaving. That’s not good, is it? It’s like coffee machine owners whose kit does everything but make coffee, or hairdryer owners whose hairdryers don’t dry hair. And since when was “try rebooting… if that doesn’t work, try wiping it and restoring it” an everyday way of troubleshooting Apple kit?

  • iPhone 3G connection problems? Might not be your iPhone…

    …or at least, it might not be if you’re in the West of Scotland. O2’s data network has gone tits-up and there’s no red-hot 3G action for anyone round these parts.

    O2 network issues aside, is anyone else following the reports of iPhone problems and getting a flashback to the first Xbox 360 red rings of death?  Just a few isolated problems, nothing serious, definitely not a manufacturing problem or a design flaw…

  • Cory Doctorow on the file sharing crackdown

    An interesting and typically inflammatory piece from Mr Doctorow in the Guardian:

    The original Napster had a fine proposition: they would charge their users for signing onto their network and write a cheque for as-many-billions-as-you-like to the record industry every quarter… The record industry sued them into a smoking hole instead… [here is] the tried-and-true answer to the problem of copyright-disrupting technology:

    * acknowledge that it’s going to happen;

    * find a place to collect a toll;

    * charge a fee that’s low enough to get buy-in from the majority;

    * ignore the penny-ante fee evaders;

    * sue the blistering crap out of the big-time fee-evaders.

  • Why I’d buy a dedicated e-book reader if somebody invented a good one

    I’ve just received my monthly threat from the newsagent, and it seems that my newspaper habit – that is, my one daily newspaper and two sunday newspapers – is costing £12.55 per week. Given that nine times out of ten the paper doesn’t turn up until I’ve been up and about for an hour or two, I’m spending £652.60 per year to read things I could get for free via RSS. And that doesn’t include the extra newspapers I tend to buy at lunchtimes, or my seriously scary magazine habit. Eek!

  • Four things I learnt on the internet today

    “The success of an anti-piracy campaign is measured in the number of hours it buys before the digital dam breaks” and 38 hours is considered a success. The LA Times on attempts to prevent fanboys watching camcorder copies of The Dark Knight.

    The crackdown on file sharing may be bad news for people who don’t file share. “…service gets worse as you wait in a queue wondering why your broadband has gone down, while the 50 people in front of you all have perfectly functional internet connections but are wondering if a lawyer is going to show up at their door.” Charles Arthur on the possible consequences of anti-P2P letters.

    Apple’s PR strategy is hurting its share price. “Apple, on the other hand, has had stellar financials, huge hit products, and massive growth sales for all its product lines. With those results you would expect Apple to outperform Microsoft.” Comment by Ian Betteridge on Dan Lyons’ post about Apple share prices.

    Caffeine is self-regulating and works almost instantly. “Women generally metabolize caffeine faster than men. Smokers process it twice as quickly as nonsmokers do. Women taking birth-control pills metabolize it at perhaps one-third the rate that women not on the Pill do. Asians may do so more slowly than people of other races.” NY Magazine on the wonders of caffeine (via Metafilter).

  • Carphone Warehouse is getting more iPhone 3Gs

    Press release:

    The Carphone Warehouse has today confirmed delivery of a large quantity of the Apple iPhone 3G. The handset will be available in more than 800 stores across the UK, with stock expected to arrive by 14:00hrs on Thursday 24 July. This will be the largest delivery of the iPhone 3G since stores sold out on the 11 July launch, following unprecedented demand. Orders can also now be placed online at www.carphonewarehouse.com/iphone

    The website is showing “Due Friday 25th” on all models.

  • Radiohead go open source

    Well, sort of. The video for House of Cards uses a whizzy data visualisation technique, whatever that means, and techy types can download the data from Google Code and fiddle with it.

    Here’s the video.

    Or you could just zoom around a 3D model of Thom Yorke’s head.

    [Via Metafilter]