October, 2009 Archive
October 30th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Freeview
Freeview is celebrating its seventh birthday today.
The service launched on the 30th of October 2002 as a joint venture between the BBC, Crown Castle and BSkyB. Freeview offered free-to-view TV after the collapse of ITVDigital, and OnDigital before that.
Greg Dyke, then Director-General of the BBC, said: “Today is an important day in the development of British television with the launch of Freeview – a new digital platform which means that 75% of homes in Britain will now be able to receive digital television completely free. It’s also a big step forward for the BBC, making all of the BBC’s digital television, interactive and radio services available to many more people at no extra cost.”
The last seven years have been a bumpy journey, but Freeview is now in many homes, and most new TVs and recorders come with built-in Freeview. We now have a bunch of new channels (admittedly, many of them shopping or adult chat channels), and with parts of the UK now going through the Digital Switchover (including North Wales this week), signal strengths are set to increase, bringing Freeview to more homes. The future is still looking good for Freeview.
We should, however, take a moment to remember those valiant TV channels that are no longer with us on our journey. raise a cup of tea to salute Sky Travel, UK Homestyle, FTN, BBC Choice, ABC1, Nuts TV, Men and Motors, ITN and UK History, as well as radio stations including oneword and MoJo that couldn’t be here today to celebrate.
Happy Birthday Freeview from all at your favourite Digital TV podcast!
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October 25th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Gadgets
We’d like to introduce you to Chumby…
Always keen to explore new gadgets, we think the Chumby is a rather interesting concept – somwhere between a Nabaztag and a Joggler, the Chumby sits quietly where you put it, and uses an wi-fi Internet connection to pull down weather, news, Internet radio, podcasts (including ours, we hope), and whole host of other feeds and content via Flash widgets (around 1,500 of them).
Thanks to Michael Johnson, one of our regular listeners, for pointing this little chap out to us – anyone interested in us giving this a review in the next show?
The Chumby is available now in the UK from Firebox.com. See our Chumby Review for more.
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October 19th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Radio
Our website of the day…
The tech team at Absolute Radio has released a nifty site that allows the world to peek into the playlists of UK radio stations. Their site robot monitors the “Now Playing” information transmitted by radio stations, and uses this to work out the number of songs on a station’s playlist, and how frequently songs get repeated.
Feel you’re hearing the same songs on your commercial radio station? You probably are, and this site proves it.
The site highlights that Capital FM has played 8,800 or so songs in the last 30 days – but that’s made up of the same 223 tracks… a pretty small playlist. Artists JLS, Beyonce and Lady GaGa clock in with over 350 plays a month.
Go to comparemyradio.com and see how your station compares.
“The needle returns to the start of the song, and we all sing along like before…”
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October 17th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Freeview, Phones, iphone
iPhone users – you can now watch 11 Freeview channels live on your phone.
The service from TVCatchup.com allows you to watch the following channels:
BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, ITV1, ITV2, Channe 4, Five, Film 4, e4, More 4 and 4 Music.
To watch, point your iPhone web browser to http://iphone.tvcatchup.com/ – No subscription, no sign-up, no app to install. Nice!
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October 15th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Podcast
New Tech Podcast out now…
We’ve had a busy couple of weeks, and while we’re working on our next full-length podcast, we’ve released a quick audio update. Featured in the show:
The show is attached to this blog entry, or you can listen at www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html, or get us from the FrequencyCast Podcast page on iTunes.
FrequencyCast Update 15 Oct 2009 [16:42m]:
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October 15th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Phones, Technology
At last – barcode scanning on a mobile phone that actually works. Despite some glowing reviews for the application RedLaser on iTunes, I must admit our hopes weren’t high.
We’ve tried barcode scanning apps for mobiles in the past, notably on Nokia Series 60 handsets, and the results have been dreadful – lots of faffing about to get the phone’s camera to capture the image of the barcode, then a wait while the code was decoded and sent to a database, followed by a “nothing found” type message.
Given that our iPhone 3G doesn’t have a flash or auto-focussing camera, we expected the results to be dreadful…
But it’s not! This is an amazingly well done application. Even without auto-focus, the app is able to get a pretty quick and accurate result. Here’s a shot of Pete scanning in a book’s barcode (and failing to scan his feet)…
It captures UPC, EAN and UPC-E barcodes (no, we didn’t know either), and then look up the prices on Amazon (UK, US, DE, etc) as well as via Google Product Search.
Practical upshot – when you’re out shopping, pick up something you’re considering purchasing, say a book or DVD, scan it, and 5 seconds later, you’ll see how much cheaper the product is online.
Searches are saved for later viewing, or you can order direct from your iPhone browser. We tried it on all sorts of things – books, DVDs, water filters, teabag boxes, Maltesers and a top end over recorder that we’ll be reviewing in a future show – all with positive results.
Yup – we’re impressed. This is one of those must-have apps for the iPhone, and could save you a fortune when shopping.
Update: RedLaser featured in our 15 Oct Audio Update. Transcript available
RedLaser, from Occipital, available for the iPhone, now out, and hot, on iTunes. 
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October 13th, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Gadgets, Technology
On Monday 19th October, the Kindle hits the UK.
If you’re not in the know, the Kindle is Amazon’s eBook Reader. It’s been big news in the US, and until now has not been available here in the UK.
Things have opened up, and it’s now possible to get a Kindle direct from Amazon – But it’s Amazon.com, not Amazon.co.uk
So, how does the Kindle differ from other eBook readers, such as the Sony Reader that we reviewed last year? Well, it’s a connected device, using 3G to get new books and newspapers (no need to hook up to a PC). It also has a keyboard, and buying books from the Amazon store is a lot easier than the Sony purchase route.
The Kindle has a mobile phone chip inside (to allow you to get books on the move), but there’s no monthly fee or data costs – just the purchase price of the Kindle, and books (more expensive in the UK than the US, sadly). You can also get UK and US papers on a Kindle.
Including import and delivery, it’ll cost £216 to get a Kindle here in the UK. For the full SP on the International Kindle, go to www.amazon.com.
To fight back, Waterstones has recently dropped the price of their Sony Reader collection.
More details on the Amazon Kindle on Amazon.com’s Kindle site. 
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October 1st, 2009 by FrequencyCast in Podcast
Show 44 of FrequencyCast, the UK’s TV and Tech podcast, has just been released.
In this show, we discuss all that’s new with digital TV and technology. Here’s what we cover in this show:
- News Updates: Freeview Retune time, Vision updates, Google’s new SideWiki and more.
- Focus: Save cash by going subscription-free. Also, how to watch TV in other rooms
- Hands-on: The MiFi from 3 – Portable Wi-fi transmitter
- Your questions on Freeview HD, Slingbox and Home Hub Watts?
You can download Show 44 direct to your MP3 player or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html. If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up via iTunes.
FrequencyCast UK Show 44 [30:58m]:
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