FrequencyCast Review of 2011 Part 2
The second part of Carl and Pete's look back at the year that was 2011, and the TV and Tech stories that made the headlines.
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Listen to FrequencyCast Show 71 - Our Review of 2011
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Review of 2011 - Part 2:
We continue with the transcript from Show 71 - Transcript continued from Review of 2011 - Part 1
Carl:
What about July? - take me to July. Tell me about the Sky and the way they launched Go, replacing the Sky Player, wasn't it?
Pete:
Spot on - yes, the Sky Player and Sky Mobile were replaced by the new Sky Go service, which seems to be rather good, doing rather well for itself. We also reported in July that the Virgin "Stop The Con" campaign had been stopped.
Carl:
Stop the what?
Pete:
That was Virgin's campaign about the broadband speed issue, where you expect speeds of up to 20 but you end up with speeds of up to three or four. Sky made some serious complaints about that campaign, and eventually it was axed.
Carl:
Not so good.
Pete:
Also, sadly axed in July, was the space shuttle - the last flight took place in July. Right, August - the Competition Commission ruled that Sky's movie service is too expensive. So we can expect movie from Sky to be on other platforms, or cheaper, soon.
Carl:
Yes, but how soon?
Pete:
Well, we first heard about this last August. We're not expecting any action or a final report on this until this coming August, so no rush, guys.
Carl:
Just twelve months!
Pete:
In August, we were out and about again. We were up in London for the Home Technology Event - do you remember that one?
Carl:
Did I go?
Pete:
And one of the companies we spoke to there was LightwaveRF.
John:
Well, we've got a whole range of what we call retro-fittable devices. The idea is to steal an idea from Lego, so that you can buy these a bit at a time, let's say a double socket; fit it in your house, and it works like a regular double socket, but it also has a radio receiver in. So once it's installed, I can control it from my sofa with a handset, and if I get ambitious, and start adding light switches and other sockets, I can then add a Wi-Fi device that simply plugs into a router, control it from my iPhone, an iPod Touch, an iPad, or indeed any smartphone.
Pete:
Home automation on a budget. We also got our hands on a waterproof video camera - do you remember that one?
Carl:
Oh yeah - we went for a quick swim - well, in a sink, anyway. Oh yes - I remember that. Is that still up there - can people still look at it?
Pete:
Oh yes - our inaugural video is still up on our YouTube feed, and up on our website. And finally in August, another piece of tech news - Google bought the struggling Motorola mobile phone division. It's going to be interesting to see what Google does with it.
Carl:
What next? - I'm thinking September.
Pete:
Okay, September saw BT Vision get a facelift; your good friend Alan Partridge releasing his autobiography.
Carl:
Atishoo! - aha! 'Scuse me!
Pete:
And also the launch of OnLive, the new gaming platform that takes us away from games consoles, and moves it all to the internet. Now, that was a lovely little product, and I'm still using mine, merrily. If you're interested, here's a little extract from Show 68.
Carl:
Woowee! Woah, woah! Come on, come on, come on! Come on - you didn't need to do that; come on! That's superb - oh, here I go. Oh, it's good! I'm surprised this thing's still going, the poor little thing. The puddle looks fun. Waaay! Oh, look at the water splash on that - good graphics! Ooh - she's nice, hold on ... let me just stop here for a minute.
Pete:
So what do you think - fairly smooth game play, no judders? No lag?
Carl:
No judders, no lag - just like on the Nintendo Wii really. It's as if you are just playing your normal gaming console. Excellent graphics - I love the way you don't have to go out and buy things as well.
Carl:
Lovely stuff, and of course we went on a lot of wide game adventures, didn't we? Wasn't it geocaching month?
Pete:
Oh indeed, yes - we went out and about exploring the geocaching hobby. Get yourself a GPS unit, and get yourself some fresh air.
Carl:
And thank the digital dinosaur for his input there.
Pete:
Here's a little extract of us out and about, getting some fresh air up our noses.
According to this, we're 13 feet away.
Carl:
Oh look - I've found it!
Pete:
Where?
Carl:
Nah, not really!
Pete:
Ah - ah! Aha! - look! There's a little bit of wooden board, and here, Geocaching.com. Right, here we go. So this is a very well sealed Tupperware box. Ooh - now, what have we got in here? "Congratulations, you've found it. It's part of a worldwide game loved by GPS users on the hunt."
Carl:
Yeah, but it's a bit too cold to go out geocaching now, isn't it?
Pete:
Well, we actually got an email a couple of days ago from Lennyemmy and PuReWaRRioR69 , also known as Leanne and Pip, who found one of our caches in December.
Carl:
Oh - well done!
Pete:
Also in September, final story here - the announcement that we can expect a fifth Freeview HD channel, which of course went to Channel 5, and you heard more about that in our news story. Thank you for that, Channel 5 - nice work.
Carl:
So now take me through the autumnal mode of October.
Pete:
Well of course, Apple fans note that October was a very sad month. We saw Steve Jobs pass away at the beginning of October, which was very sad news. Also, the iPhone 5 didn't launch. Instead, we got the iPhone 4S, and a lovely phone it is too.
Carl:
Oh yes - some improvements there, and especially Siri, of course.
Siri:
I didn't find any emails from Carl.
Carl:
Yeah - there's a surprise. I wouldn't know how to - I don't have the technology.
Pete:
Oh yes - I'm still loving this Siri, but I am waiting for the female voice. Can we just play one more little burst of the Siri duet?
Carl:
Go on, then!
Jonathan:
Will you marry me?
Siri:
Let's just be friends.
Jonathan:
Will you marry me?
Siri:
We hardly know one another.
Jonathan:
Will you please marry me?
Siri:
I'm not capable of love.
Jonathan:
I love you.
Siri:
My end user licensing agreement does not cover marriage.
Jonathan:
I love you.
Siri:
You say that to all the virtual assistants.
Pete:
Also in October, the other story, of course, for BlackBerry users, was the month that the net went down.
Carl:
Oh yes - that was quite painful, wasn't it? And even Kelly suffered from that, didn't she?
Kelly:
I couldn't get anything, and I was stuck in London unable to figure out where I was, because my Google Maps went down.
Carl:
Thank you, Kelly - and swinging straight into November now, and what happened in November, because we're getting to the end of the era?
Pete:
Well, we went out and about looking for Christmas gadgets with Kelly, as you mentioned earlier. Here's a little clip.
Kim:
My name's Kim.
Carl:
What have you got to sell me?
Kim:
Well, I've got one of these, and it's got so many different settings on it. It actually speaks to you as well, like this.
Gadget:
You're looking cute tonight, honey.
Carl:
Very good - so it's voice activated?
Kim:
No, voice activated, but it does speak to you when you take the lid off it.
Carl:
Okay.
Kim:
Any girl would be very pleased to have one of these in her stocking for Christmas.
Carl:
And we bought Kelly some more Marmite chocolate - she loves it!
Kelly:
Oh ... that's really not right!
Pete:
And, of course, in November, we covered printers, but the less said about that, the better.
Carl:
Which, of course, takes us up to December, and, if you want to know more about December, then just listen to December's show. It's just a click away.
Pete:
FrequencyCast.co.uk.
Carl:
So, what's in store for 2012?
Pete:
Okay, crystal ball time. Of course, we've got the London Olympics - now, that's going to be fun. What are your views on the Olympics - looking forward to it?
Carl:
It's just a lot of running around to me.
Pete:
Apart from the beach volleyball, I won't be watching. Also for 2012, the launch of YouView - maybe, if Lord Sugar kicks some more backside, we may get YouView, allegedly in time for the London Olympics.
Carl:
Y-e-a-h.
Pete:
We've also got the launch of Real Digital set for later in 2012.
Carl:
So what have we been using now?
Pete:
Of course, Real Digital is a rival satellite service to Sky, where you can get some free channels and some subscription channels. We've actually seen one of the boxes now - there's a Fortec box, here's a picture ... yes, nice, chic black look - there you go, we're holding it up to the microphone, everyone see that? Left a bit, down a bit?
Carl:
Lovely.
Pete:
That allegedly will be around £160, and support HD on satellite. We've also, of course, got Netflix launching in 2012 as well, so lots of stuff just around the corner. The big news, of course, for 2012 though, is the end of the digital switchover that started with Whitehaven all those years ago. London does the switch in April, and the whole thing finishes at the end of October - no more switchover.
Carl:
What? The end of the switchover? We'll have nothing to talk about!
What about the internet in 2012? What's that doing, then?
Pete:
Well, our suspicion is, the big headline there is going to be fibre, and of course we've got Google+, the rival to Facebook, that may get some ground in 2012. But for more on the future of the internet this year, here are a few thoughts from our industry insight session that we attended in December.
Bob:
It will certainly be interesting to see where OnLive goes, and if the healthy take up continues throughout next year. I don't expect the usage with iPlayer, YouTube and Sky streaming services to be decreasing at all. I can see those increasing a lot.
Barry:
My money's on Netflix. Netflix has been announced for the UK. In the US currently in peak time, it uses around 33% of all internet traffic, and I think that's going to be a big one for 2012 in the UK.
Carl:
So that's it for our look at 2011.
Pete:
Yes. Any thoughts on what's going to be hot in 2012, please email, tweet, Facebook, text - whatever you like, or you can even Google+ us, if you must - please do.
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