Thoughts from the Shelf

Internet search giant Google is funding a new moon challenge conquest by offering a $30 million prize pot to private firms that land a robot rover on the moon. As a result we could well see a boost to the commercial space industry as well as the first non-government backed flight to the moon. The top prize of $20 million will go to the company that lands a robot camera, that can move 500m and send high quality pictures and various other data back to earth.

Google Moon has already been launched to encourage participants and is founded upon pictures that have been collected from previous Apollo missions, including the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The competition is being run in conjunction with the X Prize Foundation, which itself promotes technological innovation. It will run until the end of 2012, after which the prize pot will be reduced, if not already claimed, to $12 million.

“We hope to usher in an era of commercial exploration and development, in which small companies, groups of individuals and universities can build, launch and explore the moon and beyond.” it a statement from the X Prize Foundation read.

The Google Lunar X Prize now sits along side another prize already up for grabs for potential competitors from the private sector. $50 million has also been made available by hotel magnate Robert Bigelow for the first private American team to rocket a manned craft into orbit by 2010.

As a result of suchincentive schemes, I wonder whether we will we now see a new global space race in the private sector that mirrors that of the US and Russian governments in the 1960’s. I guess time will tell.

The latest iPod offerings from Apple are common features on The Shelf, so today when news broke about Microsoft launching three new models of its rival Zune player in an effort to enhance it’s competitivness with the iPod, this latest post started writing itself.

Due to be launched in mid November in the run up to the lucrative Christmas market, the new Zune is aimed not just at securing second spot in the market, but also aims to win customers from dominant rivals Apple. Currently the Zune holds only a 3% share of the market for portable digital players, selling 1.2 million units between the November (2006) release and June (2007).

On the surface the Zune upgrades include new 4GB and 8GB Flash-base Zune players with an 80GB model available, up from the 30GB. There is a new 3.2inch screen and the overall size of the unit has been reduced by 27%. The Zune software has also been rebuilt because the last version was hard to use and took too long to perform certain tasks. The new devices are also touch sensitive which allows the user to scroll through stored libraries.

Perhaps of more interest are the developments in digital rights management for the Zune player. For a long time iPod users have been frustrated by the DRM that iTunes uses. The Zune player looks to be using this to its advantage, and aims to increase its popularity and resulting market share by altering it stance on its own DRM policies. New Zune players now have relaxed rules for sharing songs between Zune players, allowing users to pass along music they got from someone else. Beating Apple to the punch Microsoft hope that social networking makes the Zune more appealing than the iPod.

The new Zune players the devices can also use their Wi-Fi connection to automatically synchronize music, photos, videos and audio clips with personal computers in homes that have a wireless network. Any music that is shared to friends via Wi-Fi, does however have DRM added, although the three day expiry that was in place has been removed.

With a new emphasis put on social networking and a relaxed stance towards DRM on Zune music, a new online community has been launched called Zune Social that allows users to get together and show what they are listening to, via Zune Cards. These Zune Cards automatically update to track what users are listening to, with other Zune users then able to listen to their friends Zune Cards and buy the tracks.

Zune Social is part of the Zune Marketplace, which has itself been upgraded. It has had over one million DRM free MP3 tracks added to its catalog from a number of labels including EMI. These tracks are not exclusive to Zune users, and are available even to iPod users who can buy the tracks and play them on an audio player of their choice. It is also worth pointing out that all of these update are also available to existing Zune players so exsisiting customers need not go out and buy the latest model to get the latest Zune features.

It will be interesting to see how the integration of social networking into the Zune player will affect its market share, and whether a committed iPod customer base will find that the integration of social networking features make the new Zune player more appealing.

Having covered popular games consoles such as the Xbox and PS3 in the past, I thought it time to have a look at some of the mobile gaming devices that are currently on offer, in particular, and the focus of this post, the PSP.

I have never really been too wrapped up in mobile gaming technologies, and even as a child didn’t find myself lusting after the first Game Boy when it was launched in the early 1990’s. Even now with a daily commute, I find that the time can be put to use in more preferable ways.

That said, portable gaming devices have come a long way since the Game Boy, and this weekend I had my first go on the new Sony PSP. I was impressed with the gaming, but in all honesty I expected it to be impressive after all the pre-launch hype about the PSP taking mobile gaming to the next level.

What impressed me even more than the game play were the additional multimedia features that the PSP provides. It comes with built in Wi-Fi, a web browser and the facility to play music and videos as well as to store images, all on an extremely smart compact device. It seems that the does of multimedia functionality along with the sophisticated graphics were enough for me.

Beginning to buzz off the PSP I then looked around for additional news on the technology. I found that as well as the aforementioned functionally, the PSP will also be able to transfer TV programme data through the PS3 and its PlayTV twin TV tuner, (due out in 2008) so that users can watch recorded television on there PSP as well.

There are also developments being made in a Go!Messenger system for the PSP, a video chat and instant messaging system that is being developed in conjunction with BT in the UK. In January when the software is released, PSP users in Europe will be able to send messages, and video chat with each other whilst gaming. Go!Explore is yet another GPS add-on soon to be released.

I started drawing comparisons with other multimedia devices I have previously written about. As you can now buy a PSP for around £120, with music, video and Wi-Fi all provided in addition to state of the art mobile game play technology, is it not worth considering the Sony PSP as a substitute for devices like the new IPod Nano? One thing is for sure, with this increased functionality the PSP is defiantly becoming more attractive to both gamers and non-gamers.

Clearly the PSP and the new IPod Nano are intended for two very different user profiles, however as technologies like these become integrated with more multimedia facilities, it won’t be long before one portable device will manage all our individual requirements equally.

As regular readers of The Shelf may have noticed, the first sponsored post appeared on the site late last week. The post was provided by PayPerPost.com, a pay per blog service that provides bloggers with the opportunity to earn extra cash amongst there regular blogs.

Amongst regular posts, payperpost provides the opportunity to take up a selection of sponsored opportunities that provided by a network of advertisers, aimed at developing inbound links to specific products or services. The conditions of each opportunity do vary, but usually require the blogger to write a short unique post with a link to the advertiser with a focused anchor text.

Having posted regularly throughout 2007, I thought I would try to earn a little extra by writing the occasional sponsored post. I created a pay per post account as I wanted to see how easy it was to earn money on an established blog, and how the small amounts paid would add up.

Once your blog is approved it is very easy to start blogging for cash, and with PayPerPost bloggers can easily filter out opportunities that are available to, and best suited to the blogs criteria.

My thoughts were that I already blog on The Shelf daily, so if signing up for a PayPerPost account makes me blog more often, then as well as earning a bit of extra money, the additional fresh content can only help The Shelf mature as a blog.

I plan to travel to the US next year for a friend’s wedding, so I intend to let the extra funds raised sit in the account and go towards that trip. It will be interesting to see how much accumulates.

Being an account holder you can also earn extra money with their referral programme, PayPerPost direct (with advertisers approaching you), or even through sign up forms like the one featured below. This one is for bloggers, but you can also display forms for advertisers who wish to sign up too.

Try PayPerPost out if you are a keen blogger to and want to earn a little extra cash.

Do you want a free domain name? If so the island of Tokelau has been reaping the rewards thanks to a novel way of offering free .TK domain names.

Situated two days travel from its nearest neighbour, Tokelau is a non-self governing colonial territory of New Zealand that consists of three coral atolls in the south pacific. It only has 1,500 inhabitants and has one of the smallest economies in the world, but thanks to a Dutch entrepreneur the gross domestic product of the island has increased by 10%.

The entrepreneur who invested in the country level domain .TK, now provides free domain names to customers in return for serving targeted ads. Over four years the overseer of the internet addressing system ICANN was eventually convinced that Tokelau had a valid case for the domain.

After opening up the domain the country now has over 1.6 million registered .TK addresses, and the company responsible donates an undisclosed percentage to the tiny island enabling its economy to benefit greatly. As well as financial gains the residents have also benefited from new PCs and internet access that would otherwise have been unthinkable.

The changes have enabled the island to rely more on VOIP communications to the outside world rather than expensive satellite telephony and radios. These broadband connections have also lead to improvements to the islands medical profession, helped students who don’t wish to study abroad and enhanced the island’s tourist profile. It seems the spoils of the scheme are having a wide ranging impact on everyday life on Tokelau, and improving the quality of everyday life for one of the world’s poorest countries.