Thoughts from the Shelf

Since its launch in 2006, Land Rover dealers have been inundated with requests to provide a commercial version of the Freelander 2. Customers wanted the practicality of a commercial vehicle, but without losing the luxuries and comfort of their normal SUV. LandRover listened and believe they have found the solution in the form of the Freelander 2 Commercial.

The Freelander 2 Commercial will be available in ‘S’ and ‘XS’ trim. Essentially the models will be exactly the same as a standard Freelander with the modifications being applied to the rear compartment only. The Freelander commercial will come equipped with a floor support frame, floor panel with lashing points, fixed rear side glass, rubber loadspace mat, tail door and side window guards and rear cargo lighting. All this will be separated from the driver’s cabin via a full-height solid bulkhead with an inserted mesh panel. The ‘XS’ model spoils the tradesman even further by offering 17” alloys, climate control, quality ICE system and even part leather trim. The Landrover is fitted with either a 3.2L straight 6 cylinder engine borrowed from its now estranged relative, Volvo, or a 2.2L turbo diesel 4 cylinder engine.

The Freelander Commercial also benefits from the award winning Terrain Response System, making it extremely capable offroad too. This video demonstrates the abilities of the Terrain Response system on a Freelander.

News released today has told of plans to monitor internet downloads of video content and games in the UK by introducing certifications to websites that offer such services.

Overseen by the British Board of Film Classification certificates will appear on sites via set-top boxes and portable players.

The news comes a the same time as new data was released from a survey on internet consumer trends that states people with broadband connections spend more time online than they do watching television.

They voluntary scheme is called BBFC.online and is due to launch by the end of the month with leading Hollywood studios Disney, Warner and Fox having already signed up to the scheme. Other leading players are also tipped to join soon.

The scheme will provide help put “age verification or gate-keeping systems in place for parents to monitor and control underage viewing”. The announcement was made after independent research showed 74% of parents were concerned about the lack of ratings on downloads.

The technical side of enforcement has not been made entirely clear with Peter Johnson of the BBFC stating

“It’s up to individual systems to work out how to introduce these technologies, but we will police it through test purchases”

More than 1,000 videos will have rating on them by the end of May. There is also the potential for the scheme to be rolled out on the Xbox live console, PS3 and Nintendo Wii, as well as video on demand service such as the iPlayer.

The BBFC have stressed that the scheme does not signal any attempt to censor the internet or regulate online video gaming.

Mr Cooke director of the BBFC did however go on to say

“I’m hoping there won’t be any need for legislation to underpin this scheme,”

At The Shelf we remain pessimistic as the big brother eye looms a little bit closer.

Social networking site and regular feature of The Shelf Facebook.com is due to have a face lift four years after it was first launched.

Having grown rapidly in popularity since its launch with a vast expanse in the number of applications available on the site, for those who adopt each and every new tool into their profile Facebook has itself changed from a simple user friendly interface into an un-navigable mess.

A result solely of its explosion in popularity over the four years it has been live, the amalgamation of endless applications on user profiles has recently be touted as a reason many have been switched off from the site.

Currently there are over 25,000 different pieces of software available ranging from dating games to music players and time-wasting quizzes.

The facelift plans are due to include several tabbed section that will effectively hide all the ‘super wall posts’ and silly gifts that users can send to each other, often resulting in an cluttered interface more associated with rivals MySpace than Facebook.

That roll out of the new design is planned for next month and Facebook has been consulting users over its plans. 85,000 Facebook users around the world have been able to comment on new features as they are proposed.

Screen shot of plans from BBC

Facebook currently leads the social network market in the UK with 8.9 million members according to Nielsen Online, but a significant proportion of these are threatening to leave if it become a victim of over commercialisation. A delicate balance is needed between the traditional clean interface users expect and the third party add-ons that have driven its vast growth.

The government has released a series of maps for 23 UK cities and towns showing urban noise levels. Residents will be able to interactively access the maps via a government website

At the time of launch this morning the site collapsed due to unprecedented demand.

Users can search for their town by postcode, and will then be able to monitor noise levels in cities including London and Manchester. Other areas included in the project are Blackpool, Brighton, Coventry, Hull, Leicester, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Teesside, Tyneside and West Yorkshire.

The project is aimed at monitoring noise levels caused by factories, planes and cars and signals the most thorough attempt by the government to tackle the problem of noise pollution, a problem linked to serious illness and educational difficulties.

The maps will only monitor ambient noise and won’t include noise pollution form sources such as noisy neighbours.

The project was set up to meet an EU directive between the department of transport, the highways agency, network rail and the environment agency. It will aim to help cut noise in the worst effected areas of the country, covering 50,000 miles of roads, 3,000 miles of railway as well as industrial site and airports.

“They will provide a springboard to go forward and tackle unnecessary and unreasonable noise pollution,” - environment minister Jonathan Shaw.

The maps will be used to draw action plans on where best to tackle noise pollution across the UK which could include the provision and protection of quiet zones. Where roads are concerned quieter surfacing materials on new motorways and trunk roads might be suggested, as well as noise barriers at a number of locations where traffic noise has been considered problem.

“Factors like transport and industry are a necessary part of modern life. But we need to look at what further practical steps we can take to make people’s lives more tranquil.” -environment minister Jonathan Shaw.

Back in February of this year the a European Commission funded study of those living around airport concluded that the noise from plane engines instantly raised blood pressure which can in turn lead to a stoke, heart failure, heart attack and kidney failure.

Google has developed it OpenSocial platform by introducing a series of tools aimed at enhancing the way in which users interact with friends over the internet.

The service called Friends Connect is aimed at allowing sites that are not part of the social network scene, to provide a more social experience for their users. This can be done through the provision of various social gadgets created by Google and OpenSocial.

It works by providing social gadgets through a Friends Connect administration site which can then be used based on the needs of an individuals site. The site owner simply copies across the necessary code across to their site providing a range of social features without the need for sophisticated programming.

As part of the service site owners can then link to a range of sites for various functions, including Facebook, Yahoo and AOL. Users can also user the Google talk instant messaging system.

With this a list of contacts and friends can be imported from other social networks, where you can see names and photos of friends who are members of a specific site.

“Google Friend Connect is like giving Webmasters a salt shaker full of ’social’ that they can sprinkle on their sites to add social capabilities,” David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google told a conference call of reporters Monday.

One of the early advantages to sites is that Friend Connect provides a means of user identification through an existing log in on AOL, Yahoo and many more from the emerging OpenID standard.

The Friends Connect service is based on the OpenSocial platform that up until now has remained a way to write applications for a range sites across the partnership.

Recently MySpace announced plans to loosen its hold on data of an estimated 200 million personal profiles that currently use it’s site, a deal that would enable members to share information to be shared with four partners, Yahoo, PhotoBucket, Twitter and eBay.

The user would be tied to MySpace as a central profile for use across all sites, encouraging users to store all their data needed for a complete web experience at the site to begin with.

Facebook also entered a deal a day after the MySpace announcement with its 70 million users, allowing profiles to be shared with any site wanting to host them.

“It’s a smart move by Google which is trying to play the role of United Nations secretary general by making sure everyone talks nicely to one another, getting the data to where they want to move it back and forward, and participate in open standards.” - Charlene Li, principal analyst at Forrester

Currently 99% of sites are not socially enabled so there is a huge market for the Friend Connect service, and the user data flow through the service is a lucrative offering.

In these early stages however there are things that are yet to be decided. One major decision is how Google intends to share the information that is collated through the Friends Connect service with web publishers. Currently user details of those who log into a site through Friends Connect will not be given to site owners. This may change in the future, but there are issues residing as to how sites like Google, and Facebook or MySpace have very different privacy objectives.

As can be seen with the Facebook and MySpace data sharing announcements, existing social network sites are looking to make their networks the place for a central profile from which users will adopt a complete identity across the web. Google on the other hand is not currently prioritising these social network profiles, instead focusing around small web publishers harvesting the flow of data with its AdSense advertising network which is already serving millions of sites.

With Google expected to approve a few dozen more sites to the Friends Connect service, and MySpace and Facebook due to roll out their offerings over the next few weeks I guess we will have to wait and see how this one develops.

Microsoft today launched their new Messenger TV service (Screen shots of which are here), an add-on to their popular MSN instant messaging service, allowing users to watch videos online whilst exchanging messages.

Through the Windows Live Messaging console these videos can then be easily shared amongst friends in your IM community, creating what is said to be a unique social experience and opening up an untapped advertising market.

The service will provide a range of TV clips several minutes in length, provided by companies such as UK based Channel 4. Channel 4 will provide clips of shows including Peep Show, Property Ladder, Father Ted and Shameless, whilst other content producers will include ITN, Reuters and National Geographic as well as record label EMI.

Other content tipped to be played on the service includes South Park and Pimp My Ride, as well as music videos from Kylie to Britney Spears. The service will run adverts ahead of the clip as well as an advertising banner throughout the duration of playback.

The service is initially being launched in 20 countries, many throughout Europe, which is home to 95 million Windows Messenger users. Microsoft has around 14 million monthly unique users of Windows Live Messenger in the UK alone. It will also launch in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Canada and Mexico but not the United States.

“We see Windows Live Messenger as media in its own right, one that has been somewhat untapped as an opportunity,” - MSN UK exec producer Peter Bale.

Channel 4’s director of new media technology John Gisby commented on the deal with Microsoft.

“Our core audience is spending increasing amounts of time online and expects to be able to watch its favourite Channel 4 shows this way.”

John Mangelaars, the vice-president, EMEA, of consumer and online for Microsoft said “Online video has exploded in popularity over the last year, but to date it has been something people watch on their own. Messenger TV is set to change all that,”

The move by Microsoft comes less than a week after they pulled out of a long run take over approach for Yahoo, aimed primarily at its position in the online advertising market. This move certainly demonstrates the company’s eagerness to expand into that market.

It has finally been confirmed the PlayStation 3 games console has overtaken Microsoft’s Xbox360 in sales in Europe according to figures released by Sony.

According to the Japanese manufacturer over five million units have been shifted across the continent and the PS3 has actually been outselling its rival since October.

“We have sold more PlayStation 3s throughout Europe than Xbox 360 even though they launched 16 months before us.” - Sony’s David Reeves

In the data released it was also stated that Sony has sold more than 12 million PSP handheld consoles and 48 million PlayStation 2 consoles throughout Europe.

Although Sony has successfully outsold Microsoft, Nintendo’s Wii console remains the dominant console in terms of sales. The Wii has sold over 25 millions units world wide.

The sales figures come after the PS3 console suffered a torrid initiation with users initially disappointed by early game titles coupled with stock problems, but as the console recovered it has managed to shift half of global unit sales throughout Europe.

“I think its fair to say that the first year of PS3 was a difficult one, there were some teething problems, and our customers were a little under whelmed by the range of titles that were available.” - SCE president and CEO

With all that behind them these figures suggest that the PS3 console will enable Sony to reclaim top spot as leading console manufacturer.

“I am very confident that after the 10-year lifecycle we will have the install base that we are looking for and that is obviously to be in the leadership position.” - Mr Hirai

It was also announced Sony are looking into disc free network gaming (http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/hirai-talks-about-playstation-future-360628 ) for future generations but admits that the global infrastructure in not yet in place to support such a concept.

Without any football news The Shelf couldn’t quiet live up to its name, so today we discuss the new signing of Luka Modric from Dinamo Zagreb by Tottenham Hotspur.

Equalling their club record transfer fee set last summer when Darren Bent signed from Charlton, Tottenham have signed Croatian midfield play maker Luka Modric for a fee of £16.5 million on a six year deal that is subject to a work permit being granted.

Signed from Dinamo Zagreb Luka Modric was born in 1985, and at the ripe age of 23 Spurs certainly have the best six years of his career yet to come. For his former club he last year picked up a parallel award with the premier leagues ‘Player of the Year’.

More accustomed to a central midfield role Modric had been playing in a wide left position for his former club showing a versatility that is much needed at the Lane.

Internationally Modric has represented Croatia at under 17, 19 and 21 levels and now figures as an integral part of Slaven Bilic Croatian plans. Playing along side Arsenals Eduardo, Portsmouth’s Niko Kranjcar and Vedren Corluka of Manchester City, Modric is one of a crop of talented young playing emerging in the Croatian national team.

The national team qualified for the European Championships by topping their qualification group Croatia also played a helping hand in ending England’s Euro 2008 qualification, beating them twice including a 3-2 victory at Wembley in the final qualification game.

Due to appear in Group B alongside hosts Austria, tournament favourites Germany and Poland the international credentials of Modric will be put to the test, and the Euro finals could well prove a looking glass as to what to expect form him in the Premier League next season.

Yahoo has implemented technology into it search facility that will provide a warning for users if they are about to click onto a site that hosts viruses, spyware or spam.

Using SiteAdvisor from McAfee Yahoo will warn users via a SearchScan facility of potentially risky sites. The SearchScan facility will be in place as default to produce on screen alerts to its users.

“Our goal is to protect users by allowing them to make a more informed decision about the sites they visit,” said Yahoo’s Priyank Garg.

The tool that is being introduced as a free embedded tool which will warn users of three types of security risks, browser exploits, dangerous downloads and unsolicited emails.

The facility went live today and an example error warning can be seen with a search for ‘free music’ with a red explanation mark highlighting potentially hazardous sites.

By teaming up with McAfee Yahoo are trying to calm fears from users who accidentally click on wrong links in search results.

“Yahoo users have clearly told us that among the most important concerns for them are all these lurking threats on the Internet,” said Priyank Garg, director of product management for Yahoo’s search division. “They know the damage they can do but they don’t know how to protect themselves.“

The add on demonstrates Yahoo’s plan to grab a bigger proportion of the search market amid a recent financial slump after a takeover bid from Microsoft was withdrawn seeing shares slump by 15%.

In the latest move to expand to expand the reach of the BBC’s iPlayer , the publicly funded corporation has signed an agreement with Virgin Media that will see its service available on TV.

As a result of the deal a soft launched version of the service was launched this morning by Virgin Media. Currently the service is only available through the red button when viewing BBC1, however there are plans to add it to Virgin’s programme guide for direct access.

Customers of Virgin Media will be able to use the service to catch up on the past weeks programmes without the need to download any content or playing software.

The deal is expected to be available for 3.5 million Virgin Media customers who can each view up to 350 hours of free TV programmes that have been aired over the previous seven days.

Virgin Media’s content chief Malcolm Wall said of the deal

“The enormous success of iPlayer online has demonstrated the desire TV viewers have for viewing quality programmes at a time that suits them, and now it’s available from the comfort of the living room. Virgin Media is proud to be working with the BBC to continue to lead this revolution in TV viewing.”

The BBC’s director of future media and technology echoed statements made when the player struck a deal with games manufacturer Nintendo to enable the service to be played on the Wii, in a step to bring the service from PC’s into users living rooms.

“We have always envisaged [the] BBC iPlayer on a TV platform and in the living room. By working with Virgin Media, this ambition has been realised. This partnership takes us a step closer to transforming the way our audiences watch TV.”

Other deals over the past year have seen the iPlayer become accessible on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the PS3 is also widely tipped to jump on board, with a download for the Apple Mac also planned.

“Where technically feasible our ambition is to bring iPlayer to as many platforms as possible” said another BBC spokes person