The cellular monopoly

As more and more cellular phones are released/manufactured these days they are generally 3G enabled, this allows the phones to access the internet at pretty decent speeds and has allowed for many innovative application to be made for these phones.

Network operators are loving it because finally people are using the expensive 3G networks they put up a few years ago and their profits are rising BUT there is a thorn in their side and that is to do with VoIP (Voice over internet protocol).

This has been led by Skype which have over 400million users, I use and love it. The problem is coming into factor now whereby cellular manufacturer's are including Skype services on their latest phones which is great for us users but not so great for the network providers.

What VoIP has been doing to the fixed line networks it now can do to the cellular networks and that is allow people to basically phone each other for free at the only cost of the data transfer. Nokia is leading this with the release of the Nokia N97 but network providers in the UK are threatening not to carry the device... now this isn't very nice of them!

Skype today released an App for the iPhone, as seen here in the image. Now this app is great and all as it allows you to chat (IM) amongst your friends and even make calls between users, it how ever limits the calls to when the phone is connected to a wireless network.

This pretty much makes it null in void unless you living in a well connected city.

In the UK 3 has released a handset with Skype capabilities and T-Mobile is also coming to the party the networks that are throwing their toys are O2 and Orange.

At the moment these services seem to all be offered only when on the Wi-Fi network, lets hope the day comes quickly when its all done via the cellular network!

You can read more about it here. Or if you are too impatient to wait head along to Fring a website that has made an application that should allow you to make free calls etc by making use of Skype.

I am a 'Hash One' Winner courtesy of 'From The Couch'

Courtesy of 'From The Couch' and their recent Hash One competition I won myself a nice little theme and all I had to do was write a little comment on their blog.

Now that is quite nice, think I'm going to use it for when I launch www.danbaileyuk.com

Thanks To Marc and David!

Oxford win 155th Oxford Cambridge Boatrace

Wow, what a race... from the start of the race I really thought Cambridge had the better rhythm and desire to win the race as even though Oxford had the first corner they managed to remain level and even pull ahead coming into their big corner.

Cambridge managed to pull ahead here by a length and really looked good but then Oxford counter-attacked and took the rating up to 40, I couldn't believe they took it up so high and Cambridge didn't respond. Don't know if their cox didn't pick it up or if they couldn't, heard on the TV that she asked for one more pip but that was only picking it up from 34 to 35 while Oxford was rating at 40 strokes per minute.

Oxford easily took a length lead then and going into the final corner through Barnes Bridge had the advantage. When you go up on a crew in a Boatrace you can just sit there and push away from the crew, suddenly you don't feel so tired and you just love every second of it. Oxford did that and looked so relaxed then with their stroke and Number 7 giving them an awesome rate.

Think they ended up winning by 6lengths, that is heart breaking for Cambridge but Oxford had one guy in their crew at 6ft 8 and the other at 6ft 9 - that is just crazy! All I need to do now is grow a bit...

Oxford vs Cambridge Boatrace 2009

For those of you who don't know and most of you should know about it, its the biggest amateur sport and draws millions and millions of viewers - its the rowing race on the river Thames in London stretching just over 6.5km. It draws some elite oarsman to race against each other who start training on the 1st September for the one race.

A friend of mine, Sam Pearson, was in the Goldie Crew in 2006. This Goldie crew is Cambridge's 2nd eight that races against Oxford's 2nd VIII just before the main race. Just to make this crew is no small matter.



Currently a friend of mine from Rhodes, Andrew Craig, who won the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University has been in the Oxford squad for this years race. Unfortunately he didn't make the B crew (Isis) due to injury and joining the squad late but he has been there back up and here is an email I just received from him:

Three days to go and you can all imagine that the pressure is mounting. Last week there was an injury in the Isis boat, so I spent the whole week filling in in the two seat. It was excellent experience and we were able to make some good progress, and clock some fast times, in spite of having to reshuffle the order a bit. Justin is now fit and ready to go, and from here on in we are all holding thumbs that everyone stays healthy until the race.

There has often been a informal spare pairs race, which, when it takes place, sees crews race from the Mile Post to the start a few days before the main event. Because I had been in the eight the whole of last week, our coach decided that we shouldn't race this year, as he felt that having not spent enough time in the boat, it made no sense to go out and hack around in a unprepared combination. A little disappointing not to race, but at the same time, it probably wouldn't have been that much fun anyway.

For some reason, people involved in the Boat Race have an absolute fascination with the weights of the crews. Even in 1829 they had the vision to work out the average weight (in stone and pounds, naturally), so that 180 years later some statistician could get busy and throw all sorts of numbers at people who follow the race. I think the figures say that roughly two-thirds of all the races have been won by the heavier crew.

This year's weigh-in saw Oxford break the record for the heaviest crew ever, lining up with an average of 99.7kg a man. Cambridge tipped the scales at 96.1kg a man, which is the heaviest Light Blue crew in history. The lightest men in each crew make a bit of a mockery of the weigh-in hype. Colin Smith, at 87kg for Oxford, is an Olympic silver medallist, while Rob Weitemeyer, the bow of the Cambridge eight, just 79kg, won a bronze medal at World Champs in the M4- for Canada in 2005. So there you go, the number crunchers are happy that they have some new figures to play with, but at the end of the day it will all depend on who makes their boat go faster (as is always the case in rowing).

Conditions on the river have been pretty appalling most of this week, with some seriously rough water being served up. All of the crews have pumps fitted to their boats in case of bad conditions. The worst of the water usually comes just after Hammersmith Bridge. Predictions so far are for sunshine on Sunday, with some light wind, so I wouldn't take the bookies' long odds on a sinking.

Dan Topolski (the coach in 1987, the year of True Blue) is still involved with the Oxford squad. His official role is coxing coach, and so he is down on the Thames whenever we come to London to help the coxes learn as much as possible about the river. They are looking to take the shortest line around the bends, but also to stay in the stream as much as possible. I'll be surprised if the commentators don't mention the "second lamppost from the left" that is the supposed best line under Hammersmith Bridge.

The basic recipe for the race is that the crew on Middlesex (on your right if you were umpiring the race) has the first bend in their favour. The Surrey crew then gets a long bend that begins before Hammersmith Bridge and carries on to around Chiswick Steps. After that the advantage swings back to the crew on the Middlesex station.

http://www.theboatrace.org/article/image/243/full.jpg

The last two races have been won by crews on Middlesex, by managing to keep in contact until the end of the Surrey bend and then moving away. Even though last year Oxford won by more than six lengths, they were still half a length down after more than ten minutes of racing.

This year's race will be umpired by Boris Rankov. He won six consecutive races for Oxford from 1978-83. He also rowed in one losing and one winning Isis crew. His eight appearances led to the so-called "Rankov rule", that no oarsman shall row more than four races as an undergrad, and four as a post grad. People say that he has forgotten more about the Boat Race than most people will ever know.

http://www.theboatrace.org/article/introduction/featurejanuary07/umpiring

Last weekend our squad went to Henley to support the women, lightweight men and lightweight women in their fixtures against Cambridge. Here the crews race the Henley regatta course in reverse, a shorter race, but still the focus of their year's training. Oxford won both the women and lightweight women's races, but lost the lightweight men's event; the first time since 2001.

The broadcast in SA is on Supersport 1 from 6-7:30pm (delayed for some reason).

Cheers,

Andrew

Here is a video clip of last years race:




Good luck to the guys racing, I'm not quite sure who I support anymore - used to support Oxford but then Sam rowed for Cambridge so met quite a few of the guys there and supported them and now Andrew is at Oxford... think I'll support Cambridge as Oxford won last year!

Is it possible to get a Mac under $1000?

This is the question Microsoft posed in their latest ad promoting their PC's. They got a waitress and told her if she can find the laptop she wants under $1000 they'll buy it for her - she goes shopping, take a look.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 &#8211; Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 &#8211; Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

For me I'll definitely be getting a new Windows laptop when Windows 7 comes out and the closest I'll come to a MAC is possibly getting an iPhone.

Obama vs Zuma, an American perspective

I came across this video on Zoopy via Twitter and found it quite interesting, its an interview done by a Rhodes University (my stomping ground) TV journalist and she interviews an American exchange student.

Favourite line from the clip: American exchange student - "It doesn't seem like the parties here are campaigning, they are more like going around discussing ANC and corruption etc..." which is too true!

See the clip here:

Vote for Table Mountain as new 7th Wonder!

Wow browsing through the Cape Times this morning I found hiding away on Pg 7 an article about Table Mountain in the running to be one of the new 7 Wonders of the World - on Pg 7 only...

Currently we're number 27 out or 220 nominations lets try get it into the top 7!

New OnLive Service threatens traditional consoles

Wow, 2 new gaming releases on the same day... people are definitely starting to eye out the amazing amount of turnover the gaming industry is generating each year.

OnLive was introduced last night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last night, all it consists of is a small (1MB) browser plug-in that lets you play games online.

OnLive has servers setup that handle all the gaming computation, graphics and anything else that gets generated then by means of a patent developed compression mechanism they stream the content to your PC/TV. These games that get streamed will be all your normal games from EA, Take-Two and Ubisoft etc.



OnLive has developed crazy algorithms which are able to push out 60frames per second over a 1.5mbps connection and 720p over a 5mbps connection.

This is available either via your PC or by a router sized device known as the MicroConsole.

Besides these ground breaking items the biggest or for me the most important is that it will be a subscription based service and customers won't need to purchase games anymore - they just select them on the service and play away.

Now image how many players get cut out:
1) Retailers and 2nd hand shops/websites who sell the games
2) Console developers like Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo
3) Graphics chip designers (though nvidia has been working with OnLive to provide the graphics cards for the servers.


The gaming companies are quite happy with this idea as it will basically cut out any pirate versions of the games they release - all they would need to do is update OnLive's servers. Due for release later this year, currently in beta testing.

3rd Gaming Console been released - Zeebo

A california based company, Zeebo, is releasing the worlds 3rd gaming console targeting gamers in developming countries.


The console is going to be available first in Brazil and then shipping around the world, it will retail for $199 but expected to drop pretty quickly. It will have a build in 3G connection to allow games/updates to be downloaded via the broadband connection. Zeebo is targeting this as they believe that 3G networks are more prevalent in developing countries than developed countries.

Major gaming companies like Electronic Arts have already committed to released copies of their games for this format.

The farce of the 2010 World Cup Tickets

Since February the 1st round of tickets available to us local South Africans have been available and to my knowledge will be open until the 31st March which is in a couple of days. Now I really want to attend some of the games here in Cape Town so last month I went online to register and request tickets. The website worked fine, I was required to register which is fine and then....

1) You need to apply for tickets for games you choose (ok)
2) Once applied you go into a lotto for tickets if over subscribed
3) You pay for all your tickets up front and no guarantee if you'll get the tickets
4) This is my biggest one - You have to supply your ID number and home address details which I find totally fine the problem is that if you buy more tickets for the game you have to specify your guests ID number and home details.



This is totally ridiculous, I don't know who wants to come with me next year. By that time I may have a girlfriend I want to take a long or some new friends how am I supposed to know. And from what I can see you can't change this once its in...

So, no I am not buying tickets for the World Cup 2010 until I can buy 4 tickets for a game and enter my ID details and no-one else's and receive the tickets or at least some notification.

So if FIFA wants to complain about the lack of interest here please stop preventing us from enjoying the World Cup 2010 by stopping us with red tape...

Lance Armstrong has fallen and gone to hospital

About 20min I got a message via Twitter than Lance has fallen during the Castilla and Leon race in Spain and has been taken to hospital.

Its possible he has a broken elbow...

Sad news, hope it doesn't effect his come back too much!

A great 'banned' Xbox 360 advert

Apparently this was banned because it was making 'light' of killing people, personally I just think its pretty funny and the sound effects are great - take a look: