The Times They are a Chargin'

Or why the Times Online business model is turning me off

Or after 22 years readership the grand divorce

Younger readers may not realise this but when I first attended an institute of Higher Education my day started in the University Library in the newspaper and periodical sectio scanning the newspapers. Back then they were all broadsheets none of this Berliner or Tabloid format. The reason being that 22 years ago the papers were not online. Their archives where available on microfilm or microfiche after a few months, or in a filing cabinet in the Library until they were available.

I was studying Economics and in our first week we were told, no instructed, no make that ordered to read the Financial Times plus at least two other papers from different parts of the political spectrum. I chose all three of the The Times, The Guardian and The Independent but for the one I used my student discount to buy and have as my own I chose The Times. One of my shelves in my bedroom became my own catalogue of the back issues for that year and I had a card index or relevant stories. Oh how Google would have made my student days easier.

The reason I'd chosen the Times was not because of its 'balanced' reporting, nor was its political view closest to my own, but because it had the fullest sports section. I even got to see the Northern Irish football results on a Monday morning, almost collapsing one morning in my first year when Bangor where third in the league. I called home to clarify this wasn't an early April Fool joke.

Therefore as Caron has pointed out the news that News International are going to charge for their online edition is making me rethink. I still buy a morning paper every morning and skim the others online. My morning blog post in usually inspired from what I have read or seen on the early BBC breakfast news.It normally gets written up on the bus, it usually includes some quote or other. Obviously I'm cutting and pasting those and linking to the source material

Now if I'm already paying a pound a day for a paper copy of the Time I'm loathe to pay an additional pound a day or £2 a week for an occasional (actually frequent) quote. I only visit the pages online I generally have read in the paper copy for the reason of capturing a quote. I'm also not going to direct my readers to a subscription only service.Therefore now that the Time is not cheaper than the Guardian, and is actually more expensive than the Scotsman now in paper form I'm likely from June to switch my reading habits.

You will have already seen a shift in my linking habits as New International have flagged this potential online charging service. I suspect many other bloggers will follow suit and you wonder just what sort of impact that will have on the Times' online footfall. Knowing the number of out clicks that I get that go to the news sources quoted multiplied by the number of blogs out there it would be quite high I imagine, plus the casual reader will not be willing to chip a pound for browsing.

It is a pity that the Times don't seem to get the media in the 21st Century. The Scotsman only have some articles that premium subscribers have to pay for. Thinks like editorials and comments and certain columnists for example, the bulk of 'the news'is freely available online.

Maybe the Times are wanting us all to go back to that image of huddling in the library to read our newspapers in the online sections. Instead of wrestling with broadsheets and newsprint struggling with the indexing system.

Babel Fish Googling to Your Ear Soon?

Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of Google.

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says Google, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"
"Oh dear," says Google, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes under the weight of its own virtual library.

That was easy said man. Before proceeding to prove that black is white and white is black and never being able to read a computer screen ever again.

Almost a quote from Douglas Adams Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy

Yeah I have substitute Google for God in the above quote, and fiddled around with the ending and with just cause. Not only is it because Google move with almost god-like majesty over the chaos that was the Internet before they came along, but they also assume to have brought order from that chaos. Quite the deistic approach really.

But the main reason is that Google is working on creating a babel fish, or a universal translator if you prefer. They are working on technology to develop a speech-to-speech automated translator for its Android Phones, it will be a hybrid of their its online universal translator service, Google Translate and their voice recognition system.

Of course once they invent something so mindbogglingly useful we may not need Google to Anglify every written word in the world for us. They may dissapear in the puff of logic not mentioned above, but in the original quote.

It's Friday so....a Good Day for Our Future/Present

Well it is that time on Friday to head home for the weekend. Put away the mouse on the desk in the office, which links in very well to this weeks first clip.

On the 22 January during the Superbowl a small computer company announced the arrival of their new computer being released the following week. Directed by Ridely Scott the advert was a landmark in advertising circles as well as for the product it was announcing. It was the product that popularised the "mouse".




As all good sci-fi fans know 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything so therefore the fact that 42 years ago Apollo 5 took off to test the lunar module in space conditions. So therefore we really were looking into the Universe.



Meanwhile back in 1952 on this day the first Jets went into service for B.O.A.C. (British Overseas Airways Corporation). So here is a pre-service look at the de Havilland Comet.

The Bad Apple (TM)

Not all is sweetness a light in Steve Jobs orchard right now, Kodak are the latest company to have taken Apple to court over infringements of patents.

Not only that put Kodak are asking the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to stop the company shipping iPhones and Blackberries as these are the products that are using Kodak's patented technologies without financial recompense. Kodak have already reached agreement with Sun Microsystems over the Java programming technology. There is also a claim against Samsung which the ITC ruled last year did infringe Kodak's patent.

The rotten Apple cart does not end with Kodak however. In October Nokia also sued the corporation for infringing ten of its "fundamental patents", Apple counter sued only for Nokia to up the ante that "virtually all" Apple products infringed its patents. The ITC are due to decide on the Nokia case against Apple by the end of this month.

So has the Apple fallen? Not as a result of gravity, but into the game of industrial espionage to copy technologies without paying for licence to do so. Technology is advancing but it also appears that it is advancing along similar tracks building on what others have laid out before isn't fundamentally a wrong thing, but acknowledging that you are a doing so.

Happy 25th Mobile Phone is the UK: A Wise Move? You Decide

Helen Duffett, on LDV's 2x2, has reminded me that today is the 25th Anniversary of Ernie Wise making the first mobile phone call in the UK (pictured). He is dressed that was as he is in Panto, this is January the first after all.

What the picture is sadly missing is the battery pack in his left hand. This truly was the age of the brick as a mobile phone, they that to the kids today and they will just laugh at you. The phone he is holding is actually one of my former clients Motorola, I'm not sure what film stock (yeah kids no digital cameras then either) the image was captured on, but the chances are high that it is my current client.

Indeed as Mr Alex Wilcock was kind enough to link to my H2G2 articles on William Ewart Gladstone the other day he may also be interested to know that I also wrote one on the phone that is most probably in Ernie's hand. The DynaTAC 8000X was the World's first mobile when it first appeared on 6 March 1983. The generation of new mobiles wasn't as rapid back then as it is now so 21 months later the phone that Vodaphone released on the UK was either exactly the same 'state of the art' model.

Helen has done a little further post as well including the following.