Sitting on a near 6 hour train ride from Liverpool to Norwich is hardly my first choice Sunday entertainment. Added to the fact I’m working and writing this piece hardly fills me with joy. I do however; have a Premiership game streaming via Sky Go in the background all thanks to the beauty that is Three UK Mi-Fi.

It’s by no means HD but it’s surprising just how few drop outs there are whilst I’m travelling at 60 mph through British countryside. The first half has just finished, and during those 45 minutes I’m pretty confident I watched 35 of them, perhaps even heading towards 40. Which I am sure you will agree isn’t too shabby…

The device it’s self is a Huawei E585 (whatever that is) and you can simultaneously connect up to 5 wireless devices to it. The screen is minimal but features all the info you need. Including; signal strength, network, connection, battery life, how many devices are connected and your total download figures for the current session. The last figure is interesting and you will want to keep at eye on depending on your data plan.

Just the day before writing this, we made the long drive up North for an away game. It was good to be back and the drive up there was probably the most technology rich roadtrips of all time. We had 2 iPhones and Blackberry connected to the Mi-Fi, as well as a laptop streaming Soccer AM and a guy jailbreaking his iPad as we had been chatting about it. Not bad for a device half the size of most smartphones.

When it comes to the data plans, you get a variety of options, from 1GB all the way through to 15GB per month with a 5GB in the middle, well not really the middle… The 1GB a month at over £9 per month on an 18 month contract seems rather steep, and if you are a frequent user this will be gobbled up in no time. Infact I have already used over a gig in about an hours streaming so bear that mind. If you jump up to a 15 gig contract you will be looking at £23 per month over an 18 month contract, or £18 on a 24 month contact.

I was actually going to buy one of these as soon as I had to return this one. I love the simplicity and flexibility of the Mi-Fi hardware and I was surprised at just how good the coverage was. It’s not just a device for the city centre, it can be used pretty much anywhere! And whilst I had various drop-outs, you are never going to get full coverage everywhere. But for me, the data plans just aren’t flexible (or large) enough for a power user like myself. I don’t want to be tied into any contract, let alone an 18 or 24 month one. In today’s ever changing world, I could be paying over the odds in the just a few weeks and that is just not a risk I am willing to take.

Give me an unlimited contract for 12 months at about £20 a month and I would sign up tomorrow. I would be more than happy to have this as my home and travel net connection, removing my need for telephone line and broadband at home. But for the moment I will stick with my home broadband and iPhone hotspot for tethering.

Three have definitely upped their game in the last 5 years, I remember the bad press when they first entered the market, always a cheap product but the 3G infrastructure was never there. This has definitely changed, and not only are they one of the best value for money UK operators around, they are also one of the most stable and well covered (in the areas I was in). And it’s not all loss for Three, I will be switching from my Vodafone sim only to the Three UK variant, it’s cheaper and more robust.

At the Frankfurt Motorshow, Ford unveiled their Evos concept car. As we all know, concept cars don’t get factory produced, but their features are an indication as to the direction of that car company, a road map or a DNA if you will. In fact, we were informed to watch out from the next 4 months for some Evos features appearing in production cars. Whilst a lot can be said about the design and specific aspects of the Evos, it could well be the technological concepts that stand this concept apart.

Firstly, idea of being permanently connected to the cloud. Over the past year cloud computing has become a real buzz phrase across all industries heavily affected by technology, so its not surprising that its being bandied about in the automotive sphere. Now this isn’t exactly what I’d call a new idea by any means, but using the cloud to check on the driver’s profile, diary plans, and route, coupled with weather, traffic conditions and driver’s health to subsequently affect the determined route, chassis, drive settings and responsiveness of the car are all interesting ideas (did you get all that??). In fact, it opens the door to an awful lot more possibilities to make driving more comfortable and easier. Paul Mascarenas believes that the technology is there already – its integrating and implementing it that’s delaying it. And although this may be true to an extent, whilst we still struggle to get phone reception around the UK, I might sit on the fence a little bit. Unless Ford have developed some new magic 3G fairies…

Although some might consider that to be invasive and a long way off, it is certainly within the realms of possibility. What is definitely on the horizon is the oncoming Sync technology developed by Microsoft, who bring their software knowledge and understanding to the table to enhance the entertainment and control features of the onboard computing inside Ford cars. This seemingly will be somewhat limited in its first phase of implementation, and will mostly just turn the car into a wifi hotspot. Upon further questioning, this is only if the car itself can connect to another internet source, such as your smartphone or a dongle. So I think that this will be quite a limited function, although the ability to introduce an app store and update firmware remotely sounds like a dynamite idea and if the EU offering can match up with the US it’ll begin to take off. I used to use Pandora when it was available outside of the States, which is incorporated into the Sync. Now I use Spotify, and as a premium user, I’d hope to use that in the car as well.

Whilst this is all good news, the development of MyKey could prove divisive. This technology, already debuted in the US, allows parents to have a degree of control over how fast the car travels – with warnings to the young driver. It even is capable of muting the audio unless the seatbelt is plugged in. Whilst the younger driver is likely to put the developer’s face on their dart board (do kids play darts anymore?), the parents will be much happier, and are even likelier to get a slightly lower insurance cost.

Other technology Ford had to display and discuss were the features we got used to in the Ford Focus we had driven across from Paris. This included Active City Stop, Active Park Assist, Lane Keeping Aid & Departure Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control and Driver Alert. Active city stop monitors the road in front of you if you are travelling under 30kmph, and actively breaks the car for you to prevent or minimise collision – ideal if you’ve looked the wrong way and not realised, or the person you thought was moving simply hasn’t whilst you glance the other way. Active Park Assist is the automatic parallel parking feature that’s in the new Focus advert – where the car recognises spaces you can fit in and does the indicating and steering for you, all you have to do is start and stop. You can view our video of it below, from the first UK test drive.

Driver alert monitors your driving and responsiveness, and tells you if it thinks you’re tired and should stop for a coffee or rest. It also is capable of measuring your driving style over the journey and rates how economically you’ve performed – giving you green petals on a flower as well as an overall ranking, such as “Eco Champion”. To be honest, as wonderfully helpful as some of this is, it doesn’t half sound like they’ve managed to develop a nagging wife of a system to accompany you everywhere to tell you that your drifting lanes, that you need a coffee, that your speeding, and so on and so forth.

The stand at the show was large enough to have its own testing track to give some of these a go, including the Active City Stop, where you are encouraged to drive at a steady speed towards a lowered reflective barrier. Nerve wracking stuff, but it certainly is a good way to demonstrate the actual benefit this brings to city driving and what it can do to help eliminate all those accidents the absent minded driver can cause.

They tell us that this isn’t to replace the driver, or that we still need to concentrate, but we can’t help feeling, with all this tech, our job is getting easier and easier…

There is also a little more fun to be had than just simply seeing the sort of tech on offer. Ford’s WRC team are well known, and they’ve tried to bring a bit of that magic to the motorshow through their rally track simulator. You strap yourself in and have a real go around a short course, with scores being recorded and put on a leader board – Top Gear style.

A good lot of tech on show here and a promising future for cars moving forwards, not just for Ford but for the whole automotive industry if they all take a hint from one-another.

Between us we’ve had 10 in a row and this was, quite possibly, our last music festival of the year. Thanks to HTC, it looked as though we may very well have saved the best for last. Creamfields has already earned a reputation and rich history in delivering the best dance music to a festival environment. The 3 night, 2 day event in Warrington looked set to be pretty stunning this year, yet again pulling in the biggest and best names in house, trance and general dance music from across the globe. Festivals these days seem to want to cater to a wide audience and age range, from folk music to children’s entertainers and metal to outdoor theatre, often all packed into one festival. Creamfields, however, is unashamedly direct and forthright: you’ll get dance music and it’ll assault your every sense for the duration of the festival.

Every sense? That’s right. We saw it on the stages and in the arenas, we heard it everywhere from the toilet to the tent, we felt the pounding bass, we could taste it in the air and you couldn’t escape the smell of damp excitement. The line-up was also as over the top as my description above, with names of great DJs who had presumably only just flown over from Ibiza for the festival.

The Chemical Brothers, Calvin Harris, Mark Ronson, David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, Tiesto, Benny Benassi, Paul Van Dyk, Example, Ferry Corsten, Joris Voorn, Eric Prydz, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Oakenfold, Jaguar Skills, Katy B and Magnetic Man… To name but a few who turned our heads prior to the festival. When we got there, they didn’t just turn our heads, but controlled our bodies, with fantastic tunes all day and night long. It wasn’t easy, of course, with so many people to see and so many tents and stages, there was a lot of running around.

The highlights certainly turned out to be the Chemical Brothers (obviously), Magnetic Man, Joris Voorn and Swedish House Mafia. Having seen the Chemical Brothers at the Big Chill, we decided to catch Tiesto first and then swap half way, and this proved fortuitous as we caught two of the best acts of the weekend. Example was also on top form again, this being the third time we’d caught him. Whilst our highlights may seem to be the obvious picks, they were the people that really got into the crowd and made them jump and dance for hours on end in the miserable weather. Being able to make people smile and dance whilst they are soaked through to their very bones and suffering the risks of hypothermia, speaks volumes of their collective ability as much as the great atmosphere their music inspired given the conditions.

It rained. Boy, did it rain. When we got there on the Friday night we set our tent up in the rain. When we woke up and had breakfast the next day, it rained. It rained that afternoon and in the evening. The sun shone early on Sunday, but it was only teasing and the rain came back by mid afternoon. It even rained when we packed up on Sunday. But, in spite of all of this rain, the mud it churned up, the mascara it made run, and the white tops its made opaque, everyone was loving it. And rightly so, it was an amazing weekend. This was also the most secure festival we’d been do – every bag was checked and every body frisked. No glass whatsoever. At V in Chelmsford the previous week a group of us strolled right through with no security in sight! This just meant that after a slower entry, we felt all the more safe and secure, and could really devote ourselves to debauchery and magnificent music.

And we weren’t just there giving it all to the music. We were given a shiny new HTC ChaCha to test in the ultimate of social situations. We certainly put it through its paces, tweeting, posting to Facebook, uploading and downloading photos and sharing as much as we could whilst we stormed through the weekend. So what did we come away thinking about it?

Well it certainly is a tool for the socialite! I’m already a big fan of it’s friendship stream, a standout feature for me. This combines your various social media feeds together in one simple place and makes keeping in touch that much easier, especially with the ability to share across all of the platforms in one go. It’s also got a full qwerty keyboard which gives it a sort of blackberry feel that so many professional types are addicted to. You can also fully customise the display, so we put the weather forecast up (a depressing site) and selected our favourite apps to surround it. And to top it off, it has a dedicated Facebook button that pulses at you when you are on a picture or a page that can be shared at, literally, the push of a button. No need to copy and paste or select the photo from an upload tool.

This was my first experience using Android as well, having been a dedicated iPhone user for the past however many years since I picked up my original iPhone. Whilst the user experience isn’t the most fluid and seamless, the functionality is most definitely greater. It also didn’t drop any calls over the weekend, something I have bemoaned since I picked up my iPhone 4 on release day. However, whilst it was great to be able to keep you all updated so quickly and easily, it drained the battery faster than a sailor does his pint on shore leave. It needed charging at least every 24 hours (if not 12), but to be fair, I was really putting it through it’s paces. And if you are a popular sort with lots of tweets and updates, the small screen means a lot of scrolling in order to keep up without missing anything someone might have said.

It’s a good phone in general. A great phone for staying in touch with friends. And the best phone I’ve taken to a festival. But I am not entirely sure if its going to be the beast that wrestles me away from the clutches of Apple.

I have been using the be.ez LE reporter for about 2 months now, and I have to say it is probably the best bag I have ever had the pleasure of slinging over my shoulder. Yes I may be classed as a ‘metro-sexual’ just because I own and wear a shoulder bag, but I really don’t care.

On the label it says ‘Macbook range’ but I can assure you it isn’t quite as pretentious as the makers and it didn’t spit out my normal windows laptop once! The overall features are pretty standard on what you would find on any laptop / shoulder bag I’m sure. 2 outside zip pockets (back and flap, ahem!) and one under the flap. The inside houses two compartments, one fully padded with a Velcro flap which housed my 13 inch laptop a treat, it would also squeeze in a 15” as well.

However that’s where the normal bag aspirations end, the build quality is beyond amazing, the outside is a waxed / canvas coated material which not only looks good but is also waterproof, well I assume rain proof as I wouldn’t want to put it in a bath! The strap is pretty much a car seatbelt, don’t worry it wont dig in your shoulder, as it houses a matching canvas padded shoulder pad as well.

The finish matches the build, in a dark grey colour with lagoon / turquoise thread and piping make this bag a complete winner (you can also choose black and amber trim). The general design with the canvas exterior and seatbelt strap give it a class, modern look whilst also looking like a high end bag which has been made from the very best recycled materials. It hasn’t but I’m pretty sure you can blag that if you meet any eco-warriors on the tube.

You can check out www.be-ez.com for your nearest stockist and prices start from around £50, and for a bag that I will be carrying for the next few years, it’s an absolute steal!

At last the French have built something worth shouting about…

On yer bike! That is the message (well nearly) from HTC in their new campaign to get members of the public out on their bikes. To celebrate the Tour de France HTC have shot and aired their new video of inspired cycling, and don’t worry if road biking isn’t your thing. The video features road, BMX and MTB with a great mass race scene through a tunnel!

As you would expect from HTC the video and soundtrack are nothing short of jaw dropping, young, cool, modern. The backdrop, ideas, camera angles all add the experience and make you want to get out on your bike in the dark as the film is shot on site in Warsaw, Poland. Featuring the underground, the famous PKIN building and the Palace of Culture and Science it’s cycling with a difference.

The film features the likes of Erik Zabel, Charlotte Becker, Kate Colclough John Shewsbury, Joshua Boothby, and Jakob Santos amongst a whole other heap of HTC sponsored riders, as well as inviting local cyclists to join in on the video too. Of course they all had an HTC phone in their pocket no doubt, but it was nice to see a film without any real advertising, just amazing cycling and tricks!

People who want to get involved can head over to the HTC Facebook page and upload pictures / videos of their own ‘detour’ for all to see

It’s great to see such a big brand trying to do something to encourage others to get fit and be green, it doesn’t matter whether you cycle for work, getting fit or simply riding for fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkgNo1nT4GA

The first program I had a look at was Song Genie v2. Essentially Song Genie scans your iTunes library and suggests filling in the blanks, or indeed correcting what’s already there, for fields such as artist, album, year and so on by searching various online resources. Because I DJ and use smart playlists, the information associated with my MP3s is already perfect; more accurate than any software aggregator could achieve. However, it was worth testing to see if it would work, so I stripped out a few tracks of information and downloaded some new ones as a test bed. Overall I was impressed the the ease of use, speed and general accuracy of Song Genie. On most tracks this information came back completely correct with little or no editing needed on my part. Something to note is that a lot of my library is made up of obscure tracks, remixes, mixtapes and blends and, perhaps understandably, Song Genie was powerless to recognise these tracks.

Next up was Coverscout v3. As the name suggests, Coverscout aims to fill in all the missing art in your iTunes library. From what I could deduce, there are two ways to use Coverscout. Firstly you can let the program scan a selection of your songs and suggest an assortment of several (often tenuously pertinent) images, one of which you can assign to the relevant music. The other choice involves Coverscout scanning a selection of your songs as before, except this time you allow the program to apply an image without your say so, based on a small set of pre-approved criteria.

I started applying art manually but with around 5,000 albums it seemed like an exhaustive task. So I switched to the automatic application and, as expected, the results were, at times, utterly shocking. For example, I’ve a few songs by a producer known as AC slater and the cover art to represent him is the AC Slater from Saved By The Bell. Funny, yes. Desirable, no. I always anticipated this would be the case because this sort of software only uses very simple algorithms based on a very limited set of criteria.

In an ideal world I would love to have 100% perfect cover-art for my music collection but I’m not so fussed about it that I’m prepared to spend days, maybe even weeks, using Coverscout to manually find the most appropriate images. That said, I do believe that Coverscout would be the most efficient and most reliable conduit to complete such a chore.

If your iTunes library is a state, full of missing and mis-information you could probably benefit from Song Genie; it’ll definitely tidy up you music library and make selecting songs on your iPhone and iPod much more enjoyable. If you a stickler for album art, you can’t go wrong with Coverscout. It’s not without it’s faults, but it’s the best of a bad bunch.

Some may say we live in the age of festivals. There are so many now that they range from music to literary, technology to comic book, and could be based in the UK, the US, Europe, Asia, anywhere really. Helping you choose your festival is one thing, but making sure you are fully equipped to survive and enjoy it is another. So here are our top tips and tech for this year’s festival goers.

The mobile phone

This is always a tricky one to decide upon. Smartphones are now considered the norm, so are you going to be taking your iPhone 4, Android or Blackberry? It looks like festival organisers are taking this into account and if you’re going to a big festival, its likely you’ll be able to find a specific app for your phone, be it Android or iOS. We’ve already seen ones for Glastonbury and Reading announced, and it’s unlikely Virgin would miss a trick here. Remember that smartphones and batteries are not the best of friends, so keep reading for our recommendation on dealing with that. Some of you may not be particularly keen on taking your new shiny £500+ phone to the festival with you though. So if you want reliability, functionality, value and battery life, why not hark back to the old days and pick up a Nokia 1800 for under £10, which has over 8hrs talk time and as little useful bonus for festival goers, also has a torch – PAYG can’t go wrong (unless you forget to top up).

Camera

As with phones, its often an question of the best or the cheapest when it comes to festivals, as they aren’t the most secure places, and clumsy drunk people trip and fall everywhere, breaking everything in their paths. So will you want a box-standard, cheap and effective camera or a high-end, expensive and down right impressive model? Well, if you are after cheap and effective, and you aren’t considering using your smartphone’s camera, I’d recommend the Samsung ES71, a snip at just over £70. 12MP, 5x optical zoom, 2.7 inch display are the basics about it, but it shoots colours vibrantly and it comes with a scratch proof cover – essential for when you drop it whilst jumping about at the festival!

The accommodation

Well, I wanted to tell you about tents, but then I remembered that you don’t have to take a tent. Why not go crazy and take a classic VW campervan? They can be picked up for easily under £10,000. Of course, if that is a little extravagant, taking a tent is always an option.

Tents are tricky beasts, and similar to deciding with your phone, you have to decide on what sort of functionality you want, ease of set-up, durability, strength and disposability (not a made up word). A lot of people pick up cheap and easy tents to set-up, sleep in, and then leave them come the final morning when that hangover restricts their brain function and movement to the point that their tent is just a disposable item and obstacle to getting home. If you are one of these folk, I would recommend opting for an easy going pop-up tent. You can pick one of these up from around £20+, and Halfords, Amazon or Argos are good places to visit. However if you aren’t one of the disposable generation and want a keeper, I’d recommend the Coleman Avior X3 due to its excellent value for money given its weight, ease of setting up and the great size you get out of it. Of course, the Coleman range of tents are worth exploring if you are expecting to house more than 2-3 people!

Umbrellas, wellies and waterproofs

We live in England, and lets face it, the weather here changes more than our underwear – and by that I mean the weather changes every few hours, just in case you got the impression we are pretty disgusting! So many festivals in the UK are blighted by rain, and so to go unprepared for this is simply unacceptable. You don’t need to take an umbrella because they almost definitely get in the way, but when camping and attempting to cook on a stove or BBQ, an umbrella can actually come in handy. Since this is a tech review, lets dispense with fancy looks, although the light sabre umbrellas are awesome, I’d suggest a Senz stealth umbrella – shaped like a stealth bomber and capable of survive gale force winds; this badboy will do the job and keep you and your sizzling sausages dry in a storm. Of course, don’t forget the wellies – a nice pair of Hunters to keep your feet dry and also spirit away the moisture that builds up inside. And waterproofs, try and stay under 500g as there is no need for anything heavy.

Power

You can never have enough power! Not in a megalomaniac sense, but with regards to electricity. Smartphones are suckers for power – the average smart phone battery won’t get you passed the first day of the festival. A lot of festivals have charging stations for a small fee, or even for free, but these are always crawling with people who haven’t thought ahead and are standing with their blackberries, iPhones and HTCs jostling for position. Avoid the madness and get high on your own supply. There are a multitude of mobile charging options. You can pick up an emergency phone charger, which will give you a brief jolt using only an AA battery – but why carry AA batteries as well to the festival? Why not take a Pebble which you can charge via USB before you go, take a few adapters and charge away, often up to 3 full phone charges before it dies. Similarly, there is the PowerMonkey which is pretty much the same as the pebble, but doesn’t look as nice. Alternatively I’d recommend a Freeloader or Freeloader Pro, which will charge your phone using the power of the sun – handy when sockets aren’t available and can always be of use in the future.

The Orange T-shirt at Glastonbury

I couldn’t obviously let this article pass by without mentioning the weirdest and wackiest piece of tech to hit the festival this year! The Orange T-shirt in question has been featured a lot in the news recently, as it has the ability to charge your phone whilst you rave away to the music. In fact, the louder the music and the closer you are to the speakers, the better! These things work by converting sound waves into energy with some complicated jiggery-pokery that goes on behind that big white slab in the middle of the t-shirt. Is it better than using solar power? This is England, and with there likely to be an absence of sunshine, perhaps it will be. However, you have to wander around looking like a rejected teletubby, brandishing your phone on your chest and advertising your shiny new white iPhone to everyone you see. It is also doubtful it’ll provide the charge for heavy usage, such as making a video of your favourite artist on stage.

Other little bits

- A sh*t box, a cardboard foldable toilet so you can avoiding using the dreaded port-a-loos.

- A solar power heated shower for those who want to have a warm shower, but beware you’ll be on full view

- Torches or head torches, so you can pretend your a miner, or at least find your way back to the tent without tripping over a hundred guy ropes or into a million tents.

- Walkie Talkies for big groups spread across campsites, they can be annoying, but can also be a lot of fun

- Maybe a sneaky device to smuggle your own alcohol into the main site during the day?

- Sleeping bags with a decent fill, or a double bag to increase the romance of being in a field surrounded by drunken folk

Don’t forget to check out all of our Festival stuff in our new Festival guide. Including reviews, previews, hints, tips and more which will be continually updated during the summer!

Over the years I must have had a dozen usb flash storage devices, maybe more. They’ve typically been too chunky to leave attached to my keys for long periods of time and subsequently they get left loose in bags and pockets and break or go missing. This is annoying, time-consuming and far from safe for any personal data files, but I think the guys over at Freecom may finally have the answer.

I’ve been using their XXS 2 GB Databar for a fortnight now and I’ve not managed to lose it or break it, and because it’s so small (roughly half a stamp) and light (think half a, er…erm…wasp) I don’t even notice it on my key ring; until of course I need to use it.

They claim it’s water and dust-proof and I’ve yet to see anything to the contrary; it’s really surprisingly robust. In fact, my only problem with this is that 2 gig gets swallowed up pretty quickly although there are bigger storage solutions up to 64GB which is pretty amazing when you consider the size and weight of Freecom’s XXS Databar.

So if like me you need to carry around a USB keys for those essential files but you don’t want to have questionable bulges bursting from your trouser pockets, a Freecom XXS Databar could well be for you; I would advise that it makes sense to aim for one of the bigger sized drives especially if you’re likely to be storing music and video files.

Bearing in mind you can grab an 8 Gig for a touch over a tenner on Amazon, you would be crazy not to pick one up now! or check out the official website.

If you know anything about UltraViolet, I commend you. For us regular folk, its the stuff sunglasses protect you from, a truly terribly film only worth watching for Milla Jovovich, the stuff makes things glow at raves and that warm thing gives us a tan. But now that definition is likely to change. UltraViolet is, in its purest form, a cloud based locker of your digital media. It is a way of having all your media purchases instantly available through the cloud anywhere, any time, regardless of how or when you purchased it. What is special about this, is that it is created and endorsed by the UltraViolet Alliance.

The UltraViolet Alliance is not a new corny team of superheroes, but is rather an association of some of the heaviest hitters in the media world. Its the DECE, the Digital Entertainment Consortium Ecosystem. Its members include media companies such as Sky, Warner Bros and Fox; retailers such as Blockbuster, FilmFlex and Best Buy; technologies such as Sony, LG and Samsung. The list is extraordinary and although not including all the biggest names, such as Amazon, Apple or Disney, it is still an impressive list. Between themselves, they have agreed on many aspects of UltraViolet, which aims to pair a digital locker system with your existing physical media purchases, accounts based on residence, and specific devices enabled to play your media. But how will this work?

Firstly you will need to set up an UltraViolet account, and this is tied to your address. On this account you can add up to six users, who will be able to access the media locker you will create. You can add to this locker by purchasing your films, music or other media any way you like – as long as it is tagged as UltraViolet. Then you scan your purchase and the media is added to the locker. UltraViolet lockers will be accessible through any media capable device for which a software upgrade will be created – computers, games consoles, TVs, portable media devices such as phones, tablets, etc. Mobile devices will allow you to download local copies from your locker so it will be available should you stray from network or Wi-Fi coverage.

You will be able to protect your collection from theft or loss – DVDs are hardly the number one target for thieves, but they are easily lost, put in the wrong case, lent to a friend and forgotten about, broken, scratched, melted, burnet, damaged, etc. Though a problem for the careless. Still, a helpful solution. If you are buying your films online already, you may be acutely aware of the limitations of your storage devices. I personally am a fiend for getting my media online, and now have far too many hard drives and memory sticks to keep track of. With an online locker of unlimited storage, it would be much less of a worry. Add to this that just dropping your hard drive can sometimes cause irreparable damage, the idea becomes yet more attractive when stored in the cloud.

UltraViolet will change the way in which you store, collect, purchase and browse media, as well as the potential to explore new media based upon recommendation and direct marketing. This will undoubtedly change the game for consumers and companies alike – hence the huge names signed up to the alliance. However everything you have read up to this point probably leaves you asking more questions rather than giving you all the answers…

Will you be able to add old media you already own?

Some of us have 100s of DVDs already and adding them to a locker could be fantastic at reducing clutter! It is more than likely all new media will begin to carry the UltraViolet logo. The roadmap of implementation and growth suggests that the USA is likely to get going first, with it taking off initially in mid-2011. Canada and the UK are likely to start seeing this happen from late 2011 and early 2012.

Will you have unlimited access on any number of devices?

6 people allowed access, assume each has their own computer, each their own smart phone capable of played UltraViolet media, 2 have tablet devices, 4 have mp3 players, there are 4 TVs in the house and 2 games consoles. That is 24 different devices in this fictitious and tech savvy family. It is hard to imagine that they would all be able to access the one locker. The word on the street, the tech street that is, says a proposition for 12 devices per account is currently being considered.

Will you be able to lend copies of DVDs, or add a friends to your locker?

This is a big problem that the Alliance currently face. They want to ensure file sharing, as that is simply what it would become, is limited. However unique IDs for DVDs, Blurays and other media forms seem impossible. One member suggested prompting users to sporadically place the original copy of the physical media for re-scanning, however this is entirely impractical and defeats the object entirely, let alone would prove frustrating for those utilising their locker whilst travelling.

Will you be able to log in elsewhere?

If you were to buy a film online and then, at a friend’s house, want to watch that film. Oh great – its on the cloud! Given the already potential pitfall of a limited number of registered devices, would there be accessibility from other devices not registered to the account

What is this going to cost?

Who can say. The Alliance has been decidedly vague about this, as they do not wish to set pricing agreements. The decision will be down to the studios who produce the media in the first place. They are inviting entrepreneurs and existing companies to propose novel ways to expand the UV idea, presumably in order to maximise profits and drive down any potential costs. I would imagine the pricing model could well change if this doesn’t prove popular to begin with.

Is this going to work?

The industry looks set to try and force it to work. However with many people buying from iTunes as their first port of call, there is still a lot of work to do without Apple having signed up to the Alliance. There is still every chance that it could end up as successful as the 8-track, the Betamax, the mini-disc or the HD DVD. A lot of these also had cross industry support! Amazon’s recent music cloud storage seems to be a good way of testing the water for UltraViolet – that’s probably why the industry isn’t kicking up such a great fuss.

Wait a second, no Apple?

That’s right. Apple have not signed up to UltraViolet. This would mean that it would be unlikely you would be able to play your locker on any apple device. Who doesn’t have an iPod, iPhone, Mac or iPad these days?! That is one massive target market that UltraViolet won’t be reaching. This could only change if studios supporting UltraViolet pulled their media from iTunes, forcing Apple to bend. However, is this a case of unstoppable force and immovable object? Does it mean that UltraViolet is already dead in the water?

So, can you tell what it is yet?

We can’t. But then, we’ve never thought Rolf was a brilliant artist anyway… All we can suggest to those of you looking to stay at the forefront of home media, and what may well be internationally on-the-go accessible media, is that you check in with UltraViolet’s website and register for their updates at www.uvvu.com. Of course any further news worth mentioning will be posted here. But for now, keep your eyes on the horizon, and make sure you’ve got a good pair of Rayban UV400 shades on!

The SFQ-01 is compatible with smart phones, computers, tablets and other mobile phones. Connection comes by Bluetooth, an auxiliary point at the back of the device which allows a 3.5mm jack to be connected and a iPhone/iPod connector dock provides you with all options to playback your favourite tracks or radio station as well as charging your device at the same time.

Lets be honest, it looks pretty damn cool. A slick design and a minimal amount of buttons help to keep it cool and easy to use. You can even pick up a limited edition Red and Black version which looks like it’s fallen straight from heaven itself. The UQ3 Spatial Sound Enhancement (WTF?) which is, and I quote from the Soundfeaq website, “We developed our proprietary UQ3 DSP technology to create a psychoacoustic effect by controlling sound wave interaction that enhances the perceived stereo separation.” Nice bit of techno talk there, but, what that means in real terms is that the sound is pretty impressive. Whether your belting out a serious party tune or a chilled out acoustic track, the speakers deliver the sound effortlessly and it just gets even better when you switch on UQ3.

At first we were disappointed to see Bluetooth instead of Wireless, but in hindsight it’s a pretty smart move. It actually makes wireless connections available to a far wider audience and compatible devices that have Bluetooth and not wireless connectivity. Granted, most people that have heard of the ‘internet’ will be running a smart phone that could control a small country, but, the technology this speaker uses is around today and will be for many years to come, so you wont have to replace the speaker any time soon and it just increases it’s shelf-life.

The range of the Bluetooth is sufficient, we found you could easily leave your phone in your pocket and walk around your place without losing connection. Our one gripe would be the Soundfreaq developed iPhone app, it’s free so no problems there but it really doesn’t add any value to the Soundfreaq SFQ-01. You don’t need the app to control the speaker as you can just use your normal iPhone /iPod controls. There is no reason to re-invent the wheel, Apple have made a fairly decent iPod control system over the last 8 years or so, why change it? It does allow you to turn the system off if your too lazy to stand up and push the off button, so I guess not all is lost.

Final thoughts

The system has been in the house a few weeks now, and after using the Soundfeaq sound platform all I can say is that I am really impressed with it. The system oozes class in the way it looks, and the quality of the sound is second to none. What I want from a speaker set is good sound quality, something that looks good and an easy to use system that can play back all of my sounds, whether that’s from my phone, laptop or anything else. This sound platform ticks all those boxes. Playing Angry Birds with the UQ3 enhanced acoustics on, definitely adds a different dimension to the annoying hit iPhone app.

Average Joes Score – 4/5 – Worth a purchase!

You can grab one over at Amazon.