The Fox Report
Barry Fox’s technology column
Real vs virtual events – the good, the bad and the tough
I
f more proof were needed that
Zoom-style online conferencing is
no substitute for a live event, the
DTG (Digital Television Group) Summit
2022 – Television Beyond Imagination
– hosted on a real stage at Kings Place
in London, offered it in spades.
Not just any old live event, of course.
The speakers have to know their subject
and not indulge in blatant product plugging, or run over time and spoil things for
others who follow. Otherwise, the audience just buries their heads in mobiles,
catches up on email or leaves the hall
for a well-earned cup of tea.
Metaverse?
Despite a few niggles, the DTG was an
object lesson in how to do it right. I had
gone along with one main object in mind.
To find out what people really mean
when they talk about the Metaverse; and
whether people who talk about the Metaverse really know what they mean by it.
David Sidebottom, principal analyst at
Futuresource, says the figures show that
64% of everyone are ‘aware of the Metaverse, but most do not know what it is’.
I would have liked to have passed
on some of the other statistics which
Futuresource offered, but the data was
displayed as projected slides, with tiny
text and graphics, camouflaged by light
colour fonts on a white background
that were largely illegible from halfway
down the hall.
Likewise, although Prof Lucy Kueng,
strategic advisor, senior fellow Reuters
Institute, University of Oxford had useful things to say about the way the TV
and streaming market is fragmenting, so
that viewers find it increasingly hard to
find what they want to watch, and then
tame the tech needed to watch it, she too
disguised her offering by using slides
which were similarly illegible.
You’d think that tech and PR/comms
gurus at a conference devoted to techbased media could master Powerpoint
in an audience-friendly way, but it seems
there are still lessons to be learnt. Despite
this, it was a useful and informative event.
10
Yet more streaming
Today’s streaming giants like Netflix,
Prime, Britbox and Mubi are battling
for a finite pool of paying subscribers.
There are more on the way – a service
from Paramount will be bundled with
Sky Cinema and via other routes as well.
Speaking as someone with a cupboard full
of streaming boxes and dongles (Roku,
Now, Shield, Fire, YouView…) which are
all able to get some streaming services
but not others, I asked Dan Fahy senior
VP in charge of streaming at Paramount
UK, what I would needed to watch the
new service on a big screen.
Fahy appeared surprisingly well informed for a sales boss and assured that
all devices, including Amazon Fire sticks,
but with the exception of Freesat receivers, would be able to pull in Paramount.
The Freesat exclusion makes sense because Paramount is in bed with Sky, and
the last thing Sky wants is to encourage
punters to watch programmes for free
with a Sky dish and Freesat box, instead
of a Sky dish and Sky box.
Rufus Radcliffe, managing director
ITV On Demand, fleshed out plans for
a new ITV streaming service – curiously
called ITVX – he needed to explain that
it is not X-rated content!
Matthew Brooks, lead R&D engineer,
BBC R&D talked intriguingly about the
BBC’s work on ‘object-based media’
which makes raw content easier to edit
automatically, for instance to fit a TV
programme to an available time slot.
Everything relies on metadata, embedded in the content alongside picture and
sound. You can play with some software
tools here: www.bbc.co.uk/makerbox
Paul Nesbitt from kids’ creator interactive community platform Twitch, Rhys
Hancock of Metavision, Jo Redfern of
24 Watts, Robin Cramp from Production
Park for XPLOR, John Cassy of Factory
42, and Zillah Watson, former Head of
BBC VR and now a ‘media & metaverse
consultant’, all had views on where the
Metaverse is going, and what Gen Z undersixteens born into the age of streaming
are doing with it. Some of the speakers
fell into the trap of lumping together
all young people of a similar age, when
anyone who talks to teens knows they
have hugely disparate behaviour patterns
– some semi-permanently sequestered
in warm dark rooms with screens and
others out on a cold soccer pitch.
The consensus is probably best distilled
down to the Metaverse is a mash-up
of gaming, entertainment and education experienced with a variable mix of
conventional TV screen viewing, virtual
reality and augmented reality. While
outdoor kids want to kick real footballs
with trendy trainers, indoor kids want to
create an alternative existence in a virtual
environment with a personalised avatar
wearing expensive virtual trainers.
No one talked about practical issues,
like how people will handle real life in the
real world without a VR headset. Several
speakers agreed that young people want
a ‘low-friction’ seamless experience with
no need to download apps or submit to
multiple sign ins. But so do older people
– although they have learned the hard
way that the Internet is thick with thieves,
scammers and conmen waiting to pounce
on any security short cut.
Virtual McAfee
A few days after the DTG event, McAfee,
the computer security company that was
taken over by Intel ten years ago in a
tortuous string of deals, and which then
went solo again earlier this year with
more tortuous dealing, had little choice
but to hold its 10th Annual ‘Labs Day’
as a virtual event, since its speakers from
Holland, Dallas Texas, France, Germany
and the UK were talking to journalists
spread right across Europe.
I hope next year’s event will be live
again because the virtual gathering went
on for far too long for virtuality (five painful hours with only a 15-minute break)
and offered too little technical content.
Real speakers in a real room would surely
have sensed a loss of audience interest.
Nevertheless, it was good to be reminded that hackers are now hijacking
PCs and using them to mine cryptocurPractical Electronics | July | 2022
rency. The tell-tale signs are busy
hard drives and racing fans when
the PC should be idle; but the way
Windows carries out housekeeping,
such as indexing during idle hours
can disguise a hijack. It’s to be hoped
that good protection against malware
will block the intrusion, but I was left
wanting to hear much more about
how to do this.
I asked what McAfee thought about
Microsoft/Windows Defender, the
malware protection that comes free
with Windows. It is, after all, in Microsoft’s interests to stop its OS being
over-run. But Microsoft is limited by
trade laws in how hard it can promote
Panasonic’s latest Toughbook vitual promotion
free Defender against paid-for alternaevent was a textbook example of how not to
tives like McAfee or Norton.
organise invitations.
McAfee’s answer was predictably,
politically vague, because McAfee bun- restrictions have now ended, someone
dles 30-day free trials of its own protection inside Panasonic thought it would be a
with new Windows PCs. ‘We let people good idea to do the latest launch online
decide for themselves. But whereas Mi- rather than live.
Instead of Zoom or Teams, Panasonic
crosoft is thinking about a lot of things,
used a conference system call ‘Hopin’.
we are only thinking about security,’ said
I duly registered interest and received
CTO Steve Grobman.
Grobman was more usefully forthcom- email confirmation of registration. After
ing on the hidden security risks that that I got several reminders, all from a
come with Windows 11. ‘The ability to Hopin NoReply email address, with click
run Android apps on Windows PC opens links to ‘Add to Calendar’ and finally
PCs up to mobile threats’. I wish he had ‘Join Here’.
But when the time came to Join Here,
given more detail.
However, Grobman did have a neat clicking the link led to a Welcome Page
way to explain how artificial intelli- which asked for a password. But no
gence can try to pre-empt new ‘zero day’ password had been sent.
What the Welcome Page should have
malware, which no security software
said, but didn’t, was what I found out
can be prepared for ahead of its first
release into the wild. ‘Photo indexing by trial and error searching through all
software will automatically label any previous emails. The only click link that
picture with a dog in it. It doesn’t know would gain direct access to the online
what your dog looks like, but it will still conference was the authorised link in the
recognise any picture you take of your original email, which was personalised.
dog.’ As another speaker reminded, All the follow-up reminder emails were
there are only around half a dozen basic round-robins with no embedded authoriscams, which criminals are continually sation. And all the emails were NoReply.
re-versioning, for snailmail, email, SMS I got online access to the event literally
texts and websites. So, AI can work the seconds before it ended.
I have now heard from another wouldsame way to spot new versions of old
be attendee who hit exactly the same
threats on zero day.
McAfee predicts that the ubiquitous roadblock. Who knows how many others
Metaverse – whatever it turns out to be failed completely to join.
All it needed was for Hopin/Pana– will bring a whole new range of threats;
like ransomware that threatens to burn sonic to send personalised reminders
with authorised click links, or send a
down a user’s virtual house.
password, or include in the round-robin
A hard to attend Toughbook event reminders the clear instruction to use
Panasonic has successfully carved out a only the original email for joining. How
nice niche for Toughbook laptops, which hard is that?
withstand rough treatment in pretty much
And why does it need a hack journalall weathers. Usually, Panasonic launches ist to tell a leading computer company
the latest model Toughbook with hands- how to ensure that people can access the
on press and trade demonstrations of what online event to which they have been
a Toughbook can take. Covid put these invited? Even the toughest laptop is no
demos on hold, but even though Covid use without its password.
Practical Electronics | July | 2022
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