TECHNOLOGY
Hamish Brown ponders the endless possibilities for the
internet in 2009
f 2008 was anything to go by.
2009 should bring many great
techy things to our lives. Firefox 3 made everything easier and better as domestic broadband got cheaper and faster. The house of innovation that is Google will be hard pushed in 2009 to better their 2008 which saw them roll out a better Gmail. which should introduce SMS support in 2009 and better Google Apps. the suite of free tools that make Word and Excel a thing of the past. And as all your stuff is stored on the internet. physical storage is down the damper too. In fact. web-based storage and delivery tools such as Dropbox and YouSendlt means you are now free to lose your laptop and lose very little data. Google also released Chrome. a stripped-down. fast-as—bejesus web browser and saw Google's first foray into hardware sector with the Google Phone. which. significantly. runs Android. Google’s own flavour of Linux. And it‘s open source. Further open source adopters included. of all people. Dell. whose Netbook came with an Ubuntu option. so expect more of this in 2009.
Google Maps rolled out contour
lines information in Terrain. and the frankly bonkers Street View presents photographs of the street so detailed you can read posters on the wall (but with people‘s faces blurred out). You‘ll get a chance to spot yourself caught candid in 2009 as Street View for the UK is
definitely in the pipeline as we’ve seen the
Google car with mounted camera driving round Edinburgh.
2009 should also see more people using Last.fm. which released a lot of updates and new features (binning a few good ones too mind) in their efforts to build a future model of legal music listening that co-operates with labels. pays royalties to artists and intuitively introduces users to new music.
2008 at last saw the release of a couple of worthy competitors to challenge Apple‘s hegemony on music consumption. The Amazon MP3 shop finally launched in the UK. offering high bitrate. DRM- free MP3s for £3 an album. beating the iTunes Store hands down and the release of iTunes competitor Songbird. which supports tracks from MP3 blogs (Hype Machine. Elbo.ws etc) newsfeeds. Flickr streams and. like Firefox. supports plugins.
2009 is analog TV switch off for many. so more
channels will be launched. some of
them HD. thanks to the freed-up bandwidth. Watching TV on your computer will further become the norm in 2009. Your Mum and Dad now use BBC iPlayer with other TV companies such as STV. ITV and Channel 4 now streaming their content on demand. And thanks to Zattoo and TVCatchup cleverly exploiting a loophole in broadcasting law to stream live TV to your computer screen. you are one step closer to chucking the TV set altogether.
()ther upcoming gadget releases include the Nokia N97 and inevitably a cheaper iPhone and possibly the rise of digital book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle.
PEOPLE
A GOOD YEAR FOR . ..
We round up the local lads and Iasses most likely to in 2009
MUSIC: Tho Phantom Band
We've been tipping this Glasgow sextet. who make what's most succinctly described as experimental krautrock'. for greatness for a wee while now. Their debut album Checkmate Savage lands in late January. fresh off the Cheinikal Underground production line. and we reckon it's geing to be one of our soundtracks of the year.
FILM: Moran McKinnon
This iiiulti BAFTA-winning director has been slowly smouldering away at the edges of Scottish Cinema for some years now. However. in 2009. she's finally releasing Rounding Up Donkeys. the second part of the ADVANCE PARTY trilogy that produced 2006's fantastic Red Road. Rounding Up Donkeys Wlll feature the same actors playing the same characters. but iii all new situations scripted by McKinnon at the same time as Andrea Arnold came up with Red Head.
BOOKS/THEATRE: Alan Bluatt
It's been four years since the Falkirk scribe published The Incredib/e Ada/n Spark. Find out what he's been doing since. With a third novel. Death of a Ladies" Man. published by Headline in July. plus several forays into theatre: The library at the Arches. The Ching Room at the Traverse and Oran Mor iboth April) and his ‘one-wonian show' Times When lBite touring Scotland from May. VISUAL ART: Karla Black
2009 could well be the year the increasingly successful Glasgow-based soulptor and installation artist hits the major league. Her show at Mary Mary dam is an early highlight of the art world calendar. then she's off on toor to Germany. Switzerland. Mallorca and Oxford. ending up at Inverleith House in Edinburgh with another show Nov Dec;.
Knookamn'oah Iank at Ooodand fact. or
World collldn Imaginata Idlnburgh Escape gWy reality Festival The third year of the at this happy go lucky The biggest children's foodie equivalent of festival. A three-day theatre festival of its Fashion Week brings outdoor Celtic, roots kind in the UK offers a the great and the and folk music festival programme of over good of chefdom out with healing tents. fire 100 events for young of the kitchens and displays and puppet ‘uns and oldies alike. into our lives. Venue shows. Castle Edinburgh, 26 TBC, Edinburgh, Doug/as 21-24 May. May—Nun. 28-31 May.
Arnie's legaCy lives on.
this time after the nuclear holocaust. a group of survivors led by John Connor trys to stop the machines. Helena Bonham Carter and Christian Bale star. 5 Jun.
Nessie and festival fans alike will be pleased with this year's line-up. headliners so far confirmed are The Prodigy, Biffy Clyro. Basement Jaxx and Dizzee Rascal. Loch Ness, 72- 74 Jun.
The king of all things cinematic returns so grab some popcorn get comfy and enjoy the best in new cinema from around the globe. Edinburgh, 7 7 -29 Jun.
8 .71? Jan 900:? THE LIST 23