Component Price Advertising – Changes to the Trade Practices Act for Advertising in Australia.

It’s about time the regulators changed the way advertisers dish up prices to consumers in this country. Obviously advertisers want us to buy, that’s why they do what they do, but why not tell consumers the TOTAL COST of a purchase. Take motor vehicles for example. “$29990 + dealer delivery and government statutory charges’. That can add thousands to the total purchase price. You could rephrase it “$1000 for the tyres + car +  dealer delivery and government statutory charges”. It’s a bit silly – I know – but it emphasises Component Pricing – something rampant in real estate and motor vehicle advertising.

The ACCC recently clamped down on this sort of behavior in the telecommunications sector, so now they’re moving on to other industries.

On May 25 the law in Australia changed. So what do the new laws require?
In short, where a corporation makes a price representation to consumers, it may only use a component price (part of the total price) if it also ‘prominently’ specifies the ‘single (total) price’ payable for the good or service (where a single figure price is quantifiable).

Let’s see what happens now. Next the ACCC should target these bloody cash-back deals. They’re on the rise at the moment and a complete pain in the ass. Consumers have to jump through hoops and wait months to receive their offer – and why? Why don’t they just discount the product at the point of sale. As someone who’s been making ads for 25 years, have I missed something here??

Read more details here.

Star Trek, iMax and Tech Talk

It was Star Trek premier night (May 7) and everyone from Tech Talk Radio with their partners headed off to the iMax cinema in Carlton for a long awaited movie night. To say that evening was fantastic would be an understatement. Now we’re not all die hard trekkie fans, just a group of individuals who appreciate the experience of what iMax has to offer, and watching a brand new 70mm print on the world’s third largest screen where CGI and sound are everything is an experience everyone must do at one time in your life.

If you can imagine the biggest screen at your local cinema and double the width, then add 3 or 4 screens on top of that, that will give you an idea of the size of the iMax screen in Melbourne. One word sums it up. Huge!. Then imagine you were at your favourite rock concert and the sound that you expect to hear there, and that’s what you’ll hear at iMax. Crisp, clean, body shaking sound at a level just below you pain threshold! Absolutely brilliant. A cinema experience you’ll get nowhere else.

Do yourself a favour you’ll never regret, even if you aren’t a green blooded trekkie fan, get a group of friends together, and go and see this film at iMax before you see it anywhere else or heaven forbid download it off the net. As Adam Turner says, you only see a film for the first time ONCE! Then spend several hours in one of the many terrific restaurants in Carlton talking about the experience you’ve just had.

View from the Couch - Tech Talk Radio

Also why not have a look at Adam’s View from the couch and watch the video.

Have Twitter delivered to your mobile as an SMS in Australia

I’ve blogged about the lack of SMS capabilities for Twitter users in Australia recently, but have since discovered a free service where direct tweets and replys will be forwarded to you mobile for free. It’s call TWE2 and claims to be absolutely free. A couple of us here at Tech Talk Radio have been trying the site with mixed results. Firstly, it does seem to be free with no strings attached, but secondly, sometimes there are delays in the tweet arriving at the mobile device. Dr Ron is claiming up to 8 hours, but I’ve not noticed delays anywhere near that long. Give it a go and let us know what you think!

Australand Burwood.

Mmmm, Looks like Australand have a new development planned for Burwood. Just what the world needs, less parkland, more houses.

Twitter Promises Two-Way SMS For Australia

Who knows how this came about – maybe it’s coincidental but it looks like Twitter is revisiting sending SMS’s here in Australia.

Life hacker posted an article about it yesterday (21/2)

From the Twitter blog Feb 20 2008 :

Our recently hired Director of Mobile Business Development, Kevin Thau is working hard to bring full Twitter SMS to your country. In fact, he’s in Europe right now trying to replicate our success with Bell Mobility. Stay tuned for more support all over the globe as we make progress. And fear not Australia—you’re on the list too!

Red tape hinders emergency calling networks

The day after I wrote the twitter post, I found an articlie in The Australian newspaper titled Bungling silenced Victoria bushfires warning.

Quote: The federal Government is now fast-tracking plans to let state and territory emergency services access the national database of phone numbers, in order to bombard residents in areas of danger with automated phone calls and text messages.

Twitter and the Victorian Bushfires – A relationship that could have been so much more…

Several days have passed since the worst bush fires in Australian history raised some of the most beautiful places in Victoria to the ground.  As we now put the disbelief and despair to one side, it’s time to look at one thing that makes the biggest difference in the time of crisis – communication.

The worst bush fires in Australian History

If there’s one thing that Australians do best, it’s the willingness to take up of new technology, and with the wide open spaces in this country, mobile communications has really found it’s niche. After all, mobile phones outnumber people in this country by nearly 4 to 1. With many phone companies battling to win the consumer dollar, the race to provide fast and reliable,  communications has been a formidable challenge for some, and for others, they couldn’t roll it out quick enough .

3rd generation mobile communications is extensive in the areas hardest hit by the fires, but even still, the older 2nd generation technology is still well and truly entrenched as well, so in the hours leading up to the fires, and as the fires cought hold, how could we use the communications technology better?

We communicate with our phones in two ways, firstly with voice communications, and secondly with SMS (Short Messaging Service). In a time of disaster, instinctively we pick up the phone to call our neighbour, friend, or relative – even the essential services if required. Everyone does this which is only human instinct, but the reality is, it takes up what becomes a valuable resource for the duration of a call. As the cell in which your calling from reaches capacity, no other call can connect, resulting in congestion on the network. SMS on the other hand does not tie up the mobile phone network anywhere to the extent that voice does. It’s a short burst of data between your phone and the mobile phone network.

But SMS is an inefficient way to communicate during a time where every second counts. True – if it’s a two way conversation, but what if it’s a one way transmittion of vital information to anyone who needed it?

Introducing Twitter, a short message based social networking platform, which has been somewhat crippled in Australia for reasons which we can only speculate about. Twitter is free to use for anyone in the world either from a computer OR a mobile phone. Naturally if you send a message to Twitter you pay your SMS rate, but in the time of a crisis, sending an SMS will be the last thing on your mind.

Here’s how twitter works.

Anyone can establish an account on twitter. If you like what that person or organisation is tweeting, (in phone terms SMSing or messaging) then you can FOLLOW them. Each and every time that person tweets (sends a short message), it will come in to you account – all 140 characters nothing more.  You can follow one or many individuals. In countries other than Australia, you can configure Twitter to send those tweets, or short messages to your mobile phone. Nice.

Would it surprise you that the the Victorian CFA @CFA_NEWS (County Fire Authority), as well as  774 ABC Melbourne @774melbourne,  the government radio station tasked with broadcasting updates every few minutes, were tweeting urgent and critical updates about fires every few minutes?

Twitter used to  send tweets to mobiles in Australia up until recently. The reason why they stopped is only know to select few, but speculation would identify a cost issue with the Telcos in Australia. SMS in this country is one of the most expensive in the world.

By now, you’ve hopefully put the pieces into place. Firstly, if you were in a high risk fire area, you could have FOLLOWED the CFA or the ABC and received SMS notification of fire updates ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE. Secondly, these updates would reduce the need for unnecessary voice calls hence reducing congestion on the mobile phone network leaving circuits available for potentially life threatening calls. And finally, SMS messaging uses store and forward technology, this means that if you are in an area of poor mobile reception, maybe because a phone tower has been damaged by fire, as soon as your phone gets a sniff of signal from a working base station, maybe many miles away, that message can be delivered to your handset in a split second. Job done. Where as initiating a voice call word more than likely fail due to low or no signal as handset moves about.

Now this is certainly a new way of communicating. It’s an SMS to many, instead of one – and a new way of thinking about how we can use this sort of technology. In fact, here in Victoria, the emergency services has just completed a trial of similar technology where every mobile phone and fixed line in an are can have an SMS sent to it in time of need. I just don’t think it was ready to be turned on yet.

Some examples of what was being tweeted:

774melbourne For current updates and alerts visit http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au , follow @cfa_updates and keep listening to ABC Local radio

774melbourne Yea – Murrindindi fire: Emergency relief centres located at Alexandra Community Complex, & Wallan multipurpose Centre Bentinck St 57831450

774melbourne Mansfield grass fire: police advising residents in Monkey Gully Rd, Rifle Butts Rd, or Old Tonga Rd, to enact fire plan.

774melbourne Urgent threat message remains for the communities of Connellys Creek, Crystal Creek, Scrubby Creek and Native Dog Creek

cfa_updates Awareness Message – Kinglake Complex-Kilmore East, Goulburn River Valley

cfa_updates Latest Community Newsletters for Churchill Jeeralang, Dargo White Timber Spur, Wilsons Promontory Maroondah/Yarra fires.http://bit.ly/1KsP9r

Now I wasn’t being harassed by a fireball coming down on me at 100km per hour, but I’d be pretty happy getting this sort of information to my mobile phone as I made my escape.

The purpose of this blog is purely to draw your attention to technology that is available to us right now, and free of charge. If it is unrealistic telecommunications prices that have prevented Twitter from sending SMS to mobiles in this country then it looks like corporate greed has not been restricted to the downfall of our global economy.

Social networking is a good thing. It allows everyone at all levels to communicate. Twitter provides a vehicle like no other, and in hindsight, would have been a life saver if given its best chance.

My heart felt sympathies go out to all who have been touched by this cataclysmic event. At the time of writing this blog, out family property is under threat by the Yea – Murrindindi fire. If we at Tech Talk Radio can encourage positive discussion to bring about technological change by using technology that is in place now, then I’m all for it.

Andrew McColm
Producer
Tech Talk Radio

more reading: Social media explodes in wake of deadly bushfires

2009 New Years Resolution – Blog more!

There’s plenty to blog about these days and being off air over the summer break, I can’t help but revisit all the pages I just haven’t had time to update – like this is one.

With the conclusion of the first season of  Alive and Cooking, another year of  Tech Talk Radio, and regular spots on ABC Radio, it makes for a relaxing break. I recently did a piece with Adam Turner on “Chasing the Perfect Picture” which featured in the Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald. It’s something which I’m quite passionate about, because believe it or not, companies like mine go to a lot of effort to get quality images to viewers.

When buying a flat screen for your home, it’s worth spending good money on it. After all, you’ll have it for the next 10 years if not more. Treat it like a good bed. Don’t buy anything under $1200 – you WILL regret it. Stick to known brands which are leaders in this field – Sony, Pioneer or Panasonic. Buy accessories such as bluray players, amplifiers, and video games made by the same company as your screen. They simply just work. Look for products supporting DLNA.

As for the Plasma Vs LCD dilemma, well the choice is yours. Both technologies have their pros and cons, but some say LCD is better for sport, and plasma better for movies. Visit your local white goods store and see for yourself. Get the salesman to show you the same bluray disc on any of the screens you’re thinking of buying – look at the same scenes on both sets and if you can see the difference, (preferably scenes with lots of action) choose the one you like best. Don’t look at an Off Air signal – you’ll start seeing the imperfections of Digital broadcasting.

Do you’re research online – read the reviews and independent blogs, listen and participate in talk back radio programs, and more importantly ask questions. If you don’t know what to look for – ask. High Definition TV comes in many flavours.  A little research and a good understanding will go a long way towards making the right purchase.

Tech Talk Chat

Wow, what a night! Tech Talk Radio managed to try new chat software and the server it was hosted on suffered a meltdown, but when it worked, it seemed to work well. We’ll move it to a bigger server next week. Also this week saw the launch of the iPhone 3G with much fanfare and raft of plans that could be described as highway robbery in this country.

Adam paid us a visit to talk about TiVo and Foxtel’s IQ just in time for the Olympics.

Also, I see that the ACCC have decided to force telstra to be a bit more co-operative with their rivals when it comes to exchange access and DSLAMs.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel in a statement today… “The ACCC believes that there is a strong need for independent oversight of Telstra’s processes to cap exchanges to ensure that Telstra is held accountable and access seekers are not unreasonably denied access to Telstra exchanges”

more.

Alive and Cooking

The latest program to come out of Evolving Communications is a Lifestyle Cooking program for WIN and Nine. Produced by Creative Media, Alive and Cooking is a cooking program hosed by James Reeson. If you like good, easy to prepare food for the family, it’s worth checking out.