There is only one surviving recording of the author, just as is the case with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Both — along with those of many other literary greats of the past — are to be found on CD boxed sets released last month by the British Library's sound library, part of "The Spoken Word" series.

Jan Dalley's October 25, 2008 Financial Times column has the back story, and follows.

Distant voices, still alive

Spend a couple of minutes with an internet search engine and you can hear rolling out of your machine the voice of Alfred Lord Tennyson reading "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1890. Captured on a wax cylinder that seems to have got a bit squished by time, the wobbly and distorted voice comes down to us as an almost otherworldly chanting, vividly pounding out the dactyls of "half a league, half a league onwards", yet as remote as if it were from another planet.

The year before that, in 1889, Thomas Edison made it possible for us to know what Robert Browning sounded like, excitedly galloping through the rhythms of his verse and shouting out hurrahs. Later that year Browning succumbed to his last illness and so became the first person whose voice was ever heard after his death.

More than a century after the recordings of these eminent Victorians, in a world where television and radio hungrily snatches at every syllable uttered by the famous, we might assume that writers' speaking voices are as easy to find as their printed texts.

But it's not so. Even though Thomas Hardy lived until 1928, we don't know what his voice was like. More strangely, there's no existing recording of George Orwell, even though he lived and worked in the early heyday of broadcasting and made several BBC programmes.

The heights of fame are no proof against audio obscurity. Poets are more likely to have been recorded because they gave readings (until recently, novelists didn't). And there is now the excellent Poetry Archive, which is building up a recording history of English-language poets, available online and on CDs. The impulse behind the archive was the realisation that so many wonderful poets whom we could have heard are now declaiming only to the angels. Prose writers and dramatists may have fared even worse in the ears of posterity. There is only one surviving recording of Virginia Woolf, for instance, only one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, only three of Scott Fitzgerald. But now all these are to be found on a superb pair of CD boxed sets released this week from the British Library's sound archive, in "The Spoken Word" series.

These are the brainchild of the British Library's Richard Fairman, who is also one of the FT's music writers. There's one box for British writers, and one for American. Each has three discs and each disc has many delights and surprises. In a wonderful interview between Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler, for instance (and by the way this is also the only known recording of the author of "The Big Sleep"), we hear two highly successful but utterly different thrilleristes agree that, in literary terms, they are both "below the salt". Each man is so laid-back it's a transatlantic competition in being laconic. And you can almost feel the crackle in the studio air when the feisty Mary McCarthy takes on her questioner.

There's Nancy Mitford claiming to know nothing about social nuances, and a gravelly, Brooklyn-accented Henry Miller happily agreeing with his interviewer's assertion that people read his books "for the wrong reasons, for the erotic content". Evelyn Waugh reveals that he wanted to be a painter; Gertrude Stein answers a question in a single interminable unpunctuated sentence (it's just like reading her impenetrable prose).

Some sound exactly as you would expect — Rudyard Kipling with vowels so clipped they scarcely exist; Isaac Bashevis Singer exactly the growling, guttural-bass Yiddish-speaker I'd imagined. But I never thought that PG Wodehouse would have retained his full English plumminess through a lifetime spent in America (and who knew that "capitalist" used to be pronounced "ker-pittilist" by the posh?). Or that Scott Fitzgerald would try to make himself sound like Laurence Olivier, here patchily reciting "Othello." Or that Vladimir Nabokov would spout absurd pomposities in an accent so unlikely that it sounds like a Monty Python sketch.

These are, perhaps, rather abstruse pleasures — after all, why should we care what writers sound like? The first time I heard a recording of TS Eliot reading his own poems, I was bitterly disappointed by his dreary monotone delivery, flat and utterly off-putting; by contrast, Ted Hughes had a voice so wonderful he could have made a laundry list sound like an important work of lit, and a wickedly sexy one at that. But both are illusions, in their way — neither man's vocal style changes the value of his lines on the page.

Yet we do care. A writer's "voice" is the term we use for her or his style, the undisputed fingerprint of a talent captured on the page. The ever-growing popularity of literary festivals, where audiences flock to listen to writers whose books they often don't bother to read, suggests that what we really want is a writer to speak to us, in all the senses of that phrase. Well, on these fascinating recordings they do speak to us, and say more than they know. Listen and enjoy — but beware of your illusions, they may prove fragile.

"British Writers — The Spoken Word (3 CDs + booklet, running time 214 minutes) is £19.95.

"American Writers — The Spoken Word" (3 CDs + booklet, running time 210 minutes) likewise costs £19.95.

HTC Touch HD

Q. How does it handle PDF files? I have a tytn II but you cannot see much of a pdf without zooming in to around 200% I was wandering how this compared to the xperia x1, same res screen, just bigger as i carry a bunch of printed pdf's with me for product information. Regards, Phil.

A. At 200% you would never need glasses. The system defaults normally to 78% but I find that 80 to 90% is perfect for the screen size.

Q. Does the proper youtube site work (not the client) after you have installed flash lite 3.1?

A. In short yes.

Q. Is there any chance of bbc iplayer working?

A. Trying to run iPlayer causes script warnings that freeze the device and I have never left it long enough to see it it would work after processing the script Sorry!

Q. Have installed any gps programs, and do they run smoothly?

A. TomTom 6 has been installed and works without issues.

Q. is there absolutely no chance of getting tv-out on this device

A. Not unless HTC re-design the handset.

Q. Do you think can be upgraded to WM7 when it comes out?

A. A device like this would (I'm Sure) be included by HTC and Microsoft for upgrade

Q. Looks like there is no option to attach a Lanyard, is this correct?

A. Correct there is no Lanyard area.

Q. in the unboxing you said 1560mah battery. is that correct?

A. If I did say that then I made a mistake, it's 1360mAh - sorry!

Q. Does slingplayer use the whole screen?

A. Sorry I don't have this to test.

Q. Could you see if it plays streaming video such as BBC News or CNN? It's something that no one thus far has tested on the Touch HD!

A. Since this question was aimed at Tracy or Matt I'm not going to answer it as a matter of Principle.

Q. I would like to see how it handles Excel spreadsheets, also compared with the TytnII or any PDA with QVGA screen, as I own a TytnII and use a lot of spreadsheets.

A. Just for you I had a data analyst in my work run some very complex formulas and move them to and from the HD to the PC and he was well impressed. So much so that he now wants a WM device to do work from home.

Q. Could you let us know how the Touch is as a PDA? - in particular for email (gmail client or gmail via IMAP), text entry and calendar/pim.

A. For me this device works great as a PDA, comes with everything needed to run it as one and has no issue running emails or any of the items above.

Q. I use outlook web access a moderate amount for work email and calendar (since they won't let unauthorised devices use their Exchange or Blackberry servers). Does either device have an advantage in accessing that?

A. I also use OWA and it works perfect with this phone, all the data you need is transferred from the OWA Server onto your phone and vice versa although I will say I am not a heavy user of this so some items may not run just as well

Q. One of my other options would be a more camera focused phone (eg LG Renoir), to eliminate another device from my pocket. Does the Renoir stack up against the HD in terms of syncing with Outlook, managing calendar/tasks and contacts?

A. Unfortunately until we get a Renoir we cannot answer this question!

Q. Is Matt enjoying the device too much to be torn away and post his thoughts for us minions?

A. Not at all, he would love to but I asked to do this review so blame me for the delay. Sorry!

Q. Is there an on screen keyboard?  What is it like? 
How does the onscreen keyboard (if there is one!) compare to SPBFull Screen keyboard software? 

A. There is indeed an onscreen keyboard although the actual size of the keys does not differ greatly (maybe 1 or 2 mm) from the Touch Diamond.The latest SPB Keyboard software has far bigger keys than th inbuilt keyboard. One thing i do like thought that is quite big is the Phone Pad which can be used like a STD phone pad and with T9.

Q. I currently use a TyTnII and I love the built in keyboard but hate the smaller screen having formerly owned an IpaqHX2490.  Bigger screen or built in keyboard? 

A. For me it will always be bigger screen but then I like watching streaming and movies on my phone too.

Q. Can this be the iPhone beater?

A. Short and simple answer to this is NO. Why not? It just wasn't made by Apple. The device is supperior to the iPhone in many ways but the whole iPhone thing is just style. The phrase "I have an iPhone 3G" runs better than "I han an HTC Touch HD".

Q. I would love a comparison between Touch HD, Omina, X1, and Touch Pro.

A. I'll see what I can do on this one, Don't have many the Omnia or X1 to compare with just now.

21st November 2008

Q. Does this mobile have aGPS?

A. It sure does

Q. Are you able to test any third party software? something with ‘turn-by-turn’ instructions?

A. Can you give me an example of a piece of software you would like tested?

Q. Is it possible to install VLC player?

A. Unless you use the original test cab by VLC then no. VLC pulled the plug on their Windows Mobile compatible software a while ago and have no intentions to work on it again.

Q. I have read the video recording is 320×240, any truth to that?

A. This is indeed correct.

Q. Is there any itunes compatibility? especially for play-lists. any 3rd party software that does this easily?

A. Still Reviewing

Q. how you would rate this as a business phone?

A. This really would depend on the sort of business you are in. For example is you are a builder, forget it! If you are a business traveller then it would be ideal depending on the apps etc... you would need to be using.

Q. How does it compare against a Blackberry bold or storm?

A. The only one of these that I have had experience with yet is the BB Bold which in my view is not as good as the HD. On the other hand there were several features of the BB Bold which I loved (see my review). I think the more fair comparison should be the Storm and the HD which I plan to do when I get hold of a Storm to review (any offers anyone?)

Q. What size card will this take?  I heard that it won't accept 16gb?  Is this true?

A. Indeed the maximum that can be added to the HD is 8gb although I would hold out as I remember when I had my XDA Orbit and it wouldn't take 8gb someone on xda developers created a patch to allow them.

Q. What's the MP3 playback like? Can you have it constantly on in the background no matter what other application your using? Is the processor capable of keeping it going when using other heavy apps? i.e. GPS?

A. Yes to both of these questions. The processor allows multiple apps to run and have the MP3 playback running smoothly in the background on Windows Media player.

Q. Did the GPS lag?

A. In the tests I done using Google Maps there was slime to no lag at all. The only thing I did notice was that Google maps using the GPS in my area got a little confused as the street layout is at least 7 years out of date.

Q. What would your rating out of 10 be?

A. I personally would rate this phone at 9 / 10. The missing 1 mark would be as a result of the position of the MicroSD slot, the inability to delete more than 1 mail message at a time and the fact that it does not offer portrait mode for a lot of apps.

Posted by: John

Hidden Bookshelf - $12.99

Look at this stack of books… How is it staying up? Is it glue? Velcro? Tractor beams? The secret is a simple and clever little device called the Hidden Bookshelf! An L-shaped wedge of metal holds your books up against the wall while a tiny clip holds the inside cover of the book up, giving your larger books the illusion of sticking to the wall as if by magic!

The Hidden Bookshelf is available from Think Geek for $12.99.

Glow Flow Faucet - $19.95

Give your sink a touch of sci-fi chic with this nifty LED faucet attachment that illuminates flowing water in cool blue when it\’s cold or warm red when it\’s hot. Perfect as a warning device for kids or a pretend alien mouthwash dispenser for adults.

The Glow Flow Faucet is available from Firebox for $19.95.

Celebrity Weighing Scales - $34.95

With these deeply ironic scales you get to compare your weight with the likes of Fozzie Bear, Mr Ed (yes, the talking horse!), Donald Trump\’s Combover and even the Baby Jesus. Just think, with the Celebrity Weighing Scales in the bathroom you\’ll be itching to step aboard, not dreading the prospect. After all numbers are so final, aren\’t they?

The Celebrity Weighing Scales is available from Firebox for $34.95.

There\’s no place like 127.0.0.1 Door/Floor mat - $39.99

Tired of people stepping all over you? Well take your frustrations out by stepping all over these choice door/floor mats. Adorned with the peculiar \’There\’s No Place Like 127.0.0.1\’ phrase, consider them your own personal wormholes to a place where users invented clue and upper management gets outsourced.

The There\’s no place like 127.0.0.1 Door/Floor mat is available from Think Geek for $39.99.

Self Sustaining Ecosphere - $89.95

A self-contained, self-supporting ecological system is permanently sealed within this hand-blown borsilica glass sphere. Its careful balance of air, water, plant and animal life was developed as the result of years of NASA research into self-sustaining, bio-regenerative systems where the equilibrium must be maintained for long periods of time, such as long-term space stations. Inside, tiny shrimp feed on bacteria that metabolize organic waste into nutrients for the algae which, in turn, photosynthesize the oxygen needed for the shrimp and bacteria to survive.

The Self Sustaining Ecosphere is available from Hammacher for $89.95.

Voice Activated Thermostat - $99.95

Using advanced voice recognition technology, this is the thermostat that can be programmed using only your voice and clearly articulates the current indoor temperature. Endorsed by the National Federation of the Blind, the thermostat is ideal for the visually impaired or those who struggle with technology. Clapping your hands twice initiates the voice programming and you can change the temperature by saying \”raise\” or \”lower\” (each utterance adjusts the temperature by one degree).

The Voice Activated Thermostat is available from Hammacher for $99.95.

Digital Picture Frame - from $100

Digital picture frames have really taken off this year. Here we compare some of the cheapest and best digital picture frames that are currently available with regards to both features and value for money. We’ll also provide an explanation of all the features that the various digital photo frames have to offer.

The Digital Picture Frame is available from Amazon for from $100 or check out our reviews.

Roomba Robotic Vacuum Cleaner - $149.99+

Life happens in busy homes, and keeping up with accumulating dirt, dust, pet hair, crumbs, and debris can be a daily challenge. Introducing the iRobot Roomba 560- a member of iRobot’s newest generation of Roomba Vacuuming Robots.

Now there’s a better way to maintain cleaner floors every day. With dramatically improved navigation, cleaning coverage, vacuum pickup, particle filtration, and scheduling capabilities, the Roomba 560 picks up amazing amounts of dirt and debris from your floors with the touch of a button–so you don’t have to.

The Roomba Robotic Vacuum Cleaner is available from Amazon for $149.99+.

Wooden Clock - $199.95

Is it a block or a clock? Plug in the ingenious Wooden Clock and you\’ll discover it\’s both, because digital numerals magically appear from within the wood of this uber-stylish timepiece.

The Wooden Clock is available from Firebox for $199.95.

Professional Automated Living (PAL) Home Automation Kit - $460

TWO LEVELS OF AUTOMATION FOR BUILDERS AND HOMEOWNERSHOME AUTOMATION KITS X10 PRO offers two new product kits: PAL1 and PAL2. Professional Automated Living Kits for either homeowner or contractor at an extremely cost effective price. These two new kits are inspired by the residential construction industry. Each kit contains an ample selection of devices providing lifestyle enhancements for every installation. Builders and/or homeowners simply select the kit suiting their home and lifestyle.

The Professional Automated Living (PAL) Home Automation Kit is available from Amazon for $460.

The phrase up top in the headline is how the person who sent me a link to this site described it.

He's currently at an secure, undisclosed location in the lower 48 doing things that need doing.

No, not that kind of secure location.

Below, my psychograph.

The brains behind Typealyzer call it "automated psychographic text analysis.

Below, my brain on blogging.

Well, that explains everything.

The Price: $19.95

The Verdict: It works, but it'll cramp your hand into an unrecognizable mess in under three minutes. The strummer button works, despite being awkward for a grown man to play with his two grown man fingers. The strummer is where the problem lies. If you thought those normal Guitar Hero buttons cramped your hand into awkward positions, imagine putting your hand down on a barstool and having a fat guy sit on it.

For $20, it's not expensive by any means, but unless they actually lengthen the fret a bit so adults can play this without getting carpal tunnel, it's only going to be useful for a quick break at the office. The Frets on Fire game it's meant to work with is a decent game, seeing as it's been around for a few years, and if you don't mind semi-legally downloading fan-made album packs, it gives you a good number of songs not found in Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Also, I'm not sure why "No clubs to join" is a selling point. I don't think I've seen that phrase in use since 1992.

p.s. Boing Boing Gadgets didn't like it either, but don't click that link unless you want to see Joel make a face that's previously only been reserved for his lovers. [Drum Bum]

The Nokia 6131 is contactless-enabled

I was pondering the other day what the next big (mass market) thing in Handset innovation could be. We’ve already had (and still have) camera module development, and also touchscreens, and probably very soon “haptic-like” feedback through those screens.

Screen resolution on devices will continue to increase slowly, and you could argue the same for music functionality (including speakers) – but what I am thinking about is the next mass market big thing…

On that front, I’d like to suggest that it could be “contactless” – note I missed “payments” off the end of the commonly-used phrase, because I think it would be a mistake to pigeon-hole it to just paying for things (though that’s clearly a killer apps for this technology).

I’d actually go a step further on the contactless front and suggest that it shouldn’t be an open standard implementation – why, you might ask? Well, a number of standards-based technologies in recent years just haven’t done the job in terms of functionality – my experience is that when you design a closed environment, and control things from end-to-end, you can increase both usability and security – which clearly in this case would be important.

But back to the general concept – using your device to serve as an ID card, cash holder, and other related functions, is where I think it’s going to be, going forward. That, combined with the fact that many organisations (e.g. British Airways) are making Mobile more central to their ticketing/booking plans, means that the Mobile is positioned to be the hub of info/payments going forward.

Hell, we could even consider a situation where a car manufacturer does a deal with a Mobile device vendor, to develop a “paired” Mobile and Car – such that you would get the device with the car. The device would act as the Key, part of a car kit (for taking/making calls), and also do Sat Nav/routing info. On top of all this, it wouldn’t necessarily need to be plugged in (unless it needed power), it could sit in a holder and work in a contactless manner.

That was quite a specific example, but there are numerous closed user groups where you could issue a contactless device for service usage, plus the normal mobile bit – in fact, that’s exactly what Nokia, O2, Barclays, and the London Underground did in a recent test of contactless payments on the Tube (subway).

Perhaps contactless will never become mass-market though – precisely because it’s something that everyone would need to agree on (i.e. a standard) – but it could become the weapon of choice in point solutions that involve large amounts of closed users in a group - corporate fleets are a great example in that respect.

What do you think the future holds? Will contactless be deployed heavily, partly, or not really at all? The comments box at the end of this post is feeling lonely and would like to have your words

Ben

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Generation Y to drive the mobile banking growth in the U.S.
• MasterCard, Bell Mobility trial mobile payments
• UK: consumers want NFC on their mobiles
• Fishing for Mobile TV Chips(ets)
• Motorola joins Nokia in investing towards NFC company INSIDE Contactless

5. Code Red

The Code Red worm was a computer worm observed on the Internet on July 13, 2001. It attacked computers running Microsoft’s IIS web server. The most in-depth research on the worm was performed by the programmers at eEye Digital Security. They also gave the worm the phrase “Hacked By Chinese!” with which the worm defaced websites. Although the worm had been released on July 13, the largest group of infected computers was seen on July 19, 2001. On this day, the number of infected hosts reached 359,000.

6. CIH

CIH, also known as Chernobyl or Spacefiller, is a computer virus written by Chen Ing Hau of Taiwan. It is considered to be one of the most harmful widely circulated viruses, overwriting critical information on infected system drives, and more importantly, in some cases corrupting the system BIOS.

7. Klez

Klez is a computer worm that propagates via e-mail. It first appeared in the end of 2001. A number of variants of the worm exist. Klez infects Microsoft Windows systems, exploiting vulnerability in Internet Explorer’s Trident layout engine, used by both Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express to render HTML mail.

8. Melissa

The Melissa worm, also known as “Mailissa”, “Simpsons”, “Kwyjibo”, or “Kwejeebo”, is a mass-mailing macro virus, hence leading some to classify it as a computer worm. First found on March 26, 1999, Melissa shut down Internet mail systems that got clogged with infected e-mails propagating from the worm. Melissa was not originally designed for harm, but it overflowed servers and caused unplanned problems.

9. Sasser

Sasser (sometimes known as the Big One) is a computer worm that affects computers running vulnerable versions of the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2000. Some machines running Windows 98 were infected. Like other worms, Sasser spreads by exploiting the system through a vulnerable network port. Thus it is particularly potent in that it can spread without user intervention, but it is also easily stopped by a properly configured firewall or by downloading system updates from Windows Update. Sasser was first noticed and started spreading on April 30, 2004. This worm was named Sasser because it spreads by exploiting a buffer overflow in the component known as LSASS (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service) on the affected operating systems.

10. Bagle

Bagle (also known as Beagle) is a mass-mailing computer worm written in pure assembly and affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows. The first strain, Bagle.A, did not propagate widely. A second variation, Bagle.B is considerably more virulent. Bagle uses its own SMTP engine to mass-mail itself as an attachment to recipients gathered from the victim computer.

11. Win32/Simile

Win32/Simile (also known as Etap) is a metamorphic computer virus written in assembly language for Microsoft Windows. The virus was released in the most recent version in early March 2002. It was written by the virus writer Mental Driller. Some of his previous viruses, such as Win95/Drill (which used the Tuareg polymorphic engine), have proved very challenging to detect.

12. Nimda

Nimda is a computer worm, isolated in September 2001. It is also a file infector. It quickly spread, eclipsing the economic damage caused by past outbreaks such as Code Red. Multiple propagation vectors allowed Nimda to become the Internet’s most widespread virus/worm within 22 minutes. Due to the release date, some media quickly began speculating a link between the virus and Al Qaeda, though this relationship ended up being untrue. Nimda affected both user workstations (clients) running Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, or 2000 and servers running Windows NT and 2000. The worm’s name spelled backwards is “admin”.