After last week’s busy recording session, Carl and I popped to our local branch of Tesco to get a bite to eat, and to browse the tech magazines… well, it’s cheaper than buying them…

As we both have something of an ear for audio, we noticed that the in-store music was sounding a little on the rough side… a little like listing to an FM radio tuned slightly off station.

On the way to pay, we passed the deserted customer service desk, pictured here.

Our local Tesco Customer Services Desk

Nothing special to report here, you might think. But on closer inspection, we discovered what goes on behind these scenes and just how the in-store music system works.

Now you might think that there’s some expensive in-store music scheduling and broadcast system that plays out music carefully designed to get customers to buy – music to get you in the buying mood with some subliminal sales suggestions thrown in? Or perhaps a computer-controlled playout system that rotates music to stop the shop staff from going bonkers hearing the same CD for hours on end.

Not a bit of it.

At our local store, here’s how it’s done.

1. 1. Get a cheap radio / CD player from the shelf
2. Stick some batteries in
3. Tune it to a local commercial radio station
4. Plonk the in-store public address mic in front of the speaker
5. Use an elastic band to hold down the Talk button

Simple, and effective. Here’s the technical wizardry in action:

Tesco's High-Tech Tannoy System In Action

Sometimes it’s the simplest solutions that work best – as long as the radio doesn’t drift off station.

You’ll be pleased to know that Carl tuned the station back in for the staff. You have no idea how tempting it was to drop in a CD of the latest episode of FrequencyCast before we left.

Share and Enjoy!

Pete

Watching the whole Ross and Rachel “we were on a break” this week has exposed me to the sponsor credits that top and tail Friends, and it leads to a question:

“Find the perfect mix with Mars Planets, sponsors of Friends”

Who’s the voiceover? Smart money here at FrequencyCast HQ is that it’s Martin Freeman (aka Tim from The Office and Arthur Dent in the Hitchhikers film), but there’s a division here – the voice isn’t quite nasal enough to be Mr Freeman.

Is it or isn’t it? Here’s a link to the clip on YouTube…

Let us know who you think it is.

It’s from the archives of the BBC Tomorrow’s World technology show back in September 1979, and it’s a test of a revolutionary new technology to use a mobile radio device to make a direct dial telephone call.

The experiment was done in Chelmsford (the home of radio) over a distance of 7 miles. The clunky mobile handset (a walkie-talkie with a dial-phone plugged in). When the presenter dials, the numbers are sent as “tiny packets of information” to reduce interference from passing motor cars.

The Post Office didn’t seem very keen on this new-fangled technology, and the Home Office won’t make available the wavelengths needed, apparently!

A lovely, cheesy, video clip, and a great look at how it all started. For the clip, go to http://tinyurl.com/675o47b.

Years back, I did the smart thing and switched my home phone calls from BT to TalkTalk – My line rental stayed with BT (for Broadband reasons), but calls went through TalkTalk to benefit from cheaper calls.’

However, there’s a problem with TalkTalk, and that’s that they won’t leave you alone. Despite opting for paperless billing and no marketing material, they keep posting me junk and trying to upsell broadband.

Junkmail I can live with, but it’s the TalkTalk silent phone calls that drive me insane…

My home phone number keeps getting silent calls from an unknown International phone number, followed by a call from an International human at an unknown TalkTalk call centre a few minutes later trying to flog me something. I assume they have software that randomly dials their customers until someone answers, then get a human to dial to make a sale.

Every time TalkTalk call, I politely tell them I’m not interested in being upsold, and to stop calling. “Certainly sir, we’ll make a note”.

Last time I was hassled, it was from a UK TalkTalk number – when I complained about being hassled again – I was told that she was hassling me from the Broadband team, not the Home Phone team.

Today was the final straw – two silent calls yesterday, and one today, followed by a human wanting to conduct a “tariff review”. She didn’t seem in the least surprised when I expressed my desire to close my account, and transferred me to their Customer Services number without haste.

After 15 minutes on hold (“my call being valuable”), I gave up, went to bt.com and switched my calls back to BT.

Switching back to BT should take 11 working days, and BT’s calling packages seem to be far more competitive than they were a while back – their Unlimited Evening and Weekend pack looks like it’ll work better than the TalkTalk deal I was on (perhaps that’s why TalkTalk were trying to sell me a new plan?)

Hopefully BT will have better luck telling TalkTalk that I just want them to leave me alone and cut out the unwanted TalkTalk nuisance calls.

Anyone else sick and tired of being hassled by TalkTalk, or annoyed at their apparent inability to remove you from their calling list? We’d love to know.

Someone’s created a rather nifty little video showing the 4G iPhone spin and flip in an iPhone TV ad style. Take a look at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Prf5Oy1n7iM

The ad’s actually a bit of clever viral marketing for a £0.59 iPhone app that makes a virtual cup of coffee, but if you have 37 seconds to spare – take a look at video, as it’s a good introduction to what the next phone could look like.

Hurry – before Apple asks YouTube  to zap it…

Mine’s a wappuccino…

If you’ve been following the unprecedented situation with Britain’s Hung Parliament on one of the rolling news channels, you may be mistaken for thinking that No News is Breaking News.

I’ve been following the story by watching the 24 hour BBC news channel over the last few days. I’ve now come to the conclusion that their “Breaking News” button must be stuck.

While we wait for the Liberal Democrats to make up their mind which bunch of desperate politicians to sell themselves to, the news channels are in overdrive. Add to that, the new drama of a search for a new Labour leader.

This morning, the “Breaking News” that Nick Clegg was to walk out of his front door was interrupted by “Breaking News” that David Milliband was walking to his car. The BBC spent about 15 minutes swapping from doorstep to doorstep waiting for something to happen. We’re also treated to split screen shots of pundits outside Westminster in their little bubble. Now and then, shots of the outside of No. 10, or a car driving past.

Take a look at this screen grab captured a few minutes ago:

“Breaking News: Hung Parliament: Lib Dems negotiating with Labour & Tories”

Given that those negotiations have been going on for what seems like days, I’d argue that this is “Breaking news”. Still – at least Live from Westminster, we get to see shots of camera crews filming some chap. No idea who it is, but he seems to be wearing a shirt of some kind. No idea if the colour of his shirt is significant – if it is, there’ll no doubt be a breaking news update.

Breaking News: As I’m typing this, BBC News have just broken from Westminster, to a camera outside Clegg’s front door. Caught off-guard, the cameraman was pointing at a nice leafy tree. Managed to catch that moment, live:

“Breaking News: No comment from Nick Clegg’s Tree”

Breaking News: Stressed Sky News chap loses it with Alastair Campbell – This clip from yesterday’s Sky News coverage has gone viral. If you want to see Adam Boulton from Sky News nearly decking Labour’s Alastair, take a look at this YouTube Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gkHwU4DRA8

Are we nearly there yet?

Out and about looking for a new ink cartridge, I had call to use Amazon on my iPhone to look up what ink cartidges my printer takes. Without a model number, I entered “HP all-in-one” to see a list of printers. I got pages of HP printers, as expected, with one exception.

Very odd – but a pleasant change from a long list of printer hardware. Thanks Amazon.

Volcanic action in Iceland has resulted in a clould of volcanic ash moving towards the UK. The authorities have closed UK airspace, as the ash can use a serious hazard to aircraft engines.

We’ve had lots of fun watching planes landing and leaving the UK, thanks to the website FlightRadar24. This site can track the movement of aircraft that are equipped with ADS-B (Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast).

Here’s a picture of the aircraft in Europe captured at 1245 on 15th April 2010, showing almost nothing over the UK, but a very busy Europe.

If you’re at a loose end, have a look at this site that cleverly overlays aircraft with the ADS-B beacon onto Google Maps – although it’ll be a little quiet of the UK for the rest of the day!

You can click on a plane to see altitude and air speed, and if you zoom in, you can watch planes land and the alt drop to zero. Check out the impressive site at www.flightradar24.com

Ordering online is pretty straightforward, obviously. Slap in your details and address into the ordering engine at www.dominos.co.uk.

Then, the clever bit – pizza tracking. See the moment that your pizza goes from “prepared” to “in the oven”, then a nice satisfying “it’s on the road”.

Yes, we like Dominos tracking service, but we think we need even more real-time pizza info.

Here’s what we’re thinking… a GPS tracking chip in every pizza. It’s great to know the moment that the pizza’s out of the oven and on the way… but where is it? Stuck in traffic? Navigating through the one-way system, or maybe the driver’s sat nav’s out of date. Dominos… if you’re listening – how about an interface to the fleet’s TomToms, or a chip in every box… so we can get a pizza overlay in Google Maps…

Now we know we’re asking a lot… but it’s only a matter of time before there’s an iPhone app for that…

The FrequencyCast phone, the INQ1 has a distinctive 3 note “Low Battery” tone that wafts through FrequencyCast HQ and reminds me of a certain UK song.

Click on this link to have a listen: http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/audio/inqnotes.mp3

Have a quick listen, and see if it reminds you of anything… Comment below if it sounds familiar!

Pete