Spotify now has a million registered users in the UK, according to an interview in the Guardian with Paul Brown, the streaming music service’s new managing director.

At the moment, it’s likely that most of those users aren’t paying — I love the service, but I’m still on the freebie system, which plays ads everynow and then between songs. Brown noted:

“The majority are obviously going to be free at this stage, and we have a nice proportion - a decent proportion, but we can’t disclose numbers - of paid subscribers. That will get more interesting. We’ve got to give people value - everyone’s used to different gauges of that. Just saying ‘(premium) is about no advertising’ isn’t really how it will work.”

What else could the service offer, other than removing ads or adding a few premium tracks?

Brown suggested in the interview it could come down to portability — making the service travel with you, possibly on devices like the iPhone, which has seen some success with this. He also noted that there could be a future in white-labeling radio stations onto Spotify, teaming up with something like Absolute Radio to stream their shows.

Still, Brown seemed confident that advertising could support the system, economic downturn aside. At the moment, Spotify runs about three audio ads an hour, as well as visual ads, but Brown said the team have more coming down the pipeline.

Whether it’s pay-to-go, teaming with radio, or sorting out the ad situation, I hope Spotify makes it work — otherwise I’m going to have to go back to downloading, and who can afford that in a recession?

Bookstore Blackwell is looking to take on Amazon (and the internet) with it’s own hot piece of tech, the Espresso Book Machine.

The massive printer-like machine can print and bind a book in minutes, meaning Blackwell can offer instant reprints of out-of-stock or out-of-print books. The Espresso cost the bookseller some $175,000, but it believes it’ll make back the cost in a year.

Had this been released before the age of the internet and before e-readers were released, this would be amazing. Heck, I still think it’s amazing, and if not for the price tag and the fact it wouldn’t actually fit in my bedroom, I’d want one. Just imagine it… You could have any book you want without even leaving your house.

Of course, for a fair amount less than the Espresso, I could get the (still too pricey for me) Kindle book reader or another of e-book readers hitting the market. Sure, they’re still not great to read on, and lack the solid feel you get with pages (warm pages, hot off the presses, if you’re using the Espresso!). But they have the added bonus of being portable, cheaper and updateable anywhere.

The Espresso does have the potential to be successful, even in the face of Amazon’s cheap books by mail and the Kindle’s “any book, any time” promise. One book Blackwell is pushing in read-to-print version is a 1915 collection of the Oxford Poetry Book, which features an early poem by Tolkien. It’d make a lovely gift for Tolkien lovers, and you have to admit an individually printed book from Charing Cross Road is much nicer to wrap with a bow than a PDF.

But is it enough to hold back the tide against its more modern competition? I think the key is in a quote from Phill Jamieson, the head of marketing at Blackwell.

Speaking of the Espresso, he said: “For book lovers it is able to bring rare works back into production and aspiring authors will be able to see their own work in print.”

That last bit, right there. Vanity publishing — sure, it’s long-existed online, but imagining being able to publish your own book in minutes? They might be on to something here…

A billion apps have now been downloaded from Apple’s iPhone App store. While many of them are useful — see our list of mobile apps for Twitter here — there’s a big selection of completely stupid ones, and even a few that are ridiculously offensive, including the recently removed Baby Shaker game.

Not only do you have to question how that got approved by Apple, which denied a South Park game for being too potentially offensive, but you have to wonder who would develop such a thing or even pay for it.

It’s hardly the first, and you know it won’t be the last. Here’s our list of the silliest, stupidest, and most pointless apps we’ve come across — would you download any of these, even if they are free?

1- iPint — yeah, it’s been downloaded a lot. There’s a paid-for version and a free one from Carling, but really, who needs fake beer even for free? Tip your iPhone, and the beer empties out, like you’re chugging it. It’s annoying enough when someone whips an iPhone out at the pub, we don’t need to start trying to replace beer with the phone, too.

2- I am Rich — for £1000, you get an icon on your iPhone saying you’re rich — and, that you’re an idiot. The app was yanked after someone actually bought it, and an ‘I am Poor’ version was apparently rejected by Apple. Would an ‘I am middle class’ edition get through?

3- Pull My Finger/iFart — The former was initially rejected by Apple, but the latter has since found its way to the App Store and many, many downloads. Funny though it may be, it almost seems a shame that all that cutting edge, shiny tech, is used to make fart noises. And that anyone is willing to spend $2 for it.

4- Hold On! — It’s a game, you see. There’s a button in the middle of the screen, which you press. And then the phone times how long you’ve been holding it. Yeah, that’s it. Really.

5- Touch Train — In the same vein as Hold On!, there’s Touch Train. No, it doesn’t involve a train, it simply teaches you to touch a spot on the screen, in case you can’t already do that. How you’d manage to download an app without being able to work the touchscreen is really beyond me.

6- SimStapler — I have to admit, I find this hilarious. You download this freebie, and you can simulate stapling something. That’s it. It’s not a game. There’s nothing offensive or interesting. It’s just a stapler. I kind of love it.

7- Beercounter — Thankfully a free app, this one keeps track of how much you’ve had to drink. All you have to do is tap the screen and it will update. If you’re so drunk you can’t keep track of your pints, you should probably put the expensive phone away, alright?

8- Sonic Lighter — For just a dollar, you can have your own sim lighter. Perfect for those times when you want to look at flame, but would rather not have fire. I know I feel that way all the time.

9- Birth Buddy — You’re about to give birth. So pull out your iPhone, fire up this paid-for app, and track your contractions with Birth Buddy. No. You’re giving birth. Put the damn phone down. I pity the kid already.

10- Baby Shaker — For under a dollar, you can abuse as many babies you want. Fan though I may be of black humour, the developers must have seen that this would draw a few complaints, especially from anti-abuse charities. Why develop something that makes you look like a jerk and will just get pulled anyway?

Have you downloaded any of these? Have you seen any which are worse? Let us know in comments below…

How much IT skills do casual users — or even office workers — really need to have these days?

Bill Thompson over at the BBC believes we all need more. I don’t disagree entirely — more security knowledge would be a good thing for most casual users, while it’d certainly help the industry as a whole if users knew enough to appreciate all the hard work that makes email show up where it’s supposed to, and things like that. He argues:

“Far too many people who use computers every day, and have them in their homes, aren’t even capable of applying the system updates that Microsoft and Apple automatically send out, leaving them with buggy and insecure systems vulnerable to all sorts of attack.”

Here’s the thing. He spends the first 10 of 21 paragraphs laying out his CV so we all know what a skilled tech-head he is, name-dropping Debian Linux, web servers and more in proper alpha-geek style. Though he clearly proves his extensive tech credentials, he shows he doesn’t know the other side very well — no tech ignoramus is going to keep reading past that first paragraph; I nearly didn’t, and I write about this stuff on a daily basis.

Programmers and software engineers and other IT Pros should be celebrated for their skills and talents, but that doesn’t mean receptionists, office workers and your mom need to know the inner workings of code.

Students need to be taught more advanced tech skills, that much is for certain — but the same could be said of many subjects. Don’t kids these days need to read better, improve their political understanding, and play more sports?

Thompson compares IT to cars, saying people should know what’s under the bonnet. Yeah, they should — it’ll save them money in the long run — but you don’t actually need to know how engines work to press the gas pedal effectively. I respect people who learn out of curiosity, but to expect it of everyone is insane.

Drop the car analogy for a second. Think about travelling — do you need to know how planes work in order to board one? Will it make your trip more fun? Does the pilot have the right to rant at you for it?

How about music — do I need to know how to play a guitar or how to work decks to enjoy it? Would a singer slam his fans for not knowing how to read sheet music?

How about toilets — yeah, you’ll save on plumbing if you can fix the pipes yourself, but it’s hardly a requirement. Your plumber might wish you knew not to flush random things down the commode, but it’s hardly a big deal if you can’t do it all yourself.

Everyone always thinks their area of specialty deserves more kudos than it gets, but our society needs people with a variety of interests and specialties — not just the ones Thompson prefers. He continues:

“The results could be far worse than being ripped off by unscrupulous engineers who offer them unnecessary upgrades, because these digital tools will increasingly shape society. Those whose understanding of IT stopped at learning how to use bold font in a word processor will be at a significant disadvantage, one that we should work hard to overcome before it is too late.”

It’s true that we all need to understand the affects of digital technologies on society. But people don’t need to understand coding to see the privacy implications of Phorm or Google, or be able to programme to see that security is a key issue for anyone online, or be an application engineer to realise they spend too much time faffing about on their iPhone.

Besides, as he rightly points out, cars had a wee bit of an influence on society, too (i would argue indoor plumbing has as well, but then I come from a cold country). People need to wake up and pay attention to what’s going on around them; anyone could have seen that cars would change the world and, I don’t know, make us walk less, without fully understanding the internal combustion engine.

The House of Lords has decided to get with the times and accept YouTube videos as evidence — well, for one inquiry, which just so happens to be into whether or not they should be using such services to boost interaction between parliament and the people.

Check out the page here — they’ve got YouTube, Flickr, a forum, a podcast. Damn! They’re all Web 2.0 aren’t they? It’s only a matter of time before they’re asking to be our friend on Facebook and touting for followers on Twitter.

The simple point is this: it doesn’t matter how the government listens, it’s more important that they do listen. Right now, with this plan, they’re hung up on the former.

The use of e-petitions has proven that the government — be it Number 10 or the House of Lords — isn’t listening to our e-opinions, merely letting us spout off to calm us down.

At the moment, I’m pretty sure writing a letter to the government won’t do me any good, why will they suddenly listen if I park myself in front of a webcam?

Hopefully this Lords investigation realises this — that it’s not about being high-tech and modern, it’s about sitting down and listening to what the public says; whether that’s through YouTube, Twitter, or the letters page of a newspaper, it’s all valid.

Breaking news today: Ashton Kutcher (feel free to say ‘who?’) has pipped US news network CNN to be the first with a million followers on Twitter. Britney Spears has just under a million, but apparently couldn’t find another 40,000 followers to take on Mr Demi Moore.

This is fantastic news. Really.

Blogs and aggregation sites (think Google News) and other web-based content uh, redistributors, are being blamed for the downfall of newspapers. People can get their news anywhere and anytime for free, so why wait for the pile of dead tree to hit your doorstop?

But Twitter is being taken over by celebrities. They post their deepest thoughts, latest photos and even air their dirty laundry — all for us to read, for free, whenever we like.

Could Twitter be the web 2.0 force that destroys tabloid journalism and gossip mags? We can only hope.

I don’t get iTunes. Despite loving the iTunes software, I’ve never bought a single song off the iTunes store (why they couldn’t name them different things is beyond me).

While not owning an iPod probably contributes to this, the main reason for this is DRM. I don’t share music on P2P networks, so I don’t think I should have to worry about figuring out DRM stuff, or entering passwords just because I want my music collection on my work Mac as well as my computers at home. Too complicated. I’m lazy. Music should just play when I tell it to.

The cool yet exceptionally frightening thing about the internet is how quickly things become second rate or even obsolete. If there’s a niche, a startup will pop up and fill it.

After iTunes failed to inspire me, non-DRM sites like 7Digital or Amazon jumped in, giving me an alternative.

And now Amazon has slashed its prices to £.29 a song, while iTunes cranks its costs up. And I’ve discovered free ad-based streaming music from Spotify. The great thing about the latter is it works where ever I am, with my playlists following me from computer to computer, so long as I’ve got a web connection. And, did I mention it’s free?

So really… who needs iTunes? I certainly don’t seem to.

The G20 protests in London yesterday and today have been widely reported… on Twitter. That protesters used Twitter to share information and organise things has been widely reported in newspapers, which then go on to tweet their stories about Twitter, which get retweeted, and then the number of tweets about G20 gets huge, and that becomes a story, and on and on.

It’s like a giant spiral of Twittering.

The Twitter feeds from the protests have been captivating, don’t get me wrong. With journalists from the BBC and national newspapers posting messages alongside protesters and the public, it’s an intriguing way to get a picture of what’s actually happening. Or at least what a bunch of random people say about what’s actually happening, sort of like a crowd-sourced news report.

I just wonder when we (as in, the media) are going to stop reporting on people using Twitter. Last year, it was Obama using Twitter and Facebook to spam us, and then this year we got all excited because the Queen might deign to Tweet and a comedian got stuck in a lift while Twittering. Seriously. “Man stuck in lift plays with his iPhone” is not news.

“People use Twitter” should no longer be news. It’s a popular site. A lot of people are on it (IT PRO is, I’m not yet, though I admit that’s subject to change).

And really — protesters were not just using Twitter. Twitter is just very easy to watch, and journalists really like it. Protest groups are still organising using old-school methods like text messaging, web sites and email, I assure you. We (the media and the public) just can’t see it so easily.

How about an investigative report into “People use email to communicate” or “Protest groups have websites and mailing lists”? Sounds stupid, but it’s about as newsworthy as people using any other tool to communicate…

It’s 1 April, so the tech world has yet again flooded the internet with spoofs, jokes and hoaxes. And some of them are pretty good.

My favourite landed in my inbox this morning, with Opera pushing a new feature in the next version of its browser. Face Gestures will let users control their web experience by smiling or “flaring a nostril.” From the release:

“In 2001, we introduced Mouse Gestures in Opera 5.1. At that point we knew we were on to something,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. “We already had keyboard shortcuts in the very first version of Opera, but once we introduced voice control in Opera 8, we had only one input mechanism left–the face. Opera Face Gestures represent the next frontier in browser control.”

Genius. There’s also a brilliant video here.

Google, as always, offered up a few. Chrome is now available in 3D - complete with printout glasses - and Google has announced Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE), a new autonomous problem-solving AI, which made it’s own web page.

Microsoft has released a new Xbox game, Alpine Legends — which I would love to play. Forget SingStar and Rockband, in this mocked up release, you get to yodel along to classics such as “Whose spit is in my horn?” and “More goat bell (It needs)”. And, you get a free goat with purchase.

Reddit has redesigned it’s website… to look like Digg. Though it is pretty confusing when you’re actually flipping between Digg and Reddit, it looks pretty good. Remarking on the Digg-like changes, Reddit said in its blog: “At last, change has come to reddit. Let us rejoice.”

Fark has done a similar change, but now looks like Facebook. Could Farkbook finally make social networking interesting?

Pirate Bay seems to have joined forces with Warner Bros… hey, maybe one day…

And the Guardian has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, with the announcement that the newspaper will now report in 140-character tweets. I don’t think anyone will be fooled, but it’s worth it for the line: “Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters.”

YouTube is flipping all its videos upside down, which is rather disorientating, but then Rick Astley has that affect on me.

Amazon has created cloud computing, in the clouds, with a blimp data centre.

Did you see any we missed? Did any of these catch you out? Let us know in comments…