iPlayer: BBC DOES Want Open Platform: OSC

iPlayer: BBC DOES Want Open Platform: OSCWe met with Mark Taylor, President of the Open Source Consortium (OSC) last night, directly after his meeting with the BBC to discuss opening-up the iPlayer to run on more platforms than just the Microsoft browser.

It appears that the meetings were positive and boiled down to two points, the BBC feels they haven’t communicated their desires for iPlayer properly and that they want the iPlayer to run on an open platform.
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UK iPhone Launch On Friday: iGussets Moisten

UK iPhone Launch On Friday: iGussets MoistenExpect much shivering and perhaps a little moistening of the iPants as over-excited fanboys settle down to queue up for the UK launch of the iPhone on Friday.

For some reason we can’t even be bothered to look up, those crazy marketing cats at Apple have set a launch time of precisely 6:02 p.m., with iPhones being made available at more than 1,300 Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse retail locations across the UK.
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Google Unveils Mobile Phone Alliance To Create Open Mobile OS

Google Unveils Mobile Phone Alliance To Create Open Mobile OS.After a frenzy of speculation, Google has announced a far-reaching alliance with over thirty handset makers, networks and other mobile technology companies to kickstart a new era of low-cost mobile phones utilising open technology standards.

Known as the Open Handset Alliance, the group includes many of the big names in mobile phone chips manufacture, like Broadcom, Intel, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments plus SiRF Technology Holdings, Marvell Technology Group, Nvidia, Synaptics, eBay (owners of Skype), Nuance Communications, NMS Communications and Wind River Systems.
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Ashley Highfield & The BBC iPlayer PR Offensive

We’ve had a listen to the podcasted interview with Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC Future Media and Technology, put out by BBC Backstage and thought it was worth some comment.

It’s clearly part of a PR battle against those who are voicing disappointment at the BBC making the iPlayer only work on a Microsoft platform.
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E-TEN Glofiish X800 3.5G Windows Mobile Smartphone

E-TEN Glofiish X800 3.5G Windows Mobile SmartphoneJam-packed with the latest mobile innovations for the connected-exec-about-town is the new Glofiish X800 smartphone which is about to start shipping in key markets in about, ooh, two shakes of a lamb’s tale.

Sporting a two-tone silver and black design that can best be described as ‘industrial’ and ‘functional’, the X800 squeezes in an integrated GPS receiver, HSDPA radio and a large 2.8 inch 640×480 VGA touch screen display.
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ZoneGate, Ubiquisys’ Femtocell: A Cellular Base-station In Your Home

ZoneGate, Ubiquisys' Femtocell: A Cellular Base-station In Your HomeLast Wednesday morning I went along to the first briefing with a company called Ubiquisys to see their product ZoneGate, a Femtocell. If you think you’ve heard of them, it’s could well be because of the investment that Google made in them recently.
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LG KS20 HSDPA Touchscreen Smartphone Gets European Launch

LG KS20 HSDPA Touchscreen Smartphone Gets European LaunchTrying to kick over some of the Apple party tables before Friday’s iPhone’s launch is LG’s new business smartphone, the LG-KS20.

Announced at the IFA 2007 in Berlin, the LG-KS20 HSDPA touchscreen smartphone will initially be released in France and Germany with other countries following hot on its trail.

Evoking memories of the recent ‘Life On Mars‘ TV programme, a pair of dolly birds were roped in to ‘sex up’ the product, with the 70s-style press photos showing the two glampussies lovingly caressing the new phone.
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SplashUp: ‘Mini Photoshop’ Free Online Image Editor

SplashUp: 'Mini Photoshop' Free Online Image EditorSporting an interface that could at best be described as a ‘loving tribute’ to the legendary – and vastly expensive – image manipulation program Photoshop, Splashup is a cunningly clever web-based editing tool and photo manager.
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Ricoh GR Digital II Launch, London

Ricoh GR Digital II Launch, LondonWhen we first clapped our eyes on the Ricoh GR Digital two years ago, we purred like a cat that had not only found the cream, but had dived whiskers-first into a bottomless pit of the stuff and then been handed the deeds of the cream making factory.

We’d been looking for a digital equivalent of our favourite ever film compact, the Olympus XA for an eternity, and the GR camera came satisfyingly close.
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