The Open Source Consortium (OSC), the organisation leading the charge to make the BBC iPlayer open to all platforms, not just Microsoft Windows, met with the BBC Trust yesterday to find that there was a lot of agreement in their ambitions.
Speaking to Mark Taylor of the OSC straight after the BBC Trust meeting, I learnt that The Trust had declared that they “share the vision” of the OSC. Not surprisingly the OSC representatives felt very buoyant but the very positive meeting.
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The first version of their Zune media player didn’t exactly set the world on fire or give Steve Jobs much to worry about, but Microsoft has confirmed that its second- generation Zune players will be hitting the shelves in time for the Christmas sales season in the US.
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Microsoft have confirmed that they will be releasing the Messenger Kit for the XBox 260 in the US this September, after a long period of building up anticipation for it.
As well as a headset for voice chatting – which have been around since the original Xbox – the interesting part is the introduction of a full-sized, if mini, qwerty keyboard, letting you IM your mates until your thumbs bleed.
While Microsoft aren’t disclosing any plans for Europe or the UK, they say it should retail at $29.99 when it goes on sale on 6th September.
Finally the BBC Trust appears to be open to talking about the iPlayer going Open Source.
Good to see that the BBC Trust is to take representation from the Open Source Consortium (OSC) regarding their concerns about the fact that the BBC iPlayer is currently dependent on Microsoft’s Windows DRM.
The OSC made an official complaint to the BBC Trust in January this year but did not hear back from them until now. Quite unlike Ofcom and the old DTI, who they did get replies from.
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MSN is claiming that their live streams of last weekend’s LiveEarth gigs attracted the “most ever” online viewers.
By 8pm last evening, MSN said that it had whipped up more than 10 million video streams, earning it the crown of being the most simultaneously viewed online event ever.
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We’ve all seen the video of Microsoft showing off the surface table that lets you interact in what is now a novel way.
We’ve found a video that brilliantly mocks it.
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With a swish of the ceremonial curtain, Microsoft has launched its updated MSN Mobile service offering, boasting a “redesigned, reinvented” portal.
Designed for ‘net connected mobile users, the MSN Mobile service offers “one stop” access to news, email, local movie listings, maps, directions, yadda yadda, as well as Windows Live services like Hotmail, Live Messenger, Live Spaces and Live Search.
The most popular search engines rarely agree with each other when it comes to the top results for identical queries – and the differences are growing yearly.
In a study involving 19,332 queries typed (presumably not by hand) into Google, Yahoo, Windows Live and Ask, the same top result only popped up on all four search engines 3.6 percent of the time.
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Looks like there’s a danger of some of the open-source software world and Microsoft breaking out into a huge big love in.
Linspire, which started life as Lindows in an effort to antagonise Microsoft, has announced an agreement with the Redmond giant to co-operate in a number of areas.
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Life as a bedroom DJ or budding band member has taken a number of twists over the last few years. After ages of playing to themselves (or in some cases, with themselves), they now find that the world wants to know them.
Microsoft are casting their large net out to pickup up some music skillz, which they’ll use to fit specially composed tunes to Xbox 360 game trailers.
Entering sounds like a cinch. Simply grab a trailer or two from the site (there’s twelve available), apply your musical talents to it and re-upload it.
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