Container for all companies
We’ve been in touch with the BBC Trust today, to follow up the statement that was mentioned in our piece about the BBC Trust position on the iPlayer and Linux playback. Here it is in full with our observations at the end.
Continue reading BBC Trust Statement On iPlayer OSC Meeting: Bit Woolly
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.
Continue reading BBC Trust: iPlayer On Linux And Mac A Must
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.
Continue reading Microsoft Zune 2.0 Set For Christmas
Ben Lavender, the person who came up with the idea behind the BBC iPlayer, originally called iMP, is leaving the BBC this afternoon.
We’d been told about the news a while back, but have held off until the information was public. Looking at his Linkedin profile, we see that it now shows his new role, as Group Digital & Product Director at LoveFilm.
Continue reading Ben Lavender, iPlayer Inventor Leaving BBC Today
We received a newsflash from the Wall Street Journal (I guess they would be the first to know) at 4:27 this morning that the Dow Jones board had voted in favour of the News Corp take over, with only Leslie Hill, a member of the Bancroft family, and Dieter von Holtzbrinck abstained from the vote.
Christopher Bancroft – who it is understood is actively seeking alternatives to the News Corp. bid – left the meeting early.
It’s reported that News Corp. was “grateful” to Dow Jones board for its vote.
News Corp have been trying to get their hands on Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, to add to their already large portfolio of highly influential media titles and companies around the world.
The next, and possibly final stage, is for the Bancroft family to approve the boards approval. Given the family has asked for more than $60 per share in the past – the current News Corp offer, valuing the company at $5Bn – it’s anyone’s guess which way it will go.
There’s been considerable concern voiced about how good an idea it is for Rupert Murdoch to be in control of a major force of financial reporting in America.
It looks like there’s finally some sense coming to the world of User Generated Video Content.
Online video site Grouper, that Sony bought last year for $65m, has bid farewell to trying to compete with the YouTube’s of this world.
Grouper has changed its name to Crackle and also change the type of content it will be making available to punters.
Continue reading Crackle: Sony’s New Content Move After Grouper
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.
I don’t what the people driving the European wing of Sony think that they’re up to, but they appear, of late, to be perfecting the art of making the wrong decision.
We learnt last week that Sony will be dropping the price of Playstation 3 in the the US by $100, but will not be offering a reduction in the UK or Europe.
Do they think that no-one in the UK reads the International press? Do they not realise that UK gamers already feel insulted by their action on the PS3?
Continue reading PS3 Price Drops, Or Not: Sony Lose The (Gaming) Plot
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.
Continue reading BBC Trust To Listen On iPlayer Going Open Source
Writing about the announcement of the new PSP brought the following little ditty to mind – one we’ve been meaning to write for a while.
You may be thinking that the Sony PSP hasn’t been the hit that it might have been, because in and around Europe you don’t see many on the street.
It’s easy to lull yourself into a false state of knowledge when you’re in a major capital, leading you to think that the behaviours that you see around the street are representative of the world as a whole.
This was clearly show in our recent visit to Beijing, where PSP usage told a distinctly different story. There were tons of the things knocking around, primarily on the Beijing Underground.
Used mostly by the under 30s, but not limited to males, we often saw people playing games on them during the crushed morning rush hour (and it was a serious crush). The other frequent use was using them to catch up on TV or film programming.
Alongside the genuine PSPs, we also spied quite a few copy PSPs having a similar form factor, but a rougher, less-engineered finish.