Category: Geographic

Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?

Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?We’re all aware that the BBC is planning to make their iPlayer compatible with Macs … and we even know that now that the BBC Trust has committed to make it work with Linux (shock horror).

Well if you’re like most of the tech population, you might be scratching your heads, wondering how the bleep they’re going to be doing it – given that the whole system relies on Microsoft technology to deliver any of it, and in particular the DRM. Especially as, to date Microsoft has steadfastly refused to deliver a media player for the Mac that has DRM built in.
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BBC Trust Statement On iPlayer OSC Meeting: Bit Woolly

BBC Trust Statement On iPlayer OSC Meeting

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.
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BBC Trust: iPlayer On Linux And Mac A Must

BBC Trust Want iPlayer Mac And Linux Support: OSCThe 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.

(The BBC Trust has now issued a statement.)

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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Ben Lavender, iPlayer Inventor Leaving BBC Today

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.
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Twofour Get Parliament Webcasting Deal

Twofour Get Parliament Webcasting DealTrebles all round at Twofour Digital as they announce the winning of the three year contract to produce and host the webcasts of all proceedings from the House of Commons and House of Lords, made available through the Parliament Web site.

The webcasts include live coverage of all UK parliamentary proceedings and Select, Public Bill and General Committees as well as selected archive footage.

We imagine this is in no small way due to Phil Haggar now being within the Twofour fold, them having bought his Makeni Webcasting production company back in April this year.

What’s the relevance? We first met the very competent Mr Haggar when he ran Westminster Digital way back in 1999 – whose business backbone was … Webcasting Parliament.

It appears that Twofour’s ambitions don’t stop there, besides growing through acquisitions of companies, it’s also working for the European Parliament to design and deliver a ground breaking webTV channel broadcasting scheduled content in 20+ languages.

Twofour Digital

iPhones Take Out WiFi Network

iPhones Take Out WiFi NetworkiPhone’s appear to be taking out chunks of the wireless network at Duke University in the US.

We won’t get all technical on you by delving in to the tech-laden reasons as to why it _might_ be happening – they still don’t know how it is happening for sure – but the upshot of it is they think the iPhones are generating up to 18,000 requests per second.

Barrages like this are crippling the WLAN kit, as it tries to deal with and make sense of each of them.

Duke have been in touch with Apple about the problem, but so far the communication with Apple has been “one-way.”

Given the number of tech mad loonies that have bought iPhones in the US, it is a little strange that no other sites have recorded the same problem.

For the details on the story, trot over to Network World

Dow Jones Board Votes Yes: Murdoch One Step Closer To Ownership

Dow Jones Board Votes Yes: Murdoch One Step Closer To OwnershipWe 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.

AWOMO, Virgin Games Company To Float For $1Bn?

AWOMO, Virgin Games Company To Float For $1Bn?We nearly fell off our chairs when we saw the Independent reporting that Virgin-backed games company, A World Of My Own (AWOMO) were hoping to list for $1Bn in London and Frankfurt.

The Big Idea is that people will use the 3D world of AWOMO to download their games.
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Ofcom: Cut Mobile Number Transfers To 2 Days

Ofcom: Cut Mobile Number Transfers To 2 DaysOfcom has floated a proposal to simplify the process of moving your mobile phone number to another provider and cutting the transfer time to within two hours, a stark contrast to the five days it takes now.

With the two hour goal just over two years away, Ofcom has ruled that the mobile industry must reduce the time taken to a getting-close-to-reasonable two working days, starting on 1 April 2008 (why do UK organisations persist in using 1 April? It’s so open for abuse if problems arise).
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