The BBC is making its first steps into the super-crisp world of high definition television (HDTV) with transmissions of Planet Earth and Bleak House in the new format at the end of this month.
The transmissions – the first free-to-air HDTV shows in the UK – will be available to satellite and cable viewers armed with an HD-ready television set and a decoder (or set top box).
Cable company Telewest are already screening hi-def BBC shows, but things should heat up in the summer when Auntie Beeb starts to tempt sports fans with HDTV transmissions from this summer’s football World Cup and Wimbledon championships.
HD TV broadcasts can also beef up the whole big match experience by incorporating 5.1 surround sound and displaying the (Rooney-less) stadium action in widescreen.
The BBC will limber up its HD programming by broadcasting a promotional preview for users of Sky’s electronic programme guide on 11 May, with Bleak House and part one of Planet Earth following on 27th and 29th May.
“These are small but exciting first steps in the BBC’s ambition to offer the option of high definition to all in the future,” said Jana Bennett, BBC director of television.
“We really feel that high definition will be the standard definition of the future,” she added.
Although high definition broadcasts contain four to five times as much picture information than a standard television signal, BBC research has found that you’ll need a giant sized screen (28 inches/69cm and up) to really notice the difference – so there’s not much to be gained by watching it on your dinky portable TV.
There had been some excitement, well amongst UK media analysts at least, that BSkyB might loose its dominance of the control of UK football’s Premier League. 
Finally the other company, Irish broadcaster Setanta, had thrown its hat into the ring, originally saying they were going to bid for two of the packages. Those not in the broadcast world wouldn’t necessarily know who Setanta are, but most people will know of their 40% owners, Benchmark Capital. 
This weekend marks the start of Vodafone UK offering live coverage of international cricket and the Football League Playoffs from Sky Sports to their 3G customers. 
Bizarrely, Sky specify that the content is for Personal use only. Errr … it’s on a mobile phone Sky. It’s not like you’re going to get the throngs in the pub crowding around watching it on a tiny screen. That is until someone comes up with a huge magnifying glass that the phone sits behind. 
OpenStreetMap, an organisation that is using consumer technology to create copyright-free maps, is meeting this weekend (5-7 May) on the Isle of Wight – to map the whole Island and give the data away under a Creative Commons license. 
Once the GPS data is combined with notes of road names taken via audio recordings or even notebooks (shock horror), accurate mapping data will be put into the OpenStreetMap system for all to share. Quite different to the huge cost that the Ordnance Survey (OS) is asking for similar data. 
If you’re not submerged in this world, it may surprise you to find out that the United States actually gives its mapping data away for free. So through agents like Navtec, and Teleatlas, it ends up on applications like Yahoo & Google maps. Innovation like that isn’t possible in the UK as it falls at the first hurdle – that of huge expense. 
Organisation like the OS who do not let their data free will be be left clutching hold of something whose value has been severely diminished, if not zero’d. 
Broadband giants Telewest have had to bend over and feel the sharp swish of the Advertising Standards Agency’s corrective ruler on their ample rumps after their broadband radio advert was deemed ‘misleading.’ 
A Telewest customer – clearly already living in a Telewest area – liked the sound of the deal so much they rang up to sign on, only to find that they were clearly in the wrong sort of ‘Telewest area.’ 
The ASA concluded, “We considered this important restriction should have been explained in the ad and that “Conditions apply” had not been adequate to cover such a significant condition to the offer. The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) Radio Advertising Standards Code section 2, rule 3.” 
The Cloud has announced plans to roll out a new flat-fee Wi-Fi tariff in the summer, slashing the current high cost of accessing the Internet on the move. 
The extra freedom of the ‘pay as you go’ version comes with a sting though, with your twelve quid giving you just a week’s unlimited access. 
The Cloud’s chief executive George Polk said that his company has been working their Internet-enabled socks off to “make the Wi-Fi mobility world real” (whatever that means). 
Channel 4 is offering a UK online exclusive of the entire first series of the cult hit show, Lost. 
You’ll have to be quick to watch the new series online though, as episodes one and two will only be free to view for two weeks (until May 11th 2006.) 
Obsessive fans hoping to work out the dark complexities of the series by analysing each show in infinite detail will be disappointed to learn that it’s only possible to watch episodes for a 24 hour period on a single PC before the pesky thing goes into auto-destruct, 
Lost video is only available to UK users using Windows Media Player 10 or above.
The “Old Media” is still struggling with the idea of the Internet – and discovering that embarrassing mistakes can’t be swept under the carpet. On the Internet, insults are permanent, the Guardian has discovered. 
Read the story as it is today on the Guardian web site; you’ll see that Burgess is quite right to point out that the book in question was, as the cannibal admits, “The Vagina Monologues.” 
No insult, obviously, was intended to the eminent writer, Steyn. But it looks like some people have got cold feet. Today’s London Evening Standard, early editions, reported that the Guardian had not covered itself with glory: “Great copytaking of our time,” it crowed in its Wednesday Media section; “Yesterday’s Guardian included the correction…” and quoted the correction, as given above, in full. 
It’s with absolutely no surprise that news reaches us that the number of text (SMS) messages has reached a record high.