Month: October 2007

Google Announces the OpenSocial API

Diagrams of how it works

Google has announced OpenSocial, a new open API for social networks. The new standard will allow developers to create Facebook-like apps on any social network site that implements it with the same calls.

The open API will have three parts

  • People
  • Storage
  • Activity stream

All of these calls will have a GData counterpart and they will use HTML and Javascript only. Google is considering adding OAuth (Radar post) to the API.

This is huge because finally we're starting to see a common standard being build into different social networks. There are some caveats however like no support for Facebook or Myspace. But good to see Plaxo and Linkedin involved in this API project. I told you Google were up to something…

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Ashley Highfield on iPlayer, DRM and Crossplatform Support

From the Backstage Blog, a frank discussion about DRM and Cross-platform support. It all started when I asked Ashley a few questions recently about the iplayer strategy. Ashley answered the question with quite a bit of passion and Matthew Cashmore thought hey wouldn't it be a good idea to get some of that passion in a recording. He is the result which you can judge for yourselves…

The iPlayer, no don't do a runner, seriously, it's taken over the mailing list, dominated our discussions and is something that many members of the backstage community care an awful lot about. So do we. We all know the questions. Why don't we stand up to the rights holders? Why do we insist on using DRM? Why did we sign a secret deal in blood with Microsoft?

So we finally decided that these questions needed answers, and the only person to talk to was the boss. We present 26 minutes of questions and answers about iPlayer, DRM and cross platform support with Ashley Highfield, Director Future Media & Technology.

In this frank discussion we cover the DRM issues, explain that iPlayer isn't a Microsoft only party and ask why didn't we use a non propriety solution.

You can get the file directly from Blip.TV under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence in Mpeg3, Ogg Vorbis or AAC.

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A Vision of Students Today

In a follow up to the simply amazing The machine is using us. Professor Michael Wesch has started to tackle the subject of students university experience.

a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

Its the start of a larger project which we can all take part in.

Thanks Robin for the link to the one I almost missed

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Women in Games London Mixer video posted and more…

Women in Games mixer

Its been a really busy week and I've still not quite got around to blogging most of it but I did want to say (quickly) that the Videos for the Women in Games Mixer videos (part 1 and part 2) are now up on BlipTV. As usual unedited and under a creative commons licence, so you can edit the best bits if you like. Nothing to stimulating but interesting. Good work Thayer.

You can also find the boagworld 100th Live meetup video at the same place this time in 4 parts. Expect to hear audio from the Will Wright Lecture, some shouting about how Andrew 'amatuers are killing the industry' Keen got a frosty reception at the Arts Council and some writing about other games related events soon. Still I can't believe I missed Toshio demonstrating Electroplankton at ZeroOne, I would have paid to have been there. Anyway, don't forget today is the Geekdinner with the Wii and Thursday a Geekdinner with Stowe Boyd.

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Current state of Ubuntu switch over

Well to be honest it was going so well till I upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10. Now I can't put my laptop into standby/suspend or hibernate. This means I need to switch it off everytime I make a trip anywhere longer that a short walk. If I shut the lid, it locks up and I end up having to force the shutdown with the power button. I'm not the only one and there is an official bug been raised. George reckons I have 3 options… Live with it, downgrade or change kernal version. I prefer to keep 7.10 because I actually like some of the new features but hate not being able to suspend.

Another thing broke recently, Hamachi. It was working fine for ages then it broke. Problem is that it will launch as usual but hit the power button and I get a error saying could not log into Hamachi. Yes I have tried different Gui's and from the shell. Whats extra weird is my two other Ubuntu machines are running Hamachi without a problem now.

On the upside, Compiz graphics is seriously tuned now and you can really tweak the settings to your perfect taste now. Tomboy notes has webdav syncing now. I'm already thinking about syncing it with Exist DB (xmldb) which I'm going to run on my workstation in the near future. I have switched my windows home server over to Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS because I wanted something rock solid. And to be honest its a dual Pentium 3 with tons of hard drive space and memory, it doesn't need 7.x.I Put Webmin on it and everythings working including Hamachi, SSH, Cups (printer server) and Samba. I'm trying out Amanda for backup again, so if anyone from Amanda wouldl like to help out, just comment.

Bluetooth support in 7.10 has come along a lot but the Bluetooth support in KDE seems a lot stronger again. George showed me the lock and unlock feature I've always wanted for my laptop. Unfortually it doesn't seem to see my windows mobile phone, I think maybe because its looking just for phones while my spv comes up as a computer on other scans. Also explains why it can see my work Nokia N80 all the time. Virtual Box is setup and running Windows XP SP3. I tried to run Virtual Dj and it does work but if you put it under any pressure it gets very slow and syncronisation of music becomes a joke. So for my digital djing, I'm going to have to switch back to Windows with a reboot. I've not attempted to put Particls on it but it might work virtualised.

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A non-technical view on social software from a friend

I recently asked a friend about why they had joined Facebook as it tends to hate internet applications which collect data and involves some kind of social aspect.

well, to me all these manage-your-friends-online apps only have one purpose: advertising and adress collection. they are one of the reasons people receive f*cking penis enlargement spams and similar trash.

i believe in modern communicaton, face to face and i already hated the expressions facebook and ringo from day one. they describe that the people are incabable of communication although they have all the best means in our modern society. facebook – i collect my friends faces, the exterior apperance gains importance over real personality values, a quick glance instead of a serious conversation, that's what it symbolises.
the people are plain lazy and comfortable, that's all, i hardly receive any proper emails like the real letters i used to get, ususally short sms style messages like abbreviated postcards. hm, i find that sad ;(

i still receive and send a lot of snail mail and i love it!

Its weird because I only get snail mail with bills and official documents in it now, the rest is junk or miss-directed mail (I get a lot of this).

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TV worth watching?

Dexter

So I've been downloading lots of media recently, believe it or not but me and my flatmate are eating through 168 gigabytes of data a month! Before you all point the finger at me, my flatmate is on skype everyday for long periods of the day. Anyway it means nothing because thankfully moving to Free software network means I'm only using half of my allocated bandwidth a month (yes I do pay 30 pounds a month for this connection, but rightly so). Anyway theres some great media to download.

If your not watching Dexter season 2 then what are you doing? Spooks season 7 (i think) on UK TV is certainly better that 24 ever was. Its worth noting Dragon's Den is also back and has a slightly new look. Back to American TV, and I can't help but watch Ugly Betty season 2 and Prison Break season 3

which seems to jump the shark every episode now. On the upside Heroes season 2 is simply amazing and can not be missed. While jumping back to the UK again for the last time Billie Piper in a Secret Diary Of A Call Girl is strangely non-sexy and more funny that anything else. Still worth a watch, but certainly cheap TV. Its a shame the real hustle just finished but I'm sure Hustle season 5 will start up again, soon. Although they will need to get back the female from Dexter first. There's certainly enough to watch till Lost comes back.

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London Games Festival 2007

If your in London, the next few weeks is blocked solid with events and exhibitions for the London Games Festival. Just a quick scan down the schedule is enough to start marking down your calendar. What I love is the mix of Fringe and official events, there's stuff for everyone. From Parties like the GLAM Academy Party (Games, Life, and Media) to the Women in Games Mixer social. Looking at my own Calendar, there is something of interest every single day for the next 10 days, including next week Monday (29th Oct) a great event involving live large screen wii gaming from Geekdinner.co.uk, certainly one not be missed I would say (but I would say that). I think this video gives people the idea of what fun it can be…

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Beware don’t upgrade to Ubuntu 7.10 yet

So I stupidly upgraded from Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) to 7.10 (Gusty). Now I can't hibernate or suspend my laptop, so I have to power it off each time I want to go somewhere else. My Beryl effects I love have gone and been replaced with something. Thunderbird seems to fall over when starting up and RSSOWL beta 6 has stopped working now. Can I fix all of these soon? Maybe not, does anyone know how to downgrade back to 7.04?

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