Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

Blame it on July 7th?

Canary wharf in the fog

Saturday night after my friends party, I decided to popup to the Isle of dogs, where Canary Wharf and the other tall buildings of the docklands sit. I had my digital camera with me and decided it would be a great night to take some pictures of the warm but slightly cloudy night. The low bearing clouds have a interesting effect on the lights of tall buildings. So I was scooting around the complex taking pictures when about 40mins in, a dressed up security guard told me to stop shooting under some made up July 7 law. I instantly questioned this made up law and he was kind of thrown off guard with my questioning, so changed his tone and said I needed a permit to take pictures around there. Yep well it seems the July 7th attacks has the other Canary Wharf security so worried that they let me drive up and take pictures in the middle of a road and park my bike next to the security office. Seriously after talking to this jumped up security guard, I drove off to get a permit at 3am just to spite him. When I arrived at the security office, the managing security guard told me the dressed up security guard only controls one of the smaller buildings and I was allowed to take pictures of any of the buildings as long as I dont take pictures of the entrances and exits.
So the facts of the matter was this jumped and dressed up security guard got touchy that I took pictures of his building next to the DLR station and made up some crappy story to stop me from taking pictures. Yeah well he was lucky I was too tired to go back and tell him where to stick his story. To be very fair to the rest of the security guards throughout the complex, they were pleased to help me take the pictures and were all very accommodating.
Its just a shame the pictures were not as good as they could have been…

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update – Socially sharing everything?

Ok I keep adding more to the previous blog entry, so heres an update.

I've been playing with Listal and BlinkList after the recent comments. There both pretty good, BlinkList is certainly a whole lot futher down the line than Listal or even Reader2 and Myprogs. But seems to be a straight replacement to del.icio.us, de.liri.ous, furl, etc. It lets you easily import thses too. I'm currently quite happy with del.icio.us and am thinking waiting till Yahoo's My Web 2 and other bookmarking services show something different they can do.

Listal is a little scatty because it can do so (maybe too) much? Flickr works because its all about photos, del.icio.us works because its about bookmarking resources online. Listal does Bookmarking, movies, books, music, etc. Its useful to have the ability to create a list about anything but you loose the fundmental social aspect of a social tool. Reader2 works because every resource must have a ISBN and del.icio.us because every resource has a URL. Listal has so many different types of resources to work around I cant see how it would be possible to keep track of them all. Its easier to match people together based on one common resource. I also dont get the artificial barriers it throws in. Talk about driving the complexity up! Why is there a difference between Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs? I assume because the database pull is different, but why display that to the user? Anyhow, I dont want to seem too harsh in my comments, as I've only played with it for a few hours.

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Ajax powered BBC News RSS Reader

Nigal Crawley is looking for feedback on his BBC backstage prototype. Its a web client which will pull a RSS feed and display it as a neat little ticker type box. Just the kinda of thing our partners would love to see intergrated into there sites. I dropped Nigal a quick email asking if he's considered building a Widget out of it and if it would support multiple encodings and right to left languages like Persian and Arabic?

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Socially sharing everything?

Just recently I've been checking out the social bookmarking/media web. The first major addition is YouTube.com which is everything Flickr is but based around video clips. It supports a set of Web APIs, RSS feeds and many social possiblities. Uploading video is a pain and enter metadata for clips is somewhat a pain compared to Flickr, you must fill in at least 3 pieces of meta (title, description and a set of tags). I got a feeling that Youtube wont be popular till video capturing is popular on mobile phones and digital cameras. Flickr was well timed for this expansion. As usual you can check out my public page here.

The other 2 Social networks I've been dabling with is myprogs, del.icio.us for software and reader2, del.icio.us for books. Both written by Dima Kuchin from Israel and coming to the UK really soon it would seem.
Like Youtube, they falls into the trap of entering metadata. Reader2 does have a google and amazon lookup, but its not great. I would expect once you have the ISBN of the book, all I would need to do is enter my tags. However, the copy item feature is good if a little fussy to use. It would be really great if Reader2 supported Amazon Wishlist and Myprogs could read your start menu or something via a downloadable application?
I'm kinda of looking forward to a movie version of these social bookmarking, which will save me building a personal store using cocoon or some other open source tool. I thought about using imdb to do this, but I still do not see any web api or even rss feeds for getting my data in and out. Unlike Youtube none of these services have public web apis but theres enough RSS feeds and I'm sure it will come over time. Just like how I hope Digg gets its act together, I'm not going to visit the website everytime I want to digg a story forever.

While I'm talking about social software. Has anyone noticed how Clusters or Bundles are starting to emerge out of the collaborative tagging. So for a good example, here is a search for social on Flickr. On the left hand side you will see a link to the Social clusters. Heres a Nature cluster, City, Phone and even the xbox. Interesting and popular is also becoming well used cluster types.

Following on from the comment by Tim at LibraryThing.com
I have started looking at LibraryThing and comparing it with reader2. My first thoughts, is that its not as sweet looking but thats not a big problem because it actually has lots of ability to customise it. I just wish they would adopt a tableless design like reader2.
On the plus side, theres already the ability to import data from del.icio.us and export data as csv. I expect XML output wouldnt be out of the question but worst comes to worst, I could get Cocoon to transform it to some xml format. I also have to give Tim a thumbs up for pluging into the Library of Congress and building a much better book adding system. It also supports tags with commas instead of spaces which seems to be consistent with where every other tagging system are heading. Reader2 doesnt but has much more fluid interface (Ajaxy) for entering tags and other metadata.
Like Reader2, there is no WebAPI but worst still there no RSS feeds which I can find. This is deeply off putting and has stopped me adding more content for now. So generally I think LibraryThing is good if your a serious book collector (the revenue model seems to match this too) but for myself the lack of basic RSS feeds is off putting simply because I cant extract my own content out easily.
If your interested in checking it out, heres my profile and heres my books.

My mistake Reader2 does support a slight export via javascript as well as RSS. I swear this was not available yesterday. Quite amazing to see the other language versions poping up now.

If you want support for your language, mail me and I'll arrange it.
Russian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Chinese languages are already supported.

I would like to ask Dima Kuchin why he choose to do this. Wikipedia takes this approch too, but Flickr, del.icio.us and other just let people from all countries get on with it. Maybe with time there will be a way to aggregate tags from other languages together but I expect this will some time…

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The boiler room battle of the highstreet retailers

Boiler room

This is a aledged memo to Best Buy staff. Best buy is like PC World in the UK but much cheaper. Even if its not quite real (I certainly think it is) its not uncommon in retail. I remember working at Starbucks, Showcase Cinemas and a few other retailers and having very simular type advice from managers and head office memos. A little while ago Best Buy also got into trouble recently for this and this last year.
Enjoy the “secret to screw you” memo, the boiler room style. Don't forget to check out the comments too.

1) Introduce the PSP (product service plan) in your presentation. Do not wait till the end.

Ex.
Sales Associate: I understand your daughter is going off to college, and while she'll be away we offer a protection plan that will cover anything that goes wrong with her computer/laptop.
Customer: No, I'm not interested

SA: Well it's something that you really should look into. Because if anything were ever to go wrong with your daughters computer she would have to take it in to be repaired. To give you an estimate, we charged $60/hr to decide what is wrong with it and $80/hr to fix it not including additional parts that may be needed.

C: I really don't need that, doesn't the computer come with a warranty.

S: Well that's a good question. This computer comes with a 6 month warranty but does not cover parts. Know here is a side by side comparison of what we cover and what the manufacturer covers.( hand customer comparison sheet and fill it out in front of him/her).

C: Ok, but I'm really not interested I just want the computer.

S: Are you sure, because you are really passing up a great deal here, if something ever happens while your daughter is away she could have no computer for up to a month.

C:No, I'm sure.

*1*At this time make sure to sell at least 3 accessories and if it is a laptop make sure to offer a bundle deal and a Platinum PSP**

*2*Once you have successfully added at least 3 accessories to the sale take the customer to a mobile register away from the floor traffic.**

*3*Since you Have been unsuccessful selling the Service Plan, Have another associate go with you to “help you” ring up the sale.**

*4*The other associate will help you tag team the customer. The other associates job at this point is to point out how amazing the computer is and what a great deal it is. Once you scan the computer/laptop the Kiosk will ask you if the customer wants the Service Plan. The accompanying sales associate will say, “hey did 'Joe' tell you about the Service Plan that covers anything that may go wrong with your computer…?**

*5* If your accompanying associate is unable to get the Service Plan then you must say, “I'm sorry I'm new here and there seems to be something wrong with my kiosk, I'll be right back with my supervisor and he will be able to fix it.”**

*6* You return with your Supervisor, and now You, the accompanying associate and your supervisor Tag Team the Customer Once again until the Service Plan is accepted by the Customer.**

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More Xbox 360 information for non gamers

Xbox 360

The xbox 360 has really earned the category of Home entertainment. If you start looking at the facts contained within hype within this article from GamesIndustry.biz. Take for example, The console can be switched on and off wirelessly using the Media Remote control or the wireless game controller. The xbox didnt have this feature and made it difficult to be used like a ce (consumer equipment) type device. Sarah has a 6 in 1 remote with macro support, so shes able to turn on and off all our home cinema/entertainment equipment without shifting off the sofa. But the xbox still needs to be manually turned on by the small switch on the front of the machine.
So the xbox 360 rewrites that mistake and adds its self to the CE group, just what Microsoft has been planning for a long time. It also seems Microsoft have decided to pump up the stakes when it comes to securing the Xbox platform and content. I remember the xbox was meant to be a test for the Trusted computing platform. Uncrackable security system is what they claim, well I predict it to be hacked before March 2006. Uncrackable my ass! When are they going to learn, there is no such thing – its more a matter of time.

Back to Home entertainment and the xbox360, some things which will make home cinema fans smile.

On the issue of cooling – Satchell said he thought the system had three fans (he said he wasn't sure but thought it was three, so we'd open to correction on that one), and we couldn't hear them at all as he spoke. When you play a DVD, it powers down to just one fan.

One word, thank goodness! I've got my xbox behind a glass case because the fan makes such a noise.

DVDs can be played even if you don't have the remote control, unlike Xbox 1.

Yeah well its about time, I do wonder how there going to do region coding now.

DVDs will play back in progressive-scan, with the Xbox 360 up-sampling to prog-scan in the case of DVDs that don't support it.

Great except….

RGB video output will only be possible if you purchase the GBP 17.99 cable separately – regardless of whether you paid GBP 209.99 or GBP 279.99 for your Xbox 360 console.

Well, well, a extra £20 for a machine which only supports HiDef output? What cable comes with the machine? a non RGB scart?

iPods are detected by default, as are PSPs, and by our watch it took about 2 or 3 seconds for the Xbox 360 to notice they were there. With an iPod plugged in you can play music direct through the Dashboard software, with visualisations, or you can play a slideshow of photographs.

You can also plug in a laptop or PC (or not plug it in – if you're using wireless networking) and play content direct from that. This is through Windows Media Player Extender, the software for which is pre-installed on the Xbox 360. In our example, Satchell first streamed a high-definition Project Gotham Racing 3 trailer, and then drew upon a high-definition recording of Star Wars: Episode II apparently captured on his home TV.

We shall see how good this feature is compared to the abilities of Xbox media centre. I guess with the ipod and psp support, xbox 360 must support firewire, usb and network connections like smb.

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Some problems I would love could be solved

A couple of things which I keep running through my mind, which I think is best shared.

  • The problem of moving RSS feeds, or The saga of RSS (dis)continuity as Jon Udell calls it. Its a much bigger issue than simply using Server redirects. For example the BBC WorldService sites have upwards of 100 RSS feeds and there will be more. Then imagine your on a shared host, how would you setup server redirects? No, no there needs to be a much better solution?
  • International single short code SMS codes, is there such a thing? If your a radio programme talking to the world, how do you inform your listeners of how to text in? It would be a nightmare to read out multiple text numbers and is it even possible to text a UK short code number from another country? Hey and even if it is, how much would it cost the audience member? Email still seems to be the best option but not all mobile phones fully support it. So what's the solution?
  • Convincing software makers that there previous versions should be given away (with no support) or made open source (community supported). At least Propellerhead Software knows how to do things correctly. Propellerhead Software, makers of Reason, have discontinued development of their Rebirth synthesizer simulator software. It is now downloadable for free.

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Visual mixing with creative archive footage?

BBC Radio 1's Superstar VJs

So finally the BBC has launched its first lot of creative archive licenced material. There will be some kind of major vj competition to follow. I think this is all good stuff, except a couple of things.
1. UK only? this is a real shame for the billions who happen to live outside of the UK.
2. No P2P downloads of the files. I thought there would be somewhere on the site where you could download everything in one go. But nope it looks like a click and browser type of affair. I did look around to see if anyone had hosted a torrent for this, but I cant find one. Its tempting to do so myself and try and restrict or at least inform the downloaders of the licence rights. I'm sure under the creative archive licence I would be in my rights to do so? And wasnt this the point of a creative commons type licence? I would be interested to hear if the BBC are using Geo-ip type blocking for downloads or relying on the licence conditions. Found out there using Geo-IP

I know Bit Torrent has a bad rep when it comes to most mainstream businesses. But the simple fact is that it works. You can distribute large files around the net without hammering one server farm. I even believe its possible to tell the Bit torrent tracker to use Geo-ip type systems when deciding who should and shouldnt beable to download the files.

Till number 2, the distribition of the files are handled differently, superstar vjs is going to require alot of clicking and browsing. So close, but so far…

Update – It would be more than my jobs worth to recommend using a Proxy to bypass the Geo-IP system. I also would not link to such proxy servers in the same post. But we all know once its online, location makes no difference. Just making downloading difficult is not ideal when thinking about the audience. But if it serves the purpose of convincing the lawyer, that a certain percentage of the rest of the world wont download the UK only content. Well theres no more to say.

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What is flock?

Flock - coming to the party?

Ok Flock isnt the web based aggregator which I still use now and there. Were talking about some invite only social browser which makes use of Web 2.0 values. The current website doesnt say much about Flock. A friend of the developers, Roland Tanglao has a more revealing entry on his blog titled: Flock rocks (or Chris Messina is a demo god)! But theres still not enough. Has anyone else got anything more on Flock?

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The WebOS…

Jason Kottke has an amazing read about the emergence of the web operating system. I've noticed over a very short time, people habits changing (even my own) most of my day is spent in some web/net connected applications like firefox, widgets, rss readers. I hardly ever need most of the apps on my computer day in day out. He also confirms quite a few thoughts I've had about the future of the web in regards to operating systems and the net. So some thoughts while reading Jason's post…

Google. If Google is not thinking in terms of the above, I will eat danah's furriest hat. They've already shifted the focus of Google Desktop with the addition of Sidebar and changing the name of the application (it used to be called Google Desktop Search…and the tagline changed from “Search your own computer” to the more general “Info when you want it, right on your desktop”). To do it properly, I think they need their own browser (with bundled Web server, of course) and they need to start writing their applications to work on OS X and Linux (Google is still a Windows company)[4]. Many of the moves they've made in the last two years have been to outflank Microsoft, and if they don't use Google Desktop's “insert local code into remote sites” trick to make whatever OS comes with people's computers increasingly irrelevant, they're stupid, stupid, stupid. Baby step: make Gmail readable offline.

In agreement, Gmail with offline support via google desktop would be a good move forward.

Yahoo. I'm pretty sure Yahoo is thinking in these terms as well. That's why they bought Konfabulator: desktop presence. And Yahoo has tons of content and apps that that would like to offer on a WebOS-like platform: mail, IM, news, Yahoo360, etc. Challenge for Yahoo: widgets aren't enough…many of these applications are going to need to run in Web browsers. Advantages: Yahoo seems to be more aggressive in opening up APIs than Google…chances are if Yahoo develops a WebOS platform, we'll all get to play.

Hard to admit, but Yahoo are seriously getting this and have over took google in the innovation field. Yes Google still have the upper hand, but I'm not certain that will be the case if Yahoo do buy Technorati or launch there killer. I'm also thinking Yahoo and Mozilla could partner if Jason is right about Widgets not being enough.

Microsoft. They're going to build a WebOS right into their operating system…it's likely that with Vista, you sometimes won't be able to tell when you're using desktop applications or when you're at msn.com. They'll never develop anything for OS X or for Linux (or for browsers other than IE), so its impact will be limited. (Well, limited to most of the personal computers in the world, but still.)

I'm still trying to get my head around a operating system which is so web enabled. I'm assuming RSS will allow Vista to by pass the web on the desktop type crap. Hopefully Microsoft have got there thinking hats fully on because they will miss the trick if they let Yahoo and Google develop a web OS on top of Vista.

Apple. Apple has all the makings of a WebOS system right now. They've got the browser, a Web server that's installed on every machine with OS X, Dashboard, iTMS, .Mac, Spotlight, etc. All they're missing is the applications (aside from the Dashboard widgets). But like Microsoft, it's unlikely that they'll write anything for Windows or Linux, although if OS X is going to run on cheapo Intel boxes, their market share may be heading in a positive direction soon.

I think Apple get it but there hardware/software dependancy is a problem which could really slow them down. I expect we shall see what happens with the whole Apple on Intel deal.

The Mozilla Foundation. This is the most unlikely option, but also the most interesting one. If Mozilla could leverage the rapidly increasing user base of Firefox and start bundling a small Web server with it, then you've got the beginnings of a WebOS that's open source and for which anyone, including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and anyone with JavaScript chops, could write applications. To market it, they could refer to the whole shebang as a new kind of Web browser, something that sets it apart from IE, a true “next generation” browser capable of running applications no matter where you are or what computer (or portable device) you're using

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See I think Jason has it a little wrong here. Mozilla has built a lot of community mind share into there web OS products. More so that the others in some respects. Also about the small web server, Greasemonkey anyone? XUL runner is also the foot in the door of widget type fuctionality and they certainly have the full support of the community behind them. How many extensions are there now for Firefox, anyone? Jason also made reference to the lack of rich UI support in web OS. Well Mozilla's got the open standards message and is using SVG, XBL and other standards going on. My bets are on Mozilla and Yahoo for sure.

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