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

BBC’s DIRAC codecs

Matt web and tom coats seem to be doing a lot of interesting things in
bbc radio and
music. But I heard about bbc's open source
sourceforge project called DIRAC through this weeks NTK.net. Its basically a experimental video
codec like ogg theora. It supports resolutions
from quarter cif to 1080 hdtv progressive or interlaced.
Oddly it also uses wavelets and motion compensation as well the patent
tricky area of Arithmetic coding.
Anyway i'm going to try it out and if its good, i'm thinking we could
use it for the copyright vs community
lectures. But I douht its ready for
such use, saying that we could get some support from the bbc if I ask
really nicely? maybe? Worth a email I would say, wouldn't you?

I am hoping to push some of this type of innovation into the world
service. Theres already an opportunity to do some work on blogging for
43 different languages. Hence why i'm watching blojsom's
Internationalization. Thinking of bringing some of the work with HP's
semantic blogger to the world service. I mean blojsom is that flexible.
Only problem is were using mainly perl and cgi on the backend with
server side includes at the final stage. Don’t think this much of a
secret because everyone can see bbc.co.uk uses *.shtml. Anyway blojsom
with a bit of xsl 1.1 or even 1.0 could create static pages if needed.
More about xsl 1.1 soon I think.

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Programme guides all around

Been thinking about electronic/internet programme guides once again.

Someone in digital home asked the question about which Freeview PVR box to get. They recommended the fusion digital FRVT-100 over everything else. Including the Humax and Pace. Now I never heard of it but I'm wondering why they prefer it to the others? Is it only because it has its own propitery 7day EPG. While the others only have the now and next feature, hardly EPG contendars. But what will happen when the BBC do there 7 day EPG in summer/winter? Hummm?

Anyway while away I also saw a url in a magazine for tvtv.co.uk which seems more useable than anything else I've seen recently. Then that got me thinking why dont i create a xsl to transform there listings into xmltv? Then I started thinking wheres the tv_grab_uk? blah blah hit richards blog, interesting read might actually subscribe the rss. But I really want a xsl version of that… Cocoon's pipelines could easily handle it.
I'm going to scream… maybe annanova should give up the source files, so someone at the bbc can provide the same for the radio times, cause the current setup of the radio times is terrable…give me a break

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Clogging up the web with RSS

Wired are running a feature about RSS readers clogging up the web.
This kind of ties to my cutting rss short.

TeledyN's Murphy runs one of the most popular open-source Linux sites (which he started in 1994). He was one of the first to offer an RSS feed in 1999 when Netscape introduced the format. By late last year, Murphy's website would run out of bandwidth by 8 p.m.

Murphy's problems arose because he, like many bloggers, included most of his site's front page, including graphics, in the RSS feed, allowing users to read his entries in whole without visiting his website.

In contrast, most news sites, including Wired News, want to bring readers to their websites, so they serve up only a headline or a couple of sentences along with a link to the full story.

I think the feature is valid but blog software should include something like the conditional get helps with the badly written rss readers.

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Social Computing Symposium

Lunch time at the BBC and I'm still buzzing thinking about the possible outcomes of the moblogging plug-in in Blojsom 2.14. I posted a comment on blojsom blog about the ability to now blog anywhere there is a net connection, which for me is anywhere. Even abroad because I've got international GPRS roaming.

Anyway one of the things which happened when I started the plug-in was, Blojsom picked out a email which happened to be one I sent to myself in a BBC. I meant to keep it as a copy and the blog picked it up. Now think about it one second, a blog which picks up things you want to keep? (I keep forgetting email is the leader in social technology by the way) And imagine if you could do the same for instant messager too?
A blog which stores useful things through out the day without actually having to send a post? Nice, maybe not on my main blog but for example on the bookmarks blog will be useful. If you could add metadata too we would be very cool.

I've also been thinking about what happens when Blojsom can respond back to you? Its one of those things I wanted in blojsim for a while. I know Blojsom can send email but I've disabled it and I don’t really know why its there. Anyway, I'm thinking out loud…

Been watching Social Computing Symposium. And thinking about social networking and its software, social technologies like email, text, im, blogs, wikis, etc. E invite sounds interesting never come across it before. Would you call blogs and wikis lightweight authoring?
Interesting enough, the BBC try and encourage people to use im to communicate through-out the buildings. Unfortually there using Microsoft MSN messager so no interoperability with Ravensbournes Jabber server will be available in short term.

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Free Culture almost finished

So yes, I've almost completed Free Culture. (300 pages out of 352). My Palmtop Tagged version is up for all to grab if you want to read it on the go. I've been limiting myself to reading it only on the way to work and from work. Get some very funny looks from London commuters on the Train to Cannon Street from Elmers End. Wont tell you what time I leave for work however.

Anyway I was reading on owrede's log that there is now a wiki for people who want to remix the text while reading. Nice idea and I was thinking aloud with Dave about it yesterday. Was thinking about a Wiki based editor for async devices like palmtops and smartphones. So you can read it and edit it then upload the changes while your online. Kind of like a checking in checking out CVS or Webdav model. Only this time for ebooks?

Anyway getting all wound up ready for the copyright vs community lecture now. Reading lots and getting dave to do bits in college while I'm away as such. Need to watch Lawrence Lessig on the screen savers and I see he's also in London on the 27th may at the lift 2004 event. What ever happened to accessable sites? Thank god Lawrence put some detail down in his post

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Long time no see, at the bbc…

In blogging terms I havent blogged for ages…
Dont worry I got lots to blog, just been busy working on the copyright vs community lectures, been away on the BBC's upfront training and development programme which included a stay in the Hilton metropole without web access. Not please about that. I've also been studying for my motorbike theory test, which I'm pleased to say I passed 34/35. Know exactly which answer I got wrong too. Umm and on top of all that I'm a little nervious about talking too much about the BBC because I dont want to end up like a others I know plus I'm not sure if it counts as a conflict of interest. Saying that tom coats seem to get away with it ok. Maybe I'm being too paranoid about it?
Anyway blogs to come soon…

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