I was listening to the engadget podcast (number 15 now, keep it up guys) and heard this rebroadcast called Epic. Anyone who follows the web closely should be pretty freaked by the possiblity of this Epic future happening. Nicely done by the way…
BBC backstage + Web 2.0 = BBC online 2.0?
At long last its ok to write my feelings about what is going on in the bbc recently. Well first up the context. The BBC is commited to public support, innovation and driving the need for digital takeup in the areas of Broadband (online), Digital Radio and Digital TV. Great, but what does that actually mean?
Well I wont explorer too deeply into the BBC response to the Graf report, but one of the many projects is one called BBC Backstage.
The BBC will support social innovation by encouraging users’ efforts to build sitesand projects that meet their needs and those of their communities. Where market impact considerations allow, BBC management will provide access to core infrastructure applications, like the postcoder database at the heart of iCan, which can in turn become the core of new social applications created by our users, for our users. This is exemplified through plans for Backstage, a public site for the BBC’s in-house development teams to share development plans with their peers and audiences. In a similar way to Google’s Labs test-site, this will be a place to demonstrate work in progress, share expertise and invite contributions and collaboration with expert users. The BBC will also be committed to using open standards that will enable users to find and repurpose BBC content in more flexible ways.
Yes think about it like Google labs and your almost on the right track. Unlike google labs, we may expose data which will relate to the people more than google. Things like Search, Postcodes, Weather, News, Listener data, Geography data, TV listings, etc, etc. The applications, services, etc which are built upon our data from the public will not be hosted on our servers. Not to say that BBC employee's wont try things out internally and expose them externally. But the emphases is on explosing the underline data through webservices or simple API's. Or we are asking in return is to keep it non-commercial, tell us about the service, application, etc and add some kind of attribution to the BBC and BBC backstage. Simple!
This goes deeper into the BBC that you may at first think. For example since I've been working for the BBC it has been very cagey about releasing information about planned projects. And of course understandably, no companys wants to see the latest plans taken and modified by others in the same industry. But you have to ask who are BBC's rivials? Specially in the online space, who? Any how google, flickr, yahoo, microsoft, etc all seem to manage to deliver enough content to know whats going on pass the press release but not critical plans. This almost transparency is what the BBC is starting to adopt now instead of just talking about it.
Really Simple Mobile Surfing
RSS is changing how people surf the Web — and it could bring the mobile Internet into the mainstream, too.
At long last someone is talking some sense. Carlo Longino lays it down straight in his post titled Really Simple Mobile Surfing. RSS is simply great for mobile devices and the only problem now is developing rss readers which make the process of subscribing and updating easy and painless. For now I'm sticking with reading RSS on my PocketPC but I do have a RSS reader on my Smartphone too.
Found a nice link when checking out the story about AOL working on a mobile RSS reader. RSS2WAP which might be a good option for those without Java, Symbian or the compact dot net framework? But it gets better…
After many times talking about how the mobile phone is ideal for podcasting and listening to music. I'm to hear the following in the same entry.
Things don't have to be limited to just text, either — RSS already supports images, and other enclosures, like audio and video, currently giving rise to the podcasting phenomenon. RSS could deliver video content across 3G networks, and even on slower ones by pre-loading content in the background or during off hours.
Bang right on the money! A viable business model for the mobile providers, but acceptably open for the grassroots, opensource, public to get a shout in? I'm happy, I dont see why AOL getting in first has anything to do with this?
Lisa sent me a while ago a link about 24 on 3G mobile devices. And I was thinking, this is novel but I'm not totally convinced. Now Podcasting it the mobile device instead of streaming would not make much sense to a mobile provider but it makes tons of sense to the rest of us.
Xbmc 1.1 cold feature freeze is over
The feature freeze looks to be over for the xbox media centre team. Recently there seems to lots of changes around the core featues of plaing media.
First up, Apple QuickTime.com Browser is now Fixed using a version 4 python script. For those who are unsure of what this is, please check out the screen shot which should make some sense of my futher descrption. Using AQT Browser, it is possible to browse Apple's http://www.quicktime.com movie trailer site and stream the trailer straight to the xbox. Its simple and very effective for watching the latest trailes. In the future, I'm sure other sites like http://www.ifilm.com will also be treated to the same type of browsing method.
I made the choice along time ago to replace evoX which is the default mod dashboard with xbmc its self, and its doing a very good job. I only have to turn the xbox on and I know I can hit my browser to play music without turning on the TV. But there are things which need to be changed. The filemanager is one of those things. In xbmc 1.0 and betas, it was ok. But if you wanted to really copy something to HD quickly, you were always better off using another application as the button control in xbmc was awarked at best. Now things have improved, xbmc users will see the screenshot and know exactly what I mean.
The most exciting feature for me is the new and improved Xlink client which was always a poor relation to the full client on a pc. Now you can do so much more…
Amongst many new features, it has a voice chat function (using Team-Avalaunch's port of SPEEX). Players can use voice chat within XBMC to communicate directly or chat in “groups” with other players on XBOX's and PCs that also support XLink Kai.
Auto-Play from harddrive, Kai Toast notifications, My Avatar, network status dialogs, plus a number of bug-fixes.
XBMC now supports private arenas, creating arenas, avatars, invites and lots of other KaiUI features. XBMC is also your friend if you intend to use a Linux-router like the WRT54G to run your Kai Engine – you could get a really nice setup, with XBMC and kaid – so no computer would be needed
Other things to mention on this sleepless night. Theres a super sweet skin from http://www.critikill.net which produced the orginal project mayhem skin. But honestly version 2 of the skin is slick. Theres a really nice skin and general shake up in the webfront end gui. Its now using CSS instead of insane Tables and Frames. I have not yet tried it on my PocketPC, but it should fair better than the old web front end, which has silly amounts of javascript to really trip up the pocketpc. Talking about using the phone as a remote control, it would be interesting to see if it works on my smartphone too? Generally, xbmc 1.1 is a good upgrade and worthy of the effort. Now if only I could turn the xbox on remotely, embrace the bittorrent and podcasting scene…
Lots of screenshots of new features.
BBC finally tries out Podcasting
It started with a in our time email on a internal discussion board.
We're now offering you the chance to download each edition of In Our
Time, on a trial basis, for 7 days after broadcast. Each edition will
be available soon after broadcast.
The mp3 file can be used on portable players, such as iPods, or you
can just listen to it on your computer.
To download on a PC – right click below, and 'Save Target As' and to
download on a Mac – control button and click.
Follow this link to give us your reactions to this trial
Download in our time
After my email a discussion broke out about podcasting in the BBC.
Do Radio 4 have a RSS feed? This would be the perfect chance to try podcasting with BBC content. I could imagine pushing the audio with the best comments from the debate page in a RSS feed.
(Just in case you do not know what podcasting is, please refer to this piece from the New York times – New Food for IPods: Audio by Subscription – http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/technology/28podd.html?ex=1100149200&en=47e7584f94c0e918&ei=5070&oref=regi)
Broadcasting is what we the BBC, do best…Ian Forrester | BBC World Service [New Media Software Engineer]
And it all ended with the Radio and Music interactive team doing the clearing work and creating a Podcast for the series. I'm not claiming credit for the podcast, as its a general idea most of the BBC employee's are looking at. But I'm so happy to see something like podcasting happening (or at least being tested), and at such speed for a large company like the BBC. Matt Webb has the same kind of information on his weblog, damm you matt for being able to weblog what you work on… If only I could do the same. Anyway please give your reactions and feedback on this page. By the way, heres a test RSS 1.0 file using RDF enclosures. Please comment if your podcasting app works with it.
The Amazon theatre
Interesting thing amazon seem to be doing on there site. Amazon theatre is basiclly a way of showing off small 5min post-independant films by large names. I heard nothing about it in the blogsphere, but I personally think its just interesting that Amazon is doing this, what is the business model? Maybe it drive traffic to amazon or they can sell extra books off the back of them? who knows, but the short films business is dominated by ifilm and I wonder what they make of the whole thing?
BBC Scotland at bloggercon 3
Ok so I was listening to a podcast from IT conversations titled Newbies and about 50:20 in [clip with Julie] Julie from BBC Scotland Interactive takes the microphone as a crowd member. Where she talks about Island blogging. This took me by suprised because I was waiting for the 354 Bus and just never thought I would hear any one from BBC at bloggercon. Anyway what else took me by suprise.
She talks about the custom built system for blogging and the frustration with the system. And I'm glad shes very honest about it. It now allows me to vent my pain using and looking at the system for Worldservice. Thats no longer a secret too, because Julie also mentions Worldservice are looking at bring blogging to other parts of the world. Its very interesting Julie thinks other BBC blogs are not blogs because they do not allow for comments, trackbacks, etc. I would agree totally with that point.
I dont feel I am out of line saying that the scottish blogging system is not good. I understand they were under tons of pressure to roll something out for the residents of North Argyll and the experience was more important than the tool. But there moving into stage 2 now, they (we) really need to consider a professional tool. I'm in favoring Blojsom because I can make it work really nicely with our worldservice content management system. But honestly, as long as it can do things like multiple user, multiple blog, external access via xmlrpc, rss/atom. Then were moving in the right direction.
I'm feeling the need to sort out blojsom at work so we can at least get into a decent dialogue going about what we really need…
Podcasting on BBC2 sometime soon?
I'm hearing on the Daily Source code from Adam Curry that the BBC are doing a feature on Podcasting with him in his Amsterdam castle. Its meant to appear on a show called the culture show. But I cant see anything about it on the site. Oh well at least theres a real stream for watching if I miss it on the TV. Thinking of writing a email to the person producing the show and asking for more details… The abuse of being of a BBC employee.
Cubicgarden needs to be fixed
I have recieved emails and im's from people asking why comments are not working? I honestly dont know but I am investigating the issue. Seems only my blog is affected no one elses. Which is good news, but its going to take me sometime to work out whats happening and fix. I'm apologetic for those who lost there comments recently…
Engadget Podcast with SMIL2.0 enclosures
Been spending more than usual time thinking about podcasting. 1. How do we make podcasts more blog entry like, so you browse through it, search engines can index it, etc? 2. How do we make advance the format without emposing a standard on it?
I was encoraged to listen to the engadget podcast yesterday from Kosso in a debate started by me centering around podcasting. Anyway, I was listening and the first item which centered around the fact, there podcast was actually a photo podcast and they were looking for a better way to do it. At this moment if you want to take part, you need to download this zip file and manually change the pictures when they tell you to in the podcast your listening to. Ok fair enough for now, but I was screaming SMIL while listening. Then they finally mentioned it.
Wicked Cool… before they started to rethink the idea, let me explain…
First up SMIL does not stand for simple markup something! Its Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language.
Getting a smil player on the portable players and everyone agreeing would be a problem? I always thought a MMS client was a SMIL player? Please for the love of all things decent in this world do not use Flash. And please no not powerpoint! For now yes, human interaction maybe one way of doing it but there was a good comment on blog about how to do it using a ipod and itunes.
See the fact your breaking down the mp3 into single objects is a good start. Some would scream blue murder, but joining them up together again could be easily done if you use playlists like pls or m3u for now. Hey why cant the podcast software join up the mp3's? even if using filenames which link them together?
Anyhow I'm thinking about two things, putting smil inside of RSS or changing the enclosure element to support structure. I much prefer the first one using smil with xml namespaces. So I'm going to show you how it could look. Please note, i'm doing alot of things in this example. I'm showing how you can play not only content which is downloaded but also content if your connected. And of course how to play audio with pictures in a large sequence. Check out the Engadget Podcast with SMIL2.0 enclosures