Something I have been talking about a long time ago, is what Perceptive media could bring to the in-car experience. Also MBUX sound drive is something which could easily be done with the open sourced Adaptive podcast app if you write a connection to the car sensor…
Tag: adaptivepodcasting
Adaptive podcasting is now open source for all
Video: Created by Vicky Barlow / Voice over: Bronnie McCarthy / Licensed CC-BY-SA | Music: Sleepwalking by Airtone
It brings me absolute joy to finally open source all the code of Adaptive/Perceptive podcasting.
This research project has run for a long time and at some time thought about pulling the plug. I always thought it had so much potential and needed to reach different people who will explore and use it for many more use cases than a research agenda.
If you are wondering what Adaptive podcasting is, check out the post from R&D and my own thoughts last year.
Now the code base is public under a Apache 2 license, it means anyone can make changes to the code base including I hope,
- Port the player code to iOS for all those iPhone users.
- Create a WebAssembley version of the player
- Add new web editors
- Create converters from the likes of audacity, audition, etc
- Increase the capability of the player to support other data & sensor sources.
- Take advantage of the additional features the University of York added
- Add to the documentation.
- Add more well thought out SMIL features like fallbacks, real time fades and effects, etc.
- Finish the XML Schema I started (I’m too out of schema writing sorry)
There is so many people who had a hand in Adaptive podcasting, which are all named in the credits. This project couldn’t have happened without them and it speaks volumes about a future where collaboration is the default.
I am personally humbled by everything and if I wasn’t in Amsterdam during the Society 5.0 conference would be sending out lots of emails letting everyone and anyone know. There is a long long list of people to contact to let them know its all public now. Its also one of the research projects which has always been in the forefront of my mind and consumed many of my cycles. Its a great project and in the history makes clear the trajectory of progression. However wouldn’t existed without the community of practice, which kept me on my toes. Even now, I’m keen to see the community grow and built the amazing experiences which we dreamed about.
This is a clear sign of the power of public service. Many will ask why would the BBC open source this? Its in the BBC’s royal charter, helping build the UK economy. This is also a natural end to the Perceptive Media workstream for me, looking at implicit interaction to drive experiences and narratives.
Ultimately I’m hoping to further the ambition on podcasts and adaptive audio full stop. I have always said and stood behind the notion media has so much more potential. I do expect some enterprising individual to take the source code and port it to the Apple app store. Although I’m already looking at fdroid for the latest player too.
If you have any questions about Adaptive/Perceptive podcasting please do get in touch via email or github. This project is leaking so much potential be it public, commercial, etc.
I really look forward to seeing what people do with it all…
Join me at the virtual Mozilla Festival in 2023
https://player.vimeo.com/video/786738931
I’m very happy to say 4 of my proposals were accepted for the virtual Mozilla Festival 2023. Worth noting the tickets are available now for a pay what you can.
My 4 proposals are…
Designing for the future fediverse
in Allies in Practice on Thursday 23rd March – 18:30–20:00 GMT
A designer view on what the Fediverse could be for many people. Everything from the site, apps, platforms and beyond will be up for redesign.
Black crypto culture
in Tech & Biodiversity: Legado 2060 on Monday 20th – 13:45–14:45 GMT
A critical look at how people of colour, LGBT and others were targeted by the crypto pushers selling the dream of intergenerational wealth. Learning the techniques to prevent it in the future.
Building the Future of Public Service together
in Education & Access: You’re The Product Of Data on Monday 20th March – 21:30–22:30 GMT
Understanding what the public service internet could be and who else is doing similar, in what spaces and to what degree? We will together map for the benefit of everyone
Rabbit Holes Collective
in the Youth Zone on Tuesday 21st March – 17:00–18:00 GMT
Myself and Penny from Forest of imagination are going to run quickly through the rabbit holes collective launching in June. Then have a freestyle jam session with the Adaptive podcasting editor and the young people who attend.
I know a lot of people are fed up with virtual festivals but the Mozilla virtual Festival is something very different. How different? Have a read of my review of 2021 Mozfest. Well worth the ticket price and don’t forget it gives you access to the festival till September allow you to catch up with sessions you missed and that incredible community
Hope to see you at the Mozilla Festival at some points.
Adaptive podcasting is public and you can get it now
Last week BBC R&D launched the Adaptive podcasting ecosystem upon the world. There is a blog post to get you started if you want to dive straight in.
The Adaptive podcasting ecosystem is a combination of parts.
- Adaptive podcasting beta Android app/player
- Adaptive podcasting web editor
- Adaptive podcasting XML specification (SMIL)
With the Android app/player you can listen to adaptive podcasts. With the app/player installed, you can load and listen to your own made podcasts. There is of course RSS support, providing the ability to load in a series of adaptive podcasts (replacing the default feed from BBC R&D).
With access to the web editor on BBC Makerbox, you can visually create adaptive podcasts in a few minutes. Its node like interface is running completely client side, meaning there is no server side processing. Just like the app/player, which does zero server callbacks to the BBC. Pure Javascript/HTML/CSS.
If you find the web editor not advanced/in-depth enough for you, there is the XML specification which is based on SMIL. As the code can be written or even generated. We even considered other editors like audacity.
With all 3, you have pretty much everything you need to get going, plus there is documentation gdoc and more information about the ecosystem here on github.
One of the most important parts is the community of practice around adaptive podcasting. Both on BBC Makerbox and Storytellers United. Also through research, I can see the podcast industry are very active and I was right with podnews, the podcast namespace, etc all throwing ideas around. Even the podfather added a comment.
I have written about Adaptive/Perceptive podcasting previously across my blog and talked about it at Mozfest 2021, for the Bristol Watershed and of course for the EBU. There is also an interview I did a couple weeks ago before the launch for podland, which is worth listening to with much more detail.
But I wanted to thank all the people who helped in making this go from the Perceptive Radio to Adaptive Podcasting. So far I started a github page but will write the history of how this happened when I got more time. Partly because its a interesting story but also because it demonstrates the power of collaboration, relationships, communities and the messy timeline of innovation.
Presentation problems with Ubuntu, think I might have found the problem?
I have no idea why or what happen, but this is likely the 4 or 5th time my Ubuntu machine has become unstable while presenting live on zoom.
Tonight I gave a presentation for the Mozilla Festival about adaptive podcasting. I did some tests because I wanted to see if I could switch the audio from my headset mic to the Android phone running the app. Things were not working, so I decided to use the audio captures instead. Everything was fine, presentation in Google Chrome using google slides and Miro in Firefox for the workshop portion later. Zoom for video sharing.
Everything was smooth then I started Chrome in presentation mode but remember I need to turn on auto-generated subtitles. I switch to Zoom on my second screen try and turn it on but everything refreshes and freezes except my mouse cursor. The camera light is still on and sound is working (both mic and audio). I am forced to run the whole hour long workshop with no access to my slides, zoom or anything else. So I freestyle it.
I remembered a few times before something similar things happening while giving a presentation at Agile Manchester, UCD gathering, Immersive Arts Lab 8 and last week at the publicspaces conference. However the difference has been the laptop had paused for a short while (couple of minutes) before returning to normal state. This time I ended up rebooting the whole laptop.
Thinking about the circumstances of the other times, I suspected it might be Zoom but then its happened with Hopin too. It can’t be the laptop because I now I have a brand new laptop and although they are both Ubuntu the first three were Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS. While I was running Ubuntu 20.4.2 LTS for the publicspaces conference and Mozilla festival. This leads me to the other common element which is Google chrome, which I use because its google slides (I tend to only sign into my google account with chrome).
Then I found problems with Chrome and fullscreen.
Even if its not quite right, I’ll be testing running Google slides from Firefox instead.
One upside of todays presentation is the amazing response I got from people on the call who really enjoyed the pure storytelling. Although I am glad for my co-host, having shared the slides and miro whiteboard right at the start.
Big thanks to everyone and the lovely words people have shared with me.
Mozilla Festival 2021 – Its all virtual and you are invited!
Its finally here, Mozilla Festival 2021 and its looking excellent.
I can’t tell you how long I have spent this evening looking at the hu
I can finally tell you two of my three submitted sessions were accepted. The big one is a workshop around adaptive podcasting which will happen Monday 15th at 2015-2115 GMT. Don’t worry there is calendar invites for all the sessions including mine.
Its a hour workshop and its unlikely we will get the point of creating podcasts but there will be follow up sessions on the Mozfest slack and Storytellers United community.
Of course Adaptive podcasting will appear elsewhere outside of Mozfest, so keep an eye on the blog for more information around that.
My other session is the advantages of neurodiversity, which is a follow up to 2019’s the advantage of dyslexia, which is highly influenced by the amazing book by the same name.
Last year we explored the advantages of dyslexia at the brand new Neurodiversity space. This year we are back looking for people to explore and understand the advantages of different types of neurodiversity. Look out for this one, as this art piece relies on your thoughts around the advantages of neurodiversity.
What is adaptive/perceptive podcasting?
I recently did a video for the EBU about Adaptive Podcasting (use to be called Perceptive Podcast). I say I did but it was all done by our BBC R&D video powerhouse Vicky. I did plan to get to work in Kdenlive or openshot but it would have been pretty tricky to emulate the BBC R&D house style.
I recorded the video, once another colleague sent me a decent microphone (and G&B dark Chocolates), wrote a rough script and said the words. I also decided I wanted to change my lightening to something closer to how I have my living room lights to encourage a level of relaxation. Vicky took the different videos and audio, edited it all together and created this lovely package all before the deadline of what the EBU wanted. If you want more you might like to check out the Bristol Watershed talk I gave with Penny and James.
Wished I had shaved and was a little more aware of the wide view of my GoPro, lessoned learned. Hopefully the video will get an update in the near future but the video should serve as a good taster for my Mozilla Festival workshop in March.
Enjoy!
What I do at BBC R&D, explained in 2 videos
Its always tricky to explain what I do at work to my parents and some friends. I usually start with my research aims/questions.
- What is the future of public service in the internet age?
- What is the future of storytelling in the internet age?
They are high level research aims but within each one is a whole stream of projects and questions which need to be understood. Of course they lead to new questions and goals. One of the most important parts is the impact of the research.
Today I was able to demonstrate a part of both of my research questions and they were nicely captured on video.
What is the future of public service in the internet age?
I explain how the research around centralised, decentralised, and distributed network models helps us to understand the notion of a public service internet and how public media can thrive within it. I talk about the dweb without touching blockchain (hooray!) and finally make it clear the research question can only be answered with collaboration.
Of course I’m only part of a bigger team focused on new forms of value and the other pillars are covered in the 4 part BBC R&D explains.
What is the future of storytelling in the internet age?
I have been responsible for the community of practice around object based media/adaptive media for quite some time. Although not my primary research, I still have a lot of interest in the research and keep the fire burning with adaptive podcasting (use to be perceptive podcasting). Exploring new tools, the new craft and possibilities of truly connected storytelling. Most of all I’m keen to see it in the hands of all and what they will do with it.
Hence why I’m part of the rabbit holes team, considering what this could mean when in the hands of young people exploring the natural world around them.
Yes I do love my career/job and I’m very fortunate to be in such a position. But it didn’t come easy, but extremely glad I could share
Where will the rabbit hole take you?
I was surprised and so pleased to see Penny’s blog the other day.
She named checked me for doing what I just do, connect people…
The seeds of the idea were sewn when I met Ian Forrester, Senior Firestarter from BBC Creative R&D and followed up with a deeper conversation about imagination. I explained that I wanted to invite young people to fall down a metaphorical rabbit hole and connect more deeply with nature and creativity. Ian immediately introduced me to James Cook, Editor in Chief for BBC Creative R&D, previously with BBC Wildlife Bristol and now leading the new Centre of Excellence for Adaptive Podcasts. Ian wrote,”I mentioned you and rabbit holes and let’s say it, I just had to connect you both together”. We discussed the notion of rabbit holes as a universe of possibility, a constellation of ideas, with young people (everyone) following their fascinations through self-directed enquiry. The focus on entanglement and rhizomatic learning, with a deep sense of being connected to the natural world. Nature culture in the era of the Anthropocene.
I can’t wait to see where things go… lets co-design the future!
Adaptive podcasting (use to be named perceptive podcasting) is still being developed and hopefully in the next few months I’ll have some more news.
The “rabbit holes” connection may also go on to do so much more too.