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Posts Tagged ‘bbc’

New mobile BBC iPlayer hits beta

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

A blog post has appeared on the BBC informing of a new iPlayer mobile website in beta trials, plus support for new phones.

Posted by Richard Titus, the new Future Media Controller, Audio & Music and Mobile goes on to highlight some interesting new developments.

We’re probably all well aware the iPhone was the first to be bestowed with access to the iPlayer, then the Nokia 96 back in October and now N85 too.

What some might not be aware is that the new iPlayer portal is now available for the Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. The Sony Ericsson C905 is also being geared up for access to the site by the end of next week, with compatibility for more devices in the next few weeks.

Just aim your phone, the ones listed above, at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and their system should figure out what device is trying to access the site.

Those who already use it will be familiar with the layout and will spot a few new tabs. As they’ve extended the portal with some new features and navigation methods.

They’ve also broadened their support for the first Windows Mobile devices with the likes of the Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, first hitting the mark with good WIFI and 3G.

More can be seen on the blog post here.

Let’s hope other channels follow suit with their on-demand offerings too.

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

Pudsey needs your mobiles

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

This year’s BBC Children in Need, needs your old mobile phones.

By donating your unwanted handsets, MP3 players or PDAs the well known recycling company Regenersis will donate up to £80 per item to this much deserved charity appeal.

The company has almost raised over £1,000,000 for Children in Need through such campaigns over the past three years.

For a working 5 megapixel camera phone, £80 will be passed along although if not in working condition £20 will be donated instead.

On a 3 megapixel camera handset, £20 will be donated to the charity and £5 if not in working order.

Whereas just £4 will be donated for any working phone with a basic camera or even no camera at all.

All of which is a nice thought and we’re sure many people have plenty of phones just lying around at home gathering dust, where they could be used to raise money.

Anything that can’t be used will be safely recycled and won’t end up somewhere in a landfill, so it’s all good for the environment too.

Please visit http://www.regenersisplc.com/pudsey for more information, or pop into your local ‘3′ store with them all in hand.

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

BBC iPlayer on the N95

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Howdy folks, Whatley here…

Haven’t written anything for a while, but this is something I just had to share.

I just got back from filming the latest edition of the Mobile Industry Review Show (live from the T-Mobile event) and I was about to go to bed when I found this video in my Google Reader from one James Burland, he of (the quite frankly awesome) Nokia Creative fame.

The man has got the iPlayer up and running on his N95!

Awesome!
So I did a little digging… and then I found this piece over on Symbian-Freak about how to install etc… and, as well as finding the actual file there, I also found out a few other facts.

  1. If your Nseries has Web Runtime (WRT) enabled, you can haz iPlayer.
  2. N95ers out there – hit *#0000# – if your firmware is v21 or above, you have WRT enabled.
  3. N95, N96 and N85 all confirmed as compatible
  4. Current installation only works over a wifi connection

I’ve poked a few friends of mine at the Beeb to see if we can talk to some of the techies there, fingers crossed we’ll be able to bring you a follow up piece over the next few days outlining some of the finer details.

So what are you waiting for? Download it now and let us know what you think!

:)

Whatley out…

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Posted in Mobile Applications, Mobile TV, Whatley Wednesday | Comments

Seriously underwhelmed by BBC’s Olympics text service

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Uploaded - 12 Aug 2008-1

As Rob commented earlier, the BBC’s Olympics text service looked promising.

I was looking forward to frequent text messages across the business day about plucky British chappies and ladies risking all for blighty and spectacularly failing. We’re very good at screwing up and coming last here in the UK. Or nailing the competition to the wall. It seems to be very binary.

Instead though, I’ve been getting television promotion alerts.

Hardly useful.

“Watch Nicole Cooke try and win something at 10am,” the message said. Something like that.

Ok.

So I wasn’t able to do that.

Where’s the update? Did she win? Did she fail with the pluckiness of a good old Britisher? What happened?

Almost helpful.

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Posted in SMS | Comments

BBC’s computer generated map of British telephone calls

Monday, August 4th, 2008

The BBC have been promoting a show called “Britain from Above” in which which they take telemetry from various trackable sources and generate fancy maps of our activities and, presumably, add a thick layer of social commentary.

In the promo video linked below they show a few examples of air, land and sea movements but it’s the content at almost exactly 1 minute into the video that interests me; A traffic map of every telephone exchange in Britain tracked, as they say in the video, second by second.

This is obviously based on information from BT, so are there any mobile networks that do fancy network utilisation displays like this? Hopefully there will be more telecom eye candy in the full show.

You can check out the promo video here or, if you’re in the UK, see the whole show on Sunday 10th August at 9pm on BBC One.

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Posted in Mobile, Research, Telephony | Comments

Has the BBC learned its texting scandal lessons?

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

The Olympics are nearly here.

It’s been four years since myself and five friends screamed ourselves at a TV as the men’s coxless 4 won gold by a gnat’s knacker.

Four years since I nearly got fired for watching the badminton semi final instead of working. Four years since GB I watched in rapture as team GB kicked butt several times in the velodrome.

If you haven’t already guessed, I’m getting very excited about the Olympics. Infact, if we had one more medal hopeful I’d probably have peed my pants by now. It’s true.

So, trying to remove that mental picture. I’m in love with the new BBC SMS application for the Olympics. If you text ALERTS to 81008 the BBC send you (you guessed it) alerts for all events that we have even a snowball’s chance in hell of medalling.

What I’m most impressed about, however, is that dear old Auntie has finally learned from the frequent scandals and isn’t charging an arm and a leg for this service. Instead it’s a one off 15p and then all alerts are free.

What can I say, the cheapskate in me is in love too.

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Posted in Mobile, SMS | Comments

BBC iPlayer comes to the Apple iPhone

Monday, March 10th, 2008

If you fancy getting your fix of Auntie on your iPhone, relax: your dream has come true. The BBC’s iPlayer is now available for both the Apple mobile and the iPod Touch.

For BBC junkies, that means a chance to switch off the goggle box and watch TV on the iPhone instead. Insterestingly, this is the first time the Beeb has customised the iPlayer for a mobile device. Apparently, the Beeb said it started off the iPlayer’s mobile odyssey with the iPhone because it’s the “device most optimised for high quality video currently available”, according to the BBC blog.

I can see what they mean about optimised, but the same blog also says: “You’ll need to be online via a wi-fi broadband connection (the iPhone’s EDGE connectivity is too slow for streaming video).” That doesn’t sound too promising – why bring out a media playing app for a mobile phone that you can’t use on the go? It’s great to hear that the Beeb is taking mobile seriously but it’s a shame the first attempt can’t be used over mobile networks.

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Posted in iPhone | Comments

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