ISPs concerned about increasing data traffic August 14, 2007
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Judging by the press it has been receiving, I’m not the only one to endure a disappointing experience with iPlayer, the BBC’s new software designed to let you download the previous week’s television output onto your computer.
There are numerous reports of failed installations and frustrated attempts to get the darn thing to actually work. Clearly dear old Auntie has some work to put in if she really wants to make it easy for people to catch up on missed viewing.
But problems with iPlayer and other online services may be down to more than just shoddy software.
Now that many of us enjoy high speed broadband, the data shifted around by our internet service providers (ISP) has never been so high. Widespread uptake of broadband has given companies the opportunity to develop software and services that a few short years ago would have been unfeasible. We can legally download as many music tracks, movies and game demos as we like and this is starting to cause concern amongst ISPs.
Many providers already limit the speed at which we can do things at certain times of the day. ‘Throttling’ is the act of reducing the amount of data being demanded by one service in favour of another. For example, your Bittorrent download speeds may be reduced so that the network can continue to serve web pages at a decent rate. The iPlayer and similar technologies work off the back of peer-to-peer technology, where all active users are effectively sharing the files with each other. This is great for the likes of the BBC who don’t have to serve massive files by themselves but a real headache for ISPs who have to handle the increased traffic. A number of them have already stated that the cost of the inevitable network upgrade will have to be handed down to the customer.
BBC’s iPlayer July 25, 2007
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By the time you read this, the BBC should have launched its highly anticipated iPlayer application, allowing internet users in the UK to download a selection of programs up to seven days after broadcast and then save that content to watch for up to 30 days.
At this point, just a few days away from the planned release of iPlayer, it’s still not completely certain that the date will be met as the BBC has come under fire because the software will initially only work with Windows XP.
A petition started on the Downing Street website has gathered over 10,000 signatures demanding that the service be made compatible with other operating systems like Mac OS X and Linux before it is launched rather than the single Windows offering.
The trouble for the BBC is that it has focussed its efforts in developing the iPlayer on Microsoft technologies including the digital rights management (DRM) which ensures the downloaded programs self destruct after the 30 day limit.
So, not only will potential viewers be required to use XP, they will also need Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. If, as it states, the BBC is actually committed to bringing iPlayer to many different platforms, they are going to have to find a platform independent DRM technology which is no easy feat.
I’m quite sure iPlayer will be released on time and I’m really looking forward to trying it out and using it, even though it will be incompatible with my primary computer. I’m going to have to install and run it on my work laptop, the only computer I have regular access to that meets the software requirements, which is hardly ideal.
Other UK television channels plan to or already do offer similar systems. Channel 4′s ’4OD’ has been around for almost a year now, allowing selected downloads of the channel’s content. ITV are also hot on the heels of the BBC with a catch up service called ‘ITV Broadband’ due to see the light of day some time this summer.
It will certainly prove interesting to see just what content the BBC will be offering on iPlayer. I’m a very keen user of the channel’s brilliant ‘Listen Again’ web service which offers radio content for download so it’s exciting to imagine a similar service for television.
For more news or to contact me, visit my website at davidmcmanus.com
Seen The Truman Show? July 3, 2007
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It’s an idea that would probably rank as most people’s definition of living hell, but for Justin Kan of website justin.tv, having the world follow him around throughout the day is all part of everyday life.
The site’s eponymous creator wears a hat-mounted camera connected to a backpack computer which transmits everything he sees and hears onto the web.
After the initial curiosity wears off of why anyone would want to indulge in such activity and ultimate invasion of privacy (Justin calls it ‘lifecasting’), I was left wondering who could possibly be living such an interesting existence that they would consider it worthy of 24/7 broadcast?
Perhaps I’m getting a little too old to fully appreciate modern internet fads.
I’ve still never really ‘got’ diary-style blogs of nothing in particular and the whole MySpace phenomenon leaves me scratching my head in bemusement.
Still, if you feel there is reward in watching some guy watch TV (yes, that’s probably you, Big Brother generation), then drop in on justin.tv and check out the ‘action’.
Hello, Word Press. I like you. June 11, 2007
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I’ve had my own website for a number of years now, which has mostly been a repository for archives of this column and other little snippets of news or information that I have felt compelled to share with anyone who may be watching.
I created the site myself, back in the days before the success of blogging and RSS feeds, so I’ve been periodically updating the underlying code of the site to allow for these new techniques to disseminate information.
Everything has always worked well and I’ve done all that I can to make posting stories and comments as quick and easy as possible – one of the most important requirements for a blog – but anything I can do to make it even more effortless has got to be to my advantage.
So last week I took the decision to wave goodbye to what I can now think of as my ‘old’ site and replace it with some pre-developed, official blogging service and I’m pleased to say that it’s a service I can recommend very highly.
When deciding which blogging software to use, there are certain considerations to be made. Two main types of blog exist; user hosted and developer hosted. User hosted is software you download and install on a web server to which you have access. Developer hosted means that your site stays with the blog service provider and you simply upload your text and images to it, making it considerably easier to set up.
As with most modern web services, basic blogs from most providers are offered free of charge, with various add-ons costing small, token amounts.
I’ve tinkered with various services over recent years, usually that offered by blogger.com, purchased by Google a couple of years ago. Blogger is fine and does what it says on the tin, but it always felt a little unwieldy and clunky to me. My news took quite some time to upload and more site-wide updates took an eternity.
After trying out Word Press I knew it was time to make the change. My new site is now active and I can blog with total ease and convenience – even directly from within Microsoft Word.
It’s just the basic template at the moment but over the coming weeks I shall be modifying it and publishing all my old news items as well as plenty of new content.
We’ve only just begun March 6, 2007
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I stopped to think the other day and realised that March 2007 is something of a red letter month for me and this column as I’ve now been writing it for a full ten years.
Aside from the almost mandatory remarks such as “Gosh, doesn’t time fly?” and “Where have all the years gone?”, it is quite remarkable to look back over a decade that has seen the web evolve in such dramatic fashion.
1997 was my second year as an Internet user. 1996 saw me initiate my online life by surfing the ‘information super highway’ (remember that?) on an old 28kbps external modem that had been given to me by some crazy, bleeding edge futurist friend of mine who had recently made the jump to the light speed experience of 56kbps.
Of course, back in those days, web pages were considerably more simply in their layout (though Web 2.0 is returning us to the sane days of clear presentation and quality content, thankfully) and productivity wasn’t affected by the distraction of incoming emails as practically none of my colleagues, family and friends had one.
It would be easy to look back on those days with dewy eyes, breath out a sigh of contentment and mutter that ‘ah, those were the days’, but how great were they really?
On the positive side, the Internet had a pioneering feel about it and it did feel special to be a part of that, though I’m not sure I realised how much at the time.
I also felt part of a community, however geographically distant we were from each other. The Net wasn’t taken for granted. Instead it was a unique place you ‘went to’.
But a limited web where if something did exist it was difficult to find (Google was still a couple of years off) and incredibly slow to access just doesn’t hold a candle to today’s experience. Bulletin boards and chat rooms were fun but ultimately pointless and trivial.
I feel as though I’ve matured with the Internet and I hope this column has reflected that. Online innovations don’t only continue, they grow at a steadying pace and if we could hardly have imagined the impact it would have on today’s world ten years ago, imagining how things will be in another ten years is incredibly exciting.
Too busy for books? January 16, 2007
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In my younger days I was an avid reader of books.
Then I discovered computers and later an invention called the internet and fated most of my unread books to stay that way – unread.
Over recent years I’ve managed claw back at least some of my spare time (usually the times when I’m not near a computer) to my enjoyment of books but that old internet is still more of a distraction that I would sometimes like it to be.
I was therefore interested in an idea behind the website Daily Lit (dailylit.com) which poses one simple question.
‘Too busy for books? Read them by email.”
Here’s how it works. You browse the site and find a book that you would like to read and then decide on the frequency of the emails you will receive from the site. For example, if you always take a lunch break at one o’clock, you can choose only weekdays at that time. Then it’s simply a case of providing your email address and you will immediately start to small chunks of your chosen book in your email inbox at the time you want them.
Given that many of us spend a large part of the day reading emails, adding one more to the daily deluge should be almost unnoticeable from a productivity point of view and eventually you will have digested a good book.
The only minor drawback is that the literature on offer is that which has gone out of copyright and can be legally distributed for free. Anyone who has dallied with ebooks on a computer, mobile phone or PDA will be familiar with the list of elderly classics that include the likes of Agatha Christie and Charles Dickens so don’t go expecting the latest Tom Clancy blockbuster.
Nationwide – open November 23, 2006
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Here’s an interesting question: how do you jeopardise the security of personal and private information, despite that information being kept on a secure server in a secure building and requiring top secret passwords to access it.
Well, if you’re the Nationwide bank, an employer of yours stores the details of 11 million customers on a laptop and then has that laptop stolen from their house.
Just to make sure that any would-be fraud has enough time to be carried out, you then wait three months before making news of the theft public.
Quite why any company would allow such sensitive information to leave its premises and be stored on something that can be picked up and run away with is a mystery.
Since the story came out, Nationwide has been at pains to reassure their customers that the information only amounted to name, address and bank account numbers and that no PINs or online password were included, the suggestion being that it would not be possible to access accounts and transfer money.
This may be true but most identity theft fraudsters would be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of knowing your name, address and bank account number.
Such information would usually be sufficient to open new accounts and take out credit cards in your name.
New medium or passing fad? November 7, 2006
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Could tradition journalism and editorship ever be succeeded by online social networking?
It’s a question that only a couple of years ago would have been dismissed as wildly speculative but the enormous popularity of social-based websites is causing it to be asked ever more seriously.
I’ve previously written about sites like Digg and Reddit where news is submitted by the sites’ users who in turn vote on their quality and engage in discussion about them.
Digg has become one of the top 100 most visited sites in the world in its short two year existence and regularly proves its worth by turning up some interesting items. User comments are also voted on and can be viewed above a set threshold, so the inane banter that usually plagues forums is kept reasonably under control by the very people using the site.
It could even be possible to make money from submitting content to social news sites.
The online magazine Digital Journal relaunched last week with the promise of financial rewards for the hardest working submitters. Each will receive a small percentage of its advertising revenue.
Other popular and well established websites are also getting in on the act. At the end of October The Sun Online released its community feature, MySun, which allows users to sign up, filter news content, comment on stories and write their own blogs.
Even the BBC has plans to ‘socialise’ its web content so that it is more user-driven.
So Digg and its like are news sites with no physical editor on the payroll but they are still essentially lists of links out to other content which has to be written by someone.
This is where the success of blogging comes into play.
Much of the most popular content on Digg comes from blogs maintained by unqualified amateur writers.
In the same way we accept that text messages are written to simply get a point across rather than with any particular flare or elegance, so it seems we are happy to digest news and comment online as long as it is specific to our own interests.
It’s clear to me that there will always be a firm place for professional quality writing and investigative journalism but news ‘by the people, for the people’ is here to stay and will only get bigger.
(Not) getting to grips with iPlayer August 9, 2007
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This week you find me in a state of heightened irritation and frustration.
I feel like I’ve been through more hoops than a show dog at Crufts – and all in an effort to achieve something I’m actually not all that bothered about.
I’ve done my utmost to try out the BBC’s iPlayer software for the sake of this column and I’d like to report the success I’ve been enjoying downloading and watching television programmes I missed over the past seven days.
That’s what I would like to be reporting. Unfortunately, my actual experience has been quite to the contrary.
Like many others, I was already disappointed that upon its release a couple of weeks ago the iPlayer was only available for a specific type of computer. You need Windows XP, Internet Explorer and Media Player 11 – a veritable Microsoft lockdown if ever there was one.
The BBC claims that it will eventually bring out the software to run on Macs and Linux-based machines but, frankly, I’m not holding my breath.
My initial problem was this required platform. Despite owning a brace of computers, none of them meet the demands perfectly. I can offer Ubuntu Linux, Mac OS – even Windows Vista and I have an old laptop that still runs XP but it’s somewhat underpowered and needs an inconvenient wired connection to the internet.
My work computer was the only one I could use for the experiment so in the office one day, I set about my task.
You can’t just download iPlayer; you have to ask nicely for it. I’d already sent off a request some days earlier which eventually came back with an invitation and password to grab the software which I promptly did.
I found the install process clunky and unreliable and it actually took a couple of attempts to get it on my computer. Finally successful, I breathed a sigh of relief and put the dodgy experience behind me. I was now ready to sit back and download a sample programme.
But now it wanted another password for a BBC membership account which I had to go and sign up for.
New password entered, I expectantly clicked a random show. This was it.
Except it wasn’t.
“iPlayer has detected that you are currently outside of the UK. You need to be inside the UK to use this service.”
BitTorrent, you remain my best friend.