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BBC News Saved by iPhone – Apple Handheld Helps With Headlines

by Jay Garrett on November 30, 2009

BBCiPhone to the rescue!

Quick-thinking Alison Roper, who often presents Radio 4’s Today programme and the World Service, was ready to go on air for BBC Radio 3 when all the in-house computers and telephone systems crapped out.

Who could she rely on with only moments to go before going live? Her trusty Apple iPhone was right at hand.

She deftly opened her email and read the headlines from the touchscreened saviour.

“The words were reasonably clear on my iPhone screen,” she said. “But I tried tipping the phone sideways so that the writing becomes bigger and then I lost the whole sentence. You need to read ahead all the time when you are reading out news”.

“I had to tip it back to the right position and just scroll through very quickly with my finger, hoping to God I didn’t do something accidentally. My heart was in my mouth but you have to take a deep breath and plunge in”.

Phwew! Is the iPhone BBC standard issue yet?

Reckon it should be ;)

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Hotmail Security Not So Hot – Microsoft Gets Breached Again

by Jay Garrett on October 6, 2009

windows-live-hotmailYup – the mighty M has had the details of thousands of its Hotmail users published online – that’s usernames and passwords!

The details of more than 10,000 accounts, mainly from Europe, have been listed online at developer/coding site pastebin.com on 1st October 2009.

All of those names were said to be genuine and all were names beginning with the letters A and B.

If that’s not scary enough this means that letters C to Z could be sat somewhere ready to be deployed.

That’s also the view of Graham Cluley, consultant at security firm Sophos, as he spoke to the BBC.

Graham as well as GadgetyNews point to something a bit obvious but needs to be said: Change your password for Hotmail and anywhere else that may use the same password!

Microsoft has launched an investigation into what it believes is a result of a phishing scam – and users have inadvertently entered their account details at a fake website.

‘We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers’ credentials were acquired illegally and exposed on a website,’ said a Microsoft spokesperson. ‘Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers.’

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Music Vids Come Back to UK You Tube – PRS Getting Paid

September 3, 2009 Click to read more →
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Finally!
If you’re in the UK and want to watch a music vid you’ve probably gotten the message that the vid is not available in this country!
Back in March, Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships, said that:
“PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our licence than before,” claiming “the costs [...]

Syntax Era – The Curry v Sinclair Geek Mocumentary

July 1, 2009 Click to read more →
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BBC 4 is going to be showing the Tony Saint penned Syntax Era.
It’s set to remind many of us of the glory years of classic British computing – the 1980s.
It stars Alexander Armstong (The Armstrong and Miller Show, Mutual Friends) and Martin Freeman (Hot Fuzz, The Office) and will be a 90 minute comedy-docu-drama that [...]

Five Allows Legal Sharing of Programmes – Leaves iPlayer Behind

June 17, 2009 Click to read more →
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Bless Five.
The TV channel has just got with the share-love and has inked a deal with online video platform ‘Brightcove‘.  This deal let viewers embed and share its content on any website – just like you can do with a YouTube video!
 
This leaves BBC iPlayer a bit behind which is odd as iPlayer has been the groundbreaker thus far.
As [...]

118800 Has Got Your Mobile Number and Will Give it To Anyone for £1

June 10, 2009 Click to read more →
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The first directory service that claims to be able to find any British mobile phone number starts next week so you’d better be ready to get calls from strangers!
It will cost a £1 and then 118800.co.uk will be able to connect customers of its service to any of Britain’s 42 million mobile phones.
The directory, [...]

BBC iPlayer – Just How Much Data is Sent? Answers Found Here

May 8, 2009 Click to read more →
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The bane of ISP’s in the UK - BBC’s iPlayer has been a huge success.
Want to know how much data is sent out?
Well, iPlayer boss Anthony Rose has revealed some of the numbers in an interview with CNet UK’s Crave, and states:
“I think that at the moment, just for streaming, iPlayer uses about 60Gbps of bandwidth (that’s about [...]

Even the BBC Enjoys The Feeling of Schaudenfraud

February 15, 2009 Click to read more →

We Brits love to talk/complain about the weather and enjoy having a good giggle at slapstick comedy.
This goes all the way through the institution of the BBC.
For some reason the Beeb had a camera aimed at London’s Waterloo Station and with a real sense of schaudenfraud filmed people falling down.
For those who don’t realise; it [...]

Beeb Brings More Live Online Channels

November 19, 2008 Click to read more →

Good ol’ Auntie Beeb!
After bringing us the joy of the iPlayer the Beeb is going to be showing content from BBC One and BBC live online.
From the 27th November web visitors will be able to watch shows including Never Mind The Buzzcocks (fab!), EastEnders (never mind eh?) and Heroes (Yatta!) as they are broadcast.
BBC Three, [...]

BBC Star Trek Gloves – Boldy Goes Between Mittens and Gloves

November 19, 2008 Click to read more →

If you have 3 digits, a fan of a certain sci-fi series or desperate to keep your paws warm; look no further!
Billioanire Boys Club is offering a pretty unique pair of gloves dubbed the ‘BBC Star Trek Gloves’.
Granted, stuffing five fingers into three holes may be difficult but will certainly be toasty.
As an added bonus, the ‘alien [...]

British Choose Internet Over Cars and Washing Machines

November 17, 2008 Click to read more →

An AMD-commissioned YouGov research into British notebook usage has shown that most Brits would rather be hooked up to the interweb than own their own ride!
The study reveals that 90% of 18-24 year olds own a notebook with 73% saying that they “couldn’t live without” it.
I fear for Halfords – I really do!!
Britons apparently consider access [...]

DEFRA Noise Maps Online

May 16, 2008 Click to read more →

If you want to check out how noisy an area is before you move there – or to see how powerful your stereo is you can now search DEFRA’s noise map by postcode to monitor noise levels.
The 23 areas include London, Manchester and Sheffield.
Defra said the maps would help to tackle “unreasonable noise pollution”.
The mapping [...]

Freesat and Sqish Dish – The Way Forward.

May 7, 2008 Click to read more →

As you will have heard, Freesat will go up against Sky’s HD service and will be available across the UK – in fact – in 98% of homes.
Users will have to make a one-off payment for a dish, set-top box and installation, but will not pay a monthly subscription.
As you’ve got to track down your [...]

Playstation 3 gets iPlayer

April 13, 2008 Click to read more →

If you’re a PlayStation 3 owner in the UK you can also access iPlayer, it’s not only the Wii fans domain – although it’s not entirely official where the PS3 is concerned ;0,
A programmer who was rather miffed that only the Nintendo Wii could officially access the Beeb’s on demand internet video service has [...]

Wii iPlayer

April 10, 2008 Click to read more →

It can appear on the iPhone and iPod Touch but Auntie Beebs iPlayer will soon be popping up on your HD teles via the Nintendo Wii as well.
In its current Beta form for the Wii, the iPlayer service will cost £3.50 (or 500 Wii points) to install the Internet Channel needed to view it and is then [...]

Beeb Creators Reunite

March 20, 2008 Click to read more →

A reunion of the creators of the BBC Micro (fondly named the Beeb) has been organised by the Computer Conservation Society.
The meeting will take place at the Science Museum in London to discuss the legacy of the computer.
Hermann Hauser and Steve Furber, who worked at Acorn, will be joined by former BBC staff John Radcliffe [...]

Talk Talk to Get Phorm

March 11, 2008 Click to read more →

Talk Talk is one of three UK ISPs to sign up to the Webwise service which sees user’s surfing habits tracked.
It follows 1,000 people signing a Downing Street online petition saying the system breaches customer privacy.
“We will be endorsing and recommending take-up of the system but we want to ensure that customers make their own [...]

Baby Bot to Talk

March 1, 2008 Click to read more →

Although it looks like the stuff of techno-nightmares this baby bot, called iCub, is to be taught to communicate with humans by scientists in Devon.
The big baby which stands 1 metre tall is the centre of a 4-year project which is to look into how parents teach their babies to talk.
The staff at the University [...]

iPlayer – 3.5m programmes and counting!

January 15, 2008 Click to read more →

BBC News has provided some pretty interesting stats gathered from the first few weeks of the full BBC iPlayer launch.
The hits list comes as no huge surprise with the (disappointing) Doctor Who Christmas Special, Top Gear and the “festive” edition of EastEnders coming out on top.
What is interesting, however, is that almost half the content played via iPlayer was [...]

Auntie Beeb now Flashes!

December 18, 2007 Click to read more →

The BBC iPlayer is now available in a Flash version so now it doesn’t matter if your puter works in Windows or not!  It also looks pretty :0) 
With BBC iPlayer you can catch up with the programmes from the past seven days you’ve missed or want to watch again by playing them direct on the [...]

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