BBC Innovation Labs 2008: The Outcome

March 17, 2008

What goes around, comes around: A decade or so ago, I was consulting to various organisations on interactive and convergent television. The problem was that, for manufacturers and broadcasters at the time, "interactivity" meant bringing up a graphic or two when a button was pressed, whilst "convergence" meant that I could (occasionally) look up a TV schedule on a Web site. That's a bit of a slow start when you see the possibility of casually delivering content across multiple devices and using intelligent bringing people together around their shared interests and intent. That was also when most of those who were online were so via 33.6Kbps dial-up connections. So I put that one into the "Magrathea" class of idea, to wait for the world to catch up.

Day Two of One Fewer: Divergence

March 11, 2008

So what happened today? Dinner is only just over, yet the day seems to be fading into the mists of time, so perhaps a brief backtrack will serve to resurface the highs, lows and interestingly corrugated bits of the day…

BBC Innovation Labs 2008: Day One of Several

March 10, 2008

So here we are: a bunch of determinedly eclectic geeks, noo meeja types, artists, mathematicians, drama bods and other assorted hopefuls, gathered together in the name of innovation and the hope of a commission, at the enlightened behest of the dear old BBC, and in Aberfoyle, in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.

All winners of the first round process of the 2008 BBC Innovation Labs, we're pitching a range of projects that cover pretty much everything from speech-synthesized news (of the undeserving, delivered by the unconscious to the uncaring) through collaborative drama and onwards to a concept design for a black hole-powered, Wi-Max enabled, social-networking soup tureen. It's just possible that one of those may not actually be on the list, but similar ideas abound.