Two Worlds Industry News Feed

BBC vs ISP: The Irresistible Force vs The Immovable Abject

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:30:34 +0000

One news headline in particular caught my eye today, and it wasn't the usual "Man Weds Goat" stuff, but one headed, "BBC and ISPs Clash Over iPlayer", wherein I read with increasing disbelief the words of Simon Gunter of Tiscali, a well-known and largely unremarkable trans-national ISP. After reading same, I found myself provoked, stirred and in a state of generalised arghness. So the following may contain traces of rant.

Dear Mr Gunter,
I'm having a little trouble with this: you're part of a business where customer demand for your services is rising on the back of demand driven, in part, by a national broadcaster who is finally taking an enlightened and increasingly energetic view of their own relationship with their market. You're in the enviable position of being able to satisfy that demand and all you need to remember is that, if people want more, they'll pay more: surely an entrepreneur's dream?

First Impressions: Apple iPhone

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:50:12 +0000

I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting a long, long time. In fact ever since I first cabled my Apple Newton to my Nokia phone and managed to get a feeble-but-exciting GSM data signal from within the bunker of the Palais de Congres in Cannes (it was a very very tedious conference session). And that was fifteen years after my first mobile computing experience – an only approximately luggable Texas Instruments thermal printer terminal with a built-in acoustic coupler: the first mobile combo device. Since then, I've been through the mobile mill: I've carried around every 'mobile' device Apple ever made (if you've ever played with a Newton, you'll understand the quotification of 'mobile'), helped design a couple of them and, when Steve The Revenant canned the Newton in a Learish fit of Alpha Male pique, I reluctantly went over to and through various incarnations of the Palm. Compared to the Newton, it was but a nursery toy but it did have the major advantage of being truly pocketable, unlike the dear old Newt. Along the way I dallied with an early incarnation of the iPaq - for about three days, after which I returned it as "unfit for purpose" - to say that I was disenchanted with PocketPC (as it then was) was a galactic level understatement.

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 11:39:08 +0000

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, when the pigs take over the farm, and set up their workers' paradise, the mantra of the revolution, repeated ad infinitum by a Greek chorus of bleating sheep, is "Two Legs Bad, Four Legs Good". Which pretty much sums up the level of debate we've had in the camps of the Motorola/Macintosh and Intel/Microsoft alliances for the last two decades. It's also a war that's been fought on two fronts – from the mud-bogged trenches of the Mac/Windows jihadists to the free-flowing desert warfare of the Intel/Motorola skirmishes. And, as any general will tell you, a war fought on two fronts is bloody hard work, with the principal sufferers along the way being the confused and shell-shocked civilian population.

But one part of that war is heading for a conclusion: Apple is switching to Intel. Let me say that again: Apple. Is. Switching. To. Intel. It's like watching Martin Luther walk up to the church door in Wittenberg and nail a piece of paper to the door only to find that, rather than the 95 Theses of Contention, it's an advert for a lap-dancing club. So it's probably time for a little reflection, not to mention eating of crow. I'll have ketchup with mine…

Creative Commons reaches the UK

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 10:08:29 +0000

At a wine and conversation-fuelled bash at The October Gallery in London's Holborn last night, the Creative Commons licenses for England and Wales were launched. These are a set of legally-enforceable licenses for digital content that allow the originator to specify their requirements for attribution and to place limits on consequential use of their content. If you believe as I do, that the currency of knowledge is attribution, then this model of encouraging distribution and meme-building without losing that acknowledgement is both flexible and necessary.

BAFTA Interactive Awards 2005

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 19:46:07 +0000

The 2nd March 2005 sees the BAFTA Interactive Awards ceremony, in which the BBC's Twentieth Anniversary presentation of the original Infocom Interactive Fiction game of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is nominated in the Online Entertainment section. Having been responsible for the simple original online presentation of the game and been a past BAFTA juror, I'm keeping various bits of anatomy crossed for its success. Here's hoping…

If you've arrived here from the BBC site, there's a potted history of the Infocom game here, which includes never before seen scans of some of Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky's original notes and designs, photos taken during development of the game, the original ZIL code from the game development (of historical interest only unless you happen have a spare 1980s vintage DEC-10 computer lying around, but may contain some game spoilers) and extracts from various interviews that Steve has given about life, the game and working with Douglas.