A few weeks ago we published a White Paper containing a version of the Universal Control API, and announced it on this blog. ΜύWe think the technology is important enough, and will have a wide enough impact, that it's worth discusing it in detail in a way that will hopefully make our aims in this work clear to everyone. ΜύThe relevance of the API to recent posts on this blog about "Orchestrated Media" will also be explained.
Television is going through a pretty exciting time right now. TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) are starting to gain connections to the home network and to the Internet. More and more phones are "smart phones", with good web browsing experiences and the ability to run user-installed applications. Increasingly, they also have WiFi connections that give them access to the home network as well as to the Internet. Tablet devices like the Apple iPad are selling so well that a significant number of consumer electronics manufacturers are now rushing to get competing products onto the market. We think that these advances open up some really interesting possibilities, and I'm going to talk about some of them here.
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We start two new projects in earnest this week.
The "Watch Later" team are looking at how we find out which new programmes we want to watch (and listen to) and what methods we use to organise that list. That project started, as they often do, with a long meeting first thing on Monday morning. Tristan discusses how and the rest of the team, including Chris N, Duncan and Kat, start thinking about how they do the same. Theo and Vicky head over to TV Centre to do some "guerrilla user research" with people queueing in the rain to attend tours.
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Over the last couple of months you'll have seen various films about the work that went on to commision TC Zero, our new production research facility in Television Centre.Μύ We felt it worth compiling a final film that gives you an overview of the whole move to the new space and how we plan to use it in the coming months and years, so here is that film.
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This week we sent out an expedition to Geneva for the RadioDNS General Assembly and . We particularly liked the release of the , a native Android library that provides an API to the FM radio chip on certain devices, and we're looking forward to hacking on this. Mark and Chris N are tweaking our RadioVIS prototype for stability and Chris L and Olivier are reviewing the state of audio on the web.
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Last week, I talked about second and third screen. I explained that typically the media content on our personal devices, the laptop or mobile etc, is unrelated to that on the TV. In this view of the world, the TV is the primary screen, the one getting the most attention.
This week I want to talk about a concept that involves content and applications on these different personal devices collaborating and interacting with the TV, radio or online programme (I use the term programme below) including time shift.
In a future post, Steve Jolly shall be blogging on using these personal devices for controlling the TV or radio. For example a personal device may provide an EPG βappβ designed for specific accessibility needs, communicating with the TV.
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At the moment R&D have a few vacancies available in a range of positions across our department.Μύ From research engineering to support technicians all our roles are addressing the challenges of R&D, and we need the very best candidates.Μύ All positions are listed on our main careers page, and we've listed them out below too:
IT Support Specialist (Windows)
Further details can be found on the (ref. 528942)
Closing date: 20th February 2011
Technologist (Automated Production and Media Management section)
Further details can be found on the (ref. 528130)
Closing date: 24th February 2011
Technology Transfer Executive
Further details can be found on the(ref. 528942)
Closing date: 27th February 2011
Monday starts with Chris N knuckling down to implementing changes to our P2P-Next metadata feeds. Sean is preparing the data and toolchain required for querying our collected Firehose data, and estimating the EC2 instances & costings for the digging we wish to do. Olivier and George are out at a "Web and TV" workshop organised by the W3C, and return enthused.
On Tuesday, Dom, Chris N & I work on some P2P-Next interactivity specification. Duncan and Mark are hard at work finishing off the AudioSync service, making some changes to the API to increase resilience and shaping the demo client up for final release. Chris L completes his first cut of a prototype RadioTAG server.
Thursday, Chris L, Chris N and Mark set up the infrastructure for a RadioVIZ trail in readiness for the RadioDNS summit in Geneva next week. This is Chris L's first hands-on with our VM setup, but everything goes smoothly.
Last of all, I set up some data munging runs to chug away over the weekend for the Dashboard project, and Sean's doing the same for the Firehose data, so there's a lot of crossed fingers over the weekend..
On Friday 11th February we will be publishing white papers containing our work on a "Universal Control" (UC) specification. UC enables Orchestrated Media types of experience, improved television accessibility, and new editorial opportunities too.ΜύΜύ These topics were on the agenda at this week's on "Web and TV" where we had the valuable opportunity to present and share this work.
Update:
This has now been published as White Paper 194. It represents a snapshot of the API as it is still very much a work in progress for us.
An easier to read overview will follow soon.
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βSecond screenβ, βtwo screenβ and βthree screenβ are concepts that broadcasters and other media providers are just starting to get to grips with.
Common usage of the term βtwo screenβ refers to consumption of media across TV and Internet.Μύ βThree screenβ adds in mobile devices.Μύ It doesn't necessarily imply simultaneous consumption of content via these different media forms. Nor does it imply the consumed content is related across the screens (e.g. an audience member may be using Facebook or Twitter for a completely unrelated purpose, while paying less attention to the TV show).
Thinking in those terms is perhaps unnecessarily limiting in scope and misses the broader picture around the opportunities of social media, creating more seamless media experiences, and how these flow from home environment to beyond.
We introduce the term βOrchestrated Mediaβ to encompass these wider ideas and discuss the the elements needed to realise this.
How are the audience using multiple screens?
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Over the weekend we had a meeting room knocked down to create space for a few more desks. Will that result in less meetings and more work? Who knows, but there's a fine layer of dust covering my desk. Chris L joined our team this week as a software engineer. He's started to look at the RadioDNS specification and has begun work on a simple RadioTAG client application. Understand something by building it, that's what I like to see. Not only that but he also helped out with these weeknotes (see below).
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The temptation is to say "Yes we can" but the realistic answer is "Well, not all by ourselves".Μύ But we are on the brink of creating something that can make a major difference toΜύthe amount ofΜύbroadcasting content, and other audiovisual content, that will survive: the PrestoCentre Competence Centre, to be launched 14-15 March in Hilversum, The Netherlands at "".
PrestoCentre will be launched at Screening the Future, 14-15 March
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| 11:57 UK time, Monday, 28 February 2011
