Category: Internet
Web addresses in multiple languages by mid-2010
The change will delight web surfers worldwide, who will be able to use keyboards from their native territories rather than struggling with western Roman characters.
Britons prefer to be online than between the sheets
In news that is set to put a tear in the eye of romantics everywhere, it appears nearly two thirds of Brits would rather surf the web than spend passionate time with a loved one.
BBC Trust blocks plans for iPlayer sharing
According to Paid Content, the BBC Trust is blocking plans for sharing the iPlayer.
In a September 29 proposal that wasn’t made public, BBC executives said it wanted to create a company to license the VOD (Video on Demand) service to public sector companies. But the BBC Trust – the Beeb’s regualator which is supposed to look after the interests of the licence payer – is blocking the proposal.
The report concluded “that the open iPlayer plans in their proposed form, combining both commercial and public service elements, were too complicated. We were not convinced that there was enough potential value to licence fee payers in the public service part of the proposal, and we have therefore rejected the BBC executive’s proposals for an open iPlayer federation.
The BBC first proposed sharing the iPlayer in December 2008. In its wide-ranging Digital Britain consultation submission it proposed UK public sector broadcast partnerships which it claimed could save counterparts £120 million by 2014.
Via Paid Content
Turns out kids don't want Spotify – they want to own MP3s
The research undertaken by the University Of Hertfordshire for UK Music asked nearly 2000 14-24 year olds how they wanted their music, and a staggering 78% said they don't want to pay to stream it.
Would you watch more online TV if you had faster broadband?
Sure people watch online TV quite happily now, but if they are happy with their current connection they are either 1, getting a solid fast connection and have a really good experience of watching things like the BBC iPlayer, or 2 just used to slow loading video, drop outs etc.
A letter to Obama will ask him to abandon McKinnon extradition
A letter to Barack Obama signed by MPs and Peers will call on the President not to extradite British hacker Gary McKinnon who faces up to 60 years in a maximum security prison if found guilty.
The 43-year-old UFO obessive who suffers from Asperges syndrome, a mild form of Austism, carried out the ‘largest military hack of all time’ in 2002 – hacking into the computer systems of NASA, The US Army, Department of Defence and US Air Force.
McKinnon, who was looking for proof of UFOs, was originally indicted in 2002 and in 2006 the UK agreed to extradite him for trial. Subsequent appeals to the House of Lords and European Court of Human Rights have failed.
Mr McKinnon’s local MP, David Burrowes, said: “We need to take it further and call upon Barack Obama himself to take action as the pleas have fallen on deaf ears so far.”
The letter from The National Autistic Society calls for Obama to allow McKinnon to face trial in the UK on the grounds that extradition might lead to a deterioration in his health.
Legal experts have said that if McKinnon were to face trial, it should be in the UK regardless, as any crimes he committed were committed in British territory.
The case highlights the unbalanced Bush era US – UK extradition treaty which was designed to facilitate the fast extradition of Islamic fundamentalist, not eccentric Scottish systems administrators.
(Via Guardian)
TweetDeck versus Seesmic: battle of the Twitter apps
TweetDeck and Seesmic are desktop clients designed to make communicating on Twitter and managing your accounts easier.
Here they go, head to head: TweetDeck version 0.26 versus Seesmic version 0.4.
Look & Feel
Both TweetDeck and Seesmic are built using the Adobe AIR platform, and have a similar look and feel.
Seemsic appears to have more subtleties designed to make it easier to decipher tweets from multiple accounts at once, yet neither application is hugely customisable when it comes to the overall look.
If you only run a single Twitter account then seeing how applications handle multiple accounts won’t matter to you, but if you’re a “power user” handling two or more active accounts, you’ll find Seesmic offers more options for handling them.
Both applications let you view columns for each account’s tweets, replies, direct messages and so on, but Seesmic also allows you to view a single stream of messages from all your accounts at once, ordered by the time tweets arrive.
Whether this works for you depends on how you like to view accounts, but at least you have the option. TweetDeck (currently) doesn’t offer this.
Six steps to recording the perfect podcast
Ever wanted to hear your dulcet tones on the Internet but didn’t know where to start? Read our handy guide to recording, editing and hosting your podcast and you’ll be there in no time.
We can’t guarantee you’ll be popular, but at least you won’t stay silent.
1. Get the right hardware
It’s fairly obvious that if you want to record yourself speaking you’ll need some way of getting audio on to your computer.
There are plenty of ways of doing this, but you’ll want to get the best quality piece of kit you can afford if you want to sound good and minimise the amount of tidying up you’ll have to do later.
Podcast Pick:
My absolute favourite mic for podcasting (and indeed many other uses) is the Blue Microphones Snowball USB mic. At around £85 it’s not the cheapest option but it’s used by professional broadcasters and podcasters alike. Simply plug it in to a spare USB port and you’ve got a quality audio recording device for vocals, instruments and ambient sounds…
Google Maps adds some new functionality
There’s been no big announcement but Google has added a couple of new features to the full-browser version of Maps.
Firstly, and most useful, is the layers function that allows users to do multiple searches and layer the results on top of one another in a colour-coded system. The example below shows a search for pubs and kebab shops around Upton Park, home of the mighty (yes, mighty) West Ham United:
For the record, if you’re planning on visiting Upton Park, I’d recommend a jar or two in The Duke of Edinburgh followed by a kebab from Kebabish.
The other new feature is the My Location button – which smartphone users will already be aware of. I can’t really see the point of it on a desktop version though. I suppose it may be useful if you’re out and about and lost with a netbook.
My Location will try work out your location based on Wi-Fi points nearby, or via your IP address. Neither is guaranteed to be accurate though. It didn’t work on my desktop here in TD Towers. I’m running Firefox 3.5 so I’m not sure why?
Does it work for you guys?
(via Search Engine Land)
Google Image Search now has license tagging
Google has added a feature to their image search whereby users can choose to only search for images that are available for reuse.
The advance search option gives users the option to only show images that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons or GNU Free Documentation making it easier to find images that, legally, they are free to use on their blogs or webpages.
Creative Commons licenses allow the rights holders to further define how their images can be used. It’s possible to license images for general reuse, or for non-commercial reuse only. They can also choose whether to grant the right to change their images.
Personally, I think that if someone publishes a picture on the web then they have given up any rights they may have had regarding its redistribution. The web is a huge sharing portal and once a picture is published it is bound to be reused over and over again. If people do want their images to remain exclusive they should add a watermark or block image saving on it.
The new Google search options should suit everyone though. People who aren’t fussed about image rights can continue to search for images the usual way and people who do have concerns can use the new functionality. Everyone’s a winner baby.
(via Google)
