主播大秀

The John Peel Lecture

主播大秀 6 Music presents the inaugural John Peel Lecture from The Lowry theatre, Salford Quays, broadcast live on Red Button on Monday 31st October at 7pm.

Pete Townshend has been invited to deliver this year's lecture and will examine the current state of music media. In an age of free downloads and a disposable attitude to music, he'll discuss whether 'creative' people can earn a living and, without radio play, if the 'unpolished' music that John Peel championed can find an audience.

Available on all platforms

Mon 31st October, 7:00pm-8:00pm

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When Max Branning returns to Albert Square, he can use the new beta 主播大秀 Weather site and dress for the weather.

After a couple of weeks without a roundup, this has been a particularly interesting week.

1. Tuesday: Last request to transfer to the new h2g2

Tuesday saw the 主播大秀's final act of involvement with user-written encyclopedia h2g2: letting the Community Consortium send a last invitation to folk with h2g2 accounts at the 主播大秀.

To at least one person on the Points of View messageboard, who was surprised to discover he was classed as an h2g2 user, this looked like spam:

I am very surprised that my spam filter didn't bin this before I saw it. Just who are "Not Panicking Ltd"?

Peta, messageboard host, explained that "Not Panicking Ltd" is the company set up to offically own h2g2 as a community-run website outside the 主播大秀. She also explained how some users might not remember using h2g2:

A lot of people here did use h2g2 to unsubscribe from their post on this [Points of View] board, but never actually posted to h2g2.

You can also read Nick Reynolds' farewell blog post, or .

2. Wednesday: 主播大秀 News Editors tweet the headlines

主播大秀 News began the day by .

at Nieman Journalism Lab :

鈥淲e want to be tweeting with value,鈥� , 主播大秀 News鈥� social media editor, told me of the move. 鈥淎re we exposing our best content, and also tweeting intelligently?鈥� Simply sending out a story is an important first step in Twitter practice, particularly in an environment that finds more and more people getting their news through social channels. But then: 鈥淲hat can we add to that story?鈥�

Gordon Macmillan at The Wall called the new tailored tweets "".

Blogger Patrick Hussey also lauded the change, saying that

@bbccouk, curated since July, passed 5000 twitter followers last week. Only another 367,000 to go before we pass @主播大秀News.

3. Thursday: What's your number?

As the global human population approaches seven billion, 主播大秀 News have created an interactive feature which places you in the context of all the people who have ever lived. , , , and have blogged about it, with threads of folk posting their numbers in comments. (I'm roughly the 78.8 billionth human E.)

The United Nations population fund has a website - - which offers a similar widget which also demographically divides up the folk born before you.

Family planning charity .

4. Thursday: Weather Beta

Late on Thursday, the opened for comments and feedback.

Reaction, even from tough critics, was generally positive.

But it cannot fix everything, as @stewartjoseph tweeted:

New look #主播大秀Weather - Lovely design: clean and clear. If only I could say the same of the weather itself. -

Mike Afford, a former senior graphic designer for 主播大秀 Weather, also .

5. This Sunday: Give an Hour to help people discover the joys of the web

主播大秀 Learning is part of to encourage the tech-savvy - like 主播大秀 Internet blog readers - to help get others online.

The clocks go back on Sunday, adding an hour to the day, and the campaign asks us to "Give an Hour". 主播大秀 Learning has [PDF] to help us assuage someone's fears and lead them to sites about their interests.

Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, 主播大秀 Internet Blog

Liz Howell, head of 主播大秀 Weather, has written over at The Editors blog to launch the . She says the new site has a clearer design and easier personalisation, and invites feedback:

In the past months, we have invited over a thousand users to try out prototype versions of it, but we're still very keen to hear any feedback from you, so please have a look around . We've created a accessible from the 主播大秀 Weather beta which should help to explain new features, and this carries a survey option. Do get in touch! We're using the #bbcweather hashtag on Twitter to group conversation, or you can comment below [the post].

Peter Deslandes will explain how they built the site here on the 主播大秀 Internet Blog next week. In the meantime, please have a look and comment at Liz Howell's blog post.

Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, 主播大秀 Internet Blog

Ronnie Barker as Albert Arkwright in "Open All Hours"

It鈥檚 time for another in the series of open posts.

So what can you comment about on this post?

Everything covered on 主播大秀 Internet blog and more 鈥� anything you want to discuss or ask about the online activities of the domestic, public service 主播大秀. And some issues are still being discussed, the iPlayer for PS3, 主播大秀 主播大秀page and the DSat7 migration, so while you can talk about these I鈥檇 prefer you to talk about them on posts which are still open.

Constructive relevant comments are welcome. Sometimes Open Posts succeed in finding problems and raising them with the right people 鈥� for example the correct channeling of complaints regarding blogs. Open Posts are a chance to me to hear what you'd like more or less of on the internet blog. But this isn't a messageboard - a place for freeranging discussion about absolutely everything the 主播大秀 does (for that, try the Points of View message boards).

The complaints site, moderation appeals process, and are useful if you have a complaint, a blocked post you want reversed, or a problem with iPlayer. If you've tried those routes and there's a problem with the routes (rather than the response you got) then please say.

I can't actually , kidnap 主播大秀 executives, and force them to blog or comment. I do commit to try to answer your questions. If lots of you ask, I can let folk inside the 主播大秀 know that the audience are clamouring for them to blog and comment. It is unlikely that I'll be able to pre-announce something, or to release statistics on request, but it is good to know the demand.

There are a couple of things you could do to help me:

• If you are want to cite a 主播大秀 statement or commitment, please say what you're referring to, with a link if possible. This saves time, and can resolve things if there's been a misunderstanding.
• Finally, it will help me if you try to keep separate topics in separate comments. If I can say to an someone within the 主播大秀 "Comments #3 and #92" are for you, that makes it easier to get an answer than if I have to split up an edit comments.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Strictly Come Dancing

Press the Red Button to hear exclusive commentary from ex Strictly Champion Karen Hardy and a special celebrity guest. Get the lowdown of what's good, what's bad and what's highly entertaining on the dance floor. Plus Karen has plenty of backstage gossip.

Russell Grant dancing with Flavia Cacace, Henry Winkler and Karen Hardy in the booth

Now you can relive Red Button commentaries from the past weeks on the Strictly Come Dancing website.

In week one, Katy Brand graced our screens with her comedic view on the couples first performances. Then, in week two Strictly finalist Pamela Stephenson gave us her unique insight into the show. And in week three Henry Winkler AKA 'The Fonz' stopped by to share who he thought was "aaaaaaaa-ce" from this year's line-up.

And there'll be more fun observations from special guests in the weeks ahead.

Available on all platforms

Sat 22nd October, 6:25pm-8:15pm
Sat 29nd October, 6:30pm-8:10pm

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Children with a wide variety of backgrounds and impairments tested Out and About to help the team design it around the audience.

Something Special is an inclusive TV programme, appealing to all children whilst also being carefully designed with the abilities and developmental goals of disabled children in mind, in particular children with communication difficulties.

The TV team are restricted by the nature of the linear medium, but creating an online offering gave us a unique opportunity to go beyond this and reach the far ends of the disability spectrum.

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Something Special: the Out and About game

I remember extremely clearly when the first series of Something Special came out in 2005. We accompanied the series with a website, and as the TV show was aimed at children with special needs we made the site as simple and usable as possible.

听

I liked the site, but didn鈥檛 think too much about it until some feedback was sent round following broadcast of the TV show: pages and pages of emails from parents saying how deeply their children had been affected. Some said that that the whole family appreciated the support in learning the signs; some that their children were so happy to see people like themselves on TV; and others their children had started to communicate with them for the first time using the signs from the show. Tears poured down my face. Even thinking about it now, I still feel the pride in working here which I felt then.

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Two weeks ago, after more than ten years of life at the 主播大秀, the h2g2 site on 主播大秀 Online was closed.

Much of what the 主播大秀 now does in social media, both editorially and technically (in particular in moderation and hosting) was learned with or developed from the original h2g2 team (which included the likes of Mark Moxon, Peta Haigh, Ashley Stuart Noble and Jim Lynn). The 主播大秀 is keeping the technical platform named after () which came with the community and DNA will still underpin the 主播大秀's moderation and commenting service in the future.

During its time at the 主播大秀, many people were in charge of h2g2, including myself. Although whether I was ever really "in charge" of something that depended to a large extent on the passion and dedication of its community is open to question.

h2g2 is the most civilised, delightful and best behaved online community it's ever been my pleasure to encounter. I'm pleased that a way has been found for h2g2 to live on and hopefully prosper in the capable hands of the Community Consortium (Not Panicking Ltd), Robbie Stamp and technical partner .

Moving h2g2 to a new home has been a rollercoaster ride. It's the first time to my knowledge that 主播大秀 Online has ever done anything like this and to say the least, it was complex. So I'd like to thank some of the 主播大秀 people who made this happen: Joey Haasbroek, Paul Wakely, Marcus Parnwell and the User Publishing Services Team (formerly the DNA team) in particular Mark Neves and Steve Francis who lead on the technical work, and last but by no means least the h2g2 editors Sam and Natalie.

You can join the new community atand follow the Consortium on.

Nick Reynolds is Accountability Executive, 主播大秀 Online

Autumnwatch

Autumnwatch Live are tracking the very best wildlife action from the beginning to the end of this dramatic season, finding unique insights into some of our best loved animals.

Michaela Strachan, Chris Packham and Martin Hughes-Games

For the first time, Autumnwatch Live's webcams are available on 主播大秀 Red Button. We begin deep inside a badger sett in Devon, then we're off to Slimbridge to follow the lives of a bevy of Bewick's swans, one of autumn's key species.

Also on Red Button, we have a special seasonal selection of photos. The images are chosen by the Autumnwatch web team from pictures viewers have uploaded to the Autumnwatch .

Get involved on the Autumnwatch website

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media
Sat 15th October, 8:00am-12:40am
Sun 16th October, 9:45am-6:00am
Mon 17th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Tue 18th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Wed 19th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Thu 20th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Fri 21st October, 6:00am-6:00am
Sat 22nd October, 6:00am-6:00am
Sun 23rd October, 6:00am-6:00am

Freeview:
Sat 15th October, 8:25pm-11:00pm
Sun 16th October, 5:00pm-6:00am
Mon 17th October, 6:00am-6:50am, 5:00pm-6:00am
Tue 18th October, 6:00am-6:50am, 5:00pm-7:20pm
Tue 18th October, 10:10pm-6:00am
Wed 19th October, 6:00am-6:50am, 5:00pm-6:00am
Thu 20th October, 6:00am-6:50am, 5:00pm-6:00am
Fri 21st October, 6:00am-6:50am, 5:00pm-5:40am
Sat 22nd October, 8:25pm-12:35am
Sun 23rd October, 5:00pm-11:00pm

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The remains of the Metroon. Photo by , used under licence.

The story begins about 2,500 years ago, in Athens.

Around 500 BC in the Ancient Greek city-state of Athens the state archive was housed in a building called the , or 鈥榤other building鈥�. This temple, dedicated to the , was filled with papers relating to the day-to-day civic, legal, commercial and cultural life of its citizens.

The Metroon was open to every citizen, and all were entitled both to read and to make copies of anything held there, giving them a level of access to the building blocks of their society that is unrivalled in the modern age despite our Freedom of Information laws and open data initiatives.

Today, there are simply too many Metroons, even if we had permission to enter all of them. The vast majority of current archives remain undigitised and available only by visiting a physical building.

But the bigger challenge is that public archives are run by organisations and institutions that have collected, crafted and labelled their archives to meet their operational needs rather than general access. Gathering a comprehensive or authoritative set of materials from different archives becomes an Olympian task: there is simply so much stuff in so many places described and recorded in different ways using different systems.

Digitisation does not solve this problem, since the different databases are not necessarily compatible. Even though we are entering an age of , the challenges in achieving Athenian levels of access to digitised material are many, massive and varied.

Fortunately, the emergence of the semantic web and linked data practices and standards means that a modern Metroon 鈥� a digital public space 鈥� is, at last, a possibility.

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Autumnwatch

Autumnwatch Live will be tracking the very best wildlife action from the beginning to the end of this dramatic season. The team are planning to get unique insights into some of our best loved animals.

Fans will be able to press red to view our pick of Autumn nature photos taken by our audience. The images are selected by the Autumnwatch web team from photos the viewers have uploaded on the Autumnwatch Flickr group.

Autumnwatch website

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky
Mon 10th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Tue 11th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Wed 12th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Thu 13th October, 6:00am-6:00am
Fri 14th October, 6:00am-10:20am, 5:00pm-6:00am
Sat 15th October, 6:00am-12:40a
Sun 16th October, 9:45am-6:00am
Mon 17th October, 6:00am-6:00am

Freeview:
Fri 14th October, 5:00pm-12:00am
Sat 15th October, 8:25pm-11:00pm
Sun 16th October, 5:00pm-6:00am
Mon 17th October, 6:00am-6:50am, 5:00pm-6:00am

Virgin Media:
Mon 10th October, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am
Tue 11th October, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am
Wed 12th October, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am
Thu 13th October, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am
Fri 14th October, 6:00am-6:30am, 5:00pm-6:00am
Sat 15th October, 6:00am-12:40am
Sun 16th October, 9:45am-6:00am
Mon 17th October, 6:00am-6:00am

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Until recently, we posted the 主播大秀 iPlayer Performance Packs along with some highlights selected by the Communications team.

A couple of readers have asked where they went to. Starting with the August 2011 figures, the 主播大秀 iPlayer Performance packs are now published by the press office.

Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, 主播大秀 Internet Blog

Taken from the

The Digital Public Space isn't a monolithic product like an operating system, or a single-purpose service like. It is large-scale initiative on the part of many different organisations all trying to find the best way to provide the widest possible access to the complete range of digitised material that they create or curate.

The initiative offers the 主播大秀 and its partners a way of thinking about how to take material that exists in digital form, from television programmes to scanned texts to 3-D models of objects in museums, and make it available to the wider public in a way that will support the aspirations of many different organisations with many different missions.

Since it concerns digitised data, the technical aspects of the DPS are largely concerned with standards for digitising and storing analogue material like books or videotapes or dealing with 'born digital' assets like documents or video and with making that material searchable by adding appropriate catalogue information, or metadata.

主播大秀 Information and Archives are already world experts in digitising, preserving and indexing television, and we are working with partners including the , the , the , and the to bring in expertise from all different areas, as the DPS is not just about TV.

On top of the storage and indexing mechanism we then need to build search tools and user interfaces that will allow people access both to the data and, where they have permission, the underlying digital material.

In order to explore what this will look like in practice the DPS team at the 主播大秀 has developed a prototype data model and website that brings together a small selection of archives and catalogues held by other public bodies in a single catalogue that can describe them all using a consistent set of definitions. These will be described in a post by my colleague Jake Berger later this week.

There is a range of other DPS-shaped projects, all aiming to illuminate different aspects of rich and complex initiative. For example the 主播大秀 worked with the British Universities Film and Video Council, the and a number of university partners to , digitising a selection of television news archive from Northern Ireland during the 1960's and 1970's and using it to explore how it can best be made available for use in further and higher education.

Chronicle makes digitised film and video material available through a set of tools which can be used to search and tag items for research or teaching use, collecting the annotations in a format that allows them to be used internally by the 主播大秀 to improve its own cataloguing.

At the moment these partnership projects are modest in ambition and involve relatively few people, but they provide a model for how the digital public space can grow on the basis of a shared approach to the underlying technology and a willingness to explore ways of working that can allow archive material to be made more accessible to more people.

Bill Thompson is Head of Partnership Development 主播大秀 Archive

Bill talks more about the Digital Public Space in a

Close-up of the Digital Public Space test card slide, which began Mo McRoberts' and Bill Thompson's talks at Over the Air

#1 Launching the Programme List Prototype

On Monday September 26th, 主播大秀 Research and Development launched The Programme List as a public prototype. As Kat Sommers blogged, in her weekly round-up of 主播大秀 Research and Development:

The Programme List was opened to anyone and got a little tech press coverage. So far there's been some useful anecdotal feedback and quite a number of visitors. Tristan is hoping some of them stick around so we can get some good data about how they use it over time.

:

[The 主播大秀 launched] a new form of electronic programming guide (EPG) today that replaces the traditional grid with automatically updated wish lists. That will allow users to organize their favorite TV and radio shows in the same way a TiVo handles subscriptions to TV shows.

William Cooper's :

Sky+ allows users to schedule recordings of programmes remotely from a web site or smartphone application. The green button is used on a number of digital television platforms to schedule recordings from a programme promotion. A number of online video services have the concept of a queue of titles to watch later. Podcast subscriptions will download all episodes of a programme automatically. The 主播大秀 iPlayer has a favourites feature that can show when new episodes of a selected programme become available.

What seems to be missing is a way of remembering programmes that works across both broadcast and online television and radio services. The Programme List attempts to address this.

You can log in with your twitter account and yourself.

#2 Ongoing: The 主播大秀 主播大秀page beta

The 主播大秀 主播大秀page beta has continued. 主播大秀page Product Lead James Thornett responded to feedback on Thursday 29th September, and, replying to your further comments on Wednesday this week, summed up the size of the reaction:

Please believe me that we are very busy reviewing all of the comments on the blog posts (195 comments in total so far), the emails sent to 主播大秀pageBetaFeedback@bbc.co.uk (1,149 so far), completed surveys (over 8,000 in the first 5 days), and thousands of other tweets, blog posts and comments across the rest of the web.

At the same time we are trying to keep momentum within our development team by fixing bugs, making changes and developing new features so that we continue to release updates to the beta homepage every two weeks.

On the blog, several commenters said they regretted the loss of customisation and preferred the old page for that reason. Keith, suggested it could be incorporated in the new beta:

Once customisation is enabled it would be nice if there was a 'my 主播大秀' type tab option available, which once logged in allowed us to choose what we wanted to appear in that particular carousel.

James said this was a popular suggestion in feedback and is under investigation.

On Tuesday this week, Neil Crosby explained how his technical team built the home page - how it takes information from across the 主播大秀 and brings it together into a resilient modular system.

Over on Radios 1 and 1Xtra, the beta homepage replaced the live page at the start of the fortnight, and the team completed the trilogy of blog posts about the build: Senior Producer Chris Johnson about the editorial challenge, Senior Creative Director Yasser Rashid on the user experience of the sites, and Senior Software Engineer Patrick Sinclair about how the software and servers came together.

#3 A Digital Public Space

There has been much talk of Digital Public Space over the past few weeks - the hope of the 主播大秀 and other public sector bodies to open up the shared metadata about their archives. The interviewed Bill Thompson and compared it to the similar Europeana. Both Bill and Mo McRoberts talked about it at the 36-hour last weekend.

On the far side of the world, Gary Thompson-Sauer picked up Mo McRobert's blog post about Open The Air and :

We, as typical education consumers, are changing from someone who was satisfied by text and rote learning perhaps ten years ago into someone who now looks to learn from and produce with the gamut of rich media available in his or her daily life.

Mark Thompson also mentioned the digital public space as part of yesterday's DQF proposals:

And also we want to carry on with that partnership agenda ... to work with many others, other public broadcasters, other public institutions, to create what we call the shared Digital Public Space

This week Bill Thompson has been discussing aspects of the Digital Public Space at the . Next week, he'll blog about DPS partnerships here.

#4 Net Neutrality

On Wednesday, , as commissioned by the 主播大秀 and other content providers. The report criticised ISPs who argued that "growing demand for content and applications is a problem - rather than an economic opportunity".

Figure 3.2 in the report set out five myths it claimed lay behind this belief:

Tech blogger

Dear telcos: there's no demand for fast broadband without attractive content...

John Tate, the 主播大秀's Director of Strategy, blogged about the launch of the report, saying:

The 主播大秀 strongly believes that the open internet needs to be safeguarded to ensure consumers can access all the internet content and services of their choice.

:

Telecoms firms around the world have spent millions lobbying lawmakers and arguing that they deserve the right to meddle with bandwidth-hungry services. Content providers and open Internet advocates, on the other hand, say this unfairly punishes successful Web companies and promotes monopolistic behavior among broadband providers.

Both sides have been locked in battle for years, but the fight often comes down to a series of he-said, she-said battles based on assumptions rather than facts. A new report published today in the U.K, however, has tackled many of the arguments head on 鈥� and it has come to a forceful conclusion.

"The Open Internet: a platform for growth" [PDF] is available to download.

#5 More of you are clicking on links that take you away from bbc.co.uk - and that's a good thing

On the 主播大秀 Internet Blog, we make a point of linking out to the conversation around 主播大秀 Online. So it's good to hear, from a blog post by Steve Herrman, the Editor of News Online, that after last year's 主播大秀 News redesign more people are finding and clicking through links to other websites:

The monthly average is now around 6.1m click-throughs i.e. more than double what it was last year.

Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, 主播大秀 Internet Blog

The WebWise Online Course allows learners to track progress using 主播大秀 iD

Originally launched in 1998, WebWise is one of the longest-running sites on the 主播大秀 website, with its remit to provide interactive learning for people new to computers and the internet. This was just one year after the 主播大秀 website went live on bbc.co.uk, itself preceded by the subscription only 主播大秀 Networking Club.

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Mark Thompson and other senior managers are today announcing specific proposals to reduce 主播大秀 spending by 20% - "Delivering Quality First".

Lord Patten, Chair of the 主播大秀 Trust, summed up the overall context. This is what he said about 主播大秀 Online:

We will stick to the plan that has reduced 主播大秀 Online's budget by 25 per cent in the past year. We will continue, however, to look to the 主播大秀 to invest in new technology where it can add to the audience experience 鈥� whether through the development of HD, through access to the back catalogue or through internet-connected television in all its forms.

The detailed proposals [PDF] talk of investing in digital public space, and a digital innovation fund of 拢40pa to help support, amongst other things, putting 主播大秀 content across four screens and making the 主播大秀's back-catalogue available.

The document sums up the 主播大秀's proposals for red button services as:

• Reduce the number of video streams available on satellite and cable from nine to one to provide a more consistent service across all TV platforms. This would take place towards the end of 2012, after the Olympic Games
• Close the news multiscreen service
• Develop new Internet Protocol Television services for connected TV sets, with access through the 主播大秀 Red Button

Please go to the DQF website to find out more, or to the 主播大秀 Trust consultation to give your opinion.

Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, 主播大秀 Internet Blog

I鈥檓 part of the Business Development team within the 主播大秀鈥檚 Future Media division and work with partners in the media and technology space to keep the 主播大秀 at the forefront of innovation and do deals that get our ten online products, (such as iPlayer, and 主播大秀 News) onto mobile and IPTV platforms. This is part of our broad strategy to ensure that audiences have access to our online service, whenever and wherever they want and across all four screens (TV, mobile, tablet and desktop).

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As part of the ongoing debate about traffic management (or 'net neutrality' as it is sometimes referred to), I have been leading the 主播大秀's discussions with Government and regulators about the subject.

The 主播大秀 strongly believes that the open internet needs to be safeguarded to ensure consumers can access all the internet content and services of their choice. We're not opposed to premium internet services if consumers want to pay extra, but it's critical that no matter how many fast lanes there are, the 'best efforts' open internet should itself provide a very good, and consistently and fairly delivered, service.

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Tasks for the 主播大秀 主播大秀page developers are tracked on the team sprint board

Eighteen months ago we launched the current version of the 主播大秀 主播大秀page. Essentially a "lift and shift" of the previous version, it allowed us to move from an older technology stack onto the one built on PHP - a consistent, shared infrastructure that is now used across 主播大秀 Online to enable seamless transition between our products.

Then, a few months ago we started work on . My colleague James explained our approach in a post at the time - our aim was to arrive at a location-and-time-aware page which showcased more of 主播大秀 Online. At least, that was the aim of the visual and interaction aspects of the page. On the more technical side of things, we had other challenges to contend with, which I summarise below.

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Android Phones. Picture by , used under

I'm pleased to announce that we have released an update to the 主播大秀 News app for Android devices. The update will be available to from today.

We've really appreciated your feedback since we launched the app in May. In response to your comments, the update offers:

• 主播大秀screen widgets - offering you an at-a-glance view of the headlines, directly on your Android homescreen
• Improved personalisation - as well as adding and removing news categories, you can now reorder the categories to suit your preferences
• Ability to store the app on the SD card (widgets will not be available if you choose to use this feature).

We have also added the ability to send stories, video, and photos directly to the 主播大秀 News team. If you capture a news event, either as a photograph or video, then please send it to 主播大秀 News.

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Bill Thompson and Matthew Postgate chat at Over the Air 2011. Picture by , used with permission.

This Friday and Saturday I was lucky enough to have been asked to speak at , held at 鈥� home to the team of code-breakers who cracked the Engima and Lorenz ciphers during the Second World War.

The topic of my talk was our prototype implementation of the Digital Public Space. went into detail about the aims of the project and talked with Richard Ranft of and Francesca Franchi of , as well as my colleague Bill Thompson, who is Head of Partnerships here in 主播大秀 Archive Development.

I鈥檓 pleased to say that my talk seemed to be well-received, with a good twenty minutes of Q&A from an interested audience, covering various areas that the project including approaches to digitisation, rights and the expression of metadata.

Over The Air is billed as 鈥�36 hours of mobile development鈥� and much of the time spent there by developers involved taking full advantage of the glorious weather and spacious grounds, hacking on prototypes to be shown off on Saturday afternoon.

On the Friday evening, Bill Thompson kicked off the first ever talks with a whirlwind tour of the nature of reality itself, why the notion of 鈥渁ugmented reality鈥� doesn鈥檛 make sense, and how the Digital Public Space fits into our evolving sense of what constitutes 鈥渞eal鈥�.

Having slaved over their hacks for a day and a night, come Saturday afternoon it was time for the developers to show them off and be . A number of the hacks were pitched squarely at the 鈥� a plea to developers to find a way to replace the audio tour 鈥渨ands鈥� which visitors carry with them as they visit different areas of the estate.

This challenge was of particular interest to us as a demonstration of the ways in which physical cultural assets and structured, machine-readable data about those assets can be brought together to create new kinds of journeys and make our cultural heritage accessible to wider audiences.

The challenge was won by Michael Deales for his entry 鈥淏letchley Park Guide鈥�. In other categories related to the concept of the Digital Public Space, Team WhyMCA won in the best android category for 鈥淗ack the Mansion鈥� 鈥� a geeked-up version of the classic board game, Monopoly; and Melinda Seckington won the prize for most cultural entry with 鈥淢uDo's鈥�, a museum to-do list. While not a winner, Cristiano Betta did show off a version of his 鈥� something which is, of course, close to our hearts. He鈥檇 originally built the app as part of earlier in the year, and has .

Of course, no event would be complete without a big finish! Over The Air鈥檚 came courtesy of Ewan Spence (accompanied by some pyrotechnics), who had over the course of the weekend out of bits of wood, some garden hose, plastic cups, and鈥� some of those little silver balls of fondant that people use as cake decorations.

Mo McRoberts is a Data Analyst in the Digital Public Space project. Tony Ageh, the 主播大秀 Controller of Archive Development, leads the project.

Autumnwatch

Autumnwatch Live will be tracking the very best wildlife action from the beginning to the end of this dramatic season. The team are planning to get unique insights into some of our best loved animals.

Fans will be able to press red to view our pick of Autumn nature photos taken by our audience. The images are selected by the Autumnwatch web team from photos the viewers have uploaded on the Autumnwatch Flickr group.

Autumnwatch website

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky
Fri 7th October, 8:30pm-6:00am
Sat 8th October, 6:00am-2:00pm
Sat 8th October, 8:35pm-5:30am
Sun 9th October, 9:45am-6:00am
Mon 10th October, 6:00am-6:00am

Freeview:
Fri 7th October, 8:30pm-2:45am

Virgin Media:
Fri 7th October, 8:30pm-6:00am
Sat 8th October, 6:00am-2:00pm, 8:35pm-5:30am
Sun 9th October, 9:45am-6:00am
Mon 10th October, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am

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