User Devices

Today Google released Google Gears, to allow developers to build services that use "online" applications offline. Its a very good idea for users, but probably bad news for Microsoft.

And it's also one in the eye for the WebService 2.0 Zealots.

We've argued from the get-go that the whole purely online Webservice world was a nonsense...simply because comms is not totally ubiquitous, never mind secure, reliable, sufficient etc etc

Old hands will of course recognise this as just another swing in the continual pendulum-ing between the "mainframe" mode - its all done centrally and the clients are just dumb, and the "Power to the Edge" movement where its all done on the client.

The answer, as always, is that WebServices will be yet another client / server compromise and it will shift as infrastructure's structure changes.

More here and here

The BBC New Media home experiment has just ended, the NooMeedja kit has been taken away and life is back to normal.

For those who haven't been following it, this was an experiment where a bunch of "digital home new media" devices were installed in a family's house for a month and they were left to get on with using them. Links are to week 1, week 2, diary and Conclusion:

In the experiment they were given Wifi, iTunes for music and video, HDTV, WebTV access, a Sonos in-house music system

For the mouse-lazy, here is a precis of the conclusions:

- The family got used to getting a quick video news update from the BBC News website.

- Watching a news bulletin and downloading a movie was not too challenging.

- And for the movie, they went to a DVD subscription service, which also offers downloads, and pretty quickly the movie was on the Media Centre. But they thought the service looked pretty costly - and were not impressed with the selection on offer.

- Ugly Betty and Web TV

Watching Ugly Betty proved to be difficult. The new dedicated internet television services, Joost and Jalipo, did not impress at all. After a few false starts, they managed to download the Joost software and view the service on the television. But Dean's (the father) verdict?

"It's rubbish - I'm not interested in old episodes of the Man from Uncle," he said.

"If it was something like episodes of 24, it might be worth the bother."

And Suzanne was not much more impressed with Jalipo, a platform for pay-TV on the internet: "I can't see myself paying for that."

What of Ugly Betty?

Well their experience trying to download an episode seemed to encapsulate all the promise and frustrations of internet television.

A quick search revealed that it was available via iTunes and on Channel Four's 4OD.

But closer examination revealed that only American customers could buy television programmes from Apple's online store and an attempt to download from 4OD failed because the site was not compatible with the Vista operating system on the PC.

The family did find the programme on various file-sharing sites, but were nervous about the whole copyright issue, so stopped short of downloading.

Just as well, wrestling with bitTorrent is not for the faint-hearted

Added together though, this really says that PC based digital video entertainment is not yet over the "Chasm", and has a way to go before it gains mass market adoption. To quote again:

With internet television in its infancy, our new media family may have been trying it just a little early.

Despite their problems with both the technology and the content, they have emerged enthusiastic about the idea.

"It could be so much better in a year's time," says Dean Boston.

"When you look at the content that's available in the States you have to ask 'when is that coming to Britain?'"

However, in another telling comment, they note that when all the various PC's were removed (Mediaplayer, laptop etc) they felt that they missed that more than expected, it really slowed them up.

They also found they used internet radio quite a lot once it became easy to do.

Our take, based on our own trials (of our own families, with varying setups based around web TV, cable TV, home networks etc):

(i) Absolutely agree on deployment of hardware...having a few more computers on a home network massively speeds everything up

(ii) A dedicated webTV device hooked to the TV really grows on you.

(ii) The technology deployed in teh BBC experiment was diverse and complex, so integrating it is difficult. We have experimented with a simpler rig in our MyPCTV setup - Windows XP and MP3 only, no Apple gear - has less functionality, but much simpler to inter-operate

(iii) Kids learn a lot of the techniques automatically and are natural users of new technology.

(iv) Our experience of Internet radio is interesting...everyone preferred Pandora (they found it got them to new music they liked far faster than Lastfm), and then the exposure to new music started a new wave of music buying.