The BBC’s very popular flagship video-on-demand service iPlayer now has a new outlet. Apart from watching programson your computer, you can also access them through your Wii – at least, you can if you live in the UK. A basic version using the game console began onWednesday, but it’s been promised that the software will become more sophisticated as things progress. To access it, Wii users will need to access the Internet channel on the console. Given thepopularity of both, it’s a match that seems ideal. The Wii is the fastest-selling console ever in Britain, shifting a million units in just 38 weeks, while iPlayer has turned into a massivesuccess story for the BBC, with 17.2 million programs streamed or downloaded in March alone, making a total of 42 million programs since it was released last Christmas. Erik Huggers, the BBC’s groupcontroller for Future Media and Technology, announced the deal in a speech at the MipTV-Milia conference in Cannes, and said iPlayer would soon also be availableon television. "The BBC’s catch-up TV service can now be accessed on an increasing number of different platforms – from the web and portable devices to gaming consoles."
Tag Archive: Cannes
EU to See Zunes by the End of 2007?
Another note to come out of this year’s Midemnet music in Cannes, France: while Microsoft hasn’t yet announced any official plans to market its Zune music player outside the United States, a Microsoft marketing director has said the devices could hit Europe by the end of 2007.
According to Reuters, Microsoft’s Jason Reindorp acknowledged Apple’s iPod as an “entrenched competitor,” but said the company was conducting focus groups in Europe to determine how the Zune can meet needs of European consumers, and expected its next round of Zune products to launch in time for the 2007 end-of-year holidays.
Merlin, Snocap Bringing Indies to MySpace
At the Midemet music conference this weekend in Cannes, France, a new licensing agency named Merlin representing the independent music sphere launched itself, and announced it had forged an agreement with Sean Fanning’s Snocap to offer music from independent record labels for sale via MySpace and other popular online destinations. The move would put the social networking site—one of the Internet’s most-visited destinations—into direct competition with other online music services like Apple’s iTunes. And, just to make things more interesting, the downloads will be available in straight MP3 format, unencumbered by digital rights management technology, so they’ll work in essentially any media player.
FCC Approves Nokia N90, Sony Ericsson K750i
“Teen heart-throb MobileTracker reports a couple of interesting, if unsurprising approvals from the FCC: the Nokia N90 cameraphone, and the Sony Ericsson K750i. The N90 [left] is the new flip-phonehybrid that we had a chance to play with a couple weeks back, while the K750i wasfirst shown at Cannes in March.
Both phones share two-megapixel cameras, although the N90 is certainly more oriented towards imaging, with its flippy screen and multiple configurations, while the K750i is more of an all-around solid, Sony-style phone (which is to say, about as much of a ‘smartphone’ as Nokia’s units usually are). I liked both phones in the short time I had to play with them, even if neither one offer a totally new experience.
Play WMA And WMV On Your Nokia Phone
The multimedia demonstration can be seen — and heard — for the first time at the CTIA show.
PacketVideo’s featured demonstration closely follows the landmark announcement made by Nokia and Microsoft less than 30 days ago at 3GSM World Congress in Cannes. The two companies announced collaboration on digital media formats, including support for Windows Media Audio and Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) on music-oriented Nokia handsets, plus support for the MPEG Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) family of codecs. PacketVideo is demonstrating not only Windows Media Audio, but Windows Media Video on Nokia 6680 and 6630 phones.
Philips Launches Solution For TV On Mobile
The solution, based on the DVB-H standard, contains all the functionality of a complete digital TV receiver in an area the size of a thumbnail. It will enable consumers to connect to live TV, as wellas pictures, movies and music, all on the move. Philips will be demonstrating its DVB-H capabilities at the 3GSM World Congress, Cannes, France, 14-17 February on stand A17, Hall 1.
Benq P50 Handset To Be UMA Enabled
The collaboration is a result of growing demand for UMA Technology, the standard for fixed-mobile convergence, from network service providers around the world.
BenQ’s P50 Pocket PC phone is the first product from this collaboration. The P50 is a quad-band GSM/GPRS product with an integrated 802.11b Wi-Fi radio and UMA Client Software from Kineto. The P50 also has an integrated QWERTY keyboard and a complete Microsoft Windows for Pocket PC Phone environment including Windows Media 9 capabilities.
The companies intend the P50 to support volume UMA deployments in 2005. The UMA-enabled P50 will be demonstrated in Kineto’s booth at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France February 14-17, 2005.
Intels Strengthens Phone Business
In a speech at the wireless communications industry’s biggest trade show in Cannes, France, Intel Chief Operating Officer Paul Otellini intends to spell out the No. 1 chipmaker’s plans to drive its ever lower-cost semiconductors into wireless markets.
“To think that phones are not subject to the laws of silicon is naive. They are just small computers,” Otellini told Reuters in an interview ahead of his speech at the 3GSM World Congress.
Read more at CNN.com.
NEC Launches New Converged Mobile Services
From NEC’s press release:
NEC’s platform brings voice and data services together, allowing operators to generate new revenues by developing and deploying new varieties of integrated solutions. NEC’s IMS and SIP solutions are now trialing with a number of mobile operators around the world as a core solution for the next generation of ubiquitous mobile multimedia services.
NEC’s IMS service line-up shows the potential of SIP services to increase the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) of mobile operators, while tackling serious issues such as decreasing churn rates. SIP enables services such as: Presence (a mechanism for sharing users’ status and context information over the mobile network), PoC (Push-to Talk over Cellular – a real-time half-duplex voice service), instant messaging and group chat.
Napster Chief Slams Apple
As the battle heats up for online music services, 2004 stands to be a deciding year for the increasingly competitive market. While iTunes continues to carry a strong lead, Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Roxio (Napster’s parent company) warned music industry representatives to “stay-off the Apple platform” at the recent Midem International Music Fair in Cannes, France, according to the Mail & Guardian.
Gorog backed up his remark by explaining that more music players are compatible with Napster and predicting that its $9.95/month business model for unlimited streaming downloads will prove more popular than Apple’s 99 cent a-la-carte service.
