So it seems BBC Three have gone for a bit of a rebrand, along with a new multiplatform vision which will include becoming the first channel to be broadcast live across the internet as well as on tv (though if you missed your weekly hit of “Can Fat Teens Hunt” on either platforms then don’t worry as you can always catch up with it on iPlayer too!)

I quite like the new logo, though it does seem mighty similar to the Heart FM one?

The BBC are currently running a ‘Festival of Technology’ today and all of tomorrow. It’s completely free, and will showcase latest developments within web, interactive television, digital tv, audio production etc. It’s in Television Centre on Wood Lane and is open to everyone (though if you’re not BBC staff you have to register here). I’m gonna try and pop down tomorrow morning …

Although I missed it last year I’m gonna try and get work to pay for me to go on this, it’s in London on April the 17th and 18th. Looks like there’s gonna be some good speakers, also alot about usability/user centered design - rather than just how to make shiny buttons!:

http://www.futureofwebdesign.com/

The other big product that’s come out of the BBC User Experience Design team recently is a redesign on the homepage of bbc.co.uk. The key features include:

The page is still in beta, but you can see what you think here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/beta/

Although still in beta, a new version of BBC iPlayer which we’ve been working on for the last few months has been released this evening. The big changes on the previous version are that it now offers streaming flash video which will work across platforms, the sign in process has been removed so anyone in the UK can easily access it, the first step towards radio integration has been taken and the download manager has been significantly redesigned to make it simpler and easier to use.

There are still a couple of bugs, but I’m really proud of it and think the design and development team have done a really great job. So if you’re in the UK click on the link below and catch up on the last 7 days of BBC TV!

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

I was quite pleased this morning as I got emailed my invite to get on to the trial of the new video hosting site, Hulu. It’s one of the many new IPTV sites, this time a joint venture of NBC and Newscorp (featuring shows like Heroes, Simpsons, Family Guy etc).

However the Hulu strapline “Watch your favourites. Anytime. Anywhere” seems to only be true if by ‘anywhere’ you mean ‘anywhere in the US’. Anyway it just got me thinking how irritating GeoIP is (i.e only showing you stuff if your in the correct area of the world). I know BBC uses it quite a lot, but when your actually on the recieving end of not being able to access content it’s really annoying - it also feels very counter to the whole “global village” concept?

Our team is currently working on the new design for the BBC homepage which will be released for public beta soon. In the meantime someone sent me this great link showing the various designs from over the years - am loving the 1997 version pictured below! Link

We’re currently working on a redesign for the iPlayer Library to make it simpler and easier to use, so I’ve been doing some research into other video manager applications and stumbled into this application called Miro. It’s basically the latest version of what used to called ‘Democracy’ and is all cross platform and open source – it also uses the open source VLC player which seems to play just about every video file under the sun (MPEG2, WMV, Quicktime etc) …

It allows you to download and keep videos from many video-hosting sites such as YouTube, Daily Motion and has a great guide of video podcasts including lots of HD content. Download it here

I remember reading the other day that video sharing site Vimeo were now allowing their users to upload and view videos in high definition. Was checking it out this morning and the quality is pretty amazing in comparison to youTube or equivalent sites. I can only imagine their server bills must be huge?! Check out an example here

This is quite interesting, choose two colours, select if they are main colours or highlights, then the site will search out other sites that have been designed to that palette. Link

Have been recently trying to update and redesign my website, the bad news was that in my tussles with trying to figure out Wordpress I ended up deleting my database and all previous blog posts!

The good news is that it’s now up and although there’s still quite a few more pages to do it seems to be getting there …