Latest from Westmonster
Dadblog is currently sleeping. See my wide-awake blog here
Off on hols tomorrow, and the box of books just arrived from Amazon. Guy Pratt’s My Bass and Other Animals, Alex James’ Bit of a Blur, and the one I’m really looking forward to: Tony Visconti’s Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy. Muso heaven!
The Reg has an interesting little peek into the BBC’s iPlayer DRM strategy in a piece What tricks is the BBC up to with Microsoft?. The upshot: the BBC is anticipating a service based on Silverlight and new DRM platform PlayReady:
PlayReady is a new DRM wrapper that will supercede the broken Windows Media DRM. It was announced at last year’s 3GSM phone show in Barcelona with a heavy mobile spin on it. In truth, it’s Microsoft’s last throw of the DRM dice across all platforms: a more flexible system which allows time-bombing, pay-per-view, rental, and sideloading under one software umbrella. PlayReady’s happy to wrap around WMA, WMV, AAC, H.264 (MPEG-4), and a bunch of as-yet-unannounced formats. And it’s backward compatible with Windows Media DRM-encumbered files.
PlayReady is an example of what new media tosspots are calling super-distribution, although super might be a generous description for technology that at best will let normal people do what they used to do when they just had a TV and VCR.
Microsoft made no mention of desktop implementations of the PlayReady DRM at 3GSM, but sources say it is currently working on interoperable technology with UK broadcasters under non-disclosure agreements. We can be damn-near sure it’s the PlayReady-Silverlight doubleteam which Microsoft has acknowledged in its forums here.
So, leaving aside the question of whether the iPlayer should have DRM at all (I’ve said before it has to have DRM, and been taking to the cleaners for saying so), is a Microsoft-based solution the only viable way forward? The Beeb isn’t going to make iTunes its distribution platform, and as far as I know there isn’t a consumer-friendly solution inside Linux. So is Silverlight/PlayReady the only way to go?
And perhaps the real story is that in these massively fluid, networked, open-source times, the Beeb doesn’t seem to have any other option than to go with the Seattle gorilla. Isn’t that kind of shocking?
Sometimes you hear about a major company acting in a certain kind of way, and you are so dumbfounded that the underpinnings of modern capitalist democracy seem to wobble. Or something.
So, I’m reading the excellent Johnny Marr interview in this month’s Word magazine, and the questions turn to the talk of a box set of rare and unreleased Smiths music which was around last year. And Marr, the finest guitarist of his generation, the very model of an accomplished, visionary, ambitious rock musician, says this about Warners attitude to the Smiths back catalogue:
They’re putting the albums out shoddily, mid-price releases with cheap sleeves, bad reproductions of the artwork. I’ve wanted to remaster the albums properly for years, but there is no one at the record company whose job it is to look after The Smiths. I find it incredible and frustrating, and most fans of music would find it a ridiculous state of affairs.
So let’s see if we’ve got this straight. In these panicked, end-of-days times for record companies, when every piece of music is repackaged within an inch of its life, Warners is apparently not interested in the fact that one of the two creative linchpins of the most important British band of the 1980s is prepared to remaster their recordings for a new set of releases.
Will the last person at Warners please turn out the lights?
I’m beginning to get the feeling that RSS has monosodium glutamate in it. Every day when I check my feeds I feel sated but not satisfied, if that makes any sense. I have a sense of knowing what’s going on but not necessarily of having gained knowledge. I’ve had a Big Mac and fries, not a steak and vegetables. I think this is because RSS encourages you to skim through stuff, and each RSS entry is without context - the context you get from website design, from navigation, from related content, even from illustrations and furniture. It’s like eating a gourmet meal one ingredient at a time in a bathroom without any decoration.
So, a little experiment. For a little while, I’m going to forego RSS in place of old-school browsing - you know, visiting websites and stuff. I’m turning my key RSS feeds into bookmarks in Firefox. I’ll spend some time using those links to check my world hasn’t fallen over. I reckon I spend about an hour a day checking RSS feeds; I reckon it’s going to take me a bit longer to do it this new way, but it’ll be more satisfying. To continue with my dining analogy: I’ve been eating the American way, it’s time for some French.
From Denton’s blog - Gawker Media estimated annual revenues:
Arf.
The Witching Hour | Pagan entertainment:
Goddess Conference 2007 in Glastonbury
Wednesday 1st-Sunday 5th August with Fringe events Sunday July 29th-Monday August 6th
Full details are now on the website www.goddessconference.comCelebrating the Crone Goddess at Lammas
With Ceremonies, Adorations and Praise Songs to the Crone for Her love, wisdom and transforming power. We shall honour the Crone in the landscape of Avalon, as Crone Nolava, as Keridwen, Keeper of the Cauldron of Death and Rebirth, as Queen of the Underworld, as the Dark Goddess who reveals what is hidden, and as Nine Clan Grandmothers. This Crone Conference is open to women and men of all ages who want to experience the Crone’s loving energy. With illustrated talks, presentations, workshops, beautiful artwork & stalls, performances, music, song, poetry, dance. Take part in inspiring workshops, join one of Nine Clans for support and to participate fully in the Opening Ceremony and others throughout the Conference. Celebrate the Queens and Crones in our Goddess community. Make Lammas Bread Crones. Participate in a Healing Ceremony on Chalice Hill and at the Sacred Lammas Bonfire. Take an inner journey to deeply heal childhood and past-life wounds to your Feminine Self and listen to the wisdom of the Nine Grandmothers. Dance the night away at the Goddess Gala Buffet and Masque and join our Pilgrimage through the Landscape to Chalice Well and Glastonbury Tor with a Fruit Feast!
If wet, in village hall.
UPDATE: Apparently “The Witching Hour is a trading name of WiccaUK Ltd.” I wonder who their company secretary is.
Google Blogoscoped has a bunch of screenshots from Google Health product scope, which include the option to add your medical records to your Google Health profile - “If your medical providers or pharmacy offer secure downloading of medical records, you can find and add your records to a profile”, says the help pages quoted by Blogoscoped.
Amazing, isn’t it? Obviously, everyone’s going to be tracking the privacy implications of this, but what occurred to me is what it might mean for the NHS IT infrastructure project, a significant part of which (as I understand it) is the ability for a patient’s medical records to be shared instantaneously between different parts of the NHS. This plan has been enormously controversial with doctors, many of whom are arguing that it breaks doctor-patient confidentiality. In other words, many doctors believe that your medical records should not even be shared with other doctors, let alone with a hosted third party such as Google.
And another thought: does this very detailed leak to Blogoscoped indicate a degree of discomfort within Google itself towards this plan?
Shane Richmond runs through some recent developments in e-paper technology. As I’ve said before, newspaper companies aren’t paying nearly enough attention to this….
