Virgin joins Sky in spitting on the Canvas

The chiefs of the UK commercial satellite and cable companies are getting increasingly irate about the progress of Project Canvas. In a recent complaint, made to the Cable Congress, Neil Berkett says that he "believes the project will force all operators to use a single Canvas brand controlled by the BBC and its partners - ITV, Channel 4, Five, TalkTalk and BT."

Now, fair enough, he has to protect his brand and his market (and as I subscriber, I want to see Virgin doing well) but it looks like he's just complaining about open competition - if people want more services they go cable or satellite. If they want the lesser-featured, cheaper option, they go Freeview - Virgin won't lose much unless there's a massive depression and no one can afford cable TV.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what he's arguing about. Virgin is one the most popular sources for requests to the BBC's iPlayer, Virgin's network is going all IPTV be one route or another, so how hard a stretch is it to see Virgin cable boxes that can be updated to run as Canvas boxes on the side?

If he was a little more imaginative and forward-looking, I think there's a lot Virgin could get out of this, after all it does have the fastest Internet connections in the UK, surely those after great HD on Canvas will be begging for super broadband connections?

If I'm wrong somewhere, please tell me - but the UK needs all the choices it can get for entertainment and I'm looking forward to Canvas being one of them.

200th Post

Yup, endless negativity, wanderings and wittering. Well, it ends now! As its an anniversary moment, I'd just like to say happy tenth birthday to the PS2 - you're the best, after the Dreamcast of course.

Damn!

On to newer things, looks like the PSP Phone is finally crawling into the light,although this definitely isn't the PSP2.

Why the Internet is still letting us down?

For 16 years I've been using, writing about and enjoying the rise of the common Internet, from its pimply-faced youthfulness in the guise of dinky BBSes up to Delphi/America Online, through to the first Yahoo viewed on Mosaic and so on. And yet, it still manages to disappoint me on a daily basis. After all that time, all the trillions of investment, the geniuses at work, why does it still:

• Show me dating site adverts when I'm married? How is this the "targeted advertising" that all the ad companies burble on about? Where is this smart-Web we're so often told about?
• Why do browsers still try to follow crappy links "http://http://" is a favourite when CMSes don't create the link correctly) or things like "google.con" when you make a typo? How hard can it be to compare against your browsing history to know what you're after and offer to guide you to the right site?
• Why can't you copy some text from a word processor into a CMS and have it display properly? Just how hard is it, really?

Just a few of things that keep annoying me, that computers and technology are supposed to be good at fixing. Why isn't there an Ansari X-Prize for fixing these simple little gremlins that would make life so much better.

I'll wait for the iPad 4GS thanks

You can't find many articles on the iPad that aren't filled with hate; either towards the gadget itself, its makers or the people who plan to buy it. An article by The Inquirer sums up a level of vitriol usually reserved for Commie/South American Despots or George W. Bush.

For all the hate though there are some undeniable holes in the Apple master plan and, as someone who waited for the iPhone 3GS and a cheap enough phone plan, I think I'll pass on the opportunity to own the Mk. 1 iPad and wait until its grown up a little.

Thinking back, apart from video cards and the odd random gadget, the only things that I got straight out of the gate were the House of the Dead (plus the Dreamcast to play it on) and my five year-old Japanese PSP, which is still going strong, no upgrades required. With the mental-as-anything six month refresh plans that the telcos and phone makers are offering, I'm starting to wonder when the pool of early-adopters will shrink down to just Stephen Fry and dot.com millionaires.

The rest of us will just get to sit there, waiting for the PROPER version of whichever device we're after. So - and I know this will fall on deaf ears - makers of all gadgets groovy, just start at about version 3.0 of your magic box and save us all a lot of bad journalism, wasted bandwidth on flaming and rudeness, and a lot of false hype repeated by publications that should know better.

I feel a backlash growing and I pity the poor company (currently Palm judging by recent results) that gets it badly, badly wrong.

PSP Gundam demo out (Japan)

Follow this link to grab the new Gundam Assault Survive demo, its 143Mb, all in Japanese, but will give you a taster of all the mech-wrecking that our Oriental friends get to enjoy. Official demo guide site here. Don't know what its like as my PSP is elsewhere, but it does looks corking! Big question is, will it come out over here...............

PSP store downloads hit Amazon

Users can soon buy digital-download PSP (and PS3) games from Amazon (in the U.S. at least), marking a distinct widening of the store market. Of course, the big question is, will there be price competitiveness? Okay, Sony aren't doing too bad with discounts on the Euro store, but it will take real competition to make for a fair and vibrant market.

Plus getting more users, who might be unaware of, or worried about using, the store can't be a bad thing. Still its probably too late for the PSP though, seeing as the top selling game on Amazon is God of War, some two-years old. Come on Sony, time for the PSP2Phone (with non-phone PSP2 for the kids) if you want to make an impression on the market. Reckon the Tokyo Games Show would be the right place and time.

Whining starts over BBC iPhone Apps

On the BBC site, suitably enough, is a story about commercial news outfits complaining about the BBC muscling in on "their" space, or as they put it, the "nascent" mobile app market. Well, its not nascent, its been around for years, Sky already has Apps, they may be limited, but they are there and if your commercial media outfit doesn't have an app out there, then its your own fault, not the BBC's.

Media outfits could have had apps running on the PSP, Xbox, BlackBerry Nokia, Sony and other types of phones - or how about specially formatted Netbook apps - for ages - but they haven't, the cart is legging it, leaving the lame nag standing still. Again, from the broader view, this is just a rehash of the endless argument against the power of the BBC. Well, from a purely personal perspective, I like the BBC. The Beeb doesn't have Cheryl or Ashley Cole splashed all over the front on its sites today.

Also, there are many news sources these days and I like to check them all out, so I keep the weak Sky App, but I want the BBC App, as well as the China Daily News, Silicon Alley Insider, Melbourne Age and many other sources, if they become available, because I like a broad view of things. Please, commercial news-types, bring your Apps and I'll probably have them alongside all these others, the BBC is not stealing your news, or your market share - in the digital age, you aren't the only source that you so vainly believe you are.