For the third year running re:fine will be taking part in the Soho fun-run!

This unique event is a three legged race around the heart of Soho and has become a bit of a summer tradition!  The race follows a route around Soho where teams endeavor to answer questions and receive hospitality at various stops en route.

Once back in Soho square there is a big picnic and a live band.  We’ve never won anything or even come close but it’s great fun and raises money for the Vision Charity -our industry charity that aims to change the lives of blind and visually impaired children.

To donate or take part click here!

Brian Lenz, Director of Product Design and TV Product Development at BSkyB, told the 3DTV World Forum last week that it was much more challenging to create the business case for digital TV and then HDTV than it is for 3DTV before deciding: “Will 3D be the next big innovation that radically alters television? I think there are reasons to believe that could be the case.”

Referring to the reaction of consumers to early Sky 3D broadcasts, Lenz said: “Every time we put this in front of people they are excited and want more. We do not need to convince them. HD was a harder sell because some people cannot see the difference between SD and HD but 3DTV is immediately obvious to them.”

Responding to questions, Lenz said that for BSkyB, 3D success would mean repeating the kind of uptake witnessed for its Sky+ PVR and HD services and, before those, its introduction of digital TV. “This is just the beginning. Success for us would mean that in 2-3 years time consumers are clamouring for more channels and there is enough content available to expand the offering,” he said.

Lenz said the time was finally right for 3DTV. The big changes since previous industry attempts to introduce 3D television have been the transition to digital, including file based storage and editing, plus high quality camera rigs. These have removed many of the difficulties witnessed before.

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Today, Google officially announced its latest product, Google TV.

It’s a platform, both hardware (as a set top box) and software, that uses a combination of technologies, including Android, Chrome, and an Intel chipset plus Internet connectivity to create a truly amazing product.

We think it’s going to change the way people watch TV completely. No longer will people crowd around a desktop computer in order to watch videos on Hulu or YouTube. Gone are the days of hooking up your television to your laptop to watch online content. Google has changed everything.

Google TV hooks up to your set top box via HDMI and has an interface similar to something between Windows Media Center and Android OS. Through a search bar, you can bring up various TV channels, find related content on sites like Hulu and Amazon and so much more.

See, Google TV supports Adobe Flash, meaning if you can view it on the web, you can view it on Google TV.

Watching a Football game on TV and want to check your fantasy stats right then and there? You can throw the game into picture-in-picture mode and bring up your Yahoo! Sports account in a few clicks of a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Love movies? You can now watch all your favorite video websites easily on your TV and can use Netflix as well.

But it gets even more innovative. Your Android Phone is now a remote. You can speak commands to your TV like “Good Morning America” and the appropriate show will turn on instantly. If you hate fighting over the TV remote, just use two Android phones. Problem solved.

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Apple has booked in more than $60m of advertising on its iAd mobile advertising network, which will launch on the new generation iPhone on 1 July.

Big brands such as AT&T, Best Buy, Unilever and Chanel will all kick off the launch with mobile ad campaigns.

The advertising network will be built into the new operating system for the iPod Touch and iPhone 4, which was unveiled by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs in San Francisco yesteThe new system allows users to stay within their app while engaging with an ad, watching a video or playing a game.

Apple said it has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling more than $60m, almost 50% of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending by JP Morgan for the second half of 2010.

The technology giant will sell and serve the ads, and app developers will receive an industry-standard 60% of advertising revenues.

After a few technical hitches on stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Jobs was able to showcase the iPhone 4 that will launch in the UK on 24 June.

It is 24% thinner than the latest iPhone model, the 3GS, and includes a 5- megapixel camera with LED flash on the back. Using a front-facing camera, the iPhone 4 will also allow users to see their callers and visa versa.

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Sony Pictures Home Entertainment confirmed that it will be bringing the first Blu-ray 3D SKU to market “early this summer” with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 3D.  The first day-and-date Blu-ray 3D release from the studio will be Resident Evil: Afterlife (which opens theatrically in the US in September).

In an interview with Home Media Magazine, Lexine Wong, SPHE senior EVP of worldwide marketing, explained that the company “felt it was absolutely necessary to offer a standalone retail 3D version of Cloudy for our retailers and consumers who want more 3D content for their 3D TVs.” As previously reported (see blu-ray.com, May 23), most of the 3D releases expected for 2010 will be available exclusively for the buyers of 3D hardware of one brand or the other.

Wong added that SPHE’s Blu-ray 3D titles will also include a 2D high-def version of the film.

When asked about whether Blu-ray 3D titles would carry a price premium, Wong stated that with Blu-ray 3D there are authoring and production costs “above and beyond those associated with 2D Blu-ray.” Additionally, she noted that theatergoers are now used to paying more for seeing a movie in 3D than in 2D. Hence, she said, “we do feel that expectation will carry over to Blu-ray 3D.”

“Just as Blu-ray offers the best high-def picture and sound,” she concluded, “the best quality 3D is only on Blu-ray 3D.”

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Playboy TV has provided a graphic illustration of why content owners might want to partner with CE vendors and help boost their Connected TV content portals. Speaking at the Connected TV Summit in London, Richard Gale, Director of European Marketing at Playboy TV, said that with existing TV platform partners the revenue share is 80% to the platform and 20% for his company. “When we work through a CE vendor we keep 80% of the revenue and give 20% away. That is going to be massive for us because it allows us to reinvest in our content.”

Gale believes the penetration of connected devices is creating a good addressable market. He said that CE vendors do not want to take responsibility for the billing relationship with consumers but want Playboy TV to provide that themselves, through third parties. “So we are going to have a direct customer and billing relationship and we are going to increase our revenue share,” he noted.

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Long before the iPad was launched, we posited that it would change the way people consumed video.  Well, based on some very (very!) early data from MeFeedia the Apple tablet is already considered an ideal devide for watching online video by its users.

Despite a limited number of iPads on the market, the device is already coming up big in MeFeedia’s internal stats. Less than a week after launch, the iPad ranks sixth among mobile devices for accessing video through the site and its search engine, behind the iPhone, iPod touch, SymbianOS, Android, and Blackberry. But the actual viewing numbers are the interesting part: according to MeFeedia, iPad users consume two and a half times as many videos as the typical web user and three times as many videos as iPhone users. More importantly, those users spend three times as much time watching video as the typical web user, lending credence to our theory that the device’s form factor hits a sweet spot for personal media consumption.

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Hulu reportedly will introduce a subscription plan as soon as May 24, which would cost $10 per month for access to anything older than the last five episodes of popular TV shows, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The subscription plan, dubbed Hulu Plus, would not affect those who regularly catch up with recent episodes of their favorite shows on the Hulu.com website. But anyone who wanted to watch episodes older than the latest five free (advertising-supported) episodes would have to pony up $10 per month, the report says.

There are some unknowns about Hulu’s subscription plan, though. There are no details on whether the $10 subscription will let you watch an unlimited number of episodes from the site or if there would be some sort of metering in place. Also, it’s unknown if advertising would be displayed during the back catalogue episodes.

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SES Astra, the company that owns the Astra satellite used to beam Sky and Freesat to the UK, will next month begin transmitting free 3D content.

However, 3D TV buffs needn’t get their hopes up too far. The channel, which begins broadcasting on 4 May, will initially be aimed at retailers and installers, and will feature “demo” material from the worlds of “sports, music and entertainment”.

read more here