For the techies amongst us, a step down memory lane…

The BBC Micro – the machine which, along with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, epitomised the British home computer boom of the early 1980s – was launched 30 years ago.

Unveiled on 1 December 1981 as the Model A and Model B, the BBC Micro would go on to sell over 1.5 million units before the last of the line was discontinued in 1994.

The BBC Micro was designed and manufactured by Acorn, a Cambridge-based computer company founded by Chris Curry and Herman Hauser on 5 December 1978 as Cambridge Processor Unit (CPU).

Curry had quit working for Clive Sinclair’s Science of Cambridge (SoC), where he had developed the MK14 microcomputer kit. Sinclair was less enthusiastic about the project than Curry, who came to believed that the only way to take the product to the next stage – to build and sell a computer for home use – was to do so outside of SoC.

Hauser, a physics researcher at Cambridge University, agreed. He was aware of the many young, talented computer scientists and engineers working at the university and was able to help CPU quickly tap into this resource.

CPU first developed a controller for Ace Coin Equipment’s one-armed bandits, funding the work on the Acorn Microcomputer – later called the Acorn System 1 – which was launched in March 1979.

During the following months, Sinclair began work on the ZX80. Unlike the motherboard-and-not-much-else MK14 and System 1, the ZX80, although sold primarily as a kit the user would assemble, was designed as a cased product with the potential to appeal to a much broader audience than electronics hobbyists.

That move, in turn, may well have inspired Curry to drive the development of the next Acorn machine, the Atom. Seeing the possibilities, Curry and Hauser recast CPU as Acorn. And, a year later, in March 1980, the Atom was launched as the first Acorn Computers machine, combining a case with an integrated keyboard – with moving keys, unlike the ZX80’s flat ones – and what was essentially a System 3 motherboard within.

And with the Atom’s launch, Acorn’s development team began work on its successor, codenamed Proton, a machine they hoped would be a more serious machine than the one-up-on-Sinclair Atom.

Meanwhile, the state broadcaster was taking an interest in the world of microcomputers…

This article continues on reghardware

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/11/30/bbc_micro_model_b_30th_anniversary/

Netflix will stream “well over a billion hours” of video this quarter, the company’s CEO Reed Hastings revealed during the UBS Global Media conference Tuesday. Hastings admitted the company had some trouble holding on to its subscribers in recent months, but he said streaming usage has nonetheless been growing. “Streaming has been a rocket ship,” said Hastings.

Asked about his competitors, Hastings dismissed possible threats from Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and some of the new offerings that are rumored to launch soon, like the Verizon streaming service that made headlines today. Instead, he admitted: “The competitor we fear the most is HBO Go.”

Hastings said only HBO and Netflix have the stomach to spend one to two billion dollars a year on content, adding: “They are becoming more Netflix-like and we are becoming more HBO-like.”

He also called HBO Go “really quite impressive” and said he fully expects the pay TV network to eventually rebrand its online service to be simply called HBO, making it the core of its offering. “When you use it on a Roku, it’s so much better than the MVPD system,” he said in reference to HBO’s linear and traditional VOD offerings through cable set-top boxes.

From http://gigaom.com

Netflix’s background in DVDs-by-mail means it is often seen as mainly a movies service. However, the balance has tipped more towards TV shows in its streaming operation.

“50% and sometimes 60% of viewing is TV episodes now,” said Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos, during a joint keynote at the MIPCOM conference in Cannes with Miramax CEO Mike Lang.

This is the key factor behind Netflix’s high-profile deal to stream episodes of Mad Men, and also its decision to ink an exclusive deal for David Fincher’s new remake of BBC drama House of Cards.

“That can be mis-perceived as Netflix giving up on movies, which it’s not. It’s just consumers saying what they want,” said Sarandos during his keynote. He also announced a new exclusive deal for a TV series called Lilyhammer, starring actor/musician Steven Van Zandt.

Sarandos said that Netflix intends to use its recommendation algorithms to seed the show with users who are most likely to enjoy it. “We really think we can use these same algorithms to launch a show very rapidly, and put it in the hands of the people who’ll love it the most,” he said, citing the previous example of Starz’ Spartacus show being promoted to Netflix users who had enjoyed the film 300.

Miramax is one of Netflix’s key partners, with Lang having joined as CEO in December 2010 with the ambition of striking a series of digital distribution deals. He previously worked as executive vice president of business development and strategy at Fox Entertainment, where he was closely involved in the acquisition of Myspace and the creation of online TV service Hulu.

This story continues on the guardian website http://tinyurl.com/3hhksyh

Amazon unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet on Wednesday, announcing what is expected to be the first widely adopted tablet based on Android. The Kindle Fire not only marks the first real competition to Apple’s iPad, but could also position Amazon’s Prime Instant Videos as a real threat to Netflix.

Priced at just $199, the new 7-inch Kindle Fire will likely sell millions of units as soon as they it’s available, which would be unprecedented demand for an Android-based tablet. But just as importantly, each new tablet comes with a 30-day free subscription to Amazon Prime, which means millions of new users will immediately have access to the company’s Prime Instant Videos service.

While it’s unclear how many of those users will choose to subscribe to the $79 a year Amazon Prime service after the free trial ends — or how many Kindle Fire customers are already subscribers — the packaging of a free video service on the tablet has the potential to be a game changer in the streaming video world. Until now, even those who subscribe to Amazon Prime might not be aware that in addition to free shipping they also get free access to more than 11,000 movies and TV titles. But making Amazon Prime Instant Videos available in the palm of their hands (and free! for a limited time) could convert a number of users over to the service, which is looking like the first real threat to Netflix.

That threat couldn’t come at a worse time for Netflix, which is still dealing with the hangover of a poorly communicated price change and the re-branding of its DVD business Netflix’s DVD service is now called Qwikster, and its operations will be run separately — a change that has baffled investors and has many subscribers looking for alternatives.  Amazon Prime Instant Videos could be one alternative they latch on to.

This story continues on the gigaom site http://gigaom.com/video/kindle-fire-amazon-video/

NDS provided the ‘blow you away’ demonstration for IBC2011 with its Surfaces concept, which takes the best of the big screen and companion screen experiences and throws them onto a single wall-sized display (or multiple walls) to create a feast of visual and interactive entertainment that still manages to maintain the lean-back characteristics of TV.

Surfaces is designed to exploit revolutionary advances in video display technology. NDS believes that wall-sized video displays, including video-capable ‘wallpaper’, will be available at reasonable prices within five years and has decided that there is no longer any reason to limit the TV experience to a 50 inch rectangular box. Surfaces will give platform operators the display real-estate to provide more immersive TV experiences when we want to fully relax, or a combination of entertainment, diaries, information, social media and connected home applications in a television-centric user interface at other times in the day.

In the demonstration, we were greeted by an ‘ambient’ display on the wall-sized screen showing large framed photos of family members and Facebook ‘speech bubbles’ with our latest social interactions. The first person to come down to breakfast is Mum, and as she is alone she selects ‘Mum’ on the controlling tablet and the display reorganises itself so that the equivalent of the BBC Radio 2 website appears in the centre of the wall, with music and details about the current show and the music playlist. To the right is a clock, the latest weather and diary items for the day. To the left are newspaper headlines that can be pursued for more information via the tablet.

Mum decides that she wants to watch the breakfast TV news so the screen reorganises itself so that the news bulletin appears in a 50 inch widescreen format at the centre-top of the wall. Radio 2 moves to the left and is muted as the audio switches to TV. But the radio playlist is displayed so Mum can switch back to a song she likes at any moment. Under the news are headline links, which can be clicked via the companion to learn more about the news stories. After the national news comes the regional news and the headline links change to local stories.

Then we return to the TV in the evening for some family entertainment. We choose the family profile on the tablet and The X Factor appears as an 80 inch widescreen TV display. Down the left-hand side are Twitter feeds relating to the show and below this is a live voting app where you can see viewer predictions about how each judge will vote, and you can cast your own vote via the tablet. The app is updated live so that as each judge makes their decision, a red cross or a green tick appears next to their photo.

For the purposes of the demo, NDS provides an ‘Immersive’ bar on the tablet that you manually adjust depending on how immersive you want your TV experience to be. At this point, we are watching X Factor at about half way on the immersive gauge, so we still have the social interaction on the left and on the right there are promotions for Amazon where you can buy the song that is being sung currently on the show. By sliding the immersive scale higher, these interactive and social elements disappear from the screen and the video content alone fills the entire wall. For good measure, the lights also dim to create a cinema ambience.

This article continues on Video Net http://tinyurl.com/5vaw5h3