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The service offers viewers the chance to catch up for free on 3,000 hours of archive and recent programmes from the BBC, Channel 4 and Five.

Seesaw is funded by advertising – viewers see unskippable 60-second ad breaks before and during each show.

Seventeen brands including Ikea, Diageo and Kraft have already signed up.

Channel 4 and Five are selling space around their own programmes, with an agency booking advertising content around shows from the BBC and other independent production companies.

Seesaw was born from technology bought by Arqiva from the aborted Project Kangaroo, an internet TV service supported by several UK broadcasters that was blocked by the Competition Commission.

Seesaw’s platform controller, John Keeling, told BBC News that the site would roll out a premium service in the next few months with 2000 additional hours of programmes.

Customers of the new service will make undisclosed micropayments to view or "rent" major shows.

The company is still in negotiation with several US studios for their content, although the website will not be available overseas.

There are plans to "experiment" offering 90 minute TV movies but SeeSaw will not stream cinema release films.

Viewers choosing to rent a programme will have 48 hours to stream it without ads or return to it to watch again, explained Mr Keeling.

The BBC iPlayer offers viewers the chance to download and own programmes for 30 days but Seesaw’s user testing indicated that its customers would rather stream video, he added.

Streaming site

He denied that Seesaw was following in the footsteps of online music service Spotify.

"I can see the comparison but Spotify is more of a free and subscription hybrid – we’re looking at free and transactional pay-per-view hybrid."

Chief Executive Pierre-Jean Sebart said that a subscription package was something SeeSaw was "investigating".

While the service will initially be purely a streaming outlet, there are plans to add social networking elements to the Seesaw site, said head of product and technology Richard Dines, who previously worked on Project Kangaroo.

Both Mr Dines and Mr Keeling were reluctant to make comparisons between the two initiatives.

"It’s a different story," said Mr Keeling. "Lessons were learned by the shareholders of Kangaroo. We have a different model – we don’t have broadcasters as shareholders."

However he credited the catch-up services developed individually by the major broadcasters – such as 4OD, the BBC iPlayer and Demand Five – for opening up a market for internet TV.

“ You need a big player to change the way people watch television ”

John Keeling, Seesaw

"You need a big player to change the way people watch television," he said.

But with broadcasters already pointing viewers to their own services, the challenge for Seesaw and similar companies such as Blinkbox is to divert enough users away, said Chris Curtis, news editor at industry publication Broadcast.

"The difficulty for all these guys is getting enough viewers to site to view the content to make the advertising model stack up," he said.

"It’s quite hard to get people to pay for content online. They might be prepared to make micropayments for the really big American shows but people generally associate conventional, standard TV with being free at point of viewing."

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/8518713.stm

Published: 2010/02/17 11:48:35 GMT

© BBC MMX
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Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

A leading privacy group has urged US regulators to investigate Google’s new social networking service Buzz, one week after its launch.

The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) has made its complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

It says that Buzz – which is part of Google’s Gmail service – is "deceptive" and breaks consumer protection law.

The search giant has twice made changes to the service to placate an outcry from users about privacy concerns.

Canadian officials are also looking at whether Buzz violates privacy laws.

"Google still hasn’t gone far enough," Epic’s consumer privacy counsel Kim Nguyen told BBC News.

"Twitter is a social networking site and people know what they are signing up for. With Gmail, users signed up for an e-mail service not a social networking service," said Ms Nguyen.

"Despite all the changes, they still do not give users a meaningful way to opt into it."

Buzz was automatically rolled out to Gmail’s 176 million users.

The FTC has been asked to "require Google to provide Gmail users with opt-in consent to the Google Buzz service".

The complaint has also asked the FTC to "require Google to provide notice to and request consent from Gmail users before making material changes to their privacy policy in future, and seek appropriate injunctive and compensatory relief".

‘Rightfully upset’

Since launching Google Buzz as part of Gmail last week, the search giant has faced a torrent of criticism regarding privacy.

The feature that attracted the biggest outcry was one which automatically gave users a ready-made circle of friends to follow based on the people they emailed the most.

Privacy advocates said that meant the list of contacts was open for all to see and could have had serious implications for journalists, businesses or even those conducting illicit affairs.

Engineers have now replaced the auto-follow feature with one that suggests who to follow but EPIC said that still leaves the "user with the burden to block those unwanted followers".

The organisation also wants the company barred from using Gmail address book contacts to make up social networking lists.

Google has apologised and said it acted quickly to address concerns including introducing a new option to disable the service.

"If it becomes clear that people don’t think we’ve done enough, we’ll make more changes," Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Buzz told BBC News.

He acknowledged that many of Gmail’s "tens of millions" of users were "rightfully upset" and that the firm was "very, very sorry".

‘Seek forgiveness’

The botched launch of Buzz has led many to ponder how and why it happened.

In an interview with BBC News, Mr Jackson admitted that testing of the service had been inadequate and that it was not opened up to a big enough group of people to try out.

"We’ve been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn’t quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild."

The Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group, said it was not surprised by this stumble.

"This case illustrates a lot about Google’s corporate culture where a company is run by computer scientists whose operating method is don’t ask for permission when you can always ask for forgiveness," said the organisation’s John Simpson.

The move by EPIC to ask the FTC to investigate Buzz mirrors one it made in December against the world’s biggest social networking platform Facebook.

Then, the privacy watchdog was not happy about changes the company made to its privacy settings.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/8519314.stm

Published: 2010/02/17 08:47:02 GMT

© BBC MMX
____________

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Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

All eyes in the technology world are on Apple as it prepares to unveil its latest creation, amid a swirl of speculation it is a tablet computer.

On Wednesday morning the company will hold a news conference in San Francisco to launch the new product.

Media and tech blogs have been in overdrive, amid rumours the product will be a keyboard-less tablet device.

For weeks, a flurry of photos and videos purporting to show the new device have been circulating.

“One never knows what Apple might or might not do on any given Wednesday in January,” said Mike Gartenberg, vice-president of strategy and analysis at research firm Interpret.

Market winner?

“One thing we do know for sure is we are going to see some sort of new device or category of device.”

Paul Miller Engadget tech blog wrote:

Apple has done an amazing job keeping this thing under wraps.

The safe money is on the product being a tablet or slate-like computer which traditionally bridges the gap between smartphones and laptops.

“The question here is does Apple have a different take on this category? It has to be something that has a reason to exist all by itself and not something that lives between a phone and a computer,” Mr Gartenberg told BBC News.

Until now the tablet market has been regarded as a middling one with revenue of around $950m (£597m).

But many industry watchers believe Apple will do for this sector what the iPod did for MP3 players.

Apple said it sold 21m iPods last quarter and, while that represented a drop of 8% on the previous year, the company boasts a 70% market share. “Our base case assumes the new tablet adds four million shipments, $3.2bn (£2.1bn) revenue and 82 cents of earnings per share in 2010, but we see potential upside to six million units,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty.

Interpret’s Mr Gartenberg agreed.

“Apple is not building products for tens of thousands of enthusiasts. They are building products for tens of millions of customers,” he said.

‘Jesus Tablet’

Speculation has been rife about what this mythical device, sometimes dubbed the “Jesus Tablet”, will actually do.

The closest followers of these trends are the blogs and so-called Apple fan sites which have tracked everything from patents to supposed leaks from various manufacturers and people claiming to have actual photographs.

“Apple has done an amazing job keeping this thing under wraps,” Paul Miller, editor of tech blog Engadget told the BBC.

“We have just tracked eight years of rumour and speculation about a tablet device from Apple, and here we are the day before the big announcement and there is basically zero tangible information on it,” said Mr Miller.

Among the rumours is that the gadget will be a gaming device, an “e-reader killer” or a really big iPhone.

Multi-touch will be at the heart of everything.

“Apple is looking at a new paradigm of user interface where the finger replaces the mouse and the keyboard,” said Leander Kahney, founder of CultofMac.com and author of Inside Steve’s Brain, a book about Apple boss Steve Jobs.

“This is a very important step in mainstream computing.”

The tablet is expected to connect to the internet via Wi-Fi and 3G cellular networks.

‘Very excited’

It will have a full browser and access to more than 125,000 software applications found in the Apple App store.

In terms of partners, Apple has reportedly been talking to publishers to bring books, newspapers and magazines to the tablet as well as to broadcasters to bring TV shows and movies to users.

Cost will be crucial and commentators say with an expected price tag of possibly between $700-$1000 (£440-£680) people could be put off.

“We’re betting even die-hard adopters [those who are first to embrace new gadgets] won’t be showing up en masse to buy the tablet,” said Wired blogger Daniel Dumas.

For those interested in technology, the wait will soon be over. But not without Apple’s boss doing his bit to whet everyone’s appetite.

Mr Jobs said on Monday: “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product we are very excited about.”

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/8480063.stm

Published: 2010/01/26 22:11:55 GMT

© BBC MMX
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Technology correspondent, BBC News

Rising prices and better alternatives may mean curtains for netbooks.

The small, portable computers were popular in 2009, but some industry watchers are convinced that their popularity is already waning.

"The days of the netbook are over," said Stuart Miles, founder and editor of technology blog Pocket Lint.

As prices edge upwards, net-using habits change and other gadgets take on their functions, netbooks will become far less popular, he thinks.

"Technology has advanced so much that it’s outmanoeuvred itself," he said. "You wouldn’t go for something so basic anymore."

His prediction stems from his belief that the netbooks of 2009 are losing touch with what made them so appealing.

Media heart

Asus kicked off the netbook trend in 2007 when it launched the Eee PC 700 and 701. The 700 sported a 2GB solid state hard drive, 512MB of Ram, a 900 MHz Intel Celeron processor and a seven inch screen.

It was cheap, cheerful and a boon for those wanting to check e-mail and go online while out and about.

But, said Mr Miles, the success of the small, portable notebook has been its undoing because it has spawned so many imitators.

Many contemporary netbook models run Windows XP or Windows 7 which has forced the specifications, and price, upwards. Many, he said, now cost at least £350, a figure close to that for a more capable full-size laptop.

What people are looking for now, he believes, is a machine that can keep up with the demands of contemporary web users – far more than the basic e-mail and web browsing that made the first models so appealing.

"As soon as you want to do anything else you hit the same problem, it ceases to work," he said. "It does not have the power."

Those changing habits of web users, he maintains, are too complex for those basic machines.

"It’s the internet’s fault for making us much more multimedia savvy," he said. Uploading and editing still or moving pictures and handling audio all require far more power than the basic netbook offers, he said.

This could explain, he said, why many laptop makers are now turning out very thin and light machines that have power but not the shoulder-wrenching bulk.

All change

Ian Drew, spokesman for chip designer Arm, also believes netbooks are in for a shake-up. Consumers, he said, were chafing against the restrictions that using a netbook imposed on them.

"We have failed the consumer because we have imposed constraints on them," he said.

Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes.

“ The web is the king ”

Christopher David, SonyEricsson

"It will be a lot of different machines for a lot of different people," he said. "This whole market will be exploding in the next couple of years."

Impetus for this change will come, he believes, from the phone world where many, many types of gadgets are already blooming.

"It’s no surprise that your mobile has changed a lot in the last three years but your PC hasn’t," he said.

Arm hopes that many more netbook makers will be using one of its designs as a core processor and turn to Linux as the operating system.

At the very least a crop of Arm-based netbooks might mean a big boost to battery life. Arm’s mobile pedigree means it is designed to be parsimonious with power.

Dell already produces notebooks sporting Latitude ON technology that use both Arm and Intel chips so that they can boot into either Windows or Linux.

Editing tools

Battery life on Linux is in excess of 10 hours, for Windows rarely more than three.

Machines sporting Arm chips are also likely to be thinner as they will not need the heat sinks demanded by processors used in desktops.

Mr Drew said deals Arm has signed with Adobe will help ensure that future devices will be able to use the software maker’s familiar video, audio and image editing tools.

What will also be worth watching, he said, is what happens when Google’s Chrome OS is launched.

Many of the devices running that will be Arm-based as Chrome is broadly based on one of the Linux distributions. There are also unconfirmed rumours that either Windows 8 or 9 will run on Arm chips.

Mr Drew also expects to see devices tailored to particular types of user.

E-book readers were an example of this, he said, and were evolving into devices capable of doing more than just handle text. Many can play MP3s or let owners browse the web.

Then there is the approaching wave of tablet computers.

Apple is rumoured to be working on one. Dell and Microsoft have shown off their own ideas of what one will look like and there are bound to be many more from established tablet makers such as Archos.

Mr Miles from Pocket Lint believes these are likely to take up the mantle from the netbook.

"I don’t think people will expect it to do much more than you get from a netbook," he said, adding that they were perfect for those who needed a device that let them get online quickly to satisfy their curiosity.

They were more likely to succeed now more than ever, said Mr Miles, because of the greater experience people had with using such devices.

"It’ll be helped by Apple which has educated people how to use multi-touch through the iPhone and iPod touch," he said.

Netbooks are also likely to come under pressure from smartphones as they get even smarter, said Christoper David, head of developers at SonyEricsson.

Phone makers, he said, have to position themselves to be more open and able to support the web habits of users no matter what they were or what they wanted to do.

"The web is the king," he said. Handset makers must work with those open web standards to ensure that the software on the phones they make is flexible enough to cope.

"Though," he added, "that is only the starting point of the journey."

What will not change, he believes, is the importance of the phone as a vessel for data about its owner.

"We’re going to see phones coming along where the form factor will be less and less relevant in terms of what we carry about with us," he said.

Future devices will grab the best resources nearby whether that is a flat screen, projector or thin film display.

The ID credentials stored on what was our phone will handle all the logins and give access to all the sites and services we use.

The netbook, and its limitations, will be well and truly left behind.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/8421491.stm

Published: 2009/12/28 08:32:50 GMT

© BBC MMIX
____________

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