Versatile Amphibian

I found this Intel press release on the use of smartphones for personal monitoring interesting as it tallies with some work we've been doing recently on application stores. The concept is that handsets can do far more than simply tell you where you are and what's around you, they can also take measurements from your body and determine your health, mood and general wellbeing. This is nothing new, of course. I understand that Apple has a number of patents that relate to extended sensing of device users. What the article misses (and perhaps Intel have too) is that handsets are already well capable of making these measurements today. A few weeks ago the istethoscope application was the top selling app on iTunes - demonstrating the growing understanding of how to exploit smartphones for health and wellbeing. Heartbeat monitoring is a basic diagnosis tool, but has many uses in personal monitoring - level of exertion being the most obvious example. Smartphones have taken off big tim...

With apologies for the time lag (work has been particularly crazy recently), here's the second summary of my conversations from IBC. This time the interviewee was Spencer Stephens, SVP of Technical Services for Sony Pictures Entertainment and the topic was Google TV and DECE . Stephens believes that there are two key game changers for IP - connected TVs and the move from physical to digital content 'lockers'. With regard to the first, Google TV is a game changer. Stephens wasn't a fan of Apple TV as it's just an add-on to the TV, unlike Google, which is a hybrid of TV and the Internet and enjoys some of the benefits of both. It integrates EPG, DVR, purchased content and so on. Personally, my concern with Google TV is that it disintermediates broadcasters by focusing on content brands. Consumers are more likely to search for 'Top Gear' than for 'BBC 2'. Branded channels are a way round this, but I feel that they immediately restrict the value of Googl...

I've spent the last few days at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, so my next couple of posts will cover some of the more interesting takeaways from interviews and stand visits I carried out at the event. First up, my notes from a talk by Matt Rennie, Commercial Director of Seesaw , the UK online video site that came out of the wreckage of Project Kangaroo . First up, some numbers: Since its launch in February, Seesaw has averaged about 3M unique visitors a week, from a current UK online video market of 10M-11M visitors It currently has 3,500 hours of ad-funded and 1,500 hours of paid-for content available for streaming Seesaw appears to be addititive to other online portals. 78% of their users are unique vs. 4OD and 96% are unique vs. Demand5 Next, some key factors that have made Seesaw a success: It is based on robust and scaleable technology - a result of large investment by the Kangaroo partners and latterly by new owner, Arqiva The user experience is fanta...