BBC LiveUpdate and QRCodes
It may seem as though all I’m covering at the moment is things coming from the BBC. Well, That’s because I am currently only covering things from the BBC (The last two posts here have been concerning things from the BBC.) And this post, Will be no exception. After looking around at both the BBC Programmes (beta) site and various off-site blogs from BBC staff, I’ve found a few more interesting things to cover. (I do promise, This (or possibly the next post.) will be the last blog post that is only about the BBC.)
I’ll start off with the most recent “concept” first. The BBC LiveUpdate Air Application (Or Widget)
The LiveUpdate widget could be labeled as an improvement (major cross-platform-up-to-date-upgrade-with-lots-of-eye-candy) to the current BBC News Ticker application. This one uses Adobe Air (Which also powers the popular Twitter Client, Twhirl.) and Adobe Flex, Which is a kind of IDE (Integrated Development Environment.) for Adobe Air (This may or may not be the case, This is what I’ve gathered after looking at the Flex Product page on Adobe.co.uk) The LiveUpdate Programme (Of which I’ll refer to as a “Widget” from here-on) is a desktop client which provides the latest headlines via news.bbc.co.uk (or bbc.com/news for those of you across the world of whom watch BBC World News.)
The interface (As I mentioned above) is shiny and up-to-date but it can be a bit large for people with smaller displays. I’m writing this on a 21.2Inch Wide-screen Display and the LiveUpdate Widget takes a good percentage of my display space, and soon begins to compete for screen-resolution with Twitterific and my Growl Notifications. When the LiveUpdate widget is compressed, Its a bit more manageable. Taking up about 450×120 pixels, When compared with 420×530 pixels. Within the interface are two tabs. One for BBC News, The other for BBC Sport. You can customise what content you wish to see within the Widget via the “Customise” button in the lower-left side of the widget. I currently have it set-up to show, Top Stories, UK News and News from Kent. Which provides me with enough useful information that I can process effectively if I simply glance at the widget while working on something else. There are some annoying little things about the widget though, For example, The fact that only some images load some of the time. I’ve yet to figure out why this occurs. But I have a feeling this has something to do with the way the BBC processes images, and the way its creating smaller thumbnail images for the widget to display. You can see this on the image I’ve posted at the beginning of this post or via this photo. Annoyingly, All photos for BBC Sport load just fine.
[The BBC LiveUpdate widget on the Desktop, Click for Full Version]
Secondly, After looking through various blogs. I found that within the BBC Programmes site there is the usage of QR Codes. For those that don’t know (Which will be most of you.) QR codes are a 2D Bar code. If you’ve ever gotten an item of post via a courier service like DHL, UPS-International or Royal Post, You’ll notice a type of QR Code on the parcel label.
The only problem with my coverage of this? I don’t have a flipping clue at what these codes will be used for! One idea, Would be create promotional content which contains a code, The consumer scans the code with a mobile device (Of which I’ve tried doing with my Verizon/Vodafone Q9c CDMA/GSM Hybrid. And so far its worked perfectly.) which could send them to a mobile version of the iPlayer. Only an idea.
(For those who don’t have a mobile device which is capable of reading QRCodes, The QRCode to the left, links to donaldkelly.co.uk. But its also possible to create codes with up to 160 characters or phone numbers / SMS short-codes, This code has been coded with the Radio 1 call-in line, 08700 100 100 0300 100 100.)
To bring yet another post to a close.
BBC LiveUpdate: A Good start, Needs a bit of work (for example getting every image to load properly.) cross-platform is a plus and a nice design. Could use less screen-resolution. I’ve been unable to figure out what the Green-Circle in the lower right corner is for.
BBC QRCodes: Strange, Yet interesting.
(I’m trying out Transparent Watermarking of photos, (Basically, See-through watermarks with my URL.) If you would like the original, Uncompressed versions of the photos / snapshots on this page without the watermark, Feel free to email me. donald.kelly@donaldkelly.co.uk)
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