Apple Demo Day

More interested in the iPhone Plus than the Apple Watch. Yes, they have solved some interface challenges by making a digital "winder". But the battery life is something that limits its usefulness as a health device. Can't be used to monitor sleep if it is going to have enough juice during the day.



Perhaps SWatch needs to be worried. But not the analogue watch makers like IWC.

Time Lapse Eastbourne; Blightly like you've rarely seen it.

Getting addicted to some of the great timelapse movies.

Spotify Discovers Video could be the clue to paying for great audio

30 million of the 40 million registered users of the Spotify streaming music service never pay a cent. You could argue that they pay with their attention. Now Spotify is asking those free users to watch video ads  of either 15 or 30 seconds. In return they get 30 minutes of uninterrupted music. I think this is better than the other idea which is old interruption advertising dressed up to look like something new.

Sounds like a deal. Especially if the ads are really well done. A good example is Wetransfer, a Dutch site that makes it easy to transfer large files via the web, especially the attachments too big to attach to an email. While you wait there is a carousel of large one page ads, some of which are beautiful.

But Spotify could do so much more with video enabled ads. It is something radio has tried to do, but it never had the right sized screens.

And I'm worried that digital radio technology is not getting embedded into smart phones. Even NFC has got into the new iPhone to be launched tomorrow, so the rumours say.

Heading into the volcano

This team took Go-Pros and a Canon camera to a place where few dare to tread.



Pity the film just fades to black. A Making of would be intriguing.

MN.04.04.1985 Brannigan and Edwards

Great to hear the voices of John Brannigan, a Scottish radio propagation specialist, who was the perfect interviewee. He really knew his field and could explain things in non-technical language. The other guest in this programme is BBC World Service Chief Engineer Keith Edwards. He was one of the first top managers to turn up at shortwave listener gathering and explain what they were trying to do at the transmitting end. He also anticipated home satellite radio and TV reception several years before it took off in hobby circles. Remember this is well before the launch of Sky Satellite Television.

This episode is hosted on the Media Network vintage vault

MN.04.07.1985. Expo85 and Radio Tampa

One of a series of Media Network programmes that originated from the 1985 Expo in Tsuba, just North of Tokyo. I used the visit to the expo to visit Akihabara, called Electric Town, even then. The Sony ICF2001D has just gone on sale, and I remember picking one up for considerably less than in Europe. Just had to make do with a Japanese only instruction booklet. We also look at the domestic shortwave radio station Radio Tampa. This was one of the first Media Network safaris, exploring media in other countries. Remember it is nearly 30 years old!

This episode is hosted on the Media Network vintage vault

MN.07.02.1985. Radio Jackie London

Radio Netherlands won't be getting access to 747 kHz. Things are going to plan for PA6FLD ham radio station operating from the new Flevoland transmitter site. I also did a marathon edition of SW Feedback live from the transmitter site.
Radio Jackie gets raided again in South West London. Bob Tomalski, later a contributor to Media Network, looks at whether they were a community station or just in it for the money. In the Netherlands, Broadcast minister Elco Brinkman says that pirate radio stations will not get access to extended FM bands. Roger Tidy in London has started a new monitoring magazine.

This episode is hosted on the Media Network vintage vault

BBC World Service Peter Horrocks resigns

Peter Horrocks, Director of the BBC World Service Group, today announced that he will be leaving the BBC in the new year.

Peter Horrocks has been Director of the World Service since 2009 and has worked at the BBC for 33 years.

Under Peter’s leadership weekly audiences for the BBC’s global news services - BBC World Service, BBC World News and BBC.com – have reached a record 265m.

Peter has led the World Service through some of its most challenging times, responding to funding cuts by modernising the World Service for the digital age.

He successfully oversaw one of the biggest changes in the history of the World Service as it moved from Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funding into the licence fee, leaving its historic headquarters of Bush House for the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.

One of the best interviews with Peter was on a TV station in Ghana earlier this year.