I have opened the BBC iPlayer download manager and I saw it had an update. So I downloaded the update and followed the instructions.

I know that the iPlayer can only download videos in Firefox. Which was a pain before they added the flash player to the site. I hated opening the old IE browser just to download atv show.

But! When I did this update I had Firefox open and a message came up. “Restart Firefox before going to the iPlayer”(or words to that effect). A smile came on my face and I shut down all the tabs I had open and restarted Firefox and went to the iPlayer website. I can now download TV shows from Firefox! Finally!

It is a big step forward. Ages ago I reported on the fact that iPlayer would only be supported on a Windows PC running Internet Explorer. No Macs and no other browsers. Which I think was ridiculous and it should have been launched with as many systems and browsers supported as possible. Now I don’t know what other browsers were newly supported in this update but It is good to see the BBC on the right track, even if I think they have gone about it all wrong.

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Yes this is not quite true. But technically the way they have written the introduction to the Google Accessible Search, means they have created a search page for ugly people.

This came about after I was at the Future of Web Apps and watched a talk by Robin Christopherson from AbilityNet. One comment I really remember well is that the proper technical term is “Vision Impairment” because “visually impaired” implies the person look ugly!

The Google Accessible Search page:

It is still in the Google labs so it has time to change it before they make it live! Does anyone think I am nit picking?? If you do then don’t bother e-mailing, thought this was a funny observation.

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Barely a month after taking most of its videos off of iTunes and going home, NBC is ready to play again. In a story about NBC CEO Jeff Zucker, the Financial Times reports:

Mr Zucker appears to have patched up relations with Apple after a pricing dispute last year led NBC to pull its shows from the iTunes digital media store. “We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple,” he said. “We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.”

The shows that were removed are not back on yet, but i will keep a look out. But it looks more and more like NBC’s walkout may have just been a negotiating tactic. Almost a baby throwing its toys out of the pram to get what it wants!

Source: TechCrunch

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In addition to the news from earlier this week that Yahoo has joined the OpenID movement.

So Google has also been testing the OpenID system with its users. But more specifically Google’s Blogger users. This has been done for 2 obvious reasons. One the best people to use the technology are the technology based people. The most prominent is the bloggin community. But also as each user gets a subdomain they can link their OpenID directly to their blog.

This is all live now and can be accessed at draft.blogger.com this then enables their blog URL to be used as their OpenId. Although I cannot find the option anywhere!

At a guess some people have been reporting that the number of blogger users are somewhere between 10 million and 50 million. So not quite on the Yahoo scale!

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OpenID is the single sign on frame work that allows users to use a single Identity across the web. It works by assigning your details to a domain.

So far Yahoo is the biggest company to join the OpenID revolution! Previously there were about 120 million users using the framework, but now that total has almost tripled!

Got a YahooID? Get your OpenID.

The service will be available on January 30, says Yahoo. But in public beta. This will allow Yahoo users to log in to more than 9,000 OpenId compliant websites. Yahoo will also be integrating their Sign-In Seal feature, meaning users can view an uploaded image before giving over credentials - the feature is widely used by financial institutions and is designed to reduce the effectiveness of phishing attempts.

This is great news for OpenID. Come on all the others. Especially Digg who have been rumored as integrating OpenID into their site for months.

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WOW! Was my first thought when i read this on TechCruch UK.

So the story goes…

We all use BitTorrent don’t we? Don’t worry I won’t ask who you are! But The Pirate Bay have always been there to help us download our “copyright free” music and movies.

But this is the second attempt at shutting them down, but they are still here. So some Swedish prosecutors have sent 4000 pages of legal documentation to them. But as usual they are not bothered at all. If they are convicted they have said they will fight it all the way to the Eurpoean Court.

On a separarte note a small number of members of the Swedish Parliament recently called for the complete decriminalisation of file-sharing.

But this is just the sort of publicity they are looking for ins’t it?

We are behind you Pirate Bay!

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