This prototype downloads some TPEGML feeds and returns the information to the Google Earth client across the Internet.
Google Earth can be downloaded from https://earth.google.com and the travel feed automatically added by typing https://www.agm.me.uk/gps/googleearth/travel.kml in to your browser and clicking "Open".
The national RTM feed is being used in the prototype along with some northern feeds (Tyneside, The North and The North East) and some southern ones (London and The South East). The data is cached for around 10 minutes.
The code is written in PHP using MySQL running on a Linux server.
In theory this could feed the entire travel database in real-time. I would like to enhance the icons so that show what the problem in addition to the severity. I would also like to highlight a stretch of affected roads around an incident instead of just taking the midpoint.
I have had a fantastic idea, which may help to re-engage people with politics.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ NEWS website should provide a section in its Politics area to explain in plain, simple, and easily understandable english, each new Act of Parliament as and when it is given Royal Assent.
This would help the general british public to look up and understand what new laws mean for them, their businesses and the country as a whole.
I think it would be immensely popular, and helpful for lots of people!
I just read an article on the wired website about the boom in people downloading audio only versions of tv programs. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ already provides audio description for many programmes, wouldn't this provide a wider use of this useful resource.
As documented in my blog post (see the idea URL), I would like to see a TV/Radio programme planner where a user selects 'favourite' programmes to produce a personalised schedule.
The schedule could then be accessible from the web site or syndicated using the iCalendar standard into Apple's iCal, Mozilla Sunbird or other compatible calendars (Outlook?).
When subscribing to an entire TV series, the iCalendar event can be configured with the correct recurrence for future planning. Additionally, last-minute changes to the schedule would be reflected in the calendar application.
I've looked briefly into the schedule feeds recently made available, and they appear to suffice for an implementation along these lines. In my brief look, I wasn't able to tell if it provides enough information to properly represent the entire runs of a series of programmes.
I'd love to have a crack at this myself, but finding time for off-the-cuff ideas like this is something I'm terrible at, so if someone else fancies having a crack, you'll have my eternal respect!
Cheers,
Ben
My first attempt to work with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ feeds, this allows anyone to create a panel to insert into their own web sites that contains live ´óÏó´«Ã½ news headlines. It's a rough design at the moment and needs a little clieaning up but the best part is that all the config data is stored in the URL, no cookies or logins required.
future improvements could include the inclusion of sports and other categories.
A platform independent and highly configurable desktop RSS ticker.
12KB Jar application.
Specify one to many feeds, request ´óÏó´«Ã½ Breaking news alerts, color schemes, sizing, delays and much more.
All configurable through a single XML preferences file.
Tested and working under JRE 1.5 using Mac, Linux and Windows.
Source is provided under GNU General Public Lic.
have just launched RSS and Atom feeds for .
RSS feeds can be outputted by adding the argument "&output=rss" to any Google News search (for example a ).
No doubt there will be all sorts of new opportunities to include Google News results in backstage.bbc.co.uk prototypes.
And here's a tip from Ben: Don't forget you can use the "source:bbc_news" modifier in a Google News search to return results just from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website. For example, .
Mood News - ´óÏó´«Ã½ News Headlines Auto-Classified as Good, Bad or Neutral.
Mood News started as an idea to represent the day's news as a sad or happy face. The current version provides a fresh view of the news with a dynamic interface. The ratings are based on keyword scoring from a vocabulary of 160 words and phrases.
With Mood News I have enjoyed reading more news from broader range of topics. It is also nice to reliably find some good news in these times!
Future plans are a regular schedule, increased vocabulary, regular updates and a short podcast created using a TTS engine. Also I plan to open up the mood score data for sharing
If I want to go out in NE London, as I live there I'd like to see what's on near to where I live as I cycle everywhere and I'm lazy! So how about listing the different strands of the bbc site on a google map by date and post code. So I can look up theatre, on 6th August and see what's on where. Or acoustic music on 25th December in Dartford, when I see my parents at Crimbo. Or political/spiritual/environmental meetings in October, plotting where and when. So basically making a screen like /london/content/articles/2005/05/31/yourmanor_hackney_feature.shtml
more usable, plotting their locations, what's on and when.
Even though I've just been looking for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ What's On Events pages only to find out it's been closed down. So I thought I'd pop it up here to see if anyone else would like to pick this up and run with it! Cheers.
NewsGlobe takes the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World News RSS feeds, geocodes
country names in the title, and maps each story onto the
Google Earth globe. You will need to install Google Earth (at
https://earth.google.com/) before you can click on the link. If I can work out how to do it I'll try and put the relevant photos against each item as well. (by the way if there's an Iraq story try zooming right into ground level)
Open it up, leave it, and get snowed under by the News!
I created Accidental News at the beginning of this year for an exhibition at the Duncan of Jordanstone Collage of Art and Design's Interaction Design Lab, Dundee.
Based around the theme of the accidental, it's a comment on the News headlines that we see everyday all around, how we meet with them and how they engages us. Some can grip us; others can pass us by. The headlines have different meaning to everyone they cross. We don't engage with headlines from far away like that of ones close to home, often, even hard to imagine them in the context of our own society and culture.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ - 'Updated every minute of every day'. Well, Accidental News works it's way around the world, displaying its news, returning to each location, every minute of every day!
It was displayed on different screens at the exhibition, each one with it's own element of randomness. It's not functional really, more a quick experiment. If I get the time, I would love to explore (or see) ways in which this form of presentation could be made into a functional News Reader.
Any comments would be very much appreciated! Thanks.
I'm looking at using the ´óÏó´«Ã½ TV feeds to provide an enhanced Freeview EPG.
I use the Topfield 5800 Freeview PVR which has the ability for the user to add files to it. Using a custom EPG display app (one of many) I can upload data in the correct format to enhance or enrich the Freeview EPG.
In it's most basic form, my idea is a converter from the XML to the format the Toppy takes for it's EPG.
On top of that, with more time, a Web based app could also be made to provide browsing of the listings and timer setting on any web browser at any time. With the right setup, these could then be transferred automatically. Effectively allowing you to program the PVR remotely from anywhere in the world.
We would like to add ´óÏó´«Ã½ news to our free GlobeAssistant. With the GlobeAssistant we can show data, photos etc at the right location when surfing over the GoogleGlobe site. It would be easy for us to also interpret your RSS feeds and join these messages with the other data
Introduction/Background:
As an accessibility consultant, I tried to tackle the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Backstage competition from an access viewpoint. The idea being for a visually impaired user (who may struggle with ´óÏó´«Ã½ news stories) to be able to have podcasts of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News stories on his/her MP3 player.
Process:
I'm no techie, and don't really do jargon, and so I'll keep this simple. (If I was a techie I'd be making this - not describing it.)
An assumption has been made that the user has an MP3 player and podcasting software. Here goes:
The feed is provided ready-made in podcast form This is done by grabbing the original RSS feed and processing it with a text-to-voice software package.
The voice data (in Podcast form) is then placed back into a feed ready for the user.
The user selects his/her feed type (what news he/she wants)
The news is then 'read out' to the user using their MP3 player.
Simple! The user signs up once and can access news aurally everyday on the way to work etc.
Options:
Varying voices?
Randomising news?
Pros:
Easy once set up (setup shouldn't be difficult anyway)
Gives another option for impaired users to access ´óÏó´«Ã½ News.
Cons:
Could it compete with radio?
Voice software would need to be sourced.
(backstage.bbc.co.uk editor: This sounds very similar to an existing prototype, )
