Tag Archives: news

NHK World TV iPod App

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Like millions of others, I’ve been glued to news sources to get as much current information as I can about the ongoing disasters in Japan following the massive earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear plant disasters. This has to be the biggest natural disaster that has occurred in my lifetime.

In pre-Internet days, we had to rely on newspapers and television for news. Those forms of information have their problems. This is the Internet age. I want current information directly from the source NOW, not later. I want current information of my choice, not what news agencies that aren’t directly on the scene think is or is not important for me to know. If I want 24/7 disaster coverage, in the Internet age that becomes possible, allowing me to completely bypass limited conventional coverage.

It took a while for me to find, but there’s an iPhone/iPod/iPad/iOS app from Japan’s NHK called NHK World TV Live. The app is free. Once the app is installed, it operates very simply. You simply open the app and the live video directly from Japan’s NHK World news service immediately begins streaming. Search iTunes for NHK World TV Live.

The service has an English translator that talks over the lowered volume of the original Japanese broadcasts. The English translators aren’t slick and you can hear them become a bit confused from time to time.

There’s also an app from the Al jazeera TV English news network that operates live out of Doha, Qatar. Al jazeera TV English is highly produced from a beautiful state-of-the-art studio. The on-air newsreaders seem to be British nationals. Though Al jazeera gives more news from the Arab world than the typical American is used to, they do a pretty good job of covering international news, including the situation in Japan. Search iTunes for Al jazeera English Live.

Savvy TV news agencies in today’s world have to make themselves available if they want to continue to be relevant. News agencies such as the BBC, CBC, CNN, Fox, etc. seem to be dragging their feet regarding available-to-anyone-anywhere 24/7 Internet TV broadcasting. I believe they are already losing world market share.

 

Zinio: The Digital Newstand

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Todd Cochrane interviewed Jeanniey Mullen from Zinio which is the oldest digital publishing company. It has over 3500 digital magazines available through its catalog. Zinio has been around for over 10 years now. it first started out on the PC. It has seen an explosive growth in interest with the introduction of the iPhone and especially the iPad. Zinio allows you to read on or off-line. A person can buy a single issue or a subscription. It is up to the publisher whether you can buy digital only or if it comes bundled with the paper version.

As Jeanniey showed the big difference between digital and paper magazines is the ability to add video and audio to them and make them interactive. Also connecting a magazine to other things such as catalogs, or an online music store. Allowing the consumer to see something in a magazine and buy it right then and there. Digital magazines are still in their infancy it will be interesting to see where they go over the next couple of years.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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Apple Hits News Media

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There’s a story over at The Register covering an article in a Belgian newspaper, De Tijd, which suggests that Apple is determined to get its money from the media companies, one way or another. Basically, those media companies that offer a free app to subscribers of their print editions are going to be forced to discontinue the practice and that all subscriptions must go through Apple’s iTunes, where Apple can collect its 30%.

The story quotes two people, William De Nolf, Director of New Media at Roularta and Gert Ysebaert, of publishing house Corelio, who complain about Apple’s tactics.

De Nolf says, “We are working on the launch of the iPad selling subscriptions through our own web service, but Apple is now demanding that the sale is through iTunes…Today, paper subscribers get free access to the iPad version, but Apple has put a stop to it.”

Ysebaert complains, “[Going through iTunes], the newspaper loses the direct relationship with its customers. We should know who buys our publications, not Apple…Apple is changing the rules while the game is in progress. ”

As far as The Register can tell, this only seems to be affecting Belgian media but there’s the obvious implication that it will eventually reach other countries such as the UK and US. It may already have but no-one has yet spoken out.

The Register also thinks that it might have something to do with Apple’s link-up to Murdoch’s News Corporation and the launch of The Daily, a subscription-based news service but clearly that’s speculation.

Regardless of the latter, Apple seems hell-bent on controlling every aspect of application and media delivery to its devices and ensuring that it gets its money from the content creators as well as the application developers.

Translations courtesy of Google Translate and some paraphrasing by me.

GNC-2010-12-07 #632 Fighting Something Nasty

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I announce the 2010 24hr Podcast Charity, “The Coalition to Salute Americas Heroes” (CSAH). The geek here is fighting something nasty, so a little shorter show than normal, but it is still jammed packed with info. I have a huge number of announcements tonight that surround everything going on.. Thanks for your support and all the great emails coming in. Feel free to comment on the show via email or the hotline at 1-619-342-7365

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All Of Your News In One Spot

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A lot of people are saying RSS Readers are dead – or on life-support, but I certainly don’t think so.  In fact I use one more now than I ever did.  Sure, breaking news may be easier to find on Twitter, but that does not cover most of what we are all interested in.  You won’t find, at least not easily, basic news headlines there.  Twitter is great, but it’s more for the sensational as opposed to the non-headliners.  But, it’s those non-headliner stories that we so often care about – the one about Adobe issuing a security update for Flash, or that your team pulled out a last minute win, or even the latest spectacular photo from Hubble.

Some of you who read this site probably also listen to the associated podcast (and those who don’t should).  If you are among those who do, then you probably are aware that Todd uses Google Reader to bring you the latest news stories from the tech world in each episode.  There’s a reason he’s using this technology and that’s because it still works better that anything else to bring you the news you want in a timely fashion.

But what you may not know is that Google Reader is not just a program for tech headlines.  Everyone can use it and for all kinds of news.  If you want tech news or sports or science or headline, it doesn’t matter.  You can add any site that has an RSS feed.  Then you can divide them into categories, move them around by drag-and-drop and organize however you want.

This is how I get my news everyday.  I rarely visit sites for this information.  When I find a site that has something of interest to me then I add it to Reader.  If I want to expand on an article I can click on it and it will open in a new tab.  Generally, I will go through all of my feeds and click on the articles that interest me, which opens them in a new tab, that I can click later to read the details.

I can edit the feeds as well.  This means that they can me added into groups (folders) that I create (such as Science), moved around, or removed altogether.

Google Reader is included in Google Mobile Apps, which can be loaded on almost any smartphone – Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android, etc.

Feedreaders are nothing new, and Google Reader, itself, has been around a while.  But, if those I know are any indication, many PC users are not using them.  And, I think the main reason for that is a simple lack of knowing about them and understanding how much convenience and efficiency they can add.

Digital Newspapers

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PDA-247 logoFollowing on from some of early articles this week on news and newspapers, Shaun at PDA-247 has written a blog post Digital Newspapers: Stuck at Page One? which covers his experience of The Times Online on the iPad.

In the post, he thinks that he’s getting value for money for his £2 a week as the content and presentation are good.  Although some people are still reluctant to pay for news content, he’s done the maths and even with the (assumed) 90% reduction in subscribers, the website will still pull in £1 million every year.  Not huge money, but it’s early days.

Shaun says that people are used to getting something physical for their money.  People like the physicality of books and DVDs though I think it’s as much about having the item to show off your good taste rather than the item itself.   Anyway, the physical nature of books and DVDs hardly counts when it comes to newspapers as most people throw them away once the paper is read.

He closes by suggesting that newspaper reading is dwindling because of competing pressure on our free time.  This is the era of satellite TV, the internet, the social network and the poor old newspaper has fallen by the wayside.

All good points and worth giving the orginal article a quick read.

The Changing Face of News and Journalism

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Andrew Marr, formerly the BBC’s Political Editor, has written a series of articles on the changing face of news and journalism in an era of technological change.

In the first, End of the News Romantics, he comments how he always thought he’d be a true newspaper and newscast kind of guy but in fact he’s embracing the new technology of tablets and phones.  He says, “A few years ago, I was shaking my head and saying I thought I’d had the best of times for journalism, and wouldn’t want my children to join the trade. No longer. I’d like to be 20 and starting out again right now.”

In the second, A New Journalism on the Horizon, he talks in a little bit more detail about the media revolution, where he discusses the future of journalism in the age of new media.  He starts out from the recent revelations that (a) the estimated readership of the The Times Online has dropped by 90% since the introduction of the paywall and (b) e-books are outstripping hardbacks on Amazon, and how these facts seem to be contra-indications.

He puts forwards two points, the first being that the notion of not paying for news seems to be somewhat strange.  People pay for DVDs, magazines, TV channels, mobile apps, e-books, so why not news?  Although he’d be happy to pay, he wants to be able to pick and choose – politics but not fashion, business but not crime – so he feels the proposition will need to be refined.

The second point is that there will undoubtedly be consolidation in the market for general news or the news of the day.  But he believes that underneath this will be specialist news organisations that deal in particular sectors of the market, such as automotive, enviromental, foreign countries.  This will be where the real knowledge and understanding will be.

As ever, it’s hard to gaze into the crystal ball and predict the future.  From my previous posts, you’ll know that I think we have to start paying for news if we want quality journalism to continue.  As to the second point, of  specialised news organisations, I think he’s right.  Imagine CNN or the BBC no longer having a technology correspondent and outsourcing that to Engadget or Gizmodo.  Or business news provided by the Economist. It’s not a hard stretch of the imagination to see that coming.

What do you think?  Will the news organisations of today simply become aggregators?