Guy Kewney has a theory about wifi as a benefit in the struggle for coffee identity.

Maybe free wifi would switch people from Starbucks to MacDonalds. No sign of this yet in Exeter but worth following.

I have done a story for MyNews India ahead of BETT about the suggestion UK parents have to sort out the broadband gap to help the children get educated. Maybe there is a point to this but it is also the result of a failure of the government to do much about the UK situation as a whole.

There is also a Talk topic at the Guardian.

It is a business problem, not just educational. There is a competitiveness minister who has some interest in this amongst many other duties. Google finds not much, but there is something on YouTube.



My own impression is that claims about UK "leadership" in broadband have not much connection with reality. OECD numbers for broadband subscribers per 100 population show the UK just outside the top ten. More disturbing is that the number for fibre subscribers is zero, so there is a limit on future forms of content.

However, the recognition for the contribution of the Web for education is welcome. Presumably this includes direct access to the Web with none of the limitations sometimes found in schools.

As far as I can tell, comments on YouTube have been disabled for this video so further comment is welcome here.

Davos Question, the answer is "Act Local"

Jeff Jarvis has started to relate to the Davos blog again. This sort of thing could use up quite a lot of energy. The BBC World Service has started to invite more podcast contributions from the listeners as part of "the new world of open news". More likely could be some form of local conversation in real time, even on a small scale.

so the answer to the question "what to do next" is probably "Act Local". There will be enough thinking globally on other blogs to link to.

Specific point is what to make of Exeter TV. If not now, when? The UK bandwidth seems adequate for something fairly soon.

Found some video on the This is Exeter site for the icerink.

Reasonable mention for the Express and Echo as it happens.

Maybe Exeter tV will get some access to the castle at some point in the future

No word yet from the Express and Echo on videoing the icerink. Still, the cathedral has an interesting tree at the moment so here are a couple of pictures. Also a very short video with twinkling lights.

Of course Exeter TV would do a much better job with their proper camera. The word is that editing the Sidmouth tape from last summer is taking much longer than expected. Maybe something will turn up before next August. In which case this is a reasonable priority for the long winter evenings.



Slightly larger sizes of the photos are on Flickr
tree and tree with sign

No news yet on permission to video the Ice Rink. Not to worry. Maybe there will be something on the Express and Echo website that can be linked to.

Meanwhile some embedded YouTube-

River Skating at Gilman Park in Exeter, NH. Some folks were kind enough to clear off a nice spot. There is no purer ice in the world

marty5309



Perhaps the Exe will freeze this winter. Let us hope not. Online representation of life is good enough.

The Amazon Kindle could be a prop for some conversation. This is roughly the right size using enlarged screen shots. Comment indicated there is still support for actual books.

But something like a Kindle will be part of future scope.

The idea of doing some video interviews is postponed for a while. Spoke to a couple of people today but they did not want to be recorded.

Sample comment that I can remember.

There is too much chat show type programs on TV because it is so cheap to produce.

Yes, well all the more reason to work out an online equivalent.

TV is still needed as a delivery mechanism. Web ok for developing content.

To be expanded.

On the way home I passed by the BT phonebox in the bus and coach station. At one time this was part of wifi Exeter. Perhaps it still works but there never seems to be anyone prepared to pay BT prices to logon within range.




Oh dear. A phonebox advertising DVD for television, not a service from BT. There must still be a need for this sort of thing whatever is said about online.

I have done some rough videos of a route around central Exeter. Outline is vague but could clarify soon. Second Life experiments continue through the Phoenix so a model of Exeter would be possible. Design seems to favour long corridors and twisty staircases so I have tried for a similar look. An online chat show need not be in one place or time but a local loop offers some coherence. Maybe. Either it will all be edited at some point or else people will have to find the bits that are interesting from various sources.

Technology could be available at any point but roughly the castle and cathedral are seen as locations and the Phoenix and Apple Store are seen as production resources. I have caused slight offence at Life Bytes by describing the Odeon end of Sidwell Street as "the outer limits". Actually the production resources at the back of Life Bytes are more than enough for what is needed, even if Adobe for Windows is just a standard. The loop around the high street is for purposes of presentation. An iPhone or big screen DVD player are just more interesting at this time than web access anywhere.

What is the chat about? This will become clear later. To include what an Exeter TV would be like.

There is a current problem in getting permission to photograph. Apple have close control on their image. So permission to video inside or just outside the store will wait on some further definition in the script. Also the Express and Echo have full rights on the Ice Rink. Possibly there could be a link to something online. Current page has one photo.

So, starting from somewhere in Princesshay



From the Castle to the Phoenix having found your own way to the Gardens



From Gandy Street to the Cathedral (ask in the Phoenix how to get to Gandy Street)



Later there will be a video of how to get to the Apple Store. Meanwhile here is an approved photo from an Apple Store. The upstairs in Exeter looks similar but may not be the location for the photo.

The Apple Store has opened, roughly where the camera shop used to be. Strangely it has a webpage headed "Princesshay" - not "Exeter". As if Princesshay is now a different location. I find this rather worrying. The "clone high street" idea makes a lot of sense to describe what is going on. A standard for southern England has been loaded into the stamp tool. The idea that Exeter is a county town somewhere in Devon sounds very out of time. Still, I think the Apple Shop is a great benefit. Let us hope it lasts longer than Gateway did.

Upstairs there is a training and repair section with a display about wifi. Not sure if this works when you just turn up with something. The training is over a year with up to an hour a week of one to one. So the idea seems to be that most of the time the screen support is good enough.

Gradually getting back into the main drift of things. Checking links on the web that passed by recently. The main one seems to be from Victor Keegan a couple of weeks ago on the Chinese approach to virtual worlds.

Based on an interview with Robert Lai, chief scientist of the Beijing Cyber Recreation District project, Keegan reports on an investment in servers covering 100 sq km. This is for a virtual world expected to have 150m avatars, of which 7m could be online at the same time. Keegan comments

This is so far above the capability of the much-hyped Second Life, which rarely has more than 50,000 online concurrently, that I had some difficulty in believing it.

Keegan continues to suggest that the long term plan is to use this kind of space as a means of merchandising product direct from China. As if online could be as enticing as somewhere like Princesshay for example.

Meanwhile the Phoenix are holding a series of events around or in Second Life. Maybe not many have the bandwidth to get involved but there seems to be a future for this sort of thing.

I got back to Exeter just in time for the Sunday matinee of the Dumb Waiter.

There was an interesting reading of some work in progress around the safety of children as a bureaucratic situation. There may be more on this later.

It seemed to work leaving the play in the era it was written for. Not much reason to change the script.

"What town are we in?" made a lot of sense for me.

The events seem to have gone ok. The Pyrates found that most of the audience was in costume. There are some videos on Facebook. Look for Pyrates in groups.

So eventually most of what happens at the Globe will be on video or at least something similar from somewhere else.

It turns out that the Apple Pie Eating House is currently stocking Chorley Cake, not Eccles Cake. They claim this is very similar. "Just down the road." Certainly tastes good.

Correction to previous post about the library. There is a coffee machine in the magazine space area. Also there is one pair of headphones, kept at the desk. So you could get sound as well as vision.

I found a review for the Dumb Waiter. There may still be some tickets for the Globe this weekend.

Much of The Dumb Waiter’s detail is of its time, as Pinter carefully layers up the minutiae of observation to create a picture of the crepuscular existence these two lead. The gas stove, lighting the kettle, an Eccles cake, even the dumb waiter itself, all belong in the era. So much so, that to try and present it otherwise without some sort of radical rewrite would be quite perverse.

Not at all sure this is true. The Eccles cake is still widely available I think. Investigations in Ambleside continue.

Somehow this post has the edit options to show a link, so here is Killer Whale again if you don't want to type it in.

Options come and go somehow.

The Guardian Review on saturday had a paperback section on science fiction. Distinguishing features include changes in place and time. Blogging seems to get more like scince fiction if this is true. Wifi Exeter could be anywhere. Links to other places probably better to get the full effect of what is possible. A lot of what is claimed is not going to work anywhwere any time soon.

Ambleside public library has pretty fast access to web for two pounds an hour. Can't find a cafe with web so will have to stop for coffee soon. Also the sun is still shining. There have been showers but this is three days in a row for sunshine.

So I continue to check out the Autumn Festival and the Globe remotely. Nothing on Google News yet. My guess is that the Pyrates will sell out so if you don't have a ticket yet there may not be much time. There may be some space for Killer Whale jazz. I have heard that is more modern than some but alas the Ambleside library policy is not to include sound so I can't check out Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/killerwhaleuk

The diagram is from a new page to suggest a discussion around media possibilities.

Further explanation possible over the next fortnight or so during the Autumn Festival. People from LifeBytes will be at the Globe on occasions.

Over at the animX blog, there is a link to PDFs of the promotion for the autumn festival events from ENPAS at the Globe.

Of course you could check the website from your mobile device, but why not print out a poster or two? If there are enough all over Exeter, it might save on battery use for a while.

It turns out that BT are promoting "free wifi".

Or rather a community project to share resources.

Strange but true or at least worth looking into.

http://blog.fon.com/en/

So that could be the answer to the UK bandwidth problem. Projects develop across the planet and BT joins in eventually.

South West England is somewhere on Second Life

There are announcements from Adobe that relate to wifi and I have put some links on the AnimX blog. The overlap of content and distribution is such that wifi and animation relate as topics.

Briefly the post is about linking the Apple shop expected in Princesshay and the castle icerink as a photo occasion.

There is also a Second Life event coming up at the Phoenix.

SECOND LIFE PHOENIX SCRATCH COMMISSION #1:
RICHARD DEDOMENICI PRESENTS THIRD LIFE
Mon 8 Oct (6-10pm) & Tue 9 Oct (2-5pm & 7-10pm)/FREE

You can "drop in to Exeter Phoenix on Tuesday, where the work will be projected onto the cinema screen, and you’ll find a couple of computers for the technically nervous to dip a toe into the virtual waters."

There is also a Second Life event planned for Bristol or in some relation to Bristol real or imagined. Still a bit vague but sometime in November. Xtreamlab has some info. Keep scrolling down.

I wonder if there is an icerink on Second Life?

Meanwhile on YouTube forms of animation include a sequence of stills from Exeter cathedral close. So a local loop could take in the site of the expected Apple shop, the castle, the Phoenix and the close etc etc till there are clear signs of animation on mobile devices. Don't hold your breath.