Sony Reader arrives in Exeter

As predicted, both Waterstones have stocks of the Sony Reader. Not much excitement though. There were no queues, no special events. The Apple Store would have made a bit more of it I think but maybe consumer electronics is a bit unusual for a bookshop.



Other e-book readers are available, but not in Exeter shops. The Amazon Kindle is not expected anytime soon outside the USA. It is pretty much a mobile phone so loading files in is fairly easy. After a few hours trial at Life Bytes I find that downloading titles is not too hard. The Adobe Digital Editions library shows the Sony Reader in the Libary where "drag and drop" works ok. There is also eBook Library software supplied by Sony with similar functions, also a Reader for the content that works on the computer.

The Sony sortware is only for Windows. Also there is no credit I can find for Linux, though the Wikipedia claims that is what the Sony Reader is using. The impression is that the complexity is all in the loading of content. The Reader itself just runs. There is a well hidden hole in the back for a reset, something we will never need.

I was worried about how to create an ePUB file but it turns out that (Rich Text Format) RTF works ok. The public information states that Word files are accepted but it seems they are translated to RTF. I saved some text from Open Office
as RTF and it displays ok. It would still be good to find out more abouthow to go from open documents to ePUB. But meanwhile PDF is ok for the Digital Editions on most computers and RTF is ok for the Reader. Sorry if the words are overlapping in meaning. It may make more sense later.

WHSmith are stocking the iLiad online but no promotion in the Exeter shop. This has wifi like the Kindle and also a keyboard. It is useful to make notes on a text or order more titles but at the moment the Sony Reader seems ok just as a Reader. The only interaction I have found is the option to add a bookmark. There could be notes added on another device later.

Also it works for sound and viewing photos. The greyscale is lacking something but it will be interesting to see what combinations become available. The books could come with photos and sound.

These are still early days. There will be devices later with more direct links to wifi or whatever links to content. But this is an interesting phase. A laptop with wifi is enough to speed things up but it seems to go against the point of an e-book. I think I will next take just the Sony Reader and find out what they thnk at WHSmith, the Apple Store and the Phoenix. The Phoenix Arts Centre usually attracts Mac fans so I don't suppose they will like the Windows bias. Steve Jobs has suggested that eBooks will struggle as many people have moved on anyway to sound and video. The Sony Reader is mostly text in shades of greyso this may explain the limited interest.

epub on sony reader in Exeter

I will be at Life Bytes on Sept 4th to discuss the Sony Reader and the ePUB format. My guess is that this could be an "event". eBooks may get some recognition in the UK.



I am claiming to definitely be there for "late afternoon" but may be other times as well. I will visit a few times before the actual arrival of the Sony Reader so somebody behind the desk may have a view. In other words, drop by at any time, something will be happening. Or add comment. more later.

Sidmouth as an inspiration for local video.

For some reason it seems possible to video stuff in Sidmouth. This is year three or four of the YouTube etc. approach and so far there has been no problem. Melonious Funk have requested that Exeter TV drop one video but there is now another with better sound, even though it is from somewhere else. I don't think it matters too much if the essence of a place is represented. So in Exeter there is now a loop going round the centre with the possibility of dropping in interviews along the way.

For Sidmouth things are even better as there are already videos for the locations. Here is a version. (Better linking guides to directions welcome for the future)

Starts from Bedford Hotel to Dukes (will return later)



Recording from Dukes is rare for some reason but here is a video for Hannah and the Madding Crowd



Dukes to Market square



Dancing from Market Square, 2008, with an intro of other scenes



There is no video on how to get to the Anchor from the Market Square. It should be easy enough. Next year there will be a route via the Swan and Volunteer and back by bus.

From the Anchor Garden



From Anchor to bus stop at Triangle



From bus stop to Bedford Hotel



At Bedford Hotel



also seems to fit in here although from somewhere else, Wellington



So this seems to hang together well enough. Production levels are pretty low but it can mostly be done again. so maybe there will be a budget eventually. Suggestions to Exeter TV c/o Life Bytes opposite the Odeon Exeter. There may be a plan going forward.

Found this blog about African festivals, looks interesting. Is it folk music? Sidmouth has now started so my confusion returns as to categories. Buskers are playing Chuck Berry but it seems to fit together.

In a few days Sidmouth folk week will start in analog mode.

Kathryn Tickell Band form another time and place.



There may be some techie links soon or maybe later.

I have found a photo site - panoramio - that links to Google maps.

My account, one photo so far, statue near cathedral.

This could be a use for wifi etc. Not sure how this would look on a phone as a screen but the photos would be ok.

When I cannot get back to sleep at night I often find the World Service is a good solution. Nothing against their programs, they are quite interesting, but in a regular carefully constructed way that after a while is reassuring enough to merge into dreams. So I have no clear memory of their item sometime yesterday on a new city near Incheon Airport. However, thanks to OhmyNews I did visit Incheon briefly a few years ago and it all sounds the sort of thing the Koreans might do.

So far I ahve found this link for Songdo Ubiquitous City and more will follow. Here in 'wifi Exeter' we need all the benchmarking inspiration that can be found.

The scope of this blog varies over time. If you think about wifi as normal then the content and use becomes the most interesting aspect. Another blog concentrates on Animation, so this blog will cover other forms of media sometimes.

Couple of things happening. Exeter TV has not reached a new level where resources are available ahead of Respect weekend and Sidmouth Folk Week, the two events when copyright and permission forms issues create the minimum restrictions. Something may still happen but it seems to me that there is no difference to last year even though much evidence exists of what is possible. Maybe the way ahead is just to link to what turns up, mostly done without much planning or asking for permission. This is ok but production standards are unlikely to improve.

The other thing shows me what a difference broadband can make to culture and politics. I have written stories about the UK for OhmyNews International (OMNI)and a couple of years agao they invited to visit Seoul for a conference on citizen journalism. The Korean language OhmyNews is accepted as a significant part of Korean media. They have had broadband for ages, light years at Web speed. The next conference is today or tomorrow. I am confused as they put times as if I was in the USA. Stream (Thursday 26th 6:00 P.M. PST 9:00P.M. EST)

The theme is around the candle light protests at the government agreements on beef imports with the USA. The claim seems to be that the events show a new level of democracy through Web media. I do not understand the full background but this could be true.

Some of the issues are described in a blog by Danny Kim.

The scale of what is happening also comes over through Tom Walsh in the Detroit Free Press -

Web hysteria a danger to Korean deal

More than 100,000 people, many of them teenagers in school uniforms, clogged the streets of Seoul in massive candlelight protests against U.S. beef imports last week -- and 1.2 million viewers tuned in to a live Webcast of the scene on OhmyTV. It was a different reality unfolding that threatens to roil not only U.S.-Korean trade relations but the world of global diplomacy as we know it.

....................

OhmyTV, the Web casting crew of OhmyNews, a pioneering South Korean online newspaper, began filming and airing the candlelight rallies in Seoul, which began after Lee lifted the beef ban. As the size of nightly rallies grew, so did the audience for Webcasts.

The result: a little-used OhmyTV media server logged a record 1.2 million unique visitors in one spurt on June 1, according to OhmyNews. That drove the network cost of the media server to $80,000 a week, more than 27 times normal, said OhmyNews finance director Bang Ki-kwan.

OhmyNews, which provides the service for free, revealed its plight to its readers, 34,000 of whom made donations -- via mobile phones, credit cards or bank transfers -- totaling $130,000 in a 10-day period.

The implications of this are mind-boggling. South Korean high school and college kids, passionately spouting gibberish yet covered live by citizen media that's funded on the fly by viewer donations, have hijacked U.S.-Korea trade diplomacy and rendered Korea's president nearly impotent.

Apologies to Tom Walsh for copying so much of his material and then I am going to take issue as well. Describing the "college kids" as "spouting gibbersih" is not really going to help the spread of understanding. It is rather like the Western Morning News editorial claiming that in the USA, local TV is "trash".

But anyway I am going off my main topic. Can you imagine £70,000 being donated in the UK over ten days to cover server costs for a free online TV service? Not easy at the moment. Video technology is available fairly cheap, but there is no business model.

My guess is that there are further shocks to come in the world of TV. What to do about it? Well, summer is here so I expect some of us will visit Sidmouth, sample the real ales and continue the discussion.

Somehow this week seems to mark a change in what is possible. As if the time spent looking at wifi in Exeter has reached a new stage. Not because much has happened in Exeter but just because things change around us anyway. Let us face it, Exeter City Council still has a policy not to host anything Flash on the official website or allow staff to access Flash on screens at work. So the possible connection of wifi and media during festivals is still a bit obscure.

But in the UK, mobile phone companies now support web access and this is becoming better known. Today, Victor Keegan writes about his own experience and he seems happy enough to pay a monthly fee and avoid the crazy charges of all the cafes and hotels who have failed to regard web access as a free offer, like a newspaper. By the way, on a visit to a part of Exeter University thought to have wifi, I noticed that the only person checking email was using a Vodaphone connection. So my impression is that the experiments around Alt-C a few years ago have not made a lot of difference to Exeter but something has happened in the UK.

The most alarming aspect of what Victor Keegan writes is some possible bad news for Life Bytes and other places where web access is sold by the hour to include a device.
Just before dealing with the ridiculous charges for leaving the UK and visiting the continent, Keegan writes-

I was about to become a dongler to avoid having to go to the tourist office in France every day on our holidays to check emails etc at £3 an hour.

Well, is £3 an hour unreasonable for web access? It happens to be the rate charged at Life Bytes, on Sidwell Street opposite the Odeon. Personally I do not see how they could charge much less and continue to exist. Radical rethink may be timely on what internet access resources are about. My own experience on a visit to Koln and Brussels was that one euro for twenty minutes was enough to catch up on email and this was for a full keyboard and large screen. Gmail and Blogger both worked ok. So I did not carry any devices. Downloading photos for editing online might have taken longer and got into the hourly rate as an issue but I decided not to bother.

More on the blog about reading the Guardian.

Following an email from Norman Leto I am experimenting in the wifi Exeter scope. It may not just be Exeter but the animation will still mostly be in animX.



This gallery might as well be in Exeter or at least on local screens. When the Western Morning News is concerned that local television might be "trash" they perhaps do not consider that local video comes from many localities.

There may be more of this sort of thing. Rougemont Global Broadcasting reporter Buzz Busby has been visiting another part of the gallery. There may be a report later in the summer.

Not sure what this is but it is worth checking out again on Sunday. Free offer. No sign yet where the link is but it may be sounds.

There is a meeting going on in Manchester today and tomorrow, called Futuresonic. Discussion includes open source software and creative commons content. So I hope there will be a record somewhere of what they come up with.

Meanwhile Adobe have announced a project for Open Screens, based on Flash and AIR. The Adobe idea of what "open" is may not be the same as the people in Manchester but the idea is worth exploring. They claim that 98% of web browsers already are capable of displaying Flash.

So the 2% could be mostly screens in government such as Exeter City Council.

Joke, that was a joke, though it is based on something true. Making a link between what is happening online and what happens in Exeter depends quite a lot on being able to assume that Flash is understood, at least in theory.

OK this is from Canada but I see no reason to believe that local TV in the USA is significantly different. In any case this is an example of what local TV could be like in the UK.

The London Mozart Players will be in Exeter cathedral on 14th June. This blog will link to any video suggested. If they do some busking before the 7.30 start, maybe it could be loaded up from a camera phone.

in today's print version of the Western Morning News I cannot find any letters in response to the editorial on allegedly trashy local TV in the USA. On another visit to Life Bytes on Sidwell Street opposite the Odeon I discover that Jo Gedrych did send a letter for publication by email. He has allowed me to quote this in full for the blog. So if the spiders find the YouTube video as well there may be further comment.

I saw your piece in the opinions page yesterday following the report of the Tories belated endorsement of 'ultra-local' TV.
This policy statement is a somewhat half hearted and very late endorsement of the very real fact that in the UK the established broadcast media only half heartedly, if at all, reflect local events. Here in the South West if you disregard the news broadcasts, effectively 45 minutes a day, there is only one hour of local programming per week across 80 channels. Digital television and broadband offer an affordable opportunity to establish local tv and radio at a very local level. There are already many local tv channels in the UK - some on satellite, some on the old analog network and some on digital freeview and cable. To assume that all this is televised trash is to denigrate the efforts of local broadcasters to serve the needs of their area. Surely, given the amount of US made television we already consume, it is time to dump this outmoded idea that volume equals low quality? Your editorial demonstrates an unjustified sense of British superiority and a total lack of knowledge about what is going on in local broadcasting across the globe. I would ask you your question - have you watched any of it?

Time to wise up and look around.

Jo Gedrych
director, the Exeter Television Company.

The Western Morning News has a report about Conservative plans for local TV.

The editorial claims that local TV in the USA is "trashy" so such an option would not be welcome in the UK. I discussed this with Jo Gedrych of Exeter TV, based at Life Bytes on Sidwell Street. He has lived in the USA and studied local TV there. He wonders about the basis for the editorial view and points out that there are already several examples of local TV in the UK, an aspect not mentioned in the editorial.

I have put a very short video on YouTube as a hook for more comment and maybe some examples of local content.

I have done a new video of the route from the cathedral to Princesshay. Just before reaching the Apple store. So no unapproved use of the logo. But linking to other sources through YouTube seems ok to me. The loop now works even though the quality is variable. Second Life seems much the most polished, and there is a soundtrack.



Through the wonder of World TV, each bit can be replaced. The basis is a route round from Princesshay to the Castle, to the Phoenix, to the Cathedral then back to the Apple store. Two sites as content, two as technology. More or less. The question for dsiscussion is what changes are possible through technology and is there a business model? Interviews can be added in later. Put something on YouTube if you like, it could be added in.

There is now a sequence of video from central Exeter as part of a loop for Rougemont Global Broadcasting. This covers a route from Princesshay to the Castle, to the Phoenix, to the cathedral and back to the Apple shop in Princesshay. Eventually the sequence could include interviews about the use of technology in media. Unfortunately it wss not possible to get permission to video either in the Apple shop or the ice rink . However others have posted on YouTube so there can be links. I did a very short one of some Second Life at the Phoenix. There is also Second Life of another Apple shop. The future could include quite alot from SL or mash-ups with real backgrounds for SL characters. It really is very unlikely to get permission for video if requested. But it seems to be that something turns up later anyway.

Jeff Jarvis has conjured up a vision of coffee culture in the future, writing about how companies use blogs to get ideas, for example Starbucks-

"Use the power of media and wireless new media in particular to foster a sense of conversation about the arts, current events, etc," one customer proposed. An enthused commenter responded: "Great conversation will also renew the image of Starbucks as being not only a coffee community but also a global community where humanist ideas and great artists, writers, comedians etc could also attract a lot of people and turn Starbucks into a cultural, humanist hub!"

Well, there are a couple of Starbucks in Exeter but lots of other coffee sites as well. As shopping moves online the high street may turn out to be mostly about eating and drinking and meeting in real space. wifiExeter is less about Exeter also as there is quite a lot in the blog about other places.

Maybe future posts will try to cross over actual Exeter and online links to wherever. Second Life is one route to this but as the City Council do not support Flash yet the bandwidth concerns are real.

Tom has left a comment so here it is as a quote in case you missed it.

I am actually writing this comment from the libary in Exeter. A free (3meg ish) hotspot, and if you need mains power it's a quid a day.

I just find it's easier to come here than to give my notebook a shroud of grease in Macdonalds... In fact, I've never seen anyone use their computer in there...!

I might try Starbucks soon, I'm a T-Mobile customer so I think that makes it free?

The big advantage at the libary is the mains power though...

Oh, and when I'm out of all hotspots I have the HSDPA modem in my phone - the complete wireless solution!

Anyway, try the libary - just a thought..

Fair comment, good to hear it. I am a bit conflicted as I am often based at Life Bytes on Sidwell Street. Web access is the only local industry where the council competes. Apart from DVD hire I suppose. Maybe the time for internet cafes is coming to an end. Still I do hear that librarians cannot offer much support for disaster recovery in various forms and it has been known for the difficult enquiries to be sent along Sidwell Street.

Meanwhile on Queen Street



Apparently BT have arranged for a free coffee voucher if you buy some time online. This makes very little sense. Would you get some free toast with the Western Morning News? I think free wifi is the future.



Meanwhile at the university library wifi is all over the place. The journals seem to have vanished to make way for some comfortable seating and casual locations for mobile devices. The journals are still available upstairs on the shelves but they have lost their place as a feature on the way in. News now comes through Google Scholar presumably.

This post is for both animX and WifiExeter. I am still getting used to the events of last week, the outstanding Second Life events and the video on YouTube from Prados Azules. i think this means that bandwidth is ok. There are enough people in Exeter and Bristol or at least somewhere online for this sort of thing to be viable. So other forms of files such as work with hard copy should be ok. A lttle slow maybe if TIFF-IT is still required but definitely possible.

Meanwhile Google have launched a service around Sites for collaboration. seems a little too controlled for public use but the elements of Docs and video can be widely available. I have an account for Internet Express so have started a page at InXpress/landofGoogle or something like it. Actual url is too long to remember so best to bookmark this page.

In the USA things move forward. Wifi is to be free in Starbucks for some of the time anyway. This follows the big Mac decision.

Why did it take so long. You don't pay for a free newspaper while you drink coffee. Charging for wifi is nonsense. Some hotels still don't understand this but a Starbucks is never far away.

Except that plans for UK wifi are not yet announced.

Meanwhile in Exeter LifeBytes on Sidwell Street still seems fairly busy. There is still a need for professional support and large screens. Mobile devices are not yet combining portability and function.

Bristol Wireless are hosting a day on Open Source in Feb. Open Source is part of the wireless debate as it is another aspect of easy access.

There is also a graphics meeting coming up in Poland. this includes some animation but covers requirements for print - page layout, illustration, photography. Poland is a way off but the web links can be followed.

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.

I have found a site called Snap shot City through a conference about Creative Clusters. seems another chance to place some photos. Not sure where this is going but I welcome ways of linking the web and real life as it appears to be. i cannot yet get my head around Princesshay, it seems too expensive to survive somehow. Still it has established a mood in which Apple is prepared to try out Exeter so this cannot be bad while it lasts. Since actual wifi is still pretty rare in Exeter the prospect of phones with tunes is a way to continue the concept of connected cultural events.

My photo is part of the time travel theme.

Exeter City Council get a few things right, even if progress on wifi is a bit slow sometimes. The latest thing I have heard about is an ice rink at the castle over the winterlude. Sounds a really great idea.

Rougemont Global Broadcasting should get involved with this. RGB is a sort of experiment while Exeter Television is developing.

So here is a photo and a very short video.



The picture is a fake obviously. Original on Flick by Paul Keleher. Larger sizes also on Flickr

I seem to be in a critical mood today, but maybe some clarity will result.

The Guardian reports that OFCOM will investigate whether there may be future demand for more broadband. Something like that.

It seems to me this discussion more or less ignores the global context of what is happening already. Look at OECD figures from the end of 2006.

Fibre is already there in Korea and Japan. Even for ADSL the UK is in a lower tier than other places in Europe.

Should there have been a stronger role from government some time ago? Maybe, but the reality now is that developments around the web will probably happen first somewhere other than the UK.

As reported in The Guardian

Last week, Stephen Timms used his first big speech as minister for competitiveness to warn that the UK risks being left behind. "We need timely deployment of technology," he said. "We can't afford to lag behind others. We need the right conditions for the market to operate effectively."

Copied from Facebook

You will need to log in, remember password, invent a persona etc.

A recent topic is about another big win for Exeter, appearing on the Monopoly Board in an expensive area.

Carl, sorry mate, I am going to start raising questions about this.

I do a blog about "wifi Exeter" following an Intel survey claiming Exeter had the highest concentration of hotspots per capita. The blog has had to wander ever wider to find examples of wifi in actuality. My guess is that the number of IT Boxes in pubs where the staff know anything about it is in Exeter as a whole, speaking generally, approx zero. The amount of investigation from Exeter City Council into the potential cultural advantage of this infrastructure would also amount to nothing at all. My guess could be wrong so other info welcome.

I think Exeter should consider the reality of wifi, not just link to dubious press releases.

The Princesshay development may be a new era putting Exeter next to Bond Street. Or it may be unsustainable for a remote county town.

It is possible to go bancrupt building too many hotels.

Let us just stick to the aim of a base for Exeter on Facebook. It would be a start.

At the moment I am getting an error message when trying to connect to Exeter e-Friendly.

http://www.exeter.gov.uk/efriendly/

Maybe this is not the right address. Suggest Facebook meanwhile for continued discussion. The Today program thinks Facebook is legit so probably there are people in Exeter who check it sometimes.

Exciting news from Apple

Connect for free.

As long as you have an iPod touch, an iPhone, or a computer with the latest version of iTunes, you get free Wi-Fi access to the iTunes Store and to Starbucks Now Playing content.

Unfortunately this is only true so far in the USA.

New York and Seattle in October, Los Angeles and Chicago early next year.

But Exeter is somewhere on the Apple radar. One of the empty shops in Princesshay claims that Apple will be here soon. This is amazing and a tribute to the wonderful impact of the new buildings. Whether Exeter can sustain this style remains to be seen. Richer Sounds offers some alternatives at the end of Sidwell Street and some people will choose to compare prices when deciding on elecronic devices for the home.

There is a Starbucks in Exeter already, maybe more than one, so it is possible to imagine that the offer of free wifi while downloading tunes will arrive eventually.

Of course there is nothing to stop the combination of music and wifi happening anyway. For example there are now several screens showing adverts. Apparently they could relay sound but I know nothing about anyone trying this.

It is even possible that music could be broadcast outside some advertising or paid download scheme. Maybe the Autumn Festival would be an occasion to experiment.

Back in Exeter. Some photos loaded in Flickr and also a video on YouTube of the Cybertent.



You need the photos to see inside the tent.

There are just a couple of photos of the football.

By the way, in the program Dodger explains that it was punk culture that led to the original adventures in Europe after which festival football came to the UK. He writes about "little Englander" TV mentalities, then adds

"Now don't get me wrong, we are not a bunch of hippies. Just because we are democratic and inclusive doesn't mean we are not competitive and don't want to win."

Now don't get me wrong. I am not trying to stir up trouble through wild speculation just because this it is a blog. But the winning team came from Totnes, and they may have hippie supporters.

Back in Cullompton. I have got more of ann idea what this is about. In the printed program Dodger explains that about fifteen years ago a football team from Easton in Bristol decided to go to a summer football festival in Stuttgart. So this is an unusual event for the UK, but not UK in origin really. Teams from Belgium and Lithuania but also closer such as Totnes.

The cydertent is more or less like being at Life Bytes on Sidwell Street Exeter except that everything is Linux. The Google apps seem much the same. So Blogger is similar except for the German. The satellite links to an ISP near Frankfurt.

There may be a broadcast later on Radio Vague. The equipment seems to be here but as far as I can tell it is music that the people who work on Radio Vague best understand. Support may be needed in working out some questions about football. Still, could be worth checking later today.

I'm in Cullompton for the Alternative World Cup. It really is a football event, and other sports as well in ways I don't understand yet. Most teams seem to be from Bristol but others from further away. I found out about it through Bristol Wireless who have a temp internet cafe in a tent. The Psand van with sat dish is parked a few feet away. Most of the year we communicate through email etc. Two summers ago they got to Charmouth for a home education festival - HESFES. You may think it is easy to meet up between Exeter and Bristol but it happens rarely as I find it. Anyway after about half an hour of chat in real time we are back to typing and staring at screens.

I will commute from Exeter I think. Maybe a tent on Saturday.Not sure yet what this is about, except that wifi web access is part of it.

The satellite may not be based in the UK by the way. Blogger has gone into German.

There is more wifi happening in Bristol. Link here to photos.

More details at Bristol Wireless.

I am in the Sintac web access bit at the back of the arcade on Sidmaout main shopping street. But as the sun is shining and there is an actual beach, posts will wait till a rainy day. Could be sometime next week.

Exeter TV now has two new videos from the Globe. Wizz Jones and Wistman's Wood. Both events presented by ENPAS, the Exeter Newtown Performance Appreciation Society. As mentioned previously I do attend the meetings. It is a bit crazy to expect people to pay for tickets in a pub where so much music is free. But stranger things have happened. There will be more during the Autumn Festival in November.

Wistman's Wood



Wizz Jones




For developments, follow Exeter TV

www.exetertv.com

The weekend was excellent. The Future Sound of Exeter welcomed the idea of video during the Respect Festival. Exeter Television, based at Life Bytes on Sidwell Street, recorded during the world music on Saturday and the rock on Sunday. There was at least one high level camera. There were lots of camera around. Clearly with Youtube etc. There is now acceptance for video most of the time. Probably a lot of it will be available for an edit but it is not yet clear how long this will take.

This blog has been partly about bandwidth technology. However the content is getting more interesting so the scope will change for the summer. Possible the "Animx" blog will have a wider scope than just animation. But for the rest of the summer it is assumed that web access is available or else not that important. To be reviewed in the autumn when normal service is resumed.

My information is that Psand will continue working with satellite and wifi, probably often in the south west of England. I put it that way because sometimes the technology may not appear to work as expected. Fortunately I have some archive material from previous years. So the Big Green Gathering is a probable connection with Dragonsfly , dance band from the Voodoo Lounge on the World Music Day.

There is some Dragonsfly video on YouTube that illustrates their range. With the Sidmouth Folk Week approaching I have been thinking about folk music and what limits it has. The video from Glastonbury Town Hall shows something that could happen in the Anchor Gardens. Another video could be part of the range at Dukes. Not much chabce of Dragonsfly turning up, they seem fully booked. But this blog may continue some video benchmarking unless there are better things to do.

I know there is video of Dragonsfly at the Phoenix Exeter but this has yet to be edited. Possibly this will happen before Sidmouth but as real life moves slowly I may link to whwtever can be found on the web and fits in with the text.

Dragonsfly will also be at the Thames Festival in September. Last year or the year before Psand were hoping to provide connectivity for a sax solo. This was not possible for various reasons. This year there will be something on Second Life. Maybe this is a way to round off the summer. I am not sure how it will work.

It has not been possible to arrange permissions for video at the exhibition by Exeter College currently on Sidwell Streeet opposite the Odeon. This is unfortunate as Life Bytes is so close they might have been persuaded to do some video for Exeter TV. However there may be something ready for next year and there have been some conversations about topics to be included.

Some of the work seems to me to fit with ideas about mass distribution and the potential of digital technology. Tereza Buchlova shows some photos that I think were printed inkjet and also some linocut illustrations for "The Truth", a book by Terry Pratchett. It turns out that two of these have been scaled down to fit the dummy books. The linocuts were scanned, resized and then printed inkjet. It is not easy to see much of a difference except for the colour of the background paper where the inkjet has white edges.

There seems not to be any intention for a limited edition of linocuts. The interest is in the effect as a source for litho printing.

So why not put the digital source of the photos online? The next question is how could this be sustained? This is a discussion to be continued.

Show closes at the end of this week. So you don't have to accept my opinion that the linocut looks much like the inkjet.

Also on Sidwell Street, signs of an art exhibit starting Monday. Looks like work completed during study at Exeter College. I may persuade someone from Exeter TV to visit. Based almost next door at Life Bytes. I could not persuade anyone to visit Spacex during the North. But there is still a possible connection.

Continental food in Sidwell Street is becoming a standard feature of Exeter festivals. this blog is written late Saturday and the market will still be there tomorrow. But if you happen to find this later you may be in time for the Autumn festival which may be much the same, though probably not as wet.

The rain has hardly stopped but I did get out as far as Sidwell Street for some food.
Via Belmont Park, where it was still raining but the museum tent was full. Not sure how this connects with their exhibits but more later.

It seems to me that broadband in Exeter is ok.

There is enough of a base for possibilities to be imagined.

I have put more about this on my MySpace blog

My Space is getting more interesting. Vibraphonic are on there and do send messages about performances, even during the main festival.

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum is also on MySpace, with photos from the Beyond the Frame exhibit. I think they could go further. Put some high res scans on the Web, that sort of thing. But maybe something will develop from discussion on MySpace.

I am not really Bobby Womack by the way. My own name was not available and I thought I was just searching to see who else was there when it turned out that was who I was. I can understand it.

Back to the Beyond the Frame show. It is much better than I gathered yesterday.

Round the corner from the wonderful frame are some actual photos. Not clearly signed. In the gap on the way out. There are a few sent in by phone or email. But none in the frame as advertised.

If you just invent something in photoshop, email to you@exeter.gov.uk

Should turn up at Myspace/beyondtheframe

Personally, I am still mostly interested in the landscapes. Spacex showed photos from camera phones as if they were watercolours. Now we are allowed to send user generated content to the Royal Albert. But why is the art archive not on show over the web? And what is the value of gthe photos that do not turn up in a gallery frame?

Couple of finds through a bit of Googling.

Worcester City Museums have a painting, Summer Sea, Newquay by Julius Olsson.

Compares with one in the show.

And the Artfund have a version of a Devonshire valley.

The Artfund is a charity raising money to buy art for the public. So making a reasonably sized scan available online makes a lot of sense.

Not sure what the "Outside the Frame" show is about.

More later. But I still think the museums should put their own stuff on the web as well as expecting new work from the public.

I was not allowed to photograph anything at the Royal Albert during Animated Exeter although the landscape theme would have fitted in to the Tim Brennan events at Spacex. I was allowed to photograph the Blind Ditch occasion at the Phoenix.

So I'm not sure how much can be photographed before August although there is plenty of time.

It seems there could be something on YouTube ahead of most events.

This for Varttina. The Corn Exchange is previously St George's Hall.




There is a search result for Wistman's Wood but this has not much to do with the support act.

They will be at the Globe on 4th July. Maybe video will appear. Not sure many people read this blog anyway but there is a model here for promoting live performance.

Wistman's wood do have sound on Myspace.

Wizz Jones sang Song for Woody at the Globe last night. There may be video later for the people scared away by the rain. Meanwhile here is a version on YouTube. There was some spare space so further publicity needed ahead of Wistman's Wood on 4th July. More on this later.

Moebius Surfing now has some stills from the Second Life version of the Venn Festival in Bristol. According to the Xstream page there will be more on Second Life in November. Archive of Venn will turn up soon.

Meanwhile in Exeter live acoustic guitar is still very popular. Wizz Jones is at the Globe on Friday with Spin2, see YouTube for recent performance.

Another video from the Globe, Spin 2



Coming soon, two or three cameras and a lighting techie.

What a difference a "Z" makes.

I have spent a good twenty minutes searching to no avail based on the spelling from the Globe website- Wiz Jones. I am now pretty sure there are two "Z"s, based on the official site

WizzJones.com

Note the date 15th June. Promoted by the Exeter Newtown Performance Appreciation Society (ENPAS). It is not enough just to drink beer. You have to buy a ticket. £5 on the door.

Through the miracle of YouTube it is possible to sample Wizz Jones before the event.



Meanwhile in Bristol, there is use of wifi in real time. Bristol Wireless and Psand are involved in the Xtream project to stream performances from the Venn Festival. This is on tonight and tomorrow. In Exeter things move a little bit slower.

Full disclosure, I am on the ENPAS committee and often suggest there should be some more video. The existing YouTube selection for Wizz Jones is pretty good though so not easy to improve on.

Not off topic for a blog about wi-fi. One aim is to link up media and performance and audiences. Using stuff that someone else has already done is one way to start.

There is an update in the AnimX blog. Bandwidth is definitely enough for YouTube at least at home or somewhere like LifeBytes. And now there is a short video from Exeter TV .com on the Games Day during Animated Exeter. Wifi bandwidth may not be enough for a lot of video but in principle there can now be connections. The actual use of web access during festivals seeme to be more about linking to somewhere else or some other time rather than intensifying a specific occasion. So the AnimX blog may have more links to other animation festivals.

There is a sign outside the Royal Oak, Heavitree for the Gadge Band. Thursday is tomorrow. This may be the same Gadge Band that has a video on YouTube from the Globe, Newtown.



So if anybody finds this blog over the next 24 hours this could be an indication of what would be possible with wifi.

The screen is still showing entirely adverts at LifeBytes. Could there be some sort of content? Apparently at some stage there could be a sound option if you bring your own headphones and some wifi kit. In theory there could be samples and promotion for a network of events.

Plasma screens have started to appear in Exeter. I have seena couple, at Life Bytes and the Phoenix. They currently show nothing but advertising, most of it local. Based on information from LifeBytes, it seems there may be more content later. But not much. Adverts will probably always be at least three quarters of what is happening. The screens are connected to web access so can be updated frequently. There may be some wifi access but this has not been tested. (No upload at LifeBytes, they have an obvious concern) Possibly sound could be provided if a suitable device was available with headphones.

By the way, I notice that the tables closest to the screen at the Tesco restaurant have the fewest people on them. at least, that is my impression. The sound of advertising is not an attraction. In my opinion some non-advertising content would be an advantage.

Meanwhile, here is an inspiring link to a website for Philadelphis. Notice the Youtube link is for a band that is appearing soon. This is a way to sell tickets. So far in Exeter there has been very little by way of performance video for YouTube and in each case long after the event.

The latest development is the arrival of free wifi in Heavitree, so far from the centre of Exeter that it was once thought of as a place to escape for a change of air.

It is now at the centre of the 'Heavitree corridor', a traffic jam connected to the motorway. There is still a collection of shops and buses manage to get there, however slowly. Above Fulfords, opposite the Post Office, there is a new company called Switch Systems. They can work with Open Source such as MySQL but also offer Cisco support. They have 8meg bandwidth so have allocated half a meg to local wifi.

My impression is that although there is wifi at the Phoenix and Central Library, Heavitree now has the most depth in technical support for any wifi access in Exeter.

This post is about "text web" and "video web".

I have put it in other blogs about druoa2008 and learning ( see profile for links) but also put it here as "video web" is also about mobile devices. For some reason a mobile DVD player is arriving faster than an e-book reader. Mobile phones just don't support static graphics. "wifi Exeter" is as suitable a place as any to imagine this. the "text web" will continue for some time.


===================


I have found a couple of links following an article in yesterday's Guardian. Michael Rosenblum has a copy of most of an article by Ian Reeves, who has some video on his own site.

Rosenblum is quoted as distinguishing web 1 as based on text and web 2 as based on video. Personally I find the use of webs 1- n confusing but the idea of a text web and a video web is interesting. The video on Ian Reeves site shows several examplesof newspappers moving to the web. Jeff Jarvis believes that video is suitable for conversation but I don't really expect US candidates to respond in detail to every post on YouTube. Text still has some scope, even if email exchange started in web zero.

Today Adobe announced a new Creative Suite ans I am struck by the low priority for print. My guess is that most people still relate to hard copy. But 'design' seems to be one of three words, the others being web and video. Within 'design' print is hanging on with mobile devices. The most recent figures show sales of Flash to device OEM as about 2% of Adobe revenue. Postscript sales are included with 'other', totalling about 10%. So somebody expects the mobile video aspect to grow fairly rapidly.

"text web" relates back to hard copy. "video web" may not. Except that if flying type is included in the animation I hope knowledge about typography survives somewhere.

I am posting this in learn9, about learning and quality, and in drupa2008, about whatever pre-press is supposed to be doing, and in a Guardian Education Talk comment about QR. I still don't understand the UK academic approach to quality but when a new set of students arrive one day expecting to borrow cameras from the library there must be some way to manage the transition.

Searching on Vibraphonic reveals that there are more videos on Youtube, mostly from the same event at the Lemongrove. The magic of Youtube can take you to alternative recordings on the same songs but I think this format is ok. Should there have been better lighting and a choice of cameras for an edit? Of course. But while we wait for the official quality level to be established at least here is one performance that is web available.

I did make a very short video during the lunchtime lecture by Ann Shenton at the Phoenix yesterday. It is just to test out the "vibe07" tag on Youtube and see if much turns up.



The cover passed round looks like this



It was a proper lecture, not just a workshop but I don't know enough about it to write it up properly. A Google doc may develop later. More on the White Label website. It was advertised as about "analogue" but was mostly about electronic music, starting with the Radiophonic workshop at the BBC.

Meanwhile a couple of photos and a link to a video of performance by a Large Number.





Large Number Live at Bad Timing

Recent research suggests that there are now enough web links to get an idea of most events. Exeter Television may get more active soon but meanwhile it is possible with a bit of time travel to get an idea of Vibraphonic online.

The mystery seems to be the James Morton Jazz Quartet. Usually Bristol has most things together but there is no sign of a web base I can find. Anyone reading this who knows more, please leave a comment.

Animation has not come to an end. This is from Jason Webley, at the Northbridge Inn last night. The Duckworths have a few tracks to download on Myspace. At the Northbridge on Monday. I'm not sure the Minor Planet link in the printed guide is the same group. Arnie Cottrell might be more at home at a folk festival as far as I can tell from the website. "Boots of Spanish Leather" has not got that relentless beat found on the radio.

At Havana, the act missing from print is confirmed as Two Spot Gobi. They turn up on YouTube. There are people who believe that lighting is important and that quick video should wait till more resources are available. Not knocking this video but I think it is evidence that if the sound is ok then any lighting is adequate.



Mark Abis on the Tuesday one week later has some excellent lighting.

And the Radio has started on a Belle and Sebastian version of Whisky in the Jar so I am getting into a more relaxed mood.

Meanwhile at the Globe, which is closest to where I live by the way, the house band Monkey's Uncle has a page of photos. Jon Sterckx has a video on YouTube that is a form of animation. Maybe people on the demoscene should have a look.



It is also on his website.

Panacea have music on Myspace and their website but no video as yet. They often perform in Exeter so maybe someone will get permission to video something soon.

I can't find anything on Dominic Ashford or Craig Milverton. Maybe they are in a jazz tradition of avoiding promotion, like James Morton. Only probing here, this is just a blog after all. Please add comments. Generally this is a very encouraging trawl, limited to just the smaller venues not places like the Phoenix.

Dominic Ashford and Craig Milverton will feature in a tribute to Oscar Peterson on 8 Mar at the Globe. Fortunately Oscar Peterson is represented on YouTube.

My interest in wifi started when people at Psand showed how it could be used as part of an occasion. Since then I have slowed down a bit and there seems not to be much wifi used during an event.

Maybe this is just in Exeter. Another mystery is why there is not more video turning up for Exeter Television. To find out more, search YouTube on "directorjo" or take some recording round to LifeBytes on Sidwell Street. There is one number from Melonious Funk from last year so that is some connection with Vibraphonic.

Maybe it is better just to accept that online is out of space and time. I have found some actual vibraphone music. And it connects with Scarlatti so may get some attention from the archivists. If they don't video in Exeter over the next week or so there will be more links with the YouTube vaults.

Now found the Channel 4 report on Norwich. It claims you can watch the video but Windows Merdia Player fell over. Maybe it will work for you.

During animated Exeter could be a good time to check out wifi in other places.

Channel 4 News had a report about wifi in Norwich the other night. Searching on Google turns up a BBC visit from last year.

It could be that Exeter has lost some edge since the Intel survey showed a lead in wifi. Both Norwich as a city and Norfolk County Council are putting in energy and gaining an advantage. Norwich is not that different to Exeter so some benchmarking might be possible.

There are photos from the Phoenix on the animX blog, clearly demonstrating that wifi is working ok. Animated Exeter happens throughout Feb. Not clear yet what the usefulness is of web connectivity in an arts centre. To be continued.