Newsbytes

Canvassing Support.

Bertelsmann who own the UK's Channel 5 have pulled them out of the Project Canvas consortium, just when broadband was looking to be a serious competitor to DTT and DSAT for streaming output to the punter.

For those of you who want to know the consortium had the idea of another set-top box, this one dedicated to picking up streamed content on the web and letting you watch it on your TV. Considering that the only serious web-based competitor to this is Windows Media Edition, I thought this would be a winner.

One caveat on that though..... there's still over 10 million people who either don't have or don't want broadband, which may put a crimp on what the consortium are doing if it were delivered tomorrow, but as they are taking their timer and developing this slowly, I think Bertelmann are leaving the party too early.

via El-Reg

Crossed eyes forever!.

UBIsoft's UK marketing mogul Murray Pannell has gone out on a bit of a limb recently and said that there'll be a 3Dtv in every home by 2013.

Yeah,.... right,......

OK, I think he might seriously look at the current sales figures for HDtv - they still aren't great for either the sets or the set-top boxes. I honestly think he needs to rethink himself. I wouldn't even know where to find what the figures for those who still don't even have DTT, not a show-stopper, but still a significant number I would have thought.

via The Independent

Out-foxed.

I'd never heard of Martha Lane Fox until all the quango-culling happened when the Con-Lab coalition came to power after the last election. She was head of what was called the "Digital Public Service Unit": one of Gordo's last few inceptions before he and the Labour party lost their remit to govern. She's put herself forward as a sort of digital champion.

She's published a document which is both a masterpiece and a travesty of publishing. Her "Manifesto for a Networked Nation" is - if you can bear to read through it before your eyes give out with the ludicrous colour scheme and almost infinite changes in font - is a laudable aim. She has done her homework reasonably well, even if she is colour-blind. And don't think her website raceonline2012.org is any better: it fries the eyes as well.

via Digital Spy - which is far easier to read than her manifesto