Re: [Fsuk-manchester] TEDxManchester - 2nd October 2009 (daytime)

[Tim Dobson]

Michael Dorrington wrote:
> Tim Dobson wrote:
> [snip]
> > I've been booked onto this since July.
>
> Looking forward to putting the case of Free Software and freedom to them
> with you.

So I've just looked through the speakers list and recognised a few faces.

Sarah Hartley - Sarah is a proponent of moving traditional news 
organisations into the digital arena. At MeN a few years back she 
pioneered the MeN blogs and news site I think. She's now moved further 
up the Guardian group as I understand.

A few months ago I filmed *part* of a talk she gave at barcamp leeds 2:
http://www.blog.tdobson.net/node/286

It may be worth pointing out to Sarah the flexibility and cost 
effectiveness with regards to there not being a monopoly on support that 
free software gives, allowing internal coders to work their magic.

Mike Ryan is a key person behind Manchester Digital and I believe is 
also a mover and shaker behind Manchester Digital's Big Chip Awards.
Idaho is responsible for the manchesterdigital.com website (in ASP)

Currently Idaho seem to be marketing some pretty coloured non-free 
edu-courseware that I know nothing about... yet.

I have no idea what Mike will talk about but I would suggest mentioning 
the benefits having access and freedom to play with the source etc can 
bring to the education system - remember Mike may not agree, but it's 
the rest of the people in the room who you have a chance to persuade.

There are 3 BBC people speaking.

The most important is Matthew Postgate, Head of Research & Development 
at BBC Future Media & Technology

(Quick note: BBC R&D department was NOT responsible for iplayer, but has 
been responsible for dirac, glow, kamaelia, ingex etc.

BBC Future Media & Technology (FMT) was responsible for the creation & 
implementation of iplayer)

This is the head of FMT's R&D department. Strictly separate arms.

Mentioning how cross platform compatibility only really works for open 
platforms and mentioning how HTML5 really gives iplayer an opportunity 
to be universally accessible would probably be a good move.

It might be interesting to mention the useful and cool the general R&D 
department have created, ask if there are other cool things they use and 
developed internally that they are going to make free software - for 
instance the framework used on news.bbc.co.uk.

It also might be worth asking when the episode 3 of R&D TV will be 
released (its really interesting to hear about their projects) and 
asking why it is under a non-commercial CC licence.
http://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtml

These are strictly NOT in this guy's field, but may draw some 
interesting responses nonetheless as one can draw interesting paralells 
to iplayer.

Marc Goodchild, Head of Interactive and On Demand at BBC Childrens

Presumably mostly centred around cbeebies/cbbc websites etc and red 
button content as well as commissioning of various random BBC childrens 
spinoff computer games games.

Emphasis necessity of crossplatform compatibility, highlight the 
opportunities of HTML5 in terms of accessibility - "even flash doesn't 
work on an iphone" (slight hypocrisy but it will get the message across).
Emphasis opportunities from free game rendering engines and potential 
for cross platformness etc.

Rosie Allimonos, Multiplatform Commissioning Executive at BBC 
Drama/Entertainment

Despite the name, I would suggest that simply means platform as in 
TV/Radio/Digital Radio/Online/Interactive stuff which gives me the 
impression she probably won't be that relevant, never the less, in terms 
of red button etc to be open standards and not a bbc-only standard that 
forbids you doing anything to your set top box etc.

The Nokia guy could be really interesting. Nokia are obviously doing 
really exciting things with their high end mobiles and Maemo etc but 
also with releasing Symbian (though things are painfully slow).

A guy I spoke to from Vodafone the other week was proactively working on 
W3C widgets stuff so one gets essentially offline HTML applications on 
mobile devices which is very cool. I wonder what nokia is doing there.

Also might be worth mentioning Qtopia/QT Extended - the now defunct 
openmobile stack Trolltech created before they were bought and though 
officially decommisioned, is now living a new life on some Openmoko Neo 
Freerunners (though if you want my opinion, if you have a FR you need to 
run SHR!)

Nokia hate Android and aren't likely to use it in the future as I 
understand - the Maemo stuff is really going to be the competitor.

I have no idea about Phil Griffin, Architectural Commentator, or Dr. 
Mariann Hardey, Social Scientist and I'm too tired to research tonight.

It definitely sounds interesting.

If anyone is in the South West this weekend, I'll be at Bathcamp 
(http://bathcamp.ning.com/events/bathcamp-the-barcamp-2009 )

Cheers,

Tim