New World of Graham IX

For many a year, I’ve been frustrated by the fact that BBC radio first off streamed only in RealPlayer format, and then replaced that with Windows Media Player formats.

By not offering a format that Apple’s iTunes was happy with, I couldn’t listen to radio streams via my nice stereo setup using my Airport Express and AirTunes. I could pay for Airfoil and play it using Real, but that was clunky and I just wanted the BBC to use a more friendly format.

In parallel, I’ve been using the excellent Fstream on my iPhones to listen to BBC radio on the go – in the UK and abroad. Its worked most excellently and is a nice bit of free software. Up until today, I’ve been using the list of .asx streams published at BBCStreams.com, but today, they were no longer working.

BBC radio streaming in AAC through iTunes

Luckily, I tried calling up the live stream of Radio 4 on my iPhone via Safari. Doing that exposed a new playlist file that points to a AAC stream. The .pls works in not only Fstream, but also natively in iTunes and Airplay.

• BBC Radio 4 (128kbps, AAC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls

Changing the URL slightly also gives:

• BBC Radio 3 (192kbps AAC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls
• BBC 6music (128kbps, AAC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls

I hope that the BBC don’t find some way to block people from using these streams on platforms other than Mobile Safari.

 

Posted from Hammersmith, England, United Kingdom.

AIM and Google Talk turn on interoperability

Today, Google and AOL launched an important new feature for their respective Instant Messaging platforms – server side interoperability.

Imagine if email was (still) a closed system, and you were only allowed to email members of the same system as your own. So if you were using Hotmail and wanted to email someone on Yahoo Mail, you’d first have to create a second account just for that system. Of course, the idea is riduculous and precisely because for the last 15-20 years most email systems have allowed you to send messages to anyone connected on the Internet, email is still one of the most used and powerful technologies we all use in our online lives. For instant messaging, that interoperability has been missing and it has held it back.

But now, AOL’s AIM system – encompassing AIM, AOL and Apple’s Mobile Me service – can add Google Talk users to their contact lists and vice versa.

The cynic in me thinks that this has only come about because Facebook has come along and trounced all the competing networks hopes of somehow making money off their large(-ish) but mostly non-fee paying users. Its hard to try to make make money off a user base that’s been un-monetizable for more than a decade. If you can’t beat Zuck, join together?

Of course, this process won’t be complete until IM is as interoperable as email is – and that means the other big two joining in with the group hug.

• Google‘s announcement
• AIM’s tool for importing your AIM Buddy List into Google Talk

Posted from Hammersmith, England, United Kingdom.