The BBC announced that it has begun to trial a new program download technology in 5,000 U.K. households that could pave the way to endless TV repeats -- The BBC said it hoped to deliver its interactive Media Player (iMP), or "iTunes for the broadcast industry", by year's end, allowing viewers to download any shows from the previous week. Once up and running, the service, currently in its second stage, will make around 190 hours of TV shows and 310 hours of radio programs available for legal downloading across the U.K., the BBC said. "iMP will allow our audience to access our TV and radio programs on their terms -- anytime, any place, any how," said Ashley Highfield, BBC director of new media and technology. "We'll see what programs appeal in this new world and how people search, sort, snack and savor our content in the broadband world." Increasing numbers of people are using the internet to access audio visual material, but Mr. Highfield has warned that take-up may stall without the necessary content to attract audiences.
Artificial intelligence tools for product design have largely been sold to engineering leaders as a productivity story: faster renders, quicker iterations, fewer manual CAD operations. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, the market for artificial intelligence in product design is set to grow from $628 million in 2025 to $4.3 billion by 2035; that's a 21.3 percent compound annual growth rate. The trajectory reflects a market moving past assistive tools and into a phase where AI becomes structurally embedded in how products get engineered, simulated, and validated. For executives overseeing engineering, product development, and R&D organizations, this is no longer a tooling decision. It is a competitive positioning decision, and the window to shape it is narrower than most roadmaps assume. The Ten-Year Growth Outlook Mechanical product design and simulation is the AI beachhead within manufacturing. A full 62 percent of manufacturers are already running AI projec...