The BBC is making daily programme schedule information available in TV-Anytime format as part of an experimental trial service. The data set provides details of programmes for a seven day period and is currently updated as a daily snapshot, rather than a realtime feed. The data will initially be available for three months and usage is limited to non-commercial purposes. The pilot is being provided as one of the data services on the BBC Backstage web site, which provides data, resources and support for users who wish to build prototypes and proofs of concepts using BBC material. The result of over five years of development by the TV-Anytime Forum, the TV-Anytime specifications provide standards for the rich description of radio and television programmes for use in products such as digital video recorders. The TV-Anytime specification can be downloaded from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute as TS102822. Also, after more than two years of work by the "Registration Taskforce" of the TV-Anytime Forum, the TV-Anytime CRID has become an RFC -- the Internet community's version of an International Standard -- Its number is RFC4078.
Every executive who has approved a connected product roadmap has made a quiet assumption: the network underneath it will still be there. That assumption is about to be tested at a scale the automotive industry has never faced. The global connected vehicle installed base is heading toward a billion units, and the cellular technology most of those vehicles depend on is scheduled to begin its retirement before the end of the decade. For automakers, fleet operators, insurers, and the telecom carriers that serve them, the question is whether the recurring revenue those services promise can survive a connectivity layer with a shorter life than the vehicle carrying it. How Scale Meets an Expiry Date Omdia research forecasts that the global connected vehicle installed base will surpass 1.05 billion units by 2035, up from 473.7 million in 2025. Few installed bases of any kind more than double in a decade, and this one signals that connectivity is moving from premium differentiator to baseline e...