BBC BACKSTAGE 2009

RAIN ASHFORD, TECHNOLOGISTBBC RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Backstage is run by…

Ian Forrester in Manchester

Rain Ashford in London

What is Backstage and what go we get up to?

the BBC’s developer network

encourage & support UK developers

a license similar to CC non-commercial

champion ‘open culture’ around the BBC, releasing data, feeds & APIs

a community

We’ve a new and improved Backstage website/blog: http://welcomebackstage.comBlog now allows comments – we’d love to hear your feedback!

Idea Store http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/ideatorrent/If you’ve got a great idea for re-using BBC content – share it!You can: vote, comment comment, get help and watch ideas grow!

Open Lab – a sister site for Backstagehttp://backstage.bbc.co.uk/openlab/For teachers, learners, students, developers - anyone with an idea for a learning resource wanting to develop it into a prototype.

BBC Micro for the 21st CenturyThe recent 25th anniversary of the BBC Micro set us thinking about what it would take to create something as amazing today.

BBC Micro: a bit of background…

in the 80's BBC Education the "BBC Computer Literacy Project” was started in response to a BBC documentary called "The Mighty Micro”

BBC approached Sinclair, Dragon, Acorn & others, but the Acorn Proton came out as best

although the BBC Micro was quite expensive compared to the Spectrum and the Commodore 64, 1.5 million Micros were sold and also 400,000 books

Appeared in schools all over the UK from 1982

4 ‘BBC’ models (Model A, B, B+64 and B+128) 8 later (Master & Archemedies

built-in ROM-resident BBC BASIC programming language

BBC Micro: fast forward to the twentyfirstcentury

recent 25th anniversary of the BBC Micro

stats indicate CompSci course applications are dwindling

UK is becoming a services nation rather than building products for its consumers

how we can and should handle vast amounts of data if we don’t own, understand or have access to the systems that control it?

How do we get people to become interested in the fundamentals of computing and hardware rather than just accepting the consumer goods?

BBC Micro: stuff to get excited about!

better time than ever to get access to free resources and tutorials

culture of throwaway tech means lots to pull apart & play with

mash-up culture means getting into electronics /coding much more *ahem* socially acceptable

Arduinos, motors, sensors and other kit are easily availble

Homebrew gaming: Pandora, GP2x, etc

groups like dorkbot & events such as Maker Faire taking off

Maker Faire UK, Newcastlehttp://bbcweatherbot.blogspot.com/The first Maker Faire came to the UK in March, we took demos to show & did some hardware hacking of our own.

So what did we get up to at Maker Faire UK?http://bbcweatherbot.blogspot.com/

we built an RFID Weatherbot

ran workshops on the work of Backstage & talked around idead for a BBC Micro for the 21st Century

put on demos of our Virtual Steadycam, audio visualisation & open source multitouch

we filmed the event made new friends in the

hardware hacking community

How and why did we build the Weatherbot?http://bbcweatherbot.blogspot.com/

created a system that moves around a large map, identifies locations and checks the weather in real world locations

wanted to demonstrate rapid prototyping power of arduino

fun for kids to play with enthuse young & not so

young to get tinkering with microcontrollers

R&DTVhttp://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtmlA monthly technology programme pilot made up of interviews from BBC project experts & experts from around the world.

What’s R&DTV?http://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtml

a pilot programme , looking at interesting technology stories from people working inside and outside the BBC

collaboration between Backstage & RAD teams

designed to be sharable, remixable and redistributable - released under a Creative Commons Attribution (Non-Commercial) license

we’re looking at various codecs & releasing video in lots of different formats: Ogg Theora, Matroska, AVI, Flash, MOV and more to come

looking at distribution methods we want this to help shape how

the BBC makes and encodes content

This is my camera kit ^^^

So what do you get with R&DTV?http://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtml

a brief 5 minute video, containing all the very best bits

a longer 30 minute video, containing deeper conversations

the Asset Bundle, containing (nearly) everything we used and didn't use to make the videos

for you to remix, use in your own edits or just experiment with

they’re also on Blip, YouTube, Pirate Bay & BitTorrent

Please let us know what you use them for

R&DTVhttp://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtmlWe’ve had a few hiccups as part of the learning process, but some good feedback – look out for the next one at the end of May!

Homura Games Development Tool & Frameworkhttp://java.cms.livjm.ac.uk/homura/index.phpBBC R&D Have been working with John Moores University on Homura, an open source games engine – the code is now available!

What is Homura?http://java.cms.livjm.ac.uk/homura/index.php

a suite of Java-based software and assets specifically for developing high-end 3D games & playful media apps

provides all the necessary tools to develop 3D game-like applications that the user downloads and plays/runs by clicking on a url on a web page

consists of: an Integrated Development Environment (IDE); a set of middleware libraries, collectively known as a `game engine'; and additional software and content that implement example applications

Why use Homura?http://java.cms.livjm.ac.uk/homura/index.php

free simple and fast to useg uses a graphical

interface for may tasks interesting features

such as shading plus scope to add features such as streaming

licenced under LGPL3 (Lesser General Public License) & Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 for distributed artwork and media assets

Feeds Hubhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/04/introducing_bbc_feeds_hub.shtml

Feeds Hub is one of the BBC’s new projects focusing on registering, reusing and reversioning data feeds

It is an open-source project that aims to share its solutions publicly. BBC Audio & Music Interactive will be working with our FM&T colleagues, an independent development company called LShift, and the wider Open Source community to create this new technology

Watch Backstage & BBC blogs for news

Backstage sponsorship of eventsBackstage are not putting on any large events this year, but instead sponsoring many smaller events around the country such as Makers and Hackers, Thinking Digital, Futuresonic and more.

Backstage Developer focused podcastshttp://welcomebackstage.com/We’re looking at cross company podcasts and will soon be looking for people who’d like to be part of it!

Open Hack 2009 rough n ready feeds for you to play with!http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/feeds/twitter.com/usershttp://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/ws/

http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/ws/persian/story/2009/01/090111_shr_princeharry.xml

access to a database World Service stories use URL bar to navigate BBC 300 official Twitter

profiles & status it’s not finished yet, but

we’re building it as we go along

it’s not too neat & tidy there’s not search option just

copy & paste to find stuff all RESTful explore and have fun!

To find out more or get in touch:http://welcomebackstage.com/Follow us on Twitter: @bbc_backstage

Thanks!

rain.ashford@bbc.co.uk