hacks & hackers bbc r&d

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BBC Research & Development

Hacks and Hackers October 2011George Wright, Head of R&D Prototyping

@georgie


What I'll talk about

• Intro to BBC R&D and my team• How we work• Who we work with• What we do • Some recent projects• Working with us• Corporate R&D in the Web era• Questions


BBC R&D

• 160 staff across 3 labs• Been in existence since 1930• Incorporated by Royal Charter: “..maintain BBC’s position

as a centre of excellence for research and development in broadcasting and other means for the electronic distribution of audio, visual and audiovisual material, and in related technologies.”

• “The UK's NASA” (House of Lords Select Committee on the BBC Charter Review 2005-6)


Some highlights of BBC R&D's history

Noise-cancelling mic (1927) VHF/FM transmitter(1945)• Colour TV (1954)• Digital TV standards proposed (1964)• Digital audio recorder/playback demonstrated (1971)• CEEFAX (1974)• NICAM (1986)• BBC Internet service (1989-1995)• Multicast internet streams (2004)• Freeview HD (2008)


Who my team are

• Prototyping and Audience Experience section within BBC R&D

• Working at the audience end of the broadcast chain• Full range of skills (Engineers, designers, producers)


What we do

• We build new prototypes, demonstrators and services across all digital platforms

• To try things out• To explore things• To solve problems• Focus on user-facing things

• Also, protocols and standards for emerging platforms• Engineering and UX/HCI research

• 5yr time horizon


Who we work with

• BBC programme makers (Dr Who, Springwatch)• Mobile and TV Platforms product development teams• Academia• SMEs• Collaborative partners (TSB, EU FP7, EU PPP)


A typical short term project

• ResearchTalking, reading, data

• ExplorationWorkshops, ideas, sketches, proofs-of-concept

• Buildlo-fi to hi-fi

• TestLab studies, remote home trials

• Reviewand repeat if necessary

• Average 8 weeks, with exceptions


Autumnwatch Viewing Companion


In-depth: ABC-IP

• Automated Broadcast Content Interlinking Project• TSB funded• What can we do with the World Service English language

archive?• Working with an SME• Making sense of a massive archive


ABC


In depth: Twitter firehose

• Granted access to the Twitter firehose• Technical opportunity=Open usage question• Workshops, discussions, existing work in this space• How can we track Twitter conversations to build

something useful?• Disaggregate links (bit.ly, bbc.in etc)• Build service for colleagues and end users• Massive dataset• “Needle in haystack”


P2P-Next: large scale collaborative project


In depth: multi-broadcaster, device ODM, worldwide standardisation project: RadioDNS and RadioTAG


RadioTAG in action

Photo James Cridland james.cridland.net


We work in the open

Site http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/prototypingBlog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rdCode: http://github.com/bbcrd Weeknotes http://bbc.in/rdweeknotes White papers http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/ Conferences (IBC, W3C etc)Standards bodies (W3C, DVB)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/prototyping

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rd

http://github.com/bbcrd

http://bbc.in/rdweeknotes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/


Issues and questions

Corporate R&D traditionally has a different pace to it30 years ago, competition came after 5-25 years of

preparation (Channel 4, BSkyB, commercial radio)Now, a service can be conceived, developed, tested,

deployed and acquired in <12 monthsMany new user-facing services come from the West CoastMost are either PPU or ad-supportedWhere does this leave BBC R&D?


How do you work with us?

Apply for jobs :) (jobs.bbc.co.uk)Hack on our stuff (github.com/bbcrd)Take part in the debate (@bbcprototyping, I am @georgie)Come to our hackdaysBecome a collaborative partner (TSB, FP7, PPP)Build cool stuff yourself (free software pls) and share with

us – we may hack on it with you

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