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The rows over how broadband providers will cope with the increasing amount of video traffic we are all consuming continues today with the news that the BBC is to make BBC1 available as a live stream at some point in the next few months.
The BBC has tested multicast streaming for the last couple of years which means one stream can be watched by many thousands of people at once but the bandwidth consumed across peering links is roughly the same as just one person viewing the content rather than 1000s of individual streams. Whether this latest roll-out of BBC1 streaming will utilise multicast technology is unknown as the trials revealed problems with ADSL routers not always supporting multicast.
While multicast is touted as a solution to broadcasting live TV over the Internet, with the most popular broadband model which relies on a core ATM network from BT Wholesale, the savings would only be in moving the traffic from the BBC to the broadband providers. The most expensive part of the connection, which is getting the data from the broadband provider to the 5,500 exchanges around the UK, would simply not benefit from multicast technology in today’s network structure.
While the BBC is often seen as the body that will cause broadband prices to rise, it should be remembered that the BBC is not the only source of live video. BBC content generally has scope to be massively more popular than for example live music concerts on Facebook or Myspace.
The biggest danger for broadband providers with live TV is that if an event is popular, and more than 3 or 4% of their customers choose to watch it at the same time, then all the capacity into the provider from exchanges will be swamped. The existing catch-up TV services that stream content will generally be spread out over a larger time frame reducing the chance of all the capacity being used for a single task.

thinkbroadband.com

Apr 3, 2008, 1:10 AM EDT
MySpace has become one of the Internet’s largest social gathering places, its only natural that it should add some music to the mix. And so it did as MySpace joined forces with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group to form MySpace Music.
MySpace Music is another rising star set to compete with iTunes, the top music download service on the Internet. Although the official launch date is not set in stone, Chris De Wolfe, chief executive of MySpace said it is "fluid" in that commercial features are going to be added to the site over the coming months. De Wolfe also said that MySpace would be in talks with other partners to bring more content and services to the site.
MySpace Music will offer free music audio and video streaming and supported by advertising. It will further offer MP3 downloads, ringtones, artist ticket sales and artist merchandise for sale. De Wolfe said that the site addition will integrate its existing 5 million artist profile pages with a wide range of new commercial services in a "360-degree" offering that is set to be made available to its base of 30 million music fans.
MySpace joined forces with nation’s top record labels in a venture called MySpace Music

gameshout.com

Barbara Byrne’s South Florida clients are tired. They’re tired of power struggles, whining, tantrums, biting, being ignored, being late out the door in the morning and — this is a big one — not getting enough sleep.
From her Kendall office, Byrne counsels moms and dads on how to be, well, moms and dads. She’s a parent coach. Parents seek her help when ”because I said so” doesn’t work; when the household is in a constant state of chaos. Her biggest fans share homes with toddlers and teens.
‘Once `free will’ emerges, the parents are on the phone,” Byrne says.
Kids still don’t come with instructions, but moms today have another option: a private advisor.
Like personalized Dr. Spocks, parent coaches are available for one-hour office visits, lunchtime phone calls, even comforting e-mail exchanges. They offer practical tips on how to get through thumb sucking, sibling rivalry and other day-to-day trials. And they make parents feel better about themselves.
”We went there frustrated and came out comforted and feeling very empowered,” says Andrea Lopez, a Miami mom who sought Byrne’s help for handling her 4-year-old’s violent temper tantrums. ‘You come to a point where you start to question yourself. You think, `I’m a professional, I should be able to handle this.’ As a parent, it’s embarrassing. But the reality is sometimes you need an outsider.”
As the latest self-help approach for overextended moms and dads, parent coaching is catching on because it’s relatively inexpensive — one-on-one sessions range from $50 to $100, while teleseminars can be taken from home at night for as low as $25. And it can be quick, even over the phone.
Critics warn that in the zeal to be perfect parents, we’re losing sight that parenting is an experience, not a profession. A pro for every parenting task — home baby-proofers, lactation consultants, sleep trainers, lice removal technicians, kiddie taxi drivers, birthday planners — makes it easy to ”outsource” parenthood. With TV hits like Nanny 911 and Supernanny, some worry that moms are being conditioned to stifle their mother’s intuition and go for the quick fix.

miamiherald.com

In this season of America’s Next Top Model, the aspiring wannabes of cycle 10 are matriculating into the school of ANTM, and it looks like we have a star pupil to watch … or do we?
More art-inspired Brooklyn hipster than North Shore surfer babe, Claire Unabia graces the screen with an updated punk do (cropped and one-third shorn) and an ebullient smile. There’s something different to her, and it isn’t just her very articulate and un-model-like sense of responsibility “to be a global warrior for the environment, because [she] can’t be a coward for [her] daughter.” A proud new mother, she explains to Tyra in an interview that “it’s so hard being apart from [her daughter], especially since she’s still breastfeeding.”
“So you’re FedEx-ing the milk?” Tyra asks.
“Well,” Claire says sheepishly, “right now, I’m actually drinking it.”
Perhaps the difference is Claire’s mild affliction of Brooklynite-osis, a common enough disease in the borough of Brooklyn. Its symptoms are to stand apart from the crowd by waving one’s freak flag and loving it, usually in order to capitalize on one’s sense of individuality in a place where everyone seems replete with quirky characteristics — which is perhaps why the show has labeled her from New York, rather than her beloved home state of Hawai‘i. There are mixed feelings about not representing Hawai‘i on Claire’s MySpace page: “I am from Hawai‘i! The North Shore, brah! The first not totally white girl from Hawai‘i on the show … ” Ahem, Renee from cycle eight.
Claire is half Filipina, yet both she and the show’s judges forget to mention it. It seems strange that Tyra, queen of cultural pride, has not brought this to light. Unlike previous Asian American contestants whose sense of self was drawn in terms of race, Claire seems to break from this holding pattern. The real difference may be that Claire doesn’t look Asian, and so her association with Asian culture may be remote to the viewer. Does the fact that her favorite food is Hawaiian-style Korean galbi mean anything? We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we can ponder other mysteries that make her who she is — like her decision to deliver her baby on a reality show called Runway Moms and if indeed, as reports indicate, she ate her own placenta. …

asianweek.com

Michael Patrick MacDonald
Talking with Joe Keohane
Michael Patrick MacDonald doesn’t just talk it, he’s lived it. He grew up in South Boston and watched members of his family fall under the weight of poverty and violence, an experience he recorded in his first book, All Souls.
His follow-up, Easter Rising, also revolves around MacDonald’s life in Boston, but in this book he remembers his discovery of punk rock and the punk scene. Eventually, music became a saving grace, and the book culminates in MacDonald’s trip to Ireland. After years of rejecting where he came from, the trip helped him accept and embrace his roots.
Bostonist enjoyed a long chat with MacDonald, who talks about the memoir process and his current work with Roca, a local group that is committed to finding new ways to help young people who have become caught up in a cycle of violence. As Bostonist has said before of MacDonald’s work, if you want to learn more about Boston, his books are the place to start.
How is the book tour going?
It’s been going great because the conversation’s been about some pretty pressing stuff around poverty, post-traumatic stress, and all that kind of stuff. I made a comment about that in the Globe the other day . I mentioned how I’m trying to change the conversation because one of the pitfalls of memoir is that even if you’re writing about big social justice issues, as I try to do, because it’s memoir people get caught up in your personal stuff, so sometimes the conversation will be like, “How’s your mother? Whatever happened to your dog Sarge?” [laughs] And so I’ve been trying to shape the conversation at the end of my reading to be about young people in poverty and so forth, and talk about solutions to those things. I’ve been really successful in that. I did two nights in New York, one in Boston, and now I’m in Portland, Oregon, and tonight I’m speaking at Powell’s Bookstore, which is such a great bookstore.

bostonist.com

Michael Patrick MacDonald
Talking with Joe Keohane
Michael Patrick MacDonald doesn’t just talk it, he’s lived it. He grew up in South Boston and watched members of his family fall under the weight of poverty and violence, an experience he recorded in his first book, All Souls.
His follow-up, Easter Rising, also revolves around MacDonald’s life in Boston, but in this book he remembers his discovery of punk rock and the punk scene. Eventually, music became a saving grace, and the book culminates in MacDonald’s trip to Ireland. After years of rejecting where he came from, the trip helped him accept and embrace his roots.
Bostonist enjoyed a long chat with MacDonald, who talks about the memoir process and his current work with Roca, a local group that is committed to finding new ways to help young people who have become caught up in a cycle of violence. As Bostonist has said before of MacDonald’s work, if you want to learn more about Boston, his books are the place to start.
How is the book tour going?
It’s been going great because the conversation’s been about some pretty pressing stuff around poverty, post-traumatic stress, and all that kind of stuff. I made a comment about that in the Globe the other day . I mentioned how I’m trying to change the conversation because one of the pitfalls of memoir is that even if you’re writing about big social justice issues, as I try to do, because it’s memoir people get caught up in your personal stuff, so sometimes the conversation will be like, “How’s your mother? Whatever happened to your dog Sarge?” [laughs] And so I’ve been trying to shape the conversation at the end of my reading to be about young people in poverty and so forth, and talk about solutions to those things. I’ve been really successful in that. I did two nights in New York, one in Boston, and now I’m in Portland, Oregon, and tonight I’m speaking at Powell’s Bookstore, which is such a great bookstore.

bostonist.com

Afghan prisoners captured by Canadian troops and transferred to local authorities may not seek protections under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a Federal Court judge ruled Wednesday. Meanwhile, the head of Canada's independent Military Police Complaints Commission announced he has been forced to call public hearings into allegations involving military police conduct in Afghanistan because the government has not co-operated with his more low-profile investigation. The hearing process is expected to begin within the next month.
The federal government is set to reduce the number of new immigration applications it accepts in a dramatic change of policy aimed at cutting the backlog of nearly 900,000 people who have already applied to enter Canada.
680News Toronto: Prostitute named in Gov. Spitzer scandal
CKNW Vancouver: Ferry's radar not properly monitored
CJAD Montreal: CSST tells workers to report possibly dangerous roofs
Globe: Tories stalling abuse probe, watchdog says
CBC: Gold hits $1,000 US an ounce
BBC: Kidnapped Iraqi archbishop dead
Washington Post: EPA tightens smog rules, ignores advice
CNN: The governor's gal
Marketwatch: Gold rallies to $1,000 level
Financial Post: Retail sales data add to gloom on Wall St.
Edmonton Sun: City chalks up $42M windfall

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