Backstage is run by Ian Forrester in Manchester Rain Ashford in
London
Slide 4
What is Backstage and what go we get up to? the BBCs 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
Slide 5
Weve a new and improved Backstage website/blog:
http://welcomebackstage.com Blog now allows comments wed love to
hear your feedback!
Slide 6
Idea Store http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/ideatorrent/ If
youve got a great idea for re-using BBC content share it! You can:
vote, comment comment, get help and watch ideas grow!
Slide 7
Open Lab a sister site for Backstage
http://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.
Slide 8
BBC Micro for the 21 st Century The recent 25 th anniversary of
the BBC Micro set us thinking about what it would take to create
something as amazing today.
Slide 9
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
Slide 10
BBC Micro: fast forward to the twentyfirstcentury recent 25 th
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 dont 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?
Slide 11
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
Slide 12
Maker Faire UK, Newcastle http://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.
Slide 13
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 21 st 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
Slide 14
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
Slide 15
R&DTV http://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtml A
monthly technology programme pilot made up of interviews from BBC
project experts & experts from around the world.
Slide 16
Whats 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 were 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 ^^^
Slide 17
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 theyre
also on Blip, YouTube, Pirate Bay & BitTorrent Please let us
know what you use them for
Slide 18
R&DTV http://ftp.kw.bbc.co.uk/backstage/index.whtml Weve
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!
Slide 19
Homura Games Development Tool & Framework
http://java.cms.livjm.ac.uk/homura/index.php BBC R&D Have been
working with John Moores University on Homura, an open source games
engine the code is now available!
Slide 20
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
Slide 21
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
Slide 22
Feeds Hub
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/04/introducing_bbc_feeds_hub.shtml
Feeds Hub is one of the BBCs 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
Slide 23
Backstage sponsorship of events Backstage 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.
Slide 24
Backstage Developer focused podcasts
http://welcomebackstage.com/ Were looking at cross company podcasts
and will soon be looking for people whod like to be part of it
!
Slide 25
Open Hack 2009 rough n ready feeds for you to play with!
http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/feeds/twitter.com/users
http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/ws/
http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/ws/per
sian/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 its not finished yet, but were
building it as we go along its not too neat & tidy theres not
search option just copy & paste to find stuff all RESTful
explore and have fun!
Slide 26
To find out more or get in touch: http://welcomebackstage.com/
Follow us on Twitter: @bbc_backstage Thanks!
[email protected]
