Tag Archives: bbc

The only constant is change – Weeknote #29 – 20th September 2019

GWR Paddington
GWR Paddington Station

After a busy week travelling up and down last week, this week was, you’ve guessed it, more travelling and back to London for a meeting preparing for another larger meeting which is taking place next week. I am running a one hour session on Education 4.0 and what universities and colleges need to think about and start doing to aspire to the potential benefits that the fourth industrial revolution will have on learners, students and institutions.

I really like this video clip from the BBC Archive on a 1963 view of what 1988 would look like.

It really demonstrates how difficult it is to predict the future. Some stuff you get right, most things you get wrong, and timeframes are really hard to judge. Part of my role is planning for a future that we can’t accurately predict. I have in the past spoken about these challenges. About the only thing we get right is that things change.

Tuesday I was flying up to Edinburgh, I was intending to go to our Bristol office, but the meeting I was going to attend was cancelled, so in the end I spent the morning working from home.

EasyJet at Bristol Airport
EasyJet at Bristol Airport

I was intrigued to see the changes to Bristol Airport as I think the last time I flew from Bristol was well over a year ago. Some of the restaurants have changed hands and there are some new ones as well. I did quite like how there was a big seating area for the Starbucks so I could get some work done whilst I was waiting for my flight. I was slightly annoyed that I was charged an extra 5p for having a paper cup. I don’t actually disagree with the concept of charging extra, it was that I didn’t have a choice. I would have actually preferred a proper china cup. I didn’t realise so I hadn’t brought with me my reusable cup either. Should note there are also water fountains to fill reusable water bottles.

From the airport I caught the tram to the centre of Edinburgh where my hotel was.

Edinburgh Tram
Edinburgh Tram at Haymarket

It’s a pity that the tram network in Edinburgh never got further than it did. It had huge potential. It certainly makes life much easier now travelling from the Airport to the city centre.

I really like the architecture and buildings in Edinburgh, the buildings have a certain darkness and charm about them.

It was an early morning meeting in Edinburgh, so I was glad I had spent the night before in a hotel. We were meeting with the Scottish Funding Council who part fund Jisc’s work, and it was time to provide an update and progress against our plans.

It was then back to Edinburgh airport for the flight home. I spent way too long at the airport, waiting for my plane. I think next time I do this, I should plan better and do something, or meet people.

Flying over Weston-super-Mare
Coming into land at Bristol Airport flying over Sand Bay, close to Weston-super-Mare

On the subject of change, on September 18th 2007, twelve years ago I was working in Gloucester and I took some photographs around the docks area including this one of the boarded up offices.

Boarded up offices in the Gloucester Docks
Boarded up offices in the Gloucester Docks

It may have been a pub or hotel at one point. I was curious what it looked like today, especially as the whole area was part of a major development since 2007. So using Google Street View I found it had changed quite dramatically.

Google Street View of Gloucester Docks
Google Street View of Gloucester Docks

It’s now a Bills restaurant, but I was amazed by the restoration and development of the building, the only constant is change

Thursday I decided to work from home and caught up with correspondence and reading the numerous memos that were in my in-tray… otherwise known as trawling through my email inbox.

Friday I was back in the Bristol office for various meetings and discussions.

The city centre saw a huge demonstration in support of stopping climate change and the passion an enthusiasm was plain to see.

Climate Change march in Bristol
Climate Change march in Bristol

I spent some time working on the Education 4.0 roadmap notes in preparation for a meeting next week.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Realising the potential…. – Weeknote #15 – 14th June 2019

Senate House

Another Monday and another day back in London. The weather was awful, it’s June, it’s supposed to be dry and sunny, but all I had on Monday was rain and then more rain.

Tuesday was going to see me flying off early to Edinburgh for a meeting on Wednesday, however a last minute cancellation, meant that I changed my travel plans. I was also supposed to be going to our Harwell office on Friday, but that meeting was cancelled as well.

We had a short meeting about place, I mentioned in a previous weeknote about the Bristol One City project.

Student Experience 2030 – Weeknote #09 – 3rd May 2019

Having more time this week, enabled me to crack on with some reading and writing, as well as reflection about future events and meetings I am attending. I was reading and reviewing a range of internal documents.

One document I reviewed again was the government’s EdTech Strategy.

Realising the potential of technology in education: A strategy for education providers and the technology industry

DFE Edtech Strategy

For me some key areas need further discussion and development, how does technology support learning and teaching and the importance of digital leadership (which is not quite the same thing as leadership).

Friday saw us discussing the usage of Teams in higher education as a… Well I was going to say replacement for the VLE, but that implies that the VLE is one thing and Teams is another thing, but they are not the same thing.

I have always thought of the VLE as more of a concept rather than a specific product. A virtual learning environment (VLE) can have a range of functions and services. Certain products and fulfil some of these functions, others may plug into the product or live alongside it. So you could have Moodle as your core within your VLE, but have WordPress connected in to provide a blogging platform and Mahara to be the portfolio tool.

Microsoft Teams has many functions that enable it to be used as a core of the VLE, into which other functions could be connected or plugged in. It has all the functions you expect from a VLE or LMS, such as content, communication (individual and group) and assessment.

Teams Apps

The Apps ecosystem certainly enables a much wider range of functions, though certainly apps and functions appear to be “missing”.

Microsoft Teams is the digital hub that brings conversations, content, and apps together in one place. Create collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, and communicate with all staff – all from a single experience in Office 365 Education.

There are already universities and colleges out in the sector using Teams as their VLE, I am interested in not just who is using Teams as their VLE, but also how they are using it, and how embedded it is into practice.

One of the feature of Amazon Photos which I use to back up my digital image archive is it shows what photographs you took on the same date in previous years.

Twelve years ago in 2007 I was drinking coffee at my desk in the old Gloucestershire College Brunswick building in the heart of Gloucester Anyone else remember BBC Jam?

BBC Jam mug

Fifteen years ago this week I was taking photographs of a building site to demonstrate the differences between a range of digital cameras.

This photograph was taken with a Sony Cybershot camera.

construction site

This one was taken with the digital photo feature of a digital video camera.\construction site

This was taken with a Canon EOS 300D DSLR.

construction site

I also used a proper DSLR lens with optical zoom to show the difference between optical and digital zoom.

construction site

This was taken from the same location as the photos above.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Top Ten Blog Posts 2018

This year I have written only 17 blog posts, in 2017 it was 21 blog posts, in 2016 it was 43 blog posts, in 2015 I wrote 24 blog posts. In 2014 I wrote 11 and in 2013 I wrote 64 blog posts and over a hundred in 2012. In 2011 I thought 150 was a quiet year!

Do signs work?

The tenth most popular blog post in 2018 was asking So do signs work? This article from 2013 described some of the challenges and issues with using signage to change behaviours. So do signs work? Well yes they do, but often they don’t.

The post at number nine was my podcast workflow, published in 2011, this article outlines how and what equipment I use to record the e-Learning Stuff Podcast. This is only one way in which to record a remote panel based podcast, and I am sure there are numerous other ways in which to do this. I have also changed how I have recorded over the two years I have been publishing the podcast due to changes in equipment and software. It’s probably time to update it, though I am not doing as much podcasting as I use to.

Dropping three places to eighth was 100 ways to use a VLE – #89 Embedding a Comic Strip. This was a post from July 2011, that looked at the different comic tools out there on the web, which can be used to create comic strips that can then be embedded into the VLE. It included information on the many free online services such as Strip Creator and Toonlet out there. It is quite a long post and goes into some detail about the tools you can use and how comics can be used within the VLE.

The post at number seven, climbing one place, was Comic Life – iPad App of the Week. Though I have been using Comic Life on the Mac for a few years now I realised I hadn’t written much about the iPad app that I had bought back when the iPad was released. It’s a great app for creating comics and works really well with the touch interface and iPad camera.

Sixth most popular was a post from 2018, called “I don’t know how to use the VLE!” This blog post described a model of VLE embedding and development. This post was an update to the model I had published in 2010.

In at number five, is also a post from 2018, Why does no one care about my digital strategy? This post described some of the background to the leadership briefing I wrote with Lawrie Phipps on the digital lens.

digital lens

Holding at fourth, is Can I legally download a movie trailer? One of the many copyright articles that I posted some years back, this one was in 2008, I am still a little behind in much of what is happening within copyright and education, one of things I do need to update myself on, as things have changed.

Dropping one place back to third, was Frame Magic – iPhone App of the Week, still don’t know why this one is so popular!

FrameMagic - iPhone App of the Week

Back in 2015 I asked I can do that… What does “embrace technology” mean? in relation to the Area Review process and this post was the second most popular post in 2018, last year it was in sixth place, so it’s getting more popular.

Once again, for the sixth year running, the number one post for 2018 was the The iPad Pedagogy Wheel.

The Padagogy Wheel

I re-posted the iPad Pedagogy Wheel as I was getting asked a fair bit, “how can I use this nice shiny iPad that you have given me to support teaching and learning?”. It’s a really simple nice graphic that explores the different apps available and where they fit within Bloom’s Taxonomy. What I like about it is that you can start where you like, if you have an iPad app you like you can see how it fits into the pedagogy. Or you can work out which iPads apps fit into a pedagogical problem.

So there we have it, the top ten posts 2018.

On the tech side…

Birmingham

As some will now as well as talking about e-learning stuff, I also like to talk about the tech side of things too. Over the last few months I have been talking about things I have written about on this blog before.

In my blog post Mobile WordPress Theme I have covered the update to WP-Touch, which adds a dedicated mobile theme to WordPress blogs really easily and looks great. If you have your own WordPress installation, then this plug-in is really easy to install.

Mobile WordPress

In another article I talk about how we melted the wifi at the recent UCISA event on digital capabilities. The conference centre struggled to cope with 120 delegates as the wifi, that in theory could cope with 250 wireless clients, failed to deliver a stable consistent wifi connection.

On this blog I wrote about the fickle nature of the web based on the original article which appeared on the Tech Stuff blog. This was in response to the original decision by the BBC to remove the recipes from their BBC Food site.

Weston Village

In addition to the individual post mentioned above, I have also written about my continued issues with getting FTTC at home. As well as my new Three 4G connection, where I am getting nearly 50Mb download speeds.

So if you fancy a more technical read, then head over to the blog.

The impact of the fickle nature of the web

Broken Web

Over on my tech blog I have been writing about the fickle nature of the web, it is one of those things that I find annoying. You post a link, embed a video and then a bit later you find that it has gone! This was very apparent today with the news that the BBC are, in order to save money, will close down their recipe website. For me this is a mistake, however I also understand how this can happen, not just with textual content, but also media too.

Now as I write this blog post, it would appear that the BBC have climbed down somewhat and the recipes will be moving over to the commercial BBC Good Food website.

Screengrab from BBC Food website - Eton Mess

The impact of archived, expired and missing content may be annoying for me, but it is probably more annoying and frustrating for teachers who have created or curated content using third party links and embedded media and find that the learners are unable to access the third party content. These links need to be fixed or replaced, embedded media needs to be found again, or an alternative discovered. I know when I was working with staff, this was an issue they found very frustrating when creating courses and content for the VLE.

Personally I when writing content for my blog, I try not to use third party sites (in case they disappear) and try not to embed content if I can help it. There are times though when people have removed a video years later and looking through an old blog post you find the embedded video has disappeared as the obscure service you used has shut down, or was taken over.

As I said over on the tech blog, sometimes I think, why do people and organisations like the BBC do this? Then I remember I have done this myself and sometimes you have little choice.

WCC Logo

Back in 2001 I was appointed Director of the Western Colleges Consortium and we had a nice little website and the domain of westerncc.ac.uk and the consortium was wound up in 2006. As a result the website was shut down and the domain lost.

Back in 1998 when I created my first web site, using Hot Metal Pro I used the free hosting that came with my ISP account. A few years later I moved hosting providers (as I was using too much bandwidth) and had a domain of my own. I did leave the old site up, but due to bandwidth usage it was eventually shut down!

I remember creating a course site for my learners using one of those services where you got a free domain name and free hosting, should I have been surprised when they shut down and asked for large fees for transferring the site and the domain. It was often easier to create a new domain and get new hosting. The original site was lost in the midst of time.

We have seen services such as Ning, which were free and well used, but once the money ran out and they started charging, lots of useful sites shut themselves down. People then moved to different services.

For these small sites, it probably is less of an issue, annoying, slightly frustrating, but you can live with it, it’s part of what the web is about. However with big sites, like BBC Food, then it becomes more than annoying, especially if you have a reliance on that content for your course or your teaching.

Since I wrote my blog post yesterday , the reaction on the web has intensified (and it looks like has had an impact). One blog post from Lloyd Shepherd, one of the original team who worked on the archive makes for interesting reading.

It was my team that ran product management and editorial on the new Food site, and the site that exists today is largely the site we conceptualised and built at that time.

He explains the basis behind the site

The idea was very simple: take the recipes from BBC programmes, repurpose them into a database, and then make that database run a website, a mobile site, and who-knows-what-else. Create relationships between recipes based on ingredients, shows, cuisines, and who-knows-what-else. And then run it with as small an editorial team as possible whose job was simply to turn telly recipes into database recipes.

He continues to point out that as far as the remit of the BBC as a public service broadcaster, the food archive hit two key points.

Did we discuss ‘public service remit’? You bet we did. Every day. And it really came down to two things:

These recipes have already been paid for by the BBC licence fee payer, and they’re being under-utilised. A new service can be developed out of them for very little up-front cost.

Nutrition is now a public health issue. Obesity is draining NHS coffers, government guidelines are badly understood and terribly publicised. There is a role for the BBC to play in this, and this is the way to do it.

Though at this time we don’t know for sure where the content will be archived, rumour has it, it will be archived on the Commercial BBC Good Food site, one impact which I know it will have will be on catering courses that use the BBC content to support the learning of the students. A lot of the recipes are from professional chefs and provide guidance and inspiration to learners who are starting out on their careers. Additionally the way in which the archive works, they can find ideas and recipes for different ingredients. Even if the archive is moved, one aspect of the BBC Food site that will be missed, is the lack of distracting advertising.

It would appear that the BBC are moving away from an archive to library of content, which can be “borrowed” for 30 days before it expires. That got me thinking…

In the olden days when I was running libraries, we use to “weed” the collection of book stock which needed replacing, was out of date or no longer been used. We would buy new content to either replace or update existing books, or buy books that were completely new. One thing we were clear about was that we were not an archive, old stock was to be removed and got rid of, usually recycled or sold. The copy of the Haynes manual for the Hillman Imp from 1972 was interesting in its own right, but from a teaching and learning perspective wasn’t actually of any use any more.

Haynes Hillman Imp manual

We didn’t have the space to store and keep books and journals just for the sake of keeping books and journals. Of course with online materials that space argument becomes less critical, but there is still the resources required to manage curate large quantities of digital content to ensure that the content is accessible, searchable and relevant.

I personally don’t think the BBC Food archive is a library that needs to be reduced, refreshed and restricted, I think it is a great archive that should be kept. For me there are two services here, one is the archive and the other is a service delivering current and new content. It’s a pity that the requirement of cost savings means one was planned to go. Hopefully the recipes will be saved and restored when they move over to the new site.

In my post on Ning starting to charge  back in 2010 I mentioned above,  I did say one of the issues with using any free Web 2.0 service is that they may not be here forever.

Gabcast is no longer free, but Audioboo is. Jaiku is pretty much dead, but Twitter is alive and well. Etherpad has gone, but iEtherpad is up and running.

I still think what I said in 2010 is still relevant today when talking about services and web tools.

At the end of the day this is not about a service disappearing or now charging, it’s much more about how when using these services you don’t think about long term, but have the capability and the technical knowledge to move between different services as and when they become available.

Use what is now and in the future use what is then.

Though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t complain and moan when something like the BBC Food “closure” happens, as sometimes there aren’t real alternatives, especially when it comes to content rather than a service.

What this whole story tells us is that the web can be fickle and relying on the stickiness and permanence of web content can be a challenge for teachers and lecturers. How do you cope with the transient nature of web content?

Image Credit: Broken by David Bakker CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

BBC iPlayer – iPad App of the Week




BBC iPlayer – iPad App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.

This week’s App is BBC iPlayer.

BBC TV and Radio programmes now on your iPad.

Watch and listen live, or choose your favourites from over 400 hours programming from the last 7 days.

– Watch live TV
– Listen to live radio
– Scroll through and find Featured and Most Popular programmes
– Add programmes to your favourites and have them ready and waiting when a new episode or series is available
– Drag and drop programmes to Favourites with one easy move
– Browse through the schedule for upcoming programmes

Free

Sometimes you will want your learners to watch a programme that was on the telly in the past seven days. Even if your institution has an ERA licence you may have “forgotten” to have it recorded, or even if you have, you might want your learners to watch it in their own time and a place of their choosing. BBC iPlayer for many is a great service and allows people to watch a lot of stuff from the last seven days and in some cases with some series, catch-up an entire series. What you can see and what you can’t is not a technical issue, but a rights one. The more we have had iPlayer the more the rights issues are been settled for new content.

There is an App for the iPad for BBC iPlayer. Learners, if they have an iPad can watch the programme when they want to. I have used it a few times and it does work as expected. I think it is better than the website version of iPlayer on the iPad and it seems to be a little more stable. A bit easier to go back to a video you have paused for example. Navigation is slightly different to the website version you get on the iPad, but not much really too different.

This is the iPad App.

This is iPlayer on the iPad browser.

So my next question is why?

Why on earth did the BBC spend time and money on an app for the iPad if it adds virtually nothing to the experience that you get from using the website on the iPad?

So is the content different from what you get on the web on the iPad?

So can you download content for offline viewing? Like when you are on a train? Something you can do on your computer. Well no, you have to have a decent internet connection to watch BBC iPlayer. Also you can’t use the service on 3G, you do need to be on wifi.

The main difference is that the app allows you to watch live BBC TV which is probably the main reason for getting the app, though remember you will need a TV licence to watch the live streams!

In the end I can’t see what the app adds that viewing on the iPlayer on Safari doesn’t have already, apart from “favourites”. What’s the point of that as most content disappears in under seven days anyway…

Neither the App or the web version of iPlayer support AirPlay which is what you would use to stream content to your Apple TV. Now that would be useful especially as BBC iPlayer is not native on the Apple TV (and in the UK it should be). Of course if we could put Apps on the Apple TV then we could put this BBC App on the Apple TV! Sometimes I wish life was a little easier and simpler.

The BBC iPlayer App is an App it currently doesn’t support AV-Out. You can do AV-Out with the web version. If you have an iPad 2 then you can mirror the app using the Digital AV Adapter.

Disappointingly for some this app is only for the iPad, you will need to rely on the web version if you have an iPhone or an iPod touch. Though for those with an Android handset, there is a BBC iPlayer App for Android.

Get the BBC iPlayer App for the iPad in the iTunes App Store.

BBC iPlayer – Android App of the Week

BBC iPlayer – Android App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Originally this feature focused on iPhone and iPad apps, however I have now expanded to include Mac, Windows and Android apps.

This week’s App is BBC iPlayer.

Free

The BBC have released an App for Android devices for BBC iPlayer. I have now used it a few times and it works okay, however it’s not perfect. If you have a Froyo 2.2 Android device then you can install Flash and access the BBC iPlayer site through that, but to be honest when I tried that a few months back, I wasn’t too impressed either.

The main difference between the web version of iPlayer and the app is that you can watch live TV on the app, though you will need a TV licence.

The main problem is you don’t get the smooth playback that I get on the iPhone or the iPad. If I play videos direct from the phone I do get smooth playback, so I don’t think it’s an underpowered hardware issue.

However if you read the BBC blog, it maybe the reason…

To download and use the app you’ll need a device that uses Android version 2.2 and has Adobe Flash 10.1 Player installed. Our Flash streams need a powerful mobile phone processor and a Wi-Fi connection to ensure a smooth viewing experience, which means that only newer, more powerful Android 2.2 devices connected via Wi-Fi can support the Flash 10.1 streaming experience.

Having said all that I am pleased to see the BBC not ignoring Android and just producing the iPad app. It’s free so check it out for yourself and see if it works better for you.

I do wonder though if we ever see similar apps from ITV or Channel 4? Possibly?

Stephen Fry: The Internet and Me

Stephen Fry

I quite enjoyed reading this article by Stephen Fry on the BBC News website (even though it is 18 months old) when I found it for the first time.

Stephen Fry – wit, writer, raconteur, actor and quiz show host – is also a self-confessed dweeb and meistergeek. As he confesses “If I added up all the hours I’ve sat watching a progress bar fill up, I could live another life.”

One of the main reasons I like it is one particular quote that I have used time and time again in meetings.

This is an early thing I said about the internet at the time things like AOL were still huge. I said it’s Milton Keynes, that’s the problem with it. It’s got all these nice, safe cycle paths and child-friendly parks and all the rest of it.

But the internet is a city and, like any great city, it has monumental libraries and theatres and museums and places in which you can learn and pick up information and there are facilities for you that are astounding – specialised museums, not just general ones.

But there are also slums and there are red light districts and there are really sleazy areas where you wouldn’t want your children wandering alone.

And you say, “But how do I know which shops are selling good gear in the city and how do I know which are bad? How do I know which streets are safe and how do I know which aren’t?” Well you find out.

What you don’t need is a huge authority or a series of identity cards and police escorts to take you round the city because you can’t be trusted to do it yourself or for your children to do it.

And I think people must understand that about the internet – it is a new city, it’s a virtual city and there will be parts of it of course that they dislike, but you don’t pull down London because it’s got a red light district.

For me this is a nice analogy of how institutions should look at the internet when thinking about their learners. It’s not about closing off the city to our learners. It’s much more about informing and making learners aware not just of the benefits of the city and the wonderful places that can be seen, but also that there are places in the city they may want to avoid.

When I was teaching European Studies many years ago, we took a group of students to Amsterdam to look at European culture. There are some wonderful things to see in Amsterdam, however myself and my colleagues made sure we were just as aware of the “not so nice” places to ensure that we could provide the right information and advice to our learners.

There is of course those learners who will ignore you and go where they shouldn’t (and this also happened on our trip to Amsterdam) and the key here is to ensure that those learners know what to do and to whom they should seek help and support if they do decide to ignore the advice and venture into the sleazy areas.

The internet has many wonderful sites, tools and services. In my opinion an institution needs to provide the right guidance and advice (digital literacy and information literacy) to our learners to make sure that they can make the most of and find the best of what the internet has to offer. They also have a duty of care to inform learners about the less desirable areas of the internet and how to deal with those parts too.

BBC News – iPhone App of the Week

BBC News – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone and iPad Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will work on the iPod touch or the iPad, some will be iPad only apps.

This week’s App is BBC News

Get the latest, breaking news from the BBC and our global network of journalists.

By downloading the BBC News app you can view:

  • News stories by geographical region
  • News by category including business, technology, entertainment and sport
  • News in other languages including Spanish, Russian and Arabic
  • Video including one minute news summaries to keep you informed on the go
  • You can also personalise the app to suit your interests and download content for offline browsing

Free

The BBC News website is a wonderful resource and place for news on the web. The mobile version is okay too. Both versions do work on the iPhone and the iPad.

However the BBC News website does rely on Flash for video. The obvious solution would be, as other news providers have, build an App.

So the BBC did build a BBC News App for the iPhone and the iPad…

However…

UK media companies complained, so the BBC Trust said that the BBC News App would not be available in the UK, but they could make it available overseas!

Eventually after much deliberation and consultation the BBC Trust said that yes the App could be made available in the UK. Yay!

So what about the App itself?

Basically it is similar to the website, the news is divided into sections.

The advantage over the website is that any video is in h.264 format so it plays! Not all the news and video though on the main BBC website is easy to find on the App though.

The user interface is much more iPhone like than the website so making it much quicker and easier to use.

This is a really good App, just a pity that it wasn’t available in the UK for so long…

e-Learning Tech Stuff #003 – BBC News App

This week’s e-Learning Tech Stuff is looking at the BBC News App.

Download the iPhone version in M4V format.

Get the latest, breaking news from the BBC and our global network of journalists.

By downloading the BBC News app you can view:

News stories by geographical region

News by category including business, technology, entertainment and sport

News in other languages including Spanish, Russian and Arabic

Video including one minute news summaries to keep you informed on the go

You can also personalise the app to suit your interests and download content for offline browsing

The BBC News website is a wonderful resource and place for news on the web. The mobile version is okay too. Both versions do work on the iPhone and the iPad.

However the BBC News website does rely on Flash for video. The obvious solution would be, as other news providers have, build an App.

So the BBC did build a BBC News App…

UK media companies complained, so the BBC Trust said that the BBC News App would not be available in the UK, but they could make it available overseas!

However today the BBC Trust having delayed the UK launch has now said that the App would be available in the UK.

The UK launch was delayed while the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, assessed the proposals and their impact on the rest of the industry.

The apps do not “represent a significant change to the BBC’s existing public services,” ruled the BBC Trust, meaning that further scrutiny was not required.

So what about the App itself?

Basically it is similar to the website, the news is divided into sections.

The advantage over the website is that any video is in h.264 format so it plays!

The user interface is much more iPhone like than the website so making it much quicker and easier to use.