Tesco's Clubcard TV gets much better: BBC shows on board!

Image Credit: InformationAge

   A couple of weeks back Tesco launched Clubcard TV, a new service designed to offer loyal customers access to films, tv shows and other sorts of consumable content online. Today that service got better because the guys have announced a new partnership with BBC worldwide.

   The new shows will focus on comedy, drama and cooking programming, the last of those being an obvious choice for a supermarket right? There will be a focus on shows by chefs Antonio Carluccio, Ken Hom and Gary Rhodes, as well as other sorts of programs like Two Pints of Lager, Blackpool and Stig of the Dump will become staples on the online service and they'll join the shows which are already offered by Warner Bros, Endemol and Aardman studios.

   For all of the details of this deal check out the press release below:
Via Engadget.

Tesco cooks up Clubcard TV deal with BBC Worldwide

Tesco has secured a raft of popular cookery, comedy and drama programmes for innovative ad-supported streaming service Clubcard TV following a deal with BBC Worldwide.

The agreement, which includes shows featuring star chefs Antonio Carluccio, Ken Hom and Gary Rhodes, will see hours of BBC Worldwide content made available to its 16 million Clubcard members via the ad supported service.

Comedies Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Goodness Gracious Me and Alistair McGowan's Big Impression join dramas Carrie's War and Blackpool and children's classics Stig of the Dump and The Secret Garden on the free service, which can be accessed online at www.clubcardtv.com.

Tesco is the first retailer in the UK to reward its customers with their own online movie and TV service. Content spanning comedy, drama, kids TV, romance, thrillers and documentaries is on offer with no charges, contracts or subscriptions.

Clubcard TV has been developed by the team behind the Tesco movie and TV service blinkbox and, in another UK first, is supported by targeted advertising based on users' shopping habits. The service has thousands of TV episodes and movies following deals with Aardman, Endemol and Warner Bros.

Scott Deutrom, MD Clubcard TV, said: "With this deal we're adding a raft of new TV titles to our expanding catalogue, providing access to even more great digital entertainment in a way that's easy and accessible for customers."

Lisa Rousseau, Head of UK, Ireland and Pan European Television Sales, BBC Worldwide, said: "We're thrilled to have concluded such an extensive deal with Clubcard TV which will offer their customers a rich range of fantastic British content."

   

Read More

In Other News: 05/03/2013

• The BBC have confirmed that they will be tweaking their mobile iPlayer website to allow Windows Phone users to make use of the catch up TV service! The user base obviously isn't big enough to convince the Beeb to offer a full app just yet, but for those of us with Windows Phones this is much better than nothing and it'll work on both Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 and as a LiveTile.
  BBC Via Engadget.

• LG of late might be known for some of their Android phones, but the main talking point on these devices has been about how similar they are to Samsung's Galaxy range of phones. In another copycat move LG have announced that Samsung's popular flip covers are being blatantly copied by their South Korean rivals. As you can see to the right, the cases are very similar indeed and there's also the wide range of colours which Samsung offer, with the addition of a purple hue this time too! We can't blame LG for utilising good ideas, but we just wish they'd do something unique!
  Via AndroidAuthority.

• Google have updated Google Maps for iOS to version 1.1 today! The update brings with it new options to save searches specifically for addresses of your contacts and you can now browse for food, coffee, drinks, gas, post offices, hotels, grocery stores, pharmacies, movie theaters, malls, hospitals, ATMs, and attractions. There's also a host of new places where the app is available now, mainly through the Middle East.
  Via Engadget.

• The White House has officially responded to the 100,000+ signatures who don't want their phones to be locked in the States and hurrah the government agrees with the people! R. David Edelman, a senior advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy to the Obama said that 'consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties'.
  Via Reuters.

• Virgin UK have confirmed that they are adding a 2Mbps cap to their contract and pay as you go customers. They said that, "We are currently trialling measures to help manage data across the mobile network to ensure all our customers can continue to enjoy the benefits of mobile data on the move".
  Via TheRegister.

• Facebook has added free voice call support to its Messenger app for Android. The option is only available in Canada for the moment, but this is exactly what happened with the iOS roll out, so the update should land in America in two weeks time!
  Via CNet.

And finally, this is the world's thinnest and smallest mobile phone! In a world where companies are offering us giant smartphones, the Japanese carrier Willcom is selling the Phone Strap 2 WX06A. It's a phone which is 32 x 70 x 10.7mm, and weighs a mere 32 grams. In such a compact shell you won't get everything a smartphone would offer, but there's a 1-inch colour display and you can get about two hours of talk time, or 12 days standby time from this phone. We know that's not very much battery life, but this is touted as a backup to your main phone, not a replacement. The device will only be available in Japan, but for all your other needs we point you to the Nokia 3410!
Via PhoneArena.

Read More

In Other News: 08/02/2013

• A couple of weeks ago there was a big old hoohar about Microsoft's Surface Pro, which would supposedly be arriving with very little internal memory available because the OS was meant to be taking over a lot of the internal storage. Well it turns out it's not all as bas as everyone thought! The picture above pretty much clarifies the situation and assuming you save your recovery image on a flash drive then you'll actually have over 5GB of extra storage on your Surface Pro then you would on a 128GB MacBook Air!
  Via ZDNet.

• LG Hong Kong have posted an official confirmation that the 4X HD, as well as the Optimus L7 and L9's will all get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in the first half of the year!
  Via UnwiredView.

• O2 UK has announced that they are currently rolling out the Andorid 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update to the Sony Xperia T!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Blackberry have confirmed they will not be offering phones for sale in Japan any more. Apparently the company cannot justify the extra cost in translating their OS' to Japanese because there simply isn't enough demand in the country, with only 0.3% of phone users rocking their Blackberry's! Blackberry have said that they will support current users for the foreseeable future though!
  Via ZDNet.

• Three UK has announced that their new upcoming DC-HSDPA and LTE connections will be called "Ultrafast". Along with this there has been the announcement of the 'Ultrafast Galaxy S3', which is exactly the same as the HSPA+ version except it can take advantage of Three's new DC-HSDPA network!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Nokia's much rumoured device with the huge camera module is being touted as the Nokia 1000 by some sites on the internet. This has become relevant because the device has supposedly popped up on a list of devices destined for China.
  Via UberGizmo.

• Forbes have said that the Evasi0n jailbreak is the most popular ever with nearly seven million downloads in total thus far!

• The BBC Trust has announced that they have approved a 12-month trial which will allow shows to be broadcast online before they are shown on TV! The trial will allow up to a maximum of 40 hours of shows available online before they are on TV!
  Via Telegraph.

• The Nexus 4 has supposedly shipped over a million units now! If you believe that the XDA estimates are accurate!
  Via TechCrunch.

And finally, Nokia have been award a patent for a phone which has a curved backplate and an overall rather pleasant design! Given that we are expecting Nokia to unleash at least one new Lumia device on the world at MWC wouldn't it be pretty sweet if they offered us something like this?
LiveSide Via TheVerge.

Read More

Should we be worried about mobile data slowdown?

   A recent report from Deloitte has revealed that owners of Android, Windows Phone and iOS devices consume somewhere around about 35 times the amount of data that a normal phone user would use! This statistic in and of itself isn't too concerning because people with feature phones don't use much data at all, but this statistic becomes concerning when you hear that wireless traffic will supposedly increase 50-fold by the time we reach 2016!

   With this sort of increase in usage Deloitte predicts using our phones won't be the same enjoyable experience it is at the moment. They explained how mobile networks might develop 'rush hours' in much the same way our roads do, in some cases this already happens to your home broadband!

   This sort of network usage would mean that us consumers would often need to give it two or three goes before our phones connect to the people we're calling, we can expect a similar increase in the number of dropped calls we get and when it comes to browsing speeds, they'll plummet and in some cases we might not even be able to load up web pages on the go! Deloitte said:

"In the worst situations, download speeds may be under 1Mbps for lengthy periods of time, making video streaming impossible and even web browsing difficult."

   With that sort of speed we can kiss goodbye to playing the latest YouTube sensation to our friends or downloading an update to Temple Run 6 on the go!

   Hopefully, the new 4G networks will be able to help ease the problems which Deloitte predicts because they're a lot better at managing bandwidth efficiently and they help provide faster speeds.

   Deloitte think that for the foreseeable future that:

    "Demand for wireless bandwidth will likely attempt to outstrip these improvements in supply for at least several years... Major metropolitan areas in some geographies should expect to see continued deterioration in end-user experience."

   In some cases though governments have seen had some kind of solution to this problem. In some cases governments are freeing up some radio spectrum to help ease these sorts of concerns. Here in the UK our 4G auction has literally just got under way! This sort of action is quite rare though and in some cases governments ask that the purchasers of spectrum put their new airways to more specific users: things such as wireless broadband for rural areas are part of the agreements!

   We can see that this could be a problem in some places, but we're not entirely convinced it will be quite as bad as Deloitte predicts, especially not here in the UK and we can't see there being too many issues in either the rest of Europe or North America, but we'll have to wait and see though! Let us know what you think in the comments!
 
Deloitte Via BBC.

Read More