Yeah, that whole "updating a website" thing. We're quite shit at it, aren't we?
 
We do have some good stuff coming up, though. In the meantime, if you've not seen it, I recommend watching Hyperland - a 1990 Douglas Adams documentary. To say much more would spoil it, but it's fascinating stuff, especially considering when it was made.
 
Pity about the snipe at Filthy, Rich & Catflap at the start, mind you. (Indeed, the snipes at telly are pretty misjudged as a whole.) It's utterly wonderful, and I recommend you buy the DVD if you haven't seen it. At £6.99, what is there to lose? Well, apart from £6.99, of course.
 

The latest issue of Vanity Fair carries an interesting article about sharing TV programmes and movies using BitTorrent. Refreshingly fair and honest, it features an interview with The Pirate Bay, a popular Swedish torrent site (who, revelling in their reputation for flaunting their legal threats, recently launched OscarTorrents.com, containing links to torrents for all the 2007 Oscar nominated films.)
 
Meanwhile, more music execs are following Steve Jobs' lead in moving away from DRM. Daring Fireball examines the strategy behind Jobs' memo and its criticism.
 
(Yep, it's another annoyingly brief update, but dammit there's new episodes of 24 to watch!)
 
Link: Pirates of the Multiplex
 

Whatever Your Favourite Platform™ is, it might be an idea to listen to Boing Boing and take part in this questionnaire about the future of the BBC's on-demand services.
 
When one of the questions is "How important is it that the proposed seven-day catch-up service over the internet is available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software?", I think it's important to let them know "very". Even if you personally use Windows, the BBC shouldn't lock down its services to one vendor.
 

Hey, we're not one of those sites that just posts YouTube videos, honest. We also post Google Video too.
 
So, if you've not seen it before, you have to watch this Windows/386 promo video. It may be your usual nonsense at the start... but wait until it gets to seven minutes in. I CAN'T STAND THE CONFUSION IN MY MIND.
 
(Via Daring Fireball.)
 

If you've got a lot of TV programmes or other video clips on a PC, chances are you'll be wanting to be able to play them on RISC OS as well. This article will explain how to use free tools to convert them to a suitable format for playback on RISC OS. Furthermore the process can be fully automated, so is ideal for processing large collections.
 
 

We're not going to become one of those sites that just posts YouTube videos, honest... but I couldn't resist this one:
 

Source: Kotaku
 

Apart from my Dad adding another year to the tally, here's a rundown of what's happenin' this weekend: "RISC OS Now" magazine launching; R-Comp's new RISCube MINI; some quickies.
 
RISC OS Now
Louie Smith is launching a new magazine (in the preferred dead tree format), with the dual aims of appealing to the existing user/programmer base and attracting new blood.
 
To this end, contributers are sought, and cash money may be on offer:

I'm looking for anyone able to write articles and reviews aimed at experts and beginners alike. I am interested in articles about existing software and new releases. Also, if anyone is interested in writing a regular column please contact me.

Expected to cost £4.20 per issue, or £29.95 for the annual subscription, this may or may not hit a WH Smiths near you soon. It'd be nice to see something hit the shelves again to fill the AU-shaped hole, if Smiths can be persuaded.
 
Source: Usenet posting
 
RISCube MINI
The specs seem a little fluid at the mo, but R-Comp are about to release a "stunning new computer" that's "the size of a medium-sized hardback book - it'll even fit into a briefcase."
 
A dual core, 512MB, 80GB HDD, CD writing, card reading, DVI/VGA/TV outputting and wired/wireless networking model is the base, with Windows XP Home and RISC OS 4 or Adjust; but cheaper (single core) or beefier (e.g. 1GB/200GB/DVD writer/XP Pro) models will be available.
 
Price inc. VAT is expected to be around 999 of your earth pounds, more info at the RISCube website.
 
Source: press release
 
Quickies

• RISC OS ELF GCC with shared library support
• Richard's RISC OS Site updated - ArtWorks and Photography. And no name-fillage in his !HTML3 config
• You can add new or updated software to our database, and they'll appear not only on the front page, but also in our new RSS feeds. Spam should also be kept out due to added security.

 

ARM Ltd. has launched a new processor at its Developers' Conference in California. With clock speeds ranging between 600MHz and 1GHz, the Cortex A8 will not only be far more powerful than existing ARM designs, it will also include extensions to accelerate multimedia codecs such as MPEG4 and MP3 - and floating point arithmetic. The BBC reports that the new processors should be capable of over 1,000 Dhrystone Mip (DMip); today's ARM 9 chips peak at just 300 DMip.

ARM is targetting the Cortex A8 family at high end multimedia phones, set-top boxes, handheld games consoles and even cars. Perhaps some of those devices could run RISC OS?

Links:
Press release
Cortex A8. Apparently all those words mean something.
BBC news