BBC and Nintendo Partnership

Yesterday the BBC and Nintendo announced that the iPlayer was to run on the Wii. This now means that you can use the streaming service to catch up with BBC programmes.

This is excellent news to me, because A: I have a Wii and B: Because I am middle class enough to think the BBC is wonderful. As the BBC explains, currently you need to pay for and downloaded the Wii Internet Channel, (a version of the Opera 9 web browser), but according the BBC this is a beta and they are working on a free, more polished version':

I've tried the iPlayer on the Wii and have to admit that it isn't that bad, currently there is no way to expand the player window to fill the television screen, and you need to use the dodgy zoom function within Opera but hopefully this will get sorted out.

In other BBC related news, the UK ISPs have complained that all this video streaming online is putting strain on their networks, and will need to be upgraded to cope. Well look, I have made my feelings about ISPs clear in the past, but let me make this clear: If you are an ISP and you complain that people are using the service too much, it is like the rail companies saying "too many people want to use our service, now we need to buy more trains!" Simon Gunter, from ISP Tiscali, said the BBC should contribute to the cost of the upgrade:

There seems to be a lack of understanding about how networks are built… I have heard that the BBC is working on building a caching infrastructure so that storage devices can go on an ISP's network but even if it goes ahead it doesn't save costs on the backhaul network.

Look Simon, the BBC has put something on the Internet that people want to watch. If people didn't put interesting things online, no one would use the Internet and your business would stop, so stop fucking complaining that you can't cope and invest in more equipment. You have, (along with your fellow ISPs), made vast profits of the UK public by running your infrastructure on the needs of today, not tomorrow.

The revenue, (turnover), for BT in 2007 was an astonishing £20,223 million, whilst in 2008 Virgin Media has already reached almost £8.4 billion. Don't come crying to me and clam that 'times are hard', with that sort of cash ¹. As an aside, I notice that Doctor Who is proving very popular on the iPlayer, can I take this opportunity to make a plea to the good Dr; Please leave Catherine Tate somewhere far away in the galaxy and never bring her back.