ANT is the leading provider of software solutions and services enabling broadcasters, telco operators and cable and satellite companies to deliver compelling digital media content to consumers. ANT Software enables these companies to quickly create and roll-out innovative and successful TV applications and services, such as games, music, video on demand, betting, competitions, to any consumer device, across any platform.
Last night at the ConnectedWorld.TV Awards we collected the prize for the best native app for a portable device for ANT Galio Move. The awards ceremony took place at IBC 2012 and was hosted by Spencer Kelly (middle), presenter of BBC Click. It was great to see the product recognised by the industry as one of the leading applications on the market.
The award has come as we have been demonstrating the latest social media functionality of ANT Galio Move at this year’s IBC. We’ve had excellent feedback from visitors who have had a hands-on demonstration of the new features.
ANT Galio Move now enables viewers to update Facebook or Twitter while they watch TV content on the companion device, or access additional related associated content on Wikipedia, YouTube or iTunes. It’s this interaction with the content, and being able to engage with what you are watching, that has hit the right note at IBC this year.
With these new features added, we’re already looking forward to innovating further as the fast moving second screen market continues to gain momentum.
Just occasionally someone designs something that causes everyone else to ask "Why didn't I think of that?" - or even "Why hasn't someone thought of that before now?". This was very much my reaction when I first saw a design concept by Min-Kyu Choi of London's Royal College of Art.
The UK plug is generally considered the safest plug design in common use anywhere in the world. The use of rectangular pins, the cable exiting at the bottom (thus minimising the likelihood of the plug being yanked out by its cord), cable restraint and each plug being individually fused, are some of its key features. More recently the standard has been updated to require the phase (live) and neutral pins to have insulated bases.
However, there remain several factors about the UK plug that are sub-optimal. It is one of the largest physical plugs in the world and in particular its 3d footprint is big making it bulky and difficult to accommodate in product packaging. For anyone who has ever stood on its prongs with bare feet at 3am will contest, leaving them lying around the floor is not wise. And for anyone responsible for the forest of wiring behind their TV, UK trailing sockets are also space-consuming beasts. Mr Min-Kyu appears to have succeeded where so many before him have failed - to improve the UK plug while keeping all of its safety features and addressing the three issues I listed above. perhaps that is why people are calling him a genius.
Min-Kyu Choi's plug design - ideal for portable equipment
The design has been submitted as an entry for the James Dyson Award. Hopefully an enterprising company (maybe Choc Box?) will pick this up and turn it into a commercial product - how long before we see it and Choi on Dragon's Den?
What do you think of the design? Have you come across an innovative design concept worthy of mention? Let us know in the comments.
I came to notice that this year’s D&AD Student Awards has received some excellent entries from students around the world.
Earlier this year, D&AD, an educational charity for creative, design and advertising communities partnered up with BBC to set a creative brief for students to develop digital widgets. According to the brief, students were asked to come with an interactive idea and design for a widget that would make the most of BBC's content and present it in a compelling and engaging way.
Although this year’s entries have seen a range of interactive widget designs mostly for the web and mobile phones, none of the widgets were designed specifically with the TV in mind. Perhaps TV wasn’t specified as a platform in the brief, nevertheless it goes to show that the TV is being forgotten by a new generation of young designers, I think they’re missing a trick.
The widget design that came closest to being developed for TV was this one:
It’s something we’ve seen discussed in the industry before and the design and implementation here is very good, the next step of course is to move it from the PC onto the TV screen.
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