Good old Auntie Beeb's mobile app berates kids for being rubbish online The BBC has launched a mobile app – Own It – with a Beeb-approved interface aimed at keeping kids safer online when using baby's first smartphone. The app's qwerty keyboard is meant to track the child's mood and offer advice as they write. This will include warnings if the app decides a child is sharing too much information or …
A bit harsh but a valid point nonetheless.. Embracing new media is what the BBC do... or used to. BUT acting as 'police' for the child's behaviour is... to me, a bit outside the remit, which is what the OP probably meant.
They should be looking more at their own innate political bias, which is proof of professor schroedinger's theorem. Depending on who views their output, they are biased either way.
Although that laura kuenssberg is very definitely gunning for the right wing
Although that laura kuenssberg is very definitely gunning for the right wing
That could be mis-interpreted. Usually 'gunning for' means 'is out to get', i.e. she doesn't like the right wing. So very, very far from the truth... Have you seen the way she looks at BloJob?
> "Embracing new media is what the BBC do... or used to. BUT acting as 'police' for the child's behaviour is... to me, a bit outside the remit, which is what the OP probably meant."
Exactly my point, and, no offence, but I thought it was pretty obvious when I said so after mentioning the posibiliy of them being sued.
Dan 55, I don't think there is any danger of the BBC being sued for writing a programme guide app, or the latest version of i-player...
'Embracing new media is what the BBC do.'
And kids.. They love embracing kids.
Keep watching, idiots... and don't forget to get your little muchkins groomed up on all those specialist kiddywink services... oh and don't forget to pay for it all too, there's a good little slave.
Tv is media. The logical extension to radio when the technology appeared.
If you think that's the same as policing kids and monitoring their mental welfare, then I assume you'd say "that old chestnut" in response to complaints about anything they might ever try to do...
"You don't think the BBC should own a football team, or working on new rockets? That old chestnut"!
It's a short step from radio and TV to the Internet, and as the BBC does children's TV and educational programmes, a short step from there to social media.
And really, we need all the help we can get to stop American social media companies preying on children. Their only thought is to build a profile which follows them around for life so they can sell adverts aimed at them.
Way back in the Eighties there were wise and intelligent Directors General at the BBC. One of them introduced Producer Choice. This was intended to bring some financial accountability to the BBC. Everybody charged everybody else for everything and every unit became a profit centre. (There were a few exceptions, I suspect all the chaps in grey suits were exempt.)
Anyway, the rumour was that Pebble Mill worked out that they could make more money per hour by hiring out their TV studio for public meetings rather than actually making TV programmes themselves. Those nice people from the National Front tried to hire it, but somebody in London got cold feet and told Birmingham off!
Oh, I enjoy the Rickster. I just don't understand how anyone can derive entertainment from Rickrolling - it's almost as if there was something inherently bad or unpleasant about a surprise dose of Never Going To Give You Up.
The BBC has long been trying to stay relevant as consumer choice broadens and tastes change. Sure, they are among the best around when it comes to making top-notch documentary programs - but good documentaries are among the most expensive programs to produce, and generally get very poor viewing figures. It's really hard for them to compete with the much higher-budget non-fiction produced in the US. As much as people love to complain about the excessively high pay, the BBC budget is dwarfed by most of the American television producers. Four billion pounds a year an annual budget? News Corporation alone pulls almost twice that in annual revenue.
The BBC has always had a social charter and their R&D department has been involved for many years in technologies that advance communications. Was it out-of-scope for them to work on DVB? NICAM? Teletext? DAB? Freeview? Loudspeakers used in OB? Videotape? Measurement references for sound, vision etc?
"Was it out-of-scope for them to work on DVB? NICAM? Teletext? DAB? Freeview? Loudspeakers used in OB? Videotape?"
Not at all - those are all technologies that benefit the whole BBC audience embracing the License Payers and advancing the delivery of programming.
Spending money developing an APP, that is not even related to watching or listening to BBC output, only benefits a section of society that does not pay a license fee while scrubbing the Red Spot Teletext service is not, in my view, appropriate.
It's bad enough that I have to keep telling them I am over 18 on the iView screen than to have kids only APPS dragging funds away from programming.
This will end up as another device parents will use to abdicate their responsibilities. "Oh I thought Johnny was using the BBC Well Being APP so did not think I needed to educate him not to text pics of his bits"
Decompiling the APK you have things like:
"gaTrackingId": "UA-130175745-1",
They also have pre-coded a decommissioned message, I wonder how long they'll keep this up for?
"Decommissioned": false,
"DecommissionedMessage": "OwnIt has been shut down and is no longer in use."
I hate that now the BBC Radio website is now the hipper BBC Sounds they want you to log in every time you go near one of their programmes. I generally just want to see the details of the programme so I can decide if it's worth listening to!!!
(I normally end up going via the programme's home page rather than clicking on an episode)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
