| BigPond News available in “3D” wall |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 16 December 2008 | |
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That hologram wasn’t a true hologram at all, but instead a very clever projection. Similarly, there’s no true “3D” to be seen at BigPond News 3D, although the CoolIRIS technology does look cool. Telstra Media Group MD Justin Milne called it a “visually stunning fly-through picture wall” and has dubbed it “BigPond News 3D”. Milne said: “The Internet and mobile phones have made it simpler and quicker for people to find out what is happening in the world and our upgrade to our BigPond News service means we can now give our customers even more news across a range of categories. “BigPond now offers an online interactive image wall service, BigPond News 3D, that allows you to rapidly scroll through a virtual wall of pictures and by simply clicking an image, you will be instantly taken to the news story, a new way of presenting news online and a first in Australia from BigPond,” Mr Milne said. The CoolIRIS application also lets you visually see a wall of images and videos from a range of other sites using a “search tool” in the top right hand corner, making it an alternate way to browse Google, YouTube, Deviant Art and several other sites. To access CoolIRIS, you’ll need Firefox 2 or 3 on your PC or Mac, Internet Explorer on your PC, or Safari on your Mac, and you’ll need to download the appropriate plug-in. There are no Google Chrome or Opera browser plug-ins as yet. Unfortunately, despite Milne’s statements about “mobile phones” making it “simpler and quicker for people to find out what is happening in the world, (etc etc)”, a note at the end of Telstra’s press release on the topic says: “The BigPond News 3D wall, powered by CoolIris, is only available online and not on mobile.” Well, why not Telstra? A quick look at the iTunes App Store on the iPhone shows that the CoolIRIS application does indeed exist for free download. Sure, it might not be available for the rest of the mobile world, but if you’d wanted to, a BigPond News 3D service could have been made available for iPhone users. I guess that’s just a bit of nitpicking, and because dealing with tiresome Linux zealots earlier in the day has made me a bit grumpy, mainly because dealing with zealots (especially of the mind-warping Linux variety) is always a tiresome, bang-your-head-against-a-brick-wall kind of affair, but still: Telstra could have made it happen for the launch if it wanted to. I guess with the NBN exlcusion, ordering up a customised iPhone version of the BigPond 3D news wall wasn't high up on the list of spending priorities. Beyond the nitpicking and the Linux zealots, BigPond News has a more useful addition: “up to 180 video news updates per day, including hourly bulletins, sport, entertainment, politics and business wraps, available online and on mobiles”. Ah, this time mobiles are included, making me a bit less grumpy. So, what else does Telsta have to say about its upgrades to the BigPond News service, and just how popular has it been since it launched several weeks ago in October? Please read on to page 2. |
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