Roku has now announced that the UK customers will also get access to BBC iPlayer. That access allows customers to catch up on current BBC programs right on the TV with no need for a computer. That means no missing out on Top Gear and having to slum it by watching the program on your small computer screen.

UK fans will be able to buy the Roku LT and the Roku 2 XS. Those players will sell for £49.99 and £99.99 respectively. Each will offer over 40 channels of streaming content, including Crackle in the UK and a lot more. The players also support casual games such as Angry Birds. The content available on the devices does vary by country.

“Roku recognizes the importance of region-specific programmes so today we are excited to announce the addition of BBC iPlayer to our platform,” said Clive Hudson, vice president and general manager for Europe at Roku. “This is among the first of many significant content partnerships for Roku in Europe and we look forward to making additional announcements in the coming weeks.”

The streaming movie and TV show provider announced back in October that it would be launching a UK and Ireland service come early 2012. Exact timescales haven’t been confirmed, but the company has been busy signing deals with content owners such as MGM ahead of its launch.

BBC content will be available on connected TVs, tablets, game consoles, computers and phones, as well as using standalone STBs such as the Roku range also expected to land in the UK next year. The BBC already offers UK users iPlayer access on smart TVs and mobile devices, for streaming catch-up access to recent shows, but back-catalog content is limited.

The global iPlayer app is a subscription service that gives people outside Europe access to a library of British TV programs. The new app will launch December 8 and will be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The iPlayer service gets the new episodes of current British TV shows and is more of a catch up service than an offering that lets people watch first run shows. The iPlayer service has the new programs for 30 days after they initially air.

[via TheNextWeb]

Universal Control is being positioned as a way to replace the existing, button-encrusted remote, using internet-enabled devices like tablets and smartphones to not only function as universal remotes but interact with what’s being broadcast. However, it could also have more advanced implications, such as “dual screen” setups as part of the burgeoning “internet of things” concept.

To demonstrate that, an industrial trainee placement graduate with the R&D team for six months took on the challenge of demonstrating how Universal Control could be integrated with an embedded device, in a creative way that would illustrate the “internet of things” potential. The end result was the screen-synchronized Dalek.

Unfortunately, since no commercial hardware actually supports Universal Control, the WiFi Daleks are going to remain concepts only for the time being.

[via Twitter; video via RegHardware; image via Rory Cellan-Jones]

The goal for the new version of the iPlayer was to make it feel just like TV. It has a simple and visual TV-friendly design that is like changing channels when watching TV. The new version also has an improved search function to help you find the shows you want to watch. The access to shows selected as favorites is also faster.

BBC also improved the recommendation feature to make it easier to find similar shows you might enjoy. The player is also more personalized making it easy to track your favorite shows and resume watching something you didn’t finish on your last use. The iPlayer is available on over 300 different connected TV devices. The latest version will launch on the PS3 and will be coming to more TVs in the coming months according to BBC.

[via BBC]

The eight countries initially gaining access consist of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The UK obviously already has access to its own on-demand app, with no service fees as the app falls under the UK television license fee.

Among the content on offer are recent episodes of Eastenders, Top Gear and Doctor Who, along with classic episodes of Fawlty Towers and Only Fools & Horses. There’s also more recent drama, including Sherlock, Luther and Pride and Prejudice, together with children’s content. The BBC will be switching shows over time, organized into eight categories: News Specials & Documentaries; Entertainment; Drama; Comedy; Science & Nature; Family & Kids; Music & Culture and Lifestyle.

As well as streaming the shows over a WiFi connection, users will be able to cache them to their iPad for viewing when they don’t have an internet connection. No word on when the app will launch in North America at this stage.

On an episode back in 2008, Top Gear put the Tesla Roadster in a race against the Lotus Elise with a gasoline engine. The Tesla is based on the Lotus car. Things went all fine and dandy for Tesla until Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkston claimed the Roadster ran out of power at 55 miles. The show then offered footage of the Clarkston and two others pushing the car around.

Tesla is suing the show and BBC for defamation. Tesla has maintained since shortly after the show that the Roadster never ran out of power and never needed to be pushed. The BBC has apparently admitted that the segment was to show what could happen and still claims that Top Gear showed a fair representation of how the Tesla performed. Tesla for its part says that still today years after the show aired it still has customers ask questions based on that episode.

[via Jalopnik]

An international iPlayer launch has been on the cards for some time, with reports from a BBC engineer last month suggesting that the broadcaster was hoping to make all of its content available worldwide. Currently, while various iOS and Android iPlayer apps are available, they will only work in the UK due to licensing issues.

[via Twitter]

The app will be iPad-only – rather than supporting the iPhone or iPod touch – and, initially, be only available in the UK. A US version is expected to follow on in June and be subscription-based, part of what’s believed to be a push by the BBC to make available most of its content, under subscription, around the world.

[via MacRumors]

“However I can announce here that we’re going to be adopting a pure paid subscription model for the global iPlayer for launch – in part to get audiences used to using the service, but more importantly so we can generate additional value from the service in terms of the user data that it gives us. We will also offer advertisers the chance to partner with us on the ‘free’ areas of the service.” Luke Bradley-Jones, managing director, BBC.com

In the UK, iPlayer is a free catch-up service similar to Hulu, showing the network’s own content from TV and radio channels. Its availability has been limited, however, due to the fact that the BBC is funded by UK license fees.

The eventual goal, it seems, is to offer not only BBC content but that from other UK channels, some of which is currently shown on BBC America and other international channels but which is not available for iPlayer streaming in the UK. The BBC has not yet confirmed all the countries in the first wave of global iPlayer access, but US availability is a primary target.

[via paidContent]

The simple UI has tabs for TV and radio, together with search functionality, and you can also view the latest highlights, the last show you played, and which titles are new to iPlayer.  Meanwhile TV and radio are sorted into channels – such as BBC 1 or Radio 4 – as well as categories and “most popular”.

Digging into each channel brings up a list of shows sorted by date of broadcast, and then each show has programme info and the ability to see similar titles.  Settings are limited to bandwidth choices – high or normal – and a parental lock, and in the high quality setting and viewed over WiFi the playback was smooth and crisp.

The only notable omissions we’ve spotted are bookmarking support and a full-screen mode: exit playback and then reopen the show and it’ll start again from the beginning, while viewing iPlayer in Mobile Safari leaves you stuck with the address bar.  Still, they’re minor faults, and the BBC’s use of “bigscreen” suggests they have plans for iPlayer beyond Apple’s new tablet.

The iPlayer channel will be available to download through the Wii’s online store.  However only those owners in the UK will be able to access both it and the iPlayer service.  It’s expected to go live on November 18th.

Image via Ben Hanbury

Check out the video clip after the cut

It’s unclear exactly what modifications the BBC’s Natural History Unit made to the HD4, but we do know it now has a special housing unit designed and built by German specialist high speed cameraman and technician Rudi Diesel.  Stock, the HD4 can shoot at 1280 x 1024 resolution at 1,000fps.

The clip is embedded below, but for maximum effect you’ll want to click it to full-screen in HD.  South Pacific itself will begin screening in the UK on Sunday May 10th.

[Thanks Adam!]

Obviously any video streaming on this scale is going to hoover up data, and so there’s a big warning message advising that the BBC service was intended for those with WiFi connections.  However 3G HSDPA will also work, just make sure you have an unlimited package.

The video streams using RealPlayer on the 5800 XpressMusic (which must have the latest official firmware), and right now the site is locked to the Nokia handset’s browser; attempting to view it on a different device throws up an error message.  We’d also presume that you’ll need to be in the UK in order to receive the content.

[via Electricpig]

Next up, a new guy and/or company landed on the scene, the name, Van Der Led. So far we’ve heard about the new Asus Eee look alike from the company called Jisus, and then later this past week we wrote about a new cell phone watch from the same name, it’s all kind of fishy, but we’ll see. Speaking of Asus Eee-like computers, we first saw some reviews of the new HP Mini-Note coming from various sites, then later this past week we discovered that they’d gone on sale on HP’s site with an advertised ship date of April 15th. Lastly, in line with budget PC’s, Everex pushed out a new one, their MyMiniPC small form factor desktop PC that had a new version of gOS Space with the whole package being customized for MySpace users the world over.

Still on the topic of Notebooks, Toshiba released several new models including the A300, M300, P300, and U400 series’ of notebooks and extended the X205 SLI line by two new models. Toshiba also pushed out some new REGZA television sets ranging from 52-32-inches in size with most of them packing hard drives and built in DVRs as well as a ton of ports including 3 Ethernet NICs making these TV’s more connected than my computer. In other TV news Mitsubishi announced the name of its line of upcoming laser TV’s, thusly dubbed LaserVue.

In other news, Buffalo expanded their LinkStation line to include one of the first remotely portable models, it uses two 500GB laptop hard drives, a quite, small, fan-less case design, it offers up all of the lovable features of their LS line including the 1TB of storage space in a package small enough to fit in your hand. RedPost has upgraded their product lineup from the RedPost/Kit to the new RedPost SignBeta. Also, the BBC’s newest iPlayer has been expanded from the computer, to the iPhone/iPod Touch, and now to the Wii and is causing considerable network strain over in the UK leaving Internet providers looking to the BBC to cough up all or part of the estimated 831 million pounds needed to upgrade the network.

In Mobile news, we got an invite to go to an event being hosted by HTC in London on May 6th where we believe they’ll be unveiling their first Android Phone, rumored to be called the HTC Dream. Speaking of Android, we spotted a Nokia N810 that was running Android, and I must say it looked pretty amazing; hopefully they finish up the coding on the project so more N810 users can adopt the new Android OS.

Lastly in gaming news, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed got a release date of September 17th, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has entered alpha testing. Microsoft is rumored to be working on a Wiimote-like controller for their Xbox 360 system which would be great for games much like the upcoming Star Wars title. There was also lots of news regarding Grand Theft Auto IV; the most interesting is that a shortage of the game is expected in the UK, who would have thought they’d enjoy frolicking around killing anyone and everyone in some random city.

According to an article at TimesOnline the traffic caused solely by iPlayer traffic is around 3-4 percent of all Internet traffic in Britain. Sure, that may not sound like a lot at first glance, but considering Britain is one of the few countries giving the US a run for its money when it comes to who has the most Internet traffic, 3-4% from one single web app is simply amazing.

Now, back to the bit about the iPlayer working on the Wii, it’s a new addition, but quite an amazing one. Basically all you have to do is buy the Internet Channel on your Wii, which you can use for more than iPlayer, then navigate to the iPlayer website and choose your favorite program and enjoy. Essentially what they had to do in order for this to work is to change the codec they used to work with the codec that the Flash player on the Wii uses.

So, all this iPlayer business is breaking the internet, and I can only presume it’s going to get worse as they add more compatibility with other devices to the list. Apparently the Internet providers are thinking along the same lines and want the BBC to pay for part of the now, nearly requisite network upgrade which will cost roughly £831 million.

[via timesonline and the BBC]