With the increasing range of services online to catch up with your missed television, such as BBC iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4OD, and ITV.com, you would be expecting traditional TV to be almost a thing of the past. Well not so, as a recent survey by marketing company Thinkbox shows that traditional TV and internet TV seem to be growing together, instead of internet TV taking the lead.

According to TechRadar UK, a spokesperson had this to say about the survey.

That both broadcast and online TV platforms are growing simultaneously underlines how they fulfil different needs for viewers and that they can co-exist and indeed promote each other.

Services such as the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 On Demand have been very successful in the UK, at least in my experience, as it is something my whole use, and saves for a lot of grief when someone misses their favourite TV show or if you are just looking for something to watch.

Other details the survey found out is that UK viewers watched an average of 3.77 hours of TV a day so far this year, which is a 2% increase on the average over the last 5 years. Thinkbox also reckon that we have seen around 6% more ads so far this year than we did this time last year.

It’s an exiting time for TV, as more people move online and offer more and more content, and not only the big TV channels. Those such as Revision 3 and Leo Laporte have attracted a large viewing base, helped by the fact that most presenters once had posts presenting or working for old TV channels such as Tech TV in America before it was bought by G4.

A new version of popular BitTorrent client uTorrent has been released, the first update since version 1.7.7 in January, along with a catalogue of changes such as better support for Windows Vista’s Firewall, IPv6 support and other features and fixes. This version also appears to fix some memory issues, dropping RAM usage from as high as 150 MB to around 30-40 MB.

An Alpha version for Mac has also been announced, to appear in the next few weeks. There will be more work on this Mac version form this point on as they move resources from Windows uTorrent development to the OS X side, now that a multitude of problems in uTorrent have been fixed.

uTorrent was my torrent client of choice on Windows, before I made the switch to OS X, mainly because it is quite a light client compared to heavier alternatives out there such as Azureus (which is very bulky), while it still retains a load of great options. It’s RAM usage compared to other clients is also another reason why it is favoured by Windows users.

You can download the new uTorrent here.

With China taking the headlines over the last few weeks, and probably the next oncoming weeks, one of the things that have been circulated around in the news is the fact that many websites are blocked in China, leading to people finding other methods of getting to websites and bypassing the Great Firewall of China. Now, with the Olympics in full throttle, people are letting the negative hype die down until the Olympics are over.

Maybe that’s why the Italian government chose now, while the worlds focus is on China, to go ahead and block everyone from accessing popular torrent site, The Pirate Bay, in it’s country. Something which has caused much outrage in the online community. So far, it seems that it’s just the major ISP’s in the country that have blocked the site, so maybe those on smaller ISP’s can still access the site perfectly fine.

However, many Italians shouldn’t have a problem getting on right this minute, as The Pirate Bay have opened up a new, unblocked domain specifically for Italians to get through - http://www.labaia.org, La Baia meaning “The Bay” in Italian.

The Pirate Bay had this to say in a blog post about the situation, titled “Fascist state censors Pirate Bay”.

We’re quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators.

This time it’s Italy. They suffer from a really bad background as one of the IFPIs was formed in Italy during the fascist years and now they have a fascist leader in the country, Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi is also the most powerful person in Italian media owning a lot of companies that compete with The Pirate Bay and he would like to stay that way - so one of his lackeys, Giancarlo Mancusi, ordered a shutdown of our domain name and IP in Italy to make it hard to not support Berlusconis empire.

Now, I don’t condone piracy, but I do take objection to the ever increasing number of countries who are blocking websites, ever leading us further away from Net Neutrality which is becoming an ever rising issue on the growing web.

To any Italian friends out there, The Pirate Bay recommend using OpenDNS or La Baia to access their website while the try and resolve the situation with the Italian government. The last message in their blog post is this.

And please, everybody should also contact their ISP and tell them that this is not OK and that the ISPs should appeal. We don’t want a censored internet! And the war starts here…

Funnily enough, I was messing around with my iPhone today and discovered that Google had opened up a Google Translate version, specifically for Mobile Safari. Now this is not a native app, but a handy way of getting quick translations on the go. It’s available at the same address you access it on your computer - www.google.com/translate.

This goes with the other list of web apps Google have developed or the iPhone, such as Reader and GMail (although I just use Mobile Mail).

Uncanny looking...

Any person following the doings of Amy Winhouse know she is a troubled old soul - which makes her a great target for everyone to pick on. Along with countless tabloids and celebrity blogs, the latest person to jump on the bandwagon are the makers of a new film, Disaster Movie. Now I am sure this will be a completely rubbish movie, like last years Epic Movie, but they have gone ahead and made a very enjoyable game featuring Amy Winhouse as the lead character, shouting obscenities and headbutting people.

Sadly, it doesn’t last long and the sneering and shouting soon become tiring, but it’s your chance to be Amy Crackhouse for once. Good bit of viral marketing there, Disaster Movie people.

To be honest with you, I am not sure where “IT”S OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!111″ came from, probably from the murky depths of /b/ on 4chan. But it can effect any place of the internet with a mere mention of something that is over 9000 whatever’s. A classic example is this article by the Telegraph on a tree that is over 9000 year’s old. The title is “World’s oldest living tree over 9,000 years old”. Perfect to attract anyone who want’s to get in on a piece of the action. As if Digg comments weren’t bad enough, at least it had some relevance to the story.

Bearing in mind this article was posted back in April, there have been numerous posts already in August. There were some well made out comments at the bottom though, before the memes took hold.

Never before has such an intelligence drop in one place been witnessed. I ROFL’d.

So now Google has got the go ahead to start Street View in the UK, the Daily Mail has jumped on the chance to declare how evil and dastardly Google’s “Orwellian” plan is. Aside from describing it as “Big Brother” and a “Burglar Charter”, this misinformation has sadly passed on to some of the people in the comments section of the article.

Let’s just clarify firstly that taking pictures of people’s streets or houses in the UK is not illegal. Nor is it illegal for someone to walk up and look at your house. Google are not doing anything more than this.

Idiots such as Chris from Southampton think-

So first they have to reveal everyone’s browsing history
Now we have them photographing houses….
I just can’t wait until they have it all linked up, banking details, insurance details, browsing history, shopping history, the online catalogue for identity and other theft at the click of a button.
Save any housing problems too by linking holiday company booking details and the squatters website.
- as soon as my house appears on line I think I will change the front door and windows and fit a new alarm system

Firstly, they are not revealing everyone’s browsing history. It was a court ruling which meant they had to hand over the history of YouTube visitors, not THEIR choice. And that was later anonymised to protect users. Secondly, Google can’t get all that info you talked about. Oh well, let’s just let Chris be ignorant.

Other comments which widely over exaggerate what Google are doing, such as Laura from Derbyshire-

I’m looking forward to making a claim for trespassing. You would have to trespass in order to take the picture of my front door.

Aren’t aerial views enough for Google? Do you really need to see someone’s front door? We’ve recently changed our front door. If they had taken a picture of my previous front door, would Google be anyway liable for not updating its records under the Data Protection Act?

Another idiot. They aren’t going down your driveway and taking a photograph! They are going down streets and taking pictures of what they can see and not bloody driveways.

Some people have the right idea however-

Perhaps I am being naive, but I don’t consider my front door particularly ‘private’. If anyone want to photograph it or admire it from afar they are welcome to do so.

Ali, London, UK

What is wrong with people? Do they have something to hide?
Anybody can walk down any street and look at your garden, your house, your car, your kids toys strewn about, etc., etc., and there are more CCTV cameras in this country than you can shake a stick at.
SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

Google Earth is a fascinating addition to anyone’s browsing pleasure, so good on you Google for making it even better.

And if you are concerned that you will be photographed doing something you shouldn’t, don’t do it.

- Joe King, Lancs, 11/7/2008 7:48

I think this is a awesome idea. Especially if they can incorporate it into a mobile version. How many of us have been getting directions to a family party and been told to look out for “the red thing next to the play park on the corner of whats-it-called street”, with this new concept, you can see ahead, make changes, turn around and double back and take alternative routes without even moving your car.
The Google team (not techno freaks) know the laws, so just let them finish the thing before we as a public start slating it.

- Shane Wakefield, Milton Keynes, 10/7/2008 22:56

How can a photo taken from a public place be considered an invasion of privacy?

How can photos taken of celebrities taken when they are clearly in private be used for profit while essentially random pictures taken from a moving car cannot?

Hard luck to those who have something to hide and roll on the digital revolution!

- John Whittaker, Livingston, UK, 10/7/2008 18:25

It seems not everyone is stupid. Good luck to those who have decided they are emigrating because of this, by the way.