iblog

Alex: I posted a few weeks ago about my excitement concerning the BBC's upcoming release of their Iplayer, which allow licsence fee payers the ability to download programmes up to a week after they are broadcast and keep them on their harddrives for almost a month. It now looks like the BBC have hired a former Microsoft executive to handle their digital rights management for this, the very software that allows users to retain the files for a period of time, but for no longer, and prevents the files being further shared across the P2P networks. Is this a good move for the Beeb? Or will it mean for the kind of consumer lock-in that many users have found detrimental in Microsoft's Media Player and make the whole service somewhat of a washout?

Alex: I've posted a few times over the last few weeks regarding a whole host of Social Networking webapps. So you've got yourself addicted to Twitter-crack, sorted out your Myspace and Facebook, have a Flickr account, keep all your links on Del.icio.us and every song you ever listen to gets posted to last.fm. And never look at a real blog because no one does these days. Its all about the RSS stream via Bloglines or Google Reader. And your books are all at Goodreads or Librarything? Viddler and Youtube? Welly, welly, well. Why not integrate every single one of these services into what the hipsters are calling a Lifestream. Here is some cats lifestream in action. And some other dudes. Yes, that's right, allow the rest of the internet to track your every online movement. One service is non-ironically called istalkr. There are a million rival services as well. Worrying? Interesting? Discuss?

Alex: The race for the ever mildly controversial Turner Prize 2007 has begun in earnest, check out the four shortlisted artists. I was lucky enough to attend the exhibition last year and found it ranging from the sublime to the trashy. The two most memorable pieces were by Phil Collins whose work examined the effect of reality on the lives of those who appear in it, from around the world and the eventual winner Tomma Abts whose intricate, complex abstract paintings had real presence - tiny, intimate, stunning against the huge white walls. One could look at Tomma's work for several hours if you wished, but Mark Tichner's piece was both teenage, superfical and instantly forgettable; ten minutes on Photoshop. Worse still were Rebecca Warrens sculptures which were underworked and dull. The small plexi-glass boxes that lined her room were an actually witty commentary on the whole Turner institution, as people peered into the boxes trying to make sense of essentially an art gag, a collection of rubbish. This year? Mark Wallinger's political work seems perfectly timed to eulogise the end of Tony Blair as prime minister and the worrying continuation of his legacy on the streets of Iraq. Nathan Coley's photography and sculpture ranges from the intriguing (his piece There Will Be No Miracles Here is provocative). Mike Nelson seems to be the artist that will generate the most controversy, in that his installation piece Mirror Infill is a re-creation of a filthy darkroom, and to the uninformed little else. Zarina Bhimji's photographs are richly melanchol, tranquil and moving. My money is on Wallinger, for his politics, or her for her work's pure beauty.