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Sure, it’s been possible to watch the BBC iPlayer via the Nintendo Wii web browser for a while, but from today, the 18th of November, you can now install a free BBC iPlayer channel from the Nintendo Wii Store.

After a few hours of watching Doctor Who, flicking through content, and testing the Listen Again radio service, we’re very impressed.

The quality of video playback is a huge improvement over watching video via the Wii web browser, and the interface is well laid-out and optimised for the Wii. The channel works well, TV and radio streaming is smooth, and setup was a breeze.

Get installing, y’all…

Two bits of news out today are set to make this device that little but more desirable.

The o2 Joggler is already a powerful device – digital pictureframe, wireless media streamer, Internet-connected News, Sport, Travel and Weather browser, text message device and online diary… but today, it’s become an Internet radio.

An over-the-air update has added DAB radio experts Pure’s “Lounge” Internet radio application, allowing an initial 100 free streaming stations to be accessed on the Joggler.

An app store is promised by the end of the year, and the Joggler platform is open to developers to create applications.

Also, best of all, o2’s just slashed the price to under £100.

We reviewed the o2 Joggler in FrequencyCast Show 41. If you want to get a Joggler at the new low price, go to shop.o2.co.uk/joggler

A stack of TV and Tech news to cover, including:

• BBC slashes BBC HD bandwidth by 40%
• Channel 4 3D starts next week
• Welsh TV hits Manchester, plus a Switch update
• Happy Birthday to the Apple iPhone
• Ourkindofmusic ceases their kind of music
• Plus your emails

The show is attached to this blog entry, or you can listen at www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html, or get us from the FrequencyCast Podcast page on iTunes.

As we only had a few minutes in the show to cover this impressive bit of kit, we’ve put together one of our special “Unofficial Guides”, where we go out and about with the recorder capturing sounds and exploring what the LS-11 can do.

Carl and Pete had lots of fun playing with this recorder, and it gave Carl a chance to show off that he does actually know something that Pete doesn’t (which makes a change). have a listen to hear something of a role-reversal for our on-air duo.

The show lasts a little over 18 minutes, and can be downloaded now as an MP3 podcast.

Photos of the LS-11, a detailed review, and the original, uncompressed sounds, can be found at www.frequencycast.co.uk/olympusrecorders.html

In this show, we discuss all that’s new with digital TV and technology. Here’s what we cover in this show:

• News Updates: Sky coming to Freeview, Windows 7, and Freeview HD.
• Focus: We compare the TV listings services
• Hands-on: The Olympus LS-11 voice recorder, and the Envi power meter
• Your questions on the Freeview retune, HDMI and wide load sat navs

You can download Show 45 direct to your MP3 player or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html. If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up via iTunes.

The service launched on the 30th of October 2002 as a joint venture between the BBC, Crown Castle and BSkyB. Freeview offered free-to-view TV after the collapse of ITVDigital, and OnDigital before that.

Greg Dyke, then Director-General of the BBC, said: “Today is an important day in the development of British television with the launch of Freeview – a new digital platform which means that 75% of homes in Britain will now be able to receive digital television completely free. It’s also a big step forward for the BBC, making all of the BBC’s digital television, interactive and radio services available to many more people at no extra cost.”

The last seven years have been a bumpy journey, but Freeview is now in many homes, and most new TVs and recorders come with built-in Freeview. We now have a bunch of new channels (admittedly, many of them shopping or adult chat channels), and with parts of the UK now going through the Digital Switchover (including North Wales this week), signal strengths are set to increase, bringing Freeview to more homes. The future is still looking good for Freeview.

We should, however, take a moment to remember those valiant TV channels that are no longer with us on our journey. raise a cup of tea to salute Sky Travel, UK Homestyle, FTN, BBC Choice, ABC1, Nuts TV, Men and Motors, ITN and UK History, as well as radio stations including oneword and MoJo that couldn’t be here today to celebrate.

Happy Birthday Freeview from all at your favourite Digital TV podcast!

Always keen to explore new gadgets, we think the Chumby is a rather interesting concept – somwhere between a Nabaztag and a Joggler, the Chumby sits quietly where you put it, and uses an wi-fi Internet connection to pull down weather, news, Internet radio, podcasts (including ours, we hope), and whole host of other feeds and content via Flash widgets (around 1,500 of them).

Thanks to Michael Johnson, one of our regular listeners, for pointing this little chap out to us – anyone interested in us giving this a review in the next show?

The Chumby is available now in the UK from Veda.co.uk. Use promo code HO8235 for 15% off and free UK delivery.

The tech team at Absolute Radio has released a nifty site that allows the world to peek into the playlists of UK radio stations. Their site robot monitors the “Now Playing” information transmitted by radio stations, and uses this to work out the number of songs on a station’s playlist, and how frequently songs get repeated.

Feel you’re hearing the same songs on your commercial radio station? You probably are, and this site proves it.

The site highlights that Capital FM has played 8,800 or so songs in the last 30 days – but that’s made up of the same 223 tracks… a pretty small playlist. Artists JLS, Beyonce and Lady GaGa clock in with over 350 plays a month.

Go to comparemyradio.com and see how your station compares.

“The needle returns to the start of the song, and we all sing along like before…”

The service from TVCatchup.com allows you to watch the following channels:

BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, ITV1, ITV2, Channe 4, Five, Film 4, e4, More 4 and 4 Music.

To watch, point your iPhone web browser to http://iphone.tvcatchup.com/ – No subscription, no sign-up, no app to install. Nice!

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks, and while we’re working on our next full-length podcast, we’ve released a quick audio update. Featured in the show:

• An update on the Freeview Retune
• News of the TomTom Start
• Amazon Kindle to hit the UK
• Barcode scanning on the iPhone
• Plus your emails and complaints!

The show is attached to this blog entry, or you can listen at www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html, or get us from the FrequencyCast Podcast page on iTunes.

We’ve tried barcode scanning apps for mobiles in the past, notably on Nokia Series 60 handsets, and the results have been dreadful – lots of faffing about to get the phone’s camera to capture the image of the barcode, then a wait while the code was decoded and sent to a database, followed by a “nothing found” type message.

Given that our iPhone 3G doesn’t have a flash or auto-focussing camera, we expected the results to be dreadful…

But it’s not! This is an amazingly well done application. Even without auto-focus, the app is able to get a pretty quick and accurate result. Here’s a shot of Pete scanning in a book’s barcode (and failing to scan his feet)…

It captures UPC, EAN and UPC-E barcodes (no, we didn’t know either), and then look up the prices on Amazon (UK, US, DE, etc) as well as via Google Product Search.

Practical upshot – when you’re out shopping, pick up something you’re considering purchasing, say a book or DVD, scan it, and 5 seconds later, you’ll see how much cheaper the product is online.

Searches are saved for later viewing, or you can order direct from your iPhone browser. We tried it on all sorts of things – books, DVDs, water filters, teabag boxes, Maltesers and a top end over recorder that we’ll be reviewing in a future show – all with positive results.

Yup – we’re impressed. This is one of those must-have apps for the iPhone, and could save you a fortune when shopping.

Update: RedLaser featured in our 15 Oct Audio Update. Transcript available

RedLaser, from Occipital, available for the iPhone, now out, and hot, on iTunes.

If you’re not in the know, the Kindle is Amazon’s eBook Reader. It’s been big news in the US, and until now has not been available here in the UK.

Things have opened up, and it’s now possible to get a Kindle direct from Amazon – But it’s Amazon.com, not Amazon.co.uk

So, how does the Kindle differ from other eBook readers, such as the Sony Reader that we reviewed last year? Well, it’s a connected device, using 3G to get new books and newspapers (no need to hook up to a PC). It also has a keyboard, and buying books from the Amazon store is a lot easier than the Sony purchase route.

The Kindle has a mobile phone chip inside (to allow you to get books on the move), but there’s no monthly fee or data costs – just the purchase price of the Kindle, and books (more expensive in the UK than the US, sadly). You can also get UK and US papers on a Kindle.

Including import and delivery, it’ll cost £216 to get a Kindle here in the UK. For the full SP on the International Kindle, go to www.amazon.com.

To fight back, Waterstones has recently dropped the price of their Sony Reader collection.

More details on the Amazon Kindle on Amazon.com’s Kindle site.

In this show, we discuss all that’s new with digital TV and technology. Here’s what we cover in this show:

• News Updates: Freeview Retune time, Vision updates, Google’s new SideWiki and more.
• Focus: Save cash by going subscription-free. Also, how to watch TV in other rooms
• Hands-on: The MiFi from 3  – Portable Wi-fi transmitter
• Your questions on Freeview HD, Slingbox and Home Hub Watts?

You can download Show 44 direct to your MP3 player or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html. If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up via iTunes.

If you get your digital TV from Freeview, you will need to get your Freeview box or TV set to re-scan its Freeview channel lineup, to make sure you get all of your channels.

The changes that are being made at transmitter sites will do a number of things:

1. Improve reception of Five for around half a million Freeview viewers (as a result of a change of multiplex). The downside is that affected users may start having problems with ITV3 and ITV4 instead.

2. The longer-awaited Quest TV documentary channel from Discovery will appear on Channel 38.

3. A bunch of channels will be renumbered – and you’ll find that the following channels won’t be where they were yesterday – Price-drop TV, Super Casino, Rocks and Co, Smile TV2, Babestation and Partyland.

Changes at transmitter sites should be complete by lunchtime, so get ready to re-scan as soon after lunchtime as possible to make sure you don’t loose out.

If you’re not sure how to retune, it’ll be a setting somewhere in the on-sceen Freeview menu, possibly labelled “Channel setup”, “Tuning”, or “Scan for Channels”. BT Vision users should select BT Vision > Settings > TV Settings > Add channels,

If you need help rescanning for channels, see the instructions at www.tvretune.co.uk or call the automated Freeview Retune helpline on 08456 05 11 22.

Happy retuning, everyone!

Sky subscribers will be able to watch selected channels from their Sky package on the X-Box 360 once a planned software update is rolled out in October. Sky Player will also allow you to create an avatar of yourself and watch live events with friends.

As well as adding Sky Player, the software update is also expected to bring Facebook and social networking to the X-Box platform.

If you’re not familiar with the series, it was first shown in the late 1970s, and it’s a US sitcom based at a commercial AM radio station. The largely dysfunctional staff show how not to run a station – the first episode shows how the station switches from elevator music to Rock-n-Roll.

The crew includes Breakfast Jock the burnt-out Dr Johnny Fever, stunning receptionist Jennifer Marlow, vegetable-obsessed newsreader Les Nessman, Programme Director Andy Travis, salesman Herb Tarleck, plus the spineless boss, Arthur ‘Big-guy’ Carlson.

The show was shown here in the UK now and again in the 80s and 90s on ITV, but has not been available here for quite some time. DVD releases have been an issue due to copyright royalty issues arising from the show’s use of original rock and roll tracks.

WKRP Series 1 is now available in the UK, after a long wait by the series fans. It’s available for download from iTunes. The 22 episodes will cost you just over £20. Some music tracks have been edited or altered to overcome the copyright issues.

Thanks to listener and forum member Speedrite for letting us know.

3 has just launched MiFi, their mobile wi-fi modem service. Get a Mi-Fi modem for a one-off £70, and use it as a portable wi-fi 802.11 access point. The modem is a combined 3G data modem and wi-fi access point, and it connects to 3’s data network, re-broadcasting Internet over standard wi-fi to any wireless-enabled device in range.

A nifty product, and one we’ll be featuring in one of our upcoming podcasts, no doubt.

For more info on 3’s MiFi wireless modem product, go to three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi

In this update we look at the merging of two mobile networks, what Apple’s been up to this month, Freeview HD testing, BT Vision updates, a Sky offer, the latest on iPhone sat nav applications, and a new DVD release.

The show is attached to this blog entry, or you can listen at www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html

Here’s a before-and-after on how our Blog behaves on an iPhone:

FrequencyCast on an iPhone – Before

FrequencyCast on an iPhone – After

Our blog now detects if you’re connecting on an iPhone, Touch or Android device, and if so, presents a cleaner, mobile touch-friendly layout.

The new-look interface is designed to be used on touch-enabled mobile devices, and is made possible using a Wordpress plug-in called WPtouch.

try it for yourself – On an iPhone, go to www.frequencycast.co.uk/blog on an iPhone, and see how sexy we look now!