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BBC experiments with video personalized to every viewer
The BBC has for some years been enamored with the idea of "perceptive media," which loosely put, means content that adapts to its audience. The British broadcaster first experimented with an animated audio play that used your listening location to inform several minor elements of the story, like the weather. A "Perceptive Radio" took the concept one step further, playing different tunes based on environmental sensor data and other factors such as the listener's distance from the device. This year, however, the BBC's R&D team has been working with the altogether more complicated medium of video, creating a short film that is largely personalized for each unique viewer.
BBC's experimental Perceptive Radio intelligently adjusts what's playing
At today's Thinking Digital conference, the BBC exhibited the first gadget designed through its Perceptive Media Project: the Perceptive Radio, created by Ian Forrester of the corporation's Future Media division. When the BBC announced the project last summer, the response included some head scratching, mostly due to a lack of clarity about what perceptive media entails. The BBC's R&D department defines perceptive media as distinct from personalized or pervasive media in that it intelligently adapts to specific audiences and surroundings. The Perceptive Radio accomplishes this through the use of light, sound and proximity sensors that adjust what the radio plays according to environmental factors like time, location and the listener's distance from the device. At the moment, the list of tricks ready to demo on the Perceptive Radio is short, but the BBC plans to open-source the design soon, allowing tinkerers to fiddle with it to their hearts' content.
