At last! BBC iPlayer is coming to Windows Phone

 

While we love Windows Phone, there’s no doubt that even two and a half years after launch, it’s still missing important apps, from Instagram to Google Maps. There’s some good news for Microsofties today though: at long last, BBC iPlayer is coming to the platform. Sort of.

Writing on the BBC’s blog, business development boss Cyrus Saihan has announced that the Beeb is teaming up with Microsoft to bring BBC iPlayer video streaming to Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 at long last. There’s no timeframe for a release just yet, but Saihan says to look out for updates in the “coming months”.

There’s one catch – BBC iPlayer on Windows Phone won’t be a full app. Instead, you’ll be able to download a Live Tile shortcut to your homescreen, which will then let you jump to the mobile website and catch up on Eastenders – which you haven’t been able to do on Windows Phone until now. That’s not a dealbreaker, but it does likely rule out updates and features that you’ll find on the BBC iPlayer iPhone app, like show downloads to watch on the go.

Still, in the battle for third place behind Android and iPhone between BlackBerry and Microsoft right now, every little helps. Will you be tuning into the Beeb on your Nokia Lumia? Sound off in the comments below.

Wind farm subsidy cut urged by MPs

More than 100 Conservative MPs have written to the prime minister urging him to cut subsidies for wind turbines. They also want planning rules changed to make it easier for local people to object to their construction.

The Tory MPs - joined by some backbenchers from other parties - questioned the amount of money going to the sector during "straitened times".

But the government said wind farms were a "cost-effective and valuable part of the UK's diverse energy mix".

The challenge to the coalition's policy presents an immediate problem for the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey. He was promoted to the job following the resignation of fellow Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne last Friday.

Lib Dem president Tim Farron told BBC's Andrew Marr Show that Mr Davey was a "very, very capable man" and an "outstanding environmentalist" who would take projects forward.

What is your view, is the goverment loosing the plot or do you agree with their view.

www.tell-me-first.com

Nasa's Kepler telescope finds planet orbiting two suns

An artist's conception of Kepler-16b

alien world of its kind - has been found by Nasa's Kepler telescope, the US space agency announced.
It may resemble the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars, but scientists say Luke Skywalker, or anyone at all, is unlikely to be living there.  Named Kepler-16b, it is thought to be an uninhabitable cold gas giant, like Saturn.
The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth.  Though there have been hints in the past that planets circling double stars might exist - "circumbinary planets", as they are known - scientists say this is the first confirmation. It means when the day ends on Kepler-16b, there is a double sunset, they say.
'Stunning'
Kepler-16b's two suns are smaller than ours - at 69% and 20% of the mass of our Sun - making the surface temperature an estimated -100 to -150F (-73 to -101C).

The planet eclipses, or transits, both stars; and the stars regularly eclipse each other too.  The planet orbits its two suns every 229 days at a distance of 65m miles (104m km) - about the same distance out as Venus.
The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, is designed to scour our section of the Milky Way for Earth-like planets.
"This is really a stunning measurement by Kepler," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science near Washington DC, a co-author of the study.
"The real exciting thing is there's a planet sitting out there orbiting around these two stars."
Kepler finds stars whose light is regularly dimmed when an orbiting planet passes between the star and the telescope. In this case, the team was also able to observe dimming when one star passed in front of the other. Nasa's scientists saw additional dips in the light in both stars at alternating but regular times, confirming the dual orbit of the planet.
Data collected by the Kepler telescope allows for very precise measurements of the mass, radius and trajectories of all three bodies - the best ever estimates of a extra-solar planet.