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BT Vision is the telecom giant’s on-demand TV service and, for better or worse, we on Techradar have been plugged into it since May 2007. At the heart of the system is the V-Box, a network enabled PVR capable of serving up content from BT’s online library or Freeview TV. History tells us early adopters are cursed and our early experiences with the fledgling system did indeed leave us cursing. The V-Box was highly crash-prone and the content offered by BT underwhelming. We weren’t put off and nor was BT

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Humax believes that it can provide the very best technology within its Project Canvas boxes, after being confirmed as one of the interested manufacturers. Project Canvas’ Richard Halton told the DTG Summit that Humax were among the manufacturers champing at the bit to bring a box to market for the IPTV project being led by the BBC and involving ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, and Talk Talk. Humax’s Graham North gave his backing for Project Canvas and pointed to his company’s track record with both Freeview and Freesat set top boxes. “Humax is very supportive of Project Canvas, as we believe that this service will enable further growth in the digital TV market,” said North.

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Project Canvas’ Richard Halton has revealed a list of manufacturers that are keen to make set-top boxes for the BBC-backed IPTV collaboration – with some major names conspicuous in their absence. Although LG and Humax are numbered among the list given out by Halton, many will point to the names that are not being bandied around as an important factor. The likes of Sony have already criticised the project in the past – believing that the user experience for IPTV connected boxes should be set by the manufacturer and not the consortium – which consists of broadcasters, BT and Talk Talk.

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Time to think pink again. Gizmodo has it’s hands on some leaked marketing materials which it claims spills the beans on Microsoft’s Project Pink. It looks to be headed for a debut in the very near future, and the initial provider of choice will be Verizon.

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The folks behind Project Canvas – BBC, ITV, C4, Five, BT and Talk Talk – have revealed some more snippets of information regarding the set-top box IPTV service, revealing that it could well end up on PCs. A new questions and answers page was revealed today which outlines the reasoning behind Project Canvas, outlining its manifesto and some key concerns. Included was the news that it is theoretically possible for the service to end up on computers, with the Q&A noting: “As convergence gathers pace, the differences between the capabilities and usage patterns of PCs and TVs breaks down. Theoretically, any device could carry the Canvas brand and UX if its meet the technical specification.” The piece does note, though: “However, while the vast majority of the applications and services that we expect to be part of Canvas will be available via the PC, this project is primarily concerned with bringing those services to the TV set.” Customise and delete Other titbits announced were to do with customisability of Project Canvas. Although it hasn’t been revealed what the service will look like, there is some news that it won’t be anything that breaks EPG norm

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A new survey reveals that more people read their news online in America than in a printed newspaper, although local and national TV is still the primary source of news for most. Online news is now the third most-popular form of news according to new reports from the Pew Research Center for people and the press . “News awareness is becoming an anytime, anywhere, any device activity for those who want to stay informed,” said the new report. TV, radio, online 61 per cent of readers surveyed said they got their news online, 78 per cent from local TV news and 71 per cent from a national TV network such as NBC, CNN or Fox News. Interestingly, 90 per cent of those surveyed use more than one method to get news

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While there is no gainsaying the fact that the Pre did lend a fatally rudderless Palm some direction, the much anticipated forward thrust is an entirely different matter. The impetus that Palm hoped to receive from its dapper webOS products hasn’t materialized. The Sunnyvale-based company has lowered its guidance for the current fiscal . It blamed the move on lower-than-expected sales of its new webOS-based phones

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In the grandest tradition of corporate use of social media, Nvidia has announced the launch info for their new Fermi-based graphics cards on Facebook . The GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 will be out on March 26th, which is conveniently when Nvidia will be at PAX 2010. These will be Nvidia’s first DirectX 11 parts, finally bringing them to parity with AMD’s new generation of cards. The Fermi (or GF100) cards were originally intended to launch in November 2009, but multiple delays quickly pushed the project into 2010. The Fermi cards are rumored to have over 3 billion transistors, and utilize a 40nm process

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It was a case of another month, another record for the BBC’s hugely popular iPlayer, with the video on demand service topping 120 million requests in January, without factoring in the Virgin media service. The iPlayer has been a massive hit for the BBC, helping bring the concept of content over IP to the masses, and the latest figures do not even include those from Virgin Media’s popular cable-based iPlayer integration. And it appears that the success is showing now sign of stopping, with the first month of 2010 bringing an ever bigger audience- quite possibly boosted by people seeking out those Christmas specials that they slept through first time round and dodging the cold weather. The first week of the new decade was the most popular, with 23.8 million requests and more than two thirds of all requests in the month for television, with the remainder seeking radio. Top Gear, Dr Who and Gavin & Stacey As you probably guessed, Top Gear picked up top spot with Dr Who and Gavin and Stacey beaten into second and third respectively

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The Google Gears blog has been pretty quiet lately, and for a good reason. It appears the project, at least in its current state, is soon to become an orphan. Its no secret that Google is a fan of open standards, and they feel they are fairly close to duplicating all the functionality of Gears, but using HTML5 instead of a separate browser plug-in . “We’re not there yet, but we are getting closer.

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