I arrived in New York City yesterday, and will be attending Streaming Media East for the next four days on behalf of the BBC.

If I can squeeze in any time, I’ll post regular updates from the venue.

So far, it’s been pretty good. New York is unbelievably massive, although I’m probably not the first person to say it.

I gave myself a bit of a scare by walking all the way from my hotel on 6th Avenue down to West 39th Street through a particularly dodgy-looking neighbourhood, but I’m here now, and there seems to be plenty of transport on offer to/from the various conference-approved hotels.

It looks like it’s going to be a good event.

Tom Coates has coined an interesting new word, ‘kottkesque’.

I think it would be fair to say that The Copydesk is kottkesque.

The Guardian’s best weblog winner (or whatever its supposed to be) has been announced.

It’s interesting to note that LinkMachineGo was shortlisted (and I mean this in the nicest possible way, because I happen to like LMG) because it’s “a great starting point if you want links to intelligent online content”.

Such an inclusion is unsurprising, because, like The Copydesk, LMG tends to focus on selected websites for commentary and analysis, and I’m sure they would be only too happy to admit that a large percentage of the links on the site are to Guardian stories.

Oh, and The Copydesk didn’t enter. Nothing bitter, just a principle really.

Avram Grumer has been helping me out with my Palm OS document reader.

Go have a look at his website.

Google have launched the new face of their news search index, which had been in beta for a few months.

What do you think of it?

Good/bad/neither?

BTOpenworld have launched a new television advertisment for their broadband service in the UK. (I’ve intentionally not linked to their site in this entry).

The one-minute commercial promotes BT’s high-speed ADSL ‘broadband’ internet access by employing the use of flashy computer-generated effects, such as giant dragons and all sorts of other wonderful things populating the streets of London. The lead singer of Pulp, Jarvis Cocker, appears in the advert for three or four seconds, hanging from a street lamp-post amid the mayhem.

I’m fairly sure a rough estimate would price the cost of the advert somewhere in the millions.

I ordered BTs ADSL service in June 2000, and I’m still waiting.

According to a letter I recieved from BTs Complaints Review Services Manager, Jonny Buckley in February this year, my exchange won’t be upgraded in the short term, because a significant number of their DSL-enabled exchanges are under-utilised. It would appear that exchanges are only upgraded if BT can justify the huge up-front investment required.

Jarvis Cocker’s fee for BT’s new advert would have upgraded my exchange.

In fact, the cost of the advert would have probably upgraded half of the exchanges in Scotland.

I’ve been thinking lately about America’s whole approach to the ‘situation‘ in Iraq, and I’m becoming more and more disturbed by how UK and US leaders are pontificating.

Sure, I’ve no doubts that Saddam Hussein is a bit short in the fuse department, and he’s probably quite capable of causing a bit of trouble, but my fears over the situation are less to do with him, and more to do with George W Bush and his campaign to dominate the planet’s oil reserves.

The wost part, I think, is the inability of people to see how akin to the spread of Communism Bush’s plans are. America have just invaded an entire nation in the Middle East under the guise of combating terrorists who allegedly attacked their country on Tuesday, 11 September 2001, and they are about to invade another country to affect a ‘regime change’.

It’s horrifying to think of what might come next.

The trailer for Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth is now online.

It looks very interesting, to say the least.

Apparently, Keiffer Sutherland plays the voice (only) of a sniper on the other end of a phone, who has trapped Colin Farrell’s character in a busy Manhattan street phone booth.