Other Headlines

The [itvt] editorial team is traveling to the UK this week, and because we are quite pressed for time we are combining a number of today's news items into this round-up article. We also anticipate some interruption of our regular news publishing schedule over the next few days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:

• A French company called Presselite is offering "Metro Paris Subway," an augmented reality application for the iPhone, in the Apple App Store, despite the fact that the iPhone will not officially support AR until the release of version 3.1 of its operating system. The app's App Store listing is here; Presselite's product page for the app is here; and a YouTube demo of the app is embedded above (h/t ReadWriteWeb).
• Arqiva, the broadcast transmission company which last month announced that it would acquire the platform assets of Project Kangaroo, the defunct VOD joint-venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, and which plans to use those assets to launch a new, Web-based, consumer-facing VOD service to UK consumers in the coming months, announced Tuesday that it has completed the acquisition and that it has, as expected, appointed Pierre-Jean Sebert as the new service's CEO (Release). Meanwhile, according to the UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Sebert confirmed to it that Arqiva has already secured several content partners for the new service, which he declined to name (Article).
• "Rocketboom" founder, Andrew Baron, has launched a site, called Magma (http://mag.ma), that aims to facilitate discovery of broadband videos via real-time popularity rankings which are based on, among other criteria, Web site traffic and social activity on Facebook and Twitter.
• Channels.com has launched a service designed to enable broadband video users to manage their viewing more efficiently via a customizable central hub/index. More information is available on a demo video on the site; PC World's write-up is here.
• In a posting on its business blog, Tuesday, YouTube announced that it is expanding its YouTube Partnership Program (which shares ad revenues with video makers) to include individual popular videos.