The podcast is ready to listen or download as you wish. If there is a detail you would like to chase up from this week's episode, hopefully we can help you out here.

A hot new 3D environment has seen it's beta launch and will soon be open to all. Our friend from Second Life, Eddi Haskell wrote to let us know about a new place that he found incredible in terms of graphic quality. The new place is Blue Mars and it's created by Avatar Reality. CEO Jim Sink told me about their brave new world.

After getting the hot tip from Eddi, I thought it would be a good idea to get his review of Blue Mars in comparison with his native area Second Life. As a photographer in SL, the way the place looked, really made a difference for his immersive experience.

Back in the real world, Claudia Yuskoff also wrote in this week to let us know that she can help us all in the kitchen. Claudia makes a one woman video blog called Me Gusta which includes Mexican style cookery and ways to ensure that the food you make at home is tasty, even in these times of recession.

More sharing in a different way. One of the authors of The High Tech History blog is Christopher Hartman. He's a tech writer who provides primary information and more together about technology's pioneers. Great names you know and some that you don't are on his site and it's always nice to look back and be inspired by the people who got us to where we are today.

A quick update on a couple of past guests on Pods and Blogs this week. Erin Rooney Doland of Unclutterer has released her book, "Unclutter your life in one week". Also finally in print is JC Hutchins' thriller "7th Son: Descent". Congrats to both and wishing them the great success they have seen online for the print versions of their work.

As usual time is all too short and that is all I could cram in for this week. Do drop a line if there is an online issue or blog or podcast that you think we should be sharing. You can email me at podsandblogs at bbc dot co dot uk

Until next week!
Jamillah

A timely podcast is ready and waiting for you to download. Now of course you can listen back right here are we are still archiving the shows on the podcast page. If there was a link or item you missed on the podcast, you can find more information below.

To begin, First up, Chris Vallance and I went to the Tweetminster event in London. Should MPs be Twittering in the chambers? Can social networking make politics more cohesive?

The Save Bletchley Park campaign continues. A comedy review was arranged to raise funds and awareness. Dr Sue Black tells us why it is important and what needs to be done.

You may have heard that the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall has been marked. 20 years ago many of us watched in awe as the wall was slowly dismantled. That was traditional media in 1989, to mark the anniversary, new media tools have been leading in lighter faster coverage. Alex Wood tells us about the The Berlin Project.

That's all for this week, but in the mean time, if you see something wonderful in the world of blogs, podcasts and more, let me know by dropping an email to podsandblogs at bbc dot co dot uk

Jamillah

First up I had a chat with Nick Wadham-Smith is the deputy director of Counterpoint, the think tank of the British Council. They've been working on fresh methods of communication since 1934. Some of the latest work includes podcasting and blogging and you can also get involved.

More collaborative work follows. Tan Siok Siok is a film maker from Singapore. She has been travelling around picking up leads and making connections for her "Twittamentary" - that's a documentary about and using Twitter. She explained the benefits and strengths to this form of documentary making.

Mario takes over the studio.

Last but not least, Charles Martinet very kindly dropped into the studio. Though you might not immediately recognise the name, you are bound to know the voice. Charles voices all the characters for Nintendo's Mario games. He talks about his life entwined with that of some of gaming's most successful characters.

That's all for this week, as usual I'll be rounding up more for the next edition. So, if you have seen a blog or heard a podcast that you think we should know about, drop me a line at podsandblogs -at- bbc.co.uk I'd love to hear from you. Or you can follow us on Twitter.

- Jamillah

One note of caution though: if you've got multiple BBC accounts, you'll only be able to upgrade one of them to BBC iD using your preferred username and email address.

If you have any questions or need a hand, you can get help over at the BBC Internet blog

If you are sitting comfortably, the podcast is ready to begin for this week. If we mentioned a site that you would like to know more about, this is the place to find those links.

For openers we have a chat with Kate Arkless Grey, the tireless voice of the BBC World Service project Save Our Sounds. While away in Canada, she very kindly took a moment to tell us more about the audio ecology project and how it has won an award. Congratulations to that team!

Naturally on Pods and Blogs we like to chat with the cream of the crop so, from one award winner to another we chat to Alfie Dennen about his Bus Tops project. Aflie and project co-developer Paula Le Dieu have won the London region commission for the Cultural Olympiad project, Artists Taking the Lead.

More art in this podcast for the week, The Insterstitial Arts Foundation is about to publish its second volume of stories as well as releasing work online in the lead up to the date the book comes out. Christopher Balzac is one of the book's editors, he explains what Interfictions are all about.

Chris Vallance is back with us again to file a lovely report about personalised news. We've come a long way since Fleet Street was the newspaper hub in the UK, could the Newspaper Club be right about a modifiable, personalised news print service?

That's all for this week, but in the mean time, if you see something wonderful in the world of blogs, podcasts and more, let me know by dropping an email to podsandblogs at bbc dot co dot uk

Jamillah

A fresh podcast is primed for your listening pleasure as usual. If there was a link or item you missed on the podcast, you can find more information below.

First up we trek over to Uganda where Johnny Long is proving that simple skills in computing are able to make huge and helpful changes in Africa. He also explains a little more about Hackers for Charity.

Chris Vallance returns to the fold. He's been out at Over the Air 09 finding out more about the rise of the app and how to hack one together.

When will the International Space Station be passing over where you live? Jaap Meijers can tell you via Twitter. He took a moment to explain how Twisst works.

Storm Hopper picture courtesy of Fresh Water Mole and B3ta.

Who would have thought they could have made it without more major law cases? B3ta has been entertaining thousands of us with it's adult humour, pictures that are not safe for work and generally artistic anarchism online. They also produce a weekly newsletter and have made it to their 400th edition. Rob Manuel, one of the creators talks about the community, longevity and having a laugh.

That's all for this week, but in the mean time, if you see something wonderful in the world of blogs, podcasts and more, let me know by dropping an email to podsandblogs at bbc dot co dot uk

Jamillah

Many of you may have noticed that a few things have been changed here on the Pods and Blogs page. For starters we have some fancy new decor and the page is a little wider.

It's nice to freshen things up a little but the functionality of an item online can make the real difference. If you go to the podcast page, you will see a small change that might make a big difference. Our show is being archived.

So, rather than replacing the last week's show with this week's edition, we will now have an archive of programs so you can go back and listen for longer. Hopefully that will mean as a contributor or listener, you won't be missing out on anything if you wanted to tune in a little late.

This is a trial at the moment, while the properly clever bods behind the servers and podcast publishing system here work out what's best for the next step. But for now I think this is a pretty cool move and I hope that you like it.

I'd also like to know what you think about this so please do log in and leave a comment letting me know if you have any concerns about the extended listening trial or if you think it's the best thing since cats on YouTube. Also it means that you have a say in shaping how we might work in the future, I'd like that very much.

Jamillah

This week Pods and Blogs visits briefly with citizens of the Steampunk movement. Victorian history meets science fiction mechanics in a beautifully designed world online and off.

To begin, with the delightful editor of Steampunk Magazine Allegra Hawksmoor explains the culture. We spent our time discussing the multiple ways in which Steampunk can be translated. She also points out why it is a topic so suited to print as well as an online presence.

From print and magazines we journey into the three-dimensional world of Second Life and have a virtual tour of the City State of New Babbage. Dr Rafael Fabre guides us through undersea laboratories and cobbled streets over which airships dominate the sky.

Returning to the real world, the History of Science Museum in Oxford opens it's Steampunk exhibition. Imaginative works of art blend seamlessly with the museum's outstanding collection of scientific instruments. Arthur Donovan is the curator and one of the artists who creates objects of mysterious origin.

Also on show at the exhibition is the fanciful clock work of Eric Freitas. Intricately designed and entirely hand made time pieces tick softly on the walls of the museum. Though his style fits nicely with the Steampunk ethic, he explains how his work has been adopted by the genre.

Steampunk illustration by Fabiola Garza for Steampunk Magazine and Sydney Padua creator of 2Dgoggles.com

That's the summary of our journey between the eras. We're back to the present day next week with more adventures online.

Jamillah

The Azim Premji Foundation was started by the man behind WIPRO with his own personal funds. It works in the field of education to try and improve social situations and more. Mr Dileep Ranjekar is the CEO, he talks about some of the problems that come about as Bangalore develops fast as a global leader in technology.

Shalini Sharma works with the children of migrant labourers in Bangalore as part of the Azim Premji Foundation projects. Part parent, carer, organiser and teacher, she works with children who have little else in the way of opportunities for education.

The disparity between rich and poor in Bangalore is stark. Certainly the speed of development has had a stake in this, as well as migratory workers and politics. Dr Solomon Benjamin is an associate professor at the national institute for advances studies. He talks through the complexities of developing Bangalore.

More Twitter-based fun in the city. Planning is in motion for Media140 Bangalore. Avinash Singh talks about expectations for signal to noise.

I talked a little about Citizen Matters earlier on this blog. Meera and Subbu talk through their approach and how user generated content is seen in Indian print media.

Having been to Google HQ in California, it was too much to miss their work in India whilst I was in Bangalore. Product managers got around the table as we discussed language, development, mapping and mobile.

The Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore does some incredible research and reflects a clear image of how India sees itself online and off. Nishant Shah talks through a web based consciousness and how fast moving tech cities feel an association with the internet, even when many citizens have never seen a computer.

That's all from Bangalore, thanks to everyone who got in touch, met for a chat, showed me the city and invited me in for interviews and research.
Jamillah

If we mentioned a place that you would like to visit online, then you can find all the links right here:

I made contact nice and early with bloggers VJ and Hrish who work in the IT support sector. They gave me a warm welcome and we chatted about their life online and here in the city.

When new to a town, it's not a bad idea to get a feeling for your surroundings by talking to a cabbie. Andrew Shanthraj has been driving in Bangalore for decades. He explained how much his city has changed.

One of the well known bloggers in tech marketing in Bangalore is Jessie Paul. She managed to grant me a moment our of her busy online schedule to talk about how businesses may take some time to start working well with social media.

While I have been here, Nokia has been launching its Music app. They invited some of Bangalore's top tech bloggers to give it a test run, so naturally it was the place to go and ask them what they get up to in the blogosphere.

At the same event, open source evangelist Atul Chitnis was also at the Nokia event. I asked him why OS is so important in India and how he is making unsigned music available online.

Further away from the glamour of a product launch, the Children's Lovecastles Trust is putting technology in the hands of children for their educational development and finding new ways to help teachers in rural areas. I spoke to the founder Bhagya Rangachar.

If you have seen a blog or heard a podcast that you think we should know about, drop me a line at podsandblogs -at- bbc.co.uk I'd love to hear from you. Or you can follow us on Twitter.

Back soon with more from the Bangalore - Jamillah

I have another update for you from Bangalore. Regular listeners to the Pods and Blogs podcast may remember an interview with the founder of Twestival. I went along to the London Twestival this year and many of you may have been to your own regional events as part of the charity organisation.

While here in Bangalore, I managed to catch a gig with a pretty amazing Indian fusion band called Swarathma. Here's a little clip of their performance outside a shopping mall. They certainly have enthusiastic fans!

That might seem a little disjointed, but Swarathma also played live at the Bangalore Twestival. One charitable organisation to benefit from their good musical work was children's charity Dream a Dream. Luckily a volunteer with that organisation was standing right next to me throughout the gig, so I asked him about the connection and where that money goes.

It's nice to act charitably and go to the events that raise money, but it's even nicer to see the smiles and know that it was definitely worth Tweeting about. I was pretty impressed to meet someone from the other side of the Twestival operation as proof that social media get-togethers really can make a difference. It's been said that charity begins at home, but it also seems to get a good head start online wherever you are.

More from my Bangalore online journey soon -
Jamillah

I have had the pleasure of chatting with Meera K and Subbu Vincent the editors of Citizen Matters. It's a weekly magazine in print and online that does what it says on the tin. Based in Bangalore it is a well integrated mix of traditional journalism and citizen reporting. That's reporting more than just opinion.

I found it interesting that the way the magazine works is to publish pieces sometimes created by regular citizens with the help of journalists rather than cutting and pasting opinion quotes or adding comments to news pieces. I would have thought this would be more labour intensive but the team at the magazine make it look seamless.

The team at Citizen Matters is small; eight people including the editors and only two of that number are journalists reporting for that publication. They cover weekly news but also have a keen ear for local issues. One of the benefits of working this way is ensuring that they tap into local knowledge and experience to create depth to their stories.

Opening up journalistic skills and sharing them to create this hybrid system might be a good way to move news making forward. Subbu tells me that most journalists in the Indian newsprint business do not credit citizen reporting as it is not a professional approach. But with the relevant coaching, they are starting to see submissions that do not require a lot of work to get them into shape for mainstream publishing.

Citizen Matters is making user generated content relevant and appealing without portioning it off into a section of their website that makes reader contributions look like decoration for news. Their web-native origin also means that they are social, web literate and communicate easily with their community. The editors acknowledge that they are still too new to have the same level of trust as say, The Times of India or the Express here, but they are creating a network of people who know when their input will valuable.

They're still a young publication, but they are growing fast and with the balance and understanding that I saw in their office, it's possible they will soon be a challenge to the established news media in this city.

More from Bangalore soon,
Jamillah

That might seem like a good thing, but as the work is done, the population has grown fast, so the roads, new or old are still very crowded.

After around twenty years of development, technology is in the pores of Bangalore. Discussing the social make up of the city at the Centre for Internet and Society, it was pointed out that even those who have never seen a computer believe they are contributing to the internet.

It's an interesting point about how we feel about being an online presence, when we are not necessarily plugged in.
It's a mixed feeling here as to whether or not technology has entirely helped everyone, but certainly it seems from labourers, to cab drivers, school children and entrepreneurs, almost everyone here has the web on their mind.

More soon,
Jamillah

The kit that I have with me can be used in various ways. I am using a digital SLR, a netbook, a Flip video camera and a Nokia N95 to get data up online when I can. There appears to be wide ranging 3G in the city, so sending stuff from the 'phone is one of the quicker ways to update. I am staying in a hotel that boasts high speed broadband over Wi-Fi, but don't be thinking this is as it might be in the UK or the US.

The Wi-Fi in this establishment is fairly stable and accessible, but can be very slow, which is not good for trying to post things on YouTube or to Flickr. I hear that there are better domestic connections, but as I am working from the hotel as a base, it pays to be patient.

Early morning and late night uploads are swifter and cutting images down and saving them as smaller files is very useful to get things posted.

It's very possible that this girl is having more joy with her connection. She's at the Children's Lovecastle Trust where kids are given tech to learn with after school.

More to explore in Bangalore soon,
Jamillah

I'm in Bangalore, India this week getting Pods and Blogs to you from one of the biggest IT cities in the country. It's a place of contrast, ten percent of the population lives in the slums and yet India is one of the largest populations when it comes to being active online in places like Twitter, Orkut and Facebook.

There are many tech companies here either outsourcing their support or developing products for this part of the world. I'll be finding out about the online social scene, the possibilities for helping impoverished communities and how technology is changing this city.

So far I have been out in an Auto, braving the traffic with Hrish (@dhempe) and VJ (@adropofwisdom) who are connected online and working in the tech community. Here's our journey through the streets.

More to come in the following days as I navigate around Bangalore.

Jamillah