Thinkcorps

not only is america getting fatter, it’s getting dumber as well. Note to self: don’t go to Northwestern.
superbowl party pics

I just went to this site, http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/. It occurs to me that the studios/producers/etc. are pumping out DVD sets of their television shows at a startling pace – both new and back catalog.

So, in the rush for DVD profits, are the studios cannibalizing a core revenue stream, syndication? With high penetration of DVD players, Blockbusters on every corner not to mention Netflix, and dare we say DVD-recorders, it makes you wonder—what’s the future for advertiser-supported television?

When everyone owns a huge library of television DVDs, doesn’t that offer significant competition for regular TV, especially syndicated blocks? And doesn’t it devalue the syndicated versions of the shows as well?

I think we need a big open session, hosted by HBO, where they explain how they’re able to make money without any advertisers. Sopranos, Sex and the City, Carnivale, Six Feet Under (these are shows I’ve actually seen and/or bought DVD sets of), none of these series are cheap to produce, and yet they exist on a for-profit network.

Mostly I want someone to figure this out (I guess Sci-Fi, would be best) so that we can get Joss Whedon back to work on Firefly, which could have been brilliant if given half a chance by those idiots at Fox. Rent the DVD set and the commentary from some of those involved is just this side of vitriolic, and it’s already been edited by Fox!!

I just can’t understand why you’d greenlight a project that requires you to build a full-scale mockup of a spaceship for Joss Whedon, a man known for creating great, but admittedly slow-developing shows, and then when the show is slowly developing an audience (as expected), pull the plug before the end of the first season. Firefly wasn’t even worth starting without at least a two-year commitment—you’re gonna need that much time to collect enough episodes, promote the show, and really understand its potential. I hear there’s potential for a movie, but I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime, Firefly fans who aren’t averse to anime should check out Cowboy Bebop.

I love how business writers, well most every biz/tech writer actually, fall so easily into the whole “Holy Grail” trap, penning stories touting the search/battle/discovery of the bestest winningest winner of all time.

Ever notice how those prognostications almost never come true? Ever notice how totally wrong they are? It’s like when Wired puts a movie on its cover, you know it’s gonna dog at the box office.

Newsflash people: there’s not going to be a winner in the digital home entertainment category. No one’s gonna care about “hub” or “spoke”, since those are totally 80s network analogies anyway.

Is it impossible for a reporter, the person charged with following an industry segment, to synthesize some of the info they’ve collected over the months into a more holistic point of view? Would it be too much to ask for any of these mongrels to read what they’ve written and perhaps push the story in a more productive direction?

I’ve read a lot of Dean Takahashi stories over the years, and he’s generally good and capable. So maybe he just packed it in on this one. Can’t say I blame him, it’s mostly dumb analyst quotes.

Two major major trends completely destroy the hub/spoke model in this story.

First, hardware is on a cheap, powerful curve, meaning that processing power, storage, etc. will be plentiful within your home network. This trend influences not a consolidation of power, but a distribution of power. This directly contradicts the hub model.

Second, intelligent wireless networks are the future. From 802.11g to Apple’s Rendezvous, the trend is in self-organizing networks. Take the emergence of new devices that allow your run-of-the-mill USB device (HD, scanner, etc.) to access an Ethernet network. Again, the Hub is being disintermediated.

The future is about flexibility, about the ability for a rag-tag set of components to deliver more functionality together than they could ever do apart. It’s P2P, baby.

Think about this: What could you do with a keyboard that had 128MB of flash inside it? What if it was Wifi and you added it to a Wifi Internet connection and a Wifi TV? Could you perhaps do all your email/surfing on a regular keyboard and any enabled display in your house?

The only thing holding us back right now is the non-ubiquity of digital displays in the home. And that’s a hurdle we’re already in the midst of clearing.

From the San Jose Mercury News: Everyone wants to be your hub
(this is a little old, but i generally don’t read biz sections)

Somehow, this one slipped through the cracks. So much for liberal media bias. (I admit there’s a pandering bias, but liberal? Not so much.)

Through most of 2002, a staffer of Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, was intercepting Democratic computer traffic after discovering a “flaw” in the computer system.

If you did this over your cable modem, browsing your neighbors files, you’re ass would be so in jail, your house would be turned upside down, and every spare law officer in the county would make it a point to come over to your house that day to glare at you and bust up your stuff—just ‘cause.

But apparently, things in Washington have mellowed considerably.

“Those documents that I did read were, in my view, not obtained in any way that was improper, unlawful or unethical,” [Manuel Miranda, former staffer] said. He described them as “inadvertent disclosures that came to me as a result of some negligence on the part of the Democrats’ technology staff.” His only obligation, he said, was to see that the Democrats were told that the computer system had a flaw that allowed Republican aides to read some of their memorandums.

“I knew our people had told their people about it,” Mr. Miranda said. “Once I knew that, I had no further obligation.”

This is why Republicans will continue to kick the Democrats’ asses. They’ve got hypocrisy down to a science—do what you want, then do a short conciliatory ‘it’s no big deal, i repent, i repent’ dance under the guise of being a good Christian, which of course if you really were, you wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place.

Democrats are still trying to wrap the American flag around themselves. How quaint. The GOP’s abandoned “America” for God, ‘cause like it says, ‘one nation , under God’—and isn’t that exactly where those f*ckers want us?
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Sometimes, you just can’t let it go. I’m jotting all this down for my benefit, since I see the Apple music story becoming one of those hardy tech journalism perennials, like the “DSL/cable” is the best stories that seem to oscillate every 6 months.

So, without further ado, Businessweek on Apple.

“Apple is once again in the business of changing the world”
I love my iPod, but seriously. It’s not that radical. It’s the natural shrinking of components and increasing power/$ that’s always driven PCs. A large-scale community sharing dynamic playlists is much more radical (coupled with the celestial jukebox, a la Rhapsody).

“the trend may one day spell the end of the compact disk”
OK, seriously, people have been saying this for more than 10 years now. Give it a rest. Dis(c/k)s are great backup and transfer media. They’re the corrugated cardboard boxes of the digital space. They’re not supposed to be glamorous.

KEY OMISSION: Jobs has admitted that Apple doesn’t make any money from the iTunes store. Even revolutions need funding.

“Jobs’s other company, Pixar Animation Studios, is turning the movie business on its ear”
Pixar’s films have been huge hits of late, but hits are never guaranteed. Pixar also doesn’t pump out much footage per year. Too many animated features in a year, and the magic would tarnish quickly as Disney knows all too well. Pixar is extremely calculating in what it does. You can’t just franchise that into every film genre.

“He has the pieces”
WTF? I guess this is where the reporter got down on his knees. Apple is small fry in the computing business. iTunes makes no money and could be Napsterized in moments. Blockbusters are never guaranteed, as Pixar knows.

“Increasingly, content—that magical lifeblood of movie studios, record labels, and publishers—is being transformed into digital form. At the same time, the Internet and wireless networks are evolving to deliver those bits almost anywhere, at speeds never before possible. Couple all that with disk drives, semiconductors, and high-resolution displays that are growing ever smaller and more powerful, and technology is liberating entertainment from its past.”
I love starting a sentence off with “increasingly.” So awkward. “Transformed into digital form,” that’s 2 forms, buddy. Apparently, all these advances apply only to Jobs, and not the entire marketplace. Not Dell, Sony, Wal-Mart, nor a thousand other no-name Asian manufacturers. Just Steve.

“How we watch movies, look at photos, listen to music, even read a book promises to change profoundly in the next decade.”
Umm, seriously, the vast vast majority of America doesn’t know how their TV sets work. How does that change just because the set is digital? Truth—people will “watch movies, look at photos, listen to music, even read a book” exactly the same as we did before. If there’s differences, they ain’t gonna come from Jobs, they’re gonna come from the user community, and more specifically, they’ll come first from users tied to open source.

“One advantage Apple has over rivals is its retail stores”
Gateway said that too.

“Near term, an iPod for viewing digital photos would need nothing more than a color screen. Then, with its design skills, Apple could create a compact entertainment hub for the living room.”
AWESOME! Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?? :P I can’t wait to drive my family, relatives and neighbors to suicide while I regale them with my virtuosity on the piano, playing “The Entertainer” replete with electronic backup courtesy of Apple’s Garage Band.

“There’s no company in the world that’s better at making complex technology simple”
Jobs said this, and I actually agree. But read it again. Again. Yeah, “complex … simple.” How complex can something that you do while resting on your ass truly be? Seriously, America is a fat people. If listening to music was really complex, we’d see a lot more stairclimber accidents. BTW, aren’t there hundreds of competing MP3 players on the market right now?

“Apple’s iPod mini, a $249 player introduced on Jan. 6, is a lower-priced version of its current hit.”
Umm, some would argue that $50 isn’t really all that lower for a device with less than a third of the storage.

Next Story: Which Format Will Win?

“Is there a difference between the music sold at different music sites? No, the music is the same. But each song you buy off the Net comes wrapped in two important pieces of software: copy-protection software to prevent piracy and compression technology so it can be downloaded quickly. This combination is called a format.”
Do you think perhaps that when someone asks if the music is “different,” they actually mean, you know, “in general.” Just curious. So, the music is the same, but it’s different. Perhaps someone from Apple should have written this article. They are the experts on making the complex simple, after all.

“It’s only when people start buying music online that they may run into compatibility problems”
Except of course if you’ve ripped your music collection into WMA files, then buy an iPod. Hey, those folks at Apple are good, but they’re not magicians people! There are limits.

“Even then, you end up with lower-quality music because MP3 lacks the fidelity of new compression software.”
Totally wrong. The reason you get lower-quality music is because your that song you downloaded is already in a lossy format, recorded at a suboptimal bitrate. When you transcode lossy to lossy, you’re losing even more fidelity. So, basically, it’s your fault for buying crappy merchandise in the first place.

“Will there end up being one standard for digital music? Yes, eventually.”
Wow, talk about prescient. Where’s the burning bush? News flash: there’s no need for a format to win, since decorders will all be software based, a necessity in multifunction digital devices (you can’t stick in a chip for every format and keep the device small/cheap). The most open formats will win, look at the success of MP3. If there’s ever any trouble, people will simply shift to Ogg Vorbis, Divx, Xvid, or any number of open source alternatives that are being build into hundreds of devices already.

The Awful Truth

I think the iPod mini is a huge misstep. Apple doesn’t need another hard-drive player, they need a flash memory player. They also need to make iTunes work with multiple players and (notably for the mini) subsets of your stored music database. Who has only 4GB of music anyway? Regardless, you’re gonna end up filling up your iPod, and then you have to manage it manually, which sucks currently. Worst of all is the time and money wasted on the mini that could have been better spent on some of that innovating everyone’s talking about.

As far as openness goes, Apple’s never been too good at this. For a company who’s new OS is built on BSD, they’re not too open source friendly. It’d be good to see support for Ogg and others. The format of the music should be irrelevant to the player (and the user).

The iTunes music store is great and all, but again, it makes no money and consumes resources. I doubt it’s even profitable when you add in the incremental iPod sales it’s brought in. As I mentioned, the store could be Napsterized in a matter of moments. Public/Private P2P and CD/DVD/HD sharing will keep the illegal music flowing and it’s not going to stop.

Finally, people laugh at them now, but no-name Asian manufacturers are turning out some really interesting products. (I’ve mentioned this in a past post.) They are riding the leading-edge trends in manufacturing, and aren’t saddled with annoying marketing or legal departments. Their products are coming off the line with just about every port and format support you can think of. And they’re getting better. These are the guys to watch out for, ‘cause they’re going to be making everything you see in Wal-Mart’s electronics dept’s. Wait and see.

Takin’ it to the wires.
hiphopmusic.com: A (Sad) New Chapter in Blog History

Captain Kangaroo has died. I used to love this show. Bunny Rabbit was awesomely subversive.

Been perusing posts from Joi Ito’s blog regarding blogs and fairness. All very theoretical and such, (‘cept when Dave Winer comes in and pops the big thought bubble, deflating the intellectual mousse, as it were). Now, I think I’ve got a handle on what they’re talking about, and it is an interesting question, inasmuch as it reveals a community of technology architects wrestling with the implications of what they’ve wrought and how, perhaps to make it better, or at least to maintain itself.

There’s a lot going on in there, much of which I don’t understand and don’t feel like breaking down, but it’s good that they care.

So for my personal mental exercise:

Blogs are both a publishing tool and a content platform (from the consumer side).

As a publishing tool, blogs (especially when extended to include all the future possibilities Joi envisions) lower costs to an extent that you have to expect that a) they’ll beat out many traditional publishers AND micropayment schemes (simply because the micropayment overhead itself is too great, like for-pay WiFi), and it will increase the potential pool of content producers.

As a tool, blogs do not address content quality, creativity, frequency, etc. – that’s left to the creators. This is called fitness, as I understand it, and it can vary across blogs and across time. This instability is much much greater than in traditional publishing, which as a business, is about eliminating much of that instability both for producers and consumers.

Additionally, blogs should be as dumb as possible, just like the Internet. Now, ‘how dumb’ is the big fat question, since determining what it is that blogs should do in its most abstract form is probably a fairly difficult question. Then again, it may be very simple. Probably depends on whether you fall on the publishing or consuming side.

The consumer side of blogs is where the current action seems to be. This looks at how blogs affect the consumption of content – the linking and such. A big part of the argument seems to be that there’s a power law that reinforces the position of popular blogs, as it pertains to linking. I can definitely see this, but as many have already pointed out, blogs are not necessarily designed to aggregate popular links, increasing their own popularity—some are, to be sure, and we’ve already experienced the first wave of blog spam designed specifically to exploit this.

So, I suppose, in light of spam, this ‘fairness’ discussion, might be more aptly termed a ‘fitness’ discussion on how best to architect a blogosphere that can best sustain itself—and it’s best qualities. Of course, no one could ever agree on what the purpose of the blogosphere is (not individual blogs, mind you, but the community as a whole) or what its best qualities are.

Much of these discussions will probably evidence themselves in better search apps and aggregators, both consumptive tools. I think very little has been done yet (though much seems to be in the works) toward empowering readers of blogs to find new authors and threads. The work being done with Web-based aggregators and OPML, etc. seem to point to a bright future for navigating the blogosphere.

Then again, when you think about it, how do you judge a 3rd degree link? Your basic FOAF question. With imperfect information, how do you judge an unknown link outside of the power law? And would ‘power’ even reveal anything in a weak link? The resolution of weak links is by definition weak.

But every link at its genesis is weak, and its only through cross-linking, comments, and trackback that an individual link gets strong. A blog generates strength through each successive strong link. Creating the power law, mentioned previously.

So if every good link generates power, I’m not sure that there’s anywhere very interesting to go with this discussion.

People will gravitate toward ‘influential’ blogs because there’s good, frequent content and good personality (plus, the time saved by relying on an editor to find interesting content). I also really like the fact that there’s personalities behind these sites, people like me. I also think that there’s some topics that will always be more popular: political blogs seem to do great.

Compared to traditional media, there’s so much diversity in the mix of sites, stories, and voices that get heard on these dominant blogs. I like reading the random thoughts of some kid getting ready for their prom or somesuch, but I’m not gonna read it every day. That’s the whole fun of it.

If people keep wanting to write, then I think blogs will do fine.

End of rambling for the day. I’m gonna go buy some DVD-Rs now and do bad bad things.

Sure, big boys like Sony are gonna keep ruling the roost, but given the nature of the biz, I think you gotta start looking beyond the obvious suspects to new, more innovative manufacturers. The stuff coming out of Southeast Asia from all manner of manufacturers is pretty amazing. (Apex, Aiptek, Sampo)

The reason is simple – most manufacturing is outsourced these days. These no-name (to US consumers) Korean, Singaporean companies are making tons of products and components for traditional big name manufacturers. You didn’t know this because there was a nice stratification between those companies with international marketing expertise and those without. But today, there’s English-speakers in every country, Internet and Web pages in every country, and easy distribution. (Thank you, Ebay)

I imagine all these SEAsian manufacturers hanging out together, sharing info, and building new products – not via marketing reports – but via conversations over dinners, drinks, golf, steams, etc. on what new chips & components are coming down the pipeline. They’re doing everyone’s work, so it’s natural that they have access to much information first.

And since things are digital, cheap, and available, I can imagine these no-names taking huge portions of low-end market share in digital cameras, DVD players, cell phones, etc. Look around, it’s already happening. So what’s left for the big boys? I’m not sure. I think they have brand, they can do higher-end products that are better realized, and they can do integrated systems (though again, not low-end). Anything where analog quality is important (camera lenses, speakers, etc.).

There’s a great deal of leveling that’s going to be happening soon. And don’t think any of these companies give a sh*t about Hollywood either. If consumers want it, they will build it. Heck, if they think consumer might want it, they’ll build it. It’s gonna be fun, in any case.

So, my thought for the day is that someone should build up a database of all these companies, kind of a no-name shopping guide – i bet there’s one around somewhere, I just haven’t found it yet.

Keyspan : News : Press Release :

This is probably the biggest announcement in the smallest package from CES. The ability to easily create networked USB peripherals is huge. Network-attached storage, backups for your media pcs/devices, etc. Storage now only needs to be storage, instead of a server. Very cool.

Ad Age article on Tribe.net’s plan to sell classifieds with Knight Ridder and Washington Post Co.

Beyond the fact that Craigslist is an extremely old service that found purchase in the tech-dense Bay area, the article gets me wondering about the effects of commercializing social nets. I’ve noodled around with the social net concept— who hasn’t?—after all the play they’ve been getting. But no one’s really figured out how these networks are going to make money. Apparently, classifieds and dating are all anyone’s come up with. Kinda lame, and low potential as well. The dating game’s been covered, and newspapers aren’t making bank off classifieds, and while Craigslist is doing fine, it certainly isn’t what the VCs were imagining.

All I can think of is that the potential viral effects have investors excited. But the social network is a network connected through a very vague notion of trust—your friends. Most of us trust our friends, at least some of them, but do we trust the friends of our friends? Probably. The friends of our friend’s friends? Maybe, but I can’t see it going much further than that. This trust network tends to dilute itself quickly once you get a few degrees away from yourself, necessitating the kind of enforced, rules-based trust framework that has built Ebay into such a powerhouse. So the trust network is overrated in my opinion.

The reason most people rely on their close friends is that their friends know them and know the subject matter (say, restaurants). When the second party doesn’t know you personally, and you don’t know them, you’re more likely not to trust their opinion—not that you automatically discount it, but you’re going to add it to a database of results from other sources, say Zagat’s or local dining guides.

So everyone’s social network has a defined horizon beyond which the social network effect is eclipsed by other forms of trust. I think we can agree that in general, that horizon is going to more or less surround that person’s effective local area—that being the area in which the individual spends most of their time. Could be San Francisco, could be split between Miami and New York.

Now, this local social network is interesting in its ability to connect, or re-connect, you to your community in a way you’re more likely to respond to than the local giveaway newspaper that’s dropped unwanted on your steps each week. This is exactly what makes Craigslist so compelling. It’s a different view into San Francisco/Bay Area life. It’s also a great resource for housing and jobs and stuff—for me at least.

But the trust that’s built up in Craigslist has taken years to accumulate through the hard work of user experience and word of mouth. The service’s reputation is now extremely good and transactions take place with that trust implicit between the parties. It’s a local thing, much the same as the loyalty that springs up for the Raiders or other local sports teams. My big question is: can you bottle that?

The network effects of social networks are localized by both trust and reality (geographies and population densities). So I think in building a social net, you have to be extremely careful to target the correct markets or be doomed to repeat the mistakes of Webvan and Kozmo, companies that entered low-density markets. Plus, you have to concede that Citysearch, in commercializing local markets, was scraping the bottom of the barrel and did nothing to build consumer loyalty.

Given the rapid pace of technological development on the Web, it’s probably safe to say that within a year, the technology that powers social nets will be commodified, not unlike blogging tech, allowing us all to create our own social nets with their own applications and focuses, and connect them to whatever other social nets we desire. Social nets are in many ways a natural evolution of P2P, so it makes sense that they would build off that tech.

What makes social nets important is that we, the nodes, are in control. Our contributions are what powers the network. Once you give that power up to a central authority by commercializing the network, you’ve polluted the stream. If I trust the network, do I trust the commercial interests who are now inserting their paid listings into the datastream? If I like contributing answers, helping people, will I tolerate my advice being mixed in with sponsored links and ad space?

Gizmodo tossed off a brief item on the Neustron media center player. Too bad, this actually looks like a great media center, assuming you’re in the market for one. It seems to play just about everything, and the company has a great-looking DVD player that also plays just about anything.

There are a few tip-offs that can help tell you a little about a company—first, these guys are from Singapore, which means less marketing and legal, and more tech. Clearly, these guys just threw everything into the device they could get their hands on—I don’t even know what RM4 format is. The media center device has ethernet AND WIFI, which is a given that we want that, but most US companies aren’t giving us the option. Look at the back of these devices, they’re packed with outputs.

The bast part, however, is that you can reprogram the DVD player to disable Macrovision and make it region-free from the remote (both unofficially). Take that. Searable database of DVD player info: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers

Memo to Hollywood—again—the cat is out of the bag, the game is over. You lost.

why does cool software come in blue plastic bubbles?

i know him.

headache.

Ran across this list of predictions today at the blog of Barry Parr (ex-CNET, IDC).

I like the prognostications for increased pressure on CMS companies (how they ever got away with selling a product that wouldn’t work until you paid their consultants to put it together, i will never know), email marketing failing in the face of spam filters (this is a definite), free WIFI (definite also, once merchants do the math). Now, onto the three most interesting, imo:

Computer companies will fail in the consumer electronics market, because they don’t have any understanding of what consumers want, have been turned into followers by Wintel market dynamics , and don’t have the right distribution channels. Apple is the only company that could do it, but loss of focus, low margins and short product lifecycles may make it unattractive even to them.

This is probably mostly true, but there’s a flip-side as well – consumer electronics companies don’t currently understand the digital space—whether we’re talking product design, architecture, functionality, product development cycles, software, or user interface. CE is making strides in this area, for sure, but they are lagging behind. In order for them to really succeed, they need to abandon their old ways in every product category and rebuild with focuses on software and networking—areas that make products easy to customize and improve. Open standards would help this immeassurably, but I’m not holding my breath—the licensing fees generated by the CD have made Sony and Philips quite rich—no one’s going to give that potential revenue up for next-generation blue laser DVDs.

The biggest hurdle IMO? Networking CE is going to be a huge challenge. Consumers are not ready to be their own CTOs, so devices need to be able to connect themselves to a home network intelligently. But beyond that, pressure from entertainment companies to restrict the functionality of these devices could cripple their ability to freely network with all connected devices, creating consumer confusion and frustration.

Where’s the silver lining? Gotta be CE’s adoption of Linux. The great side benefit of having all your devices run Linux is that they should all be that much easier to hack/customize to your liking, with the help of the millions-strong Linux community.

There’s going to be a huge struggle in the coming years as the entertainment industry tries to lock down the entire digital sphere through DRM and hardware controls. The truth however is that the battle is already over—one bad apple spoils the bunch—in this case, any hardware/software device attached to the home network that hasn’t been 100% locked down compromises the security of any device attached to that network.

So, how many PCs with Internet access are out there anyway? ;)

Broadband access providers will begin to exercise their muscle by metering bandwidth and by imposing more limits on what protocols their customers can use, what information they have access to, and what information they can publish on the net.

I’ll concede there’s talk of this, but I have to believe that we’ve just dealt with the same situation with WIFI hotspots. There’s not much difference, except that there’s simply more unused broadband bandwidth to play with. As far as limits go, I can certainly see providers provisioning bandwidth for new services they can charge for, such as VOIP. However, the more providers keep the flow flowing, the better off they’ll be, and the more money they will make, i think.

More online content will go behind subscription barriers. However, this will be the beginning of a death spiral for those sites. Eventually (after their current management is fired), they will be reborn as stripped-down, highly-automated free sites.

Online content sites are seriously up the creek—and have been since they first started. The idea that you should give away on one hand what you’re charging for on another doesn’t make any sense. It’s led to an erosion of consumer loyalty and increased confusion. My advice: decide what business you’re in, focus on that, and move the Web site budget under the aegis of the marketing dept. At least then, you’ve instituted some controls.

If you could fly to work, would you fly along the roadways or would you fly direct?

Cables are apparently a way for retailers to make some money back off low margin printers and scanners. Buy them from this place (recommended by others smarter than I) and save a few bucks. I just bought USB2.0 and Firewire cables for $3-$4 apiece, even with $8 shipping, I’m coming out way ahead.
http://www.cablesforless.com

Finally got the camera working on XP last night, after checking for a new version of the windows software. It’s so amazing and wonderful that people do this, as part of their jobs and for fun, and then share the results with the world. It’s not the same thing as open source, there’s strong developer-only reasons for that, it’s more that the net connects us to ourselves more easily—allowing us to discover or rediscover more about ourselves – to do more and be more through tiny, almost insignificant collaborations. Whatever, i’m getting all weepy here.

the dakota is fun. $11 and a soldered up hotsync cable i bought off ebay. its pictures are pretty good actually. i scraped the glue off the lens and messed with it—it definitely has a very small focusing sweet spot—but fuzzy picts are interesting too. the only problem of course is that when adjusting the lens, you have to dl the picts to check your results. technology/antitechnology playing back and forth. the software worked fine, though XP hung on shutdown so I did a system restore. not sure exactly where that problem came from or if the rollback solved it.

the dakota supposedly supports a webcam mode (least one of the chips does), and i’d be interested in adjusting exposure to build a digital pinhole. not sure that’s possible, but i can always hope. who cares? i’m going out to buy another one today.

key reference page: DakotaDigital at maushammer.com

first test shot

way out of focus shot down the hall to living room

Chicago Sun Times columnist takes some cheap shots at cameraphones, while missing the larger point—that networked technologies have real-world social effects.

The fact that cameraphones quality and service sucks currently is totally beside the point. First generation technologies always have bugs to work out.

Camera phone an idea whose time shouldn’t have come

update: I got a look at one over the weekend at a Dell mall kiosk in Portland, OR. I have to admit, it has a nice heft to it, and seems solidly built. BUT —the button configurations are not that well, thought out, and the scroll wheel is too small in my opinion (all the buttons are too small, imo).

I wonder if the Dell designers weren’t thinking too PC-centric. What I mean is simply that a typical PC has a very structured interface with the user—you sit directly in front of it in order to see the monitor and align your hands with the keyboard and mouse. The cellphone has evolved in a similar way, with the inclusion of screens, cameras, and other PC-like functions etc.

However, I don’t think you necessarily want such a structured interface in a portable device like a music player. The primary function of the device is so simple that you should be able to work it from inside your bag, with only a limited memory of its configuration. That was the genius of the original iPod: 4 clickable play control buttons (and menu), one for each cardinal direction, laid out around a scroll wheel (non-clickable), with a clickable select button in the middle. In a pocket, these functions were easily distinguished from each other.

Much more emphasis needs to be placed on the buttons themselves as well—just cause they’re chrome-painted, doesn’t make them good.

I’m sorry, but that Dell MP3 jukebox is bugly. I’d be embarassed carrying that thing around. And for that matter, why are all the Dell laptops colored silver plastic and royal blue? Who thought that up?

Is it really progress when you have no other options? Cameraphones are taking off, not because people want them, but because manufacturers are selling them with no regard for the consequences.

Economics is driving the inclusion of cameras in new cell phones. It’s cheaper to make more of a particular model (and the cameras are not that expensive themselves to add), so you choose to build the phone with the most potential to generate usage and service fees. Exactly.

This is probably the first major “over the fence” product the US has seen, the repercussions of which should be very interesting. Let me explain. By “over the fence,” I’m talking about a technology/product developed by the R&Ders (often in Japan) and, in effect, tossed over to bewildered marketers (often in the US). These products can flounder—not because they are inferior—but because marketing never gets comfortable enough to find a way to generate momentum and sales. (People, you can’t take away their focus groups and expect them not to suffer.)

The first product I ever came across that was tossed over the fence was a Wacom graphics tablet with a built-in LCD. At the time, the LCD was expensive, but the product’s audience was very clear—graphic designers. The tablet allowed you to draw on the screen, a much easier prospect than regular tablets. When I asked the US PR and marketing people about the product (which I’d seen on the company’s Japanese HQ Web site), they were pretty confused about what to do with it—they hadn’t been given any advance notice, had no samples, and hadn’t done any testing.

[This is also one of those early examples of “Internet effect,” where unlike in the past, I was able to see what other company divisions were doing, even before other divisions knew.]

So do US consumers want cameraphones? I doubt it. Better billing and number portability are much higher on the list for most people.

But that doesn’t affect the impact of toting a camera around with you everywhere. Impromptu meetings with friends, spying, documenting car accidents—the applications are almost endless, and we’re just now starting to deal with the effects of a technology unleashed on our cultures through forced ubiquity. On one hand, you can argue that forcing the tech down our unwitting throats has accelerated societal awareness and adaptation, closing the window that early adopters had to abuse the new cameraphones. On the other hand, with the present ubiquity of cheap cameras, the cameraphone’s real impact is in the new ways it can be abused.

Life has now changed—and not for the better. You can bet that there are many more new technologies in the pipeline that companies will soon rollout with little to no thought as to their larger consequences. Should corporations be responsible for what they’ve unleashed? Good question.

[via USAToday]
Camera phones rival DVD players as fastest growing Devices fly off shelves while prices plummet

To date, 80 million camera phones have sold worldwide vs. 6 million in the USA, research firm IDC says. This year, analyst Ron Glaz of IDC says more camera phones will be sold worldwide, 57 million, than digital cameras, 44 million.
By comparison, DVD players, introduced in 1997 and called the fastest-growing consumer tech device by the Consumer Electronics Association, sold 30 million players in its first three years, says researcher In-Stat/MDR.

So, Microsoft is going to open a music store. This should be a surprise to no one, since it is Microsoft’s own Windows Media Audio DRM that’s powering many of the current downloadable music stores. What does it mean? It means more competition in the PC music space, which is probably good for Apple and bad for everyone else.

Apple’s AAC format makes the files it sells compatible with iTunes and the iPod and little else. If you’ve bought tracks from the Apple Music Store and you own an iPod, you’re a happy camper and you could care less what Microsoft does. If you’ve bought tracks and you don’t own an iPod, then you’re probably planning to. Point is, Apple’s built up a nice defense with the best jukebox player and excellent music management software.

The PC world by contrast is reeling in competing offerings. True, most of your WMA files will transfer to most any device or software, and that’s the problem. No competitive barriers. Microsoft can move in now and just mow the competition down. The only thing they can’t suck in are Apple’s AAC files (and they could if they wanted to).

If this does anything, it should put a fire under Apple’s ass to build cheaper iPods and more mobile versions (flash memory-based).

Then again, I could be wrong. I’m firmly entrenched in the Apple camp and I buy songs from Emusic. What the hell do I know?

Microsoft music store to open next year [CNet]

Just picked up a Dakota Digital single-use digicam from Ritz for $11. Gonna hack it this weekend – yay! Just need to find an old USB cable and find a old Palm hotsync cable.

Yes, it’s basically a piece of crap. But it cost $11, and I once I get the cable rigged, I can go buy another one (which should be the same) and crack it open. The lens sucks, so I’m thinking of modding it to a pinhole digital. Yeah, who’s laughing now?

Good overview here
Building a USB interface

I admit it, the first and only tie I tried DDR in the arcade, I blew. I’m just too white, I think. Of course, after watching a semi-pro couple take over the machine for 20 minutes (they arrived in gym-wear, for god’s sake), I realized that DDR requires a serious level of dedication. Which is why this PS2 accessory looks so sweet. It’s cheaper than most home fitness machines too.

Metal Dance Platform Deluxe with Rail – Always in stock!

The Onion | Mom Finds Out About Blog

A report (not study) from the Internet Home Alliance (never heard of ‘em) says consumers want ‘eHubs’—basically one-device PC servers for their home entertainment networks. I’m gonna have to call them out on this one—this is propaganda from PC manufacturers, plain and simple.

“There is a clear indication that consumers want to have the PC become part of their entertainment world at home,” Barra told internetnews.com in an exclusive interview today. “It’s not that the set-top box won’t be there, or that gaming consoles won’t have some role, but that the perception out there today is that consumers are expecting the PC to become the entertainment library for their homes.”

Tivo, recording DVDs, digital cable, home networks—these are all appealing, yes. But that doesn’t mean that we need or want a central home media server. Why?

A single server—made by PC manufacturers—is likely going to be too expensive and too complex, while serving as a single point of failure. Gateway, one of the supporters of this eHub concept, has already proven that a few chips in a DVD player can serve as a cheap digital media player, allowing TV viewing of PC content.

We’ve got many options here. A network is designed to bridge many devices, the hub-spoke model is only one configuration. The emerging WiMedia standard is designed to form P2P networks between devices, alleviating the need for a central server.

With storage cheap and plentiful and technologies like Apple’s Rendezvous, I’d be happier to see all my specialized devices on the network, talking to each other, sharing and collaborating—including my PC —than be reliant on a single server (with a single OS & GUI).

Consumers Ready and Waiting for ‘e-Hubs’

That cheapo Ritz Camera disposable digital camera has been hacked, which means that for about $20-25 bucks you’ve got a crappy digicam. I’m going out to find one today.

The point is that: 1) your digital product will be hacked eventually, and 2) it’s probably not that big a deal since most techno-weenies and gadget-freaks aren’t so good with a soldering iron. Nor do we have the time. (Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t/won’t expand our repertoires—just for kicks, mind you.)

RevJimWiki : DakotaDigitalCamera
Disposable Digital Camera Interfacing

Nice overview of mobile phones’ role in a networked society as the devices take on more responsibility and functions. And by extension, how screwed you’re going to be when you leave it in the restaurant, car, subway/train, friend’s house, wrong coat, etc.

Mobitopia – The Ubiquitous Network Society of Today

This is pretty obvious to anyone who’s either got a Tivo or dl’s video off P2P nets. It’s far easier to record/dl files than to watch them. This is why video piracy will never match that of music. I can work with music, but I can’t work watching TV. Everyone will generate this backlog quickly, and adjust. The stress level is only propped up by the limited storage space on the Tivo—if you could simply add more, you wouldn’t worry so much about your unwatched archive.

All of this, of course, has nothing to do with how the nets are going to regenerate lost ad revenues from commercial skipping.

SignOnSanDiego.com – TV viewers find TiVo addictive

Lists are basically magazines’ way of telling you that you’re stupid, and that just like crows, you are easily distracted by shiny objects—in this case, big numbers and the word ‘Best,’ usually bolded in red, sometimes overlaid on a pair of breasts. It’s holiday time, folks, so get ready to be patronized—to the EXTREME!!

It’s still early—we’re not seeing the buying guides just yet—but apparently the next new thing is “best of the year,” which is actually easier to do, since editors don’t actually have to cull all that contact and pricing information, or ensure that the product is either available for purchase or doesn’t actually suck big fat air. [note: I did the first Wired Tools gear supplement, so I have some experience in this arena.]

For brevity’s sake, I think I’ll just point out the really stupid items, it’s more fun this way.

1. Time: Coolest Inventions of 2003
1) The iTunes music store isn’t that cool: $.99/track for DRM you don’t own and Apple doesn’t actually make any money off it. 2) BeoLab 5speakers: I like Bang & Olufsen as much as the next guy, but $16K for speakers doesn’t make them cool. 3) The NeCoRo robotic cat is freaking me out (I say: cage match between the robo-cat and the lobster). 4) The Gibbs Aquada is the stupidest f*cking product of the year. How much of an asshole do you need to be? 5) Invisible Tech: You have to be perfectly in line with the video camera for the illusion to stand muster. ‘nuff said.

2. Popular Science | Best of What’s New 2003
PopSci is an interesting hybrid, trying to bridge its old-school astronomy-loving audience, with the new breed of tech-loving readers. Not an easy challenge, by any means. Their best of list goes more traditional (defense tech, auto) than most.

1) There’s that damn aquacar again. Why do people think that’s cool? 2) iTunes Music Store: still a raw deal. 3) Computer manufacturers selling digital CE isn’t that revolutionary, if you actually think about it. 4) Sharp LCD TVs: $1700 for 15 inches. Wow. Cool. 5) Garden Groom Hedge Trimmer: Trimmers are exactly the wrong way to trim your hedges. Seriously, ask those This Old House guys. They’ll tell you.

3. NYT Circuits: A Little Digital Something for Everyone
NYT has a pretty typical grab bag of products, nothing really outstanding, though I have to point out the strange love letter to Mac accessory-maker Griffin Technology (I like the company myself, but why so many products?).

Standouts: Recommending satellite radio just seems weird to me (some people love it however, I’m sure. People loved Who’s the Boss?) Sidetalkin’ Nokia 3300—guaranteed to drive away potential dates and mates. Kid’s stuff is all basically crap, but they’ll break it anyway, so who cares? Pacific Digital MemoryFrame digital photo display (LCD in a frame)—and you thought technology couldn’t be pretentious. And finally, ‘cause I’m tired of this, not cause I’m at the end of the list, the Sharp Aquos Mobile: Yes, Virginia, Wifi is cool—ground-breaking even—but it’s a 15-inch TV for $1800. Seriously, people wake up.

4. Business 2.0 Gizmo Guide (subscription required)
OK, I have to immediately take points off for using the word ‘gizmo’. It’s not me, these are the rules. But beyond that, I have mostly positive things to say: partly because I don’t have the print mag in front of me right now, and partly because it was put together by Shoshana Berger (Readymade founder) who knows what she’s doing and is pretty damn cute to boot.

Shana has products grouped into several typical user types (also typical B2 reader types, I imagine). I didn’t really feel like the products picked for the “CEO” were that good—but they did tend to scream “asshole”, which is probably appropriate. All in all, one of the best gift guides I’ve seen this year.

more to come …

It’s hard to believe people still eat up this garbage.

“More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August, according to new information released today by The NPD Group. NPD credits the ongoing RIAA anti-piracy campaign and related media attention as having had a measurable effect on the actions of many consumers in regard to the illegal sharing of digital music. In a related survey of consumer perception, however, NPD found that consumers’ overall opinion of the recording industry is suffering as a result of the record industry association’s well-publicized legal tactics.”

Their methodology consists of 40,000 volunteer computer users. People who know they’re being watched. I guess we’ll let that one go for the moment.

Second, deleting files can mean anything. An increase in the number of garbage Kazaa files, for instance. Or an increase in HD swapping with friends, leading to the removal of duplicate files. Or more errors using CD ripping software.

Third, NPD reports that 80 percent of these ‘deleters’ retained fewer than 50 music files on their hard drives. These are not music lovers, people. These are newbies, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that you simply cannot predict what a newbie is going to do or why they’re doing it.

Full Release:
NPD Press Release – November 5, 2003

Wired has finally jumped into the fray—everybody blog! The magazine still doesn’t have a Web site, but whatever. Let’s ignore that for the moment and focus on what’s really wrong with this:

First, they’ve got only one blog up:
Beyond the Beyond—i guess it’s a celebrity blog? It doesn’t have much focus beyond that, plus it’s way ugly.

Second, is this (from Sterling’s first post):

Note that there is NO COMMENTARY ALLOWED in my pristine, high-toned blog here. Why? Because you might be a spammer, that’s why! When I have a big red anti-spam button I can push that will cause Homeland Security to arrest you immediately and deport you to Guantanamo, then you may comment. Until then, no blog-reader of mine will ever be forced to endure your lame illegal product pitches, and that goes double for you harebrained flamers and trollers.

Blogging is about community. Community is about linking and commenting. There are lots of good people that are working hard to improve the community and deal with the comment spam issue. In fact, there are several simple strategies for addressing it. I just can’t get past the subtext “blogging systems suck”. If it’s so bad, why not use a better tool?

Third, and most important:
Wired blogs will fail. Why? Because they already have a much larger and compelling space from which to share their ideas and prognostications—it’s called the magazine. And let’s face it, Wired magazine is cooler than a blog. Given the choice, what are you going to work on? Your 3500 feature for the magazine (complete with cool design, pictures and everything) or a blog entry?

[disclosure: i worked at Wired back in the days when it was just as disfunctional, but way cooler]

I like this item by Jeff Jarvis, in which he expounds on the possibilities inherent in a world where AOL subscribers are spending 60-70% of their time with audience-generated content.

I think most will agree that the foundation of this “citizen’s media industry” is already in place—blogging tools, search engines, digital cameras and cellphones. But what’s most important is the implementation of social-type networks—increasing not only the ease, but the importance of linking resources together. Hell, I’m doing it now with Movable Type using html links, xml, and trackback.

And for a change, all this power doesn’t come at a huge price. These technologies are all democratizing the space for individuals. Even I get a little excited wondering what’s next.

The citizen’s media industry

Many people are surprised by this, but I have to agree with Jobs, there’s little market for media-center PCs, outside of dorm rooms and cramped manhattan apartments—both of which are awash in activities far more immersive than watching taped sitcoms on a 17” LCD.

The truth, for Apple at least, is not so much whether an iMediaPC would be cool, it’s whether it would make $$. Consider the Gateway DVD player with the streaming media functions—it’s $200, people. Apple can’t beat that.

The point being that it is extremely easy to design new circuit boards and pop chips on them. And upgrading functionality through firm/software (read: Linux) is easy too.

It’s becoming clear that the PC, though still necessary as a central management/storage device, is actually too complicated for most media applications. An entertainment center is ruled by the remote—if you can’t fit your interface on it, forget it.

Apple says could move to Intel, but happy with IBM

A short analysis on the US Copyright Office ruling that Lexmark cannot prevent reverse engineering of its printer cartridges under the DMCA, since by selling its printers, the company made its printer/cartridge control chip “readily available”.

The suit isn’t over yet, but it’s nice to see that the judge applied the concept of interoperability which, suprisingly enough is protected under the DCMA. [Ouch! Lexmark, that musta hurt.]

Let Reverse-Engineering Go Forward

I am kinda bummed that I’m not doing NanoWriMo - national novel writing month – this year. I did it last year, and it was quite good. Not that I’m into the commiseration, yahoo groups and all, I just liked writing every day. I think I only missed a couple days over the course of the whole month, and if you’re budgeting 1500 words per day, missing a day adds up fast.

I still haven’t read (completely) what I wrote and I probably never will, but that’s ok. I wrote 50,000 words in a month. And I can do it again, too, dammit. Don’t push me. :)

CNet reports on the FCC’s approval of the broadcast flag proposal, which prevents cosumers from sharing ‘pirated’ copies of digital TV shows. This applies to digital TV and new equipment must be able to read the broadcast flag.

Apparently, you haven’t heard: I have a 1.6 Gigahertz processor in my PC —and I’m nothing but old news. I have 100+ Gigabytes of storage and 512Mbytes of RAM. And again, my equipment blows.

Bear with me as I gase into my crystal ball. Someone, probably in Finland or the Ukraine, is going to write a nice little Linux app which gets ported to Windows in 3 days and blogged and Slashdotted and then makes the New York Times which has crafted some oblique and not all that well reported angle on where did all the good TV go now that everyone is an Internet pirate? And this app is going to rip that broadcast flag right out of the data stream, perhaps even re-encoding the entire file, which just isn’t a big deal because that little application is built around a batch function, so I just crank it up, feed it the 12 new episodes of Smallville, CSI, or whatever else garbage I happen to have found that evening, and let it run ALL night.

Did I mention that I have Gigs of cycles and bytes to spare?

FCC moves to squash digital TV piracy online | CNET News.com

Good point here by John Battelle/O’Reilly about the future being in networked applications. And if John is right, and the best networked apps are media-centric, then how should that affect our digital devices?

The current push (led primarily by media co’s) is to lock down our device hardware and DRM our content. I have to believe that these initiatives significantly diminish possible network effects.

O’Reilly on Tech/Media Future

from Reuters via Wired News: Digital Networks: PC to Stereo

Just reading this article gives me a headache. The gist? There are a lot of crazy options for listening to your digital music collection throughout your house. The article is a simple rundown of devices, with no advice as to which is best, or what to consider when building a home media network. In short, it sucks.

It’s perhaps the reporter’s conclusion that gets me, however.

“Of course, music fans without thousands of dollars to spare could run Belkin’s Audio Y Cable Splitter ($7) between the computer and the stereo—a cheap, if inelegant, solution. ”

What’s “inelegant” about a solution that’s cheap, functional, and doesn’t require fumbling with a manual, file formats, downloading software upgrades, antenna jostling, head-thumping, and cursing?

There is a perception—mostly in the media—that all new ‘gadgets’ are good. This is because writers are paid to create stories regardless of their importance, and because they don’t test the products, or even need them. There is no perspective, no context. No pushback.

Let’s get down to it: gadgets are worthless. They’re eye-candy, trinkets. What you really want—what you need—that’s called ‘gear’. Maybe I’m being too subtle?

I don’t believe that there’s any one ‘best’ solution, and I don’t believe that expensive begets quality. Every user’s situation is different: their equipment, goals, experience, and budget. A truly ‘elegant’ solution should fit a person’s needs, not the needs of Best Buy.

The home media landscape is extremely complex—read the article again, then ask yourself, What should I do when building my home media network? So many technologies and devices are popping up, providing us all so many different options, that I think it would behoove us all if we actually tried to provide these manufacturer’s some feedback, not only on the devices we’ve tested, but on the features we’d like to see integrated into the next generation.

I guess that’s what I’d like to begin doing here on this site. It’s time for a little pushback.