Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Cable TV providers should be worried
In all the iPhone 4 hoopla, I missed the announcement that Netflix is launching a “free” (with subscription) iPhone app this summer to go along with their iPad one. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an Android app in 6-12 months, if they can work out a deal with Verizon, the biggest Android device service provider. There will probably be a paid Hulu service to compete pretty soon.
It’s interesting that the paid subscription of Netflix has become a huge disc/stream content distributor, while TV networks like NBC and Fox co-own Hulu, yet they’re still working from an ad-supported revenue model and trying to be profitable. Obviously THAT’S going to change. Hulu won’t be “free” for long.
Netflix says the app works well when switch between WiFi AND AT&T’s 3g network. Well, THAT explains AT&T ending unlimited data plans for new subscribers. I actually exceeded 2gb over the cell network one month, probably because it was when my daughter was born. Lots of constant data streaming/posting that month. Maybe I’ll keep that “unlimited” plan…
This is pretty spectacular though. As Netflix adds more streaming content licenses, they’re going to be incredibly successful in competing with cable TV providers as an on-demand, everywhere content provider. Netflix has wisely forgotten about former rival Blockbuster and is clearly targeting a different market. I already know a handful of people that went without cable and solely Netflix before they even had streaming Internet distribution.
The trade off of 30-day delays on new disc releases for the rights to other shows/films to be distributed through streaming is actually looking better and better. I’m getting more impressed with their on-demand streaming options (lots of educational TV, like NOVA, History Channel, etc. which are crazy expensive to buy on disc).
The CEO should be commended for being a visionary and realizing that disc-based media, which his whole company was founded on, could become the next VHS in a short period of time. Few business leads create something so successful and don’t rest on their laurels, assuming things won’t change. Reed Hastings has wisely bargained a small fraction of the Netflix subscribers’ value (first month availability to rent a movie) to content providers in exchange for more content to provide at available at anytime, nearly anywhere. Few customers will drop Netflix because of this. In fact, with their brilliant moves of pushing streaming content onto every single modern home video game console on the market, they have a tremendous number of ways to get people access to content on the place they wanted it most: their big screen TV. If it wasn’t for live HD sports, I’m pretty sure I could cancel cable TV right now.
Comcast is claiming Xfinity will bring their “content everywhere” goal to life. On Demand from your DVR through the cell networks or wifi to your phone is a great counter to Netflix everywhere. The sticking point I’d have with that being a reality is the HUGE disparity between service quality levels when you compare Netflix and Comcast. With streaming through cell towers coming in weeks, not “one day”, Netflix has already started beating Comcast to market with a similar premise and a lower price. It’s not exactly the same, since you’re limited to Netflix’s streaming library, but the concept is real and it is comparitively inexpensive.
The other angle on this new competition is consumer satisfaction. One of these companies is a service that subscribers LOVE and sell to their friends on the convenience, expediency and quality. One emails subscribers with quick surveys to keep tabs on how they’re doing by gathering data on how quickly subscribers are getting discs and the quality level of streaming content: a method of consistent quality control.
I’ve never, EVER had Comcast ask me how the Eagles game looked in HD, certainly NOT when there were issues with the cable line that weekend. Nor did I ever get the feeling that any complaint I had would be resolved quickly.
The irony is that Netflix is increasingly dependent on Internet service providers and Comcast is also the same company that I’m saying they are competing with (who also owns majority of NBC, a content provider of TV shows that Netflix rents and streams).
If battle lines haven’t been drawn, they may be soon. I wonder if a break down of net neutrality would ever have negative effects on the stream quality a firm like Comcast allows to a competitor like Netflix streaming content. Suddenly, that net neutrality issue is no longer about cutting down on piracy through bit torrent. It’s potentially about Internet service providers limiting consumer choice and monoploistic practices.
Gmail Adds Drag-and-Drop to File Attachments
Yeah, this is going to save me a lot of time.
http://mashable.com/2010/04/15/gmail-drag-and-drop/
The longterm goal of the iPad
Apple doesn’t intend to replace the laptop. It’s meant to be a new hybrid computer product that appeals to someone who doesn’t need a traditional operating system, with menus to search through to find commands, just to get done 90% of what we all do with a computer. Windows XP/Vista/7 tablets have all been the computer equivalent of a Gamecube game with Wii waggle tacked on, and not developed for motion controls. Most early Wii games were gimmicky, not fully-realized motion/pointer controlled.
Apple is applying a few new approaches to computing with this to be the first true touchscreen computer.
A specialized operating system for touchscreen interface.
People think of the form of a computer device as the method of functionality: keyboard, screen, abstract pointer device (mouse, touchpad). Think of the iPad as a more universal form of content consumption without those limitations. The form is meant for light use because it’s physically light and convenient, but the interaction is also more efficient for those 90% of tasks. This is how I think the Apple crew sold it to Steve Jobs, who kept sending the concept back to the drawing board, because he wouldn’t sell a smaller, underpowered laptop or something that just surfs the web while you’re on the can.
By scaling up the iPhone operating system to the iPad, Apple is choosing to embrace a new method of how we use and what we can expect from computers based on these new hardware interface capabilities that make the mouse and hardware keyboard unnecessary for primary computer tasks, while maintaining the Bluetooth hardware keyboard sync so it CAN be the thing you write longer emails or Word documents on. They could have taken the Mac’s full OSX system, popped it into a traditional tablet computer and tacked on touch controls to replace mouse functions (like Windows 7 tablets do), but the approach would lack an intention of design, marrying form factor to the system and content delivery, which is Apple’s greatest strength.
File management.
Think of how often you create and manage file folders to organize your digital stuff. Why do we do this? To catalog and make it easier to find later. And yet, we still lose shit in a complex file structure. These days we have a stronger system search (compare Google’s Desktop search results to Windows XP file searching and you’ll see the difference). We have meta tags (descriptions of files beyond the very limiting file name). As we move forward in the digital era, we’ll rely further on computers to be our bookshelf, movie and music collections. Sifting through entire collections is going to be even more complex and overwhelming for casual computer users. File names won’t cut it and casual users hate trying to find shit.
Compare a photo library in file folders you make in Windows to how Apple’s iPhoto works. You open a program you want to use and have a series of thumbnail images of what files that the program can manipulate, regardless of where they are on the computer. They’re organized by events you choose, not folders with limited character names. It makes it less abstract and more intuitive. It also uses meta tags to organize content.
For instance, it pulls digital photos off your camera and groups them into an “Event” based on the camera’s meta data (date/time when photo was taken) with a thumbnail image from the group to represent it (like a photo of me blowing out candles to represent all the photos from my 30th birthday). But if I want to find all the photos of Jaclyn across all events, iPhoto uses software to identify her face in all the files in the system. Try doing that with files named 100_104.jpg from your digital camera in folders strewn through your My Photos folder. Do I take time to name each individual photo with a file name “Jaclyn doing something.jpg” to describe it and find it later? It feels archaic in comparison. Now make the form of that computer just a touchscreen, make it thin, light, and coffee-table presentable. A netbook doesn’t serve that purpose of presentation or organization.
Take this approach to photos and scale it up to the entire system’s file management. Most casual users save every download to the Documents folder or the desktop. How many times have you seen a casual user’s (or even experienced user’s) desktop loaded with files because they don’t want to take the time to archive them into a folder structure. It’s a drag.
iPhone OS hides the file system from the user, which is what polarizes people. Some get it because they can appreciate the simplicity of a front end for efficient, causal use, while others denigrate Apple for dumbing down the computer system and not fully exposing the system to the user (for user tinkering and customization). Most people don’t need that kind of access to their computer because they wouldn’t know what to do with it and have no interest in learning.
Customized touch UI is better than tacking on touch features to an existing one.
Creating an OS for touch interface instead of tacking touch onto an existing OS is the unique aspect of this. Once you’ve used a touch-screen device like iPhone, iPod Touch, Droid or Palm Pre, you see the difference. When you directly interact with digital content with your fingers instead of something else, the UI presents functions at the point of contact with pop-over lists, something the iPad UI is expanding on. It’s a smoother, faster experience.
All traditional computer programs have menus across the top with the features and functions buried in drop down menus, which aren’t in close proximity to the point of interaction (except the limited functions list presented by a right-button mouse click). We’ve gotten used to that time-wasting learning curve for software, learning what functions are available and finding where they are in menus. Perfect example: When you highlight text on a touchscreen device, immediately a little pop-up appears to tell you what you can do with it. No further interaction is needed from the user to find out what you can do with the selection. Physically stretching a photo with your fingers is better than Menu > Photo > Expand > 30%.
The lacking feature of Flash plug-ins, the peripheral add ones to connect to a camera or SD card, the jokes about the name and other complaints are myopic when you consider the next several years worth of iPad clones that will come along. We still don’t know how reliant this version of iPad is to connect to a desktop PC. Is there wireless sync of Word files from my desktop to my iPad? Do I have to sync via USB cable? Is it strongly tied to a cloud computer system? Can you store files on Apple’s MobileMe server so you always have access to them everywhere instead?
A laptop is a desktop system with a screen attached, and a tablet is a laptop system with a tacked on touchscreen. The interaction is a crunched version of the desktop. This is a true touchscreen computer right off the U.S.S. Enterprise. Did Geordi LaForge ever sift through a file menu with a stylus on his PADD? Did Data have trouble finding the Tachyon Pulse command somewhere in the deflector dish settings? I know that was fiction, but this is a step to actually getting us there. That’s really cool to me because I’m a nerd for this stuff. It should have been what the tech media focused on and not the spec sheets.
Goodbye clog-prone scroll ball
Just got one of these from Apple. I still think Logitech makes the best mice on the market, but this feels like a nice upgrade over the Apple (formerly Mighty) Mouse.
Oooh... Oooh... it's MAGIC!
Ars Technica review:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/11/you-win-some-you-lose-some-a-review-of-apples-magic-mouse.ars
Apple’s weakest product may finally be getting an upgrade
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/02/apple_plans_mighty_mouse_makeover.html
The multi-button Mighty Mouse has been a mixed bag. The sleek design that hides the impressive functionality of four zones of separate interaction is ultimately set back by the scroll ball at the top. Most professionals I know recommend a Logitech mouse that’d more customized for ergonomics and extended use. Unfortunately, even the average user is paying a premium for a MIghty Mouse, and it’s a rare Apple product that doesn’t lead its class.
Desktop Mac users know this all too well: the scrollball rolls and the window doesn’t scroll in response. It’s got some kind of little clog in there, and no, you can’t take it apart to self-clean. You occassionally turn the mouse over and roll it around on a clean surface (probably a piece of paper) until it works again… for a few weeks, then it inevitably fails again. Flip, roll, repeat, and then you ask where the hell the quality that you paid for went.
This solution sounds like a significant quality upgrade by replacing the problem area of most hardware: physical moving parts. Solid state drives (flash memory like SD cards vs. hard drive disks) are less prone to problems because they don’t have moving parts, and the scroll ball on the Mighty Mouse is another great example of something to replace for functionality and usability.
It’s a shame it took so long, but here’s hoping it’s a perfect solution. Average users have suffered for too long, and pros have spent a lot of money upgrading from a general disappointment.
Are the Beatles clinging to CD release for corporate spite?
So tomorrow’s iPod-centric Apple event won’t be including the Beatles coming to iTunes on the day the remastered CDs come to retail. Apple Corps (The Beatles) has fueded with Apple Inc (formerly Apple Computer), so you have to wonder if this is a continuation of that. I would think this isn’t some silly way of preventing Apple Inc from making money on Beatles music, considering the post-Beatles music by John, Paul, George and Ringo is available on iTunes. Do the artists (and their estates) have less control over their single-career music than Apple Corps does of Beatles music?
This music will still wind up in iPods/iPhones when CD buyers Import to iTunes. This seems like a weird sort of timing. Are the Beatles (and estates) looking for more money from an iTunes distribution deal than Apple Inc was willing to give? Is it the opposite, and there’s actually a super secret digital exclusivity deal with Apple Inc? It’s not like Amazon’s MP3 store announced that it’s digitally distributing this music tomorrow.
Or maybe the Rock Band deal has a timed exclusivity? I still don’t see how an MP3 competes with a Rock Band download. People already buy music licenses for different devices twice (or for cell phone ring tones, THRICE).
If Apple Inc doesn’t announce Beatles on iTunes tomorrow, it’s a weird bit of timing, and will probably result in whispered conversation wondering why that isn’t happening, and that hasn’t worked out so well for AT&T’s reputation, with them delaying MMS and tethering on iPhone.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/08/despite_date_beatles_not_coming_to_itunes_wednesday_report.html
UPDATE: Just a weird bit of timing, I suppose.
Google enters the netbook OS ring
Google announces development for open source Chrome OS for netbooks
That sound you hear is Microsoft and its third party support sweating (even just a little). The dominance of the market share is splintering further. Let’s see: Google is #1 in search, RIM’s Blackberry OS is probably #1 in mobile OS, with iPhone, Google Android and Palm Pre’s WebOS getting good reviews and growing fast, Microsoft IE is the #1 web browser, but continuously losing market share, and Windows is still #1 desktop/laptop OS (this is based on what I’ve read and seen and is not 100% fact, but I’d put money on this being REAL close). I hear more and more positive things about Linux, with netbooks getting more prominent as low-cost portable computer solutions.
Apple notebook sales are growing stronger than other manufacturers’ (in a lousy economy, too) and their marketing forced Microsoft to respond, and do so awkwardly. They’ve had to spend a lot of money to overcome Vista’s faults, such as the annoying security messages, initial driver problems, and most importantly, Microsoft’s business model that allowed third party hardware pre-installed with Vista without the specs to optimally run it. First they had Bill Gates hang out with Jerry Seinfeld to our amusement. Lately they’ve been marketing as the low-cost provider, sending people into a Best Buy with cash for a notebook, but leaving out the hidden extra costs involved, like a need for an annual anti-virus software license, the more expensive Windows 7 upgrade (when compared to the price of Snow Leopard for a Mac buyer/Leopard OSX owner) and the stark difference in brand consumer satisfaction. My earlier blog post was about the weird decision to use gross imagery to market IE8, in a desperate attempt for attention.
Google has the money and brand power to further split the market that Microsoft and Linux are sharing. This next decade will be very different from the 90s. VERY different.
Internet leading our next step in evolution?
You have to love the open-minded, scientific genius. Stephen Hawking things we’re in a new evolutionary step.
The Internet is certainly an enormous leap over print publishing with its speed and participant access to join the cultural collective consciousness, but so far, it’s been a sociological evolution. The speed at which knowledge is shared has evolved beyond even the first incarnation of the Internet. CD-ROM killed the print encyclopedia and Wikipedia replaced Encarta. E-mail was limited to who you directed the knowledge to be shared because you needed their e-mail address, just like you needed a mailing address for print letters. Chat rooms were limited to a specific time and group, not much difference from a conference call. The newer social web, with server-based storage of those interactions, which doesn’t require a specific time-frame (made possible by server storage and some nifty JavaScript work) or specific address (just search for them on Facebook). The more people expect others to be on Facebook, the more people will join. It is far more efficient for a participant’s time, like DVR-ing an on-going, digitally public conversation.
The social web is happening just as the mobile web is transferring from “business class” to “coach”. A brilliant scientist can write from anywhere to potentially everyone. It’s stored somewhere, for all to see, and they can instantly share it with everyone they know, who can then share it with the next group level out, and the knowledge spreads super fast. Unfortunately, the same power is given to an idiot who can’t string a sentence together in the comments section of a website.
A mobile web device is a world-wide communicator. Combined with a social web site, it’s a powerful tool and is not limited to some silly fad for celebrities or for moms to post baby pictures. It’s being used for potential social change. I love that the State Department specifically requested that Twitter delay shutting down for maintenance because it was a great subversive tool to embrace the public outcry in Iran and undermine Ahmadinejad’s re-election. The Internet used as a foreign policy weapon without the bad PR of a loss of American blood and money.
But again, that’s all sociological change. Evolution would require some change to our biological existence.
Will we achieve eugenics altering technology before, after or concurrently with cybernetic enhancements? Either way, Hawking brings up a good point: we’ll have evolved on our own terms. It sounds very cool: less hereditary diseases, on-board knowledge at any second, but it’s also very scary:
Resistance is futile
I need to watch this again.
What happens to our species when we direct our own evolution?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
You stay classy, Microsoft
Microsoft is using an ad online featuring a woman projectile vomiting from seeing something in her significant other’s browsing history to market Internet Explorer 8. They’re promoting the new private browsing feature, hosted by TV’s former Superman, Dean Cain. Yep, it’s real. I wish I was kidding: http://mashable.com/2009/07/01/ie-vomiting/
Another example of Microsoft’s horrendously awful marketing lately. Apple uses Justin Long and John Hodgman. Fun and clever. Microsoft uses bullshit laptop buyers in a Best Buy going for cheap instead of quality, and now, projectile vomiting.
Ironically, it’s how I feel when writing CSS bug fixes for IE6.
What will we see from them to market Windows 7? Someone with a stomach virus and diarrhea thanks to a lesser operating system? I can’t wait.
Safari 4 supports HTML 5 features and CSS 3
No longer in Beta.
http://www.apple.com/safari/what-is.html
Nice to see advanced web design/development feature support. It’s nice to see a major computer company pushing innovation on the web.
The browser wars wage on.
