Oct 20
This isn’t just for kids. I NEED one too! From Amazon.com
The Löopa gyro-bowl may look like it’s out of this world because, well, it is. Made with revolutionary spill-resistant technology, the Löopa gyro-bowl will keep your kids entertained and your living room clean at snack time. With gravity-defying engineering, dry food and snacks stay inside the bowl and off your floor no matter what kind of high-flying fun your kids get into.
Over at iLounge they recently tested the picture quality of Blu-Ray, Apple TV 2.0 against DVD and HD Cable. Although not a scientific test, they paused the pictures and used a Nikon camera to capture the images, it does show the vast differences between the formats and the effects of compression.
Apple recently upgraded my Apple TV to version 2.0 and I rented an HD movie. The startup time was very quick, less than 2 minutes, although you have to navigate a couple of menus while it buffers–very un-Apple like. Once the download buffered sufficiently, playback was smooth. Overall the video quality was excellent, not Blu-ray quality but sufficient to warrant the difference in price for the HD rental–an extra dollar. The movie appeared a bit dark. I immediately thought Apple might be covering some compression artifacts.
Overall, AppleTV is great for the impulse rental satisfying a need that Netflix (via mail) cannot satisfy (Netflix download service doesn’t work with Mac and I don’t want to watch on my computer anyway).
From BusinessWeek: Unusually aggressive guidance didn’t stop analysts from making even more optimistic predictions for the iPhone maker in 2008.
There’s a guessing game that goes on with Apple’s quarterly financial reports which goes something like this:
Apple (AAPL) gives realistic yet understated forecasts for sales and profit in the coming quarter. Analysts, knowing Apple usually predicts lower results than it delivers, then read tea leaves to give clients the real deal on what to expect.
Was Apple taking a new tack and giving aggressive numbers closer to the “real” target or still giving the understated outlook? The consensus among analysts seems to be the latter, and they’re back to making predictions for the coming year that may send the minds of even longtime Apple watchers reeling. Even some of the most optimistic among them may be right.
It is premature to remove Verizon from the list of anti-tech companies, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.
In yet another sudden shift, Verizon Wireless plans to support Google’s (GOOG) new software platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. Verizon Wireless had been one of several large cellular carriers withholding support from the Android initiative Google launched in early November.But given the stunning U-turn Verizon Wireless made Nov. 27, announcing plans to allow a broader range of devices and services on its network, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. “We’re planning on using Android,” McAdam tells BusinessWeek. “Android is an enabler of what we do.”
Check out this Gizmode piece called “10 Reasons We Are Doomed… SkyMall Edition”. Gadgets and gimmicks, featured in the Holiday 2007 SkyMall catalog, prove without a doubt that the human race is going straight to Hell”
Someone thought it would be a good idea to model their home theater after the Enterprise NCC-1701D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The result is super geeky, but actually rather cool. The system also features “one of the largest Kaleidescape hard-drive based storage systems” ever created, amassing eight servers with 3,816 DVDs.
Cliff Sullivan from BusinessWeek writes,
But I won’t be getting it soon. While the technology is mostly in place, the players—from cable companies to film studios—can’t agree on how to make it happen.
I want to listen to music, have a box pop up on my screen telling me who’s phoning my home, or watch a vacation-themed slide show before forwarding it on to bore my friends on Facebook—all while sitting in front of the set in my living room. No one has yet put this wish list together in one nice, easy-to-use package.
They sure haven’t. As the author correctly points out, the reason is not the technology, but protection of existing business models. No one is addressing the gap between online content and the television.
While new technologies like IPTV bring digital content over IP to a STB connected to a TV, they do nothing to bridge the gap between online media and the TV.
So read the article at the BusinessWeek site and weigh in. What do you think? Is anyone addressing this gap? Do you want to watch online media on your TV? What features would you like to see in an iTV offering?
If your home is like mine, then you have a multi-megabit broadband connection, one or more HD capable TV sets, a wired or wireless home network and one or more PCs (ok mine aren’t all PCs–6 of them are Macs, and one PC running FreeBSD).
While having 7 computers, takes my home out of the norm (is it the number of computers or the fact that 6 of them are Macs?), my home suffers the same dilemma as the average consumer’s home. There is a gaping digital chasm between the personal computer and the television set.
There are several ways to watch downloaded programs and movies on the living room TV. Methods typically involve the transfer of video files over a home network from a computer to some gadget (I have an Apple TV, does that count as another computer?) connected to the TV. But few of them are easy, trust me I have tried them all.
The maker of the Sansa, a distant No. 2 to the iPod, has a new way to view downloaded content on a TV. It could turn up the heat on Apple.
SanDisk CEO Eli Harari says launching Fanfare has less to do with attacking Apple in a potentially tender spot than about establishing a toehold in an incipient market. “The video market right now is just embryonic,” he says. “Media companies have spent a great deal of money creating their content and they don’t want anyone to tell them how to sell it. And we agree with them.”
For David Poltrack, president of CBS Vision, the TV broadcaster’s research division, it’s a matter of getting the networks’ programming in places that consumers will use it. “When we tested the SanDisk product it clearly resonated with consumers,” Poltrack says. “There are other ways to do this with more sophisticated products, but because of cost and complexity they’re not as attractive. This is going to be selling at Wal-Mart (WMT).”
Combining the TakeTV device with the Fanfare service creates the means of tracking ads, he says. “When you plug in that device to the computer and sign in to the service it knows who you are,” he says. “Having people say these are the categories of ads they’re interested in—that opens up a lot of ways for advertisers to use this medium creatively.”
Taking a low-tech approach on PC-to-TV transfers could make a big difference to consumers weary of technical complexity, says Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. “We know consumers want to watch downloaded video on their TVs. But the biggest weakness is the complexity of the home network,” he says. “This takes the maddening complexity of the home network out of the equation.”
Sounds like a a lot of walking back and forth between PC & TV to me and completely misses the impulsive nature of TV consumption.
Oct 22
As Brier Dudley from the Seattle Times points out in his latest article,
A lot of people who bought fancy TVs over the past year or two have been looking for ways to get more digital content on their screens. They’ve been waiting for high-def player prices to fall, and for a resolution to the format war between the Sony-backed Blu-ray and the Microsoft-backed HD-DVD.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. My repsonse: You bet they do, but not just from Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs, more and more they want to get content online. Blu-ray is great and I enjoy watching HD movies on my PS3. But more and more, I would really like to be able to access online content.
Dudley continues,
That’s where Sony is releasing an add-on TV tuner that turns the PS3 into a TiVo-like video recorder. It’s also where Sony is talking up plans for an online video and music store, similar to the ones operated here by Microsoft and Amazon.
Cool, I can watch and record TV and even download videos and music directly from Sony. Sounds great, doesn’t it? What about my iTunes library, YouTube, Flickr and all the other content available online? Will I be able listen/view that content? What about online content like Hulu? Will Sony make all that available and stream it to my PS3? Well, it’s too early to say for sure, to my knowledge Sony hasn’t been specific about online content for its PS3 platform, but based on the past behavior let’s say–I doubt it.
Dudley asks the pivotal question,
Will we keep using PCs to download and store this stuff, or will some computerish consumer-electronics gadget emerge as the new home-entertainment hub?
With game consoles in over 40% of US households and with most of the consoles in broadband connected households, the PS3, XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii, could play a pivotal roles as an entertainment hubs. The problem is each of these companies has a vested interest in building an ecosystem around their platform and only their platform. Call it an “insular ecosystem”. So when Sony builds their online content service, it will serve PS3s and only PS3s. Microsoft will counter with an expanded 360 content platform serving only 360s. And lest one forget, the PS3 (and the 360) as game platforms first and foremost.
While both Sony and Microsoft have become more comfortable with the “give away the razor, sell the blades” economics of game consoles (I am sure they would both vehemently state their hardware businesses are profitable–sure they are, because they can dump much of the costs into another category on the P&L), content and services will be rolled almost exclusively as a platform differentiator. In other words, they will view online content and services as a marketing expense to sell more hardware to sell more games.
As long as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo create insular ecosystems, the game console as a digital hub will never take off.
For now, it is great to see the online connectivity options enhanced on the PS3. I am certain there will be more to this story.
If you’ve shopped for an HDTV, a PlayStation 3, or an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player, you’ve probably heard about HDMI. It can seem like just one of many connections on televisions or home-theater receivers. But HDMI is more than a port on the back of a TV (and the often expensive cable that fits inside). It’s a set of rules for allowing high-definition electronic devices to communicate.
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