Recently in Popular Media Category

I was exploring a baby name site as an example of interesting data visualization tools and started plugging in first names of people I knew and their kids when I made an interesting, yet (in retrospect) obvious, connection:  names from popular media quickly become fodder for people naming their newly born children.

Here are a few examples (all screen shots are from the NameMapper website):

The TV show Friends debuted in 1994 and ran until 2004, matching exactly the run that the boy's name Chandler had in the top 100 names in several states.

The Matrix came out in 1999. The girl's name Trinity went from basically having no presence to being among the top 50 (if not top 25) names in many states by 2000.

Mariah Carey released her first album in 1991 and made her the first recording artist ever to have a freshman release with 5 Billboard Top-100 singles.  And, not surprisingly, Mariah became a top-50 name in several states almost immediately.

If there's one thing that can be gleaned from this, it's that kindergarten teachers can probably expect to welcome multitudes of little girls named Miley starting in the next year or so.

As I have for several years now, below are my predictions for 2010.  Near the end of the year, I'll come back and evaluate how accurate I was.

1) Cyberterrorism Becomes a Significant Issue
We've all read reports and stories that say cyberterrorism (the act of attacking a country via its computer networks) is a growing threat and that the US should take it seriously.  We've even seen some limited cases where it was used to minor effect.  I expect 2010 will see the first major example of the damage cyberterrorism can achieve, and we'll all be much more aware of it as a result.  Sub-prediction: McAfee and Symantec sales grow significantly as a result.

2) Microsoft Launches Windows Mobile 7, Enough to Stay in the Game
The smartphone space is inhabited mostly by 6 key platform players: Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone, Android, webOS, and Windows Mobile.  Microsoft's recent endeavors in the mobile space haven't netted much (except perhaps some slight momentum on the media player side). WinMo 6.5 was late and generally uncompetitive with more contemporary offerings already in the marketplace. Pink was an absolute disaster. Even hardcore WinMo fans are getting restless for something really new. Windows Mobile 7 will have a daunting challenge in successfully fighting back against 5 competitors with better products and/or well-established market shares.  Windows Mobile 7, when it comes out in the latter half of 2010, will still seem a little stale in comparison, but much better than 6.5.  I do, however, fully expect 7 will tap into the other mobile products & services Microsoft has been cultivating, such as Bing and Zune (what is it with their onomotopoeic product names?).  It won't be a barnburner, but, with some help from HTC and a couple other big-name handset producers Microsoft can count on, they'll have a small stable of fairly impressive devices available by the end of the year.

3) 3-D Gets Even More Press but No Real Traction in the Home
3-D televisions and video players will be all over the place at CES, but their availability and technical trade-offs will keep them from seeing significant adoption in 2010.  Long-term, however, I think 3-D will eventually take off, but I doubt it will happen as long as viewers have to wear special glasses in order to not be nauseated by the image.

4) Fervor over Social Search Subsides but Doesn't Die Out
Social search (i.e., using real-time social media as sources of useful information for returning search results) is all the rage as we enter 2010.  I think that the major search engines (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo!, et al.) will all figure out by the end of the year that, while social search has some promise for a small subset of queries, information produced by social media is largely junk and an unreliable source of value to their customers (search engine users).  However, there is some gold in them thar hills, and we'll start seeing the fruits of their efforts as they isolate those situations where social search can indeed be really, really valuable (e.g., product reviews and event status).

5) Movies and TV Shows Go Mashup...and Not in a Good Way
A lot of media producers seem to be running out of ideas, so I think they'll start going for unique combinations of themes and concepts to fuel their movies and television shows. Think space vampires and hot robot/android women battling killer zombies driving souped-up, well-armed cars really fast around Las Vegas.  Coming soon to theaters near you.

6) Apple Announces a Tablet
Yes, I'm a sucker for this rumor-that-will-not-die.  It's not like I'm even a fan of the tablet concept, so this isn't something I'm particularly hoping will happen.  I just think it will.  Imagine a 7"-to-10" iPhone Touch and you won't be too far off.  Oh, and it will be more expensive than anyone who isn't an Apple shareholder thinks is reasonable, yet it will sell quite well (at least initially).

7) SuperSpeed USB Takes Off Quickly
I think we'll see SuperSpeed USB (a.k.a. USB 3.0) be adopted very rapidly in 2010.  Signs from motherboard and accessory makers are that they're very eager to adopt this recently ratified standard, and I think everyone would agree that faster USB connections is only a good thing.  As long as they don't screw up backward compatibility (one of the keys to USB 2.0 being as successful as it has been), it'll be another home run. On a related note, Wireless USB will not get the attention or traction we'd all like a stable, high-speed wireless connectivity standard to get, mostly because it just won't be as simple as plugging a wire into a hole.

8) Steve Jobs Gives an Apple Keynote Presentation
Might Sir Jobs be the "one more thing" at WWDC?

9) Sprint is Acquired
The cellular carrier's weak valuation and lackluster performance in retaining customers and attracting new ones, combined with its continued WiMAX roll-out will make it a target for some kind of merger or acquisition, likely by a European carrier looking to get entry into the US market.  The actual acquisition may not go through in 2010 due to extensive regulatory review, but the intent will be announced.

10) Twitter Grows at a Slower Rate than in 2009
Twitter will continue to gain new members faster than it loses them, but it will not see the huge surge it enjoyed in 2009.  This will mostly be because the company's management has a tenuous, at best, grasp on what its users want (leading it to make bad design decisions) and a business model that does not support both rapid growth and scalable, reliable service (thereby turning off users).  It's too bad, too, as Twitter could've become the next Facebook had they played their cards right.  The only thing that can save it is an acquisition...Google, perhaps?

So that's it for my 2010 predictions.  What do you think will happen in the upcoming year?

It's been about 8 months since our first Hot/Not List, so I thought I'd post an updated one:

HOT

• Logitech Squeezebox - After Logitech's acquisition of Slim Devices, a lot of fans of the smaller company's products were concerned that innovation would halt and corporate fossilization would set in, as happens in so many of these cases. Well, it couldn't be further from the truth. Slim's innovative products are benefiting from Logitech's branding and distribution muscle and the combined firm is churning out really impressive audio streaming devices. Our home audio ecosystem now consists of a Squeezebox Duet controller, two receivers, and a Boom; these three cover about 80% of the house and it's wonderful to have perfectly synced music streamed throughout without breaking the bank.
  
• Palm - The Pre smartphone was the buzz of CES and is still making strong headlines at MWC. Sprint may have a winner on its hands with this new device.
  
• Sprint - Coming off a really impressive turnaround regarding its customer service and anticipation of its 4G wireless network, Sprint could be poised for strong growth in the next few years.
  
• Aptera - So far, this innovative hypermileage boutique car-maker in California has avoided some of the pitfalls that its performance-oriented sibling Tesla Motors has made, and the 2e vehicle it should be shipping very soon looks like it could be a key evolutionary link in transforming the way we think about cars.
  
• Twitter - Easily the most addictive thing I've tried recently.
  
• Windows 7 - Sure, it's still in beta, but I am SO looking forward to its release. As much as I've panned Vista over the years, I think 7 will be a winner.
  

NOT

• Cloud-Based Contact Management - Even with Google's recent improvements to Gmail Contacts, there are no really excellent cloud-friendly contact management solutions available. The best I've found is ClearSync, and that isn't as widely compatible as most would like.
• Battery Technology - Seriously...scientists and engineers have been working on this for decades and we're still not fundamentally better than we were 20 years ago.
• Obese Netbooks - Almost by definition, a "netbook" should be incredibly lightweight. Why, then, are we seeing netbooks weighing over 3 lbs released to market??
• Winter - by definition. I am quite ready for Spring, thanks very much.
• Digital Transition Delay - We set the date for February 17th, and now Congress is pushing it back to June 12 for those stations that want extra time. Why? Delaying it doesn't solve anything and, in fact, actually increases the costs of the conversion and sows more consumer confusion. Clearly a lose-lose proposition.

CNN.com and Facebook have partnered to bring a unified live, social experience for the 2009 Inauguration of Barack Obama today. It's accessible to everyone; Facebook account not needed to view (but needed to comment).

It's a pretty cool collaboration...I expect the merging of live TV from established channels with social media functions to be a big theme of 2009.

Once again, here are GearBits' prognostications for the coming year. If you're interested, check out how our predictions for 2008 panned out, or previous years' predictions.

1) Microsoft Launches Windows 7 to Fanfare, Skepticism
Microsoft's two pillars of financial solvency -- Windows and Office -- have been standing on shaky ground recently. Office 2007 was a decent hit, despite it not offering much new and causing significant backward compatibility issues. But Windows Vista, on the other hand, has been an unmitigated disaster. Microsoft even had to resort to tricking users into liking Vista (Mojave, anyone?), it had developed such a bad reputation. Windows 7 will be launched late in 2009 to a general consensus of "it's better," but will not be the "wow" that Microsoft needs to regain the market share it has recently ceded to Apple. But maybe that's a good thing...having strong competitors is usually a good thing for consumer markets.

2) Blockbuster Declares Bankruptcy
This may be a bit "out there," but I see exceedingly tough times at Blockbuster. And this isn't vindictiveness...I've been a reasonably happy Blockbuster.com customer for several years, now. I just think that, given the state of its business (poor), the weakness in the economy (near-critical), the nature of its service (luxury), and the rapidity with which that industry is transforming, I think Blockbuster will file for bankruptcy protection to get out of some of its debt, sell off some property (store locations that aren't faring well), and reinvest that into developing newer and more attractive services. So, they aren't going away...yet.

3) Palm Launches New OS to Fanfare, Skepticism
We've all heard the rumors that Palm will be launching "Nova," its replacement for the ancient Palm OS, at CES 2009 in a few days. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen. I'm also pretty sure that Palm will have at least one new device, if not several, running the new OS available by the end of June. While launching phones can take a while, given the carriers' lengthy testing requirements, launching a PDA doesn't, so Palm could certainly come out with two (or more) non-phone PDAs running Nova pretty quickly. And it needs to...the TX is older than my grandmother (at least in technology years). Generally, I predict there will be more nice things said about Nova, and the new devices, than critical, and it will stack up fairly competitively with Android and WM 6.5. What I do not have a lot of faith in is Palm's ability to develop and deliver the ecology of services (e.g., app stores) that customers are now expecting their smartphones to be integrated into. Time will tell on that front.

4) Blu-Ray Players Hit $99
During 2009, I think we'll see a raft of Korean and Taiwanese off-brand manufacturers launch budget Blu-Ray players. Just like the 2008 holiday sales saw BD players hit $149 in some stores, 2009 holiday sales will see them hit $99...if not sooner.

5) Apple Launches a Tablet to Fanfare
This has been a persistent rumor for years, but I think 2009 will see it actually happen. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple is looking to multi-touch as a key differentiator in its product lines, and having a full-screen, large-display MT device would make total sense. Second, it fits perfectly with the needs of the "creative class," Apple's core customer base. And third, it fills out a hole in their mobile product line that netbooks and other devices not running OS X fill nicely, and that's not a good thing for Apple. So, the technology is ready, the market is willing...and now I think Apple will be able to meet the demand.

6) Consolidation in the Entertainment Industry
2009 will be a strange year on a lot of dimensions. Not only will the stock market be hard to predict, there will be a lot of odd relationships come out of the mess. One industry that is still poised to make things happen is the entertainment industry, where I expect we'll see larger firms (e.g., major movie studios) start to acquire smaller, but very successful, examples from the newer media (e.g., game producers). A good example of the type of transaction I'm imagining would be Vivendi acquiring Ubisoft. I think Time Warner would love to swallow up Electronic Arts, but that might be a bit too big a bite unless something untoward happens to EA's stock price over the next year.

7) Steve Jobs Announces Transition to New Role
I think concerns over Jobs' health have more merit than most of us want to admit. In 2009, I expect him to announce that he's transitioning into a different role than President and CEO of Apple (and CEO of Pixar). Something that keeps him out of the spotlight while he deals with his health issues will be valuable to keep Apple's stock price up and customer base intact. The move towards reducing his presence in near-term product launches is consistent with this strategy. But, he's far from gone...his influence will still be felt behind the scenes, but we'll see less of him in his traditional role as Apple poster boy.

8) Facebook Membership Growth Flattens; Twitter Surges
Signs are pointing towards Facebook's popularity beginning to peak. Just as with everything social, when moms and dads begin to frequent the coffee shop, the kids need a new place to hang out. Facebook currently has almost 40 million members in the US. While that number has been skyrocketing since it opened up membership to anyone in September 2006, I think 2009 will see a marked deceleration in its growth. The loss of perceived exclusivity and the hassle of the relatively unprotected app space will combine to make it less appealing to many long-time users and new prospects will find fewer people urging them to get on board. Twitter, however, will see continued growth as it continues to tweak and adapt its environment to meet its core users' needs.

9) App Stores Dominate Mobile Software Delivery
iPhone's app store, Android's market...these types of bazaars, managed by the sponsors/manufacturers of the mobile operating systems, are coming to be the dominant mode for software distribution to mobile users. It marks a significant break from the traditional model, where mobile developers could sell software from their own sites, through 3rd party aggregators, and through carriers. This new approach is more streamlined, making it easier for users, but also more controlled, which can make it harder to accommodate large and complex ecosystems. The fact that each of the existing app stores serves a relatively small market is why we haven't seen these problems emerge to a point where they start driving users away. 2009 will see continued movement towards these controlled markets and away from the free-form/multi-channel models that previous mobile generations (e.g., Palm OS, Windows Mobile) relied on.

10) Line Blurs between "Netbooks" and Notebooks/Laptops
Netbooks are currently a fairly homogeneous, and well-defined, niche of laptop computers. Most of them have an Intel Atom processor, a screen from 8.9" to 10" in size, no optical drive, weigh between 2.2 and 3 lbs, and cost $300-$500. There's a big gap in pricing then between these netbooks and the subnotebooks/ultraportables that often have slightly larger screens, way more RAM and processing power, and cost $1,500 or more. To paraphrase the old adage, markets abhor a vacuum, so I expect we'll start seeing all manner of new small notebooks come into the market in this $500-$1000 range sporting screens in the 9"-12" range with anything from 512MB to 2GB of RAM, a variety of operating systems (XP and Linux will continue to be most popular), and a range of processing and display capabilities. Not everyone needs to play Crysis on their notebook, but not everyone can get by with a 1024x600 screen and do everything inside their browser.

So, there you have it...GearBits' predictions for 2009. Some are probably pretty safe bets, and some are bound to be wrong. What do you think will happen?

Each year, we at GearBits post some predictions for the coming year. And then, in the interest of honesty, fairness, and self-deprecation, we take a look back to see how we did. Each of our predictions for 2008 are listed below, along with an update on what actually happened.

1) Blu-Ray Wins the Format War
Yep, I'm going to pick a winner and it's going to be Blu-Ray. The one-two punch of Warner Brothers's move to Blu-Ray exclusivity (from its Switzerland-like neutrality of supporting both formats) later in 2008 and Apple's announcement that BD will be the only HD format available in its products will cement HD DVD's demise. And none too soon. I don't really care which wins...just make it snappy so that prices on players and media can plummet, thanks.

As of now, the end of 2008, it seems like forever since Blu-Ray trounced HD DVD in the format war. But back in early January, it was anyone's guess. But then, on February 18th, Toshiba officially threw in the towel. Interestingly, the Warner Bros. move I thought would happen eventually was actually announced the day after I posted my predictions. Of course, Apple hasn't yet released any products with any form of HD optical drive, so that bit wasn't exactly spot on. And I'm still waiting for my $99 Blu-Ray player. But, overall, this prediction looks pretty solid.

2) Google's Android Shakes Up Phone Industry
For a while now, the cellphone industry has been fairly static. A few smartphone and mobile OS makers have generally tussled for market share, but the overall industry has been pretty evolutionary. Google's entry will prove to be a watershed moment, with open source finally making a big impact in the handheld space (and no, I don't consider the Zaurus to be a big deal...sorry). Actual handsets running Android will be announced, if not available, before the end of 2008.

Depending on your threshold for "shaking up" the phone industry, I think most people would agree that Android made quite a splash in 2008 when the HTC G1 was launched on T-Mobile in the US on September 23rd. And we've already heard of around a dozen hardware makers signed on to release Android handsets. While handset sales still pale in comparison to the iPhone, 2009 looks like it just might be the year of the Android.

3) Palm Supports Android
This is more of a hope than an actual prediction, as I just don't know whether the egos at Palm will let the company do the right thing and admit that their next-generation OS (which has been under development since 2004!) will be a viable contender against Android (which has essentially the same technical details but scads more developer support). But, if cooler, more rational heads prevail at Palm, they'll announce that they're plans will be to produce at least one Android-based product (probably to come out sometime in 2012 :-/ ).

Ouch...I couldn't have been more wrong. While I still think Palm would have been smart to advance their product refurbishment by a full year (maybe more) by going with Android instead of continuing to pursue Nova, the company stuck to its original, go-it-alone plans. We'll see how well that pans out in 2009.

4) Microsoft's HD Photo Replacement for JPEG Image Standard Goes Nowhere
I'm not saying it's a bad idea technically; I'm just saying that JPEG is so entrenched now that replacing it would be about as reasonable a thing to try as would be replacing MP3 with any of the multitudes of better formats. JPEG, like MP3, isn't great, but it's adequate (at least for consumers) and ubiquitous. We'll still be saving all our photos in JPG (and maybe RAW) at the end of 2008...and likely long after that.

JPEG XR, the official name of Microsoft's HD Photo format, has generated essentially zero traction in the camera industry. Part of that is Microsoft's less-than-swift transition of JPEG XR into its quasi-open licensing portfolio, a move that will have to happen for camera makers and developers to trust that they won't be bitten by huge licensing fees in the future if they move their products away from RAW to JPEG XR.

5) Subnotes Will Explode in Availability (and Maybe Popularity)
I've always been a fan of tiny, sub-3-pound laptops, but I think 2008 will see a huge number of these clamshell devices come out of every corner of the consumer electronics space. The Asus EeePC and the OLPC XO Laptop are two examples. While Microsoft had a good idea in its UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) concept, the hardware was just never executed all that well. Frankly, I think a 7" touchscreen for Windows is just too difficult. But, going with the traditional clamshell design and using cheaper and/or smaller technologies (e.g., flash memory instead of a HDD) will bring us a raft of interesting (and some good) designs at <$500 price points. Bring 'em on! And I think we'll start to see a lot more people toting these things along that traditionally avoided laptops for whatever reason (cost, weight, etc.).

Bingo. If the shelves at Best Buy and Circuit City are any indication, these "netbooks" (the now-favored term...at least by everyone except Psion) have multiplied faster than Tribbles on Cialis. One glance at the huuuge list of netbooks over at small-notebooks.com is enough evidence to suggest that this prediction was spot on.

6) The GPS War Heats Up
TomTom, Nokia, and Garmin will exchange hostile fire over the GPS market due to convuluted agreements regarding mapping data as well as market-share for hardware. Products will continue to decline in price and improve in functionality, and >50% of cellphones will have some form of GPS functionality available on them. I guess that's two predictions in one...oh well.

I'm going to give myself this one. While we haven't heard that much more about the complex licensing agreements involving the big three, you need only walk through a Staples, Radio Shack, or Target to see a vast assortment of portable GPS units now available for under $150, most even having text-to-speech and other advanced functions. That's in direct comparison to late last year, when it was difficult to find a decent unit for under $300.

7) DRM Hits Choppy Water
2007 saw some movement away from DRM (digital rights management), especially in the music industry, but I expect we'll see similar initiatives in all areas of media. DRM has been proven again and again to be little more than an expensive technological boondoggle, and the leading innovators at the consumer media interface (e.g., Apple, Amazon, and Google) will make some headway into reversing the trend of more encumbrance for our media. The RIAA and MPAA will continue to fight it...they know how to do nothing else...but economic results will start to demonstrate that DRM actually hurts profitability.

Nope...we didn't hear much consistent with my prediction. While some markets moved towards offering DRM-free downloads, most are still heavily laden. And the RIAA actually reversed its strategy and is now no longer suing everyone and their mother for alleged downloading. So that's two different ways I was off on this one. Just goes to show that there's no telling what the content owners are thinking.

8) Major Tech Stocks End 2008 Up Significantly
These are bound to be wrong, but what the heck...nobody pays me for stock tips. I think Apple will end 2008 at 235, Google will be at 960, and Microsoft will finish the year at 50. As for other stocks, iRobot will end up at either 46 or 12 (can you tell I'm a cynical shareholder?), IBM will show tepid growth to 112, and RIM, hurt by the continued weak US dollar and facing increasing competition, will struggle to match its 1-year high of 127.

Uh, no. While I doubt many saw the massive downturn in stocks coming, tech stocks are decidedly not even slightly better off than most. Let's see how my specific price predictions held up:
  • Apple (AAPL): Predicted = 235; Actual = 86.29
  • Google (GOOG): Predicted = 960; Actual = 303.11
  • Microsoft (MSFT): Predicted = 50; Actual = 19.34
  • iRobot (IRBT): Predicted = 46 or 12; Actual = 8.95
  • IBM (IBM): Predicted = 112; Actual = 83.55
  • Research in Motion (RIMM): Predicted = 127; Actual = 38.77
In summary, do not ask me to manage your stock portfolio...you would be better served by setting your money on fire, as then you could at least stay warm for a while.

9) I Buy a New Laptop and Am Disappointed
My Panasonic CF-W2 is now three-and-a-half-years-old and I'm starting to cringe every time I turn it on (my luck with hard drives makes me skeptical of many living past their 4th birthday). I've been looking at possible replacements (e.g., Toshiba R500, Panasonic W7, maybe the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 or the rumored Apple subnote) and so far every single one has some significant trade-offs. So, I expect I'll get one and it will turn out to be not significantly better than my aging Toughbook. You'd think in nearly four years that two grand would buy something markedly superior. We'll see...

Unfortunately, I was right on this. The Fujitsu LifeBook P8010 I ended up purchasing in February is a good laptop...don't get me wrong. It's just not a heads-and-shoulders better laptop than my ToughBook was, and that's what I was expecting given the nearly 4 years newer technology and the $2500 it cost. And, given that I've already had to send it in for a repair (the power button broke off), I'm guessing the durability won't even come close to that of the Panasonic (which I still use regularly around the house).

10) Major Changes in Automotive Industry Announced
While the car business makes actual change only very slowly, we'll see some huge announcements in 2008 that will fundamentally change the future of that industry. Things like record oil prices, an increasing attention to sustainable/green technology, and significant ownership changes will substantially change the competitive landscape. Make no mistake; Toyota will continue its ascent and eclipse GM as #1 car-maker in the world. But, we will see several major announcements that will start affecting actual consumers in 2009 and beyond.

While I didn't get the stock predictions exactly right (OK, not even close), I think it's safe to say that the US automotive industry has been shaken up with major changes during 2008. We saw record oil prices (check!), more attention to green tech (check!), and the bottom dropping out of US consumption didn't leave them anywhere to go except to the Congress for help. And Toyota did indeed become the biggest carmaker in the world in 2008, just as predicted. Let's hope the Volt truly is something special...for all our sakes.

So, there you have it: our final score is 7 winners and 3 losers. I'll take it. :-)

In a couple of days, I'll be posting GearBits' predictions for 2009, so make sure you come back and check those out, m'kay?

When you cover up a third of the screen for the first 30 seconds after every commercial break, it makes me want to chuck the remote straight into the screen and go be entertained by the Internet.

Today's headline from CNN is "Poll: Race for White House tied".

It's been a lot of work to bring John McCain back from irrelevant, but for American mainstream media, no task is too large when profitability is on the line.

So, prepare to see lots and lots of "the race is too close to call" between now and November; the media wouldn't have it any other way.

Maybe I'm a little slow to realize this, but the major and traditional news media need the presidential race, actually political competition in general, to be excruciatingly close.

I don't believe most general news outlets are significantly biased (although there are some disturbing exceptions), but one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the media will work very hard to ensure that the contest is a close one. They will not settle for an easy victory. Rather, they will work to ensure that the underdog gets better, and more, coverage than the front-runner.

They do so for simple economic reasons. Media is a business. They rely on syndication of their content and advertising as their primary sources of revenue. If the contest is not close, people lose interest in the race and there is less consumption of stories about the race. This hinders syndication revenue and reduces the opportunity to sell ad space associated with those stories that people would otherwise read.

Additionally, and perhaps more significantly, the media (which mostly include both news sources and general distribution networks) sell tremendous amounts of ad space to the candidates, parties, and third parties with an interest in the outcome of the race. Much of that ad revenue would be lost if the race were considered to be a highly lopsided affair.

Without a competitive race, the media (news production and distribution networks) find themselves in a less desirable position. Thus, there is huge motivation for them to even up the race. Even if there is no official mandate from management to bias reporting, we should expect a slight shift (both in the type and amount of content) to favor the less-favorable candidate.

As I finished that last paragraph, a thought ran through my head: "No one will believe me without data." So I Googled around a bit and found a rather timely report:

Report on media bias that found a John McCain slant sparks fierce debate

A war of words over media bias in the presidential race has become, at least at the moment, at least as fierce as the debate between the candidates themselves.

An "On the Media" column Sunday in the L.A. Times on a new study concluding that, since early June, Barack Obama has drawn tougher network television coverage than John McCain, met with a predictable response -- applause from the left and skepticism from the right.

Read the entire story (LA Times)

So, I guess there may be a bit of empirical evidence to support what seems like an obvious conflict-of-interest in our political reporting industry. Given the power the media has to influence polls, perhaps it's time that some of McCain's own ideas, such as the removal of private money in campaign finances, gets reconsidered. Except now, maybe we should consider reporting on the matter to be an in-kind contribution. Since we can't control political speech, it makes one wonder if there's any way out of this Catch-22. Certainly something to think about.

A week-and-a-half ago, I spent all weekend (well, about 34 hours of it) in a habitrail of meeting rooms with about 100 other people trying to do something pretty incredible: invent, build, and launch a new Internet startup in less than three days.

The event, InOneWeekend 2008, was the inaugural entrepreneurial exercise by this new Cincinnati organization, which hopes to jump-start new-venture creation in the technology-based services space (i.e., dot-coms).

After lots of thinking and working and coding and sweating (not to mention eating fast food and swilling highly caffeinated beverages), our concept was outlined and mocked up to a degree that we thought the world should be invited to share in its evolution from beta concept to fully operational service.

I, er, we give you...LifeSpoke.

Go on...click the link and check it out...it won't hurt, I promise.

LifeSpoke is, and soon will be more of, a place to save, organize, and share all your personal memorabilia and life's memories (assuming they come in handy digital format, of course). With an innovative, patent-pending interface (that we're not quite ready to share yet) and a family-oriented content model (that includes loads of privacy, security, and convenience), we're pretty stoked at the idea that moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and close friends will finally have a place to share their intimate memories and most precious media in a rich new environment.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Actually, you're thinking "I'm hungry...I wonder what's in the fridge." Hey, focus...there's just a little more to read here. You were also thinking "But aren't there a bazillion other media-sharing websites out there, like YouTube, most with sharing features?" To that I say of course! But LifeSpoke is different and will be the best solution for families and close-knit groups of friends to share their memories. While those other sites are great for stuff like watching someone's dog ride a skateboard or having anonymous 15-year-olds "friend" you, LifeSpoke focuses on the relationships in your life that mean the most.

So...go sign up for one of the limited beta invitations at LifeSpoke.com and join us as we ride this idea to wherever it takes us. Should be a fun trip.

If you're interested in reading more about the InOneWeekend adventure we had, check out these stories:
• Official LifeSpoke press release (Marketwatch.com)
• Cincinnati Business Courier article (bizjournals.com)

Apparently, Fox News is dead set upon further distancing itself from all "truthiness." According to the Silicon Alley Insider, it has begun doctoring photos to make people it doesn't like appear uglier, stranger, and unlikable.

Here's an example:

So they removed some of his hair, stretched his head, gave him black circles under his eyes, and yellowed his teeth.

Sheesh...and to think there are still people who believe Fox News is a legitimate journalistic endeavor.

Read the complete story here. (alleyinsider.com)

George Carlin, a brilliant comedian, died of heart failure today at a California hospital.

I'm not sure what I think of first when I remember Carlin: his take on stuff, his infamous seven words bit, his role in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, or his role in Dogma.

Any way you slice it, the world is a little less funny without George Carlin in it.

Mitch, seeing my Hot/Not list from yesterday, compiled his own, so here it is:

HOT

• iPod Touch - I tried the Archos 605 Wi-Fi first and its mediocrity makes the Touch that much more delightful. I really love well done user interfaces and this one is first rate. My only complaint is its picky eating habits when it comes to video formats.
  
• iMac - I waited longer than any other tech purchase to finally go with Apple's all-in-one desktop PC. I opted for the top of the line 3.06 GHz 24" model and have been completely blown away by it. So far I have found no flaws. It is stunning.
  
• High Gas Prices - Innovation rocks and if it takes $5/gallon gasoline to get us out of this oil addiction then I'm more than willing to pay my dues. Fewer SUVs and pickups, electric cars, solar energy, alternative fuels, more big butts on bicycles, less traffic congestion; I'm all for it. Let's drop our consumption by half and let OPEC drink their devalued crude.
  
• Synology - A NAS will soon be as ubiquitous on a home network as the router is today. The clever, feature-filled offerings from Synology are the best of the breed. I'll have a DS508 please!
  
• Subaru - Totally agree with Craig here. I've been
  in Imprezas now going on six years and I still feel like I'm cheating when I share the road with normal cars. Scoobys are fabulous.
  
• Ken Follett's Historical Novels - "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" are two of my favorite books of all time and I just took them in this Spring. I listened to both on my iPod (over 40 hours each) after downloading them from Audible and they made a month of 1000 mile weekly commutes totally enjoyable. Masterful stuff.
  
• CrossFit - I was in good shape 20 years ago and at 44 I can wipe the floor with my 24 year old self (if that was possible). I've been CrossFitting for almost a year now and some of the things I can do now would have seemed outlandish back then.

NOT

• General Motors - If you Google dinosaur, out of touch, lethargic, and unimaginative you should pull up GM's home page. I used to be a fan, but they have been disappointing me for 25 years now and don't seem to be planning any big changes. The sooner they finish themselves off, the better off we'll be.
  
• Labor Unions - Working in the industrial world I cross paths with unions
  of all sorts way more than I would like. I completely understand why our manufacturing sector is fleeing to other countries. I have never seen such a lazy, selfish, destructive, regressive bunch of people in my life. They can't all be like that, but the ones I've met surely are.
  
• Sheeple-Filled Corporate IT Departments - My 26,000 strong corporation is going to switch to Vista because they don't want to be left with no anti-virus support for their XP platform. Goodbye nice warm frying pan and hello fire.
  
• Cable/Satellite TV - I'm SO tired of paying $80 a month for a bunch of
  garbage that I would never watch even if I had the time. It won't be long until I cut that cord and start rolling my own TV. If I could just decide which way I want to do it!
  
• Global Markets - I realize that even the lowliest trader in/on most investment banks/trading floors/commodities exchanges is smarter than I am, but I would really love to see them use those brains rather than run with every emotion that riffles through the world markets. Do investors even pay attention to P/E ratios or supply and demand or is it all about what the hot analyst is saying or the sheeple are doing?

I've been remiss on posting, so I thought I'd assemble a whole mess of opinions in one place. Over the past several weeks or so, I've come to appreciate some things/companies and have come to be disappointed in others. So, here's a quick run-down:

HOT

• Shutterfly - always gets me great-looking prints/books in a timely manner at low prices.
  
• Google - just keeps rolling out the innovative, useful, and well-designed web apps
  
• Subaru - they just make terrific cars...durable, high-performing, and affordable
  
• Amazon.com - with reasonably good, if not great, prices, excellent customer service, and a stellar website, what's not to like?
  
• Subnotes - The sudden rash of low-power, low-weight, cheap laptops coming out (which I predicted would happen back at the beginning of the year) is a joy to behold...portable computing for everyone!
  
• NPR - Always informative, enjoyable, and worth supporting.
  
• Logitech Cordless Presenter - Have had it for two years now, am still on the first set of AAA batteries, it has taken tons of abuse, and it still works perfectly. Amazing!
  
• Private Electric Car Companies - It's as if we're on the cusp of another time like the 1920's, when every town seemed to have a local car manufacturer, except now they're all electric, hybrid, or alterna-fuel vehicles (a very good thing).

NOT

• Archos - if my 605 Wi-Fi completely hangs on me one more time, I swear I'm going to chuck it off an overpass (I'll post more about this later)
  
• Palm - if my Treo 700p resets on me one more time, I swear I'm going to chuck...aw, who am I kidding? It'll probably reset before I finish this post. C'mon Android...fill this void in my gadget-hoarding soul, will you?
  
• Megalomaniacal Corporate IT Departments - I hope the day comes soon when we can definitively show that the TCO actually improves when you let corporate tech users select their own personal devices.
  
• Flash memory format proliferation - I mean, seriously, do we really need SD, MiniSD, and MicroSD? It's getting as bad as the dang Memory Stick (and that's saying something).
  
• Download-only music stores - I may be in the minority, but I just don't like the DRM associated with most online music stores. And even without the DRM, the cost seems too much if I'm not getting permanent physical media, liner notes/art, etc. Call me old school if you like...go ahead, it only hurts a little.
  
• Intel's Marketing department - Seriously, guys, could you make keeping track of your product lines any more difficult and confusing?
  
• Getting older - I am no longer the kid I still think of myself as being.
  

So what are your Hot and Not?

Eugenio just read one of Clay Shirky's recent articles, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, and said it reminded him of a piece I posted here a little over three years ago:

The Great Decision: Consume or Produce
January 29, 2005

Every time I sit down at a PC and every time I walk into my office at work, I'm struck with a fundamental decision: consume or produce.

I'm talking about information. Any minute can be reasonably and justifiably spent either consuming information, such as reading research papers, news sites, emails, blogs, etc., or producing new information, such as writing my own papers, putting up blog entries, leaving comments on blogs (hint, hint), composing an email, and so on.

Some people are very content to be primarily, if not entirely, consumers. They feel little or no need to share their knowledege, opinions, and thoughts with others. Some are more biased in the opposite direction, churning out an unending stream of content. ...

Read the entire post

What's particularly serendipitous about Eugenio's note is that I recently signed up for Twitter and have been trying to figure out it can be the most useful as a communication tool. Twitter, as you likely know, is much more about production than consumption -- it makes creating and distributing tiny bits of information almost frictionless, thereby further increasing the load on us as consumers.

This is still an issue I struggle with every day. I doubt I'll ever resolve it.

Remember that pack of teenage girls behaving like lunatics and videotaping the beating they planned and dished out on another girl?

Well, the supposed "ringleader" of that group has been bailed out of jail (for $30,000) by...Dr. Phil! Supposedly so that the Dr. Phil Show will have exclusive rights to interview her.

It takes a lot of gall to glorify adolescent violence (purely in the name of ratings) and then decry it as a social evil.

I don't know if there's a TV Personality Scumbag award, but if there is, I'm sure Dr. Phil is a shoe-in.

And the results are horrifying. I guess it's about time to pack that show up.

I've only met two people who didn't "get" the humor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and they were both about as smart as a bag of hammers.

As has become customary around the changing of the calendar, here are GearBits' official predictions for 2008.

1) Blu-Ray Wins the Format War
Yep, I'm going to pick a winner and it's going to be Blu-Ray. The one-two punch of Warner Brothers's move to Blu-Ray exclusivity (from its Switzerland-like neutrality of supporting both formats) later in 2008 and Apple's announcement that BD will be the only HD format available in its products will cement HD DVD's demise. And none too soon. I don't really care which wins...just make it snappy so that prices on players and media can plummet, thanks.

2) Google's Android Shakes Up Phone Industry
For a while now, the cellphone industry has been fairly static. A few smartphone and mobile OS makers have generally tussled for market share, but the overall industry has been pretty evolutionary. Google's entry will prove to be a watershed moment, with open source finally making a big impact in the handheld space (and no, I don't consider the Zaurus to be a big deal...sorry). Actual handsets running Android will be announced, if not available, before the end of 2008.

3) Palm Supports Android
This is more of a hope than an actual prediction, as I just don't know whether the egos at Palm will let the company do the right thing and admit that their next-generation OS (which has been under development since 2004!) will be a viable contender against Android (which has essentially the same technical details but scads more developer support). But, if cooler, more rational heads prevail at Palm, they'll announce that they're plans will be to produce at least one Android-based product (probably to come out sometime in 2012 :-/ ).

4) Microsoft's HD Photo Replacement for JPEG Image Standard Goes Nowhere
I'm not saying it's a bad idea technically; I'm just saying that JPEG is so entrenched now that replacing it would be about as reasonable a thing to try as would be replacing MP3 with any of the multitudes of better formats. JPEG, like MP3, isn't great, but it's adequate (at least for consumers) and ubiquitous. We'll still be saving all our photos in JPG (and maybe RAW) at the end of 2008...and likely long after that.

5) Subnotes Will Explode in Availability (and Maybe Popularity)
I've always been a fan of tiny, sub-3-pound laptops, but I think 2008 will see a huge number of these clamshell devices come out of every corner of the consumer electronics space. The Asus EeePC and the OLPC XO Laptop are two examples. While Microsoft had a good idea in its UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) concept, the hardware was just never executed all that well. Frankly, I think a 7" touchscreen for Windows is just too difficult. But, going with the traditional clamshell design and using cheaper and/or smaller technologies (e.g., flash memory instead of a HDD) will bring us a raft of interesting (and some good) designs at <$500 price points. Bring 'em on! And I think we'll start to see a lot more people toting these things along that traditionally avoided laptops for whatever reason (cost, weight, etc.).

6) The GPS War Heats Up
TomTom, Nokia, and Garmin will exchange hostile fire over the GPS market due to convuluted agreements regarding mapping data as well as market-share for hardware. Products will continue to decline in price and improve in functionality, and >50% of cellphones will have some form of GPS functionality available on them. I guess that's two predictions in one...oh well.

7) DRM Hits Choppy Water
2007 saw some movement away from DRM (digital rights management), especially in the music industry, but I expect we'll see similar initiatives in all areas of media. DRM has been proven again and again to be little more than an expensive technological boondoggle, and the leading innovators at the consumer media interface (e.g., Apple, Amazon, and Google) will make some headway into reversing the trend of more encumbrance for our media. The RIAA and MPAA will continue to fight it...they know how to do nothing else...but economic results will start to demonstrate that DRM actually hurts profitability.

8) Major Tech Stocks End 2008 Up Significantly
These are bound to be wrong, but what the heck...nobody pays me for stock tips. I think Apple will end 2008 at 235, Google will be at 960, and Microsoft will finish the year at 50. As for other stocks, iRobot will end up at either 46 or 12 (can you tell I'm a cynical shareholder?), IBM will show tepid growth to 112, and RIM, hurt by the continued weak US dollar and facing increasing competition, will struggle to match its 1-year high of 127.

9) I Buy a New Laptop and Am Disappointed
My Panasonic CF-W2 is now three-and-a-half-years-old and I'm starting to cringe every time I turn it on (my luck with hard drives makes me skeptical of many living past their 4th birthday). I've been looking at possible replacements (e.g., Toshiba R500, Panasonic W7, maybe the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 or the rumored Apple subnote) and so far every single one has some significant trade-offs. So, I expect I'll get one and it will turn out to be not significantly better than my aging Toughbook. You'd think in nearly four years that two grand would buy something markedly superior. We'll see...

10) Major Changes in Automotive Industry Announced
While the car business makes actual change only very slowly, we'll see some huge announcements in 2008 that will fundamentally change the future of that industry. Things like record oil prices, an increasing attention to sustainable/green technology, and significant ownership changes will substantially change the competitive landscape. Make no mistake; Toyota will continue its ascent and eclipse GM as #1 car-maker in the world. But, we will see several major announcements that will start affecting actual consumers in 2009 and beyond.

So, I'll check back in about 12 months to see how I fared. In the meantime, what do you think will happen?

Wired has an interesting article that shows the media (recording artists, TV shows, and movies) most popular on the P2P networks (i.e., BitTorent). I was surprised...surprised by (a) two of my favorite shows were on the list, and (b) I'd heard of nearly nothing on the music list. I guess aging has its consequences, eh?

Anyway, here are the lists (for the full details, check out the Wired story):

Top Songs of 2007
1. Shop Boyz - "Party Like A Rock Star"
2. Akon - "I Wanna Luv U"
3. Sean Kingston - "Beautiful Girls"
4. Mims - "This Is Why I'm Hot"
5. Akon - "Don't Matter"
6. T-Pain - "Bartender"
7. Soulja Boy - "Crank Dat Soulja Boy"
8. Justin Timberlake - "My Love"
9. DJ Unk - "Walk It Out"
10. Jim Jones - "We Fly High"

Top Music Artists of 2007
1. T.I.
2. T-Pain
3. Akon
4. 50 Cent
5. R. Kelly
6. Lil Wayne
7. Justin Timberlake
8. Fergie
9. Ludacris
10. Snoop Dogg

Top Movies of 2007
1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
3. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
4. Ratatouille
5. Superbad
6. Beowulf
7. Transformers
8. American Gangster
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
10. Stardust

Top TV Shows of 2007
1. Heroes
2. Prison Break
3. Top Gear
4. Smallville
5. Desperate Housewives
6. House, M.D.
7. Lost
8. Grey's Anatomy
9. 24
10. Dexter

I've not posted about much technology recently. For that, I truly apologize. This is, after all, GearBits. So, to fill that void, here's a brief recap of some gadget and gear acquisitions over the last six months or so (and why they're my picks).

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 370
After borrowing Mitch's Garmin for a recent roadtrip to the Smoky Mountains, I was hooked. The Nuvi 370 is a terrific combination of features and portability. Text-to-speech keeps my eyes on the road and the bright screen and simple menu system makes it an easy-to-use travel aid. Plus, it's small and light enough to take with you on a walkabout, as I did recently when hiking around San Francisco.

TV: Samsung LNT-5271F 52" 1080p LCD
Yeah, this is a bit over-the-top, but I told my wife that I reserved the right to redo the basement TV setup if I got my promotion at work (I did). So far, it's a really nice TV. The first one died on me (the screen went weird a week into the relationship), but this second one is doing fine. Discovery HD Theater has never been more impressive, although crappy SD cable channels now look just as crappy, but bigger. Now I just need to start working on a way to justify getting a Blu-Ray/HD DVD combo player.

A/V Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR705
As part of the upgrade of the basement TV area, our old receiver just had to be replaced. It was ca. 1996, so its idea of "A/V" meant two composite video inputs. The Onkyo is a nice balance between performance (100W x 7 and 3 HDMI inputs + upconversion) and bulk. It definitely is more capable than the Yamaha it replaced (although the Yamaha still sounds great).

DVD Player: Oppo DV-981HD
The new TV quickly showed just how awful our previous DVD player was. I shouldn't have been surprised, really. After all, it was a Sony VHS + progressive scan DVD combo unit that I got from Woot.com for like $40 last year. Man, the video signal it put out, even over component, just made my eyes bleed. The Oppo, on the other hand, makes standard-definition DVDs look really quite excellent, even converting them to 1080p and outputting via HDMI. Its video-processing circuitry is optimized for getting the best possible picture quality off those 480p discs we all know and love. And it's way cheaper than a high-def DVD player.

Media Streamer: DivX Connected (Beta)
I was invited to be part of the public beta of the DivX Connected wireless/wired media streamer concept platform that the DivX folks are currently refining in preparation for licensed production with D-Link. Suffice to say that it's a really nice user experience; much, much better than all of the other media streamers I've used that are supposed to handle video. I hope DivX and D-Link do well with it...I'd definitely consider buying one.

Networking: TRENDnet TEG-S80TXE Gigabit 8-Port Switch
I know, wired networking is a little tame, but when you can get a reliable, all-metal, 8-port Gbit switch for $23 (after Newegg.com rebate), it's worth noting.

Oh, and I've found that MonoPrice.com has some terrific quality cables and audio parts (e.g., speaker mounts) at really excellent prices. Shipping is fast and cheap, too.

So, that about wraps it up for now. Any questions about these items, feel free to post a comment.

Back at the end of 2005, I predicted that we'd start seeing more original sci-fi and fantasy content on the major TV networks. In my annual end-of-the-year predictions post, here's what I said:

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows

The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

Turns out that I wasn't so daft at all. Wired has an article reviewing the upcoming 2007 TV season and it's chock-a-block full of nerdy delights.

From slick sci-fi to tired nerd clichés, the networks' "geek TV" offerings run the gamut from engaging eye candy to unwatchable dreck this fall. Read these reviews of show pilots, then set your DVR on "geek out."

Read the whole article (Wired.com)

I just wish I had bet Alex something...at least I'll get a solid "told ya so" out of this.

Imagine this scenario:

Amy pays her cable company to deliver television service to the digital video recorder (DVR) she rents from the same company. Amy programs her DVR to record the entire series of a particular TV show. One week, however, the cable goes out (as it's wont to do) and her DVR fails to record an episode.

So, Amy visits the website of the broadcaster and discovers that the company doesn't offer downloads of its episodes. Amy then finds out that she can pay $2 for the right to download and play (for a limited number of times and only under certain circumstances) the episode she missed. Amy also discovers that she could alternately download a copy of the missing episode for free from a peer-to-peer network.

Does Amy have a right to view the content that was delivered to her (but that her DVR failed to capture) without paying for it again? The TV network, as the copyright holder of the show in question, feels that Amy does not have such a right, and it will apparently pursue her through her ISP for copyright infringment if she goes about grabbing the show from a P2P network. However, if the network can get Amy to cough up $2, it's more than happy to let her have a copy of the episode.

But what about the cable company? Shouldn't it be the one to pay the network for Amy's episode? After all, it was a failure with the cable company's network/equipment that lead to this situation in the first place, isn't it? But Amy is smart enough to realize that getting her cable company to reimburse her $2 for an episode download is quite unlikely.

And what about "fair use?" This concept has little relevance to this situation, unfortunately (at least as I understand it; IANAL), so Amy is basically up a creek.

Why has US copyright law allowed such a situation to occur? Lobbyists for the networks (e.g., NBC), their parent companies (GE), and various affiliated organizations (e.g., the RIAA and the MPAA) have simply done an excellent job at buying our publicly elected officials. And guess where the money comes from for these lobbying efforts? Yep...that $2 Amy now needs to pay the network to see her missing episode. How convenient.

Maybe the best solution is, after all, swearing off corporate content altogether. Independent and foreward-thinking artists, be they music acts, filmmakers, or authors, tend to be much more encouraging of free dissemination of their work. Maybe they do it primarily for the joy of creation rather than the money. Maybe they don't need to support an army of lawyers, country club memberships for everyone in the C-level executive suite, and fuel for corporate jets. Maybe, just maybe, they know what the corporations have forgotten: copyrights are meant to foster, rather than inhibit, innovation.

Whatever the cause, the effects are clear: Amy will consume less TV the harder and/or more expensive it becomes. Frankly, TV isn't all that terrific anyway, and the creative power of the networked masses has yet to be fully realized.

Since I made a series of predictions for 2006, I thought I'd go back and see how many actually came true.

1) Google Launches All-in-One Suite
I've been expecting this for some time, as have other folks, I'm sure, but I think 2006 will definitely see this announcement. Google will, I predict, launch a converged, multi-purpose, browser-based work environment -- lord knows what it'll be called, maybe GoogleDesk or something like that. Anyway, it will incorporate and integrate many of the disparate services that Google currently offers plus add a few. GoogleDesk will integrate Google search, Gmail (plus an enhanced contacts management function), Google Maps (auto-mapping of contacts, natch!), Blogger (for publication/hosting of created content), a new mini-suite of document tools based on the OpenOffice standard (so you can create word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files), GoogleBase (the use of which will become more obvious with time), and Google News (of course). All these will be wrapped up in a browser-neutral (although I wouldn't be surprised for Google to cozy up to Mozilla to enhance Firefox with some special goodies), Java-based interface. Personally, I eagerly await this.

Kinda, sorta true. Google's offerings did indeed multiply in 2006, with Google Documents and a raft of other new and enhanced online services popping up. Technically, they haven't all been integrated into a single UI, but given they all work in a single browser session, that's pretty close.

2) The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war ends...Blu-Ray wins
Yes, Sony will finally be able to claim a victory in the format wars. After so many failed attempts at ruling the world (cue Pinkie and the Brain theme) -- Betamax, minidisc, all the various flavors of Memory Stick, etc. -- Sony and friends will edge out the HD-DVD group and Blu-Ray will become the de facto format for HD content. That is, until something better comes along almost immediately, but hey, that's a prediction for next year.

The war ain't over, but I think most people who follow the industry would agree that Blu-Ray, despite Sony's floundering on the PS3, has more behind it than does HD-DVD at this point. It will likely take a few more years for the winner to become obvious -- until then, consumers will just be faced with more options they couldn't really care less about. After all, normal DVD looks pretty good on an HDTV and more people are choosing to take their video with them on the go; high-definition is the least of concerns for the joe wanting to watch Family Guy on his iPod.

3) The Linux-based replacement for Palm OS comes out
To limited acclaim in the West, it is immediately adopted by a significant number of Asian companies for its cheap, flexible architecture. The number of devices (almost entirely phones) running it by the end of 2006 will be around 10 in Asia and zero (maybe 1 or 2) in the West (US + Europe).

Wrong. Well, ALP (Access Linux for Palm) was released, but I've yet to hear of any actual adoption, so I'll just have to chalk this up to pure optimism.

4) Nokia will launch a Linux phone
Following the nascent success of its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia launches its first phone using a Linux-based OS. It mimics the S60 in look and feel. It does well, but not markedly so, causing much speculation and debate around the web about whether Nokia is abandoning S60 entirely.

Nope, didn't happen.

5) Democrats regain control of US Senate, make gains in HOR
The margin won't be enormous, but the Senate will once again be in the familiar (and, arguably, beneficial to the electorate) position of being led by the party not in control of the White House. More negotiation will result in 2007 and something a wee bit closer to "democracy" will return to the US shortly thereafter. Still a long way from acceptable, but closer.

Pretty much right on the money. In fact, you might say I underestimated their gains. Looking forward to a government much more balanced by checks and balances than it has been lately.

6) Windows Vista will launch, Apple users yawn
Windows Vista (launched in early Q4) will excite few, especially in the corporate ranks, due to the combination of a lack of "must-have" improvements and unattractive licensing structures offered by Microsoft. The 17 or so flavors of Vista will also leave consumers puzzled over which version is best for them and ultimately wait until they replace their hardware to upgrade. Given that processor speeds aren't increasing much and hard drives are getting easier to replace, there will be fewer changing out their PCs. Microsoft faces a tougher year than usual next year regarding financials; Windows Mobile and Xbox divisions still not profitable (but closer).

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of what actually happened.

7) Digital/HDTV makes big inroads
2006 will be the year of the migration to HDTV. Falling HDTV set prices (especially DLP and LCD), plus an exciting bounty of converging digital content, will usher in a period of rapid adoption that will continue into 2007. Content providers will actually start getting significant numbers of complaints when they broadcast non-HD content on their HD channels, leading to fewer programming lapses.

For the most part, yup. The sales of HDTVs were so large this holiday season that they actually affected the profitability of several large electronics retailers. So I guess it's clear that HDTV is taking off as expected. What remains to be seen is whether the broadcasters actually start paying attention now that HD viewership is climbing into significant numbers.

8) Satellite radio subscribership grows, but limited
Sirius and XM will continue to gain subscribers, but neither will top 10 million by the end of 2006. Someone will launch a mySatelliteRadio service that lets users listen to their personal music collections via satellite receiver (think MP3.com's old model applied to satradio). The RIAA will eat it for lunch, with a few hundred new downloading lawsuits for dessert.

XM had less than 8 million subscribers at the end of 2006 and Sirius had about 6 million, with the latter growing more quickly. Both are growing more slowly than the companies had predicted (and promised to investors), so that part of my prediction is absolutely spot on. I haven't heard of anything like the mySatelliteRadio service being launched, but given that many satellite receivers now enable playback of MP3 files, the two music sources are definitely getting closer.

9) TiVo is acquired
I don't know by whom, but I think this will happen within the next 12 months.

Ahem, no.

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows
The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

Not exactly, at least not on the major networks. They are still heading towards the safe-and-familiar lines of reality/unscripted programming, dramas, and situation comedies. Alas, none of those are in space or in a castle somewhere. Too bad.

So, in the end, I had 5 predictions true or mostly correct, 4 that were mostly or completely wrong, and 1 that was unclear. Stay tuned for my predictions for 2007...

In case you want to see what all the uproar is about, check out the GoDaddy.com commercials on Google Video.

Too racy for the Super Bowl?

I dunno...the halftime show two years ago was pretty funky.

Gazing into my crystal (liquid crystal, of course) ball, the haze clears and 2006 looms large. Here is what the future holds for us in the coming year:

1) Google Launches All-in-One Suite
I've been expecting this for some time, as have other folks, I'm sure, but I think 2006 will definitely see this announcement. Google will, I predict, launch a converged, multi-purpose, browser-based work environment -- lord knows what it'll be called, maybe GoogleDesk or something like that. Anyway, it will incorporate and integrate many of the disparate services that Google currently offers plus add a few. GoogleDesk will integrate Google search, Gmail (plus an enhanced contacts management function), Google Maps (auto-mapping of contacts, natch!), Blogger (for publication/hosting of created content), a new mini-suite of document tools based on the OpenOffice standard (so you can create word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files), GoogleBase (the use of which will become more obvious with time), and Google News (of course). All these will be wrapped up in a browser-neutral (although I wouldn't be surprised for Google to cozy up to Mozilla to enhance Firefox with some special goodies), Java-based interface. Personally, I eagerly await this.

2) The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war ends...Blu-Ray wins
Yes, Sony will finally be able to claim a victory in the format wars. After so many failed attempts at ruling the world (cue Pinkie and the Brain theme) -- Betamax, minidisc, all the various flavors of Memory Stick, etc. -- Sony and friends will edge out the HD-DVD group and Blu-Ray will become the de facto format for HD content. That is, until something better comes along almost immediately, but hey, that's a prediction for next year.

3) The Linux-based replacement for Palm OS comes out
To limited acclaim in the West, it is immediately adopted by a significant number of Asian companies for its cheap, flexible architecture. The number of devices (almost entirely phones) running it by the end of 2006 will be around 10 in Asia and zero (maybe 1 or 2) in the West (US + Europe).

4) Nokia will launch a Linux phone
Following the nascent success of its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia launches its first phone using a Linux-based OS. It mimics the S60 in look and feel. It does well, but not markedly so, causing much speculation and debate around the web about whether Nokia is abandoning S60 entirely.

5) Democrats regain control of US Senate, make gains in HOR
The margin won't be enormous, but the Senate will once again be in the familiar (and, arguably, beneficial to the electorate) position of being led by the party not in control of the White House. More negotiation will result in 2007 and something a wee bit closer to "democracy" will return to the US shortly thereafter. Still a long way from acceptable, but closer.

6) Windows Vista will launch, Apple users yawn
Windows Vista (launched in early Q4) will excite few, especially in the corporate ranks, due to the combination of a lack of "must-have" improvements and unattractive licensing structures offered by Microsoft. The 17 or so flavors of Vista will also leave consumers puzzled over which version is best for them and ultimately wait until they replace their hardware to upgrade. Given that processor speeds aren't increasing much and hard drives are getting easier to replace, there will be fewer changing out their PCs. Microsoft faces a tougher year than usual next year regarding financials; Windows Mobile and Xbox divisions still not profitable (but closer).

7) Digital/HDTV makes big inroads
2006 will be the year of the migration to HDTV. Falling HDTV set prices (especially DLP and LCD), plus an exciting bounty of converging digital content, will usher in a period of rapid adoption that will continue into 2007. Content providers will actually start getting significant numbers of complaints when they broadcast non-HD content on their HD channels, leading to fewer programming lapses.

8) Satellite radio subscribership grows, but limited
Sirius and XM will continue to gain subscribers, but neither will top 10 million by the end of 2006. Someone will launch a mySatelliteRadio service that lets users listen to their personal music collections via satellite receiver (think MP3.com's old model applied to satradio). The RIAA will eat it for lunch, with a few hundred new downloading lawsuits for dessert.

9) TiVo is acquired
I don't know by whom, but I think this will happen within the next 12 months.

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows
The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

OK, those are my predictions. I may add some more...come this time in 2006, I'll look back on these and, well, probably LMAO at how poorly I forecast the future. Until then, have a good one!

According to The Hollywood Reporter, M. Night Shyamalan ('Sixth Sense' and 'The Village') says he'll stop making movies if the industry adopts simultaneous release.

On the other hand, Steven Soderbergh ('Traffic' and 'Ocean's Eleven') is already ramping up production of several films for just such a distribution model.

Some blame it on the theaters (crappy, overpriced experience) while some blame it on the rise of home theater setups (which may be a reaction to the theater's crappy, overpriced experience).

What do you think? Should movies come out in multiple media on a single day, or should the current distribution model (or some variation of it) continue to dominate?

CNET News is reporting that a New York State Court of Appeals has granted extended protection to record companies' copyrights well beyond the federal copyright limits.

A New York State Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that protects record companies' copyrights - at least in that state - for works issued before the 1972 federal copyright statute.

EMI had sued to stop rival label Naxos from reissuing 1930s recordings originally recorded by Capitol Records, which have fallen into the public domain overseas.

This is dangerously thin ice. Since most innovation happens as a result of, or incorporates, existing ideas and works, the indefinite extension of copyrights will only serve to inhibit innovation in the long run.

Wired has an interesting article suggesting that corporate radio may have learned its lesson that efficiency is not the ultimate objective.

But in the past decade, radio changed from a village of small, independent stations to a bastion of the US media oligopoly, content to deliver sterile, cookie-cutter broadcasts. The transition made sense economically, because Big Radio was able to cut costs by consolidating advertising departments and using the same programming across the country. But alienated listeners fled in droves.

Noting radio's declining audiences, recurring low-level payola scandals, horrendous public image, and competition for drive-time ears from iPods, satellite broadcasting, and cell phones, pundits have been gleefully pronouncing the medium's last rites. But they may well be wrong. Rather than being on life support, radio in fact is on the verge of its boldest technological change since the introduction of FM stereo in the 1960s. Not only that, it may be on the threshold of another golden age, one which could have almost as powerful an impact as the first. And in the vanguard of this movement, bizarrely enough, are many of the same flaccid, reactionary media giants that put radio in a coma to begin with.

I hope it's true, but I'll believe it when I can once again turn on my radio and not run screaming from the room.

Sharp Electronics and Instant802 Networks have announced a partnership, bringing video distribution into the wireless age.

The partnership has resulted in the Sharp Galileo Personal Video Recorder (PVR), one of the first devices to leverage 802.11-based wireless systems for video distribution.

Instant802's wireless software platform is used for range of data networking devices. The Sharp Galileo PVR is one of the first consumer electronics devices using the platform. Instant802 also provides residential gateway solutions integrated with security solutions.

The Galileo PVR is available immediately in Japan, and is expected to hit North America later this year.

This evening I was loading up some things from my storage unit and noticed my 120-tape cassette organizer over in the corner. Years ago before CDs, I spent lots of hard earned gas station wages on 8-tracks and cassette tapes. I didn't own a good turntable until much later so never really got into albums. Twenty-five years later, a lot of my cassettes are junk having lost the battle against time. My first CD (Talk Talk - It's My Life) sounds as good now as the day I bought it. Here's where the RIAA comes in...

I know that the majority of the money I paid for those cassettes and 8-tracks didn't go into media costs. I paid for the licensing of the music recorded on the media, the record company's profits, the distributor's profits and the music store's profits. So how do I recoup my licensing fees on these hundreds of junk cassettes? I think I should be able to trade them in for CDs of the same title for a nominal media fee; a buck a disc ought to do it.

How about it RIAA? Take a break from grousing about lost profits and give something back to the consumers who have fueled your Learjets for all these years. We pay good money to license your music. Put some permanence into the licenses and support media mobility for anything we buy legitimately. I'll be holding my breath.

You can now resume your regularly scheduled grousing.

Disclaimer: I am a Survivor nut. I have seen every episode, attended weekly Survivor gatherings, dressed as Rudy Boesch at a Survivor 1 finale party and I think Big Tom should be president.

My question after last night is: Should men wear kilts? The king, Richard Hatch, was nattily attired in a Utilkilt when he wasn't naked. The garment appeared well-made, very utilitarian, and looked good even on Richard's big ass. And we all remember Rupert quickly made himself a skirt on Survivor: Pearl Islands when his Levis started chaffing.

Is is possible for a normal, heterosexual, red-blooded, non-Scottish male to wear a kilt and be taken seriously? For some reason, I think the answer is no and that's a shame. We men just don't have any variety when it comes to clothing choices. For formals we wear tuxedos. To dress up we wear suits. Business casual puts us in button downs and khakis. Casual finds us in jeans. Slumming has us in t-shirts, shorts and trainers. Where does the kilt fit in? That's what I want to know!!!!

Who'd have guessed we'd get free pr0n during the game yesterday? Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" (Justin Timberlake's words, not mine) definitely gets nods for the most TiVo-worthy moment of Super Bowl XXXVIII. Makes me yearn for a HD DVR just that much more.

Thanks to LostRemote for the link.

Over three years, 14-year-old Annie Leith downloaded nearly 1000 songs via Kazaa. The downloading, illegal in the U.S., got Leith into legal trouble with the Recording Industry Association of America in September 2003. Ultimately, the lawsuit was settled for $3,000.

Now, that experience has landed Leith in an ad for Pepsi and Apple Computer, to be shown on Super Bowl Sunday. The ad introduces a promotion in which 100 million bottle caps on Pepsi soft drinks include a code for free downloads on Apple's iTunes Music Store.

The partnership deal is one the most visible of recent digital music partnerships. Coca-Cola has partnered with Musicmatch to promote its Sprite soft drinks, and Heineken has partnered with RealNetworks in a giveaway of beer 12-packs.

In the Pepsi-Apple Super Bowl ad, which features Leith, her sister, and 14 other music downloading outlaws, Leith acknowledges she was among hundreds sued for downloading songs, then vows to continue doing so... on iTunes.

Wireless software publisher JAMDAT Mobile has announced that it is launching wireless games based on The Lord of the Rings epic. Available through Verizon Wireless' Get it Now service, the games suite include six separate apps:

The Return of the King is an eight-level scrolling adventure game with Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, Pippin and Sam battling Orcs, Uruk-hai, Trolls, the Army of the Dead, Shelob and other foes.

The Lord of the Rings Trivia includes more than 360 trivia questions covering characters, objects and locations and more from all three chapters of the Ring trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings Pinball is a fast two-table pinball game wrapped in a Middle-Earth theme.

Wallpapers offer various Middle-Earth images including characters, locations, scenes, and maps. Finally, The Lord of The Rings Tones Player provides ring tones based on the musical score.

Software company Adobe Systems recently opened an online store offering customers digital content in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).

The Adobe Digital Media Store offers ebooks from publishers such as Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, and Random House, and includes links to digital publications such as BusinessWeek, Popular Science, the New York Times, and USA Today.

Adobe's move is the latest chapter in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back saga of the ebook industry, which last saw Barnes and Noble exit the ebook market.

Based on Adobe Reader 6.0, digital content from the Digital Media Store uses a digital rights management (DRM) scheme that allows users to view paid-for material on desktop computers and Palm OS-based handheld computers.

Three years ago while waiting for a flight to take off or land or board or get de-iced or some other air travel inconvenience, I noticed the guy next to me was reading a book with an interesting name, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire. A conversation ensued and he told me how wonderful the book was and that I just had to read it. I did a few days later and Wicked instantly became one of my all-time favorite books.

The Wicked Witch of the West was my ultimate horror when I was a little kid. She absolutely scared the holy crap out of me and I just loved it. I can remember watching The Wizard of Oz on our old black and white TV with my hand perched on the channel dial. When the Witch made an appearance, I had to quickly change channels and then switch back and forth a little bit at a time. I just could not handle her in large doses and those small doses gave me nightmares for several days. What an awful woman! I was doubly freaked when I first saw her on a color TV and learned that she was green. Ick.

Maguire's book put a wonderfully woven history behind her and creatively explained a lot of the things that I had always wondered about her. Like, where did those flying monkeys come from? Why is she so green? What's she so pissed about? What's up with those slippers?

Now, my favorite book is a musical on Broadway starring Kristin Chenowith as Glinda and Idina Menzel as Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West. It's playing at the Gershwin in NYC. If I can figure out a way to get up there and see it, I'll report back.

Speaking of virtual people, the website for the first ever virtual beauty pageant - Miss Digital World - is now open, and accepting entries.

Franz Cerami, creator of the pageant, said "Miss Digital World is the search for a contemporary ideal of beauty, seen through virtual reality."

The outpouring of interest after the first announcements meant that the pageant - aimed at digital artists, advertising agencies, movie production companies and videogame developers - has pushed back several entry deadlines to December 20.

Prospective contestants should note that models "should not have taken part - not even as extras or cameos - in pornographic films, shows or plays nor have made statements...in any way out of tune with the moral spirit of the competition." (Too bad... it would have been nice to see Lara Croft on that catwalk...)

Contestants will be programmed to parade along a virtual catwalk, surrounded by virtual guests, with a virtual emcee presiding over the event. The winner - determined by votes over the Internet - will be crowned at a real world celebration in November 2004.

I remember when watching Lorne Greene battle Cylons was a weekly feast for my 9-year-old senses. The original Battlestar Galactica series, which aired 1978-1979, was high-quality science fiction...at least that's the way I remember it. Sure, it got pretty bad the last several episodes, but hey, don't most shows?

Well, SciFi, the cable channel, has been touting the new Battlestar Galactica, its two-part mini-series that picks up 40 years after the previous series ended...sort of. It's a bit complicated, and no quick summary could accurately describe the relationship between the two series, but it's enough to say that the premise is pretty much the same: humans are good guys, Cylons are bad robots that humans once created, and now the Cylons want to kill all the humans. SciFi's website described it thusly:

Forty years after the Cylon Wars, humanity's deadliest enemies have reemerged with a vengeance. In a sudden, devastating nuclear attack, the Cylon robots — who have now taken human form — wipe out billions of people. Only a ragtag fleet of Colonial forces is left to shepherd humanity's few survivors to safety.

Anywho, the second of the two-part mini-series played yesterday and I have to admit to enjoying it. The action was pretty good, the acting was better than the original show (not hard to do), and the special effects were top-notch. There's a pretty nice, long review of both episodes at the UGO Battlestar Galactica Hub. SciFi is showing both episodes back-to-back this coming Sunday (Dec. 14, 2003), so catch it if you can.

Apple's digital rights management (DRM) system on the iTunes Music Store has been challenged by Jon Johansen, well-known as the author of the DeCSS program for bypassing DVD copy protection.

The new program, QTFairUse, does not actually crack the DRM. Instead, it intercepts the music file while it is in the process of being streamed and before the DRM is applied.

While this implies that - similar to DeCSS - the program works only on content legitimately purchased from iTunes, a number of observers suggest that the program can be mis-used because it allows users to compile their own database of unprotected - and potentially distributable - content.

In its current release, QTFairUse does require some programming knowledge to implement, but more user-friendly versions are likely to appear in time. The current version is available only for Windows-based PCs.

If you were conscious in the early 1980's, you likely read Bloom County, a bizarre and hilarious cartoon strip involving intelligent little kids, frighteningly lifelike adults (complete with phobias and fetishes), and talking animals (one rather sceptic cat (shown) and one confused penguin, among others).

Well, Berkely Breathed, the author of Bloom County is back in the game. In Sunday comics the nation over, Opus Returns appeared in half-page, full-color glory. Check out the website for more info. If you're a fan, you'll be hoping that Milo, Bill the Cat and the rest of the gang come back, at least for tasty cameos.

Ack! Thppfft! (Thanks, Dan)

I was reminded yesterday of a couple of old TV shows from my youth -- shows that never made it past a couple of seasons. These were the campy, the strange, and the just plain bad shows that were basically there to flesh out the networks' season opening weeks, and some didn't make it much past the pilot episode. In no particular order, some of the ones that I recall from my youth include (with links to their IMDB entries):

• Automan (1983) - Desi Arnaz Jr. starred in this short-lived show about a cybernetic crime-fighter that could transform between a man and a car (and I think he could even change into a panther; actually, no, as EricS pointed out in his comment, that was 'Manimal'). Dumb, but you gotta love those 90-degree turns at speed.

• Otherworld (1985) - IMDB describes this retarded show best when it says "Thrown into another dimension, a family must keep ahead of a tyrannical state's hunters while searching for a way home." My one clear memory is the two teenage kids defying the government and teaching the other native kids rock & roll. It was never clear what was worst: the acting, the plot, or the concept.

• The Phoenix (1982) - In just 4 short episodes (that's all that was filmed), this show reached new depths of stupid. Plot summary: an archaeology expedition in Peru uncovers a casket with the body of a human-looking alien, Bennu, who must learn to live on Earth as a castaway who fights crimes and solves mysteries while avoiding US government agents who want to play "Alien Autopsy" with him. Who thinks up this stuff?

• Ark II (1976-1979) - OK, this wasn't really a "lost & forgotten" show, but it just hangs on the fringe of my memory, so I thought I'd include it here. This Saturday morning live-action show was the adventures of three young scientists in the 25th century after the planet has basically been polluted to death. They had this bitchun' RV-slash-science lab (called "Ark II") that they travelled around in. The best part, however, was the jet-packs -- I swear they were real. :-) And they had a chimpanzee (what was it with chimps on TV in the '70's?). Oh, and the lead scientist's name was Noah. Get it...Noah...driving the Ark...sigh. There's a really nice fan page here (source of the photo to the right).

• The Man from Atlantis (1977-1978) - The sheer power of Patrick Duffy's acting skills carried this lame show into its second season. Duffy played the part of Mark Harris, lone surviving Atlantian, complete with gills and webbed hands and feet. Lots of underwater swimming shots while Duffy fights crime and solves mysteries. Perhaps it would have lasted longer had they brought The Phoenix onto the show...hmm...

• Quark (1978) - This was a half-hour live-action comedy about the misadventures of Adam Quark, the captain of a United Galactic Sanitation Patrol ship (i.e., a space garbage scow). I remember only thinking that this was a damn funny show. Given that I was 8 or 9 years old when I saw the 9 episodes that were filmed, it may not have been.

• Q.E.D. (1982) - IMDB summarizes it best: "The tales of Quentin E. Deverill, an eccentric expatriate American professor who uses his unique skills to solve mysteries in Edwardian London." And it didn't last the season?!?

• The Max Headroom Show (1985) - Basically, this show was about a future where the TV had to stay turned on ('off' knobs were illegal) and the main personality on the tube was this virtual/CGI being named Max Headroom (who turned out to be a real person, if I recall correctly). Usually just referred to as "Max Headroom," this show was hilarious -- I never understood why they took it off. Probably the same reason they dumped 'Greg the Bunny' (a recent fave...that will be on this list as well in 15 years or so).

• Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980) - Two unlikely partners, an accountant-wanna-be-private-eye and a con artist, team up to fight crime and solve mysteries. It lasted a mere 14 episodes despite starring Jeff Goldblum and Ben Vereen (makes my head spin even thinking about that combination).

I'm sure you all remember more...what were your favorite shows that didn't make it?

Microsoft has announced a new initiative to power handheld media players - similar to Apple's iPod digital music player. Devices based on Portable Media Centre will enable users to store photos, listen to music and watch movies and TV shows on the road.

Portable Media Center is a variant of Windows CE.NET - previously named Media2Go - that will power devices shipping in 2004.

Licensees include Creative, iRiver, Sanyo, Samsung, Tatung, Viewsonic. The handheld players will support MP3 as well as WMA9, Microsoft's own digital audio and video format.

Dell recently announced plans to produce a digital music player, the Jukebox. There have also been rumors about a video iPod for some time now, though with Apple one is never sure until the official announcement.

A letter from Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, on his Amazon.com site today, states:

"Starting today, you can find books at Amazon.com based on every word inside them, not just on matches to author or title keywords. Search Inside the Book - the name of this new feature - searches the complete inside text of more than 120,000 books - all 33 million pages of them."

Click here, for example, to find all the books that mention MemoWare, Craig's main online endeavor before GearBits.

After finding books that mention your search terms, you can also see a scan of that page. An Amazon.com press release gives more details of the service. The service inaugurates a capability unmatched by any other major online or bricks-and-mortar book retailer - although publisher O'Reilly's subscription-based Safari service has previously allowed IT professionals to search through the text of 1,000 selected technical reference books.

This appears to be the first results of Amazon.com's foray into search, under its wholly-owned A9 subsidiary. A9 was founded earlier this year, and operates independently of Amazon.com under Udi Manber, a former executive at search giant Yahoo.

Not many people know this, but one of my passions is composing music. In between working on various projects for GearBits, Qvadis and Kinectrics and more, I'm within months of launching a new site around this passion.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd do a wander through my various pieces of studio gear (this is GearBits, after all), for anyone who's interested. And if there is anyone, it'd be great to hear your thoughts.

Here's the first in the series.

Home audio/MIDI recording used to mean devoting a room or den to a range of equipment, including a computer, a MIDI keyboard, control surface, a mixer, a preamp. And there was no way you were going to pack this in the back of your Saturn if you wanted to compose in, say, Tahiti.

No longer. Amazingly compact, the Ozone by M-Audio is combination keyboard, MIDI control surface, microphone preamp, USB audio and MIDI I/O - in a package no bigger than a laptop. It's like a portable keyboard for your PDA...but more.

Put Ozone together with a laptop and software like Sonar, or Reason, and you have a complete personal mobile studio. Talent not included.

Everything you need is at your fingertips - fullsize keys, mod and pitch wheel, MIDI controller knobs, microphone and instrument monitor and gain levels, headphone volume. The back panel sports a balanced XLR input, ¼-inch line-level input, ¼-inch stereo input, two ¼-inch line-level outputs, ¼-inch headphone output, sustain-pedal input, MIDI I/0, and USB port. One quirk for me is that the Ozone cannot be powered parasitically, an AC adapter must be plugged in at all times.

Output from the Ozone is amazing - very clean. Recording at 24-bit, 96-kHz recording turns out product that is excellent. The preamp does provide a sound reminscent of some older mixers, but hey, I'm not a great vocalist, so this is an extra for me.

Its size, weight, and capabilities make the Ozone a great accessory for the touring musician or composer. Now all I need is a ticket to Tahiti.

As blogged by Lost Remote, Reuters is reporting that Microsoft is starting to promote its video delivery system. In short, Microsoft wants telecommunications companies to use its format to distribute TV broadcasts, which would then be decoded in Microsoft-powered set-top boxes.

"Microsoft said that through the compression technology of its Windows Media Player 9 it can now offer standard broadcast quality television over an Internet connection of 1 Megabit per second (Mb/s). High definition TV will be offered if a consumer has a broadband Web connection that allows four to five Mb/s.

Microsoft said Internet television should be cheaper to bring to consumers than current cable TV which is transmitted over a separate video network with MPEG compression technology.

A set top box to receive and decode Internet TV could cost as little as $50 in four years time, down from a bill for materials of $150 now."

Yeah, that's what I want -- to rely on the world's #1 monopoly for access to all my media. Anything proprietary is inherently more expensive -- that's basic economics. Why would the telcos opt for a system that, in the long run, will shift their profits into the hands of Microsoft?

The FCC recently passed legislation requiring that all TV's be able to receive digital signals without a set-top box. This move by Microsoft flies in the face of that consumer-friendly move by the FCC (one of its very few in recent years).

I think the telcos and the FCC are smarter than this and that Microsoft will have a hard time getting this widely adopted. That's my prediction, at least. What's yours?

A fixture on the business 500 lists since 1935, ACME Corporation still stands today as the premier diversified products conglomerate.

The Complete Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products showcases the breadth of products available from this industrial powerhouse.

Its celebrated founder Charles "Chuck" Jones took the company from humble beginnings to its acme as a major supplier of devices pushing the boundaries of physics.

The one blemish in ACME's record is a lawsuit brought against it by one of its clients. Despite a spirited defense, the matter remains before the courts.

One of my favorite TV shows is "Nova" on PBS. I love history and science so for me they smacked one out of the park this past Tuesday with an episode called "Infinite Secrets". The one hour show delves into the amazing journey of the rarest of all works by Archimedes called "The Method". This book actually describes Archimedes' thought processes behind his work into solving for the volumes of complex 3D shapes.

No one knows how many copies of "The Method" were produced by the legendary genius who died in 212 B.C., but this particular one was transcribed sometime in the 10th century A.D. It ended up in a monastery that unfortunately had a parchment shortage around 1100 A.D. This prompted a well meaning monk to wash Archimedes' writings from the parchment and then re-use it to copy down a prayer book called a palimpsest. The dark ages finally gave way to the renaissance when interest in science and mathematics bloomed again. Unfortunately, the problems that renaissance scholars spent so much time on had already been solved by Archimedes centuries before and still "The Method" sat hidden in a Constantinople monastery ready to unlock these secrets if they had only known.

In 1846, a biblical scholar named Tischendorf discovered the faint writings of Archimedes underneath the palimpsest's religious text and stole a single page. In 1907, Johan Heiburg transcribed the text with a magnifying glass, but still did not grasp the importance of the find. The world wars ensued and the palimpsest was lost again until the late 1990s when a family in Paris contacted Christies auction house wanting to sell a rare prayer book. It was "The Method" and the book sold to an anonymous collector for $2 million. It is now in the midst of a painstaking complete translation and restoration using all the technology available to us in this modern day. Great stuff!!!! Set your TiVos.

I just watched the first episode of Taken on the Sci-Fi channel and I'm already looking forward to the second episode. Yeah, it's that good (even better than V was way back in...um...1983).

In a nutshell, Taken is a fictional account of alien encounters with us terrestrials dating from the old Roswell events of the late 1940's to present day. It involves aliens with unknown motivations, shifty-eyed military types, and a host of other mysterious characters.

Taken is a Steven Spielberg production, meaning that it has a bit more credibility than your typical made-for-TV mini-series. So far, it's really enjoyable. The acting is pretty good and, unlike most TV fare, the production quality is top-notch -- on par with most movies I've seen recently.

As I always say, TiVo it if you can...watch it live if you have to.

The supreme nutters behind the "Getaway In Stockholm" videos are set to release number four in their infamous series this October 15th. The teaser trailer is available now via their website. If your jaw is still a bit slack reading this, let me fill you in. Several years ago, some soon-to-be Darwin award winners in Stockholm thought it would be cool to secure a really fast car, goad the local police into a chase and then film the whole thing. They did. It was very cool and it spawned sequels and copycats galore. At times the calls are so close and the speeds are so great that these videos are almost painful to watch, but impossible to turn away from. Don't try this at home.

Warren Zevon - 9/7/2003 - link
Johnny Cash - 9/12/2003 - link
John Ritter - 9/12/2003 - link

Thanks.

The Wall Street Journal and LostRemote.com are reporting that Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of TechTV, is looking to sell the $250-300 million business. No interested parties have publicly come forth yet. Read more at Reuters.

Who would have guessed that J.R.R. Tolkien once worked on staff at the Oxford English Dictionary? :-)

An OED newsletter article traces his early contributions when he joined the OED in 1919: selected words that started with the letter W such as waggle, waistcoat, wake, walnut, walrus, wampum, wan, and want.

Tolkien was very interested in the etymologies of words, and upon taking up a post at Leeds University was rumored to have had a lengthy lecture on the etymology of the world walrus. (And you thought your prof's lectures were boring...)

His more notable contributions to the OED began 50 years later, when he was asked for help on the definition of the word hobbit. The final version:

In the tales of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973): one of an imaginary people, a small variety of the human race, that gave themselves this name (meaning ‘hole-dweller’) but were called by others halflings, since they were half the height of normal men.

Other Middle-Earth words that have been accepted by the OED include mathom, mithril, and orc. Now under consideration, perhaps for the next edition of the dictionary: balrog.

From the "stop and count to 10" department...

So there you are, watching some sporting event when the station decides to cut to something else (usually another sporting event). Or, two events coincide and the one you want to watch is of course the one that isn't being shown. What do you do?

Well, according to the Lowell Sun, one Boston man's solution was to bombard the station with half a million emails.

"A [Boston] man who crashed FOX TV's computer system with more than 500,000 e-mail messages to protest the station's airing of Red Sox games over NASCAR races will now have plenty of time at home to watch TV.

Michael Melo, 45, of 12 Rainbow Lane, was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to one year of probation, the first six months to be spent under home confinement, after he admitted he exceeded the authorized access to a FOX TV computer, causing $36,000 worth of damage to Channel 25."

With all that time on his hands at home, you have to wonder how much of it he'll spend watching TV.

If you like "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" (my new fave), pop over to BBC America and catch "What Not To Wear". Trinny and Susannah make Simon Cowell seem like a nice guy as they pounce on unwary fashion disasters every week. The show is voyeuristic reality at its best as women are nominated to be made over by WNTW unbeknownst to them and are then filmed by hidden cameras for a couple of weeks to give the hosts an idea of how really tragic the situation is. They then bring the makeover target into the game by giving her a brutally honest evaluation of her couture status using a combination of the videos they took and a real good tongue lashing. After a crash course on how to dress, the invigorated victim goes on a £2000 shopping spree for a new wardrobe and then puts it all together with Trinny and Susannah's help. The wry, sharp Brit humor is the best part for me and they really do get nice results.

TeleRead.org is an interesting website with an interesting mission: to promote "well-stocked national digital libraries." Beyond the various lists and links, the site features a well-done blog related to e-books, the publishing industry, DRM (digital rights management), and other related matters.

As you may know, I'm a big fan of e-books, and I think they deserve a lot more attention than they've been getting, so I'm glad to see a well-organized and active site like this emerge. Check it out!

In a stunt that could make or break Bravo's new hit Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the Fab 5 will be making over Jay Leno, host of the The Tonight Show.

According to this article on CBSnews.com, the 'Queer Eye' gang is "...scheduled to appear on Leno's late-night talk show Aug. 14 — the same night NBC will re-air the second installment of the Bravo series. Then they'll come back the next night to show off the results of their work."

So, watch (or record) Thursday's episode for a treat. While I'm not a huge Leno fan, this could be particularly hilarious. Plus, like evey other Leno show, it'll be broadcast in high-definition TV. Bonus!

A friend (thanks, Bob!) pointed me to a hilarious TV advertisement from a car dealer. Follow this link (MPEG).

Now...where might I be able to get a Trunkmonkey installed?

The New York Times Technology section has a really nice article summarizing the state of the cable-versus-satellite wars over our television watching. And it's just not about television -- everyone is trying to get in on broadband Internet access, cellular phone service, and a host of enhanced services like video-on-demand and digital video recording. The sector is awash in new technologies and better choices for the consumer. Hey, deregulation may actually be working! Nah...

So, will cable and satellite digital video recording services kill TiVo? Read the whole story at the New York Times website (free account required).

If you haven't seen the new show on Bravo called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, you're missing some fairly hilarious stuff. In fact, I'm surprised this isn't airing on Comedy Central.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy features five gay guys (the "Fab 5") who "make over" willing straight guys wanting to spruce up their looks and lifestyles. They remodel the fellow's apartment/house, redo his wardrobe, teach him some basic culinary skills, address his personal grooming (or lack thereof), and generally make sure he's down with all the latest trends.

While I'm certainly no fan of "reality TV," this is creative enough to make me forget it's part of that otherwise feeble genre. A list of upcoming episodes of Queer Eye can be found at the Bravo website. In case you want to hear more about this interesting show, NPR covered it as well (RealAudio required). And, to top things off, in what I'm is a sure sign that the apocolypse is nigh, NBC actually aired a 30-minute episode of the program last night (it normally runs 60 minutes on Bravo). Wow...can NBC get any more hip?

Ever heard of Actimates? Unless you have young children, probably not. In a nutshell, Actimates are little RF-controlled robots that look like popular children's characters, i.e., Barney, Teletubbies, Arthur and D.W. We stumbled upon an Actimates Barney at a local yard sale and figured it was worth the 5 bucks because our daughter loves him. He was part of a "PC Pack" which includes a CD-ROM and an RF sender that hooks to your PC's game port. I popped in some batteries, installed the hardware and software on a Win2K box and when it didn't work I figured it was still a good toy for the money. He could talk and play games and sing. The child was happy.

My wife wanted more. Actimates also works with the "TV Pack" and specially formatted video tapes (of which we have lots) and broadcasts. I found one cheap on eBay and hooked it up to my VCR's video out jack. Not expecting much, I plopped the daughter in front of the tube, pushed in an Actimates tape and sat down to watch.

Amazing stuff! This little toy runs a commentary on the video reminiscent of MST3K. He knows all the characters, sings the songs, and quips about this and that while the whole time gesturing with his arms and head. It's pretty cool and I'm sure it's ultra cool if you're two. It was a rousing success with my little one and she loves watching videos with Barney now. In fact, she usually demands it.

Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer sells Actimates, no new Actimates tapes are being produced and the special broadcasts are no more. I have no clue why the venture failed, but it seems that Microsoft, like Sony, suffers from CADD (Corporate Attention Deficit Disorder). They are on to the next potential profit center. At least they left something in their huge wake that my little girl enjoys.

The 100th year of the Tour de France (1903-2003) kicked off in Paris July 5th and it is historical not only because it's the biggest, baddest, oldest bicycle race in the world, but Lance Armstrong (a Texas superhuman) is poised to join four other riders (Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain) as a 5-time winner and maybe become one of the greatest bicycle racers of all time.

As a former bicycle racer, the Outdoor Life Network has been a breath of fresh air with live coverage of each stage and expanded programming in the evenings with lots of good inside scoop, knowledgable announcers and very little fluff. My TiVo has been working overtime.

Stage 8 from Sallanches to L'Alpe d'Huez had all the makings of an utter bloodbath if such a thing is possible in cycling. It was early in the Tour, very few riders had broken, it was very long (219 km) and it was punishing. L'Alpe d'Huez has been the scene of many epic cycling battles and it's 13.8 km at a mind-blowing 8% grade came at the end of a day that had already seen the riders drag themselves over the 1566 meter Col du Télégraphe and the 2645 meter Col du Galibier. It was a powderkeg. There would be 500,000 raving maniac cycling fans lining the slopes of Alpe d'Huez! I was dying to see this race.

But CBS had other plans. There is an agreement somewhere that CBS (who used to try to cover the Tour in years past) gets a go at it for old time's sake on Sundays. This is akin to George Foreman deciding to take off his grilling apron and lace on the gloves again. CBS weighed in with a one hour (yes, a whole hour) of Sunday afternoon coverage that might have included two minutes of racing. The rest of the time was spent on human interest stories, history, pageantry and lots of commercials. It was a monster waste of time that made me wait the whole day to see the actual race on OLN. CBS, you suck.

But what a race it was! I think it is the best bicycle race I have ever seen. My wife, not even a former racer, was yelling, screaming, jumping up and down and was holding me personally responsible for Lance not totally decimating the competition. "Why is he letting that guy get ahead of him!!!!!!" I would have given a month's salary to have been on those slopes near the finish line to hear the roars as Armstrong, Beloki, Hamilton, Ullrich, Mayo and Vinokourov tried to break each other's legs and wills. It just doesn't get any better than that. Mayo ended up winning the stage, but Armstrong held off his main rivals to take 3rd and the yellow jersey. Hopefully he will keep it until the Tour ends in Paris on July 27th.

If you like cycling or just think you might, don't miss the Tour this year. Unless you decide to watch it on CBS.

A big hit with consumers and engineers the world over, it seems, is Honda's new television advertisement titled simply 'Cog.' It features a series of Honda Accord parts (valve stems, windshield wipers, etc.) composing a modern day contraption that Rube Goldberg would have been proud of.

If your browser is Flash-enabled, feel free to watch the video here. Afterwards, make sure to follow the link on that page to read an interesting article about the ad. Supposedly, it took 606 takes to get everything to happen just right. Keep in mind while you're watching that video that there's not a smidgen of CGI anywhere -- it's 100% authentic. And Tom and Jerry always seemed to make it look so simple.

Combine two of man's passions -- golf and racing cars -- into one advertisement and you have a sure-fire winner. This one is no exception. Check out this online streaming ad from Tag Heuer. What a watch company has to do with golf and racing, I'm still not quite sure, but this is a pretty darn cool piece of marketing.