Category: Popular Media

April 28, 2008

Consume or Produce: Reflections on an Earlier Post

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.

Posted by Craig in Internet and Other and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

April 12, 2008

Reason #194 Why Dr. Phil is the Antithesis of Mental Health

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.

Posted by Craig in Health & Medicine and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

January 14, 2008

'American Idol' Meets 'Monty Python'

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.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

January 4, 2008

GearBits' Predictions for 2008

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?

Posted by Craig in Computing and Gaming and Home A/V and Industry and Internet and Other and Phones and Photography and Popular Media and Science & Nature and Society / Politics and Technology and Wireless
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

I Doubt They Thought It Was Very Funny

Posted by Craig in Other and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

December 28, 2007

Most Popular Media on Peer-to-Peer Networks

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

Posted by Craig in Industry and Internet and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

October 9, 2007

Some Recent New Gear Additions

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.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Technology and Travel
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

September 24, 2007

More "Geek TV" On the Way

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.

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

January 22, 2007

Copyrights in the US: Where Common Sense and Common Law Fail to Overlap

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.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

January 1, 2007

Revisiting My Predictions for 2006

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...

Posted by Craig in Industry and Internet and Mobile & PDAs and Other and Popular Media and Society / Politics and Technology
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

January 17, 2006

GoDaddy.com Commercials

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.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Internet and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (3)

December 29, 2005

GearBits' Predictions for 2006

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!

Posted by Craig in Industry and Internet and Mobile & PDAs and Other and Popular Media and Society / Politics and Technology
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

October 31, 2005

Should Movies Appear in Theaters and on DVD at the Same Time?

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?

Posted by Craig in Industry and Movies & Books and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

April 6, 2005

NY Grants Longer Copyrights to Music Companies

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.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

March 7, 2005

FM Radio to Rise Again?

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.

Posted by Craig in Industry and Music & Audio and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

May 2, 2004

Personal Video Recorder Delivers Over WiFi

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.

Posted by Sam in Home A/V and Popular Media and Wireless
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

February 8, 2004

The RIAA Owes Us Something Back!

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.

Posted by Mitch in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (5)

February 2, 2004

Should Men Wear Kilts?

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!!!!

Posted by Mitch in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (14)

Janet Gets 'Most TiVo'ed Moment' During Super Bowl

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.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

February 1, 2004

Super Bowl Ad Features Music Outlaw

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.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

January 6, 2004

The Lord of the Rings Wireless Games

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.

Posted by Sam in Gaming and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Popular Media and Wireless
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

December 31, 2003

Adobe's New EBookstore

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.

Posted by Sam in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

December 19, 2003

New 'Queer Eye' Promo?

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

December 15, 2003

Wicked

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.

Posted by Mitch in Movies & Books and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (2)

December 12, 2003

Eye of the Beholder

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.

Posted by Sam in Computing and Internet and Popular Media and Society / Politics
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

December 10, 2003

SciFi's New 'Battlestar Galactica' Pretty Good

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.

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

November 26, 2003

iTunes Hacked

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.

Posted by Sam in Computing and Internet and Music & Audio and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

November 25, 2003

Opus Returns: Berke Breathed Comes Back to Comics

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)

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

November 22, 2003

Lost & Forgotten 70's & 80's TV Shows

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?

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (893)

October 28, 2003

msPOD

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.

Posted by Sam in Mobile & PDAs and Music & Audio and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

October 24, 2003

Amazon.com Launches Full Text Searching of Books

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.

Posted by Sam in Computing and Internet and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (2)

October 22, 2003

Ozone: Composing on the Go

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.

Posted by Sam in Music & Audio and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (4)

October 9, 2003

Microsoft: All Your TV Are Belong To Us

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?

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (7)

October 5, 2003

ACME: Mightier than Microsoft

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.

Posted by Sam in Other and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

October 2, 2003

Infinite Secrets

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.

Posted by Mitch in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

September 30, 2003

Sci-Fi's 'Taken' is Good TV

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.

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (2)

September 15, 2003

Getaway In Stockholm 4 On Its Way

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.

Posted by Mitch in Cars and Movies & Books and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (4)

September 12, 2003

They Leave in Threes

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

Thanks.

Posted by Craig in Music & Audio and Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

August 27, 2003

TechTV Up for Sale?

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.

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (1)

August 25, 2003

Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

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.

Posted by Sam in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (3)

August 19, 2003

Don't Like What's On TV?

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.

Posted by Craig in Popular Media
Permanent link to this entry | Comments (0)

August 14, 2003

What Not To Not Watch

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 rea