In the News
May saw the arrival of Roku, the first device to stream Netflix's "Watch It Now" service directly to televisions - and its $99 pricetag helped to instantly put Roku on the map.
Now Roku VP of consumer products, Tim Twerdahl, has announced that additional content providers will be joining up with Roku's service, although no specifics have been announced.
Speculation has fingered both YouTube and Hulu, but speculation has also fingered the PS3 and Xbox 360 as possible carriers of the Netflix "Watch It Now" service, so the leak of a name or two of Roku's future partner(s) could be imminent.
I'm pulling for Hulu on Roku, and for Netflix to spread to the 360 - Microsoft has been eager to dominate the discless video market for ages, and if it's only a matter of time until they take more aggressive steps, they might as well welcome a great service like Netflix into the fold.
'Netflix box' to carry more than just Netflix [CNet]
This is absolutely ridiculous and just the type of thing that makes me fume with anger: a judge has ordered Google to turn over the histories of all YouTube viewers (which include what videos each watched along with IP addresses, user names, and even when they were watched) to Viacom for the purposes of identifying how often copyright material on YouTube is being watched. (A PDF copy of the order can be found here.)
This order is a flagrant violation of the privacy of anyone who has ever used YouTube, but even worse - the court order is also, as the EFF points out, a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (18 U.S.C. § 2710) which clearly states:
(F) pursuant to a court order, in a civil proceeding upon a showing of compelling need for the information that cannot be accommodated by any other means, if--
(i) the consumer is given reasonable notice, by the person seeking the disclosure, of the court proceeding relevant to the issuance of the court order; and
(ii) the consumer is afforded the opportunity to appear and contest the claim of the person seeking the disclosure.
This means that Viacom not only has the burden of proving that the information they seek cannot possibly be gained by any other means (the view counters on each YouTube video will easily tell them how much a particular infringing video was watched, which is all they need to determine viewership), but that pursuant to the court order, every single user of YouTube must be given a chance to appear in the court and contest the court order before the information is turned over, with a reasonable lead time for notice.
Neither of those conditions has been met in this case, and therefore the court order is clearly illegal. The judge presiding in the case and issuing the order, Judge Louis L. Stanton, even openly flouted the Video Privacy Protection Act:
defendants cite no authority barring them from disclosing such information in civil discovery proceedings, and their privacy concerns are speculative.
The EFF has already filed a complaint, and we can only hope that Google continues to defend its users' privacy by refusing the court order and fighting it in court, as they did before it was issued.
Those who are as concerned as I am should contact their Congressman, or speak with and donate to the EFF to help them fight this wanton invasion of privacy.
Judge Louis L. Stanton of the of the New York District Court: you're on notice.
Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom [Wired]
Why in the world you'd name anything "blanview" is utterly beyond my powers of reason, but Casio's done just that with their new transmissive LCD technology. Blanview technology pulls external illumination (say, the sun) into the LCD panel itself to improve backlighting and usability whilst outdoors.
This rids Casio's LCDs of the need for the semi-transmissive LCD found in many current screens. Also, drawing light from the ambient environment rather than needing to generate it with power reduces outdoor power consumption by a whopping 50% and increasing transmittance by 30%.
You can expect to see this technology soon, which is a little unusual, as Casio begins shipping sample panels (from 2.7" to 6.5") this very month.
Casio touts "Blanview" transmissive LCD for outdoor use [Engadget]
Blockbuster has apparently woken up from whatever drunken stupor it got itself into and has a major case of the coyote uglies, as they've just released a statement saying they no longer intend to buy-out retail chain Circuit City.
In a quote that can only be filed under the "no-shit-Sherlock" pile, Jim Keyes, Blockbuster's CEO and chairman, said:
Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due
diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest
of Blockbuster's shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit
City
We could have all told you that months ago, Mr. Chairman.
Blockbuster Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Circuit City [Blockbuster]
[via: Gearlog]
Just when you thought your state was "just okay" or "doing alright," Massachusetts and its many beautiful denizens once-friggin-again blows your socks off in the supermarket department.
This time it comes in the form of Zeer.com, an online review and—surprise!—social networking site centered around—surprise!—supermarket shopping.
Zeer.com hails from Cambridge, the place where Rock Band comes from. It's kinda like Yelp, kinda like any of the billions of social networking tools out there (all of which are stupid ... friend me!). Cautious obsessive shoppers can look up products and see user-generated reviews, nutritional information, and company blather descriptions.
I looked up "beer" and saw a bunch of twelve-packs with neat little stars next to them. Budweiser received one star and came with this nice comment:
Hey I heard this story one time that Anheuser Busch decided one day to clean out the vats in which they make Budweiser. Yeah, so when they got to the bottom they found like 2 inches of MICE BONES.
After they cleaned it, the beer tasted terrible apparently. Just sayin.
Zeer.com is simultaneously useful and destined for catastrophic failure. People with severe food allergies may find it neat-o, but then again, they could easily suck the teat of Google. And lonely foodies might find a friend or two who also like drinking mouse bones, but then again, they could easily suck the teat of Facebook or MySpace.
Still, it's a nifty idea and Massachusetts thought of it first, not you and certainly not your inferior state.
[via The Boston Globe]
Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, knows a good opportunity when he sees it. When he started Monster.com fourteen years ago, it was all sorts of awesome and gave typical newspaper classifieds a run for their money. Then along came Craig's List (I refuse to write "craigslist" ... except for right then) and knocked Taylor's britches off.
So Taylor took a look out the window and thought, What's the next commodity? Why death of course!
All you baby boomers out there are falling and not getting up, and all us dutiful young 'uns pick up the pieces, type out a few words, and post them on Tributes.com. The site—which I barely checked out due to a crippling fear of extinction—even shows glossy, hip obits from celebrities! Because we all like re-reading the death cries of famous movie stars!
But what if your grandchildren hate your guts because you extinguished cigarettes on their arms and made them fetch you beers in their diapers at 14-years-old? Tributes.com will glean information "through alliances with funeral homes and groups directly as well as trade associations and public information about deaths from Social Security..."
To answer your question, your grandchildren are rotten shits anyway, and a ghostly floating website will write you up for you.
Monster founder sets sights on online obituaries [AP]
Selling your life on eBay has a romantic flair to it. Except when the winning bid falls damagingly short of expectations and you're shoved face-first outta your posh life and into the gutter.
Remember Ian Usher, the Australian man whose wife divorced him 2.5 years ago and who supposedly fetched $2.2 million for his existence on eBay? Yeah, well, the winning bid came it a wee bit closer to $399,000. Ouch!
Usher had originally hoped for at least $500,000 for his stuff—which included a house, friends, and job—but after the big-time bids bouncing in the millions proved phony, he was stuck with a measly $399,000 for his wares. You can barely get a decent house for that (yes, even in this economy) never mind a whole new life.
I feel Mr. Usher's disgrace provides an apt lesson for our Internet-soaked and -obsessed age. No matter what kind of hubbub you concoct around your foolish behavior, and no matter how much attention it gets, doesn't mean anyone, in the end, will actually take you seriously.
Life for sale falls short of target [Sydney Morning Herald]
"Mommy, what happens when time passes?"
"Why son, people get older."
I didn't believe my mother or her fancy ideas up until Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg spelled it out for me in language I can understand: techie Apple-humping language. In an interview with Financial Times, Seidenberg relayed his "ho-hum" attitude towards Apple and Steve Jobs himself by saying that, eventually, Jobs will "get old."
Before you say, "He could've meant Apple and its popularity will get old!" I'll say, "Look at that again. Did he say Apple will get old? The iPhone will get old? No. He said Steve Jobs the person will get old. Yes, we get old and die."
Stupid, stupid, stupid. While I agree with Seidenberg's assessment that the iPhone will not, in fact, dominate all cellular phones ever, I also think he's posturing, trying to sound like a big man with lots of curly browns on his chest. He also says something about a conspiracy but frankly, I'd lost interest by that point.
As a side note, Seidenberg makes $21,309,264 a year.
[MacUser and Financial Times via Media Bistro]
I guess I'm behind the times, but I didn't even realize that Embedded Ads (a.k.a. product placement) in TV shows was really that big of an issue, but many consumer groups have been speaking up against the wide-spread practice as of late, and the FCC is listening. Well, listening and that's about it.
Here's the issue: many programs today will solicit advertising dollars by placing subtle (or not so subtle) ads into shows, but not anything like traditional ads. Unlike the traditional 15-30 blurbs that annoy us all during commercial breaks (and that most of us fast forward through with our DVRs these days), the Embedded Ads are harder to catch. The police officer that inexplicably stops to by a Pepsi out of a Pepsi Machine with the largest Pepsi logo ever on it. The odd occurrence that everyone on the show, including the terrorists, drive Ford branded vehicles. Even the convenient flash of the alligator logo on the polo shirts. These are all examples of Product Placements.
Well, although these seem like a smart way to reach consumers who are otherwise ignoring the commercials that make TV "free," they are kind of deceptive in that we don't know that we're being advertised to. Yeah, the point is we don't know that we're being advertised to and therefore are much more susceptible to said advertising, but that's also the point of the FCC. It hearkens back to the subliminal advertising debate, but it's an interesting fight.
Advertising is going to exist, always and forever. Companies need to get their name and product out there, and we as consumers need to be informed about new things. I know we all hate to be advertised to, but it's a necessary evil. In my mind, I'd much rather what Carrie Bradshaw pull out her MacBook for the 15,000th time than see another Mac vs PC commercial. But, on the other side, shouldn't we be told that we're being covertly marketed to? Don't we have the right to know when someone is trying to implant themselves into our psyches, and don't we have the right to accept or reject that ad?
It's a good fight, if you ask me. What do you think?
FCC finally prepares to investigate embedded ads on TV [Ars Technica]
Hybrid vehicles are so quiet they can mow down blind people in the streets, and will, unless cars are built to emit a minimum of decibel levels.
In an article that made me think, "Huh, why didn't I suppose that before? After all, I'm wicked fekkin' smaht" the National Federation of the Blind railed against those silently humming gas-savers as potential death traps for visually impaired individuals attempting to cross the street. Blind people, after all, rely on traffic sounds to determine safe passage.
This comes one month after courts determined that U.S. currency, as is, discriminates against the blind.
Verdict? We need to think hard during the manufacturing process.
Hybrid vehicles pose silent threat to the blind [The Boston Globe]
The UK branch of Cnet.com features an eye-popping laptop upgrade price comparison between Apple and Dell.
We all know Apple is way more expensive than Dell, or most any other PC maker out there, because consumers aren't just buying a system—they're buying sex, image, prestige and reliability. But the fact that upgrade prices blast upwards to 200% more than Dell ... that's just straight-up fucked.
Check out the full comparison on the Cnet.net website and let us know what you think.
What do I think, you ask? Well, I think, as I said, it's "straight-up fucked." I also think Apple will get away with it forever and ever and ever, because its customer base does not seem to care. Why is that? I can't even begin to imagine.
Sure, there are homegrown ways to upgrade your own laptop, most of which are far less expensive than doing it through the Mother Company, but the reliability of these generic upgrades is dodgy. Personally, I had to try out several different RAM chips before I got one that didn't make my MacBook whirr like a pigeon caught in an industrial fan.
All that said, I've owned one Dell in my life. It lasted one year and then died. But where is the line and when is it crossed?
The fine, fine folks over at Mars (makers of such happiness devices like M&Ms and Snickers) have decided that Cocoa, in its native form, just isn't good enough. No, they want more of it and better versions of it. Being a person that finds most chocolate to be absolutely wonderful (although I rarely eat it anymore… a gurl does have her figure to worry about), I'm not sure I can fathom a better chocolate, but Mars thinks its absolutely a possibility.
So much so that they've teamed with U.S. Department of Agriculture and I.B.M computers to completely map the cocoa genome in hopes of finding out what makes it tick. They want to find ways of making more cocoa, but most importantly, they want to enhance the natural flavors of the cocoa to make a better chocolate. And who can blame them?
While the Whole-Foods Shoppers of the world, who probably crying at this point and arrogantly purchasing over-priced "organic" foods to show their superiority, are sure not to buy into genetically manipulated cocoa, it sounds like nothing but delicious to me! The only thing I'm worried about is if they find the gene that makes some cocoa, you know, "that way," will they wipe out the naturally fabulous strain?
If you're interested in the study and its progress, you can track it over at the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture. For the rest of us, we can expect to start seeing results from this research in about five years.
A Genetic Quest for Better Chocolate [NY Times]
And girls who like girls who like fembots!
Gadget of the Week
If it ain't broke... cease production. Right?
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