One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.
- Gabe Newell, co-founder of videogame company Valve, which publishes Portal and Half-Life via AllThingsD (via marksbirch)
Someone who gets it.
(via section9)
100% true. iTunes and Steam both prove it. DRM is a shitty product - always has been and always will be - because the actual entertainment piece attached to the DRM inherently suffers for its inclusion.
Bottom line: your anti-piracy product only serves to demonstrate the appeal of piracy.
(via section9)
To state this as clearly as possible: The four American companies that have come to define 21st-century information technology and entertainment are on the verge of war. Over the next two years, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will increasingly collide in the markets for mobile phones and tablets, mobile apps, social networking, and more.
The Great Tech War Of 2012 | Fast Company
If you work in tech or entertainment, consider this your mandatory Monday morning reading.
“Here’s to the Crazy Ones” — the first of Apple’s “Think Different” commercials. But this one is a bit different. It’s narrated by Steve Jobs himself.
Pretty much the greatest thing ever.
A thing of beauty.
I wonder if he counted himself amongst them.
(via evangotlib)
via @kaepora
What a leap of judgment … if you don’t pirate, you’re not helping fund terrorism. Wow.
What The Fuck? This is incredibly irresponsible.
George Orwell.
I’m not sure if this is more of a crime against logic or punctuation.
Electromagnetic energy from ambient Radio + TV signals harvested, saved and used to power small devices
Researchers at Georgia Tech have found a way to capture and harness ambient energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks, and satellite communications systems.
“There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it,” Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research, said in a statement. “We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability.”
According to the university, the team’s scavenging devices can capture energy transmitted by communications devices, convert it from AC to DC, and then store it in capacitors and batteries. The scavenging technology currently can take advantage of frequencies from FM radio to radar, a range spanning 100 MHz to 15 GHz or higher.
Scavenging experiments utilizing TV bands have yielded power amounting to hundreds of microwatts, and multi-band systems are expected to generate one milliwatt or more, the school reported. The school added that that amount of power is enough to operate many small electronic devices, including a variety of sensors and microprocessors.via @WFMU
Dude.
DUDE.
I swear to god, between this, jetpacks, and flying cars, my childhood dreams are coming true. On that note, Hasbro: get on those fucking hoverboards already.
Three of Twitter's co-creators -- Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman -- are departing to launch a new venture.
Three of Twitter’s co-creators — Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman — are departing to launch a new venture.
Well then.
The reality is that 90 percent of the world does not have or cannot afford a smartphone or a high-end device
Nokia’s CEO (via nostrich)
mikehudack: This is a stupid statement. World income will increase and smartphone costs will decrease. Soon it will be that “80 percent of the world does not have or cannot afford a smartphone.” A few years after that it’ll be 70 percent. And guess where the margin will be? With the ever expanding high end of the market.
This is not the way to run a business.
Trica Wang, who’s currently researching mobile usage among migrants in China, came up with the perfect response to this months ago in her post about cheap, hacked smartphones in China:
Cellphone producers worked with a Taiwan company that stands outside of Chinese governance, MediaTek, to quickly produce affordable and customizable cellphones that could flood markets within and outside of China. Essentially, cellphone producers dreamed of a way to operate outside of market regulations for cellphones and in the end shanzai phones now are estimated to makeup 20% of all cellphone sales within China. Millions of migrants can now have their dreams come true of connecting in real-time with friends and family, playing lots of games, going online, reading books, and taking photos - these non-elite users can finally afford cellphones just like anyone else in China. Shanzai culture is about equalizing the playing field for the most economically disadvantaged consumers. Now that is what I call a disruptive innovation.
Now companies like Nokia and Microsoft are panicking because they are unable to compete in the crowded smartphone market. Longtime buyers of Nokia feature phones (symbian) have defected to Shanzai smart phones in masses. But Nokia still has an odd split in their company - they’ve set their company up in China (and India, Africa) to be split into two parts: emerging markets and smartphones. And now Nokia smartphones are switching to Microsoft platform (good-bye Meego!). But this means that Nokia has segmented their market into two groups and made two assumptions - that emerging markets still want to buy feature phones and elite-users want to buy expensive smart phones. Sorry, but this isn’t going to work because both non-elite users AND elite users want access to really cool smart-phones.
People in emerging markets are going to want to have access to the same features that expensive smartphones offer. They see the iPhone ads and they want the lifestyle that comes with it. So even if they can’t buy it from Nokia/Microsoft, iphone, or some Android phone - they’re going to get it a smartphone with the SAME features from a shanzai smartphone. Sure shanzai smartphones are cheaply made and it may fall apart in 1 year, but guess what - that’s more of an excuse to buy a new one. At such an affordable place, migrants can afford to get a new phone every year or so.
My suggestion for any hardware manufacturer in emerging markets - learn more about your consumers.
As a non-coincidental aside: Tricia was once an intern at Nokia Research.
(via kenyatta)
I think the other thing to remember is that connectivity is ever-expanding. A laptop is expensive, but a smartphone can do 90% of the things a laptop is normally used for. The disconnected world isn’t unaware of the connected world, it’s just unable to afford the connected lifestyle. The main feature of smartphones isn’t apps, and it isn’t games - it’s the ability to better connect to the world at large. The phone doesn’t need to be “high-end,” it just needs to be “smart enough” - and just as the high end keeps getting higher, “smart enough” keeps getting smarter.
(via kenyatta)
Microsoft to announce $8.5 billion Skype acquisition tomorrow morning
At a value close to $8 billion, the Skype deal would rank as the biggest acquisition in the 36-year history of Microsoft, a company that traditionally has shied away from large deals. In 2007, Microsoft paid approximately $6 billion to acquire online advertising firm aQuantive Inc. Many current and former Microsoft executives believe Microsoft significantly overpaid for that deal. But they are also relieved that Microsoft gave up on an unsolicited $48 billion offer for Yahoo Inc. nearly three years ago. Yahoo is valued at half that sum today.
It must be fun to sell the same company twice for multibillion dollar sums.
The iPad
So earlier today I signed on Tumblr to do something fresh like like post a picture of a maxi pad and be like, “yo I already got my iPad, son!” until I realized that of course, the entire Internet had already beat me to it.
In any case, GC brought a tablet PC home not that long ago and I’ve been playing around on it ever since. From what I can tell, this computer does everything and more than what the iPad promises to do, minus the extra fees. The only major difference from what I can tell is the ability to type on the touch screen which would be nice to have on the PC. Am I missing something else major here? Why, exactly, is this a gamechanger?
Here’re my thoughts on why I’m absolutely floored (in the good way) by the iPad:
- iPhone OS - The “desktop metaphor” for computing is two and a half decades old now. While it works, it’s clunky as all hell and incredibly limiting. There are better ways, the iPhone interface is one of them. It’s an incredibly elegant and intuitive interface. Touchscreen abilities mean the UI can be customized to fit the program instead of having to graft standardized UI elements on top of a desktop metaphor. Imagine using Final Cut Pro or photoshop with sliders and wheels customized for that program’s functionality. Imagine no more keyboard shortcuts to do what a simple slider could. This is the first step towards that; buttons that are only there when you need them and infinitely customizable for any and all given computing scenarios - but that only works when you begin to break away from the desktop/folders/tiered metaphor for computing.
- It’s a better laptop for what I do, than a laptop. I use my laptop now for mobile computing. 99% of the time it’s email, Word, Calendar, Keynote, presentations, and the Web. This does all of that. The better part comes because A) it’s 1/3 the weight, and B) I don’t have to search for a wi-fi hotspot anymore.
- It’s a better netbook without the sacrifices. Granted, storage is an issue, but it’s not meant to be your only computer (like a netbook.) Netbooks are small and cramped, in an effort to be lightweight. This has a larger screen, weighs less, and does more.
- I don’t care about the ebooks bit (I have a Kindle) but would absolutely get the LA Times and WSJ newspapers on this. Books are better on e-ink. Newspapers could kill on this. The layout translates, and you interact with them in an incredibly familiar way: click on the article to read more/go to the page it continues on.
- 3G is huge for me. I hate trying to find a wifi spot when I need to type a longer email. The add-on cards cost more than the 30 bucks offered here. Sometimes a lot more. Finally a true “anywhere” computing device.
- 10 hours of HD video is astounding. I might use that, I might not, but if they’re getting 10 hours decoding H.264 video, I can only imagine that a day or two charge with the above normal computing is not out of the ordinary.
- I don’t care about a camera, I guess some people do. I have a camera in my phone, a DSLR, and I don’t do a lot of videoconferencing. Some people do, that’s fine.
So essentially it’s everything my current laptop is, but more efficient, smaller, lighter, and faster. Throw in a bluetooth keyboard and it’s a portable office for me, since I was already planning on getting a larger workhorse machine for FCP/CS4/video/whatever else. Apple gave me the perfect machine for my lifestyle and exactly what I need and want in a portable - albeit secondary - computing device.
Dan Moren, nicely expressing my biggest concern with any Apple “Tablet” that even slightly resembles everyone’s guesses:
Wait, wait, wait. We’re talking about a revolutionary new device that will let you watch videos, play music, and probably even control your own squadron of death robots (not included), and I’m worried about something as mundane as text entry?
Well, yeah.
Text entry is the second-biggest limiting factor of the usefulness of different computing-device portability classes. (The biggest is size: how likely is it that you’ll have the device with you when you want to use it?)
This doesn’t apply to media players, so if that’s primarily what The Tablet is supposed to be (which would be disappointing, but not unlikely), they can get away with a low-usefulness, on-screen touch keyboard. But for The Tablet to be a useful general-computing device, text input needs to be faster and easier than what even the best on-screen keyboards have been able to offer so far.
I think a rather elegant solution to both sets of customers is to have an on-screen keyboard for those who want simplicity, and a USB port to add a low-profile keyboard for those looking to use it as a portable computer.
[edit] Bluetooth could work equally well for a keyboard.
Dear any and all CES presenters
Just because “social networking” is cool doesn’t mean you now need to incorporate it into every consumer electronics device you’re shipping. Yes, a good portion of my business and personal life is spent engaging with others online, but that doesn’t meant I want to be around everyone I know all the time. Sometimes - and I know this is hard to believe - I’m even doing other things for the sole and specific purpose of stepping away from being connected.
For example, I don’t need to have Twitter or Facebook on my ebook reader. It’s a solitary activity that I don’t want or need interrupted; adding SN features makes it the electronic equivalent of a built-in annoying “That Guy” at the coffeeshop who asks constant questions about the book that you were actively reading just moments ago.
“Do you like it?” he or she (or your ebook reader) asks, seemingly unaware that since you’re in the middle of it, any opinion you give will be unformed and still malleable.
“I’ve been meaning to check that out,” he or she (or your ebook reader) says, trying to affect an air of culture after mispronouncing the author’s name and ordering a coffee that has more syllables than the title of your book.
So congratulations, you’ve just created a device whose sole additional selling point is “it’s now easier to annoy you when you’re trying to block out humanity and shut out the world around you.”
I’m also looking at every TV manufacturer displaying their “networked, socially-aware, ultra-thin, 3D television” this year. Excellent; thank you, you assholes.
The best of all possible scenarios is that people can make now fun of me in real-time when I tear up as Sam runs through the airport after Joanna in Love Actually.
The worse scenario (and I’m sure the one that will happen) is that now watching a movie on your couch will be the home version of that time you couldn’t get those five frat guys behind you to shut the fuck up during Return Of The King.
Or, better stated, for anyone who’s ever played on Xbox Live: imagine that same crowd talking nonstop during a movie.
“Who’s the elf faggot?” they’ll shout and laugh.
“Hey what kind of pussy wants to watch this bullshit?” they’ll ask the vast swaths of the internet, content in their pseudo-anonymity and bored of masturbation.
“Hey Barrett, I can’t believe you’ve spent the past hour youtubing recap videos of So You Think You Can Dance. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy…”
So to every CES presenter this year: I love social media, I really do. It’s provided me with hours of entertainment, satisfaction, enhanced friendships, and even paid my bills for the past six months. I just don’t need it involved in everything I do, because - present company excepted, of course - people as a general rule are complete bastards.
“Could this finally be the season for Web TV?”
Maybe it’s just me, but looking at that TV, the last thing I’m getting is a desire to interact with youtube; it makes me want to go to some tropical or Caribbean island and lay in a hut reading for a while before diving into the ocean to cool off.
So, not to knock Samsung, but if the picture of your connected TV makes me want to go somewhere far away from both connectivity and TVs…well, I’m not sure that’s the brand message you’re trying to communicate.
Unless your message is “Watching Two and a Half Men on this baby will make you feel like you’re lounging somewhere in the Antilles with all of your friends from every online community you’ve ever joined!” In which case you should be either fired, set ON fire, or both.
Streaming video from the internet to your TV…
- Awesome to see Blip.tv in there.
- Why can I get Netflix On Demand for a Sony branded Blu-Ray player but not on a much more expensive Sony PS3 (which is also technically an internet connected Blu-Ray player)?
