Speaking of the Wayback Machine, here are some thumbnail views of the site’s homepage, going back to before it was a blog, when I was laboring with Front Page and gave up after a dozen painfully static pages. Click to enlarge, of course.
Category: Tech
Roku XDS $10 off at BJ’s Warehouse
Roku’s top streaming video player, the XDS, is ten bucks off at BJ’s Warehouse stores until May 1st. The package includes a 6-ft. HDMI cable.
If you aren’t into iTunes, and you’re a Netflix user, Roku is the best streaming video player to get. I say that having also used a Wii, Xbox 360, and Sony Blu-ray player for Netflix Watch Instantly. The Wii interface is fun but it doesn’t do HD, the Xbox starts up really fast but it only does Netflix, and the less said about the Sony the better, because it’s a mess by comparison, which makes me wonder about their Blu-Ray player with Google TV.
My wish list for Roku channels includes Slacker and Amazon’s Cloud Player, but the offerings are otherwise excellent. One of my players is on Wifi (802.11g), the other is wired, and they perform identically. Standard definition Netflix videos are encoded at 1.5 Mbps, which shouldn’t be a problem on most broadband connections.
Apple-cation
This quote had me spitting up my tea.
“Apple is a very canny company that doesn’t necessarily originate ideas, but its core strength is in the implementation,” said Little. “This what is what Apple is about: it may one day be a first mover, but in most cases it’s a second mover where it has implemented things across a platform and ecosystem in a much, much better way than others do it.”
It’s from this article on the Huffington Post, which has more second-guessing about Amazon’s Cloud Player service. So it’s come to this, huh? Apple is now like Microsoft — an imitator, but an excellent implementer? I don’t think Apple’s at that point yet, with the iPhone and iPad being innovative, market-leading products (I own neither). However, in a couple of recent examples, Apple has been a follower. Apple took Roku’s lead with a small, diskless streaming video player, and Amazon is offering a service that Apple doesn’t. This quote in the article also seems off-the-mark to me.
“I’m not convinced that there is a huge consumer need” being filled by the offering, said Carl Howe, director of consumer research at the Yankee Group. “I have yet to see this as a big deal for consumers. It goes back to whether consumers are looking for a cloud-based music streaming service for music they already own. Do consumers really want to pay more for music they already own?”
The first five gig on Amazon Cloud Drive are free and available for uploading whatever music files you already have — the catch being they need to be MP3’s. (Correction: AAC is also supported.) For $20/year you can get 20 GB of online music streaming. Maybe that’s not enough for an entire music library, but it’s plenty for what you’re currently into hearing. Once Amazon offers Cloud Drive access on other platforms, especially the Logitech Squeezbox Radio and Roku player, it will be servicing my consumer need very well.
Scareware!
Worried about security on your computer? Wondering about that link you clicked on because a warning came up? Watch this video, posted today, about a problem that’s now on millions of sites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKI5dg1cs74
4/1
Internet bandwidth, like oil, is a precious natural resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and the time to start conserving is now!
http://www.publicknowledge.org/files/docs/peak_bandwidth.pdf
Amazon’s Cloudy future
The new Amazon Cloud Player works only with a web browser or on an Android device. Before making it available on other platforms, perhaps Amazon is waiting to see how the music industry reacts to its otherwise bold move. An article on Ars Technica has the headline, “Music industry will force licenses on Amazon Cloud Player—or else,” but I hope Ed Bott on ZDNet has it right, explaining “How Amazon has outsmarted the music industry (and Apple).” There are laws, and there are contracts, and I don’t know if Amazon’s lawyers advised Jeff Bezos that he would be in violation of one or the other by introducing the Cloud Player, but so far none of the big music labels or the RIAA have filed for a cease and desist order.
Back in the early 80’s, when cassettes were an essential audio component, many LP’s came with a warning on the sleeve that said, “HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC… and it’s illegal.” And that was before CD’s! Well, neither claim turned out to be true. I remember when Disney wouldn’t allow its pre-recorded video cassettes to be rented. They could only be purchased, and they even came with a message saying that, embossed into the cassette. Eventually, Disney had to relent to the reality of the times and, of course, video rentals became a huge revenue source for the studio and helped to fund its resurgent animation department.
Time and again, the music and movie industries have had to react to new technologies. Silent movies didn’t survive talkies, but movies survived the competition from radio and, 20 years later, television. The only way to succeed is to find a way to take advantage of the new technology. As I’ve pointed out before, Napster was predicted in 1972, so the music industry had plenty of warning of what was to come:
Since huge quantities of information can be computer-digitalized and transmitted, music researchers could, for example, swap records over the Net with “essentially perfect fidelity.” So much for record stores (in present form).
Stewart Brand
Rolling Stone
December 7, 1972
The controversy over this latest music distribution method will be fun to watch, because Amazon isn’t a lone college kid sharing MP3’s with friends, who can be easily intimidated. If pushed, Amazon can push back very, very hard. Similarly, the movie studios want to squeeze Netflix, but the question is, without Amazon and Netflix who’s left to distribute audio and video — Wal*Mart, Best Buy, and Target? None of them are still committed to selling physical media.