Vancouver Sun tech reporter Gillian Shaw interviewed myself and several other technology enthusiasts on the day of the Apple iPad announcement, and you can check out my thoughts online on her blog (as well as in yesterday’s dead tree version of the Vancouver Sun.) Techvibes.com also reposted “The iPad cometh“. Neat!
For the second time, the NYT is thinking about instituting a paywall. My personal feeling is that it’ll be slow suicide, but maybe the brain trust at the Gray Lady knows something I don’t. Apple’s new tablet might be a revolutionary product that heralds a new media delivery system, and in the process makes the NYT “app” worth both paying for and subscribing to. And if I had to pick a paper I’d pay to read, the Times would definitely be the top contender. But….it all smacks of desperation and futility. Matthew Ingram, who recently left the Globe and Mail to become a senior writer at GigaOm (itself formed by former BusinessWeek reporter Om Malik) has written an interesting post about the NYT paywall. Check it out.
Well, no surprise there. But many a year has been pegged as “the year we (fill in the blank)” in the sci-fi realm, and as we reach those years we’re filled with a crashing sense of disappointment. Here’s some of the best sci-fi years and how they actually panned out.
They don’t make local news openers like this anymore, and I’m torn as to whether that’s a good or bad thing.
In addition to coddling a dead language and being pretty damned bitter about their lost colonial empire and handy defeat at the hands of the Nazis, France can now add “hatred of the future” to their long list of missteps. French president Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tax Google and other new media giants in order to help struggling print and other media companies. Well, pleut moi un rivoire, Nicolai, if those businesses are failing there’s likely a very good reason for their downward spiral, such as lack of a 21st century business model.
Simply put, it’s a lot smarter than American news outlets, and comes close to rivalling the BBC World Service in quality. I’ve personally found that I’m getting more and more of my news from Al Jazeera English, particularly their iPhone app, which lets me watch a live stream of the channel from anywhere I’d like, as well as using Livestation on my PC.
But don’t take my word for it, read Robert D. Kaplan’s article in the Atlantic. Kaplan not only points out that Al Jazeera English has the hustle for scoops that other international news gatherers seem to lack, they’re also a unique window into the attitudes of the developing world’s emerging middle class.
In my capacity as a tech reporter for Techvibes.com, sometimes I get to check out some neat new tech, like these Sony E-Readers (the Reader Touch and Reader Pocket, in point of fact.) They don’t have a wifi or 3g connection, but they can read any format and can “borrow” e-books from the library.
This video illustrates the changing trends in social media that are driving people away from the old mass media and towards social, personalized content. Some pretty impressive stats in here.
In their continuing quest to commit suicide, as noted by Techcrunch, Hollywood is taking measures to restrict access to their latest DVD releases from DVD kiosks that allow people to order a DVD online and then pick it up from a high-tech vending machine nearby. Not surprisingly, Blockbuster is in support of the move, since it props up their failing business.
But as Techcrunch says (and I heartily agree), all this move does is encourage piracy. If people can’t rent movies in a way that’s proven to be convenient to them, they aren’t going to leg it halfway across town to the nearest Blockbuster. What they will do is take five minutes to learn how to download torrents…and then the studios have likely lost a customer forever.
According to a new article in Silicon Valley Insider, cable is starting to feel the pinch from online video, and no wonder. With old technology, no way to get a la carte programming, and a disdain for the customer that borders on the pathological, I’m not surprised cable is hurting.
Anecdotally I’ve talked to many friends who have dropped cable for online, some of them going so far as to get rid of their televisions. I keep my TV around as a video game monitor, but it doesn’t do much past that. And with the advent of iPhone apps like Al Jazeera English, it won’t be long before I pick and choose the channels I want (in my case, mostly news) and carry them around in my pocket.
Of course, Canada is even more of a monopoly than the United States, and to date we haven’t had anything as disruptive as Hulu arrive on the scene (though it’s likely on the way.) And our cable and TV execs are if anything in more denial than their US counterparts; when I was at the Banff TV Festival a few months ago one exec said with a straight face that “We’ll be just fine, we have HD!” Yes, never mind that all it takes is a clever bit of math and the web will soon have as good or better quality video than HDTV, you just wallow in your comfortable lies, TV exec.
Long term, I think the television industry as it stands is doomed. Eventually everything will come to our televisions, computers and other devices through the internet, and those who can adapt to that new reality will survive. Those that can’t…won’t.