Here’s an excellent article from AOL Auto. Although it talks about gender based design in terms of automobiles, I think they are some basic design philosophies that carry across all markets. In particular, I think that attention to detail and how a product is going to be used in everyday are of importance beyond pure “specsmanship”.
Daily Archives: April 25, 2008
More 3-D Screen Coming to a Theatre Near You
Guess what quandrant of Moore’s model movie theatres are in ;p. In an effort to keep customers coming to theatres, 4 movie studios are ponying up the money to convert 10K theater screens to digital. With software updates and a few physical tweaks, these digital screens could also be used for 3-D projection. Sigh … little does Hollywood understand that the same companies providing this technology for theaters, also provide it for televions. There is already 3-D available in rear projection TV’s and Ultra-High Definition TV is coming down the pipe (beautiful image quality from Samsung).
The other thing … if the position the Wired magazine article holds true, that is everything digital goes to free, then this digital conversion, eventually will have to find a way to subsidize free movies. Digital bring with it no film which gets rid of ground transportation, physical storage, and the need for analog copies. With this you would think ticket prices could come down. It sounds like, though, this is not the way movies work. My understanding is that theatre has to pay a flat fee plus a large percentage of revenue for the first few weeks that a new movie comes out. The theatre is SOL when the auditoriums aren’t full so they rely on concessions. It looks like there is no way to disrupt this fee scheme without breaking up the unions and destroying the studio system in general. However … there are film makers that work outside the system — George Lucas for one — who could start putting chinks in the armour. I imagine, too, that independent film makers could take advantage, that is unless the sponsoring studio systems has put features into the technology that block access (ooo, that’s evil). But balancing that, there is the opportunity for independent film makers to use direct digital distribution to your home theatre. Bwa-hahahaha!!! So, eventually it will go to free or very cheap due to competition for eyeballs.
TiVo Adds Web Video
TiVo keeps on moving … I wonder how deep this service is or is this limited to things available to TiVo, like iTunes.
Looking into this further, information on the capabilities of this software are fairly well buried. I did manage to find the users manual. The link is here. It looks like TiVo is tapping into a TiVo negotiated RSS feeds and not those of the user’s choosing. The videos have to be watched through the TiVo box and not from the Desktop software, straight to your TV. This is a partial solution that is dependent upon the deals TiVo makes with content providers. I imagine the current functionality of TiVo is more than enough for most people.
Also of interest in this User Manual:
- TiVo working with Amazon’s unboxed
- Using the desktop service to put the TiVo box on a home network so content and be moved from TiVo to TiVo or between Tivo boxes and a PC.
- TiVo can play some video file formats as long as they don’t have DRM
- TiVo desktop software can encode video for portable devices like iPod and Sony PSP
- TiVo can be used to view photos and play music
Tivo sounds quite compelling if you must view content on a TV and prefer not to use a media center PC. TiVo’s interface may be the thing that makes it more appealing than a media center PC, although, I’d still say that the full functionality of TiVo is not for the timid.
My husband and I looked into a getting a series 3 TiVo when we switched to hi-def cable. We ended up punting after learning that we would have to get multiple cable cards to make it work. We found this to be too cost prohibitive when balancing the importance of the content offered on network TV and cable in our life. We simply don’t watch enough TV and the shows we watch aren’t in hi-def, so it didn’t make sense to update our TiVo box or the service. Here’s the math:
Low-end Tivo Series 3 DVR: $280 at Cosco
TiVo service: $15.95/mo
Two Cable Cards: $30/mo
Basic Hi-Def/Digital Cable: $50/mo
OUCH! It’s better for us to skip the box and go for the digital downloads and the DVD rentals. I’ve been thinking about getting rid of cable altogether, since what we watch can be downloaded for free and viewed through the TV directly through our media center laptop.
Mar 18 2008
Here’s a link to the article
When Brands Own Entertainment
The last thing I want is for some company ad team to show up at a script writing session to figure out how to write some product or products into a TV show or movie. If that happens, then that content should be free and totally supported by the advertisers. It should also be make clear that the advertisers are producers as well as part of the cast and writing staff.
Geez … I’ve seen what happens in anime when companies insert themselves into the actual show. Suddenly, the city consists of Pizza Hut stores with Pizza Hut delivery scooters in every scene. This is the tragedy that befell the excellent anime series “Darker than Black.” It was so blatant at times that it took away from the story (geez, “Goong” and Mercedes Benz too) . This is also that case with movies — James Bond and HP come to mind … go Christmas Jones and her PDA of Wonder (well it must have been really effective if I still remember. The same with Pizza Hut and Mercedes.)
When thinking about this potential combination of advertisers and content, I like to think about it in terms of the often used analogy of mixing ice cream and poo. In the end both are ruined. I have, though, seen successful integration of product placement within content. The article below mentions Ray Ban and “Men in Black,” which I think was good. My feeling is if the advertiser is trying too hard, that will come through and the viewers will not be able to suspend reality. But if it’s a matter of branding an existing story element, then it may come off more authentic and not so obtrusive so the illusion is maintained. I forget, though, that subtlety is not what advertising is about …
Anyhow, read the article and be amazed.
Here’s a link to the article.
Ogilvy’s Scott: Brands Should Own Entertainment
Branded Content Has a Longer Shelf Life Than a 30-Second Spot
<!–
–>
Published: March 18, 2008
Intel to go into High-End Graphics
Guess what quadrant of Moore’s model CPU’s and GPU’s are in. Intel is going to into High-end graphics to protect it’s position in the processor market. What is not mentioned is that Intel’s direct CPU competition, AMD, now owns ATI. I guess Intel couldn’t strike a deal with NVidia. Still this move doesn’t seem to be too too much of a stretch for Intel. I wonder, though, how their move will change integrated motherboard architecture. As it is inside of past computers I’ve built and the Blackbird I now own, the video cards suck down quite a bit of power and as performance has increased, require a lot of hardware to keep the components and the inside of the computer relatively cool. This translates into the graphics hardware occupying a lot of space. Heat and power consumption are a tough problem, so I imagine if Intel can handle that problem better than AMD and NVidia, they would have meaningful differentiation, especially in laptops (gaming and media center laptops are HOT). I’m not sure how important increasing interface througut is to customers outside of hardcore gamers. But as a first go around, it would be good to extract some cash from some of them to help pay for a more mainstream solution.
Speaking of heat, has anyone ever thought about how to take the heat thrown off of hot processors and use it to power something else? An analogy would be regenerative braking in cars.
March 18, 2008 6:10 PM PDT
More Rambling 