Here’s a video about a Borders Books Concept Store at Plaza Bonita, a mall in the San Diego area. It looks like they are experimenting with digital content delivery.
All posts by K3
Movie Review: Iron Man
I really didn’t want to see “Iron Man” after seeing the trailers in the movie theater, the TV, and the Internet. My husband, though, was very much into this movie and made me watch all of trailers to try to get me excited too. I can happily report, despite what was shown in the trailers, “Iron Man” is a very enjoyable action movie and I recommend it as a good movie to see this summer. I don’t know much about “Iron Man”‘s comic book heritage so I can’t comment on how faithful this presentation is to the comic (I’d say that this is part of American “Gundam” Lore). The movie, itself, was very modern with the enemies being a multi-national network of terrorists and a “greatest generation” warmonger who is stuck in the WWII/cold-war past. Our hero goes from self-centered ass to self-centered ass with a sense a purpose. In many ways, I felt this movie was very “gen-X.” Robert Downey Jr. is enjoyable as the womanizing genius engineer Mr. Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow is a very cute Pepper Potts (I don’t know how she manages to function in the heel they put her in — kudos to Gwynneth for having excellent balance and leg strength). And then there’s the bad guy Obediah played by a cackling Jeff Bridges. His bald head and over-the-top facial hair were a hoot. Terrence Howard, who plays Jim Rhodes, plays a pretty small role as Tony’s only friend other than Pepper Potts. It sounds like in the sequel, already planned to release summer 2010, he will play a greater role.
Onto the special effects … they were great. I was completely convinced that this world existed. Everything looked really smooth and the integration of live action and animation was seamless.
As for the story, the pacing was kept fast by the comedic aspects. I like the way the Stark character remains very confident and true to his character despite his finding his calling in life. He is still a loner, he is still an awesome engineer/tinkerer, and still awkward in his personal relationships as he realizes how much he depends on Pepper Potts and longs for a true friend in Jim Rhodes. This movie felt to me like it was introducing the characters and the world of “Iron Man” and setting the stage for the sequel. This movie also reminded me of the joy of engineering and tinkering in the garage, so go see it, if you need some inspiration or just to feel good.
As for the taking kids to this movie: There were some families with kids around 8-ish inthe theater when we saw it. The kid in our aisle was disturbed by the chest implant in the Tony Stark character and her parents had to remind her that it wasn’t real. My feeling is that this movie isn’t appropriate for children under 10 or maybe older, depending on how mentally mature the child is.
GTA IV is Out with the Usual Contraversy
GTA IV is out today. Uh, yay… My husband will be probably purchasing this game, but I won’t be, nor will I play it. GTA is simply not the kind of game I like to play. Hmm… what a simple thing to say, “GTA is simply not the kind of game I like to play,” so consequently, I will not buy it. So why can’t the rest of the people that don’t like GTA take that kind of attitude and leave those that want to play it alone? As for the kids — MA and AO mean that the game is not intended for children, so parents should be responsible and not purchase this game for their children and vendors should be equally sensible and not sell the game to children just as they wouldn’t sell alcohol and tabacco to children. How hard is this to understand? Anyway, the more these folks hype the violence and sex within GTA, the more curious teens become. Parents could also use the game as a teaching moment and play the game with their teen. Or maybe they will be surprised to find out that their kid doesn’t like the game because it’s difficult to play and they can’t get through the dialog in the cut-scenes — GTA is story driven after all.
As for me, I played GTA III once and I watched my husband play. Causing mayhem is fun for about an hour and then I got bored. My husband for some reason didn’t. Then my husband discovered the prositutes and that aspect of the game totally turned me off. My view of the world isn’t that cynical. My husband thought is was funny but after interacting with the prostitute a few times, got bored and moved on without lasting mental damage or the impression that the mayhem and criminal behaviour he could do in the game were in anyway acceptable in the real world. GTA is escapism for adults, just as WOW and shooters like Call of Duty are.
Anyhow, here’s an article on the GTA IV contraversy. If there are folks out there that are brave enough to admit to buying and playing GTA IV, please leave a comment on how it is.
How Apple is Handling the Mature iPod Market
Wow! Look at how quickly the iPod jumped to Quadrant 3 in Moore’s model! Apple is now facing market saturation with iPod and, despite very little growth from iPod and a slowing US economy, is managing to do quite well.
iPod with iTunes is a lot like how we sell ink into our printers. A big difference, though, is that the iPod is priced considerably higher than it costs to make so Apple actually makes money on the device. Apple also allows users to put content from sources other than iTunes on the iPod without repercussions. Yet, Apple doesn’t seem to be screaming about people not using iTunes and, in fact, iTunes has recently become the #1 retailer of music. Why is this? Well, despite my hatred, iTunes is drop-dead easy to use and at $.99/song or cheaper if you buy the entire album, Apple isn’t charging outrageously for music. Topping all of this, iPod is a great product that customers love and it seems that Apple has parlayed this love into getting people to buy Macs.
An interesting thing this article talks about is how the different iPod products are highly differentiated. Let’s look at them:
They look very different, except for the mini and the classic, however, if you compare the size, you will see that the mini is tiny compared to the classic model. Each product has very different capabilities and memory capacity.
Shuffle — 1 or 2-GB, no screen, all music is shuffled, clips onto clothing
Nano — 4 or 8-GB, screen, small form factor
Classic — 80 or 160-GB
Touch — 16 or 32-GB, touch screen, wireless internet, accelerometers
For instance, the Nano is great for the gym, the mini is cheaper alternative to the classic for those that don’t have a large music collection yet. The touch is basically a little mini-internet-browser-computer wrapped in a cool music player. These products clearly speak to different customer wants (nobody “needs” and iPod) and iPod owners have been known to have more than one iPod to meet a lifestyle want. Unfortunately for us, as houses integrate computers onto a home networks, households only need one networked printer rather that one printer for each computer. This is great for the consumer, but a change for us because this inherently means, going forward, there will be fewer and fewer install bases for our supplies. (I suppose it’s good that we are de-emphasizing sales in terms of the number of boxes.)
I think the important thing to observe about Apple is how they have taken customer’s interest in a hot product like the iPod to draw people to their stores and to lead customers to explore other Apple products in general. The iPod experience is quite pleasant and that tends to paint Apple in a good light. I imagine since people like iPod, then they think, well maybe Apple makes a good computer too and then give Apple a chance. Apple is small company compared to to other MS based computer manufactures, but they are a threat as shown by their sales growth in Macs. There is a point at which Mac use becomes compelling enough for folks to look beyond the “morality” of the Mac vs. PC question and onto price and features. Like what has been said before, a great company will emerge from an economic slump stronger than before the downturn. Apple’s got cash and growth despite the downturn. In the absence PC innovation through this rough patch, Apple could really surprise everyone in a year or two.
Here’s a link to the article.
Self-Publishing: The Natural Evolution of Scrapbooking
This article from the New York Times gives a nice little summary of the various personal publiching services out there on the Internet. From the way this article reads, book making sounds like the next natural evolution of scrapbooking. I certainly do like it … much better than scrapbooking. It’s quicker and cheaper.
More Rambling 