For all the iPhone hype, I think most people are missing the forest for the trees. There will probably be a new iPhone, and it will be 3g, and probably have GPS, and it will be cheaper.
But I think WWDC will be much more about the Apple ecosystem. I firmly expect a replacement for the Apple TV (or an iPod dock that performs most of the TVs functions). Apple likes to maintain control, and at this point, there are competing services that are getting very good. Make no mistake, even though the Apple TV has been somewhat of bastard stepchild up to this point, Apple does want to be the front-line on your TV.
So what does that mean? Long term, it means they need DVR functionality. Ideally, DVR functionality that will use the storage already available on your network. It also means TV that you can control with your iPhone. Probably not Wiimote-like, but rather like a harmony. From your iPhone, you should be able to control what shows up on your TV, whether it's TV, video, music.
Sure, Apple will also make a lot of noise about it's business features, but businesses take a lot longer to change than consumers, so while many businesses will probably start looking more seriously at the iPhone, it will probably be another year or two before significant purchases start being made. In that time, Apple has to defend itself in the consumer space, and the best way to do that will be to lock down a consumers media use.
(On a side note, I'm going to say there's a 75% chance that something will be announced that will enrage privacy advocates.)
Regarding the above side note, I'm guessing there will be some effort to unify .mac and iTunes accounts. Probably this will include online streaming through .mac (or whatever it ends up being called) of your iTunes purchases.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Saturday, September 29, 2007
$300 is a magic number for consumer electronics.
I think, at least in North America, $300 is magic number in consumer uptake of electronic devices.
I'm certain there must be a financial term for this concept.
Anyway, it seems that once things fall under the $300 mark, they seem to explode in popularity.
For example, two years ago, 20+" monitors of any type were still somewhat of a luxury item.
Then, when 20" widescreen LCDs started dipping below $300, then everyone had one (it seems like Dell might have really worked to drive the price down).
Around the beginning of this year, 22"s started dipping under that same point, and became a lot more attractive.
But also, look at the console war. I think it's clear that I'm a Wii fan (I think I will need to write some posts about that later). However, I think if it was $400, or the PS3 was $300, it wouldn't have been a such a good seller. I think it was in a separate price bracket, for most people, at least mentally. Because it was in this new bracket, it had a much wider customer base. The $250 pricetag was a damn good move.
I'm certain there must be a financial term for this concept.
Anyway, it seems that once things fall under the $300 mark, they seem to explode in popularity.
For example, two years ago, 20+" monitors of any type were still somewhat of a luxury item.
Then, when 20" widescreen LCDs started dipping below $300, then everyone had one (it seems like Dell might have really worked to drive the price down).
Around the beginning of this year, 22"s started dipping under that same point, and became a lot more attractive.
But also, look at the console war. I think it's clear that I'm a Wii fan (I think I will need to write some posts about that later). However, I think if it was $400, or the PS3 was $300, it wouldn't have been a such a good seller. I think it was in a separate price bracket, for most people, at least mentally. Because it was in this new bracket, it had a much wider customer base. The $250 pricetag was a damn good move.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Toyota: Highlander "Crossover" my ass.
Toyota wants you to believe that the Highlander has suddenly become a "crossover". Now a crossover is kind of a made up category anyway, but the generally accepted definition is a small car-based SUV. Really just a wagon, at least as far as the Subaru Outback is a wagon.
Technically, I believe the Highlander is car-based (Camry platform, I think), but it's still the same vehicle Toyota sold as a Medium-Large SUV this time last year. It's bigger than the RAV4, which is already a fairly large vehicle, definitely at the larger end of the crossover segment.
At first I thought Toyota was trying pull a fast one on us. But then I checked out the Edmunds.com crossover section.
39 2008 Vehicles.
MDX
Q7
Buick Enclave
Hyundai Veracruz
Jeep Commander
Mazda CX-9
and of course,
Toyota Highlander
Probably without exception, these were SUVs at some point in their lives.
Technically, I believe the Highlander is car-based (Camry platform, I think), but it's still the same vehicle Toyota sold as a Medium-Large SUV this time last year. It's bigger than the RAV4, which is already a fairly large vehicle, definitely at the larger end of the crossover segment.
At first I thought Toyota was trying pull a fast one on us. But then I checked out the Edmunds.com crossover section.
39 2008 Vehicles.
MDX
Q7
Buick Enclave
Hyundai Veracruz
Jeep Commander
Mazda CX-9
and of course,
Toyota Highlander
Probably without exception, these were SUVs at some point in their lives.
Aaargghhh! Ipods!
Or "The lord Jobs giveth with one hand, and taketh away with the other."
A little background:
I'm an ipod rebel, lurking in the shadows with my Cowon G3 and Samsung Z5. I've lived this way for a couple of reasons.
1. Value. You can get more, for the same price. Both of the DAPs I have owned (above) get significantly better battery life than any ipod. The Cowon had FM radio, a microphone, as well as line-in and radio recording.
2. Compatibility. I run Linux, so itunes is not a possibility. Both DAPs simply functioned as flash drives when plugged in. Ipod support is getting better under Linux, but it's only recently that it's become a plug and play experience.
So, we have a new Nano and the Touch. For the price, the Nano seems pretty good, but I would say it's nothing more than competitive. The Touch, on the other hand, gives you a tremendous amount of hardware for your $329 CAD. No one else has anything in a competitive price range, let alone anything that is actually likely to take proper advantage of the touch screen (Cowon Q5, I'm looking at you).
So, the ipod Touch has allowed an ipod to land on my most wanted list, by convincingly hitting my number one point in DAP purchasing: value. I was pretty damn excited watching the announcement, and the price and release schedule was much more aggressive than I had predicted.
Of course, we learn today that Apple has decided to lock out 3rd party applications from managing the ipod's media database. It's not the end of the world, because it will be circumvented, but at this point, the only effect will be delaying adoption of the new ipods by Linux users.
It's really a boneheaded move on Apple's part, and while I certainly hope to see them take steps to ameliorate the situation, history has shown that is unlikely to happen. Apple is only interested in selling ipods for the purpose of selling media through itunes, which means no matter how good a deal the hardware may be, it's subsidized through the purchase of media through itunes, which is something I have no plans to do at this point, so I will not be purchasing one. I would much rather give more of my money to someone who is putting together good hardware for the purpose of selling good hardware.
A little background:
I'm an ipod rebel, lurking in the shadows with my Cowon G3 and Samsung Z5. I've lived this way for a couple of reasons.
1. Value. You can get more, for the same price. Both of the DAPs I have owned (above) get significantly better battery life than any ipod. The Cowon had FM radio, a microphone, as well as line-in and radio recording.
2. Compatibility. I run Linux, so itunes is not a possibility. Both DAPs simply functioned as flash drives when plugged in. Ipod support is getting better under Linux, but it's only recently that it's become a plug and play experience.
So, we have a new Nano and the Touch. For the price, the Nano seems pretty good, but I would say it's nothing more than competitive. The Touch, on the other hand, gives you a tremendous amount of hardware for your $329 CAD. No one else has anything in a competitive price range, let alone anything that is actually likely to take proper advantage of the touch screen (Cowon Q5, I'm looking at you).
So, the ipod Touch has allowed an ipod to land on my most wanted list, by convincingly hitting my number one point in DAP purchasing: value. I was pretty damn excited watching the announcement, and the price and release schedule was much more aggressive than I had predicted.
Of course, we learn today that Apple has decided to lock out 3rd party applications from managing the ipod's media database. It's not the end of the world, because it will be circumvented, but at this point, the only effect will be delaying adoption of the new ipods by Linux users.
It's really a boneheaded move on Apple's part, and while I certainly hope to see them take steps to ameliorate the situation, history has shown that is unlikely to happen. Apple is only interested in selling ipods for the purpose of selling media through itunes, which means no matter how good a deal the hardware may be, it's subsidized through the purchase of media through itunes, which is something I have no plans to do at this point, so I will not be purchasing one. I would much rather give more of my money to someone who is putting together good hardware for the purpose of selling good hardware.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Downloading vs. Renting from an environmental standpoint
...or Al Gore vs. the MPAA.
This was an interesting source of in-the-shower calculations for me today. I was trying to come up with a quick comparison of the energy costs of downloading a movie vs. renting one.
I wanted to start with a real simple comparison, and expand from there if it was interesting, so here's what I did.
I had a feeling it was much more efficient to move information as electricity than to physically transport it, so I thought I had better stack the deck in renting's favour.
On the renting side:
I assumed you had a car that could consistently get 4l per hundred kilometers (that's how they measure it in Canada, it's about 58.8 mpg), at least on the trip to the video store.
I assumed the video store was fairly close by, at 2.5 kilometers.
I assumed two return trips to the video store would be required, to rent and return the video.
So this worked out to .4l of gasoline to rent a video. (2.5 * 4 = 10 kilometers, 100/10 = 0.1, 0.1 *4 = 0.4).
I put the cost of a liter of gasoline at $0.90.
This worked out to an energy cost of $0.36 to rent a movie. I figured that's pretty good.
On the downloading side:
I assumed it would take you 12 hours to download a movie.
I assumed your computer would consume an average of 100 watts during those 12 hours.
So you would consume 1200 watt-hours downloading a movie.
In the shower, I assumed $0.25 per kilowatt hour, but looking online, it seems like it's more like $0.11 per kilowatt hour.
This worked out to an energy cost of $0.14 to download a movie. That blows renting away.
So simply in terms of reducing personal energy consumption, downloading is far more effective than renting, even when we stack the deck on renting's behalf.
If we were to try to average things out a little bit (based on my personal experience), and adjust our figures thusly:
8l per 100 kilometer (29.4 mpg) car
Video store 5km away
Liter of gasoline $1.00
4 hours to download a movie
50 watts per hour
The comparison becomes $1.60 to rent, and $0.03 to download. It's nearly 50 times more energy efficient for me to download a movie than it is for me to rent one.
Now, imagine I download using my Wii, or a bit-torrent enabled router. That could easily drop energy consumption into the 15 watt range. Now lets hook me to fiber at 100 mb/s (mmm, fiber), and I can download that movie in 56 seconds (assuming my hard drive can write at 12.5 MB/sec). So it could take about 0.25 watt hours to download, or about $0.00003 in energy costs.
Obviously, there's a huge number of contextual factors left out of this equation, on both the download side (power required by the internet itself), and the driving side (production, distribution, warehousing, etc.). However, I would suspect that those factors would tilt towards downloading as well. Driving might pick up a few points as we transition to higher-resolution video.
The equation becomes even more one-sided for other types of media, such as Books or CDs.
I think the bottom line is that non-electronic distribution of practically any type of information tends to be wasteful, and isn't something that we can afford to continue.
This was an interesting source of in-the-shower calculations for me today. I was trying to come up with a quick comparison of the energy costs of downloading a movie vs. renting one.
I wanted to start with a real simple comparison, and expand from there if it was interesting, so here's what I did.
I had a feeling it was much more efficient to move information as electricity than to physically transport it, so I thought I had better stack the deck in renting's favour.
On the renting side:
I assumed you had a car that could consistently get 4l per hundred kilometers (that's how they measure it in Canada, it's about 58.8 mpg), at least on the trip to the video store.
I assumed the video store was fairly close by, at 2.5 kilometers.
I assumed two return trips to the video store would be required, to rent and return the video.
So this worked out to .4l of gasoline to rent a video. (2.5 * 4 = 10 kilometers, 100/10 = 0.1, 0.1 *4 = 0.4).
I put the cost of a liter of gasoline at $0.90.
This worked out to an energy cost of $0.36 to rent a movie. I figured that's pretty good.
On the downloading side:
I assumed it would take you 12 hours to download a movie.
I assumed your computer would consume an average of 100 watts during those 12 hours.
So you would consume 1200 watt-hours downloading a movie.
In the shower, I assumed $0.25 per kilowatt hour, but looking online, it seems like it's more like $0.11 per kilowatt hour.
This worked out to an energy cost of $0.14 to download a movie. That blows renting away.
So simply in terms of reducing personal energy consumption, downloading is far more effective than renting, even when we stack the deck on renting's behalf.
If we were to try to average things out a little bit (based on my personal experience), and adjust our figures thusly:
8l per 100 kilometer (29.4 mpg) car
Video store 5km away
Liter of gasoline $1.00
4 hours to download a movie
50 watts per hour
The comparison becomes $1.60 to rent, and $0.03 to download. It's nearly 50 times more energy efficient for me to download a movie than it is for me to rent one.
Now, imagine I download using my Wii, or a bit-torrent enabled router. That could easily drop energy consumption into the 15 watt range. Now lets hook me to fiber at 100 mb/s (mmm, fiber), and I can download that movie in 56 seconds (assuming my hard drive can write at 12.5 MB/sec). So it could take about 0.25 watt hours to download, or about $0.00003 in energy costs.
Obviously, there's a huge number of contextual factors left out of this equation, on both the download side (power required by the internet itself), and the driving side (production, distribution, warehousing, etc.). However, I would suspect that those factors would tilt towards downloading as well. Driving might pick up a few points as we transition to higher-resolution video.
The equation becomes even more one-sided for other types of media, such as Books or CDs.
I think the bottom line is that non-electronic distribution of practically any type of information tends to be wasteful, and isn't something that we can afford to continue.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
I am happening
I am happening.
This is very important. So often we think of the rest of the world as being "things that happen".
But we are simply a part of those things. However, we have the will to decide how we happen.
We get to write our own story, not the story of the things that happened to us, but the story of how we happened.
So decide how you are going to happen!
Also, some kind of blog integration needs to be mandatory with the next generation of desktops.
I think if human beings were able to simply speak their minds freely in the world, instantly, it would be a very soothing thing. Every thing we hide from people causes us concern and distraction.
Instant freedom to say it, without the worry of losing a great idea, of the fear of embarrassment. Because even the most brilliant among us, the most caring, concerned, lovely people, on occasion have ideas that are stupid at best. If we simply repress these ideas, they remain in our mind the way they are, because we never properly examine them. However, if we take the time to acknowledge every idea in our mind, without prejudice, we allow ourselves to properly evaluate the bad ideas, and discard them. Likewise, by putting our ideas in writing, and making them available anonymously, we both push ourselves to process them, and begin a process that will allow them to be evaluated publicly, in case we have doubt in our own faculties. And boy, sometimes I have said doubt. So let's put out our ideas, brilliant and criminal, and allow ourselves to truly evaluate them. No attachment, no derision, just the analysis of ideas.
Make it instant is the important idea.
This is very important. So often we think of the rest of the world as being "things that happen".
But we are simply a part of those things. However, we have the will to decide how we happen.
We get to write our own story, not the story of the things that happened to us, but the story of how we happened.
So decide how you are going to happen!
Also, some kind of blog integration needs to be mandatory with the next generation of desktops.
I think if human beings were able to simply speak their minds freely in the world, instantly, it would be a very soothing thing. Every thing we hide from people causes us concern and distraction.
Instant freedom to say it, without the worry of losing a great idea, of the fear of embarrassment. Because even the most brilliant among us, the most caring, concerned, lovely people, on occasion have ideas that are stupid at best. If we simply repress these ideas, they remain in our mind the way they are, because we never properly examine them. However, if we take the time to acknowledge every idea in our mind, without prejudice, we allow ourselves to properly evaluate the bad ideas, and discard them. Likewise, by putting our ideas in writing, and making them available anonymously, we both push ourselves to process them, and begin a process that will allow them to be evaluated publicly, in case we have doubt in our own faculties. And boy, sometimes I have said doubt. So let's put out our ideas, brilliant and criminal, and allow ourselves to truly evaluate them. No attachment, no derision, just the analysis of ideas.
Make it instant is the important idea.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Doesn't need fixed perhaps: Beryl.
Man, Beryl is neat. Not quite perfect yet, but it really shows that Open Source is about to overtake closed source in certain areas. KDE 4, with these kinds of effects, and the real emphasis that they are placing on empowering the individual to customize their experience, there are some cool things going on.
(Probably, for many people this does need fixed. But I was able to install it with like 3 commands (emerge, emerge, vi), which is pretty good for what it does.
(Probably, for many people this does need fixed. But I was able to install it with like 3 commands (emerge, emerge, vi), which is pretty good for what it does.
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