Hal Meeks Made it Up

I'm sad for Kodak

2012-01-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

What happened? Why chapter 11?

Wait too late to pare the company down to profitable units?
Abandoned the high end digital photography market at a time where cell phones are eating up the cheap, consumer camera market?
Went into the printer business at a time where most people won't have a home printer in the next 10 years? (I am guessing it will happen sooner than that - heads up HP).
Didn't buy/build a photosharing business to compete with Flicker/Picasa (Just buy photobucket, for instance).

I don't know what happened, but I am sad all the same. I have my granddad's Brownie camera, which I love for what it represented - photography for the masses - real innovation.

The impending revolution in digital cameras

2012-01-11T14:11:00.001-05:00

Poor Kodak! What has happened to you? Why did you go into the printer business!?!

Their impending bankruptcy (everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop) is a milestone of sorts, as the pioneer of photography succumbs to the world of cell phone cameras. Kodak all but abandoned the high end camera market years back when they were still a player. Getting beat up in the cutthroat low end market may have finally done them in.

So - beyond the historic significance, there is the issue that what a camera is, and what it will become, and the context that it is used in. We are indeed taking a lot more pictures due to the availability of a camera in a cell combined with inherent connectivity - in turn connected to social networking.

So what to do? Given this dilemma there is the pressure to innovate.

Lytro thinks they have the answer with their "light field" camera. I will spare the explanation of the technology and instead focus on experience. No more focusing - images can actually be refocused while they are being displayed. A neat trick to be sure.

However, I question that (in it's current state) that it is the innovation that some tout it to be.

The camera is hopelessly tethered to Lytro's photo service. It is an intrinsic part of the experience. Images can be loaded on their servers and then shared, but because of the back end processing that has to be done, and also because there isn't native support in browsers for their images (nor do I believe there ever will be). In essence, you are buying a device that lives in a walled garden - which will work as long as Lytro stays in business. It seems to me that this is a big limiting feature of the camera, unlike any other camera on the market - which will work with pretty much anything as it they use standard image formats.

The camera's resolution is a big step backwards. It is the antithesis of the multi-megapixel images that cameras can generate today. It is really no better than a point and shoot digital camera from a few years back.

Finally - the neat parlor trick of being able to refocus the image from foreground to background - it wears thin after a while, because frame composition when shooting dictates what is important and not as important in the frame. In other words, the photographer makes a compositional decision concerning what they want the audience to see. Lytro takes this away from the photographer - in giving the option to refocus - it defeats the decision the photographer made when composing their image. Would being able to refocus on background/foreground make the Mona Lisa a better picture? Of course not.

I think the real innovation is happening in much more subtle ways. We see cameras now that look and feel like they were designed by software/hardware engineers - not photographers - with interesting results. Sony's NEX line of cameras illustrates this idea. Some complained about the odd ergonomics of the camera, and it's reliance on a touch screen - but on the other hand - this line of cameras represents a rethinking of how a camera can work - and how the user can interact with it. The ultimate expression of this is their new NEX-7, which contains several controls that can be reconfigured by the photographer - they can create their own preferred way of setting exposure etc. This is what software control gets you - flexibility of user interface design.

Another expression of this just came out of left field, Polaroid's SC1630, a camera powered by android. In a similar way to the NEX - it is an interesting take on the camera experience, where it is an android device that can use the Android store to purchase apps. Depending on how much Poloroid gives access to the camera for developers - it could presage the idea of user driven interfaces and apps that can unlock capabilities in the camera. Want to use it for infrared photography? Want a dedicated, programmable intervalometer for stop motion photography? Having a camera that can be upgraded through new software is a pretty compelling idea.

The other aspect of this camera, and others that feature connectivity through wifi is the idea of sharing. Even Lytro gets this - that it is not just about taking the photograph anymore - it must also be able to instantaneous share. I think there is much more here that I could write about - the shifting of time, space, memory and emotional impact. But clearly, at least in consumer cameras - this will rapidly become a common feature in mid-line cameras ($100 to $400 retail).

Stunning New Year Predictions

2012-01-04T19:18:00.000-05:00

Quick and to the point!

- Blackberry will continue to lose market share due to many reasons - catastrophic service outages that illustrate a fundamental flaw with their intrastructure and conceptualization of how messaging should work in 2011. Plus their devices are not sexy.

- Android will continue to make gains. Look for focus on better, uniform user experiences across devices. Also - it will begin to show up on things other than phones and tablets. There are already two Android based handheld game systems out there - more to come. How can Google capitalize on this?

- The fight for free cloud storage mindshare will hit a fever pitch with Google landing in the middle of it all.

- There will be more interest in fully on-line high schools for under served areas, but also to alleviate class crowding and shrinking funds.

- Google will continue to plug away at Google TV. It may show up on more new sets this summer, but it will be this extra thing that consumers ignore until there is a compelling reason for it to exist; ie content and a really sexy way to discover content, and merge that seamlessly with the current "real-time/time-shift" broadcast TV experience, blurring the line between the two.

- 3D video cameras will dramatically drop in price, but it will be a while before 3D TV's will as well. Nintendo has it right with the 3DS - the experience needs to happen without glasses before it goes from novelty to something that we would use all the time.

- Apple may or may not come out with a TV set. If they do, re-read that last paragraph. They will successfully integrate their iTunes storefront with the ability to timeshift Television - all through a consistent interface - which will support Siri for program searching with intelligence. And Apple will have the App store for the AppleTV, which can include advertising supported content, just like it does with Apps for the iPad and iPhone.

- Apple will introduce a new tablet in the spring. There will still be only one basic model as before - with more ram, wifi or wifi and celluar. It will be a little thinner and lighter, but will also have a higher resolution and slightly larger screen.

- Amazon will sell a lot of Fire's. A lot. Books, Magazines, Video - ie content. What Google doesn't have.

Web OS Open Sourced - A Good Thing

2011-12-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

Is HP's decision to turn WebOS into an open source project a bad thing? Will it fail?

I just guess at these things most of time. Thus the name of my blog. The only insight I have is an understanding of history.

Open source projects can be spectacularly successful, but often die. A whole OS - with Linux/Debian/etc out there - why bother to develop for WebOS? Android would mop it up - of course.

I criticize Android for the same reason I like Apple; it is all the stuff that is thought through, not the paint job, the size of the screen, or the even the icons. It is the difference of going through the process of designing something versus copying someone else's work. There is simply no shortcut. It shows up when you use an Android device (or, even better, several different ones) and a iPhone. Google hasn't forced device developers to follow strict UI guidelines. There is plenty of ways to innovate inside of this space - Apple does it successfully, so do developers for iOS.

WebOS is interesting because it did not try to copy the iPhone. It is it's almost-fully realized OS and UI that it is some ways a different take on things. Perhaps with commodity, cheap tablets it will come back. Maybe as an embedded OS (which is what I think HP really wanted it for).

I guess I am happy that it turned out this way, because at least WebOS has some chance. The Palm Pilot had a lock on the market, and completely squandered it by failing to innovate. WebOS was the equivalent of a hail mary pass; trying to do just what Apple did, which was abandon their current OS for something completely new. There were some very smart people involved with it's development.

It would be a shame to see all this work simply die.

Post Master's Orals

2011-11-03T08:34:00.000-05:00

I gave my oral presentation of my master's project on Tuesday. I typically do not write about myself in this blog - but I think it's important that I capture some things.

I think it was very hard for me to cram in a world view in 30 minutes. I had 4 - 5 slides with just a single number on there - shades of my powerpoint preso on youtube.

I have to generate some sort of social networking connectedness for my project web site. Lots of work over the next few weeks. Need to think of ways to push youtube video searches.

In a way, I am excited by this. It's a challenge to build some sort of brand recognition - but to attempt it in the next 30 days - I think I have some plans for doing this.

Subscriptions to like feeds on youtube
building playlists and publishing them
tie into my .edu prescence
use twitter? I only have 32 followers. have to integrate that into my messages. I have mixed feelings on Twitter - part of me is concerned that it encouraged superficial understanding of complicated issues. It's the old "read the first two paragraphs of a news paper story" - the reader is left with the impression that that is all to know. Plus - I think twitter may eventually die. I think people want the convenience, but also something that is richer and more flexible. I think they might want more control over messaging - tiers of access - close friends versus professional contents versus co-workers.

Finally, it was suggested I start a wiki. I think wikis have inherent flaws (another article) - it is a good solution for those who don't want to learn anything about more powerful solutions - such as wordpress. I think that people who haven't thought about this don't know that wordpress supports multiple users for editing and submission - with much more control over how things look in the end. Presentation is often tied to content itself. Wikis simply do not offer that level of sophistication. They are heavily text centric - there is no ways to build in some of the stuff I have been adding to vistamix.net. If I do build something like that - it will be more of a masher of other services. Publishing with zero work is key. Even a wiki requires you to go to a specific place, type in stuff, add pictures. I often don't have time to do this stuff. If I had no other solution I might consider it - if I needed a community to build a document I might do it - but I am not sure of the value of an individual using it.

On the other hand - I need to explore it or a similar solution - or a combination of services glued together. Feed from my delicious bookmarks. Twitter stream. etc.

So much to do.

No rear view mirror, Apple

2011-10-07T15:46:00.000-05:00

The graphic really started it all for me. Most love it, I think it is dreadful, and actualizes one of the worst things that could happen to apple.

It shows Steve Jobs - doing what? - looking down at Apple from above - his eternal gaze fixed on the company? His specter will wander the halls of cupertino for some time to come - his DNA is embedded in the company.

That I think the graphic is terrible - but it is a matter of taste - I know many like it - but what it embodies is an Apple that looks back - not forward. I can't believe that people are clamoring for it to become the new Apple logo. It is exactly the worst possible thing that could happen to Apple. A company that fails to look forward because it is always looking backward - towards the legacy of Steve - constantly asking itself (under the ghost like glare of Steve) "What would Steve do?". This is a classic scenario for decline - one where the company becomes held hostage to a legacy. This happened to Disney. There was a gap where after Walt Disney died, Disney Pictures made a series of lousy movies - but eventually they escaped it.

Steve Jobs worked hard to make Apple what it is today. I sorely miss him - like many. I have witnessed too many great people die in my life.

The logo points to a crippled, wounded company. I would hope that instead - let Apple be Apple - not Steve's Company. This is the only way the legacy can truly be alive. If people want to wear it on a t-shirt - fine - I think (and hope) ultimately it goes the way of the American flags that everyone had on their car/SUV after we invaded to Iraq. But they will need to let go at some point - and be willing to accept that Apple will (and should) move on.

No rear view mirror, Apple

2011-10-07T15:44:00.000-05:00

Goodbye Zune

2011-10-04T12:11:00.000-05:00

Microsoft's Zune is dead. It really has been a zombie undead platform for over a year now, as Microsoft shifted focus on their mobile phone platform.

So, the phrase "(fill in the blank with some technology or product) got zuned" never caught on. The reaction for some is that the device was nice, but was always too late to the party. It is, in a way, tragic of course, but ultimately it was a crippled product that didn't offer enough of a reason not to buy an iPod. Wifi on the device was crippled at a time that Apple didn't have a mobile media player with Wifi. The Windows software was a severely weak link; many didn't really like it, and there was no software for the Mac or other platforms.

The upside is that Microsoft learned a lot from the Zune (or so I hope) - the new mobile platform has a nicer UI, and there is the Xbox 360 - which is the greatest single argument that I can make that Microsoft really is capable of making great consumer products (yes, including their desktop OS and software applications). Pinning their hopes on a mobile phone OS is a good call indeed, and with Nokia as a strategic partner - I actually feel much more optimistic that this might actually be successful. Certainly, another competitor to Android and iOS would be welcome - generating new ideas for UI design, user experience, feature sets. Stay tuned (not zuned) indeed.

dear hp

2011-09-07T13:19:00.000-05:00

please do not stick webos in your printer division. have a real vision and either give webos away, and let anybody develop devices with it. partner with other companies to deliver content and work on your cloud services by yourself or with others. tie all of your devices and those of others to it. if it sounds familiar, it is.

android needs a legitimate competitor. it isn't what it could be, and may never be. it's time for a decent alternative with a better interface.

this is a path fraught with potential. you just have to believe and be willing to think different.

google will continue to figure how to lock people into their ecosystem. they bought motorola for their intellectual property and their set top business. cable boxes powered by google. they couldn't get google tv right, so this is another tact that will be more successful.

hp.....google will eventually dig into your business. they will be happy to concede the printer business. because who will care 10 years from now. hardly anyone will have a printer at home.

please..... do something. webos is too good to throw away. it may instead figure into your future in ways you haven't imagined.

Good bye, Hello, Good bye

2011-08-25T20:46:00.002-05:00

In the last few weeks we have seen three major events happen with three of the most powerful corporations in digital information appliances (we used to call them PC's).

Many may miss the rationale for Google's purchase of Motorola. It has to be understood that Motorola has struggled since their heyday with the Razr. They were never able to make a killer followup product with the same kind of iconic styling. It was a breakthrough product that was quickly copied, just as the iPad is being copied now. Their Android handsets were pretty good, and had some name recognition (Droid), but it wasn't the industry dominating device - because the market was flooded with Android handsets.

The assumption is that Google simply wants to be Apple - build the whole ecosystem of device/service. They would make killer smart phones and tablets, tie it to their services (aka Chromebook - who actually bought one of those?), sell them cheap, and people will flow to their service.

But Google doesn't have a good history with building great user interfaces or consumer products. GoogleTV was a big mess from day one - an ill-defined product that offered no compelling reasons to buy it - given there were cheaper/better products already available that were more focused and worked better. Logitech can't give them away.

Android itself is a mess. Ask any developer that develops for both the iPhone and Android - which has the better store - which is easier to write for - which one makes the developer more money. There isn't a truly consistent guideline for application UI design, and what is there is was patently lifted from Apple, and then changed a bit (often for the worse). What is worse than plagerism? Ripping off and not even appreciating what has been ripped off - just a cut and paste job. There is a reason why Apple's iPhone only has one button on the front - they designed their smart phone for people who have never had a smart phone - or even a mobile phone at all. Android handsets have lots of buttons, with little cryptic symbols on them. Application user experience is largely hit or miss. The device manufacturers themselves can't even agree on a standard on how a keyboard should be handled in software - developers have to write for more than one handset. Insane.

So....I have no inside knowledge obviously. I don't work for any of these companies. But....if I was Google.....I would be building reference platform devices with nailed down UI's that were damned nice and easy to use. Make developers and handset makers mad who want freedom to design their own user experience. Instead, let the device manufacturers focus on feature sets, form factors and cost. Treat the remnants of Motorola's handset division as a big bundle of patents and expertise.

If Google does get into the handset business.....it will be a downward spiral. It isn't in their DNA to build consumer devices. They bought Google Docs, and have done nothing of note with it beyond some modest feature enhancements. It doesn't talk to any of their other services - Picasa, Maps/Earth, etc. They just don't have that vision, although they have had some of the pieces all along.

Instead - I believe the part of the business they really want to emulate is Apple's cloud services and online retail services, which are tied to their handsets. This is the business that is perfect for Google - they can afford to almost give the handsets away - if you will let your handset only work with their services, let them data mine you, etc. You get a rich set of tools and access to media services. This could be very successful.

Moving on - Oh, no HP. You killed your WebOS devices. Shoulda never bought Palm to begin with. Let it die because it deserved to die. Palm was horribly run, and by the time they finally got decent management, they were underfunded and a distant forth or fifth in the smartphone market. WebOS was the equivalent of a Hail Mary Pass - that was almost caught.

If any lesson can be learned from the $99.00 Touchpad frenzy - is that HP had it all wrong. They should give WebOS away. Make it an alternative to Android without the ties to Google. Focus instead on media partnerships - see a trend here? Make nice, affordable devices - and let other companies have at it too (just like Android). WebOS has a pretty interface trapped in underwhelming hardware - but that can be fixed in a jiffy. It is a case of what could have been.

Last - Steve Jobs resigns. This day had to come. He is dying. I heard an analyst say today that Apple now has about three years of products in the pipeline - and that Apple can be thought of as a company that has well programmed robots that will be running out of orders by then. Then - what happens?

The problem with this is that this analyst has been asleep for the last couple of years. The iPhone has been in development for a very long time - some estimate as much as 6 - 7 years. There were many false starts.....but they stuck with it and took a long view. Many companies would have given up.

Around the edges we have seen the rise of people inside of Apple who are talented and bright people, who have left a stamp on what Apple does. Jonathan Ive, Scott Forstall....many more. Apple is awash with talent, and a culture that puts design above everything. It is why the iPhone doesn't suck, and Android handsets do. There is nothing wrong with the technology in an Android handset - and that is all that Android handset owners can talk about - is the features - but they are often a series of compromises that normally would make sense for a consumer product - but that doesn't wash any more - you can't cut corners - use a slightly lower grade plastic - or make the phone just a little fatter because the skinny batteries cost more. Every extra button is another area of frustration - a lesson Camera manufacturers learned - cheap digital cameras are more automatic and have fewer buttons.....because that is what people want in an inexpensive digital camera. The Sony I have here has a setting that is automatic everything - and I bet it is where most owners leave it.

Apple and Google are both innovators in their respective areas - and now seems to be a time where their paths will cross. Google has a lot of talent and a culture that others admire. They are a big cloud based data mining and advertising company that would love to get into some new markets. And they will.

A Confluence of Microsoft - can they keep from killing innovation again?

2011-05-19T09:59:00.002-05:00

Microsoft has made several moves lately to firm up their tenuous - or lack of - grip on mobile computing. Their strategy in the last couple of years has been fragmented; in fighting, non competitive products, cultural collisions and hugely missed opportunities.

A while back I offered the word "Zuned" to describe what outwardly looks like a good product, but when the details of how it works become clear - it is obvious that it is a crippled product not from a technological viewpoint - but from a software and philosophical view point. The Zune shipped with wifi well before Apple included it in their mobile products - but it was so completely crippled that it was not just disappointing - it had a implicitly damaged user experience which made it undesirable. Do you know anyone that has a Zune (particularly the brown one)?

The Hiptop was next - Microsoft bought them. When it came out - it was a slickly designed device that had some strong "Apple-like" aspects. The form factor was great. The business model was good - using a backend to massage web content so that it would work well in a low bandwidth environment. More importantly, it was a "hip blackberry" - strongly messaging centric - but cool in a way that Blackberry was not.

Wow - it is dead now. They still make them, but it is clear that Hiptop's day has come and gone. Microsoft bought the company - without a clear understanding of how it would fit into their overall mobile strategy. They bled intellectual capital - most of the programmers left.

The Kin/Mobile battle was next. The Kin so utterly, completely lost - and it should have. The UI was a mess. It was slow - an unforgivable sin. How could such a product slipped out - only to be killed shortly there after. It made Microsoft look bad.

Windows Mobile itself has a new version - and the world says "Who cares?". They missed their window of opportunity - I remember the iPhone coming out, and looking at a friend's Windows mobile device. My friend kept telling me how his phone had a lot more stuff (camera with video recording, gps and keyboard). But it was big and ugly. The keyboard started to fail after a year of hard use. Most Window Mobile devices looked like it - something only a geek would love.

So now they have bought Skype, and Nokia has announced a strategic partnership. I guess that Microsoft will end up buying Nokia's mobile division. Skype will be built into all the Microsoft products, notably their mobile offerings. Nokia still designs nice handsets - but they never moved quickly enough to address the iPhone. Wow - if they had adopted Android - it would have been huge. Android really needs good UI and form factor designers. The Droid is at kinda kool, but also a big pile of features and buttons with not enough cohesiveness. It has been a consistent problem with the Android mobile platform - which Google is now addressing - by tightening the reigns on UI programming standards. This has always been a strength of Apple - all the way back to the original Mac.

I remain skeptical - given Microsoft's track record - they have to stop playing "me too". It doesn't work. There is no Xbox phone - which is a big, glaring hole in my mind - their big hit product (even I own one, and it is great) - with great branding - but not in mobile space. It should have been out a year ago. Tapping into Xbox Marketplace would allowed them to tap into a downloadable App model like Apple, but the advantage is that they are doing this right now - it just has to be extended into mobile space. Now Apple is nailing down portable gaming space - which will bleed over into traditional game device space - if I was Sony and Nintendo - I would be concerned. That Microsoft didn't let the Xbox developers take a stab at a mobile phone - with Microsoft mobile underpinnings - it is just another milestone in Microsoft's move to 2nd tier status.

Why Apple gets it, and higher education does not

2011-03-07T14:27:00.000-05:00

The Myth of App-lication of the Web

2010-11-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

Just read a brief summary to two CEO's remarks concerning Apple at Web 2.0

Shantanu Narayen's bizzare spin on Apple was that it was about control, and that Apple was for a proprietary and closed ecosystem, which Adobe was for the opposite, allowing content to flow across multiple devices and environments - meaning those that actually support a current version of Flash, which Adobe is the only commercial developer of playback technology. OF COURSE, this is also cheerfully ignoring the fact that Flash is the poster child of what has gone wrong with web development in the last 5 years. We are in the twilight of the era of the plugin and Adobe knows this, but has no plan B.

Jim Balsillie, who is co-CEO of Blackberry, has this quote: users "don't need an app for the web". This is actually only partially true. What we call the "web" is now more than a browser that renders content. The web browser itself may be secondary to specific applications that use the internet and web standards to convey focused content. General design web pages that flow across platforms are hard to do, and even harder to do when attention is paid to design that interface in a way that makes best use of the device.

Apple figured this out with the introduction of the original iPhone, and it appears to me that some dstill have not grasped this message. I do not want to open a web browser to do a simple task. I want an app. It has to be remembered that when Apple rolled out the iPhone - web development was the way that developers were going to be able to write Apps for the iPhone, and even developed extensions for HTML 5 that have been adopted. Blackberry will be able to directly benefit from this. I seriously doubt that Blackberry would have had the vision to do this themselves. From all appearances, they were totally blindsided by the iPhone - confident that people wouldn't change because they were married to the Blackberry way of doing things - even though Blackberry's architecture still has legacy thinking tied to it's roots as a pager with a keyboard.

General content web pages aren't going away - but applications (whether web based or native) are definitely the future. Boxee is an excellent example of a company that understands this - how best to bridge the television experience with the internet? Build applications that can access web content and display it in a way that works on a TV.

Adobe has to begin the process of killing Flash to be at that curve. What is going to replace it? Have they even considered this possibility? I think perhaps the developers have, but upper management may not.

Remember Director? Where is it now?

Microsoft isn't too mobile

2010-07-06T12:34:00.000-05:00

Has Microsoft actually shipped a mobile device in the last couple of years that is worth a damn?

Their strategy has been a mess. They at one point supported 5 different mobile platforms, with little overlap between them.

There was the Zune. There were the missteps; the brown Zune, the wifi that was inexplicably crippled on the device. The tragedy was compounded with the fact that it wasn't that bad a device. The menu system was actually nice.

There was Windows Mobile. It was the PDA/Phone thing. Geeks loved them. They were big, ugly and had lots of features. And they were saddled with an OS that had a poorly realized interface that was originally developed for their PDA's. I had a HP PDA, loved it's potential, but hated it's realization. Simple things like configuring wireless were almost purposely hard to do. It was almost like Microsoft didn't want you to use wireless networking.

There was that other Microsoft Smart Phone thing. It was a little nicer to use, but it was confusing as well. What is the difference? Sometimes I was confused about which was a Smart Phone and which was a Windows Mobile device.

There was the Sidekick. Microsoft bought a company that at one time had one of the most innovative phones on the market; a clever design that offered a great text messaging experience and lightweight web browsing through their back-end interface. It was killed not actively, but by neglect and lack of ability to incorporate it into their product line. It ran Java - does Microsoft write anything in Java?

The last casualty has been the Kin. It was a device that was supposed to be targeted at the "20 somethings" - you know - that "connected generation". I remember trying to figure out how to use one in a Verizon store while waiting for a friend. The user interface was a car wreck. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to use it to make a phone call. It went downhill from there.

Apple succeeded where Microsoft hasn't because it is small enough that it has by it's very nature been focused on using as much as it can from one device to another. Mac OS X and iOS4 share many of the same underpinnings. Expect to see features from the iPhone show up on Mac OS X - such as the re-write of Quicktime called Quicktime 10. Critics like to complain that the iPad is just a "big iPhone", but it's success is because Apple did incorporate all their research and fine-tuning in their new device.

Microsoft has been all over the place, like a kid with tons of toys but also a very bad case of ADD. It can't seem to be focused on how to make a good device. It can't even seem to get the basics right. If Android hasn't passed them, it will soon.

Microsoft can do this. The XBox 360 is a good game system despite a few annoyances. The menuing is good, you can even play back video in formats that their own desktop operating system doesn't support.

Perhaps it is time to go back and refocus. Killing off all these devices that don't fit into a cohesive strategy is a good start. The Kin tried to take some ideas from the Sidekick, but the reality is that the Sidekick's days have come and gone - the last thing that was compelling about it was the device design itself, and it has been copied and improved upon by others.

It may be that Microsoft has to look outside their own company for answers. The weight of the company, with all it's legacy, politics and culture, is preventing it from innovating. I am not an expert at this, but I can say it has been a very long time since I have seen a Microsoft anything that made me take a step back and be impressed. These latest occurances are just part of a bigger problem that is too sprawling to outline here. I am simply not knowledgeable enough to offer that kind of advice. All I can say is that when I held a Kin in my hand, it felt like a doomed product, and I am sure that I was not the first one to have this same feeling.

Why Flash Must Die

2010-06-30T08:57:00.001-05:00

The clash between Steve Jobs and Adobe was for the most part manufactured by those covering the news. Jobs said that the iPhone, iPad and any other iOS devices wouldn't support Flash. Adobe responded by saying bad things about Apple. The press loves a good fight, even when it is a fight created purely in the minds of the writers.

The reality is that the decline of Flash started a couple of years ago, and is now gathering momentum. It began when it became apparent that things that designers had used Flash for could be done with code that was based on open standards. It was at that point more about good development tools and new skill sets.

This has been driven home to me in a parallel experience I have had over the last year with a web site a friend relies on for his work. It is a multiple listing service web application for real estate. Two years ago I was chagrined to find out that this site would only work with Internet Explorer, locking out the Mac and any other platform that did not have Internet Explorer. My friend told me that this was not a big deal since everyone in his office had a "PC".

Now, two years later, this same friend has a netbook, but keeps borrowing my iPad. He loves it. He claims it is actually easier for him to type on (he is a hunt and peck typist). He loves the pinch zooming. He loves the size and general sexiness of the device.

But it won't work with his MLS web application, which still only supports Internet Explorer. The company just released a "Mac Solution", which is nothing more Internet Explorer inside a runtime WINE (crossdos) container. It works, but is a kludge. It doesn't behave like a normal Mac application, so doesn't use any of the standard file requestors, drag and drop, etc. It is ugly looking but works.

I use this example to show why Flash must die. It is a similar thing. Instead of simply using open standards that can work across browsers on a variety of platforms, this MLS application is tied to a proprietary framework that can only work in browsers that Microsoft wants it to work in.

And this is a big problem with Flash. It only works in devices that Adobe develops the flash plugin for. If something new comes out, developers have to wait.....and may have to wait for a long time. Android is getting Flash, but it has taken a while, and some reports are that it isn't great shakes in the performance department.

For me, the other point of inflection was when Adobe began promoting Flash as a total solution for web development. This is at the end of the day quite insane. While these sites do look pretty cool, they break on anything other than a traditional desktop or laptop. Settop boxes, game systems, mobile devices - it doesn't work on any of these. Adding accessibility to the mix - and you have a world of hurt. It is possible to make flash sites accessible, but many developers don't bother. A company that hires developers to create their new web site in Flash now has to use these same developers to maintain it. As we move away from the paradigm of the traditional computer and towards the computing appliance, Flash is going to struggle to keep up.

Anyone who actually follows what has been happening in rich media development for the web already had a clue that Flash would eventually be challenged by open standards. I figured this out two years ago at Apple's developer conference when there was demo after demo of HTML 5 rich media, including clean vector animation - which was how Flash got it's start. I sat next to a friend who is a flash developer, and he told me that he would keep developing in flash because it would take too long for him to learn another development environment. I bet at this point he is reevaluating that position.

The good news for Flash developers is that they will be able to continue to develop flash applications for the near future. There will still be demand. But this is also the bad news as well; there is no "the house is on fire" scenario that will force entrenched Flash developers to change, which will set them up for a scenario similar to the company mentioned above that makes the IE specific MLS system. At some point, these developers will look up from their code, and realize the world has changed underneath them, and now they are in a situation where they have to either adapt quickly, or get left in the dust.

So - the point here is that the Flash issue is not an Adobe versus Apple thing; it is another example based on historical precedent where we are moving away from proprietary code and plugins towards open standards that can work across devices. It is what the web has always been about.

iPad, Kindle, etc.....

2010-06-22T14:39:00.001-05:00

This article does a good job of summing up the dilemma both Amazon and Barnes and Noble face in selling ebooks - both have dropped the price of their readers today.

I've written in the past about e-books and the problems they face. The argument that would be given today for something like the Kindle would be the extraordinary battery life, and crisp display. The iPad's display is decent, but average (around 95 dpi I would guess). But wait......Apple has just started selling the iPhone 4, which has a much nicer display. It is really just a matter of time before this display technology shows up on the iPad, and at that point it becomes an even harder choice for those trying to decide between the iPad, Kindle and other ereaders.

I am not saying that Amazon's Kindle is doomed, just that their reader's sales growth will slope downwards. Where they will make their money is on their ebook publication, since there is Kindle software for the iPad and other devices.

The Android tablets are already here, and pricing is bound to drop. They will be the iPad's biggest competitor, and unlike the iPhone/Android Phone, they have a very good chance of dominating the tablet market. Apple will have to move quickly with better display technology and more aggressive pricing. As always, the difference will be content, whether it be in textual content or applications. The Kindle lags far behind in the latter.

One final aspect that is worth considering is the book or magazine remediated in digital form. At the end of the day, static books on the Kindle and Nook are a bit more than just a book itself on a device, but on the iPad and other devices publication can be something quite more. Content can be dynamic; it can have interactivity that the Kindle and Nook can't really provide well. These new devices offer the dimension of color, which makes digital magazines much more like their analog equivalents. This is, in my opinion, the overarching reason that e-ink devices are going to suffer. It is akin to the move from black and white to color film. Suddenly, black and white looked dated. It is even more of a problem here in that color publication has been available for centuries.

What is HTML 5 good for? Emulating a Vectrex!

2010-06-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

I have been switching back and forth lately between Firefox and Safari as my default browser. The main motivation has been Apple's announcement of (finally) supporting extensions in Safari, which is the one last thing that kept me using Firefox.

The speed difference in Javascript of Firefox versus Chrome or Safari has been noted by others, but it really becomes apparent with a good HTML 5 demo.

There have been a lot of amazing things I have seen lately using HTML 5. How about emulating an semi-obscure game system that is now about 30 years old?

The Vectrex was a self-contrained vector based game system that sold for around $200.00. It was the first game system I owned. I was still in college and miraculously managed to scrape the money together to buy one. I ended up owning a bunch of cartridges because Milton Bradley went out of business, and systems and cartridges were dumped for pennies on the dollar. As part of the fallout, rights for the games and system returned to the original inventor, who in turn put all this stuff in the public domain.

So....here's the game system emulated in a browser. It is notably faster in Safari and Chrome, and in a way it again illustrates why Flash may really be in trouble. The only thing lacking now are good visually oriented development tools designed more for artists and graphic designers, and less for programmers. Flash almost strikes this balance, which is why it is so popular. I think it is just a matter of time.

Adobe is not out of luck, though. I imagine they are busy at work on just what I described.....not necessarily Dreamweaver, not necessarily Flash....but perhaps something new.

Handheld 3D

2010-06-16T10:14:00.000-05:00

Nintendo is showing off it's new handheld game system that uses a 3D display that doesn't use glasses. Is it a bell-weather moment? I think it is because it shows how rapidly 3D displays are becoming mainstream. Nintendo's implementation is not perfect, but still compelling - the reviewer in the linked article complained about eye fatigue.

I follow Nintendo more closely than any other game company because they have a lot of interesting ideas about how innovation can take place in a company. In a nutshell, they use small teams to develop ideas to the point where they hit critical mass, and if they pass scrutiny, Nintendo then commits resources to moving it forward. This is in opposition to how Microsoft works, and it shows in their products. The 360 is not a bad platform (in fact, their menuing system is quite good - very un-Microsoft like), but they are typically trailing in development.

But clearly - Nintendo is the one to watch. The fact that it can play back 3D movies as well is particularly interesting. And....Nintendo has an online store for purchasing games....ala Apple.

One Last Thing about the iPad

2010-06-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

The inclination was to take both the Macbook Pro and the iPad to Apple's World Wide Developer's conference, but I still went back and forth on this, and finally decided to take just the iPad for the week.

PDF support was a big snag in that acrobat forms simply wouldn't work on the iPad. My co-worker said that it was Adobe's fault in that they purposely made it that forms created with Acrobat form wouldn't work with anything other than Adobe's products. I can't verify this, but the two pdf forms I got via email attachments simply gave me a message that I needed to upgrade Acrobat 9. I ended up using a friend's netbook running Windows XP. However, I wrote my signature on the iPad using a Pogo stylus and Autodesk Sketch, exported it an image and mailed it to myself.

Other than that, and the stray web site that relied on Flash for all or most of their navigation, or the one web site where their embedded window with scrolling didn't work at all, it was as I expected in that it met my needs just fine.

While the Apple bluetooth keyboard I carried along was welcome for writing long emails, the onscreen keyboard ended up being used more overall. I think I could just leave the physical keyboard a home and probably will do that next time.

I bought Autodesk Sketch and Korg iElectribe. Both are great applications that show off the iPad in different ways. I bought iElectribe because I have admittedly experience with beatboxes and want to learn about them. Sketch is very nice and intuitive. However, Brushes won an Apple Design award at this conference.

In the end, the iPad is so almost, almost there. My friend with the netbook is selling his and getting an iPad, even though there is one web site he relies on for work that only works with Internet Explorer (they even warned people to not upgrade with IE 8 when it was first released). He's betting this will change and I think he is right. I think we are witnessing a big, rapid transition to HTML5, which all the major browser manufacturers are behind - including Microsoft. It is not that the iPad will singularly force this change, it is that it illustrates why this change needs to take place.

Stay tuned.

The Smart Camera

2010-06-10T19:39:00.002-05:00

Apple's new iPhone has an improved camera, which is great. Underneath the hood, developers can get access to the camera to use in their own applications, which will lead to some neat stuff beyond just taking pictures. But what I thought about while watching the keynote was that while cameras on phones continue to improve, cameras themselves are still bound to a closed operating system bundled with the camera. Occasionally there are firmware updates, and in the past there have been hacked versions of firmware for cameras that unlocked features that manufacturers chose not to include.

Having a development platform that gives access to the camera allows for such things as custom processing (aka Camerabag) or more sophisticated stuff such as follow focus for video recording. Thinking of a camera as a development platform is an intriguing idea that has been explored in the past - both Kodak and Apple shipped cameras that developers could write apps for (such as the DC265 etc), but that idea never really caught on. It may be a neat trick to be able to run Doom on a phone, but really - is that really that compelling? Evidentially not.

I think that is about to change. Again - the gap between point and shoot cameras and cell phones is closing - and it won't be much longer before many people will simply not buy a new point and shoot, since their phone will do as good a job - and can get new features via the App store. This is certainly the case with me - I love my Fuji point and shoot with it's great EXR mode (instant HDR photography) but I am expecting that my new iPhone will do much the same thing - and much more. Sure - I will halve the number of pixels of my camera - but at least 70% of the pictures I take now are with my old iPhone 3G.

I am not predicting the demise of point and shoots - there are always compelling reasons to have devices optimized for tasks - but it going to be a challenge to make buying that new sub-$200 camera a compelling choice. The maxim is true - the best camera is the one you have with you. Indeed.

One Month with an iPad

2010-05-19T15:39:00.000-05:00

I was fortunate enough be given an iPad through work. It was easy to justify based on what I do for a living. The reality was that I was prepared to buy one for myself, so I am sitting on the money to do just that at a later date.

-We haven't seen a significant change in how we interact with computers since the keyboard and mouse (a late 1960's invention). We can point to tablet PC's as the early innovators, but ultimately that isn't true. They did feature pointing devices and a flat screen, but the operating system and user interface was pretty much the same interface that was designed for a keyboard and mouse. There was little or no attempt to rethink how something would work without a physical keyboard. Like many things Apple, the iPhone/iPad is not as revolutionary as profoundly evolutionary. With the iPad developers now have a successful model for how a touch interface can work on a tablet. This is good for everyone.

-The iPad represents the shift from computer platform to computing appliance. There are many examples of this now, but the iPad represents the most blatant. The Tivo is a computing appliance in that it runs an operating system, has a processor, ram and storage, and a modest amount of 3rd party support. However, unlike a personal computer, it is a "closed" environment that not just anyone can write for. Videogame systems, to some extent, represent the same idea. It is possible to hack these to run 3rd party applications, but it's really not the intended use. The iPad represents a further shift in this idea, whether someone agrees with it or not.

-There are notable gaps in the experience. Flash is the most hotly contested. It is a disservice to not support embedded flash applications in the browser. There are legitimate technical reasons to exclude flash, but at the end of the day I would have included Flash application support in the browser, but not necessarily for stand-alone apps. As for flash as a video player - I think that bird has flown. The HTML video tag has too many benefits to not adopt it. The "which format" issue will sort itself out - I root for the open source alternatives - but the pragmatist in me says that h264 will win - hardware acceleration, better tools, more content.

-Battery life on the device is a game-changer. I am watching my battery go down on my macbook right no, but on the iPad I am forgetting to check because the battery life is so phenomenal. It will be a deciding factor for some as they consider buying a tablet.

-Some applications really shine on the device. My music apps (such as megasynth, bebot etc) work fantastically on the iPad - megasynth has become something that is actually more than just a novelty - truly useful. I can't see what midi support for it could be like. I am running these in pixel doubled mode, but the double size make it more useful. I look forward to seeing what kinds of graphic applications show up on the device.

It will take about a year before the other manufacturers begin to ship truly competitive products to the iPad. HP's purchase of Palm (and WebOS) has some attraction. Most of the tablets out now are using hardware that is not nearly as power efficient - just netbooks in a different form factor. Price will be a factor - but just like is the case with netbooks - there is definitely a price/peformance tipping point. The $150 netbooks aren't selling because they are too underpowered for what people want them for. A $200 tablet versus a $350 tablet may be a world of difference. Apple figured this out.

3D as the next medium

2010-02-13T11:30:00.002-05:00

With the onset of home 3D television sets, and the commercially successful use of 3D in feature films, we will see another shift in medium - as was with film, radio, television and youtube. We recognize how artifacts of each of these impacted the other, and when we consider 3D, the early utilization of it will be to mimic what has come before. 3D television and film are an extension of existing methodologies and composition, but soon enough a new visual language will be developed to accompany what this technology will bring us.

I think, given the pervasive use of digital media tools, and the imminent release of consumer 3D cameras, we will see content that has only a tenuous relationship with what came before. It will become more than film in 3D.

The addition of spacial beyond the use of the lens will have a profound emotional impact on how we participate as viewers - indeed the line between audience and performer can be and will be blurred. Our perception of our world will be forever changed; these ghost-projections that exist in visual space, but are but wisps of light. In time, of course, we will be comfortable with them, see them as another part of our everyday life.

What dawned on me (thanks to a email from my nephew Dane) was how quickly this is happening. There are several competing technologies - which is unfortunate, but an inevitable of free market. Wax cylinders vs records, betamax vs vhs, the numerous standards for HDTV; we see this happen again and again. Sometimes we see a convergence around a single technology, such as the ascension of mpeg4/h264 as a defacto standard for web video (either via html5, flash or quicktime).

I am fairly excited about this. There will be a tremendous surge in the next few years as we move to this new medium, away from the gimmickry to the opportunities which will be available once the technology is commonplace. My nephew talks about capturing the best minds of time for the ages; I think that will be a great place to start (think TED in 3D). Performance art, documentaries, artifacts of our lives recorded forever - it seems to me to be the next leap. I think I need to be there.

Flash, iPad and publication

2010-02-01T20:13:00.000-05:00

IEEE weighs in on the iPad
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/01/29/behind-the-adobe-apple-cold-war/

A very long posting follows. Sorry.

-Flash has grown from a nice vector animation program with some handy scriptability into an application development environment. In the process, a lot of what made sense before doesn't. To make an app for Flash, you first have to add an event to a timeline. Inside that one frame can live all of your application code. It is incredibly loopy. The programming environment itself has been plagued with bugs. I speak from experience here.

-Flash is indeed a memory and CPU pig. That is why Adobe developed Flash Lite, which is what many of these smartphones will be running. Adobe has a "device central" environment to help developers. I would prefer this on the iPhone etc although some might complain - it is enough though to write games, and I think stream video.

-Apple is put a lot of it's focus on retail revenue. The stores (online and real) are profitable. They have developed this incredible ecosystem that everyone wants to emulate (including Microsoft, Google, Palm, Amazon, etc.). Flash cuts into this - you can have flash games running from web pages, effectively cutting Apple out for some things - although the best experiences will always be native applications that can effectively use Apple's hardware and software underpinnings. Some of the apps are big as well.

I think an excellent compromise would be a version of flashlite that allows for basic embedded functionality - playback of video, slideshows etc, but greatly limiting other flash development.

I really do think Apple needs to address this because it significantly damages the iPad web experience. Seeing lots of pages with blue lego blocks leaves the customer going "why doesn't this work?".

Other than this, and a missing video camera for web conferencing, I am satisfied with the iPad. I read the iEEE spectrum article you mention, and the focus was on "is this a Kindle killer". That is really not the right question. Can the iPad be used read books satisfactorily? That remains to be seen. My guess is that it will be "fine" - not astonishing good - not necessarily a replacement for real books for those that are picky - but good enough to make it comfortable.

Really - the question is - is it something that people will buy? Tablet computers have been a "holy grail" since Alan Kay's dynabook, but no one has figured out the right balance of functionality. Apple tried it before and failed. In my estimation, Microsoft has failed as well - the most popular tablet pc's are those that are "convertible" - essentially laptops with a writable screen that required a stylus to use. Microsoft didn't go far enough to ditch Windows interface for something that was pen-centric - at the risk of alienating hard-core Windows users - but making a device that ultimately could be more compelling.

Apple took what they learned from the iPhone and applied it to a new device. Exactly the thing to do, despite what all the pundits say. There are a lot of iPhone developers that suddenly have a new device to write for without having to learn a bunch of new stuff. I think we will see some very innovative software for the device, since a bigger surface opens more possibilities. I am amazed at times at what developers have done with the little screen on the iPhone - this will let them take it to a whole new level.

The hype was so much that it would have been impossible for Apple to deliver on it. OLED displays in the size that Apple needed are crazy expensive. It would have killed the product/platform immediately. Something more powerful would have been heavier and had a shorter power life - 10 hours is pretty compelling. Handwriting recognition has never really been there - remember graffiti - you had to learn it's characters - instead of the device learning yours.

I guess I am writing so much about this because it is not so much the iPad itself - it is the potential change in the periodical market it could help usher in. I will actually start subscribing to magazines again if I can avoid the paper - my subscription to Automobile is a mere $12.00 a year - I would pay that exact same amount in a digital form. While the pundits say that "no one will pay for content ever again", that is quite untrue. People still buy music, still watch movies; some even still buy a newspaper. I think a compelling case can be made for a digital publication that features quality writing that has gone through a editorial process, excellent graphics and photographs, and - on top of all that - a modest amount of interactivity and dynamic content. Plus they can still sell Ads - I am fine with that.

This is important to me because I think at some point someone has to get paid. People say "newspapers are dead", and think they are being profound - but the reality is that most of the news they read on the internet was written by a professional journalist that works for a publication - they are simply getting the second-hand version of it through their favorite blogs or web sites.

I want to see all of these writers, photographers, editors, researchers and artists get paid for their work - what they do is even more important than ever before. If paper publications go away (and they will) there has to be some model that can support something more than a blog full of someone's opinions.

iPad

2010-01-28T14:53:00.000-05:00

There is already a lot that has been said about Apple's new tablet. A surprising amount of it is negative. Or perhaps, it isn't that surprising given all the conflicting wishes that people had for this device.

The history of the tablet based computing devices has been in itself underwhelming. It is a conceptual device that has a certain amount of visceral appeal, but the compelling functionality and cost hasn't been there. Apple tried once with the Newton, and learned a lot from the experience.

It is very hard to deploy a new user interface that employs new modalities for use. Newton's concept that everything was a database is a very forward thinking idea (and is still somewhat alive in apple's search technology) but required some shift in thinking. Microsoft chose to simply deploy a "tablet enhanced" version of windows as it's solution, which buried the devices with design decisions that assumed a keyboard and mouse, thus the predominance of "convertible" tablet/laptop devices. Pure Windows based tablets with no keyboard simply aren't that popular (I know, I had one and gave it away).

Apple wisely built on what they already do well. The iPad really is just a bigger iphone/itouch. I have heard many complaints about that. Apple has a methodology where it appears that their products are often revolutionary, but in essence they are not - they are simply the result of informed design decisions and paying attention to what and does not work - learning from other's mistakes. There were many digital music players before the iPod, but Apple made a critical decision to not just make the device a pleasure to use, but more importantly - provide a sensible way for users to manage their content on their devices via a computer. Most of the software that shipped with other players, and even microsoft's own media management software, was dreadful. To Microsoft's credit, it has improved quite a bit - but only because Apple pushed them to do it.

There are a tremendous number of potential developers for the device. For some, it will mean nothing more than tweaking code. For others, the additional screen area will allow them to do things that they previously could not have imagined. No one has start over, and the clearly defined interaction and look and feel guidelines in place, combined with a good development environment and a way to directly market your applications makes the device even more attractive.

The tablet is not a replacement for a laptop. Everyone has tried to make that happen and has failed. Apple made the intelligent choice to not make a diluted device that tries to serve many needs, but does none of those well. Pricing in this light is critical; it can't cost the same as a laptop because people won't buy it. As it is, it is a bit too expensive for a device that competes with a laptop for someone's dollars.

I own a desktop, a laptop and a netbook. I will be replacing the netbook with an iTablet because it more closely maps to what I was using the netbook for, which was couch surfing, taking a lightweight and compact device with me that could display web pages better than my iPhone, and looking at images I just show with my camera. For these limited (but frequently used on my part) needs, the iTablet actually fits the bill.

It doesn't have multitasking. That requires more horsepower, which equates with less battery life and additional cost. Limited background tasking would be nice though, and it is not a foregone conclusion that this won't show up at some point. It doesn't have a camera, which I wish it had for teleconferencing.

I do look forward to see what Apple does in publication space. I hope to be able to subscribe to digital version of magazines for the device. Part of my hesitancy in subscribing to magazines these days is the paper. I am willing to pay for access to high quality, editorially vetted content - beyond the stuff I can already get from blogs for free - which is of widely variable quality. I want high quality imagery and good writing from someone who truly knows their subject, and has made writing about these subjects their primary career. There is a decided difference here - and I am optimistic that people will pay for it, just like they will pay for professionally performed music and film/video.

I do think everyone who is crashingly negative about the iPad is jumping the gun. They haven't even touched one yet. It needs to be given a year or so to see where it settles. It may never be the major success story that the iPod/iPhone has, but my guess is that it will sell fairly well.

I plan on buying one.

Irony is Dead. Hal has an OLPC.

2010-01-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

No kidding. Really. It is just as bad and good as I thought. Tragically already outdated. It is sluggish and at times flaky. And cute as hell.

I am spending time with it to be objective about works and what does not. It is an interesting design challenge, and I admit I can't be totally fair as my adult expectations will color things. I have already been a bit disappointed, and a couple of times been impressed (the way that networking is handled is very clever). I want to take this as an opportunity to step into the heads of the people who put this together and hopefully learn something.

Here's a help ticket worth reading:

http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/1053

It's Sugar, Baby

2009-12-11T10:58:00.002-05:00

As you know, I like following the OLPC saga. Sugar Labs, the maker(s) of the UI/Environment for the OLPC has released their new version of Sugar in a form where it can be easily put on an inexpensive flash drive. It will work with just about any PC (and intel Macs). I think it is pretty great, although I am still not quite sold on the Sugar UI.

OLPC WTF

2009-11-03T15:41:00.001-05:00

Are they still around? Who cares?

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/11/02/negroponte-outlines-the-future-of-olpc-hints-at-paperlike-design-for-third-generation-laptop/2/

Into the Vacumn

2009-05-15T11:31:00.002-05:00

I made a mistake a long time ago that I am still paying for.

I have come to this conclusion over the last couple of months as we look at our support of RealMedia. To put it simply -- RealMedia is a dead end at this point. I can't imagine why anyone would want to put content they are creating into this format, and worse, force their audience to install yet one more player that is notorious for taking over playback of everything on your computer.

It was a necessary decision because we lived in the days of 56k modems, and we wanted to deliver audio and low bitrate video. It was a remarkable achievement that we could deliver video at that time that wasn't very good -- but it worked!

On my campus, we face a similar dilemna now. My organization doesn't offer a followup solution to RealMedia. We don't offer a way for people to ingest media, control access, automate workflows.

Unfortuately, our campus does support something that does -- but it is couched in a framework that is 100% Windows technology. It uses silverlight, but can play back windows media as well. The worst part is that the content lives in this framework, never to get out. In this regard it is even worse than RealMedia because there is no exit strategy. At least realmedia content can be played without a server.

But we live in a vacumn on our campus, so it is a viable solution. I don't blame people at all for adopting it -- because there is little else other than iTunes U that they can use. I have to watch helplessly as the migration begins to a single vendor solution, with little or no hope of mobile playback, housed in a container that is every bit as proprietary as RealMedia.

Most people simply don't care. I have written at great length in the past about the concern I have about content we create not being playable in the next 10 years. This has already happened with very old RealMedia content -- it will not work in the latest RealMedia player. I am sure that Microsoft won't make a similar mistake.......oh wait -- there was this technology called Indeo -- a codec for Windows Media -- I have some of that content on my laptop right now -- and I can't figure out a way to play it back -- or at least convert it. It is dead and inert.

We are forced into thinking short term -- how can we solve the problem NOW -- with little concern about the future. Ironically, in this age of open standards, for some of the more compelling technologies -- the move is to pull content into a box, and not let it escape. There is by design no exit strategy for this content.

I will spare people all the ramifications -- what happens when the vendor goes bankrupt -- what happens when something better comes along -- and you are stuck (again, RealMedia). The reality is that most people don't care.

It is like we are publishing books that only can be read with a certain device, from a single vendor. Oh wait, Amazon is doing that now.

More Kindle

2009-03-31T08:33:00.002-05:00

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/03/until_quite_recently_id_seen.php

I think he tries to carefully step around the whole "kindle vs book" dichotomy, and I applaud him for that.

I feel the same way about the Kindle as I do about digital reproductions of paintings. They are an adequate facsimile, but the viewer should never confuse the two, and unfortunately many won't ever know what they are missing.

I have spent some time looking at Robert Rauschenberg's paintings. He is known for his layers, combining offset and transfer printed media, found objects affixed to the painting (raising the surface). He overpaints on top of things, creating a kind of damaged opaqueness that I find compelling.

What I have discovered is in looking at digital reproductions, I am missing a lot of that detail. This should come as no surprise. The issue here is that I don't know that I am missing that information, that in photographing it a lot of that information is lost.

In transferring books to a Kindle, we transfer the content, and textual representation. In many cases, it comes down to viewer preference (Kindle vs iPhone vs. Computer Vs. Real Book). All do an adequate job of displaying text.

But I think about books that rely on the characteristics of paper. Edward Tufte's books could be put on a Kindle, but I think it would be a damaged experience. A lot would be lost -- perhaps not the drawings, tables and graphs, but the physical layout that Tufte spent so much time perfecting would potentially vanish. Someone looking at it on a Kindle may never know the difference between the two -- and as a result key information (his layout reflects his central ideas of information organization) would be lost.

I have to be careful here and not sound like a luddite. I think the Kindle is kind of cool. It is just that many of the books I want to read wouldn't really work on the Kindle -- a few would to be sure, but my experimental typography book surely would not.

Of course this will all change soon enough. Display technology will continue to improve. The challenge for designers will be to appropriate from books what makes sense, but embrace what the medium/platform has to offer, forever changing the reading experience.

Will books go away? I think mainstream books will eventually. There will be enclaves that will continue to publish books because of their love of printed matter or because their designs will not transfer successfully to books. It may be akin to the market for high quality reproduction audio versus 256 kb/s MP3's. The mp3's are close enough that most won't know the difference, but they won't ever understand the nuance that may be lost -- or not even care -- given the advantages of lossy compressed audio.

Sorry to keep this so long but this is a central topic with me, what happens to media when it migrates. What is gained, what is lost, how does the physical representation of the media cause it's meaning to change (yeah yeah macluhan). It is important to consider. But it is also inevitable. Fighting it is ridiculous, for it is going to happen. Better to look at what it can do for us than to spend time criticizing it's failures.

So the Kindle will likely spawn more things. I am concerned about the Kindle for a different reason. Their business model pushes back against consumers. Buyers end up with less than they had before, and the content is tethered to a device for viewing. Not even the iPod does that. It is a precedent that I find worrisome.

--hal

The Creative Cycle at Nintendo

2009-03-25T14:29:00.001-05:00

Here's an encapsulated, abbreviated excerpt from a presentation today by the CEO of Nintendo (Iwata) and Miyamoto, head game designer for Nintendo. He gets gaming in a way that few others do. He is an inspiration for me for his ability to take life experiences and translate them into art. This excerpt hits many familiar points of the creative process.

Excerpted from:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/25/joystiq-live-from-nintendos-gdc-2009-keynote/#continued

Iwata recounts his history with HAL Laboratory working with Nintendo - when presenting a game to Nintendo, he was told "This is not bad. With a few months, this could become a quality game." Iwata says he was "speechless."

"We did not have a few more months. We had very little time. In fact, we had two more days." Without the revenue, they would report a loss for the year, lose their funding, and enter a "death spiral." Death spiral = Financial pressure + less time + poorer quality, culminating in lower sales.

Iwata restructured the company to make better games - he believed Nintendo was able to make better games because they had more money. Now, he understands this better. The way HAL and Nintendo did things were not at all the same.

Miyamoto's gardening hobby turned into Pikmin; he got a new dog, and that turned into Nintendogs; exercise turned into WiiFit.

Iwata jokes that he asked Miyamoto to never talk about his hobbies outside of work – he's on a 24/7 non-disclosure agreement.

MIYAMOTO'S WAY - "Upward Spiral"

1. Ideas are everywhere
2. Personal Communication
3. Prototype Stage

He shows off a very rough "prototype" of Wii Boxing, encouraging developers to spend more time on the game's mechanics. "The amount of time being spent on the game's graphics was zero. Perhaps you can tell that."

4. Small Teams
5. Multiple Projects
6. Trial and Error

"Sometimes no matter how hard they work, the small teams struggle to meet their objective. That prototype phase can last two years." If they set a project aside, that's the nature of trial and error. "For Mr. Miyamoto, prototype making allows for the most trial and error where the smallest number of developers" can work on the game. "This is one of the most important characteristics of Mr. Miyamoto's approach that I have observed."

"Of course, with so many project going on at one time" some make it beyond that prototype stage. So, the last stage: The Mass Production Stage. Mr. Miyamato, who began as Iwata's mentor, now reports to him. Not always a pleasant scenario.

Once one of Iwata's latest hobbies reaches the prototype stage, he makes it a point to not ask about how it's going. It makes it difficult for Iwata to predict when a product can begin to generate revenue – "which is not very good for my mental health."

If they throw out an idea, that work is not wasted. "I have seen some of these ideas show up years later," Iwata says.

--hal

5 Questions before starting any new Project

2008-08-18T09:33:00.003-05:00

Wrote these while sitting in a meeting. I have asked these same 5 questions many times before when talking with clients.

Who is the Audience?
What is the purpose?
What is the expected outcome? (Visualize and describe what the end looks like)
Who does the work?
What is the cost (people and money)?

I am sure there are more, but these 5 always work for me.

A Posting and it's aftermath

2008-06-25T17:31:00.002-05:00

The other day, I saw an instance where the responses to an article where much more interesting than the article itself, and in a way, were hopelessly intertwined.

Responses to "IT is boring say graduates" is custom made to generate traffic on a site like slashdot, or many in IT a daily read. And it certainly did.

First -- the study itself queried 2000 non-IT curriculum students in the UK for their views on job propects, funding and job satisfaction (or perhaps, "fun"). Only 60% said that they wouldn't go into IT because it would be boring.

What was astonishing for me was the vast similarity in responses -- essentially -- that yes, IT (and work in general for many) is boring -- and those young no-nothings better get down with that fact!

First off -- there are many questions to be asked about the data collection itself. That may not sound interesting -- but the story of the data can be quite revealing. Which students? Which colleges and curriculum (2000 students in theatre arts?).

The article was superficial, great headline and little substance. Custom-made for the soundbite delivery of Slashdot, and it's readers. There were some good responses, and of course the usual digressions on to things like capitalism and quality of life.

I think it is a dumb thing to ask this question. The idea of IT as a department will possibly evaporate in the next few years for some folks. There will be layers on layers instead. Certainly we see that now. Customization becomes the rule, not the option.

The idea of a boring job -- wow. I think that there needs to be engagement by the individual, or time is wasted (and we have a finite amount). I recognize the artistry of coding. I see the architecture and it makes me think. To be able to see profundity in everyday things is a valuable thing. I think some of the folks I work with are artists - not in the hokey "cybercowboy art" -- but in the very real classic sense, making objects that have deep meaning and are readily apparent. Good code is like this.

I have more questions than answers for this little bit of fluff of an article. I couldn't spend as much time on the comments as I would have liked, but the negativism I saw may have more to do with expectations and disappointment than what could be possible.

Gates Rant Shows He Gets It

2008-06-25T13:16:00.003-05:00

We want to believe that Bill Gates is some sort of clueless nerd past his prime (ie "The Road Ahead"), but occasionally he gets it.

Read this rant and see what happens when Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker.

By the way, did you know there are two versions of MovieMaker for Vista?

The upcoming HD revolution

2008-06-12T17:16:00.002-05:00

Tracking the cost of HD cameras has been a sideline as of late. I am finally in the market, and prices continue to plummet. As I mentioned in my other blog, there is the $200.00 Aiptek A-HD, which with all it's flaws, does indeed shoot HD video.

I think about this because I feel a sense of deja vu. "It's not professional" I heard someone pronounce the other day about a consumer HD camera. Professional Videographers avoided YouTube until it became apparent that they would be edged out by the great, unwashed masses.

I am quite excited by this trend. Watch this music video, which was shot entirely with a Sanyo HD1000.

There are problems to be sure -- chromakeying is more difficult with the type of encoding that is done on these cameras. There may be problems with using software based image stabilization, particularly at 30fps. I can say, despite popular wisdom, that I have managed to get acceptable chromakeys with DV footage. Sure -- I would love to shoot on more expensive formats that have a better colorspace. But it indeed possible. I can even mimic the color look of particular film stock with a $200 piece of software and a little elbow grease.

This stuff puts "close to film" in the sub-$1k region. Let others get excited by the upcoming RED Scarlet. I think the revolution is happening right now.

Why Digital Monkeys Don't Get Books

2008-06-10T19:47:00.004-05:00

Waiting to get into a session at the Apple Developer's conference, I heard the group in front of me talking about "full text search" in video, and how it would revolutionize *everything*. I can't imagine that they had seen a Virage demo from a few years back (their heads would explode most likely).

One pronounced: "Books will be dead in 10 years!".

I rolled my eyes.

He went on. "I took a class on publication, and loved goading the class! They didn't get it! Books are dead! You can't do full text search!"

Another chimed in: "Yeah, I had a friend that took a course with an open book final exam. He had the digital version of the book, so he was able to finish it in half of the time of everyone else in the class!"

Hoo boy. I would not hire that guy to build a bridge. Searching does not replace deep understanding of content.

I stepped in at this point. "Have you read any Tufte?" There was a blank look.

"He talks about information design. His content is in a book. It will never be digital, because digital is a poor representation of his work. It demands high resolution, and a specific layout that digital does poorly."

"Hmmmm, well....haven't you seen DIGITAL PAPER?"

"Yes, I have. It is a compromised experience. You trade off a rich experience and high resolution for search ability and portability. Two page layouts (image one page, text on the other) are removed. You don't get full color plates. The user experience of books is effectively destroyed."

More....

"Imagine a map that fills a wall. A digital, zoomable version is a distinctly different experience. One is not necessarily better than another. One immerses you senses in a panoramic data representation that exposes relationships that may be masked in a lower resolution digital version. But the digital version allows for a different, but as valuable experience."

I forget the rest of my rant. I doubt I made an impression -- I probably came across as a gray-haired luddite. This is a shame, because here at WWDC I see the usual trap that a generation falls into (and I have fallen into myself). The dominant technlogy tends to inform all things -- remediation (aka bolter et al). It prevents people from seeing the compromises that exist in adoption -- the things that are left out. It prevents people from seeing beyond what is in front of them. These people will be temporal innovators - better software.....but will never make that dramatic leap to the next great thing. We have to forget what we know now when looking at what came before, what was compelling about it, what was left behind in the compromise to adapt "old media" to the shiny new. Books and digital representation of text are quite different things. They only have text and images in common -- the user experience can be aped in technology -- but in the transition it becomes a different thing -- again -- not necessarily better or worse -- different. Too many times we think in either/or.

I write this as I sit here in a session on Podcast Producer at WWDC, and as I look at the audience, I wonder who here thinks about this as I do, and how many cannot make the connection between the books on their shelf, and the text in a web page.

I hope we learn from the past.

Oh, Surprise -- Just Giving out $100 laptops doesn't help learning

2008-06-06T16:50:00.002-05:00

I broke my promise -- at least I am not using the O**C word.

http://www.slate.com/id/2192798/

Curriculum design and parental involvement doesn't get you on slashdot. Giving out cheap laptops does.

Ho Hum.

OLPC - More Hardware

2008-05-20T15:38:00.002-05:00

New hardware, but same old plan.

This is the last time I will write about the OLPC for a while. I have to stop.

Whither OLPC

2008-04-22T15:46:00.005-05:00

I haven't been keeping up with the little green laptop for a bit, with the flood of inexpensive (but not as cheap as the OLPC) laptops hitting the market. Machines like the eePC from Asus are not as clever in their design as the OLPC, but I think they may be much more desirable in the end, due to amenities such as faster processors and ram, and a user interface that are more like things people are used to.

This announcment that Walter Bender, one of the mainstays in the OLPC project has left -- because of the OLPC's move to Windows XP........exactly what many potential customers for the OLPC have been asking for.

I have picked on the OLPC project before. I think it is wrong-headed to get into the laptop business to begin with. True to form, the price point for entry level laptops is dropping just as happened with other consumer electronics. It is not driven by educational need but by the market, but education can directly benefit.

Maybe they can be focused on making their OS work on as many different devices as is possible. The world needs a nice, lightweight OS that has modern features, but can run on 5 - 10 year old hardware. I have run across old PII 233 mhz laptops for less than $50.00. That would be a great candidate for the OLPC OS, and would keep one more laptop out of a landfill.

As far as the grand theory of constructivist thinking driving OLPC -- perhaps the OS is the wrong place to start. Conceptually, having an OS that the end user can modify is interesting, but in the k-12 market, with strained resources and little time for training, it makes more sense to leverage what people already know, and let the technology act as a tool to expand on that knowledge. It is ultimately a myopic vision of the technorati to focus on open source philosophy at the expense of what the user needs. And, as past postings will bear me out, I fully support open source. But I care less about the underpinnings than the experience and opportunities that the technology affords me.

Why not spend time developing a simple programming environment that can run on top of any OS, and lets students create their own applications (even better, make it an interpretive language like Ruby, where the apps are web apps, and can run anywhere). Use OLPC's mesh networking, throw some multidisciplinary curriculum behind it (programming/design visual + motion/interaction/literacy/writing/math/science/etc) and some well designed curriculum and learning tools (good books, digital learning objects, good examples to copy and modify) that teachers can use to make use of this stuff. This is much less glamorous than building a cool green laptop, but will have much wider and longer impact.

Okay, it will be interesting to see where the OLPC project will be a year from now. I wish the project well. I like the discussion it has generated. I still think there is a lot of potential, but maybe not making laptops. Let others do that. Unlike the OLPC laptops, these new, small, inexpensive laptops will be devices that you and I will want to own and use daily, but the good news is that a 12 year old in kenya will want one too, for pretty much the same reasons.

Archive.org takes a big step into academia

2008-03-25T08:50:00.002-05:00

I am constantly surprised by what is available at archive.org. For myself, it's a fantastic junk-bin of media, with a fair amount of it in the public domain. I have used many bits and pieces of content from archive.org in my own projects.

This announcement could be something important for academia. Zotero and archive.org have announced an alliance to allow academic papers, research, media to be searchable in ways useful for other's research. This includes, of course, the idea of metatagging etc, but also includes the ability to convert scanned documents into text via server-based OCR. Someone submits scanned documents, the server ingests them, and gives back searchable text. I am not certain as to accuracy of the conversions -- it may be low for damaged documents -- but I would guess there is a way to correct mistakes after the conversion. It is certainly better than nothing.

The plan has quite a scope. I just looked at Zotero, and it is quite nice. I have been using delicious bookmarks to handle tagging web content for research, but it appears to me that Zotero may be much better. I use the delicious bookmarks manager extension for Firefox, and Zotero is an extension as well. How convenient! I am installing it right now -- in fact, have to quit my browser to load it. That is enough for now then.

Second Life is Hype

2008-01-24T12:28:00.000-05:00

Although I have a Second Life account, I rarely use it (I am Unh Oh in Second Life). To be honest, I have been quite underwhelmed with education's embrace of Second Life. Most of it consists of "virtual classrooms", unfinished experiments, or things that people won't really use on a regular basis, because Second Life as a whole can be sluggish, it requires specific thought to install and run (I have to go to my computer, open second life, log in, wait) -- it doesn't sound like a hassle, but given other lower-threshold tools at my disposal for communicating -- it is simply too much of a time drain.

I can (and will) write quite a bit about Second Life in the next couple of months, for it illustrates well some of the problems we face when trying to fit analog space into digital space. Assumptions about hierarchy. Assumptions about economy.

This MarketPlace story illustrates one of these critical points -- that it appears that companies are beginning to pull out of Second Life, after the gold rush. As one person succinctly puts it:

"Second Life is a world in which you can fly just as easily as you can walk. Maybe the idea of building a store doesn't make much sense."

I will extend that argument to educational institutions. Assumptions about hierarchies, how economies can work, gender roles, cultural assumptions, power structure. Wow. It is like a mirror at times that illustrates the flaws in these assumptions. It is a magnifying glass that illustrates some fundamental, underlying, bad assumptions about the role of technology in education.

I think (but have no evidence) that Second Life's population numbers are grossly inflated. I believe that not there are not that many people who use it regularly, compared to much broader services -- including myspace, youtube and facebook. It may not seem fair to compare these -- they are different things indeed -- but the cost of time -- what can I do in the next 3o minutes - I can wander around Second Life, or a I can create a blog post, update my Facebook account, check my email. It is an easy decision. One is a big blob, takes a while to load, and can take time to do stuff -- the other things -- specific, task driven, efficient.

All of this illustrates some bigger lessons about digital learning. I believe that we are seeing in Second Life can definitely be applied to LMS systems (WebCT/Blackboard, Moodle, etc). But more on this later.

1 minute on OLPC

2007-11-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

Read this WSJ analysis on the One Laptop Per Child initiative
Read this Hardware comparison of the OLPC and the Asus Eee PC

A lot of smart people worked on the OLPC, but is it enough? Does it have a life span? Is it too clever?

Getting in the hardware business is always tempting -- building a ecosystem where you can control the platform. Make something that is in a box, you can hold in your hands. Wouldn't it make more sense to just open source the whole damn thing? Let anybody make them?

I think it is instructive to consider the role of conventional technology -- and how the cost of the mundane drops. $19.99 DVD players, for instance. Consider the complexity of a mechanism that uses a laser to decode bits of data on a disk, convert it back into video and audio, and throw in a modest amount of interactivity.

This is a model that really blows things apart. The hardware becomes secondary to the content. This is what has to happen with OLPC. The hardware has to cease to matter. The operating system and it's core functionality should run on almost anything that people have lying around, or are willing to make is the quantities of a $19.99 DVD player.

I don't really agree completely with the WSJ because of this. I do think OLPC will not be the specific device that fuels a revolution, but it will fuel something -- the next EEE PC will probably cost half of what it costs now - using conventional, off the shelf technology. It will run whatever OS someone wants. Including OLPC. That is a good thing.

The goal should not be to build little green laptops, but to make computing like that $19.99 DVD player.

--hal

The Microsoft Box

2007-11-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

This posting in Engadget gave me a moment of pause. The Microsoft UMPC platform has only been around for a couple of years, but it seems that it never really caught on, and while companies are continuing to come out with new versions, that this device has dropped to over half of what one cost new in less than a year tells me that they simply aren't selling. It is a problematic device to be sure, something that Microsoft has concocted that is still in search of a market.

I think this is another example of imagined functionality. What I mean by this is that we imagine times where technology would be useful, but in reality that extra functionality is never really utilized. 4x4 SUV's in Florida, for instance -- there are only a small percentage of people that need that functionality in a state where it never snows. This device of course runs Windows apps, but none of these applications are optimized for a tablet experience. They use a 30 year old desktop metaphor that severly compromises user experience. We are stuck with an on-screen keyboard that cripples our ability to type as easily as a laptop. The small screen necessitates squinting at times, because the software that will run on these devices is designed for larger screens. Of course, we can hook it to a monitor or projector to get a bigger display, but with $400.00 solid state laptops, what is the advantage of this device? We can imagine all the ways we *could* use this device, but I doubt anyone here actually has put down cold, hard cash on one. That is because at the end of the day it doesn't really replace things we already have or expand opportunities. I have used my iPhone to check pricing and reviews on an item while shopping at Target. I can't see myself doing the same with this gizmo.

Microsoft is stuck in a box, and they simply can't get out. They take a form factor that has never caught on widely (the tabletPC), try to shrink it with some vision that people will take these everywhere, but I have never seen anybody with one. That is because given the cost of this device, and a slightly more expensive laptop, it is a slam dunk. One is a series of compromises with too big a form factor to slip in a shirt pocket (which means I will take it with me everywhere). The laptop is bigger, but is much more functional. There is a formula for functionality versus size, and Microsoft simply can't find it. Witness the failure of the Zune -- again, a bunch of technology pieces that don't add up to a coherent whole.

Luptonista

2007-11-02T08:57:00.001-05:00

I went to a great presentation last night by Ellen Lupton. She is a academic -- typographer/ designer -- and half of her presentation was on abuse of typography -- the other half was on diy -- particularly crafts and pet peeves. She brought many "out of real life" examples about typography and drilled home a few critical points -- what bad things happen when we smash fonts (but sometimes it does look cool), spacing and more.

From my notebook:

diD YoU KNow that there is a thing called "Church of Craft"?
http://www.churchofcraft.org/

some more random notes

www.design-your-life.org
www.thinkingwithtype.com

Books
diy
diy kids

and others -- do an amazon search on ellen lupton.

She was awesome, and gave me ideas for something I am working on for next year's DE conference and maybe something a little more.

Luptonista

2007-11-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

I went to a great presentation last night by Ellen Lupton. She is a academic -- typographer/ designer -- and half of her presentation was on abuse of typography -- the other half was on diy -- particularly crafts and pet peeves. She brought many "out of real life" examples about typography and drilled home a few critical points -- what bad things happen when we smash fonts (but sometimes it does look cool), spacing and more.

From my notebook:

diD YoU KNow that there is a thing called "Church of Craft"?
http://www.churchofcraft.org/

some more random notes

www-design-your-life.org
thinkingwithtype.com

Books
diy
diy kids

and others -- do an amazon search on ellen lupton.

She was awesome, and gave me ideas for something I am working on for next year's DE conference and maybe something a little more.

It is not free unless I say so

2007-10-31T09:37:00.000-05:00

An upcoming presentation/panel at TLTR here on campus is titled "Free Culture* (*while supplies last): Mashups, Remixes, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines".

While I understand that the intent is to let people know about the state of copyright law, education and - that term again - Mashups - there are some things about the topic that I am sure won't be covered.

Of course, everyone (except perhaps Andrew Keen) is down with the idea of Free Culture (unless it pertains to my own work of course!). Higher education is at it's present philosophically believes in Free Culture, but the busines of Higher Education is diagrammatically opposed to Free Culture.

I will spend some time talking about why that is, but there is quite a bit of hypocrisy to go around. I struggle with this quite a bit when it comes to my own work, I am still not how this could work.

But, it appears that there is no one on the panel that actually makes stuff. We get a presentation about copyright law and education, and the problems here. This is quite the wrong discussion to have -- even the title is in the wrong place. It's to let people know what the deal is, what can be done -- but things are so beyond screwed up that it is almost like explaining the war in Iraq (support the troops, support Amurica!) in a way that is acceptable for a pacifist. It just can't be done. Copyright and intellectual property is beyond broken, it now points to deeper problems with how we approach knowledge and content in society -- not a particular country's laws -- but how we as a species consider it. So much is assumed.

I wish for Free Culture, I really want to believe -- but the data keeps saying otherwise. RadioHead's "pay what you want" album is widely pirated. But wait -- maybe that is not a bad thing -- the album is really on a small portion of a band's income -- it is touring where the money comes in -- so they may come out of it okay.

Film, video and text definitely have a problem here. Each performance of a recorded work is the same. There is no variation. You go once/read it and you have seen all there is to see. How can a filmmaker/writer make money in this environment? Let's face it: if a big name director/filmmaker puts a film out there with the same model as RadioHead, it is doubtful they will even begin to recoup costs. Free Culture be damned when we talk about new media.

Lev Manovich trys to dispel the belief that digital media is different from analog media because it doesn't degrade. I disagree -- he focuses on "lossy compression" in jpeg to illustrate is point that new media is capable of degrading like analog, but but but that is a pretty weak argument -- I just downloaded a jpeg of ronald reagan, and there it is -- in all it's digital glory. I made a copy and it is just like the original. Yes -- if I open and resave as a jpeg, it is damaged -- but this is just an exception, not the rule. It circumvents the bigger question with a technical argument, which is that we are a point in time where things can indeed be moved fluidly with little or no loss of quality, but perhaps with a large loss of context. That I think is much more worth considering.

Again, there is no one on this panel that actually *makes*. This is a problem. Let's not talk about all the different ways someone can go to jail for reusing content -- audio/visual quotes, outright re-visioning of work. Let's not talk about how we can "push back". Let's just do it. Run the red light because the traffic light is broken, and won't get fixed. There is no incentive to do that, but there is plenty incentive to keep things the same.

Beyond the Mix

2007-10-05T18:47:00.000-05:00

I'm half-way through reading Language of New Media again, and I have decided that while it is one of the best books I've read in the next five years, the fatal flaw is not getting down with the analog. I talked about that (perhaps elliptically) last week. The digital is dead until we make it live.

Out of this comes the following realization. Mix Culture as a revolutionary form of media does not exist.

We have always been a sum of our parts -- bits and pieces of culture, text, images, sounds, thoughts. These things flow through us, we give them an identity and a life.

We cull fragments and it makes up a big part of who we are. It is our history.

The digital does change things. I will not deny that. We touch it and it changes us.

We put much on the manifestation, the tools....not the message. "Mix culture" as a term is all about the digital. It denies something much more fundamental about ourselves. We look, listen and learn. Stories come from this.

We come from the sum of our parts. We see something new, and it is different, but the thing that drives it, that which makes it intriguing or useful, is ourselves.

This is why I reject the term "mix culture". We have collapsed thousands of dollars worth of equipment and access to a desktop computer. The underlying output does not change. Our palette increases, but if we let the digital define things, we see it's parts as well as it's combination. We need to see the message. We will get over seeing it's components soon enough, and then we can get on with using it effectively.

What I am getting at is that these discussions of "appropriation" of media for re purposing get bound in legal discussions. Laws are these things we make up for a variety of reasons. We need to examine those reasons, not the laws themselves.

We need to get down with our analog selves. Doing digital allows us to pretend that somehow, maybe, this time, technology will make us a better version of ourselves. A Hal 2.0. We better get down with some "mix culture"!

I don't think any of us are really prepared for these kinds of discussions. Forget laws for a minute. What do we want to do? How do we want to treat contributions to our knowledge and our culture? What is language, and can anyone own it? Can we at least share?

"Mix Culture" acknowledges sources (which is good) but somehow sets that apart from what came before -- it is seen as a mongrel, but that is not how these things work. All that has changed is the way that it is done. One person can make a cartoon, not a shop of 12. This is a change akin to the rise of textile mills. Manufactured fabric tore apart a economy -- a way of doing business. This is happening now.

We find this power in the individual liberating but threatening.

Cinema changes, books change, economies change, culture changes. How we think of ourselves changes. This is disruption.

If we give it a name, something unique, we can perhaps embrace the new. See it as a new way of thinking about what we have done before.

What I am asking for is to look ahead.

Between the glass

2007-09-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

I have been re-reading Manovich's Language of New Media -- it is still a great book. It's a year later and I have had some time to consider some aspects of what he has to say.

In our presentation in August, my buddy Alan Foley and I talked about DE Edcucation and the challenges/opportunities when we consider online education's potential to be better than, not just as good as -- conventional education. I have said enough on this point. But the message that we repeated is that in moving to the digital -- it is different in many ways.

I guess, now that I have spent so much time in the the digital, I am ready to revisit the analog. A friend and I were talking about graphic design, and I told him that designers "had to get down with their bad selves" -- it is about honesty, directness, clarity.

But l need to take the same advice.

What I mean is that it is time to consider the analog. I am interested in that space between the analog and the digital. Digital is....well read Manovich's book. I get stuck on terms like "sampling error" and "quantization". In converting the analog to the digital, it becomes something else. In that moment where whatever is between the two worlds, that is an interesting place.

I am back to where I was several years ago, dissatisfied with technology, and what we have chosen to do with it. A virual world run by one company, with a fake, consumerist, capitalist hype machine. So many messy questions here not answered.

Resolution. We are built for large movements, but we type on little keyboards just as I am doing right now. We are fortunately good at adapting to the things we make, but that does not mean it is ideal. We celebrate frames per second, color depth, but it still digital. It is sampled.

Between the glass lies the phosphors or lcd pixels that are activated -- by an electron beam or an electrical charge. That space is where the patterns reemerge, are stitched together by our brains. The digital is dead until we give it life.

Living in the iPhone Ghetto

2007-09-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

I finally succumbed and bought an iPhone. It was the price cut combined with the $250.00 of gift cards that I got for my birthday a few months back. It was the untimely death of my nokia -- although one friend suggests that I wanted the phone to die so I could buy an iPhone.

What strikes me about this device is not the usual stuff that technogeeks coo over -- the multitouch screen, the thoughtful engineering (hardware and software). What strikes me is that this is perhaps the most closed device that Apple has sold in recent memory.

I think it started back a few months ago, when at Apple's developer conference, people were waiting for a development kit for the iPhone....and instead were told to develop web applications optimized for the phone. The argument was that customers using cell phones were not used to their cell phone crashing. Having an open application environment would potentially allow that to happen.

But really, we know now that this hasn't stopped legions of iPhone users from potentially voiding their warranty to install applications on their phone, and even further, untether their phone from AT&T -- which would then allow them to use their phone with T-Moble, Orange, any carrier worldwide that supports GSM.

There are other peculiarities. You can't download content other than that from the iTunes store to your phone wirelessly -- in fact, the sheer ease of which you can pay a $1.00 for a song gave me pause. I doubt I will be using that feature. This means, for instance, that while the phone is capable hardware wise of playing back streaming audio -- such as from a internet radio station -- that feature is disabled. You can't download pictures from the internet to your iPhone.

But -- I think, for myself, it comes down to the ring tone.

I have been able to upload ringtones to my cell phones for a while now that I created. Myself. No copyright issues involved. Well, with the iPhone, you can't do it. You must buy a ring tone if you want more than the one's that ship with the phone. That is ridculous.

I noticed that accessories that use the dock connector no longer work -- my two FM transmitters, my boombox that has video out -- I get a message that these devices are not designed for iPhone.

Perhaps this is because Apple is plugging the analog hole. This is where video/audio equipment has analog outs -- which allows users to re-record content, admittedly at a degraded quality. It is possible they have conceded to the media conglomerates that would like to see the removal of all analog ports (save for a head phone jack) from equipment -- so that people will only be able to transfer content digitally -- and there potentially be prevented to make copies.
My theory is deeply flawed. I know that for every encryption scheme, there is likely a way to break it, for at some point the stream has to be unencrypted for playback. So, perhaps I am simply over-reacting to the needless disabling of my current devices.

One other thing -- the ability to use the phone as a flash drive has disappeared. I know that most won't care, but I find this strange.

I think the iPhone hints at a future direction for Apple -- a further closed ecosystem where things live in this ecosystem, but can't escape easily. They will deliver what the entertainment industry has wanted for a while -- but with a Apple spin -- just enough freedom (you can copy over your existing mp3's and mpeg-4 video to the iPhone) but with some interesting restrictions.

This way of thinking is what is crippling the AppleTV by the way.

My guess is that Apple will go into the subscription business -- with ephermal downloads (watch the TV show, and it disappears in 48 hours). Plugging the analog hole makes this more feasible.

I don't hate my iPhone. It's pretty much what I've wanted in a mobile device for some time -- a phone, web browser and email client. But I am a little bit concerned about this direction, for Apple is not the only company taking this tact -- we only have to think of Microsoft's struggling Zune -- with it's potentially killer feature, 802.11 wireless -- which is hopelessly crippled.

My guess is that within two years, and likely a year, everyone who makes cell phones (Samsung, nokia, etc) will have their own iPhone device. It will be interesting to see what the rules are then.

--hal

More on Innovation

2007-09-06T11:45:00.000-05:00

While I am completely skeptical of the terms "Web 2.0" or "millennium learners", I think this article is an instructive example of the process of innovation, and how it is twarted.

Damn those pesky users.

--hal

Living with Anti-Innovation

2007-09-06T11:13:00.001-05:00

Our organization is undergoing a re-organization. It is an opportunity to rethink, or retrench. Retrenching is the comfortable solution, because it is feels somewhat the same after the dust has settled. It may seem different from the outset, but it is fostered by assumptions that were prevalent before the reorganization.

This is not because we don't have smart people working on this. It is not because we don't want to change. It is because we, like most people, want to define the future by what is in front of us.

I had a conversation yesterday with an instructor who teaches painting. We talked about the digital and the analog. He made an excellent point -- that digital interfaces encourage small movements; typing on a keyboard, using a graphics tablet that is defined by the size of sheets of paper. In his world, you can involve the whole body in the process if you want, and he argued that this was better because it matched the way we are made.

Once you accept this premise, it becomes a slippery slope. Why do we use little keyboards. Sometimes it is portability -- but what about our desks? We use tools that conform to technological assumptions, and we make them work, because we are so extraordinarily able to adapt.

But, we define things based on what came before, until someone breaks the mold. Afterwards, there is the hindsight that allows us to see that "of course! it was a logical progression!", but at that point of flux -- it might seem a little disturbing, or even scary.

I think at these times, there are many forces in place that do not see themselves as "anti-innovation" -- but again, in hindsight, that is what they are. Things can't change, because that is too messy! It works well enough as it is, says the steamboat operator to the airplane pilot.

Unplugged Schools

2007-08-23T09:34:00.000-05:00

This article from the Orion gave me a bit of pause. I think it strikes a chord with me because it is the beginning of a new semester, and I have spent the last 3 days in front of a computer wrapping things up. I start to wonder -- is this the way I want to live my life? Is this the way any of us should live?

Those who have read my blog regularly know that while I use quite a bit of technology in my work, I remain concerned about how it is used in teaching, and whether we put too much emphasis on technical skills, at the cost of other skills that are important -- critical analysis, storytelling and more.

The idea of disconnecting from technology when teaching kids has a lot of appeal. They will have the rest of their lives to play video games, order pizza online. The core skills to use technology effective actually have very little to do with actually learning software itself. I struggle with this myself in my own studies -- I am much less interested in becoming proficient with something like Maya than understanding how color, light and composition work to convey information. If I understand that, I can tackle the mechanical skills of learning which button does what.

I think there is a confusion about learning technology and learning how to use technology. Teaching someone to use powerpoint, and teaching someone how to communicate effectively -- which one would you rather have?

--hal

Audio From DE Presentation 07

2007-08-19T16:13:00.000-05:00

Alan Foley and myself gave a talk at the DE Conference in Madison WI a bit over a week ago titled "MySpace is not YourSpace". I've included an acrobat file of the slides in the last posting, but here's the audio combined with the slides as an enhanced podcast (but not actually in a podcast ;-)). Right-click (or control click for onebutton people) and select "save as" to save a copy to your computer(it looks much nicer in iTunes).

For those interested, this was recorded with a Sanyo CG-65 digital video camera configured to record just audio, using the built-in microphone.

The Promise/Pitfalls of Social Computing Constructs in DE Education

2007-08-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

Here's the Presentation

Leaders, Managers and Neither

2007-07-27T15:59:00.000-05:00

I just came from a 1 hour presentation on our organization's CIO search committee. The report was fairly brief, and decidedly non-controversial.

One of the presenters of the report repeated several times the statement "We need a CIO with vision, that will lead our organization to greatness".

After approximately the fourth time he repeated this, I mentioned that there was a difference between leaders, visionaries, and managers. I suggested that we did not want a visionary/leader, that instead what we need is a good manager. "That is what I said" he replied. But, of course, that isn't what he said.

I used to get these things confused myself, until I listened to this talk by the father of modern management, Peter Drucker. He has since died, but I think this was an important moment for myself, where I realized that I would never be a manager. I am just not that person. But managers are very important -- it is just that their role has changed, but not as much as some would expect.

What we need is not a leader with vision, but an organization with vision. This is a critical difference. One is a one-trick pony. It is Steve Jobs. The other is a sustained culture of innovation, where a CIO protects this culture, and lets it flourish, even it means that things have to change in ways that make people uncomfortable. It is a bunch of Steve Jobs in an ecosystem that can support them, let them do what they do best.

This does sound a bit overly optimistic (and a bit corny) when I read it just now, but I think it is what makes some schools better than others.

Conservapedia

2007-07-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

I can't complain based on politics. That is the problem. The expectation is that logic, reason and facts can somehow *be* biased. History is indeed open to interpretation. It is continually revised -- but for the better,for the worse, or simply spun?

Post Modernism tried to approach this problem, and in the end became a victim itself.

Blindly accepting anything written online without substantiation is a critical problem. It is a problem with wikipedia, or any service that offers "information" -- but is it manifestation itself -- or is it how the information is presented?

That is what confuses me about Conservapedia. Why does it need to exist? It seems to me that what wikipedia could always use are people who are willing to rigorously interrogate content -- make sure that it is clear, the citations are clear, that it meets muster intellectually. This is not a conservative or liberal thing. These things have nothing to do with whether someone is liberal, conservative, republican, democrat, christian, buddist or agnostic. It is necessary to think clearly and critically.

But, sadly, the folks that set up Conservapedia think differently about this. That separate can be equal. Or better.

Frankly, I find this sort of thinking quite scary.

--hal

52 Reasons to stop using Windows 2000

2007-05-27T20:23:00.000-05:00

It is memorial day weekend, so I doubt many will see this, but thought it might be good to generate a little traffic.

A quick story. My nephew's Win2kPro machine quit booting -- blue screen on bootup (drive missing error! -- which is of course not true -- because it was booting from the drive to get that message). Yeah, a virus had mangled the master boot record -- fixed that.

Lots and lots of viruses -- lots. I used Avast Home Edition (not a plug here, but it does work and it is free) to remove stuff.

Windows Update Installer however doesn't work -- you see -- it was disabled as well by the virus software. I spent at least 45 minutes in microsoft help figuring out what to do (clean registry, spin 3 times, clap hands, take a drink of water, throw salt over my shoulder).

After many gyrations, I uninstall it, and install a new version. After a couple of reboots, it works!

So, as the title goes -- Windows then proceeds to download 52 updates in one sitting.

A reality check is good once in a while.

I have Vista installed under Parallels on my Mac. I am sure it will be better.

Ethics and Cocaine

2007-05-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

This post on the blog "Innovation Online" (humpf) about the energy drink "Cocaine" was interesting, but perhaps not for the reason that the author wanted to be.

I find the moral indignation expressed slightly offputting. Really. Is naming a drink after a illegal substance a violation of ethics, or simply in Bad Taste? And who gets to decide?

This popped into my head, because I know there have been other products named after illegal acts/substances (Grand Theft Auto, the perfume "Opium"). I am sure they caused outrage as well, but they certainly didn't cause our society to collapse.

It seems to me that the outrage that this author expresses is quite misplaced. Instead of targeting a specific energy drink that likely tastes quite bad (citric acid and high fructose corn syrup), let us talk about some REAL violations of ethics. There are much worse things to focus on than a tacky energy drink. I will leave it up to whoever reads this to make up their own imaginary list -- mine is brief, but I am sure you can think of what it might contain.

The reason I write this is that more than ever we are distracted, we can't keep our eye on the ball. We expend mental energy over a badly named energy drink, because we can't seem to fix the bigger problems. The violations of ethics are so large that we can't see them, so we fret over a badly named energy drink -- but it is really just a distraction.

--hal

Mixed Media

2007-05-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

You know it has hit prime time when educators talk about "mix culture", a term that has been used by many (including Lev Manovich) to describe the phenomena of combining media sources in unexpected ways -- creating juxtapositions -- hybrid creatures. In music, mix culture goes back a long, long ways -- as soon as crufty 12 bit Mirages hit the scene -- a decent sampler everyone could afford. HipHop was important to it. But we can go back even further to composers in the 30's, 40's and 50's who used "found audio" (Cage et al).

Most think of mix culture in the context of YouTube, or techno music, but it is more profound that this. I give you Okapi, who I think shows what this really means.

The music is clever, juxtaposed, but it is very musical. It leverages acoustic sounds much more than most who work in this medium -- it is a nice refresh from the usual remixed drone. It seems to me to be at times quite cinematic.

So, again, like Edith Frost, you can download a nice packaged sample of his work, or you can actually buy one his CD's.

Dick Dale

2007-04-08T21:08:00.000-05:00

Dick Dale is the king of the surf guitar. Listen kids, to his advice. He says -- make your own CD's, book your own gigs, don't be afraid to do gigs for free, don't worry about being on the cover of Rolling Stone (or, I will add, a music video in rotation). Just make stuff, don't sign with a label (or create your own label like Fugazi), sell out of the trunk of your car like Johnny Cash.

He has always been one of my guitar heroes, but now I respect him even more.

--hal

What Does EMI's DRM Free Songs Mean for Artists?

2007-04-04T16:31:00.000-05:00

I am as pleased as anyone else that EMI will begin selling their digital download music as DRM free. Apple's iTunes store will deliver them as 256 kb/s AAC files, which just happens to be the bitrate I use to rip music into iTunes. So....I will finally give iTunes some of my hard-earned cash.

But....it really doesn't change the fact that the reason this is happening is that there is a bit challenge facing music companies. I have been thinking about bigbox retailers such as BestBuy -- this is not a good thing for them, as CD sales continue to shrink.

Perhaps the most bone-headed reaction I have heard to this announcement is the comment that all it would do is fuel more piracy. I doubt that things could be worse than they are now -- anyone can rip their CD's into iTunes quite easily. If anything, I think people really want to pay for music. I know that I do. My main gripe these days is the stuff that you can't get on CD -- Lime Spider's "The Cave Comes Alive", Bill Nelson's debut album "Northern Dream". I actually just lost a bid on ebay for that particular album -- which ended at $26.00.

Add to this the dilemma of the working artist. They need a distribution company perhaps for promotion -- but do they really? I think about this as I listen to Edith Frost's demo album, full of sad, bare and beautiful music. It sometime evokes memories of all things "Twin Peaks". It is worth a download. I like the spareness of it, although a little less reverb would have been nice.

I found her through a now-defunct site "Comfort Stand", which was a brave idea -- sort of a "Creative Commons" of music. Some of the content there has found it's way to my iTunes list forever. Okapi -- cinematic music music indeed.

So, sorry to cop out based on the provocative title. I don't know what it means. I think the industry will look a lot different in 20 years, hell it might not even exist as it does now.

Now, go download some free music please, and buy something to support those brave enough to take advantage of the internet.

I Know Nothing

2007-03-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

I created this after someone sent me a powerpoint presentation that has been making the rounds. You can watch it here. While some of the information was interesting, I found that the underlying simplification and powerpointing (see, a new word)quite disturbing. It inadvertently and quite unwittingly made a more important point -- that constructs like this do nothing more than entertain -- they do not really offer any information or insight of value. That we confuse these things with real knowledge is quite worrisome to me.

Second to None Life

2007-03-27T20:15:00.001-05:00

I am Unh Oh.....in Second Life.

Unh Oh is a chap that just got a pair of pants. I have been told that there are plenty of people walking around with no clothes. Bully for them.

It seems that while it first appears that Second Life is free, they press you to give them financial information with the incentive of Linden Dollars. It is an artificial currency inside of Second Life, but it could be argued that the American Dollar is an artificial currency (particularly after going from the gold standard).

In fact, pretty much everything ends up costing money at some point. The assumption underneath is that there really is only one form of legitimate economy -- captitalism. You can pick up some spare change here and there -- but no evidence of barter economy (I would guess it's out there), certainly no trace of socialism, marxism or arnarchy. I want to figure out a way to raise $1000 Linden dollars -- the cost of an island -- so that I can create Anarchy Island. We will see what happens there.

It is really fake feeling. Movement is clunky. I will be pairing it with my WiiMote on my Mac pretty soon to make it easier (another posting, another day).

Educators are giddy about it. Something they can figure out, and perhaps invest in this "cyberspace thing". It is a box. A commercial box. It is not what I had in mind, nor was it what the homebrew computer club that Steve Wozniak was in had in mind. This Second Life is a company selling stuff under the guise of "empowering users" -- but only after signing a bunch of forms. The end user agreement is quite interesting, including the "Big Six" -- I will spare you, but it's the typical stuff -- harassment, intolerance, assault, disclosure (privacy), indecency and disturbing the peace.

I think this list is quite funny. It seems almost like a kiddie version of the 10 commandments. Privacy -- really? Indecency -- I can show you pornography that contains no naked people. So what is indecency?

It seems to me that these rules are not just in place to make "Second Life" a fun place for everyone, for if it actually had the danger, randomness and texture of real life, then the the company would make much less money. People want to go somewhere happy, where everyone is tanned and trim.

Yay.

I can fly. I can walk around in the water. I can take my clothes off. But since I can't drown, can't break open my head when I land, don't have things that need to be covered up -- it's just not that compelling to me.

But......let me tell you about Animal Crossing for the Nintendo DS. Another time. Very Soon.

--hal

Even Gumby Gets It

2007-03-19T14:22:00.000-05:00

A continuation of my Viacom rant. Watch Gumby episodes legally and for free.

--hal

Learning is not a Game, but it can be fun

2007-03-18T20:33:00.000-05:00

Educators look at the time students spend in video games, and of course wish that these students would have the same level of engagement in traditional learning as a game.

There are several problems with this.

1. Video games often do not successfully mirror real-life decisions. I *know* I am playing a video game. I might be upset that things don't go well, but it is nothing like getting a bad grade on a project I have spent some time on.

2. Most educational video games suck. They lag behind cutting edge stuff. The most engaging games often are the most controversial.

3. Educators don't play video games. They have not immersed themselves in that environment. They read books, talk to game designers, but they often don't really take time (and I mean a lot of time) to play, observe and engage.

4. Educational experiences often do not successfully lend themselves to game technology as it exists today. Using a 3d engine to hammer out some sort of social construct is a good first stab, but students see it for what it is -- candy coated spinach.

The real problems are:

1. Teachers shouldn't be making the games. Students should be. Let them build rule sets, simulations that other students play, let them work through the difficulty of making something that is engaging and tells a story. The bad news is that this takes time.

2. It is tacked on. We are stuck with the same old educational system that hasn't budged since the last big innovation - in my opinion, 100 years ago when progressive education (Dewey) was in vogue. No child left behind is rooted in thinking from the late 1800's, cursed with the desire to teach things that are easy to quantify, easy to test. Our testing tools and learning expectations shape how we teach.

3. There is a denial of multiple forms of literacy. Visual literacy -- it is quite dead in a time when more than ever before it is needed. This is a much longer posting, but go read some Barbara Stafford if you haven't already. Games hook right into visual literacy, but they don't go far enough. It is a passive form of literacy. Students need to make to learn, and that takes time, and time is expensive.

I wince everytime I hear about 2nd life as an educational environment. 2nd life is very fake, a myopic contraption that reinforces specific assumptions - such as the only viable economic system in the world is capitalism. Students don't get a chance to see all the possibilities. Unfortunately most educators are blind to this. I will be writing more about 2nd life soon.

James Paul Gee is a good place to start -- but I think people are being too literal. We should look at games, and learn from them what helps people learn. It doesn't mean that we need to make video games to teach kids -- but that we need to look at successful ones (including Vice City) and figure out what works, and how that can be applied to learning.

My guess is the attraction of using video games to teach is the same as any other technology that is thrown at the task of teaching kids -- it is always about scaling. If we sit students in front of "learning simulations" then we may need fewer teachers, or we can have bigger class sizes. I am not denying that the use of something such as the eternal classic SimCity can't be valuable. If I had a kid, darned right I would have them playing Sim City, but we would play it together, and talk about it. I don't think this can happen in a class of 30 students.

--hal

ViaTube!

2007-03-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

ViaCom last week chose to sue YouToogle for 1 gazillion jillion dollars due to illegal posting of content, notably content such as small chunks from the Daily show.

Wow. I could have predicted that!

So -- I have been saying this again and again -- it is almost like the Dinosaurs saying --"Hey, do you guys feel a slight dip in the temperature?".

They chose to go after the biggest target for the obvious reason. Precedence. It gives Viacom all it needs to get everyone else to knuckle under. After all, the law is clearly on their sides, and it is not, I am sure that the laws can be changed to ensure that!

IS there lost revenue from a 3 minute clip from a half hour show? I would guess not. In fact, it is easy to make the argument that it actually helps Viacom. It seems to me like they have to draw the line in the sand right now, even if that line is 3 feet out of the shoreline, and into the water.

Is it a couldashouldawoulda? You bet. Viacom has to clear the decks of potential competitors. They have the partnership with Apple/iTunes -- and sure -- they are looking down the road at their own initiative to distribute content online. This is likely the only window of opportunity they will have to take on their nearest competitor, which right now is much much bigger than Viacom's own eventual scheme could ever be, for it is tied to old business models which are quickly being eroded by new models. We are back into the era of advertising supported entertainment, a familiar ground -- but without the opportunity to sell people things they might already be able to get for free.

The twist of course is that the revisiting of the advertising supported model is that it is the audience that decides what will survive and which will not. This happens indirectly through arcane ratings systems -- but the directness of popularity ratings in YouTube is merciless. If something sucks then it doesn't live for long. At least a mid-season replacement series has 3 months to prove itself (or maybe not).

The smart thing, of course, for Viacom is to ride the wave. They have stuff that people like so much that they will take time out of their busy day to re-edit, excerpt and post. This is the participatory culture that everyone talked about happening right now. It makes everyone a potential media conglomerate. This is a very very very bad thing for horizontal structures like Viacom -- it means that the content producers -- which Viacom either pays or contracts to create content -- are free to cut the middleman out -- Viacom being the middleman here. That day is rapidly approaching. This is bad bad bad.

The funny part is that Viacom and Google will come up with some sort of agreement that will stave things off for a little while, a little dam made of mud that keeps the flood waters at bay for....perhaps an hour or so? Google probably understands this much better than Viacom.

Access Disrupts

2007-02-18T09:36:00.000-05:00

I think about this a lot, in fact this is likely one of the most basic things that motivate me.

I am for access. When a technology becomes common as dirt, then it is significant. HD is cool and all, but when you can't buy a standard resolution video camera because HD is so cheap, then HD will have a big impact. That is just beginning to happen.

There is a lot of resistance to this. Part is built on assumptions previously held about how something should work. This can be technology, this can be a medium. I like to talk about how Michael Moore broke the documentary forever. There really was no illusion of objectivity before, but putting the cameraman into the story as an actor -- well that changed things forever. The illusion of the impartial observer is broken, but a new illusion is born, that we are seeing a well thought out, well considered story. That may be true. Or we may search for meaning, and make our own sense out of it. But the important tie-in here is that Michael Moore could not have accomplished what he did in Roger and Me without cheap, affordable video technology.

This forum discussion really got be thinking about access. I find this bit interesting:

That's the problem, I've been to Arts college as well, and you find yourself surrounded by some pretty "interesting" people in class, and giving the classes (well, especially in some parts of Australia) who have some "interesting" ideas that are totally unrepresentative of what the audience wants ;

Well, I am in Art + Design. Perhaps I am one of those interesting people with "interesting" ideas. I maintain that audience (perhaps another antiquated term -- can we talk about the individual?) often doesn't know what it wants.

I am in the market for a new video camera. I sold my tape based camera 4-5 years ago. I did this for several reasons, most important was the most practical; I had grown tired of shooting video. This had been an old thing with me, going back 15 years or more when I shot/edited video for money. I began to see it as a mechanistic process. It almost killed it for me.

The camera intrudes. People do not like it. Michael Moore used that to his advantage, a weapon of intimidation at times. I want to avoid that, instead drift into the background. I am not being coy here. I understand that I drive the camera, and I understand the audience gets that too.

However, in shooting Ideation a year and a half ago, I used a cheap Pentax Optio MX that shot sort of mediocre NTSC resolution camera. It looks like a remediated Super 8 Movie camera, and that is exactly what it is.

The inspiration for working this way comes directly from French New Wave filmmaking. The loose group of movie makers were simply taking advantage of the fact that film technology had become quite affordable, if not quite perfect. It didn't need to be, and the imperfections could in the end be part of the presentation.

I think things like the Pentax Optio MX and the Sanyo HD1a represent something that purists will hate. It is not state of the art. It is cheap. It has noticeable flaws. It will end up the hands of everyone.

I heard this same discussion 6-8 years ago when MiniDV tape first showed up. It was not "broadcast quality", the video professionals would tell me. Really, how could a cheap consumer camera compete with a $10k Sony Betacam camera.

Access. It Disrupts. People get that.

Okay, enough. History is littered with this stuff.

I think the future is indeed form and motion. It is something we want to utilize. Just like the cell phone lets us of sort of teleport (at least our voice), cameras let us manipulate time, light and space. That is access. It is disruptive. It is profound. As I mebtioned in my last posting, media changes people's perception forever. There is no going back.

--hal

Illinois secedes from Myspace

2007-02-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

In a bold act, this bill proposes to block access to social computing sites in all public schools and libraries.

Most will focus on the difficulty of using technology to solve a problem. Some will decry the impingement of liberties. I won't deny that either is not important.

For myself, it is another signpost. Things are changing. I've talked about media changing, our expectations of technology changing. Etc.

This is a moment that illustrates how far we have come. Myspace is just another mashup, one of many to come and go at the end of the day. What it represents is not new at all.

The collision of internet space and education space is spectacular right now. I can't believe that no one has noticed this. It is well beyond the blah blah of netgen bs, which is a term coined by the plus 40 crowd in an attempt to understand the sub 30 somethings on their terms (pejoratives like multitasking, short attention). Where is visual learning? Where is the old school making stuff to understand concepts?

Things have changed. Things will continue to change. Netgen denies this in my opinion. The term is for those that analyze, without really understanding that it is not a trend, but continuation. Media and technology can have profound impact on how we see the world in ways that are irreversible. Books change people's lives. Movies do that too. Of course Myspace and other things will have the same effect.

This bill is of course stupid. But it will come up again. People will talk about it. Maybe someone will actually succeed in passing and implementing it. It really won't have much impact in the end, and maybe the person who drafted it understood that -- it's just a cheap attempt to get some cred.

But the fact that it has gotten this far is important. Something is being said here. And it will come back again.

--hal

Convergency

2007-02-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

Convergency typically represents combining of functionality of several components, tasks or media into a single point. Typically we are talking about a device, because we by nature focus on the technology because it is tangible and finite.

But convergency really represents something else. The device is really an artifact, a result of convergency.

These are not dictionary definitions. You won't get those from me.

Convergency represents several things.

Combination of forms of media and delivery. Television and social networking converged in American Idol.

Programming and Visual Art combined to make Photoshop.

It is more than just a fusion of things; it's the isotopes that get created. IT IS THE REAL CONVERGENCE.

High Definition TV sets have both a VGA and DVI port on them. It is available but not commonplace for things like DVD players, cable boxes. It is there because the intent was to hook up a computer or device based on a computer.

But is not so that you can run windows, or even windows media center.

What it represents is that content can come from somewhere else than cable, satellite or over the air. It can come from the internet.

This is convergence. It is not about the TV, the Tivo or the couch. It is about melding of mixed media, and flat publishing. The context for what a TV represents is modified. It becomes a device that is tremendously expanded in content. And you (pointing finger) can publish content that others can watch.

This is the challenge for education. The output are not podcasts. It is making them. Having students make them. Making sense of the opportunities, helping people think and understand (in both logical and illogical sense) what it means to be not just a consumer, but a creator and publisher. The TV set is just a vessel. The ipod is just a vessel. We tell the story.

(Deep Breath)

--hal

Doug Engelbart: The Demo

2007-01-11T22:05:00.001-05:00


If you have never seen this, I recommend hanging with it as long as you can. It is much like science fiction in my mind. I also recommend reading the companion piece "Augmenting Human Intellect". --hal (thank goodness for google video)

10 Stunning Predictions!

2007-01-01T17:54:00.000-05:00

1. Apple will ship a phone, but without FCC approval, it won't be ready in January. It will be less than people will expect, because that is what apple does well. Zune vs. iPod? iPod has fewer features, but is thereby more focused on the 90% of what the device will be used for. It will not run Mac OS X. It will not be a PDA, but will run a form of dashboard widgets (remember Nokia's apple technology based browser?), will talk to all the iApps, with a value-added proposition tie-in to .Mac accounts (online chat, email, blogging, image/video sharing). Specific hardware details? Who knows? My hunch is that they won't launch their own network aka ESPN, Disney or Helio, by buying services from someone else. It would solve some problems but create others. They may simply sell it outright, an unlocked device that will be a $150 premium over the price of the equivalent storage iPod Nano. It will be perceived as an iPod with something extra, so people won't wince at the price. Very few in the US will buy a $500 smartphone, but they will sign a 2 year contract to get a discount on one. Apple's strategy will be a value proposition -- if you will spend $249.00 for a nano, it's not a big leap to the same capacity, but with a phone built in, and some nice mobile focused functionality (again, simple, simple simple!). It won't be called the iPhone for sure.

2. The other bit of Apple news has been much less discussed. What is with Apple's online TV strategy? Apple has shown a preview of a set top box, iTV (or MacTV, or whatever it's called)? It will be unveiled next week. Watch for a tie-in with Google/YouTube, and then consider Google/YouTube and Apple's partnerships with industry. Suddenly, a competitor to traditional broadcast invades the living room, and it's appeal is that it is not solely a trojan horse delivering DRM laden content (that will be Microsoft's job), but will strike the same balance as the iPod -- for fee content that is mildly locked down, and lots of stuff that people can just watch for free. Expect to see tie-ins with traditional broadcasts looking for new outlets for content. Some customers will drop cable/sat, get over the air digital TV and iTV to supplement programming, perhaps a Netflix account, and never look back.

3. Microsoft's Vista rollout will be mostly uneventful, but uptake will be very slow after the initial spike, because many people will need to upgrade their computer, and like the move from Win2k to XP, it simply is not a compelling argument for upgrade. Vista will be successful, but it really is the last gasp, a chapter in the history of Microsoft that demonstrates that things have to be done differently in the future.

4. Everyone will be attempting to figure out how to tap into social computing. Expect to see a lot of very dumb variants on YouTube, MySpace, meetups, Amateur Music, Six Degrees of Separation stuff. Business will see it as a captive audience to market to. Education will really struggle with this one -- there will be attempts to apply social computing to traditional semester segmentation, and it won't work of course, because these things are like coral reefs, they take time to grow, and can die quickly. Throwing a bunch of old tires in the same old sea won't make it happen faster. Worse, some of the best aspects of these online entities work against education's standard operating procedure - the one to many approach (lecture, etc).

5. Linux will still not invade the desktop, but Mac OS X will continue to make modest gains in numbers.

6. Nintendo Wii will outsell the PS3 for some time to come, as the DS has outsold the PSP, because it is less expensive and appeals to a much wider audience. Sony will release a new PSP. It will probably still have UMD although Sony should kill it, it will have an HD as well, because Sony is going into the downloadable media market (video, audio and games) and it believe it needs to turn the PSP into the target platform. They need to partner with Apple, but Apple won't share the sandbox outright.

7. The Zune will get a big software upgrade that fixes it's most egregious problems, and opens up capabilities for it's built in wifi, plus some tie-ins to Vista. The brown zune will disappear, and in it's place will come some color that is actually appealing to people who might buy a digital media player.

8. Accessibility will continue to make strides due to embracing of more fluid ways of structuring and displaying content (been talking about this for a while). CSS is now an expectation, not an extra. Expect to hear the old saw "maintainable code" become the mantra of web designers, simply because sites have become so complicated.

9. RSS everything. It will show up freakin everywhere, even where it may not make sense, simply because it will be so easy to do. It will be the equivalent of bran or no-carb diet (enhanced with RSS!).

10. We will still be in Iraq in December 2007, and it won't look much better than it does now.

--hal

The Myth of Liberal Media

2006-12-26T10:53:00.000-05:00

Fascism is such a strong word. I think the USA is drifting towards a fascism. We aren't there yet, there is still hope. We are still a democracy (the last election proves that things will pull back the to the center eventually).

However, I am quite concerned about the media. It's in the title of my blog somewhere I think. Certainly this bit of news gave me pause. I find this analysis (scroll down please) to be useful in understanding the author's underlying message.

When we consider the rise of fascism in Italy before world war II, it is important to remember that Benito Mussolini began his career as a journalist, but his coverage drifted from a neo-leftist to what we identify as fascism today. His rise of power occurred because of the overwhelming support of Italian industry, because he was decidedly pro-business. Consolidation of the media was immediate, as it was the media that was the message. Even back then there was an implicit understanding of the concept.

When we think of coverage today, consolidation is a key term. Media outlets are multi-faceted; print, radio, television and the internet (to a lesser extent given the lack of limitation on access to medium of delivery).

We assume that the Government will be the one to control media, but I think it could be argued easily that it is the corporations that control media. The message is one that is a confluence of different opinions, but the often the result are division. Things are painted as either/or because it is too hard to give a realistic portrayal given the timeslice nature of television and radio programming.

We learn over time to mistrust media, the message is the same from the left and the right. The sense of ambiguity, lack of authentication, what is the agenda overshadows what is the message. A democracy requires that the participants be engaged; being jaded promotes a sense that it does not make a difference one way or another, so why bother?

This is why I am worried. It is becoming harder to have an adult conversation about our country and where it is headed. We can't be realistic about things because opinions get in the way. If you read the Wikipedia entry on Fascism, understand that that is exactly the right environment for this to occur. People get tired and want the answer. This not a good thing.

Sometimes I get comfort from history.

--hal

Moment of clarification

2006-12-26T10:44:00.000-05:00

This is the day after christmas, and I fortunately have some time to work on things that I have been delaying for the last few months.

Taking a break from writing here gives me a moment to do some self-examination. I write here for myself, but I am conscious of the potential for pomposity and self-congratulation. I try to be focused less about myself, and more about issues that are important to me. It is a public record of private thoughts.

This is why I have two blogs. "Hal Meeks Slept Here" is about the things I do for fun, the random kvetching. I try to spare people this personal chatter (really, who really cares what wine I like, about my car, etc).

So, I forge forward. I have no illusions of hundreds of enthralled readers. This in the tradition of the academic journal. My other blog keeps it light.

Hope Santa visited you too.

--hal

Zuned

2006-11-28T07:02:00.000-05:00

And with this posting I am entering a new verb into the vernacular: Zuned.

Definition: Reasonably good idea torpedoed by a million little compromises, as in "He zuned my project, so now it's dead" or "The Chevrolet Corvair was zuned from the beginning" or "Stop zuning me".

There are plenty of reviews of Microsoft's new player, some are lukewarm, some not so much.

The critical things to learn about the Zune is that there is a balance in control of content versus individual freedom to use technology and content as the owner sees fit. Zune simply has too many little compromises to be a success.

The hardware is not dreadful. It is a little bigger than an iPod, but has a bigger screen. The user interface on the player is decent enough. Toshiba hired away someone from the iPod design team that worked on the iPod's UI, and as this player is made by Toshiba, it shows.

It has wifi, an interesting addition. The assumption is that the wireless would allow people to connect to your zune, and thus you can share your content with others. You can't share content from a Zune with a friend that has a wifi equipped laptop, even if they have a Windows laptop. If you do manage to find another Zune user, and send them a audio track (including non-DRM'd music or podcasts) the player wraps DRM around it, so that it will self-distruct after three plays or three days.

To many people, it may feel like bait'n'switch. Things that they could do with other wireless devices don't work on this device. The expectation of a particular functionality is not fulfilled, even when that expectation is quite reasonable, being based on precedent.

To make matter worse for Microsoft, they now have a new Digital Rights scheme that they have to support for this device separate from the digital rights scheme they developed and licensed to other manufacturers. For customers, the bad news is that there previous "play for sure" content is not really "play for sure" since it won't work with this new player.

Wow. It is as if Microsoft was the bright kid in class, but only because they read the headlines in lots and lots of newspapers, without actually reading the stories.

Microsoft gets that social computing is becoming really important, and wants to be part of that. However, they don't get the details -- the parts that are so important.

YouTube is a success because of the freedom it gives users -- both authors/posters and viewers. It sometimes feels like the wild west -- exciting by it's controlled chaos. It's a breath of fresh air after 50 plus year diet of commercial television and film (okay enough for now on that).

Part of me thinks that Microsoft looked at the wrong model. Nintendo's DS has built in wifi, which allows it to do both near and far networking for gameplay (and soon, chat and voice) with other DS users. It doesn't let users send content, but some games do allow two players to play together, even if only one user has a cartridge. Furthermore, some games allow the owner to send a demo version of the game to another DS user.

There is a form of protection to be sure, but does it feel obtrusive? Absolutely not. The context of the way the system will be used, and the functionality that is desired is consistent with how wifi is implemented.

The dilemma for the Zune is that it has to play in an arena where it can't be just as good, it has to be heads and shoulders above it's nearest competitor. What could have been a half-way decent competitor to the iPod isn't, due to compromises that have nothing to do with technical limitations, but Microsoft creating a platform that caters not to the user, but to companies who want to have tight control over their content, allowing them to further shift rights of ownership of content away from the purchaser.

I will stop here, because while I have wanted to write about the Zune for a while now, I think it was important for me to reduce it to the critical issues that will likely prevent the Zune from being a success -- but more importantly -- what is the role of social computing in contexts outside of the web browser. What is happening with the Zune, it's success or failure, is an excellent lesson unfolding.

And please, use the verb "Zune" at least once today.

--hal

NCSU Web Redesign

2006-11-24T11:31:00.000-05:00

I am posting this here because I don't think it is appropriate for me to post a comment on NCSU's web site redesign, since I am on the committee.

The point of this posting is to examine where we go next when thinking of how a web site should represent an organization.

NCSU has finalized on three designs for their next site redesign.

The third one is the one that is clearly different than the first two, but more importantly, it is different than just about any other campus web site that I have seen.

Different is of course not always better, but in this case it is. Simply put, the web should be the campus's primary face on the world.

And this is a different focus than what many organizations do now.

I want to abandon the junk drawer approach of current web site design. Yahoo got beat by Google. Yahoo is 5 years ago, when the idea of the "sticky" web site was all the rage. The idea was to keep people at your site for as long as possible, so you can show more ads. Google blew that apart, sticking advertising alongside content. It didn't get in the way.

The first and second designs are remnants of the idea, a gateway to an organizations web presence that has to be all things to all people. This is the Yahoo approach. Everyone gets a piece of real estate, which may reflect more internal hierarchies in an organization, and less what the user actually needs. It is just a lot of clutter, discontinuous narratives juxtaposed.

I suggest that instead we think of the biggest audience, and give them what they want. Think of not what a web site is now, and the inward view of site design, but what the audience wants.

NCSU's audience in this context is the world, not the staff, faculty and students of NCSU. They are a much smaller percentage of the audience. I suggest sending them somewhere else, and giving them what they want. They do not want to go to NCSU's main page everytime they need to find something on NCSU's site. They need something much more focused.

Well, then, that frees things a bit!

I like to talk about HP's web site redesign a few years back. HP is actually a bunch of small companies under a corporate umbrella. But think about it -- their dilemna. How do they represent all of this diversity in a web site that is primarily focused on customers.

The answer is of course, is that you don't show all the complexity. You simplify to what your majority audience wants, not making sure that everyone is represented on the main page.

Organizations need to rethink their web presence, particularly Universities. I am looking at other campuses sites for reasons separate of my involvement here at NCSU. I am looking at Phd programs, and the beyond talking about curriculum, I need a lot of information about the campus culture, what does it offer, where is it situated; some Universities forgo telling people about where they are, what does the terrain/climate look like. I find this astonishing.

I like the third design for these reasons, because that possibility exists. I don't think this idea is as prominent in intent in the other two designs. OF COURSE there can be secondary pages that could do the same thing as the "Your Story" design, but it will always feel tacked on, and lots people will never bother to see it, where it will languish and eventually die due to lack of content refresh. It is given secondary priority, and will be treated that way.

The 3rd design is more forward thinking. If it is actually maintained (and because of where it is, it will be) it is something that can be relevant a year from now for it's biggest audience.

If one of the other two are chosen, the University should be thinking of another redesign in at least two years, because the shift elsewhere will be towards more direct marketing of campuses through a web presence, and we will need to follow. Clean and simple, directed on the audience's narrative will always win.

I suggest that NCSU be out front. There is more risk, but there much more to gain.

--hal

Notes for Design Expo 11/2/06

2006-11-02T17:18:00.000-05:00

I promise I will clean these up. Just wanted to make them available:

{Thank Audience for Coming}
{Brief Introduction}

Disney -- another garage innovator (Ford, Wozniak/Jobs)
So where are we now?

Show StrongBad

Made in Parent's Basement
Money is made on merchandise
Marketing is word of mouth via the internet

It is too hard. Animation takes too long:

Show Red vs. Blue

I have this idea for a movie!

Show Dracula's guest

Key points:

Strong characterization Easily identifiable characters (Mickey Mouse)
The Audience is in on the Joke (Strongbad/Red vs. Blue gaming/internet culture)
Voice Acting is critical, perhaps more important than polished animation

What do we make of this?

Star Wars PowerPoint

Is this animation (yes it is, a parody of what is essentially a storyboarding tool, PowerPoint).
Does it tell a story? Steamboat willie told a story. So does this.

It shows that economy has a place. Everything doesn't have to be big to work, which is in favor of animators (time/labor intensive) and potential audience (cartoons work great on the ipod).

Digital media is now reached commodity state. YMND is communal digital media jokes, reflected/refracted/remixed with a rapidity that is quite amazing. It is almost like a bed of coral that grows and grows. It demonstrates in a tangible way what "visual literacy" really means, what a literacy beyond text could look like.

Digital Media is folk art for today. What we create is a part of us, no matter what the material.

References:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/
http://www.archive.org/details/machimina
http://www.candlelightstories.com/Movies.asp
http://www.ytmnd.com
http://lay-uh.ytmnd.com/
http://www.lionhead.com/themovies/

Vista Got Fripped

2006-10-17T07:10:00.000-05:00

Not everyone knows that the startup sound for Windows 95 was created by none other than avant-garde musician/producer/artist Brian Eno, but what is just as much surprising to me is that his buddy Robert Fripp, certified guitar god (King Crimson, et al) is doing the sounds for the soon to be released (but perhaps not quite done) Windows Vista. Here's the video of Mr. Fripp doing some good old new age noodling.

I will spare myself and others the obvious snipes at Vista. It would be interesting if they were to hire *a lot* of different musicians, some perhaps unknown, and let them take a stab at creating sound sets for Vista, where the user could choose their own.

I know in the end it is just a dumb startup sound, and some soothing loops in the background while you fill out your registration for Vista (with checkboxes that read "yes, I would not like to have Microsoft not store all my personal information, and not share it with trusted partners"). We undoubtably will have to do this, or would we rather have our computer stop working after 30 days (okay, that is officially a joke.). I will leave this in the spirit of it being a good thing that a geniuely talented musician with a very long career got a sweet gig.

--hal

UserPlane + AOL sitting in a tree

2006-10-16T10:41:00.000-05:00

UserPlane was bought by AOL a while back. There was much less coverage of it than the purchase of YouTube by Google, but I think it is almost as an important, certainly for the future of AOL.

UserPlane is a online chat tool, but combines the abilty to not just chat, but includes audio, video and file sharing. It is one step shy of tools such as Webex, or Microsoft's LiveMeeting, but it is free. If you can stand the advertising, and convince your friends to sign up, you can have a real live videoconference. The most important aspect of this is that the user does not have to have anything other than a browser and the most current version of the flash plugin. It uses the Flash Communication Server backend to do it's magic. People can create their own customized chat that appears right in their website.

I very much believe that this sort of service is the next big thing in online communication. We are still using tools that work best for non-synchronous communication (email, blogs, etc) but when we look at online gaming, it is the feeling that things are happening in realtime, that you are interacting with others, that makes these experiences compelling -- it is quite addictive. The reason it is not widespread has to do limitations of connectivity, complexity (it is too hard to set up) and simply because people are not necessarily comfortable with that. But when I watch the spread of Jabber use in our organization, it is clear that it offers advantages that a telephone can't -- namely the ability to push content (not just voice) to another user. This kind of experience is more natural than a simple text chat.

My guess is that AOL will roll this into their existing subscriber services at some point, making it a little more compelling reason to use their services. But then Google will come out with something similar, but Free ;-)

--hal

Google and YouTube Marry and make many babies

2006-10-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/google_youtube.html

This is welcome news to me, as I like both services quite a bit. I think there is much afoot in this arena, but I am happier that Google bought them than a old media conglomerate, which would probably kill it (either on purpose or by accident).

What is next? I do hope the Apple/Google Video rumor is true. I really do want my Google/YouTube on my iTv.

--hal

MySpace is not Their Space

2006-10-08T17:41:00.000-05:00

These collisions of personal rights, pubication and social computing are so damn interesting.

Latest news from NC State, University professor in hot water for using requiring his students to use myspace.

http://indyweek.gyrobase.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=38223

This is indeed a collision, a collision of things related to generational issues (but not what you think), institutional issues, expectations of privacy, and what does that really entail? There is of course the idea of content and authorship.

Content that students create may need to be private, or it may need to be public. The question is what happens to that content when the student leaves the university? I think the idea of creating a body of work is important for everyone. It can happen through many means. As we move to a purely electronic manifestation of our expressions, insights and knowledge, we may treat content differently. Because of the volume of information, we begin to treat it all as ephemeral. This is dangerous thinking, because much of it may not be. We really can' t decide.

Think of this. In the early 60's, television shows were recorded on early magnetic tape recorders, but some shows were still archived in film form as well. Because the tapes were expensive, the tapes were often reused, and television shows were then deleted forever. This may not seem like much, but it is important to note that this is a time where we have a medium that creates an artifact that is treated as ephemeral. Even junk printed matter is hoarded by people; complete collections of playboy, popular mechanics, old repair manuals, religous tracts. We come upon a time when the things we create are seen as transitory, vapor, perhaps because there is no physical artifact.

Myspace is a space where users create versions of themselves online, use it as a networking tool, a promotional tool. We are brought up different with ideas of how stature works, the 15 minutes of fame is a real and true thing in our world. It is possible to grab a brief flash of fame through manifestations like myspace because it is flat. It is reduced to peerage, networking and content.

Think of this in the context of a University. Universities offer courseware systems that have some features of Myspace, typically watered down, with much fewer options for student self-expression. Everything is focused on learning, but when we consider using courseware environments to teach in, they do not offer the richness of something like myspace, youtube or more combined. Because the encouragement is to string these services together, to build a multifaceted online manifestation, through tools like second life, wet paint, and so on.

When students wrote papers, the faculty member would grade them and give them back. It's the student's responsibility to archive. When we move to purely digital means of doing coursework, with no physical artifact as a result, the temptation is to treat this as ephemeral, like email. But it often isn't. This problem is usually addressed through some sort of "e-portfolio" system, but unless everyone addresses it, and the student still can use it when then leave the university, it's value is greatly reduced. For this to work, students need to have the ability to own their own work, even when they leave the university. As long as we stick with word document attachments and such, perhaps we will be fine, but what happens when we move to a environment that fully embraces that ridiculous term "Web 2.0", which means the content that the student creates is locked away?

I don't know what Universities will do. I think what I see in the reaction to a faculty member using Myspace to teach in is a glimpse of the future. It is not because of a generational difference, that the older people don't "get" myspace. Myspace's user community has grayed rapidly in the last year. I don't think that many faculty do actually have myspace accounts, because it works in a different way than other tools, such as email, static web pages, etc,, things we have just become to take for granted. In some ways it requires you to rethink ways you structure information, the way you approach work. This is not a good thing or a bad thing.

So what is the problem here? It's not accessibility, enough of myspace is accessible to be useful. Privacy? You choose yourself how much you want to make public and private. You don't have to answer all the questions. You do not need to post a picture of yourself.

Is it because it is something that is quite powerful, and perhaps seductive, in a way that Blackboard/WebCT Vista/D2L will never be? Because it lives in the world, and not in a campus.

I applaud Dr. Hoban for doing this. It pushes all the right buttons. This is something that Universities will have to address. Social computing, cyber existence outside of a university wall, how dow scholarly work inform this (there is so much that can be contributed here, such as formal peer review process to test for veracity). I hope that Universities just don't walk away, or perhaps as bad, try to do it themselves, but in a way where the walls exist, and work is locked away in the name of "privacy" or worse, "intellectual property". Myspace is not perfect, it's just another thing in a series of things, but the underlying ideas are powerful, and tap right into aspects of ourselves that rings true throughout time, that we want to leave our mark, we want to be seen and heard, we want to be remembered.

--hal

http://www.myspace.com/hal2k

An Open Letter to Independent Music Online

2006-09-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

Patrick Hefner's Editorial on the recent fuss on Bob Schrag's university lectures being sold online via his companies Independent Music Online service illustrates several false assumptions about content ownership, intellectual property, and the whole mess we are in right now.

The editorial is surprisingly reactionary. It uses the tried and true "The Man Has Got to Be Paid" argument, ignoring the fact that in this case the "The Man" has been paid. Schrag's lectures have been paid for by the students that paid to take his course. His salary has been paid by the university. He is simply repackaging: taking content that he has already been paid to deliver, and creating derivative work that he then sells, splitting the profit between himself and a third party entity.

There is much lost in this thread. Mr. Hefner never acknowledges the tradition that is contrary to that of commercial music publication, which is the tradition of scholarly publication, peer review. Much of what we enjoy as accessibile knowledge, what is taught in our schools, the words that we use to describe our world, are essentially in the domain of public. It is almost arcane to think of these things as belonging to some sort of artificial hierarchy based on the economic model that knowledge is a restricted commodity, and thus should be priced accordingly.

His examples are, to put it mildly, lame. Throwing out judgement calls such as "evil money" is an attempt to blur the argument. I for one am not arguing whether we should all become communists, capitalists or something else. I am talking about pragmatism.

Here we are again -- but someone has to be paid! The author of a book, that tirelessly does research, takes painstaking notes, this person should of course derive benefit from their work.

I am not denying that. What I am saying that in this case, the author has already been paid.

IF Dr. Bob Schrag decides to produce a television series in his own spare time, hires production people, and pays their salaries, well -- he should be able to sell this work.

However, that is not the arrangement he is in now. He is abusing a system that allowed a great amount of latitude in how faculty use their intellectual pursuits to further their career. Many faculty write textbooks, of course derived from their experience in teaching the subject matter. The faculty are allowed to do this.

What is happening here is simply abuse of that privelege. Nothing more. It has nothing at all to do with justifying a business model. It has nothing to do with the University wanting to split the profits. In fact, this bit of insight on the part of Mr. Hefner shows how ensnared he is in one way of thinking of the world, how limited his view of the world is.

By the way, I just love the OpenOffice.Org ad at the bottom of the page listing Dr. Schrag's lectures. But wait -- how can that work! They are giving the software and source code away for free! That simply can't be right!

I work at NC State University

2006-09-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

Professor gives students the option of purchasing his lectures online.

The Future, Unlocked

2006-08-18T20:36:00.000-05:00

This is an abbreviated of a much longer story that I am writing. The best part is that it is not quite over yet.

This is a story of lust. This is a story of dreams. This is a story of good intentions and bad exectution. This is a story about a Nokia N70.

I had finished writing a paper for my class last spring, and was feeling elated. Hey.....I thought....let's go to to Ebay....

Anyone that knows me knows that I like small electronic gadgets. It is a perversity that I decry unusable design but I contingue to fall for little blinky things. I currently have a Sony Ericsson P900 (great phone) and a Blackberry 8700. But I really wanted....a Nokia N90, which is a curious hybrid of video camera and phone. And it costs $600 new.

But hey....what's this? The Nokia N70. Two cameras -- one in front for video conferencing, the other a 2 megapixel camera. Good reviews. And what do you know.....here's one for pretty cheap!

Let's bid! Oh, what the heck. I will lowball, and of course lose at the last minute.

What the heck! I won the bid. Cool. Oh wait....what's this? It's locked to Orange in the UK. Oh, that's not a problem. Nokia phones can be unlocked with software. No problemo.

Wow! What a cool phone. It's a little smaller than the P900. The screen is smaller, but that's okay. The camera is quite nice, way better than the P900. And it shoots video!

But wait.....what are all these people asking to get their N70 unlocked? What this thing about BB5?

(Fast Forward to Now)

So, I am looking at this phone these many months later, and it's still sits locked. A reminder of my folly, but also something that has taken me on a journey. I am planning on recounting this in full detail.

But for now, I want to fast forward to the conclusion. That devices that the end user won't be able to unlock are becoming the norm. The iPod bridges the gap between commonly supported commercial and non-commercial media sources, but your cable company's DVR is not yours to do with what you want. That would seem reasonable, since the cable company rents it to the customer.

But what about a cell phone? In the past, it was possible for customers to reuse cell phones, mainly GSM phones (the prevalent standard throughout the world). The Nokia N series (Nokia N70, N90, N93 etc) represent a device that the customer is never able to completely own, even if they buy it. They are at the mercy of the specific cell provider that issued the phone. In my case, it is Orange UK, which charges 20 pounds to unlock, but only if they decide that they want to. They don't have to do it.

So, these cell phones will end up in a landfill somewhere, because they can't be reused by moving to another carrier unless the carrier decides to release the phone, or someone shells out $$. This is really just presaging other devices tied to specific services, things build on "service models" that build in the essentially disposable nature of technology. This is the yard sale WebTV boxes, perhaps the future of Akimbo boxes.

This is not a sustainable future. I mean this from both an ecological viewpoint, but also from a society/culture/futurist viewpoint.

--hal

Newton beats UMPC and maybe the $100 laptop

2006-08-03T17:08:00.000-05:00

Whew, after the last post I think I need to something a little nicer.

CNet did a comparison between a Samsung UMPC (small form factor TabletPC) and a 10 year old Newton 2000, and the Newton won. This is interesting not just because it is good to still be able to poke fun at new Microsoft products (Vista jokes aren't even funny anymore, it is just too tragic). Face it, Microsoft has done a good job of marketing the TabletPC in education, but it still lacks a lot of basic, day to day functionality. Notice that convertible tables vastly outweigh tablets that don't have a keyboard. It is for the simple reason that the user experience really is not designed around the idea of a purely pen interface -- no legacy thinking tied to a keyboard or even a mouse. I wish I had more time to go into depth here on what that would mean (tie pressure to accelerated navigation, fast forwarding through data, menuing not tied to hierarchies based on linear lists). In a strange way, it is some of the same issues that come up in thinking of computer navigation for accessibility.

I think the important lesson that should be remembered in cnet's comparison is that is ultimately is not the hardware that matters. It really is the software. The newton wins because it is designed around a pen interface. A lot of things flow from that logically, including unique decisions on how data should be stored and represented. What happened to the Newton for myself is tragic, because the world could really use something like it now, using slightly faster hardware, better battery life, built in wireless. Kind of the like the Nokia 770, but more like.....a Newton.

And this is the thing that popped into my mind when I first heard of the MIT project to build a sub $200 PC for developing countries......the one computer per child initiative. While a commodity hardware platform is a nice idea, I prefer the idea of focusing on the software, and make it work on any kind of commodity computing platform that is being mass produced at the moment. Fast, cheap and out of control. For sure.

That would be a nice thing for Apple to do. Give it up, and let people have at it with the Newton. Make it run on the Nokia 770, or my cell phone. It could unlock devices that may be destined for the rubbish heap, and give them new life.

.....and then I woke up.

--hal

Blackboard patents LMS, Sues nearest competitor

2006-08-03T16:57:00.000-05:00

Start here:

Blackboard LMS patent press release
Blackboard sues Desire2Learn

I believe that while the patent issue is a serious one, it is not what I think is most important. The patent issue is part of a generalized theme of bad decisions by the patent office on software/technology/internet/genetic engineering/etc. -- anything that doesn't end up in a manufactured, finished product (like a pen, bottle opener, paper clip, tank). Give me "Intellectual Property" for $200, Alex.

One potential bad outcome could be that Blackboard's patent is overturned. Whew! Boy, did we dodge that one! Let's get back to work on implementing WebCT Vista.....

The problem is tied to this patent, but it is not just the issue of whether these types of things are patentable, but that proprietary implementations of monolithic learning environments are actually anti-academic. They actually work against the things that are the core of a University's duties -- to teach, promote the expansion and transmission of knowledge. This is done through the free exchange of information. One key emphasis in environments such as Blackboard and WebCT is on *Containment* of information, restriction of access. I am reminded once again of the poor faculty who stated plainly that their course content was free for others to use, until it was pointed out to them that it *was not* free for anyone to use, because it is contained inside of WebCT.

I don't believe faculty have been made aware of the potential dangers here.

I don't mean to single any campus out. I think we are really at a crossroads in education now. What is and what is not important. Do we avail ourselves to the belief that what this university has to offer has to be contained, be treated as "intellectual property" in the lawsuit/licensing/DRM sense, or do we go with the academic tradition of authorship and publication/verification?

--hal

Tivo To Go For the Mac, $$$ version

2006-07-07T20:17:00.000-05:00

I apologize in advance for posting this here, because it strains the usual threads in my blog, my whining about the state of education, media DRM/copyright, why palm is lame, etc.

This is a recipe for accomplishing something I have wanted to do for a long time, which is allow me to watch shows on my Tivo with my Mac without having to hack anything. Everything I talk about is off ther shelf, boring stuff. I just thought it would be good to document it because it is so easy to do.

First you need a PC running Windows XP. This part sucks, I agree, but that is because the Tivo Desktop for the PC has TivoToGo, which isn't available for the Mac. Whether or not it will become available is now irrelvant for me. I was lucky in that I scored a two year old Dell 400SC server (2 Ghz celeron) for $50.00 which I had to buy a drive for, and a XP license. If you are starting from scratch just buy the cheap nasty PC with a license for XP home included, nothing more than $300.00. But hopefully you will have this lying around.

You need to have a Tivo Series 2, connected to your home network. If you have put this part off, well duh! At least get a wired usb adapter, I am using a 3Com which I picked up for $14.00.

Download Tivo Desktop for your PC. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID. Don't buy the Tivo Desktop Plus. I bought it and regret that decision. I wish I could give it back. It works (mostly) but has limitations (such as quality settings, etc). Use the free version.

If you have never set up Tivo Desktop before on your PC, you will need to go online and set up your Tivo to work with Tivo to go (log into your account). You will be furnished with a Media Access Key. If you have previously done this, you can get your key online when you log into your account.

Download and purchase Roxio's MyTVtoGo. It isn't quite a nicely integrated as Tivo's software, but it works great.

If you don't already have iTunes installed on your PC, download and install that.
Run iTunes and go through the legal blather stuff. After you have it running, go to Preferences, and Select Sharing. Check the box "Share my Library".

In any case, if you are successful, you will see your shows on your Tivo. You can of course select individual shows to download, but you can also instruct the software to download all shows for a given series, which is really handy, as you will see in a moment.

After you have downloaded a couple of shows, open MyTVToGo and configure it. For your video quality settings, use the iPod settings. I use the highest quality myself. Note that the software tells you that it will copy the converted files to our iTunes library.

MyTVToGo has a setting which allows the software to convert all new shows that show up in TivoToGo automatically. I highly recommend using this. Combined with the setting in TivoToGo that downloads the equivalent of a season pass from your Tivo allows the whole thing to essentially run itself. I leave mine alone, and when I go to iTunes on my Mac every day, new shows are added with no intervention on my part.

So, I have my PC setting behind my equipment in the living room, but it could just as well be in a closet somewhere. I run it remotely via Windows Desktop, but I actually prefer to use UltraVNC. Maintenance is basically dropping on the machine every once and while to download shows from the Tivo, or delete stuff I have already watched.

Otherwise, the thing pretty much runs itself. Any computer on the network that has iTunes installed can play stuff on the TivoToGo server.

It is of course possible to set up a shared volume on the PC so that I could just mount the drive and play back the shows, but I preferred using iTunes as my front end because it requires little or no configuration.

I should also point out that while it is simple for me to actually copy these shows to my iPod or burn them, in my case that is not my intent. I am not much of an archivist these days. After I have watched something I rarely want to keep a copy of it.

I know that I could have just hacked my Tivo, or built a MythTV box or blah blah blah. I have gone through many many many different attempts to replicate the Tivo experience, with the added ability to watch shows on my network, but Tivo still has the best overall user experience. I really hate that I had to go through this much trouble to do something that Tivo could supply to me via a TivoToGo for the Mac. Quite simply, I decided I had waited enough. I hope that someone finds useful.

I will write a separate article shortly outlining a parallel experience I am having with off-air digital television.

--hal

Nokia 770, The AJax Appliance that Could

2006-06-27T21:02:00.000-05:00

I have been fortunate enough to come across a Nokia 770 Web Tablet. This is a small device that resembles PDA, but oriented horizontally. It features a very high resolution display in a pocketable device. Bluetooth and 802.11b mean that if you are equipped with a cell phone, you can potentially always have access to your email, web content and more in a manner that is not nearly as compromised an experience as the typical PDA or Smart Phone.

This device has recieved notoroiously bad reviews, but it is not entirely the device's fault. Partially to blame has been a initial release of the OS that was at times sluggish, some rough edges in the user experience, and stability.

The beta of the new "2006" OS is on my 770. It is quite good. In fact, in using it for a while, the strengths of the device become much more obvious.

The 770 is not a PDA. It is not a laptop. These are obvious points, but they color our expectation of how devices that resemble them should behave.

The 770 is purely a creature of the connected experience. This is apparent in little things, such as the well done connection manager which makes configuration with a cell phone simple, but also in larger aspects, such as the default "desktop" of the 770.

The 770's initial UI resembles in some ways Apple's dashboard, and this is no accident. It is possibly a low threshold approach to allow developers to build "infowidgets" that can be accessed immediately, exactly in the way this device is envisioned to be used. It is for immediate access.

The inclusion of a chat client further supports this. It expands the utility of a cell phone by offering a useful way for users to communicate. Intriguingly, due to Nokia's partnership with Google, the 770 includes voice over IP support, and does have a microphone built in, but of course could be used with a bluetooth headset as well.

The browser included with the 770 is quite useable, and this is where it becomes interesting. Since the 770 is so network centric, technologies that make use of the browser as an application platform (AJAX etc) can leverage this.

I think this is where reviewers that gave the 770 a bad rating didn't get it. The 770 isn't necessarily about writing applications for it per se, but about utilizing web development and cross platform expertise to power a portable device. It is actually quite smart. Palm has to convince people to learn a unique development platform to write software for their PDA's. People can write for the 770 using skills they already have; and their efforts won't just work on a single series of devices, but a broad range of devices and environments.

Microsoft has ushered in a smaller tablet format, but it is quite expensive -- the cheapest one is at least 3 times the cost of the 770, and can't be slipped into a pants pocket. The only thing they got right is the idea of a network centric tablet device that people carry with them, but I don't any of the existing UMPC models qualify.

The 770 is an imperfect, but I think vital, glimpse of the near future.

Just What Do They Want From Us Anyway?

2006-06-12T15:36:00.000-05:00

A New York Times Article on high tech cheating generated a fair amount of traffic on our TLTR list here at NCSU. Due to crunch on projects I was not able to respond in a timely manner to the posts, and had intended to post something here. Well, time has passed and this response has morphed again into something else.

One question that never asked during the discussion was why students cheat. The answer is obvious, because they have not done their work, they are unable to keep up, they want a simple shortcut to a good grade instead of doing the work.

The work. The work indeed.

The answer was "higher moral conduct" by some to this problem. Students should be held accountable. This is a safe answer. It is sort of like saying that I like babies, sunny days and ice cream.

I think it is actually much harder to ask the question I want to ask. The same dumb question. Why do students cheat?

I have my own answer. It is a semi-successful means of accomplishing the goal, which is getting a good grade. Actual grasp of the subject matter is a distant secondary goal(and in fact, may just get in the way of accomplishing the primary goal). With no "moral" boundaries, students are apt to cheat. It is a morally objectionable, but perhaps successful way of navigating a system that rewards good grades.

I don't worry if there is a superior being watching me when I work on a assignment. My motivation for not cheating is pride in my work, my engagement in my studies. I guess I am not the normal student, but I think something is at work here.

By the time students get to college, they have figured out that school is mostly easily quantifiable knowledge. You are tested on that which is easily testable. Successful students "read" an instructor, and know fairly quickly what is expected of them, what is the percentage of their time they have to expend to get a good grade. They stare at the instructor, and ask themselves the title of this posting: "Just What Do They Want From Us Anyway?".

I know this because I was often terrible at doing this when I was younger. I would try to understand formulas instead of just memorizing them. One takes more resources, but in the end it doesn't matter -- just being able to memorize a formula is better when you have 50 minutes to take a test. You may forget every bit of it 2 years later, but that doesn't matter.

The "high tech" angle on cheating in the NY Times article is just a red herring anyway. Cheating is simply a way that students try to bypass a system that is becoming irrelevant to learning anyway. They have figured that out. Life is not a series of multiple choice questions, although with some thought we may be able to reduce them to that. I think the fact that no one seems to be thinking about "why" versus "how" is quite instructive. Education is stuck. in. a. rut.

-------
On another note, I have begun updating my LiveJournal account again. It's personal stuff, nothing too personal, just a scratch pad, random thoughts. Changed the name to "Hal Meeks Slept Here".

Music and Alternate Interfaces

2006-04-19T18:46:00.000-05:00

I dabble in music, sort of inspired in part by the likes of Brian Eno. I used to enjoy setting up audio "systems" where I was a participant, using a combination of cheap synthesizers, tape loops and overdubbing. Now I play guitar, record it and screw around with it in Garageband. I particularly like the "Voice Changer" plug in, combined with other effects. It kills my poor powerbook, but I do love Augustus Loop, which emulates a tape delay/loop unit. These devices are magical because of the decay effect that they provide; Robert Fripp uses two Revox tape decks to get the same effect.

For non-musicians, and perhaps traditional musicians, the sort of musical devices that are created for electronic composition and performance can seem quite other worldly. There are many devices that share characteristics with the Theremin such as the Photo-Theremin. The Alesis AirFX is something similar, where you feed it an audio signal, and by waving your hand over a sensor modify it in several different ways.

I have been a fan of the Suzuki QChords for some time. They are sort of like a autoharp, where you press keys and "strum" over a sensor. They were originally designed to teach children the basics of music, but the newer ones have midi out.

I remember having a discussion a while back with someone who felt that learning music was too hard; that it should be possible to create software that can do most of the work. I don't think I convinced them that not only was this an unnecessary thing, it is likely an unwanted thing. Playing with loops in Garage Band all them time gets quite boring.

While all of these tools simplify mechanical aspects of creating music, they still require work to master. The theremin is notorious for this -- it is a great toy, but to actually play music on it takes a bit of practice. However, the variability of the output from using these devices is what makes them engaging. It is a bit different every time. Ask any electronic musician about the evils of "quantitization", it sucks the soul out of a piano part. It is that little bit of variability in timing that makes it seem "natural". It's just a little bit of noise, a bit of dust.

So we are left with our musical devices, but it us that makes them go. Even when we look at compositions made up of nothing more that looped samples, it is our process of selection, not a piece of software, that makes it relevant for us. Even Eno's "systems" such as what was used in Discreet Music require some input to begin. We are the water for the mill.

I know that I am kind of meandering here, but I will come back to this again soon and try to make more sense.

Edit video online

2006-04-05T16:54:00.000-05:00

Reading Bolther/Grusin's Remediation is at once a great reading experience and a opportunity to turn your world view into some sort of oppositional view for a brief while. The idea is quite infectious, that mediums combine and "remediate" each other; TV becomes more like the web, and the web expands out from text and still images into a experience that is not television -- something more and in my opinion much better.

I have spent a lot of time in YouTube, because I think they get it in a way that Google and some of the others (such as Veoh) don't get it; it is about a simple viewing experience enhanced with a social construct. It's pretty deep, I've written a paper on it for a course I'm taking, and I hope to publish it somewhere. It is close to offering the types of things that people might want in a future video sevice; the only thing that is missing now is ditching the web browser centric interface for a "10 foot" experience.

I talk a lot about how pervasive visual tools for contructing knowledge have become. Word processing is now something that doesn't live on your desktop, but is an application that lives in your browser -- Google has a word processor, Microsoft has Live Office, and there are a host of other simple word processing applications such as AjaxWrite. The folks behind Ajaxwrite continue to roll out web-based applications as a way to undermine Microsoft's move into this environment, but it is not clear to me that what they offer is a suitable replacement.

Eyespot is a online video editing and sharing environment. It has some aspects of YouTube, but offers the ability to mix and match content. "Editing" in this environment is essentially cuts-only editing, but given time I am sure that will change. However, the quality is not great, it is almost more of a technology showcase than a practical tool. But still, I am in favor of anything that makes this more approachable.

The mind-numbing truth is that we have always been visual thinkers, some more than others. Film and video were not invented by arbitrarily; it hooks into the way that our brains work. It is, to use a bad analogy, why Tetris is popular -- it uses a basic skill that we have, the ability to rotate objects in our head, and turns it into a game. Video editing combines the cultural (what is the proper way to tell a story, what is time, what is real) with the innate (we think in pictures).

Eyespot itself is not necessarily that important, but what it represents is important; that these once esoteric tools are becoming common as dirt. It is not the accessibility to the tools that is preventing us from embracing them and using them to construct knowledge, it is our attitude towards them. Education is not ready to deal with students that are heavily visual thinkers.

Everything has moved away from that; again I come back to the general ideas of "industrial revolution" thinking; repeatability, quality assurance, easily quantifiable knowledge, scaling. These goals are not consistent with this breed of learner. I will not call them a "new breed" because it is my strong belief that these people have always existed, what has changed is the opporunities they have to learn, and our attitude towards them. The schools of today and the near future do not embrace these students; they are considered abnormal -- borderline autistic, adhd, what have you. We give them medication to make them manageable, but we don't teach them. They have to teach themselves.

--hal

Reinventing Radio

2006-03-29T21:12:00.000-05:00

I have been working on a simple streaming radio station project. In the process, I thought about the whole satellite radio thing.

Some speculation: what happens when wireless data access is good enough that it can be integrated into consumer products such as portable radios? There are some UI considerations, but what if Live365 was available on your car's stereo?

A while back, Nextel was testing the "wireless broadband" service in our area, and I was fortunate enough to try it. I really liked it. When reading the documentation, I noticed the curious admonition that I shouldn't use it while operating a moving vehicle. Of course, I then had to do just that to see why.

It still is not clear to my why they told me to not use it while driving my car, but I can say that it worked. It was cool to be able to drive around with a laptop streaming internet radio.

My guess is that we will be able to do that at some point with edge phones that connect to our bluetooth car stereo system. It should be interesting, since it is actually quite easy to set up a streaming service. I can see very focused regional broadcasters that otherwise couldn't be supported in traditional broadcasting.

--hal

Video Furnace Mon Amor

2006-03-15T20:05:00.000-05:00

I went to a demo of Video Furnace yesterday. It is a solution that allows you to offer cable services over IP. It has several pieces:

An encoder that takes a video source (s-video,composite or cable) and turns that into a mpeg-4 stream.
A program channel manager and on-demand video server.
A desktop client that has an integrated channel guide, authentication. It is essentially TV for your computer. It requires no install, but does require java.

It's biggest appeal is that it allows telecom to stop using coax. They can use this to send TV channels over ethernet. However, it requires a separate encoder for each channel. If you carry 32 channels of TV, you need 32 encoders.

The system can support HD resolution video, but they can't encode it yet. The demo I saw yesterday showed content at 320x240, but I know it will do double that comfortably.

It's strength and weakness is that it is an end-to-end solution. As a replacement for cable television, I think it is quite viable. The player has nice features, you can open more than one channel at once, and the program guide is nicely designed. I'd use it instead of regular TV if they would let me time-shift programming (they don't). I did ask them about accessibility and the CEO said they supported captioning, but didn't know if the player would work with a screen reader. I didn't think to ask at the time, but I wonder if it would be possible to allow users to roam (log in and watch TV anywhere).

I am more skeptical about it being a solution to replace other kinds of video delivery. The channel metaphor it uses is limiting in some ways. It isn't a replacement for a commodity streaming media service, where content can be found using Google. It would be interesting if they were to integrate a search engine and RSS reader into their software, so that coursework content could live alongside Cartoon Network.

In the end, I think the whole channel idea is on it's last legs. I think what we see with YouTube, GoogleVideo and iTunes is the future.

--hal

2006-02-21T21:57:00.000-05:00

Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
Tel: 408-536-6000
Fax: 408-537-6000

NOTIFICATION OF LICENSE REVOCATION

Dear xxxxx ,

It has come to our attention that you, or a user using your license code for our product Macromedia Flash MX 2004 has created content that is in violation of the agreed upon user license.

Section VIII, Titled "Extra Stuff You Should Really Think About", paragraph 5, states the following:

Macromedia Flash is intended for the use of content that does not do the following:

Piss users off with annoying, gratuitous noises (unless they want them)
Mystify and frustrate potential customers with an obscure, too clever user interface that sends them off wherever.
Does stuff that HTML does just as well, if not better.
Oh I don't know, something that is just dumb the first time, super annoying after that.

The site in question is at and was retrieved as of xxxxxx .

To prevent further legal action, we ask that you do the following:

1. Burn your Macromedia Flash MX 2004 License Sheet, and your installation media. Send the ashes in an envelope to the above address. If you live in the CA, VT, MA, you may shred the above items and send them, as burning some plastics can release gases that may be in violation of these state's air quality laws.

2. We ask that you remove the content in violation upon receipt of this letter from the above site. You should then delete the content, the project files, the whole damn directory it was in. You may want to consider reformatting the harddrive, and taking a nice vacation. You may either confirm that this has been accomplished by sending email to: support@adobe.com. Adding Code:4955 to the title of the email will ensure more rapid response.

3. Tell everyone that you are really sorry.

We appreciate your attention to this matter.

Signed,

Adobe Customer Support
"We're here for you!"

Why no Apple in the Palm

2006-02-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

The cry of investors to "sell Palm" is actually a bit funny. What in the world would Apple want Palm for?

OS? The current release of the Palm is badly aging. They do have something else upcoming, anyone can look at it if they sign up as a developer, which is free.

But I think the request is based on wistfullness, a "coulda shoulda" glance at the iPod -- the thought that Palm should have been there.

Far from it. Palm has never had particularly good media play back support. This has been a critical failure of the product. It is telling when $99.00 cell phones has superior media support to a $300.00 Palm.

The article makes several bad assumptions. While the TabletPC has defied my expectations, and has not sunk like a rock, it is hardly selling like gangbusters. The form factor remains an unfullfilled promise -- something we would all like to really, really work. Windows TabletPC OS has too much legacy tied to conventional Windows (including the dumb start menu with nested menus, which is hard to navigate on a Pen interface) to be truly useful. I know, I have tried my darnest to like the one I have on loan. Ultimately, I end up using a keyboard to do just about anything, simply because it is more efficient. I have noticed this to be true of most tablet users as well. It is really worth the price differential between a tablet and conventional laptop to be able to use a pointing device to point at the screen?

I am confident that someone like Apple could make a tablet UI that would be more useful. Inkwell isn't bad at handwriting recognition, Apple has some promising accessibility tools that could be repurposed for a tablet environment (Voiceover). Will they do it? Recent patents hint that they are thinking about it, but it remains to be seen that there is a market.

My guess is that instead of a general computing device, it should perhaps be more like the Nokia 770 -- a web-centric device that is inexpensive and easy to use, inside of it's tightly focused functionality.

So, don't expect to see an Apple buyout of Palm. There simply isn't any value there, nothing that Apple could not invent themselves. Perhaps a stripped down version of Mac OS X, with a simplified UI, running on one of Intel's processors normally used for PDA's. Have it support dashboard widgets as a integral part of the user experience -- many of these would be quite useful in a mobile context.

Will that happen? Who knows? Everything at Apple is incremental, it is often best to predict what they will do by what they have done.

--hal

Narratives gone wrong

2006-01-29T14:24:00.000-05:00

About 4:00 Friday afternoon I received a SMS from cingular on my cell welcoming me as a Cingular customer. I didn't think much of it at the time, but discovered by 5:00 that my phone had ceased to work. Ironically, I discovered if first when I went to check my email, and it couldn't connect. I then tried to call my cell phone, when I got a "beep beep beep" -- secret code for "your phone isn't answering anymore".

Later, I tried to make a phone call on the phone, and got the "Welcome Cingular Customer" greeting. I was asked if I wanted to activated service -- Well, yes, I would like my phone to work ;-)

After giving them my last 4 digits of my social security number, I then got the following spiel. This is a paraphrase, I am sure that I may missed specific wording, but it's close enough:

"Welcome Cingular Customer! Understand that by agreeing to the terms of the following contract, that you will be liable for all charges. Any trial services may incur additional charges after the first month of free service. This contract will be for a 2 year period of time. Press 1 to agree to the terms of this contract, press * to hear this again."

Beyond the obvious question, whether this is actually an enforceable contract (by pressing one key on my cell phone, I am signing a contract worth a minimum of $1200, , there is a secondary issue. Whoever thought of this was an evil genius. There is no secondary option, which would be "decline" -- at least none is presented to the user. Of course, I just hung up. But I wonder if someone could be felt to compelled to press "1", because "there was no other choice". I have to believe that this was designed on purpose.

This is another example of how computer/human interactions can be shaped by playing off of the user's expectations. Up until this last menu, I was always given a secondary option -- press the number 2 to exit. But here, at the point where I am presented with the contract agreement, that option is taken away, implying that there is no other option.

I have been thinking about this a lot. I certainly don't want to paint Cingular as a evil entity -- in fact, I have been up to now quite happy with my service. However, I am reminded of examples of this very same phenomena in educational environments, where the plot is shaped in a way that on purpose, or even worse, by accident, the narrative is broken. The irony remains that in many of these cases, it is simply brushed off as a "programming mistake" or "oversight", but the very process by which the narrative is delivered can shape how the user interacts with it -- okay not so profound, but when we think of things like LMS systems, web publication systems, presentation software, things where in the interest of simplicity options are limited, unintended consquences may be the result. And it may be that we will not see this ourselves, immersed in the center of these software systems.

--hal

p.s. yes, I got my phone working again. A helpful fellow at a Cingular store set me straight. The irony is that it is because I am getting a Blackberry for testing, in addition to my existing phone, and wanted it added to my service. The University won't pay for service on cell phones, so I am paying for it out of my pocket. Another example of the ongoing cost of education ;-)

Notes from a Meeting

2006-01-26T14:31:00.000-05:00

Just what do I write on my P900 while in a meeting on our organization?

------------start here-----------

think outside (what box?)

renew our commitment to our students

embrace our entrepreneur side by allowing funding and resource commitments for staff faculty student startups (google model)

mobile ls a key piece, not necessarily laptops or 802.11

do not be afrald to take risks -- you are either living or dying

the future is small
small services
small devices
little things can have big impact but only if everyone can play

user centric may be at odds with how we do business now (example: allowing students a richer set of network based services including the opportunity to develop their own applications and content)

most use of technology in teaching is focused on scaling not on improving learning. Be skeptical of "business models" when talking about education. Education doesn't scale.

converge video services (on demand, streaming and archive) follow self publishing model with minimal hierarchy and multiple channels of output (tv rss web mobile)

web conferencing should be a commodity service open to everyone

leverage our physical space and radically rethink based on what our students need not on what scales (rows of neat computers sit empty while students spread out their stuff) explore a design studio model (sort of like flyspace but different)

Deleting TV

2006-01-25T20:36:00.000-05:00

Unwittingly I have been performing a survey on my friends and associates concerning Television. I was looking at my DirectTV bill, and realized that I am paying almost $50.00 a month for something that I watch perhaps 1 hour a day (and that is declining rapidly). On top of that, a lot of it is regular broadcast TV (with the exception of IFC, TCM and Adult Swim).

A fair number of the people that I know have either minimal cable (local channels) or just off the air (or not at all).Some have NetFlix, because they have kids.

Considering all the other options that I now have to consume my time, paying for access to broadcast TV is beginning to look more and more like an expense I can forgo.

Downloadable and on-demand content is accelerating. There is now a critical amount of it that is simply free. Expect to see more advertising supported commercially produced programming available online. Adult Swim offers their Friday night fix at the wee hours of the morning.

There is Google Video, there is iTunes Music/Video store, where you can download a free Monk episode. There is archive.org's moving pictures archive. I would love to teach a film course using just their content.

Really, it's a bit funny. About the time that cable is moving towards ala carte programming (which consumers have wanted for years), the busines is getting ready to take a big turn.

I am certainly not the trendsetter here. I think the thoughts I am having (why do I pay for TV, when most of it I don't want) is going through anyone's head that has a broadband connection. Certainly, the user experience will have to change as it transitions to the living room. I am not going to give up my remote just yet. MythTV has done a fair amount of integrating internet services into a television experience, but I am also betting that Apple has something up it's sleeve.

I think what we see as FrontRow right now is really just a test. Think what happens when FrontRow meets the iTunes store.

--hal

Blackberry and LMS

2006-01-16T10:10:00.000-05:00

It has been a month ago that I wrote about Blackberry. Since then, another of NTP's patents has been rejected. While this is good news for Blackberry users, I don't think it really solves Blackberry's biggest problem, which is innovating itself out of it's proprietary environment. Java support is good, a better web browser will help, but I can't help but feel that it will always lag behind.

I have been thinking recently about Learning Management Systems. I certainly have quite mixed feelings about them. To be completely up front, my experience with LMS's is restricted to our campus's WebCT system, where I have used it as a student, peripherally supported it with questions using digital media with it, and 3 days worth of training on using it as an instructor.

It appears to me that an LMS is best suited for highly structured curriculum, which would be of more use in a k-12 environment. There is so much emphasis on consistency (Industrial Revolution thinking again) in the learning environment that an LMS is a compelling solution.

The closed nature of an LMS is attractive, as a way to lock down content to only those authorized to see it. However, this also bothers me, particularly when considering it's use in higher education.

I attended a presentation a while back, where one of the presenters was using a LMS system for course content. They had asserted that their content was open for anyone to use, but of course, it is not. It appeared that the faculty member did not themselves understand that their content was now restricted, unable to be viewed by a casual observer -- at least until this presentation, where another faculty member pointed this out to them.

So, what future with Universities follow? Will it be the path of the Blackberry, a proprietary one that offers great integration, at the price of flexibility? Or will it be an open one, based on an academic tradition of open exchange of knowledge combined with credit and respect, where we have to compete in the marketplace of ideas?

--hal

Games as Activism

2006-01-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

What follows is a from a blog I frequent -- "We Make Money not Art" -- it deals with activism, art, free speech. The following thread is quite interesting. It was started by a discussion of an academic conference on Gaming, but It further illustrates that gaming has morphed into a legitimate narrative form, much like what happened to film in the early part of the 20th century. I think in the light of the recent article on why British kids can't read, we have to think about not just the excesses of the application of technology to teaching, but what literacy really means.

Sample paragraph:

The main public for these games is neither teenagers nor kids, but adults. Moreover, the rules of these games are not the ones you would encounter in a commercial games: the aim is not to attract as many game addicts during as much time as possible; to captivate with an aesthetics as realist as possible or with the most original design; to attain as much identification to the hero as possible; to be the most competitive on the market; to satisfy the ego of the teenager that still lurks in each of us by killing what moves on the screen... the aim is not to win. The aim is to subvert and parody preconceived ethics and aesthetics; to generate reflection.

Start here:

And then here:

And then, finally, here:

--hal

BlackBuried

2005-12-16T18:14:00.000-05:00

It may seem from my title that I am going to write about Blackberry's recent successes and setbacks reaching a resolution to the patent saga. Likely something will eventually be worked out, because it is both company's best interest to do so, so ignore the dire warnings that service may be stopped, etc.

However, this is an opportunity to think about how services and devices are tied to one another, and what the ramifications are of that.

Push email is Blackberry's killer app, and their devices mirror that functionality with the great thumb board, and an experience that makes reading and sending email a transparent experience.

The way that Blackberry does this is with their intermediate server technology, which talks between an email server and the device. Blackberry's initial technology for transporting data was using pager technology, and this infrastructure design betrays it's past. Now, it's moderately more sophisticated, but just moderately.

This is Blackberry's problem. They are a device manufacturer, they are a service provider, they are a software developer. They have a devoted following.

However, cell phones are getting smarter. The Treo is a decent replacement, and soon there will be devices that even more closely mirror the device functionality of the Blackberry, but do not need the Blackberry data service, since they will have sophisticated enough email clients, and fast enough data connections, where push email may be as quaint an idea as the pager itself.

The message here is only peripherally about Blackberry. It is really about the validity of open standards combined with services and devices. It becomes a marketplace of ideas, where people are able to choose what they want, with the service provider they want, and in turn, everyone has to innovate, focus on their customers, anticipate needs, keep costs reasonable.

This, I believe, may be Blackberry's biggest challenge. But it is really a challenge that not just faces businesses, but faces education as well.

More about that soon (really, I swear).

Casio VL Tone

2005-11-16T22:27:00.000-05:00

I own several Casio musical instruments. As is consistent with my aesthetic, they are are cheap and easy to buy. Casio was a company that sold calculators, and began selling musical instruments. The VL Tone was one of their earliest efforts.

I was in college at the time, and I didn't have a lot of money. This thing came out, and it had the rudimentary abilty to program sounds into it. I wrapped my mind around that. I dabbled in music and noisemaking (ala Eno etc) as I do now. I had to have one.

It took a month for me to get the money together, but I bought one, many years ago, and I still have it. I think it and a guitar would be enough I had to get rid of everything else.

What triggered me to write about it now is that I have been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to create things. There used to be technological barriers, but many of those are dropping. Video production, as an example, is very inexpensive in terms of equipment. But it still takes a lot of time to create something that people will watch and enjoy.

I just finished a rough cut on a video project, ran into lots of little snags with Final Cut, but in the end, got it done. My estimate on how long it would take me to do it was way off. But at the same time, I had to again marvel at what I could do -- editing a video project at the kitchen table.

The Casio VL Tone was/is brilliant in that it is an utterly approachable and affordable instrument that allowed just enough depth to allow some mastery. Beyond playing a song reasonably well, I could change the way it worked in ways that were interesting enough that I never really tired of it. It encouraged experimentation, within it's modest limitations.

Casio went on to make some other remarkable instruments, such as the SK-1 and SK-5 sampling keyboards. These are equally remarkable and creative as the lowly VL Tone. I have these as well. The VL Tone is special, though, because at the time it came out, the walkman was the device du jour. The VL Tone was sort of an extension of it, but in a way, the antithesis. Instead of listening to music, you could create it yourself. And you didn't have to be a musician to do it -- no one would judge with the headphones on.