Just in Time Revisited

Just in time training was the idea that the internet would provide opportunities to learn when the student needed to know. That has turned out to be quite true, but I suggest that we are on the verge of an explosion of ways to make this type of training available.

Tonight while cooking dinner I thought of the process that would be needed to create a enhanced podcast that would show someone how to make a simple dish -- in the case, fried porkchops with milk gravy.

A series of stills would work, combined with a script that would be narrated. This could be adequate to show someone who was not really a cook how to do this, in a way that would be much more immediate than a cookbook.

Okay, this is pretty boring, an enhanced podcast. I guess what I am getting at is the ubuiquitous nature of a video playback device, with a simple way to locate and retrieve content, that is not tied to a single company (or any company). You can take it with you.

So we now have the video iPod. It's not that big a thing, but in a way it is. It supports open file formats, as well as it's own DRM content. It is funny in a way that Apple has kind of beaten Sony to the punch. The PSP has been capable of being used in a similar way, but Sony hasn't taken advantage of that yet. You can put content on your PSP, but Apple has done it right, filling in the holes. It is not a technology thing -- it is an understanding of how people expect devices to work. I have a Sony PSP, and rarely use it.

So -- the resolution is adequate on the video iPod, the specs are nice. It is what it will do to the acceleration of downloadable video content that is important.

--hal