Archive for March, 2007
e-Government
Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Denmark is now regarded as the world leader in technological advancement, with its Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland and Norway claiming second, fourth and 10th place respectively.
“Denmark, in particular, has benefited from the very effective government e-leadership, reflected in early liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, a first-rate regulatory environment and large availability of e-government services,” said Irene Mia, senior economist at World Economic Forum.
“e-government services” seem to me to mean ‘government bureaucracy’, which might explain why countries like Denmark have great ‘e-government’ policies and services, but very few innovative companies. If these countries really want to excel in the market, they should stop taxing corporations to pay for all their initiatives and let business spend those resources on developing innovative products.
HDMI vs. Component
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
Found this nice little list over on 360 Fanboy regarding HDMI vs. component, where Kasey Holman of HDMI Licensing, LLC. details 5 reasons why HDMI is better.
- HDMI provides the best video quality as there are no loss conversions involved, unlike component. The all digital signal will create sharper pictures without the ghosting or softness found through component. Smaller, high contrast details like text display this most prominently.
- HDMI provides superior digital audio (it supports up to 8 channels at 192kHz, uncompressed).
- HDMI is the future standard of High Definition content. Within a few years, content producers may activate a usage restraint token that won’t allow High Definition playback over unprotected interfaces (i.e. component).
- Through an HDMI connection, the Xbox 360 will automatically detect the best settings for each television to which it is connected. In other words, users will no longer have to manually adjust resolutions and aspect ratios. These adjustments will be mad automatically according to the TV’s specifications.
- HDMI sends both audio and video through the same cable, eliminating the need for separate cables. Of course, users of optical audio will beg to differ, but it does simplify things like System Link play.
1984
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
“Many conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do, and many liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and setting your curfew. But the proper role for the government of a free society is to treat adults as adults, responsible for making their own decisions and accepting the consequences.”
Seven Confessions of a Cingular Sales Rep
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
“If you want to change your rate plan, do it in a retail store instead of on-line or over the phone. Officially after 1/2 of your contract is over a rate plan change results in a contract extension, but I’ve never once seen that rule enforced in the store.”
Good advice. I think I’ll visit the local Cingular AT&T store to see if I can get a better rate. (At the bottom of the post, there are also links to confessions for the other major providers.)
360 Elite
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
One slick looking machine, although the advantages of it over the premium system aren’t all that major. The HDMI port is nice, since most hi definition LCD’s support 1080i through component, but not 1080p. For the hard core HD fans out there, this will be a must have. (They include the HDMI cable unlike some other lesser media hubs. snap!) Other than the HDMI, premium systems out there can be upgraded to match this system by adding the 120GB drive add-on. They’ve also announced new video partnerships today with A&E, ADV Films, National Geographic, and New Line Cinema. Warner announced they’ll be releasing thier “direct to video movies exclusively in high definition on Xbox LIVE simultaneous with their availability on DVD”, and Paramount will be releasing HD downloads for the first time on LVM. That’s pretty cool. Apparently there’s another announcement possibly regarding Live Video Marketplace in the queue for tomorrow. I’d love to hear some download figures on films, a partnership with SciFi and more titles from ABC, including Lost and Heroes which I’ve been missing thanks to 24.
Windows Mail Vulnerability
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
Now that’s just plain stupid. Outlook Express was so riddled with holes, I can’t believe they didn’t run the new version through extended testing to find stuff like this. Thankfully a patch is in the works.
Windows Mail bug may expose Vista users
Vista Selling Well
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
I guess all the FUD about slow Vista sales was wrong – 20 million copies in a month and counting. I wish I had posted something I noticed two weeks ago on a trip to Best Buy – the Vista and Office 2007 shelves were empty. Unfortunately I didn’t have my cell, so I couldn’t snap a shot. At the time there were a lot of reports saying Vista wasn’t selling, so I thought it was a fluke. Looks like the doomsday proclaimers were wrong. Maybe I’ll go back this weekend to see how things are going.
Personally I still haven’t upgraded – I’m still waiting on Dell’s home media suite to be released.
NetFlix CEO Joins MS BOD
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
Reed Hastings, chairman and chief executive of NetFlix just joined Microsoft’s board of directors. With the stars aligning around combined living room media hubs and movie download services, this might indicate another winning salvo from Microsoft in the war for living room dominance.
NetFlix has a massive content library – over 70,000 titles, and a huge customer base with over one billion in revenue. I wonder if Microsoft is kicking around the idea of buying them? Combining NetFlix with eleven million and growing 360 users and Live Video Marketplace? There’s definitely some synergy there – NetFlix is in need of a media hub they can link too, and Microsoft is in need of a massive content library. Both companies have strong customer bases to rely on.
Hastings is scheduled to give a keynote address titled “The Transformation of the Movie Rental Industry” at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 6 in San Jose. Might be a good idea to tune in for that.
Unbox and Tivo
Monday, March 26th, 2007
This weekend I rented a flick from Unbox and was surprised to find a $15.00 credit in my account. Somehow in all the Tivo & Unbox press I missed the note that Amazon is giving away a $15.00 credit for Tivo owners. That essentially represents 5 free movie rentals at the highest rental price of $3.00, or 7 free rentals of older films. If you haven’t already registered your Tivo with Unbox, now might be a good time to do it. According to Amazon’s site, the offer will be available through the September, so you’ve got time.
Overall, the Tivo Unbox service has really turned out to be the best of all the movie download services – the combination of direct to the living room downloads of DVD quality films, coupled with Amazon’s online browsing and user review information make this service a killer app. (I just wish they’d hurry up and get Weeds ported over to the Tivo format so I can watch the season I’ve already purchased.) Right now they have about 630 feature films and about 100 television shows converted over according to the search results. I’ve been tracking the numbers and they seem to be addings titles every week. Hopfully by the end of the year they’ll be completely caught up. Note, downloads on a Friday or Saturday take about two hours to complete, so you might want to queue up that DVD rental from the office so it’ll be ready when you get home from work.
Union Darwanism
Monday, March 26th, 2007
The Freelancers Union, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., doesn’t bargain wages or benefits with employers. Instead, it offers low cost health care, life insurance and networking for its 45,000 members who are writers, artists and Web site designers.
“The idea of a union conjures about so many images,” said Sara Horowitz, who founded the union in 2003. “The real answer is you have to be helpful and provide something valuable.”
Horowitz said that unions don’t need to engage in collective bargaining to grow.
“There are many structures that have helped workers from mutual aid societies to guilds,” she said. “The essence of a union is people coming together to solve their problems.”
It’s nice to see Unions evolving into something more helpful and less destructive than the “‘cough it up’ or we strike” style that has damaged the U.S. auto industry over the last 30 years. You have to wonder though how long this will last. Give an inch, take a mile tends to be the mentality of these groups. Time will tell.
