Great for the Olympics but not Good Enough for the NFL?
As reported by Valleywag NBC sports favors Flash over Microsoft’s Silverlight to showcase the NFL.
I’m torn about this mainly because I personally watched so much of the Olympics on Silverlight this year and was so impressed by the tech that I sang their praises to everyone within earshot during the entire summer games.
Anyways, this is kinda old news by now but I needed to take a few days after the Monday US Open Final where Federer rocked his 13th Grand Slam Title.
Plus, I’m looking forward to playing some hold ‘em this weekend.
So I got nothing else on this other than…
Silverlight: good enough for the Olympics but not enough for the NFL.
This was a story that was out on Techcrunch before the long holiday season but nonetheless it’s something that ties in all the recent tech news that’s taking up much virtual ink lately.
So is this all just too much for all us consumers to ponder? One of the biggest factors for me would be just how interchanagable all this geeky stuff is? What if the google app store has a kick ass app that just isn’t offered in the itunes app store? Most likely the app developer will create several versions that will be compatible to every major wireless device. The problem comes in when you are ready to upgrade, change services, service plans, etc. Will we have to repurchase all our favorite apps? Will it be a big factor in our committments to our phone, carrier, plans, etc?
Come to think of it, still at it’s infancy, it’s already getting to be a huge pain in the ass, no?
I gotta make sense of all this later in the month. There’s a grand slam tournament still going on that’s far more interesting to this tennis geek.
As reported by several sources including Yahoo here, Google enters the browser market with the Tuesday beta release of their very own browser Chrome.
Alongside it’s development of word processing and spreadsheet software, it’s dominance in search and general abilities to do whatever it really wants to, this may be yet another blow that Microsoft must not only endure but overcome.
Kinda looks like Opera
Ironically, between the PR drummings their OS Vista software has been receiving against the Mac OS, it’s continued third banana status in search behind Google and Yahoo, Microsoft finds itself from the penthouse to the outhouse as the perennial underdogs.
The obvious issue now is whether Google can make such a huge dent in an already highly competitive browser market what with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari out there with such an established base.
But I guess if anyone could rock it, it would be the global goliath of the silicon valley.
No doubt the geek patrol will be all over this all week.
First finding the story in Engadget it certainly looks like all the involved companies are working fast to get this one out and running into the marketplace.
I’m sure all you tech geeks (myself included) have read or heard more than a few recent stories of Apple’s continuous stumbles in the media from their iphone ills to their mobile me troubles to even accidentally publishing Steve Jobs’ obituary! So it makes not only great sense to launch something new so close to the holiday season but also an added timing bonus for competing with the wildly popular Mac when they seem to not be the “Apple” in everyone’s eye anymore.
Adding to my recent tech woes (should I or should I not buy an iphone) comes the news about a new line of ipods launching in early September and now this post about the Android finally making it’s fourth quarter 2008 debut.
The pros:
1) T-Mobile. I love T-mobile’s service. It’s reasonably priced, the service has rarely let me down, customer service has always been dependable and it’s convenient for me.
2) Hopefully they’ll fix a lot of the “issues” that Mac has been receiving regarding their 2nd generation 3G iphone. The slow 3G on the iphone, the plethora of dropped calls, the low life of the battery, the screw ups with the launch of Apple’s MobileMe, etc. Apple stumbled hard quite a few times these last few months and the door is wide open for someone else to bring them back down to reality. Perhaps Google and T-Mobile can do it. Yes, this is just pure hopefulness on my part but everyone needs to dream right?
3) The Android could be the N’Sync to the iphone’s Backstreet Boys. Damn, that sounds way more fey than I ever thought it would. But you get the point.
4) Be a rebel. These iphone carrying bragging little shits who can’t stop checking shit on their iphones are some of the most annoying little shits in the world. “Hold on a sec bro, let me check that on my phone…”, “Hey, my iphone is also a lightsaber…”, “Hey, my iphone just gave me a happy ending…”.
The Cons:
1) I’m sorta OCD about certain things. If I buy a season of DVD’s for a show, I need to buy the future seasons. If I have a Sony TV, I need to get a Sony DVD player and a Sony game system. If I have a burrito for lunch, I need those damn chips and salsa. So since I have a Mac Powerbook Pro, I feel this need to keep things consistent. This is actually a bigger deal for me than I would like to admit.
2) Those design folks over at Mac do know how to make our gizmos look so sleek and cool! I’m not the biggest fan of the android design above. It looks like a sidekick f’d an iphone and this is what they produced.
3) I’m just giving up being just another iphone sheep to being just another google sheep.
So now, what then?
Basically, I’m going to wait until the end of the year to make my final decision.
Kind of a fizzle of an ending there.
(beat; crickets)
Shit, I’ve bored myself out just writing this post.
Many believe that when the “prosumer” digital video cameras landed into the excited hands of the mainstream audience that that would usher in the new era of filmmakers / videomakers / videographers / etc.
That hasn’t happened yet.
We can go into the numerous specifics of why that is:
1) Traditional auteurs / filmmakers still latch onto sing the praises of film.
2) The mostly young directors-in-training are still developing their skills.
3) Because of this recent surge in cheaper technology, somehow these folks have forgotten the basics to develop their abilities to tell stories.
4) I’ll really have to expound more on this later (I’m getting pissed just thinking about it here).
Criticizing modern wave filmmaking isn’t the point of this post.
Beyond the Canon XL series, the Panasonic DVX series and the Sony Cine Alta comes the newest darling of the pro level, cheaper and comparable to film geek gadget for the cinephiles could just very well be: The Red Digital Camera.
Founded by billionaire founder of Oakley (yes, those Oakleys) Jim Jannard, The Red Digital Camera promises to finally shut the gap between celluloid and digital in terms of aesthetics and depth that film has provided for 100 years.
With the 2008 US Open about to kick off, Nike unveiled the largest tennis based marketing campaign in quite some time by highlighting the two players that the whole of tennis fandom will have their focus on: Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
Could they meet in their third consecutive grand slam final? Could they possibly come close to “The Match”?
Well there are six matches each modern day legend has to win to get to that fateful Sunday afternoon. But the world is chomping at the bits!
As a fan I can’t wait to start seeing the TV ads on this one. Should be as memorable as the Sampras Agassi street tennis campaign from the late 90’s.
The World is Flat and You Better Get With The Times
I read (and was floored by) The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman a while back but couldn’t fathom how to write a post about something that is so big and fundamentally pivotal and necessary knowledge to find success in the modern global landscape. Then I realized that that is exactly what the book is for and about.
If you want to understand why oil (and life overall) has gotten so expensive so quickly… if you’re curious as to exactly how and when we went from hiring travel agents to priceline and expedia… if you want to know how some smart kid in India is answering all your technical questions about your Los Angeles based PC… if you wonder how we came from the encyclopedia Brittanica to Wikipedia, cable to youtube and Hulu, libraries to Google, Blockbuster to Netflix, iTunes and Pandora… if you want to know what is really the purpose and business model of UPS (those dudes in the brown shorts aren’t just about delivering packages. They are doing so much more)… if you want to know how you are actually working for Southwest airlines right now… if you want to get a grasp of where the next level of this hyper speed innovations are potentially headed… and so so so so much more.
You need to read this book.
And to all the readers born after the Reagan administration: This shit is mad important, yo!
First, let me share this audio clip from one of Friedman’s speaking engagements to whet your palette.
Though I had heard much about Friedman and this book in particular before, this was the catalyst that made me order the book on Amazon and devour the information in a few days. Then let it sink in and go over all my highlights at various time to make it stick.
Friedman lists out all the factors that contributed to the connected world we live in now:
Beginning at the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the day Netscape went public, to outsourcing, to insourcing, to the sudden awakening to the global network of potential employees (your job could be taken by someone who lives halfway around the world who has more qualifications and is cheaper. Plus they no longer even have to move to do your work!), to all the “technical steroids” that continue to speed up the innovations and workflows even further, The World is Flat is an extremely well researched and well communicated book that I just can’t stop lauding (in case you couldn’t tell).
I know it’s maddening right now. So many changes so fast. And just when you think you’ve got a grasp on one thing, another thousand pop up to change everything you’ve killed yourself to learn.
Yes, you can pay people to know this for you. But I’m perpetually curious with a voracious appetite to learn as much on my own as I can. It’s a blessing. But mostly it’s a curse.
I would consider this book almost a prerequisite to entering your adulthood. The best minds in our country are already hip to this. We all should be. Don’t be left out.
I said earlier that I didn’t know exactly how I was going to write a post about this book. I think I just ended up writing an expanded headline. And in doing so I’m hoping that some of you will stop wondering about why our wallets are getting lighter, our homes are losing value, food is costing more, etc. and start informing yourself of the factors behind it.
The World is Flat doesn’t try to answer all these questions directly but it does give you all the fundamental changes that occurred and continues to happen in the world so we get a better grasp as to how we got here and where we’re headed.
I had this idea about ten months ago. The idea was to have an open, anonymous forum where people of all industries, career stages, etc. have a forum to get all the knowledge they need in order to be fully prepared for salary negotiations with current and / or future employers.
In addition to the salary information, I wanted the network of users to help each other out by sharing their histories with their companies, bosses and peers to paint a good idea of what it was like to work for a particular industry, company or employer. Think about it, everyone knows that it must not be a cakewalk to work those long, thankless hours over at the McDonalds fryer station or the Ford assembly line. But what is it really like? Maybe the employee experience over at Burger King and Microsoft was better? I was curious and thirsty for the knowledge.
It was going to be something I work on during my off hours. My own private Google 20% passion project. Something of a hobby without the pressures of the typical deadlines, clients’ demands and life issues that generally keep these projects on the slow track.
Well, these guys over at glassdoor.com beat me to it. But looking at the actualization of this idea, I can’t help but wonder if it’s something that will catch on beyond the the niche silicon valley folk. I hope it does.
The mainstream, traditional media world and the financial world might be a bit colder and protective of it’s delicate information. I mean, what if you work for a company of 100 or less? If you post up an anonymous sheet on your company with a lot of dirt, don’t you think someone in the company or industry will be able to whittle that shit down to maybe a dozen or so folks and figure out who the rat is?
The traditional media sector is still filled with backwards thinking old school mental cases whose mantra is held firmly at the: “fake it til you make it” vibe. I remember when after I paid years of dues at my old company and finally took the position of my old boss, next to them, now a peer. I remember getting to that position and realizing… “that’s it”? There was no secret meetings, no handshakes, not even a big pay raise… or any raise really come to think of it. It was about as exciting for me as that one time they found 50 Cent at the front row of the Country Music Awards.
Alone.
Without his posse.
Or his Vitamin Water.
And echinacea.
The point is, I wonder if the more specialized industries and company folk would be as willing spill the beans as a company of faceless thousands.
I hope they do. And I hope the good folks over at glassdoor make it easy for these folks to do it without any potential recourse from their industries or peers.
John Battelle’s The Search is both a highly informative and fascinating book on the origins of the search engine, it’s present status, a well educated guesstimate of where it’s headed and it tells these complex tales of history and subject matters in a relatively, fun and non-tech geeky way for anyone to understand. It merely and clearly defines the values and benefits of the search engine and discusses why there’s so much resource being put into this next generation of technology.
The Search also uses the search engine / corporation / new most powerful entity / every other superlative juggernaut in the known world in Google to tell this story. If you’re going to tell any tales of this stature, you might as well start from the top.
A few key points learned from reading The Search by John Battelle:
- Google and most search engines are really in the business less about what actual words we’re typing into our search boxes and more into learning about our intentions. The “why” we’re typing in certain terms or phrases into the search boxes. They’re literally in the business of trying to read our minds and thoughts.
- Yahoo and Google have very fundamentally opposing philosophies on how best to satisfy searcher’s needs using the technology of search. Complex algorithms and text ads aside, the end goal is to properly read our true intentions and purposes in our search. What are we searching for and why?
- No matter how advanced all the search technology seems to be to us plebians, the general concensus is that it’s all still very much at it’s infancy. Just about every expert in the industry believes that we’re only about 10% into getting to the “perfect search”.
- As powerful as Yahoo and Google are now, neither seem to flex much muscle when opposed by the Chinese government. In order to enter the highly lucrative Chinese market, both companies (as well as many others) have had to bend on their principles and previously “unbendable rules”.
- The guys over at Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, etc are all extremely powerful companies filled with highly intelligent people. But at the end of the day, they’re learning this as they go along just like the rest of us.
- Brin and Page both like to eat Burger King after a major breakthrough.
There are countless other points of interest that make this book a worthwhile read.
The Search is an easy, fascinating read told very well. It’s not nearly as juicy in terms of dirt as James Stewart’s Disney War and that’s a good thing. Besides, Google is far too new and riding high to warrant much negative “inside” gossip… Yet.
As this relatively new and perpetually innovative industry continues to change, update and repeat itself, The Search is a great book to start to learn about the humble beginnings and see where all this crazy ass interweb stuff came from.
Posted by cap
Posted by cap
Posted by cap
