Larry's Tech Talk
Nobody Rides For Nothin’
25/07/11 22:38
I think I’ve been using the word “change” too much lately. How about “evolve” instead? Yeah, I like that better. OK, so what’s evolving in audio and video technology these days? Well, if you’ve read this column before you know that consumer electronics and entertainment are evolving all the time. Yeah, yeah Larry, we all know that, tell us where you are going with this? Specifically, I am referring to the evolution of the number of payments we make each month.
History credits Henry Ford with inventing the “assembly line” back in the 1900’s. Detroit became known as “Motown” and America was a manufacturing giant. But it seems like America has moved away from manufacturing and evolved into providing services. I’m not saying that is good or bad. I’m just saying, we’re doctors, lawyers, insurance providers, internet and communication providers, mechanics, drivers, etc. Manufacturing has moved to more cost competitive countries. Verizon might provide cell phone service, but the cell phone you use probably wasn’t made in the USA. Software giants like Google and Microsoft aren’t manufacturers. Computers might be designed in the US, but they are probably made in Asia. Electronics are a great example of foreign manufacturing. Not long ago, Darrell Waltrip mentioned during a NASCAR race that of the four auto manufacturers with cars on the racetrack, only the Toyota Camry was manufactured in the US. The other three auto manufacturers included Ford, Chevy, and Dodge. Where did you go Henry?
When I was finished with school (or was school finished with me?). I probably had less than ten checks to write each month. Let’s see, rent, electric, telephone, maybe a car payment. But now with all these new services we have many more monthly payments. Almost everybody has cable or satellite TV service. How about cell phone service? Internet service? Maybe Netflix and satellite radio service. I hear ads about protecting one’s identity, and backing up computer files. Do I really need to pay for credit history protection?
iTunes, Netflix, cable TV, Sirius XM radio, Tivo, DVR, premium movie channels, high definition, video on demand, NFL Ticket, are all examples of the really cool entertainment “services” available to consumers these days. The TV you watch wasn’t made in this country. But the video content you watch was delivered by a company that is in this country. Last week I wrote about IPTV, I think we can look forward to writing yet another check each month. Like it or not, that’s evolution.
I am thinking of lyrics in a song, “nobody rides for nothin’, so step up and pay the price!”
History credits Henry Ford with inventing the “assembly line” back in the 1900’s. Detroit became known as “Motown” and America was a manufacturing giant. But it seems like America has moved away from manufacturing and evolved into providing services. I’m not saying that is good or bad. I’m just saying, we’re doctors, lawyers, insurance providers, internet and communication providers, mechanics, drivers, etc. Manufacturing has moved to more cost competitive countries. Verizon might provide cell phone service, but the cell phone you use probably wasn’t made in the USA. Software giants like Google and Microsoft aren’t manufacturers. Computers might be designed in the US, but they are probably made in Asia. Electronics are a great example of foreign manufacturing. Not long ago, Darrell Waltrip mentioned during a NASCAR race that of the four auto manufacturers with cars on the racetrack, only the Toyota Camry was manufactured in the US. The other three auto manufacturers included Ford, Chevy, and Dodge. Where did you go Henry?
When I was finished with school (or was school finished with me?). I probably had less than ten checks to write each month. Let’s see, rent, electric, telephone, maybe a car payment. But now with all these new services we have many more monthly payments. Almost everybody has cable or satellite TV service. How about cell phone service? Internet service? Maybe Netflix and satellite radio service. I hear ads about protecting one’s identity, and backing up computer files. Do I really need to pay for credit history protection?
iTunes, Netflix, cable TV, Sirius XM radio, Tivo, DVR, premium movie channels, high definition, video on demand, NFL Ticket, are all examples of the really cool entertainment “services” available to consumers these days. The TV you watch wasn’t made in this country. But the video content you watch was delivered by a company that is in this country. Last week I wrote about IPTV, I think we can look forward to writing yet another check each month. Like it or not, that’s evolution.
I am thinking of lyrics in a song, “nobody rides for nothin’, so step up and pay the price!”
Forget Everything!
18/07/11 20:24
If you think consumer electronics is approaching a plateau, think again. What else could “they” invent and what else could consumers possibly need? Remember that saying, “the only thing certain is death, taxes and change.” I read two articles this week that will change everything, and we can look for that change in the next 12 months.
The first column I read was about IPTV. What could IPTV possibly be? OK, we all know what TV stands for, and a lot of people know that IP stands for “internet protocol”. Let’s combine the IP and the TV and we have “Internet TV”. If you think about it, what distribution network could be better for audio, video and consumer entertainment than the internet? I am guessing that the only reason it took this long for this concept to become reality was that our networks weren’t fast enough to support the large data streams. But that’s all changing, network speeds, both wired and wireless are getting faster and faster. "Bandwidth” is the buzzword.
Netflix put rival company Blockbuster in Chapter 11 with its “first to market” digital video streaming service. So, why not deliver television content the same way? The Cable and Satellite TV providers better pay attention because market share will change quickly. OK Larry, but I already have cable TV, why would I change to this IPTV thing? In other words, what’s in it for me? Great question, and I have two immediate answers for you. With IPTV, you will be able to purchase digital content “a la carte”. Currently our Cable and Satellite providers give us packages that we pay for. But a lot of those channels we pay for in a package go unused. IPTV will offer much more flexibility. And the second answer is, since the TV content will arrive via the internet, it will pass through your home’s router. So any device like your iPhone, laptop, or Droid will now become a TV. Pretty cool huh? Let’s put the IPTV concept on hold for a minute and move on.
It was leaked that Apple Computer will enter the flat screen TV business within the next 12 months. If it was any other company, I would think they were crazy, but due to the success of Apple’s “i” devices they might just take existing TV manufacturers to school. I have to be honest, profit margins in flat screen TVs are very slim. The big retailers offset that by selling extended warranties, expensive cables, and installation services. But Apple not only invented the iPod, they also invented the iTunes service. Do you think maybe Apple Computer will offer an IPTV service?
The hardware and service combo will give Apple a huge advantage. It is estimated that IPTV will take 10% of the cable and satellite market share in the first year. And since Apple devices have been so successful you can bet that a TV from them will be amazing. What if your computer, DVR, music, videos, and TV all resided in one device? Are there any manufacturers that could put all of that together? You can bet “the ranch” that Apple could put all of that together. I won’t even mention Apple’s incredible and intuitive operating system software that will tie all of the functions together.
FORGET EVERYTHING, because it all is about to change.
The first column I read was about IPTV. What could IPTV possibly be? OK, we all know what TV stands for, and a lot of people know that IP stands for “internet protocol”. Let’s combine the IP and the TV and we have “Internet TV”. If you think about it, what distribution network could be better for audio, video and consumer entertainment than the internet? I am guessing that the only reason it took this long for this concept to become reality was that our networks weren’t fast enough to support the large data streams. But that’s all changing, network speeds, both wired and wireless are getting faster and faster. "Bandwidth” is the buzzword.
Netflix put rival company Blockbuster in Chapter 11 with its “first to market” digital video streaming service. So, why not deliver television content the same way? The Cable and Satellite TV providers better pay attention because market share will change quickly. OK Larry, but I already have cable TV, why would I change to this IPTV thing? In other words, what’s in it for me? Great question, and I have two immediate answers for you. With IPTV, you will be able to purchase digital content “a la carte”. Currently our Cable and Satellite providers give us packages that we pay for. But a lot of those channels we pay for in a package go unused. IPTV will offer much more flexibility. And the second answer is, since the TV content will arrive via the internet, it will pass through your home’s router. So any device like your iPhone, laptop, or Droid will now become a TV. Pretty cool huh? Let’s put the IPTV concept on hold for a minute and move on.
It was leaked that Apple Computer will enter the flat screen TV business within the next 12 months. If it was any other company, I would think they were crazy, but due to the success of Apple’s “i” devices they might just take existing TV manufacturers to school. I have to be honest, profit margins in flat screen TVs are very slim. The big retailers offset that by selling extended warranties, expensive cables, and installation services. But Apple not only invented the iPod, they also invented the iTunes service. Do you think maybe Apple Computer will offer an IPTV service?
The hardware and service combo will give Apple a huge advantage. It is estimated that IPTV will take 10% of the cable and satellite market share in the first year. And since Apple devices have been so successful you can bet that a TV from them will be amazing. What if your computer, DVR, music, videos, and TV all resided in one device? Are there any manufacturers that could put all of that together? You can bet “the ranch” that Apple could put all of that together. I won’t even mention Apple’s incredible and intuitive operating system software that will tie all of the functions together.
FORGET EVERYTHING, because it all is about to change.
Stop Thief!
11/07/11 22:40
I like to keep this article fun, loose, informing and casual. But, we have a serious situation to talk about!
A few weeks ago I was at a small residential renovation job site in Annapolis. The General Contractor and the homeowner met with me to discuss the scope of work and what could be done within budget for the audio and video systems to be installed in the house. OK, that’s cool. But, when I say the General Contractor was not very technical, I am being kind. In fact, I doubt his ability to spell iPod. He was good with a broom, but that’s about it. OK, we all have our strengths, but this individual’s strength was being opinionated. He really didn’t know “jack” about much of anything, but he sure had opinions on everything and was happy to share. And, he was also happy to say that he owned an iPod. That’s when things really went downhill!
To quote him, “I got an iPod and (a well known Eastern Shore DJ’s name to remain anonymous) put 1500 songs on it for me for free! OK, dude so you can’t spell iPod but you do know how to hit “play”. I’ll give you that! When I pointed out that digital coping was both wrong and illegal, he looked at me like I was from another planet. Why, what’s the problem? Nobody knows. I didn’t hurt anybody. It’s just music. What’s the problem? The problem was that 1500 songs were digitally duplicated illegally to his iPod.
Would any of us steal a pack of gum? Probably not, how about $100? How about $1000? Most of us wouldn’t think of stealing $1500! At 99 cents a song this guy had stolen almost $1500. And the commercially paid DJ with the big catalog of music was the source. I can only imagine how many other friends of the DJ received illegal duplicates.
Back in the day my friends and I thought we were really cool to make a cassette tape of an album, another tape or even a Compact Disc (CD). The reason it wasn’t illegal was because we were using analog technology. Each copy degraded a little from the previous source. Sure you could make 100 copies of a clean master, but that rarely happened. Ultimately we were making copies of copies and the 50th copy was really bad. Musicians, record labels and hollywood didn’t care if you copied a movie from a VHS tape to another VHS tape. But with today’s digital technology, the 100th copy is an exact image of the “master”. The music and movie industries are getting ripped off every minute of the day by the general population, aka, digital bandits! As you can imagine, it’s not that hard to get around ”copy protection software” and make mirror identical images of the source content. Just ask your local teenager! I’m not picking on teenagers, they’re just incredibly smarter than they should be! They’re on tight budgets, and if they can get music or movies for free, that is a good thing?
All of us can “rationalize” almost anything. But make no mistake, if you own a digital copy of “intellectual content” that you didn’t pay for, you stole something. The buzz-word here is “intellectual content”. What if you copied a paperback novel (soon to be a thing of our past!) and sold paper copies? That isn’t right even if you gave the copies away for free. The author is experiencing lost revenue, not to mention the publisher, and on and on down the food chain. It’s the same deal with digital entertainment copying, music, movies, and software. It’s all “intellectual property”. How about that copy of Microsoft Word you acquired? HMMMMM.
If you or your children don’t own stolen intellectual property, you know someone that does. Lots of people think its fun, free and “why should we pay when we can get it for free?” Nobody knows we have it, and we’re not hurting anybody.
“Sweet Home Alabama”. I bet there are more than a million unpaid copies of that tune. That’s conservatively $1 million. Southern Skies are So Blue! SKYNYRD!
Sorry if this sounds harsh, but, there is a word that refers to people that steal. Don’t be a “thief”!
A few weeks ago I was at a small residential renovation job site in Annapolis. The General Contractor and the homeowner met with me to discuss the scope of work and what could be done within budget for the audio and video systems to be installed in the house. OK, that’s cool. But, when I say the General Contractor was not very technical, I am being kind. In fact, I doubt his ability to spell iPod. He was good with a broom, but that’s about it. OK, we all have our strengths, but this individual’s strength was being opinionated. He really didn’t know “jack” about much of anything, but he sure had opinions on everything and was happy to share. And, he was also happy to say that he owned an iPod. That’s when things really went downhill!
To quote him, “I got an iPod and (a well known Eastern Shore DJ’s name to remain anonymous) put 1500 songs on it for me for free! OK, dude so you can’t spell iPod but you do know how to hit “play”. I’ll give you that! When I pointed out that digital coping was both wrong and illegal, he looked at me like I was from another planet. Why, what’s the problem? Nobody knows. I didn’t hurt anybody. It’s just music. What’s the problem? The problem was that 1500 songs were digitally duplicated illegally to his iPod.
Would any of us steal a pack of gum? Probably not, how about $100? How about $1000? Most of us wouldn’t think of stealing $1500! At 99 cents a song this guy had stolen almost $1500. And the commercially paid DJ with the big catalog of music was the source. I can only imagine how many other friends of the DJ received illegal duplicates.
Back in the day my friends and I thought we were really cool to make a cassette tape of an album, another tape or even a Compact Disc (CD). The reason it wasn’t illegal was because we were using analog technology. Each copy degraded a little from the previous source. Sure you could make 100 copies of a clean master, but that rarely happened. Ultimately we were making copies of copies and the 50th copy was really bad. Musicians, record labels and hollywood didn’t care if you copied a movie from a VHS tape to another VHS tape. But with today’s digital technology, the 100th copy is an exact image of the “master”. The music and movie industries are getting ripped off every minute of the day by the general population, aka, digital bandits! As you can imagine, it’s not that hard to get around ”copy protection software” and make mirror identical images of the source content. Just ask your local teenager! I’m not picking on teenagers, they’re just incredibly smarter than they should be! They’re on tight budgets, and if they can get music or movies for free, that is a good thing?
All of us can “rationalize” almost anything. But make no mistake, if you own a digital copy of “intellectual content” that you didn’t pay for, you stole something. The buzz-word here is “intellectual content”. What if you copied a paperback novel (soon to be a thing of our past!) and sold paper copies? That isn’t right even if you gave the copies away for free. The author is experiencing lost revenue, not to mention the publisher, and on and on down the food chain. It’s the same deal with digital entertainment copying, music, movies, and software. It’s all “intellectual property”. How about that copy of Microsoft Word you acquired? HMMMMM.
If you or your children don’t own stolen intellectual property, you know someone that does. Lots of people think its fun, free and “why should we pay when we can get it for free?” Nobody knows we have it, and we’re not hurting anybody.
“Sweet Home Alabama”. I bet there are more than a million unpaid copies of that tune. That’s conservatively $1 million. Southern Skies are So Blue! SKYNYRD!
Sorry if this sounds harsh, but, there is a word that refers to people that steal. Don’t be a “thief”!
Back To The Future!
05/07/11 20:14
I have to admit that I own a fairly large “live bootleg concert” collection of cassette tapes and CD-R’s. Everything I have is legal (DON’T SHOOT OFFICER!). Back in the day there were several touring bands that not only allowed taping of live shows, but encouraged taping and trading of their live performances. It was a lot of fun, duplicating analog tapes and meeting new fans with similar musical tastes. You might even consider it a large “counter culture”. Everybody called the tapes “bootleg” because there were no record studio labels on them. We circulated tapes below the retail radar and it was a lot of fun. I would hear phrases like, hey man, I got that Merriweather Post or Red Rocks Show from 85”, Jerry was incredible on “Shakedown Street”! Anyway, last week I was thinking of a cool jam, so I dusted off the tape deck and put in the show I wanted to hear. It sounded OK, a little flat, certainly acceptable, but it just didn’t reach out and grab me. Then it hit me, “Great Scott! I gotta get back to the future”!
By now you should be remembering Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, a DeLorean, and the infamous “flux capacitor”. A few button clicks later and my new “network” a/v receiver was in motion and my favorite Pandora digital music was playing via the internet. Almost stuck in the not so distant analog past! That was a CLOSE CALL! GREAT SCOTT! I am wondering who the Scot was that Christopher Lloyd was referring to?
So, if we had a DeLorean time machine with a “flux capacitor” and could advance ourselves to the future, what might we find? OK, predicting the future is never an easy thing, but I think we can easily say that the “internet” will be a part of the immediate future. We refer to the world wide web as the internet, but it might called something else one day. Then there are private network service providers that connect us to the www like Verizon, Sprint and AT&T that we pay for. A few years ago, we carried around cassette tapes for our Sony Walkmans (spell check on the plural of Walkman). Then we had CD Walkmans (or is it Walkmen?). Now we have IPods or Droids or similar portable devices that store our music, photos and even videos (if you have the storage capacity). We don’t carry tapes or discs anymore (aka media), because our devices have miniature hard drives built in. These devices are capable of storing days and days of audio and video entertainment. Yeah, but that’s old news LD, let’s get back to the future!
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that personal hard drives might go away. A few weeks ago Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Computer) announced a new Apple service known as “The I-Cloud”. As I understand it, this computer hardware manufacturer is launching yet another service (remember the ITunes service?). The I-Cloud service will automatically sync all of your photos, videos, and music to Apple’s huge storage silos with your computer, IPod, IPad or similar device. In the event of a lost IPod, or damaged device, the I-Cloud service will be there to upload all of your digital entertainment to the new device. Transferring your music to a new generation device will be easy. Your investment in music and videos as well as your personal photos will be backed up and safe.
Now, let’s consider the networks of the future. The wireless 3G network of today is nice, but speed and availability can become an issue. For instance, I can drive down the highway and listen to Pandora (or similar service) wirelessly from the internet via my IPhone. My IPhone outputs the Pandora signal to my vehicle’s sound system and usually doesn’t miss a note. That probably wouldn’t be the case with video, which requires a lot more “bandwidth”. The wireless 4G network is available now and is 10 times faster than the 3G network. So if we go back to the future, how fast will our networks be? Your guess is as good as mine, but I think it’s safe to say future networks will be highly available and very fast. Entire cities will be networked, and if you’re under the umbrella, you will have wi-fi connectivity. Maybe networks will be like cell phones now, you leave one cell zone and enter another cell zone? I’m not sure about that idea, but I would bet that network service providers will make their service highly available and very, very fast. And consumers will take network connectivity for granted.
Let’s combine the idea of very fast, highly available networks with desktop and portable devices. Guess what? Nobody will need that hard drive. All of your software, photos, music, and videos will reside somewhere else in the world and you will have immediate access to whatever you want whenever you want. To the user, the experience will be transparent All of your “stuff” will actually reside on a huge storage device(s) in India, Taiwan, East Jah-blip or wherever. And when future network communications are fast enough, personal computers and other devices won’t need processing capabilities at all. Remember “dumb terminals” from the old mainframe computer days? Immediate access to whatever audio or video file or software program you want will be available. I’m thinking the phrase “full circle” might be appropriate. The downside? Sorry, it also means another monthly service payment! Hey technology is cool, but it ain’t free!
Microsoft is also talking about “cloud computing” and I’m sure many other companies will embrace and market the concept. It will be very interesting to see where the concept will go. But somehow “the cloud” will no doubt be a big part of consumer level home entertainment. Hey, really our entertainment future is really “ALL ABOUT THE NETWORK”!
So, let’s see, Apple markets I-devices and I-services. If Steve Jobs was Batman, would we have Bat-pads? Bat-pods? The Bat-cloud? And sorry, but “I” have to do this…..Bat-phones? If you’re not asleep yet, thanks for reading for this column!
Great Scott! I have to get back to the future!
By now you should be remembering Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, a DeLorean, and the infamous “flux capacitor”. A few button clicks later and my new “network” a/v receiver was in motion and my favorite Pandora digital music was playing via the internet. Almost stuck in the not so distant analog past! That was a CLOSE CALL! GREAT SCOTT! I am wondering who the Scot was that Christopher Lloyd was referring to?
So, if we had a DeLorean time machine with a “flux capacitor” and could advance ourselves to the future, what might we find? OK, predicting the future is never an easy thing, but I think we can easily say that the “internet” will be a part of the immediate future. We refer to the world wide web as the internet, but it might called something else one day. Then there are private network service providers that connect us to the www like Verizon, Sprint and AT&T that we pay for. A few years ago, we carried around cassette tapes for our Sony Walkmans (spell check on the plural of Walkman). Then we had CD Walkmans (or is it Walkmen?). Now we have IPods or Droids or similar portable devices that store our music, photos and even videos (if you have the storage capacity). We don’t carry tapes or discs anymore (aka media), because our devices have miniature hard drives built in. These devices are capable of storing days and days of audio and video entertainment. Yeah, but that’s old news LD, let’s get back to the future!
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that personal hard drives might go away. A few weeks ago Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Computer) announced a new Apple service known as “The I-Cloud”. As I understand it, this computer hardware manufacturer is launching yet another service (remember the ITunes service?). The I-Cloud service will automatically sync all of your photos, videos, and music to Apple’s huge storage silos with your computer, IPod, IPad or similar device. In the event of a lost IPod, or damaged device, the I-Cloud service will be there to upload all of your digital entertainment to the new device. Transferring your music to a new generation device will be easy. Your investment in music and videos as well as your personal photos will be backed up and safe.
Now, let’s consider the networks of the future. The wireless 3G network of today is nice, but speed and availability can become an issue. For instance, I can drive down the highway and listen to Pandora (or similar service) wirelessly from the internet via my IPhone. My IPhone outputs the Pandora signal to my vehicle’s sound system and usually doesn’t miss a note. That probably wouldn’t be the case with video, which requires a lot more “bandwidth”. The wireless 4G network is available now and is 10 times faster than the 3G network. So if we go back to the future, how fast will our networks be? Your guess is as good as mine, but I think it’s safe to say future networks will be highly available and very fast. Entire cities will be networked, and if you’re under the umbrella, you will have wi-fi connectivity. Maybe networks will be like cell phones now, you leave one cell zone and enter another cell zone? I’m not sure about that idea, but I would bet that network service providers will make their service highly available and very, very fast. And consumers will take network connectivity for granted.
Let’s combine the idea of very fast, highly available networks with desktop and portable devices. Guess what? Nobody will need that hard drive. All of your software, photos, music, and videos will reside somewhere else in the world and you will have immediate access to whatever you want whenever you want. To the user, the experience will be transparent All of your “stuff” will actually reside on a huge storage device(s) in India, Taiwan, East Jah-blip or wherever. And when future network communications are fast enough, personal computers and other devices won’t need processing capabilities at all. Remember “dumb terminals” from the old mainframe computer days? Immediate access to whatever audio or video file or software program you want will be available. I’m thinking the phrase “full circle” might be appropriate. The downside? Sorry, it also means another monthly service payment! Hey technology is cool, but it ain’t free!
Microsoft is also talking about “cloud computing” and I’m sure many other companies will embrace and market the concept. It will be very interesting to see where the concept will go. But somehow “the cloud” will no doubt be a big part of consumer level home entertainment. Hey, really our entertainment future is really “ALL ABOUT THE NETWORK”!
So, let’s see, Apple markets I-devices and I-services. If Steve Jobs was Batman, would we have Bat-pads? Bat-pods? The Bat-cloud? And sorry, but “I” have to do this…..Bat-phones? If you’re not asleep yet, thanks for reading for this column!
Great Scott! I have to get back to the future!