more on video, network video, and moving TV to the internet:
IPod Seeks Advertising Revenues
Spending on online video advertising is expected to triple in the
next two years alone, according to research firm eMarketer, rising to
about US$640 million. The firm predicts it could hit $1.5 billion by
2010, which would once again put Apple in the right place at the
right time.
Just weeks after Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)  proved the viability of its
iPod video player, Walt Disney Studios and media giant Clear Channel
announced plans to begin advertising movies and other content over
video-enabled portable devices. Clear Channel will use portable
players, like the iPod and Sony (NYSE: SNE)  PSP, to promote shows
on its 1,200 radio stations. For example, Clear Channel's Premier
Radio Networks plans to air 60-second video clips from the "Rush
Limbaugh Show" starting Dec. 12. Disney plans to offer trailers from
its upcoming fantasy film "The Chronicles of Narnia," for starters.
Disney previously hooked up with Apple in October to offer its
current and past season episodes of ABC and Disney Channel television
shows for download at the iTunes Music Store. The Rise of Portable
Video Ads Who saw the rise of portable video ads coming? Perhaps
Apple CEO Steve Jobs did. On October 31, Apple announced that its
iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded more than 1
million videos since they debuted the service on Oct. 12. "Selling
one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a
market for legal video downloads," Jobs said as part of the
announcement. "Our next challenge is to broaden our content
offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their
computers and new iPods." One has to wonder if those broadened
content offerings include advertising support all along. With popular
show like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" streaming over the iPod,
it appears to be a strategic opportunity.
http://tinyurl.com/anrur
Wal-Mart VP: We lost the 'philosophical argument' with Steve Jobs
Wal-Mart on Tuesday said sales during this year's "Black Friday"
shopping bonanza faired much better than last, due partly to a more
desirable selection consumer products like Apple's iPod. During a
conference call hosted by J.P. Morgan & Co., Wal-Mart Senior Vice
President and Treasurer Jay Fitzsimmons told investors that Black
Friday sales "were good," noting strong sales of computers, dolls,
portable DVD players and video games.
According to Fitzsimmons, this year's Black Friday event was more
successful because Wal-Mart stepped-up marketing efforts and picked
better items for early-bird specials and other ad blitzes. Some of
the hot items included laptop computers for under $400 and a 15-inch
LCD TV for less than $200 -- both of which sold out within minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/d52s5
Mac OS X security under scrutiny
When the SANS Institute, a computer-security training organization,
released its Top-20 vulnerabilities last week, the rankings continued
an annual ritual aimed at highlighting the worst flaws for network
administrators. This year, the list had something different, however:
The group flagged the collective vulnerabilities in Apple Computer's
Mac OS X operating system as a major threat.
http://tinyurl.com/8znu6
Finding harmony among iPod rivals
Hoping to loosen Apple Computer's grip on the digital music player
market, Microsoft is rallying consumer electronics companies to form
a common link. The software maker is part of a working group
launched last week by the Consumer Electronics Association to develop
a standard port for connecting gadgets like music players to audio
systems in homes and cars. "It is important for the industry to
create an open, industrywide standard for docking connectors that
will give consumers greater access to the digital entertainment they
have stored on devices," Jai Jaisimha, the lead program manager in
Microsoft's Windows digital media division, said in a statement.
http://tinyurl.com/b2n3e
THE ULTIMATE DEVICE FOR HANDLING THOSE ANNOYING COMPUTER USER
COMPLAINTS:
Taiyo’s BuzzTrainer USB shock therapy device
For that ADD friend of yours that has everything, why don’t you
score them some USB shock therapy to keep them on track this holiday
season? The BuzzTrainer from Taiyo can also fulfill all your
personnel reprogramming needs; according to the marketing material
the device can “eliminate the desire to spend hours gaming, to file
share, or to download illegal music.” This works through setting up
Buzz Keywords, BuzzApps, and even Buzz Scripts (Buzz yeah!) to make
sure that devious peon of yours keeps to the straight and narrow, and
if not, gets a nice little shock to pay for it. Even more exciting
are the included tutorials for XP, Word, and IE which we’re sure
will learn you up right quick on spell checkin’ and the like. They
even recommend the BuzzTrainer as an acupressure system, but we’ll
pass, thanks.
http://tinyurl.com/ajf45
The new Mac mini — with Front Row 2.0 and DVR?
It’s on ThinkSecret, which means, of course, that we can’t verify
the information or its source, but now the rumor on top of the pile
for things we might see at Macworld in January is that the Mac mini
will be given a second life as a Front Row 2.0-bearing digital media
hub — complete with DVR features. Apparently it’ll also be an
Intel Mac, and feature an iPod dock, in addition to receiving a
larger (physically and logically) 3.5-inch drive — all of which
would undoubtedly result in a more corpulent Mac mini. There are a
lot of things we could (but won’t) get into here, but we would like
to take a moment to say that if Apple did want to get their foot in
the door to the living room really quick n’ easy, an Intel Mac mini
+ Front Row + DVR + iPod dock would be the way to do it. In fact, the
only thing they’d probably have to worry about would be the low-
margin mini really cannibalizing thes sales of their non-Intel, non-
DVR higher-margin iMac and Power Mac products (at least for the time
being). But again, this is all unconfirmed, so we’ll ease up on ya.
http://tinyurl.com/96mwg
FOR DONI:
DVGuru rates top video editors
If you're into video editing, be sure to check out this list from our
peeps at DVGuru. They've rated the top non-linear video editors, and
some of their choices may surprise you (no, I'm not going to give up
the goods here, but here's a hint: the top pick is Mac-only, and
number four used to be cross-platform, but has abandoned the Mac
platform to spite number one).
http://tinyurl.com/dbffv
Mechanical hard drives face tough NAND challenge Price of NAND to
slump THE BATTLE is on between solid state devices and mechanical
hard drives for consumer electronics, IDC said in a report. The
market research company predicted that NAND memory average selling
price will fall by 43% CAGR between 2004 and 2009, but other factors
than price per gigabyte are at play, IDC said. Those include
capacity, but also form factor, power consumption, weight,
durability, data rates and alliances between OEMs and storage suppliers.
http://tinyurl.com/bbrx4
COOL:
The dirt-cheap floppy-drive active solar tracking unit
This is still pretty much a work-in-progress, but I did manage to
create a successful heliostat (sun tracker) from the above TEAC model
FD-235HF 3.5" floppy drive. This procedure will likely work just
fine, with a bit of adaptation, on any drive new enough to have CMOS
logic on its chipset. This particular drive (probably a lot of
others) only needs a single 5V DC supply. It has two boards, one with
the stepper and main logic, and one with the spindle. The first is
the only one needed, and it draws 0.1 Watt with the motor off, and 1
Watt with the motor running, so it should be easy enough to power
with a cheapo hobbyist 5V solar cell if stand-alone operation is
needed, perhaps a sub-watt one if a large capacitor is supplied to
build up enough juice for a motor step over time.
http://tinyurl.com/bxsug
What Hollywood can learn from anime
Daniel Roth has an interesting piece in the current issue of Fortune
about the lessons Hollywood might learn from Mangawood. He tells
Boing Boing, "The story analyzes how the niche worlds of anime and
manga manage to pull off something increasingly rare in showbiz: they
court their customers instead of alienating them, encouraging
fansubbers (explained in detail in the piece), showing up at all fan
shows, and pursuing whatever cutting edge technology their viewers
are buying."
http://tinyurl.com/ctdwv
Hurricane season refuses to blow over
The record-breaking North Atlantic hurricane season of 2005 just will
not end – and it may get worse yet, say meteorologists as yet
another storm has surfaced in the Atlantic and the remnants of
Tropical Storm Delta blow towards Africa.
On Monday, Delta blew across the Canary Islands on its way towards
Morocco. The US National Hurricane Center predicts its remains may
reach northern Mauritania on Tuesday.
But this highly unusual transatlantic crossing does not wrap up this
already-record-breaking season, which officially ends Wednesday. On
Tuesday meteorologists at the NHC named tropical storm Epsilon, which
is the record 26th tropical storm of 2005.
Meanwhile, the centre's annual re-analysis of the storm season may
lead to upgrading of the peak strength of July’s Hurricane Emily to
the most intense class, Category 5, says NHC forecaster Stacy
Stewart. With Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma all recorded as
Category 5 storms, 2005 already holds the record for three such
powerful storms in one season. The total of 13 hurricanes is also a
record for the North Atlantic hurricane season.
http://tinyurl.com/aakkp
FOR THOSE WITH A BIG BACKYARD AND TOO MUCH TIME!
Solar Powered Coffee Roaster
Well we've covered news of a biodiesel-powered coffee roaster
previously. But now there's word that two brothers — Mike and David
Hartkop — have created a solar powered coffee roaster. Their solar
roaster is a parabolic mirror array that focuses on a roasting drum
and heats it to 600° F. The drum's motors are also solar powered. The
roaster can crank out 7 pounds of coffee per hour when the sun is a
shinin'.
http://tinyurl.com/aumk3
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