I don’t understand what’s wrong with companies today. I, like the rest of you have been following the Google I/O conference announcements for the past couple of days and just heard about Google TV today (yeah I know a bit behind in my feed). I was all excited and was thinking of all the possibilities (think: googletalk, conferencing, streaming ppv, cloud based gaming, etc.). Then, later on, I came across a partner announcement from Logitech….Wow, wait a sec, the mouse company? Yep, it makes sense, they make webcams, keyboards and mice and have in the recent years boughtup Harmony, the guys who make the cool super-nerdy TV remotes. At this point I decide to take a look around the Logitech website and I come across this:

Q: What will I need to make it (Google TV) work?

A: All you need is a broadband Internet connection and a TV with an HDMI input. To take full advantage of the content search, you’ll need a satellite or cable set-top box with an HDMI output as well. And, for now, you’ll need to reside in the United States.

What the hell? U.S. only? Again? Google? The In-ter-net search giant? Come on guys what the hell is wrong with you?

First you come preaching that Apple’s way of creating a walled garden is badbadbad. Then you make fun of their devices. Then you make fun of their developers. But you know what…..as bad as Apple has been/become, atleast their walls are semi-climable.

Back when Hulu pulled this trick with people outside U.S. I thought well, small company tries to do something innovative and they had to bow down to the studio’s, TV producers. But google? You can not tell me that the big G could not have walked into the room with all the content providers around the table and said….”Okay We’re gonna launch this thing called Google TV, and YES, since we’re a Global company, our service will also be globally accessible”.

Sorry guys/gals, you’ve lost my vote….You might have the best (arguable) search engine, but when it comes to devices (ie: physical THINGS), you need to go back to school. In the meantime I guess I just have to hand my C$ to el Jobso, get a AppleTV and hack Boxee into it. ltr.

Holy crap…..MS has literally photocopied the Apple Store, replaced the Genius Bar with “Answer Bar” and the Genius’ with Guru’s……Does Microsoft ever come up with something original? :-) Here comes “Attack of the Clones”…..hehehehe

Tim Robins’ Keynote speech at NAB (National Association of Broadcasters). I missed this event at this years NAB, but I think it’s very much worth a listen. Tim really lays it out nicely. Complete in three parts in order.

Yeah, that’s why the OLPC team sold their soul to MS….right? Get ready for OLPC running Windows XO. Because there aren’t enough lemmings out there. This must be Bill G’s wildest dream, an army of illiterate starving kids who’ll program the next version of Winblows for food and water…..brilliant.

A lot of people seem to be running into weird network problems with Vista (MS’s latest abortion). The symptoms might include:

- Windows messenger issues (disconnects, slowness)
- Large network file copies get interrupted or are slowwwww
- Network file transfers that seem to hang for no reason
- Network ghosts turning on/off the network subsystem
- Routers having issues that lead to router reboot
- Outlook having synchronization issues

A possible solution is turning off auto-tuning. You see Vista being Vista, wants to always be in control, even when it gets on the network with others. MS has built a new feature into it’s network stack that allows Vista to auto-tune the size of the send/receive windows…..why would you want to do this by default when half the worlds firewalls discard non-standard packet sizes is a mystery (apparently only known to MS ppl). So guess what happens when the firewall downstream of you decides that your packets are “non-standard”……it drops them, along with your connection. So how do you fix this, simple, you do what MS should have done before they shipped you the abortion called Vista, you disable it. Here is how:

1) Get a command prompt in administrator mode. To do this go to Start/All Programs/Accessories and RIGHT CLICK on command prompt’s icon and choose “Run as Administrator”. On the next prompt press “Continue”.
2) Make sure the Title of the newly opened command prompt window says “Administrator: Command Prompt”, if not go back to 1).
3) Now type the following into the command prompt window. This will disable autotuning.
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
4) You should get a OK. in the command prompt window. REBOOT NOW.
5) If you need to turn it back on (why?) do the 1) and 2) and issue the following command
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
To check the status of this dumb setting (before or after you change it) do 1) and 2) and type the following command
netsh int tcp show global
Of course you could always reboot, format and install Linux and save your sanity and time :-)

According to a slashdot story:

Many participants in OLPC’s ‘Give 1 Get 1′ program of last November are now encountering what has come to be known as the ‘stuck key’ problem, in which one or more of the keys on their XO-1 laptop’s built-in keyboard become stuck in an activated position, or are activated when adjacent keys are pressed. More…..

Now I’m all for giving and sharing and all that, but what the heck are these guys thinking. First they sell us on the idea that these laptops will help kids in third world learn about computers — forgetting the fact that 90% of these kids can’t read/write. Now it turns out that because they were sourcing the cheapest material in the universe — from those same third world countries “slave-like” labour shops — the keyboards on these laptops are failing. So the next time you whip out your valet to help the third world, think about what you’re promoting and then make a donation instead. That way a school can be built, and those kids can learn how to read and write, which is much more useful to them than a broken computer that will end up poisoning them eventually.

Remember CDDB, the old database of CD’s that people built for people’s use. Well that dream got shot and killed when Gracenote, the company behind it, decided to close the platform and sell the data. It looks like private sector strikes again, big time. Sony has just announced that they bought Gracenote and their Database — remember the one that me, you and millions of others helped build — for $260m. Nice work S, now I wonder if there is a international law against buying/selling something that does not belong to you. Well ponder on that and start using freedb at freedb.org where things are protected by GPL and will always remain FREE.

I think I will declare today (April 23rd, 2008) as the day of SUCKERS….hehehe. This is fantastic and continues to show how damaging proprietory technologies are to your life. If the Sony ATRAC debacle didn’t serve as a warning there’s always this: Microsoft just announced that it will no longer supply authorization keys for songs purchased from the defunct MSN Music service. According to the News Desk over at Ars Technica:

Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”

Proprietary technologies suck, no matter how good/neat they sound at the time. Case in point is the Microsoft SPOT (Smart Personal Objects Technology) technology. At a sneak preview of the watches given by Microsoft at COMDEX 2003, Microsoft began referring to the SPOT watches as “Smart Watches with MSN Direct.” The purpose of MSN Direct, a new Microsoft service to be offered through a monthly or annual subscription, was to use FM radio subcarriers to feed data to the watches, such as weather, traffic, and other information. Watch owners could choose between two subscription plans: $9.95 a month with the first month at no charge; or $59 for a full year.

I still remember sitting in my chair at the 2003 comdex keynote and asking myself why? I mean Bill kept saying that this was the future…..yeah right!!! Well I hope you don’t have one of these watches, or if you got suckered in, lets hope you didn’t pay for a full year of service. Remember kids, Proprietory SUCKS BIG. I wonder what Bill is wearing on his wrist these days :-)

So RED is now hyping their little hand held DCinema Camcorder, or as I call it the “Camcorder for people who drive Hummers and have serious penis envy”. Yeah baby, my Camcorder shoots 3K…much better than your 1080P peeshooter….haha. Okay lets get real here…..what the hell were those RED guys thinking?……fixed lens, auto mode, no viewfinder and HD-SDI on a camera with identity crisis, in the hands of Joe blow, shooting his next homegrown porn in glorious 3K. Except since he can’t edit it in his $2 editing program running on his $5 PC, the poor audience will have to watch the whole thing including all the outtakes……..Can you say Reality PORN.

The RED EPIC is bound to get all you beta testers excited. Yeah, another “Beta” Cam that will be developed at the cost of your time. At 40K, hopefully you’ll ask yourself — what is my time worth? — before plunking down the cash. You see right off the bat the EPIC shoots in 5K, now there is nothing wrong with having the most number of pixels, but the “mine is bigger than yours” attitude will only get you into more trouble.

After finishing NAB 2008, I have to admit that there are only a couple of companies out there who do 4K edit/post production, Da Vinci and Filmlight come to mind. Now these systems are super expensive, but they do the job and they do it nicely. Now imagine it’s 2009, you’ve got yourself a brand new RED EPIC and have shot your fist motion picture. How do you edit it?, How do you do DI on it?, How do you even play it back? Nope the other RED vapourware — RED RAY — will not save you as it does NOT play 5K and to top it off, no projector manufacturer is doing 5K or is even planning on it……So basically you’ve bought yourself a NON STANDARD “BETA” CAM. I’m sure you’re very happy. Good luck!!!

Does RED ever stop and think…..for that matter do RED users ever stop and think. I just came back from NAB in Las Vegas and as usual RED Camera had it’s stupid red tent there. I love how these guys make you feel like you’re an outsider, unless you’re allowed in their booth. They’ve got a couple of gorilla like guys standing at the front playing “bouncer” and you have to line up to get in to their booth…..Helllllooooo people……you’re at a F*cking Trade show. This is not the late night club in the cool part of town. Anyways enough of their booth, on to the camera’s and well, the gullible users.

Remember the promise of RED ONE — “rendering obsolescence obsolete” — well all you RED ONE users are about to get trampled by the EPIC. You see RED boys and girls haven’t even finished beta testing the RED ONE yet and they are already talking about their next camera, the EPIC. I always wonder when a company ups the resolution by 1MP (EPIC is 5 MP) and suddenly ups the price by 2.5 times. Yep, the EPIC is gonna cost you 40K next year. Now is it just me or is technology not supposed to get cheaper as time goes on. NOT in RED LAND…….

And if you’re one of the suckers who bought the RED “Beta” Cam you can trade it in for 17K towards yet another Beta Camera. RED has truly rendered obsolescence obsolete……NOT.