New Look, Solid State Memory, CES 2008 Report and VISTA’s Lowered Standards

New Look For Site

Spent a little time this evening changing the look of the site. I’m still learning WordPress and at least the header of the blogsite looks a little more complete. I like the look of the three-column layout so I think I’ll stick with this for a while. I promise I’ll start posting more images in the future but for now I’d just like to continue adding content to the site. I’m learning WordPress and Twitter at the same time and the only comment I got from my daughter is that I Tweet too much. She might be right on that subject but I use tweets when I’m working to provide the fodder for the ….brad’s blog…. postings.

CES 2008 – The Consumer as an Agent For Change

While searching the Internet today I see that an old acquaintance of mine Phil Keeling is still producing a report on CES for the Canadian Satellite Users Association. Titled “CES 2008 – The Consumer as an Agent For Change”, it can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2z5pvm. I’m glad I found it because there are some things in are in it that will really help me in my work.

Blu Ray and Solid State Memory

While I do believe there is is a spot in the consumer marketplace for Optical Media, I’m not completely sold on the “trash talk” on Blu Ray being the victor with the demise of HD DVD. The question is exactly what did Blu Ray win? In the period of time that it has taken Blu Ray to establish itself I’m convinced that a growing number of people like the idea of carrying around small USB flash drives and I believe that ultimately file based media –without DRM schemes– will be the preferred methodology by which individuals will consume media.

The CES 2008 report specifically cites Shelly Palmers CES blog where he notes;

“During CES week, the HD DVD v. BluRay war was called in favor of BluRay. This may be premature or it may be right on the money – in truth, it would be great to have a single optical solution for HD storage. But, while everyone at the show was taking sides and talking trash, some people might have missed the other big story at CES – solid state memory.

You know your jump drive (the little USB thingy you have on your key chain)? It could be up to 8GB, but it’s probably a smaller model. Well, several manufacturers were showing prototypes of jump drive and SSD (Solid State Disc) technologies up to 832GB. Yes, you read it right, almost a Terabyte of data could be hanging on your keychain within a very few months.

What will that mean to you? Well a standard DVD holds one movie and some additional material in 4.7GB and BluRay disc holds about four times as much. But, if you compress a movie to about 2GB where it still looks good, you can imagine a world where any given teenager could be walking around with over 400 full length, HD feature films, 1,200 standard definition films, 2,000 hours of television or 250,000 songs on their iPod or hanging on a keychain or lanyard.” You can find Shelly Palmers blog at http://tinyurl.com/3y679d.

The CES 2008 report also notes some other interesting things that relates to advances in Media Technology. Here they are with links

• The Feb 17, 2009 NTSC US cutoff date is firm
• 1080i is no longer available in display units
• Echostar TR50 – Free ATSC DVR with Hard Drive expandability and IPTV capability over Ethernet
  
• Displays are getting very thin; .75″ on 32″ LCD’s, 1.5″ on 60″ displays
• Wireless HDTV
• Displays with the ability to be diagnosed remotely over Ethernet and the ability to access YouTube
• IMAX and AMC are rolling out 50 new digital 3D screens by July and 50 more by 2010
• Blu Ray interactivity has improved
• Notes a study that indicates 45% of consumers would drop pay-tv subscriptions if they could get the channel for free over the Internet
• Tru2way is the re branded name for OpenCable
• Sling Mobile software runs on BlackBerry smartphones
• A number of home servers were displayed
• HDMI 1.3 delivers 10.2 Gbps
• Jasco GE Viper Digital antenna
• VIEVU PVR-PRO: the clip-on portable PVR
• bug labs Hackable Camera’s
• iRobot Looj
• The Nikko R2-D2 webcam
• Polaroid Zink Inkless Printer
• Competing Standards in Mobile ATSC; MPH and A-VSB

There is much more in the report and if you didn’t get to CES and you work in the Media Industry this is as good a report as you’re going to get.

Engadget Reports Microsoft Lowered Vista Requirements To Help Intel Sell Incompatible Chipsets

engadget.com claims Microsoft lowered Vista design requirements to help Intel sell incompatible chipsets. http://tinyurl.com/yuxrjq. The story appears to have some merit based on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer coverage of the case at http://tinyurl.com/28qldy. The story is being reported because there is a class action lawsuit going on lawsuit over the “Windows Vista Capable” program. What’s interesting about this story is I watched Bill Buxton’s “The Design Eco-System” Keynote, at IxDA Interaction 08. Buxton works in Microsoft Research where he defined exactly what the design process is.

It’s interesting. He clearly indicates that design is all about making choices. He sees the role of the designer as someone who actually reduces options and one that narrows the final product. He laments that in a lot of industrial cases design is done after the product is approved,  citing buildings that are often designed internally as they are being constructed. One might conclude that it was probably the the design process that was at play with VISTA, if the class action lawsuit turns out to be true. I know I kept hearing about announced features relating to VISTA being dropped as it was being developed so I think Bill Buxton’s keynote is very astute. You can watch it at http://tinyurl.com/2crwwz. 

More later…….