Aug

6

Yahoo Music closing

Filed Under Audio, Education, Globalization, Network, Rich media, Streaming, Technology | Leave a Comment

If you're visiting my blog for the first time, you can subscribe to my RSS feed. This allows you to read the latest updates about Globalization, Internet2 and Education via feeds.
Thank you for visiting.

I continue to be amazed that consumers are being held hostage to failed business practices regarding digital products sold on the internet and requiring a connection to “use” your product.
If you buy a book, read it and then move to a new house, you take the book with you right.  Sure.  Simple and not even something to think about.

But if you purchased digital music from Yahoo and move that music to a new computer or external drive, you cannot take it with you.  Yahoo’s underperforming music store has announced they are closing their doors (and also taking down their DRM technology keys) stitched into your downloaded music.

This means the music you paid for will not play anymore.  If you purchased Yahoo music you are simply SOL. Actually Yahoo tells a better story:
After September 30, 2008, you will not be able to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or re-license these songs after changing operating systems. Please note that your purchased tracks will generally continue to play on your existing authorized computers unless there is a change to the computer’s operating system.

This should serve fair warning to all the music etailers to abandon DRM.  The customer is always right and today’s teenage market has a powerful voice and the tools (like Digg) to flex their collective financial muscles….so don’t piss them off.

Read more

May

15

FTC Update coming

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Google, Interactive, Internet2, Milwaukee, Network, OpenSource, Rich media, Technology, Web2.0, WiscNet | Leave a Comment

wiscnet logoAs WiscNet’s Future Technologies Conference wrapped up late yesterday followed by a staff outing in Madison. Will be posting a lot of content regarding our keynote speakers and Internet2 over the next couple of days and grabbing my flickr feed for FTC 2008.
Here is the link for FTC 2007.

May

9

Jumping into the cloud

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Google, Interactive, Internet2, Milwaukee, Network, OpenSource, Rich media, Streaming, Technology, Web2.0 | 1 Comment

internet cloudThe huge success of web apps have made me think about the continued use for Microsoft’s Office suite. Back in the day Office was the only game in town but today Google’s Apps lead the Web2.0 surge in online apps that provide great functionality and work group solutions for free. When Robert Scoble announced:

I’ve been watching my usage. In two months I’ve only used Outlook out of the entire Office Suite. Everything else? Moved onto online services.”
- 09:06 AM April 30, 2008 from web

Read more

Apr

21

SlideRocket Beta

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Google, HighRes, Interactive, Media Players, Network, OpenSource, Rich media, Technology, Web2.0 | Leave a Comment

I have been beta testing SlideRocket, a new online presentation tool. It has a very Keynote like approach to creating presentations, or should I say is also at the exact opposite end of the PowerPoint scale of slideware. Thanks be to God for Edward Tufte.

SlideRocket Beta

The beta period looks to be stable for the short term, but SlideRocket will give Google’s online slideware tool a bit of a hard look, but I just do not believe it will be enough to move the masses to SlideRocket.

SlideRocket is a Adobe AIR application supporting Flickr photos and the ability to directly import Google Spreadsheets. The beta tag sticks because I was not able to get accurate results on my Flickr search on three attempts. It also borrow’s from Adobe the deep grey design UI of the program. Read more

Feb

15

Milwaukee has Google street views!

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Interactive, Milwaukee, Network, Rich media, Streaming, Technology, Virtual Reality, Web2.0 | Leave a Comment

Milwaukee has just been added by Google to their cool interactive Street View component of Google Maps? What a cool technology for the city and organizations to exploit in Google’s popular mapping service.

milwaukee street view via google

So feel free to email anyone and send a link permitting visitors to interactively tour Milwaukee via Google’s panoramic street view component. No mention in local media (newspapers, TV or radio) about Milwaukee joining this cool web tool.

With linking and embedding supporting this will provide a great resource for Web2.0 tools as well….like building the interactive frame right into your blog:

View Larger Map

Milwaukee joins great cities including San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, Miami, New York City, Boston and Orlando with support for Google’s street view technology.

It may surprise some around town that many established cities (including Seattle) are not yet supporting street view.

Wish the resolution of their camera was better….but its a cool start.

Tags: Google Maps, street view, interactive, VR, panoramic photography,
Web2.0, cool, trends

Jan

20

My latest read - Everything is Miscellaneous

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Network, OpenSource, Reading, Rich media, Technology, Web2.0 | Leave a Comment

David Weinberger’s latest book Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder is really amazing. It follows on the footsteps of Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat and Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail.

This book presents an interesting look at the digital data we have access to via the internet and how the distribution of data will forever change business, education and society.

What is the biggest change outlined by David Weinberger? The world’s data will be tagged and freely shared, all on the internet. From the Dewey Decimal System to Flickr and everything in between … is now miscellaneous.

Tags: Everything Is Miscellaneous, Weinberger, Web2.0, globalization, sharing, reading, trends

Dec

12

NBC: Reconsider iTunes

Filed Under Education, Globalization, Interactive, Media Players, Network, Rich media, Smartphone, Streaming, Technology | Leave a Comment

NBC logoSo NBC has been forced to refund advertisers an average of $500,000 each due to low ratings. One hopes they will workout an agreement with iTunes to again sell their TV shows.  NPR news article here.
At some point someone at NBC Universal will realize all those millions of dollars really add up to something….What were they thinking?

Tags: NBC, iTunes, low ratings, trends

Dec

3

Why DRM is failing

Filed Under Audio, Education, Globalization, Media Players, Rich media, Smartphone, Streaming | Leave a Comment

walmart amazonDigital Rights Management or DRM, has been a controversial snippet of software embedded into music files for a long time. Regardless of how you feel about Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM wrapper or Apple’s FairPlay for iTunes it appears the coming death of DRM is from two powerhouses in online sales: Amazon and Wal-Mart.

Funny that Microsoft’s own DRM software will not run on their Zune product. Wal-Mart ditched DRM music in August and a month later Amazon’s site launched DRM free. With larger numbers of online shoppers, the control over digital rights now sit in the hands of the big resellers and not the music industry or even technology companies.

PS - The disappointment with Wal-Mart is their decision to NOT support Mac or Linux systems for downloading music.  Not a good sign for a lot of users.

Tags: Amazon, Walmart, music store, music download, Fairplay, PlaysForSure, The Long Tail, trends

Sep

20

NBC: slap yourself in the face

Filed Under Education, Globalization, Interactive, Media Players, Network, Rich media, Streaming, Technology, Web2.0 | 1 Comment

Well after three weeks of questions regarding where NBC would move its digital television programs after breaking ties with Apple’s iTunes. I blogged about their greed. Well NBC Universal “announced” many popular shows would be available for free download.

But hold on. They are pulling a fast one. In attempting to fight the TiVo generation (watch TV programs when, where and how you want) NBC has decided on the following conditions on their new NBC Direct program:

Shows available for one week only following broadcast.
Playback on computer only - no transfer to mobile devices.
Commercials included: viewers cannot skip through ads.
Shows will “degrade” — become unwatchable.
Windows only support - Mac and iPod support later in 2008

So you download The Office and have only seven days to watch it before it “implodes” rendering the video useless on your computer. This seems to imply re-downloading…but maybe NBC is taking the position you have just one week to watch the show or else.

Even industry analysts are calling it a stretch. A blunder is more accurate.

But this idea actually gets “better” for consumers. At some point in 2008 (if ever) NBC will sell you the same shows without commercials and allow them to be moved to mobile devices … yea it’s called iTunes. Who is running the store over there…Jack Donaghy???

Tags: NBC, iTunes, tv show, download

Sep

19

Google takes on PowerPoint

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Network, Rich media, Technology, Web2.0 | Leave a Comment

Google has now added to their on-line tools solution to include presentation software very similar to PowerPoint. This compliments their word processing and spreadsheet tools, virtually serving online version of Microsoft Office. And all you need is a Google account.

google prezo

Impressed that it supports PowerPoint (.ppt) file format. You can upload an existing presentation created in Microsoft PowerPoint program and share it with a few people (in a secure environment) or choose to share it with the world (via a url) or better yet simply upload your file to SlideShare a great free site where people are sharing presentations.

Read more

Sep

1

NBC: slap the iTunes hand that feeds you?

Filed Under Audio, Education, Globalization, Media Players, Rich media, Technology, Web2.0 | 1 Comment

nbcApple’s iTunes music store has been a benefit to NBC and other TV networks selling episodes and full seasons of their television programming worldwide. A number of NBC shows and special programming events have been online for $1.99/episode.

To prove money greed makes the world go round NBC has broken off relations with the iTunes music store over their demand to charge $5.00/episode … more than double the current episode download price point.

Shame on NBC for pulling such a greedy decision. Exactly who is going to provide that revenue (and successful download solution) tied to all those iPods?

Tags: NBC, iTunes, tv show, download

Aug

23

Our future … ready or not

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Interactive, Internet2, Rich media, Technology, Web2.0 | Leave a Comment

You may need to buckle up first if you have not read Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Although its never too late to change…it is however, way too late to ignore. Implications for business, education and society? You decide!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Thanks Matt for launching this!
Tags: Did You Know 2.0, globalization, India, China, The World is Flat, learning, trends

Aug

18

My latest read - The Tipping Point

Filed Under Education, Globalization, Interactive, Internet2, Milwaukee, Reading, Rich media, Technology, Virtual Reality, Web2.0 | 1 Comment

A long and exciting summer with Maxwell has taken me away from my daily reading. But I have just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and learned its just as great as reviews have suggested.

Chapter 3 (The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues and the Educational Virus) is a really great read and made a real impact in approaching a thread that is currently underway on Internet2’s Teaching and Learning listserv.

The discussion is about the impact of SecondLife in K12 education. There are real questions about the validity of SecondLife.

After the initial hype of SecondLife (for higher education) peaked, colleges now find themselves in the same rut about really embracing SecondLife when virtual visits never really materialized. A lost leader? Probably.

Many including Wired’s Chris Anderson are openly debating the ’stickiness’ of SecondLife. Does it provide solid learning outside the classroom or studio?

Read more

Jun

19

Designers: Core Animation

Filed Under Audio, Design, Education, Globalization, Interactive, Media Players, Network, RSS, Rich media, Smartphone, Technology, Web2.0 | 1 Comment

Lets face it: Today many graphic designers are programmers. They have been moving into the coding world for a number of years. Most cut their teeth on Web 1.0’s plain old HTML. With one foot in Flash’s ActionScript and JavaScript were clearly the sign to jump in with both feet. This acquired knowledge and new creative energies have paid off handsomely for many designers.

CSS was the next logical choice that continues today as designers create smarter webpages and blogs with strong visual impacts. Even WordPress‘ own website correctly states: Code is Poetry. These skills have proved to be required tools for today’s successful graphic designer.

falling pinsThe next step may well be Apple’s Core Animation. Look closely at the new iPhone commercials - you will notice a bit of Core Animation: Google push pins drop from the sky onto a map. Good bye static pins!

This small example should really open up the interactive space for designers. Core Animation clearly shows just the tip of the graphical/animation iceberg that will become more robust moving forward.

Designers will jump on this new technology and adapt the necessary code to implement designs on phone and webpages. Apple needs to empower more than their die-hard programmers. Give designers the right tool for the job and we will see amazing interactive graphic elements on the web and our iPhones.

Tags: Core Animation, graphic design, code, iPhone, information design, trends

Jan

19

Zune - RIP

Filed Under Education, Media Players, Milwaukee, Rich media, Technology | Leave a Comment

zune blockingToday Universal and Sony announced they are not permitting Microsoft’s Zune to share specific artist’s music across other Zunes.

This was really pushed as a product feature over the iPod. It really points to the failure of DRM…but since they pushed it - Microsoft will make this a very difficult issue to addess … minus all the money Bill has to offer.

So just what is the advantage of a Zune today? Not much….

Technorati Tags: , ,

 

Next Page →