Aug

17

On my reading list

Filed Under Audio, Design, Education, Globalization, Media Players, Network, OpenSource, Reading, Streaming, TED, Technology, Web2.0 | Leave a Comment

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Looking forward to Larry Lessig’s new bookRemix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. Larry has documented how the music and movie industries are turning students into criminals because they use cheap software, the internet and their creativity.  His presentation at TED hilights the core principals of his upcoming book.

The power and impact of the digital economy has placed copyright and the old guard clearly on the defensive.  Those aging companies still want the market to be “published” (in analog format) are unwilling to change to the new information economy.
–Well okay what I’m really trying to say is they don’t want to give up their revenue streams.

Okay maybe they do understand how the game has changed, yet I’m not sure the impact of how young people are wired has fundamentally changed their business model.

Actually I’m hoping Remix may also hilight how the RIAA should be chasing down the millions of pirates in China rather than students in America.  Larry is proving what everyone under 30 already has accepted as a fact of life…They have never been forced to purchase a majority of their entertainment in analog format.  Should be a great read!

Aug

6

Yahoo Music closing

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

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.

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Jun

26

50 million viewers cannot be wrong

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Network, Streaming, TED, Technology | Leave a Comment

ted 50 million
TED is amazing don’t you think?

Jun

18

Astronomy without borders

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, HighRes, Interactive, Internet2, Network, Streaming, Technology | Leave a Comment

Internet2 has partnered to transfer real time data between China and New South Wales.  Crossing the globe merging multiple countries and processing huge amounts of data.  Very cool to see advanced research and education networks grabbing 512 megs per second (per telescope — seven total) and streaming it live to Shanghai.  More info here and here

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, astronomy, China, trends

Jun

7

Sugar Labs is cool

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Interactive, Media Players, Network, OLPC, OpenSource, Streaming, TED, Technology | Leave a Comment

sugar labs logoThe OLPC program is moving through a rough time right now with the announced departures of initial key members and the new Microsoft announcement to bring XP onto the XO Laptops.

Walter Bender, former President of OLPC has launched Sugar Labs to promote the use of Sugar on more devices. Sugar is open source and I’m running it on my Powerbook via VMware’s Fusion. Sugar Lab’s approach: children should not be forced to learning a legacy operating system designed for adult computer programmers.

Lets face facts. XP is not designed for the world’s children living in poverty. The design is simple and perfect for children:

Sugar on OS X

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May

15

Bandwidth for Schools

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, HighRes, Interactive, Internet2, Media Players, Milwaukee, Network, OLPC, OpenSource, Smartphone, Streaming, TED, Technology, Web2.0, WiscNet | Leave a Comment

A National Broadband Policy needs to be more than just a talking point. Schools in our country need to upgrade their internet bandwidth to 25 Megabytes per second. This is for every school — not just the K12 district who slices up the bandwidth based upon the total number of school buildings in the district. The technology and educational impact upon our schools: leaving them behind just when students from around the world are joining and benefiting from the broadband educational internet.

Playing catch-up
Today we find a majority of schools around the country in the educational slow lane. For some reason it does not matter if the school is remote or urban, many are connecting at just 5 Megabits/second. Its like teaching history with books that still recognize Russia as the old Soviet Union….oh how I miss Gorgachev.
Any college connecting at less than 10MB — shows a lack of understanding and vision for their students who enter higher education seeking not just a degree but an advantage to enter the global marketplace.

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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

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May

4

Laptop orchestra to Beijing via Internet2

Filed Under Audio, Education, Globalization, Interactive, Internet2, Media Players, Network, Streaming, Technology | Leave a Comment


Stanford’s Laptop Orchestra will perform via Internet2 to Beijing, over 6,000 miles away via HD video and audio in a performance marking the annual Pan-Asian Music Festival in Palo Alto on Tuesday May 5th.

Tags: Internet2, laptop, orchestra, community, globalization, trends

Feb

25

Philadelphia Orchestra: Live via Internet2

Filed Under Audio, Design, Education, Globalization, HighRes, Interactive, Internet2, Milwaukee, Network, Streaming, Technology, WiscNet | Leave a Comment

Global concert seriesFriday afternoon Milwaukee’s Discover World hosted a live performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra via Internet2. The Philadelphia Orchestra Association is a member of Internet2.

The HD video concert was projected in Discovery World’s Digital Theater which provides viewers with a spectacular 27foot wide high definition image with a 2048×1920 resolution picture.

discoverworld
Early arrival at Discovery World

The Philadelphia Orchestra is the first major orchestra to transmit live concerts to multiple large screen venues such as Discovery World. The live broadcast uses an MPEG 2 compressed stream running at bandwidths exceeding 50 times that of conventional internet video streams. For this concert performance only 20 venues around the world participated.

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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

Feb

15

Internet2 - Leading the way

Filed Under Design, Education, Globalization, Internet2, Network, Streaming, Technology | Leave a Comment

MIT’s Technology Review has published a new article reviewing a new dynamic circuit test network to test how advanced networks, primarily located in academia can be moved to the commercial internet.

The dynamic circuit network provides a temporary connection to another location … like making a phone call: the user’s data would be carried directly to that other location, uninterrupted by the traffic of others sharing the network.

Eventually the technology advances from this test network could provide a solution to sending HD video over the regular internet.

Tags: Internet2, dynamic circuit network, HD video, globalization, network, trends

Jan

18

Philadelphia Orchestra + Internet2

Filed Under Audio, Design, Education, Globalization, HighRes, Internet2, Network, Streaming, Technology | Leave a Comment

Internet2 is quickly becoming the performance stage for music. Philadelphia’s orchestra was stuck with declining audiences for its main subscription series and a downturn in ticket revenue. Pretty typical of many of today’s performing arts that must compete with consumers who have many more choices.

Their solution? Plan future performances over Internet2. The orchestra’s performance hall has installed HD video cameras and now the groundwork for performances sent in HD to Asia and Europe are underway.  This is similar to the plan by Internet2 member New World Symphony in Miami.

As they say, time to face the music. Jump on-board … or get run over. Your choice.

Tags: Internet2, Philadelphia, orchestra, globalization, network, 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

12

Open Yale

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

Have you ever wanted to take a class on Modern Poetry taught by a distinguished scholar?

Yale University has joined MIT and select institutions of higher learning by placing academic courses online, inviting anyone around the globe (this means you) to participate. Today seven courses are available with additional courses on the way.

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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

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