The Reboot

OK, I’m back.  What can I say?  Birds gotta swim, fish gotta fry, or something like that. I gotta blog.  It’s something that I do and I’ve missed it.

But the fact is I meant what I said when I left.  Still do. The world really does not need another critic or fanboi or whatever.   But the tech world is a place that I am in, so over the last few weeks, I have thought about how to take the world I am a part of and get it back together with something I enjoy doing without devoting so much time to the preparation in order to have a life. 

The answer was in my original tag line.  What I had set out to do before I got sidetracked into commenting about the business side of tech was to use my blog as a place to comment about tech in general: how it works in my life, what infuriates me about these little hunks of plastic and metal, how to use the technology available.  Life – with and without technology. A discussion on how to live in this electric world. Not everyone uses the same thing in the same way.  It’s like bowling.  The point is to get the ball down the lane and make as many pins fall down as you can. But not everyone throws the ball down the lane in the same manner. 

So, I’m back with a new mission.  Wish me luck.

Ciao, for now

A few years ago, I started this blog as a way to keep my writing skills sharp.  Over time it has grown and I have become a slightly better writer than I had been.  But, it has also taken over a lot of my time, while still remaining a frivolity in the land of tech blogs.  And time is something I really do not have much of at the moment.  So something has to give. 

So I have decided to give it a rest.  The world does not need another critic or fanboi or whatever.  There is too much shouting and too many breathless headlines.  And I am no longer enthusiastic about the next great hunk of metal and plastic to come down the pike.  At least not at the moment. 

It’s been fun.   Cue the Carol Burnett closing music.  Dim the lights.  Exit stage left. 

Beyond Milli Vanilli

Remember Rob and Fab?  Those two guys who lip-synched their way to a Grammy?  When it was found out they were faking the whole thing, their careers went downhill.  But that was then.  This is now.  And now is oh so different.

You see, since then we have seen actual pop stars lip synch live (I’m looking at you, Britney) and even a very good band fronted by cartoon figures (Gorillaz).  But let us look at the Japanese Girl band AKB 48.  The pop group has been around for a while and so when new member Aimi Eguchi joined up she created a buzz.  She was perfect. Maybe a little too perfect. And she was.

You see, Aimi Eguchi, it turns out, was a computer-generated composite of the real band members. Her pretty face was actually made up of the “best features” of six other members: her eyes, nose, mouth, hair/body, face outline and eyebrows were not flesh-and-blood, but cut-and-paste. 

However, not everyone was quick to notice.  Aimi had built up a huge fan base.  “The video shocked fans of Eguchi,” reports ChannelNews Asia, “who were convinced that her features were more the result of good genes than the skillful use of computer graphics.”  Below is the video that shows how they did it.

Of course the Japanese are far ahead of the US in creating synthetic characters.  Hatsune Miku is a 3-D rockstar with a huge following.  While the 3-D projection  technology is still working through the “Ghost Phase”, eventually, it will be such that you will not be able to tell the real from the unreal on stage.  With Aimi, CGI is taking the next step, and you know that Hollywood is taking notice.  What if you could create an actor that takes all the best parts of Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Chris Evans and can combine them together into an ultimate leading man?  Would the public buy it?  We are almost at that point.

As for me, I demand the Recording Academy give the Grammy back to Milli Vanilli.  They were not fakes – they were simply twenty years ahead of their time. 

ICANN haz .cheezburger?

At its meeting in Singapore, the Board of ICANN today gave final approval to the most dramatic change to the Internet in four decades — allowing the expansion of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs).  This decision will allow companies to go beyond the typical .com nomenclature to allow them to turn their own brands into Internet domain extensions.  So prepare to see .coke, .addidas, as well as .car and .bank.  Now this isn’t going to be cheap; word is to buy a .brand will cost around one hundred eight-five grand per brand name with five grand of that being an up front fee.  Oh yeah, that name will also cost twenty five grand a year to maintain.  What cord do I pull to have the safe fall on my head? 

Of course, not everyone will necessarily be granted a top level domain name. Who gets lucky depends on what ICANN decides. Smaller brands, which are brands nonetheless, obviously won’t be able to afford the names. Who gets to have hot generic names like .money or .tickets will be decided, to my understanding, solely by ICANN.  What happens when two companies with the same trademark both decide they want the same top level domain remains to be seen. Who gets to be .giants — the San Francisco Giants baseball team or the New York Giants football team?  I guess that might depend on who writes the biggest check to ICANN.

Because, let’s face it, this is nothing but a money grab for ICANN.  Neither you nor I can afford to play this game; we are talking about high rollers here.  The losers in this are the cybersquatters, those folks who have purchased every conceivable spelling of every combination of words out there and are holding them ransom.  ICANN states that this really revolutionizes the web, but they were saying the same thing when they rolled out .mobi, .info and .biz

And those have really worked out well, haven’t they?

After Hours Music Club – X

“See How We Are” is one of those songs by one of the greatest American bands you never heard of.  X hailed from Los Angeles, back at the height of the punk era.  Unlike many punk acts at the time, theirs was a mix of punk and rockabilly with ample amounts of Woodie Guthrie thrown in for good measure.  “See How We Are” was the last album before X broke up in 1987 and sums up everything about the band.  And it still says as much today as it did nearly 25 years ago.  Enjoy.

Airbus 2050–Wonder Woman’s Plane

Airbus has some future tech porn in the Guardian, showing us what flying in 2050 will be like. Yes, the picture on the right is one of those shots.  In a few words: glass membranes and virtual golf.  Yep, looking out a few years, that’s all they got. 

While I can look at the picture and parts of me oohs and ahs, the reality factor steps in.  You are flying east in the morning after a night of hard partying in Vegas.  Do you really want the sun in your eyes?  Night flying might be really cool, but remember, lights inside the cabin would reflect inside the cabin, causing any stargazing to be rendered practically useless.  

Major point – this is a view from First Class.  By 2050, those in coach will be strapped to boards, standing upright.  Of course, no glossy artwork of that.  Airbus may talk about a world where there are no classes, just zones of fun and vitamin enriched air, but airlines fly the planes. That is why the virtual golf thing, will never see the light of day.  Virtual golf takes up valuable real estate in a plane.  You know, space where a paying passenger would sit.  And while Airbus talks about

"The concept cabin is designed with that in mind, and shows that the journey can be as much a voyage of discovery as the destination."

the point is the only thing that people are going to discover is that they have overpaid for their four hour ride, because the person next to them used Priceline.  And there still will not be enough overhead bin space.  After all, you can’t see the sky in Wonder Woman’s plane if there’s a suitcase above your head. 

While all of this is nice and everything, I would take a flight with no crying babies, a passenger list of people who have flown more than once in the last twenty years, a hot TSA agent who actually means it when they feel me up and an occasional complimentary beer. 

I know.  That’s the stuff of science fiction. 

New Corporate Headquarters? Uh-Oh

From my experience there seems to be an unwritten rule that I have noticed when it comes to corporations. 

First comes the Growth phase.  You know you start off with a handful of employees in a relatively small space.  Cramped, sure but you know your going places.  You make do with what you have. 

Then comes the Getting There phase.  You move up and out.  First one building, then a bigger building, then a lease on a second, then one more across town.  You’re being noticed.  There’s a little swagger to the company step.

Then the Real Expansion phase.  Offices in other cities.  One in New York.  One in L.A.  Maybe even London or Tokyo.  You are in the know.  People come to you.  People write about you. 

Then comes the Curse.  Realizing that your home office is a real patchwork of offices throughout your home city, you decide to build a campus.  One. Big. Building.  Your Corporate mark.  The site that is on every cool commercial.  The place where everyone would kill to work.  So why is it a curse?

Because, from what I’ve seen when it comes to corporations, that is the moment just before the shark is jumped.  Sears – builds the largest tower in the world at the time; after that a long sad slide into being bought out by K-Mart.  Budget Rent a Car, a company that I am personally entwined with; moves out into a beautiful suburban building – crushed by the wheels of industry in under five years.  Bank of America – a sixty story gleaming corporate center tower in Charlotte, a few years later all hell breaks loose.

Now, it doesn’t happen to everyone.  Look at Microsoft.  The Redmond campus has been around for some time and well, …

OK, it doesn’t happen to everyone.  So of course, we should all just admire the architectural porn that Steve Jobs showed the Cupertino city council and know that it will never happen to Apple.  Just imagine – a self supporting building housing twelve thousand people.  A circular symphony of clean modern lines and glass. The capstone of Steve’s tenure at Apple.  A move that will show, without a doubt, that no one can fill the shoes of Steve Jobs.

No one.  And I mean that.  Sometimes, that in itself is a curse. 

Liberté, Egalité, Bureaucracy

French Bureaucracy.  Those words should strike fear into the hearts of everyone.  For a country whose motto translates into “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, the byzantine stretch of absurd regulations in France often makes one wonder if the ghost of Kafka is laughing or crying.  

So it really comes as no surprise to hear that the French government in its infinite wisdom recently decreed that hosts of television and radio programs must refrain from uttering the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” on the air. Imagine if that happened in the US.  CNN might as well shut down, as currently every third sentence is a request to “Join the conversation”.  Who knows, maybe they would have to go back to actually reporting the news rather than everyone’s reaction to it.  Hmmm… But I digress. 

What was surprising was the reaction to the decree in France, or should I say, the non-reaction.  Some newspapers published straightforward reports of the government action, some French bloggers questioned the decision, but overall the reaction was “meh” combined with the classic French shrug. 

Now there were reasons given, having to do with egalité.  The CSA (France’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, the equivalent to the FCC) maintained that any on-air mention of a program’s Facebook page or Twitter feed constitutes “clandestine advertising” for these social networks because they are commercial operations. In a word, French television and radio programs cannot be seen to be promoting Facebook and Twitter as commercial brands. There are outlets available other than Twitter and Facebook.  To allow the preference of the the two largest players in the room  would “be a distortion of competition”.  If the government allows Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it’s opening a Pandora’s Box — other social networks will complain saying, “why not us?”.

However, as pointed out by French blogger Benoit Raphael, Facebook and Twitter are now “public spaces” of communication with a global reach. And it is because of that reality TV and radio stations use the two extensively to connect to their audience.  Too bad, according to the bureaucrats.  No mention of Twitter or Facebook unless it is a direct story about the companies.

Of course, one may point out that la paperasserie is still motivated by an institutionalized hostility towards Anglo-Saxon domination, but that would be rude.

The Letter “W” And The Number 8

Microsoft unveiled their new operating system today, code named Windows 8 (Yeah I know, not much of a code name, but at least it isn’t named after food).  It is just as has been suspected; two kinds of applications for Windows 8, one that runs in a traditional desktop, and the other pseudo-mobile apps based on HTML5 and Javascript.  Both environments have been rebuilt to support touch, but keyboards and mice will still be accepted.  Multitasking is just a pull to the center of the screen, and there is a new version of Explorer, version 10.  Yes, there will be the ubiquitous app store.  Microsoft is being coy about when this will be released into the wild, given the walk back from Ballmer’s statements last week, but it looks like it could be a done deal and sooner than later. 

Of course, come the critics.  Basically it’s the same old song and dance: that Apple is Fred Astaire, while Windows is more like Kirstie Alley on “Dancing with the Stars”.  It can move, but do you want to be seen in public with it?  The criticisms boil down to this: Microsoft needs something bold and different.  Windows 8 looks to be a sad compromise of some sort. 

Still, this is a work in progress.  There are plenty of questions, but the point that everyone seems to forget is that there are plenty of businesses out there that are not and will never be ready to uproot everything they have and move to a brand new system.  That is the reality.  They didn’t do it for Vista and they won’t do it just because the fanbois out there are urging Microsoft to be more like Apple.  Windows 8 allows them to still have all that comfortably familiar legacy while introducing the next move.  It might work, it might not.  Only time will tell.

In Order to Have a Free Market, You Need to Have Choices

One of the great things about a “Free Market” is that if you don’t like the company you are getting services from, you can always go somewhere else. 

Well, except if you’re dealing with Internet Service Providers and live in North Carolina.  Then you’re pretty much screwed.  You see, Governor Bev Purdue says that she will neither sign nor veto H.129.  Now for those who do not know, H.129 is a bill that would put restrictions on cities that currently provide internet service to its citizens (Wilson, Salisbury, Morganton, Davidson, and Mooresville), and would significantly hinder any efforts by other cities to pursue their own municipal internet services. The obvious winners in this action are Time-Warner cable and AT&T, who have spent a lot of money improving their services, er, buying politicians, er, let’s just say, they’ve spent a lot of money over this. 

Some of the provisions in H.129 state that cities:

• Shall provide nondiscriminatory access to private communications service providers on a first-come, first-served basis to rights-of-way, poles, or conduits owned, leased, or operated by the city unless the facilities have insufficient capacity for the access and additional capacity cannot reasonably be added to the facilities.
• Shall not use city resources that are not allocated for cost accounting purposes to the city-owned communications service  to promote city-owned communications service in comparison to private services or, directly or indirectly, require city employees, officers, or contractors to purchase city services
• Shall not subsidize the provision of communications service with funds from any other noncommunications service, operation, or other revenue source, including any funds or revenue generated from electric, gas, water, sewer, or garbage services.
• Shall not price any communications service below the cost of providing the service, including any direct or indirect subsidies received by the city-owned communications service provider and allocation of costs associated with any shared use of buildings, equipment, vehicles, and personnel with other city departments.

The bill ensures that companies like Time Warner Cable and AT&T will continue to be the dominant players in most North Carolina markets, even with higher pricing and speeds that often lag far behind what cities themselves can provide for its residents.

Never mind the fact that these municipalities decided to vote to band together and provide its own municipal services.  And why did they do that?  Because the Internet service providers were dragging their feet and underserving the market.  The community did not have a choice that was fast and inexpensive, so they created one.  And because they are offering their community an alternative that is better, the telecoms run and pay off politicians to curtail it. Because as we all know, municipalities should not have an “unfair advantage” over the private sector.  In this case the unfair advantage is a service that is better, faster and cheaper.  You know, those same arguments that are used when a government decides to outsource a municipal service to a private company. 

Funny how that works.