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My iTV Prediction

By on February 10, 2012 in Apple, Hardware, iOS, Opinion with No Comments

I was asked recently about whether I think Apple will in fact release a TV.

Yes, I do.  That’s not really “news” though – just about every industry analyst thinks that Apple will release an actual HD TV.

But I’m going to go out on a limb here and prognosticate on a key feature of the device.  I’ve been thinking/saying this for several months now, but I’m going to put a stake in the ground here, for fun, to see if it holds up (or not) before I hear anyone else say what I’m about to say.  And by the way — I’m not claiming that nobody has said what I’m about to say, just that I have not heard it yet…

Ok, what is “it”?

I believe that Apple is going to release a consumer television, powered by Siri.

Steve Jobs made a statement that he felt that he found the missing piece that he needed to make a TV under the Apple brand.   It was a cryptic statement, and could mean many things.  Personally, I believe Siri is the missing piece.  In my opinion, the iPhone 4S was a proving ground for Siri. Notice that Siri is still referred to as a “beta.”  They’re working out the kinks.

Think about it:  Apple has all of the pieces.  They make flat screen displays.  They have iOS.  They have AppleTV working.  They have AirPlay and all the technology to make all of the devices in the house interoperable over WiFi.  They have iCloud and iTunes for content.

And now they have Siri.

I think Siri is the “missing link.”  And the magic!  I mean, they could have made a TV before.  They make flatscreens, and the AppleTV device has been out on the market for years. But it’s awkward and unwieldy to really control apps with the little TV remote.  When Netflix forgets my username and password, I cringe at having to hunt and peck it out again with the remote.  And besides, we have that now — Samsung and the other manufacturers already have apps integrated into their flat screen HD TVs.  A Samsung “Smart TV” is basically an HD TV with the equivalent of AppleTV (or Roku or whatnot) built-in.  That’s not revolutionary, it’s evolutionary.

Steve Jobs’ style was to transform industries, not just release yet another “me too” gadget.

And quite honestly, trying to control apps from a TV remote is a hassle and the average consumer does NOT want a keyboard to run their TV.  We’ve had that for years already, and they’re duds.

But imagine just TALKING to it!    “Turn to channel 10″ or “show CSI Miami”, and BAM!  It does it!

Now that is killer!

And, I think it’s going to be @?!*#$%! huge.

Not because I’m an “Apple fan boy.”  Because it just is.  Think about it.

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SOPA for Dummies

By on January 18, 2012 in News, Opinion with 1 Comment

There’s been a huge flood of news, articles, stories and posts on SOPA recently.  Many people are scratching their heads, wondering what this SOPA thing is all about.  So this is a quick primer on why I believe SOPA is bad.

As stated above, this is my opinion (that is, Eric Robichaud, CEO of 401 Consulting).  I’m neither a laywer nor a politician, so I invite you to view the actual, full text of the proposed bill here and judge for yourself.  That said, here is my overview / option on the matter.

The “Stop Online Piracy Act” bill, aka “SOPA”, is aimed at, well, stopping online piracy of copyrighted materials.  I certainly have my own opinions about copyright laws and approaches to this subject, but at no time am I debating the validity of protecting one’s copyrights.  This debate isn’t about whether or not to stop piracy online.  It’s about how to stop it.  And SOPA isn’t the way.

SOPA is far too broad-reaching, and far too vague in it’s language.  It overrules carefully crafted provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (aka “DMCA”), makes the wrong people liable for infringements, sets up website owners for massive lawsuits, and more.

For example, the DMCA has “safe harbor” provisions for web site operators and digital carriers. If I post an illegal video to Facebook, then Facebook is required to forcibly take it down if notified about it.  Stated another way, Facebook’s liability is merely to respond when notified.  They’re not liable for the original posting.  Under SOPA, Facebook itself is liable, and could be legally shut down, and sued!

The bill targets sites that are “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” That seems reasonable at first.  Except when you read how they define “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.”  They define such a site (and therefore subject it to being shut down) if it is “primarily designed for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables copyright violation.”

Read that closely.

The site does not have to be design for the purpose of copyright violation (such as “The Pirate Bay”).  No, it only has to be designed in such as way that it offers services that enable copyright violation!   So basically, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Dropbox, and nearly ANY site on the internet that allows anyone to upload content, would all suddenly become violators!

Facebook has no idea what it’s 800 million users are doing in real-time, at any given moment.  It’s impossible to police.  Facebook provides a communication and content-sharing platform.   But SOPA puts the onus squarely upon the website operator (eg. Facebook).

The DMCA already states that posting copyright materials is illegal, but doesn’t make the website liable (unless the website itself posted the content of course) — the website is required to remove offending material when alerted.  SOPA overrules all of that.

SOPA also grants the U.S. Attorney General the sole right to police foreign websites where it has no jurisdiction.  If it notices infringing materials on a foreign website, it can censor the site in the U.S. by requiring all internet ISPs, DNS providers, search engines, etc. to permanently block access to the site, making it invisible to U.S. citizens.  If it’s a foreign site that the U.S. government can’t take down, it can block it.

Personally, I try to not be a conspiracy theorist, but I see this as one of the primary motivations behind SOPA — to give the government the ability to censor websites it doesn’t like.  Is Wiki Leaks embarrassing?  No problem – gone in a heartbeat.  What are we now, China?

There’s a lot more to this bill too.  For instance, a copyright owner can now sue the offending website without any ceilings or limitations on damages, including attorneys fees, and will win if the website cannot prove that they’re not “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.”  And the way this is all worded (see above), it’s nearly impossible to prove that it isn’t!  This becomes a field day for attorneys, and an entrepreneurs worst nightmare.

SOPA tramples free speech.  SOPA makes the wrong people liable for copyright infringement.  And it will kill innovation — who wants to launch a new site that will just get you sued or worse?  We’ll never see the next Facebook, YouTube or Google.

I’m not here to debate the merits of Wiki Leaks or copyright law in general.  Just merely giving the high-level overview of why I’m against SOPA. It’s the legal equivalent of using a nuke to kill an ant.  So what if hundreds of square miles are a radioactive wasteland now, millions of people were killed, and billions in property destroyed — we got the ant!

There are proper and reasonable ways to do things.  This just isn’t it.

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[INFO GRAPHIC] Facebook Magic Numbers: Stats every marketer should know.

By on January 17, 2012 in Facebook, InfoGraphic, Marketing, Tutorials & Explanations with No Comments

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Adobe Ends VHS vs. Beta Debate

By on January 8, 2012 in News, Opinion, programming, Software, Web Development with No Comments

If you haven’t heard yet, Adobe officially announced the end of Flash for mobile devices.  In some quarters people immediately exclaimed “Steve Jobs was right!” Too bad he didn’t live to see it, after all those years of fighting Flash.   But regardless of the Steve Jobs angle, I think this announcement is a good thing for developers for several reasons.

First and foremost, it ends the old “VHS versus Beta” quandary once and for all.  Now instead of “wait and see,” or going down a path of obsolescence and continuing to invest in a dead-end technology, we all know into which basket to place our eggs.  This allows all developers to get off the fence and start focusing in the same direction — towards HTML5 and open standards.

Additionally, with all developers moving down the same path, all of those resources will accelerate progress towards HTML5 as opposed to when resources and attention were divided.  This will speed the adoption of newer technologies.

The announcement, in my opinion, is long overdue.  Flash was breakthrough technology at the time (harkening back to it’s Macromedia days), but it’s past its prime.  Flash is inherently un-indexable by the search engines, appearing as a big void in web pages.  I’m sure I don’t have to comment on the incredible importance of search engine optimization in this blog, and having big pieces of content disappear in the eyes of the search engines is just bad business.   And with mobile access accounting for a significant and increasing percentage of all web traffic, having a page load up sans-Flash elements on an iPad or other mobile device is just not acceptable.

Trust me, I know Flash’s value.  Flash was the cornerstone to a multi-million dollar annual business I once ran.  I “get” Flash.  But I must also admit that Adobe has done a terrible job with the technology from a technical standpoint.  Most end users see the “cool” results of Flash in action, but don’t realize what goes on under the hood (and thus never really understood Steve Jobs’ main issues with Flash).   Flash is notoriously buggy, and a huge resource hog.  When it crashes (as it constantly does) it looks like your browser crashed.  Or Windows / Mac OSX. etc.  The vast majority of the time when things run slow or crash entirely, end users blame the web site or the OS or the browser, never realizing that the *real* culprit is the Flash plugin!    And on mobile, it just drains batter and resources way too fast — it’s a massive resource hog.

Adobe has been sprinting towards producing next-generation HTML5 development tools, in essence obsoleting its own technology.   I do not begrudge Adobe the opportunity to make a buck.  Not at all.  I hope they make just as much money with their new HTML5 tools.  I merely applaud the move to make the money from new HTML5 tools versus from Flash tools. And, in the process, allowing the industry at large to all start pulling in the same direction and accelerating the speed of adoption of these new open standards.

It’s good for the industry at large and for end users, who will see better, faster and more responsive web apps on both smartphones and desktops.

 

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Best Video From Space Ever!

By on November 22, 2011 in Video, YouTube with No Comments

This posting basically has nothing to do with anything related to this blog, but is just a very cool little digression from day to day business in order to marvel at the wonder that is Earth.

If you pay attention and process quickly, you may notice the Great Lakes in the U.S., the Sinai Peninsula, Italy’s “boot” and more.  The flashes in the clouds are lightening, and the night scenes are amazing -- especially those showing the green magnetic “aurora” effects in the atmosphere!

Enjoy!

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