5 Tech Stories Worth Reading

Netflix Headed For A Brick Wall?
It was bound to happen, subscriber backlash over pricing, and recent news that major content providers are cutting ties with Netflix. Read more of the story here: http://thom.ws/mUNE5C

Is Steve Balmer Actually Surprised At The Crappy Windows Phone 7 Sales?
Steve, you have to actually build a brand, a community, and a solid app store before you can start to capture market share. Oh, and if you have to battle the retail sales folks for pushing people away from your product, you will have an even harder time selling your product. You have some serious holes in your plan. Read more here: http://thom.ws/qgZ7yI

MOG Launches Free Version Of Music Service
MOG announced today that they are offering an ad-supported free version of their music service. The interesting thing here is they are trying to gamify the service, giving users free music,  based on the amount of sharing, playlist creation, and the number of referrals to the service. This could be interesting. According to their press release "Tastemakers and influencers can easily get a lifetime of free on-demand music." Read more here: http://thom.ws/o4P0CC

Chegg Buys Zinch In A Move Towards A Social Education Platform
You may not have heard of either of these companies, but they are leaders in their own industries. Chegg is an online book rental service for college students, and Zinch is an online service that connects high school students with college recruiters. On the surface, this is an odd acquisition, but more and more companies are buying complimentary services and products to increase their over all sales. Read more here: http://thom.ws/nvLUNG

Samsung Wants To Own Your First, Second, And Third Screen
Samsung is making a push to build technology that directly competes with Apple and it's AirPlay technology. The company has had some success in the past, but this push could be fueled by the back and forth patent infringement claims made by both Apple and Samsung. Read more here: http://thom.ws/qZK9T4

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5 Tech Stories Worth Reading

1. Hauppauge Digital Broadway Box Streams Live TV To Your Mobile Devices
Hauppauge have this week launched their new Digital Broadway Box which has been designed to provide an easy way to watch live TV on your mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets whilst on your home network or while travelling. All you need is access to a Wifi connection.

2. Yahoo Is About To Spin Off A Billion Dollar Business
Yahoo is going to spin off its Hadoop unit this week, a Giga Om report says.

Hadoop is an open source software framework pioneered by Yahoo that's useful to handle tons of data in the cloud, which is exactly the type of thing that is really hot these days. We wrote previously about Yahoo's impending Hadoop spinoff; it's a potential billion-dollar business that's not in Yahoo's core, and so would be best spun off with Yahoo retaining a stake.

3. How NextDrop Is Using Cell Phones, Crowdsourcing To Get Water To The Thirsty
In cities where the water coming from pipes is anything but reliable, a new service alerts people so they don't have to sit at home all day waiting for the tap to turn on.

4. All-You-Can-Watch MoviePass Brings Netflix Model to Theaters
MoviePass, a new $50-per-month service for film fans, will let subscribers watch unlimited movies in theaters using their smartphones as tickets.

Using an HTML5 application (native smartphone apps coming soon), MoviePass will let users search for a film, find a local show time, check in to the theater and go straight to the ticket-taker.

5. Top 10 Reasons Geeks Should Love the Tour de France This Saturday, the 98th edition of the Tour de France starts in Province of Liège, kicking off three weeks of bicycle racing. Twenty-one teams of nine riders each will have to endure 3,400 kilometers of racing and 23 mountain passes to reach the finish line on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It’s an event full of incredible human achievement and endurance. But it’s also full of geeky goodness. I decided to update my article from 2009 encouraging you to enjoy the race.

BONUS

6. Apple “steps up its game”, new iOS 5 firmware to block downgrades
Apple has started to introduce new security checks in its new iOS 5 software that could possibly restrict owners of an iPhone, iPad or iPod from downgrading the firmware on their devices, the iPhone Dev-Team has revealed.

7. Companies Are Erecting In-House Social Networks
What would Facebook look like without photos of drunken nights out and tales of misbehaving cats? It might look a lot like the internal social network at the offices of Nikon Instruments.

8. Take that Netflix, HBO Go app sees big growth 
If you don't believe cord cutting exists and that there isn't any competition between Netflix and cable programmers, then you needn't read on. If on the other hand, you at least see the potential for Netflix to some day snatch customers away from the cable guys, then take note: this weekend HBO expects to see the 3 millionth download of the HBO Go app, which debuted on May 2, a company spokesman told CNET. There are 28 million HBO subscribers in the United States so the 3 million downloads would indicate that roughly 10 percent of the company's audience has tried out the app.

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Cutting Out The Bloat Of Cable

I've been forced by circumstance to evaluate my usage of, and payment for, Cable/Satellite TV. What follows is an overview of my attempt to find free or low cost alternatives to the bloated cost of Cable/Satellite.

The first thing I wanted to do was evaluate how much TV we actually watched. Most of our live viewing happened in the morning, catching up on local news. Almost everything else was watched from the DVR (digital video recorder). My biggest hurdle was finding a way to watch free local TV.

Finding the local channels turned out to be easier than I originally thought. I had been so programmed to watch TV via Cable/Stallite, I completely forgot TV is broadcast through the air. I spent days trying to figure out how to get to streaming news from local channels. TO no avail (which is a fail in my view, TV stations need to get their content on line or stream it live).

Thanks to Noah Sparks, who reminded me you can get HD channels over the air, with an antenna. I made my way to the local tech store, got an antenna, hooked it up, and voila, free local channels, so now we can get the news when we want it.

The next difficult hurdle was figuring out how to watch shows that I couldn't record to a DVR. There are several open source and commercial products that let you record TV and store it on a local hard drive, but I would have to invest in more hardware, and setup is time consuming. I wanted something easy. Several services came to mind, Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon Video on Demand, and Apple TV.

Netflix

Netflix is a no brainer. The setup was easy (built in to my Blu-ray player), and gives me the ability to stream movies and TV shows, or order a DVD. My only wish for Netflix was they make current seasons available the next day. But I can live without that for now.

The other big draw to Netflix for me is the absence of ads. I'm paying for the individual content, I don't want to see ads. Ever.

Web Shows

Next I went through our current DVR to see what was being recorded, and then tried to find the corresponding show on the channels web site. Typically these sites make shows available soon after they have aired live. In most cases I was able to find the show, both current episodes, and past episodes. All include advertising, before during and after. But for free, can't complain.

Hulu+

This is a complete failure. Not only does Hulu+ charge a monthly fee, they also run ads during a show. Seriously? They also struggled to deliver streaming content without buffering. I watched shows from several services all on the same night, and Hulu+ was the only one that had to buffer. In fact, it took me nearly 1 hour to watch the last 15 minutes of a show because of buffering every 30 seconds. I just wasn't impressed, but was glad I had a 7 day trial.

Apple TV

The last piece of the puzzle for me is Apple TV. Using this device gives me the ability to rent movies and TV shows, for a reasonable price, on demand. I can also connect my own content to one my Mac's, and stream content through the TV. Big win in my mind. This product will only get better, including giving me the ability to stream content to my iPad or iPhone. Very cool.

One service I tried was Amazon Video on Demand, but the cost was too high, and I didn't want to buy content, just rent it. Average price for an HD show as $3 or more. I think between Netflix, the Web, over the air Digital TV, and Apple TV, I should just about be able to cut the bloat of Cable/Satellite, and put my money into content I want to watch instead of paying for content I will never watch.

One final thought, and that is sports. I'm not a huge sports fan, except for NASCAR and College football. I can watch most of the college sports on local channels, and possibly ESPN3 (which I'll write about later as I take time to explore it more). NASCAR doesn't have a streaming system, yet. I really want them too get on board with that. I need to check and see what is available for mobile consumption, but I'm looking for whats on TV.

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Library Systems Need To Adopt The Netflix Model

Last week I read an article from a Twitter link (thanks Zach), about Libraries being a waste. I've been thinking about that statement for a few days now, and I must admit I agree. Most library systems are antiquated and cost more to run than they are worth. It's time for an overhaul.

I've been a library user all my life. There are incredible resources available, but the simple fact is most people have no idea what's there. Libraries aren't just books anymore. You can find everything from Music CD's to your local newspapers. More and more libraries are offering digital content, consumable on devices like the iPod or MP3 player. Libraries also offer access to large research databases, this was a surprise to me, and I've used this service on many occasions.

But let's get down to the reality of how most people are using the library these days. Internet access and free video rental (an un-scientific observation). I visited three facilities this week, and at each one, there were more people using the computers, with it's free Internet access, than were looking for books. I casually walked around glancing at what people were doing, and most were using Facebook, or email, or doing some sort of Internet search.

The next largest congregation of people were in movie and music sections. And as sad as it was to see, very few people were looking at books, except in the books on tape/cd. Here is what I think Cities and Counties should do with their libraries.

Go 100% Digital or Deliver
Almost every book that is published also has a digital counterpart. Libraries could save enormous amounts of money by investing in digital assets rather than paper books. Have you looked at some of the technology books on the shelves lately? I've seen books that help someone use Windows ME. What the? While literary books are timeless, the shelves are filled with many books that become irrelevant in a short amount of time. But the libraries insist on leaving them to take up space. Wasted space.

Another benefit to digital is no replacement costs. If a CD/DVD is broken, you have to buy another copy. If a book is torn, or lost, again, you have to buy another copy. Don't get me started on VHS movies in libraries. Who has a VHS machine? The cost of buying and replacing VHS movies is another cost libraries can do without.

If a library really wants to provide physical books, ones you can't get a digital version for, I say offer to ship the book to a patron. They could even charge a fee for shipping the book, or turn one of the now vacant libraries into a distribution hub, or a drop/off pickup point. Force everyone to check out books through the Internet, solving the problem of spending money to be an Internet Cafe, and a stale book shelf.

Partner With Content Service Providers
Rather than keep old VHS or even old DVD's around, partner with a Netflix type of service to offer disk checkout. The cost can't be much more than paying for hundreds of copies of the same movie. Plus you get the added benefit of the partner managing the distribution. Win! Now patrons can check out Blu-ray disks, and I'm not sure if libraries are even offering Blu-ray movies at the moment. Again, a sign that libraries are falling behind in providing relevant and timely content to the people who pay to keep it running.

As a tax payer, in my City anyway, I think libraries are a wast of money. I would rather check stuff out online, get digital versions, or have something shipped to me rather than spend time running around the library building. Managing workers at the library is another discussion, but I see a lot of librarians, is that the technical term still, sitting behind a counter, usually on the Internet, and waiting for someone to walk up and ask for help. How about being proactive? OK, my intent isn't to harass the library staff, but their salaries are part of the overall cost of running a library.

Take a page from the Amazon and Netflix book. Streamline the process of delivering content and medium to your patrons.

Photo courtesy of boltron

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