Category Archives: Tech

On the iPhone as a platform

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A couple of thoughts on software expandability, vis a vis discussions about the iPhone. I agree that allowing third party developers to create applications for the iPhone would be fantastic. However, I think some of the criticisms leveled against the iPod as being a ‘closed platform’ are a bit unfounded.

Dave Winer says:

The iPod is a wonderful product, but damn it’s time we made one that could run our software, could run any software, so users have choice, and so you don’t have to buy new hardware to get software features, and so the market can grow at the rate of innovation, not at the whim of one marketer.

The iPod is a *music* platform, and in that case, it is completely open. Sure, buying songs from the iTunes Store includes proprietary DRM, but the iPod functions perfectly well with every popular music format you throw at it, sans DRM.

So for the thing the iPod was designed to do, it is an open platform. Look at the podcasting phenomenon. The iPod didn’t need to be an open software platform to enable that innovation.

I think (or hope) that when the iPhone is released, its perceived limitations as a software platform will likely reveal opportunities in the areas where it is open: music, video, internet and voice.

(these thoughts are my own and not my employer’s)

Video Comments, a WordPress Plugin

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Video Comments, a WordPress Plugin is now available. You’ll see it here on the site on the videos that I’ve been posting from vloggercon (i also updated the uncle leron movies as well). This allows you to leave time-coded comments on videos. Check it out, and if you do any kind of video (or even audio-only) blogging/podcasting, download the plugin and give it a try.

beyond broadcast session: iterative media

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notes from iterative media group2

Originally uploaded by schwa23.

I participated in a session called Iterative Media: treating your media as code. The gist was how can collaboraiton and constructive, group creation be applied to more traditional media output. Thanks to Josh Kinberg and Dee Harvey for taking awesome notes! Read on for the notes we took from the session.

Continue reading →

Beyond Broadcast

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So I’m heading to Boston tomorrow morning for the Beyond Broadcast conference. I’m excited because I’m presenting the project I’ve been working on as a student researcher at ITP this past semester — a socially networked MythTV remote. I’m looking forward to meeting Wendy Seltzer, who will be talking about MythTV, specifically as it relates to the Broadcast Flag, and other issues

I’ll be demoing the MythRemote on the PepperPad, as well as the newest prototype which I’ll be showing on my laptop. The gist of the project is a remote control for your PVR with networked video commenting and chatting that is time-coded and tied to a particular program. One possible application is the idea of collaborative annotations, creating a wikipedia style commentary for a particular show. Sort of like pop-up video created by and for the viewer…

Anyway, I’ll probably be posting some more here about panels & discussions that interest me from the conference…

Click.tv does video commenting…

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So a new startup called Click.tv is about to launch. And they’re working with the same basic ideas we’re working on for ITP Research: Video Comments and Re-imagining the Remote.

the main functionality will include: the ability for the creator and those who watch the video to add annotations anywhere in the stream, and others later to click on those annotations and jump right to that point in the video.

via TechCrunch

It’s cool to see some movement in this direction in the web 2.0 world. The click.tv people have addressed some of the issues we’ve discussed slightly differently. It seems there are ‘channels’ of comments which can be enabled or disabled. While this is interesting, it seems to be more appropriate for a moderated type environment (at least that’s what their demo shows). That said, they’ve addressed the situation with a nice clean UI and some interesting navigation elements.

Apple offers Dual Boot solution

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This really surprised me:

Apple® today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in “Leopard,” Apple’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August.

If there were ever a reason to switch, here it is…

Unmentioned iTunes 5 Features..

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Couple of new features I hadn’t noticed in today’s release of iTunes 5.

iTunes Song Info

Two options — “Skip when shuffling” and “Remember Playback Position” are new, I believe. The remmber playback position was something that was usually reserved for audiobooks, but then with the Podcast features of v4.9 itunes would do just that to .MP3 podcasts; now you can apply it to any track.

Also notice the Lyrics tab–that’s new isn’t it? I’ll have to pop open 4.9 to be sure…I wonder if they’re going to start including lyrics in purchases from the Music Store

Christian Lindholm moves to yahoo

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A very interesting bit of news here: [ChristianLindholm.com: I have seen my Future. It’s at Yahoo!](http://www.christianlindholm.com/christianlindholm/2005/09/i_have_seen_my_.html):
>I will join Yahoo! as VP of Global Mobile Product

For those of you who don’t know, Lindholm is a mobile user interface designer who worked at Nokia for the last decade. If you have a Nokia phone, he’s partly responsible for how it works.

I post about this because I think it’s a big deal for Yahoo, and further evidence that they “get it” regarding the mobile computing space.