Category: Technology

Categories
SVG

SVG Curriculum

I’m doing a curriculum outline for a suggested SVG class for the WaSP Education Task Force.

If you were looking for a class on SVG, what would you like it to include? What would you hope to be able to do with SVG, once you came away from the class? Would you be more interested in working with end-user tools that generate SVG, like Inkscape? Or with tools that generate SVG programmatically, such as a PHP library that can create SVG elements given a set of data?

Speaking of learning SVG, I wanted to point you to David Dailey’s book on SVG, State of the Art: An SVG Primer, hosted by the W3C. David’s included some nice, easy to follow examples, with associated graphics.

This book draft is an excellent resource for learning more about SVG. Interesting, but the TOC links don’t seem to be working with the current Firefox 3.1 beta release I’m using. They do with other browsers.

Categories
SVG

And now the SVG version

I borrowed Jeff Schiller’s SVG election map, and added the appropriate “rep” class to Montana, and “dem” class to North Carolina, to preserve Missouri’s pristine undecided-to-the end status. Sure is simple to modify an SVG map.

Stuart Langridge’s purple map using the same basic map from Wikipedia, but shading the states based on the closeness of the vote. He also provides access to his Python script to generate the map.

Categories
Internet Media

A new nail in the video over internet coffin

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Two stories of interest this week.

The first story is about the FCC’s decision to open the so called “white space” spectrum, to allow for new wireless services. This is good news for those hoping for more competition in the broadband market, and has been long anticipated by companies such as Google, Dell, and other companies. The decision wasn’t without caveats. For instance, since wireless mics use the same spectrum, in larger cities, white space broadcast services cannot be located near stadiums or theaters.

This is about the only positive glimmer of news to those of us who also heard this week that AT&T is now testing broadband caps in the Reno, Nevada market. Broadband caps which will, most likely, be rolled out to the rest of the country early next year.

The caps are aggressive, too. For instance, Comcast set its cap at 250GB, but AT&T is looking at only 20GB for its lowest subscriber plan, and 80GB for its highest vanilla DSL account. You only get the 150GB cap the company mentions most frequently in the press releases, bundled in with the company’s Uverse services.

How will this impact on services such as Netflix’s WatchNow, which has also been so much in the news, recently? Especially with the new Netflix WatchNow HD offerings on XBox 360 and Tivo?

Netflix has stated that the broadband requirement for HD when using XBox is high—too high with these caps. Roku earlier stated that it wasn’t worried about caps but that was back when we were discussing Comcast’s 250GB limit, not the much smaller AT&T limits. Even with Roku’s efficient techniques, we’re looking at 1GB per hour for standard definition, probably 2-3GB for HD. This works out to about 1-2 hours of programming a night before hitting the broadband cap with AT&T, and that’s not including other internet usage.

The caps AT&T are setting are so aggressive, that the lower end accounts will have to be wary of even accessing sites that automatically run a lot of video. They’ll certainly want to pause before uploading a lot of photos, because uploads also figure into the broadband cap.

AT&T’s move is the first on the part of a DSL provider, but probably won’t be the last. It is a move that now ensures that entire markets have little or no choice when it comes to capped broadband access. Most people using AT&T are probably now wishing they lived in a Comcast region, because Comcast’s caps at least give one a fighting chance at video over the internet.

A few major players haven’t put caps on yet, including Verizon. However, it is only a matter of time before it, too, begins to cap. All of the major broadband providers provide entertainment services that directly compete with video over the internet—they’re not going to allow this competition to occur without fighting it tooth, nail, and byte.

The news of AT&T’s new caps is highly suspicious, coming on the tail of many new announcements about Hulu, Joost, and especially Netflix’s WatchNow. AT&T’s move can only be seen as saber rattling, in an attempt to foster uncertainty about broadband availability before the Christmas rush to buy Roku devices, or that new XBox 360. I don’t know why AT&T doesn’t just come out and say, don’t waste your time on these boxes—the only option you have is UVerse. Why not give into the force?

About the only thing that can save video over the internet now, is if the companies who are dependent on the concept fight back at the broadband suppliers, or if new broadband options open up in the white space spectrum. Even then, I’m not sure that the newer players to the broadband market wouldn’t begin already capped.

What do I plan on doing when I get hit with broadband caps? I plan on reading more. Access to books is the one thing the telecoms and entertainment companies can’t restrict.

More:

Categories
People Technology

Perception

Since I was fulfilling one duty today I thought I would also fulfill another and renew my driver’s license. To renew a license here in Missouri you have to show all sorts of proof of residency, identity, and nationality. You also have to take an eye exam, and a traffic sign recognition test.

The traffic sign exam is more or less a joke, but the eye exam was a little different. When you look through the eye piece, you see rows of letters, white on black, separated by a dotted line down the middle. When you get the test, the person administering it will tell you to read the letters in one of the rows, then ask if you see a blinking light, and if so, on which side. There also seemed to be a stereoscopic aspect to the test, as the letters on one side of the dotted line seemed a little more blurry then those on the other.

There’s no graduated height eye test—either your vision, corrected or otherwise, is good enough, or it isn’t, in which case, go away, get better glasses and come back.

When I got to the license place, I grabbed a number and sat down to wait. Ahead of me, a middle aged Asian guy with his daughter was renewing his license, and having some problems communicating with the person administering the eye test.

He did know some English, and could read the letters. But when she had him look into the eyepiece and read the sixth row, whatever he read didn’t match what she expected, and she kept repeating to him to read the “sixth row”. “Read the sixth row”. He conferred with his daughter in his native language, and would try again, frustrated because he was doing what examiner asked. She also was getting irritated, because there several people waiting, and he couldn’t get the test.

All of a sudden, after another frustrated exchange, he got really excited, said something to his daughter, and then looked back into the eyepiece. He rattled off a bunch of letters, and evidently, got them all right because they went on to the traffic sign test. Again, he had problems, but the DMV person was out of patience, gave him a page with traffic signs and suggested he go to the back of the room, look over the paper, and then he could come back and take the test.

When I got to her desk, I was a little apprehensive about the test, wondering what the heck I was going to find. She asked me to read the first row, and I had no problems. She then asked me to read the signs and tell me what each one was. Again, I had no problem, and was out of the licensing place quickly.

It was only later that that an idea came to me that possibly explained the problems the Asian guy was having. This is only a guess, but I think when she told him to read the sixth row, he actually read the sixth column. In other words, he read top to bottom, rather than left to right. When she kept repeating sixth row, he’d re-read the same column. It was only after a few tries that he caught on to what she was asking, and then read the sixth row, sixth from top of chart, reading left to right.

I think the same thing happened with the road signs: he was reading top to bottom, and she was expecting left to right. Just goes to show that technology is only as good as the shared culture allows it to be.

Categories
Internet

Roku users: second class citizens

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

update

Roku has come out with a note on the Roku user forum about Netflix and HD quality:

  • Roku will be delivering Netflix in HD by the end of the year
  • Roku will be using Advanced Profile encodes which will deliver HD at substantially lower bit-rates than what Xbox is offering
  • The number of titles is up to Netflix but the library will be the same as or larger than the Xbox library
  • The UI will be updated to run in 720p and more covers will be visible on the screen at a time
  • And the release will include another major new feature that you’ll have to wait a bit longer to learn about

Though I was happy to hear that Netflix is finally rolling out HD content, I was astonished to read Netflix’s decision to roll it out for the brand new XBox, rather than the existing Roku users. Evidently, Netflix considers the early Netflix box users to be second class citizens, and would rather put its focus on the newer, shinier customer—the XBox user.

I had been recommending Roku boxes as a Christmas gift idea, but I can’t recommend the box any longer. Roku promised extra content, outside of Netflix, earlier thia summer, and has not delivered, yet. Roku also promised an SDK earlier this summer, and has not delivered it yet, either. Lastly, the company had promised that as soon as Netflix started streaming HD content, Roku would stream the HD content. As we can see, another promise undelivered, though this one does not seem to be Roku’s fault.

Considering that Netflix is an investor in Roku, one has to wonder what the heck is going on between these companies. In the meantime, promises are going undelivered. Until we’re given assurances that all of the earlier promises will be met, and that Netflix is still as committed to Roku users, as it is to every other box user, I can’t recommend the Roku.

Now, CNET is saying that everyone will get HD quality, but that the requirements are 8-10GB download speeds! (I’m assuming the author meant 8-10Mbps, not GB, but who knows…)

Netflix is calling this a “soft launch” since it is only rolling out such a small number of videos for HD streaming. The move mostly serves to stake a claim in the HD streaming market as opposed to being a full offering. Contrary to what others are reporting, HD streaming will be available on all streaming devices when it premieres with the New Xbox Experience. That means that the Roku, LG, and Samsung boxes will all be able to stream these HD movies, in addition to the Xbox 360. The PC and Mac based versions of Netflix, will not, however, be able to stream HD immediately. In addition, streaming in HD will require a large amount of bandwidth. Netflix estimates the requirement being in the 8-10 Gbps range.

Considering that 8-10Mbps exceeds the download speeds for a majority of broadband users, in addition to exceeding requirements for every other HD streaming server online, I have to wonder if this isn’t an error.

This whole thing has been badly managed. Press release by rumor rarely works well.