Category: Technology

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.

Categories
Technology

Forecast: Cloudy

From the lack of interest I’m seeing in my feed list, I would have to assume I’m not the only one less than enthused about Microsoft’s Azure. About the only person I know who has perked up and displayed real interest is Nicholas Carr, and some of his interest is most likely because he wrote a book on cloud computing.

That Azure is a competitive strike at Amazon is a given. What’s missing in Ozzie’s statement, though, is the fact that Amazon originally rolled out it’s cloud computing services as a way of maximizing under-utilized server farms during the company’s quiet times. I don’t know if this has changed, and Amazon is now farming clouds deliberately, but I hope not—the original idea was quite sound.

I am not surprised that Ray Ozzie would urge Microsoft into the clouds considering his background, first with Lotus, and then with Groove. Groove, especially, was cloud-based. Probably one of the more sophisticated cloud-based applications at the turn of the century.

But as far as I know, Groove never did catch on in any big way. I imagine when Ozzie was hired at Microsoft and Groove folded into the Microsoft family, the expertise this acquisition brought into the company played a big part in the implementation of Azure, but it still doesn’t compensate for the fact that Groove never caught on. Not in corporate America, which is Microsoft’s bread and butter.

Amazon can probably make do providing data storage and services for the startups, which seems to be its primary customer. I can’t see Microsoft doing the same, not the least of which, startup and Microsoft are not words that necessarily go together well. Microsoft has always been a corporate company, pricing its products accordingly, and in doing so, giving both Apple and Open Source room to breathe and expand. Apple sold to the artists and mavericks. (Can I use maverick still, or has that term been trademarked by the Republican Party?) Open source managed to capture all the folks who fell in-between, though when Apple released Mac OS X, there was some platform straddling.

Seriously, I have to ask: can you imagine Citigroup or Bank of America farming any of its applications out to the Azure platform? How about Chrysler, or Blue Cross? Oh, there might be some IT in these big companies that will want to experiment around, but I’ve not met a big company yet that didn’t want to control every last aspect of its data. Several industry types can’t do something like cloud computing for most of their data—they would be prohibited by laws built to safeguard private information.

So, Azure isn’t a move to entice the corporates to the cloud (can’t be, really can’t be). It’s seemingly a move to entice the smaller guy, something that Microsoft has not shown itself to be particularly adept at. For one thing, the Visual Studio 2008 application that developers can use to build to Azure is pricey. Microsoft still hasn’t learned that rule number one is you don’t charge the developers money to access the development tools, if you want the developers to drive business to your platform.

Oh sure, Microsoft puts out a baby version of its different developer applications, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts, the baby version won’t interface with Azure. And SOAP? Seriously, who does SOAP anymore? I thought the whole SOAP/REST thing was decided, a long time ago. We are talking 2009, not 1999.

I must admit to being a skeptic of all the recent cloud fooflah, not the least of which we’ve all seen what happens when a cloud server like Amazon has problems, resulting in several different startups being without service for several hours. I can respect that cloud computing allows startups to get a leg up, but I have to wonder: is that enough for a long-term sustainable business? Is there really enough business for another player in the game?

Once I made the decision to quit writing for a living (there was a living involved?) and return to consulting and development, I looked around at all of the existing technologies and asked myself what I should spend time on, in order to sharpen my development skills. Perhaps I’m a relic of times past (yeah, all of five years, ancient times), but I decided to spend most of my time working with Drupal and one or two other CMS, REST, a little RDFa, a touch of SVG and other programmable graphics tools, and maybe a smidgen of this or that, whatever strikes my fancy, and that includes AIR and OpenLaszlo and some of the other web/desktop platforms. You can never go wrong becoming as proficient as possible with CSS, the markups, the data sources (SQL/RDF/XML/JSON), PHP (or Python or Perl, maybe Ruby, always C++), JavaScript, and REST.

One could say that what I described is all that’s necessary for cloud computing, but there’s a whole new game when you have to create pie slices of your applications and throw them into a black box. It takes no additional time to learn to do cloud computing, true. However, it takes additional time to learn to do cloud computing well. I’m not taking that time, for any cloud. Not Amazon’s. Not Google’s. Not Safesforce.com (Salesforce.com?) Certainly not Azure.

If I’m wrong in my assessment, I’ll watch the rest of you fly past me, like birds on the wind. If I’m right, though, and today’s cloud is the same as yesterday’s Web 2.0—more hype than reality—I’ll already be well grounded when this bubble pops.

Categories
Graphics/CSS

Aviary gots business model

I’ve written about Aviary, the online graphics toolset that includes Phoenix, a graphics tool/photo editor, Peacock, a “visual laboratory” (background editor), Toucan, for creating color swatches, and supposedly Raven, for vector editing. I’ve been waiting for Raven, and it is out in alpha, but available only for Blue subscribers. Blue subscribers?

Yes, Aviary now has subscription plans, Blue and Green, each of which provides a different level of support. Blue provides everything, including access to early release software, such as Raven. Blue is also priced at $149.90 a year, though Photojojo readers can get the Blue for $95. At least the first 2000 readers can—the offer is limited.

It will be interesting to see how the Aviary toolset does as a subscription model. Internet users balk at anything that isn’t free, with mumbled, vague assumptions of “ad-based” as an alternative to paid subscriptions. I think the Aviary pricing model is fair, not necessarily great, but workable. The Blue plan is priced high for internet usage, but is much cheaper than Photoshop. Not as cheap as GIMP, though. However, when you consider the plan covers all the Aviary tools, including ones to be released in the future, the deal does seem sweeter. The toolset is also available from all your computers.

Will I be getting a subscription? No, I’m into frugal right now. Very, very frugal. I will miss being able to try out Raven, but I’m content with Inkscape for vector editing. However, for those of you interested in the Aviary toolset and with some bucks to spare, you might check to see if you can get the Photojojo pricing and save $55 bucks.

Categories
Technology

Another PowerPC Nail, Another smug Tech Writer

The good news is, Netflix WatchNow will now work on the Mac. The bad news? It only works with Silverlight 2, which only works within the Intel architecture.

Should be no problem, to Engadget:

Unfortunately for super-duper late adopters, the software will only work with Intel-based Macs, so if you’ve been holding onto a G3 for dear life, here’s one more reason to finally can it, along with your Xbox 360 HD DVD player, Von Dutch trucker cap, and gas-guzzling Escalade.

I believe that the last version of Mac machines with the PowerPC architecture is G5, not G3. As for being antiquated, I have the last of the Powerbook G4 laptops, bought less than three years ago and still covered under Apple warranty. I guess that puts me in the Engadget “super-duper late adopter” category.

This is another nail in the coffin for machines that really aren’t that old, primarily brought about by Apple’s indifference to the fact that it switched architectures and then has done little to ensure that older architectures get full support. Though I appreciate the Universal platform Apple provided, which means applications work on both PowerPC and Intel machines, too many applications such as the recent Photoshop CS4, and now Silverlight 2, forming the background for services such as Netflix Watch Now, are being released only for Intel machines.

However, there’s not much we can do about companies like Netflix, Microsoft, and Adobe, and their lack of support for machines that really aren’t that old. Well, other than look for other sources of software. What bothers me more about this story, though, is the disdain demonstrated by the Engadget author, especially in light of today’s economic environment.

Too many of the writers for sites like Engadget assume this is 1999 all over again, and money flows, and everyone can afford a new machine every year. On the contrary, we’re heading into a recession, if not in one already. The estimates are that the unemployment rate in this country will hit 8%, or more, before we’re done; the impact on the job market could be worse in other countries. Yet here we have Engadget, sneeringly poking fun at those who are staying pat with their existing machines, not because the people who haven’t upgraded are cheap, but because they have no other option.

Personally, if there’s one thing I hope does occur from the current economic crises, it’s that sites like Engadget either fail, or starting looking more closely at today’s reality and begin to adapt their stories accordingly. Being frugal and making do can be just as challenging, interesting, and yes, even sexy, as buying every new generation of iPhone, iPod, or whatever that comes along.