After the Jays Game (Taken with Instagram at CN Tower)
Ivy Bridge Processors 3 Weeks Away
Today, Intel officially releases the spate of 7-series chipsets for their 3rd generation Core microarchitecture processors (read – Ivy Bridge), despite the actual release of the processors being another three weeks away.
New Mac Pros soon to follow. It has been a while.
RIM Announces Another New Product That Isn’t a Good Phone
RIM Press Release:
BlackBerry Mobile Fusion delivers a cost-efficient, secure, reliable and scalable solution that consolidates the management of smartphones and tablets running BlackBerry® OS (including support for BlackBerry PlayBook™ and future BlackBerry® 10 devices) as well as Android™ and iOS®*, and provides a single, unified, web-based console for easily managing all devices.
Is that really the only reason they were hiring iOS developers?
James Cameron Updates Sky for Titanic Rerelease
Cameron made only one change: the stars in the picture during one particular shot near the end of the film after the ship went down were replaced to accurately reflect what exactly was in the night sky at that time and date.
As a visual effects artist, I really enjoy this news.
(Source: theverge.com)
Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan (by Google)
Adobe Charging Flash Devs
Stephen Shankland from CNET:
More specifically, Adobe will require developers to share 9 percent of net revenue beyond $50,000 for using the premium features, Adobe announced today. The premium features are Stage 3D for hardware-accelerated graphics and domain memory for better conversion of games previously written in C or C++.
Yes, because charging developers to use your dying platform is exactly what Adobe needs to get more people developing for Flash. Adobe said this relates to “console-quality” Flash games. Can anyone please give me an example of a “console-quality” Flash game, let alone one that has generated more than $50 000 in revenue.
Arthur Gies at The Verge on MLB.TV Blackouts
It’s unfortunate that the Xbox Live implementation of MLB.TV is restricted by broadcast rules that seem about eight years behind the current state of technology and services, but it’s not particularly surprising
(Source: theverge.com)
Photoshop Needs a Rewrite
Photoshop CS6 may look like a huge visual refresh — and it’s certainly the most drastic one in recent memory — but it’s largely the same Photoshop, good and bad, underneath.
Photoshop is in need of a entire overhaul. Adobe is adding (some) great technology and features to the application, but they still start with a legacy source that is over a decade old. Photoshop is just a tower waiting to topple. Adobe should do what they did with Premiere: an entire rewrite. Use new graphics technologies and 64 bit computing to rewrite the whole thing top to bottom. I still use Pixelmator as my primary image editor. It handles about 85% of my image editing tasks better, faster and cheaper (it’s $30) than Photoshop. It has a full 64 bit architecture and uses GPU based image processing. I am in and out of Pixelmator faster than it takes Photoshop to launch.
Oh no! Not Google Wage!
The Pirate Bay is Trying to put Servers in The Skies
The Pirate Bay Blog via Hacker News:
With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.
We’re just starting so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore. These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we’re building, that’s more than enough.
This reminds me of Google and their idea to float servers up in the air and cool it with the helium they use to float it. Looks like The Pirate Bay are actually trying it. It sounds pretty crazy if you think about it. But then again: ”the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
The Loop on Testing The New iPad
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop:
I know everyone will be speed testing the processors and graphics chips, but I’d like to take a different approach and give you some information on how I actually use the iPad. My testing lab is my life, and how a device fits into that determines if I continue to use it or not.
I agree. For example: The RIM Blackberry Playbook and The iPad (3rd Generation) have the same amount of RAM, and it couldn’t matter less.
I don’t have a cable subscription. I made a coat hanger antenna for $6 and get 12 HD channels for free over the air. I pay $8 a month for Netflix and that is where I watch the majority of my content. A couple years ago, it was all about watching the live TV episodes then talking about it the next day with your friends, co-workers etc. Watching TV live now isn’t as big of a deal breaker as it once was:
- Most of the shows I watch, I watch on my own time
- I regularly watch more than one episode at once.
I haven’t waited a full week to catch a new episode of a show I’m following since Lost. The reason isn’t because there aren’t any good TV shows. There are plenty. The reason is that my habits of how I watch TV has changed. There is, however, one last category of viewing that I do watch live and will only watch live: sports.
MLB, The NHL and The NBA offer live video streaming packages. You can sign up for a season’s pass and watch all the games live on your computer, game console or Internet connected media box (Boxee, Apple TV, etc). There is one problem though, the screenshot above is of the Apple TV terms. Footnotes 6, 7 and 8 refer to the MLB, NBA and NHL apps respectively.
A blackout means that if a game is available to watch on local TV networks, you can’t stream the game live in that area. For example, you cannot use the NHL Game Center to watch Toronto Maple Leafs games in Toronto. If the Leafs are playing the L.A. Kings in L.A., then those in the L.A. local broadcast zone also wouldn’t be able to watch the game streaming online.
I understand that leagues have to make deals with broadcast networks. Broadcast deals are a significant part of their revenue. I would like to suggest another revenue option:
An online streaming subscription for one team. You pick your favourite team and will get every game for that one team. It would be interesting to see something like this from one of the big sports leagues. How many people would sign up for it? Would they be able to strike a deal to offer this service as well as regular broadcasts through the networks, or will it be enough to bypass the networks entirely.
roar
