Live from Austin!

As expected, MacWorld was a big disappointment. The MacBook Air was supposed to be the big “wow” item, but it’s more of a big “meh”. Apple clearly set out to make something comparable to the VAIOs Sony has been selling for years–which is a great idea, as I love small laptops, but in the quest to be thinner than anyone else they introduced a few too many design compromises.No optical drive built in is no big deal; I go weeks between using my Mac’s optical drive. More of a problem is the lack of any Firewire capability, the inability to upgrade the RAM, and the fact that there’s no ethernet unless you carry around a USB ethernet adaptor. And of course, that adaptor will use your only USB port, so better carry a hub too. And cables for your hub.

[Update: It's also no smaller than the regular MacBook; just thinner. So it's not an ultraportable, and no easier to carry around.]

Now, if they had done something like Fujitsu’s P1620 and made it possible to flip the keyboard under and use the device as a tablet, that would have rocked. But as it is, it’s just another laptop, albeit a very thin one; and it’s not really suitable as a primary machine.

So what’s the target market for the MacBook Air? People who want a status symbol, or people who travel an awful lot and need the absolute lightest Mac possible. They also need to be people who can afford a second Mac as a main machine, or people with very light needs. So I really can’t see the Air selling in great quantities. If I were choosing a Mac laptop today, I wouldn’t get one, even if price wasn’t a concern.

I was more interested in what they’re doing with AppleTV. I’ve been thinking for a while that dealing with scratched and scuffed Netflix DVDs is a pain, and I’d rather just rent movies via the Internet. AppleTV is going to offer this as an option. Add in the ability to buy TV shows a la carte, and it’s starting to look pretty tempting.

Of course, there are a couple of problems. The first is that a lot of content isn’t in MPEG-4 format. The iPod would never have been a success if it hadn’t been able to play MP3s and had only worked with MPEG-4 audio; and similarly, if Apple wants the AppleTV to be a success, they need to make it able to play more formats than just MPEG-4.

The second problem is selection. Right now, the movie and TV selection via iTunes doesn’t even come close to Netflix. But give it another year or two, and I think the cable TV and satellite companies are going to be in big trouble.

The economics are simple. I watch 2-3 hours of TV a week, on half a dozen channels. To get those channels, however, I have to buy a bundle of over a hundred channels that I literally never watch. I could buy the shows via iTunes instead, cancel the DirecTV subscription, and save $30 a month. But not this year, not until all the shows I want are available…

The big question will be whether the new AppleTV software can be easily hacked to enable installation of other codecs and playback of non-MPEG-4 content. If so, I may get one. If not, I’ll wait until the content is all available in MPEG-4–which may be a long wait.

A few weeks ago I read on bOING bOING about a music industry royalties collection agency responsible for webcasting and satellite radio. After much reluctance they had finally put up a list of artists they owed money to, but said they had found it impossible to track down.

I decided to take a look at the list. Sure enough, there were a bunch of artists I’m a fan of. Of those, there were several I knew it would be trivial to track down on the web. People like Scanner, The Orb, μ-Ziq, Stephan Remmler, Westbam, Komputer, Georg Kajanus and a bunch of Warp Records artists. Oh, and RuPaul!

Although my normal policy is not to risk dialog with famous artists whose work I like, I felt that if some big corporate agency is claiming the right to collectpayments on artists’ behalf, it is important to make sure the artists actually see the money. So I wrote the various artists (or their agents or official webmasters) some brief e-mails pointing them at the web site of the collections agency, so they would at least know about it, and could make contact with said organization if they liked. I figured the worst case was that some folks would get a dozen fan e-mails telling them, which was better than no e-mail at all.

I can now reveal that in spite of my fears I got an almost complete lack of response. Except from Thrash (formerly of The Orb), who says they’re owed $50.

Meanwhile, the music industry execs are probably snorting lines of coke off of hookers and wondering if anyone’s heard of some guy named Chris DeBurgh who they owe money to.

Boston and Dallas were designed by M.C. Escher.

More such stuff at googlesightseeing.com.

Also fun is to compare and contrast Newsweek international edition with Newsweek USA.

Don’t forget the ongoing linkfeed.

Apparently the FCC have taken a closer look at the figures they were offered to prove that à la carte programming would increase prices. Turns out the figures were flawed, and prices would actually drop according to the FCC’s own analysis.

Predictably, the media giants are howling with dire warnings of even bigger price hikes, mass censorship, outbreaks of bird flu, and anything else they can think of.

I’m getting tired of seeing the same old crappy arguments wheeled out time and time again, so I’ve put together a page on à la carte TV myths, based on thoughts I originally wrote up in a letter to the FCC. (Hey, they asked for comments.)

The prize for worst response has to go to Comcast, who announced yet another 4-7% price hike a few days after the FCC turnaround.

The controversy over à la carte cable and satellite programming keeps resurfacing. The basic problem is that cable prices keep rising, to the point where the basic level of digital cable is over $50 a month in many places. Prices have risen 40% in the last decade.

(As an aside, I’m amazed at the whiners in the UK who complain about paying £126.50 a year for a TV license that gets them the best premium programming from the US, as well as UK TV. I pay $588 a year to get a similar selection.)

Viewers find it galling to pay for a hundred channels when there are only a handful they watch on a regular basis. Hence there has been a campaign to get the FCC to rule that cable and satellite providers must offer the option of à la carte programming, where you can choose to subscribe to only the channels you actually want.

The cable and satellite companies don’t want to see that happen, as it would eat into their fat profits. Since the same companies own a lot of the mainstream media outlets, I’m constantly seeing astroturf coverage explaining why à la carte programming is impossible, would make your cable bills skyrocket, is tantamount to Communism, and so on.

This is my attempt to cut through a lot of the common bullshit spouted on the subject.

Continue reading »

Someone with a new Nikon digital SLR took a bunch of photos of the Space Shuttle as it rolled out to the launch pad from the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Sheesh, that thing looks skanky, the right side looks like a model that someone’s spilt coffee on. Now I understand what they mean by “ageing shuttle fleet”. I’m not sure I’d want to fly in it.

There are more photos posted at keyhole.com, but what really jolted me awake there was the photo showing the Shuttle from space (third on that page). If that’s what civilian satellites can do, the NSA can probably spot whether your shoelaces are untied.