Series 60 – Photoblogging
I’ve been playing with some ways to auto-capture photos from Phone to Flickr and while there are certainly a few ways to do this, there are two applications, I’ve tried that are hands down killer apps. Shozu works on phones other than Series 60 devices, while Meaning only works on the platform.
Shozu pops up right after you snap a picture and lets you save to web if you like right in the moment. You have to have preset some basic tags for flickr which I’ve done and then the photo uploads in the background on your phone… in my case a shiny new Nokia N70. Shozu is simple and very slick. You can choose other photo services and even pick a service which includes video if you like. Since flickr does not currently support video, Shozu can automatically email a captured video to an address of your choosing.
Meaning takes much of what I like about Shozu and adds an enhanced and on the fly tagging system as well as the addition of GPS! That’s right if you use a GPS device as I am currently — the Nokia LD-1W — you can Geo Tag your images as you go and upload that data to Flickr as well. If you don’t have a GPS, you can still tag your location by naming the cell you happen to be in. As Meaning has a few more levels of detail it might be construed more difficult to use, but it’s the same deal. After you snap a picture, you can add a description and title and the tags of your choosing… hit send and your phone uploads quietly in the background.
technorati tags: Nokia, N-Series, N70, Nokia LD-1W, GPS, Tag, Flickr, Moblog, Meaning, Shozu
Superbowl Commercials 2006
I missed the game due to a west coast flight, but I found this via iTunes so I can at least see all the commercials…
Technorati Tags: Marketing
New Tunes
I am back from a week off on vacation and find it hard to get back into my previous groove with the number of active projects and how quickly things move when you miss a day – let alone a full week of mail and meetings.
I at least have some fresh tunes to keep things lively on my iPod…
Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I Am Not
I read about these guys in the NYT earlier in the week and I am very pleased with my first listen of these British punk rockers. The sound is clean and the songs infectious.
Cat Power – The Greatest
A really nice and deep sound for Cat, which is a change from some of her earlier works. I really dig this Memphis soul sound
Matisyahu – Shake Off the Dust… Arise and also Live at Stubbs
I had caught Matisyahu on Sirius while driving, but was not able to imprint the name, even on a second pass on another drive. It was not until I caught a Conan O’Brien appearance about two weeks ago, that things finally clicked. Matisyahu is Hasidic Jew Reggae singer and has to be heard to be understood. I find myself in a great mood with each listen. There’s a new release (Youth) coming in March and I’ll definitely be looking to get it as soon as it’s released.
Technorati Tags: Music
Live from San Francisco!
OK – it’s many hours after the keynote and you’ve probably read all the news from your various sources, but here’s my perspective…
MacWorld is really happening this year! I got to the show at about 5:50am in order to pick up my badge and get in line for the keynote and there were already people going well around the corner of the Moscone Center.
Once in line however, it really started to move and we shuffled pretty quickly inside…to wait. After a few hours and a few minutes to 9 we made our final move inside the main auditorium which was close to full. My colleague and I were able to find two seats together pretty close up on the right side which provided a really nice perspective for the Stevenote.
Steve delivered.
Apple announced stellar sales for Q4 with close to 20% of sales coming direct from foot traffic at retail.
There was a nice and brief update on ipod with some new content shown from Saturday Night Live and the recent Rose Bowl piece from ABC / ESPN.
iLife is getting a truly fantastic update today. Each of the 5 core apps gets a nice boost connected to .Mac and RSS.
You can easily record create an enhanced Podcast with GarageBand including recording an interview through iChat. iMovie includes some beautiful new motion transitions that are professional grade in how they allow anyone to present their clips. You can develop vidcasts as an export option and of course go right to your iPod as well. iPhoto is looking very strong with photocasts and full-screen editing with some UI tweaks that make iPhoto and Aperture look more like siblings. The new addition, iWeb is a way to easily publish to .Mac includes easily published and discoverable RSS feeds and has many seriously cool features for sharing your thoughts and self-published content. I’m looking forward to upgrading my home systems so I can play with all of this …
Finally, the real magic happened when Steve started to give the Intel update.
Paul Ottelini came out on stage in a bunnysuit bearing the gift of the Core wafer. He proclaimed that Intel was ready to which Steve replied that Apple was also ready… leading very nicely to the new iMac. Everything you know and love about the (previously) current systems stays the same, except they are now MUCH faster courtesy of Intel’s Core Duo Processor.
Steve then revealed that the keynote up to that point had been running on a new iMac powered by Intel… That was a very cool move considering the new machines were out on stage before Steve and no one had a clue!
One More Thing…
MacBook Pro, the new Powerbook is a killer. A couple of very nice enhancements beyond the addition of the Core Duo, are a built-in iSight and Front Row which an IR sensor near the front latch release. The new book is a bit thinner and seems a touch more curvy, but is essentially the same form factor as the Aluminum book of yesterday. It’s a welcome upgrade that’s long overdue.
The real punch which was a shocker to everyone is that unlike the usual Macworld show, the products are available now. You can order a new IMac and they are apparently available while the MacBook will be ready in February which is MUCH sooner than any previous portable I can recall.
Adobe Lightroom beta
After sitting down with the beta of the new Lightroom application from Adobe, Derrick Story tells you what to expect when you download the workflow management tool for photographers. [MacWorld]
You can download the demo from Adobe now. I’ve only had the opportunity to install and open it quickly but I like what I see so far.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Photography, Adobe
MacWorld 2006
I am heading to San Francisco for the MacWorld Stevenote on Tuesday and I am extremely pumped! I’ve been to Boston and NY a bunch of times but this is my first west coast show and I am truly expecting some great things.
There are so many good rumors floating out there as usual. While I find that there are some clear must-haves like the updates to older machines, I am really interested in the “one more thing.” I’m sure there will be some sweet things discussed and shared leading up to that moment, but the main event will certainly be what’s under the curtain.
Given all the attention the tech industry has placed on the digital home with video and enhanced content services and Apple’s ability to distill the complex into simple and killer applications and devices, I am looking to what I thought the Mac Mini was going to be a year ago.
A few details to consider… The PowerPage reports on Apple HDTVs with OS X inside running bluetooth and Airport with an enhanced remote … previous rumors have included hints of a wireless iPod and of course there is the whole Intel deal. Apple is already a leader in content aggregation and distribution with iTunes. It’s still unknown how this will all connect, but quite a few pieces are there waiting to be dropped into place.
Apple has an amazing opportunity to iPod the living room and I am looking forward to being there live if it’s unveiled.
Technorati Tags: Macworld, Apple, Stevenote, Keynote, San Francisco
Downloaded Video Jones
So – Happy New Year first of all!
I’ve been slammed at the office and have not any real time to post, but more on that later…
During the holidays, I decided to check out Battlestar Gallactica while um, browsing online. I downloaded the first series for my iPod and started to watch it while commuting back and forth to the office. Turns out, it’s a really great show and I was hooked within a few short episodes. Since I had the whole season, I was able to watch as I wanted at my pace. This is not that new an idea, since DVRs have been around for a bunch of years and I’ve been a user since the beginning, but I actually had ALL the shows from the season and was able to dive right through commercial free.
I found myself doing most of my watching on my laptop connected to my TV or just directly while traveling. The quality is surprisingly good. It compares to my original SDTV Tivo which was definitely lossy, compared to non-Tivo TV, and certainly not as good as my HDTV DVR records now, but no worries here. The programming was compelling and fit my purpose. I’d certainly love to see it even better by the way, but would not expect that my iPod or iTunes for that matter would play HDTV downloads all that well – at least on my current laptop.
While watching the end of the first season, I saw that the third season was going to be starting in January (tonight actually) and got anxious that I was not going to be current in time, so I hit iTunes and purchased the second season. iTunes really nicely packaged it all, and soon enough all 10 shows were on my system. Well last night I watched the last episode of Season 2 and am completely jonesing for what’s next. I have no desire to wait for the show to begin airing again – assuming it’s available in my market’s cable system – but at this point have no choice.
This has led me to what I would presume is a fairly natural conclusion and something I’ve thought, but not believe – the broadcast model is dead. Downloads, legal or not are extremely convenient, portable and personal. I can define what I want to watch and when — of course assuming that the content that’s out there is worth watching.
The economics of PPV downloads is pretty tough. I paid just under $20 for 10 episodes in a lower resolution. While this was great for my instant gratification purposes it will probably not be the version I’d choose to watch in a home theater situation and I would choose either an HDTV download (if available) or DVD for my collection instead. I can’t justify buying all my shows this way either as it’s far too expensive when I add this to my existing monthly expense for cable (well over $100 which includes broadband access and the premium tier from Cablevision).
Intel’s new Viiv technology is pretty interesting and certainly has the vision to deliver against an on-demand broadband IPTV world. The hardware is capable of transcoding content on the fly which means you could download a very high quality version for local access and move a lower quality (smaller, compressed) file to your portable device, which might be an iPod or something similar. The release of the new Core Duo means you’ll be able to manage high def content on the go from your laptop and is an exiting thing to consider for my 2 hours of travel a day – not too mention the lengthier business travel I encounter. If Apple uses this technology as widely speculated and then takes the next steps with iTunes and their content partners, I’m there. In fact, consider me pre-sold.
My hope is that with DRM baked in, content providers will become more comfortable with using the broadband pipe and will opt to deliver a richer vision for content that does not rely on traditional models – like broadcast gets it first. I am far from alone is having the desire and wallet to pay for the privilege.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Commute, DRM, Intel, iPod, Long Tail, Marketing, Movies, TV