Preview of Speed Racer

CoolToyNews has this page from Previews Magazine in which they show some of the new Speed Racer toys from Mattel supporting the movie this summer. What struck me right away - what the hell is the Mach 6? Is Hollywood destroying my childhood again? Bastards!

Also, and I know this is blasphemy to all those who don't want to criticize the Wachowski Brothers, but I'm a little worried about the trailers I have seen for this movie. Speed's costume looks like shit for one thing.

Mike on MediaWeek

Here's what Mike had to say in response to MediaWeek's predictions on Internet ads in '08:

"My understanding from people who've seen their books is that Facebook is having *no* trouble monetizing. The sickening amount of demographic data their users give them allows them to charge huge CPMs and get them. The Microsoft stake was intended to do two things: 1) make them unbuyable by giving them an enormous valuation and 2) get them using Microsoft's competing ad platform.

MySpace gets much lower CPMs, but they're not trying to monetize as an ad play, they're going after total ownership of whatever the music business looks like when the dust settles."

True Films

Click the link in the title to download Kevin Kelly's super cool guide to great documentary films, True Films. Its the prefect thing to get you through the writer's strike.

Thanks Long Tail blog!

Mediaweek's Predictions

There's a whole series of articles over at Mediaweek about their 2008 prediction for all classes of media. Of interest to 'Luxers: Network TV ratings are down 10% over last year and experts are predicting that the writer's strike will only make it worse. The winners are cable and the Internet.

They point out that cable put on lots of compelling shows this summer and showed that you don't have to wait around for Fall to get good shows. The money quote from an unnamed cable ad boss:

“The reality is, this is a pretty simple business. It’s supply and demand. We have new shows that people are going to want to watch, and the broadcast guys are going out with [stuff] like American Gladiator.”

The one savior for the 'Nets may be the upcoming elections.

For the Internet, display ads are all the rage. They expect Google to revolutionize this business with auctions. The social nets a la Facebook and MySpace are over-inventoried and can't figure out how to monetize what they have. The question is whether they can do it on their own or need Yahoo! and Google to help. Personally, I think this is why Facebook should have sold to Google. Lastly, no one is expecting much other than buzz from online video ads.

Maeda to RISD

John Maeda, who replaced Nick Negroponte as the head of the MIT Media Lab, is moving to be the President of RISD. I have been a fan of Maeda's since I saw him speak in San Francisco. I find his work in computer interface and computer generated art to be very interesting and thought provoking. I gave his book "The Laws of Simplicity" to my entire team about a year ago.

I met Maeda a few months ago on my trip to the Media Lab. He is a super charming, bright, and funny guy. I wish him well.

I wonder who will replace him at the Media Lab.

Circuit City implodes

I've been thinking about writing about this for a few days. If you haven't read by now, Circuit City had a very bad quarter (their quarter ends in November) in which they lost $204M. CEO Phil Schoonover told analysts that the failure was self-inflicted. What else could he say after Best Buy, only days before, reported 52% growth in profits?

There are many reasons for the loss, but the one everyone is picking up on is Schoonover's controversial decision to lay off 3400 sales people this year and replace them with lower wage and less experienced help. What most people are forgetting is that this is actually the second time Circuit has done something like this. About two years ago, they went from a commissioned sales force to a non-commissioned one like Best Buy and that had a catastrophic effect at that time because a lot of the most knowledgeable people left as the commission was a big part of their paycheck.

So Circuit has actually done the same dumb thing twice with the same result.

Now Schoonover has announced a management retention plan where it will pay up to $1M for key executives to stay on until 2011. Analysts are rightly pissed and are saying that it looks like execs are being rewarded for poor performance, but that's a pretty surface level reading.

I've know Circuit pretty well and have been doing business with them for about 6 years now. I remember one time we took at trip to Best Buy and then the next day went to Circuit's HQ in Virginia. It was like night and day. The lobby of Best Buy was like Grand Central and literally standing room only because there were so many sales people trying to get in there. Circuit was like a ghost town. No one was trying to sell them because they were horrible about payment and had become a credit risk. The building was half empty because of all the layoffs. It was, and probably still is, totally depressing.

The reason Schoonover has to pay his execs these bonuses and that he just can't get anyone to stay. Attrition has been huge. I remember at one point, they were pulling people from logistics and the warehouse to do the buying (the people who decide what products Circuit carries) because they couldn't keep any experienced buyers on staff. They were all leaving for other retailers. Who wants to stay on a sinking ship? Schoonover knows that if he doesn't give these guys an incentive to stay on, that they will leave within the next 6 months and he will have an impossible time replacing them. A major exec exodus would be the end of Circuit.

He also knows these problems aren't all their fault. The truth is that Circuit was a suicide mission. Schoonover was recruited from Best Buy where he was in line for the top spot. He came in and cleaned house and brought in all new management, which is what Circuit needed because the people who were left were not worth having. But they stepped into a disaster. Circuit's store format is vastly inferior to Best Buy. The brand is in the toilet. And as I said, it was not paying its bills which meant none of the vendors wanted to help. Schoonover gave everyone hope and showed some impressive early results largely through improvements in marketing and shrewd price promotions which caught Best Buy off guard in LCD TVs. But Schoonover was buying sales and compromising profit to do so. His basic strategy was to show Circuit could still drive sales while working on a new store format that he could aggressively roll out in new and better locations to compete with Best Buy. Only this year, Best Buy got wise and that strategy didn't work.

About a year ago, I was interviewed by an analyst who was writing a paper about Circuit after they had had a pretty good couple of quarters. Their investors wanted to know whether Circuit was an undervalued stock that was going to take off. I told them that Schoonover was well respected in CE retail circles and that I had to give the guy a lot of credit, but that they had had some temporary wins and had awoken the beast and that I wouldn't could on the good times to keep rolling. Looks like I was right.

Blade Runner

Like I said, I got Blade Runner: Final Cut on Blu-ray for X-Mas. It is, in a word, awesome. The quality is terrific and you can see lots of detail. I am not sure yet how this cut differs from the Director's Cut, but I like it.

I really enjoyed watching this movie again. Its amazing how accurately Syd Meade predicted the world of the future: the Asian influence, the mash-up of culture, technologically upgrades to decaying cities. The look of the movie predicted the modern Asia, but most specifically Hong Kong. Every time I am in Hong Kong or Shanghai, I think of Blade Runner.

Blade Runner was ahead of its time in more than one way. It was out of place for the summer of '82 when happy popcorn fare like ET ruled the box office. Had it been released 12 or 13 years later, it might have been The Matrix, but instead it inspired it. It was a movie for Gen X before Gen X was ready for it.

There is a great 2 hour documentary called Dangerous Days about the making of Blade Runner. Its a little long but really a must see. Terrific insight on the tumultuous evolution of the film. Ridley Scott drove everyone on that film nuts...and I'm glad he did.

I have not yet watched the original nararrated version, but I am one of these people who likes both.  We'll see how I feel about it after all these years.

But it got me thinking, what would really make this the ultimate release would be if they let you, the user, make your own cut of Blade Runner. There were sooo many takes, so much unused footage, lots of cut voice over, that the mash-up community could have fun for years. This is really what they should be doing with all these assets. My cut would have the original narration that Harrison Ford did with Scott before the suits came in, keep the unicorn dream, drop the narration from Roy's final speech, cut the happy ending, and change the music. Vangelis is getting a little dated.

H'Wood Reporter predicts '08

Here's how The Hollywood Reporter sees 2008 playing out:

1. Katie Couric gets fired from her job as anchor of CBS' evening news and gets shifted to 60 Minutes.

2. Dreamworks leave Viacom (duh?) but not to Universal as is popularly thought. They see Dreamworks going to Time Warner, replacing the New Line guys, or going private equity. My money is on the latter.

3. The Writer's Strike ends 4/1. The writers don't get a piece of DVD but they do get a piece of new media.

4. Blu-Ray wins.

5. We see simultaneous released for the first time on VOD day-and-date with theatrical, at a much higher price.

6. The Hannah Montana 3D concert movie delivers the first #1 opening for an all 3D film and mainstreams the technology. The buzz on this movie is huge. When I was in Texas, this is all my nieces could talk about.

7. Steve Jobs caves into NBC Universal and starts selling TV shows at $3. My prediction: it doesn't matter because streams are free. NBC is dumb because they make more on iTunes at $2. They are being greedy on the one hand yet undercutting Apple on the other. Their position makes no sense.

8. News Corp buys video game publisher Take Two and gets its grips on Manhunt, Bioshock, and Grand Theft Auto.

Blu-Ray

This X-Mas, I asked for only a few things, but they were admittedly higher ticket: a PS3 that I could use as a Blu-Ray player and Blade Runner: The Final Cut.

The PS3 was recommended to me on high authority as the best Blu-Ray player for the money and one that has excellent BD-Java support. This is key because not all Blu-Ray players have good BD-Java support now and people are going to start seeing problems like there were in the early days of DVD when discs didn't work on some players. Also, the PS3 represents the majority of the Blu-Ray installed base, so you know everyone is going to be testing for it.

The picture is stunning, even at only 1080i. I have an older HDTV without 1080p. I'm still waiting to see all these supposedly awesome features from BD-Java. Admittedly, I have two titles, Spiderman 3 (came with the PS3) and Blade Runner, but neither have a UI that really transcends DVD. I think there are 3 reasons for that: 1) the aforementioned lack of BD-Java support on many players, 2) the lack of tools and people for developing sophisticated BD-Java which I hear is a real problem, and 3) I think designers are still stuck in the DVD idiom. They better get on the stick because BD-Java (along with bigger storage) was supposed to be the big selling point of Blu-Ray over HD-DVD and HD-DVD certainly has the price advantage.

The PS3 makes an awkward DVD player. It comes with a wireless PS3 controller D-pad style. The buttons are not at all intuitive for a video controller. I'm sure there is something in the aftermarket I can buy, but this is the biggest pain in using the thing right now.

As for Blade Runner...see my next post.

Sad Song

Hypebot says that music sales are down 21% over last year. This is getting really bad.

Tons o' News

In other DRM news...Wal-Mart is closing its video download service. The reason is that HP, their solution provider, is going to discontinue their technology in this space. Wal-Mart has said it will not look for a replacement technology. I think this is pretty much HP saying it failed so Wal-Mart doesn't have to.

Its a huge blow for the "open" MS DRM ecosystem and another nail in the coffin of PlaysForSure. When even MS isn't supporting this technology on Zune, it tells you where we are headed. Streams have killed the TV downloads. Who wants to pay $2 to wait half an hour to watch something you can get right away and free from the network's website? Movie downloads have not been successful anywhere...at least commercially, so losing ground to streams has got to hurt.

But then wait, there's more! Now there's news that Fox and Apple are close to doing rental movies on iTunes. We'll see how well this works. So I have to wait for what, an hour or so, to download a movie, then wait another 30 minutes to transfer it to my Apple TV just so I can do something that would have taken me 10 minutes round trip to do at Blockbuster? No thanks.

The last rumor is that Apple is going to let Fox put Fairplay encoded files on their DVDs. This one is very interesting because I know there have been discussions about this for a while. The hard core Blu-Ray camp doesn't want to do it because they want to reserve Managed Copy functionality for Blu-Ray and don't want to feature enhance DVD like this. (Wake up guys, its called Handbrake!) Also, the MBAs have all these wet dreams about charging you extra to make that Managed Copy in some future where your Blu-ray player is Internet connected...or like where you have a Blu-Ray player. (And uh, did I mention Handbrake? As long as DVD is out there with its totally hacked CSS copy protection system, this plan will never work.) If this is true, it will totally piss off the other studios but it is 1000% the right thing to do.

I kind of doubt it though. I bet we will see it, but on Blu-Ray. I don't think you can do it technically - and DRM it - on DVD. Since all DVDs are mass produced and essentially the same they are not uniquely serialized, so there's no real way to securely hand off to Fairplay. You need the unique ID on Blu-ray to make it work.

Which brings us my rumor I'm starting here on Populuxe...Apple will announce Blu-ray support at Macworld. I will go further and say there will be a new Apple TV with an integrated Blu-ray player. Apple has always said they want to be the DVD player of the future. Blu-ray is the DVD of the future. Its just makes sense.

DRM is dead?

Hypebot is reporting that Warner Music has just announced a DRM-free music deal with Amazon, joining EMI and Universal. They also are calling this the end of DRM.

I think for music it is. As long as CDs are out there, DRM for music is pointless because CD has no copy protection. Getting rid of DRM will increase compatibility and enhance the user experience and I really doubt it will increase piracy at all because, as mentioned before, it is already incredibly easy to pirate music if you are so inclined. With 3 of the four labels going DRM free, its a done deal. The real loser here is iTunes. I started buying songs from Amazon a few weeks ago and the user experience is pretty easy. Once the songs are downloaded, Amazon has a handy little app that adds them to iTunes. Jobs is going to loose this pissing contest with the entertainment industry.

Dear Hasbro: Optimus Prime doesn't have lips

My son is excited about this new animated Transformers series on Cartoon Network. I am not. Why? Optimus Prime has lips. I consider it a crime. They floated this whole lips trial balloon in the Transformers movie, but kept Optimus' muffle in "battle mode". It ruined the movie for me because it was totally distracting, but at least he looked right in some of the scenes. Now, the muffle is all the way gone and we have these ridiculous lips in their place. I suppose we will soon be finding out that Bumblebee likes to cross-dress.

Dear Hasbro, stop pissing on my childhood. You've already had your way with Star Wars. Why violate more of my youth? There's no need for lips. Also, the animation looks totally baby style. You pulled off a miracle by aging up Transformers with the movie and now you've pissed it away with this new show. I also understand the Autobots aren't fighting the Decepticons in it. WTF? Are they still robots?

What can you expect from a company that whose whole philosophy on brand management can be summed up with the words Darth Tater.

I met Hasbro's COO once. I should give him a call.

Christmas

Merry Christmas!

We had a good but exhausting day. Lots of people to see and lots of kids to chase.

I got Guitar Hero 3 for Wii, probably one of the most coveted gifts this season, and it was totally unexpected.

The kids have had 3 X-Mases for them now. We did stockings at home, X-Mas at Gradma's and X-Mas at Great Grandma's. And we have one more when we get home.

Texas

We're in Texas. Staying at the Best Western which is one of two motels in town...at least if you don't count the really run down ones.

Angleton has changed a lot since I lived here. The town is migrating north towards Houston. All the new development is in that direction. The old downtown and south of the town are falling apart. Businesses close and nothing opens in their space. The old Safeway and Blount's grocery stores remain empty decades after they closed. The whole area by the train tracks is a ghost town.

I think Texas just has too much land and they are being wasteful with it. As we drove from Houston towards Angleton, my family marvelled at the wide open spaces, the farms, and the cattle. But for about 20 miles south of Houston on 288, there are now housing developments and shopping malls where farm land once had been. In a decade, it may be solid developments from Houston to Angleton. And yet look at all the wasted space and closed down deliapidated buildings. There's no need to develop the countryside. They just have no idea what they have here. But they will know what they are missing when Texas looks like LA, when you can't breath the air or look at the sky.

A simple drive around the town tells you what's going on with the economy. Angleton still doesn't have a Starbucks, if that tells you something. They only recently opened one in Lake Jackson about 15 miles away. They did get a Chili's, albeit a small one. They have a 24 hour Super Wal-Mart, but no Target, Sears, or K-Mart. Those are in Lake Jackson too. They have two other grocery stores, HEB and Kroger. And they have a lot of fast food. What's surprising is that there a lot more independent restaurants in town than there ever were when I lived here. I must have counted 10 or so. When I lived here, there was one or two at any one time. So there must be more disposable income than when I lived here, and that's what chains like Chili's discovered.

And yet, I'm not sure the town is doing that well. Angleton was always a bedroom community with little industry. Dow Chemical was the major employer and all our parents worked there. But they downsized in the '90's and I'm not sure the town ever recovered. The bigger employer in town is Benchmark Electronics, ironically, a major contract manufacturer that outsources to Asia. Somebody has to manage those factories. There some element of people who live here and commute to Houston, but I think that's less and less. There are a lot more attractive developments in the new Houston suburbs now that are a lot closer.

Maybe that's why they erected the ridiculous enormous and random statue of Stephen F Austin right outside of town in some misguided hope of making the town a tourist destination.

Airport

Not as bad as I thought it would be but still crazy. Getting 3 kids and all their crap through security is hell.

There are two really ugly people near us who are totally making out and rubbing and caressing one another and they have been doing it for about half an hour. They seem to really like necking and its gross. I'm afraid my kids will be scarred for life.

UPDATE: They just stopped and walked off to another gate. WTF? Why make me watch you totally lick each other and then go somewhere else? I need to carry a taser.

Is FSJ really considering calling it quits?

Everyone knows by now that Think Secret has closed down. Apple basically paid them to go away and threatened them with a lawsuit if they didn't. Now FSJ is saying he's been offered a similar sum to shut down. Is it just a gag? Can't tell for sure.

I doubt its true. But if it were it would really suck and would piss me off at Apple. I can understand why they would shut down Think Secret. But FSJ? Message to Steve Jobs: "We kid because we love." Killing FSJ would show they have no sense of humor and would be an assault on their most loyal fans.

Magic

We had an incredible offsite with the team this week! It was a real risky agenda but it totally paid off. The theme was "We Make The Magic" and that totally came across.

We started the say with Marty Sklar, the famous head of Imagineering for many year and current Imagineering Ambassador. He was really inspiring and told us tons of stories from over the years, about the Walt and Epcot and what it meant to Imagineer things. He took tons of questions. It was great.

After some business stuff, we had Magic Seth, a guy I met at the MIT Media Lab whose studied Wonder, how it is created, and how technology can elicit it. He also has a BA in Magic. Very interesting guy and incredible speaker. He told us all about his research and what he learned. He did tons of tricks for us. He does some really original things you've never seen before where he can make Google read your mind. He can does tricks with Flickr and IM. And he finished off by making all our cell phones ring at the same time. I have no idea how he did that because he didn't have any of our numbers. Incredible guy and everyone was really inspired.

For the evening, we went to the famous Magic Castle, an exclusive club that only magician's can get into. Average mortals have to be invited by a member to get in. It is such a wonderful place. Its in an old Victorian house, one of the first built in LA. Its like a maze with lots of different hidden rooms, all with magician's performing. Because it is a club for magicians, most of the people there are magicians and you see people performing magic everywhere...at the bar, in line to see a show.

In the bar, there is a piano that is played by a ghost named Irma. She knows tons of songs and people say its impossible to stump her. I stumped her on my first try. I said "Irma, play Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow by the Sherman Brothers." She signaled "no" on the piano. But then, she started playing songs from Mary Poppins, also by the Sherman Brothers. So I guess in a way I didn't stump her! I found out later that the Sherman Brothers were members of the club and even wrote a song called the "Magic Castle Shuffle" about the castle.

There's so many cool things. There's a Houdini Seance Room with lots of Houdini artifacts where they resurrect Houdini every night. There are lots of close-up galleries where you can see magician's work inches away from you. Its a terrific time!

The group came away relaxed and inspired and that's exactly how I wanted them leaving for the Holidays. In their gift bags, we gave them a simple magic trick called D-Lite, Pixar's Shorts on DVD, and hot off the presses, Marty Sklar's Blank Sheet of Paper Sketchbook, all signed personally my Marty and saying "Take Chances and Don't Make Sequels".

Now its off to Texas!

OLPC

Oh, and we got our OLPC yesterday. I'll have to wait until after X-Mas to play with that one.

Its like X-Mas....oh, wait it is!

Pleo

We got our Pleo at work and I brought it home for the kids to play with. We went through the birthing process and I have to say it was pretty magical, probably the most magical experience I have ever had with a toy. It really feels alive. The biggest drawback is the skin which feels rubbery, cold, and artificial. Its a great example in some ways of the "uncanny valley" where really realistic things feel dead or wooden because they are not perfect. But there is no question that this is a huge step forward in creating the "illusion of life" at home. Amazing!

New Wall-E trailer

WALL-E Exclusive Trailer

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How to Spot a Cyclon

Boing Boing points to this super cool poster "How to Spot a Cyclon" for only $20. A few tips:

★Do they ask questions about classified subjects?
★Do they seem unusually strong, smart or self-assured?
★Do they say God instead of Gods?
★Have you seen them before, but you know it's not the same person?
★Do you see them hanging around secured or restricted areas?
★Do they seem to hear music that no one else can hear?
★Do they seem unusually fearless, as if death has no meaning for them?
★Do they exhibit sociopathic behavior around other humans, especially defenseless children?
★Are they unusually adept, almost empathic, with machines?
★Does their spine glow red when they get... excited?

The Real Roboraptors

Gizmodo is reporting that Dubai - the world's most ostentatious city state - is getting a new pricey attraction to add to its litany of crazy things like terraformed private oceans: its own $1 dinosaur theme park with over 100 animatronic dinos. Its supposed to open in late 2008.

National Treasure: The Ride?

The Disney Blog is reporting that Nick Cage hopes Disney will make a ride out of National Treasure.

"Because I love amusement parks and I love Disneyland and I would love to see a National Treasure ride. That would be a dream come true for me."

I could see that as being kind of interesting. You could envision something in Liberty Square or at the American pavilion in Epcot. Could be interesting. But I don't think the National Treasure franchise has really made the cultural impact that would rise to that level. But who knows? I wouldn't say A Bug's Life did either, and its got a whole land.

"The iPhone will fail in India"

Bruce Nussbaum has some interesting notes on why the iPhone may fail in India, and possibly the UK...

A number of Indians at the summit on design and innovation in Bangalore last week were carrying hacked iPhones around and they complained that Apple didn’t get it when it comes to Indian culture. Why? Texting. The Indian designers said the iPhone didn’t do group texting and didn’t forward texts. But Indians, with their extended families and social networks, need to do both all the time.

Pleo

CNET has a good article on Pleo. I'm still waiting for our office Pleo to show up!

Immigration

I was listening to Mitt Romney on Meet The Press yesterday and they talked a little about immigration. I agreed somewhat with his notion that we need employment verification and fines for employers who employ illegals.

I'm a big believer that the whole immigration issue is hypocrisy because we all benefit through "illegal" labor directly or indirectly. Eaten any fruit lately? Who do you think cleaned that public toilet last week? We need to recognize that we need external labor to continue to grow our economy, legalize it, provide rights for guest workers who are here, and that way we can reduce the number of people who are here illegally and create better security through a tighter focus on those who are the real security problem. I know I would rather have INS chasing terrorists than people here to pick my fruit.

The old adage is that illegal workers are here to do job Americans won't. I think in some ways that's true and in other ways its not. But I have an idea. How about an extra payroll tax on foreign workers working in the US? That makes domestic labor more competitive. I would take the revenue from the tax and put it into education. I can see the problem with this idea, however. Let's say you're Cisco and you have a lot of engineers from India on staff. A tax like this comes along and you decide to move those jobs over to India where you don't have to pay the tax and now that person who would have sat in California and contributed to the US economy is now in India contributing nothing to the US economy.

Wall-E in Tomorrowland

The Disney Blog is reporting on a rumor that Disney plans to replace the Carousel of Progress buildings at Disneyland and Disney World with a Wall-E attraction. Park purists are against it - at least at World - because it would be replacing a classic Disney attraction with another Pixar ride. I'm a little split on the issue, but in general think its a good thing to bring Wall-E to Tomorrowland.

The movie is going to be great and Wall-E will become another classic Disney character. I think its okay sometimes for old classics to make way for new ones, provided that the new ones become classics. If Disney does something along the lines of the Nemo subs, everyone will be happy. If we get something like the Monsters ride at DCA, it won't be such a great thing.

I love classic Disney as much as anyone. I am a huge fan of the optimistic futurist visions and spirit from Tomorrowland. But Tomorrowland has been consistently one of the most difficult areas for the Disney Parks and has been quickly outdated. The Carousel of Progress has run its course and will never be for new generations as great as it was for us. If Disney can put something in its place that will keep Tomorrowland relevant and become a draw to that land, then I'm all for it.

Behind The Scenes of Snow White

Great American Ink posted this super behind the scenes video on the making of Snow White to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the film. Enjoy!

Christmas Cards from Mickey

Its Christmas time again and 2719 Hyperion has dug back into its super collection of vintage Disney X-Mas cards. Check them out!

Bad sitcom

I'm on the airplane. There's a terrrrrible sitcom on starring Jamie Gertz. She's married to some fat bad guy who looks 15 years old than her. She looks more like he should be married to his mom on the show than Jamie Gertz. They have no chemistry at all. And its one of those aweful laugh track sitcoms with punchlines every other line. Jamie Gertz supposedly has 2 teenaged kids on the show, which so not old enough to have. Who puts this terrible shit on the air? Why don't TV execs have standards?

BMOC

There's this guy on CBS' The Early Show who is the only male student at Wellesly. He's got two cute girls on either side of him and a huuuuge smile on his face. Oh, and he lives in one of the dorms. I'm betting its not as good for him as it sounds. I bet he's fallen into the friend zone. Okay he just admitted that he's "not dating becaused Wellesly is so academiclly challenging." Yep, he's caught in the friend zone.

Seascape Update 2

Chicken Parm was okay but very salty and enormous. I ate half of it.

Service at this place was great though. I'd say 5 star service and 2 star food.

If ever you are in New Jersey and get hungry...go to New York.

Seascape Update

The crab cakes on special were frozen and one was cold in the center. The salad dressing was canned. I'm about to pull a Ramsey and call someone a donkey.

Seascape

Okay, so I finally got through to the front desk and got a recommendation for a place across the street from the hotel called "Seascape". There is, as you might predict, no view of the sea. Very old school place. Everyone has the New Jersey workout. I ordered the chicken parm thinking, hey, if you can't get a good chicken parm in Jersey, you're totally screwed. But we'll see.

Bored in New Jersey

I'm in New Jersey for a meeting with Toys 'R Us. I told my son I was going to TRU headquarters to help Santa make sure all the presents got out on time.

I planned poorly. I came by myself. I should have stayed in NYC. Now it's a pain in the ass to go there and I have no coat because I left it at home. There's no restaurants around and no cabs. The front desk is slammed so I can't get any help. There's nothing on TV because of the writer's strike and the pay-per-view options are mediocre at best.

It sucks.

New Indy Poster

Thanks Disney Blog!

Apple TV: A dud?

Forrester is saying that Apple will not deliver on sales expectations for the Apple TV this year. Surprise. I have an Apple TV and I rarely use it. iTunes used to be a good way to catch up on TV shows you missed, but let's face it, at $2 a pop, its pretty expensive for something you will watch one time. I've found myself more and more going to the networks websites. Sure, there are downsides. There are ads. The video quality is not as good. It can be really choppy and you only get a decent frame rate with a small video window. But its free.

Apple TV is not going to take off until Apple allows ad-supported streaming or downloads. If they really wanted this device to take off, they would add Flash and Safari and let people make their own web pages for Apple TV, just like they did for iPhone. But that is a degree of openness that I don't expect Apple to give us. Instead, they will probably announce some kind of ad supported video downloads, I would guess at MacWorld. What's clear is Apple has to do something. NBC pulling out was a huge blow. And Apple still doesn't have day-and-date releases from any movie studio but Disney. Apple is stagnating on video and they need to do something different or see their progress halted.

Superbad

Best movie ever. Its makes American Pie look like Father Knows Best. If you have not seen it yet, run, don't walk, to buy it.

Total Nokia

Nokia announced the first Total Music deal today with Nokia. They will sell their phones with a free year subscription to download music. After that, you have to pay. I think it will be terrific in thew first year, but will people re-subscribe? You get back to this issue that people hate subs.

Nemo Car Follow-Up

The Disney Blog wondered whether the Citroen Nemo car was licensed by Disney. I have confirmed that it was indeed licensed. Pretty cool, oui?

The Death of DRM

This Ars Technica article is one of many that have been on the Net recently about the death of DRM. DRM is a favorite football on the Internet with many haters and few vocal supporters. God knows I have been a critic, not so much of its goals, but of how it is used. But there's something about the tone of these articles that annoys me. These types of guys have written article after article about how DRM is really the problem and everyone - including the music industry - will be better off when its gone.

Allow me to posit that DRM is a red herring. Its beside the point. Most people don't know what it is. And most people who still buy music do so the old fashioned way, on CD. Dropping DRM will not change anything. Its irrelevant to the issues that the music industry is facing. Anti-DRM advocates would have you believe that DRM is the problem. But if that is true, then how has Apple, which only recently dropped DRM on the songs it carries from only one of its vendors, become the #3 music retailer - online or off - in America. How could that happen if DRM is such a limitation?

The problems for music labels are much deeper and have nothing to do with DRM, at least directly.

The first issue is one of business model. The music industry was built on a model of selling you a $13 CD with one or two songs you wanted and a bunch of other ones you didn't. The labels simply cannot make anywhere near the same money they used to if you buy one or two songs from a CD for $1-$2 instead of giving them the whole $13. The labels irrationally want to blame Apple for killing the album business and that is why you see idiotic blowhards like Doug Morris out there wanting to take Apple on with Total Music. Their ire is ill placed. The truth is that piracy preceded iTunes. Apple saw the trend and legitimized a la carte downloads.

The industry talks a good talk about subscription deals and how they are the salvation, but no one wants them. Subscriptions are like a bad penny, they always turn up in conversations with the labels. It reminds me of the movie Mean Girls where one of the girls keeps saying "that's so fetch" all the time in hopes of making it into a catchphrase and one of the girls finally says "stop trying to make 'fetch' happen. Its not going to happen, okay." Subscriptions just aren't going to happen. No one buys music like they buy electricity. Especially when they have so many options to get music for free. That Doug Morris has come up with this clever plan for getting the subscription from OEMs instead of consumers is just a recognition of how unpopular subscriptions have been with consumers. It might work too if it weren't for basic economics.

The other issue that anti-DRM advocates never want to acknowledge is piracy. There's a lot of denial about this on the Internet. EFFers make a lot of points about fair use and some of them are right, but let's be honest, there are a lot of people out there stealing a lot of content every single day. Piracy is real, it is wrong, it is illegal, and it is hurting a lot of people. In fact, I would proffer that it hurts regular employees of the labels and artists a lot more than it hurts the fat cats. That the music industries leaders are so clueless and unlikeable doesn't help matters. The Anti-DRM crowd would have you believe that selling intellectual property like music is just out of style, that we should just accept theft as a societal norm and that artists should just find some other way of being compensated for their art like concerts. That argument is just total bullshit. It amazes me how righteous these guys get about the things they care about but when it comes to one of the biggest injustices around this whole issue, they suddenly lose the righteousness and get all cynical.

So yes, the music industry is screwed and maybe, at some level, some of the people involved deserve it. But don't fool yourself for a moment. The end of DRM won't solve very much. It won't even be the end of DRM. DRM will just evolve. And so will pirates. And so will the industry. And the game will go on.

If I get a good moment soon, maybe I'll write about what's different, and the same, about online video.

The Strike, Your Marriage and You

Funny. A writer for Samantha Who? made a little video about the strike and its impact on his marriage. His wife would not portray herself in it...so he got Christina Applegate to do the job instead.