Andy Taylor

April 5, 2008 Andy TaylorLeave a commentUncategorized

Don’t sign up for your $40 DTV converter box coupon–yet

The DTV transition is less than a year away and as of January 1, 2008, Americans have been eligible to sign up for a $40 coupon to help purchase DTV converter boxes needed to receive new digital TV signals. While your instincts may tell you to sign up as quickly as possible, there’s a strong argument to be made to hold off for a little while. Here’s why:

1. The coupon expires in three months… If you carefully read you the FAQ on the government’s Web site, the program clearly states that the $40 coupons expire three months after they’re shipped. That’s unfortunate because we’re guessing many people don’t think much of it, and are just trying to sign up before they forget. Now you’re forced into getting whatever DTV boxes that are currently on the market, even though…

2. Better, cheaper boxes are coming… None of the DTV converter boxes we’ve seen so far are available for $40 yet, which means you’ll need to kick in some real American dollars in addition to your coupon. Echostar is planning on releasing a $40 converter box, the TR-40, but it won’t come out until this summer–so if you already have your coupon, you probably won’t be able to get it. That wouldn’t be so bad, except that the Echostar TR-40 looks like it’s going to be substantially better than current models, offering a full EPG and program search functoinality. Even if the Echostar device isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be…

3. Current models will get cheaper… This is just an educated guess, but don’t be surprised if all of the current DTV converter boxes currently going for $50 to $60 suddenly drop to $40 once the Echostar TR-40 comes out. It will be near impossible for the other boxes to compete with free, so they’ll be forced to sell for $40, which means it essentially free to consumers with a coupon.

The main counterargument against waiting is that if you wait too long, it’s possible that the government’s coupon program will run out of money. That’s definitely something to consider, as there are only 22.25 million coupons available. After those are used up, an additional 11.25 million coupons will become available, but only to households that solely use analog over-the-air TV (no cable, satellite, Fios, and so on). So if you’re worried that you’re not going to get a coupon at all, you can play it safe and sign up now. But it’s probably a pretty safe bet that the current coupon program won’t run dry during the next couple months, and you’ll get more out of that $40 coupon.

April 5, 2008 Andy TaylorLeave a commentUncategorized

35th Anniversary Of The First Public Cell Phone Call

With around half the world’s population expected to be carrying a mobile phone by the end of this year, it’s hard to believe that its just 35 years since the first ever public cell phone call was made. Yesterday (4/3/08) marked the anniversary of the historical call made on the streets of New York by portable cell phone inventor Martin Cooper, then general manager of Motorola’s Communications Systems Division. Not surprisingly the device used was a far-cry from the slim-line handsets of today – making even the “bricks” of the late 80’s and early 90’s seem ultra-portable. Weighing in at two and a half pounds and 10 inches long, the phone could be used for only 20 minutes before the battery died.

April 4, 2008 Andy TaylorLeave a commentUncategorized

Windows 7 to arrive next year, says Bill Gates

MIAMI (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp.(MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) co-founder Bill Gates said on Friday he expected the new version of Windows operating software, code-named Windows 7, to be released “sometime in the next year or so.”

The software giant has been aiming to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the majority of the world’s personal computers. Nevertheless, Gates’ comments suggested that a successor to the Vista program might be released sooner than was generally expected.

Microsoft has said it expected to release a new version of Windows approximately 3 years after the introduction of Vista in January 2007. A company spokeswoman said Gates’ comments are in line with a development cycle that usually releases a test version of the software before its official introduction.

“I’m superenthused about what it will do in lots of ways,” Gates said in a seminar on corporate philanthropy held during an annual meeting in Miami of the Inter-American Development Bank.
“That’ll be sometime in the next year or so that we’ll have a new version,” Gates said in response to a question from the audience.

Gates, who is due to leave his day-to-day functions at Microsoft and dedicate himself to the philanthropic efforts of the Gates Foundation in June, said the company aimed through its $6 billion annual research and development budget to take the products running on its software to “the next level.”

He said new versions of Windows would help revolutionize mobile phones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display allowing users to call up items using their hands.

April 4, 2008 Andy TaylorLeave a commentUncategorized

Forgetting Sarah Marshall – Web

We’ve probably all been through the tough breakup at some point in our lives and a new film from producer Judd Apatow and first time Director Nicholas Stoller highlights those often painful yet humorous moments that we just don’t notice.

The film looks hilarious and the website for the film features a laugh filled Trailer for the film which opens April 18th 2008. It stars Kristen Bell, Jason Segel and Mila Kunis who just started filming “Max Payne” , based on the often dizzying video game, with Mark Wahlberg. Kristen plays an actress, Sarah Marshall, who decides to break it off with Jason Segels character Peter.

Universal is the distributor for this film and has created a great fun website for finding out more about the film as well as some other sites promoting Sarah Marshall’s fictional TV character with a Fansite and Blog and even a site on the NBC website promoting the fictional TV show Crime Scene. http://www.nbc.com/Crime_Scene/

Kristen also stars in the NBC drama Heroes. A great way to promote a film! I can’t wait to see it.

http://www.forgettingsarahmarshall.com

April 3, 2008 Andy TaylorLeave a commentUncategorized

No Starch Press has an interesting way to Market on File Sharing services

I normally don’t copy and paste “press releases” but thought this we an interesting story.

No Starch Press, publisher of geek books, is trying something interesting with file-sharing sites.
Recognizing that the book business is changing and that books end up on file-sharing sites within days of being released in electronic form, they thought they’d take matters into their own hands. The result? No Starch released their own “official pirate version” of two best-selling backlist titles, Leander Kahney’s The Cult of Mac and The Cult of iPod. News of the release became a viral hit online, and there were over 11,000 downloads of the books in the first week.
“I’ve always felt that these two books should have sold many more copies than they actually have,” said No Starch Press publisher Bill Pollock, “but that they suffered from a lack of visibility. As four-color, coffee-table books, they were never released electronically and never appeared on torrent sites. So these two were good choices for this little experiment.”
Visibility online came swiftly. One of No Starch’s editors had shared 2GB of data from his home PC within hours of the initial upload. By the next day, The Cult of Mac became the #1 book on the infamous torrent site, The Pirate Bay. And a story about the experiment posted to TorrentFreak.com reached the front page of popular social news site Digg.
The truth of the matter is that the battle to stop people from posting copyrighted material to torrent sites is one that can’t be won. Beside the fact that No Starch Press sells PDFs without DRM (digital rights management) protections, anything that can be viewed online can be captured and pirated. Within days of its release, No Starch Press’s best-selling Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition, was scraped from an e-book site and posted to multiple file-sharing networks.
Of course, part of the reason for No Starch releasing these titles on P2P sites is political. As major organizations and ISPs work to shut down file sharing, No Starch aims to remind them that P2P has valid uses as well—even for traditional content providers. “File sharing itself, or P2P, is not a crime,” said Pollock. “It can be a great way for willing artists to share their work. That’s not to say that stealing copyrighted material is not a crime, and our actions are not in any way meant to endorse it.”

“If this experiment works, we’ll try more titles,” Pollock said. “And even if it doesn’t work, we may try more titles, if only to beat pirates at their own game.”

Author: Andy Taylor