Hummer Money

confessions of a pixel pusher marketing media

bands rejecting hummer money

Modernista made some of the best car commercials for the ‘Hummer’ brand. I am lucky enough to have worked on and around some of them. I think that the Hummer is a really really stupid car. But I did not reject the ‘Hummer Money’. Well it would be kind of weird if I would turn the servers off because the images on them contain a gas guzzling SUV.

I respect those bands for making this decission. But I rather would work on a decent Hummer commerical than on a shitty one for a product that would make more sense. That’s just me. Everybody has to find his/her standards here.

As these incoherent ramblings show it is a matter of that is still bouncing around in my head allot: Where does the responsibility end. How much influence do you have. Not an easy question to solve. Except for when you stand at the sidelines and never get asked in the first place. Then of course it’s easy and conveinient to say “I would never do that”.

that’s odd

Apple internet

Trying to dowload a 3.6 MB big .dmg file from Apple. It stalls. Four times at different points in the download. In safari, firefox and wget.

Logging in to a different machine. File downloads without any problem.
Downloading it then file via scp or httpd from the new location to my compueter works.

Something between my machine and apple get’s in the way. It is only level3.net
and the ISP and then akadns.net

Is this a bug or the beginning of ‘traffic shapping’ ?

job offering

confessions of a pixel pusher

Los Angeles based high end commercial editorial/VFX boutique seeks
passionate, experienced engineer. Must be forwarded thinking with a love
for technology and sharing that it with the creative staff and producers.
Experience with networking, unix and OS X would be required, some working
knowledge of video systems helpful. Must work well with others and be able
to clearly define goals and implement them. We have a great team and looking
to build a stronger one. If you care to push pixels better than anyone,
then we can offer you some of the prettiest pixels in town to do so.

Please send resumes to:
techjob0603@andreaswacker.com

making of for a fake jpeg

Apple internet media

this video
is the ‘making of’ for the video ipod pictures that where roaming the internets.

No comments on the Microsoft Origami d-kitchen video. Not clear if intended or not.

Democracy

internet media

I will not say anything about the fact that a viewer for internet based clip content is called “democracy”.

I tried it anyway. The site looks rather ‘pro’.

Impossible to google for, that’s what you get when you call your software ‘democracy’.

The things looks interesting. It has quickly put 2GB into ~/Movies/DTV.
The mix of python,VLC, bittorrent and quicktime is definitely a good recipe. We will see many ‘media meals’ based on these ingredients.

spring spring spring

Sony

Sony’s stock price tanks. Merrill Lynch issues a pdf where they claim that the PS3 cost 900 US$ to make. Only problem is, that if you add their numbers up it makes 800, not 900. Sure, those people should really have my 401K money. If you look a google news you still find the 900 US$ price ‘news’ flying around that is merely based on one flawed pdf.
That’s only 100 US$. Oh, Sony said earliert they are determined to sell 100 Million PS3. Of course they will become cheaper over time. If they would not than this little pdf error would sum up to 10 Billion US$. I wonder if Merrill Lynch starts caring about that kind of money.

Back to Sony. They have a new
story. Now it’s the industry specs they are waiting for. They are hinting in direction of HDMI. DRM of video IO. I was under the impression these things were all set.

Nvidia says it does not expect any royalty payments from Sony until the end of April. They make the graphics card for the PS3.

Other ‘stories’ roam the net that mention 2007 in relationship to the PS3 launch. Sony has really a good chance to mess this up royally. Right now they have a decent trajectory to do so.

Instead of loosing more creditibility on launch dates, they should have discredited the ML paper on the simple grounds that it offered.

Ken Kutaragi told the Cell Chip developers in 2001 that he wanted the chip to be 1,000 times more powerful than the one out of the PS2 . Sonys speaks about 35 – 40 times right now.

smart trash

daily life history technology

Not sure when this will happen, but I am pretty sure it will. Unless mankind abondons culture and civilistation for whatever reason.

When the trash can will be picked up it’s contents will be read via the RFID tags that every product will have. Now that makes for ample opportunity. The trash collectors can recycle, locate misplaced things for you and can sell your complete consumption profile to everybody who could benefit from it. From here it is pretty easy to figure out if you should change your diet or drink less. If your trash and credit card records don’t line up then that could mean allot of things.

A garbage truck costs tens of thousands of dollars, the technology needed to implement this will be only a few hundred once RFID tags are every where.

I’d say we better get the NSA back in check before they can wrap their -granted limited- imagination around these possibilies.

Version 108

BlogsNow internet media

Version one hundred and eight of BlogsNow:

BlogsNow has feeds. With a twist, of course: the title contains ‘BlogsNow’ to make sure that people realise who brought them a topic first. Links click trhough BlogsNow so that I can see where which links get used and scraped. I also add the time in the link, so that I can see how long links linger out there. There are more rss bots than ever it seems. I am curious where the BlogsNow rss content will show up.

I then looked at the css file and messed around. Some people would call that a redesign. I would never attempt to consider my css dablings to be design. If I can read the text on the page then I am happy.

The logo did not feel right anymore, so I got rid of it. Which does not feel right either. Maybe I will have an idea. Yeah right.

Finally I added BlogsNow in the list of links. Click on the ‘x links’ below the subject and you can see the link history. Where did a topic show up when. Interesting to see how BlogsNow compares to other trackers.

spring, spring! 2006! really!

Sony

Sony did spend the last year confirming a launch date of Spring 2006 for it’s next generation game console PS3. As late as December the company was re-iterating this mantra. People were somewhat surprised, since the very same empty ‘concept design’ hulls were all that could ever be seen of the PS3. There were ‘example’ videos, but nobody would really think that those were rendered on an actual PS3 system.

A week ago news spread that Sony would showcase the PS3 on the Taipei Game Show this week and that got people excited. Microsoft launches the Xbox 360 in Taiwan on March 16th, and many gamers expected that Sony would reveal more about the PS3, maybe even show one, in order to dampen Microsofts growing marketshare. It turned out that Sony still has no real PS3 to show. Just some more promo videos.

And some executive PR statements:
Sony will sell 100 Million PS3s
PS will launch this year

The latest is that Sony needs some extra time and care to protect the PS3 against pirates:

Our No. 1 competition is not other companies but counterfeiters.

No word where they will launch first. No prices. No working consoles. No schedule. Sony also says that it will an online component called “HUB”.

Contratictory to so bleak non-news
Sony’s stock price has been going up since mid last year. According to Businessweek Sony lost 290 Million US$ in their electronic – and made 365 US$ with their gaming-division last year.

I think that we will see the stock price go below thirty US $ until summer.

Here the real story about PS3.

(I don’t know this, I have no inside knowledge. I would not write about it if I would. It’s just an educated (?) guess)

Sony is depending on their gaming division revenue. More than ever. None of their established fields did well lately: They ARE the Walkman company, but never got mp3’s. Their Trinitron Tubes were the best around, but the prettiest Flatscreens came from Samsung and Co. Computers ? Well, not really that hot either. Movies are hit and miss, they have a big music division, but we all know how well CD peddlers do.

Leaves games. In games people still pay for content. The bigger the current problems of Sony in total grew the higher the expectations rose in their Gaming Division to deliver the goods. In Japan, uf you are asked to deliver then you do. Or you pretend to do: Kutaragi got years ago Millions and Millions in R&D for the next gen console. He suceeded with PS1 and PS2. Now, in his early 50s, it was time to build some legacy. So he set amazingly high marks for the specs of the PS3. Nothing less than dual 1080p should this machine be able to push. More than ten times the screen resolution than the PS2 can do. A huge leap ahead. Sony liked to hear that: It would secure the revenue stream off their gaming divsion. They knew all to well, that they sold 100 Million PS1s and 100 Million PS2s. . It is no coincidence to see this number now been cited in respect to the PS3. In reality it might just be whistling in the woods.

There is no PS3 yet. Not one has been built. At least not one that would be worth showing. Sony went to Toshiba and IBM to get the very very latest in CPU technology: The “cell”. Based on Kutaragies specs the CPU is supposed to do wonders. I think that this is were the problem is. Launching a new CPU is a big deal. There is a learning curve for everybody. Lot’s and lot’s of things need to work together real well. If you have a working system and you ‘just’ tune parts. Not so here: Most things inside of the PS3 are new. Eventually they will work. And might even work well. Sony’s bigger problem is to internally manage exactly when the machine will be ready.

If the executives cite now piracy concerns then I think that they simply telling the world what their engineers told them. The real fact is that things just got out of hand. The box is too complex to handle. But it sounds better if you tell your boss that you need extra time to protect against all those pirates out there: “Those damn pirates, you hate them too Mr Stinger, right? You don’t want your pretty new PS3 been pirated right? ” While the truth is rather different: Sony tried to leap too far. Last year they had to show most amazing videos at E3, because that was what Kutaragi did promise his elders for years. Now they are stuck on delivering this. Kutaragi said that he would expect people to get a second job in order to pay for the PS3. That’s how amazing he thought it will be. I think now he would be really reallly happy if could cram a working system into those slim empty case they did show since almost a year. Just a system that is up to par with the XBox 360, with some games for it. Maybe even this year. So that Sony can plug into where the gaming money really will be: online connection of gaming consoles. XBox Live becomes right now the ITMS for small little games. A whole new concept. There will be ample games for a few dollars: Gamers are happy, since they have the choice, developers are happy, since they get to market quickly, get new trends and have no production cost. Sony is lightyears away from having anything like this.

Ironically it will be Microsoft that will be depending on it’s gaming revenue much like Sony has been for the last years: Vista will fall /way/ behind internal expectations for various reasons. But Xbox will make continue to make money.
And Sony? Well, they will be known for the mobile TV Set’s they flew into NY with a 747 in order to meet demand, the Walkman and the Trinitron TV. And the Playstation1 & 2. The rest is history. Not the pleasant kind. Sorry Sony. No better news for you.

IBM about the PC in 1981

history media

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