Entertainment

Yesterday, The Venice Project. Today, Joost. Tomorrow, Yours.

/ Adam Nash

There is a lot of coverage today about the official unveiling of The Venice Project, now called Joost. You can easily do a search on Google News for Joost – I’m sure it will be in all of the papers tomorrow.

joost.png

Joost is the latest and greatest attempt to bring high definition video to the internet. The reason it is getting so much attention is simple: Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. They are the founders behind the infamous peer-to-peer music service, Kazaa, and more recently, the voice-over-IP phenomenon Skype.

Om Malik, on NewTeeVee, has the best write up of the new venture:

The Venice Project is not just another online video start-up. The Luxembourg-based company is the latest co-production of the two-person hit factory of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. The founders of Kazaa and Skype are hoping that The Venice Project will upend the television experience just as their earlier efforts turned the music and phone businesses on their respective heads.

And while the glam duo might hog the headlines, the task of making the Venice Project a reality falls on the shoulders of Fredrik de Wahl, a lanky Swede with a quiet demeanor who has been a cohort of Messrs. Zennstrom and Friis for more than half a decade.

Before reading his piece, I had no idea how much of the Joost application was built over Mozilla.  Very interesting, and a smart move in the current environment where the market will not reward you for rebuilding UI and application frameworks.  It will reward you for quality of user experience, and of course, our good friend time-to-market.

The Joost website is fun to read – you can sign up for the Beta if you are running Windows.  You can also enjoy the colorful design of the sight, and the flowery Web 2.0 language.

I had the opportunity, briefly, to meet Niklas & Janus in December while attending an eBay leadership conference here in San Jose.  I cannot pretend to know them well, but it is immediately striking when you meet them how passionate they are about user experience and simplicity, and how direct and honest they are with their comments and discussion.

I’m not sure how to resolve the limitations of our current broadband infrastructure in the United States to allow for the peer-to-peer distribution of content like high definition television, which is just incredibly large.  It’s so large that a Tivo Series 3 requires a 250GB drive just to store about 30 hours of it.   Hard drives are big, but the upload support that most people have from their ISPs is quite small.  For example, I get 3Mbps download from Pacific Bell, sorry SBC, sorry AT&T, but only 1/4 that is available as upload capacity at 768Kbps.  That means it’s possible for me to download video, but hard for me to use my upload service to “share” the content with another user.

In any case, I’m glad to see The Venice Project come out from under wraps.  Let’s see if Joost becomes a verb the way that Skype did.

Star Trek XI: Return of Kirk & Spock & Scottie?

/ Adam Nash / 2 Comments

With new actors, of course. Thank goodness.

Just a quick post tonight – I’ve been busy this weekend celebrating my birthday. I promise to write up more about that later.

However, since I was on a movie kick yesterday, I thought I’d post this juicy news tidbit. They are, in fact, working on a new Star Trek movie, currently known as Star Trek XI, and our friend William Shatner seems to have leaked some details.

From the SyFyPortal:

The man best known as the Capt. James T. Kirk says the rumors on the Web have been right all along: J.J. Abrams is working on a story for “Star Trek XI” that will bring Kirk and Spock back to the franchise with much younger actors. And if Shatner has his way, he’ll have some part in the whole thing.

This sounds fairly interesting to me, since it seems that pseudo-retro revisits to the original storylines have been fairly popular with other franchises, why not Star Trek? We’ll see how well this does, but it’s an interesting development. I had always kind-of assumed they would end up making either a Deep Space Nine or Enterprise movie (they kind of capped off Voyager completely). But in truth, going back to the original series might be the most likely success story for Star Trek.

Apparently, the new movie will also feature a young Scottie, and Captain Pike. Interesting.

Hot Movies for 2007: Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Transformers & More

/ Adam Nash / 5 Comments

Not my typical blog post, but I have been a movie vacuum for the past few months, after the birth of my second son.

All of a sudden, I found a reference on one blog to the new Transformers movie coming out this summer.  While I was never an action-figure fan, I loved the Transformers when I was growing up, and so I am extremely excited to see this movie come to the big screen.  I was nervous when I heard that it was going to be live-action, and not animated, but the trailer looks pretty good.

If you missed the 1980s, and need to read up on the Transformers, I continue to be amazed at the quality of the information on Wikipedia.  A friend of mine at eBay, Michael Morgan, has a feedback score of almost 2000 now selling & collecting GI Joe & Transformer action figures.   I know he must be excited about this one.

Since I’ve been in such a movie void that I missed this big movie, I decided to poke around and find out what other big movies are planned for 2007.   I’m delighted to share here a few of the movies that caught my eye for release this year:

(Dates borrowed from the blog, Cinematical)

Clearly, this list of movies tells you a little too much about my taste in blockbusters.  But please note, for the record, that after the living hell that was sitting through Pirates of the Carribean 2, I have already stockpiled at least 10 excuses on why I won’t be able to see #3 when it debuts this summer.   And as much as I liked Die Hard when it came out, I’m not sure I’m excited to see Bruce Willis reprise the role again this year.

A couple notes on the movies above, since a few might be unfamiliar to you:

  • Evan Almighty is a sequel to Bruce Almighty, but focused on the Steve Carrell character.  Since right now, I’m liking every show & movie Steve Carrell makes, I’m assuming this will be worth seeing.
  • Ratatouille is the new Pixar movie.  The movie focuses on a rat, living in Paris, who dreams of opening his own restaurant.  Did I mention it’s the new Pixar movie?

I am particularly excited about the new Spider-Man movie, and the new Harry Potter movie, both of which promise to be more complex and rich than the previous sequels.

Some people lament the current sequel-happy culture in Hollywood.  I have to admit, there are far too many self-serving, vapid sequels like Ocean’s Twelve (and now, this year, Ocean’s Thirteen) floating around for my taste.  Evan Almighty has the potential to be weak in this regard as well.

Still, it is so wonderful to get strong sequels to great franchises, like Spider-Man, I’d rather they spend more time on the next Spider-Man and Superman, and less time making movies about marginal superheroes like Daredevil, Elektra, and coming soon, Iron Man.

One movie not cited above for 2007 is the planned Wonder Woman movie, by Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire and Serenity fame.  This promises to be a great one, but although IMDB says 2007, since they haven’t even cast the part yet, it feels like this will be 2008 at best.

Enjoy!

Video: Download the Season Premiere of 24 before January 24th? (Promotional DVD Leak)

/ Adam Nash / 1 Comment

WordPress.com is getting better and better at not only being a great blogging client, but also as a blog reader. I found this tasty tidbit today on Clint’s Blog:

Fox is releasing the first four episodes of the 2007 season of 24 on DVD. Read about it HERE. Of course, the dvd has already been leaked to p2p networks. Anyone with any bittorrent savvy can watch the first episode of 24 right now. It wont actually air until January 24th.

I don’t think Hollywood hasn’t adapted to the reality that DVDs are now easily ripped and distributed. The sooner they embrace that reality, the better it will be for their ability to develop business models around what customers are doing.

Tivo for Comcast HD is Here… It’s ALIVE!

/ Adam Nash

Well, CES 2007 is underway, and the big news for me is the official demo of the Tivo software on existing Comcast Motorola HD DVRs…

From EngadgetHD:

They took their freaking time getting around to this, but at CES this week Comcast is showing off what they’d been promising to deliver for nearly two years: a cable DVR box with TiVo software on it. It’s good news for subscribers who know the pain of Comcast’s current DVR offerings, though as of right now we still have yet to learn how much a TiVo-enabled box will cost or when exactly it’ll be available.

If you click the picture above, you’ll get a small series of snapshots.

First thoughts… I may get the Tivo Series 3 after all. This looks like some weird hybrid – the Tivo software, with the Comcast/Motorola guide. I like the Tivo Guide a lot – it may not be perfect, but after 7 years of Tivo, I know it like the back of my hand.

Lara, if you are reading this, maybe you’ll be my guinea pig for trying this out? 🙂

Battlestar Galactica: Renewal for Season 4 (but new spin-off Caprica struggling?)

/ Adam Nash / 1 Comment

A quick news tidbit from a new blog – SyFy Portal.  Yes, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I read it.

The good news is that it looks like the SCI FI channel is ready to announce support for another season of Battlestar Galactica, probably my favorite drama right now that isn’t on HBO.  Season 3 is about to start up again after the mid-season cliffhanger on January 21st, with a move to Sunday nights.  If you are not Tivo’ing this or catching it on iTunes, it’s never too late.

The bad news is that the new spin-off show proposed by the creators of Battlestar Galactica, “Caprica”, may be having some trouble.  The article suggests that the new show is unlikely for 2007.  That might be a good thing, since the spin-off doesn’t sound that compelling, and might represent a real “jump the shark” moment for the series.

In any case, you can read more about it here.

Has HD DVD’s AACS Protection Been Cracked Already?

/ Adam Nash

Caught this on Gizmodo this morning:

They told us it was bullet-proof, unbreakable. Yet in a mere eight days, a hacker by the name of Muslix64 has managed to single-handedly break the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the standard that Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and others developed to protect HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Or has he? The BackupHDDVD software Muslix64 posted on a Doom 9 forum thread lets you decrypt Full Metal Jacket, Van Helsing, and a few other popular HD DVD titles, but there’s still no way of telling how he managed to get a hold of the decryption keys. Only time will tell if Muslix64 is the DVD Jon of the next-gen optical discs. – Louis Ramirez

If true, this is extremely interesting for a number of reasons.  The music industry is still in denial about what their customers want and will allow them to monetize, after years of digital music.  To date, most digital music is still acquired through a purchased CD and ripped to the MP3 format, which is compatible with all players.

It seems obvious, by default, that video will follow the same path.  That the preferred method of acquisition will be a lawfully purchased DVD (now less than $5.99 in some places), ripped easily to the MP4 format, with no digital rights management to deal with.

Wouldn’t it be ironic, if, in all the fury over the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray formats, if one of them is cracked and the other isn’t?  The movie industry might swing to the “safe” format, while consumers might quickly gravitate to the one that allows them to more easily use the content (the “open” format).

Of course, both of these formats will be cracked in relatively short order.  It seems inevitable given the complexity involved in protecting content for delivery, and the literally millions of young hackers out there trying to become the next DVD Jon.

We’ll see if this one pans out.  It might be just a one-off crack for a few titles.

The Benefits of Misspelling on eBay & Blogs

/ Adam Nash

It has been a funny couple of days for my blog.

Remember the incredible volume of page views I saw when I posted my theories on the likely ending to the new series, Battlestar Galactica?  Well, let me tell you, posting the expected title of the new Harry Potter book has spiked my blog again to one of the fastest growing.

Interestingly, I found out, after about 1,000 page views and a dozen comments, that I had gotten the title wrong.   I had posted the title as “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows” instead of the correct title, “Hallows”.

Apparently, however, it is a common mistake.  So common, in fact, that the original news story that I had quoted had also made it.

In fact, it has been so common that literally thousands of people have been typing “Harry Potter Hallows” into Google & Yahoo, and my blog has reaped the benefit.   No doubt, the post is popular because it reflects, through indexing, a common mistake that people make.  The competition for the misspelled version is less, and my post is right there, indexed perfectly for it.

Misspelling has to be one of the most common “predictably wrong” things that people do in the modern world of internet search.  And yet, despite years of technology and focus on the area, it still can be an incredible source of value.

On eBay, for example, it has been a long-standing trick of experienced buyers to search for common mis-spellings of their favorite items.   Since most buyers don’t search for the mis-spellings, they often find great deals from unwitting sellers who don’t realize their mistake.

Similarly, I’ve seen eBay sellers take advantage of common mis-spellings by offering listings that feature mis-spelled words in their titles!  Less competition, since most sellers spell their titles correctly.

Of course, eBay is always working to upgrade its search engine with common mis-spellings, since its goal is to make the marketplace as efficient as possible.

Still, new mis-spellings crop up all the time.  In the blogging world, it looks like I inadvertantly contributed to a new problem, and reaped an unfair reward.

I have now updated my blog to include the correct spelling and a note, but I notice that my blog article URL is permanently indexed to the wrong spelling.

Oh well.  It’s always fun to have your blog page views look like this:

Nintendo Wii? Nah. Buy me a Personal Blimp!

/ Adam Nash

Just finished reading the December 25, 2006 issue of Forbes magazine, and found a real gem for my “gifts I’d like” column.

It’s a personal blimp.

Actually, besides just being extremely cool, it has a fantastic back-story too.  Daniel Nachbar, a former Bell Labs software engineer, returned to his true love of aviation, and came up with an incredible new design for a 205,000 cubic foot hot air ship that leverages a unique frame design and propellor placement.  The end result is a quiet ship that can seat two, travel at 12mph, and fold up like an umbrella when you are done (granted, a very large umbrella).

Check out his site for more details.  Estimated price?  $100K-$200K.

Here is the Forbes article (no pictures).  Here is a nice blog post at GadgetOff about the personal blimp, with some additional color & detail.

(P.S.  I’m just kidding about the Nintendo Wii.  I still want one.  Thanks.)

Harry Potter, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (not Hollows)

/ Adam Nash / 152 Comments

Google News is citing over 383 articles about this topic already, but there is nothing wrong with posting #384.

The title for the “last” Harry Potter book has been revealed, it is: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”

As of February 1st, you can now pre-order the standard version or deluxe version for delivery on July 21st:

Here is the Forbes article, which at least has well written coverage.

Rowling’s U.S. publisher, Scholastic (nasdaq: SCHL – news – people ), Inc., released a brief statement Thursday announcing the name of the world’s most anticipated children’s book, the finale to her phenomenally popular fantasy series.

No publication date or other details were offered. Rowling is still working on the book, she wrote on her Web site in an entry posted early Thursday.

“I’m now writing scenes that have been planned, in some cases, for a dozen years or even more,” she wrote. “I don’t think anyone who has not been in a similar situation can possibly know how this feels: I am alternately elated and overwrought. I both want, and don’t want, to finish this book (don’t worry, I will.)”

You’ll notice I put the word “last” in quotations. That is because, while I like the Harry Potter series very much, they are anything but original in character development and plot. As a result, I also expect J.K. Rowling to follow the well-trod path of other series writers, who claim that a given book is the “final” one of the series, only to publish some new version of the story or characters years later, after a suitable break. It might be 10 years later, but it will happen.

I’m very excited to see if Book 7 resolves itself in the same way I think it will. Book 6 definitely followed the expected path, and sets up some very well-known character models for betrayal, defeat and victory. We’ll see what happens.

Update (12/23/06): I have changed the title to “Hallows”, since that seems to be the consensus, although the search for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows turns up a lot of news clippings as well. Thoughts?

Update (12/26/06): See my new post on how mis-spellings can help your popularity! It seems that my blog is a big hit with the people who want it to be “hollows”.

Update (02/01/07): See my new post on the release date for Harry Potter 7: July 21, 2007. There is also a link to pre-order the book for delivery on July 21st.

Battlestar Galactica: The Passage Screws Up (Jupiter vs. Zeus)

/ Adam Nash / 6 Comments

Drat.

I really like Battlestar Galactica. It has been one of my favorite shows for the past couple of years.

I don’t want to criticize it. I don’t want to be annoyed by it.

But long before I liked Battlestar Galactica, I loved Greek & Roman mythology. And they are making really stupid mistakes.

In this last episode, the writers have clearly gotten confused as to whether the religion of the humans is based on Greek or Roman mythology.

Baltar, in this episode, is decoding some pseudo-prophecy from one of the Baseship hybrids. He decodes a reference to cow eyes as Hera, as she is sometimes referred to as “cow-eyed” in Greek mythology. So far, so good.

He then jumps to her husband, “Jupiter,” and maps this to the location of the artifact they are looking for as they search for Earth.

This might be nit-picking, but Jupiter is the Roman name for Zeus. Zeus & Hera are the Greek names. Jupiter & Juno are the Roman names.

This has been annoying me since I watched the episode on Tivo. It’s such an easy detail to get right, and they are really messing it up. Everything else is Greek. Athena, not Minerva. Apollo, of course, has the same name in both Greek and Roman.

Drat. Small detail, maybe, but they are even calling the final episode next week “The Eye of Jupiter”. Drat.

Battlestar Galactica: The Eye of Jupiter (Mid-Season Finale)

/ Adam Nash / 2 Comments

I haven’t posted a lot this week due to late nights and early mornings for work. However, I had to share this tidbit while it was still timely.

First, I hated the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, “Unfinished Business”. I found this post on the Table of Malcontents that sums up my feelings:

It is with a heavy heart that I am forced to confront the possibility that the once-great show Battlestar Galactica may be heading to fraktown. After Friday’s head-clutchingly bad episode, which combined boxing scenes with barfy romantic flashbacks, my sense of foreboding has escalated into franchise panic. Will our beloved show go Star Trek:TNG season 7 on us? Or, worse, Buffy season 6? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Read on for the ten signs that Battlestar Galactica is turning a dangerous corner . . .

The article goes on to list the 10 signs that the show might be close to jumping the shark. We’ll see. Truth be told, I’m pretty easy going on science fiction that I like, and I even likes Star Trek TNG season 7. (I even liked the last season of Enterprise, so there.)

In any case, in all places, the Lucy Lawless (yes, Xena Warrior Princess is on Battlestar Galactica now) fan site has a spoiler for the upcoming mid-season finale, “The Eye of Jupiter”.

Check it out here.

Kind of neat that you can go see it on the big screen. I’m hopeful that there are several more good seasons of Battlestar Galactica left before I have to go fishing for a new sci-fi series.