Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
I saw it again last Saturday night. At the restaurant where my wife and I were sharing a nice dinner on a snowy Saturday night there was a couple at the next table who spent a good part of the time reading/typing on their mobile devices. They were not talking, nor glancing at one another. The really sad thing (at least as far as I am concerned) is that is not all that unusual.
Now this is going to make me sound old – maybe older than I am, but I remember when there were no mobile devices and you actually had to have a conversation with the person with whom you were sharing a meal. You couldn’t fake a call from someone in order to get out of a bad ‘blind’ date or any kind of date for that matter which just made it much more challenging BTW.
Look around any restaurant for someone sitting by themselves. Perhaps they are waiting for someone(s). Maybe they are eating alone. But how often do you see a single person just sitting there looking out and around, not on their mobile device? Of course many people read a book or magazine (electronic or not) when dining alone but I recall from black and white movies a time where someone would sit in a restaurant and not read anything and simply just sit there and wait, and think. Could you imagine?
How often during your waking hours do you not engage in some sort of stimulus? That is, how often do you just sit, stand, or run, and think without any other stimulus (think iPod)? I think for many people this is happening to an increasing degree (in the U.S. at least) and is inexorably changing not only the way people interact but even more significantly people’s ability to spend idle time simply thinking about whatever crosses one’s mind. It’s even more prevalent for people under 30 who appear to me to never stop interacting with technology when not in the presence of others. Is there any time that they just sit and do nothing but think or day dream?
It goes way beyond the seeming inability of people to spend any idle time. Answering an email or phone call when in the presence of others when 99% of those contacts are not emergencies is not multi-tasking in my opinion. How can you make the person you are with feel that you care about them or what they are saying when you stop to answer a phone call, text or email? But somehow that’s become the norm rather than the exception. People not only have difficulty being idle, they feel the need to manage two interactions simultaneously.
How about you? Do you spend quiet time just thinking? No music or electronics of any kind. Quiet. Can you? Will you?
When I went to see Avatar in 3D in 2009 I felt it was an interesting and worthwhile experience. What I did not realize is that the story and imagery were woven so well together that they transcended the fact that the movie was in 3D. I’ve since seen Avatar in un-3D (i.e. regular film) and enjoyed the movie very much. That movie experience was not downgraded for the lack of it being in 3D.
Over the Christmas holiday weekend my family and I went to see Tintin www.tintin.com . I’ve always been a fan of Tintin having read the comics when I was a kid and watching the cartoons when they came out 20 years ago in 1991. The Steven Spielberg treatment of the Tintin characters was true to the franchise. The characters and the story again put together so well. Yet the experience was not enhanced by the fact that we saw the movie in 3D. My daughter says this all the time and that she would rather NOT see a movie in 3D if it can be avoided.
Once again the $15/ticket price for the four of us was eyebrow-raising. It shows me that it will not be too long before a family of four could pay $100 to go to see a movie in the theater. I still feel the movie theater experience is a very worthwhile and unique one that cannot be recreated in 99.9% of home theaters.
But shelling out $60 for four 3D tickets due to the supposed enhancement of the movie-going experience is most times just a bad value. 3D techniques do not seem to have advanced all that much and the ‘cool’ factor having something float by you in a 3D movie is highly overrated. I look at the 3D technology having not advanced much – sort of like modern day toasters.
Apparently there’s hope on the way for a vastly improved 3D experience. An improved experience would I hope include the need of having to even wear 3D glasses. I don’t know anyone that actually likes having to wear 3D glasses to watch a movie.
So save your money folks – I think my daughter is right.
What do you think?
Over the past week and a half I have become aware of two separate stories that I believe are closely related. Last week there were reports circulating on comedian Louis C.K. (who I have only seen in passing on cable at some point along the way) and his novel approach to marketing his latest made for television performance. David Carr in his regularly excellent column in the New York Times highlighted the effort in Monday’s paper – http://nyti.ms/vMq0O7 .
The story on Louis C.K. is that he decided to “go direct with his fans: no cable special, no middleman, just a simple download for $5 on his Web site to see his comedy show “Louis C. K.: Live at the Beacon Theater.” A true DIY (do-it-yourselfer) Louis C.K. writes, directs, produces and acts in his own series “Louie” and now he is a bona fide distributor. What impressed me more is that shortly after he went out with this novel offer – 200,000 people paid $ 5.00 each for two streams and three downloads of the special. It cost him $ 250,000 to create the show and he will bring in roughly $1 million. To say that’s not bad would be an understatement.
Unrelated I saw another story yesterday on a website unboundbooks.co.uk – a site live in the UK and soon to be in the U.S. as well. The idea of Unbound is best first read straight from their website –
“BRINGING AUTHORS AND READERS TOGETHER
We think authors and readers should decide which books get published. On the Unbound site, (unfortunately the U.S. site www.unbound.com or unboundbooks.com is not yet up but the British site www.unbound.co.uk is up and running), authors pitch their ideas directly to you. If you like what you read, you can pledge your support to help make the book happen. Everyone who supports an author before they reach 100% of the funding target gets their name printed in every edition of that book. All levels include a digital version and immediate access to the author’s shed while they write the book, and supporters of projects that don’t reach their target receive a full refund.”
You can read more from an article straight from The Guardian – http://bit.ly/rxELnz
In short the idea is that a big problem for the publishing industry is that many book advances to authors are non-returnable and do not earn out their advances. What Unbound proposes to do is to have potential readers pay in advance for the book that has yet to be written. It reads better than it first sounds –
“The site, launched last May, acts as a forum for authors to pitch books directly to readers, who, if they like the sound of a project, commit money right away, before the book has even been written. Each book has a target number of pledges it must receive to be viable (generally between 500 and 1,000). When you click on a book on the site, you are shown how many pledges it needs in total, and the percentage it has so far received. You can then pledge your support at a number of levels: from buying the eBook (generally £10), through purchasing the hardback (usually £20) or a signed copy (£50), all the way up to being invited to the launch party (typically £150) or, sometimes, going on an excursion with the author.
Justin Pollard, one of the founders, points out that although pledging involves handing over actual money, supporters aren’t taking a risk, because if the book doesn’t receive the required number of pledges, the project is scrapped and everyone gets their money back. Meanwhile, the publisher avoids exposing itself to upfront advances.
Crowdsourcing has become a bit of a buzzword but to see it in action in both the case of Louis C.K. and Unbound impresses me greatly.
How about your take on these new models?
On Monday December 12, New York Times’ writer David Streitfeld quasi-reviewed the hot-selling Amazon Kindle Fire http://nyti.ms/ruVyId. Skewered might be a better description. I have had my own Amazon Kindle Fire for two and a half weeks and have not been disappointed but not completely thrilled either.
The reviews I have read invariably start with what’s wrong with the Kindle Fire. So I will do my best to first focus on the positive attributes before casting any stones. Bob Sacks of Precision Media Group has more of an even-keel view of the Kindle Fire that I share in large part.
‘It is not an iPad, nor does it pretend to be one. Most of the reviewers are making a mistake to compare them . . . The first and obvious attraction to the Fire is the price. At $199.00 it is half the cost of an iPad, so no comparison is necessary there. And most of those who buy a Fire will not have held an iPad and will therefore not be able to make a comparison . . . Is it a perfect device? No. Is it a fair compromise of price and services? Absolutely yes.’
What first attracted me to the Kindle was that it served as an e-reader with true web connectivity. Yes it is a mini-tablet and for me eminently more portable than an iPad. The back lighting on the Kindle Fire is very good and the book and periodical reading experience is also excellent – better than the original Kindle by far. Oh and did I mention it was $199.00? Price is a huge driver here and I think it is also true that many people who will try the Kindle Fire have not used an iPad so they do not have that experience to compare one versus the other.
The Kindle color tablet screen is vivid and for me not too small as some have suggested. There are some issues with content not being optimized for the Kindle size but those will be worked out in subsequent versions. Book and publication downloads are fast and easy. The battery life is more than adequate particularly if you are careful about turning off the Wi-Fi when it is not being used. The touch screen and navigation are intuitive and work well.
When it comes to things I don’t like about the Kindle Fire there are a number of those as well. The thing that first bothered me is that there is no way to get web access other than Wi-Fi. At present Amazon is not offering consumers a way to purchase 3G or 4G connectivity under subscription. The lack of a front and back facing camera is something that will be added later I suspect but again keep in mind that an iPad costs more than double the price of a Kindle Fire.
Over the air updates are slated to come in spring 2012 for the Kindle Fire. So I expect some improvements in the user experience. And when Amazon releases the Kindle Fire 2.0 (sometime) I expect many of the issues to be resolved – perhaps not at the $199 price however. I can see Amazon creating a vertical market for the Kindle Fire with different levels of features and services.
Amazon needed to get version 1.0 of the Kindle Fire on the market or it might have been too far behind to ever catch up. If you are a book lover the Kindle Fire offers a great reading experience and a so-so web browsing experience in a convenient and portable size. You can wait for the next version but it might be a while.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire is not an iPad – and that’s ok isn’t it?
My wife reminded me that not everyone has a GPS phone or a navigation system in their car. Despite that observation, it is a rare occasion that someone will ask me for directions when they are coming to visit me at my office or home. I know that I don’t ask for directions when arranging an appointment either professional or personal. Then I started wondering if not asking for directions, is a good thing. I came up with a few reasons it makes sense to ask the person you are visiting for directions.
Those of us that use Mapquest, Yahoo or Google Maps for example have found those platforms to be useful although frustrating at times. Since I have a smart phone complete with a Google Maps application I frequently rely on it to get me where I am going – anywhere in the world. It works most of the time but I have encountered situations where the application failed to locate me via GPS – particularly when I travel to China. That’s not exactly the place you’d want to be with no idea on how to get from point A to point B – so there’s one reason to ask for or at least print-out directions ahead of time.
Another reason it makes sense to ask for directions or at least confirm the directions you have is to avoid any unknown detours, road closures etc. It’s true that most of the GPS enabled applications and navigation systems will eventually get there but wouldn’t it be nice to know about road closures or detours ahead of time?
And don’t forget about the human engagement element that occurs while asking for directions. When you go to a place for the first time and rely on an application to get you there you miss out on connecting with someone regarding the place where they live or work. For example you could mention in conversation with the appointment about the route you are likely to take and if there are any better ways or things (i.e. landmarks) to look for. By doing that you make things just a little more personal by receiving information that is likely to be both timely and relevant and along the way you might learn a few things about the person and the area in which they live and work. People like talking about the area in which they spend their time – either for work, home or leisure.
While it’s true that GPS navigation systems are good and only getting better I am going to change my method of never asking for directions to connect a little more with the people I am going to visit. Obviously it is not always practical to ask for directions when visiting a public place like a stadium or movie theater, but those post directions on their websites that you can use as a guideline.
How about you? Are you like me in that you never ask for directions? Have I made you think about it even a little?