Adam Wilcox is a filmmaker, web designer and podcaster. Read more...
Portal 2 has been confirmed by Valve, creators of Left 4 Dead and Half-Life. The original Portal was the stand-out game in the Orange Box. This news coincides with teaser images from Valve suggesting that the Steam distribution platform will soon be native on the Mac.
An audio interview with Jonathan Ross from guardian.co.uk. Quite apart for Ross’s obvious love and knowledge of technology and Apple stuff especially, one of the more interesting parts of the interview was about streaming movies online. Ross mentioned the way the Baftas voting has changed:
(Bafta) gave you a password to download a few of the new movies you hadn’t seen yet, and thats quite interesting that their now getting up to speed with the technology. So rather then send out screeners, they can send it to you password protected and watermarked, and that will probably help them protect against piracy, because I know quite a lot of piracy problems are to do with award screeners going amiss.
Andy Baio of waxy.org has been tracking the online distribution of Oscar screeners every year since 2003. The main source of high-quality pirate copies of films came from Oscar screeners. Musician friends of mine have had their albums leaked online from the label issued pre-released copies of their albums.
This is the real problem with piracy, not clamping down on the rights of consumers, and harassing ISPs; the key to controlling piracy is dealing with the leaks from inside the industry.
The Press Complaints Commission has rejected a complaint from the partner of Stephen Gately, the Boyzone singer who died suddenly in October, over an article by the Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir.
Obviously as Chairman of the PCC Editors’ Code Committee, Paul Dacre was not influenced by his day job as Daily Mail editor. No, clearly that had nothing to do with the PCC deciding the Daily Mail was right to publish Moir’s article in which she suggested the events leading up to Gately’s death were “sleazy” and “less than respectable”.
It would also be wrong to suggest that the PCC ruling was influenced by Peter Wright, (Editor of The Mail on Sunday), in his role as one of the Directors of the PCC.
Addedum: Emalyse has more on this, and is less cocky about it than me.
I would like to die peacefully before the disease takes me over. I hope that will not be for some time, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.
Terry Pratchett gives the 34th Richard Dimbleby Lecture.
An edited extract of the lecture is also available to read on guardian.co.uk.
Apple’s new device was announced yesterday, and plenty of people have put their two cents online. Here are mine:
Who is the iPad for? I could see how an iPad could fit into my life. I have an iPhone and an iMac. I also have a Dell Mini 10v, which I’ve hacked to run OS X. I find it really nice to be able to sit up in bed and write stuff, (which is where I am now), and I can see how waking up, grabbing the iPad to read the morning papers or Instapaper would be great.
The only task I ever attempt on my netbook that I can’t do on my iPhone is web design, but if Apple can port iWork, (their Office package), over to the iPad maybe some bright spark could make something similar for web design. I’d love to see an iPad version of CSSEdit or Expresso, my web development packages of choice.
The biggest negative so far for me is no USB port. No access to additional HD storage, import / export files. Depending on how the iPad works with network storage though, this might not be so big an issue. Originally I was a bit concerned to find that there was no SD slot, so you would not be able to import your photos directly onto it. However according to the Apple site you will be able to “import them directly from your camera using the optional Apple Camera Connection Kit”.
Thinking about what my parents use on the Mac Mini I bought for them, it is almost exclusively: web browsing, emailing, bit of word processing, bit of spreadsheets, looking at photos. All of these can be accomplished on the iPad, and they can pick it up and read the morning papers on it.
However, they also scan documents in, print, and occasionally update their sat nav firmware. These last three, stop the iPad being the perfect computer for them, and there is no reason printer manufactures can’t build an iPhone/iPad application that prints documents. Really most of the criticism of the iPad are based on the fact that ‘it can’t do X Y or Z’, but the port or iWork shows that maybe all that is needed is a rethink of our ideas of software.
There is the lack of Flash issue to deal with too. I don’t care, the only problem I ever have regarding Flash not working on the iPhone is video and it increasingly looks like HTML5 could be the answer. Maybe not immediately, but given Youtube & Vimeo are making the push towards supporting non-flash devices, and the BBC iPlayer already mostly supports a Quicktime format the lack of Flash seems less and less of an issue.
I do have a couple of questions.
The iPhone OS alleviates the notion of a file management system for the user, making the device idea for grandparents who have never used a computer, as well as the younger techno-literate who are perfectly comfortable with the concept of cloud based storage and syncing with a bigger machine.
I’ve read some pretty poor reviews online, (mostly from people who haven’t used an iPad), the reviews from the people who were at the news conference in San Francisco and actually got to play with one for a bit, (see John Gruber) seem far more positive.
I expect I’ll be waiting until version two comes out, but I am hopeful that, (like the iPhone), this will prove to be something very special.
The argument was put to me recently that the Digital Rights Management wrapper, (DRM), applied to the Amazon Kindle is just as restrictive as apps for the iPhone, and I don’t have any problem using those.
It’s an interesting argument, but doesn’t stand up to much analysis.
The Kindle is a book reader, the books on it are subject to DRM. I cannot resell the books I buy on it, I can’t take them to a non-Amazon approved system. If Amazon decided to close the DRM servers, or retract the reading rights to the book, (something they have already done), then the Kindle becomes simply an empty device. It certainly doesn’t perform the role of a book reader- allowing me to read books.
The iPhone App Store meanwhile controls what apps I can have on my phone, and if Apple so wished they could remotely delete my apps. However, the difference between Amazon removing the rights to the books I’ve bought, and Apple removing the rights to the apps I’ve bought is that the apps on the iPhone are additional functionality. The iPhone still works as a phone, still plays music. Yes I don’t truly “own” my iPhone apps- I can’t take they to a new platform, I can’t resell them, but they are not an essential function of the phone. Books on the Kindle meanwhile are an essential function- and that’s why the restrictive licenses on Kindle books from Amazon is such a bad step.
BBC News reports that an Israeli hacker claims to have broken the Kindle DRM. If this is true, its only a short term success, as Amazon will no doubt patch this very quickly.
According to the NCIS documents, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously.
Lengthy feature by Scott Horton in Harper’s Magazine on the Guantánamo “Suicides”, the cover-up now being maintained by the Obama Administration and the existence of a previously unreported black site at Guantánamo where the deaths most likely occurred.
Scott Horton appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Monday to discuss what took place.
It’s still just slapping a plastic knob whenever the screen tells you to.
Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw nails exactly why I have never, and will never enjoy the Guitar Hero / Rock Band games.
This years CES was all about 3D televisions, with most of the major manufactures unveiling 3D screens whilst Sky announced it will start broadcasting programmes in 3D from October.
As I previously noted, I’ve been lucky enough to try Sky’s 3D offering, and yes it is impressive but it really doesn’t add to what you are watching.
Back in May 2008 I wrote
When you watch a movie like Pixar’s Finding Nemo, the technical quality of the animation, the subtle light reflecting underwater or the intricate details of the corral and plant life, are not the first thing you mention when considering the film. “What great characters, what a fantastic plot, the jokes were so funny”. The visuals take second place.
At no point when you are watching Finding Nemo do you think: “wow, look at that impressive rendering”. The problem with 3D is that it announces itself, waving its pointy bits at you. It takes you out of the content, it does not draw you in. As Mark Kermode points out, 3D is really about stopping bootleggers. It’s an attempt to get people into the cinema, and 3D television is trying to get people to stop downloading programs from torrent sites.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, told an industry audience last year
Ninety percent of piracy is done by people in the theatre. A crook sits in the theatre with a camcorder… (referring to 3D) Good luck camcording that.
Firstly most film piracy comes from the copying houses, screeners and other sources- certainly not from a furtive video camera in a cinema. But more importantly it demonstrates the complete lack of understanding from the Hollywood studios regarding piracy. Technical measures will not stop piracy. VHS copy protection? Bypassed. DVD copy protection? Cracked. Blue-ray? Cracked.
3D television is coming. It just isn’t very good.
Lady Gaga has been made a creative director of Polaroid.
Three questions:
