John Battelle: Now playing on Google: Matrix Revolutions
…for how many minutes?
Edit:
Not many minutes… It has now been removed and the link suddenly goes to a general page whith a search for “matrix”. Lucky enough I captured the screen shot in this post while it was still available.
Related:
Banned video on Google
Google Video update
Google Video and Media Center Edition
Ed Bott: Microsoft to buy Claria?. “The company that Microsoft has pursued is controversial: Claria, an adware marketer formerly called Gator”
Gator, the mother of all horribly intrusive marketing tools. And Microsoft consider to buy it!?
This is hit number one if you do a search for “gator” in Google:
PC Hell: Gator Removal Instructions
Ed Bott deserves to be quoted:
“What is Microsoft thinking? This deal would be a P.R. disaster. The only way it makes sense is if Microsoft buys the company, fires everyone involved with it, has their buildings exorcised, and rewrites every line of code in their product.”
I need my media center! But somwhere I draw the line. Apple, where are you? Where is the Apple Media Center? Crap! It’s not there. Linux and MythTV here I come…
BoingBoing pointed me to this German company selling groovy reproductions of 1970s-era wallpaper. My brain works quite visually and told me that I had seen something similar before. In Helsinki, Finland… At an art exibition… Hmm…
So I flipped through my pictures in Adobe Photoshop Album. And actually found the picture I was looking for. An equally groovy installation of psycedelic patterns and loudspeakers and microphones. Everything connected so the patterns got a very strange accompanying sound made entirely by feedback from the microphones and amplifiers.
Maybe they bought the wallpaper in Germany?
Today BoingBoing announces that DVD-Jon has hacked the Google Video player so that it can play content from other sources as well.
Very nice, considering the fact that 90% of the videos on Google are currently unavailable. As a friend of mine, Anarkistix states:
“Why release a content service with no content?”
True…
I recently posted some thoughts on the fact that Google Video just released their own video plugin. So of course I had to download it and try it out.
My first impression:
– At this point only available for windows
– Easy to install
– Very basic functionallity:
a) The videos play directly in the browser
b) You can click the video for fullscreen
Huge amounts of the videos are not available for playback yet. I guess it is due to the non existent payment system.
However, as mentioned in my previous article I do not think that this is going to be a success before Google adds an interface that fits into a more traditional setting for use of video content. In other words, a frontend for the different media center systems out there.
A video banned by the Norwegian government
While browsing around the videos I searched for the keyword “Norway” and deep down I suddenly found a music video by a Norwegian rap group called “Gatas parlament” (The parliament of the streets). From the description of the video at Google:
Protesting U.S. foreign policy, the Norwegian rap group Gatas Parlament created this video entitled “Kill Him Now.” Under pressure from the U.S., this was banned by the Norwegian government who claim that the video advocates direct violent action against President Bush, rather than peaceful protest. Consequently, it’s become a major free speech issue in Norway.
It says in the text that this is a subtitled version. But it is not. I don’t know if this is due to some kind of censorship from Google. If you want to see the subtitled version it can be found over here.
Interesting technology this internet thing. A video banned in Norway due to pressure from the US government now available to millions directly from an American company…
For those of you subscribing to my RSS-feed you might have discovered a post that was posted and then deleted. I am sorry for the confusion. I am experimenting with the possibility of people guest-blogging to eirikso.com
I thought that letting people mail my blog through Flickr was a good idea. Maybe not. I will resolve this shortly and let you all know when I am ready to let some of my friends post to my blog and expand the content on eirikso.com
Sorry for the confusion. Now, that I have quite a bit of readers on eirikso.com I will put up a testblog to be able to test new improvements before I put them live.
Now, I have some suggestions on this one! John Battelle just announced that Google will launch an in-browser video playback feature based on the open source VLC media player. That should be very interesting for both content creators and the people making media center software.
Google have some plans
They have already launched their video search function and made available a video upload function. They are working on a payment system and now they will announce a player. According to John Battelle they will also include their player in the open source program called Google Code. In other words, the system will be open for people to make all kinds of players and boxes utilizing the content that builds up in the Google video archives. That will also lead to systems that can read video from both Google and other video distribution systems.
Considering the way a media center has accelerated my use of high quality video from my computer, a media center front end to Google Video would be very interesting. Because of Google’s open approach, I guess someone will make that kind of frontend for Google Video quite fast. Including a plugin for Microsoft’s Media Center Edition.
VLC Media Player is by far the most platform independent media player out there. The only problem is the fact that it could seem slightly difficult to set up and the GUI itself a bit too complicated for the average user. A version from Google could fix this. Use the very powerful core in the VLC Player and build a user friendly interface on top of it.
The fact that the VLC player is platform independent should also make it very interesting for large content producers and public broadcasters. Quite a bit of the dedicated set top boxes for TV out there run Lunix as the operating system. To make a frontend for Google Video on a cheap set top box seems to be an interesting option as well.
But what about content?
Continue reading “Google Video and Media Center Edition”
And the price for the most stupid legal threat goes to restaurant Lehtovaara in Helsinki.
Herkko Hietanen is a lawyer specialized within IT-law. He had a very bad experience at the Lehtovaara and posted a letter to the restaurant after the unlucky visit. They did not answer, so Herkko posted the letter on his blog. A while later this letter is hit number two on Google if you do a search for the restaurant. So, the owner of the restaurant sends Herkko a legal threat demanding (among other things) that he should remove the letter from the web and pay him around 80 000 euro in damage.
Was that a smart move? I guess not. The case have already reached BoingBoing under the headline “Helsinki’s Lehtovaara: Crappy service and a bullying owner“. And, as Herkko states on his blog:
They apparently hadn’t done any background checks. I have taught law and technology in several universities, I am a founding member of one of the biggest cyber rights organization in Europe and have defended publicly digital freedom of expression. Do they really think that they have a winning strategy? I am sure that many people would have rushed to take down the content. Not me. I will see their bluff.
Lehtovaara bring it on!
If there existed a list of the five worst people to sue for a case like this, Mr. Herkko would be on it. Yes, bring it on! This could lead to some great entertainment!
“It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons”
Continue reading “Legal threats and the internet”
While walking through the eastern part of Oslo I found this interesting shop. The sign says: "Gifts, gold, satellite dishes and lamps". This is a kind of business that don’t comply with the stuff I learned while working for the consulting firm Accenture, nor do it comply with any of the books I have read on the subject of business and marketing. Still, the whole thing is obvious. I had to take a closer look. Just because of the unusual combination. And, that was the extra attention that made this good maketing and a motivation to enter the shop.
bar & lawnmover rental
More of this please! While studying in Stavanger I was involved in making a commercial for a local bar. The thing is, the owner told us that it had to be completely clear in the commercial that this was not only a bar, but a bar and lawnmover rental. Yes, "bar & lawnmover rental". I have never forgotten that business. However, I do not remember the name of the bar, only that somewhere around Stavanger there is an establishment with this unlikely combination.
So, what do you think? If someone opened "Prada designer clothes & DeWalt power tools" along fifth avenue in New York. Would you enter?
I have just started utilizing Feedburner for my site. It is a great tool that let you add functionallity to your RSS feed. Get statistics for your RSS feed and in general help you with your syndication.
One example is the fact that it can make your feed look nice in any browser. Have a look at my feed here. Another is a bunch of predefined buttons for people to use when they want to subscribe. Look at the Yahoo, myMSN, NewsGator etc… in my sidebar to the right.
But, to make use of all the functionallity it is important that all your subscribers use the feed from feedburner.
So, here’s a wish:
All of you out there subscribing to my old feed:
http://www.eirikso.com/wp/index.php?feed=rss2
Could you please change your subscription to:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/eirikso
The old one will not stop working, and at some point I will make an automatic redirect to my new feed. But, for those of you that have a minute, please change to the new feed.
For those of you that is wondering what this RSS thing really is, have a look at my introduction to RSS.
eirikso 