Technology360

'Podcasters' look to net money

The BBC has a story about the emerging controversy about whether podcasting is a business or a naturally free web service. --Dennis.  Link: BBC News/Technology.

FCC adopts Report and Order on Software-Defined and Cognitive Radios

The Federal Communications Commission has adopted a Report and Order  in the matter of software-defined radios and cognitive or "smart" radios, a proceeding it began in 2003.  I've quoted the Introduction in the post continuation area below.  Click here for the complete Word document. --Dennis

New approaches to television archiving

Jeff Ubois writes about television archiving in a new article in First Monday.  --Dennis.  Abstract:  Worldwide, more than 30 million hours of unique television programming are broadcast every year, yet only a tiny fraction of it is preserved for future reference, and only a fraction of that preserved footage is publicly accessible. Most television broadcasts are simply lost forever, though television archivists have been working to preserve selected programs for fifty years. Recent reductions in the cost of storage of digital video could allow preservation of this portion of our culture for a small fraction of the worldwide library budget, and improvements in the distribution of online video could enable much greater collaboration between archival institutions.  Link:  First Monday.

Television Has a Great Future -- Believe it or not

Bob Liodice writes:  "In my last blog posting, “Who’s Killing Television”, I focused most of my remarks on key issues that the Television industry needs to address in short order. At ANA’s Television Advertising Forum yesterday, I reiterated those concerns – and, in fact, added one or two more.  ¶  However, despite my concerns, I am, actually, quite optimistic about television’s long-term health and well being. Over time, I believe television will retain its “championship status” as the preferred medium-of-choice by marketers for a number of very important reasons: ..."  Link:  Ass'n of Nat'l Advertisers.

Internet and Multimedia 2005: The On-Demand Media Consumer

Arbitron has a new report of this title:  "One in 10 Americans show a heavy preference to control their media and entertainment, according to the latest study from Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research—Internet and Multimedia 2005: The On-Demand Media Consumer. The study focuses on new devices and services that allow Americans to exercise more control over the media they consume. Topics include DVRs, portable MP3 players and other on-demand technologies. ..."  A 38-pp summary (pdf) and 49-pp PowerPoint (also pdf) are available on the Arbitron web site.   It's also available at Edison Media Research. Thanks to  Roger Johnson for the tip. --Dennis

David Jennings has a methodology critique of this on his DJ Alchemi weblog entitled, What Does On-Demand Media Really Mean?  Thanks for the tip to Stephen Hill. --Dennis

Interview with the Olivelink folks

Matt Haughey writes: "A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon the ingenious new service Olivelink. It's a person-to-person video broadcast service that allows you to either privately send video to one person, or publicly to anyone. The folks at Olivelink contacted me soon after to answer a few questions I raised in my original post, and I asked them to elaborate on a few more questions about how the service was developed and where they see it going. ..."  Link:  PVR Blog.

Music and Video Downloading Moves Beyond P2P

About 36 million Americans—or 27% of internet users—say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files, according to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.  ¶ The Project’s national survey of 1,421 adult Internet users conducted between January 13 and February 9, 2005 shows that 19% of current music and video downloaders, or about 7 million adults, say they have downloaded files from someone else’s iPod or MP3 player. About 28%, or 10 million people, say they get music and video files via email and instant messages. However, there is some overlap between these two groups; 9% of downloaders say they have used both of these sources.  ...  Link: Pew/Internet.

Social Software for Set-Top boxes

Tom Coates writes:  "You can download the core part of the material that follows as a PDF presentation entitled Social Software for Set-Top Boxes (4Mb).  ¶  A buddy-list for television: Imagine a buddy-list on your television that you could bring onto your screen with the merest tap of a 'friends' key on your remote control. The buddy list would be the first stage of an interface that would let you add and remove friends, and see what your friends are watching in real-time - whether they be watching live television or something stored on their PVRs. Adding friends would be simple - you could enter letters on screen using your remote, or browse your existing friends' contact lists.  ¶ Being able to see what your friends were watching on television would remind you of programmes that you also wanted to see, it would help you spot programmes that your social circle thought were interesting and it could start to give you a shared social context for conversations about the media that you and your friends had both enjoyed. ..."  Link:  plasticbag.org.  Very interesting bit of creative thinking. --Dennis

Interview with Post-Newsweek multimedia exec

Terry Heaton has a very interesting interview with Tom Kennedy, Managing Editor, Multimedia for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.  He talks about running a video news operation within a print environment. Link:  Donata Communications.  --Dennis

H.264: the Video codec to watch

Inside DSP has a good tutorial on the H.264 codec.   Link:  Inside DSP.  Thanks to Ralph Hogan for the tip. --Dennis