Posts Tagged ‘Ideas’

Well there’s a vibrator app for the iPhone, so I figure this wouldn’t be too far off and would most likely be well received by many.

The moment I saw Natal on the 360 the first thing that popped into my head was a good porn game utilizing the technology. I figure if Vivid Entertainment got behind it then some quality entertainment could be made.

I mean combine full motion capture with a nice MMO sort of thing with XBL, maybe do some games with live action video of the big stars, maybe some POV type stuff… it could really work. And just think, there’s tons of ways to up sell add-ons, both physical and virtual, special wireless controllers, virtual toys and stuff on the XBL Marketplace, oh and various porn stars could be downloaded to offer new experiences.

Now obviously it’d be pretty amusing, I mean, could you imagine the status reporting: coreygo is playing Porn Star in a session with Sasha Grey. There would be new meaning to achievement points.

Sadly I’m pretty sure Microsoft and Xbox have standards for this stuff and these games wouldn’t pass the approval process. But seriously there’s no reason why a Adult Only category couldn’t exist. The porn industry is huge, it made VHS win, it played a part in the BD vs. HD-DVD battle. It could make bank.

Now to get in contact with the right people in the industry… Sasha, email me. ROFL.

Below is an email I sent that I’ve modified just a bit to fit a discussion that’s been coming up pretty regularly. This email was in response to a thread that was started about how the Apple TV is doing, it was sent before the Boxee / Hulu removal announcement though that news doesn’t really change any of this post for me.

FWIW, I honestly think a lot of the sales this quarter were thanks to Boxee Alpha/Beta which quite frankly rocks on the Apple TV. I wouldn’t buy an Apple TV, but would now thanks to Boxee even in its early stages.

While Apple TV may only have ~400-500K units, I’m pretty sure every one of those users is using it as intended with a TV. On the other hand, Media Center has shipped what? 20M+ units last I remember seeing from the banners… But that’s just counting SKU’s that contained Media Center correct? Microsoft shouldn’t be concerned with that number when comparing, Microsoft should be looking at the number of users actually using the app and using TV. Usage data for the number of WMC PC’s connected to TV’s? Data for the number of unique guide downloads… IIRC it’s a heck of a lot closer to 500K than 20M .

Personally, when I moved to West Seattle I completely dropped all cable services and vowed not to pay Comcast again [except for my business Internet]. OCUR was great, it really was. Despite the royal pain the setup process was, thanks to Comcast’s inexperience with the technology, afterwards it was great and ran smoothly for me. At the end of the day though it just wasn’t worth the monthly service fees. And heck, I could only do OCUR because I was internal, not because I spent another $1K+ on a brand new PC. So the fallback would then become a tuner with NTSC/ATSC/QAM… Like many OEM’s are doing, I personally skipped over the TV Pack and went right to 7 so it’s only now that I could get digital content easily. Up until now though if I wanted to use Media Center as my TV source, as a normal consumer, I’d have to be using two clunky STB’s in combo with a dual tuner and the IR blasters and all that other junk. Not very elegant…

So like the growing few, I dumped the cable and bumped up my business Internet service speeds. $65/mo for 12/2Mbps… I use Hulu, Netflix, Joost, network sites, MTV, you name it. Combine that with P2P and there’s really no need to ever go back to cable. The one thing that makes me sad, really sad, is that Media Center doesn’t fit into this new TV ecosystem. It’s only now with 7 that it’s becoming a bit more compelling for users who don’t use tuners. Internet content through MSN and such is great but where’s the MCML from Hulu, Netflix, and all those? Where’s the rich metadata for my downloaded content? Where’s the social aspects as well?

One thing Boxee has done and done really well is create an experience around the way people use downloaded and online media making it incredibly easy to dump the wire. What really got me was when I loaded up Boxee the second day. I went in to watch some of the Arrested Development that auto downloaded via RSS. It parsed the share and sorted each show, then under that each season, then under that each episode. What’s more the thumb for every episode is perfect (see screenshot). Going to more for the episode pulls up complete metadata. All it had to go on was TVArrested Development310 – Fakin’ It.avi there’s no other metadata, no XML files, no album art in the folder. It does this for my MKV movies too, MoviesWALL-EWALL-E.mkv and sure enough it has the art and metadata, no DVDID.xml, no pain.

Yes Boxee is Alpha, no, it doesn’t have any of the amazingly hard work that went into making it compatible with the multitude of tuners. It has a lot of usability and stability issues, it’s not gone through as many iterations as Media Center so it’s not as refined. But man, for an Alpha it’s bloody awesome, I highly suggest getting the Windows Alpha asap and give it a honest go, set up uTorrent with RSS, see if you could make the switch to a cableless life and live on the bleeding edge.

Honestly, I’ve loved Media Center since the days when it was only Freestyle. I supported it as a MVP for 6 years, 3 years on the eHome beta team, and will continue to support it. I’m just a bit bummed out by the fact that Media Center has failed to deliver on features that have been asked for since 2002. What is Microsoft going to do to remain competitive when Boxee goes mainstream and releases STB devices like the Apple TV? I’m happy to see the start of Internet content via MSN but where are the third party deals with the providers that people use now?

When I was sitting for 4 hours in Las Vegas International for Snowpocalypse 2008 to allow my plane to arrive; I busted out the iPhone, connected to the free WiFi, downloaded Joost and started watching The Fifth Element for free. It wasn’t a big TV and it wasn’t HD, but honestly it didn’t matter. I had the content and the experience was awesome and easy. How is Media Center going to deliver that same grin on people’s faces when the predominant source of content is the Internet and third party services?

So there you have it… My little rant about why Media Center doesn’t fit me anymore. Writing this and discussing it further later made me realize that there’s actually nothing really wrong with Media Center at all, for your every day average person it’s great. Sure it could be a little simpler to get going like TiVo but as far as the ultimate experience, Media Center is definitely it. This will continue to be true so long as TV and movies continue to be delivered the way everyone has received this content for years. However I personally believe that as more people realize that dumping the wire is easy the trend to only use the Internet will continue. Plus to make things more interesting, analog broadcasts won’t necessarily continue from all the cable providers. They could very well move them over to encrypted QAM as far as I know. If this were to happen you’d need to rent a fugly STB for each tuner you planned on using. Even less elegant.

I realized that I’m just way ahead of the curve. I was watching TV on my PC with an old BT848 Hauppauge tuner back in 1997 then tried but failed to use WinTV. Then I used Media Center before it was Media Center, then OCUR came and went. Now I’ve completely ditched TV altogether and only stream with the Internet. If the past is any indication the wave should finally catch up with me in another 3 to 5 years, what I’ll be doing at that point is anybody’s guess.

As I was driving the 90 on my way in to work this morning I couldn’t help but notice some crappy new Ford Taurus driving along with a huge American flag in the rear window, right next to it was this print out with a fat red border. As I got closer I noticed it said Pray 2000-12. Umm, okay? I really can’t fathom why I should pray for any particular date, especially one that’s already passed. So I’m going to guess the lady meant Pray 2012. Or maybe it was 2000 minus 12 so 1988, which happened to be a leap year, other than that I don’t really see any major events in that year. So yeah, she definitely must’ve been talking about the 2012 Doomsday Prediction.

Then I actually started thinking. Why on Earth is this lady driving to work or wherever she’s driving. Why is she telling people ot pray for the doomsday? Why does anyone tell someone to pray for some supposed doomsday event that’s going to occur? I mean fuck, if I knew for certain that on 12/21/2012 the world were going to end, I’d just say screw it and have a blast. I’d quit work, travel the world, have the best 2 years of my life. Then towards the end in the last year, depending on what this apocalypse entails I’d probably just try and find an isolated corner of the planet to sit it out and be away from all the idiots who will be causing insanity. So seriously. WTF purpose is there for telling people to pray for 2012?

Of course the fact this lady printed out a sign for everyone to see and still left it saying 2000-12 must mean she’s lacking some basic mental faculties. So I suppose like praying, making this sign to let everyone else know that they should pray gives her a good feeling inside. More power to her I guess.

For me, I’ve just realized that this sort of thought process that I go through on my way in to work really does tell me there is no God and that I’ll never believe otherwise. I constantly try and put myelf in the other persons shoes and try to imagine their thought process and think like they do. But I can’t. No matter how hard I try I can’t fathom having this belief in a supreme being. Nor can I fathom having complete faith in some religion that likely didn’t even exist 200 years ago. Or a religion that’s based on interpretations of a book that’s based on beliefs and general understanding that comes from a time before the Earth wasn’t flat.

I’m not saying believing in God is a bad thing, by all means some people need that. I start becoming frustrated when people tie that belief to a religion. Why can’t people take a little more responsbility for themselves and decide religion is just taking that comfort level a step further.

Come to think of it though, this reminds me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk at TED on a different way to think about creative genius. Perhaps the reason why people adopt a faith in God and rely on religion is because they can’t deal with the disappointment of their own failure or the lack of their moral judgement. Or look to those beliefs as a way out of having to think about these things to which they really can never have the answer. Maybe this weight is too much to bear. I’ve certainly tried imagining the big bang and the begining of the Universe as well as a belief in God. Yet neither solution to the question really provides me with an answer I can say is fact. I guess I just have a problem with nothingness. I try and visualize this because I’m a visual person. It just doesn’t work for me. I try imagining the entire thing as a linear timeline, then non-linear. It just doesn’t work. Shit. How can there be something from nothing? What was before the bang or God? If it’s it’s non-linear than how did this even happen? If someone snapped their fingers than what started it all for them?

I fucking hate logic loops. Screw the chicken and that damn egg it came in.

Taking my last post a bit further… Sure any smart phone can pull up bus times. But had we tried this with my old BlackJack II with Windows Mobile 6.1 we probably would’ve been waiting till 9:45 for it to return the same results. Either that or I would’ve gone down stairs, waited for the laptop to come out of standby and then pull up the same results. I really loved my old Windows phone, but it just didn’t work the way you’d want it to. I could start the GPS at home, get to work and it still wouldn’t have a lock and that was with Google or Windows Live. I don’t think we would’ve even had been able to pull up the King County Metro site on that phone thanks to Internet Explorer.

Microsoft is really playing catch-up now. How the mobile team got so stagnant is beyond me. It really seems like nothing major has changed in their product for years. Unlike the Internet Explorer stagnation though this one goes way beyond that. Why? Well Windows Mobile has sold millions upon millions of units and gained a lot of market share. But for some crazy reason they’ve just let that go to waste and have let Apple jump ahead and lead the innovation party. Heck, it’s gotten so bad HTC has had to come up with UI to hide Windows to make the phone desirable. Of course there’s also Google now with Android, but I doubt they’re too worried about it. You know, at least not until more manufacturers jump from Windows Mobile to Android then Netbooks start shipping with WiFi and 3g with Android, then thin desktop clients…

Apple really does the entire end to end solution really well. Sure they force the Apple way or the highway but usually Apple’s way is pretty damn good. Google really does cloud services amazingly well. Sure they only really make money on the advertising but they’re not stupid. They’re building each piece of the puzzle little by little. At some point soon, they’ll be set to complete the picture and deliver something amazing that could potentially deliver a massive blow to Windows, Office, and Microsoft cloud services. Google has been combining pieces that’s just amazing.

The key difference between Apple, Google, and Microsoft? Honestly, I’m not sure, culture maybe, age in the case of Microsoft and Google. A dictator in the case of Microsoft and Apple. Who knows.

The thing I notice about Apple and Google though is that while Microsoft may have better business models to make more money on more things. Apple and Google are necessarily spreading themselves thin. Apple delivers a small product line really well and concentrates on a few things it can really deliver 100% on. Google makes strategic choices on where to concentrate resources to connect things. Neither company seems concerned with delivering products and services it really has no need to.

I mean I don’t see Apple going out to make their own maps service for the iPhone or their own stock service or their own search. Instead they partner with Google and Yahoo. When searching Google you’ll get links to 6 different services when searching for “stock MSFT“, you’ll get linked to a third party flight tracking service when searching for “BA49“. Or when you search for Led Zeppelin you’ll get an album listing with ways to purchase from multiple online stores and when you go to the song listing you’ll get linked to multiple lyrics websites.

When Microsoft does the latter what happens? Well first you go to live.com and get normal search results, if you click the first link for xRank you get to see some useful information and some search volume indicator thingy. Next if you want to dig further you click on the album but now you’re no longer on Live Search (or is it Windows Live Search), you’re on MSN Music (hello Mr. Butterfly). The option is presented to buy and download from Microsoft Zune which is good and multiple options are given to buy the CD from various online stores, also good. There’s even an option to compare prices. If you go to the track listing you can even hear samples, sweet… So what’s so bad about this?

Well, immediately this tells me there’s a lack of focus and execution. There’s a total of 3 products and services involved with that entire process, Live, MSN, and Zune. They all feel different and don’t share a seamless experience. Why is MSN Music delivering content that should be delivered directly by Zune?

There are so many places where efforts are duplicated, clear vision is lacking, and the execution is 20% off target. It’s frustrating to me as someone who really honestly cares and desires elegant perfection.

Microsoft has every piece of the puzzle needed. It can do amazing things when it needs to and definitely isn’t dead. What’s needed is a bit of a reset really. Time to refocus, clear the air, and start executing and connecting everything together in the right ways. I really just hope that it’ll happen soon.

MSFT has been flat for 10 years. What the company needs is a real renaissance and to deliver 100% on its innovations. Microsoft has been ahead of the curve thanks to many products that were ahead of their time and thanks to MSR. Microsoft has many times entered new markets and gained popularity only to lose them later by the lack of follow through and evolution.

The software Microsoft makes is amazing, there’s no reason why that can’t continue.

I’m not sure why, but the inner geek in me was wondering how rice cookers work as I made some rice pilaf in my small but awesome cuisinart rice cooker. Someone and I forget who, said it had something to do with the weight. But turns out, according to this, that in fact, it does not. Instead a rice cooker senses a rise in temperature above 212° Fahrenheit. Somehow this seems like one of those “duh, of course” sort of things. Then again I keep saying that for every time I hear about another iPhone dev making thousands on some crappy $.99 app.