Today Netflix announced the full details on their long-awaited set top box. Developed by Roku, a company which already has some experience in the streaming media arena, the device is meant to offer an easy way for Netflix subscribers to access their streaming Netflix media on their televisions. While the device is a logical step for Netflix, it’s also a significant evolutionary step for in-home media as well.
I’m certainly not the only one to recognize this device’s potential; Saul Hansell at the NY Times Bits blog is already calling it the “first shot of the [video] revolution”. He lays out some compelling points on why we should care about this ugly box:
- It has mainstream appeal because it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and does it well at only $100.
- It leaves the harder task of browsing through thousands of Netflix entries up to computers. The user need only select from the “Watch Instantly” items on their queue.
- It proves the hardware for streaming video is cheap, so we’ll probably see it in many other devices soon.
- It’s easily upgradeable to do much more than just play Netflix films in the future.
- It represents the future of internet video — streaming to the television.
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After the demise of HD-DVD, it was pretty much expected that Blu-ray adoption would rise since it no longer had a competitor. According to Bits, that doesn’t seem to be the case:
According to NPD, sales of Blu-ray standalone players plummeted 40 percent from January to February, then rose a scant 2 percent from February to March. The general consensus was that once Toshiba dropped its support for the HD DVD format early this year, sales would increase.
In fact, sales of Blu-ray standalone players remain so low that NPD has not yet released actual numbers, for fear that it would be easy to identify individual retailers. The research group will start to give actual figures later this year, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD.
Emphasis mine
Somehow, I’m not surprised. Even though I was slowly buying into the hype that having one high-definition format was better for consumers in the long run, despite my reservations about the chosen format, I’ve also had the nagging feeling that simply trouncing HD-DVD wasn’t enough. Sony had to prove why average consumers needed Blu-ray. And since HD-DVD hardware was consistently hitting sub-$200 towards the end ofits lifespan, they also had to prove why their players were worth twice the price of Toshiba’s.
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I’ve already gushed about Digsby as a potential killer for Trillian’s perpetually delayed Astra release, and now it’s open for everyone to try in public beta. Since I’ve initially written about the IM/email/social network aggregator they’ve updated constantly mostly taking care of connection issues and other bug fixes. You can see their progress over at the Digsby blog.
This latest release for public beta adds Twitter support, something which I’m going to take serious advantage of, support for video/voice chat, and an inline spell checker. You can find the rest of the updates for this release here.
Since I’ve started using Digsby I find that the only thing I truly miss from Trillian was the plentiful skins available at Deviant Art and other sites. Digsby advertises skins on their front page, but I suppose that we haven’t seen any yet because the product was hidden away in private beta. Now that it’s out in the open I suspect the skinning community to have a field day. Read more…
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Update 9/13/08: This article was written in March 2008, before we really had a clear idea of what mobile quad core chips would really be capable of. Of course now, with desktop-replacement laptops including SLI graphics (?!), the addition of quad-core chips certainly seems more feasible. I still maintain that it will be useless for most people, but some power users will certainly be able to see some benefit.
9to5Mac is
reporting that Apple may be rolling out Macbook Pros featuring quad core processors later this year–coinciding with upcoming quad core laptop chips from Intel. Let me repeat:
Quad core CPUs, in laptops. Given that we’re still waiting for quad core CPUs to be fully utilized on the desktop, the notion of bringing it to the mobile market seems utterly premature.
I’m not denying that quad core chips will ever find a home in laptops, but as of today it seems we’ve got a long way to go before they’re a viable option. Here are a few reasons why I think this is a wasted effort: Read more…
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