The Global Geek News Blog

HD-DVD can lose the war, but still survive

2008-01-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

The high-def movie war has dragged on for quite some time now as a stalemate until recently. With 6 of the 8 major movie studios backing Blu-ray and the others rumored to be jumping on the bandwagon, HD-DVD could die any day. While its almost certain HD-DVD will lose the war, it could still remain relevant in technology.

From the blogs I read and the people I talk to, most think that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are useful primarily for movies and thats it. That is far from true. Much like DVD followed the CD has the primary way of transferring large amounts of data whether it be media files or software such as operating systems, office suites and more, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will succeed the DVD. With HD-DVD about to lose the movie war, I feel it should pull out and focus on trying to become the successor of the DVD in the computer environment.

With HD-DVD being the cheaper of the two high density disks, it would be easier to take the spot from DVD. While HD-DVD may not have the capacity of Blu-ray, which is a big drawback, it could still fill the storage needs of the majority of people. With game developers and software developers pushing the dvd to its limit, HD-DVD would be a substantial storage increase allowing for more content for a small cost increase. It would give developers plenty of space to work with until the next generation of media becomes available.

Not only would such a move benefit companies, but it would also be a great consumer benefit as well. Even though external hard drives have become affordable for the masses, many still prefer to keep hard drive backups as well as media backups on disk. With a higher capacity disk, many will be able to decrease the size of their dvd and hard drive backup collections. One could reduce their home movie collection to a disk or two instead of many disks which take up valuable shelf space.

With Blu-ray about to win the high-def format war, to survive HD-DVD backers must pull out and focus on the computer market. Without a new strategy and market to target, the HD-DVD can live, but without a major change, it will become another dead format sooner rather than later.

-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray

The Future of In-Store Purchasing

2007-12-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

After reading about Apple's latest pattent request for a system to cut down on waiting in lines through wireless ordering, it got me to thinking about the future of in-store purchasing.

In the not so distant future, I believe we will be able to place in-store orders in a wireless manner to avoid long lines at the purchase counter. In the future, I think that ordering can be done via a mobile device such as a phone or internet tablet.

The day will come when you can walk into a Starbucks, McDonalds or other kind of restaurant where orders can be put directly into the order queue via an interface on a mobile device. Rather than having to stand in line, you can order on your phone or PDA. The purchase total will be applied to a debit or credit card directly connected to the device. Not only will you not have to wait in line, but no longer will you have to dig around your pockets for change.

While this has great potential for fast food places, it could just as easily be done in restaurants. Instead of having to wait on a waiter to place your order, you can submit your order via a wireless device so it will get placed quicker and earlier into the order queue. While you won't be eliminating the need for a waiter, you will save everybody some time by ordering from a wireless gadget. By shaving off even a minute or two off of the order time, you can get in and out quickly while allowing the restaurant to serve more customers because they can get people fed and out the door quicker.

While I think this idea has the largest potential in the food service industry, it can be applied to other sales industries as well. Imagine buying lumber from the lumber yard with your phone and just having to drive up to load your truck up and then drive off, with the smallest amount of hassle possible.

While it will be a while before we see this convenience, I believe that is the direction we will be heading in the near future. For the sake of both consumers and companies, I hope this happens sooner rather than later.

-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray

Amazon ads Warner Music Group to DRM free offerings

2007-12-27T10:39:00.001-07:00

In the latest move by Amazon.com to compete with iTunes in the digital music market, they have made a deal with Warner Music Group to offer its music on Amazon's DRM free music store. Warner music group is joining EMI, Universal Music Group and about 33,000 independent music producers in selling its music without DRM on Amazon. Groups like Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Greenday will now be offered on Amazon's DRM-free music service.

With iTunes dominating the digital music market, record labels are joining with Amazon in an attempt to regain power lost to Apple. While iTunes offers fixed prices on its songs, Amazon allows for variable pricing although most songs sell for $.89, $.10 cheaper than Apple's iTunes.

I think this is the latest attack on those that support DRM technologies, especially Apple. While I still believe many record companies are in favor of DRM, I believe this is a message being sent to Apple that iTunes isn't the only way to distribute music digitally.

I believe record labels see that if they want to have more power in their relationship with Apple, they must have the consumer on their side. While I certainly believe moves like this are better for the consumer, as long as entertainment industry groups like the RIAA continue its' push to lock content down and treat the consumer as a criminal, I will remain highly suspect of the record companies end game.

-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray

Vivendi Technical Support Scam

2007-10-18T16:39:00.000-06:00

Today I want to vent about my recent experience with Vivendi Technical Support.

First, to give a little background, I have been a big fan of F.E.A.R. since the day it came out. Due to my love for this game, I bought the expansion back, F.E.A.R. Extraction Point. I hadn't gotten around to playing it until recently when I heard another expansion was about to come out, so I wanted to play through it to stay up with the story. If only I was so lucky. I was unable to get the game to install on my gaming machine. Thus began the horror of Vivendi Technical Support.

After disparately searching the internet for answers to the error code I was receiving, I had to give in and contact technical support. At first, the technical support representative seemed very willing to help me solve my problems. The only complaint I had at the time was that for every response I sent to their troubleshooting suggestions took a day for them to reply back to me. Eventually, the tech support representative by the name of Ethan deemed my disk defective. I had figured this out before even contacting them. That wouldn't have been so bad had it not taken them a week to make that determination. I could have forgiven these inconveniences had I not felt scammed by Vivendi.

Why did I feel scammed you ask? In my final email with technical support representative Ethan, he told me my disk was defective and revealed their replacement policy. He stated I would have to return the game and pay $10 to get replacement disks. What the... Why should I have to pay to ship the faulty disks back as well and pay an additional $10 just to get a set of disks that had no guarantee of working when it was faulty to begin with?! I might as well buy the expansion pack again and receive all of the goodies it has for just a couple dollars more. If you thought this was insane, to replace a console game it is a $15 charge. Oh, and before I forget, they also state it takes 4-6 weeks to deliver the replacement.

Replacement disks cost mere pennies. Why should I have to pay a $10 penalty for their mistake? Why does it take 4-6 weeks to copy two disks ship them? Last I checked, cd replicators nor the USPS was that slow.

Until Vivendi makes this situation right and changes their policies, I am calling for a boycott of their games!

Tell game manufactures to treat you right!

Ebay is Web 2.0 Gone Wrong

2007-10-01T14:34:00.000-06:00

This weekend I spent part of my weekend shopping online for a new tv. While shopping I decided to do some price comparison on Ebay. After I purchased a Toshiba tv from Amazon, I went back to Ebay to look for some video games. When I got there, I realized the horror of Ebay's move to the new 'Web 2.0' movement. While I have been a fan of the Web 2.0 movement for some time as I believe it is user friendly, Ebay shows how you can turn the upgraded design into a consumer nightmare.

For those of you who haven't been apart of what I believe is a beta experience, it is a search nightmare. Since I am typically searching for video games to find old games or bargains, I will use that as my talking point.

The old design is far more user friendly as it had better subcategories. When you look up video games, It gives you several categories such as Accessories, Games and Systems. Under those you had subcategories to refine your search for specific platforms. If you wanted to do a generic search on Xbox 360 games, you would just click the Xbox 360 link under the games category. That ease is now gone.

Ebay has replaced this with just the overall main categories(Accessories, Games, Systems, etc.). Now if you go to look for a game, you don't get to filter by Console, instead all games are lumped together in the main category which returns over 150,000 listings. You now have the option to refine your search by things like ESRB rating, Genre, and price range. I will analyze each of these.

First, filtering by ESRB ratings is foolish. Each category still returns tens of thousands of results which makes it nearly impossible to find something that you aren't looking for. While this could certainly be useful for parents looking to get games for their children that are worried about their content, but unfortunately this is not a majority of users. When adding search features, you should target the largest majorities first before you cater to the smaller groups of users.

Next, filtering by Genre is practically useless. While I will admit it could be helpful for people who only like particular genres of games, it again does not target the majority. If like myself, you are looking for Xbox 360 games as their auction ends, you typically aren't looking for anything in particular and would not want to limit your results to a certain genre. This could be turned around to allow you to choose a series of genre's so that you can eliminate genre's you may not like such as puzzle games. This would be far more useful.

Last, filtering by price range is practically the most useless of all of the new filtering options. If you don't know what you are looking for, how do you know how much you are willing to pay for it? Also, if you are looking for something and now the approximate price it typically goes for, you could be excluding a lot of possibilities such as used items and bundles. There is more I could say about this nonsense, but I don't have that kind of time.

With subcategories gone in place of this new filtering system, Ebay is effectively eliminating the crowd of bargain hunters to target the smaller groups of searchers. While going back to the old system would be a great improvement over the current system, I believe that with a better search model, which allows you to select multiple subcategories at a time while using smaller details to filter the search would be a far more effective solution. Improvements on the old system can be made, but this is a huge leap back and likely to cost the auction giant numerous sales and customers.

Ebay, this is your fair warning: It is better to include rather than exclude.

Red Hat Challenges Ubuntu, Microsoft with Global Desktop Linux

2007-08-04T11:49:00.000-06:00

Gerry Riveros, Red Hat product manager for their latest product, Global Desktop Linux said that the new product was being delayed until September. The product includes the Linux operating system software as well as other software for running on the desktop or laptop.

The reason for the delay is that Red Hat wants more time to investigate the possibilities of the ability to play a wider range of video formats including DVDs and streaming media.

If Red Hat hopes to be taken seriously as competition for either Microsoft's Windows or Ubuntu, media capabilities should not be an afterthought that is tacked on the end of the product development.

In today's media and entertainment centric society, the entertainment software should be just as important to develop as the productivity software. If you want mass market penetration, you should try to target the largest customer base possible. By focusing on concepts like entertainment sooner rather than later, you allow yourself more time to create a better user experience. Rushed products rarely turn out good for the consumer.

The concept of User Experience has become a major player in modern software. Software should be simple and user friendly, while powerful enough to do the complex tasks many will throw at it. This is a concept that Microsoft has mastered and Ubuntu has a great grasp on. Making software powerful while not overly complex is a tough job, but a vital one if you intend to make an impact on the market.

You can have the best software in the world, but if its difficult to use, then the consumer will seek alternatives.

While I approach the new Red Hat product with skepticism, I look forward to seeing what it can bring to the desktop and how it can help the end user.

Got Connection Problems? Its YOUR fault!

2006-09-04T20:36:00.000-06:00

My family has used Comcast for internet for the past several years, and have had our fare share of problems with their internet service ever since we have had it.

I am forced to call Comcast on a semi-regular basis because of some kind of connection problems with my high-speed internet. In all of those times, only maybe twice, was the problem actually on my end. I may be on my sixth Motorola Surfboard cable modem, but despite the insistence of Comcast, my connection problem is rarely on my end. This leads me to my latest encounter with Comcast's technical support.

Sunday afternoon, my internet connection slowed to a rate that made me envious of any dial-up user. With rare bursts of speed, my average browsing speed was around half that of dial-up internet. The strangest thing about the whole event was that doing speed tests through my browser was showing that I was getting record speeds, typically between 9-14mbps down. Despite this wonderful statistic, it took forever to load web pages and playing games was out of the question. Finally I figured enough was enough and started troubleshooting possible issues on my end, powercycling the modem and router several times, as well as clearing out the internet settings (this didnt make much since considering the problem was happening on all my computers, but I figured it cant hurt since it needed done anyway).

After about 30 minutes of troubleshooting and making sure that everything on my end was as it should be, I decided to run a trace route to see what kind of results I could get out of it. By trace routing sites such as Google and Yahoo, I was able to track down that the problem was not on my end, but extremely long lags between hops, mostly dealing with Comcast and AT&T. After realizing this, I gave in and called Comcast to figure out what was going on.

When I called Comcast, after I wormed my way through their answering machine, I finally spoke to a woman, who's name I don't remember. This lady began by asking the standard questions as to who I was, although this time I was asked the account number and the last 4 digits of the social security number on the account. Considering how many times I have called there, including one other time in the past week for modem issues, I know these arent standard questions unless you are altering your service. I told the Comcast employee about my problems, for which she insisted that I do everything I had just completed, such as powercycling the modem and router and clearing out my internet settings. She said that there were no issues in my area, which I knew was a complete lie. After I did all of the recommended tests to the satisfaction of the representative, the problem continued, to which the ignorant employee blamed me for my problems and said that the problem was on my end, despite myself proving otherwise.

At this point, the Comcast representative attempted to fix me up with a technician to come out to my house, which is not possible during the day as I work during the day and cannot be home for this. After my refusal, I hung up in frustration. While I understand that with inexperienced internet users, problems such as this could be on the users end, I knew the problem was not on my end despite the fact that the Comcast representative did everything she could to convince me that it was on my end. The company was not even willing to entertain the idea that the problem could be on their end. For those of you who are curious how things turned out, by 10pm that night, the problem was magically cured.

I would consider overlooking this problem if this was the first time it had happened, but this seams to happen nearly every time I call Comcast. For the price that they require customers to pay for internet access, it would be nice to be shown some respect and kindness instead of rude arrogance. I hope by publishing this story, it will encourage others to come forward and cause changes in Comcast's policy when dealing with customers with problems. Also, a public apology to myself and every other customer that has been treated this way would also go along way, because as it stands, my family plans on getting rid of Comcast before the end of the year.

Croatia Adopts Open Source

2006-07-31T18:38:00.000-06:00

The Croatian government has decided to adopt and open source policy by which it plans to migrate entirely to the free software movement.

In a document titled “Directions for Development and Use of Open Source Code Computer Programmes in Bodies and Institutions of State Administration,” The Croatian Government states the need to develop, prepare, and obtain open-source software.

The Government feels that proprietary software makes it too dependent on suppliers which can damage competition.

The movment will also make the government more transparent and will allow for the easier access of information.

The adoption of open source software is expected to strengthen the domestic information science industry. It is also expected to save tax payers a huge amount of money.

This is just the latest movement by a government to adopt open source software as a means of saving money while allowing for a more transparent government. One reason for the sudden acceptance of open source software among the governments of the world is the amount of customization that it allows for software and the ability to change the software to meet the needs of the end user. This latest adoption is further proof that the open source philosophy is gaining momentum in areas where software customization is a must.

Samsung chip allows for bigger USB and Ipod Storage

2006-07-28T07:12:00.000-06:00

With consumers constantly demanding greater amounts of storage, technology developers such as Samsung are continuing to provide the technology that allows for more portability data and larger amounts of storage.

Samsung, the worlds largest memory chip manufacturer announced a new 8Gbit NAND flash memory chip today that should enter the market in the next few months. Consumers should see a large increase in data storage within the next six months for portable devices such as Ipods and USB storage devices.

Not only will this new development allow devices to have 8GB NAND flash capacity, but the chips are 25% smaller, which allows for the production of even smaller devices. Samsung stated that the new chips will allow for storage of 2,000 MP3 files, or 225 minutes of DVD-quality video.

This latest development poses a challenge to device makers because the new chips require them to use four controller chips instead of two when they begin manufacturing 16GB devices. While this presents a new challenge for device manufacturers, they expect to have the issue resolved by the end of the year, allowing for consumers to see 16GB USB drives in stores around Christmas.

Samsung is utilizing 60-nanometer manufacturing technology to reduce the size of the chips while making them faster and more energy efficient.

As long as these chips continue to decrease in size, device makers will be able to make their products smaller and more portable.

Boy Scouts Doing China's Dirty Work

2006-07-21T21:11:00.000-06:00

Starting this summer, the Hong Kong government intends to have approximately 200,000 young people scouring the Internet discussion sites linking to or containing illegal copies of copyrighted movies and music and then report the findings to law enforcement. While the entertainment industry is doing cartwheels at this news, civil liberties advocates are crying foul.

The 'Youth Ambassadors' campaign will begin on Wednesday with approximately 1,600 young people pledging to participate at a stadium with movie and music stars as well as government ministers.

Hong Kong is relying on youths to keep order on the Internet by enlisting the help of all of the members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides as well as nine other groups with ages ranging from 9 to 25.

Tam Yiu-keung, Hong Kong's Excise and Customs Department's senior superintendent of customs for intellectual property investigations states the program should not cause any worries about privacy or using children in law enforcement because the government program is searching public discussion sites that would be no different from reporting a crime while walking down the street.

Despite local news reports, Tam added “We are not trying to manipulate youths and get them into the spy profession. What we are just trying to do is arouse a civic conscience to report crimes to authorities.”

While mainland China has periodic crackdowns on bootleg movies because of the pressure coming from Western countries, Hong Kong maintains a good reputation for banning fake and bootlegged products ranging from clothing to movies and music. Despite this claim from Tam, the program is making people like Emily Lau, a pro-democracy lawmaker nervous because she believes that more details should be released and open to public debate before going ahead with such a program.

“Public education I support, but to get young kids to do the reporting?” she said. “I feel uneasy about it.”

A policy research group called Civic Exchange states that the program would have to be handled carefully because of its faint echoes of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China where youths were encouraged to spy on and report crimes of their parents.

Many teens view the action as uncool. The government is responding by having a ceremony that will include Stephen Fung, a movie director and actor as well as popular singers Gigi Leung, Niki Chow, Wilfred Lau and Alex Fong.

Authorities are taking the tips from youngsters and verifying them before relaying the information to trade groups like the Motion Picture Association or the International Federation of Phonographic Industry. These groups will then send warning letters to the web masters of the message boards requesting them to delete the offending posts while keeping the identity of the youths secret.

The pilot program for this movement took place in the spring with 700 young people who found 800 cases of copyrighted material that were being traded using the popular P2P technology BitTorrent. Authorities would then identify the sources, most of which were located in Australia, Eruope, and the United States, which are beyond the easy reach of Hong Kong.

Tam states that more than three-fifths of the illegal posts have been deleted without signs of replacement.

According to Tam, they are not going after downloaders at this point because there is no major movement to do so among the general public on how to handle the cases.

Hong Kong has criminal penalties for those making copies of copyrighted materials without permission and civil penalties to those who accept the copies, but with the use of BitTorrent, the distinction between the two is no longer clear because down loaders often unintentionally upload segments of the file to other BitTorrent users. Although at this point, enforcement is focused primarily on the seeders of such files.

This program is drawing international interest. Customs officials in Hong Kong have already contacted their counterparts in the United States, Macao and mainland China, they are ready to help others set up similar programs according to Tam.

Dean Boyd, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson in Washington stated that the U.S. Has no plans to introduce such a program because of liability concerns.

In addition, Deron Smith, a spokesperson for the Boy Scouts of America, stated that the group has no plans to ask scouts to report infringements to law enforcement.

The Scout Association of Hong Kong has seized this opportunity as a way to teach good citizenship. Boy Scouts ages 11-20 are expected to use the system which reports infringements to a website. The goal of the program is to teach youths to respect copyrighted material.

This program is more likely to work better in Hong Kong because their teenagers are obedient, mainly because of Confucian tradition and social pressures to study and serve the community.

The effectiveness of the program will depend on the efficiency of the participants.

While I am personally opposed to this program, I do respect their goal.

What are your thoughts on the program?

Gaming Over 21?

2006-07-07T06:57:00.000-06:00

I have been playing video games for about 2 weeks shy of 17 years. My gaming addiction began at the age of 2 and while I'm about to turn 19, I see no sign of stopping anytime soon. In the past 17 years of my life as a gamer, until last night, I never pondered the question, 'How old is too old for gaming?' I came across the question of gamers over the age of 21 when browsing one of the message boards I visit.

This question made me wonder why anybody would allow age to dictate their gaming? Gaming is definitely one of the most expensive hobbies a person could have, with thousands of available games, new consoles and the constant development of high performance computer hardware. Despite the impact your financial situation may be on your gaming, should age dictate what games you play, if any?

After pondering this question for a while, I determined that the idea of no longer playing video games because of a persons age is ludicrous. The average age of the first generation of gamers that grew up on systems like the Atari and NES is now 28-31. I personally know many people 30+ who still play video games on a regular basis. I have met many people at LAN events, both men and women that play video games at an age older than 21.

In todays society, game developers have to create games for all ages. While there are many core gaming ideas, developers have to be able to make games that enjoyed by gamers across multiple generations. Games such as The Sims and Madden are two of the best examples of games that can bring generations together no matter what the age difference.

Although people outgrow many parts of life, gaming isn't one of them. With the game market being larger than ever, it is clear that gaming spans all ages without alienating the hardcore gamers. The broad appeal of modern games caters to both hardcore and casual gamers of all ages with no sign of slowing down.

The Future of Data Storage

2006-06-17T10:56:00.000-06:00

For many years, computers have evolved and changed with the demands of consumers. Hard drives are no exception. Although for the past several years, hard drives are virtually the same, storage capacities have greatly increased.

I have owned a small handful of computers in my nearly 19 year existence, as well as have worked on hundreds more. The one thing that I have noticed with the usage of each computer is the size of the hard drive.

For at least eight years I have been using a computer that has a hard drive of 4GB. Back when I was younger and this was my primary computer, this huge amount of storage seemed nearly impossible to completely use. I was very wrong.

It didn't take long for games to begin requiring nearly the same amount of space as was contained on this single hard drive. I finally decided that more space was required for more computing, so a 40 GB hard drive was purchased, which it wasn't long before that proved to be a small drive.

Now I am running multiple desktops and laptops with hard drives of over 100GB, which many days still seems small. As games, business applications and other programs have come to take up more resources, the hard drive industry has been forced to evolve its technology to meet the demands of modern society.

The top storage capacities of consumer hard drives are currently toping out at around 500GB. While this may be more than enough for many computer users, there are many like myself who see this as small because of the dozens of games, thousands of songs, and hundreds of hours of video we keep stored on our computers.

Later this year, consumers will have access to 750GB drives and 1 Tera byte drives for their desktops by the end of next year. Notebook storage is expected to hit 200GB by the end of next year. Even with these evolutionary leaps in technology, storage prices continue to remain affordable with the availability of newer, bigger hard drives.

Flash Memory

With the sales of traditional hard drives expected to hit $41.5 billion by 2010, up from today's $27.9 billion in sales, the flash memory industry is also expected to grow in size and sales. In 2005, flash memory sales totaled a record $10.6 billion, a figure which is expected to grow to $18.7 billion by 2010.

Flash memory is gaining in favor because its lack of moving parts which makes for greater reliability as well as portability. With current flash memory, the 4GB hard drive in my old computer could easily be worn around me neck and taken anywhere. Flash memory, often smaller than a tube of Chapstick allows for the fast transfer of large amounts of data.

SanDisk Corp., the world's largest supplier of flash memory storage cards predicts the ability to carry 32GB of data on flash memory cards in portable gadgets within five years. Bill Healy, the Senior V.P. of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. recently unveiled his concept of the future, 1TB of storage on a flash storage medium slightly larger than a quarter. However, this concept is still several years down the road.

With the rapid changes in the data storage industry, the constant remains that as long as consumers need greater storage capacity, companies such as SanDisk, Seagate and Hitachi will continue to develop even smaller drives with greater storage capacity.

-Jeremy Bray

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