The EU and Microsoft: a culture clash

Many US people seems to be puzzled by the attempt of the EU to regulate what Microsoft can bundle in Windows, and some consider that it is making double standards compared to other minor players such as Linux or Apple.

Actually it is not abnormal for governments in Europe to impose stricter regulation on a particular company if this company is dominant in it's market. This comes from the deregulation of states monopolies for telecoms, water and energy. When these markets were opened the historical provider had almost 100% of market share. Since having a large market share in such markets allows a company to gain an advantage over its smaller competitors, regulators forced the dominant company to provide services to its competitors at an imposed price, make investments that would also benefit their competitors etc...

This strategy worked quite well and the Internet provider market for example is now much more competitive in Europe than in the US (I can choose between 1 cable provider, 1 Wimax provider and about 5 different ADSL providers).

As a result it is now very much in the habit of European legislator to create competition in a market by imposing much stricter regulation on a dominant player than on a minor player in that market. This is done to compensate the fact that being a dominant player is in itself an advantage that the legislator considers unfair!
Image cc by TechFlash_Todd

Miro adopt a line of code

Miro has just launched a new campaign to raise money to further the development of the Miro multi platform Video distribution application. I decided to participate and give $4 a month, in return I get a dedicated web page where I can see my line of code grow. This is a very nice idea from Miro, and raises an often ignored issue: how to pay for the development of a big free project that will benefit a lot of users but no big enterprise like IBM or Google?

In the case of browsers you have the possibility to sell you default homepage to Google, which will bring you money without costing a cent to your users, but for other application a stable revenue sources is not so easy to come by. Corporate sponsoring is always a possibility, but in the case of Miro this could generate some conflict of interest, as Miro position itself as a champion of open and independent media. The best remaining option is probably to request a donation. In a way this is logic, if we use the software and we want it to be independent, the best way is to pay for it ourselves.

In a world where ad sponsored television and websites has been the norm for decades this may be shocking, but this is not so bad if you take a minute to think about it. Let's compare Miro to iTunes:

- iTunes is entirely free to install, but only works on Mac OSX or Windows, if you want to use Linux you are out of luck, while Miro works on all 3 platforms. Why? because users want to watch vidcasts on Linux, while Apple want it's users to watch them on OSX.

- When you open iTunes you are greeted with advertisement for music in the iTunes store or other commercial content, then you have to navigate to the podcast category. In Miro you are greeted by the selection of the best new free podcast (chosen by the Miro team). Under that banner is a list of the "most subscribed today" vodcasts of random category. Why: miro want you to see the best free podcasts made by your peers, Apple want you to purchase it's partner's content.

- In Miro the ranking of Vodcasts is based on the active subscribers to a stream. this is very clear. In iTunes we don't really know...

The conclusion is clear, if we want really free and open media we will have to make some efforts to get it, whether it is through donations or by creating content ourselves.

Amazon Buy Stanza: the birth of an E-book market monopoly??

There has been a lot of noise about Amazons purchase of Stanza, the famous E-book reader application for Windows, Mac and iPhone.

To clarify the situation for those of you that don't follow the ebook market, there are currently a few major players: Fictionwise, Amazon with it's kindle and Mobipocket which runs on many PDAs and smartphones (but not the iPhone) and which is also owned by Amazon. the fourth sizeable player was Stanza, with it's excellent application supporting Mobipocket, Fictiowise and ePub formated eBooks, as well as allowing conversion of some books to Amazon's kindle. The success of Stanza clearly overshadowed the official amazon reader for the iPhone, which was not very advanced.

The problem in my opinion is that now Amazon controls most of the major eBook players both in the content and application space!

On the content field they have Amazon (of course), Mobipocket and Stanza. the only major player remaining is Fictiowise and a few "specialty" eBook providers like Baen who specializes in Sci-Fi.

On the application space they have the Kindle reader, the Mobipocket reader and now stanza. The only remaining competition is Adobe Reader and the Open source FBreader and Plucker (which should work on, the Palm Pré in emulation mode)

Why is this bad? because we might end up with a virtual monopoly, a situation where you can't really distribute an eBook if you are not supported by Amazon, and where you can't really offer eBooks on a device if Amazon refuses to support you. This situation is very problematic in any market or industry because it leads to stagnation, as it is not in the interest of the dominant monopoly to "rock the boat" with new ideas or innovation, and in the eBook market (as well as in other creative markets) we NEED innovation.

What does this means for the eBook consumer? That the pace of innovation may slow down, especially on non mainstream platforms. I expect that in the medium term only specialized device such as the kindle or very successful platforms like the iPhone will be supported with professional content, the other having to make do with open source readers and free content. On the flip side we may finally have only one consolidated library for all our commercial content.

For the writer the situation is not so clear. As long as Stanza and the kindle continue supports open formats it will probably still be possible to distribute your content from your own site as long as you don't want to use DRM. If you wish to be distributed by major sites you choices have been reduced dramatically: it is either a site owned by Amazon or Fictionwise, and that's pretty much it. If you get rejected by Amazon your prospect are not bright.

What I do hope is that this will not reduce the amount of eBook content that is mode available, as this would be a loss for both consumers and writers.

UPDATE: it looks like I am not the only one worried about this!

The Windows 7 compatibility mode: not for the rest of us.

Microsoft made headlines today by announcing that Windows 7 would include a new compatibility mode to run Windows XP applications. This "compatibility mode" would be in essence a copy of virtual PC with a complete Windows XP SP3 image running inside it.

This would means that you would have a whole second PC virtualized on you machine. This may look like a good news, but it is not for several reasons:

1) The "compatibility mode" will only be available for the professional, enterprise or ultimate versions of Windows . For the rest of us, no XP compatibility unless we pay for an expensive upgrade.

2) Microsoft's virtualization technology is much less advanced than Vmware or VirtuaBox. This means that important multimedia components such as 3D acceleration (DirectX, OpenGL), hardware Video processing and sound processing acceleration will probably not be supported, so don't expect to be able to run an old version of powerDVD, PowerDirector or DAZ studio. Same issue for games. Furthermore hardware connections such as USB ports are not always properly virtualized, meaning that using an older peripheral such as a printer or media player will be an hit or miss situation.

3) Resources usage of Virtualization is very high! Since you need to run a whole second PC in addition of windows 7 (already a memory hog) you will need to have a really large amount of memory. On vista most users reported that Virtualization only start to work acceptably with 4 GBs of memory, and becomes comfortable at 8 GBs. This rules out this solution for all netbooks and most existing PCs, as only recent motherboards will support more than 4 GBs of memory.

All in all it looks like Microsoft is trying to court enterprise customers while leaving the rest of us without a solution (unless we pay them more money). This is not the way to treat your customers! I would have much prefered that they continue to support the Windows XP family for home use instead of this.

UPDATE: The register made a review of Xp mode.

Read more in the Windows category.

Windows 7 on netbooks: not so fast!

One of the major beefs that many consumers have with Windows Vista is it's poor performance on low end hardware, especially the very popular "Netbooks" that sell in drove recently. At a time when people are not inclined to upgrade their machines because the current ones are already powerful enough for most of their apps, this is bad news, and Windows Vista was shunned by many consumers. The only version of Windows widely sold on Netbooks is Windows XP.

Now Microsoft claimed that Windows 7 would be all different, that there would be a cheap version for netbooks (which is limited to opening 3 application at the same time) but that all versions would run fine on netbooks. It turns out that this is not really the case, especially on netbooks with SSDs

Actually what transpired for the original Netbook demonstration done by Microsoft what that the sample machine had it's ram and storage upgraded from what was commonly sold at the time (and what is still sold now). It now also appears that running Windows 7 ultimate on a netbook is not really a good idea performance wise. I am not surprised since Windows 7 is only an optimized version of Windows Vista, and optimization can only go so far.

It seems now very possible that Microsoft limited the amount of application that Windows starter edition could open simultaneously to 3 because Windows 7 is such a memory hog that opening many application degrades performance dramatically on Netbooks with only 1 GB of memory. The situation is made much worse on machines with SSDs, as these usually don't have a paging file.

My personal experience is that once you have installed an antivirus, firewall etc... on a netbook running even Windows XPperformance will already be inferior to the same netbook with Ubuntu (which doesn't require antivirus). This loss of performance is somewhat acceptable if you really want to run a Windows application however. On the other hand, if the performance loss with Windows 7 is bigger than with XP, it may not be justified so much anymore, as it would then probably be better to buy a full-fledged sub-notebook to run the app.

Netbooks are supposed to be small, cheap convenient machines for surfing the web and enjoying your media, not full-fledged mini-laptops. I suspect that Windows 7 runs well on the most powerful netbooks, but for me these are already mini laptops!

On the other hand the latest version of Ubuntu, Jaunty Jackalope, contains all drivers for most existing netbooks natively, and it boot and performs quickly even on older equipment and entry level netbooks.

For me the choice is a no brainer: if you don't absolutely need a specific Windows app, go with a Linux netbook. If you absolutely need windows be sure to get either Windows XP,Windows 7 starter or to buy a higher end machine with a large amount of memory (2 Gb minimum!), an hard drive and a maybe decent graphic chipset, not the typical Intel 945 found on 99% of netbooks! Another thing to keep in, mind if you go for starter is that Upgrading to the full version of Windows 7 is NOT a good idea unless you have the hardware to match.
Image cc by Taller_Hikari

Tech-no-media: what is it about.

The name Tech-no-media may surprise, so I will explain what it means in the context of this blog. The "no" in the title shouldn't be understood with the English meaning but with the Japanese meaning (I am a big fan of Anime). This would pretty much mean "the technology of media".

So what does this means in the context of this blog and what is this blog about?

This blog aims to cover my opinion and advice on new technology from the angle of new media consumption. From the latest hardware and software (Linux and Windows) that allow you to access the internet from anywhere and enjoy the free digital entertainment available online to informed opinions on the state and the future of the technology and media industries, you will find it all on this blog.

The technology and media world are unavoidably linked together, from the invention of the printing press to the internet, cheap computers and free open source software. This blog aims not only to inform you with useful advice on technology but also to present you with some analysis and opinions on the direction that this technology is taking. I will often make predictions on the future and try to start a discussion.

But the Tech-no-media network is not only the main blog but also includes "From Windows to Linux for the average Joe", a blog about Linux for the absolute beginner, and "Online Video Producer", a blog focused on creating and publishing videos and podcasts for the web.

If this piqued your interest don't hesitate to subscribe to this blog's feed to see what's coming.

Media review: The cursed countess trailer

Today's web media review will not really be a review for a change but will be shameless self promotion ! Let it be known to the world that Studioerlik has released the trailer for it's new cg animated fantasy web series: The Cursed Countess fantasy adventures.

This trailer covers in fact the first 3-part adventure of the Cursed Countess and her lively sidekick Sondra the thief. Each part is roughly 5 minutes in duration (well, yeah, 3D animation does really take a long time to render).

The story in the first adventure covers the meeting of the two main characters: the first is the countess, a sexy warrior of ages past afflicted, by an ancient curse and now unable to kill or die. The second is Sondra, a young thief with a good heart (sometimes), a quick sword (well, she is still alive) and a very short temper (unfortunately). The story escalates to the dramatic explanation of how the Countess became cursed and immortal. A second story is already in preparation and should (I hope) be released before the end of the year.

The show is available for download in High definition (HD) on the series website (rss), and available for streaming or download in SD on the Blip.TV page of the series.

I will keep you updated on the series progress, and for all of you media creators out there I will try to make posts relating my experience in publishing the series (subscribe to Tech-no-media to be sure you don't miss them).

The end of high power chips?

A very interesting article on ARS technica seems to confirm what was already said earlier: the days of ever more powerful chips is nearing an end, not because of a technical wall in Moore's law, but because we fail to find usage for all that power!

Following the article there would be only 6 mains customers for high power chips: medical imaging, defense, oil and gas exploration, pharmaceutical research, 3D rendering for movies, and finance.

Now as pointed out in the article finance is one of the biggest consumer of chips, and it is coming to a close. What will this means for the other ones? more expensive processors and GPUs. And what about consumers? Since most of them have already a powerful enough PC that does everything most of them want, this shouldn't be a problem, on the contrary manufacturers will have to compete on price rather than on performance, which would mean cheaper atom and entry level processors.

For the aspiring media creator it is bad news however, as somebody who wish do do video editing or 3D rendering on his home desktop will benefit less from the "trickle down" effect of these high end processors.
Image cc by Olivender

Blu-Ray: Why it only works for the big studios

We hear a lot of hype about Blu-ray these times, both from media companies and from financial analysts. However for the independent movie publisher and for the consumer that is not interested in big Hollywood productions Blu-ray is an epic fail for various reasons:

- Incompatibility issues: not all players seems to be compatible with all discs. This is especially true for recorded discs (that an independent is far more likely to use than pressed discs for reasons I will detail bellow). If you sell your media over the net you don't want to have discs returned because they won't play on someone player: avoid Blu-ray!

- Poor support platform: Pressed Blu-Ray disc are required to include the AACS copy protection scheme, however AACS compatible players don't exists for many platforms: No support on Macs, No support on Linux, hardware dependent support on Windows (it requires a compatible Video card), No support on Xbox etc... If you want something that everybody can play you are probably better providing an MP4 file than a Blu-ray!

- Production costs: Producing and mastering a Blu-Ray title cost an arm and a leg! You can either burn discs yourself at a cost of around $12 per media or have them duplicated at a cost of around $35 per media. Not only is this way too expensive, but this lead to compatibility issues as not all players are 100% compatible with burned disc, meaning a lot of returns. If you want to have your discs pressed (like Hollywood movies) the cost per disc falls to $3 per disc BUT you have to include AACS copy protection, which will cost you $3,000 + $1520 per project + 4 cents per disc. We are already around $5000 here. Add to that a License of $500 if you don't wish to use the Blu-ray Logo or $3000 if you wish to as well as the rental of the mastering software at $300 / month and you'll see that even for a small 1000 discs run you are well over $10.000 in initial investment.

This makes Blu-ray an epic fail for small publishers and consumers alike: it is impossible for independents to release their products on Blu-ray and it is impossible for consumers to buy anything but big Hollywood production. In light of this I would suggest to anyone that want to distribute paid-for HD content to look rather at digital distribution (like VUZE) or at DIVX rather than Blu-Ray.

The problem with Silverlight

I have just read that Microsoft is again pushing some video streaming site to use Silverlight to cover major sporting events.

My problem with Silverlight is that it is not available on enough platforms, and that the version level varies depending on the platform.

On windows and intel Macs it's on version 2, on Linux it's on version 1 and it is not available on non-intel mac and on the Wii. It is also available only for Firefox, IE and maybe the Mac's native browser (I don't have a mac, so I can't confirm this). There is no support yet for Opera or Chrome.

Microsoft should first ensure that the plugin is available on more platforms at a consistent level before pushing the technology in the mainstream, or it will antagonize the user and give the technology an image of "do not work" with the public.

The Olympics were a big debacle for Microsoft because it was the time when the Linux Netbooks were starting to be very popular and the Linux plugin was not yet ready, so the olympics videos didn't play on these gadgets. This resulted in a black eye for NBC and a lot of people going to torrent sites instead of NBC.

Recently I went to a site with my Linux Netbook and the site asked me to install the latest plugin, and redirected me to Moonlight (the Linux version of Silverlight), only after i installed the plugin it still told me I was missing the plugin because it expected Silverlight 2, which is not yet available on Linux. The result: SILVERLIGHT DOESN'T WORK!

Flash on the other hand works on Linux and the Wii, meaning that Silverlight suffers badly in the comparison

First make it work on all the platforms that tour competition supports, then promote it! Going the other way around WILL antagonize the users to your technology.

UPDATE: Apparently the IPL experiment with Silverlight isn't on a good start

Media Review: Low budget movie

For my first media review I decided that I won't cover an "heavy" tech vodcast like GeekBrief, Tekzilla or Diggnation but that I would cover something funny instead.

Then just on cue "Low Budget Movie" appeared in the Miro featured list. I couldn't resist.

This comedy web video serial covers the adventures of two small scale would be filmmakers that try to produce a new independent sci-fi movie. Problem is they have no budget, no script, no actors and no talent. The tone is very reminiscent of "The Office" with Steve Carrell, be it in the humor or in the style, as it adopts the same "fake documentary" presentation as the NBC serial. The production looks quite professional for something that is published on the web too.

I have seen the trailer and the first 2 episodes which were great. A third episode is due to be released very soon, and if you wish you can buy the whole movie on DVD. As pointed out it is available for download in the Miro directory and in iTunes. If you prefer to watch online it is availlable on the authors website and in high resolution on Openmovies (although it is somewhat too compressed to really benefit from the higher resolution).

I will do regular reviews of free web media that I find interesting, subscribe to my feed to be notified!

Mobile OSes are ported to Netbooks

It started in January when some enterprising hackers announced that they had successfully hacked the Android mobile OS to run on the EEEPC.

It continues today when the people behind the Symbian mobile OS (used by most Nokia phones) announced that they had a first, very crude port the mobile OS to the Atom processor (used in Netbooks).

Now for me the question is why? Android I can understand because with it's Linux underpinnings it certainly has the potential to scale up, and the Google brand and governance can certainly bring advantages in some situations, but what about Symbian? Most Symbian applications are designed for mobiles without a toutchscreen interface and running ARM processors so they are not really usable on Netbooks, it is not proven to scale up very well and is proprietary. Beside with some Netbooks running on ARM processors in the works it would probably be better to let the Netbooks come to symbian than to port Symbian to the current netbook architecture.

Why this Blog

I feel that the first question that should be asked when someone writes a blog is WHY.

In my case this is quite simple. in the course of several years I have posted countless comments, rants and opinions on other technology sites and blogs. Be it "The register", "Ars Technica", "Lilliputing" or one of the countless other places I frequent on the web, I left my mark in their comment systems. When I Googled my name recently it returned more than 500 entries, however it is extremely difficult to actually regroup them, and in several cases I said the same thing in different places. I think it is now time to group my musings in one place and leverage this wonder of the web that is called THE LINK.

Great! That place is here.

Now some of you have probably also noticed that the title of my blog speaks about media. In the course of the same years I have become very interested in what i would call the new media: the vodcasts, the podcasts, Youtube, iTunes, Miro. I even have my own monthly Video podcast (in French) and I am very interested in the creation (and consumption) of video and other entertainment on the web, so be assured that these are subjects I will blog about regularly.