It's one of the oldest requests. We asked it as children, and our children ask it of us, and we ask it of one another. "Tell me a story."
We marvel at "King Kong." We're enthralled at seeing the "Lord of the Rings." We're mesmerized at the sweep of "Star Wars." "Sky Captain," "Final Fantasy," and "Sin City" head into new realms. And who will forget, "Who Shot Roger Rabbit?"
Yet, at some point, all these projects were screenplays, or at least treatments. There was a story.
I was reminded of this as I listened to the commentaries of Jodie Foster and Robert Zemeckis each give their running account in the background as I watched "Contact" on DVD.
For Foster - the star - it was mainly about the story. For Zemeckis, it was more complicated, or as the top-level guy, Zemeckis had a wider range of responsibilities, but I could not help but notice how devoted he was to the technical aspects of the film. Perhaps he let Foster take care of the story and rather than be redundant, he gave his spin on what magic was done during the production.
And yet, as I look at the latest in a series of box office offerings, special effects are playing more of a role. To be sure, it is cost-effective to paint things out. For example, in "The Untouchables," a street scene required that all window air conditioners be removed from an exterior shot so that the scene would look like the late 1920s and not the late 1980s. No longer would a film company have to go door-to-door and incur the expense of removing and replacing the offending window units.
Special effects, like spice or salt, are best when they enhance rather than overwhelm the scene - in effect, upstaging the actors.
Is "Hamlet" a better play if the Ghost (of Hamlet's father) is made especially gruesome? At what point do we stop listening to the dialog, only to be swept along by a spook house or "Space Mountain" sort of experience?
Laura and I chatted about this a bit before Staff Meeting. I am "borrowing" her idea and putting it into entirely my words, but it goes like this: What if the last three Star Wars episodes had to be shot using the same special effects of the first three episodes?
Would the human drama come out better? Would there be more tension? How is it that some fantastic actors gave such wooden performances. Ian McDiarmid ("The Emperor") alone stands out.
The special effects don't have to be all that special. Let me conclude by turning back to the film "Contact," and the scene that did it for me. Our hero, Ellie Arroway, is listening to "the array," hoping to find intelligent life on other planets. She is alone, in the late evening, out in the field of dishes (dreams) listening to "outer space." Suddenly there is a crackling through the headphone. The camera zooms in on just her eyes.
Sentimental me, I am always moved to tears at this scene. The "girl scientist" has the "eureka!" moment. She has seen something that has escaped everyone else's notice.
The special effects show "the array" at night in the background, but the tension for me is over the top. And what's happening? She races off in a car to the center building. Her colleagues simply waken sleeping computers. No scene before, or after, compares with this moment.
This is the story - a scientist who is scoffed at makes the greatest discovery of the century. We are not alone, There is intelligent life on other planets.
Alas, that too many films, so enamored with special effects and not story, forget there is intelligent life on this one as well.
]]>Customers don't want a 1/4-inch drill; they want a 1/4-inch hole.
So said Ted Levitt and his article, "Marketing Myopia," stands as a classic.
In my own experience at Hewlett-Packard Medical Electronics, our engineers were positively charmed by their inventions, but what the savvier marketing folks understood was that the patient's vital signs were not the central reason the equipment was purchased - although it was very important - but more to the point, the physicians and staff wanted a trend line.
We "hire" products to do jobs.
Some years ago there was the "CB craze." The Citizen's Band radios were all the rage, especially among truckers. Driving an 18-wheeler, alone, over miles of interstate can be a lonely life and the CB radio became an instant fixture. There was even a hit single about truckers called "Convoy" where the CB radio was a "star."
CB is still around, but the cellular phone has largely supplanted it. Today, a strong signal and the stored phone numbers of good friends are important, but it the days of the CB, people talked pretty much to strangers.
The CB radio of old was bedecked with knobs that could be twisted and turned and tuned. At the time a CB could be purchased for about $39.99 - and it could be tweaked for hours on end.
A group of bright engineers decided that all this was too much work and they came up with a one-button electronic CB radio. Simply press the button and the electronics would zoom, lock the signal, and voila!
It was listed at $200 and word has it that exactly 3 were ever sold. Perhaps it was bad marketing, poor distribution channels, or too high a price to pay.
However, I think that what happened was that the engineers had all the fun and took the fun away from the guys on the long haul who filled the miles of road twisting, tweaking, and tuning the knobs.
]]>Hollywood is worried, although they have not yet had a full-blown panic attack. Their bedrock market - the one they have always taken for granted - is eroding beneath their feet. Generation X, is growing up and their tastes have changed. The once captive audience that grew up on the "Star Wars" movies that their parents took them to is finding that their own children are not nearly as impressed as the Gen-X parents once were with special effects.
But that is not the only place we are seeing changes.
Video games are capturing a bigger piece of the pie.
"If I had some time in the afternoon, and it was a choice between watching a movie or playing a game, I'd rather play a game," said Marlon Castro, 35, of Foster City.
Already, the gate is down not only at theaters, but also at Blockbuster Video - once the powerhouse of video has taken yet another hit as reported on PBS, Marketplace. The reports says,
Blockbuster is expected to report a third quarter loss today. Efforts to adjust its brick-and-mortar business model to compete with on-line DVD distribution don't appear to be working. Jeff Tyler reports
In short, the market in going through a shakeout - one which Laura and I have watched closely.
It is no secret that I take much of what Clayton Christensen says, to heart. Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School. His specialty is the evolution of technology.
I have a few observations of my own which square with Christensen's observations.
New technologies are often force-fit to solve existing problems - and that makes sense. We have today's problems that need to be solved. Disruptive technologies are those that unseat the market leader, the dominant player, the king of the hill. In film, Polaroid, the instant picture people, did not survive. Wedded to emulsion technology, Polaroid did not take the grasp the realities of the emerging videotape market. Polaroid plunged millions into its Polavision. The product is now a curio.
What seems to be the case is that new technology creates new markets and disrupts old channels of distribution. Revenue and distribution models change - as do tastes and forms and even cost structures. Can emulsion film compete with digital? The business model Polaroid had was to provide cameras at cost and sell the film to make the revenue. The digital camera turned that model on its head.
Both radio and television evolved over time into what they are today, but first they experimented with older forms - such as vaudeville - before settling into their current content.
2006
The silent revolution hasn't been so silent - computer generated graphics, but the interesting thing is that film makers are not the only ones who have benefited. To be sure, the barriers to entry for a film company are substantial - high-cost equipment, pricey actors, and technical issues having to do with real-world filming.
More and more, blue screens and animation have crept into the movie process. And the directors are fascinated with their toys. As an aficionado, I enjoy listening to the director's commentary - sometimes good, sometimes really bad - and the interesting thing I am hearing is how they used some special effects gimmick to accomplish something. It wasn't a commentary about the story; the commentary was about how they managed to make some effect happen. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, but it does suggest that the movie making mind-set is currently driven by technology.
And yet, the "Revenge of the Sith" has not ignited the popular culture the way very first "Star Wars" movie did. Re-releasing the original one, with current special effects technology inserted into it, had little tangible impact.
The trend has been for films to be turned into video games, yet there is a countertrend where video games, such as "Tomb Raider," are turned into movies.
Content
I suppose this all reminds me of the first Apple computers - when people collected fonts, just like some people collect baseball trading cards. Memos appeared with a variety of font. (Guilty, your Honor). But soon people got back to the content and were not quite as mesmerized at the fonts as they once had been.
The basic difference between video game and movies is the level of involvement in the outcome.
This is the dark horse, yet always the front runner. Technologies come and go - but involving the reader-viewer in the story and giving the person a say in the outcome, is a powerful thing which sall too often gets forgotten.
This is where interactive will change the landscape and the time is much closer than people think.
]]>The gating step is how much data can be delivered how fast over what system to the destination.
I look back ten years ago and Netscape was the rage. My customers changed markedly from 1990 to 1996. In 1990, they were mostly software oriented people who could pop the top of a computer and fix stuff as fast as Gyro Gearloose, could.
Ten years before that, most computers with any power were the size of a refrigerator and word processing was something that required a special set of hardware - and Wang was its name. Color laser printers, digital cameras, flat panel monitors, search engines, web cafes - the concepts ranged from Buck Rogers to the incomprehensible.
The other day a news reporter told how some students were tapping out text messages on their cellular phone - while in their pockets, no less - and sending schoolmates answers to questions during a test. This has led to some schools to contemplate a policy of banning all cellular communication - especially, phones.
The generation that has taken the place of Gen-X, young boys with money (allowances) for whom movies are targeted, have stopped going to films. Passive watching of programming is hardly in peril, but the trend is unmistakable and spiraling.
Interactivity in games might be a large market, but it is hardly the largest. The revenue models are still taking shape, but what is clear is the firms that find ways to interact electronically will have a competitive edge over those that are still door-to-door - in the way of the Fuller Brush Company.
Something I have noticed is the "standard" looking web site and design. Like a newspaper, having a standard format is not altogether bad. There is the content, and the ads, and the various sections, and even when we're in another town, we know how to look through the paper.
Today, this is where Web 2.0 seems to be. Borrowing largely from the Sears catalog and the Yellow Pages model, web pages present products on the "TV screen" or give information on how to locate the establishment. Frequently asked questions are addressed, but the infrequently asked ones take some time - and sometimes a competitor or alternative solution is found before the question gets answered.
Take an example of what might be in store. Suppose I would like to own a sports car such as a Ferrari.
Nice brochures and pictures, but let's say they really wanted to get my attention. What about sitting inside - somewhat virtually - and taking a spin? Does any dealership take its customers out for a 185 mile per hour ride? Not likely you'll be allowed to sit inside one of the ones in the showroom (they're locked) let along roar down the open road.
And if Ferrari decides they don't have the budget, maybe Corvette does.
Interactivity that is thrilling is not limited just to games.
]]>The last statistic puts things in perspective, only 38% of online Americans have heard about blogs. So how many is that?
According to Internet World Stats there are almost 203 million Internet users as of June, 2005, a 68.5% penetration according to Nielsen//NR.
That is, 38% of 68.5% translates into 26.8%. In raw numbers, that is about 77 million who are at least aware that there is a blogosphere. The other 220+ million Americans are largely unaware of blogs.
Should anyone be heartened? Or should people be alarmed? Are blogs the flash in the pan they were predicted to be?
Well in five years, 2000 to 2005, internet penetration has doubled, and that is no flash in the pan.
The question now is, how will institutions and individuals utilize this new tools, but more to the point who will be left behind and at what cost?
This is the first in a series of pieces that address that question, in-depth.
]]>The father tried various ways of explaining it and finally said. "It's a printer."
I type on these keys. The flat panel monitor takes up little space. The laser printer is light and sits nearby. At my elbow sits my scanner that can resolve to 12,000 dots per inch, dpi. Just beyond that sits the HP ink jet that runs the few color jobs I have. As an ex-HP person, I know that the cartridges cost under a dollar out the door. The mark-up is staggering, but that's how Vancouver Division justifies selling the printers for a song.
Bill Hewlett and David Packard would have gone nuts over that business model as it was against "The HP Way"; The HP Way, a blog I am working on for a future posting.
I am connected through a firewall router that goes into a cable modem - my system - modem, router and computer, all connect through a battery-back-up surge protector. Power could go down and so long as the net is up, I can finish a download.
Ah. My hard drive is chugging. Norton is sending down a live virus protection update.
I wonder, if I went back to when I was seven, what would I think of all this? I wanted to publish a magazine when I was in middle school. My printer sits right there. Not only that, I have my own record studio.
Wanna watch a full length motion picture in Dolby (what's that?) stereo? It's on this flat disk, smaller than an LP record. Where did the reels of film go?
Want to enlarge a negative or copy it down to the grain? I can do that too. Or I can send photographs and talk for free over the internet. I can access data, take college courses over the cable.
You know that most of this has happened since 1997, and actually since about 2001. Four years.
At work I hear our planners talking about terabytes, TB, storage instead of gigabytes, GB, and the tea leaves say TB's will be on every home computer hard drive sooner than later.
In the blogs below there was a discussion about disclosure and information. I suggest that the disclosure is not all that different from when I was seven and before all this technology. People used to gossip about the neighbors and what odd things were going on two doors down and across the street.
People used to write letters to the editor and some even got published. Now we skip all that and write blogs.
Amy Gahran suggested the day of the press release was over and I agree with her. So is the day of the "sound truck," remember those - there was one in "Back to the Future." in the 1955 reality. The day of leaflets is also in its twilight. Coupons? Get them online. Pay bills? Online. Balance my check book? Online. Write a check! What's that? I have a debit card.
Back to the father of the seven year old - the typewriter is printer - that was 1994. That son is 18, now. When that son is a father and has a seven year old son, some time out there in 2021, what will the world look like?
What antique stores will house today's technological treasures?
I wonder what life will be like.
]]>It immediately struck me that if there ever was language "invented" by/for a computer, it was Sanskrit. I was only 19, so with a few gray hairs, I understand some of the challenges a bit better.
With only seven students in a University of 33,000 taking this class, you can guess that Sanskrit is not a big draw. For those who only know a little about it, let me state a few things. Sanskrit is the ancient language of India. Some claim it is older than Hebrew, but I'll leave that for the other six students in the class to debate. But it is old.
English comes from the roots where Sanskrit does, but what does it have to do with speech recognition and computers?
Sanskrit is written in an alphabet called the Devanagari and it looks exotic - the writing we see in India, It has an interesting feature. While in today's India, words are separated by spaces, in ancient Sanskrit all words run together.
For example,
thewordsallruntogether.
If one word ends with a vowel, and the next word begins with a vowel, a "diphthong" is formed. Diphthongs in English are within words. We do think of them as joining words, at least not consciously.
Let me illustrate an example of a diphthong. The English word "meant" has two vowels "ea" which together do not sound like either vowel by itself. It is pronounced in General American as a short "eh" rather than "e-a" as in "me ant," implying "I live inside a hill with other insects."
Combining the vowels is called vowel sandhi which makes the language a bit daunting.
Thus, not only do the words run together, when they do, new letters (and sounds) are formed.
Yet, for all that, the language is rather orderly and the letters are laid down matrix-like.
It is a strange notion to me, at least, that a language would be written as it sounds, literally. Maybe the computers would like it better than humans.
]]>Prolonged use of mobile phones can lead to permanent eye damage including cataracts, scientists believe.
Medical researchers have found that microwave radiation of the type emitted by mobile phones causes eye tissue to "bubble" - a precursor to the formation of cataracts - and can also interfere with the ability to focus.
Of course there have been reports of risks from the relatively high-power output from cell phones for years. But there's been much reluctance to let go of the convenience of going mobile. In Japan and elsewhere, people try to diffuse the radiation by attaching doodads to their antennae. I don't' know if that helps much.
Prolonged use of mobile phones can lead to permanent eye damage including cataracts, scientists believe
Medical researchers have found that microwave radiation of the type emitted by mobile phones causes eye tissue to "bubble" - a precursor to the formation of cataracts - and can also interfere with the ability to focus.
That is not arcane damage to DNA but actual physical disruption of tissue structures.
I've always been nervous about how my cellular phones over the years -- and I've used them since 1995 -- would make my ear and cheek get warm. I'd have these awful images in my mind of what was happening to my brain. So since around 2001 I've been using an earpiece for my cell. I'm glad I have.
I only wish I'd done it sooner, back when cell phones cranked out much more power -- especially in the pre-digital era. I do have more trouble focusing my eyes these days, but I suspect that's more due to age and staring at computer screens all day.
]]>Professor Miyagawa speaks of "story telling," which is a pingV pillar. He speaks to how learning is changing and how the role of mass media is central.
He makes an interesting point. There is "mass media" and "personal media." Like most of us, he is part of a generation raised on a diet of mass media. His insight is into a new paradigm, not limited to children, but people adapting to personal media.
Mass media is passive, as we all know. Personal media is interactive. And he goes on to suggest there are those who produce media and those who create it. Mass media is produced to be consumed. It is produced by people who bring a point of view.
Personal media is created through interactivity. People find a point of view based on browsing. They appropriate a point of view. They appropriate things to create. They create their own stories based on what they discover in the stories told by others. These new stories are expressed as personal media.
Professor Miyagawa says that younger people are more media savvy. I would say this is not limited to children, but they are a touchstone and easier to observe. They are content conscious and more discerning. In Japan, as well as elsewhere, internet phone (i-mode) is changing how younger people learn and interact. For example, a Japanese child will spend $50 to $200 each month on i-mode. Since disposable income is limited, young Japanese consumers are spending less on mass media comic books (manga), a big industry, and more on all personal media.
I ask, is that why Hollywood is getting worried about squeezing out every nickel, because people are less likely to pay for content that isn't up to snuff?
As we control personal media more, mass media will have to produce better content and be more interactive.
That is where I think pingV is on-point for where trends are headed.
I enjoyed the short introductory presentation and only touched on a few points. I recommend Professor Miyagawa's short talk to all people interested in where personal media might be headed.
]]>I have died on gone to heaven! These courses are free and they are online and they originate at MIT. They range from Aeronautics to Writing, stopping along the way at Languages, Economics, History, Women's Studies, Business, Music, Mathematics and on and on.
Some are even on video: I was already familiar with Walter Lewin's Physics Courses from the University of Washington Channel and Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra Course available in streaming video.
I was reviewing Professor Strang's course, when by chance, I moved to another browser page at the site and there they were-the keys to the kingdom. Free. Walk in. There is the Course outline, syllabus and calendar, lecture notes, assignments, exams, further on-line resources, in some cases video or audio recordings of the lectures, and an on-line discussion group.
This is available, online, from arguably the greatest technical school in the world, perhaps the greatest university in the world, technical or not.
Two of my alma maters are also doing something along the same line. As I mentioned above, the University of Washington is broadcasting courses - both internet and television - and with relatively uncomplicated camera work along with fairly good lighting and sound, they are simply pointing the camera at the lectern and out it goes. The UW had a fabulous graduate course in Industrial Engineering just a few years back. Harvard Business School (alas limited only to alums as far as I know) has a video library of conferences and seminars that are playable over RealPlayer. Unlike the science courses where drawings play a central role, the business courses are (at least to a larger extent) comprehensible on audio-only, without slides or chalk boards, so they can make drive time a pleasure.
But in as far as I have seen, the frontrunner is MIT.
The reader might ask why this worthy of a blog. "Knock yourself out, but MIT courses aren't most people's cup of tea."
The virtual University will not replace the traditional University or classes and I will illustrate with a story of why I think human interaction is important. Two years ago I returned to the State University and took some additional mathematics courses. I enrolled in upper division mathematics classes where the other students were young enough to be my children's age. That's where I learned of Strang's MIT Course on-video. I am mature enough and interested enough in the subject not to require the professor to bang the drum to attend and to get me to do my homework. What my professors did that meant the most was that they graded and returned my homework. I got my precious "red marks" where I had messed up. That was worth the whole tuition right there.
And yes, there is a vitality that one gets in being in a classroom.
However, having the virtual courses is wonderful. If I were in secondary school and this technology was available to me, I am positive I would be taking advantage of the opportunity.
And I suppose the main reason I find this fascinating is that in the future, this kind of interactive learning will be commonplace.
As someone who has been out of school for some time, it is refreshing to know that you "still have what it takes" and likewise to find out that it does not take all that much to stay current and to also feel the excitement of staying current - notwithstanding that the sheer volume of information is mind boggling, but that is the nature of the beast for everyone.
The site is worth a look see, even for people who are not as enthralled about MIT as I am. It is a peek into the future-even if that peek is only a look just around the corner.
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