Youtube rival with an actual chance

News Corporation and NBC Universal will be teaming up to provide a free online streaming video service featuring full length movies and TV shows. Unlike Youtube there will be no user uploaded vids to start with, so everything available will be professionally produced and revenues will be generated in the form of advertisements. The article on Australian IT didn't mention the form that these advertisements will take, but I'm really hoping that they will be simple onscreen text adverts like on Youtube, and not scattered throughout the shows like on TV. I am, however, sure to be let down on this, though there is always a chance that the ads will just be shown at the start of each show and thereby able to be skipped. These pros are pretty cunning buggers, so I'm sure that they will figure a way for us to swallow more ads and generate some decent advertising bucks. A small number of high profile advertisers have already signed on to the project, and a number of other production companies like Viacom have also expressed interest in a service that better protects the owners copyright. Looks like we'll just have to wait and see whether this site will become anything decent or not, which really seems to depend on just how greedy the media big wigs wanna be.
With a service like this, I'd be able to hook my laptop directly up to the TV and watch a decent quality show, without having to shell out for a tivo or an Apple TV. There's definite potential here. Stay tuned...

Australian IT March 23rd 2007 - News, NBC plan YouTube rival

Brain Power

Silicon Valley based company Neurosky, has created a device that can successfully measure brain wave activity and interpret it for use in a variety of applications. A report in Australian IT told of the high possibility of these devices being used in gaming by the end of the year. The technology has been around for a number of years now, but has until now been too expensive for commercial application. Neurosky is reportedly able to produce the single sensor devices in large quantities in Korea for $50 each, which I reckon is extremely affordable for what it is. The device was demoed at the San Francisco Game developers conference, where a man dressed in a Darth Vader costume used only the power of his mind to switch on and off a light saber. He told al of the onlookers that it was like he was using the force, and that the device was also able to allow users to further manipulate objects in game, such as picking things up and moving them.
The devices have been sent out to various companies for them to develop software and ways to make use of this new interface. An example of the way that this device could be employed is to link them in with MP3 players, in order to select songs according to the listeners mood. The thing is that I can just see the porn industry really getting into this new technology. Imagine the long distance fun that people can have with the simple ability to turn on and off and manipulate certain devices with their mind. Nuff said.

Brain Wave Games Near. Australian IT

Ultimate Trekkie Pad

For any Star Trek fans out there, this would have to be quite the place to live. A guy from north of London has kitted out his apartment in a complete Star Trek theme modelled on sets from the series Star Trek Voyager. The guy's motto is "Bliss is a room without wires", so the apartment is almost completely voice activated. Even the doorbell to the apartment greets you with Patrick Stewart's voice saying, "Welcome to the 24th Century".

It'd be a great place to spend a bit of time, but I can't say that I'd want to live there. All that artificial the lighting would kill me. The pictures are really good, and are made even better after you show them to your wife and say that it is the design that you've picked out for the new bathroom.

Just Mucking Around

Put together this short series of clips that we've collected over the last three years or so. The clips were all taken on our tiny digital camera with terrible picture quality, but it's till been fun to piece them together. Disclaimer - Video is meant to show that snowboarding in Japan is fun, not that we are great at it. Since many of the clips were taken earlier on in our stay, the snowboarding ability shown is not so great. Beanies on, means early footage. Helmets on, means recent. There, pride sated.

White and Nerdy

This song has been on the Internet for quite a while now, but I believe it deserves to be appreciated and spread around a little more. I still remember laughing along to "Wierd Al" Yankovich's old hits like, I'm Fat, when I was in Primary school. So it was great to see that he was still around when I first watched this a number of months ago. You have to listen to it a few times to try to catch all of the lines, some of them are simply hilarious. This song came back into my mind when I had the sad opportunity a couple of days ago to hear the original song that this is a spoof of. Weird Al's version is much better!