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Archive for March, 2010

Google Fiber Skit: Cars

Mar 31

Posted by Walt Sellers in Other | No Comments

I Initially imagined this as being similar to the TV ad the Ghostbusters played in the original Ghostbuster movie. I imagined a voice like Dan Aykroyd’s speaking rapidly, but there might not be enough text for it to be that rapid. It was also inspired by our recent trip to MegaCon.

Announcer:   Does Your Internet Service Provider make you feel like you are driving this vehicle on the information super-highway?

(Picture of the Flintstone’s car. In this case, the real-life model shown at MegaCon, since a modern person could be shown driving it rather than just Fred in a cartoon version.)

Announcer:   Do you feel the need?  The need for SPEED?

(Picture of the Mach 5 from the “Speed Racer” TV show. The real version shown at MegaCon since a modern person can also be shown in it. See  TheRealMach5.com website.)

Announcer (or group of Ghostbusters people):   Who Ya Gonna Call !?

(Picture of the Ghostbusters’ vehicle, preferably with people dressed as GhostBusters.  See  PalmCoastGhostbusters.com.)

Crowd or group yells:   Google  Fiber!!

Google Fiber Thoughts

Mar 25

Posted by Walt Sellers in Regular Post | No Comments

Well, Google’s Fiber offer is almost over.

Just noting a few things I’ve been putting in elsewhere:

  • Articles on FLMUG.org with reasons why this is good for residents.
  • Ideas for skits and videos (submitted for folks who wanted ideas for videos)
    • “Our Little Enterprise”
    • “Progress”
    • “Cars“
    • “Google Theme Park”
    • “Tech Surprises with Google Fiber”
    • “Orlando, where Characters are Welcome”  inspired by our trip to MegaCon.
    • “Bill & Teds Excellent Fiber”
    • Darth Vader against Google Fiber
  • Web pages
    • OrlandoForums.com

I had a conversation on the 24th with a manager of a local Game Stop store.  I was surprised to find out that he had not heard of the Google Fiber offer.  I gave him the information I could off the top of my head.  I hope he told other Game Stop managers.

Below is the extended version of the nomination I was going to submit before seeing the “too long – 2000 char limit” error on the web page. Read the rest of this entry »

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Article on iPhone as Gaming Platform

Mar 25

Posted by Walt Sellers in iPhone & iPod Touch | No Comments

The iPhone Website has an interesting article about how iPhone devices are taking a bigger and bigger percentage of the mobile video game market each year, going from 5% in 2008 to 19% in 2009. The article asks if the readers have given up mobile platforms to consolidate on iPhone devices (which includes iPod Touch and soon iPad.)

It wasn’t a surprise to me to move to gaming on the iPhone after seeing so many others pick up gaming with it.  What surprised me was my son putting down his GameBoy DS and using the iPod Touch almost full time.  He is now able to play new games practically every day (when I approve the games and homework is complete.)  I’ve given him a bit of an allowance to buy some, but he’s going with freebies mostly.

For his birthday, he’s asked for his own iPod Touch and iTunes account so he can get what he wants.  We’ll have to see how the parental controls work out for the account, but he’ll probably get the iPod Touch.

For me, this brought up memories of reading “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen (professor of Harvard Business school.)  The “disruptive technologies” always start out small and ignored by the leading firms in the field. It also starts out as being less than the main customers need or want, but grows quickly into the space where the customer feels it is “good enough”.

I think iPhone fits the bill.

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More about Google Fiber

Mar 19

Posted by Walt Sellers in Regular Post | No Comments

Interesting article about Google’s purposes for buying all that dark fiber on O’Reilly Radar.

Its made more interesting by the recent GoogleTV announcement and news about “peering” deals helping them keep costs way down.

But I keep thinking about one more interesting effect:  this gives ALL of Google’s cloud services an edge in the chosen locations.   Speed and reliability of access are hurdles for cloud services.

Would people be more likely to use Google Docs, Google Groups, Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Images, Google Photo Sharing, Google etc, if they had a 1-Gigabit connection to such services?

You can bet Google Fiber customers will have the fastest connection Google can give them to these services.  Other cloud services may perform faster then before when the customer has GoogleFiber, but will still be limited by the intervening connections.

Will local businesses be more likely to offer free WiFi with such plentiful access around?   Will that give Android phones an edge?

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Amazon e-Book share to fall from 90% to 35%, Analyst Says

Mar 18

Posted by Walt Sellers in iPhone & iPod Touch, Software Development | No Comments

Thoughts started by Wall Street Journal’s blogger Matt Phillips’ article.

Always interesting to try and predict what the future holds… My opinion: eBooks will be BIG. Now why?(disclosure: I am an iPhone developer. I gave my science-teacher wife a Kindle for her birthday.)

Have we any reason to think that paper prices won’t keep increasing? Aren’t paper prices heavily influenced by energy prices, labor prices and plain old demand? (Retail price of 1 sheet of cheap copy paper is nearing 1 cent in my area.) Just the raw paper material and shipping it around will make it more expensive.

Isn’t much of the book industry basically an impulse-driven market? eBooks are fantastic for such a market. The trivial shipping costs of internet data may it easy to give away free sample chapters and give instant gratification to buyers. People who Read the rest of this entry »

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