Tag: streaming video

Flexible, Bendable Mobile Screens & Why Internet Natives Expect Digital Content To Be Free

Linda Reimer

Flexible, Bendable Mobile Screens: Corning Inc. is one of the largest producers of display glass in the world. Their Gorilla glass is used in many smartphones and tablets because it is so tough – scratch and dirt resistant. And not being content to rest on its laurels Corning is now working on a new type of flexible display glass, called Willow glass, that will bend; thus in the future this glass should be incorporated into the design of Internet connecting displays that will be so thin you’ll be able to fold them up and take them you as if it they were scrolls of clear paper.   

I came across a brief Mobile Phones article on the subject of Corning’s flexible display glass titled Flexible Mobile Screens Coming Soon – here’s the link:

http://www.mobilephones.org.uk/flexible-mobile-screens-coming-soon/

And here, on the related subject of general Corning display glass, is a link to a short Today’s iPhone article that relays the tech rumor that Corning is going to supply the display glass for the rumored upcoming Apple TV:
http://www.todaysiphone.com/2013/03/apple-itv-display-panels-to-be-supplied-by-foxconn-covered-in-corning-glass/

Why Internet Natives Expect Digital Content To Be Free: There have been a number of articles in the news in the last six months or so on the subject of what is being described as “Cord Nevers” (instead of cord cutters). This new term refers to people in their twenties who have never paid for cable television, who like to watch Internet accessed television shows and movies on their smartphones, tablets and computers whenever they want to and are not inclined to pay to watch TV shows and movies because they’ve never had too. This group of people has so far in their lives gained access to their favorite movies and television shows from friends’ collections or family or friends cable subscriptions.

This is an interesting subject because it clearly illustrates a growing trend – increasingly television and movie fans want to watch the shows and movies they are interested in when they want to watch them and on whichever Internet connecting device they have at hand at the moment; whether that consists of their smartphone while they are standing in line at the grocery store, their tablets when they are on their lunch break at work or their laptop or large screen smart TVs when they are at home.

And as is frequently the case you can see the shift in society – in this case in how people access video content – starting in earnest with young adults. So this is an interesting trend to watch because it rather cuts all the debates and conversations about how expensive bundled cable bill are off at the knees! Those people who aren’t willing to pay for cable TV packages at all aren’t going to care how much money Time Warner or Comcast charges for their cable packages as they aren’t going to subscribe to any of them anyway thus losing the cable companies what has traditionally been a steady part of their business – new cable subscribers.

Here’s a link to a related story from the PaidContent site titled Generation Mooch Why 20 Somethings Have A Hard Time Paying For Content:

http://paidcontent.org/2013/03/29/generation-mooch-why-20-somethings-have-a-hard-time-paying-for-content/

And a second link to an article from the Atlantic on the growing number of young adult cord nevers:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/fear-cord-never-generation/62033/

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Bunton, Cam. (2013, March 28). Apple ‘iTV’ display panels to be supplies by Foxconn, covered in Corning glass? Today’s iPhone. Online.

Degivlle, Sean. (2013, March 31). Flexible Mobile Screens Coming Soon. Mobile Phones. Online.

Greenfield, Rebecca. (2013, February 12). Fear of a Cord-Never Generation. The Atlantic. Online.

Kern, Eliza. (2013, March 29). Generation Mooch? Why 20-somethings have a hard time paying for content. PaidContent. Online.

Television Revolution Overview & Steps To Take To Be Healthier If You Sit In Front Of A Computer All Day

Linda Reimer

Television Revolution Overview: I came across a cool article yesterday that offers an easily accessible overview of the Television Revolution currently underway. The article is both easy to read and very informative offering information regarding streaming video subscription services, streaming video on demand and much more. If you’re interested in the ways television viewing is changing – and how, in the near future, it might change the way you view television shows too– you may want to check out the article. The article is aptly titled Crash Course Understanding The TV Revolution – here’s the link:

http://www.studiosystemnews.com/crash-course-understanding-the-tv-revolution/

Steps To Take To Be Healthier If You Sit In Front Of A Computer All Day: I’ve come across a number of news articles recently that discuss the sedentary life-style that for most people comes with our modern high tech way of life. The basics gist of all the articles is that we tend to do less physical activity today than people did in times past and that although everyone should exercise for at least 30 minutes a day that all by itself isn’t enough to promote optimum health. It seems that just being sedentary during the work day– as those of us who do a great deal of computer work during the work day tend to be – is also bad for your health. And if you do work that has you sit for hours in front of a computer screen you should get up and move around at regular intervals – like those micro stretch breaks Wegmans is always prompting staff and shoppers to do! So you don’t have to do a work-out in the middle of the day; instead you can do little things like walk up stairs instead of taking elevators, park farther away from the grocery store entrance than you need to or even just buy a pedometer or electronic device (like the Jawbone Up) that tracks how many steps you take each day – and shoot for taking 10,000 steps a day instead of the average 5,000 steps a day most of us take.

And I think the writers of the articles are right to place an emphasis on increasing what the Wall Street Journal article author Sumathi Reddy describes as our “non-scheduled physical activities;” because, really, how many of go out and chop wood on a regular basis, walk to work or spend our days on our feet running around? Granted some people still do some type of physically demanding work or just work that requires one to be on one’s feet all day. However, many, many people also spend their days sitting in front of a computer doing work and thus they aren’t up and on their feet as much as is best to promote optimal health. So tech fans that we are – we should pay attention to how much non-scheduled physical activity we do each day and try and do more of it – or just buy a Jawbone Up for $129 as it will send information to your iPhone or iPod Touch regarding how many steps you take each day, how many calories you burn and if you wear it 24 hours a day – it will even let you know how well you are sleeping! And I digress. The Jawbone Up is a cool health gadget and you can check out the product review on Amazon if you’d like although a pedometer, which is can be purchased for about $20, would work too. Having said that here are links to two articles that discuss the importance of increasing our non-scheduled physical activity during the day:

Article 1 is from the Lifehacker site and is titled Why Walking Throughout the Day Is Just as Important as Vigorous Exercise – here’s the link

http://lifehacker.com/5990300/why-walking-throughout-the-day-is-just-as-important-as-exercise

And article 2 is from the Wall Street Journal and is titled Hard Math: Adding Up Just How Little We Actually Move – here’s the link

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324096404578354590581579014.html

 Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Klosowski, Thorin. (2013, March 13). Why Walking Throughout the Day Is Just as Important as Exercise. Lifehacker. Online.

Manis, Aimee. (2013, March 11). Crash Course: Understanding the TV Revolution. Studio System News. Online.

Reddy, Sumathi. (2013, March 11). Hard Math: Adding Up Just How Little We Actually Move. Wall Street Journal. Online. 

Streaming Video: Giving Viewers What They Want To Watch When They Want To Watch It

Linda Reimer

The streaming and DVD subscription service Netflix has actually produced, and made available for streaming, a television series. Netflix remade the popular BBC series House of Cards. This new version of House of Cards was indeed made by Netflix itself as its first original presentation and it stars Kevin Spacey. And much ado is being made in the press of the fact that Netflix used Big Data*1 to decide to remake this series and to remake it with the actor they chose for the lead role (Kevin Spacey) and the director (David Fincher) they chose to direct the series.  

And although both the fact that the series is Netflix’s first foray into actually creating a new show and that it is the most popular streaming title Netflix has at the moment are very interesting; what I find the most interesting about the new series is that Netflix released the entire first season of the series all at once and viewers seem to really like that fact as they are streaming away and watching all the episodes in one or two sittings.  

And the fact that this option is so popular – that is having an entire season of a series available to stream from the Internet and watch the day it is released is so popular… that fact illustrates to me that the instantaneous availability of streaming video*2 is becoming more popular with mainstream television and movie fans. And that being the case, just maybe we’re a step or two closer to a television viewing model that is truly on demand and lets viewers watch any television shows or movies they want to watch when they want to watch them, via streaming, and on whatever device they want to watch them upon!

And here’s a link to the New York Times article that started my streaming video musings for today – it is titled Giving Viewers What They Want – here’s the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html?ref=technology&_r=0

And on a non-tech FYI note – Tolkien and fantasy fans can now pre-order The Hobbit as the video now has a release date! It will be released on DVD and streaming video on March 19!

Have a great day!

Linda R.

 

 

*1) In this case the term “Big Data” simply means that Netflix took a look at the user data they have on hand to see which television subjects, directors and actors are popular with viewers and used that information to make the decision to remake the series House of Cards and with the director and cast that they chose to use for the production.

 

*2) In the case of the new House of Cards series streaming availability is extra notable because the series is currently only available to Netflix subscribers to stream via the Internet – it has not yet been released on DVD.

 

 

References

 

Carr. David. (2013, February 24). Giving Viewers What They Want. New York Times. Online.

 

 

Assorted Tech News For The Weekend Before Christmas

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, I’m running out of Friday! And since I am not working at the library this weekend (although we are open our regular hours on both Saturday and Sunday!) and the library is closed on Monday and Tuesday in observance of Christmas Eve & Christmas Day…I thought I should at least alert library tech fans to a few interesting tech news articles.

This first article is titled Streaming Forward: Where Streaming Content Industry is Headed in 2013 and Beyond and discusses how the streaming of TV shows and movies over the Internet to a variety of portable devices and also to large screen HDTVs – is increasing – which is cool! Here is the link:

http://allthingsd.com/20121221/streaming-forward-where-streaming-content-industry-is-headed-in-2013-and-beyond/

The second article is another streaming related article. This one, titled TV Everywhere, for Real, for Now: Nimble TV Start a New York Trial Run, discusses the new Nimble TV service. This new streaming video service will, theoretically, allow people to stream video content to all their streaming devices. And I say “theoretically” because this emerging way of accessing video, via the internet and on demand as compared to via cable companies, because more popular…Well…it rather upsets the status quo for cable TV companies so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a law suit launched against Nimble TV by one of the big cable or media companies. Here’s a link to an All Things D article on the subject:

http://allthingsd.com/20121221/tv-everywhere-for-real-for-now-nimbletv-starts-a-new-york-trial-run/

The third article, from 9To5Mac, is titled Redbox Instant by Verizon iOS app live on App Store as $8/month streaming service launches and it is about – just that! The new Redbox service which might just give Netflix and Amazon a run for the streaming video money! Here’s the link:

http://9to5mac.com/2012/12/19/redbox-instant-by-verizon-ios-app-live-on-app-store-as-8month-streaming-service-launches-in-private-beta/

And the fourth article is surprise! Yet again about streaming video! This time it is about the Hisense Pulse media streaming player with Google TV – and finally we are seeing some Google TV devices that are under $100. And even though the artilce states that the Hisense Pulse Google TV box is priced at $100 – as of right now (6:15 PM EST on Friday, December 21, 2012) the price on Amazon has gone down to $94.99. The artilce is from the Endgadget site and is called  Hisense Pulse With Google TV Priced At $100. Now Available From Amazon – here’s the link:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/20/hisense-pulse-google-tv-available-amazon/

Have a great holiday everyone!

And remember although the library is closed on 12/24, 12/25 and 1/1 – we are open our regular hours the rest of the time so if you’re in the mood to read some new books or watch some new DVDs this weekend or next stop on in! Linda R.

P.S. I found a review of the Hisense Pulse with Google TV on the Digital Trends site (they like it!)– here’s the link:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/with-the-hisense-pulse-set-top-box-an-ultra-affordable-price-point-belies-a/

References

Kafka, Peter. (2012, December 21). TV Everywhere, For Real, for Now: Nimble TV Starts a New York Trail Run. Wall Street Journal: All Things D. Online.

Kahn, Jordan. (2012, December 19). Redbox Instant by Verizon iOS app live on App Store as $8/month streaming service launches in private beta. 9To5Mac. Online.

Lee, Nicole. (2012, December 20). Hisense Pulse with Google TV priced at $100, now available from Amazon. Endgadget. Online.

McCollum, Brady. (2012, December 21.) Streaming Forward: Where the Streaming Content Industry Is Headed in 2013 and Beyond. Wall Street Journal: All Things D. Online.

Poltrack, Adam. (2102, October 18). Hands on with the Hisense Pulse, the most affordable Google TV box yet. Online.

Roku & 3 M Release Streaming Video Projector

Linda Reimer

Roku and 3 M have just come out with a new streaming video projector. The projector costs $299 and the streaming stick is $99 so the total price of the set up is much cheaper than your usual costs for a projector. And this is neat as it is portable so you can, for example, access kids videos via Netflix and Amazon and project them on a wall anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection. So you can take the set up to your summer home or on vacation with you and enjoy TV shows and movies via a projector!

Here’s the link to the a CNET article on the subject, titled 3M Streaming Projector has integrated Roku Streaming Stick, fits in your hand:

http://goo.gl/b1yGU

And if you’re free at 2 PM this afternoon and have recently purchased an iPad please feel free to attend our Wednesday One Hour Tech Workshop on the iPad!

 Linda R.