Tag: Amazon Inc.

The Future Of TV… Though Not Yet

Watching shows on the net today reminds me of watching UHF pre-cable. It was there, but a hassle. It’s more likely I’d watch on my PC where there’s a fuller multimedia presentation through your browser.

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When Amazon briefly marked its brand new Fire Stick down to $20, I bought one. It now joins my Roku and Chromecast as ancillary TV receivers. It’s TV over the Internet instead of over the air. Some ‘channels’ are linear others totally on demand.

Definitions are getting blurry. Are they channels? Is ComediansInCarsGettingCoffee a channel or show or both or neither? That’s still being decided.

cbsn-logoI downloaded an app to watch CBSN, the new all news offering from CBS.

It’s available only via the net.

It looked pro. They’ve gone for warmth with a tie-less anchor and brick walled studio. The production seemed a little thin. 24/7 is a lot of time with few additional bodies. TV can be done inexpensively. The product is almost as good.

It is well written and serious–CBS’ish.

Screenshot 2014-12-02 21.26.07They play an animated “We’ll be right back” bumper. Really? In 2014? These are early problems which will be solved.

I probably won’t watch CBSN much on the big TV in the loft. Too many steps. Using the big TV for shows on the net today reminds me of watching UHF pre-cable. It was there, but a hassle. It’s more likely I’d watch on my PC where there’s a fuller multimedia presentation through the browser.

What happens to the incumbents–newspapers and local TV news outfits as more and more services set out to the Internet? They adapt or perish.

Some adapt, still perish.

Have you read a newspaper with a hyphenated name? The Journal-Courier, Courier-Journal, Star-Ledger, Times-Picayune, Times-Herald-Record, Post-Gazette, Post-Dispatch? Consolidations and shakeouts happen.

When I was a kid, New York City had seven citywide English language newspapers with additional dailies in Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens. Not anymore.

This market, Orange County, is greatly under-served. Maybe some clever video news provider will shake-in? Alas, the bigger trend is in the other direction.

Addendum: I am considering sending the Fire Stick back. It is unstable or unusable on the two sets I’d like to use it on. I believe the problem has to do with DHCP, a method of digital rights management and these individual sets. Will Amazon fix the problem? It’s stopping me from using their product.

Amazon Would Like To Listen To All Your Conversations

Everything you say is going back through the Internet to Amazon’s servers. Will it be eavesdropping on your life? I think that’s Amazon’s point. We are being farmed for our data.

Echo - KeyFeaturesDevice

Amazon’s newest product is Echo. Echo’s implications are simultaneously interesting and creepy. Echo is a standalone digital assistant that responds to voice commands. Think Siri, but without the phone.

Here comes the creepy part.

Tucked under Echo’s light ring is an array of seven microphones. These sensors use beam-forming technology to hear you from any direction. With enhanced noise cancellation, Echo can hear you ask a question even while it’s playing music.

You know the scene in Casino where Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci turn on their car’s radio to keep from being heard? Not anymore!

It hears you when you’re sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

Amazon claims:

Echo begins working as soon as it hears you say the wake word, “Alexa.”

Echo-AudioExplodedDeviceThat’s not so. It has to be listening to EVERYTHING to know when “Alexa” is said.

This wouldn’t be as scary if your individual Echo kept your secrets. It does not.

Echo’s brain is in the cloud, running on Amazon Web Services so it continually learns and adds more functionality over time.

Everything you say is going back through the Internet to Amazon’s servers. Will it be eavesdropping on your life? I think that’s Amazon’s point. We are being farmed for our data.

I’m making the point with Amazon, but Siri and Google Now are already doing most of this via your cellphone or web browser (see the example at the bottom of this page).

There’s no doubt the Internet gives us powers and abilities far beyond anything I imagined as a kid–and I had a good imagination. But there is a downside. Even if voice recognition was flawless (and it’s anything but), bad interpretation will surely cause unforeseen grief.

Those pushing this part of the technology say errors will be limited. I have no doubt. But fixing errors is expensive. Google, Facebook and others have already shown, companies would rather you didn’t know how to contact them, much less help you fix problems of their doing.

The good news is they don’t look at us as individuals. The bad news is they don’t look at us as individuals.

The Solution To The Hummingbird Feeder Problem

We’ve decided to take the Roy Scheider approach. You remember him from “Jaws?” He was the guy who said, “We’re going to need a bigger boat!”

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We’ve got a hummingbird dependency problem here at the Fox house. Too many. They’ve discovered we’re open to all and all have come!

When first put up, the feeder lasted three or four days. Now, seven or eight hours!

Helaine went to Amazon and began looking. We’ve decided to take the Roy Scheider approach. You remember him from “Jaws?” He was the guy who said, “We’re going to need a bigger boat!”

We’re not sure what the current feeder holds, but this looks to be around four times the capacity.

I’m not sure the current suction cup will hold. We ordered a heavy duty unit with ten pound capacity. Maybe it is overkill, but think of the insect implications should a full feeder of sugar water fall!

The new unit has a comparably sized perch. There might be room for one more hummingbird–that’s it.

The old feeder will go into deep storage for a while. It’s definitely not going up. The last thing I want to do is encourage them.

Amazon And Us

amazon logoMy dad and I were on the phone yesterday. He told me he just ordered corn flakes via Amazon.

A click in the evening brought the flakes 36 hours later.

“How do they do it,” he asked?

My mom and dad, now living comfortably near my sister and her family in frigid Wisconsin, aren’t very mobile. Grocery shopping is tough.

We’re big Amazon users here too. I’m looking around my office at loads of items delivered to me. I’ve ordered on-line when I could have just gone to Home Depot, under five minutes away.

Is this a good thing? Over the short term it’s great. I get what I want with less hassle and for what’s usually the best price.

Amazon figured out how to get things to me fast using a variety of delivery services. It’s a data driven company. There’s a method to their madness, but no two packages come via the same route.

Over the long run I’m much less convinced all of this is a good thing! Staples announced they’re closing 300 stores in the US. Radio Shack is lopping off over a thousand. Retail’s in trouble. Malls are in trouble. Even Walmart is worried. Amazon is trying to hide in the corner, softly whistling.

At the same time, Amazon’s become adept at extracting favorable tax rates and incentives. A Google search for “tax incentive amazon” shows a half dozen states considering or already offering large sums of money to Amazon.

Everything I buy online I don’t buy in a store. Amazon fills the gap with fewer employees earning less money. I’m not paying today. I’m paying tomorrow. The jobless require assistance. It’s not the workers fault.

George Jetson at WorkIf the Jetsons had properly predicted the future, where George comes to work and immediately puts his feet up on his desk, we’d be fine. I grew up with that fantasy. But labor saving hasn’t meant making life easier for labor. The effect has been quite the opposite.

The convenience offered by buying online is huge. It’s only when you see the whole picture, it becomes suspect.

These are complex choices. I’m not rushing to a decision. It’s confusing.

My Office

IMG_3047 office

Stef has come for the weekend. She and Helaine are out now. It’s Doppler, Roxie and me. They’re on the sofa. I’m in my office.

It sounds so presumptuous, my office. I’m sure Ward Cleaver had a study or library. Office isn’t that bad, but it’s close.

By office I mean a room that’s mine. My playroom. My den. My man cave. My office.

When we bought this house I had plans. This room is pretty close to what I was pondering.

There are a few small changes to come. Parts are on order. A little rewiring. Some cable lengths extended. Everything nicely wrapped behind the monitors.

Amazon is my dysfunctional shopping enabler. Click a button. Boom. It was once a hassle to get this stuff. Maybe it’s become too easy to buy!

Helaine helped me pick out the furniture. I sit at a large “L” shaped desk. There is also a bookcase, cabinet and chair to lean back on.

My room is full of screens: TV, computer monitors, tablet, cellphone, plus tinnier alphanumeric readouts on devices. Sensory overload comes with the territory.

This is the most comfortable room I’ve ever had. It’s as if it was fitted for me, like a suit.

Here Comes The Spam

Since the bog has been up with Wordpress (under 24 hours and only now beginning to be seen by Google) I’ve gotten 46 comments. 41 were spam!

While setting up this new iteration of the blog I made a decision–all my older entries would again be open for comments. A few years ago faced with a plethora of blog spam comments were shut off after a week or two.

You know what spam is, but blog spam? It’s much more insidious!

Did you create your own blog or did a program do it? Could you please respond? 18 – Leila Caracci

Looks harmless, right? Except Leila’s email address says she’s GailWoolfolk@aol.com. There’s more.

My blog’s comment form allows you to enter a website address. Leila/Gail has attached MLBH0TD0G.TK (I have sanitized the site by substituting zeros). There lies the rub.

If that comment had gotten posted, accompanied by that URL, the named website would get a little rub of my Google glory. It would rank a tiny bit higher in searches. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of sites and the effect can become enormous.

I would have spotted this on my own, but WordPress comes with Akismet, a filter which performs the job silently and very well.

This blog is great. How did you come up witht he idea? 6 3 4

That’s another one appealing to my ego. Notice the random numbers at the end to try and throw off filtering. It didn’t work.

Great site! Your writing is so fresh compared to most other bloggers. Thanks for writing when you get the chance to, I’ll be sure to keep visiting!

That’s another with a non-matching email/name combo. The linked website soft sells French Press coffee makers with an affiliate link to Amazon. These folks are resourceful.

Any time anyone has something of value others want a piece of it, like my Google karma. What the Internet does is make tiny inconsequential pieces easy to aggregate. I would guess getting many Geoff’s to post your URL produces significant income for little effort!

Since the bog has been up with WordPress (under 24 hours and only now beginning to be seen by Google) I’ve gotten 46 comments. 41 were spam!

As long as Akismet holds its ground I’ll keep everything open. I am only marginally optimistic.