Google TV and 3-D - The Crimson Pirate

The Best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

Burns, To a Mouse

16 year old Dalton Harris, from Clarendon, is the 2010 Digicel Rising Star winner, with Camalay in Second Place and Jermaine aka Mr. Substantial, also from Clarendon in Third Place, at least according to the recording on my DVR, as I did not watch this show live, but recorded it on my computer. More proof that when it comes to innovation, my “‘ting deh a country” as I was originally born, raised and live in Milk River, Clarendon. Another favorite pastime of Clarendonians is purchasing pirated CD and DVD and selling gold to illegal vendors who have no license to sell Gold at the entrance of Bargain Village, May Pen, Clarendon, to which the May Pen Police have paid scant regard, despite the possible link to criminality and its possible indirect link to a possible major Copyright violation and hence a promotion for some lucky officer. Technology may be finally catching up with the members of the Jolly Rogers, specifically speaking to Digital and Audio Piracy. In Jamaica, the article, “BE WARNED! If you buy a pirated DVD, CD you can be arrested”, published Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by KARYL WALKER, walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com, Crime/Court co-ordinator, (http://www.jamaicaobserver.com) which tackles an issue that resonates very strongly with me, as Digital Music and Video Piracy has possible links to Narcotics Trafficking in Jamaica. As we in Jamaica already have stringent fines under the Property Rights Act which can be enforced against persons who copy or purchase copyright material knowingly as well as for breaches of the Copyright Act.

I have long advocated the use of a IT based anti-piracy technology solution combined with more strongly enforced legislation as once a new IT based anti-piracy technology is combined with a much stricter vigilance of purchase of copyright material under the purview of the Property Rights Act and the unauthorized copying of copyright material, be it audio or video under the purview of the Copyright Act, it should work to not only deter would be pirates, but make the copying and distribution of copyright Digital Music and Video impossible, if not very difficult. The Congress of the United States of America has not only gone after Colleges and Universities by threatening to withhold Title IV Federal Aid under the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as stated in the article “Federal rules on campus file sharing kick in today”, published July 1, 2010 7:14 AM PDT by Greg Sandoval CNET News - Media Maverick (http://www.cnet.com), which came into effect on Thursday July 1^st 2010 AD, but a day prior, on Wednesday June 30^th 2010 AD, (for it is a day that will long be remembered by College and University Students in the United States of America), a crackdown had been initiated against file sharers as stated in the article “Feds seize cash, Web sites of alleged film pirates”, published June 30, 2010 3:11 PM PDT by Greg Sandoval CNET News - Media Maverick (http://www.cnet.com). Looks like the Americans have come up with such a thing – legislation allowing for the shutting down of websites found to be involved in the illegal distribution of content, especially as the Europeans are cracking on such websites as stated in the article “10 arrested in European raids on Internet piracy”, published Wednesday September 8, 1:53 pm ET By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer, Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com). But first, a bit of free history lesson by John Public.

I once also suggested online back in 2002 and 2003 that DRM (Digital Right Management). But apparently after problems with rootkits installed in computers that in some cases deleted legitimately downloaded files and made CD-RW/DVD-RW players and software unable to work, Apple Inc removed DRM from their music downloads and urged the Music Industry to do the same. EMI agreed, Microsoft followed suit on their Zune player music distribution platform as stated in the article “Microsoft Will Sell DRM-free Songs”, published Fri Apr 6, 2007 4:00 PM ET by Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service, PC World (http://www.pcworld.com) and everyone forgot about pursuing IT based anti-piracy solutions to deal with piracy, instead focusing on models that would allow record producers to continue making money from the diminishing Digital Music and Video by creating a following for a particular music player and distribution platform. I have already suggested an idea involving the distribution of music on a single Telecoms Provider network that is currently unpopular with the John Public via specifically tailored Music and Video Download Plans that allow for Digital Music and Video downloading from a website set up specifically to distribute music and video only to registered users, essentially the same thing as Microsoft Zune and Apple’s IPod Itunes platforms.

This is great for downloaded Digital Music and Video but still does not solve the problem for Digital Video viewed on DVD and Blu-Ray players. For the record, HD lost the Movie Storage Format Wars and Blu-Ray is soon to be dead, but the Silicon Valley pundits and the Electronics makers such as Toshiba, Samsung, HTC and component makers such as LG scattered across much of East Asia in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan do not yet know this yet!! DVD and Blu-Ray discs are still being heavily pirated and downloaded, evident to anyone walking through May Pen, Clarendon in the late afternoon. But as usual, it seems that the consumers love for a particular type of movie may have given inspiration to this latest anti-piracy attempt, which I predict will thwart the DVD and Blu-Ray pirates: 3-D. Director James Cameron blockbuster Avatar, a 3-D flick in 2009 that currently holds the record as earning the most at the box office, surpassing his previous Oscar film Titanic for which he won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, captured hearts at the Oscars after being nominated for nine (9) Oscars against his ex-wife director Katherine Bigelow’s film, Hurt Locker, only to lose out to her as she ended up winning Best Picture and Best Director Oscars. Avatar came to define 3-D and thus what is now referred to as the Avatar Effect, now evident in the proliferation of 3-D television offerings that are coming out from Samsung, Panasonic, LG and Toshiba as stated in the article “Samsung, Panasonic start selling 3-D TV's this week”, published Tuesday March 9, 11:04 am ET By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer, Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com).

But while the razzmatazz of the red carpet and the surprise of the Oscars had Yahoo! OMG people scoping out the list of the who’s who and who they wore to the Oscars, (Miley Cyrus and Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Oscars! OMG!!) a bit of a buzz was created by a movie that Johnny Depp of recent Iron Man fame starred in, which of course was Alice in Wonderland. It shares kinship and honorable mention to Avatar as not only has it surpassed that previous 3-D film’s (yes it is a 3-D flick!) opening weekend box-office record with a total of US$116.3 million as stated in the article “Alice opens with $116.3 million, a 3-D record”, published Monday March 8^th 2010, The Daily Observer, despite the negative critic reviews (there’s no business like show business!), but it also demonstrates a trend that seems to be slowly catching on since 2008: 3-D films are here to stay. In the United States of America and Canada alone, four thousand (4000) movie theatres were fitted with 3-D capability and that number seems to be set to rise, enveloping the audience in a viewing experience that can only be enjoyed at the theatre, once the movie is a good one with a good storyline and adept usage of the 3-D to tell a story as opposed to dazzling the audience with this rare and pricey special effect, which would explain the Oscar nod and the record breaking earnings to a movie that is both CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) as well as 3-D, a compliment extended to both Avatar and Alice in Wonderland – higher ticket prices not withstanding. And that is where the obvious connection should be made in your mind: people will pay to see 3-D movies and uniquely, you have to wear special glasses to get the full viewing pleasure.

Samsung and Panasonic, Japanese electronics giants who are totally unrelated to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, may be able to bring the 3-D experience into your home, following their revelation that not only have they developed 3-D flat screen television sets, but they are to debut them this week as stated by the article “Samsung, Panasonic start selling 3-D TV's this week”, published Tue March 9 2010, 11:04 am ET, By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Write, Yahoo ! News, AP, (http://news.yahoo.com). They must have been seeing the trend for 3-D viewing growing in their home country Japan, especially with the phenomenal successes of Avatar and previous films of its ilk from 2008 up until now. It seems that they have decided to invest in the technology, and by thus doing so may have created a means by which DVD’s and Blu-Ray‘s can be protected from would be pirates. This is because these 3-D movies can only be viewed using special glasses, making it pointless to copy and distribute, as the viewing experience will be blurry and painful on the eyes, not to mention a splitting headache with all those out-of-place colors onscreen. Thus, soon Blu-Ray discs, possibly only in 1080p HD (High Definition) and 3-D, will be the only distribution format for new released movies aside from streaming services like NetFlix as stated in the article “Netflix to stream Paramount, Lionsgate, MGM movies”, published Tuesday August 10, 8:07 pm ET by RYAN NAKASHIMA and MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writers, (http://news.yahoo.com) thus making movies difficult to copy.

This explains to some degree Apple CEO Steve Jobs expansion of his “hobby” in the form of the Apple iTV to basically include streaming as stated in the article “For 99 cents, Amazon sells shows, Apple rents them”, published September 1, 2010 2:31 PM PDT by Ina Fried, CNET News - Beyond Binary (http://www.cnet.com). Whether or not Google TV will offer “cool” features along with their set top box solution aside from what was promised by Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini, the chipset designer for Google TV stated in the article “Intel's Otellini: Google TV shipping this month”, published September 9, 2010 2:13 PM PDT by Tom Krazit, CNET News - Relevant Results, (http://www.cnet.com) and teased by Google CEO Eric Schmidt as stated in the article “For Google TV, a Sharp Turn Away from Apple TV”, published Tuesday September 7, 3:12 pm ET by Jared Newman, Yahoo! News, (http://news.yahoo.com). Along with a video calling service, offline storage to allow content to be streamed and viewable anywhere, somewhat like a on-demand video library as opined by Barbara E Hernandez in the article “Five Ways Google TV Can Kill Apple TV”, published Friday September 10, 4:36 pm ET by Barbara E. Hernandez, Yahoo! News, (http://news.yahoo.com), this geek-meets-world fantasy will not beat the Apple iTV, even though the Apple iTV lacks FaceTime as stated in the David Gewirtz article “FaceTime could be Apple's iTV killer app”, published August 23, 2010, 7:35am PDT, By David Gewirtz, ZDNet Government (http://www.zdnet.com) and has no 1080p support as stated in the article “Apple TV isn't 1080p and you shouldn't care”, published  September 3, 2010 10:40 AM PDT by Matthew Moskovciak, CNET News - Crave, (http://www.cnet.com).

Apple iTV has the advantage of its magical US$99 pricing, no hard drive thus making hackers have a difficult time copying content, content from Netflix and YouTube on US$0.99 rental, support by content providers ABC and Fox and most important of all, it is portable. The missing offerings will most likely be addressed in the next refresh while maintaining or expanding on the above, as the technology is not yet at a state where streaming is ubiquitous, despite the pronouncements of  the over-eager Google. And 3-D streamed content will definitely be on that watch list. But the mere lack of a hard drive and rentals and streaming on your multiple device for a low, low rental price of US$0.99, not purchasing, in itself, is a security feature that is of a nature that renders the Apple iTV un-hackable, and thus a favorite of the Content Kings as stated in the article “Content kings control the future of IPTV”, published August 23, 2010 4:00 AM PDT by Marguerite Reardon, CNET News - Signal Strength, (http://www.cnet.com) and 3-D HDTV makers to endorse.

As for Blu-Rays, even if persons who illegally copied these 3-D rendered Blu-Ray discs and got a set of those glasses in use circa 1950’s until now, they would be unable to view the feature length film content, as the 3-D technology used in the Television sets requires special glasses to be purchased specific to the television sets to be worn that are specific to each type of movie, possibly having to be programmed to recognize legitimate codes transmitted by the television set that must match with those in the glasses, enabling viewing, somewhat reminiscent of the movie Mission Impossible in which the character Ethan Hawke, played by Tom Cruise, put on a pair of glasses which had a mini camera built. This is the same idea, except that instead of a camera, it has a transmitter to communicate to the television set, which would explains the articles reference to the batteries in the glasses needing to be recharged frequently for them to work.

These batteries can be replaced by painting on solar panels based on a recent development by Solexant, a company that pioneers sprayable solar panels based on nano-particle technology as suggested in the article “Solexant funded to print thin-film Solar cells”, published June 4, 2010 8:50 AM PDT by Martin LaMonica, CNET News - Green Tech, (http://www.cnet.com). Even the windows and their tint can be made into solar panels, courtesy of this sprayable solar panel nanotechnology breakthrough by Solexant as stated in the article “Spray-on films turns glass into Solar panels”, published August 19, 2010 1:09 PM PDT by Juniper Foo, CNET News - Crave, (http://www.cnet.com). In other words, if they do not have these special glasses, they will be unable to watch the 3-D content, be it stored on a Blu-Ray or streamed over a set top box such as the Apple iTV and it will appear very blurry without them, making it pointless to copy these DVD or Blu-Rays. Thus, as irony would have it, distributing content only in 1080p HD (High Definition) and 3-D via streaming as well as only in Blu-Ray format viewable ONLY in 3-D, albeit a short term risk, may in the long term eliminate piracy and allow the Government of the United States of America to collect taxable revenue from legitimate content sales on the Internet, necessary for the United States of America to recover from the Recession. CEO Steve Jobs, you Apple iTV is on the right track once more towards a future solid product, once Internet streaming becomes mainstream, currently the preserve of Techies.

But what if you did not need to have a TV to watch TV? What if you mobile phone was merely a pair of glasses you wore? Loading up my cannon for another well researched article on the future of the Apple iPhone 5.0, rumoured to be supporting 4G in the next refresh in 2011. Remember folks, next year All-electric Vehicles will be all the rage in terms of gadgets and the Nissan Leaf is already ahead in the pricing department, with GM (General Motors) just catching “de rake” as we Jamaicans would say as stated in the article “GM demonstrates its all-electric Cruze EV concept”, published Monday September 20 2010, CNET News (http://www.cnet.com). Early signs of American automaker support can be seen from the recent announcement of GM! More time!!!