UFC PPV Comes to Roku

Later today, Roku will make a UFC channel available to owners of their $99 box. While the highlight is obviously HD pay per view fights ($45ish?), freebie Octagon-related video content will also be available. Additionally, live event archives will be made available to PPV subscribers several days after the fact – which worked out well for my trial of Roku’s UFC service.

It’s my understanding that various press and bloggers were given advance access to the UFC113 event held on May 8th via Roku. However, given the coverage, it looks like I may be one of the few with an appreciation for combat (as a former wrestler and judoka). Quality was good. But probably not good enough. Granted, this was a beta encode of the live event and I do expect the picture quality to improve. As it has with Roku’s NBA Game Time. Also, the transport controls are limited. For this kind of action, we’re going to need a trick play function.

Fortunately, as I mentioned, live events are archived and available for a week after the fact. And given the late start time, I ended up saving the title fight (Machida vs Shogun) for Sunday. The video replay does come with full transport controls, although they aren’t as smooth as say a TiVo. Plus, I’d like to see some sort of per fight bookmarking to quickly hop around the undercard or skip to the main attraction.

All in all, Roku just keeps getting better. And while the UFC video quality (thus far) isn’t amazing, they provide a solid option to bypass cable or satellite options when unavailable. Plus, the Roku travels well. Bring your UFC fights on the road or to a friend’s home. Next up: UFC 114, May 29th.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

Google TV: More Details This Week?

Remember that Google TV rumor from a couple of months ago, involving Google entering the living room in partnership with Intel, Sony, and Logitech? The FT’s Chris Nuttall expects it to get official this week. (He mentions Sony and Intel, but not Logitech–but I’ve heard that Logitech will have some sort of presence at the Google I|O developer conference which starts on Wednesday.)

YouTube Turns Five

YouTube is celebrating its fifth birthday–and the fact that it now streams two billion videos a day. (Just thinking about it, it’s disorienting to remember that we lived without it, and its rivals, a mere half-decade ago.)

Fanboy!

Technology, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a topic that inspires passion. When people like stuff, they tend to really like it. And many tech enthusiasts have trouble dealing with people whose tastes differ from theirs. Praise a product or company online, and you run the risk of being accused of being a sycophant who suffers from obsessive interest and inappropriate emotional attachment.

Except nobody will use those words. What they’ll call you is a fanboy.

The odds of  the word coming up are highest if the conversation involves Apple and its products, but it’s a handy, all-purpose insult. Consider these snippets of recent conversation on the Web:

“You Apple fanboys keep drinking the Kool-Aid…”

“Wow, listen to all the Android fanboys!”

“I am not some loser fanboy…”

“Sucks to be a Windoze fanboi…”

“Surely with all the fanboy talk of how important the iDiotPhone is, it should be on the list…”

“Big ego, small brain. Typical fanboy!”

“You’re nothing but an Adobe fanboi…”

“Stop being a lousy fanboy who knows nothing but what Stevie tells you.”

“You Apple haters are worse than any Apple fanboy I’ve ever met, and just as stupid.”

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Lexmark’s Smart and Economical Printer

I think we’ve got the razor-blade method of marketing printers figured out: Sell the printer for a couple of bucks, then gouge and exploit us on cartridges. I hate it.

Lexmark makes its money the old-fashioned way. It sells printers at higher-than-competitor’s printers, but then sells the ink cartridges at reasonable prices.

I tried the Lexmark Prestige Pro805 multifunction printer for over a month (I won’t review something unless I have decent hands-on time, despite howling from the PR people).

Amazon discounts the Lexmark Prestige Pro805 for $200, which is about what others discount it for. The Pro85 uses four single-ink cartridges. When purchasing directly from Lexmark, you’ll pay $5 for black and $10 for color. Shipping is free and Lexmark’s recycling program gives you two free cartridges for every five you buy and return empty in a year.

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Google’s Accidental Spying Mess

For years, Google has used its squadron of Street View cars to capture imagery and 3D geometry for Google Maps and data about Wi-Fi networks that it uses in its geolocation-enabled apps. It’s been a controversial practice, particularly in Europe. And on April 27th, the company published a blog post to clear up misconceptions about its practices. The tone was very slightly edgy, and the gist was (A) we’re not invading anybody’s privacy; and (B) other people have been doing this stuff even long than we have.

Except…now Google is saying that its statement that it was only collecting SSID and MAC information from the networks it drove by is incorrect. At the request of the German government, Google examined its system more carefully. And it discovered that for the past three years, Street View cars have been accidentally using a piece of software that can pick up data being transmitted over non-password protected networks. Since the cars were in constant motion and their network-monitoring equipment changed channels five times a second, the company says it’s “typically” only picked up “fragments” of data.

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DirecTV’s Whole Home DVR Now Available ($3)

After several months of private testing, followed by an open beta, DirecTV has formally introduced their whole-home DVR service. As a fan of the ‘hub and spoke’ digital distribution model, the MoCA-based solution looks quiet compelling. Of course, DirecTV subscribers would need at least one HD DVR. But each additional room (up to 15!) can be outfitted with a less pricey HD receiver to schedule or view recordings from the primary DVR. Free would be nice, but you really can’t go wrong a low $3 monthly surcharge.

Thanks, Jon!

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

How I Tortured a Bunch of Very Nice Geeks

I’ve written another guest post for ExecTweets IT. This one’s a sort of a memoir of my days as a worker bee who sought tech support from help desks inside the companies that employed me. I call it “Confessions of an IT Pro’s Worst Nightmare.”

Phones: Less Talk, More Data

Speaking of the New York Times, here’s a nice story on the inevitable transformation of wireless phones into tiny computers that happen to be able to make phone calls. Maybe it’s time to come up with that new name for these gadgets. (I keep advocating for “PC,” but I seem to be alone…)

New York Times to Web: Pay Up in January

The Wall Street Journal, which charges for online access, reports that New York Times editor Bill Keller says that the Times will begin doing the same in January of next year. Still to come: full details on how it’ll all work…

Google to Shutter Its Phone Store. Good!

Well that was quick. Google, which got into the business of selling phones online a little over four months ago, is getting out of it. In an Official Google Blog post, Android honcho Andy Rubin explains that the company is pleased with Android’s overall progress-as it should be–but that the Web store has been a disappointment. It turns out that people like to see phones in person before they buy them, and that they want a bunch of service plans to choose from. (Shocking, huh?)

When Google announced its Web store, it called it “a new approach to buying a mobile phone.” It’s saying that it will revert to an old approach: selling them through brick-and-mortar retail stores. (It’s not entirely clear what sort of stores these will be, but in Europe you can already buy a Nexus One from wireless carrier Vodafone.)

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Me on PC World’s Podcast

Yesterday afternoon, I returned to the scene of my many crimes at PC World to make a guest appearance on the PC World Podcast. PCW’s Robert Strohmeyer and Jason Cross, my pal David Spark, and I gabbed about the news of the week, including the Facebook privacy kerfuffle, the Google-Verizon tablet, Sprint’s EVO 4G phone, and more.  Have a listen here.

The iPad. Of 2000. As Envisioned in 1988

In the late 1980s, Apple Computer was better known for fantasizing about breakthrough products than making them. Most famously, CEO John Sculley envisioned a futuristic gizmo called the Knowledge Navigator–featuring a bowtied digital assistant–in his 1987 book Odyssey. It made for a mighty impressive futuristic video.

In September of the same year, Apple announced a competition it called “Project 2000.” Teams from a dozen universities were invited to submit papers about Knowledge Navigator-like concepts representing the PC of far-off 2000. An impressive panel of judges–Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, personal-computing visionary Alan Kay, futurist Alvin Toffler, science fiction legend Ray Bradbury, and Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Diane Ravitch–judged the entries in early 1988.

A group from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign won, for a paper titled TABLET: The Personal Computer of the Year 2000. “We seek something which fits comfortably into people’s lives while dramatically changing them,” the entry explained. And then it went on to describe a machine that was as different from the typical portable computer of the era as you could imagine.

The device was about the size of a paper notebook, and it packed a high-resolution color touchscreen with a virtual keyboard, gigabytes of solid-state storage, cellular connectivity, GPS, and a built-in microphone and speaker. Sophisticated software based on UNIX let you tap icons on a desktop and use pop-down menus to use it for note-taking, connecting to online services, driving directions, e-mail (complete with junk-mail filtering), social networking, 3D games, and both network TV shows and wacky user-generated video. Accessories included a wireless keyboard for those who preferred to touch type, and if you lost your tablet, a clever service even let you use the GPS to track it down.

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Oh No, Not RollerCoaster Tycoon: The Movie

Hollywood continues to find inspiration in plotless video games, with Sony Pictures Animation picking up the film rights to RollerCoaster Tycoon.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film will be a mix of CGI and live action. What the storyline will entail is unknown, because the game itself has none. Like many simulation games, RollerCoaster Tycoon is about building and maintaining the best infrastructure possible — in this case, amusement parks — not interacting with characters.

So let’s count off game-based movies whose plots are a mystery. I previously wrote about Universal’s plans to make a movie based on the arcade classic Asteroids. Since then, Warner has negotiated with Taito to make a Space Invaders film and is working on a Spy Hunter movie, and Fox is trying to get the rights to Missile Command. None of these games have more than one line of narrative or any iconic characters.

Ostensibly, the studios are interested in these movies because they’re low-risk. The utter lack of plot affords a blank canvas for generic spy drama, space opera or family fun, and the recognizable video game franchises automatically raise the profile of the films (Case in point: I wouldn’t be writing about any of them if they had nothing to do with video games).

But maybe these films are risky business after all. There’s no past experience to draw on here, as these are not traditional game-to-movie adaptations where the narrative is set and fan interest is a given. The studios are seeking production rights and starting development with no guarantee that people are going to buy the concept. It’s entirely possible that people will recognize these films as hollow attempts to capitalize on nostalgia and brand recognition, but no one knows, because no one’s tried.

So the question is, who goes first? I’m sure all the studios are anxious to see whether plundering plotless video games was a good idea after all.

“Think Different, As Long As You’re Apple”

John Nack is Adobe’s most eloquent, interesting blogger. Here’s his latest on the Flash-iPhone-iPad mess.

Flash: What Happened?

The first time I saw Flash, I was a freelancer writer getting a demo from its creators on my dining room table. I was immediately impressed. But it wasn’t yet a Web animation/video/interactivity plug-in from Adobe. The year was 1994, and the software that knocked my socks off was a Windows drawing app called FutureSplash SmartSketch. The Web, animation, video, interactivity, and ownership by large companies (Macromedia, and then Adobe) all came later.

SmartSketch was cool because it was simple, fast, and hassle-free–and as much as as the software changed once it morphed into a Web tool, it maintained those virtues for a long time. Back in the dial-up era, it was a joy; years later, it was the first technology that made Web video make sense.

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