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The movie studios have traditionally spread out the release dates for PPV, cable, DVDs and download in an effort to maximize the dollars they are able to extract from customers. Apple have announced that they have agreements in place to allow them to offer movie downloads via iTunes coincident with the DVD release.

I believe that this is the first step towards the compression of this timeline. The endgame being only one or two release dates for movies; theatrical and all others. As the entire movie industry moves to digital techniques from camera to screen there is little impediment to a ‘big bang’ release methodology. Mark Cuban has been advocating this for some time.

http://gizmodo.com/386026/apple-to-sell-movies-on-dvd-release-day-confirmed

UPDATE: Here is a piece from Variety with a bit more background.  I especially like the quote at the end from a Fox exec.; ‘What we do want is pay-per-view to replace rental.’…  Interesting…

Hand-wringing About American Culture - Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? - New York Times

The ‘Protect America Act’ (clearly a use of the term ‘protect’ with which I was unfamiliar) is due to expire soon.  The Senate is considering it’s replacement and today the Senate failed to pass an amendment that would have removed the immunity granted to the telcos for all manner of illegal activities under the guise of ‘protecting our freedoms’.

Just be sure I have this right…  the Government asks the telcos to perform illegal wiretaps while waving the ‘it’s your patriotic duty to comply’ flag.  The telcos succumb to the ‘pressure’, roll over and illegally dump the contents of the ‘tubes in the Government’s lap.

The public (the folks they’re trying to ‘protect’, right) get wind of it and start raising a stink.  The Government responds by retroactively granting immunity to the telcos so the ‘public’ can’t sue them and get the details of just what was going on.

Do you feel protected?  Well, do you punk?  I feel hoodwinked!

Senate caves, votes to give telecoms retroactive immunity

Yes, boys and girls, my first cell phone came in a lunchbox (does anyone under 40 even know what THAT means?) sized nylon ‘case’. It required an external power source (cigarette lighter plug) and an external antenna.

I have fond memories of dropped calls whenever I crossed a state line (pre-roaming) and per-minute charges approaching today’s gas prices.

Back in the fabulous 80’s AMPS was the technology in use for all cell phone networks in the US. Technology has marched on and AMPS has fallen into the same category as floppy disks and carbon paper. The two carriers with remaining AMPS coverage are scheduled to de-activate their networks next week.

The vast majority of folks won’t notice; we’ve since moved on to GSM and/or UMTS networks. However, there are still a goodly number of devices using this technology, namely alarm systems, older GM OnStar systems and ‘remote monitoring’.

If you’re alarm system has a cellular back-up option, or you have an old GM a bit of investigation would be prudent. GM has an info page up here.

Can you hear me now? Analog cellular networks shutting down next week
Wireless disruption | Santa Rosa Press Democrat // News for California’s North Bay and Redwood Empire

Yes, boys and girls, my first cell phone came in a lunchbox (does anyone under 40 even know what THAT means?) sized nylon ‘case’.  It required an external power source (cigarette lighter plug) and an external antenna.

I have fond memories of dropped calls whenever I crossed a state line (pre-roaming) and per-minute charges approaching today’s gas prices.

Back in the fabulous 80’s AMPS was the technology in use for all cell phone networks in the US.  Technology has marched on and AMPS has fallen into the same category as floppy disks and carbon paper. The two carriers with remaining AMPS coverage are scheduled to de-activate their networks next week.

The vast majority of folks won’t notice; we’ve since moved on to GSM and/or UMTS networks.  However, there are still a goodly number of devices using this technology, namely alarm systems, older GM OnStar systems and ‘remote monitoring’.

If you’re alarm system has a cellular back-up option, or you have an old GM a bit of investigation would be prudent.  GM has an info page up here.

Can you hear me now? Analog cellular networks shutting down next week

So I’m not above posting a link to a cool new application just to get an invite. I’m dirty… I’m a dirty, dirty engineer. Call me what you want but everyone deserves some link love!

This thing actually look pretty cool. It is an extension for <shudder> Outlook that adds some interesting features. I have some trepidations though based on something I read on an email from them…

… We have received a lot of requests for the beta and are expanding our capacity to handle the load. …

That may be paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist of it. Assuming that they are not talking about supporting download traffic (Yes, that is a bit of a leap but downloads are pretty easy to support) that tells me that some part of this solution is hosted. Why would an email plugin need to be hosted? Hmm… are they passing email (or meta-email) back to some central server for analysis? Now I REALLY wanna have a look (and a network sniff) of what this thing does!

I’ll jump to the front of the invite queue of just TWO of you out there sign up for the beta. Come on… you can do it! Do it for me!

I spied this on the slog into work this morning; I almost wet myself. This, and many other guffaw inducing objects advocating freedom of thought are available at CafePress.

I must say that I agree with the ‘freakish’ness of all the items mentioned in this author’s post.  Frankly, I’m somewhat embarrassed when I travel abroad and the folks I am visiting ask me “WTF are you nitwits doing?!?!?  You are surprised that the rest of the worlds hates you?”.

I simply shrug and tell them, it’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for the clown.  And, as it turns out, neither did most people, but that is a different discussion.

This is when I repeat to myself “less than a year… less than a year…”.

Top 5 things I saw in America which, as a Canadian, freaked me right out « Paulitics: Paul’s Socialist Investigations

Sony has completed the DRM-free MP3 trifecta (Warner, Universal and Sony/BMG) for Amazon; they now have all the major labels, along with a significant number of indie labels, available for download.

This is clearly a move on the part of the labels to balance the field a bit against Apple’s iTunes Music Store; something that must be giving His Steveness a bit of bile to vent.

Frankly, I don’t give a dingo’s kidney what Hist Steveness vents, as long as we have a credible source of DRM-free music.  It’s been a long, painful, frustrating road but it appears that the labels have finally seen the error in their ways (treating customers like criminals) and given those of us that enjoy our digital music on something other than an iPod a marketplace.

Now, if we can just get them them to provide it with a lossless codec encoding…

It’s Official: Sony BMG Delivers MP3s to Amazon — Digital Music News

So I went back and read a few of my old posts today while updating some of the system software. The piece I did on popcorn toppings, which is one of my most popular posts, is rather good if I do say so myself.

Some days I wish I wasn’t so damn driven to innovate that I forget to do a bit of navel gazing on a daily basis.