Verizon announced today that they will be introducing music video downloads on their new cell phones. Certainly with the success that downloading ringtones has brought to cell carriers this seems like a logical move. That is until you read about halfway through the press release cum Reuters news article:

Verizon, the first to offer U.S. video services to mobile phones with data speeds similar to home computers, will charge $3.99 for each music video download on top of the $15 a month it plans to charge for V Cast.

Let’s do the math: to download one music video will cost you a minimum of $20 (not to mention the purchase of a snazzy $200 phone to play the videos). Now we understand that everyone wants to become the next iTunes Music Store but Apple has a great product at a great price ($1) with no monthly subscription. I just can’t see people tripping over themselves to pay $4 for a music video that only plays on a tiny, crappy cell phone screen.

Maybe teenagers today have a lot more of an allowance than I ever had as a kid. If I had twenty bucks to spare in my disposable income I certainly wouldn’t spend it on this, would you?

Greetings from Las Vegas. BigBrainBoy is currently sitting 27 stories up staring at the multiple jumbotrons on the strip completely mesmerized…

In this zen state of massive display overload an interesting thought popped up: Who controls what is released? When it is released? Where it is released? These are the questions that have dominated and shaped the structure of all modern mass media. Take for example region coding of DVDs (and now even of printer cartridges). Of course this interwebs thing came along and any schmoe with a camera and an internet connection can distribute anything, anytime and anywhere.

One good example of this is the viral ad that I alluded to in an earlier post. Today VW announced that they have filed suit against the “unknown” creators of the ad.

Company spokesman Hartwig von Sass said VW lodged a criminal complaint with prosecutors in Brunswick, Germany, but did not specify a perpetrator. “This is an attack on Volkswagen’s good name,” he said of the ad, which he called cynical and criminal.

He could not say who made the film or with what aim.

The article goes on to state the widely reported identity is the “Lee and Dan” team in the UK which claim that they created the ad for their demo reel and had no intention of widespread distribution. And herein lies the rub: any item once placed on the ‘net can become available to tens of millions instantly. Sometimes a random screencap from CNN gets featured on a few prominent blogs and a random server is overwhelmed by the massive influx of traffic. Not that we would know anything about that…

So while Lee and Dan may have created the ad with small scale expectations its important to keep in mind that in the internet age there is no small thing as a small player.

Jeff Jarvis has his always interesting take on the lawsuit.

Joi Ito mentions it as well…

Everyone is probably thinking that the crew over here at BigBrainBoy are Google fanatics (which we’ll grudgingly admit we are). Be that as it may, the new Google video search is an interesting approach to TV. However, Google was not the first to embark on such a project. Just last month Yahoo! had already launched its video search.

Google’s video searches are basically digging through TV transcripts of programs and as of now no streaming video of any kind is provided. This is not because the technology isn’t available: once again its litigation killing off innovation as this CNET article points out:

For now, people will not be able to watch the video clip, nor will the Web pages contain the company’s signature text advertising. But Google expects to add video playback down the road, after ironing out the complexities of broadcasting rights and business models with various content owners.

Yahoo’s search also includes movies found on the net which can be watched online. So go ahead and look for your favorite clips, just be sure to notice the little gray warning under every link in the Yahoo! search: “This video may be subject to copyright.” Oh no! I wouldn’t dream of clicking on that Spiderman 2 link you just showed me…

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or perhaps stumbling around Sundance drunk) you must have heard all the hype about 2005 being the year of the cell phone. The BBC has a cute piece on yet another video-on-cellphone project: Fox’s “24.” Noting how people don’t really have the patience to watch video on a tiny handset for a long period of time, Fox is splitting episodes into 60 second bites. The BBC shivers with excitement in claiming:

So a new form of video is being devised. Just as radio and then television spawned new genres of drama so will video phones.

Let’s not get too excited folks, perhaps our British friends have forgotten Edison’s ”Kinetoscope” that played short films lasting mere seconds on index cards in the 1890’s? Frankly, I know that there is only one form of video that will succeed on cellphones: those short videos of suicide bombers driving shiny new VWs. Or maybe you can use the video recording feature on your shiny new cellphone to get yourself and your high-school girlfriend in some real trouble.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. The BBC pauses for a moment to note that there is a tiny little snag in its “new medium” hyperbole:

Television companies usually own the dramas they’ve made, so simply putting them on new broadcasting outlets like mobile phones causes legal difficulties.

Contracts have to be renegotiated. Accordingly, the phone version of “24” will be re-shot with a new cast.

That’s right folks, they’re turning your cellphone into a display for re-runs that are so low-budget that they can’t afford the original material. I’m sure you can hardly wait.

My friend James snapped this quick photo and emailed it to me with the following:

Not much to be said here. This does rule out the terrifying possibility of an unkillable zombie Bin Laden though. Does anyone know how to become an ‘expert’ for the news media? Seems like an easy job.

Perhaps journalists have figured out the ultimate way to become objective: cover all possible bases and consider every angle no matter how unlikely. Perhaps this is CNN’s new approach after cancelling shows like “Crossfire” where ‘experts’ constantly disagreed. It is nice to see all the ‘experts’ agree. CNN’s headline is true since being either dead or alive satisfies both possibilities of that boolean condition. I think this is why Dan Gilmor and others are pushing for grassroots journalism that maintains the author’s voice.

Sundance is renowned for world premieres but there was a different sort of premiere taking place with the new documentary “Rize”:

PARK CITY, Utah—It was a film without film, a movie without moving parts. The premiere of Rize that took place last Saturday at a ski lodge here was a historic event—the first feature film to be delivered via wireless technology.

Wired’s article is one of many heralding the event that took place at Sundance. David LaChappelle’s documentary was shot on HD so it was already a digital production to begin with. Now it is only a matter of time before all films will come from a digital source. Say goodbye to lugging those cans around the world for distribution.

The Times Online in the UK is reporting that Google is gearing up to do battle with entrenched telecom giant BT (over 70% of UK households use BT phone lines). Regular readers of BigBrainBoy are already accustomed to unlikely companies offering unlikely services in the wild west gold rush that is broadband. Even by those standards this becomes a fascinating study in futurism because linking Google to your phone line can have dramatic implications:

Mr Hewitt said that a Google telephone service could be made to link with the Google search engine, which already conducts half of all internet inquiries made around the world. A surfer looking for a clothes retailer could simply find the web site and click on the screen to speak to the shop.

Now that earlier article we posted about Google looking for excess fiber optic capacity is starting to make some sense. Google is not coming up with new VOIP technology since according to the piece they will be rebranding Skype’s already popular phone-over-the-internet technology.

Jacob over at Yankee Fog has a fascinating entry on the DVD screeners distributed by the studios for the BAFTA awards in the UK. He provides pretty strong evidence that people who do not distribute screeners (ostensibly to prevent piracy) and those who use overbearing watermarking techniques suffer in awards voting:

Let’s take a look at the strange case of Hero versus House of Flying Daggers. The films were made several years apart, but thanks to their British release schedules, they were both eligible for this year’s BAFTAs. Both films were fantastic, but I think most people would agree with me that Hero was the better of the two. Yet after the first round of voting, House of Flying Daggers ended up shortlisted in 13 categories, including Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress--all categories that Hero was left out of. In fact, Hero was shortlisted in only 6 categories. And after the second round of voting, House of Flying Daggers ended up with 9 nominations, and Hero was left without any. Meanwhile, Million Dollar Baby--one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year--was shortlisted in only two categories, and ended up without a single BAFTA nomination.

How do I explain this mystery? By pointing out that BAFTA members received screener DVDs of House of Flying Daggers, and not of Hero or Million Dollar Baby. If people don’t see your film, they can’t vote for it; it’s as simple as that. Now, I cannot and do not speak for BAFTA, and maybe my fellow voting members consider House of Flying Daggers to be a better written, directed, acted, edited, shot, scored, costumed, and set-designed film than the other two. But I don’t think so.

Ultimately Jacob comes up with a maxim that everyone in the industry should remember: as soon as you treat every single person who wants to watch your film as a potential criminal you can be sure that the film industry is on its way to suffering like the music industry…

If you thought it was confusing that your cable company can now offer you phone service and your power company wants to sell you internet access just imagine what the government is dealing with:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit previously ruled broadband from cable companies had a telecommunications component and should be subject to stricter regulations and overturned the FCC (news - web sites) action.

The government countered that the court failed to yield to the FCC’s expertise and that the decision was reasonable.

“Classifying cable modem service as a telecommunications service would drastically change the regulatory environment for cable modem service,” the U.S. government said in its brief by acting U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.

If the appeals court decision stood, cable companies would be forced to follow pricing regulations, contribute to the universal service fund that subsidizes telephone service and face other obligations, the brief said.

While you are still trying to wrap your head around the idea that everything is a “dumb pipe” the government has more than a century of legislation treating each of these utilities as separate services governed by different laws. For example: you can buy a phone attachment to your computer to make calls via the internet but should that company be responsible for allowing you to make 9-1-1 calls?

One of the things I’ve learned quickly working in post-production is how little people understand about display technologies. Have you ever put your heart and soul into a project, tweaking everything so it looks just right only to be crushed when you see it on someone else’s screen? Clients come in here all the time wanting their projects to have a certain look but inevitably we run into the disaster that is multiple display technologies.

There are so many out there now that the acronyms alone are enough to intimidate people. ExtremeTech has done a nice “shootout” between all the various contenders explaining the strengths and weaknesses of each one. So next time you hand me a project I’ll expect you to understand that I can’t make it look the same on your fancy 62” PDP 1080P HD display as it does on your grandma’s 13” SD CRT. Got it?

You would have thought that we knew better. After the fall out of the VHS vs. Betamax wars it seemed clear that standardization was the best way for content owners and consumer electronics companies to make a gazillion dollars when everyone goes out to buy decks and tapes. The runaway success of the DVD format was the result of that fallout.

But it seems that all that newfound success has made the consumer electronics companies enter a new cycle of hubris. Perhaps you’ve heard a bit about the new attempt to make you repurchase your movie library? The two new competing formats are HD-DVD (led by Toshiba) vs. Blu-ray DVD (led by Sony). There’s no real need to go into the technical differences between the two suffice it to say that both will require you to buy new DVD players and new discs. [Editorial note: if the MPAA is reading this, you should adopt Blu-ray because it holds more data therefore making it harder to pirate.]

Meanwhile, CNET has a fantastic article on a new format that may just pull the rug out from under the big electronics firms. DivX is a video compression technology that has already been adopted by pirates as the medium of choice for years. The format has already been adopted by several low-rent chinese/taiwanese DVD and VCD manufacturers. They simply aim to release players on the market (backwards compatible with existing DVD) that simply cost 1/10 of the new players. If Betamax lost out to VHS because of cost then Sony and Toshiba may see their multi-billion DVD market disappear before their eyes…

USC researcher Hartmut Neven has developed software that can do facial recognition on your cell phone using the built-in camera. While the LAPD is already using this technology to nab suspects based on mugshots, Neven has a much grander idea for the future of the technology.

A nice rollout example would be a movie guide. If you see a billboard of a movie on a bus, you take a shot of it [using your cameraphone] and then are routed to a relevant site where you can download a trailer or get show times. All we would need are images of a couple hundred billboards. The same is true with the Louvre example, where a collection of images already exists. With our technology, it doesn’t take an expert to train the system to recognize an object.

In other words, Neven wants people to be able to use cameras to google the world. See an interesting restaraunt? Just photograph it and see what comes up…

Dark fiber may sound more like a deadly health risk than unused fiber-optic cable.  A new job posting on Google asks for the following:

“Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...(i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network,” the posting reads, in part.

Dark fiber refers to fiber optic cable that’s already been laid, but is not yet in use. Thousands of miles of dark fiber is available in the United States, but there have been few takers due to the high costs of making it operational.

Google employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time developing new concepts. What Google has in mind by taking on Telecom equipment stimulates the imagination.

New Scientist reports that a company claims that they can stop filetrading at the source by tracking down the original culprit. Using certain techniques the company claims that they can find out who originally uploaded the file which may cause many people to rethink the supposed anonymity they have on peer-to-peer networks:

BayTSP, based in California, US, monitors peer-to-peer (P2P) trading networks using a technique called software “spidering”. The new software, called FirstSource, allows it to determine which user first uploaded a particular file for trading. It does this by mimicking the behaviour of a user on a massive scale - sending out multiple requests for a file extremely quickly. It deduces the culprits by assuming that only they will have the full 100% of the file, having uploaded the original.

In the post-dot-com boom world that we live in its almost not suprising to hear about a successful software company whose seven employees literally spend all day in a Seattle cafe.

The software that Delicious Monster has become famous for is called Delicious Library and it does exactly what it sounds like: it keeps track of your own personal library. What makes it revolutionary is that it can scan in barcodes and automatically download all the info on your DVDs, CDs and Books from the Internet. Want to keep track of who’s borrowing your stuff? No problem. But the killer feature is what is coming next:

The uber-geek that everyone loves to hate gave everyone a new reason to either laugh or loathe him when he announced in a CNET interview that those who didn’t support DRM were communists. Well Gizmodo decided to confront Gates during a brief interview.

Gates: No, I’ve said it exactly. We have your interests totally in mind, but that includes having… if there’s content that can only be there if it’s rights protected, we want to be able to have that content available to you. And so all we’re doing… in no sense are we hurting you, because if they’re willing to make the content available openly, believe me, that’s always the most wonderful thing. It’s the simplest.

If anything Gates is portrayed as a rather sympathetic character but the most amusing is the comments from Lessig’s Anti-DRM crowd...

It seems to me from the structure of his reaction and his delivery that he is regurgitating something which his pr experts cursorally briefed him on before appearing.

In short: i don’t believe a word of his in that interview.

How many times has someone with an urgent message not been able to get through to you? Or vice versa? Fret no more because according to New Scientist there is now software for voicemail systems that can identify the emotional state of the caller. The more urgent sounding the voice, the higher priority of their message. Of course, with new technology comes new dangers:

But Andrew Monk, from the University of York, UK, warns that Emotive Alert could be manipulated by spammers. Telemarketers and voicemail spammers will design messages designed to score highly on urgency metrics so that they can be artificially boosted to the top of your priority list.

The more things change the more they stay the same…

If you thought integrating your iPod and cell phone into your snowboarding jacket was cool, just wait until they are integrated with your sunglasses. After all, I wear my sunglasses a lot more in LA than I would ever wear a snowboarding jacket.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT) on Friday announced a joint venture with eyewear maker Oakley Inc. (NYSE:OO) to develop new Bluetooth-enabled wearable wireless communications devices.

Think all those emails and pictures you are sending with your new camera/pda phone are hilarious? Well apparently hackers think they are too. Before you take embarassing and potentially incriminating photos of yourself or your celeb friends, keep in mind that others may be watching too:

The hacker’s access to the T-Mobile gave him more than just Secret Service documents. A friend of Jacobsen’s says that prior to his arrest, Jacobsen provided him with digital photos that he claimed celebrities had snapped with their cell phone cameras. “He basically just said there was flaw in the way the cell phone servers were set up,” says William Genovese, a 27-year-old hacker facing unrelated charges for allegedly selling a copy of Microsoft’s leaked source code for $20.00. Genovese provided SecurityFocus with an address on his website featuring what appears to be grainy candid shots of Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine a world where everyone has a camera on them at all times. Sting certainly found out while he was vacationing at a high class skiing resort:

“Sting had been staying with his family at luxury hotel Cristallo in Cortina d’Ampezzo, in the northeastern mountains of Italy, but after a few days he left the noble ski station to escape the harassment of the amateur paparazzi.

The daily Corriere della Sera quotes Sting’s snowboard teacher Alberto Belfi saying: “People were continuously taking pictures of him with their cell phones. They were rude, placing themselves without asking and without consideration in front of him at the restaurant or in the line to the skilift to get a close-up”.

I have seen the camphone future and it is an orwellian one indeed.

As the old ad in Soma magazine once said: “In the future you will dress for surveillance.”

Joi Ito has posted a speech that he is about to present at Sony’s Open Forum (their annual big confab) taking place in Hawaii right now. [For background on Joi and why you should care about what he thinks check out these articles.]

I’ve been asked to make some remarks to kick off the session on “Re-examining Threats and Opportunities of the Broadband Age”. Here is a summary of what I think I’m going to talk about.

The proliferation of broadband into the home has dramatically changed the way people communicate and consume content. Hollywood and many copyright owners have focused on the illegal file sharing risk of broadband. They have focused on digital rights management technology and laws prohibiting file sharing and the creation of technology which enables file sharing. My view is that the success of the iPod and iTunes has been due to a focus on user experience and marketing INTO this new behavior. Content consumption has become an integral part of communications and community yet most content distribution systems are still isolated. Amateurs are also playing an increasing role in the creation, distribution and promotion of content.