Stage6 Shuts Down

Stage6, of the high quality DivX video streaming fame, has shut down. And it's not even April Fools' Day. There were feelers sent out by the folks at DivX a few days before but I never really paid heed. This is the worst piece of news I've heard in years. Their homepage shows this message:

Stage6.com has been shut down. Thank you for supporting the service.

We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Ultimately, the continued operation of Stage6 was a very expensive enterprise that required an enormous amount of attention and resources that we at DivX are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it's really as simple as that.

Sigh.

Apparently they are looking to drive a new initiative where they provide a platform for streaming internet video to TV's, thus driving their DivX enabled devices into the market. But when the world is heading towards online video and the like, with even outlets like Netflix launching an on-demand streaming service, surely they could have worked some way out to continue having stage6, or at least struck a deal with A. N. Other software company. After all Stage6 has developed into the best site for high quality video content with a really good online community.

Oh well, my frustration at not being able to have access to high quality (free) TV shows anymore knows no bounds. Twats!

Update: Techcrunch gives a detailed account of situations that eventually killed Stage6. And the sad thing is, it was more a war of egos than anything really technical. After all, what happens if your entire core team quits! So as I said earlier, 'Twats!'

The Coming of Age of the Social Network

I have trashed some of the annoying elements of social networks, and mildly joked about Orkut in an earlier post. Of course, whether the 'humour' actually came through is entirely up to the readers. But these days I have seen stuff going on in social networks that are genuinely exciting.

In fact I should be saying social network. (Emphasis on the singular)

Facebook is making great strides in becoming a much more useful place for people. Yes, the social network can actually be a place where time can be spent productively. Recently Facebook launched the 'Marketplace' that allowed members of local networks to sell second hand stuff. More like Craigslist. The Texas A&M network posted on campus job openings on Marketplace.

Google Reader Goes Offline

When Scoble gave that now famous interview about managing his 622 feeds a day, he mentioned that one of the few disadvantages of Google Reader was the lack of an offline reading facility.

It now appears that biggies like Google actually listen to comments of A-list bloggers like him. Although I doubt they might have come up with the offline add-on so soon.

Anyway Google Reader feeds can now be read offline. So, for those highly addicted RSS-readers going on long trips here's the solution. Google Reader requires you to select the Offlines option in their feed menu and prompts you to install a GadgetGears Firefox add-on. Once done installing, you have to restart the browser to be able to start downloading the feeds.

For further details go ahead and read the tutorial.

Songbird - Firefox of Media Players

Now after systematically dismantling the hold of Internet Explorer over the user's internet browsing experience, comes another threat - this time to proprietary media players. Songbird might not only hurt Microsoft here, but also other biggies who are much more prominent in the post-ipod world.

For the geeks (if they haven't already heard of it, that is), Songbird is built on Mozilla's XULRunner interface, which allows seamless integration with all platforms, be it Windows, Mac or Linux. For the not so geeky, Songbird is a player that, apart from serving as your everyday desktop based media player, plays media from the web. You can browse web sites from the player itself and if you land on sites that contain music it will crawl that page and create playlists from all the media present on that page. What more? You can just click on the song in the playlist and it will play it just like it will play your local audio. It downloads the ID3 tag information and everything, and you can save the song by dragging and dropping it into your library. Yes it's as simple as that.

The screencast at the end of the post will better explain what this player is capable of.

EPL - The Biggest Threat to Youtube?

The following post, although stems from football, is very much relevant for any other form of entertainment from video hosting sites like Youtube. I had posted this on Soccerlens, but feel it to be fairly general to be posted here too. One doesn't need to know football to get the point of this post. So read on and share your thoughts at the end of it.

As we all may know by now, the English Premier League is to sue Youtube for what it calls copyright infringement on its content. The EPL has accused Youtube of “knowingly misappropriating” its intellectual property by “encouraging” people to post goal videos and highlights of Premiership games. [source]

It doesn’t end there. The League authorities have filed a ‘class action suit’ asking anyone and everyone whose copyright has been infringed upon, the success of which would mean the shutting down of Youtube (They have also set up a web site for this).

It is understood that the EPL is well within its rights to protect its copyrights and challenge Youtube (which ironically is one of the best promotional vehicles of the EPL), but what the League authorities would do well here is to pause for a while and rethink their strategy.

Joost - A review

A review of Joost was long time coming. I had posted earlier on how it could revolutionize the way couch potatoes sit on couches and the way it could change the whole ratings system and TV programming in general. Last week I got an invite after a really, really long time to test the beta version.

The Future is Ubuntu

Forgive the clichéd use of a familiar punchline modified for convenience. For a want of a better title, it was all I could come up with.

The past couple of days were spent in installing and tweaking (and more tweaking) a new operating system in my laptop. Ubuntu (meaning 'towards humanity' as its Wikipedia entry says) is rapidly becoming the most popular and stable Linux distro. It's been surprising, the number of people shifting to either Mac or Ubuntu ever since the launch of Vista. I really don't have figures to substantiate this claim, but following negative reviews of Vista (and the promises that it hasn't kept regarding security etc) people have become more ready to explore other options. Of course, I wouldn't be expecting a phenomenal shift and with rampant piracy, those in India and China are never going to actually buy an OS anyway. So Vista, like past Microsoft OSes would definitely be the market leader soon.

But the past two days has been an enlightening experience for me. I installed Ubuntu and am slowly getting drawn into its overwhelming power. I've had my share of heartaches and haemorrhages with Red Hat 7/8 and after one such Linux installation messed up my Master Boot Record, I vowed never to use Linux again. Well, things have changed a lot and installing Ubuntu this time round was a breeze. The best part was that after installation I didn't even have to install any drivers! Everything from sound, to detecting my wireless card was automatically done and - as the Americans say - good to go. Installing software packages was also fairly easy with their package manager where you can search for codecs and other softwares. Ubuntu (Edgy Eft, the version I installed) comes with OpenOfficeOrg2.0, Gaim, Bit torrent client, Firefox and an Outlook clone for email management by default.

The only thing that is not very impressive is probably the default user interface. But even that can be remedied by installing the Beryl interface which is a Linux version of Vista's Aero interface. The best part of this interface is its speed and the bare minimum resources it requires to run, unlike Vista. Even a 256 MB of RAM is enough as against the stipulated 1 Gig or so for Vista. So, for a 512 MB armed laptop like mine, things sail. I am in no way an advanced Linux user and so, I am terribly dependent on the forums and trust me, they are brilliant to say the least. And it provides for the best environment to learn some command line stuff.

Some minor qualms are about the lack of a good enough VOIP application that supports voice chats for either Gtalk or Yahoo, and the lack of being able to stream windows media player files on browsers remain although I am pretty sure it wouldn't be long before even those things get put into place.

Till then it's probably booting up to Windows to either sync my newly acquired Creative Zen (which I will flaunt in a future post) with WMP11, or to voice chat with folks back home.

If you are actually interested to try out Ubuntu Linux, here's an installation guide for people with absolutely no prior knowledge, especially if you want to have both Windows and Linux installed on your system.

For those wanting to have a look at the Beryl UI, here are a couple of demos on Youtube.

 

 

Open Source Colas and Naughty Old Gates

Yes it is precisely that. Funny this is what some random tag surfing brought me to. I've heard jokes about outsourcing where people talk about outsourcing almost any kind of service however insane, but not many about open source stuff. But this one beats it all!

If you’ve been to a computer show in recent months you might have seen it: a shiny silver drink can with a ring-pull logo and the words “opencola” on the side. Inside is a fizzy drink that tastes very much like Coca-Cola. Or is it Pepsi?There’s something else written on the can, though, which sets the drink apart. It says “check out the source at opencola.com.” Go to that Web address and you’ll see something that’s not available on Coca-Cola’s website, or Pepsi’s — the recipe for cola. For the first time ever, you can make the real thing in your own home. OpenCola is a brand of cola unique in that the instructions for making it are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License.

Of course the people who made the drink weren't really serious about making something big out of it, and it was used purely as a tool for educating the people and extolling the virtues of open source software. However the software company that actually used this strategy ended up finding the drink to be more popular than the software!

But my question is if there is a chance where certain products (by that I mean tangible ones, not software) could be made open source, what would that mean to the economy of some of the evil empires that currently have a monopoly over? I would think that to be kinda far fetched because the people who make these products incur some significant cost which wouldn't be worth the while to release it for free (maybe my dear IIM friend might care to enlighten us!). But hey, if Linus Torvalds could invest his time and effort into giving birth to Linux and realeasing his baby to the world for its growth and nourishment, then why not other products?

And on the subject of Operating Systems here is a link that I have been wanting to post for a while about. Despite widespread criticism and its obvious security flaws I have been a staunch supporter of the Windows OS. I like the way they make things easy for the common user. Mac users will have other ideas, though the Mac may really be user friendly, maybe more than Windows. (Which reminds me... last semester while working in one of the labs in the University, I had to help someone set up a VPN client on a Mac, and trust me, it was then I realised that Macs don't have a right click! I have to admit it was the first time I'd used a Mac and I did find the graphics impressive, but it was different - though not necessarily less or more user friendly than Windows - and would take time to get used to) Anyway, getting to the point, I love the Windows OS (but adore Firefox) and respect the work Microsoft does. They have a really smart bunch of people. But I am not really sure about Bill Gates. There's been far too many occasions where his behaviour, or let's say his communication abilities have been found wanting. This is the second situation of late, where I've seen Gates exhibit obvious nervousness/weakness or something not befitting the richest man in the world. (the other one being his immediate stand up and leave while cameras were still aimed at him in Jon Stewart's Daily Show)

I don't agree with the particular blogger's constant Vista-is-another-crappy-thing-to-come-out-of-Microsoft rant but I do see Gates' response to questions he would normally expect to be asked, particularly the Apple comparison, as appalling and highly defeatist, given that the interview was also a small part of the huge promotional campaign that Microsoft has undertaken for Vista. In case you want to read the interview here it is.

I know, I have been writing more stuff about world and current issues than I usually write about. Maybe it's got to do with my abnormally increased frequenting of blogs in general and tech/entertainment blogs in particular, but for those who are terribly interested in my phenomenally eventful personal life, I'll get back to one of those 'personal experiences' posts soon.

But before that I would have to give one more link that's totally unavoidable and getting a lot of press lately; I must admit, another gem from the erstwhile pop princess, current one-step-from-rehab wastrel and quite possibly future Courtney Love. Yes you might have guessed by now. Our very dear Britney Spears.

Update: Lest I have another post about it... due to its relevance you might want to read about the blame game/excuses from the current CEO Steve Ballmer for the rather poor sales of Vista. It comes as little surprise that the object of his frustration is a familiar enemy but a close friend of us desis atleast! Personally I believe it will pick up after their usual SP1, SP2 and the like.

The next big thing

The internet has slowly and surely crawled into my psyche and it is little wonder that I can live in peace even if I didn't have a T.V at home. To be a bit more specific, it is Web 2.0 that has really brought about this change from a couch potato to a ermm... laptop tomato. Suddenly I could afford to skip primetime hits like 24, House, Heroes, Smallville, Prison Break... that I have been religiously watching on T.V. No, I am not talking about torrents, but apparently television studios have recognized the importance of the internet and stream the episodes of current seasons on their official websites. Of course, this is only for the privileged few (by which I mean users in the US!). Apart from T.V shows, I had Sopcast come to my rescue when I wanted to watch the English Premier League and live cricket. Of course, this wasn't legal but nonetheless, like most illegal Internet-based technologies, brilliant stuff. It used the power of P2P (peer to peer) technology - read Napster, Kazaa - to stream content. Instead of downloading you were streaming, which solved the bandwidth issue with overloaded servers. So more the peers, more the speed of streaming and hence during big live games you will get brilliant speed and pretty good quality.

Now what I am getting at, is an application that intends to incorporate television with this P2P technology. I had been to their website a week back and they were looking for beta testers, so I put my email address in their queue. Yet to get a reply. I'll wait. Today I found this link though a month old that interviews the people behind the application called Joost, also known as The Venice Project. The main men involved in this are another pair of those formidable Internet duos (not Sergey Brin and Larry Page) - Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the guys behind Kazaa and the guys behind Skype. They sold off the latter to ebay for a cool $2.6 billion. Traditionally, both their killer apps have been free. But this time they are looking at going the legal way by bringing production houses on-board. To quote from the article here's an excerpt:

In a little conference room tucked behind a bull pen bustling with new hires, Friis flips open the laptop. He pokes a few keys, locates a Wi-Fi network, hits a few more keys. Then, with a final click and the slightest little smile, he spins the machine around and -- how about that: a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, running full-screen. Another click. Razor-sharp footage of pandas munching shimmering stalks of bamboo. Click. Fear Factor, back from the grave. Click. Earth: Final Conflict. Click. Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Laptop TV! Not to mention desktop and palmtop. "It even looks pretty good hooked up to my plasma," Friis says. How do you say touché in Danish?

But he's not finished. A flick of the cursor brings up a see-through virtual remote control with buttons for Play, Stop, Skip, and Reverse -- plus something novel: a box labeled Search. An icon at screen left opens a translucent program guide that lists Indy Racing, Warner Music, National Geographic, and other attractions interlaced with personalized "smart channels." How many? "Basically, it's infinite," Friis says. Another click opens a palette of widgets straight out of a late-model online social network: buddy list, IM, and options to "Rate It!" and "Share What I'm Watching!" Then up to the top for a window labeled Content Owner's Area. "We're still working on that."

"Pretty cool, yes?" he asks.

Yes.

I say Yes too. And in typical childish Boratishness I add, 'I like. I like.' to that. Even if half the things promised comes true, it is like entering the next level of awesomeness (and at this point I proceed to jump with joy). Also a potential blow for traditional cable operators, and disruptive towards broadcasters who are currently bringing their shows online. The article did not acknowledge the prescence of softwares that already exist (like Sopcast) but gives a solution that might prove to be legal and profitable without actually burdening the end user, both financially and mentally (apparently the ads will be reduced by 90%!).Of course from the HDTV-like screen shots it already looks like a winner. Howevere Youtube and the like wouldn't have to fear for the moment because they are not yet big on the users-uploading-their-own-channels bit, citing possibilities of users uploading copyright material.

But till then I'll wait for my turn (if at all I get a mail from the geeks at Joost) for beta testing. And yeah, if any of you beta-testers reading this have an invite-token send me one.

[digg=http://digg.com/software/Joost_The_next_big_thing_for_streaming_TV]