TLDR # Netflix again cancelled several of our favorite shows, me and the family are Fuming! In this post I explore what might be Netflix decision process, and try to identify potential flaws in it. At the end I offer some solution ideas, because I like to improve things, not just complain about things.
It is really basic premise, and I didn’t even invent it. Alas I have to warn other potential Tivo customers, after giving company many chances to make things right and a month of monumental efforts (mostly mine). Also, this is Not an investment advice regarding Tivo Inc (NASDAQ:TIVO).
I noticed that they took down Most of the movies I liked on Hulu as my recommendations, a year ago. Only Girl Next Door remains, which brings up a thought of a Chicken-n-Egg situation. Specifically – Do they put Young Guy attracting movies because that is their demographics, or is their demographics this way because they put Young Guy attracting movies?
This is amazing demonstration by Microsoft Office Labs, what they called vision for 2019. For me, the main focus in this demo is on computing interfaces. Notice how many different ways of interacting with the “computer” are shown. Amazing ones are on little cards/devices, that “sense” the motion of the device and respond by showing you different parts of the content, zooming in, etc. Actually, this is something easy to develop on the smart phone today, though I only know of very few apps that do that.
I watched another excellent Nova show today, called The Spy Factory. It is an excellent in-depth investigation of the failure of US Intelligence when it came to preventing the 9/11 attack. I won’t go further into details, as the entire show is available for online viewing right on the official PBS.org site, so I recommend you watch it. Once you finished (or perhaps you already seen it on TV), come back here for some more afterthoughts of mine.
While I really appreciate that Microsoft and Netflix finally got XBox 360 going with HD streaming, I myself still wasn’t able to check it out. The reason is the silly requirement of being a Gold member. I do plan to check it out soon, as we are going to go Gold for the Winter Break this year.
Apologies to all my International blog readers. This is an official Simpsons episode, and I think it only is watchable inside the US right now. I am certain if you do a quick YouTube search, or Veoh, etc, you will find another openly available copy.
Today I got invite to private Hulu.com Beta. Looks like they are expanding their beta user base, and I was lucky to get in on this next round. Though, pretty soon they will go public, I’m sure.
Seriously, I just can’t take it any more! I am all excited about the release of the newly redesigned Zune software and firmware, which is coming out tomorrow. So, I was thrilled to watch first videos from around the web showing the new Zune features and User Interface.
Netflix quietly rolled out yet another wonderful feature! By now most of you have heard about Watch Now feature on Netflix, which allows you to watch up to your monthly dollar amount of hours of Movies "On-Demand" over the Internet. For example, if your subscription is $18 per month, you get 18 hours of Watch Now viewing for anything you can find in their, still limited, online library of movies.
While all signs pointing to upcoming demise of TV as we know it, I think we should try to make the most of this transition period. Today, I compiled a short list of resources to help everyone’s TV addiction, now that Prime Time TV season is back with their best entertainment offerings. What’s more, this year almost all Prime Time shows are presented in glorious HDTV, delivering not only the increased resolution, but an overall improvement in clarity and color accuracy.
