Jeffzilla

I’m the proud owner of a Slim Devices Squeezebox. It’s a nifty networked audio streamer, which connects to my stereo, and can play music from almost anywhere - off my computer with iTunes integration, internet radio, Pandora, Real Rhapsody, Live365, RadioIO, and MP3Tunes. The local music playing and internet radio are free services. Local music is served via a server running on my computer, which works very well. The other services, however are paid services. I use my Pandora on the Squeezebox and it works great - all of my pandora stations on my Squeezebox.

The latest service I just tried is MP3Tunes - this service lets you upload all of your music to their online service, and then be able to listen to your own music from anywhere with web access - or any compatible device that uses their open API.  Problem is, the SqueezeCenter advertises “unlimited online storage”, but when I went to sign up, it’s giving me 25gb of space, with the maximum, expensive upgrade being only 200gb. With cheap online storage services like Amazon’s S3 storage cloud, and unlimited, cheap online backup services like Carbonite, MP3 tunes should be able to offer an truly unlimited storage option.  I felt a little deceived when I was told unlimited storage but only given 25gb, so I wrote a letter to support asking about it. Here’s the letter, let’s see what happens.

MP3Tunes Support - I just signed up for an mp3 tunes account to use with my squeezebox. The squeeze network dialogue box advertised unlimited storage for my music, which sounds great. However, when I signed up for my account, the maximum storage i could find was 200gb, which was extremely expensive too, especially considering how cheap online storage is nowadays - even cloud storage. I have over 500gb of music, and growing every day. Is there any way for me to get an unlimited account, as advertised? That’s the only way I can see any use for mp3 tunes. If I’m going to go through the trouble of uploading music to the web, I don’t want to be forced to pick and choose. I save that for picking music to sync to my iPod nano. Thanks for your support! -Jeffrey

It’s great that the industry is finally getting on board with the Apple+Nike tech partnership, and starting to work the technology into gym equipment. I’ve been using the Nike+ situation since day one, and it’s motivating to have as much data as possible available to me when I run.. both at the gym, and out on the street.

One thing I would like to see them start integrating is a heartrate monitor. Currently when I run, I use the Nike+ kit, with a Marware pouch to hold the transmitter on my Saucony shoes, and a slightly older Nike heart rate monitor strap. Wearing the heartrate monitor is useful, because it allows me to guage how hard I’m working. Also, with some of these newer iPod and usb enabled Life Fitness treadmills at the gym, they will automatically adjust the incline and speed to keep my HR in check. Cool. It would be even better, though, if the Nike+ reciever attached to my iPod could listen to my heart rate monitor strap, and give me not only info on my speed, but also heart rate info along side it. I think being able to compare those two metrics would give me some interesting training insite.

Integration of incline data would really boost the usefulness of the system. It’s already able to be recorded by the treadmill, so why not add it to the tracked information for Nike+? Speed+HR+Incline would be killer. Pushing it one farther, how about using the Google Maps integration on the Nike+ site to extract terrain elevation data, make an elevation profile for any particular run, and sync that up along side all the other run data? With Google adding more and more terrain data to it’s maps, this could become possible very soon.

What about official course pace data integration? I wore my Nike+ kit during the most recent 2007 NYC Marathon, and it was great to be able to see my splits throughout the race. What would be even more valuable, though, would be if i could get a chart of the pacesetters splits, and then compare myself to that - I’d be able to see where i was slacking, and where i was pushing it unnecessarily. Combine that with overlays of the course terrain, speed and heart rate, and you’d had a complete view of how things went.

clipped from www.nikebiz.com Nike + iPod Experience Coming To A Gym Near You BEAVERTON, Ore. (4 March 2008) – Nike (NYSE:NKE) and Apple revolutionized the way people run with Nike + iPod and now the companies are redefining the way people work out by bringing the Nike + iPod experience to gyms around the world this summer. Nike and Apple are working with major gym equipment manufacturers such as Life Fitness, Precor, Star Trac and Technogym to make their cardio equipment Nike + iPod compatible so health club members can easily track workouts on cardio equipment like treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes and stair climbers. Nike + iPod users will simply plug in their iPod nano into the equipment at the start of their workout to automatically record their progress. Users can then connect their iPod with their computer to upload the workout to www.nikeplus.com

Update*** Just heard that Samsung and Adidas are pairing up to compete with Nike+Apple. Pshaw, yeah, right…. not even going to stand a chance. How can Nike+Apple beat this? Simple - enable the Nike+ kit on the iPhone. Plus, with the new iPhone SDK freshly out of the gates, imagine the possibilities of developers being able to write their iPhone sports apps which utilize real-time feedback from the Nike+ shoe sensor, iPhone’s built-in accelerometer, light meter, cell tower-based GPS, wifi localization, and cellular data connection. Throw in a 3G iPhone with true GPS and broadband data in June, and you can start to see the possibilities. “Tune Your Run”? For now maybe. but next up will be “Broadcast Your Run“

Quick mid-superbowl blurb here.. I hear there is definitive movement to start production of a much-fabled Arrested Development Movie.. nice! Apparently, according to Page Six, Jeffrey Tambor has been chatting with Ron Howard, and they’ve both agreed to get the ball rolling on a feature-length film.

Soon we’ll be able to enjoy more  Blueman Tobias, George-Michael and Maybe uneasyness, Gob magic, and of course, hop-ons. Especially the hop-ons.

Finally, in the meantime, until they whip up more Arrested Development, I’ve been quite addicted to FX’s "It’s Always Sunny in Philadelpha".. on Hulu. Go check it out for some brilliant, warped, cracked out fun… but don’t get addicted to crack, or caught on fire, or deal with the North Korea situation, or, especially, sell out.  Cheers.

Excellent, this is just the story I need to hear to convince myself that Joost is doomed. Apparently Joost’s former CTO Dirk-Willem van Gulik was fired and then hired by BBC on the same day. Sounds like there’s some unrest within the Joost office, that would cause them to fire a guy who the BBC things is a prime for the job. This just reinforces my position that although Joost is a cool application/technology/delivery network, it is doomed in it current state. They haventsigned the critical big-hitter partnerships that are needed to get it the must-see content it needs. The player is full-screen only, hogs bandwidth, and isn’t as flexible or familiar as other sites. I’ve been using Hulu a lot lately, and I like it because it A. has decent content (although Hulu’s doomed too, for other reasons..), and it has a familiar web-video interface, with some nifty extended features to make it more conducive to watching full tv episodes, tv style - full screen, dim the rest of the screen, playlisting, etc.

Content is kind. And if Joost could manage to sign a few big content deals, they might have a fighting chance. That, however, seems unlikely. NBC might be re-hasing their deal with iTunes, (which is why I think Hulu is going away) and Fox is offering their content both on itunes and on their own “Fox on Demand” site.

Joost, you were cool while you lasted, and your interface/bit-torrent-y technology is cool, but step up the content, or else you’re toast.

I’m officially calling the format war finished. Blu-ray has emerged as the clear winner, thanks to two deciding influences - the studios and the porn industry.

The major windfall for Blu-ray from the studios was Warner Brothers’ decision to go blu-ray exclusive.. just the thing that the industry needed to help sway the tide. Before Warner’s decision, it was almost evenly split, and besides the technical factors, the big differences were content and pricing. I think that blu-ray has always had better content, but hd-dvd was still hanging in there because they were able to sell their players cheaper. Now, despite the still less expensive hd-dvd players, blu-ray has over 90% of the movie studios support, which will ensure a win on the format. And regarding pricing? Blu-ray hardware will continue to become less expensive, especially as they introduce new, cheaper player components.

Next up, the porn industry…

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