Here Come the New Internet-TV Boxes

For years, I've fantasized about a phone call I want to make. It's the one in which I dial my cable company and gently break the news that I'm canceling its TV service. With all the shows and movies I care to consume available over the Internet, I'll ask rhetorically, why should I cough up so much cash each month for several hundred channels of stuff I have no intention of watching?

I'm not quite ready to place that call. But I don't think the day is too far off — and I have my eye on a bunch of new Internet-TV boxes that are arriving for the holiday season. All of them let you stream high-definition, on-demand video right off the Net, over your wireless (or wired) home network and on to your HDTV. And though they're not the first gadgets to do the job, a happy confluence of better hardware, lower price tags and broader content offerings makes the idea more appealing than ever.

TBS、Android端末向けに地上波ドラマを配信

BS テレビは、動画配信サービス「TBSオンデマンド」にて、Android搭載スマートフォン向けの地上波ドラマ番組の配信を開始した。

　配信は、TVバンクが運営するAndroidアプリ「ビデオストア」を通じて行う。第1弾として、9月21日より「高校教師」「オレンジデイズ」の2作品の配信を開始。今後は、韓国ドラマ「IRIS-アイリス-」やアニメ番組「けいおん！」のほか、地上波で放送した連続ドラマの見逃し配信など、順次サービスを拡大する予定だ。

Apple TV Runs iOS, Opening Door to Apps, Jailbreaking

There have been two mysteries about the new Apple TV. 1) Was it still running the old Apple TV’s “Back Row” version of OS X? 2) Just how small is its new pared-down hard drive? Mystery #1 has been solved: just like the iPhone and iPad, Apple TV is now running iOS 4.

This is important for two reasons:

Right now, there are no apps (and no app marketplace) for Apple TV. Now we know there could be — and not on some imagined next-generation device, but this one, in the not-too-distant future.

The new Apple TV could be amenable to the same jailbreaking techniques that have worked on the iPhone and iPad — so even if Apple doesn’t start a TV app store, someone could start their own if they’re willing to live on the wild side.

Both of these consequences, though, are still a teensy bit dependent on the answer to that other mystery. Until we get a teardown, nobody’s sure exactly how much storage the new Apple TV is packing. If it’s extremely small (like say, a gig or two), there might not be room enough to store a whole bunch of apps, even if you could sideload them through that teensy micro-USB port. But even if it were a mere 16 gigs like the standard iPhone, it would probably serve third-party apps just fine, since most iOS video apps rely on streaming data from the internet.

Burning Question: Why Do Ebooks Cost So Much?

Sure, you can get out-of-copyright classics like Black Beauty for free in the Kindle store, but most newer books aren’t nearly as cheap in digital form as you probably expected. How can publishers charge almost as much for a handful of bits as they do for paper, ink, glue, printing, warehousing, shipping, shelf space, and everything else that goes into producing meatspace reading material?

Flame off: Fat-cat book pushers aren’t to blame. Not entirely.

“People vastly overestimate how much a publisher saves,” says Erik Sherman, an analyst and author who studies ebook economics. Turns out, the physical aspects of book production can account for as little as 15 percent of the cost of the title. The rest can be divvied up among the author, editor, designer, marketers, publicists, distributors, and resellers. A lot of fingers dip into that $14.99 money pie before the house takes a slice.

“People would have heart attacks if they knew all the costs associated with digital publishing,” says Maja Thomas, senior vice president of the Hachette Book Group’s digital division. Tacking an e onto a book requires antipiracy software, digital warehousing, extra legal support, and programmers to adapt each title for Android, iPhone, Kindle, and all the other formats. That’s on top of the regular costs of turning a manuscript into a finished product.

But don’t go hug a HarperCollins exec just yet. “Publishers do price ebooks a little higher than necessary, because they’re concerned about devaluing people’s perception of books,” humor writer Larry Doyle says. “They’re worried that if they sell the digital editions for too little, they’ll have to lower prices for the paper editions as well, which would undercut their main source of revenue.”

Other outlets are already proving they can sell books for less. Apple recently opened the door for authors to sell their work directly to readers through its iBooks store. Apple takes its standard 30 percent cut, leaving an unheard-of 70 percent for the author. (Amazon offers a cut-out-the-middleman option as well but gives as little as 35 percent to the author.) Sure, the quality of the product might suffer, but with a juicy margin like that, it’s not hard to imagine well-known writers going rogue.

Bill Would Give Justice Department Power to Shutter Piracy Sites Worldwide

Lawmakers introduced legislation Monday that would let the Justice Department seek U.S. court orders against piracy websites anywhere in the world, and shut them down through the sites’ domain registration.

The bipartisan legislation, dubbed the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, (.pdf) amounts to the Holy Grail of intellectual-property enforcement. The recording industry and movie studios have been clamoring for such a capability since the George W. Bush administration. If passed, the Justice Department could ask a federal court for an injunction that would order a U.S. domain registrar or registry to stop resolving an infringing site’s domain name, so that visitors to PirateBay.org, for example, would an error.

“In today’s global economy the internet has become the glue of international commerce –- connecting consumers with a wide array of products and services worldwide,” said Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) in a statement announcing the bill. “But it’s also become a tool for online thieves to sell counterfeit and pirated goods, making hundreds of millions of dollars off of stolen American intellectual property.”

The bill would direct injunctions at a piracy site’s domain registrar, if the registration was through a U.S. company. If not, the Justice Department could serve the court order at the registry for the site’s top-level domain. Registry’s for the dot-com, dot-net and dot-org domains are all U.S.-based, and thus within the courts’ jurisdiction. For domains not under U.S. control, the bill would demand that internet service providers in the United States block resolution of the address upon a court order, but overseas users would not be impacted.

If history is a guide, though, the bill might fail in Congress and might not even be necessary.

The Bush administration in 2008 threatened to veto the legislation that created the nation’s first copyright czar until similar, less expansive Justice Department powers were removed. At the time, the White House complained that directing the attorney general to sue copyright infringers “could result in Department of Justice prosecutors serving as pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders regardless of their resources. In effect, taxpayer-supported department lawyers would pursue lawsuits for copyright holders, with monetary recovery going to industry.”

時代はインターネットからソーシャルネットへ？

ミクシィが9月10日に新たなオープン化戦略を発表しました。mixi内の人間関係を外部サイトにも反映させる「ウェブのソーシャル化」を進め、検索エンジンが主導する現在のウェブに、もう1つの指標として「ソーシャルグラフ」（ネット上で人と人の関係性を表す相関図）を持ち込もうとしています。
　将来的にはSNSにおける人間関係がウェブのトラフィックを左右するようになり、ウェブマスターは検索エンジン最適化（SEO）に加えて、ソーシャルグラフ最適化（SGO）を実施するようになるだろうとミクシィは予測しています。

NTTぷらら、リモコン操作で買い物ができる「ひかりTVショッピング」

NTTぷららは9月16日、映像配信サービス「ひかりTV」において、リモコン操作で買い物ができるサービス「ひかりTVショッピング」の提供を開始した。

　ひかりTVショッピングは、テレビのリモコンを使って商品の選択から注文、購入までが可能なコマースサービス。サービス開始当初は、ひかりTV対応のテレビやPC、通信機器などを中心に販売する。将来的には通信販売会社との連携も検討するといい、商品ラインアップを拡充させる予定だ。

　ひかりTVショッピングでは、ひかりTV契約時に登録した情報をそのまま利用するため、商品を注文するたびに氏名や住所、決済方法などを登録する手間が省けるとしている。支払い方法は、代金引換もしくはひかりTVの月額利用料金とあわせた支払いから選べる。購入時に暗証番号を入力するため、誤操作による注文なども防止できるという。

ひかりTVショッピング対応のチューナは、「Picture Mate 700」と「M-IPS200」となる。

「絶版堂」が絶版になったのには理由がある #denshi

絶版書籍を「自炊」して販売委託するサービスを「絶版堂」というサイトが始めた。すでに絶版となった著作を著作者から提供を受けてPDFとして販売するものだった。このサービス、好意的に受け入れられたものの、開店を迎えることなく閉店した。

　運営会社はもともとWebサービスの運営やスマートフォントのアプリを開発する会社で出版社ではない。書籍を簡単にスキャンしてPDFにすれば電子書籍になることから、販売窓口をWebに用意すれば需要があると思ったのだろう。Google ブックスが大きな話題になったこともヒントになったに違いない。

　ただこのサイトを閉鎖せざるを得なくなった問題は、絶版本をスキャンして電子書籍にするというアイデアにあったのではない。著作者が「頼んでみようかな」と思うようなオファーがほとんどないと言うことである。

App Store rules: Olive branch or air cover?

It's been more than two years since the App Store opened, and Apple has for the first time published a real set of rules for its army of third-party iOS developers.

On Thursday, Apple surprised many by posting significant changes to its developer license agreement (PDF) along with rules for those creating applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Most notably, Apple relented on the kinds of tools developers can use to create apps, which means Adobe's Flash compiler is back in, and changed its mind on how ad networks can be integrated into apps.

The 113 rules--penned in a tone that'll be familiar to many who watch Steve Jobs keynotes or read those e-mail responses he purportedly sent to customers--are direct, and on occasion slightly exasperated. When describing how Apple thinks about apps in general and why the company so closely guards its App Store gates, the introduction states, "If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store."

The tone comes across almost as if Apple didn't really want to publish these rules at all. So why did it? The timing is certainly curious, since Apple rarely gives up information willingly about anything related to how the company works. The fact that regulators were sniffing around Apple's policies was likely a motivating factor. The FTC started asking questions in June about why certain developer tools and ad networks were banned from use in apps.

The gradual opening of the tightly guarded reviews process began a year ago. Last August--more than a year since allowing third-party apps--was the first time Apple went public with its App Store approval process, but that was only because the Justice Department wanted to know why it had rejected Google Voice from the App Store. In response, Apple illuminated the main cases for app rejection: buggy software, apps that crash too much, use of unauthorized APIs, privacy violation, inappropriate content for children, and anything that "degrades the core experience of the iPhone."

Google TV Revealed: One Screen to Rule Them All

BERLIN – Google gave a live demonstration of Google TV at Berlin’s IFA Tuesday, and CEO Eric Schmidt promised it would be a couch potato’s dream come true.

“Once you have Google television, you’re going to be very busy,” Schmidt said. “It’s going to ruin your evening.”

Google TV is the search giant’s bid to bring the web to the biggest screen in the house in a big way, something TV viewers and web surfers (often the same person) have tended to resist as distinctly different experiences. But as the internet becomes a more viable delivery system for the kind of content we associate with the Barcaloungers and TV sets, Google, Apple and others are trying to get a piece of that action as well.

Google TV is essentially an interface, blurring the distinctions between programming you get from your cable or satellite provider with search — Google’s bread-and-butter. It is set to launch on a Sony HDTV, a Sony Blu-ray player and a Logitech set-top box in the United States this fall (other countries to follow), each with its own “incredible” remote control. After tapping a search button, a single box appears for searching the web, live television programming, recorded shows, on-demand programming, pay TV, online video clips and more.

“You would never want to buy a computer without an internet browser these days,” said Google TV product marketing manager Brittany Bohnet. “Soon, you’re never going to want to buy a TV without an internet browser.”

Google, which demonstrated the service on a generic Logitech box with a DishNetwork DVR, is working on custom remote control hardware for the Chrome-powered Google TV in conjunction with Sony and Logitech that will likely include — as did Bohnet’s wired demonstration keyboard — a full QWERTY keyboard, a pointing mechanism and television-specific buttons (volume, etc.).

But you’ll also be able to use your Google-powered Android phone — or even an iPhone — as a Google TV remote. In addition to being convenient, this adds the ability to control the set using voice commands. Screaming at your TV may still have the same ineffectual result, but now, at least, you could say a channel name and your television would switch.

ドコモ対KDDI--次世代マルチメディア放送めぐる総務省公開説明会で三たび激突

NTTドコモとKDDI、地上アナログ放送終了後の空き帯域における次世代マルチメディア放送方式をめぐる大手通信キャリア2社のし烈極まる争いは、9月に入ってなお決着の日を見ていない。

　9月3日、総務省で開催された「207.5MHz以上222MHz以下の周波数を使用する特定基地局の開設計画に係る公開説明会」は、時間こそ90分弱でまとめたものの、実に4時間の激闘に及んだ前回の説明会に劣らぬ熱気を漂わせていた。

　KDDIやクアルコムが中心となるメディアフロージャパン企画（メディアフロー）は、自社の事業説明の段階から、NTTドコモ陣営のマルチメディア放送（mmbi）について「（前回示したカバーエリアは）実際にシミュレーションしてみると大きな差分が出る」とけん制。さらに受信品質と電波伝搬関連の質問を集中させた。地上高1.5メートルにおける電波伝搬試験実施の有無や実施時期・期間、またシミュレーションと実測値の整合性などについてmmbiの回答を求めた。

　これに対し、mmbiは「2009年9月より適宜、実施している」回答。シミュレーションと実測値の整合性についても「大きな差分はない」と説明した。また、メディアフロー側が独自に実施したとするデータと自社のデータが異なる結果を示していることについて「われわれは東京タワーの倍以上の高さを持つ東京スカイツリーを利用する。スカイツリーを使えばビル陰障害の発生は最低限に防げる」と反論した。

YouTube Ads Turn Videos Into Revenue

SAN BRUNO, Calif. — Last month, a YouTube user, TomR35, uploaded a clip from the AMC series “Mad Men” in which Don Draper makes a heartfelt speech about the importance of nostalgia in advertising.


Viewers wouldn’t notice, but that clip also makes an important point about modern advertising — YouTube is an increasingly fruitful place for advertisers.

In the past, Lions Gate, which owns the rights to the “Mad Men” clip, might have requested that TomR35’s version be taken down. But it has decided to leave clips like this up, and in return, YouTube runs ads with the video and splits the revenue with Lions Gate.

Remarkably, more than one-third of the two billion views of YouTube videos with ads each week are like TomR35’s “Mad Men” clip — uploaded without the copyright owner’s permission but left up by the owner’s choice. They are automatically recognized by YouTube, using a system called Content ID that scans videos and compares them to material provided by copyright owners.

iWork update enables iBooks self-publishing

Apple on Thursday released an update for its iWork suite of productivity applications, adding a new feature that enables authors to add books to its iBookstore application.

While all of the applications in the iWork suite were updated, the most significant change comes in Pages 4.0.4. The word-processing app now includes compatibility with the ePub format, which Apple uses for iBooks.

Apple published a document on its support site giving users tips on creating documents in the ePub format that covers everything from using paragraph styles in your Pages document to providing a downloadable template to use.

Samsung tries to woo TV app developers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--App stores have transformed portable devices. Could TVs be next?

Samsung Electronics think so. The Korean company is here pitching Samsung Apps, an application platform and marketplace, to media and content providers, as well as individual third-party developers.

Samsung Apps, as the platform is called, has been rolled out in other countries, but the company came here for its first developer conference, called Free the TV Challenge, to introduce its new software development kit to more than 100 developers in the United States.

Since app stores have become a given for portables--no phone maker would dream of launching a new smartphone today without access to one--Samsung says people want that same experience when flipping through channels from the couch.
"Consumers want and expect choice and control. Not just on the go, not just in front of computer, but in the living room," Eric Anderson, Samsung vice president of content development, told the group gathered in the ballroom of the Fairmont hotel.
Part of Samsung's pitch to developers on Tuesday was that its position in TVs and mobile phones will provide a large enough window for developers. Samsung already sells 45 million TVs a year and 200 mobile phones, so the implication is that if its TV app store takes off, the developers in on the ground floor will have their apps broadcast to a large chunk of TV owning people or people who will buy one in the next few years.

So far, there are 88 apps already available on Samsung's TV platform, but the company says there will be 200 by the end of the year. Samsung has been selling Web-connected TVs with apps from the likes of Yahoo, Netflix, Blockbuster, Facebook, Twitter, and others since 2009. By opening the platform up to third parties, it expects that number to increase exponentially over the next few years.