Author Archives: Hamish MacEwan

PS Vita: Too Much, Too Late

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It took touchscreens to blow the genre out of the water, but over the past few years, one thing has become clear: mobile games are different than console games. They operate on a different time-scale, they???re more comfortable with simple narratives than character progressions, and they do small puzzles in consumable chunks better than they do action. They???re played with distractions, they???re played with other people, and they need to be able to be put down and picked up at a moment???s notice.

via forbes.com

The incumbent’s dilemma.

Telcos versus OTTs: is it a phoney war?

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OTTs are companies such as Facebook, YouTube, Skype, WhatsApp and Netflix, which offer growing and profitable services ???over the top??? of raw Internet

via disruptivewireless.blogspot.co.nz

Over the top sounds absolutely right to describe the view that such services are anything distinct, or that there would be a market for “raw Internet” without them.

Everything is OTT on the Internet. This isn’t new, it’s the way it was designed.

How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did

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What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

Bold is mine. That’s a quote for our times.

via forbes.com
via New York Times

 

Was "Built To Last" Built To Last?

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The authors discovered that the visionary companies did certain things very differently from their duller rivals, things that in large part were more about the internal than the external and had little to do with technology or number-crunching. Among these were having “cultlike cultures”; adhering to an ideology that went beyond the simple pursuit of profits; relying on homegrown management; focusing on creating a lasting organization — called “clock building,” as opposed to “time telling”; and having the ability to see things not as either-or propositions (the “genius of the ‘and,’ ” in the authors’ words, as opposed to the “tyranny of the ‘or’ “). “A visionary company,” they wrote, “doesn’t simply balance between preserving a tightly held core ideology and stimulating vigorous change and movement; it does both to the extreme.”

via fastcompany.com

The Case for Publicly Owned Internet Service: Susan P. Crawford

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Right now, state legislatures — where the incumbentswield great power — are keeping towns and cities in theU.S. from making their own choices about theircommunications networks. Meanwhile, municipalities,cooperatives and small independent companies arepractically the only entities building globally competitivenetworks these days. Both AT&T and Verizon have ceased theexpansion of next-generation fiber installations across theU.S., and the cable companies??? services greatly favordownloads over uploads.

Congress needs to intervene. One way it could help isby preempting state laws that erect barriers to the abilityof local jurisdictions to provide communications servicesto their citizens.

Running for president in 1932, Franklin D. Rooseveltemphasized the right of communities to provide their ownelectricity. ???I might call the right of the people to ownand operate their own utility a birch rod in the cupboard,???he said, ???to be taken out and used only when the child getsbeyond the point where more scolding does any good.??? It???stime to take out that birch rod.

via bloomberg.com

ISPs are not broadcasters, Supreme Court says

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The cultural coalition expressed disappointment with the ruling in a statement released early Thursday afternoon, saying laws must be applied in a ???technology neutral??? manner as media evolves to become increasingly digital-centric.

???The principles of the Broadcasting Act continue to be sound but, with this decision, their application remains inconsistent,??? the group said.

via business.financialpost.com

Technology isn’t the neutrality these incumbent tax farmers are seeking.

To give them what they want you’d have to be more than technology neutral, you’d have to purpose, capability and functionally neutral to consider ISPs broadcasters.

The Phoenix Principle: Buy Facebook, P&G’s CEO told you to

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The trend is clear.  People spend less time watching TV and reading newspapers.  We all interact with information and entertainment more and more on computers and mobile devices.  Ad declines have already killed newspapers, and television is on the precipice of following its print brethren.  The market shift toward advertising on-line will continue, and the trend is bound to accelerate. 

Last year P&G launched an on-line marketing program for Old Spice.  The CEO singled out the 1.8 billion free impressions that received on-line.  When the CEO of one of the world’s largest advertisers takes note, and says he’s going to move that way, you can bet everyone is going to head that direction.  Especially as they recognize the poor “efficiency” of traditional media spending.

via thephoenixprinciple.com

How to design, fabricate and manufacture in a non-linear world

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Some interesting key points highlighted over at the p2p Foundation

  1. Designed and manufactured a 4-passenger street-legal car that gets 100 mpg
  2. The car was constructed using off-the-shelf parts
  3. The car is entirely modular in design
  4. They innovated a new process for carbon-fiber body construction that costs 1/360th the traditional process
  5. You can pre-order cars now for less than $29,000
  6. This is not just a one-off prototype. Currently they are manufacturing one car per week (yes, that???s the low volume manufacturing retail price). They are targeting a future price of under $20,000.
  7. With no capital investment
  8. Though accept donations
  9. Everything is done through volunteers
via smartmobs.com

That’s how you do it.