Some cool internet television software images:
Blinkx BBTV install error ( screenshot )
Image by Todd Barnard
After reading about Blinkx and it’s promise of annotation, I decided to try it.
First thing off the bat, it’s a local install, like Joost, so it already sucks. Worse it’s a Windows only client. Then while installing I got an error. Blinkx uses ActiveX. Strike two.
Finally I read this little gem in FAQs:
"…blinkx is the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine. blinkx pioneered video search on the Internet, our Concept Recognition Engine (CoRE) is based on technology that was conceived at Cambridge University, enhanced by 0M in R&D over 12 years, and is now protected by more than 110 patents. Unlike other multimedia search engines that attempt to repurpose technology built for the Text Web, blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software to efficiently, automatically and accurately find and qualify online video. blinkx continues to pioneer new approaches to digital video distribution to ensure we offer the most advanced capabilities and deliver the highest value to our audiences and partners."
Patent troll, exploiting technology originally developed for the handicapped by a non-profit… strike three, you’re out.
Nice to see for profit companies operating in my area of interests can’t get past their day one launch.
Macintosh_128k_
Image by MATEUS_27:24&25
The Macintosh 128K was announced to the press in October 1983, followed by an 18-page brochure included with various magazines in December.
The Macintosh was introduced by the now famous US.5 million Ridley Scott television commercial, "1984".
The commercial most notably aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984 and is now considered a "watershed event" and a "masterpiece. "1984" used an unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by a Picasso-style picture of Apple’s Macintosh computer on her white tank top) as a means of saving humanity from the "conformity" of IBM’s attempts to dominate the computer industry. The ad alludes to George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised "Big Brother."
Two days after the 1984 ad aired, the Macintosh went on sale. It came bundled with two applications designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and MacPaint. It was first demonstrated by Steve Jobs in the first of his famous Mac Keynote speeches, and though the Mac garnered an immediate, enthusiastic following, some labeled it a mere "toy."
Because the operating system was designed largely around the GUI, existing text-mode and command-driven applications had to be redesigned and the programming code rewritten. This was a time-consuming task that many software developers chose not to undertake, and could be regarded as a reason for an initial lack of software for the new system. In April 1984 Microsoft’s MultiPlan migrated over from MS-DOS, with Microsoft Word following in January 1985. In 1985, Lotus Software introduced Lotus Jazz for the Macintosh platform after the success of Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC, although it was largely a flop. Apple introduced Macintosh Office the same year with the lemmings ad. Infamous for insulting its own potential customers, the ad was not successful.
Tweet this!
Recent Comments