Category Archives: Technology News

Looking into the future of internet media sharing – Simon Tay

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I foresee the future…

In a few years time, there will be no more MPAA or RIAA or record labels or Hollywood.

In their replacement comes

1. Independent artists (Basically anyone with a talent)
2. Independent & outsourced technical specialist for music/movie production
3. Internet marketing via media portals like youtube, blip.tv and various other media streaming sites.

My suggestions to technical nerds listen up.

1. Advertise your expertise online on blogs or freelancer sites on music/movie editing/producing.
2. Showcase your works on youtube and or other media streaming sites and put a contact link
3. Put your price online

My suggestions to artist with talents

1. Kill your contract if any with labels or studios.
2. Become independent freelancer artist
3. Become your own producer
4. Learn as much as possible all technical know how from youtube to use softwares like garageband or iMovie.
5. Experiment with viral marketing

My suggestions to future streaming sites

1. Have a good automated system to check videos/audios upload to compared with registered copyrighted materials.

2. If found inform the uploader of the “Great” earning opportunity to put more descriptive “tags” of where the music/video is from, who the material belongs to, what quality it’s being copied (DVD/BlueRay/CD & etc), What category it belongs to (Horror, Comedy, Scifi Etc), self subtitle the video (more $)

3. Pay 90% advertising revenue to original copyright holders, 5 – 9% to media streaming host site, 1 – 5% to up-loader. (Depending on how much info the uploader provides like subtitles & above)

4. Uploader won’t get paid if the content (movie or audio) is duplicated content that’s already available at that site uploaded by others (of the same quality eg. DVD) but will remain payable to copyright holder & host (90% holder 10% host)

5. If songs are “covers” of existing songs e.g. youtube singers singing popular songs online will be given 30% ownership of the copyright holding of that cover while the original singer holds 70%.

6. If music are used for back ground sounds/music for videos then the same will apply 70% of the copyright goes to the music owner

7. If the music & movie are totally original from the uploader, the hosting streaming site gets 10% fixed & the rest goes to the content creator at 90%.

This system give the incentives to upload to servers in the future to be “employed” as “distributors” instead of illegal uploader.

The reason why this system works because without this system, with the terabytes of hard disk gets cheaper & faster bandwidth….it’s quite possible to host privately own servers at home with good encryptions shared download links with private individuals with password lock.

However, if websites/host pay users to upload self curated media contents to their servers…NO ONE will upload to torrent anymore…eliminating piracy totally.

Consumers will play streaming music & movies with advertising much like the ones on youtube or blip.tv now, with very specific targeted audience and information about “registered” users…advertisers will put more quality advertising to such media streaming sites!

Consumers can also PAY a monthly subscriptions to the service for no commercials when viewing but subscription pricing models like variable pricing model OR high fixed pricing model.

e.g.
Variable pricing model = (no. of video clips & music played per month) x potential advertising revenue
Fixed pricing model = High but fixed subscription cable tv pricing model per month
Free viewing = short videos have bottom pop up ads, medium length videos can have video advertising that can be skipped after 5 seconds, long videos can have full 25 -30 seconds advertising in between 30 minutes intervals.

THERE WILL BE COMPETITION to such online streaming media sites and the competition will be fierce depending on the infrastructure and user base.

1. Youtube – already established online viewer based both on desktops & mobile (Faster to approve videos but lower quality)
2. Amazon – Video purchase/subscription can easily add advertising model
3. Netflix – Same
4. iTunes – Same but with better curated contents by both uploader & content creators & Apple (Slower to approve but better quality)
5. Others – streaming sites are popping up everywhere

Other pirated sites in other countries have no choice but to follow the same system.

Objectives
1. Piracy – Eliminated
2. Content accessibility - GLOBALIZED.
3. Profitability – EVERYONE WINS.

Apple Easy Pay self check out service VS NFC payment.

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After reading the article at techland.time.com which showcase how apple testing a self check out service at apple store and probably perfected it.

Here’s what I think…

iTunes check out IS THE FUTURE of hassle free shopping payment experience, been suspecting it always to be true. (Google NFC chip will be obsoleted over night)

The only problem is how to prevent shop-lifting.

Ok, we know a couple of things here about EasyPay (apple app for self check out)..this need you to have the latest iOS 5 with GPS turned on…active iTunes account with valid credit/debit card security code.

Let me think of a solution for Apple.

  1. iTunes account to have photographs of the account holder.
  2. Once anyone who purchase using the check out app “Easy pay” iTunes will put their Name & face on the display with images of items purchased using the app.

    3. This means the app activated GPS location service to determine which store you are in then after payment transaction done using the app sends the receipt to the store to display on the LCD screen your face & items purchased :D

  3. You passed by an RFID gantry before the exit matching all the items & one by one being checked as paid on the big screen as you walk out.
  4. If any items that’s not paid will be shown on the screen as the security guard will frown & check your receipt again.
  5. If all is ok, you will have a big “Thank you for shopping at Apple!” shown with a jingle. :D

This system will be usable for ANY kind of retail shops that tags their products especially electronic store.

For shops that don’t have such elaborate set up for self check out…..but have counters instead…can implement the usual iTunes iPad log in terminal at the counter.

  1. Counter service person scan your product one by one via usual bar code scanner.
  2. Items display with total amount required.
  3. Counter iPad display payment service via Easy Pay app.
  4. Customer key in details and iTunes send receipt to iPad & send email receipt to customer too.
  5. Satisfied customer payment experience.

Problems of both Android ICS and iOS 5

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Personally I haven’t tried Android before but there’s probably some problems I don’t like about Android.

  1. Google can give your personal information to the court in an heartbeat.[1]
  2. Google control every aspect of your life – email, music, storage, social, voice & soon your wallet…and you won’t be surprise why google logo appeared during presidential election.[1]
  3. Too many android phones with different Android versions cause problems with security updates across all platforms [1]
  4. Too many online market places that sells apps give trojan horses malware easy access.[1]
  5. What happen if you forgets to charge your 2nd battery? [1]
  6. Did anyone test the face unlock feature with a photograph of the owner?
  7. Bigger screen or not is just a personal preference not a “advantage”.
  8. Customizability is a pain especially for tech support especially for the fragmented Android OS versions. (I know because I do tech support)
  9. Gmail, google voice, google+ and all google products IS OWN BY GOOGLE. I can’t imagine you using Apple products in your Android phones so don’t compare if the apps are badly done in iOS. (I wonder why sometimes people do that)

I’m not trying to flame google but those ARE my fears when trying to make decisions when upgrading my smart phones.

However, iOS is not without it’s own problems like

  1. Apple launched their updates at the same time across the world without consideration of causing virtual “Denial of service” by millions of iOS users trying to update at the same time. (They should stagger their release or build more robust delivery system)
  2. iMessage still not cross platform messaging app but many other iOS apps takes up the slack from Whatsapp, Line, eBuddy, Skype, fring, facebook, twitter, KakaoTalk, PingChat!, TalkBox, CloudTalk, Blipr, cnectd, Viber, Message Now and many others.
  3. The love & hate relationship with jailbreakers that both provide innovation & customizability to iOS platform but denied technical support if things fails horribly. (Do any android user get support from google from over tinkering? I am not sure..do comment)
  4. Only integrate twitter into the native support on iOS, I do hope Apple can give users the option to add other social networks like facebook, google+ and many other social bookmarking services.
  5. iCloud cost money if you want more than 5GB storage space for mail, documents, Camera Roll, account information, settings, and other app data. (However purchased music, apps, books, and TV shows, as well as your Photo Stream are not counted in that 5GB limit which is great)
  6. Photostream photographs cannot be individually deleted, it can only be totally deleted if you turn it off on both your computer (browse to iCloud.com & click on your name & reset photostream) and turn off your photostream on your iOS.

There are pros & cons on both side of the competition & I probably missed some but usually these are based solely on personal preference & cannot be used for justification for other people’s opinions. :D

iCloud tip : If you find your wireless backup to iCloud is exceeding the 5GB limit and gotten an email from Apple, try to clear some of the big video files in your camera roll first then proceed to find out what’s your largest file size applications in Settings -> General -> Usage.

There you can delete that application that you no longer use, you can always download them again in the future for free.