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God Announces Macbook Air

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 15, 2008Posted in: Technology

Today’s big Apple product announcement at the Macworld keynote was the Macbook Air, an ultraportable Mac notebook.

Key Features:

  • 1.6 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
  • 0.76″-0.12″ thick chassis
  • 3lb weight
  • 5 hours of battery life
  • 13.3″ LED display
  • 2GB memory
  • 80GB 4200-rpm PATA hard drive
  • Built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
  • No optical drive
  • iSight camera included

Theres also an option to replace the 80GB hard drive with a 64GB Solid State Drive (flash memory) for $1300 (!).

 

My initial take:

  • Shit, this thing is thin
  • Price fits squarely between Macbook and Macbook Pro lines – would have liked to see $1500 price point, but still very competitive with high end ultraportables (e.g. Sony TZ series)
  • Lack of optical drive not a big deal, we usually don’t use discs as much as we think we do
  • Software to use any computer’s optical drive wirelessly with the Air as a “virtual optical drive” – very cool
  • Disappointed the external optical drive is not included ($99 option)
  • How the hell did they fit a 1.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor in there – that is an amazing engineering feat
  • No ethernet jack? come on, that could have fit
  • 1 USB port is going to be REALLY annoying – you attach a mouse and you can’t put anything else on (iPod, iPhone, optical drive, etc.)
  • Full-size keyboard is awesome for an ultraportable
  • Lol @ $1300 option for solid state – I guess we’re a few years away from this replacing real hard drives on notebooks

All this said, I may be picking one of these up.  I’ve never owned a Mac before and this may be the right product for me as I own an iPhone and have a screamingly powerful PC desktop already.  It may be one of those things where seeing it in person puts you over the edge, but as of now it’s merely a modestly compelling product on its own.  Not as mindblowing as the iPhone was last year, but something that makes sense to add to your gadget fleet if you are a tech geek or really need the ultraportability.  I couldn’t see this as my primary computer, though.  It just lacks the features and power for my needs as a content creator or gamer.

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There Will Be Blood Was Goddamn Amazing

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 11, 2008Posted in: Movies, Reviews

While 2007 may have been the year of the mouthbreathing movie for me, 2008 is a different story altogether. So far, I’m batting 1.000 with the films I’ve seen in the new year. Charlie Wilson’s War, Juno, and There Will Be Blood were all great films. The latter, though, was something truly special.Contrary to what one may think (at least, my first impulse), There Will Be Blood is not about vampires or chainsaws or zombies or anything of the sort. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. The movie is an incisive look into the essence of the human spirit. It explores the darkest forms of our primal instincts. But it does so in a way that is neither gratuitous nor obvious. Throughout most of the film, I could sympathize with Daniel Plainview’s thoughts and actions. I found myself thinking like he would and started forming strategies for what he should do. Does this make me a heinous person? Maybe. Or maybe that’s simply what human nature is. When you watch the film, you can arrive at your own conclusions on the actions of the protagonist. A word of caution though: be prepared to actively watch and analyze.Not to suggest that you are too stupid for the movie, but the film does not hold your hand. It’s not a rollercoaster ride. It’s not a clown, getting in your face and trying to entertain you. It’s more like a self-indulgent, yet fascinating professor giving a lecture while not pausing to take questions or making sure you are following along. I’ll be up front and say that this is a long movie. Two hours and forty-five minutes long. If you’re in the mood for pew pew lasers or fart jokes, please wait until your brain cells are working again before you go see There Will Be Blood.

What makes this movie so good then? Each of its major contributors does his job magnificently. Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance is simply unparalleled. The man is in virtually every scene of the film and he absolutely fucking KILLS it. It’s the performance of his life, and probably of a generation as well. Paul Thomas-Anderson’s direction is magnificent. Not one line of dialog is unnecessary or forced. In fact, every verbal exchange has extreme gravitas. The landscapes and camera angles PTA employs are utterly breathtaking and unique. I’ve never seen a PTA movie before, but you can bet your sweet behind I will go through his filmography now. Finally, Radiohead’s own Jonny Greenwood composes a score that is surprisingly apropos and gripping. The film begins with a string crescendo that swells and swells until it becomes an almost shrieking cacophony. You want to avert your ears but you can’t. You’re forced to bear with it until it subsides. This is Daniel Plainview’s theme and it mirrors his soul perfectly. He does some truly deplorable things that you know are plain wrong, but you can’t ignore his actions.

Normally I hate period pieces, because they just bore me to death. Not this film, though. It fascinated me. I’m glad I got myself in the right frame of mind to see There Will Be Blood, because this was just a simply stunning work of art. I almost wish I was in film study because there’s just so much to talk about and analyze here, even days after viewing the movie.

That’s the mark of a truly great film.

I’m not the only one to feel this way either. This is a movie that is universally considered to be a masterpiece.

If I had seen this last year, it would have definitely vied for a top spot in my entertainment experiences list. An amazing achievement in film making.

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Individual 2007 Top Ten Lists

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 11, 2008Posted in: Articles, Comics, Movies, Music, TV, Video Games

Indulge me as I’m in a list making mood. After the jump I’ll list my lists. They’ll include top tens for music, comics, video games, movies, and television shows. Since I’m too burnt out now to write something for each entry, I won’t. I’ll be happy to conduct a civilized conversation in the comments or email though. Oh, and the lists will contain only things I have experienced in ’07. Stuff I didn’t get to until after the new year, but released near the end of last year (e.g. There Will Be Blood) will go on next year’s lists.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Top Ten Entertainment Experiences Of 2007

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 10, 2008Posted in: Articles, Comics, Movies, Music, Sports, TV, Video Games

2007 was pretty lopsided for me in terms of where my quality entertainment experiences came from. It was a phenomenal year for video games. Perhaps the best single year of new releases for the medium since 1997, if not better. Conversely, there just wasn’t much there in terms of great music. Some solid releases, sure, but nothing that remain etched in my mind as transcendent. Live shows definitely resonated better for me than the album experience did. For sports, I’ll preface my conclusion by saying that I only regularly follow the MLB, the NFL, and the NBA. Besides the lone entry on the list, there were no other truly memorable moments for me this year. Television was fairly solid, despite the writers strike putting a damper on my mood late in the year. Comics had some pretty high moments, and also some pretty “meh” ones as well. Finally, 2007 was just not my year for movies as I wasn’t motivated to seek out much other than the obvious films. While some were fairly entertaining, I just couldn’t argue for their inclusion on this list over the items picked.

Without any more ado, here’s my top ten entertainment experiences of 2007:
Read the rest of this entry »

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Ding Dong DRM Is Dead – Sony/BMG Joins Amazon MP3

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 10, 2008Posted in: Articles, Music

Just one year ago, we in the industry thought it unfathomable for even one of major labels to abandon DRM for digital downloads of music. Yet here we are, living in a world where all four major labels are now selling their wares sans DRM.A press release went out today confirming that Sony/BMG would be making their catalog available for sale on Amazon MP3 by the end of the month.Am I surprised at the celerity of the major labels in making the move to DRMless MP3? A little. I’ve always maintained it was a merely matter of time before the labels ditched DRM. If it was not to accede to consumer demand, it would be to fight the Frankenstein they created in the iTunes music store.

Do I think Amazon MP3 has what it takes to take on iTunes? Sure. Amazon MP3 sells the better product to more possible customers at a better price ($0.89-$0.99 compared to the $1.29 of iTunes Plus). As long as consumers are educated properly and the service is marketed competently, there’s a very good chance this may be the one challenger to the iTunes throne to succeed.

But does this really matter at the end of the day?

No.

The future of music distribution is not in a la carte track sales. It’s in the pay-what-you-want model that Radiohead and Trent Reznor have pioneered. It’s in the value proposition that eMusic offers when you are getting $25 tracks for $9.99 a month. Neither of these are the ultimate solution, but they are steps forward. You have to look at how MOST people are consuming music nowadays. They do it via bulk through bittorrent or eDonkey or what have you. Selling DRM-free MP3’s for $0.89 each would have been a good start… seven years ago. In order to be the true winner of this sad drama, you have to be looking ahead of current consumption patterns. You need to take chances instead of playing catchup.

We’ve got a long way to go before this is finished.

Read the press release [businesswire.com]

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2

Warner Bros Leaves HD DVD For Blu-Ray

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 7, 2008Posted in: Movies

Last Friday, Warner Bros. Entertainment announced that they would become exclusive to the Blu-ray disc format by May of 2008, leaving those in the HD DVD camp high and dry.  Warners has been the only “format neutral” major studio for awhile now, although there have been many Warner Bros. movies that were essentially HD DVD exclusive (Batman Begins comes to mind) because of feature discrepancies between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Gizmodo has a paraphrased interview with Warner Home Entertainment president Kevin Tsujihara on why Warners made the switch:

Kevin Tsujihara told us that what was “somewhat troubling” is the “impact consumer confusion was starting to have” on regular DVD. “Consumers were saying ‘Hey, I might was well wait.'” If another studio had switched “it could have possibly impacted” Warner’s decision. Tsujihara said he “can’t anticipate” the other studios moving over to HD DVD “given the numbers that are out there.”

By choosing a side, Warner Bros. has tilted the balance of power significantly towards the Blu-ray camp in terms of studio clout.  Only Paramount/Dreamworks and Universal remain exclusive to HD DVD.  Granted, these are HUGE studios with a significant chunk of content that everyone wants to watch.  In fact, there is enough content between them that I’m about to purchase an HD DVD player myself, despite already owning a Blu-ray player AND in spite of this recent announcement from Warner Bros.

Looking at the big picture, the real reason anyone buys these next-gen movie players is because they want to see movies in high definition.  Without getting into technology spec bickering, both formats are essentially the same to the end-user.  Unlike the different game consoles, there are no huge compelling feature differences to pick one format over the other.  It simply boils down to “Is the movie I want to see released in Blu-ray or HD DVD.”

(As an aside: let me tell you, if you have an HD TV and you have any interest in watching movies, you need to procure one of these devices ASAP.  The quality difference between standard DVDs and hi-def discs on a HD TV is so palpable it makes anyone question how they ever watched movies in such excrement in the past.)

Tsujihara is right in that all this “format war” has done is alienate customers and sow confusion and discontent among the masses.  I applaud Warner Bros. for doing what they can to push the industry to a standard hi-def movie format.  But in all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if both formats co-existed for a couple of more years.  That is why I’m taking the plunge and buying an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player to complement my PS3’s Blu-ray capability.  Stand alone low-end HD DVD players can be had from the low $100s nowadays.  Couple this with a $399 Playstation 3 and you have the capability to play every hi-def movie on the market now and in the future.  You’re looking at a roughly $550 expenditure and you get a gaming system to boot.  This is lower than buying one of the combo players on the market.  Yes, $550 is a chunk of change, but for those of us who can afford hi-def televisions in the first place, spending a fraction of that on one of the main reasons you bought that expensive TV in the first place starts to make sense.  Not to mention, just one year ago, owning both format players would have cost you from $1500-$2000.

So what if my $100 HD-DVD player goes the way of Betamax in a year or two.  In an age of ephemeral home electronics devices, a two year lifespan for a $100 device may even sound good.

Read the press release [timewarner.com]

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1

Trent Reznor Is Disappointed With Fans

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 3, 2008Posted in: Music

Some of you might remember the release of Saul Williams’ latest album, The Inevitable Rise And Liberation of NiggyTardust, a couple of months ago.  Sales of the album were patterned after Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want model for their release of In Rainbows.  Now that the intarweb has had ample time to consume the album, Trent Reznor has made sales figures public:

Saul’s previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.

As expected, a minority of people actually paid for the album, despite being offered higher quality file formats for the songs as an incentive.  How does Trent feel about this?

 If that assumption is correct – that most of the people that chose to download Saul’s record came from his or my own fan-base – is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I’m not sure what I was expecting but that percentage – primarily from fans – seems disheartening.

He then goes on to lament over how he spent too much on producing the album and that it was a project that “nobody’s getting rich off [of]”.  However, Trent’s assuming a lot about who’s buying the record.  In exactly two months, the new record has moved almost as many “units” as Saul’s last album.  That’s a pretty decent amount, in my opinion.  Not to mention, over 5 times as many people have been exposed to the album.  Granted, the last album could have had more exposure due to file trading/sharing and such, but at least now Saul has hard numbers as to what his audience reach is.  Reznor’s disappointment is no undoubtedly exacerbated by the fact that he spent a lot of money producing and distributing the record.  Despite this, though, I feel this is one of the best sales models for a developing artist to adopt.  I would imagine lots of baby bands aren’t going to be spending the fortune that Reznor did to produce their albums.  It’s also a painless, non-insulting way for artists and fans to distribute and consume new music.  It provides a method of monetary compensation to the artist that may not have existed under the previous CD-only model.  Perhaps some more incentive could be given to the fans who like the music enough that they want to support it.  Maybe this could be a concert ticket discount, a piece of merch, or some kind of badge of honor.

It may not be the perfect solution to the music distribution problem, but it’s certainly a good start.  If more artists adopt this model, it definitely opens the door for bandwidth/backend solution providers to get in on the act.  Eventually, the benefits of economies of scale can be reaped, further making it easier for anyone to cheaply distribute their music to the world.

Kudos to Trent and Saul for actively trying to make headway on revolutionizing the business model of music.  Keep your chin up, dawg! You did good, Trent.  You did good.

NiggyTardust Followup [nin.com]

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The Mitchell Report Was Pointless

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 13, 2007Posted in: Sports

waste of time
Earlier today, former senator George Mitchell released the findings of his yearlong investigation on Major League Baseball’s problem with performance enhancing drugs. When you cut through the extensive verbiage of the report, you can essentially break it down to these components:

  • a list of players with alleged evidence linking them to performance enhancing drugs prior to 2002
  • the conclusion that prior to 2003, players, team executives, and MLB officials did not make a huge effort to make sure performance enhancing drugs were not used
  • the conclusion that if the players union and MLB officials can agree to cooperate, they can lessen the the number of cases of performance enhancing drug use
  • the recommendation that players named in the report not be punished for past actions

Obviously the most exciting aspect of the report is the list of players who have supposedly been linked to performance enhancing drugs. Unfortunately, the list is comprised of either evidence we have already heard before or hearsay. Mitchell’s report references the whole BALCO scenario from a couple years back, along with the more recent cases of players purchasing drugs via the internet. In both cases, the evidence was not considered concrete enough in order to convict players of wrongdoing. The more interesting allegations are of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite. Former Yankees trainer, Brian McNamee admitted to injecting Clemens and Pettite with HGH and other performance enhancing drugs prior to 2001. Most of the evidence for the other named players are not more substantial than a “I heard that someone told him that he injected steroids.”

However, we have no way of knowing whether Clemens, Pettite, or any one of these players actually used performance enhancing drugs because they have never tested positive for any sort of doping. In fact, most of the drugs in question are not currently detectable by any means. The best thing we can do is finger point and say “This dude (who is probably saying what he has to in order to not go to jail) says he injected you.” In addition, the conclusions of the report, while they needed to be reiterated, were not exactly as enlightening as when the apple fell on Newton. Anyone with half a brain now can see what baseball was doing wrong in the late 20th century-early 21st century.

In other words, this whole report was a waste of time.

Read the Mitchell Report in its entirety [mlb.com]

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0

Geoff Johns Is A Wordsmith Of The Highest Order

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 12, 2007Posted in: Comics

awesome

That’s it. Geoff Johns is officially my favorite super hero comics writer. The former assistant to Richard Donner has scribed what is unequivocally the most entertaining story told in the comic medium this year.

I just finished Green Lantern #25, the final chapter of “The Sinestro Corps War,” and my mind is blown to bits of brain matter. Disappointing endings have become a disturbing trend in entertainment these days. Not for this epic space opera. It’s hard to imagine a better payoff to a 6 month storyline than what the Green Lantern creative teams have given us here. GL #25 may very well be the best single comic issue in years.

Troy Brownfield over at Newsarama has nailed down most of my feelings about the story in his review:

Green Lantern #25 stands out as an adrenaline-fueled kick. I can envision Geoff Johns pounding away at the keyboard, cackling with glee. This is a giant popcorn movie on paper, a summer film that ran all the way until Christmas. It’s probably not going to change the course of human history. It’s not Pynchon or Joyce. But it’s a very entertaining, action-packed burst of cathartic “it’s time for the good guys to lay the beat down” energy.

And then, of course, there’s the icing. The last two pages are reserved for what’s become one of Johns’s favorite tricks since Justice Society of America #1. If you see that trailer and don’t either laugh in appreciation at the audacity of it or drop your jaw in “That’s crazy!” admiration, then you’re no fun at parties.

Green Lantern #25 is exactly what it should be: a bold, splashy, unabashedly over-the-top cosmic super-hero entertainment of epic proportions.

If you enjoy any of the following: space operas, comics, super heroes, or action movies – you owe it to yourself to read this instant classic.

Read Newsarama’s review of Green Lantern #25 [newsarama]

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0

I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 11, 2007Posted in: Music

In a move that even our British internet video friend would not accept, the RIAA is now claiming that MP3s that you have ripped from CDs you have purchased are unauthorized copies. That’s right, the very existence of digital music in the-file-format-which-must-not-be-named is an affront to all that is lawful and just. Forget about the fact that RIAA lawyers have already admitted ripping CDs for personal use is legal. Hypocrisy is only a speed bump on the path to oblivion.

I know I said I would not be surprised at anything the record labels do anymore, but come on. Really? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the real record labels have anything to do with the RIAA anymore other than in name. As clueless as the major record label heads are, there is no way any sane person can fail to see what a detriment to health of the music industry the RIAA is. What exactly is it trying to do here? Even if they win every pending lawsuit, do they really think people are going back to buying cartloads of $18 CDs just like the good ol’ days?

Nay, the RIAA is a monster that is out of the control of those who have created it. But unlike horrific human creations such as the Cylons or Terminators, the RIAA becomes less terrifying and more cuddly with each action it takes.

via [gizmodo]

via [recording industry vs. the people]

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