It’s like Science Fiction
I visited New York City recently and was lucky enough to run into a free wifi connection over near Rockefeller Center courtesy of the Scifi (or should I say Syfy) channel.
Syfy will be the new name of the Scifi channel in an attempt to encompass fantasy as well as science fiction into their name. More importantly, as part of their advertising campaign Syfy has set up a bunch of wifi hot spots through out the city, starting with Rockefeller Center.
The spot comes with everything from plastic couches to a computer station (in case you don’t have your laptop on you). There are Televisions, a giant viewmaster (for whatever reason) and it’s all set up on a nice patch of grass. It looks cool, it’s useful, and it’s comfortable. What more could you ask for in the middle of NYC?
I feel like the queen of the world
Ok–that may be an overstatement, but I do feel pretty awesome! Let me explain . . . I finally figured out how to hook up my laptop to my television to watch streaming video via Hulu or whatever I want, whenever I want. We’ve had limited cable for a while now so this is like opening a whole new world.
Nothing on TV–just watch a movie or a show on a station I don”t even get on my television. There are also an increasing number of HD channels and HDMI outputs from computers so you don’t have to sacrifice image quality.
I know this isn’t rocket science, but it really is liberating to make it happen. It was so simple, actually. Just connect the S-video cable from your laptop to your television. Change your control panel display settings to enable dual monitors–the television primary and the laptop as secondary and voila–instant slave.
To get the sound to work you have to get an audio cable with an adaptor to plug into your computer’s headphone jack and into the t.v.’s audio in jacks.
Pardon me while I go play now.
Falling Flat Screen TVs a Danger for Young Kids
There has been a 41 percent increase in injuries from tipping furniture since 1990 and much of the blame is going to the popularity of flat screen TVs. According to the study:
Injuries from televisions alone accounted for nearly half of all injuries related to falling furniture during the study period — 47 percent.
The danger with televisions is that often they have narrow centers of gravity and can have small bases. Take steps to appropriately secure your flat screen to avoid danger to your children. For instructions on hanging your flat panel HDTV, read more here.
Consumer Reports also offers advice for securing your flat panel such as purchasing the appropriate base for you model, ensuring the furniture you set the tv on does not have drawers and is stable, and securing furniture that is holding the television.
TV Trends
The time has come, Lost and Heroes are both going to be on Hulu!
Disney has officially joined Hulu and thus ABC shows will be available on the great legal video streaming site. Supposedly ABC shows will start appearing this summer. I’m all for it, Hulu is simpler, clearer, and more convenient than most other video streaming services, but the truth is, if the shows aren’t there we all find ways to watch anyway (that’s why Disney was wise to join up).
Now, many shows appear on Hulu the next day already, but not all. House for instances does not post episodes until the week after they have aired. I understand that this is supposed to bottleneck viewers off to the network’s official web site, but the truth is it doesn’t. Lots of the time people don’t even wait until the next morning none the less the next week. On other less reputable sites shows often make appearances a mere hour after they air. When you don’t have a Tivo these sites are a big draw.
As always, as with the Disney deal, things continue to improve with network presence and availability on the internet, but if networks (and movie studios for that matter) want to really utilize the web as a distribution tool a lot of work still needs to be done.
TV on YouTube?
Not that you haven’t already been checking out choice tv snippets and shows on YouTube, but now the site has formally partnered with names like Sony, LionsGate, CBS and MGM to offer favorites like 90210, StarTrek and MacGyver. YouTube’s show channel also has offerings from PBS, old favorites like I Dream of Jeannie and even soaps.
Joining Hulu and an ever-growing number of web tv sites, YouTube is trying to stay with the wave that is moving viewers online (and subsequently on-demand).
So how many hours a week do you watch on your computer rather than your tv?
Olympic Spirit
Today is the opening of the Beijing Summer Olympics. The Olympics is the only event of its kind on the global calendar and once again the world has gathered to celebrate it. This year, more so than almost any year before it, even the parts of the world that couldn’t get to the host country have unprecedented access.
Let us begin with the basics. NBC’s coverage of the games and the culture within China will saturate its regular programming for much of the foreseeable future. From the Today show in China to tonight’s broadcast of the opening ceremony TV will be especially sports centered. NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and other affiliate networks will present the most coverage ever (and a lot of HD options). Let us not forget that as the games have grown over the years so have the means by which we access them.
For the first time NBC will stream complete coverage of the Olympic games online. There’s even a Wiki article on how to utilize internet access despite certain site restrictions.
Even tickets to this years game have gone high tech! Radio frequency identification technology within tickets will help (primarily) to deter counterfeits.
It will be interesting to see how much extra coverage gets through (cultural and otherwise) due to the on going news of China restricting media access beyond events. Yet, the fact remains, though the news getting through may be of the Olympic events alone, there will be quite a few hours to broadcast.
Despi-cable
I need to rant about my recent adventures with my cable company. I now truly understand why cable companies need to be a monopoly in any given market: if they had any competiion, my cable company wouldn’t have a single customer left. Out of deference to the folks at Digital Landing (who do business with my cable provider) I won’t name names, but our story begins on a rainy spring day…
With the coming of the rainy season in Florida came the horrifying realization that my broadband internet connection died every time it rained. And some of my premium and HD channels began to randomly disappear. I called my cable company, went through the standard round of idiocy:
“Unplug your modem, shot down your computer, re-start the modem, restart the computer.” “I did that already before I called you.” “I’ll need you to do it again, sir.” Followed by “Hmm, I don’t see your modem online. There must be a problem. We can have technician there in 4 days” ARRRGGHHH! Fortunately I have a backup DSL line, so I waited…
By the time the technician arrived, the service had mysteriously restored, but after checking my wiring and signal strength I was told that the problem was with the outside cable coming into the house, which of course required a different technician. Two weeks and numerous rainy outages later, the outside problem wasn’t resolved. So I called customer service and insisted on escalating. I’m pretty sure that when they put you on hold whle they get a supervisor, the rep turns to the guy next to him and says “Hey, Joe - I got another loser who needs to bitch. Wanna pretend to be a supervisor?” My chat with the supervisor accomplished nothing and I asked for the next level. This is when it gets fun…
The next level of support is called “The Office of the President”. Seriously. That’s how they answer the phone. Boy, that made me feel important! Now, let me give you a little perspective - I subscribe to every premium channel available (yes, I really need 72 HBO channels) in addition to their fastest Internet service, all of which results in a monthly bill over $200. So I’m not the kind of customer they want to lose. But since I also have DirecTV (for football, it’s a necessity) and that backup DSL, I’m also in the position where dumping my cable would be pretty easy. So I thought I as in a pretty good negotiating position.
I explained my problem to a representative of the Office of the President and she was very sympathetic. 15 minutes later, the ocal service manager called me and within an hour a technician was at my house, with orders to make me happy. Nd he tried - I gotta tell you. The guy spent 6 hours rewiring everything in my house, and then told me I had a weak signal and they need to replace the cable coming into my house, which of course required a different technician. Deja vu all over again.
Four weeks later, still no resolution, and according to the Office of the President, my issue had been marked “resolved”, a mistake I was eager to correct. The same tech came back again, astonished that nothing else was done. So he took it upon himself to run a new cable to the house (although someone else would have to come bury it). The cable ran to the main box which is in a neighbor’s yard. Suddenly I had all my channels and a markedly improved internet connection. Three hours later, of course after business hours, I lost cable service completely. I went in my yard and found that my new cable wasn’t connected to anything.
The next morning I called the Office of the President (I REALLY like saying that!) and asked if Ashton Kutscher was setting me up for an episode of Punk’d. 2 hours later, new guys come to re-connect the cable. 2 hours later after that, cable is gone again and I was on the phone with the Office of the President. I ran out for a few minutes and when I returned, the cable truck was in front of my house. As I got out of my car, he drove away, so I thought my problem had been solved, but I still had no service. Guess who I called…
The cable guy returned an hour later and told me that while I did indeed need that new cable, the last outages had new wrinkle: the neighbor (whose yard is adjacent to mine but actually lives one block over) had his own gripes with the cable company and had expressed his displeasure by rpping all the wires out of the ain junction box. When they’d been repaired, he ripped them out again. And so the cable guys had to call the police, who in turn told the neighbor that if he touched the wires again, he’d be in jail.
So no I have new cables inside my house and outside. The outside ones have been buried. I have a brand new modem. Everything seems to be going fine. But tonight’s forecast calls for rain…
May I have a Definition Please …
Fanboy is now an official (as in defined and grammatically acceptable) word according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. The dictionary added over one hundred new words this year (as of July 7).
I find the introduction of fanboy, which has long been an accepted phrase in the English vernacular, to be a sign of the times. Just as the word “muggle” was added to the Oxford English dictionary in 2003 (the same year Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published) when Harry Potter seemed to have completely penetrated society as a whole, fanboys too are no longer a cultural exception, but just about a rule.
In a summer of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The X-Files, Star Wars the Clone Wars …. (you get the point) what better time was there for Merriam Webster to at last take its stand? While the Webster definition does, in part, specify comic books (and I specify many comic book movies) the truth is comic books aren’t everything one can be obsessed over. There are other obsessions too from TV’s Heroes, Lost, and even Sex and the City in some cases, back to Harry Potter and Macintosh Computers. Fans and fanatics are everywhere. And even when comics are the only thing you’re obsessed over, well, it’s hipper now than its ever been before.
