Charbax.com

If you want to give the country back to the people, why not use the Internet to change the way democracy works.

We need an online parliament where every person is a representative of the people, where good ideas and the truth automatically are highlighted using direct democracy and algorithms. Any leader should then promise to serve the will of the people by using this democratic system on the Internet.

Representative democracy was invented before the airplane, before the telephone and before the Internet. We need to upgrade democracy.

I posted this suggestion as a comment to the Hillary Clinton and Obama video on Youtube in Unity, NH.

Today ICANN announced that they will open up for unlimited amount of top level domains and they will start to use all alphabets. I think this is fantastic news. This means the value of .com .tv .eu and all other current TLD domain sharks today all have gone bankrupt. This is the news they hoped would not happen.

I think that the new rules should be following:

- The Democracy involved at ICANN should rule on sharked, spammed or unused domains. As well as trademarks automatically are monitored using a database so suspicious attempts at registering trademarks will be identified.

- ICANN should control the whole system themselves using a central Google Apps like infrastructure that can scale to cover all TLD and all domains for the whole world.

- Domains should be free, no price, nada. Other then perhaps a very small fee to cover the costs of maintaining the whole DNS, database and ICANN controlling system. Thus price for a domain should be probably less than 1 dollar per domain per year. ICANN should remove all the domain registrar business, we don’t need it. The price of a domain should be public knowledge and nobody should pay more than that price.

- To register a domain you need to give your real identity to ICANN, you have to register your business and be able to submit tax papers and government controlled verification in case of a conflict.

This will be just like newsgroups, the value of .com and all current TLDs will decrease, and now the value instead is going to be the content and the relevancy. Today is a great day for democracy online, for relevancy of searches, for the quality of the content online, for the semantic web and for the freedom of speech.

Once they activate it, I think it can probably use voice recognition to synchronize overlay advertising with the words said in the video. “When somebody says Coca-Cola in the video, there might be a Coca-Cola ad popping up at the bottom of the ad”.

I think this could be so insanely huge it will revolutionize the whole entertainment industry. Finally it will be possible to make a living putting videos on the Internet. As much as $10 or $15 per 1000 views on the videos should be what Google would be paying any content creator who ties up their Youtube account with their Adsense account and who activates the Overlay advertising on all their videos. No Youtube content creator would be forced to activate the ads, but if the content creator wants to earn money they would be able to flip a switch and start displaying ads on all of their uploaded videos.

So I was saying, this will revolutionize the entertainment and blogging industry cause it would be relatively easy for video-bloggers to then improve the quality of their video productions to get higher audiences. When artists and citizen journalists finally get paid even just a little for their effort, they will be able to do this full time. Walk around with Youtube connected cell phones and still concentrate uploading a lot more quality content then they were uploading back when uploading videos on Youtube was something the independent content producers only did in their free time as a hobby.

I think Google are probably fine-tuning the overlay advertising feature to have it totally ready for when they launch it big time for any content provider on Youtube to be able to start making serious money. Income per 1000 views on Youtube overlay ads are perhaps as much as 100 times higher compared to textual ads using Adsense on for example blogs.

OLPC has succeeded in forcing Microsoft to lower the licencing price of Windows XP to $3, OLPC has succeeded in forcing Microsoft to slim down the hardware, storage requirements of running Windows XP, OLPC has succeeded in getting the whole laptop industry to start building what they call XO competitors out of their desperation of the prospect of loosing all of their profit margins, OLPC has succeeded in forcing Intel to speed up the release of the Atom Centrino processor to compete with AMD Geode as a low power fanless CPU.

Hey, what’s wrong with Microsoft continuing to invest multi-billions of dollars to push and promote their Windows XP alternative to Sugar Linux, why is that bad? At the end Microsoft will be forced to provide an open source version of Windows XP or perhaps Microsoft will even be forced to develop software based on Linux and the goal of OLPC will be completely reached.

I know OLPC is not a laptop project but it is. I’d like to see the XO in a commercial version sold in my local supermarket within the next few months for $200 each. OLPC needs to commercialize the product in partnership with whomever brands and distributors who would like to take care of the commercial mass market distribution. This way, the whole industry will have to speed up even faster and reach the result of the $100 laptop that works for 24h on a battery in sunlight and connects to broadband wireless internet for free everywhere.

I posted my HD video interviews in French at http://tpg.video-blog.eu/.

I think that free public transportation is an inevitability in all cities. It’s the most effective way to reduce significantly the CO2 emissions in a city. It also creates better equality for the poor and the middle class who can better afford transportation. It reduces car traffic and improves parking conditions.

I think that there are no arguments against providing free public transportation in all cities of the world. A way to improve the organization of the public transportation would be to use a software on people’s mobile phone using GPS, uploading people’s position to the city overview system, which can then regulate frequency of the different busses, trains, subways dynamically with the exact real-time expectation of demand at any given place in the city. Also combining that as soon as possible with the Personal Rapid Transit system:

I filmed 50 or so video intreviwes in HD at the Lift conference in Geneva these past few days. Look for my Lift08 videos at http://techvideoblog.com/lift/ and http://olpc.tv/channel/charbax/

Tomorrow, Last.fm and CBS are announcing new features that are to be added to Last.fm. I am always amazed by the awesome music recommendations it gives me. I think that technology could be simply revolutionnizing for video. There are so many awesome videos out there on sites such as Youtube, imagine a Last.fm Video filter that provides personalized recommendations, so you keep getting amazed by the recommendations that just perfectly fit you.

I would like Last.fm to add these features:

- Personalized recommendations filtered by genre, mixed with Loved tracks by genre. Basically this would provide an automatic DJ’ing function. So for example I could set Last.fm up to play lots of party tracks at a party. And perhaps have it synchronize with a Pioneer type of hardware but very cheap type that let’s me preview the next songs, re-arrange them and mix them live.

- “Download all songs by this artist” feature. Artists are able to add songs that Last.fm users can download for free. I’d like to download all songs in one click, even if it would cost me a few cents per gygabyte and that it downloads through a Last.fm download manager integrated with the player software. And also download x amount of GB of songs from my recommendations and from my Loved tracks. Basically this feature would be to fill up my Mp3 player with music that I like, that I need to discover, that fits my taste, complete discographies for artists which I loved one of their songs, basically fill up my Mp3 player without me having to think too much what to put on it.

- Let me pay the artists through Last.fm. I’d like to pay for example $5 per month which I would like to reward all the artists that I listen to a lot. Especially the artists who’s song I love on Last.fm, especially the artists who provide me with free Mp3 downloads. So based on popularity and quality, this Voluntary Artists Money should be redistributed by Last.fm. The idea is that millions of Last.fm users could fund a lot of artists, giving them an incentive to release all their music on Last.fm as free Mp3 downloads so they can earn a larger amount of money this way. Integrate this with countries legislation on the global licence, so people through taxes can reward the most popular and the highest quality artists. So Last.fm this way could provide the statistics to reward all the artists fairly.

A plugin to watch all the videos from my http://techvideoblog.com directly on your HDTV or standard definition TV, with the remote control is available here:

http://labs.divx.com/node/1320

I think that the DivX Connected set-top-box standard is the beginning of the mass media revolution. Soon the box will cost below $100, currently it is available for £130 at Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-DSM-330-Connected-Wireless-Player/dp/B000X4F7RO.

Currently the DivX Connected hardware requires a Windows based computer on your local network to function, it uses a Windows software to stream content from the Internet to your TV using HDMI on a HDTV or using composite, scart and component connections. But there is probably a next version of DivX Connected hardware in the planning that would also provide the option to work without the need to have a desktop or laptop computer in the home, which I think is crucial to reach mass market penetration, to reach and change media consumption for consumers who aren’t using broadband Internet much to watch videos yet.

You can watch my Interview with the DivX Connected products manager Dan Salmonsen demonstrating the technology at IFA 2007: http://techvideoblog.com/ifa/divx-connected/

Truth is Intel makes huge profits the way the industry works today and does not want things to change. Intel management feel that their established business model domination is extremely threatened by a small open-source hardware and software project like the OLPC project.

Fact is Intel does not have a processor that consumes as little power and costs as little as the AMD Geode processor.

Fact is Intel does not want the market to embrace $200 laptops. Intel would loose all sales of Dual Core High-K metal gate quadro core processors if most new laptops only will have 400mhz fanless ultra low voltage, since most people in fact don’t need more processing power to browse the Internet and access all their unbloated Web Apps and other most basic apps on the laptop.

Fact is Intel wants the business model of big margins on expensive hardware to continue to be the defacto mainstream standard for when people need to upgrade their computers. Fact is Intel is not present in any of the low cost new solutions coming out such as the VIA based $199 Shuttle and Zonbu desktop computers or the $150 OLPC laptop.

Fact is the Intel Classmate brings absolutely nothing to improve education nor improve battery life or lower the cost of laptops. The Classmate is designed to fail. Intel does not want to mass produce cheap laptops. Classmate has 5 times shorter battery life, double or triple the manufacturing price.

Given all these facts, I believe Nicholas Negroponte has been really polite not to tell more of the disgusting ways Intel’s salespeople in Nigeria, Mongolia, Peru, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Libya and so many other countries have been doing non other than telling blatant lies to trash the OLPC project and that Intel has given those sales people all means to attack the OLPC effort in any way possible. Threatening to remove existing investment projects such as the ones mentionned by Paul Otellini was most probably one of the dirty tactics used (just look at the facts, how much Intel say the plan to invest and have invested in Indian and Pakistani ICT, presents given to Nigerian ICT, personal level friendships and promise of free teacher training in Microsoft Excell spreadsheet software in cooperation with Mexicos presidents. Intel has been using all of its connections to undermine the OLPC project.

Taiwaneese cheap camcorder manufacturer Aiptek might actually become the first to provide a 1080p HD camcorder at consumer friendly prices of around $200-300. Today as far as I know, the cheapest 1080p camcorder costs tens of thousands of dollars at semi-profetionnal levels. Sony and Panasonic have always only provided interlaced HD camcorders so far.

So it seems to have no mic input, at least it’s not mentioned, too bad for that.

Hopefully they improved sound quality at least a minimum so one can stand listening to interviews and conversations recorded with it and not think this was filmed with a lame mobile phone type audio-recorder.

I’d like to know the bitrates. I guess 720p stays around 4mbit/s and 1080p becomes around 8mbit/s perhaps. That would be just very COOL. Much more usable bitrates considering the storage space used on SDHC cards and the possibillity of uploading the HD videos directly to the Internet. At least I think those bitrates are much more usable than Canon’s 17mbit/s for 1080p, Sony and Panasonic’s 15mbit/s for interlaced recordings or Sanyo’s 9mbit/s 720p content or 12mbit/s 1080 interlaced content.

Actually 1440×1080 progressive 30fps would be very awesome. I guess the pixels would be recorded in non-square fashion to provide 16/9 aspect ratio. Sony and Panasonic has been providing 1440×1080 resolution interlaced video for all of their HD camcorders for the past 2 years. It’s only just recently with the latest models that Sony and Panasonic started to do 1920×1080, but still they provide ONLY interlaced video recording so far. The first camcorder to provide 1080p recording at consumer friendly prices MIGHT actually be Aiptek as far as I know.

Canon just announced a nice looking 1920×1080 30fps progressive camcorder the Vixia HF10 but it won’t be out till March or April. Samsung seems to have announced a 1080p camcorder also the HXM20 but it seems not to be immediately available. Sony and Panasonic so far are NOT providing 1080p camcorders at consumer friendly prices as far as I know. Sony and Panasonic want to force semi-profetionnal users into buying their $5000 HD camcorders if they want to get 1080p recording. Which is the only format usable for editing, for computer screens, for HDTVs, for the Internet, for encoding to other formats and more. So thanks Aiptek for bringing $200 1080p camcorders, even though its not square 1920×1080 pixels.

I’m just hoping the sound quality has become more usable for interviews and that some of the rolling shutter has been fixed. If that’s the case, then the AHD300 will be mine, and then I think Aiptek has a shot at completely disrupting the whole HD camcorder market and taking all the big companies by surprise. Then I think Aiptek could become one of the number 1 most popular HD camcorders. Though if sound quality remains unusable and rolling shutter still makes the video look like it was taken using a cell phone, then people will still choose to pay more for Sanyo, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony and Panasonic.

The only coverage so far of these new Aiptek camcorders was posted at http://www.krunker.com/2008/01/13/aiptek-shows-off-new-hd-digital-camcorders-at-ces-2008/ and a discussion is going on about those new Aiptek HD camcorders at http://forums.steves-digicams.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=584700&forum_id=92