Charbax is here

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    Consumer Electronics Shows that I video-blogged:
    CeBIT
    2007, 2006,
    2005, 2004    		 IFA
    2007,
    2006, 2005    		 CES
    2007    		 Other
    E3 2006
    WCIT 2006    		 Conferences
    Reboot 2007
    Lift 2007

    More facts about Intel vs OLPC

    January 16, 2008 – 6:32 pm

    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.

    By Charbax | Posted in OLPC | Comments (1)

    Aiptek unveals the Aiptek PocketDV AHD300 and AHD500 Pro at CES 2008

    January 15, 2008 – 12:57 am

    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

    By Charbax | Posted in Consumer Electronics | Comments (1)

    I just interviewed the Youtube founders

    January 9, 2008 – 2:32 am

    I just asked two questions to billionnaire Youtube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen through Robert Scoble’s Nokia N95 when he was taking in questions from the live audience broadcasting live video using http://qik.com.

    I asked them the questions “When are people going to be able to make money on Youtube” and “When is Youtube going to be in HD”.

    Watch more awesome live CES 2008 video coverage at http://www.mogulus.com/podtech_ces_live http://www.qik.com/scobleizer and some of the clips are stored at http://podtechceslive.blip.tv/

    By Charbax | Posted in Consumer Electronics, Video-On-Demand | Comments (1)

    Intel-powered XO is too expensive and consumes too much power

    January 4, 2008 – 3:15 am

    2 days before Intel CEO Paul Otellini would unveil the Classmate 2 or the Intel-powered XO at the CES, Intel announced that they are quitting the OLPC board.

    Intel claims that they are quitting because of Nicholas Negroponte wanting them to stop the promotion of the Classmate/Eee to education in third world countries, but I think that the real reason is that Intel does not have a good enough processor for the OLPC project to use as an alternative to the AMD Geode LX-700. Intel has not been able to develop a processor to match the price, power consumption and performance requirements of the OLPC project. Paul Otellini could have looked like a fool at the CES if he had to unveil an Intel powered XO that was performing worse in terms of price and power consumption compared to the AMD powered one.

    Intel executives probably have seen the OLPC project more as a threat than as an opportunity to their core business from day one. Intel probably wants to do whatever they can to stop the development of cheap laptop alternatives using cheaper fanless AMD processors and even ARM based processors in the future (XO-2, XO-3…), which is a direct threat to Intel’s market-dominating X86 standard.

    I think that Intel did not achieve or want to achieve any of these technological and pricing advancements in an Intel-powered XO and thus in fear of being ridiculed at CES with a more expensive Intel-powered XO with shorter battery life, Intel, as a last resort, decided to quit OLPC and blame it on Nicholas Negroponte.

    Intel might think it is a superior technology provider and that it can simply continue to market its Intel powered education laptop against the OLPC project. Intel probably feels too unconfortable with the prospect of supporting the development of cheap low powered laptops by being a member of the OLPC board. I think that Intel sees those cheap XO laptops as potentially becoming huge devastating disruptors to the established expensive laptop business in the developped nations. A commercial XO could replace all laptops in the business productivity, educational, personal and entertainment sectors of the PC and laptop business, which is the reason Mary-Lou Jepsen, OLPC’s previous CTO, is working on her new business to commercialise XO technology in the coming weeks and months.

    When will we hear of the first commercial cheap laptop projects using many or most of the OLPC XO open-source technologies? Quanta’s ex-CEO talked about Quanta producing a commercial version of the XO many months ago. I think that any company with an interest in indroducing low margin, large volume, low cost, low power laptops, could most probably come in, approach Mary-Lou Jepsen and the OLPC for access to using the open-source hardware and software of the project for commercial projects. And this could lead any of WalMart, Dell, Medion-Aldi, Google, AMD, Amazon and IBM to introduce commercial $200 laptops in the near future, all running optimized and free versions of Linux.

    Would the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation not be criticised for working against the work of the Red Cross to bringing vaccinations and food to starving and sick populations? Why would anyone want to compete with a non-profit open-source project like OLPC? I have been asking those questions to Intel ever since I filmed an Intel representative at the WCIT in May of 2006 when they first introduced the Classmate PC.

    If anyone has a better technology to decrease the price, improve the battery life, improve the e-book screen readabillity, improve the flash/divx video playback performance or improve the connectivity with WiMax, cellular, satellite or other technologies, then logically that entity currently simply can contribute that new technology into the open-source development for the XO-2 by simply contacting OLPC, posting on their Wiki, making press announcements and talking about their newer, better technologies to bloggers and to the media. I think that Intel doesn’t want to share it’s R&D, distribution network, design ideas and proprietary technologies with a non-profit like OLPC. I think that Intel hates the open-source hardware/software/distribution revolution.

    By Charbax | Posted in OLPC | Comments (8)

    TV stations are toast

    December 25, 2007 – 6:28 am

    I think that TV stations are going to be replaced by Internet TV next year, cause there will be $100 VOD set-top-boxes available to bring On-Demand Internet video to the HDTV. People also spend a lot of time in public transportation, there you can use a 4″ screen to watch your personalised Internet video content.

    Soon enough, I don’t think that content providers will need to spend the time to create a brand, and I think RSS will be replaced by somekind of personal recommendations engine. The point is, you may “subscribe” to your favorite content providers on the Internet, but I think that even more important will be the possibillity of a generator to provide you with a personalised feed based on Ratings that you do compared to all the ratings from the community.

    Today starring items on Google Reader I think is kind of useless, and I think Google Reader should have something better than only bringing friends feeds in. It should bring in feeds from all other Google Reader users based on the starring of content.

    Then imagine you will be able to sit back at your 60″ HDTV and click a big green button on the remote control, which will launch a customized tv programme that the system knows you will enjoy, or you may just choose one of the “moods” of the content, such as if you are in the mood to watch something to do with Tech you can click the green button in that mode, or if you want something about politics in a certain region you can also get to view that, personalised for you.

    I don’t think that people want to watch ads on the Internet, I think many people will prefer to pay 0.01$ or whatever to cover bandwidth costs and to pay the content provider. I’d rather pay Google $2 a year to not have them show me ads on search and in my gmail account, who would prefer to have to watch all those ads?

    I posted this at http://scobleizer.com/2007/12/24/the-future-of-tv-at-leweb3/#comment-1786294

    By Charbax | Posted in Video-On-Demand | Comments (0)

    Studios know that they are going to be toast on the Internet

    December 19, 2007 – 7:27 am

    I think that the big studios in all categories of media know that their days of controlling media are counted. With such disruptive platforms as Youtube, BitTorrent, DivX, $200 HD camcorders, Miro, Video-blogging, it’s just a matter of time before the cool writers and composers get directly together with the cool performers and producers and decide to release the shows directly to the viewers without any need of big media moguls interfeering and taking the largest part of the revenue and destroying a lot of the creativity in the process.

    $100 video-on-demand set-top-boxes, cheap, open and unrestricted portable media players (700mhz, WiFi, WiMax and HSDPA) and other open on-demand Internet access hardware will make it completely user-friendly for everyone to get those independant shows delivered instantly over the Internet from the show creators themselves.

    In France once the parliamentarians suggested to pay the artists through taxes, such a thing as a $5 tax on average per citizen was suggested, which could fund much more than what all artists combined are paid today. Thus providing a system for many more talents to express themselves and create even higher quality content with complete creative freedom.

    The quality and popularity of the shows being measured very precisely through the Internet connected on-demand system and through social networking tools and some popularity and quality measurement tools provided by the state which also neutrally redistributes the culture tax money directly to all the artists who deserve it.

    Anyways, it’s not I guess useful to think about this right now, cause all those shows have to stay on media giant tv channel networks for now, but I would guess everyone should prepare themselves for this probable media revolution coming up. Especially a new administration such as when Al Gore “invented the Internet”, probably could set the reform agenda on the table which would take away the control on the media from the established studios (that is, unless all the candidates are corrupt or media conservatives).

    Image source: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne

    I posted this at the Writers Guild of America forum: http://www.fans4writers.com/forum/index.php?topic=810.msg9036#msg9036

    By Charbax | Posted in Consumer Electronics, Politics, Video-On-Demand | Comments (0)

    Sarkozy wants to ban people from using the Internet

    November 25, 2007 – 4:27 am

    Bush-friendly extreme right french president Sarkozy wants to disconnect people from the Internet, put people on a national database and not allow them to sign up for another ISP, then fine users up to 3 million euros and put them in jail even. This is so ridiculously funny ridiculous, putting the kids and other young people in jail, fine them, ban them from using the Internet just because they are not accepting to pay intermediaries like Fnac for a service that is absolutely useless to both artists and consumers.

    What is funny is that the guy who wrote this law is the CEO of Fnac, which is the biggest retail store chain in France for CDs and DVDs. Such distributor is totally useless in this digital age, where artists should be able to sell their music directly to the consumers with no intermediaries in between taking the biggest part of the transaction.

    What will happen is that the french will Boycott participating CD and DVD retailers such as Fnac, boycott the major music and movie studios for wanting to keep control on the cultural industries at all cost. The french people will pirate more if such a law is enacted, cause secured encrypted p2p networks will florish, to keep the music and film majors from sniffing users IP addresses which ISPs are obligated to provide in this law (even the progressive Free Iliad was forced by the Culture minister to comply with this law in exchange of getting the last 3G telecommunications licence). Sniffing users IP addresses is something that the music and movie studios can do with open eMule and BitTorrent p2p networks. But the french will just be able to add a layer of encryption and proxies to the eMule and BitTorrent p2p networks, and thus they will have an unstoppable, untrackable p2p network.

    The established music, movie and distribution majors are just interested to keep their control on the cultural industry income for as long as they can. They are probably hoping that they can stay in control of those billions of euros for another few years. The cultural development is loosing out during this unreasonable process and so are artists and the people.

    I contributed to Ségolène Royal’s campaign by video-blogging at http://sego.tv and having done what I could so that she had DivX DVD quality video streaming, Miro BitTorrent RSS integration on her official campaign website at http://videos.desirsdavenir.org (my videos are under “Votez Danois!”):

    By Charbax | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

    Intel has done everything to slow down AMD powered OLPC mass production

    November 24, 2007 – 1:49 pm

    Intel’s agreement with the OLPC Foundation included a “non disparagement” clause, under which Intel and One Laptop promised not to criticize each other, according to Nicholas Negroponte in the latest article in the Wall Street Journal.

    Still Intel tactics has violated that repeatedly to kill OLPC efforts in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, India, China and Intel is also still trying to pull those tactics in Mexico, Brazil.

    This is simply disgracefull of Intel, scandalous. But Negroponte has signed an agreement saying that he is not allowed to criticize Intel, so he is not allowed to talk about these shameless tactics even though Intel is the one violating the agreement. So only independant voices on the Internet can get those messages of truth out about Intels tactics.

    In Nigeria, Intel came and donated 3000 laptops to counter OLPC efforts, then sells 17 thousand Classmates to Nigeria at a loss. Then Microsoft corrupted Nigerian officials with 400 thousand dollars to install Windows XP on those instead of Mandriva Linux.

    Anyways, the next step will be that Intel is investing hundreds of millions to develop the Diamondville x86 processor that is the Intel version of a fanless, low cost, low power processor, and alternative to the AMD Geode.

    So the next step is there will have to be an Intel powered XO laptop ready for mass production. Otherwise it simply seems Intel will not allow OLPC to start the mass production. So possibly some deal will be done between OLPC, Intel and AMD, so that 50% be built with AMD processors and 50% with Intel processors. Hopefully Intel executives will let it mass produce and mass distribute with that sort of agreement.

    Thankfully CMO, Quanta, AMD and all other involved have accepted to delay the up ramping of mass production, they are complying to Intel’s shameless behavior of delaying the OLPC project, since only 300 thousand AMD powered OLPC XO laptops are being produced in the first few months in Quanta’s factories. But at any time in the beginning of next year, mass production could reach a volume of over a million laptops per month.

    The question is will Intel allow OLPC to start ramping up mass production to its maximum production capacity of exclusively the AMD powered version even though the Intel Diamondville integration might not be completely ready before the middle to second half of next year? Will Intel agree to stop selling its inferior and more expensive ULV powered Classmate PC? Will Intel tell Asus to stop marketing the current ULV powered version of the Asus Eee as an OLPC competitor?

    By Charbax | Posted in Consumer Electronics, OLPC | Comments (2)

    OLPC sells 100 thousand OLPC XO laptops in 10 days through the Give 1 Get 1 program

    November 22, 2007 – 5:30 pm

    With an average revenue of $2 million per day for the Give 1 Get 1 program, that is 100 thousand XO-1 laptops sold in 10 days. Half of these are going to developing nations.

    The OLPC Foundation is extending the Give 1 Get 1 program until the 31st of December.

    Source is: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071122005019&newsLang=en

    By Charbax | Posted in OLPC | Comments (0)

    Scoble video of the Kindle

    November 21, 2007 – 5:04 am

    Awesome video, done with his cell phone (I guess the Nokia N95) while walking around his home in the Silicon Valley:

    Posted at Scobleizer.com

    By Charbax | Posted in Consumer Electronics | Comments (0)