Netflix is here

Netflix launched in Ireland yesterday and I was quick in to sign up. Of course the fact that the first month is free and after that there is a month by month subscription of just €6.99 meant there really isn't much of a down side at the moment (at least not one I can see). I get to try the service for free, and if I don't like it I just unsubscribe before February 8th. Usually I'm one who believes if it sounds too good to be true then it is too good to be true but this one seems an exception. 

The TV at home was already reserved for some standard programming delivery but I did manage to grab a few minutes to check out the integration on my Apple TV which worked perfectly. Its a little hard to believe Apple allow Netflix to integrate so well on its device, however since Apple don't offer a TV service here and Netflix seems to offer older movies I guess the overlap in this market is not as bad as I would imagine it is in the US. With Netflix apparently in some difficulty in the US market perhaps it would be a candidate for a take over by Apple? 

The Netflix sign on process was tightly integrated with Facebook but if you log out of Facebook the option exists to sign up via email. I didn't realise this at the time but after signing up I went into Facebook and changed the Netflix apps access. Later I found an option in my Netflix account to disconnect from Facebook so I did that as well and the Facebook suggestions disappeared from my feed. People who I am friends with on Facebook may still see my ratings if they are also subscribed to Netflix as well but I dont add people on Facebook that I dont know and I've probably discussed movies or TV shows with most of them at some stage.

The one thing I was a little dissapointed with was the choice of shows. The volume is a little low. There are some there that we intend to watch and were about to purchase on DVD or iTunes Canada to catch up on earlier seasons (Breaking Bad and Dexter). Cracker was also on TV on Sunday night and Lauren had not seen it before. Those are there and should easily justify a Netflix subscription for a few months. There are also several movies we'd happily watch so we have no problem paying for the service until we've run out of those shows but then I don't know. The Co-founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, was on the radio early this morning and when asked about this problem he spoke about how great shows like Prison Break and Breaking Bad are but didn't give any indication on plans to add new ones.

I havent had the opportunity to actually spend a long time watching anything so I cant really give an opinion on the quality of the service. In theory it should work and I'm not a HD/audio nut so my sole criteria is that it streams without stutter. That is more a feature of my broadband connection, Apple iTunes does work, most of the time, only going down when my connection goes down so I would expect Netflix to do the same. IF it doesnt then I'll be unsubscribing.

Still I shouldn't complain, I've now got the opportunity to watch several shows I wanted to catch up on, for free or far cheaper than the DVD or iTunes price.

The Euro on an Odyssey?

There is a new €2 coin being released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Euro. Something about the common design struct me as familiar and then I realised, it's Discovery from 2001 a Space Odyssey

Doolin

I figure with a New Year I should try to catch up on some of the photos sitting on my computer for the last couple of months. To start here are a few photos from a trip to Clare and Doolin.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope Santa was nice to you all.

iTV

I like to keep an eye on the Apple rumour and gossip sites to see what new technology I will be lusting after in a few months. The current favourite product that doesn't exist yet but is being designed by rumour is an Apple iTV. Like all things Apple, if it's on a website and someone has a "reliable" source who says the new product "will have feature X,Y and Z" you can be reasonably certain that is is either all made up or a proof of concept device that wont actually make it to development so the security teams stopped watching it.

Apple have a track record of producing products that answer a problem in a way that no one expects and I hope that this will be the case an iTV. Personally I don't see Apple producing a range of large screen TVs. They would be entering a market that is saturated with good products already available at every size, price and quality range. How would an Apple screen be different from a Sony screen? The problem is not the physical TV itself but the content and how it is managed and controlled. We may be better looking at existing the Apple TV 2 for an idea of how any iTV could work.

First content will need to be addressed. The current Apple TV is useful for renting movies or streaming content from my MacBook or iPad but I cant get TV on it in Ireland. If Apple enter the TV market in a strong way they are going to have to improve the content that is available outside the States. Apple could sign a deal with the studios to provide world wide access to their shows and the back catalogues at a reasonable price for the viewer then they would be onto a winner. Next they are still going to have to make it possible for the local channels to get content onto the box. For example, I may not watch RTE much but I'll still want to watch the news and special shows like the Late Late Toy Show live and not on an RTE Player type service.

Second, how that content is managed will also need to be looked at. My broadband like many others is not the fastest so movies take a while to download, even for streaming. The user will need to have the ability to store some shows locally either downloaded or "recorded" in advance and can be viewed on demand. The Internet is great but Internet providers are not. You don't need to be able to store 100 hours of The West Wing for those days when you are bored but you do need to be able to press a button and watch tonight's episode of The Walking Dead when you get home late. Waiting for a download to complete or the stream to buffer is going to ruin the experience.

How its controlled is a more fun but potentially more annoying issue. Voice recognition with Siri is not going to work on its own, especially when you want to browse randomly through the channels. Try sitting in front of the TV tonight browsing channels and every time you press channel up say "Channel Up". You'll get pissed off very quickly, though not as quickly as the other people in the room with you.  The existing Apple Remote is quite nice and simple but it is difficult to type in anything. A combination of the two would work but the more interesting controller would be a Kinect type motion sensor. Waving your hand left or right in a page turning motion to spin through a coverflow of channels and shows. If you have an iOS device look at the coverflow of music and imagine if each cover was showing a live feed of a TV channel. Then there could be a press type motion to select the channel. If the volume is too loud just gesture down with your hand as if you were telling a friend to lower their voice. Other motions would need more work, off/mute/pause but perhaps that's where Siri would come in.

(Update: I wrote most of this post last night and then this afternoon I saw this patent application from Apple)

If Apple produced that devcice similar to the existing Apple TV 2 hockey puck, with a microphone, video/movement sensor and access to a huge online library of shows I'd buy it in a heart beat. That way Apple could deliver a new TV experience to a mass market without having to produce the TVs themselves.

Not so bad after all

All the speculation and spin in the run up to the budget was that we were about to be crucified and I fully expected lots of pain but instead Michael Noonan pulled a delaying tactic by getting just enough out of consumption taxes and other changes to avoid hitting income. 

It's probably a smart move for two reasons. People spend what they think they will have, a 2% increase in VAT will hurt but if people saw their pay packets 2% lighter in January that would have hurt more and many would have cut spending even more. Secondly we are not really in control of our financial future. This budget is a side show on the collapse or not of the Euro. The government could have made a series of unpopular decisions only to have the situation deteriorate or improve at the next EU summit.

To a degree they have kicked the can down the road hoping that by the time budget 2013 comes along things will be better but if they are not then they will be able to blame the EU for unpopular income tax increases.

The Metro Herald headline summed it up this morning "It could have been worse"

3 Day Budget

So the government has started well on it's 3 day budget. It's clear that the simplest way to tackle the issues faced by the nation is to divide up the budget into 3 separate parts and announce the cuts and pain that particular income groupd in the population will suffer. 

Day 1: The Poor - Cuts to health, social welfare, justice and education. 

Day 2: The Middle Income - Probable increases in VAT, excise, motor tax, carbon taxes and a new property tax on homes.

Day 3: The Higher Earners - This is the big one, a new higher income tax bracket. Cuts to senior civil servant and politicians pensions, taxes on bonuses... 

Oh, whats that you say? There is no time for 3 days? Well I suppose we'll just hit the poor and the middle this year and next year try to fit in something for the higher earners. In the mean time if you are a Fine Gael supporter Enda will be giving out jobs and pay increases round the back of Government Buildings after the budget speech, just dont tell anyone.

I have nothing against the idea cuts and tax increases, we need to do something to fix the economy. But it feels to me like the pain is not being shared equally. You only need to look at the cuts in yesterdays budget and compare it to the cuts in politicians pensions then look at the proposals for tax increases in todays budget and compare it to a PR consultants salary increase to see that there really is a two tier economy, the governed and the governing. If we do not spread the pain fairly and evenly then the resentment and bitterness that is built up will be the main legacy of this government.

Update: Wow, I got that completely wrong.

Enda to kill Christmas?

I was surprised yesterday when I read a story on Facebook explaining how Enda Kenny was about to address the nation to outline the dismal state of our economy and how much extra we will have to pay in this years budget. I wasnt surprised at the fact that he would address the nation but at the abismal timing of it: during the ad break before the Late Late Toy Show

For those who dont know, the Late Late Toy Show is a sweet part of most Irish peoples childhood Christmas. We all grew up watching it and most of us of all ages will still sit down on Friday night to watch it bring out our inner child again. Scheduling a depressing state of the nation before it would be a bit like announcing an outbreak of bird flu 5 minutes before Americans sit down to enjoy their turkey dinner at thanks giving or going on TV to announce an immediate ban on suggary food just before showing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. 

The Civil Servants around Kenny are apparently concerned ratings would not be high enough during the rest of the weekend. I suppose breaking into XFactor is not an option? Is Simon Cowel more powerful than Santa? Is the music industry more important than the toy industry? These are the same Civil Servants who got us into this mess and who still insist on being paid enormous salaries, fantastic pensions and automatic promotions to even better jobs. They live in a fantasy land but they seem determined to destroy everyone elses little dreams and fantasies. Let the nation have its Christmas, you have taken everything else from us.

I hope they see sense and reschedule it. Kenny will be a figure of derision and hatred if he announces tax increases and budget cuts just before people sit down to start their Christmas season.

Soccer is the new Rugby?

10 years? Has it really been 10 years since we last qualified for a major soccer tournament? It only seems like a couple of years ago since we were fighting the Roy v Mick civil war in Saipan. Then we had a long old spell in the wilderness but we're back now. Poland in 2012 will sure be something to look forward to, I wonder if Ryanair have jacked up the prices already :-)

Books

We went away to Co. Clare for the weekend and stayed in a hotel which falls into the "modern but trying to appear old" bracket. In one of the alcoves of the bar was a bookshelf stacked with old hardback books no one ever bothers to read. In the bottom corner of the bookshelf was a stack of even older looking, worn and tatty books. These looked far more interesting so I snapped a photo of them. I didnt try to read any of them because the pile looked a little too precarious to be messed with. For all I know they could have been made in China last year, treated to look old and sold in a Hotel Bits and Bobs market but I liked them.