Someone Predicted this Credit Mess Five Years Ago

Normally, I think of The Motley Fool as one of the most worthless financial sites around, spouting off attention-grabbing, sensationalist headlines just to pull readers into their abyss of mediocre financial articles. Here is a sampling of some typical headlines that have popped up over the past few weeks:

You get the picture.

However, today, a Motley columnist pointed to what may be the most prescient piece of content ever to appear on the site. Fittingly, it came from a reader on a discussion board and not an actual Motley Fool employee.

Here is the discussion board post. It’s quite amazing. It’s essentially a dead-on calling of the collapse of the bond insurance industry almost exactly five years before it happened. (For those who aren’t following, the bond insurance industry — specifically MBIA and a few other companies — has crumbled over the last few months and is threatening to take other pillars of the economy down with it… mostly because of bad subprime debt).

To have called almost this exact scenario five years before it happened is pretty amazing. I’m sure this person wasn’t the only one waving a warning flag, but it’s an incredibly interesting read.

In looking at the S&P chart below over the last five years, however, it’s clear that as bad as this development is, and as accurate as the prediction was, pulling out of the U.S. economy — at least so far — would have been a bad idea. “So far” being the operative qualifier there. :|

UPDATE: On a related note, this animated primer of the subprime mess is hilarious.

Slam Dunk Startups

I often hear people say things like “if only I thought of YouTube a year before YouTube did, I’d be rich”, implying that given first-mover advantage, that person could create a company as great as YouTube. A statement like this completely disregards just how difficult YouTube was to build, from having the balls to allow brazen copyright violation, to building a great user experience, to scaling out the ability to serve millions of video streams a day. In other words, 99 out of 100 people who may have had the same idea at the same time would have failed to create anything remotely as successful as YouTube.

Other startups fall into the same class. Companies like Google and Amazon owe most of their success to great engineering, great execution, and great scaling.

But which are the startups of the last ten years which really do owe most of their success to someone simply having a smart idea first and acting on it quickly? Perhaps an easier way to ask this question is “if you could have one business idea from the last ten years as your own, which idea could you most assuredly turn into a success?”

In trying to think of good examples, the best one that came to mind for me was HotOrNot.com. Super simple idea. Developed by two people. Very low expenses. Millions of dollars in revenue per year.

Any better examples out there? What are the most slam dunk ideas of the last ten years?

Completing the Cycle of News

I gave a talk today at an all-company meeting over at MSNBC on the subject of “news ecosystems” — the main point being that in order to produce the best news experiences in the world, you need to think of your audience as much more than just a passive sponge for your content. Passive news consumers can turn into active news participants if you give them the right environment.

This month, we launched a feature on Newsvine called “The NBC Nightly News Discussion Club” (available at nightly.newsvine.com). In concert with MSNBC’s new video player, the Discussion Club is the first and only example of a network news agency making every single segment of their 6pm national news broadcast available for instant viewing and discussion online. So if you’re watching the news and you see a segment you want to talk about with other people, you’re no longer limited to whoever else happens to be on the couch. There’s now a universe of people to discuss it with online.

It would be interesting enough if that was the end of it. However, we’ve also included the ability for users to submit questions to Brian Williams and have them answered in video form, right on the site. The first example is below:

So what we have so far is:

News agency broadcasts the news -> audience discusses the content -> audience shoots back questions to the anchor -> anchor answers (select) questions right on the site

Maybe I’m biased because this is partly my baby, but I just think that is super cool, and super significant.

I also think it’s great that Brian — probably the most recognized face in U.S. National news — answers all questions off the cuff, with no teleprompter, and with a level of frankness you don’t often see on national news broadcasts. In responding to one of the questions, he even mentions his political affiliation (independent), which is rare for news personalities to do.

There’s Not Enough In The Air

A lot has been made about how MacWorld 2008 was a disappointment. Uninformed reporters and analysts who look only to wall street as an indicator of the show’s success were quick to point out the decline in Apple stock following the show, but let’s not be stupid here. Not only is the old axiom “buy on the rumor, sell on the news” almost always true, but of the approximately 30 tech stocks I personally follow, almost all of them are down sharply in January, especially on the day of the MacWorld announcements. Google is down almost 18% in January on general market sentiment alone. Furthermore, anybody who uses 2007’s MacWorld as a measuring stick for what Apple should announce every year is a fool. The iPhone is in many ways, a once-in-a-lifetime product announcement, not to be expected again for a long, long time. The only other announcement Apple has ever made of such instant magnitude was the original Macintosh in 1984 (the original announcement of the iPod was actually met with widespread apathy).

That said, I think the show this year was a success (and mostly in line with my predictions), with the surprising exception of the one product I was most excited about: The MacBook Air.

I’ve waited for a new Apple subnotebook since ditching my beloved Duo in 1997. That’s ten long years, having mostly leaned on the 12 inch Powerbook until it was snatched out of the lineup a couple of years ago without any notice. In order to move into the Intel Mac world, I was essentially forced into a 13 inch MacBook, which I have to say, I don’t particularly care for. It’s a fine machine, for the most part, but it’s bulkier than my 12 inch Powerbook was, and more importantly, it gets greasier than a KFC dinner bucket when you touch it. The “SmudgeBook” as people call it, annoys me more than I thought it would. So much so that I have to give it a rubbing alcohol sponge bath almost every week.

So by all measures, I am the absolutely ideal customer for an Apple subnotebook. If they can’t sell one to me, they have a problem.

And unfortunately, I’m not buying one.

Even more unfortunately, it’s only one and a half specs that completely kill the proposition for me: the 80 gig hard drive (huge deal) and the 2 gigs of RAM (somewhat huge deal). I don’t care about the slower processor, the lack of swappable battery, the minimal connectivity options, or the absence of removable media. These are all things you give up for the incredibly sexy shell. But can anyone comfortably get by on 80 gigs these days? My MacBook holds 230 gigs. And what about the 64 gig “high end” MacBook Air for a thousand bucks more!??! Who the hell is going to buy that model? I bet the lower end model outsells the higher end one at least 10-1.

Steve Jobs said on stage that they know micro hard drives very well, due to all of the iPods they sell, so why couldn’t they have thrown a 160 gig drive in there? It’s already in the high-end iPod Classic. Maybe it’s a heat issue, I don’t know. But what I do know is that at least in my case, it’s the difference between a sale and a non-sale. Between reading The MacBook Air Austerity Program and thinking about moving media storage completely over to something like TimeCapsule, it’s just more hard drive management than I’m willing to take on. And you know it’s going to be a monthly worry.

Memory is the second spec that I think Apple flubbed. If you’re going to offer a slower processor, you need to at least make up for that with ample RAM and ample hard drive space. Free memory and HD space can often mean a lot more to performance than processor speed. I mention the RAM thing as a “half spec” that I don’t like, because if the hard drive issue was addressed, I’d overlook the RAM shortcomings and buy a machine.

So in the end, we have a product line that a lot of people are really clamoring for, but a single spec that is going to turn a good portion of that consumer base away. To make matters worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), we *know* that the MacBook Air will sport at least a 160 gig hard drive probably before the year is over, so there is essentially a zero percent chance people like me will suck it up and buy one now.

The pessimists will say Apple has produced another Cube… a smaller, less functional machine that nobody has much of a reason to go out and buy. The optimists, on the other hand, see the footprint for what will one day be one of the most popular computers around… just as soon as its brains catch up with its body.

Me, I’m an optimist, but it’s going to be a tough several months waiting for revision two.

A Rookie Guide to Digital SLR Cameras

There comes a time in every point-and-shooter’s life when he or she wonders if there is more to photography than a palm-sized block of aluminum stowed away in one’s pocket. The ultracompact point-and-shoot has come so far in the last ten years that it’s tempting to write off DSLRs as largely irrelevant to most people’s lives, not offering enough utility to offset their bulky presence and hefty price tag. As soon as I bought my first truly great ultracompact a few years ago, the Casio EX-Z750, I was in this boat. 7.2 megapixels in your pocket… what more could one possibly need? After eventually moving up to the excellent 7x zoom Casio EX-V8, I told myself I would never need a DSLR.

But then I tried one for the first one, on loan from the fine folks at Nikon. A Nikon D80. Seemingly the “it” camera for the last couple of years. This article will not so much be a review of the D80, but rather a guide for DSLR virgins considering purchasing their first full sized digital camera.

First and foremost, will you use it?

We all love toys. We all love expensive toys. But nobody loves an expensive toy they never use. If you think you’re going to buy a DSLR and carry it around everywhere with you, you’re probably wrong. It’s heavy around your neck, it’s easily lost or stolen if you put it down in a public place, and it will never blend into the fabric of your life like a pocket camera will. In other words, be prepared to take it with you when you know you will be using it (e.g. sightseeing, stormwatching, portrait-taking, etc), but at all other times, it will probably stay at home. For this reason, even after you buy a DSLR, it’s probably good to keep your ultracompact point-and-shoot as your standard carry-along camera. Even on vacations, there will be plenty of times when the smaller camera is the only one on you at any given time. Again, I recommend the Casio EX-V8 as a fantastic ultracompact choice here. For the last few years, Casio has made the best all-around point-and-shoots, in my opinion.

Sunset at the top of Mauna Kea, 13,796 feet above sea-level. The highest peak above the ocean floor in the world. Definitely DSLR territory.

Nikon vs. Canon vs. everyone else

Most serious photographers will tell you there are only two real choices in the DSLR market: Nikon and Canon. Although companies like Olympus and Sony also make DSLRs, Nikon and Canon have such strong legacies in SLR photography that they’ve earned an unshakable amount of trust among professional photographers. Being an amateur, I am not one to question the conventional wisdom of professionals, so as far as I’m concerned, either Nikon or Canon should be your choice (for now, at least). The Nikon/Canon religious wars are less like the Mac/PC wars and more like BMW/Mercedes wars. With Macs and PCs, your Mac people think that PCs are horrendous piles of garbage and your PC people think Macs are overpriced, niche devices. BMW and Mercedes, on the other hand, really only differ in style… much like Nikons and Canons. They are equally priced, equally equipped, and even take cues off each other in the feature department.

For a good overview of the differences between Canons and Nikons, check out this article. My favorite quote:

“Canons are the best cameras available designed by engineers, and Nikons are the best cameras one can buy designed by photographers.”

That probably explains why I like this Nikon so much.

It’s the lens, stupid

Bodies come and go, but lenses are forever. So goes the saying. It may surprise you to know that some photographers are using the exact same lenses they were using 40 years ago. Even a brand new $5000 Nikon D3 can use a lens from the 1960s, if the photographer so chooses. These days, camera bodies and image sensors are evolving a lot faster than lenses, so to a large extent, it makes sense to invest more heavily in your lens(es) than in your cameras. Any photographer will tell you that they’d rather shoot with a cheap body and a great lens than the opposite.

There are essentially three things to consider when looking at lenses: speed, versatility, and stabilization.

Speed

Speed refers to how much light a lens lets in. If you’re like me, you hate flash photography and what it does to faces and objects, so you prefer to use natural light at all times. The only lenses that will let you achieve this are very fast lenses, usually with f-stops of 1.8 or lower. You can take a lens like this to a party at night and shoot beautiful naturally-lit shots even in the dimmest of corners (where you will probably be hanging out, since no one wants to stand with the dork carrying an SLR).

As a beginning photographer, your best option here is something John Gruber and Jim Ray (and millions of others) call “the best deal in photography”: the 1.8f 50mm prime lens. It’s small, light, fast, and just a little over $100. It is probably the only lens you will ever use after the sun goes down, and it also has an incredible narrow depth of field which is great keeping subjects in focus and backgrounds soft.

Tintin’s dog Snowy. This figurine is only a couple of inches long, and while his face is in focus, even his front paws are not. Narrow depth of field is a huge selling point of the 50mm prime lens.

Versatility

Although the 50mm prime has great light versatility, its fixed focal length won’t let you do any zooming, and thus, you may find yourself too far away at times to capture your ideal shot. Stalkers are well aware of this conundrum. In order to adequately frame subjects which are far away, you’ll need to pick yourself up a quality zoom lens. Even among zoom lenses, there is a wide range of versatility. There are 12-24mm (very wide angle), 70-300mm (very magnified), everything in-between, and even some further down and further out.

The first aftermarket lens I bought for my D80 was a Sigma 70-300mm, thinking it would come in handy for general use. More zooming would equal less walking and greater detail, or so I thought. In reality, it was a lens I found very little use for. Its inability to take “normal” wide angle shots, combined with the fact that at 300mm it takes a tripod to keep it from shaking, made it almost useless to me. I ended up trading it straight across for a Nikon 1.4f 50mm prime lens on Craigslist, which is much more useful to me (see above section on “speed”).

The most versatile lens in the world — and the one I eventually purchased — appears to be the Nikon 18-200mm VR lens. I bought this lens on recommendation from the great Ken Rockwell, and I couldn’t be happier with it. It does wide-angle shots at 18mm. It does telephoto shots at 200mm. Its focal length essentially covers you in 99% of the situations you’ll ever find yourself in. And it has VR, which I’ll discuss in the next subsection.

A lot of people have called the Nikon 18-200mm VR the most useful lens ever designed, and it’s not hard to see why. While professional photographers are used to carrying around a bag full of lenses, prosumers and weekenders would rather never have to change a lens. With the 18-200mm VR, you just pop the thing on and then forget about it. It’s a bit steep at $700, but worth it, in my opinion.

This picture was also taken atop Mauna Kea but under only the light of the moon. This is a 30 second exposure at ISO 1600.

Image stabilization

Both Nikon and Canon have image stabilization built into some of their best lenses now. I haven’t tested Canon’s out but it’s widely believed to be on par with Nikon’s VR (vibration reduction) technology. In a nutshell, VR is exactly what you probably think it is: a mechanism inside the lens detects camera shake and moves lens parts around in order to neutralize it. Does it work? It absolutely does. Is it noticeable? It absolutely is. I took some test shots around dusk, in low light, both with VR on and off and the difference is dramatic. The shots with VR off are blurry and unusable. Everybody’s hands have a different amount of shake to them, but most people report the ability to shoot about 4 stops faster when using VR. That is to say, if you can normally shoot handheld at 1/100, you should now be able to shoot at 1/15 (in much darker conditions).

As of today, Canon doesn’t appear to have an answer to the 18-200mm VR lens, but perhaps the closest thing they have is the Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM, but it’s about $2300. It goes up to 300mm which is nice, but the Nikon goes down to 18mm, which is more useful in my mind.

This photo was taken at 1/8 exposure and *no* VR. Blurry.

This photo was taken at 1/8 exposure *with* VR. Sharp!

Storage

The D80 uses an SD slot for storage, which I like, but some people prefer Compact Flash instead. Other models offer the use of either storage technology, sometimes in tandem. Pick whichever format suits you best, but with the cost of both Compact Flash and SD cards halving every several months, this may not be a huge factor in your purchasing decision. As of today, an 8 gig SD card can be had for $33.99 while an 8 gig CF card is about $39 so price per gig is roughly equivalent.

The megapixel myth

Image data is only as good as the source that captured it. In a DSLR camera, that includes both the lens and the image sensor. We’ve already covered the importance of the lens, but what about the sensor? Is a 6 megapixel sensor going to produce better photos than a 10 megapixel sensor? Currently, in most cases the answer is no. For most consumer/prosumer level DSLRs, the compact size of the sensor is such that megapixel levels above 6 do not increase the quality of the resulting image whatsoever. Edit (thanks Patrick): The answer is, “not always”. The size and sensitivity of the sensor is more important than the raw number of megapixels it produces so beware of judging cameras, even DSLRs, on their megapixel counts.

If you’re really interested in fully maximizing resolution and clarity, your only real choices are the new Nikon or Canon “full-frame” DSLRs. These cameras are all between $2000 and $8000 for the body only and have sensors which are much larger than any prosumer/consumer cameras. If you’re in the market for one, you’re probably way overqualified for this article.

High-resolution fire.

Interface and usability

Both Nikon and Canon have spent years refining their user interfaces, and users of each tend to prefer their own brand. My experience with Nikon was that I spent about 45 minutes reading the manual front-to-back (a rarity for me), then spent a couple of hours pushing buttons and turning dials, and I quickly felt pretty comfortable with the D80. Moving from the one-dial-one-button world of a Casio ultracompact to a 100-control DSLR still takes some adjusting, but as with most Apple products, the dials and buttons on the D80 seem to be designed very thoughtfully and generally serve their purpose while staying out of your way.

Filters

Most the time, the only filter you’ll ever need is a circular polarizer. Polarizers bend light as they enter the lens to either reduce or enhance reflections in the scene. They are particularly useful for reducing reflections off of water, snow, and buildings, and for creating more dramatic looking skies. Polarizers range from about 10 bucks to several hundred bucks, but most of the reading I’ve done suggests that a $40 polarizer is imperceptibly equivalent to the much more expensive ones. I use a Hoya that I bought for about $40 at Tall’s Camera.

What’s missing

In my mind, there are only three things missing from most cameras today, all of which I think will become standard equipment within a couple of years: GPS, wifi, and native HDR handling. GPS seems like a no-brainer and frankly I’m surprised it’s not more widespread already, considering how small GPS chips have gotten and the fact that a lot of phones have this capability already. Once all of my photos are automatically geotagged, it will become more interesting to collect and view them, and thus, I will take more of them. Wifi support is important to me because I’m often too lazy to transfer my photos to my hard drive or upload them online. Thankfully, a few months ago, the EyeFi was released, so that’s probably good enough, but it would be even nicer if it was built into the camera itself. HDR, or “high dynamic range” photography, is a method of photography whereby multiple shots at different exposures are composited together to produce dramatic, often surreal imagery. Some examples are here, in the Flickr HDR pool. It seems to me that a camera should theoretically be able to open the shutter once and take multiple shots from that, each during different points in the exposure, thus producing the layers necessary for the compositing.

Final analysis

So before you go out and buy a DSLR, here are some recommendations:

  1. Make sure you want one and have reasonable expectations for its usage
  2. Keep your ultracompact for everyday use, or buy a new Casio EX-V8
  3. When looking at DSLRs, trust what the pros use: Nikons and Canons
  4. Invest more in lenses than in bodies, disregarding any “resolution advantages” that aren’t also accompanied by larger sensors
  5. Purchase both a zoom lens for versatility and a fast prime lens for low light and narrow depth of field

If I was starting from scratch, here’s what I’d buy (List updated, from reader input):

  • Nikon D80/D40x camera: $760/$545 (Go with the D40x if you’re price conscious, but know that it will not autofocus with some older lenses or even some inexpensive ones like the must-have 50mm 1.8f prime below)
  • Nikon 50mm 1.8f lens: $105
  • Nikon 18-200mm VR lens: $700
  • Hoya Circular Polarizer: $30
  • Total cost: About $1595 (D80) or $1380 (D40x)

If you’re just getting started with DSLRs, hopefully you’ve found this useful.

UPDATE: It’s now a few years later, and I’ve written an updated guide to Micro 4/3rds cameras — which I believe to be a better alternative to most DSLRS.

Roger Clemens: Bad Liar or Just Bad Truth Teller?

Either Roger Clemens is lying about his alleged steroid abuse, or he’s just a really bad truth teller.

One of my favorite blog posts to write was one I published about Jose Canseco’s 60 Minutes interview two years ago, asking readers to try and analyze his microexpressions as he told Mike Wallace how many players in Major League Baseball used steroids. The claim — at the time — was largely dismissed by the public, and I’ll admit to not believing a word Canseco said, based on his mannerisms alone. It seemed like an easy call. It turned out not to be.

Thinking back on that Canseco interview makes watching this whole Roger Clemens drama all the more mystifying to try and figure out. Whether it’s Clemens’ own 60 Minutes interview two nights ago or this incredible press conference video below, it’s just so hard to tell how much of anything is the truth:

One the one hand, he shows telltale signs of lying:

  1. His mouth wells up with saliva frequently and he swigs water to mask this fact.
  2. He nods his head “yes” while saying “no”.
  3. He doesn’t seem natural, completely forthcoming, or at-ease when answering questions.
  4. He surreptitiously taped a phone call (legal in Texas and New York apparently) to manipulate public opinion.

But on the other hand:

  1. If he *really* ends up voluntarily testifying in front of Congress and/or a jury at this point, he’d have to be a complete fool to lie about it… which suggests he’s not lying at all (provided he actually goes through with it). But then again, many people think Barry Bonds lied to his grand jury.
  2. As was proven with Canseco, just because your mannerisms make you “appear” untruthful, it doesn’t mean you are.
  3. Roger Clemens has no prior offenses before this and it’s essentially only one person who is pointing the finger at him… a guilty person in his own right at that.

It should be fascinating, albeit somewhat pathetic and depressing, to see how this whole thing pans out. Above anything else, I suppose, it’s nice to hear the guy getting out there and talking instead of hiding behind lawyers. That alone suggests we owe him the benefit of some more investigation before thinking our opinions are even halfway correct or mildly educated, for that matter.

UPDATE: Kottke points to a New York Times article that has now been published which asks the same sorts of body language questions. Interesting that body language experts are apparently only right about “half of the time”… which would imply the profession is essentially useless!

MacWorld 2008 Predictions

The only thing more exciting than actually using a new Apple product for the first time is hearing about it for the first time from Steve Jobs. And only slightly less exciting than either of those things is reading everyone’s pre-show predictions about what will be announced.

There are no reliable soothsayers in the world of Apple prognostication and anyone with any guts will get things either completely wrong or partially wrong a lot of the time, but I hold that my record is as decent as anyone’s, often times getting bold, unpopular, against-the-grain predictions mostly right but being a little early on timing. So here’s my crop for this year:

The MacBook Nano

I’m not sure about the name here, but it would work given that the Nano is Apple’s best selling model of iPod and the company might want to test that branding out on another machine. The MacBook Nano is not a tablet, as many have been reporting, but merely the thinnest, sleekest subnotebook ever produced. Think the thickness of your MacBook’s folding screen times two… or about 30% thinner than current MacBooks. The machine will have a full keyboard and no removable drive, as is custom for subnotebooks, and will definitely not be a pure “tablet” in form factor. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if the hinge on the screen allowed it to flip 180 degrees to create tablet-like mode, if you ever wanted it. This could be potentially quite functional if it used multi-touch but might also be useful while watching a movie or giving a presentation.

There have been whispers that this machine will tap Flash memory for some nice tricks like faster bootup times. If this is the case, I expect all other Apple notebooks to receive the same treatment in fairly short order (though maybe not at the Expo). One thing I’d also like to see on this machine is a Flash memory slot so that users can plus their SD cards directly into the device and transfer media. Given that 1 GB SD cards are down below ten dollars now, that could lessen the blow of not having an optical drive.

This machine will unfortunately cause me to put my barely two month old MacBook on eBay as it is the machine I’ve wanted ever since Apple stopped making their last subnotebook, the Duo Dock.

.Mac Finally Gets Great

I thought the release of the iPhone and Leopard would coincide with a massive revamp of Apple’s .Mac service, but it never did. I was three years early in calling the iPhone, but I don’t think I’m that early on this one. Come January, .Mac will become the missing link that let’s you sync your entire life, over-the-air. If you’re shocked that the iPhone can’t do something as simple sync with your iCal/Contacts/.Mac over-the-air right now but can do so in just a few seconds using a standard USB cable, you’re not alone. If you think Steve Jobs hates having his phone out of sync when he’s on the road, you’re also not alone. These features are coming, and while you can argue they should have been there from the start, you can also argue that they belong as part of a subscription package like .Mac. In order for Apple to increase their .Mac subscriptions 5-10x, they need to be part of a well orchestrated “Life Sync” campaign, and sold separately from the iPhone itself.

I believe Apple’s plan involves two concurrent strategies for getting into the life-syncing bloodstream: a) play nice with Exchange (current support via IMAP barely qualifies), and b) play nice with open technologies like IMAP and iCalendar/WebCal (already in-progress). Most big companies these days run their corporate mail on Exchange. Know what Apple runs internally, at least as of very recently? Netscape’s old mail server. I’m serious. Running that mail server for so long taught them how inferior it is to Exchange, but also taught them that by using the right combination of open technologies like IMAP, iCalendar, and WebDAV and then creating the right glue to tie it all together for the end user, they could produce an enterprise-quality experience rivaling Exchange and even beating it in many areas. Via this new and revamped .Mac service, you’ll be able to play nicely with most of the major platforms out there: Exchange, IMAP (and by extension Gmail and Yahoo Mail), WebCal, POP, and who knows what else. In 2008, .Mac will finally become the big revenue driver Apple expected it to be years ago.

One really nice side effect of the iPhone on the rest of Apple’s business is that it has shown them, in no uncertain terms, how important it is to play nice with Exchange. In order to play nice with Exchange, the integration must run deeper than phone-level; penetrating Apple Mail, iCal, and syncing services. I can’t say how yet, but I am currently running my life in an Exchange/Apple Mail/iCal/.Mac synced fashion. The way I’m doing it is really hacky and doesn’t involve any new software from Apple or anything, but it’s shown me that it’s already possible.

The Netflix Killer

I predicted last January that Apple TV would be released but that its killer feature would be download-to-rent movies. The box launched, but with no such killer feature, and has thus far tanked. Download-to-own movies have always been a dumb proposition to me and it’s hard to see how Apple can’t feel the same way. Having worked at Disney, however, I fully appreciate how the business side of movie distribution can get in the way of the product innovation side, so it’s entirely possible that the only reason Apple TV didn’t launch with a bevy of download-to-rent releases was that business terms couldn’t be finalized in time. A year later, however, my suspicion is that a lot of those issues have been worked out. Come January, expect any Apple TV box or iTunes equipped device to be able to download-to-rent a selection of movies rivaling what Netflix and Blockbuster offer.

Download-to-rent is why I haven’t paid more than 60 seconds of attention to the entire BluRay vs. HD-DVD slugfest for the past four years. In the end, I don’t want a disc. I just want the bits. And I only want them until I’m done watching the movie.

iPhone

I don’t think we’ll be seeing any major hardware changes to the iPhone at MacWorld. Maybe some more memory and some price adjustments, but the bulk of the time spent talking about the iPhone will be related to the aforementioned syncing capabilities, a new iPhone SDK, and probably a new iPhone OS update as well. Jobs will have plenty of sample apps to show off and will detail a certification program whereby developers can submit their apps in order to get into an Apple-hosted directory. If Apple’s smart, they will set up some sort of revenue sharing program for app developers, although I’m not exactly sure how this would work. Apple could do all of the billing themselves but this strikes me as a big undertaking. Conversely, they could charge developers a one-time or recurring fee to be listed in the directory, but this strikes me as not very lucrative since they’d make the same amount on an app downloaded one time as an app downloaded one million times. Perhaps the solution is to offer developers a choice: a) do everything on your own, including billing and hosting, and we won’t touch your app or take a cut, or b) use our system, pick your price, give us your tax information, and we’ll take a small cut, but we’ll also bless and promote your app, thus increasing your sales.

Who knows. Maybe the best solution would be to stay completely out of the revenue stream and just concentrate on profiting from the hardware. We’ll see.

We also will most certainly not hear anything about a 3G-based iPhone. There is no way Apple will peep a word about such a device unless it is produced and ready to ship. iPhone sales expectations are already very high and to risk creating a dead spot in the sales cycle just wouldn’t be smart. Instead, you’ll be hearing at MacWorld only the things that will be affecting and improving the current generation of the iPhone. In other words, things that will either a) get you to go out and finally buy one (3rd party apps, more storage, more functionality) or b) make you all the happier that you already own one.

Leopard Update

Leopard seems to have taken longer to release than expected, and whenever that happens, you can bet that it probably shipped with a few features missing as well. One feature we know for sure is missing is wireless backup via TimeMachine. Seeing as TimeMachine is one of only a small handful of features in Leopard that materially changes my life for the better, I’m super anxious to be able to use it wirelessly. Hauling my portable hard drive out of a cabinet, plugging it into the wall, and then connecting it to my laptop via Firewire while sitting on my couch just isn’t something I’m going to do every day. I’ll be lucky if I remember to do it every month… which completely kills the purpose of TimeMachine. My portable hard drive should be tucked away and connected to my wireless network (either wirelessly or by ethernet) and whenever my laptop joins the network, TimeMachine should silently do its thing. This is no doubt the way Apple has envisioned it all along, and either in January or shortly thereafter, I expect a Leopard update to add in this functionality as well as several other things. Syncing and .Mac integration should receive an upgrade, as mentioned above, as well as a ton of fixes to all of the little weird things about Leopard that don’t seem quite right yet.

Parallels

This is really going out on a limb, but I also think Apple will purchase a stake in SWSoft, the makers of Parallels. SWSoft is currently funded partially by Intel’s venture group, which affords Apple a tiny bit of influence (being friends with Intel and all), but there is no official relationship at this point. Although Boot Camp is a nice thing to have in Apple’s back pocket, my belief is that solid software-based virtualization of Windows is of great strategic value to Apple. Microsoft apparently thought the same thing when they purchased Connectix, the makers of the previous leader in Windows Virtualization, Virtual PC.

SWSoft’s first and only institutional round came in mid 2005 in the form of $12.4 million. If there is another round between now and an IPO, I would think Apple would love to be in on it — a lot of it. After all, with $15 billion in the bank, one can argue that it’s the company’s responsibility to start making a few more investments. Anyway, like I said, this is major limb walking, but no guts no glory!

In Conclusion

All in all, expect another solid MacWorld Expo here with a) the world’s sexiest subnotebook, b) major iPhone advances on the software functionality side, c) a bonafide Netflix killer, and d) major syncing and .Mac improvements. It may be a decade before another Expo tops 2007’s, but game-changers like the iPhone just don’t come around very often.

As far as products you won’t see, I put a pure tablet at the top of this list. I’ve seen reports that a tablet release is “imminent” at the Expo, but I just don’t see the market for it. Perhaps the only semi-useful application I see for it would be as an eBook reader. Like a better looking Kindle maybe. Still, not worth Apple’s time in my opinion. Not gonna happen.

A Pretty Nice Laptop Case

In the 15 or so years I’ve been using a laptop, I can’t say I’ve ever had the perfect laptop case. They’re either too big, too ugly, too minimalist, too weak, or too “handbaggy”. My ideal laptop case/bag is pretty simple:

  • Made of semi-rigid ballistic nylon, similar to an Oakley case, providing a shell-like feeling
  • Small handle to hold
  • Tight-fitting, without a lot of extra bulk
  • An auxiliary pocket for paper, a power cord, or a few other things

That’s really it. The problem is, this case doesn’t exist. The closest I had found was the Booq Vyper XS2, a spectacularly beautiful case which is hamstrung only by its baffling lack of handle and unfortunate omission of a utility pocket. The Vyper is so nice looking that I’ve considered buying one and actually grafting my own handle and pocket onto it.

Yesterday, however, I randomly found a pretty nice case that I wanted to pass along to anyone currently in the market for one: The Brenthaven Edge. It’s not quite as gorgeous and compact as the Booq, but it’s semi-rigid, has an extra pocket, and comes with a handle. It also has some pretty thick internal padding which would seem to make it quite “drop-proof”, although I’m not about to test that.

Anyway, that’s it… a quick holiday gift recommendation for you or your laptop toting loved one.

Keeping Up With the Markets

One of the best qualities of great bloggers is their ability to act as filters for entire genres of content; finding great new stuff on the web, formulating insight on said stuff, and then publishing the results for your easy consumption via RSS.

This sort of intelligent content curation is extremely helpful should you decide you are suddenly interested in a subject you previously eschewed.

Interested in modern culture? Try Kottke.

Interested in Apple? Try Gruber.

Interested in media and pop culture? Try Rex.

Interested in emerging technological novelties? Try Waxy.

These sites are all well-known within the geekosphere, because most of the world’s RSS feeds are still consumed by us — hyperaware geeks. But what if you find yourself suddenly interested in a subject that is best curated by much less technical people? Something like botany, or philanthropy, or philately. Finding the best source on subjects like these can be tough.

One such subject is investing and personal finance. The financial world is chock full of some of the most uninteresting and meaningless stories on the web. Whenever the Dow drops a lousy 10 points it’s “Markets Crushed by Investor Worries”. And when it inches upward, it’s “Dow Rebounds On Rate-Cut Optimism”. These aren’t the sort of stories that will do anything for you as an investor. In fact, these days many of them are actually written by computers!

So where is a grasshopper to find the week’s most interesting and useful financial observations in one place? My new favorite place for such things is:

Charles Kirk’s The Kirk Report

Kirk provides a short post almost every day with some quick market observations and then a bevy of the most interesting financial links he’s read throughout the week. Things like how to bet on a dollar rebound by investing in Canadian lumber or what doomsday would look like for the U.S. economy. Interesting stuff.

It’s a perfect one-stop-shop for anyone wanting to keep up with market news and insights but lacking the time to check 100 financial news sites every day. I highly recommend it.

Why is Lobster Cheaper in Sushi Restaurants?

So I was at a sushi joint last night and ordered the “Lobster Bake” — essentially, a baked lobster tail, served on top of a very tasty chili aioli sauce. It was $15.

Upon paying the bill, I remembered that the last few times I’d ordered lobster at a Japanese restaurant, it had always been under $20, and the last few times I’d ordered it at a steak house, it was more like $60-$90.

What accounts for the difference in lobster pricing at steakhouses and Japanese restaurants? Does anyone know? I’ve searched around and haven’t found anything. Although I love lobster, I’ve always considered the quality differences of it to be mainly in the preparation. Is it the case that steakhouses are really buying expensive lobsters and Japanese places are buying cheap ones, or are they just marking them up differently because lobsters are not a main attraction in Asian cuisine?

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